Number fourteen of my 100 Themes Challenge! This one is Smile and I knew immediately what I wanted to write.
Cameleon is my own manga, and I own all the characters. To give a little bit of background, Cam is regularily moody and Shewzo and Adela are the only real people who have stuck with him for so long. Enjoy!
"Cammy-chan, I've never seen you smile."
"What? Me neither! And you guys live together!"
Cam turned his head to glare at the brunettes chattering on the stools in front of the kitchen workspace. It was just after four o'clock, and Adéla had finished school so she'd come to share a smoothie with Shewzo who'd been there all day, keeping Cam entertained.
Cam couldn't tell if he hated or loathed their company.
"I bet you'd have a great smile, Cam!" Adéla grinned eagerly, looking up from her straw to watch Cam busying himself with some afternoon orders.
He didn't even turn around and continued darting back and forth between the kitchen and ordering desk briskly. Adéla rolled her eyes in exasperation.
"He's got such a stupid work ethic!" she huffed.
"I suppose he'd never get anything done without it though would he?" Shewzo reasoned softly, leaning on his palm and turning the pages of a book he'd bought earlier that day.
He wasn't sure what it was about; he hadn't quite been paying attention.
"Whatever," she shrugged, grinning. "I have your hoody by the way, thank you for letting me borrow it!"
She rummaged for a second in her school bag before producing the carefully washed and folded techno hoody that Shewzo had given her when it was raining.
"If you keep giving her your jackets she'll lose them!" Cam scolded the older brunette as he handed a blonde woman a vegetarian order to go. "And it's no use to you when you have to walk home in the rain in your t-shirt!"
"It's just down the road, Cammy-chan." Shewzo smiled, calmly, used to the blonde's rants by now.
"What if I decide not to let you in one of these days?" He snapped back, tossing tempura skillfully in a pan.
"Are you eager to let me drown, Cam?" Adéla harumphed in fury.
"You stay out of this!" Cam retalliated, pointing the spatula at her. "If you remembered an umbrella once in a while maybe you'd save us this whole argument!"
"How can I carry such a stupid lumpy thing around when it's sunny all the time?" she grumbled, slumping back over her smoothie gloomily.
Shewzo glanced between the two of them, anxiously watching the sparks fly. Any second now, one of them would explode and he didn't know quite what to do when that happened.
He liked to avoid those situations at the best of times.
"Cam stop trying to belittle me!" Adéla insisted angrily, standing on her tiptoes to glare at him through the kitchen hatch. "If this keeps up I'm so gonna lose my cool!"
"Can't lose something you never had." Cam replied smugly from the other side of the hatch.
Adéla's mouth fell open and Shewzo winced. Here it comes.
"You absolute bully! You vulgar excuse for a human being!" she yelled in a spluttered rage, hopping off of her stool and swaying dangerously on the spot.
"If you're done, please leave." Cam said, raising an eyebrow in slight bemusement.
"You… You-!" she huffed, spinning on her heel and storming towards the door.
Shewzo dashed after her worriedly, managing to grab her arm and pull her back saying, "Come on now, don't stay mad you guys!"
Adéla turned awkwardly and slipped on some unidentifable liquid on the floor that may or may not have been a soft drink.
She clumsily scrabbled for something to hold onto, but simply collapsed to the floor, knocking over the mop on quiet standby by the glass doors that clattered towards Shewzo, heftily knocking his head, causing him to let out a small, "Ow." and he too slipped and landed with the mop smothering his face unattractively.
Anxious, Cam slipped out of the kitchen and passed the staring customers to his friends who lay in a dazed, bedraggled heap on the floor.
Adéla seemed fine, a little suprised by the fall but otherwise fine- it was Shewzo that was the real catastrophy.
He had the contents of the café floor coating his attire and the mop added a semi-attractive, semi-repulsive post-60 year old man look to him. He was blinking his eyes and turning his head as if he couldn't believe how he'd gotten there in the first place.
Cam's outstretched hand lingered by his head a moment before he sharply drew it back and let out a strange little noise.
Both brunettes looked up, deeply puzzled by the sound. They couldn't believe it until Cam's hand moved away to run a hand through his hair and later hold his stomach.
He was laughing.
Oh god he's laughing! Adéla thought fearfully at first before realising this was what they had waited to see.
"Now that is one way to lose your cool, kid!" the blonde laughed, bent over, letting the joyous sound ring out through the café.
It was such a contagious sound that Adéla's former rage was abolished so she could join in too, giggling simply at first before bursting out into a chorus of laughter. Shewzo followed, chuckling despite being the main victim of the situation. It was worth it to see the demon's smile at last.
[Cameleon]