04: Fairy Tail
The next time Lucy wandered into the café, it was after two weeks and an entire afternoon holed up in the newly opened bookstore just around the bend. By the time she walked out, loaded down with a plushy, bright yellow journal and the new and anticipated romance novel from one of her favourite authors, it was already dark. Automobiles flashed their rear lights as they drove: red and orange and yellow, bell pepper colours. The streetlamps threw long shadows over the sidewalk.
Lucy half-skipped, half clacked her way down the block, pausing three minutes in to peer at the warmly lit interior of the café. Relaxed and riding on the highs of a newly finished book-spree, she took her time for inspection, tipping her head at the adobe-brick walls, the tall windows, the name of the shop—Fairy Tail- written in a punch of white and gold over the black awning.
She pushed open the doors, and it was the same barista as last time, recognizable by the shock of pink hair alone. He was slumped over the counter; shoulders stooped and chin resting in the palm of his hands, looking ready to keel over from sheer boredom alone.
Date first published: March 24, 2016