Among Ice Cream Bowls
A friendly gathering at Ice Cream Palace
by Lekanthir
translated by Morgan D.
He woke up and sat on the bed abruptly.
"Easy, easy. It was just a lightening that fell nearby," said a soft feminine voice beside him.
"Wow! It scared me! It awoke you up too?"
"No. I've been awake for a while already. Since the wind started blowing."
When his breathing came back to normal he added, "Maybe it'll rain. That'd be good to cool the air a little."
"I hope so. I'm gonna get some water. Do you want me to bring you a glass too?"
"No, thanks. I'll try to get to sleep again. It must be early."
"It's a quarter to two."
She pushed the bedcovers, got out of the bed and dressed a kimono. On her way to the kitchen she noticed through the breach under the door that the light on Keiko's bedroom was still on. Before knocking on the door she heard the quick and constant sound of typing on a computer keyboard. She changed her mind and went straight to the kitchen, turning the light on. The wind was still blowing strongly, shaking the panes of the large window.
She picked a glass from the locker over the sink and poured in some fresh water from a clay jug, a souvenir brought from South America by a couple, friends of theirs. Sitting at the table, she sipped the water as she looked at the wind-shaken window. The powerful light of the street lamps already revealed some raindrops being thrown violently against the panes. She slowly emptied the glass and walked back to the room. The same streak of light came out from under Keiko's door, but the typing was gone.
The husband was still awake. "I can't sleep," he said. "What about you, are you okay? Sleepy?"
"A bit. Keiko is still awake too. At the computer like always, since the beginning of school break."
"I hope she'll remember to turn it off if those lightnings start to come closer."
She undressed the kimono, lied down again, pulled the covers over her body and closed her eyes. Not long after that both were asleep again.
In the morning, before sunrise and the opening of the restaurant, the couple was already having breakfast. Through the kitchen door came in a sleepy Keiko, slippers dragging since she didn't have the strength to raise her feet to walk. "Good morning, Dad. Good morning, Mom. Hmmm... so sleepy..."
"Good morning," said the couple at the same time.
"I passed by your door around two o'clock and you were still awake. When did you go to bed?"
"I'm not sure of what time it was. I was afraid of the lightnings, so I turned off my computer and kept on writing on my notebook, I had lots of ideas I didn't want to forget. I only went to bed a lot later."
Keiko pulled a chair and sat before her own breakfast.
"How's the site going?" Mr. Yukimura asked.
"Almost done. I already have an URL, but there are still some details I don't understand."
"I just don't like when you trade day for night," commented Mrs. Yukimura.
"If I'm still sleepy in the afternoon, I'll take a nap after closing the restaurant."
Finishing breakfast, the thousand tasks to put the restaurant working took place. Sumito-san and Kato-san should be arriving to work at any moment. There was a lot to do until closing time.
Around 5:00 pm the phone rang.
"Hello!"
"Hello! Good afternoon. This is Kuwabara Kazuma. Is Keiko there?"
"Good afternoon, Kuwabara-kun. Yes, Keiko is here, but she might be asleep. I'll check it out."
"What? Keiko sleeping at this hour? Is she ill?"
"No, no. She was awake till late last night and said she might take a nap in the afternoon."
"Then no problem, I'll call again later."
"Wait a second. I'll see if she's awake."
A minute later.
"Hi, Kazuma, it's Keiko. How are you?"
"Fine. Shizuru and I are going to meet Kurama this afternoon. Don't you wanna come with us?"
"Sure! Where and when?"
"At the Ice Cream Palace. We agreed to meet there at six o'clock."
"Which one?"
"The Willow Tree one."
"Deal. I'll be there." Keiko hung up. And, louder, "Mom! I'm going out with Shizuru and Kazuma. I'll be back before sundown."
"Where?"
"At the Willow Tree Ice Cream Palace."
"Okay. Have fun," said the voice coming from the other room.
It was one minute after six when Keiko reached the glass sliding door of the Willow Tree branch store of the Ice Cream Palace. Shizuru, Kurama and Kazuma were already sitting at one of the tables in the back of the white-tiled salon. Her friends welcomed her cheerfully.
"I hope I didn't make you wait too long," said Keiko, sitting beside Shizuru and across Kurama.
"We just got here too," said Shizuru. "I'm glad you came. It's been a while since we last saw each other, huh?"
"It's always nice to hang with friends every now and then," added Kazuma, who sat beside Kurama.
"I agree," the redhead completed. "Since we came here to talk and have ice cream, let's start with the ice cream, okay?"
"Yeah," the other three nodded.
Under the transparent glass doors of the long counter several squared boxes with many different ice cream flavors could be seen. Chocolate, plain or with chestnuts, plums and other "spices", strawberry, pineapple, vanilla with various sauces. It was a world of frozen delicacies. The difficult part was deciding which ones to pick. There were round plastic bowls of all sizes available for self-service. Our friends, including the girls, chose the one-pound ones.
"I'm crazy for ice cream. It's my biggest weakness, or rather, one of my biggest weaknesses," Shizuru murmured as she returned to the table with her companions.
"So, Keiko," Kazuma asked, "any news from Yusuke?"
"No, nothing. The idiot has given no sign of life."
"How long has he been in Makai?" was Kurama's question.
"To be exact, one year, two months and fourteen days."
"Hmm..." Shizuru commented. "I don't know if I should be happy for not having to make this kind of counting, or sorry for not having anyone to make them for." And continued, "Your mother said you were awake till late last night. What are you up to?"
"Oh my! Gossip runs fast!"
"Gossip is my specialty," Kuwabara complemented. "Spit it out, girl, what are you up to?"
"Jeez! Dang, I'm just building a website. I'm gonna have my own stories and tales posted on the web. What do you think? Isn't it a good idea?"
"You're going to write fanfiction about what?" Kurama asked.
"Not fanfiction. Original stories."
"Join the Dark Rebels mailing list, Keiko. I love that series. I identify a lot with those crazy women. If you want I can help you to write episodes that will thrill everyone." Shizuru spoke so enthusiastically that the bit of ice cream on her spoon slid back in the bowl before her.
"No, no. I don't wanna write fanfiction. The fanatical canon-lovers would start sending me mails complaining that Tom is out of character, that Dick can't be in love with Harry, that this or that isn't possible, that the Prince of the Dark World couldn't be in that place at that moment because he'd still be exiled in the Martyr Camp. I want to write whatever pops up in my head, with no restraints."
"I don't know about any Prince of the Dark World exiled in the Martyr Camp," Shizuru chuckled. "But I liked that, I think you're ready to create your own tales."
"I'm curious," Kazuma put in, "how do these ideas pop up in your head?"
"There's no rule. Each one pops up in a different manner."
"Tell us about the one you've been writing now."
"Only if you promise not to mock me."
"We promise," was the unisonous reply.
"I had the general idea, but I needed to pick a place for the story. I didn't want to place it here, I wanted a different location, in a foreign country. I got a big atlas, closed my eyes and opened it. I asked myself, left or right page? I chose left. On the head of the page were the numbers 124, 123 and 122, and in the left margin were 43, 44 and 45. I chose 123 and 44, and decided that the story would be staged in a town near the cross formed by those lines."
"And that town was..." Kurama didn't hide his curiosity.
"Eugene, Oregon."
"Oregon! What the hell is that? Where is it?" was Kuwabara's question.
"In the United States, you idiot!" exclaimed Shizuru, impatiently. "And what happens in Eugene?"
"C'mon, guys, the story isn't finished yet. I'm still in the beginning."
"All right, you don't have to tell us," Kazuma insisted, "but what is it about?"
"Well," Keiko continued after taking many spoonfuls of ice cream to her mouth. "The ice cream is melting. Okay. I decided to write a story about fantasy and adventure. I'm gonna write about witches, magic cards, goblins, trolls, mages and dragons."
"Dragons?" the three friends exclaimed at the same time.
"Dragons in that Eugene place of yours? In what century, Keiko?" Shizuru asked.
"You promised you wouldn't mock me!"
"I can imagine it," Kurama started. "Once upon a time there was a not-so-big and not-so-young dragon whose anger would be soothed whenever it listened to music."
Keiko kept staring at Kurama, suspicious of what he was about to say. The others paid attention. Kurama continued, "In a clear moonlit night the dragon flew over Oregon when the tuned sound of a choir reached its ears."
A gloomy Keiko put her elbows on the table and rested her chin on the clenched fists.
"Go on, Kurama, I'm liking it," Kazuma intervened.
"Well I'm hating it," Keiko hissed.
Shizuru, on her turn, "I'm just listening."
With a mischievous grin, Kurama proceeded. "Searching for the source of such a beautiful sound, it hovered nearer the ground. With its piercing eyes and accurate ears it identified, down at the village, a building that looked different form all others, with a tower rising from the roof, it was a church."
"Drat, Kurama," Shizuru out in, "a dragon wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a church and a residence."
"Let him continue, my dear little sister. What difference does it make if a dragon can or can't tell the difference between a church and a supermarket?"
This time Keiko leaned back on the chair and folded her arms, almost gritting her teeth.
"Now the dragon landed gracefully right next to the church. The few people on the streets, to the dragon's surprise, screamed and ran away. The dragon then noticed that he was hearing a choir of feminine voices."
"My goodness, what a clever dragon!" commented a chaffing Shizuru.
Undisturbed, Kurama went on. "Step by step the dragon approached, more and more, then stuck his huge head through the doorway. The chamber was almost empty. Only a group of young women gathered in the farthest corner sang before a figure that waved her arms. The dragon quickly understood that it was a rehearsal."
"Oh no! That's too much, Kurama," Shizuru interrupted again, this time vehemently. "Tell me how a dragon would know if it was a rehearsal or not?"
"Well, dear little sister, if you had paid attention you'd have heard Kurama saying that the chamber was empty. If it was empty it's because there wasn't any public; if there wasn't any public it's because it was a rehearsal."
"Idiot, the chamber could be empty because the public wasn't interested in the concert."
Keiko rose to her feet and, irritated, "Sure, sure, the dragon knows that when there isn't any public it is a rehearsal and when the chamber is full it's a concert," then turned her chair around and sat down again, this time with her back to the table and her friends.
And Kurama, "The dragon, bewitched, closed its eyes to better savor the music that delighted it so much. The choir reached the end of the song, the happy smiling girls waited for the conductor's approval. They were so concentrated that they didn't notice the presence of the dragon.
"The dragon, forgetting that the chamber was empty, waited for the applause, and as it nothing happened, it couldn't hold back anymore. Through its big flame-thrower mouth it voiced a powerful BRAVO!"
"Kurama!" Kazuma exclaimed. "What a wonderful story! I loved it!"
"I can't believe it, Kurama. You promised not to mock me. I'd never expected this from you!" Keiko protested, spinning on the chair to face her companions again, unsure if she should laugh or cry in indignation.
"I'm sorry, Keiko. I was just kidding. I couldn't help it."
"What a horrible story... I didn't know you were into black humor," said Shizuru.
"Even blacker after the general singeing," Kuwabara amended.
"Sorry, Keiko," Kurama repeated, now showing some signs of regret.
"Forget it, Kurama. It's okay, it was actually funny. You seem to be a great taleteller."
"Just of silly tales like this one."
"Well, I listened to it and didn't like it. A stupid story without rhyme or reason," said a new feminine voice, unheard until now.
"Botan!" they all exclaimed, welcoming the young girl that already pulled a chair to join the group.
"What are you doing here?"
"How did you know we were here?"
"Any news from Yusuke and Hiei?"
"Easy, guys, too many question for someone who just arrived. First answer, I missed you guys. Second answer, Keiko's mother told me I'd find you here, and third, I don't know anything about Yusuke or Hiei. Satisfied?"
"The ice cream is delicious, Botan, don't you wanna get some before telling us the news?" Shizuru suggested.
"No, not now, maybe later. What was that nonsense about dragons you were talking about?"
"It's all my fault," Keiko replied, and perfecting the "poor victim" mask she added, "I was stupid enough to trust these traitorous friends and tell them about the story I'm writing for my website. Before I could even tell that I had already changed the place of my fantasy tale, Kurama, to my surprise, ridiculed me in front of my friends."
"Kurama!" they all said at the same time. "You did that?"
"You know what, Keiko?" Botan continued. "I love fictional love stories. The real life love stories are awful."
"And I love horsery stories," Kazuma added.
"It's not "horsery", you idiot, it's chivalry. And you're a horsy pitiful illiterate."
"C'mon, little sister, gimme a break, okay?"
"Hey guys, calm down, we're in family here," Botan tried to sooth them.
"Yeah, I know. Personally I'm in family with this guy for a lot longer. Sometimes he pisses me off."
"And you Botan," Keiko asked, "what have you been doing?"
"Oh, nothing new. I'm still working as assistant to the baby king."
"Baby king?" asked a surprised and delighted Kurama.
"So disrespectful!" Kazuma added.
"It wouldn't be disrespectful even if I hit that little brat's little fluffy buttocks with a good kick."
"Hanyaan Yukito! This sounds to me like non-returned love. What do you think, Kurama?" was Shizuru's question.
"This isn't news for me. George already suspects that it is returned actually."
"What?" yelled a furious Botan. "You have the guts to tell me that? What kind of friends you are?"
"And who's that Yukito of yours, dear little sister?" Kazuma questioned.
"Oh holy ignorance! And quit that damned "dear little sister" thing, I'm fed up with it." And turning to the others, "You don't know who Yukito is either?"
"No," they all answered.
"Or Sakura?" Shizuru insisted.
"No."
"Then stick to your ignorance. You deserve it. Period."
"Now look here, guys," said Botan, still angry. "If you think I have a crush on that ridiculous Koenma, you're utterly wrong. I know he casts some suspicious glances over me, but I, Botan, falling for him? Not even if the sun spun to the right and the moon to the left. You got that?"
Giving her companions a meaningful blink, Shizuru tried to sooth the ferrygirl. "Yes, we got that and we believe in you, Botan."
"Sure, sure, really," Kuwabara amended.
"That's right," Kurama spoke too. "To the boss, only professional attention."
"Even if his little buttocks are fluffy," Kuwabara added yet.
"You guys are horrible!" Botan exclaimed, discouraged.
For quite a while the question had been about to be shot out, and finally Kazuma couldn't wait anymore. "Botan, do you have any news from Yukina? Do you know where she is?"
"Ahn? I thought you knew. Yukina is at Genkai's Temple."
"What? My Yukina is at Genkai's Temple? Yukina!!!!!"
"Hanyaan Yukito!"
"Don't start with that Yukito jerk again, dear little sister!"
~*~
The four bowls of ice cream had been already cleared up. The five friends exchanged glances and satisfied smiles.
Well, almost.
"Guys," Kazuma asked, "what about a new round, now with Botan's company?"
Shizuru gazed at each one of her companions and retorted, "I know I'll regret this later, but ice cream is ice cream. Let's go?"
"Yeah!" all exclaimed.
They picked new bowls. Shortly afterwards, bowls crammed up with several different flavors, they were back to the same table for a new round of a fine chat between friends.
~*~
June 9, 2001.
Yu Yu Hakusho and its characters belong to Yoshihiro Togashi, Shueisha, Studio Pierrot, Fuji TV and Jump Comics.
Sumito and Kato are Lekanthir's original characters, but they can be borrowed.
Yukito, Sakura and the "hanyaan" sigh are part of the Card Captor Sakura universe, belonging to CLAMP and Kodansha.
Other fics by Lekanthir can be found in Morgan D's site, Solitude of a Falling Star.