Honest and Shadow were walking to the cafe on Friday, March 17th, their arms locked together and their book bags dragging along the ground.
"Rouge said that we're going to be getting more cupcake decorations today," Honest told Shadow, smiling a cat smile.
"Mm-hm," Shadow said, uninterested. Honest sighed, frowned, and was silent. She then proceeded to be excited again.
"Some of the sprinkles resemble kitty-cats, and some resemble bunny-rabbits!" she exclaimed, looking eager.
Shadow just nodded. Honest drew a sharp breath and let go of his arm. She pulled her backpack over her shoulder and quickened her pace. Suddenly, when Shadow began to fall behind, he sped up as well, pulling Honest along as he flew down the sidewalk with flames shooting out behind him.
They were at the cafe in a matter of seconds. Rouge was already there. Sonic was assisting her as she brought boxes of cupcake decorations into the kitchen. When Sonic saw the two of them, okay, maybe just Shadow, his eyes lit up.
"Shadow!" He placed the box he had been carrying on the chair he had been tied to earlier in the week. It had just been left there beside the kitchen door as a permanent reminder of what would happen to Sonic if he did anything else to hurt Shadow. Sonic then zipped to him.
Honest held a hand out in front of her friend. "Remember the chair, Sonic."
Sonic pouted his lip out and looked to Shadow. "Please don't let her put me in the chair. We should just go into the back room silently and maybe you can-"
"No," Shadow told him. He jabbed a finger sharply into his rival's chest. "I don't love you."
"But do you like me?" Sonic asked in a smart manner.
"Come on, Honest we need to get changed," said Shadow.
He pulled Honest's wrist. Honest smiled, narrowing her eyes at Sonic. "Okay."
The look Honest gave Sonic as they entered the room made Sonic shiver in fear, it was so scary-looking. He helped Rouge carry the last few boxes into the kitchen before going to the farthest corner from the door and laying his head down at a table, most likely shedding some sort of tears.
(;( Poor Sonic. For some reason, in my stories, Sonic is the biggest drama queen of all time.)
-
Later, Honest was bringing a whole tray of pink and white cupcakes to one of the tables where a Scourge rip-off and a purple porcupine were sitting. Akane was bringing a pitcher of tea. Sonic was still sitting at the table in the darkest corner of the room, but now he was playing a loud game on his Gameboy. They had already received complaints about the loud music coming from the small handheld, but Sonic was in some sort of state where he couldn't be deterred from anything by anything anyone told him to do. Shadow felt guilty.
Blaze was reading her book about Chicago like yesterday. Key and Amy were steadily baking cupcakes. Rosy was wiping off abandoned tables near the door. Rouge was talking to some customers by the register. She seemed to be happy as she talked, but her face held a frown the whole time.
Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!
Key was at the pass-through with another tray of cupcakes, hitting the bell over and over. "Somebody better get these!"
Shadow happened to be the only maid with nothing going on at that moment, so he walked over. "Here."
Shadow reached up to receive the tray before checking the sticky attached to the side. "Table 10." He looked around.
Eventually he spotted the table. He still hadn't learned where all the tables were in the seven months he had been working there. At the table sat a cat with short, red hair and a cat with long, light blue hair. He set the cupcakes, one side vanilla with white frosting and one side chocolate with chocolate frosting. "Thank you," they both said.
Shadow nodded a "you're welcome" before going to help Akane pour tea into people's cups. He held the pitcher while she held the cup, and together they gave out refills in almost half the time it would've taken Akane by herself. Honest was still bringing cupcakes back and forth, a blur of fur. Every once and a while she would get distracted by helping decorate the cupcakes, but inevitably she would have to run frantically into the main eating area when someone called her name. Most people knew her, so they knew who to call.
"So," Rouge said to the seven maids at closing time. "The cupcakes were a big hit." She looked at all of them with a proud smile, but no one smiled back. Everyone was exhausted minus Blaze, whom never did anything around there except complain or read or sit around, but even she didn't smile back.
Spring was in full swing even if no one around Station Square could tell. It was March 17th, and the sun was setting outside the cafe's many windows at six o'clock, yet it was somewhere around 0 celsius outside and the coat rack by the door was covered in winter coats.
"Next week is Spring break, so don't bother coming to work Monday. When we do resume, though, come prepared knowing we will be selling cupcakes again," Rouge reminded everyone.
"Why do people like our cupcakes now more than when we had less toppings and sprinkles? It doesn't make sense to me," Honest said. Shadow shrugged and Key looked to be thinking hard about why.
"Because the new decorations are laced with drugs?" Key offered.
"No! That can't be the case!" Honest exclaimed when they had all gone eerily silent for a few seconds. "Rouge, you wouldn't drug customers!" Honest laughed.
Rouge looked at Key, confused. "Why would you say that?"
"Um," Key thought.
"Where did you get the decorations?" Shadow asked.
"A local cafe and bakery supply store," Rouge replied.
"No, no. I think it was just because when people hear that something's new, they immediately think it's better," Amy said.
Suddenly they all heard a yawn and a couple of them turned around to see that Sonic was still there, and he was waking up.
"L-Let's go home and meet the faker there," Shadow suggested to Honest, pulling her hand. "Okay."
Here's a shorter chapter. Maybe it'll be easier to read in one sitting. I said previously that {Cafe Edition} wasn't going to have many new chapters published, so don't expect the ones that are published to be very long. Anyways, happy St. Patrick's day, and have a good Spring break! :3