She was tugging along a small black suitcase with wheels in the middle of the night, half-looking for someone. Really, though, she didn't expect to run into him at midnight as she walked down the dark city streets. She was just walking around with a suitcase full of money, looking around the other side of Sonic City she'd never seen before. Mobians leaning against walls smoking, gave her once overs as she passed.
"Heeyy, pretty lady."
"Did your boyfriend forget to pick you up at the airport?"
"What's in the bag?"
She ignored them, and they went back to loitering. Still... where was she going? She wouldn't get far if she left by train... plane... bus...
"Selene?"
"Lennie? Hey, Śnieżka!" A blue car pulled alongside the sidewalk, with a gray hedgehog hanging out of it.
"Haku?" the hedgehog stopped, tugging her suitcase to her side. There were three people in the car: a hedgehog-android, the gray hedgehog and- "Shadow?"
"What are you doing here?" Haku asked, then shook her head.
"Selene? You're running away?" he asked after looking over the suitcase in her possession. "Where are you going to go?"
"I don't know yet," Selene said, shrugging. "I'm just..."
"We're off to Allodole!" Haku boasted. "Fancy, eh?"
"Allodole?" the black-haired hedgehog echoed.
"Yeah, only a few hours out of Sonic City," the metal hedgehog inputted.
"Come with us, Selene," Shadow offered, holding out his hand. She fidgeted before giving him a smile and taking his hand and climbing in next to him.
"What are we waiting for? Viva Allodole!"
"Where's Selene's kid?" the yellow-orange hedgehog asked. Her curly red-orange hair was pulled away from her face, looking like a sloppy, messy bun.
"Aurora..." Theia Phoenicia sighed. "I don't think that-"
"Who was hiding him? That Fukui girl- the one that got into that accident?"
"Y-yes, Aurora, but-"
"And she lied to your face about him being there. She knows something, mom. I can't just sit here wondering- I have to know."
"Helios went to talk to Haku after the Silver went to his family-"
"We're his family."
"Aurora, I don't think that-"
"Helios has another family, mom! He doesn't care about Selene anymore."
"That's not true- Helios loved Selene-"
"So why didn't he ask more questions? Why was he so willing to let Selene's 'friend' feed him answers?" She tightened her fists and grumbled. "I'm sorry, mom, but I can't just sit here and let things be as they are."
Hyperion stared at his daughter wondering if... "You're just upset that she's gone, Aurora," he said, calmly. "I was too. But you need to forgive yourself."
"Forgive myself? I'm not the one who needs to forgive me!"
"She's gone, Aurora, and there's nothing we can do about it."
Aurora glowered at her father- Selene was a psychic, she might still be around! She'd been hanging around with her grandmother, Minerva, looking for a way to communicate with her dead sister.
"Where does she live?"
"Aurora?"
"I just want to talk to her," she said, trying not to grind her teeth. She didn't really remember this- Haku girl, but she couldn't trust her.
What happened to her? Who's the dad?
I have to know.
"Welcome aboard!" Haku exclaimed, amazingly chipper for four in the morning. Silver was still yawning. "Aww, he's half asleep, poor baby!"
Metal slid over a mug of hot cocoa. "Make him a chouquette or something sugary," he suggested before retreating into the back. Silver blinked like a dazed toddler.
"You get used to it after awhile, sweetie," the buxom hedgehog cooed, petting his head as she set down a plate of warm, sugar coated beignets. First Dutch and now these. Where'd she get all these recipes? And why were they so good?
"Did you travel a lot?" he mumbled through a beignet.
She hummed and nodded. "My pa loved to travel, and my ma loved her hometown, Chun-nan. You know, they make special candy there, called Dragon's Beard." She started rambling on in broken English until Metal put a hand on her shoulder.
"Haku? Can you take care of the pastries, before we open?"
"Oh, yeah, Metaru," she said before picking up her frappuccino and sipping it, walking off to flick on a fluorescent light around the corner. Metal watched Silver gnaw on the beignet like a hypoglycemic zombie.
"Don't worry about falling asleep on the job," he offered. "It takes time to get used to the hours. You'll watch us work drive-thru for now."
"You have a drive-thru?" Silver's question buzzed past the pastry in his mouth. Metal nodded, then beckoned him over to a little window and counter.
"Drive-thru opens earlier than the dining room," Metal says, flicking a few buttons as he looked up at a digital clock. "Sometimes we open earlier than normal, since some people go in even earlier." He watched a screen come on and show a pickup waiting next to the order box.
"Hello? Are you guys open?"
"Yes, we're open," Metal buzzed to no one. He probably had the frequency in him, since he was walking over to the coffee machines. "What can I get you?"
The buzzing voice asked for a lot of complicated names, and ordered a foreign pastry. Supposedly off-air, Metal called, "Haku!"
"Ja?"
"Do you have the macarons ready?"
"Ja, natürlich!"
"I need the six-assortment."
"Verstanden!"
As this exchange happened, Metal had already told the driver the total and to pull up to the window. Haku came with a bag, handing it to Metal with a "Für du, mein Metallmausi."
""'Mein Metalligel," he said before sticking his head out the window to hand off the coffee and the bag of macarons. The first sale of the day, around ten dollars.
"Ten dollars for these little things?" Silver asked as he held a tiny macaron between his thumb and forefinger. It was a few hours into the shift now, and a few more people were coming in and out, just for coffee, it seemed. Silver was sitting in the pastry area where Haku worked endlessly.
"Ten dollars when combined with a large cup of house coffee," Metal said from the unseen. Haku was covered in flour or sugar and was currently pulling and twisting strings like taffy before rolling them around in flour... or something like that.
"You make noodles too?" he asked, and she laughed at him as she let the dough fall from one hand- and it looked like hair.
"Ani, no," she laughed, putting the strings or noodles, or whatever down next to the flour bowl. She started laying part of them flat and pulled them apart from the loop and stretched it a little before pulling a few apart and holding it in the palm of her left hand. She took a tool to scoop a bit of powder into the center before using the other end and folding the strings over and over on themselves.
"Here, you try," she said, sliding the little patty into his palm. He raised an eyebrow before taking a bite.
It was sweet, not savory as he'd expected. "It's good!" he chewed, popping the rest of it into his mouth. "What is it?"
"Kkultarae. Court cake."
"Where'd the honey come from?"
"Hee hee, that's the string. The strings are made of honey. Then you twist it around in the cornstarch to make one thousand and six hundred strings."
"How do you remember all these recipes? It's amazing."
"Well, I travelled a lot, and I guess..." she went quiet, before shaking her head. "I got real sad for a time... Long story. So I made pastries. A lot of them. Appa and Eomma would come home to find the kitchen full of tiny cakes like an international buffet," she laughed. "They never got mad at me for that... the kitchen empty and a bunch of pasties and such... It's funny... I made all that stuff because I was hungry, then I just wouldn't eat them."
Her mood had gotten borderline sad, like someone talking about the last thing they said to a loved one before they got hit by a car. Silver stiffened, "I'm sorry- I didn't mean to-"
"It's okay," she said, continuing to work. "That was a long, long time ago. Talking helps."
"So... uh.. what happened to you?" he said, sitting down and watching her work.
"I got into a bad accident. You know, like a how did that happen one?"
"A freak accident?" Silver gasped.
"Yeah. I was put in a coma for a few months... the docs did most of the surgery when I was under, and my parents had to make all the tough decisions..." She took a deep breath before continuing. "So when I woke up, my hair was really short and one of my eyes were covered up, and my arm was too strong- just a lot of freaking out over it, panicking that the world went on without you for months... Just really... really strange."
She rolled a kkultarae over itself before going on. "When I was able to function, you know, work out my arm, and my eye, sort of calm down? After that, when I went home... my long-time boyfriend... uh... he... he broke up with me."
Silver's ears pricked up. "Was- was he in the accident with you? Why'd he do that?"
"I don't know... he wasn't with me in the accident- he probably got a call from my parents or something when they found out... but I was under for about three months, so... I'm not sure if he started to move on... or if... if he was so turned off by the fact that I couldn't have children anymore that he just-" she took a deep breath and Silver was worried Haku would shut down and cry or something- " I don't know why, Silver." The hedgehog's breathing steadied and she just nodded to herself. "I don't know... but... it hurt me."
"Because... you needed him?"
"Yeah... I needed him."
Silver looked away at a fallen piece of pastry on the floor. He didn't want to ask after this, not really, but... he was curious...
"Was this before or after you met Selene?"
"Hm? Oh... after. I met Selene senior year. It was after I graduated when I got into that accident. I didn't see her again until I started working here, with Metal."
Then she started getting less sad and more energized from the funny stories she started running off. It didn't start so funny, though...
"So there I was, looking for a job, right? I find this hole-in-the-wall, yeah? and walk in to get an application. I walk up to the counter and I'm asking this washed-up boy-band guy about it, when suddenly, the guy behind me puts me in a choke hold and puts a gun to Shad's head.
"'Nobody move or this girl's getting offed!'
"Shad's startled but I didn't really care about him, right? I'm in a chokehold, so I do the only reasonable thing, and just pro-wrestle drop this #$ % to the ground!"
"Holy crap!" Silver breathed. He couldn't really imagine Haku- Haku!- dropping an armed robber after an accident. "You threw him?"
"Ja, ja, slammed him. Little did I know Shad's packing behind the counter just waiting to spring on the dude. He got knocked out soon as I threw him but a big guy got up and sat on him for me."
Silver laughed, "Oh my- did-did they hire you right then and there?"
"Hee-hee. Nah, still had to do the application."