Fruit Parlor Café
Recipes for a Fruit Parfait
Valentine's Day Mayhem – Plum Flavor
It started out a normal enough day. I woke up, went to my morning class and then dropped by Renji's to pick him up. As usual, it looked like he'd just gotten up, hair in a messy braid and bandanna around his forehead. He greeted me with a smile, that one that makes my heart almost skip a beat. We were due for the afternoon rush, which started around twelve. I just thanked my stars we didn't have the morning rush – the café opens at seven. We met Ichigo at the back door, looking grumpier than usual. We got into the locker room, to a rather nasty surprise. Urahara's latest plot, no doubt.
Our uniforms were pink. Varying pinks. To match our varying colorations, no doubt. I had a suspicion of Ishida's hand in it.
Hitsugaya wandered in looking pissed, and told us, quite straightforwardly (something I quite like about the snowball) that we had to wear the uniforms or risk dire punishments from Urahara regarding our pay. I made the unfortunate revelation that it was, in fact, Valentine's Day. Hitsugaya was disgusted over the fact that apparently none of them knew how to use calendars, and, after obligatory complaints, I put on the new uniform.
I couldn't help but rake my eyes over Renji's slim, muscled form. I had to admit, whomever it was who had picked the colors had done a beautiful job. He looked gorgeous.
I tore my eyes away with effort, and went to face the music. As I had suspected, there were girls everywhere. There were a surprising number that were single, ass well as in couples, and I could see at least five dark purple wrapped gifts on tables. Dark purple is my trademark color, so I resigned myself to needing to make several trips back to put them away.
Sure enough, first girl I assisted, I got a small package, wrapped neatly. It was chocolate with coconut in it. I hate coconut, but I didn't tell the girl. No reason to – Renji loves the stuff.
As I passed Ishida, I noticed that he looked rather smug. I figured I was right in my suspicions. Urahara had probably recruited Ishida into the whole thing.
"Good color choice on Renji's." I commented in passing. He nodded absently.
"It was a little difficult, but not as hard as Kurosaki's." He replied. Then he did a glorious double take at me. I threw him a smirk and went back to delivering a table full of girls their fruit smoothies.
"Now, strawberry-peach for you, blueberry-raspberry for you, and peach-mango for you, lovely ladies." I said, delivering the smoothies to the appropriate girls. Clad in high-school uniforms, they all giggled in chorus and one of them, the peach-mango, presented me with another small purple package. I smiled graciously.
"Please take this, Plum-san! I made it especially for you! I heard you liked pineapples, so…" She trailed off, blushing. I know I blushed a bit too. How in Kami's sweet earth had she heard that? Not that it was false, but – pineapple! I managed to keep a straight face and accept the gift with grace, carefully not looking at Renji.
It was his fault. Somehow.