A chilly breeze passing by brought with itself a gentle smell of cinnamon and freshly brewed coffee. Sweet words sang all around the battered framework of a person as he sat back in his garden chair, enjoying the pleasantries that came with the Yanese autumn. It was a peaceful afternoon, spent in the patio of some fancy cafe where all the busiest personalities of Lungmen would gather for a quick break in their packed schedules.
"Whew… And you just outran that search party?"
Andy blinked. Once, twice. An overwhelming feeling of deja-vu struck him like a lead pipe to the head.
"Andy…?" Her chirpy voice woke him from the daze straight away, as her head tilted in slight confusion. A tiny smile played on her lips, enough to send his heart nose diving into a pit of nervous half-beats.
"Y-Yeah, I just thought… I had a feeling like this moment, uh… Like it happened before."
"Happened before? I haven't seen you in seven years, so that's very unlikely, silly~." Her smirk developed even further, sending his heart on a rampaging flurry of palpitations. He still couldn't get used to seeing her up close, to her actually being real and not some feverish daydream.
"I know! It's just a thing that happens." He couldn't help but smile back, feeling a tinge of red crawling onto his cheeks. "It's like… It has a name, I think."
"Deja-vu?"
"Deja-vu, yeah."
"See, had you stayed at home and finished school…" She started, her grin growing smug, eyelids drooping.
"Oh, shut up."
"You shut up!"
"No, you shut up!"
Hands flew. Andy reached over the tiny table to poke her in the face. Her giggles turned to a high-pitched squeal as she jerked back in her chair, almost falling over. A few Feline suits by their table looked away from their coffees and graphs to glare at the two adult-children in confusion and disgust. It didn't stop them from poking one another amidst seas of giggles and playful insults.
"F-... Hey, no tickling!" Andy kicked his chair away from the table as Lemuel reached out to assault his exposed sides. With a gleeful cackle, her fingers dug into his sweater, biting his skin and sending waves of pleasant warmth all throughout his body. Tears welled in his eyes, as his own hands desperately tried pushing hers off of himself, to no avail.
"No tickling? There's seven years worth of tickling you've missed, you can forget about that~!" She spewed out in between giggles, gathering the attention of a few more customers sitting by. Andy kept squirming in his chair, a wide, shit-eating grin plastered over his face. He really, really did not want to move away, at all.
"... Ahem."
Both of them stopped, immediately dropping the smiles. Their eyes navigated towards the Oni waitress standing by their table, her face clad in nothing but boredom. She flicked a tiny notepad open, clicking a pen.
"... Ready to order? Or should I just call security?" Her monotone voice sobered the two up right away.
"Ah, order, yeah… Right, right, I'll take an…" A mischievous glint shimmered in her eyes as she shot Andy a knowing smirk. "You guessed it, an apple pi-!"
"We don't do apple pies." The waitress cut in, eyes-half lidded.
"Oh." Her smile dropped in an instant. "... What DO you do, then?"
"Sesame tarts, almond mooncakes, Draco beard, ninety-nine LMD whippy's, chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, mango, peach pudding…" Her bored voice dragged on and on, soothing Andy to sleep. "... Peach cobbler, peach s-..."
"Peach strudels! Peach strudel, Andy, remember?" Her excited voice woke him right up.
"Huh?"
"Peach strudels! We'll take two." She gave a polite nod and grinned brightly at the waitress.
"Two? I'm kind of… It's a bit embarrassing, I'm actually kinda low on cash, so I'll sit this one out-..." His lips twisted into an apologetic smile, only to have her finger shoved right up to his face.
"No, no, no, no, not this again! You'll take the strudel whether you like it or not, and you WILL let me pay for it~!" Her finger flicked dangerously near the wicked angel's nose. His head affirmed the waitress with a shy nod, as she jotted down their orders.
"Anything else? We're running a special offer on…" The monotone machine started again, closing her eyes as her mind picked a new pre-learned vinyl to flip into the corporate jukebox that was her mouth.
"Nope, thank you, have a nice day, bye-bye!" Lemuel shot the girl a smile sweet enough to lay out a diabetic, as Andy only nodded in unison. Their waitress shrugged, as if to non-verbally say "whatever", without being reported and fired on the spot, before taking off. The red-headed angel immediately poked Andy on the nose.
"You're a moron. And a child, still."
He couldn't help but agree.
"Look, I'm just in a… A bit of a conundrum as of late, you know, since your lovely company keeps stealing all of my clients…"
"Well, it's not MY company, is it~? Don't shoot the messenger, ever heard of that?" Her lips twisted into a proud display of smugness, as her finger tapped his cheek once more. Andy flicked it away, pretending to be bothered.
"Well, yeah, but…"
"Buuuuut~? You've already almost broken my nose, I'd say the two of us are even." A little pause, as she readjusted the piece of adhesive tape resting atop the bridge of her nose.
"But I didn't know it was you! You cut your hair, you were wearing that weird-ass uniform, you…"
"Oh, hands off my uniform! It's custom made!" In mock offense, she crossed her arms.
"Custom made and it looks like shit - Ow!" A few jolts of pain hurried down his spine, as he grasped the ring of light above his head.
"Ah, right. S-word's a curse now, almost forgot! Serves you right, though~." A tiny wink followed, which hit him right in the heart.
"Uh-huh… You're still all holy and Lawful?"
"And you're not? It's nice, living in the Law's light, you know~?"
"Mm. All it ever brought me is back pain and a bright light above my head every night."
"Oh! Oh, that, yeah, I totally agree with that one. That's so annoying, right? When you're trying to fall asleep, but it just… Won't dim? Or when you're…"
And there she went. Babbling on about nothing at all, spewing heaps of nonsense about all the miniscule disadvantages of being born a Sankta. With every word, every heated comment and opinion, her lips kept twisting in ways Andy's never dreamed of before, ways he's long forgotten about. Her sweet, sweet voice kept spilling across the table, filling his ears whole, entirely enveloping his brain. It felt like an ice pack to a burning, fever ridden head. Like a warm hug on a breezy, winter afternoon. A coating of honey for a hungry pack of flies that was his ever buzzing brain. He couldn't make out any words, completely lost in this private little moment inside his head. All he could see and feel was her adorable face, the closed eyes hiding behind a pair of messily styled lashes, her hands, flicking through the air like a pair of butterflies on a warm, summer day, her hair swooshing by with each little move, the (now much shorter) lake of saffron drooping over her pretty little mug…
"Andy?"
The poor guy blinked a few times, waking from yet another daze.
"Uh-huh?"
"Law, you're all kinds of hazy today, ain't you~?" Her bright smile only grew as a tiny teaspoon of peach strudel disappeared behind her lips. Andy turned to look down at the table, seeing his own cake right before him. He's really got to stop losing consciousness like this, this is embarrassing at this point…
"I'm just tired after yesterday! It's not like…" His mouth filled with the peach-cinnamon mush, his eyes widened, his mind blown wide open. He had to take a moment to chew the cake through and swallow. "... That's really good, by the way. Like, amazing."
"See? And you wanted to miss out on that~."
"Anyway, It's not like you can just… GO TO SLEEP after a meeting like that." Once again, he shoveled some more peach strudel down his throat. "I shhwear, I couldn't fall ashhleep 'till, like… Five in the morning?"
Lemuel watched in amusement as he kept shoving piece after piece of the pie down his gullet like a starving hound. "Mmm. I dunno, I fell asleep right away."
Andy felt a tiny spike being pulled from in between his ribs. His eyes immediately shot up, staring into hers. "You did?"
Seeing his bewilderment, Lemuel let out a tiny giggle and gently kicked him underneath the table. "I'm kidding! No, I'm kidding, really. I was kinda shell-shocked, too. Maybe even more than you, if you can believe that~." She took a moment to savor a piece of pie, before adding in some mumbles. "Quite literally, 'cause you did punch me kinda hard…"
And as Andy perked up, all red in the face, spewing apologies left right and center, she kept giggling, shushing him down with her hand.
"I'm joking! It's not a big d-..."
"I had no idea! Really, I'm so sorry, I didn't…"
"Andy, I was just jok-..."
"And with the gas mask? I could barely see anything down there! And then I popped the grenades and-..."
"Andy…"
"Oh, and with the knife? I missed on purpose, I swear I wasn't aiming for you! I sw-"
"Andy."
Her firm voice shut him up for good. A tiny smile rested on her face.
"... It's all good. I'm just happy you're here, okay?"
Her voice soothed his weary mind, like a warm blanket and a cup of honey-infused milk before bed. A certain warmth started blossoming deep within his soul, as if someone put a lit lighter to his stomach, minus the pain. He sat back in his chair and nodded, a smile involuntarily twitching the corners of his lips upwards.
"Okay." Was all that he could say back. She was being way too sweet.
"Mmm." She took another bite, savoring the powdered sugar covered treat. "... But you still owe me for the cake."
"Oh? Oh, sure, when I make some money, it'll be the first thing I-..."
"No, dimwit~! I want you to pay me back with more stories! C'mon, you dragged that poor boy through the forest, and then what?"
Her doe-like eyes bore into his, eagerly awaiting a continuation. For a split second, his mind went blank, hooded by a grim vision of a dark forest, with nothing but pikes of treacherous birch shooting from the snow-covered ground, hiding the shadows that skipped between them. His hands were holding onto a body way too heavy to be dragged, way too precious to be left behind. Curtains of crimson hung from its neck, as it gurgled and gurgled, letting blood drip down onto the fields of pure, virgin silk below. Andy let go, stepping away from the giant.
He couldn't see his face. Couldn't find the radiance on his back. The one above his head was nothing but a dim disc, draggling painfully along the snow.
His knees bent underneath the weight. A mountain of memories fell atop his shoulders.
With one, gentle touch, they all evaporated into the void of bleak nothingness. The cafe's lively chatter filled his ears once more.
"... I'm sorry." Mumbled the puzzled voice in front, as her hand gently rubbed his shoulder. Andy perked up a little and forced a smile.
"It's alright, Lem. I promised a story, right?" His eyes worked overtime, vacuuming the gathering tears back inside. The girl gave an apologetic smile and nodded, trying and failing to hide her excitement.
"Mmm. Also, uh…" She hesitated for a little bit, her smile turning a little shy, which was a strange change of pace. "... No one really calls me "Lem" anymore, you know?"
That felt strange. As if she took the perfect picture of herself from the ex-merc's tattered mind and altered it, crossing out a few words with a blaring, red marker and writing a bunch of her own, all the while smiling mischievously like a little devil.
"No?"
"Nuh-uh."
"Not even Most-...?" He stopped, as a sudden realization flashed through his mind, like a thunderbolt across the night sky. His legs nearly sent him flying from excitement. "HER! Mosti! She here, too? What's up with her? You got her around, anywhere? Can you call her? Can I talk to her? Does she know I'm alive? Can we meet? Pleaase…?"
"Uh…" Her eyes widened at his sudden enthusiasm, smile softening in bemusement. At the mere mention of her name, the inner inner bearings that dictated her mood swinged right off and all crashed into a horrifyingly gory pile. Damn it, Andy... "...I don't think so."
"Wait, no? why?" Like a deflated tire, he slid back onto his chair, a childish frown painted over his face.
"Well, she… She works a lot." Under her breath, she mumbled something about failing at making time for others... as well as a few words completly uninteligible to Andy. Her mood shifted drastically, just at the mere mention of the blue moron's name. "And… She's, uh… I don't know if I'm the best person to be telling you about all this, really. I'm sure she'll pop up eventually, then you can catch up and… and everything, hm?" Her smile returned, bright as ever, the thoughts of Mostima seemingly pushed off a cliff inside her head in an instant.
Andy blew a raspberry, letting his smile drop. Underneath all those layers of his frown, however, laid a teeny, tiny feeling of relief, eager to remain buried and never acknowledged by himself to spare the floods of guilt that would otherwise wash over him and ruin the moment.
"Fine… Fine, I can wait. Been waiting seven years already, what's a few more days, right?" His words were soaked in an overbearing sense of disappointment, shoved behind a fake panoply of glee and a false smirk. "I'm sure she has her reasons."
"... Yeah, she's a bit of a…" Lem crossed her legs, thinking of the right word to use. A word that wouldn't necessarily betray whatever laid dead and buried between the two. "... A wild card, I'd say."
"..."
They sat in an uncomfortable silence for a few seconds, neither willing to break it with a single word. A few salvos of laughter erupted from a table a couple meters away from theirs.
"... So, um… wanna continue? Pretty please?" Lem perked up, eager to win the ex-merc over with some beaming and her deer-eyes.
"With the war stuff?"
"Mmmmhmmm~!"
His mind took a small breather. The claws overseeing his brain scratched the surface in confusion, unsure how to even begin grasping the monstrous mountain of memories and experiences that laid out flat before them. A pile towering over everything else, containing whatever his wit deemed worth remembering, both good and bad, feverish, dying last breaths and the joys of riding high. With a few careful plucks, the claws began picking out the mildest of experiences, the joys of his first mercenary paycheck, skipping over the mounds of corpses left behind. They dug through the piles of the cold nights spent underneath the twin moons' soft gaze, searching for the core memories that shaped him into whatever he was now. Through the times of messy self employment, the months spent with Hedley, Ines and both W's (may his wicked soul rest in peace, and may her wicked soul prevail), they searched and searched, eventually reaching for the folders messily titled "7 (Seven)", where a pile of buzzing, static filled papers laid. Only a few of them were to be accessed by the claws, transported through the network of nerves to his brain and retold to the wide-eyed angel sitting in front, to her utter shock, excitement and dismay.
And as he relayed it all, as the hours kept passing, as the patrons kept coming and going, she sat through it all, her entire, complete attention centered only on him. Her eyes bored directly into his, as she questioned almost each of his words, eager to learn more, to know every little thing her Andy did during his unexpectedly extended holidays in Kazdel.
"You learned to play poker? Were you any good? Did ya win anything big~?"
"Guns! Guns, can I see them? Pretty please~? I'll show you Luciela! Oh, you don't have them on you…? Whaaat? You don't carry a semi automatic rifle to a coffee shop? Come on, Andy…"
"Devils? And you slept around them? And lived with them? And his name was what, "W?" And he died…? And some girl took his place?"
"SHE DID WHAT? SHE KICKED YOUR RIBS IN?"
"You met… You met THE Lord of Fiends? And you two chatted…? She told you to call her by her name? You're making stuff up, admit it~! … You're not…?"
"Seven?" Like a puppy? And he… Oh, you were… HOW MUCH? HALF A MILLION…?"
"And you DROVE the bus off a mobile city…? You're lying. You've gotta be~! You're… No, no, liar, liar, pants on fire~!"
Her legs shot forward to kick the invisible flames off his cargo pants, to which he giggled and kicked back, locking them in a fierce battle for control over the territory underneath their table. With a little kick to her chair, he almost managed to flip her over onto her back. Lemuel squealed in shock and grasped the table, nearly taking the whole thing down with her. Her hands gripped the tablecloth, pulling it along and sending each and every plate, flower pot and water jug plummeting to the ground. A new commotion arose as Andy fell into a giggling fit, watching her struggle amidst the pile of broken glass, now soaked from head to toe.
"L-... Law, are you alright?"
"That's the second time you almost killed me in the span of two days~! Gotta be a record." Her bright smile only widened at the sight of him standing over her. "Of course I'm alright!"
She lifted her hands up, which he took and immediately pulled her up. Their fingers remained intertwined for a few seconds more than necessary, as their rings of light floated dangerously close. Andy had her face before him on full display, gazing into those joyful pools of copper behind a soaked curtain of crimson.
It felt strange.
So incredibly strange, to finally meet the one person he spent the last few years dreaming of, to see her moving and breathing, to hear her speaking and laughing, to feel her hands in his, to be able to lean in and hug her tight at any given moment…
"... Andy, this isn't funny anymore. You REALLY need some sleep~." That teasing voice shot into his mind like adrenaline.
His senses came back. His hands quickly let go of hers.
"Yeah, I need… I need a week to sleep this all off, really."
"A week? But I've already planned so much stuff for us to do…?" Her wet hair flew to the side as she tilted her head with a mocking frown.
"Then a day? Maybe? I dunno, I…" Looking for the right words, they failed to notice that the entire cafe had been staring at them for a good few minutes now. Their Oni waitress returned, only to give a long, drawn out sigh at the deplorable condition of the floor.
"... I think you two have had enough, already." Her fingers were already reaching for a mop hanging off the nearest wall.
"Oh? Oh, it's alright, stuff happens~!" Lem chirped, sending the girl a wink.
"Stuff happens, yeah. Now, out, before I call security." Her voice turned cold. Colder than even the mightiest winter of Kazdel.
They both froze.
"Huh?"
"Out, before I call security. You've been sitting here for five hours, barely ordered anything at all…" Through her annoyed mumbles, a hint of anger started seeping out. Lemuel and Andy exchanged a quick glance.
"... We'll just, uhm… We'll just leave, then."
"Leave? Not before paying. I'll get you your bill, dimwits…" She mumbled a few more insults to herself, as she dragged herself away towards the kitchen. Andy turned to steal a glance of Lem's wet face, only to find her staring at him with a wide, shit-eating grin plastered over her face.
"... We got a problem." She whispered, barely keeping herself from giggling.
"Hm?"
"... You don't have any cash on you, do ya~?"
"Nuh-uh."
"Mmmm." She murmured, putting her hands inside the pockets of her jeans. With a swift move, she pulled them inside out, revealing absolutely nothing. "... Forgot my wallet at home."
"..."
The two kept staring at each other for a longer while, as the cafeteria's daily rhythm continued, with people enjoying their time, holding business meetings and stuffing whatever they could afford down their throats. It was as if their little table incident had never even occurred at all.
"... Should we…?" Andy pointed his thumb towards the patio's exit.
"I think so? I'm sure they won't mind~."
With a few inconspicuous steps, two started slowly sliding along towards the bamboo gate leading out onto the busy street. Just a few more steps and…
"... Here's the bill, you… Hey. HEY! HEY, YOU TWO! GET BACK HERE!"
The Oni rushed out of the kitchen, the bill flailing wildly in her hand. Andy felt a rush of adrenaline spreading out all throughout his veins, as a hand tightly clutched onto his and pulled him towards the exit.
"HEEEY! NO EATING FOR FREE! THIEVES! TH-... THIEVES, YOU TWO! I KNOW WHO YOU ARE…!"
Her animated yells disappeared amidst the street crowd's lively buzz as the two dove deep into Lungmen's daily commuters, finding themselves among a stream of suits heading back home from their cushy corporate jobs. They kept running and running, pushing through the corpo-rats up until they couldn't run anymore, until their lungs started heating up and filling with pain. They stopped at the feet of some gigantic glass tower, panting and huffing, grinning like a pair of children, which, to be fair, at the moment, they were.
Andy lifted his eyes to look at Lemuel. She was clutching onto the building's reflective glass, all panting and giggling, pulling on the collar of her sweater. Her cheeks, slightly heated after their dine-and-dashing escapade, were red all over, like a bouquet of roses thrown loosely onto a pale bedsheet. She looked utterly adorable.
"You think that's… That's enough distance…?" She spewed out in between cackles and heavy breaths. Andy gave a nod and leaned against the glass next to her, head tilted towards the sun's warm glare.
"Gotta be, right…? I mean, I'm no runner, but…"
"Yeah, yeah… Huff…" Her back pressed against the wall, right next to him. Their eyes locked.
"That was stupid."
"Yeah."
"Like, really, really stupid."
"Yeah~!"
She tapped him on the nose, smiling brightly.
"But it's not all bad. At least now I've got an excuse to drag you to the bar~!"
His eyes widened at the confession with a glimmer of unexpected joy. Bar? Alcohol? Drinking?
That was his kind of language.
"Bar! Sure, I love day drinking!" That earned him a little punch on the shoulder, as she giggled. He could sit and listen to her producing those little "tee-hee's" and snickers all day, they all sounded like the cutest, most beautiful chirpings and warbles in the world to him.
"It's not "day drinking!" I wanna introduce you to the rest, dummy!" Her voice oozed with excitement, as she grasped his wrist, this time.
"Introduce to who?" As he draggled along behind her, a few questions suddenly popped into his mind, a few of them beginning to wrap their poisonous ivies of jealousy around the base of his brain.
"It's "to WHOM", dimwit~!" She turned to give him a rough, yet tender tap on the head. "And as for WHOM…"
.
With a little spin, she twirled in place. A certain establishment glimmered in the distance behind her back, its elegant columns and floor to ceiling windows gathering the passers-by gazes.
.
"... The rest of the girls! Your very own number one competitors, Andy~!"