Rika meets Ararune, the school hentai.
Current IC time is: Sun May 26 17:04:00 2002 - Day
Cafeteria — Piffle Princess
The cafeteria of Piffle Princess shop is not an example of a generic fast food establishment - rather, like everything else in here, it keeps in style. Three tables are scattered around the room, and there’s a couple of bar stools too, but the important thing is the menu. Displayed on bright panels above the counter, it almost exclusively consists of pastries, ice-cream, soft drinks and candy.
The whole cafeteria section is about a floor above the Angelic Layer Training center, and sometimes people look down onto the Layers over the railing at the edge.
Rika
This girl fits the textbook definition of ‘cute redhead’, and while she’s unmistakably asian, her relatively pale skin and dark green eyes, coupled with flaming red hair cut in a pageboy style make it easy to forget about it, especially since there’s no sign of hair dye. She does seem to wear some makeup, but it’s very hard to trace just what did she do with it - there isn’t much. Overally, she resembles a fox - lithe and slim, and generally small, since she’s rather short.
Her somewhat pointy-nosed lacquered low-heel shoes hide under the deep dark red trousers. A perfectly white silk blouse, with collar embroidered with red floral design, and a red ribbon tie do not appear to be too hidden under the jacket of the same deep red color, which reaches halfway down her thighs, and is quite tight around the waist, with two rows of shiny gold buttons. Her head is covered with a neat red fedora hat, all in all making her look some ten years older and a lot more serious.
Ararune
A tall, lanky kid who appears to be in his late teens, Ararune Tetsuya’s brown hair rests in spiky locks above his brow. His eyes are a light, clear green, and his features sometimes wear a slightly silly grin that belies his intelligence.
His garb is unexceptional; a T-shirt with the English slogan “Kiss the Chef!”, jeans, and sneakers, all moderately clean and moderately well-kept. All in all, there doesn’t appear to be anything special or extraordinary about this person.
Ararune is sitting at a table by himself, enjoying a cup of coffee with a pastry and squinting down at the Layers every so often. Slung around his neck is a carrying case for a pair of binoculars.
Rika walks in quietly, apparently, walking without making noise is second nature to her. She walks up to the bar and buys herself a coffee, then starts looking around the room for a decent place to sit. In her other hand is a heavy-looking bookbag, which totally doesn’t match her clothing - apparently, she doesn’t care. Somehow, she manages to reach into her jacket’s inner pocket, produce a small silvery digital camera and snap off a picture of Ararune without dropping it, all the wile looking like she isn’t doing anything unusual.
Ararune, sadly, was not facing Rika when she took the photograph; he was peering down into his coffee cup, and deciding that it was time for him to get up and buy another one. When he looks up, he takes a moment to notice Rika, and another moment to break into a grin. “Hi there!”
Rika blinks for a moment at the guy with a grin. Then she blinks again. Then she silently drops her bag onto a table with a muffled metallic ‘clang’ to free up the other hand, leans a little towards the sitting Ararune and SNAP… She used a flash this time. “Hi.” she adds.
Ararune, taken by surprise by that second shot… sits there, for a moment, blinking his eyes rapidly to recover from the flash. . o O (Finally, someone telling me that I’m handsome, even if she’s too shy to say so outright!) After a few seconds, he gestures to the other seat at his table and asks, “Care to sit here?”
Rika studies the chair suspiciously. “Why are you asking?” she asks, with a geniune curiosity in her voice.
Ararune leans back, tilting his head slightly. “Because I want the pleasure of your company. And because I want to talk to you about photography.”
Rika sets her coffee onto the other table, the one she dropped the bag onto, and sits onto a different chair - still close to Ararune, but technically at a different table. That does mean she is turning her back to her coffee, which is a sin in itself, but for now, that will have to do. “And why do you want the pleasure of my company?”
Rika . o O ( My company doesn’t have all that much pleasure to share… )
Ararune raises his eyebrow. “Because I prefer the notion of drinking coffee with you to that of drinking coffee by myself? Because, as I said, I’d like to talk to you about photography?”
Rika sweatdrops faintly, “Anoo… photography is a very broad subject.”
Ararune nods, leaning forward. “Indeed it is. But I’m not much more than an amateur at it, so that should help.” He flashes his notion of a charming grin at this. “How advanced a photographer are you?”
Rika sweatdrops quite visibly now. “What do you mean - advanced?”
Ararune leans back again as he notices the sweatdrop. “Just wondering how much you know about it, whether you intend to make a career of it some day, that kind of thing,” he says, trying to sound reassuring.
Rika doesn’t remove the sweatdrop. “Do you always ask this of anyone whom you see with a camera?” she asks, and to underline her point, snaps another one with a flash. “I must have a picture of a person like that for my records!”
Ararune, this time, attempts to hastily look away from the flash — but not soon enough. Once he’s recovered, he points out, “It’s not everyone who snaps random photos of strangers ‘for their records’, ya know.”
Rika shrugs, “Police, government, every security company worth their salt, private individuals, all keep files and even you keep one in your own memory, don’t you?”
Ararune shakes his head slightly. “One, I don’t have a criminal record. Two, my memory is not, if you’ll forgive the term, photographic.”
Rika smiles innocently, “Don’t you pose for school group shots though? If it isn’t in your memory, and isn’t in somebody’s album, what evidence is there that you existed at all?”
“Somebody,” Ararune murmurs, “has been reading too much Orwell.” He pauses. “Written evidence, testimony of those who know me, possessions, DNA…. and, of course, your snapshotting is hardly the same as a school group photo.”
Rika grins. “Posessions can disappear, written evidence can be faked or replaced at a moment’s notice, DNA can be synthesised and doesn’t prove anything anyway. How do you know you were not created yesterday, for the express purpose of flagging me down, asking to drink coffee with me and then slipping poison into my drink? It’s not impossible. Just unlikely. But unlikely things happen all the time.”
“For that matter,” Ararune replies, tilting his head, “how do you know that you weren’t created out of whole cloth, five minutes ago, for the express purpose of challenging me to a coffee-drinking contest or somesuch? You don’t, any more than I do. And on the subject of unlikely things, you could tell me how much of a photographer you are…”
Rika responds simply, “I know, if only because I’m definitely not going to drink coffee with you.” And in fact, her coffee sits forgotten on her table alright. She could tell him how much of a photographer she is, but probably won’t.
“Why?!” Ararune exclaims, jaw dropping as he leans forward in shock. “So much for the scenario you described — my raison d’etre being to poison your coffee — being an unprovable hypothesis…”
Rika sputters, “I wouldn’t want to prove a hypothesis just to get poisoned as a result, would I?”
Ararune doesn’t reply to that at first. Instead, he sighs sadly as he looks down at his exposed forearms. “Nothing up my sleeve — no vials of poison or love philters or anything morally dubious that could be slipped into a cup of coffee…”
Rika asks curiously, “Have you checked your saliva? Or other glands? That’d be the first place to hide poison if you were deliberately created.”
Ararune stares at Rika for a moment. “Wouldn’t that require invisible saliva on my part if I were to spit acid into your drink without your noticing?”
Rika exclaims, “I can’t be constantly looking into my coffee! In fact, I’m not even doing it right now.”
Ararune smiles, showing teeth. “Still, leaning over to spit in your coffee would be a very conspicuous gesture — even with invisible saliva. And projectile motion means it would be very hard to do it from here.”
Rika shrugs, “You could dip your finger in the saliva and then into the coffee. A much less conspicious gesture, if done right.”
“And run the risk of scalding myself?” Ararune asks, before shaking his head. “No thank you.”
Rika comments, “If you were created for the express purpose of poisoning me, it’s a justifiable risk.”
Rika adds, “In fact, you’ve spent so much time denying it that I’m almost convinced now.”
“Indeed. But since I’m not… said risk is quite unnecessary. The fact that I’m not doing it should support my argument.” Then he stares again. “Going by your logic, every accusation in the history of man is true, because they’re denied.”
Rika sighs. “That’s what they always say.” She picks her bag off the table, and starts rummaging in it, producing annoying metallic sounds, and finally her hand emerges, carrying a large, heavy-duty, professional photographic flash. The sort that tends to blind people even with light reflected of black surfaces. “Sorry. You wanted to know how much of a photographer I am.” she says. She shuts her eyes and with a quick motion sticks the device forward, pressing the manual flash button. SNAP!!!
The sky darkens as the sun disappears behind the buildings. The burning hues of the disappearing daylight reflect from windows.
Ararune peers at the device for a few moments… before hastily ducking his head, closing his eyes, and throwing one arm up to shield his face. Once he hears the snap, it takes another few seconds before he cautiously peeks at Rika. “… quite dedicated, in other words.”
Rika sticks her tongue out at Ararune, her plan foiled, hides the flash back into the bag and quickly tiptoes out of the cafeteria, leaving her coffee standing lonely on the table.
“Wait! You forgot your— bah,” Ararune finishes. . o O (Guess she wouldn’t drink coffee with me, after all). Even as he thinks this, though, he’s already reaching for his binoculars to get a better look at her posterior on her way out the door.
Rika shrugs, and shouts, “It’s cold already, and all because of you!” and disappears through the exit.
Post a Comment