The Whisperer

Title: The Whisperer

Author: Lewis Spiel

Writing: short, short story

Word count: 211

“Let me repeat what you just said,” she says. “You want me to send you to hell.”

A cloying sweet smell suffuses his senses as the wax tapers extinguish with a suffocating press of finger and thumb. The pads of her fingers must burn but she hardly seems to notice. There is really only the Ritual and the dark, the enormous stone emptiness of the cathedral and the wind whistling through it, and the presence of a spirit, hanging heavy in the air.

“Close your eyes,” she says.

He obliges, but only because there is nothing else he can do. He starts at the cool press of her fingertips against his eyelids.

“We had a deal,” he says, struggling to stay calm. “And weren’t you going to tear my eyes out?”

“There are other ways to take away sight.” The touch on his eyes eases and lifts away. “I’m not a barbarian. Don’t worry, I’ll hold up my end of the agreement.”

“That’s hardly reassuring."

“Be patient.”

More orders? “B-,” he pauses. “Witch.”

“That’s me,” she responds dryly. “All right. Here we go.” 

Something in the air seems to give way. As his world fades to nothing he hears her say, faintly: “You never said when you had to get there.”

---------------------

Artist's note: Still unfinished. I have several snippets of unfinished stuff right now, but none of them are quite long enough or done, as you can see. We're still alive. :) 

This came from reading Stadust by Neil Gaiman and watching Umineko no Naku Koro Ni (Where the Seagulls Cry). They reminded me that witches are cool. ^-^ Uh, not to say that I wrote this just so that I could mention a witch.

~Lewis S.

Lewis’s belated end-of-year (2010) note

Consider this an extended Author’s Note- although we’re not always calling it that here. 

When we started I think we hadn’t a lot of opportunities to share our writing with each other besides, and a writing blog sounded like a novel idea at the time. Looking back I still think it was.  

Frankly, I never thought I’d be capable of turning out the stories I did for Drawn in Words. When I started out with it, and while I was writing for it, there was mostly the thought of writing to meet the quota and trying to emanate the dream writer in my head who just put words on paper that fell perfectly into place. I’m so glad that we decided to make this blog, and proud of what we have on it. 

Have I improved? Or do I think I’ve improved? Well… the only big project I’d had- Dog Eat World for NaNoWriMo- was never finished. If I wanted to fish around for reasons this ended positively, I could say that I ended up with more writing than I’d ever done in a year.  But I think the thousands of words that were written for this story never held the kind of appeal to me that I’d imagined this story should have. So I think I’ll be coming back to it someday. Maybe not in the near future, but hopefully when I feel ready to write these characters better. They’ve really grown on me, and I still want to share them with the world.

This year I want to cover some new ground. I’ve made a few small forays into fanfiction, most of which are just barely over the 500 word limit. I’ll try writing romance. I’ve read so much of it (to top it off, so many titles of shojo manga with such bad plots and cliché setups you couldn’t imagine) that I think I should be able to pull something off. Maybe something else. Right now the projects that are just laying around to be done are 100 themes, Jacks (which is probably going to be entirely revamped), DEW, and this one where I’m trying to base all of the characters off tarot cards. That last thing is supposed to be similar to the way they design their characters in the Persona series, which I really love.  

(but I digress.) 

Thank you, Silver, for starting this blog with me and supporting me all throughout the year. Let’s keep writing. 

Word Count: 412

Post-script: also, thank you to any others who might be reading this. You’re a big part of the reason we’re still here. Keep checking up on us! ;) 

~Lewis Spiel

Only that in you which is me can hear what I’m saying

Title: Only that in you which is me can hear what I’m saying (quote by Baba Ram Dass)
Author: Lewis Spiel
Writing: short story
Word Count: 970

This was not, Olivia admitted to herself, her best idea. She didn't like the carnival; in fact, she hated it. It was too loud and she really preferred quiet places where she could curl up and sleep, especially when it was the weekend. But it was her cousin's birthday, and she had agreed to accompany Gretchen on her date with her first-time boyfriend. Why they even needed a chaperon was anyone's guess. Why they thought that taking sick people to noisy, crowded places was another.

She was still recovering from the effects of a cold that had her stuck in bed for weeks. Olivia mopped at her cold and dripping nose with a tissue and watched the pair sidle toward her, swinging their joined hands.

"Olivia!" Gretchen let go of her boyfriend's hand and embraced her. "I’m so glad you're here."

"I am, too." Olivia reached up with her free hand and patted her on the shoulder awkwardly. She hadn't seen this girl since kindergarten, and even then they hadn't been that close. What else was she supposed to say?

After a long pause, Gretchen withdrew, smiling sheepishly. "This is Verity. Verity Teach. He's a year above me at the school I go to." Flushing slightly, she added, "He's also my boyfriend."

As if that wasn't obvious, Olivia thought, eying the kid. He didn't look like much. They shook hands.

Over the next hour they flitted amongst the food stalls and picked at the samples being offered there.  As night fell, the lights strewn about cast such a dim glow that it was too dark to see what was on the floor. This resulted in many a concussion as well as a subsequent guilty party’s surreptitious escape after apologizing. But most of the group had the tact and presentiment to stay well out of the walkway and thus managed to stay unharmed. It was after dodging a collision with a tipsy balloon man that Olivia looked back and noticed that Verity was trailing behind them.

“Shouldn’t we wait for him?” she said.

The other girl continued walking ahead of them. “It’s all right. He’s just feeling a bit-        -. Is there anywhere you’d like to go?”

Olivia felt a twinge of annoyance go through her at the reply. Gretchen hadn’t even bothered to answer her question.

“Is he sick? Maybe we should take him back home?”

Gretchen’s voice became strangely muffled and distorted with a sound like the snap and pop of radio static. “No, no, no. He’s just-            -. Look, he’s caught up. Hey, Verity. Let’s go on to the circus tent, all right?”

Seeing that there was nothing else to be done, Olivia followed. Gretchen’s and Verity’s antics bothered her, but she wanted to wait until her suspicions were a little more than dubious.

At long last they stopped at the long line leading into the circus tent. Gretchen made several more attempts to talk to Olivia, but as each fell flat she finally excused herself, saying she had to go use the restroom. Olivia didn’t feel like talking and didn’t have anything to say, and though she felt bad for her she didn’t know how she could help. The buzzing in her ears continued even as she left, a feeling of discontent like brambles pricking the edges of her consciousness. She turned her attention to the circus tent. It was the main event everyone came to see at the carnival, Verity said, and the one they’d originally come for. Something about a very talented magician equal to the likes of Houdini.

Olivia looked up in surprise.

“That’s the clearest voice I’ve heard all day,” she told him. “There’s no static at all.”

Verity glanced at her quizzically. “What?”

There was a lull in the conversation as the line of people filed into the circus tent to take seats. Verity and Olivia sat in the highest tier where it was less crowded and saved one for Gretchen.

“She wanted to make friends with you, you know,” said Verity, earnestly appealing to her.

“I didn’t.” Olivia, taken aback by his sudden change in tone, was disbelieving. “We haven’t met for years. Why? And wasn’t this your date?”

“She’s scared of dealing with people. I was trying to help. It was my fault, I’m sorry-“

“Calm down. Nothing’s gone wrong yet. You’re fine.”

Verity broke into a hesitant smile. “Thanks, Olivia. We won’t screw it up next time.”

“How’s the show?” Olivia eagerly seated herself beside the two of them with a large tub of popcorn in hand. “It looks like the magician’s got some pretty cool performances up today.”

“I told her,” said Verity, looking like he wanted some of the popcorn.

“Oh.”

            “It’s okay, Gretchen,” Olivia said encouragingly.

“Well, I just wish he wouldn’t spill-“Olivia lost the last word of his sentence in the buzzing.

“What?”

“She said,” repeated Verity, who was beginning to look uncomfortable.

“Wait, what?” Olivia said, straining to hear over the radio crackling in her ears.

The angry mutterings of the people around them had escalated to a roar. Through the silhouettes of their standing figures she could see that the magician’s set up had collapsed, revealing his trick. Audience members booed and threw pieces of refuse at him; children climbed over the stands and attempted to replicate the performance. The man himself was sullenly pulling himself to his feet with his top hat pulled low over his head, picking up his spilled tools of trade with a grim face.

The rest was lost in static.

 Long after the magician had left and the rest of the audience had cleared out, Olivia crouched over her seat on the bench with her hands clasped over her ears. They were still ringing.  

“All right there, Olivia?” Gretchen shook her gently by the shoulder. “Let’s go home.”

Artist's note: This was not written in the theme for February. This was partly written for a class assignment. As you can see it's a bit disorganized and confusing and vague. I'll probably have this edited later. If this 3-day weekend goes well I might come up with another post soon. 

It's supposed to take place several years before Dog Eat World (the nanowrimo thing I was obsessing over last November). After this Olivia goes deaf and Verity becomes a very prolific liar, but not as direct results of the event.

~Lewis

The Wall

 Title: The Wall
Author: Lewis
Writing: Short story
Words: 250

There's a bit of finesse that must go with walking Norm's streets. Over the slow arc of the Skral Bridge there's a flat stretch of pavement where the street vendors line their carts like soldiers readying themselves for battle (a term oddly appropriate for the afternoon rush), and further down, the path stops neatly at the tall hedges of a labyrinth of a garden. If you ask the policeman how to get through he will advise you to walk straight into the hedge. If you reexamine the hedge you'll find a stone wall behind it. Upon returning to the policeman who so kindly spoke with you earlier, you will be told that the hedge and the stone wall are simply illusions, and if you just ignore them you should be able to enter the garden. The illusions, he says, are precautions for the common people who are not meant to enter the garden. You, sir or madam, are. Meant to see the garden, he amends. So do go ahead now, and proceed. So. If you still hold faith in your (very legitimate) copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, you will take one breath of (smoke-filled, cough-inducing) invigorating air and walk straight into the hedge. And, well. You didn't see this coming at all.


When you get a faceful of leaves and thorns and a sorely bruised nose, it doesn't surprise you that the policeman is rolling around on the lawn in some kind of epileptic seizure of laughter.

Artist's note: I know that the policeman is crazy, and that I'm not very funny when I'm trying to be. this is just a really bad idea I decided to let run for several feet.

Jacks 2

Title: Jacks 2
Author: Lewis Spiel
Writing: multipart
Word count: 607

4.

Llyr raised a hand in greeting. “Yo.”
“Hey.” Adrian sat up and nodded at him. “Private lessons now? I see you’re hardly slacking off on your training programme.”
“You know him?” Helena queried, throwing Adrian a curious look. “How?”
“Morning cleaning duty.”
“Ah.”
“We all know how that works,” sniggered Sam.
Adrian flicked a crumpled piece of notebook paper in his direction. “Helena, Sam, and I all have several hours of free time at this time of the day. You can study if you’d like. I’m proposing a Cops and Robbers game in the hallway.”
Llyr had already set down his bag on a nearby desk and begun rifling through it. “I’ll study. Cops and Robbers sounds great, but....”
Helena snorted and flopped herself into a chair next to Llyr’s. “I told you so, Adrian. No one else likes to go gallivanting in the school hallways in this day and age.”
“Whatever.” By now Adrian had opened his laptop again and opened the Internet browser home page. There was something about a shooting at the local supermarket on the most recent news, but nothing else of note besides. He supposed that there was nothing else he could expect from a town of hicks.

--
His expression was unreadable as always, but his lack of response was answer enough.
“I’m right, aren’t I.” Adrian shoved his chair back and stood. “You’re letting go of it even though it’s partly your fault? I see how it is now.”
“Do you, really? Have you asked Helena?”
“How could you even say that? After what you did-”

5.

“-are you guys going to give up on this one?” Llyr was standing over Adrian’s shoulder, blinking confusedly at the half-finished crossword puzzle. “Looks like a pain.”
“A pain in the ass, all right.” Sam grumbled. “What’s another word for ‘water nymph?’ I’ll bet that half these answers are made up.”
Adrian rolled his eyes. “Let’s try another one. Uh, ‘one who eats babies.’”
“There’s a word for that?”
“What about... brephophagist.”
“Are you sure you didn’t make that one up just now?”
“Oh, hey. It fits. Lucky guess, Llyr?”
“Wonder of wonders.”
“Haha, yea, probably.”
“Try this one, then. ‘A device for cleaning chimneys.'"
"That's so inane-"
"Scandiscope."
The three others stared at Llyr in amazement.
"A real nerd, that's what you are. Shall we have you do my homework, now?" Helena nudged his shoulder gaily.
Llyr shrugged helplessly. "Dumb luck. Not sure if I can help, but I'll try."
Adrian watched as Sam and Helena crowded around Llyr's desk, all but pestering him with questions. Somehow he didn't feel too enthusiastic about finishing the crossword anymore.

6.

"Llyr's so nice," Helena gushed. "And smart. He's just transferred to this school, and yet he knew every single answer to each of the questions on my homework today!"
"Serious?"
"Yea." She sighed dreamily and elbowed Adrian in the side. "Is that all you have to say? Maybe you should get some lessons from him, Adrian. It'd do wonders for your attitude."
"I'm fine, I don't need any help." Adrian's brow furrowed as he peered down the lunch line. "Looks like they've run out of fries. Where's Sam, anyhow?"
"He's having Llyr critique his script."
Adrian paused and turned to shoot her a curious (not hurt) glance. "We could've done that."
"Yea, but he wanted a little more outside opinion, you know? We might add Llyr into the script. It'd be nice if we had more people in the skit."
"Yea."
The line of people shuffled forward a couple of steps, and Adrian cut off the conversation, utterly engrossed in picking out the second best lunch set.

Jacks [sorry for the triplepost]

Title: Jacks
Author: Lewis Spiel
Writing: Multipart story
Word count: 806

1.

“I’d thought you’d be afraid,” Adrian confessed, flattening his palms against the counter. “What made you change your mind?”
The other man stared back at him calmly, unperturbed. “I don’t fear dying. I fear dying and being reborn again to deal with the aftermath of this chaos.”
“That’s a funny way to put it.”
“What else can you call this mess- another ‘technical difficulty?’?”
“You’ve got a point there.” A pause. “Aren’t you still mad about it, though? They’re making you take the fall for it-“
“There’s no one to ‘take the fall for,’ Adrian. They didn’t mean any harm.”
Adrian balled his hands into fists but turned his gaze downward. “Then what- you’re actually okay with it now, as long as you’re not involved?”

2.

The classroom was as dank and empty as Adrian remembered it, but that was probably because he’d been the last person to leave the classroom in the previous school year. In about an hour it would hit daylight and the drapes would need to be raised, the floor swept, and the desks straightened. Such was the duty of the one high school student who actually liked arriving at a time where even the class insomniac wanted to put his head down and close his eyes for a second. Adrian had gotten halfway through aligning each desk parallel to the other when the classroom door slid open with a bang. He cocked an eyebrow at the boy standing in the doorway.
“Morning. What’s gotten you up so early?”
The other boy shrugged, adjusted the shoulder strap of his bag, and scanned the room with disinterested eyes. “The principal wanted to get my records processed before classes started. I’m the only transfer student this year, it seems.”
Adrian shook his head, smiling. “Things move slowly in rural towns like this one, that’s all. Where’re you from?”
“Take a guess.”
“Norm?”
“Got it all in one.”
“Haha. That’s where I’m from, actually.”
“Really? Swell.”
He hesitated before striding forward and offering his hand. “The name’s Adrian. You?”
“Llyr Wakeley.” Llyr gripped it with a slightly clammy hand and shook firmly. “Nice to meet you.”

3.

“What’s shakin’, bacon?” Sam glanced at the computer screen curiously. “It doesn’t look like you’re looking at the news today. Oh. Well.”
“Hush!” Adrian hissed, slamming his laptop shut.
“You have-“Sam broke off in a snort. “I’m going to tell Helena you’re looking at-“
“It’s not funny!”
“Haha, beat by a pop idol of all things? She’s going to love this.”
“I hear my lowly underlings flapping their useless mouths again,” drawled Helena, looming over Adrian’s desk. “What’s this I hear about a pop idol, hmm?”
Adrian averted his eyes and grumbled under his breath lowly.
Helena laughed and draped her arms over his shoulders. “I didn’t hear you, Adrian.”
“I said that she’s the prettiest girl in the world!”
Silence reigned for several seconds before Sam roughly elbowed Helena in the side. “You’re supposed to start weeping.”
“Ow! Hold on, my tear ducts are dry! I can’t just start gushing salt water from my eyes in mere seconds. That was pretty much the last of it after the fifth take.”
Adrian pillowed his head in his arms and slumped against the desk. “I give up.”
“Your script stinks, Sam,” jeered Helena, dropping the playbook onto Adrian’s head.
Sam hastily collected the playbook and clutched it protectively to his chest. “Your face stinks.”
“Your mother stinks.”
“Your hair stinks.”
“Uh. Your car stinks.”
“You did not just go there.”
“I did, too. What are you going to do about it?”
The classroom door slid open with a bang. “Cut it out, children.”
Helena jumped to attention and swept to the front of the classroom, inclining her head respectfully. “Good day, teacher.”
“Well met, Helena. I have the transfer student here; would you do me the favor of watching him for me today? He’d be taking private lessons with me, but I’ve got a meeting to attend.”
“Yes, sir, of course!” Eyes alight, Helena waved him off with a smart salute.
“Oh, and one more thing.”
“Yes?”
“Are you all right? Your eyes are looking a bit red.”
Helena could hear Sam choking as he fought to stifle his laughter. “Sir. There’s nothing to worry about. You should be on your way now.”
As the door slid shut behind the transfer student, she turned on her friend with an enraged yell. “You and your stupid script! I’m going to-“
“Helena.”
“What is it?” She turned to look at Adrian, whose eyes were just barely peering over the shelter of his arms.
“Don’t you think you should be a better example for the transfer student?”
Helena sighed exasperatedly. “All right.”
“Sucker!” shrieked Sam, rocking backwards in his chair and bicycling his feet through the air wildly.
“That means you, too, Sam.”
“Damn.”

--
Artist's note: I think I have totally forgotten rules for formatting, indenting, and etc. in noveling. Not writing anything like these for a long time does that to you. >.>
Anyway, I asked Silver to give me a story idea, and she came up with “I don’t fear dying. I fear dying and being reborn again to deal with the aftermath of this chaos.” (My first thought was Aaang from Avatar: The Last Airbender, where the Avatar is always reborn in order to combat evil and stuff.)
I really meant to finish this story in about a thousand words because that's supposed to be a lot (considering how little I've written in the past), but I felt like I couldn't build as much as I should in the story unless it was longer. So I'll be continuing this by releasing the rest of the story in parts.

Lastly, sorry for those of you who got multiple email notifications when I tried editing and reposting. Hopefully with this the problems have been fixed -__-

Thanks for reading!
~Lewis

Fanfiction: Him

Title: Him
Author: Lewis
Writing: Digital Devil Saga fanfiction- it's a PS2 game I was fawning over for the past several weeks. But I just recently lost the game, and didn't get to finish it...
Word Count: 514

“What’s He thinking?” Cielo asks suddenly.

“W-what?” Sera looks startled- shocked, even- that someone would ask such a question.

“You’re always talking about how He sent you to us on da mission to help people,” Cielo mumbles, chastised. “If God sent Sera to help us, why even send da Virus to begin with?”

“We already went over this,” snarls Heat. “Some stupid fucking test, that’s all. Did you forget? It was the same even before the Virus. The only difference is that there’s a new way to kill. Can’t say I hate this power, though.” Arms folded, he strokes the flame atma mark with a free thumb. “Anyway, the point is that we need to protect Sera. The Wolves could be at our borders any minute now. Or past them. I’m going to check patrol.”

Brooking no room for argument, he pulls his cape closed around himself and sweeps out of the room.

“What’s gotten into him?” Argilla snipes, eying the open hallway with distaste.

Cielo shrugs, and Sera just turns her eyes back to the window and continues to sing. The unfamiliar tones and language are eerie and just as coldly beautiful as they were the first the Tribe heard them, but the notes today dip and waver.

Argilla listens intently but pretends not to notice the differences. They bring to mind Jinana’s dying face, and the question.

What is sad?

Sera has explained before- many times, at Gale’s prompting- that the song she sings to calm the demons and return them to human state is called a Prayer. It’s a tribute to Him, she says, an entreaty for him to have mercy on the suffering. It becomes clear to the team that although the concept of the existence of an all-powerful being has been firmly ingrained into their minds, there exists no ritual whatsoever in the Junkyard that pays homage of any sort to this God. Cielo suggests that they all try to learn Sera’s Prayer so that everyone can use the skill and somehow win God’s favor, but knows the moment he says it that it won’t work. Sera’s special. “The black haired girl,” or so Angel called her. The key to Nirvana.

He still can’t make sense of why only one person is allowed to Pray, though. Isn’t it a bit unfair?

Serph thinks that maybe Heat is afraid of questioning Sera- especially Sera. The way Heat warms up to her is unusual; it’s the kind of inconsistency Gale would have categorized alongside Argilla’s recent bouts of “sadness.”

Though- after Lupa, Gale has been less often labeling them inconsistencies and seeing them as objects of greater importance. Serph isn’t quite sure if he’s comfortable with Gale’s “awakening;” Gale certainly seems much more motivated to reach Nirvana now, but the nature of the mission feels different now. It’s not reaching Nirvana and a life without war- for Gale, now, it’s to find Lupa’s child and tell him to become “a man of honor.” And though Gale seemed to understand, Serph is still grappling with the meaning of that word- honor.

-----------
Artist's Note: Hi, this is Lewis! Sorry for not posting for so long! I actually haven't written anything for a long while. Haha, as I'm writing this I am procrastinating on a Very Important Homework Assignment. At any rate, I would say that this would be my first ever piece of fanfiction. Yup -__- I didn't provide a lot of background for the stuff I wrote here, and there's not a lot of order to it because I was just spilling little things I was wondering about while playing the game.
I guess I should at least understand that killing someone and eating someone are on different levels of depravity.
Haha, sorry for rambling.
Toodles.
~Lewis

Do not read, this is avoidable.

A caution beforehand... I found this story especially disturbing, myself. Despite your human curiosity, if mass suicides creep you out to the point that it keeps bothering you after you're done reading, don't read this.

Title: Crushed

Author: Lewis
Writing: nightmare
Word count: 106
Warning: assisted mass suicide

---------------------------------------

"Do it for me, baby."

Your mother touches you encouragingly on the shoulder, urges you to push the button. One by one the people stand on the edge of the garbage chute and let themselves falll.

One by one.

You don't hear them hit the bottom.

When the machine compresses its cargo into a smaller block, you hear a groaning, but you're not sure if it's the machinery or the people being crushed. Everything feels numb, and you can't scream or cry. You can't find it in yourself to do anything except stare at the controls in front of you.

the groaning.

Why isn't it stopping?

Good Coffee

Title: Good Coffee
Author: Lewis
Writing: Short story
Word Count: 512

The first thing about good coffee is that it has to be good. Okay, so she doesn't have much experience with it. The only coffee she's had is the powdered stuff they sell at the local grocery store for a 50% discount, and even that, according to the Java Jive club, is crap. What about that stuff they sell at the fast food place? Tsk, tsk. It isn't her fault that she's naive and deprived.

Who is she kidding? It's a total bother! She can't believe that they're doing this, intruding into her private coffee business. It's not as if she'll ask her crush out to instant coffee. When the time calls, it'll be green tea bags. No mistake about it.

It, well. It might have been said that he only likes coffee. He's always seen in the morning with a cup or two of coffee clutched in his hands, looking somewhat worse for wear. And, maybe, he might have been seen ranting about the wonders of the coffee bean and the history of coffee. He's also probably said to hate green tea.

So she's asked the Java club for help. They're not all too famous, but she's heard that they're coffee experts. If she can just get them to slip and tell her the secret to making good coffee, her plans will be set.

"Go forth, child," says Java club president Latte, shoving a coffee filter into her hand. "and buy the items on this shopping list."

"Come again?" She's not believing this. "I thought-"

"What? You asked us how to make coffee."

Mumbling, she stares at her toes. "I just thought that you maybe would just tell me how to make it?"

"Miss, the coffee-making is an art. We can't allow amateurs to deface coffee with their poor skills. So of course, we have to guide you through all the steps."

"Oh. Well. That's kind of you."

"You're welcome. Now, for the ingredients."

She's totally planning to avoid them at all costs after this. Who knows what kind of horrors she'll be subjected to if she sticks with them? Besides, all she wants is to get a good cup of coffee for him.

The next day, after running a maddening raid on the local grocery stores, she shows up in the club room with the supplies in hand. There's not one, but two people there, and for a moment she gapes at the uninvited guest with a reddening face.

The club-president-whose-coffee-related-name-she-doesn't-care-to-remember adjusts his glasses peevishly at her reaction and crosses his arms. "I thought I'd ask another one of the club members to instruct you today. He's one of our most dedicated, and will be perfect for the job. You two are in the same year, so you might know each other."

"We do." she says shortly. "Kind of. Um."

"Isn't that wonderful? Now, I'll leave you two to your devices." Sir-club-president claps him in the back. "Good luck."

The classroom door slides shut behind him. Oh, bother. Oh god. Why did he have to leave? Of all the people in the world he had to ask, did it have to be that one?

----------------

I know nothing about the making of coffee, which is why I didn't elaborate much. Java Jive is this ... (I don't know the genre) small group song where they sing "I like coffee, I like tea. I love the java jive and it loves me! Coffee and-" ...yea. I have weird song choices sometimes.

I've been thinking about coffee a lot LOL Mostly because I don't know much about coffee, but I see it as ...a really nice comfort drink like hot chocolate. I don't get to drink it a lot- if I could, I probably would.

This was written in 25 minutes on Write or Die.