The cheesy Christmas songs in the background had been looping for what must have been two hours, the same gritty voices and the repetitive lyrics working their way through the stereo speakers as Chero wasted fuel and polluted the atmosphere in gridlock traffic. It was ten in the morning for gosh sakes, and she’d been sitting in this same spot for at least twenty minutes. In vain she tried to change the channel, but it was nothing but Christmas oldies, and all her CDs in the vehicle at the moment were Christmas-filled too. With an irritated huff, she tapped away to a different, faster, louder song in her head, wishing with all her power that she wasn’t so bad at transportation spells. But alas, nothing came of that wish, so she waited patiently until she could finally see someone begin to creep ahead through the growing cloud of exhaust and continued on her way to the restaurant where she was going to meet Hime for breakfast together.
“Now it’s going to be brunch,” Chero whined, frequently checking over at her phone to see that Hime was still waiting patiently for her. And Hime was, up until Chero burst through the door with an anticlimactic jingle thanks to an unaffected bell that cared not for her haste.
“Nice to see you,” Hime quipped, not upset, but merely teasing. Chero let her head hit the table as she slid into the booth.
“Traffic sucks and I wish I was better at magic,” she mumbled into the smoothed polyethylene cover of the table. Hime simply waved down a waiter and ordered two mugs of hot chocolate for the two of them.
“It’s Christmas Eve, so I’m sure a lot of people want to have breakfast at a nice restaurant with their families.” Chero finally picked herself off the table, a red mark on her forehead barely hidden by her rich brown hair. She rubbed her forehead.
“Doesn’t change the fact that traffic sucked,” she maintained. Hime’s eyes narrowed barely a fraction as Chero averted her gaze elsewhere, scrutinizing her closely with a well-trained eye. Of course her feline features were disguised in public, but there were visible shadows around her eyes and the turn of her lips was unlike usual in the Christmas season. Beyond her usual level of tiredness, this seemed like she wasn’t even the least bit excited for the holiday. For Chero, this was essentially unheard of, and the apathy in her eyes betrayed these emotions as more than a simple case of lethargy,
“Got a case of the blahs, Chero?” Hime asked as the hot chocolate was set down in front of them. Chero hummed, nodding her head slowly.
“I think so. I’m just not all that energetic right now.” Nodding and taking a sip of her drink, Hime kept an eye on Chero’s actions throughout the brunch, knowing better than to write it off as the blahs. She was Chero’s closest friend; of course she’d notice that something was very, very off.
This would need fixing.
