A bright and sunny spring afternoon, lessons have ended for today. Lily, Rose and Tarutaru are walking down the street, towards the bus stop that Tarutaru commonly uses. They’re chatting about everyday stuff, like school lessons, lunches and teacher gossip. Suddenly, Tarutaru stops and turns towards the two.
"Say, I don’t really have anything to do today, what would you two say about ice cream?" she asks the two and points towards an ice cream parlor down the street.
Lily’s eyes open up and she squeals excitedly. "Ice Cream!" she yells. "Oh my, yes! It’s been a while and now it’s a nice and warm spring day, that would be great, right Cotton Candy?"
Rose blushes slightly, a couple of swirly designs appear on her neck and she looks to the ground. "I—I guess…," she says awkwardly.
"Huh? You don’t like ice cream, Cotton Candy?" Lily asks startled.
"..don’t know," Rose mutters quietly.
"Don’t know?" Tarutaru asks dumbfounded. "How can you not know? Have you never had ice cream?"
"Not really…," Rose says and fiddles her shirt’s hem with her finger.
"What?" Lily says her eyes large as plates. "You really haven’t eaten ice cream? Like ever?"
"I may have when I was a child…," Rose says quietly. "But I don’t remember it at all. After that, I really had no point, Lili. Until you pulled me out of my shell, I did nothing that wasn’t absolutely necessary. I didn’t really live, I went through some motions so I could exist. Nothing more, nothing less," she says and turns to look at Lily. She has a tiny smile on her face.
:: Feck! Too cute! Want to kiss!:: Lily thinks and swallows. "Alright, that’s gotta change now.," she says aloud. "We need to get you to taste ice cream, you just simply cannot go living without tasting it! Come, Cotton Candy!" she says and practically drags Rose along towards the ice cream parlor.
The trio enters the rather surprisingly large shop. It has multiple tables in different size and the menu spans the whole wall. Lily and Tarutaru glance at each other and quicken their steps to the menu and ice cream display. Rose walks behind them, close to Lily and looks around with her eyes wide open.
"I’ve never been inside anything like this…," Rose says, then looks at the menu on the wall. "So many flavors… I don’t know even half of them. And how do you combine something like…," she says and reads from the menu. "Raspberry and licorice? How’s that even ice cream?"
"… says the five-star chef," Lily says grinning. "Hey Grass Patch, did you know that Cotton Candy is a tremendous cook?"
"Caldwell? You cook?" Tarutaru says and looks at Rose with her eyes open wide.
Rose glances downwards and pokes the ground with her foot "Eh, yeah, a little. Here and there.," she says coyly.
"Don’t sell yourself short, Cotton Candy," Lily says smiling. "Your cooking is really awesome!"
"I have to ask to taste it some of these days," Tarutaru says. "Oh, look!" she yells and points at the menu. "They have my favorite, chocolate with orange marmalade! I’m getting that," she says and heads to the cashier.
"Lili…," Rose asks quietly and steps closer to Lily. "What should I get?"
"Well…," Lily says. "You really liked the mint chocolate we ate last week, so that’s a safe bet, as is the one with genuine vanilla in it. You might want to get a couple of small balls and taste them? Or you can go wild and pick something you’d never think, like the chili one."
Rose points at the part of the menu where they have sundaes on display. "Can we get one of those and eat it together?" she asks.
"Oh, my goddess! Cotton Candy can you be any cuter!?" Lily squeals and hugs Rose. "Of course we can! Which one would you like? The chocolate and whipped cream one?"
"Mh," Rose utters and nods nervously. Lily looks at her and has a short and quiet gay panic attack.
They order their ice creams and go sit at a table, then chat about unimportant things while they wait for their servings to arrive. Rose seems excited, and she’s closer to Lily than normal. If that indeed is possible in public. Tarutaru smiles at them.
"You seem to be getting along pretty well now that you’re a couple," she says. "No offense, Caldwell, but you were kind of shut-in before."
Rose smiles at her and leans her head on Lily’s shoulder. "None taken, it is true after all. And it’s not like I could not help it - I chose to be excluded. I excluded myself from the world as much as I could, even going as far as restricting my senses… colors, taste… Everything I did was strictly for survival and knowledge, I didn’t care about anything else. Not until…" she says, lifts her head, turns to Lily and smooches her on the cheek, then lays her head back on Lily’s shoulder. "… until Lily found and saved me," she says.
Lily wraps her hand around Rose’s shoulders and leans her head against Rose’s. "I’d like to think the saving was mutual," she says and smiles.
"You are so cute together they don’t need to use sugar to make the ice cream," Tarutaru says and grins.
The waitress brings their ice creams and wishes them a good time. They thank her and get started with their goodies. Tarutaru sighs deeply and closes her eyes as she savors the first spoonful. "Aaah! This is soooo good!" she says.
Rose looks at the rather large sundae the waitress brought them, complete with two spoons and a heart-shaped decoration. Lily and Rose look at each other and giggle. "I think she noticed," Lily says. Rose blushes slightly and nods at her.
"Blind people without heads that are not looking at you would notice," Tarutaru says dryly without opening her eyes.
"Oi!" Lily says "We’re not that obvious!"
Tarutaru opens her eyes, looks at them sitting touching and hands around each other, sharing an ice cream serving. Lily is just offering a spoonful of ice cream to Rose, who has her mouth slightly open.
"Yeah, right," Tarutaru says and closes her eyes back again and continues enjoying her ice cream.
Rose sits up straight with her eyes fully open. Her hair glows softly and her wrists are filled with swirly designs. "This is so good!" she exclaims after Lily fed her the spoonful of chocolate ice cream with whipped cream.
"I know right!" Lily says smiling.
:: Even if I end up not eating a single spoonful of this, this is still the best sundae I’ve ever bought. How is she so magnificently adorable? AAAAAAA. ::
They spend a good amount of time enjoying their ice cream and make a promise of repeating that a bit more often that in the past. It’s early evening before Tarutaru makes it into the bus and waves at Lily and Rose as the bus drives away and the couple leave for the night. At night, clouds gather at the horizon and the next day promises ill.
ns 18.68.41.179da2
