Komorebi

[Mel Rose]

Passing through the procedure of New Tokyo's docking ring, the pink-lighted Eagle descended towards the landing pads. The rain, typical to the equatorial regions of New Tokyo was all but done with it's torrential presence for the day, manifesting itself only as a warm drizzle.

As the autopilot navigated the fighter towards the hangars, Haze dispatched a text message to Sable. She did not indent to wait until her own ship would descend down that same route - especially that given the overall busyness of the main New Tokyo landing pad, her companion might be routed towards a completely different end of the complex.

"The place is called Komorebi. Rather easy to find. I'll wait there."

The drizzle still was not completely subsumed when she left the hangar. It was warm, but the precipitation excused her wearing a cowl in this otherwise hot weather. Similarly, knee-high heeled boots were useful in treading through puddles. She made her way out of the hangars into the streets of New Tokyo's busiest metropolis.

The steel architecture surrounding the planetside anchor of the docking ring was austere and, to her mind, oppressive. New Tokyo looked like a fantastic paradise from space, but down on the ground, especially here at the root, where form had to give way to function, it was anything but. The district that attracted most visitors, businesspeople and foreigners was simultaneously most repulsive to the eye.

A five minute walk later, she looked up from the cowl at the pretend-wooden facade of the cafe. A handful of Kusarian letters were painted on the door, along with a sloppily etched word Komorebi in capital Latin letters. She opened the door, a bell ringing softly to alert the staff that a new customer entered the building.

The cafe was not empty, with a handful of tables inside occupied by a wide cross-section through the Kusarian society. A couple of students were giggling over something in the corner. A few older Kusarian gentlemen played riichi mahjong on two tables joined together, a game she knew of but the convoluted method of play eluded her enough to never try it herself. Another table occupied by a foreigner, either Libertonian or Bretonian, staring into the screen of a console and typing furiously while sipping coffee.

She spied a transparent glass door leading out to a patio on the other side of the cafe. The scenery much different than the high street, she took an English menu sheet from a table by the door and headed outside, to one of the tables covered with umbrellas, glancing and nodding towards a Kusarian girl behind the cafe's counter.

Outside, Haze took her seat making sure to have a line of sight towards the cafe entrance and unclasped the cowl, carefully setting it aside on the seat to her right. A handful of raindrops still hit the ground as she started reading through the menu and awaited Olivia to reach the cafe.

---

Jennifer Haze Does Not Exist :: Filing Cabinet :: Swords into Plowshares
Liminality :: Good in Red :: Past to Present :: Fish of the Sea