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Why do I always end up writing about dudes who fail at romance?

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I would like you to know that I lost sanity just thinking about writing this. So just, uh, enjoy and please don't think too hard about anything.

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Part One: Coffee

The Arome de Café Café was a coffee shop, of the type that attracts bored students, poorly shaved indie musicians, people with laptops, and people who pretend to know French.

Our story opens on a defrosting January, one Sunday afternoon in the aforementioned café. It was filled, which wasn’t saying much, as there were only about fifteen chairs. Young people talked and laughed and inhaled the coffee-scented air, and older people wished the young people would shut up so that they, the older people, could read the newspaper in peace.

The coffee shop experience was much like being inside an antique clock. It was largely wood-brown with a few brassy bits, it attempted to look sophisticated, and every few minutes a cuckoo would pop out, trying to decipher the illegible name on the coffee cup and usually mispronouncing it.

It was also like a clock in that the entire affair, social-situation-wise, seemed to be delicately balanced. Woe betide whoever broke the unspoken rules, written invisibly in chalk upon the fabric of its being, in the shaky handwriting of an over-caffeinated barrista.

Two students, one male and one female, sat at the usual iron-and-glass table in the corner, the same one they had occupied for years. They watched the cold people walking by outside and felt grateful to be dry, with hot coffee and warm conversation on their lips.

“Ooh! Hey Aki, let’s try those little French biscuits next, I heard they’re really good,” enthused the female student, flinging a stray lock of black hair out of her eyes, which were that particular captivating shade of brown so light it looks almost gold. She alternated between swinging her legs and bouncing up and down in her chair. Her family was forced to conclude that the source of her power was probably her daily coffee, or Attention Deficit Disorder, or both. Attention Deficit Disorder could be ruled out, however, as she was actually quite good at focusing on things her family did not intend. She firmly believed that the goal of living was to have lots of fun, and listening to her family would clearly be at cross-purposes.

The male student (Aki, in case the reader forgot after that last paragraph) nodded absentmindedly. He had long red hair, and unlike the girl, had tied his hair back in a stiff ponytail to keep it out of his eyes and his coffee. He possessed a thin, angular face, a frowning mouth, and a fashionable pallor, and therefore was mysteriously popular among his female peers.

Aki and his companion were ‘just friends,’ so to speak, and not a couple. However, Aki planned to change that today. He had recently realized that the girl of his dreams was, all along, the best friend that he went to for advice when he had trouble with his old girlfriends. How easily people overlooked the ones right in front of them, Aki mused.

“Sayuri…” he started. “Would—“

Aki had spoken too quietly. Sayuri had not heard him, and was indeed waving at a handsome young man halfway across the café.

“Hey! Cole! Come sit over here!” Sayuri called, drawing a chair.

“Wha—“ said Aki.

The young man made his way through the maze of tables with surprising speed. He was tall, tattooed, and looked like a marble statue, as though a Renaissance sculptor had mistaken his anime fan art for his pre-sculpture sketches. Someone opened the door and the resulting breeze seemed to blow his flowing silver hair around in slow motion. The sparkling January light from their window projected corresponding sparkles around him.
Altogether, he looked like there should have been a heavenly choir following him around singing whenever he made an entrance.
Aki frowned.

“Aki? This is Nicolas Sinclair,” Sayuri said, beaming.

“Please, call me Cole,” he said, nodding imperiously. “I am pleased to meet you.”

They shook hands, squeezing as hard as they could. Or rather, Cole seized Aki’s hand by the fingers and tried to crush them in an iron grip. Aki tried to squeeze back, but the finger-grip Cole had chosen made it impossible. After a few more seconds of glaring at each other and almost declaring a thumb war, Cole jerked his hand away and took his seat with the air of a king ascending to the throne.

Aki forced a smile.

“So, Sayuri, is it?” Cole asked. “Who’s your boyfriend?”

“We’re just friends,” said Sayuri. Aki scowled into his cup.

“Oh. You guys go to Dirk Malky High?”

“Yes, why?”

“I,” said Cole, drawing himself up. “Am getting transferred there.”

Aki choked on his drink. Cole took the opportunity to whack him hard on the back under the pretense of helping him.

“Ooh! Cool!” Sayuri said obliviously. “So we can hang out at school together!”

Aki retreated into the background to nurse his sore throat and back and listen in silence. His fears were soon confirmed: Cole was rich, played bass guitar in his band, and often mentioned that he was single. He also had rock-hard abs, revealed as he took his shirt off to show Sayuri the rest of his tattoo.

An increasingly large part of Aki’s mind wanted to order a scalding-hot coffee and hurl it in Cole’s face. He was working out the particulars of this plan when Cole suddenly looked at his (very expensive) watch, stood up, announced that it was getting late, and strode away into the sunset.

A few minutes later, Sayuri confessed that it was getting boring, and went home.

Aki stayed and sipped his cold coffee angrily, brooding over the situation long after Sayuri had left.

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Part Two: School

School. It was a bastion of knowledge, a sanctuary for the bored and masochistic. With every bell, the students poured out of their classrooms, cramming themselves into the hallways, a student version of the rush-hour traffic they would endure as adults.

Your average school cafeteria is designed to cram as many people in it as possible while simultaneously convincing the local authorities that it is not a fire hazard. The comfort of the students does not enter into the equation at all.

Dirk Malky High School’s cafeteria at lunchtime was filthy, deafening, and crowded. A horde of freshmen ran past, nearly knocking Aki over. Someone stepped on a ketchup packet on the floor, spattering his shoe with processed tomatoes. He sighed, found his usual seat in the cafeteria, and began unpacking his lunch. The person sitting next to him jammed her bony elbow into his side. The person on the other side appeared to have a nasty cold, which he demonstrated by sneezing on Aki’s sandwich.

This had two consequences, the first being ‘Aki was pissed off (well, more pissed off)’ and the second being ‘Aki noticed that those girls who usually sat near him, swooning, were not there.’

This prompted a quick search around the room. He spotted Sayuri trying to find a seat, and waved at her. She didn’t see him, and sat down across from someone with shiny gray hair.

“COOOLE!” Aki screamed melodramatically.

Heads swiveled as the entire cafeteria fixed its collective stare on Aki. Silence, then a rush of sound as everyone turned back to their lunches, laughing. The crowd soon lost interest, with the exception of Cole, who was frowning at him.

“What do you want?” he asked lazily.

Aki thought for a while, trying to put his feelings into words that were not forbidden at school, but soon gave up. Instead, he turned to Sayuri.

“Sayuri! Do you want to go out with me?”

Cole scowled. Sayuri tapped her fingers on the table, as she always did when she needed to think about something.

Aki heard a lot of giggling, gasping, and muttering. He realized that the source of the noise was the pack of girls who used to fawn over him.

“Hey, didn’t you use to fawn over me?” he queried.

“Cole’s better than you. He’s in a band. You’re cute and all, but mostly you just sit there and mutter to yourself,” one of Aki’s ex-girlfriends complained.

“Wait!” said Cole. “Sayuri, will you go out with me?”

“Hm,” Sayuri said. “I don’t know, I have to think about it…”

There was a long pause as she weighed her choices. She examined her fingernails. Then she scratched her nose. Aki and Cole glared at each other. Sayuri twiddled her thumbs. The bell rang.

“Okay, I’ll give you until five to convince me,” Sayuri said. “I’ll see you at the café! Whoever impresses me the most wins!”

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Part Three: Angst

Aki shuffled down the grimy street, hands tucked into his pockets.

“There is nobody who can understand what I now endure,” he angsted. “Oh, what shall I do now? Cole is rich, Cole is handsome, Cole is twice the chick magnet I am. Ah, love. Sweetest of human emotions, and yet unrequited love is truly the pinnacle of human suffering. Oh, how I suffer for want of love!”

“I’m homeless and hungry and cold and it’s starting to snow and I lost my leg in the war and I haven’t eaten in four days,” remarked a nearby hobo.

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Part Four: Big Climatic Romancy Showdown of Ultimate Destiny (Warning: Ridiculous.)

Aki walked around having numerous Lovelorn Tramp Adventures, such as climbing a fence to steal a rose from a private garden and writing poetry on diner napkins, angsting all the while. To spare the reader, we shall now employ the literary trick of skipping forward a few hours.

We open this new scene in media res:

“She’s mine!” Cole asserted.
“No she’s not, she’s mine, I got there first!” Aki retorted.
“Camper!”
“Killstealer!”
“Noob!” Cole yelled, messing up Aki’s hair.
“Argh! Not the hair! You… old person!”
“I was born with gray hair, because I’m so special!”
“No, you aren’t, you… mouth-breather!”
“Hedgehog-licker!”
“Toilet-water-drinker!”
“Satirist!”
“Leper!”
“Dead bee!”
“Guy who keeps biscuits in his mouth until they dissolve into mush without any chewing!”
“Grr! There is only one way to resolve this!”
“Yes! We must fight to the death!”

They pulled ridiculously large swords out of nowhere.
“SHING!” went the sword-drawing sound effect. “PING!” went the light reflected from the blades.
Exciting music played out of nowhere as our protagonists posed dramatically. Then they bowed to the four cardinal directions. Then they bowed to the ordinal directions, in case they felt left out. Then they took a break.

“These little French biscuits are delicious,” said Aki.

They stood up and daintily wiped their mouths with the corners of napkins.

“Now that we are refreshed, we must continue with the fighting to the death!” exclaimed Cole.

“Oh!” said Sayuri. “I am flattered by your attentions! However, I do not want either of you to die! Whatever shall I do?” she wailed, running around in a circle.

Aki and Cole bowed to the cardinal directions again, cleared their throats, stepped back, and, on the count of three, tossed their swords at each other.

Each speared the other through the heart.

“Dammit.” Aki commented as he fell over.

“Oh no! They’re both dead and it’s all my fault for being so attractive!” Sayuri said. “Oh, why, why am I so hot? It’s such a curse! Waaah!”

She pulled Aki’s sword out of Cole’s rib cage and, while trying not to get blood on her new clothes, plunged the sword into her ample bosom.

“And so, I die!” she wailed, writhing in pain.

There was a heavy silence, disturbed only by the dramatic music piping out of nowhere.

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Part Five: Big Climatic Romancy Showdown of Ultimate Destiny Continued

Then our three protagonists bounced back up, perfectly fine and still alive. Their gaping chest wounds had somehow disappeared and, much to Sayuri’s joy, their clothes were undamaged.

“Okay, so that didn’t work,” Aki said. “Now, Sayuri, I will prove my adoration… by giving you a rose! Symbol of my undying love!”

“You know, flowers wither in a few days. Also, they’re the severed genitalia of plants. Very romantic symbolism there.” Cole commented.

“Shut up,” Aki retorted, shoving the rose into Sayuri’s hands.

“Ow! A thorn! Aah, I’m bleeding!” said Sayuri. “Also, did I mention that I was allergic to pollen?” she added, sneezing violently.

The violent sneeze happened to dislodge a small insect that had previously been content to stay inside the rose.

“Eek! It’s crawling up my arm! Get it off!” She managed to dislocate the bug by flailing her arm wildly. Aki stepped forward and nobly vanquished the insect with his shoe. Sadly, the rose perished in the struggle.

Cole smirked and presented Sayuri with a box of chocolates.

“Ooh! I love chocolate!” she squealed.

“No! Wait! Now, I shall read this love poem I wrote!” Aki yelled. He pulled a crumpled napkin out of his pocket, smoothed it out, and cleared his throat.

“My love for you is like a rose,” he read. “Threatened by the
Resentful chill of bitter winter frost. With his
Arrival, gray-haired—“ (Cole scowled.) “—Jack Frost steals away the joy
And color that I cherish. Oh cruel destiny!
Alas! Unless the warmth of spring—“

“Enough! That was horrible!” Cole said. “Also, too many thinly-veiled metaphors!”

Aki flipped his napkin over and began to read a second poem.

“Oh, Sayuri, how my young heart loves thee!
Your ebon hair, your sparkling eyes—“

“Enough, enough!” Cole said. “Now, Suzuki or whatever your name is, let me show you how love poetry is really done.”

He snapped his fingers, and his band stepped out of the shadows. He pulled his guitar out of nowhere, and began to play. “’Oh, Sakura, or whatever your name is, you’re really hot!'" the lead singer read from his script. "'You don’t have disgusting acne everywhere and your extremities are gangrene-free! You have breasts and your breath does not smell terrible!’”

“Oh, wow, you have a band!” Sayuri squealed, jumping into Cole’s arms while he was still holding his guitar, and subsequently knocking him into a wall. “I love you! Please be mine!”

Cole gave a thumbs-up as they started to kiss each other loudly and wetly.

“But what about me?” Aki whined. “I shou— Oh, hey there, Band Groupie Chick! You’re really hot! Are you single?”

“Weren’t you going after that girl?” she asked. “Sayuri?”

“Sayuri who?”

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THE FRIGGIN END. HAPPY ENDING FOR ALL.