Her Day Book

On her way to the elevator, Mikan stopped at one of the doors farthest from hers, and put a sticky note on the door.

'Koko, going out of town for a while. You know what to do.' Before pressing the down button for the elevator, she walked back to the door and drew a small puppy's head on the note.

Mikan smiled to herself and turned to the elevator. Before even getting the chance to reach for the down button, the elevator doors opened and revealed a red balloon tied to the silver railings inside, with a note attached to it.

She looked around and then, after seeing the absence of any other breathing creature, she entered the elevator and took the note tied to the balloon.

'Good morning, sunshine. Flight isn't 'til 2PM. Go take a walk or something.'

She recognized the handwriting at once. She smiled, tied the balloon to her wrist and put the note in between the pages of her notebook.

9. Surprises
10. Balloons
11. Handwritten notes — they're just more meaningful than emails and printed ones, don't you think?

She pressed G on the elevator and waited for the quick ride to halt. The elevator made a high dinging sound and opened its doors to a small empty lobby.

Mikan stepped out of the elevator and made her way out of the building. On the other side of the glass doors, she could have sworn she saw a familiar man walk past really quickly. She ran to the door and pushed it gently, just enough to be able to stick her head out and look outside both ways. She saw no familiar face, except for the security guard standing to the left of the glass doors.

She shrugged it off and made her way to wherever her feet felt like taking her. She looked straight ahead and took in the moist morning air.

12. Fresh morning air
13. The wind against my face

Mikan continued walking and took sight of a small café in the corner of the street. Maybe that's where her feet felt like going.

She entered to find it almost empty, but the atmosphere was warm and welcoming as opposed to outside. She went straight to the counter where the barista nicely asked for her order.

14. Being first in line
15. Friendly, happy baristas

"A croissant and a hot chocolate, please," Mikan said, getting her ten dollar bill ready.

"Would you like some butter and jam for your croissant?" the barista asked.

"Just some butter would be great, thanks," Mikan replied. She paid for it, took her change and her receipt and went on to look for a seat. Despite how early it was, she found the place almost full, with only the lonely wooden tables and chairs in the center, which she hated sitting on; so she went back outside and took a seat on one of the cushioned metal chairs under an umbrella.

16. The warm morning breeze.
17. When the sun comes out from behind the clouds after the rain.

She took a newspaper from the magazine rack beside her table and flipped to the comics immediately.

18. Comics. Peanuts, to be more specific.

While she found herself laughing at Snoopy's mental sarcasm towards Charlie and Sally Brown, a waiter came out through the glass doors and placed her cup of hot chocolate and her croissant (with a pack of butter sitting on the side of the plate) across the table, away from the newspaper, trying not to disturb Mikan from her solitary giggling. He smiled at her and took the empty tray back inside.

19. Laughing alone in public and not having people judge you.
20. Friendly waiters/waitresses.

Mikan folded the newspaper and put it back where she'd taken it earlier. She took a sip from her hot chocolate, hoping it wasn't too hot to burn her tongue.

"Ow!" Mikan made a face. "Of course it was hot. What were you thinking?" She said to herself and rolled her eyes, and bitterly chuckled at her own stupidity. But deep inside, she was actually secretly thankful she hadn't spit her drink out.

She wiped the small tears from her eyes that the sudden heat had forced out of her, and turned to devour her croissant instead. Right when she took the butter knife, her phone beeped and vibrated. After successfully rummaging through her bag to find it, she slid her finger across the screen to see who or what had intruded on her trying to consume the beautiful, warm croissant.

"Oh," she set her knife down on the plate slowly after seeing whom the message was from.

'Flight is postponed to 11:30. Find something to eat up some time. I'll see you later.'

"Great," Mikan threw her phone back into her bag and pushed herself back to the chair's backrest. She took her phone again to check the time and threw it into her bag once more. "What on Earth am I supposed to do for two hours?" She pouted.

Mikan sat up again and decided to finally eat her croissant.

Minutes after she'd finished, she remembered about the hot chocolate she'd temporarily disregarded earlier. She drank it slowly—this time, without burning her tongue—hoping every sip she took would speed up time and that by the time the cup was empty, two and a half hours would have passed, with just enough time for her to get to the airport to go to some place she didn't even know. But alas, every sip only took a few small seconds, and when she'd finished—with a few quick glances to her phone and frequent peeps into the café's window in between short sips—only half an hour had passed.

21. Hot drinks with the perfect temperature.

She gave a heavy sigh. 'What to do for another two hours?'

She looked around and glanced at every other person sitting outside the café with her, longing for sudden, miraculous ideas that would get her out of two hours of absolute nothingness. Disappointed that the best thing she laid eyes on was a baby who found it in her clueless heart to smile back at her, she leaned back on her chair, hopeless.

22. Mutual smiling with a stranger's baby (as creepy as that may sound)

Then Mikan looked beyond her fellow café early birds. She saw the city's tall buildings, businessmen rushing to work, buses and cars moving as fast as the speed limit permitted them to. She looked further and saw children hopping out of their school bus to get to school. Even further than that, she saw a distant park with its grass and swings damp with morning dew. And even more distant, she saw the ocean.

And then she knew exactly what she wanted to do for the next two hours.

To be continued…

Author's Notes: Finally came around to updating this. Well, it's May Madness, so I had to get these fingers typing to make up for my zero activity for last year's madness for the month of May. [:

You might want to give a review. It lives up to one of the things on my list of things that make me happy. [;

Ridley Silverlake