This world is inhabited by creatures that we call pokemon. People and pokemon live together by supporting each other, but now the scourge threatens the safety of the entire region. Kohaku has become a dangerous place, where children stay at home and only brave souls go adventuring.
Welcome to KOHAKU. Come for the nightmares. Stay for the tea and crumpets.
The season is SUMMER. It is easy for survivors to forage for food from the land, as there are entire abandoned farms ready for harvest. On the downside, you can smell the corpses.
swarms
GRAND OPENING !
Welcome to KOHAKU REGION's grand opening! If you're interested in joining, come check out our grand opening giveaway!
even as mordecai stirred his drink, J stared at it and didn't know if he ought to stir, or to wait until it all disappeared before he started drinking. "i agree," he said, before dunking his own spoon in the beverage and stirring it. the skarmory had, by then, morphed into something that looked like an aerodactyl.
J lifted the mug to his mouth and took a sip. the drink was still warm, but perhaps a little too sweet for his liking. maybe they didn't use dark chocolate. he said nothing, and set the mug back down on the dainty table.
"How is it?" Mordecai asked, after he'd taken a sip of his own cappuccino. It wasn't particularly bitter, in fact, was a little more on the sweet side. He wondered if everything was served sweeter than usual here. The drink's creaminess, on the other hand, was to Mordecai's approval.
His eye studied J's face, searching for a sign on what the other man felt about his own warm beverage. There was nothing to pick up on from J's face. So he asked another question of, "Are you hungry? I think they serve pastries here too."
not wanting to offend, J said, "okay." as if intending to prove his point, he lifted it to his mouth and took another sip of the hot liquid. still too sweet for his liking. he wondered if adding some bitter powder to it would create a more palatable beverage.
Mordecai's eyes still could not read any of J's expressions. He would have to trust the trainer.
He glanced back over the simple, yet elegantly decorated menu. Its laminated papers were white with black, cursive ink. Mordecai flipped through the little booklet. "Chocolate éclairs, custard tarts, strawberry tarts, cannoli, carrot cake, cheese cake..." He paused for a moment to glance up at J. "There's quite a few, unless you were looking for something specific?" Briefly, he wondered why J hadn't touched his menu and was asking him for all the food items and beverages options. It was a little suspicious, but he didn't want to insult the other either.
"Do you like chocolate? I think the éclairs might be nice."
J listened to the items being read off the menu, and figured that none of them interested him. he figured that carrot cake might be nice, but he didn't want to chance the potential sweetness of the pastries.
he wasn't particularly fond of chocolate, either. he'd read somewhere that they provided all the nutrients the human body needed in a cup of drink, and that was why he drank solely hot cocoa.
"not particularly. either a strawberry tart or carrot cake for me."
"Carrot cake sounds good, actually," Mordecai said with a thoughtful nod. Before he could wave the waiter(?) over, the staff member had already appeared by the table's side.
"Sirs?" the person asked, to which Mordecai pointed at a specific item on the menu.
"Two carrot cakes, if you could," he said. The staff member nodded, then hurried away to retrieve the matching pastries. Mordecai, meanwhile, took it upon himself to attempt some generated smalltalk. "Where did you come from then, J?" he asked. He also wondered if J was short for anything, but did not pry any further.
Part of him wondered if they sold the cakes in Pokémon forms here.
J didn't know where he came from -- or at least, that's how the story went. "no idea," said the trainer, shrugging slightly as he stirred the contents of his mug. by now, the froth had disappeared into nothing; all that was left was a flat surface of chocolate and the occasional floating choco chip.
"i don't remember anything about my past."
a sip of beverage, and all was awkwardly quiet until the carrot cakes returned.
J watched the buneary cake and briefly mused over the fact if it ought to even be eaten. he could technically snap a photo of it with his c-gear and post it on some social network, but he decided against it. he was not a giggly schoolgirl.
"not really, no."
the fork went straight into the buneary's face and J divided it into halves and quarters.
As an aside, Mordecai had known plenty of giggly schoolboys who spent all their time snapping away photographs of foods with filters, but he had a feeling that J was not a giggly schoolboy either.
To each his own, he supposed.
"Fair enough," Mordecai said.
He chose to slice small pieces off the Buneary's ears and lift them to his mouth as opposed to dividing it up first. In actuality, he was happy with admiring a bit of the café's handiwork.
J had less regard for the buneary's face than he had for the café's selection of music. it was mostly piano pieces that he had heard before in some form or shape; nothing particularly outstanding. he asked for a glass of water as the hot chocolate was starting to get unbearably sweet as he reached the bottom of his mug.
while the waiter (?) busied themselves, he speared a slice of buneary cheek and consumed it in silence.
If anything, J was incredibly efficient with the method he chose to eat away at his piece of Buneary carrot cake. Each slice that he sheared off was carefully measured and approximately the same thickness as the previous one. Mordecai tried not to give it too much thought.
It was strange, finding a place so peaceful in a city like Nerio that never slept.
He took another sip of the cappuccino, draining the rounded ceramic cup of its contents. It was sweet as well, but not as unbearable as J's hot cocoa may have been. The bitterness of the coffee did a nice job with balancing it out.
"Do you usually come to places like this?" Mordecai asked J.
J shook his head. "no," he said, preferring the technicality of a vending machine. he didn't need to read or ask questions; all he had to do was look at the pictures and pick whatever looked good. "vending machines are usually more convenient."
Yeah, J didn't seem like the type of person to stop by coffee shops. To be fair, Mordecai often preferred brewing his own warm drinks and eating his own cooked food, but an outing once in awhile never hurt. So he nodded in agreement with J's statement. "Yes, they're placed wherever a person may need them. It's inconvenient to have to always rush back to a city or a town to grab something to eat when there isn't one around or if you happen to run out of food on the road."
"They do a good job at showing an honest image of what you're paying for too."
