#Reprieve - 1

Honey hates to admit it.

But the cake is good.

Misha smugly watches from behind the Reverie Tea counter, his chin in his hand and his elbow lazily resting on the tabletop.

Honey strains not to make a face.

“So?” He asks.

The sugary bit of cake slides down her throat.

“Too much frosting,” She lies.

Misha laughs and while he looks away, Honey sneaks another bite of her taro and red bean slice of goodness. It really is good, but her pride takes priority.

He shakes his head and turns back to the whipped cream he was making earlier, just before Honey arrived and he gave her a complimentary slice of Reverie Tea’s new dessert. The shop owner had been experimenting with some trendy recipes in order to bring in more customers.

Hopefully customers other than the clique of girls who occupy two different tables and only order water. They holler noisily at some joke that deserves less than a pity laugh.

Other than these brainless loudmouths, Honey doesn’t think she’d ever seen any other customers in Reverie Tea.

She stabs at her cake.

Again, like the previous time she came to this cafe, she’s not quite sure why she’s here.

It’s just the two of them today. Elias is at cram school and Gray was invited to a sleepover at a classmate's house (why Misha tells her all this, she doesn’t know).

He asked her to stop by the cafe after school today and for some reason, she listened. Maybe she felt obligated after the extra game of tic-tac-toe. Or the butter cookie he leaves on her desk. Or when he asked if she was alright.

No one at Vainglory had ever done things like this.

Her head’s been muddled ever since their excursion to the Midnight Fights. Charlotte occupies her thoughts more than she’d like.

Even when the pale blonde snake is out of her life, she plagues Honey in her dreams.

Honey chews her cake with a little more aggression than necessary.

After scrolling through her profile on Sinstagram for the fourth time, she notices Misha has stopped whisking. Going suddenly quiet. He turns his head just enough so that Honey can see the outline of his profile, made up of all sharp edges and angular features.

“Honey, forget about The Midnight-”

“No.” She says curtly, fork driving into the little porcelain plate. Not looking up from her phone.

His shoulders drop abruptly with a sigh.

Honey’s not about to be lectured again, not by this dessert loving idiot. Seeing Charlotte so soon, seeing her cry those fake tears like the attention whore she was, made her insides burn. Honey breathed embers and spat fire every time she hears “Honey, dear” whispered in the back of her memories.

She would not let Charlotte have this.

The next time Honey sees Charlotte, Charlotte will be groveling in her own self pity. 

The girls in the corner of the cafe bark at each other like dogs passing in a park.

Misha sets aside his bowl and faces her, setting both hands on the counter as if it was supporting all his weight. He looks at her bandaged knuckles and the patch on her forehead, where she had been cut.

Honey squirms under his gaze.

He sighs again, like an old man. “Alright fine, then at least let Elias and me help you.”

Her nose scrunches.

She got what she needed from these losers, why would she keep them around? Why would they want to stick around?

Annoyingly, he seems to have read her mind.

“You’ll want to keep us around because we have experience and info.” He brushes a hand through his hair, feeling for Gray’s clip holding back some black strands.

“Also you can’t do this alone.”

Honey snorts. “I just need to fight don’t I? Doesn’t seem that difficult.”

There’s a glint in Misha’s eye.

“Did you know that fighting in the warehouse instead of on the streets has its advantages?”

Honey didn’t know that.

Alright.

She sets down her fork, crosses her arms over her chest, and falls back against the worn out chair, inviting him to continue. He smirks.

“The fights at the warehouse are mainly for the audience, you don’t have to fight there, but it does have its benefits. The warehouse has rules, like one-on-one fights only. Anywhere else you might have to fight a top Ranker and their little gang. Not to mention the betting pools, like when we went, you can make some serious money there.”

Misha picks back up his bowl of whipped cream and keeps talking.

“I know who The King is, Joshua, but the other 4 I’ve never encountered before. Fortunately,”

Misha holds up the whisk and points it at Honey.

She wants to snatch it from his hand and break it over her knee.

“Elias has ‘connections or just people willing to give up information because he’s so pretty,” Misha laughs, “So the 4 elites you’ll have to fight are:

CapeCom, The Rook-”

Honey gives him an incredulous look, “CapeCom? What the hell kind of name is that?”

“Ring names, don’t interrupt,”

Her lips purse together, but she stays quiet.

“CapeCom, The Rook,

Drunken Serpent, The Knight,

Vogue, The Bishop,

And the hooded mystery, The Queen.”

Well, great. They all sounded like a bunch of pathetic fools who took this game a little too seriously. She really couldn’t care what their names were as long as she would be the last one standing. Titles meant nothing if they had no backbone to keep it.

“The hooded mystery?” Honey raises an eyebrow.

“He shows up at The Midnight Fights the least, but I heard he rose the ranks pretty fast. According to Elias’ sources, he’s just as tough as The King.”

Honey huffs, unimpressed. Only 5 fights until she could become King, her plans were now at a tangible distance.

“So?” Misha waits expectantly.

She glares indifferently back, her plate is clean and his stupid grin grows wider.

“If Elias is getting all the info, why do I need you?”

Misha scoops all the whipped cream into a piping bag, rolling his eyes playfully as he does so. He’s about to reason with her and she’d be better off leaving, but Honey still can’t figure out why she stays.

“You need me to train you,” He says as a matter of factly.

Right, like she was going to take orders from Misha.

“You’re here to train me?” Honey snorts, sitting upright again, “I’m not some gullible guinea pig that you can experiment your wannabe ‘teaching career’ on.”

“Honey, face it, you’re reckless and-”

The school girls’ chatter drowns out Misha’s voice. They’re throwing straw wrappers and napkins at each other like they own the place, not caring to pick up their mess or apologize. One girl with split ends and a gap between her teeth knocks over her glass of water.

It makes a puddle on the floor. Every time one of them steps in it, the puddle spreads.

Misha, exasperated, opens his mouth to speak.

Honey beats him to it.

“Hey, irrelevant pieces of trash,”

Their heads whip around to the insult, suddenly void of their airheaded smiles and idiotic cackles. Eyes narrowed on Honey and her luxurious blonde hair, which she tosses effortlessly over her shoulder. It shimmers in the dim cafe lighting.

For some reason, it sends chills down their spines.

Honey doesn’t really have it in her to keep up any sort of front today, she got too used to letting her real personality out at Godforsaken High.

It’s not like they treat her differently either way.

“I’m trying to have a conversation here, so get the hell out or shut the hell up. Not like those mouths of yours have anything worth hearing anyway.”

They gape.

There’s a disconnect between Honey’s face and her words and for a moment, it doesn’t dawn on them that this colorful dolled-up girl said it until her eyes look up from examining her nails.

Fiercely aggressive.

“Excuse me?!” The girl with the damaged hair speaks up, but she’s slowly making her way to the door as if to plan her quick escape. Her friends are right behind her, leaving their mess and the water dripping from the table.

Absolutely disgusting.

Honey doesn’t even get up from her chair. Her foot blocks their path and since the store is so small, they’d have to either clamber over a table or step over Honey’s foot to get to the door.

“You’re old enough to clean up after yourselves right? Or do you need an adult?”

Honey’s in some sort of a mood today. Her outstretched leg displays a violent story told by scrapes and bruises and the girls nervously bite their cheeks, debating whether they should test her temper.

Before things get out of hand, Misha reaches over the countertop and drags Honey’s chair backward. The escape path is open again.

Misha speaks with a tight smile.

“The tables are for paying customers, if you’re thinking of staying please purchase one of our baked goods.”

They don’t waste any more time rushing for the door, hurriedly packing their things before Honey decides she’ll make the effort to stand up. Mumbling, “crazy freaks” on their way out.

Misha sighs for the third time and Honey thinks he might be really going senile. Taking a towel from behind the counter he goes to wipe up the mess they’ve left behind.

“This is exactly what I meant!” 

He jabs an accusatory towel at her before slapping it down on the sodden table. “You just rush into things headfirst, and although that might have worked with Ben the Boulder and his little followers, you try that with the elite 4 Rankers? That’s not gonna work.”

Honey kicks her chair back in place, Misha had pulled it all the way up against the counter and took her along with it.

“Oh, so what? We have a training montage where you teach me to be more cautious?”

She sounds bitter. Her tone was like the crack of a whip, a snap at the end of every word that made her nearly unapproachable. She didn’t have much luck controlling it so she doesn’t bother sometimes.

Misha laughs, table already almost completely dry.

“Something like that,” He collects the water cups and gives her a smile that reeks of mischief. “I have a plan.”

Honey’s not looking forward to whatever his little schemes turned out to be. She tries to picture him coaching her around a racetrack perhaps, both of them dressed in tacky jumpsuits and headbands.

She shudders.

And yet, although she knows she hates having to collaborate in a group effort, things were always easier done alone, Honey buries a faint hint of eagerness that flashes across her thoughts before she can properly acknowledge it.

She can leave without saying another word, she should leave without saying another word.

Instead, Honey asks, “Plan?”

“Are you free this weekend?”