There are a handful things that good stories have. Things which, sadly, this throw away story lacks. But there is something barely there lurking beneath the glossy, nostalgic veneer of of Kris' back story. Something not spoken of, but rather hidden away in a small, delicate story that Kris clutches tightly to his chest.

A story that Kris both despises and cherishes. A story he takes out in those moments when he's alone and dusts it off as he reads it over, tormenting himself with it as he reminds himself that for a story such as the one he holds so close to his chest there is no hope of a happy ending. Life is no fairytale and very few stories ended in anything other than hertache penned by the calouse hand of reality.

However Kris' constant efforts to harden his heart and rip it free of the story that hurts it, - to even deny the existance of such a story - he only strengthens the story's grip on his very being, until everything causes him pain.

It is the pain that this small hidden story causes in his chest that forces Kris pause as he looks at the digital screen by his hand. 

A tall Columbian blend with creamer instead of milk. A straight forward if not unusual order. But it betrays the one who ordered it.

It barely takes a sweeping glance of the cafe for Kris to spot him, Huang Zi Tao, the boy he once called Da Xiong Tao, surrounded by a group of friends, some of whom Kris recognises as friends of his own, or at least he still thinks they're friends. He can't be sure anymore when its been months since he's seen any of them and not one of them thought to grace him with a passing 'hello'. None of them, even the antagonist of this story, has noticed Kris. He has simply bled into the noise of this story's atmospheric background.

A tap on the shoulder and a half joking request to come back to earth, pulls Kris from his reverie. Internally scolding himself for letting the arrival of a friend throw off his rhythm, he sets about filling the order. Yet despite his efforts to keep his mind on the job he cannot help sideglancing at the yellowed pages that have fallen open in his chest. The ink is fading and the pages fraying - he's thumbed over them more times than he would care to admit, even scrawlled across the pages in a feeble attempt to change the story - but the moments and memories they preserve are still as fresh and vivid as the day they were penned.

The story calls to him, begs him to indulge in the fantasy which he has long denied himself. It whispers softly of small touches and sidelong glances, of unspoken promises and longing years old, of innocent feelings turned dangerous, of a friend held at arms length instead of embraced. A friend who now returns the unseen distance Kris put between them with a few paces back of his own. A distance that pains Kris more with each day he sees him and is pained by a longing for the closeness they once had.

The friendship they maintain now little more than a painted screen, hiding the space that has grown between them.

As he dusts the Columbian blend with a fine coat of cocoa, just the way Huang Zi Tao likes it, Kris looks up ready to pass the drink on to Lay. But the flirtatious waiter is otherwise occupied with taking the order of an equally flirtatious young man with a mischeivous smile. Suho, is busy at the counter, and from the twitch in his hand on the verge of wringing the neck of a pair of young men, who've changed their order atleast five times.

This leaves Kris to take the coffee out, unless he waits for Lay to finish. But that is unlikely to be anytime soon. The young man's mischevious smile seems to have made Lay forget that he's working and led him to take up the empty seat across from the blonde siren. Suho, of course. too distracted to notice. Kris has no choice but to force the little leather bound in his chest shut, snap on the lock and take the order over.

It has been awhile since Kris has had to play waiter and he remembers why he hates it the moment he steps out from behind the counter, tray loaded up with orders. A table of young women to his left noticably quiets as he weaves his way through the tables. He can feel their eyes burning into the back of his neck as he draws closer to Huang Zi Tao's table. In his accute awareness of the table of women eyeing him over Kris fails to see the duffel bangs carelessly dropped at someone's feet.

His feet snag in the vinyl handles, his balance thrown of as he tries gracelessly to keep his feet, tray flying from his hand. It takes little more than a moment for the whole disaster to come to an end and when Kris finally manages to right himself his finds himself face to face with a shocked, coffee soaked, Huang Zi Tao.

It is here in this story that the last of the cogs falls into place, each tooth a perfect fit to the teeth of the cogs before it. Now the unseen engine that drives all stories can come to life and turn the gears of this throw away story to its , to its end as protagnoist and antagonist meet. As conflict reaches its flash point and tension pulled too tight finally snaps, leaving everything to unravel and ignite as this story carenes to yet another arbitary moment in time that will be labelled the end.