Fireworks in Her Tea by KD Heart

Chapter 1

Wrote this on New Year's. You can read it as a sequel to 'Strangers in a Teashop' or take it on its own.

Fireworks in Her Tea

They were staying at a table by the window while fireworks bloomed on the midnight sky.

She was looking up at the display, her eyes wide and filled with child-like glee. They were seconds into the new year and she was full of hope for the future. The past few months had been hecktic and exciting - she was finally on her own, with her own life, away from her family, a new job and the past occasionally joining her for tea. A small smile bloomed on her face in time with an explosion of red and green stars lighting up the sky.

He watched the stars explode in her cup of tea and thought about the past - the hunderds of years it had taken him to get there, that gentle Autumn afternoon when he first saw her sitting by the window, sipping her tea and grading papers, that cold morning when he'd finally gave in and joined her. He had thought of her as an impossible and distant future. Even when he'd realized that this was actually her time, he still didn't believe it would be as easy as sitting down at her table. Now, he wasn't sure where this was going.

They rarely talked beyond deciding what they were going to drink - they always chose together, maybe they thought they could compare impressions later - but they had become goon enough at reading each other. She was a teacher. High school, History - what else could she do? He'd seen her grade papers on many of their encounters. Maybe she whished none of her students were going through what she had at their age. He hoped so too. He couldn't bate the thought of another youkai being confronted with teenagers from the future and their crazy views of the world... or horribly revealing high school uniforms.

He wrote. She'd seen him when he wasn't expecting here to turn up and one of the waiters had asked her once if she was his muse. The thought amused her, but he had so many more things to write about that had nothing to do with her. He liked her. At least, she thought he did, or he wouldn't come here every day and sat at the same table. That thought scared her a bit, but not as much as the thought that she maybe liked him back - she had stopped going anywhere else, knowing that he would be here, waiting for her.

But they didn't talk about themselves. They didn't talk.

"Happy New Year!" she said, turning her attention back to him.

He smiled in return and raised his cup in a toast. "To the present?" he offered.

"To the present!" she agreed, raising her own cup.

As the cups chinked toghether, a new shower of sparks went off in the sky and in the milky surface of their drinks.