“Excuse me, miss. Your order’s here.”

Her gaze promptly left the uninterestingly scientific words of the thick book on top of her circular wooden table, the same table from last week, then went to the unreadable face of the sky blue haired waiter standing still just beside her. She found herself staring into those expressionless eyes for a moment too long, and only realized it when he blinked once then twice a second later. Heat rushed to her cheeks as she immediately averted her eyes from those unreadable ones and took the book off of her table and into her messenger bag to give him some space to place her coffee and cake.

Last week, she did tell herself to talk to him, but the words she needed to say to convey her thoughts and gratitude never really crossed her mind.

She held her breath as he steadily placed her cup of latte macchiato at the center of the table with the soft yet oddly pleasant clatter of the ceramic cup and its small plate. Running out of time to think of something to say which would not be too friendly or too awkward, her eyes followed his fair-skinned fingers noiselessly setting down the slice of cake just beside the coffee as her mind frantically raced through different phrases and conversation starters she’s heard and read. None of them came as appropriate as she wanted it to be. Her writer self scolded her current self for her current predicament. 

It wasn't like she could just talk to him about last week's incident; he was still a stranger who could be uncomfortable with people talking to him out of the blue, even if that didn't make sense as he's also a waiter.

The metallic fork was already placed on a few sheets of tissues when he straightened up his stance, his circular plastic tray in his left hand's grasp. She immediately sat straight, her mind as blank as his expression. Ah, screw it, she thought as a deep breath left her chest, her eyes failing to look at him even with her wavering conviction. "Um..."

"Is there anything else I can do for you?" he asked, his tone as flat and polite as always. She stiffened—she knew he sensed her evident unease—until, through his generic question, she finally found the words she was to use. She squinted discretely to read the characters embedded on his plastic nameplate before she looked at him straight in the eye in hopes that it would give him a hint that what she was to say held more meaning than it usually did.

"Thank you very much, Kuroko-san. I really appreciate it."