When the waiter left, we all sat there, talking about random things. Rennio was the first to bring up the pokémon facts on the table, asking if there were any about his species. I looked over the table, seeing that apparently, the legendary ho-oh could revive dead people and pokémon, while the rare bird called skarmory could replenish its steel feathers by itself. There were other etchings, but these particularly stood out to me, showing that there was always a second chance in life. I didn’t see anything about the electric-type, and I told him that. He looked disappointed.
“Hey, now,” Ezrem said. Though he was burned by the neck, his voice sounded normal, and I was sure everyone was thankful for that. “Let’s all think about the cupcakes. I want to order so many cupcakes so that I can eat until my internal organs start a revolution and leave.”
“Haven’t they already done that? Kind of, anyway,” Kuiora said, though she covered her mouth as soon as she said it. “Sorry,” she said, her voice muffled.
Ezrem blanched. “Yes, I suppose they have. Darn it,” he said, quickly returning to his cheery self. “I guess I’ll have to settle for one cupcake.”
“Cupcakes aren’t healthy for you, anyway,” Sai said.
“So? Cake isn’t any better. I say we still should have gotten a cake somehow. We could have split it into parts, and then—”
“And then you could have conned everyone into give you their parts?” Senori said, interrupting him with a grin.
“Yes. You get me, Senori. I am so lucky to have someone who knows me as fantastically as you do,” Ezrem said sarcastically.
“You could just... uh… divide the cake by zero, and then keep it forever for yourself,” I said. Stupidly. I knew that you couldn’t divide by zero, but I wanted to keep the two from fighting, knowing that they weren’t particularly fond of each other. Apparently, Ezrem knew this, too.
“How is it logically impossible to divide by zero, anyway?” he said. “Let’s say this cake really exists, but no one owns this cake. It just exists. If I divide it by six, so there’s one piece for everyone, then there are six pieces. If I divide it by zero, then the cake still exists. It may be mathematically impossible, given that limits exist. But who is to tell me that I cannot divide a cake by zero?”
I blushed at his response. I didn’t know how to answer, and I didn’t even know if the question was directly aimed at me! Luckily, Kuiora answered for me.
“You, Ezrem,” she said, shaking her head, “are a smart pokémon.”
“I would hardly say so,” Senori said, folding his small arms.
“Annie used to tell you about all that math stuff, didn’t she?” Rennio chimed in, winking at Senori to keep the sentret—no, furret—calm.
“Do you want to hear another math joke, then? I know you do. Let’s say that my long lost brother”—I cringed at his reference to him being a shiny pokémon—“collects ghouls in his home. Yeah, you heard me, Senori. Don’t you look at me like that. He collects ghouls. Now, let’s say that two thirds of these ghouls are—”
Ezrem was, thankfully, interrupted by the waiter who had returned with all of the cupcakes. He set one down in front of each of us. I thanked him for it, even if he couldn’t understand me. Sai said nothing, and I silently scolded him for his lack of manners, not having the courage to say it out loud.
I looked down, nervous. Noticing the camera at my side, I decided that now was a good a time as any to start using it. I wouldn’t be able to look at the pictures right away, but with time, I would know that I was taking good ones without having to even see them before judging.
I picked it up in my hands again, enjoying the welcoming feeling of cool plastic on my hands. Twisting it around in my hand, I wondered if it would be misleading for me to take pictures of them. If I took pictures of them, it meant that I wanted to remember them forever, and maybe they would think that I wanted to stay, after all. I didn’t want to give them that impression, but I did want to remember them at the same time. I supposed that even if they thought I would want to stay, there would be undeniable proof at the end of the day: my departure, and, unlike Sai’s return… Well, there would be no return for me.
So I took my pictures, one by one. In his picture, Sai was looking at the cupcake as if it was an alien creature that he was studying. Highly appropriate, I thought. I caught Kuiora in the middle of her first bite; her jaws were hanging open and the cupcake lay unassuming on the table in front of her. Also appropriate—I would remember her power this way. Senori actually took the first bite, though, and it reminded me of his leadership. Ezrem was messy in his picture, as he had white icing all over his beak by the time his cupcake was gone. And Rennio, I could tell that his hands would look delicate as they held the food in his picture, as if he were trying very hard not to hurt it in the process of eating it. Impossible, but an admirable struggle.
And that was it—I had a picture of everyone. I could have asked for everyone to gather next to each other so we could all be in a single picture, but I was too nervous to ask. I didn’t want to disrupt the peaceful, hunger satisfied atmosphere that we had at the moment. Besides, I didn’t want to eventually develop these pictures and see me. I was afraid of seeing that I had made the wrong decision.
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Originally Posted by Dragonicwari
