Forever Dream — (Chapter 2) The Old Ramen Shop
Tags: Short Story, Fiction, Series, Forever Dream, Magical Realism

Ichiraku Ramen Shop is probably one of the reasons I keep coming back, other than Ami and Yumi of course. Overlooking the beachfront, the shop is old enough to be named a heritage monument and it has enough history to fill up books after books about little tidbits that no one knows about the history of the places. At least, to me, it feels that way.

It’s a tiny shop, with corkboard walls that are decorated with thumbtacks and small post-it notes. I make sure to check if my first ever post-it is safely tacked to the back wall where the only three-person triangle table sits. Sure enough, hidden under several other post-it notes, mine sits fading with our names written in curly penmanship.

We order three special Ichiraku Ramen Soup bowls and. The first thing Ami does is pick out the mushrooms from her broth and drops them in mine. I roll my eyes but don’t stop her. Like I said before, I’m used to her antics.

“They said it’s gonna start raining after 3 today,” Yumi says with a mouthful of noodles humming gleefully at the burst of flavour.

I take a bite from one of the mushrooms was forced with and lean my elbows on the table, letting my head fall next to my bowl. “I feel lazy. Yumi, please feed me my noodles.”

“Sure, because you’re apparently suddenly pregnant with the devil’s baby, huh?”

“That… don’t even make sense, but yes. Please~”

Before Yumi can reply, Ami flicks my forehead with her chopsticks, speaking over my cries as she continues eating. “Stop being an annoying cockatoo! Eat your ramen quickly so we can go to the beach before it rains.”

“But — ”

“Nope.”

My pout doesn’t work on her or Yumi so I end up eating the noodles by myself. Chatting away about the origins of ramen and whether dinosaurs could be raised as pets if they still lived.

“But say the dinosaur gets sick and needs a shot, have you realized how many shots it would need to stop shitting all over your cave or whatever?” Yumi asks finishing her broth. She turns the bowl upside on the table and pushes back into her chair looking at Ami and me.

“Okay, two things.” I hold up my fingers, placing my chopsticks down too. “One: I am not going to raise a dinosaur I can not cuddle with. And if I can cuddle with it it’ll be small enough to need just one shot. And two: why the fuck do you think I’ll live in a cave, you bitch?”

“What if it tries to eat you?” Ami cuts me off, still only halfway done with her noodles. “Like… it’s still a man-eating, carnivore. What if you’re sleeping one day and BAM! Next thing you know you’re being digested.”

I raise my eyes at the girl and flick her forehead her as I explain, “you don’t think I’ll realise I’m being eaten?”

She shrugs and continues slurping. Yumi completes her train her of thought with, “but she ain’t wrong, though. What if by the time you find out you’re being eaten, you’re already half dinner?”

I huff an annoyed sigh at the question and pout as I say, “it won’t try to eat me, okay? I’m its mother for heaven’s sake!”

Ami snorts at my words so hard the brother runs up her nose, out her nostrils and all over Yumi’s summer dress. Obviously, I laugh out so loud that I end up falling on my ass, earning another jeering from my darling friends.

It takes Ami another fifteen minutes or so to finish her breakfast, during which our conversation continues into the extraordinary. We are discussing the possibility of human beings being descendants of Martians that had to escape from Mars once the planet got too close to the sun as we leave. That’s when I see a Polaroid camera sitting next to the cash register. My hands move before my lips do and I grab it almost as if I own it. The shop owner doesn’t notice it, and neither do Ami or Yumi, so I shove into my jacket as we wait for Yumi to pay for our meal.

Without a look back, I leave the shop.