The Beginning: A Caffè Americano Challenge Short

“Happy birthday, Peters!”

He turned around in surprise, spotting A rushing to him with Mack and Touta on her heels. She smiled this time (which surprised him – since when did she smile?) and shoved something into his hands, something large and heavy and bottle-shaped. He threw the woman a look.

“Is this alcohol–”

“No take backs. This is *good* alcohol.” Mack clasped Peters on the back and handed something square, this time wrapped in red paper with a golden ribbon affixed on top.

“Enjoy this, assbite.”

Peters said nothing. Touta came forward next, holding something small this time, smaller than the square parcel. “I can’t believe you’re twenty-six,” the Japanese said in disbelief. “You don’t look that old.”

“Drinking from the fountain of youth,” he replied with a smirk. A rolled her eyes.

“Or actually eating healthy and working out on a regular basis.” She poked his arm.

“That too. Thanks, really – I told you not to get me anything,” Peters defended. It was true – he had specifically requested for no gifts. He wasn’t the type of person who would hold a grudge if he received nothing on his birthday. Mack shrugged.

“Touta and A wanted to, so I tagged along. Wasn’t supposed to get you something to make you happy, but I found that,” he nodded at the square, “And thought you’d like it. So accept them. No take backs, as A said, or she’ll skin you alive.”

Hero: A Mix for Samuel Peters

and to prove myself to the world: for samuel peters

Squad Alpha: A Caffè Americano Challenge Short

“Thomas is late,” A sighed as she took a sip from her glass. “I hope he knows that it means that he’ll be paying for the goddamn drinks.” Across her, Peters sniggered and raised his beer bottle.

“He’s always late. He’s always been late. Don’t get your panties in a twist, A.”

“But what if he bails on us–”

Peters rolled his blue eyes. “Not possible. He’s too honorable to even do that. Like Ned Stark.”

“Ned got his head cut off,” A grumbled, and beside her, Touta gave the partial Englishwoman a look of horror. “Because of his honor.”

“Why did you say that?!” the Japanese cried, covering his ears. “A, you know that I’m watching!” Peters then started laughing loudly, the lady’s eyes widening as an embarrassed flush crept up her neck. As she started to apologize profusely and attempted to pry the man’s hands off his ears, Peters smiled to himself and leaned back against the two-seater, comfortably drinking his beer.

He felt bad for leaving J behind at his apartment, but she insisted that he go out.

“Go, damn it.” She chuckled and leaned against the bedroom doorframe, “I’ll be okay. If you’re late, you’re going to pay for their drinks. And you know how A gets.”

“I can’t leave my Tiger alone,” he muttered, and J shook her head in disdain.

“I’ll be okay, Whiskers. Don’t be such a worry ass about it. Now,” she gave him a light shove, “Go.”

He was the third to arrive, and A had just started on her drink.

“Ah – there’s the lazy arse,” she remarked. A man with curly brown hair made his way to them, a visible grimace on his face. “Congratulations. Now prepare your wallet.”

Logarithms: A Caffè Americano Challenge Short

She frustrated him.

When Peters was told that he would be trained with another agent, he felt excited. When he found out that it was a female, he readied himself. His boyish charm hadn’t quite left him, and he wanted to swing with someone not from Tokyo, in hopes that he could occupy himself with her while they both adjusted to the new city, the culture shock – everything.

But she disregarded him and focused on the training instead, sparring with Touta and not batting an eyelash when handling a gun. He tried everything. He tried smooth talking and flirting and complimenting, but she didn’t actually fall for each of it. In fact, she didn’t like it. Touta tried to get him to stop a few days after, warning him that perhaps she wasn’t just that easily swayed.

Peters digressed and remembered cornering her a day after, when both of them were on their breaks. She had taken a drink of water and he approached her, unconsciously backing her into a corner and trying to start conversation. He cringed at the memory.

Her answers were short, cool. She tried escaping but he didn’t let her.

It took only a few minutes for her to reach her boiling point, and she threw the water into his face and stomped off, muttering something about “idiotic men”.

The whole office had heard. Olsen, who had been there for a year, chuckled at him as he passed with a red face and wet hair, the others sighing sympathetically and others clucking their tongues in distaste.

Touta merely shook his head and continued their training.

He apologized a week after, expecting one back. She merely accepted it and moved on, which frustrated him because he deserved a fucking apology as well.

For the next few months, the tensions had rose between them. The woman grew to be skilled, terribly skilled with a gun and a dagger that, sadly, wasn’t permitted at all. Peters, on the other hand, had a knack for his fists. His tall stature assisted him, and he was a good shot.

Peters was idealistic. He loved the possibility of exploring new views and often debated, insisting that what couldn’t be actually could be. She was a realist, a terribly calculating and logical realist.

Him: Her :: Whiskers: Tiger

Choices: Tokyo -- A Caffè Americano Challenge Short

Central HQ.
Tokyo, Japan.

“Near.”

“…Matsuda. It’s been some time, I see. But today is not the time for reconciliation and nostalgia.” Touta’s eyes hardened as he listened to the robotic voice, “I want you to manage the applications of two new agents who would be arriving in the middle of the year. Manage them appropriately.”

“Agents? Near – we don’t need agents,” he argued. “It’s been only a few months since the end of the Kira case and you want us to bring in more agents?”

“I intend for that, Matsuda. And please call me with the appropriate title.”

You are not L, he thought bitterly, but kept his mouth shut.

“As much as possible, we would need new recruits. All the ones that I’ve read through are hopeless so far. However, I have stumbled upon a certain two. The first one is a young woman from Winchester, who was actually suggested to me by the current managers of the Wammy House. The second is someone from the United States, son of a police officer who currently works in the New York Police Department.”

He thought about this.

A lady from where he had come from, and the son of a police…

“L, the last time we took in a police’s son, he…you know how he ended up,” he finished rather lamely, folding his arms over his chest. “How do you know that he’s worth hiring?”

“His father is renowned there in New York, but that’s a different topic. I have looked over their bio data and have found nothing wrong with them.”

“So how can I contact them?”

“It’s quite simple. I have the young woman’s file and have already sent them to you, together with that of the male’s.”

“But we didn’t even put any kind of advertising–”

“I have my ways.”

Choices: College -- A Caffè Americano Challenge Short

“What do you think?”

“I think it’s just right for you, bro.” It was amazing what coffee could do to his brother, Samuel thought, Jake looking exactly how he did before he moved across states just so he could pursue his pre-med studies. He ran a hand through his thick hair and studied the brochure Samuel held in his hands, “I thought that you were going my way first, but then I noticed you were taking up BA and not BS.”

“Medicine just isn’t my type,” Samuel muttered, glancing next at the papers inside the brown manila envelope that was mailed. “So from here, I drive or take the train.”

“I’d drive. You can get gas at least and drive around during breaks to the café nearby or hang out elsewhere until your next class,” Jake suggested.  “Unless you want to dorm to save up on gas or anything.”

“No, no. I just want to go to college and study. I already aced the SATs,” he stretched and took a drink of coffee, “Aced them as much as I could. Manhattan accepted me and I’m enrolling as a Psych major. I just want to study, graduate, and then do police training.”

“Y-You want to do police training?” Jake’s eyes were wide as he sat down, “Are you serious, Sammy? Be like dad and go for the NYPD…?”

“Shut up,” Samuel hissed, and lowered his voice. “No, I’m not going to go like dad.”

“Then what do you plan to do–”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t know for now. But I’ve researched. They don’t care which course you take, but it’s nice if you took something that could be beneficial.” Jake listened, “So I decided to take Psychology. It was either that or Sociology, but Psych seemed like a better choice,” the younger of the two sighed. “If I took Psych, I’d be able to get into people more. No, not like that, goddamn. I’d know what makes them tick, whether child or adult.”

“Does dad know…?”

“He might have. I hinted it to him a bit.”

“How about mom?”

He sighed. “I don’t think she’ll like the idea a lot.”

Character Facts: Samuel Peters

Touta Matsuda: A Caffè Americano Challenge Short

Moving to Tokyo was a different kind of experience. Samuel wasn’t sure if it was because of the culture shock, the language barrier, or the fact that he didn’t exactly have anyone to help him out at the moment. His insides lurched for home, for sleeping back in his comfy bed and waking up to the scent of pancakes and/or waffles, with his dad getting ready for work, Jake studying his calculus, and his mom finishing up the bacon.

Now, he thought, he would wake up surrounded by cream-colored walls and a bed that wasn’t broken in yet. No posters would deck the walls quite yet; no comics would be filling the bookshelves. Home would smell of beer and cigarette smoke from now on, leftovers from various fast food chains stuffed in the fridge.

He was on his own now, and that scared as well as excited him.

If only he took up some more goddamn Japanese, he thought sullenly, his luggage by his side while he waited in a small café situated somewhere five minutes away from the baggage retrieval area. He was to meet someone there, a superior at HQ – the place where he’d work – the very next day.

Jesus.

So where was he?

He took a sip from his coffee (too goddamn sweet for his taste, but he couldn’t complain) and tapped his foot impatiently, folding his arms over his chest. Well, fuck. If the man didn’t arrive any sooner, he’d have to stumble around in Tokyo using sign language like some kind of idiot –

“Oh, there you are!” Samuel looked up in surprise, all signs of irritation leaving his face as he met the excited (and slightly anxious) gaze of a man older than he, coffee-brown eyes alit. “I was worried that I’d never find you. Then again, I figured that the new agents would like to stop and have some coffee to recover from the flight,” he went on, the words jumbling nonsensically in Samuel’s ears.

What a ray of sunshine.

Competition: A Caffè Americano Challenge Short

Three years back, Jacob “Jake” Peters had run the high school as the Council President and then became the Valedictorian at their graduation. Samuel remembered it all: how his brother went up to the mic and said his well-rehearsed speech, looking at his mom to see her shedding happy tears, then to his dad to see an assured, proud smile on his face that Samuel yearned for.

He remembered Jake coming with a grin, ruffling his brother’s hair and putting his blue cap on his younger sibling. Samuel looked up and saw Jake: tall, attractive, intelligent and proud. Samuel only stood three inches shorter and later grew much more in his later years, but that didn’t change that Jake was everything Samuel had to be.

Had.

Samuel didn’t want to be the valedictorian. He was of above-average intelligence, but nothing like Jake’s closer-to-heck genius. He didn’t want to shake hands and give pep talks to the club leaders, he didn’t want to make a campaign and parade around the school, handing flyers and promising things that were eventually set into stone.

He didn’t want to be the version of perfect that his brother exemplified.

So he worked for other things.

Peters tried out basketball, tried out swimming, tried out martial arts. The more he tried, the buffer he got. His growth spurt seemingly struck again, and he was closer to six feet by the time he was in tenth grade. His teammates adored him, his coach described him as the ideal player that the athletes strived to be. Even the Seniors patted him on the back and congratulated him for a great play when he was in eleventh grade, and this made him proud.

But to him, it wasn’t enough.

Life by the Colors: Samuel Peters

"I was born at the Bronx. Was obsessed with Spiderman.
(he's awesome.) Played Quarterback on the team.

Went to college and then had police training.

Drank a lot. Smoked a lot. 

Wanted a fancy life with crisp suits.

Moved to Tokyo. Played around.

Worked. Got shot. Fucked around.

Fell in love."

- Samuel Peters

Birthday Justice: A Caffè Americano Challenge Short

He was seven when his father missed his birthday.

Samuel remembered sitting there on the dining room chair. It was 1995, the twenty-eighth of June, and it was sweltering hot. Samuel sat on the chair, looking at the untouched cake, complaining about his father’s absence while his older brother Jake played at his console in the living room.

Kate wiped Samuel’s forehead, noticing that the more irritated he got, he more he sweat, and barely contained a chuckle. It was just like Nathan, she thought, and her smile faltered slightly.

“Dad’s taking a long time,” he complained to his mother, swinging his feet in pure impatience as he pouted. The Spiderman cake was getting, well, cold. Kate had asked that the three of them eat the cake, but Samuel stubbornly refused to do so, insisting that his dad had to be there and eat the cake with them – as it always had been. “Call dad. Call the station. I want dad.” He said this over and over until Jake entered the room, three years older and stretching. “Jake, call daddy.”

“I can’t do that, Sammy.” Jake walked to his brother and ruffled the younger’s brown hair rather playfully, “Dad’s always on business. We can’t distract him.”

“But it’s my birthday and I want cake,” he whined, banging his fists on the table and pouting even more, his eyes watering. It had never been like this, Samuel knew that.

Nathan Peters had different traditions for whoever birthday. For Kate, it would always be simple and sweet. For Jake, he would take him out and come back, Jake grinning ear-to-ear.

For Samuel, he had something special for him.

Nathan would always take Samuel outside, and play sports. Samuel would get to pick, and every year, it varied. Last year, it had been baseball, and both of them came back inside the house, sweaty and dirty, yet laughing hysterically. Kate would chastise both of them while Jake would shake his head, but smile has he helped Kate prepare Samuel’s favorite dinner: burgers with lettuce (strictly no tomatoes or pickles), boiled potato balls with cheese, and orange juice, newly bought and deliciously cold.

On that day, his father had to leave earlier than usual. So he sulked rather sadly, this time clutching a football in his hands and wearing a blue jersey with “BRONX” white and bold across the front. Jake had offered to play with him, open to dumping his game just to see his brother happy. Samuel declined. Kate offered to make him cookies, which was a weakness of his. 

Again, Samuel declined.

Launching: The Caffè Americano Challenge