"You're kidding, right? It's totally the best place."
"You're ridiculous."
He just laughed, resuming his absent slicing of the mushrooms for tonight's meal. Heaven forbid if he DIDN'T slice them up-Anna would be at his throat it if wasn't done exactly to her liking. So, as I boiled water, standing on my tall stool to reach the stove, Yoh was chopping away next to me. To pass the time, we looked out the window to the clouds drifting by, slow and lazy.
A few days ago, he had commented to Ryu and me, "Look at that cloud... it would be great to take a nap up there..." So I brought it up as I salted the steaming water before it bubbled.
"Yoh-kun, do you really believe that?"
"Hm?" He looked up to me with a grin, his headphones pounding away over his ears. How he could hear me, I'll never know. "What d'you mean, Manta?"
"I mean..." I looked out the window, up to those mountainous fluff piles. "Do you honestly believe that a CLOUD is a good place to nap?" He looked out as well with that trancey, blank look he always got when he wasn't talking or listening to someone. "...well-" He gestured with the knife to the sky outside, finishing with a joking grin, "-maybe not that one in particular." He went back to the chopping board with his normal, light laugh. "It looks a little flat."
I shook my head in exasperation before looking back to the water, blowing lightly on the foaming surface to keep it from boiling over the surface. The last time I let it, Anna had me scrubbing the surface for days on end to make sure I got the burn off the burner. I smiled with a little chuckle as I heard Yoh murmur longingly over the steady 'chop-chop-chop' ofthe knife, "Yesterday's, though... THAT one would've been perfect..."
"You know that if you tired to sleep on a cloud, you'd just fall through, Yoh-kun." I replied in a playfully-scolding tone as I motioned for the slices of fungus. He passed them over and retorted with a disappointed shake of his head, "Not if you talk like that, Manta. Besides, how do you know that? Have you ever tried?"
"No; I prefer to be in one piece and safe and stable on the earth, thank you." I laughed, dumping the bits into the pot and gently setting the board and knife into the sink beside me. "Clouds are made of water vapor."
"Since when has that stopped me?" Yoh pouted, crosing his arms over his chest. "Your science-y talk is killing my mood, Manta." Eh, typical. Instead of responding with more science, I just grinned and hopped down from my stool. "It's your turn to do the dishes. You do that, and I'll sweep." I got a shrug and sigh in response as Yoh adjusted his headphones and took his station at the sink. As the water ran, I grabbed my trusty broom and began to attack the specks that only Anna's inn-hostess eyes could spot. I began to hear the familiar sound of her Legendary Left ad HoroHoro's cries of pain halfway through my battle.
Shaking my head, I moved on to attacking the floor, looking up to the window as I went past. The clouds above seemed to smile at me from their blue sky. As I moved my gaze back to the tile below me, I found myself wondering, humming absently to the music blaring from Yoh's headphones, '...maybe I should at least try... ...maybe I can...'
After all, anything's possible, isn't it?
Short story, should anyone out there be reading my work still. Dunno why.
Anime-timeline.
Copyright.