"I'm quite – quite angry with you!" Sophie howled at Howl. There was a rather large thwack, bang, clang as she stood up straight, the stool rushing backward into the odd assortment of buckets and spells in the corner.

"Dear Sophie!" Howl howled back, in a much more genial, hush hush type of way. "What on earth for?"

All in all, it was a good question. A good question indeed. But Howl knew what he did, and it only happened to make Sophie angrier. She spluttered.

"You," she pointed, "tried to use a spell on me! I felt it!"

"A spell?" he cried. "When? But most importantly, why?" his chin upraised. "Why would I ever need to?"

"How am I supposed to know why you do the things you do? I never understand half the things you do until you tell me!" This was only partial truth. Sophie did, in fact, feel like she understood Howl more and more each progressing day. But sometimes he would surprise her abundantly. He had never been notorious for predictability, though he happened to try.

"My love," he started walking fitfully toward her. "You're cleverer than you let yourself know."

His endearment peaked her mood. She started to prance in the opposite direction. They soon circled around each other, a lion and his lionesse. It was a shame it couldn't have been romantic, for Howl feared she wanted blood.

"Oh!" she shouted. "Dishonest fool! You can't not lie for a month, or a week for that matter," she gestured, "can you?"

He stuttered a step, but she kept advancing, and that made him speed over his trip. His face was in a confused twist. "I haven't told you a lie or cast a spell in the castle ever since the Witch!"

Sophie snorted.

"Don't do that – it'll crack the windows," Howl sighed.

He started circling out of the circle when her lips down-turned into a snarl. It was a gentle method he had been in the pursuit of perfecting, but perhaps she was the last person he could ever reckon with.

As she noticed right away. "Don't even think about trying to pull a slitherer out of this, Howl."

"It can't be called slithering if I have no idea what exactly I'm slithering out of."

"You know – "

"Good grief, woman!" he yelled, showing his exasperation. "I don't know anything at all! Really. Please. Do explain to me." He fell backwards onto the middle table in a messy heap.

Sophie watched him, his narrow face utterly dejected in every which way he could make it.

"You can't," she started, "tell me you didn't make my stomach turn all over itself. Or give my arms goosebumps or make me feel like a flushed toilet when you walked up behind me."

Sophie frowned. Her description came out not at all what it seemed to feel like minutes earlier. And, baffled, she couldn't find any better words to help herself.

Howl was turning red with hidden laughter.

"Dearest, dearest Sophie." He gave her his absolute, mollifying smile. "Is that what's bothering you?"

Their roles had switched. She now took a defensive step backward as he took a tiptoeing prancing step forward.

"It - it was worse than that! I can't explain!" Her back hit the hearth, and she was very grateful Calcifer was out roaming Market Chipping. She could predict what would happen if he wasn't.

"What's there to explain?" Howl came upon her then, placing both hands on each side of her. His hair was his natural black today, and it made his eyes quite a deeper shade of green. "That is love, Sophie."

Sophie kept leaning away, nearly pressing into the grate behind her. If Howl hadn't been so overconfident and conceited in his pursuit, perhaps Sophie would have thought this was sweetly endearing.

But she was still frustrated and a tad bit angry, and the several pokes from the grate were very, very grating on her nerves.

Huffing, she said, "Love! Whoever said I did!"

Howl grinned, "You, just now."

"Did it ever occur to you I may be uncomfortable instead of in love?"

"Love is not always comfortable, Sophie."

He was not helping himself with his answers. Sophie was sure she was red-faced.

"Oh, of course, you would know," she resounded sarcastically. "All those hearts you broke must be finally filling your senses to the seams!"

"I don't regret anything. Where would we be if I hadn't?" he gazed at her. "We wouldn't."

"Hah!" she pushed a finger against his chest, giving herself leverage in the battle, but also giving her leverage to unbend her back from its forty-five degree angle. "We wouldn't! But it wouldn't bother me, because I don't love you."

His pale face darkened into a light tan, and her finger almost broke from his unmoving stance. She stumbled for balance.

"If you didn't love me," he said, "you wouldn't be leaning away from me."

"Really?" she tried sounding superior in a wheeze. "Why not?"

"You wouldn't be scared."

His eyes glinted, and she knew, right then and all along, that was what set off her anger. She was scared to death, and so she had automatically switched to default.

"You know what, Howl?" she grasped his shoulders determinedly, in one fell swoop. "I'm not."

She reeled him in and kissed him hard, realizing that his arms had wrapped around her back. She didn't know when, but the grate had ceased puncturing delicate little holes in her back, his forearms inhaling the damage.

But she didn't take heed of anything after she kissed him. Because that thing happened again, and it was so twisty and turn-y and just like a meteor shower that, instead of feeling the heart flutters of fear, she absorbed the head rush and the lightly floating of magic.

It was then she knew, without a doubt, she had been tricked. It was an enhancement spell. The arrogant, unnatural fool.

Though, this time, she could care less.