Ambition
By Suzume, for my sister.
Cliff sighed as Albel handed Fayt the chocolate banana he had whipped up in the kitchen. A few colored sprinkles dropped off of the delicacy onto the counter. The tall blond man stared at them in despair. He certainly couldn't cook up anything like that to impress Fayt. He had tried plenty of times before. His cooking skills were actually so lacking that Nel had been forced to try her hardest not to giggle at Cliff's efforts. He looked across the workshop and caught sight of Sophia diligently writing on a sheet of clean lined paper. "Maybe I could write a love poem for Fayt..." Cliff thought hopefully.
"Hey, err, can I borrow some paper?" he asked the pretty brunette.
"Of course, Cliff," she smiled, handing him an extra notebook.
With high spirits, he took a pen and began to write.
"With hair as blue as the ocean of stars
And eyes as bright..."
"Oh, that's no good!" Cliff muttered angrily to himself, crumpling up the paper and tossing it squarely into the waste bin. He spent several more minutes scratching and scrawling various awkward rhymes and phrases before giving up. There had to be an easier way to get some attention from Fayt.
He considered his own strongest skills: engineering and smithery. How could he utilize those skills in a way that would stir Fayt's emotions? Being able to hammer out a piece of red-hot metal or build a bomb were not exactly romantic things. It would be quite a stretch to even consider doing these things for someone as a friendly gesture.
Cliff groaned and put his head in his hands. He was just a big-talking brute. It was the plain truth. A man like him would never mean anything special to a sweet boy like Fayt.
"What's wrong with Cliff?" Fayt whispered to Maria with a mixture of curiosity and concern in his tone.
"Who knows?" the leader of Quark shrugged, "Cliff's a much more complex guy than he appears to be." She paused and laughed so loud that tears welled up in the corners of her eyes, "I can't believe I just said that!"
Fayt would've laughed as well under any other circumstances, but he was still worried about what could be so deeply troubling his companion. He tried to analyze the situation by taking in the objects surrounding Cliff and using them as clues. Crumpled papers, a discarded pad of paper, some sloppy stains from spilled food, and several bent and twisted metal wires.
Approaching Cliff from behind, Fayt presented his deduction to the dejected man, "Cliff, are you in a creative slump?"
The blond Klausian turned around suddenly and looked Fayt right in the eyes, momentarily losing himself in their deep green gaze. He shook himself free. "Uh, sort of..."
The cerulean-haired young man squatted down alongside his comrade, "Is there any way that I could help you out? Do you need an extra hand to do something? Or maybe just a muse?"
"A muse...?" Cliff mumbled.
"Yes, a muse," Fayt reiterated, "I could be your inspiration. ...Of course, I suppose that's a silly idea, but I was just trying to cover every possible option..."
"No, no, Fayt," the sharp-faced man said quickly, "That's a great idea! It's always been a great ambition of mine to have a muse like you!"
"Really?" the younger man questioned.
Cliff took Fayt's hands in his own and squeezed them sincerely, "Yes, definitely! All these things I worked on...I failed. I was trying so hard to think about you!"
The emerald-eyed boy began to blush a faint powder pink and turned his face partially away from Cliff's intense sky blue eyes to hide it.
Cliff leaned around to meet Fayt's averted eyes. The gently boy closed them impishly. "Hey! Cut that out!" the blond man insisted. Fayt giggled softly, pulling his hands loose from Cliff's and pressing them to his face.
"Fayt, you're inspiring me already!" the fighter exclaimed, jumping up and rushing to take a pen off the table. He reclaimed the notepad he had tossed aside earlier and began writing furiously. Fayt observed this from between the thin fingers he had pressed to his face to cover his ever reddening cheeks.
It took the creatively charged fellow only a few minutes to put down all that filled his mind. He looked at his work appraisingly and smiled in satisfaction.
Fayt, feeling the red flush beginning to recede from his face, slid his fingers away and peered at the man standing over him with a look that seemed to ask, "Well, what did you do?"
Grinning, Cliff turned the notepad over so that Fayt could see what he had written.
"My Ambition-
To make Fayt love me."
Said the scraggly letters. A perfectly rounded heart was drawn under the statement.
As Fayt's eyes reached Cliff's face, the accomplished writer turned his honest face away sheepishly. "Ah..." the blue-haired boy gasped.
Cliff closed the notepad slowly and set it down on the corner of the table. It was his turn to blush a little. He sank down onto the floor beside Fayt, who sat silently for a moment before throwing his arms around his ambitious companion.
"Cliff!" he squeaked happily, "What a grand ambition!"
"Heh heh...You really think so?"