21 Candles

DISCLAIMER: Roses are red, violets are blue, I don't own, so you don't sue. But mark my words, my muses will eat you alive if you don't join Worlds and sign the After petition. Rawr.

Rating: T for various reasons

Genre: Drama/Humor

Pairings: Frogshipping (wewt!)

Warnings: Mild After spoilers, crabby Miles, and some brief, mild, fan-service-ish nudity for which you will most likely thank me (smirk)

Miles woke up with the day's date engraved in her mind as though it had just been branded there, and a grim certainty that it was going to be one of those days.

Somehow, it was always one of those days.

For a moment, Miles was tempted to just roll over, put her pillow firmly over her head, and go right back to sleep, keeping herself as removed from the day as she possibly could. But, really, that would just be delaying the inevitable, and Miles would be damned if she was going to let her knowledge that today was not going to be happy scare her into hiding in bed.

So she sat up in her bunk, tried to finger-comb her spiky purple hair into some semblance of order, rubbed tiredness out of her eyes, and clambered down the ladder to the floor.

Looking over at the bunk beneath the one she'd been sleeping in, she realized that her roommate, Lisa, was already up and out, probably down in the mess hall already. It was typical of her, and it was a relief to Miles, since she wouldn't be required to pretend that everything was perfectly normal until she ran into people.

Miles scowled at the calendar tacked up on the wall, then at her reflection in the mirror beside it as she struggled out of her sleepshirt and into her fatigues, boots, and hooded halter top. Giving her hair one more finger-combing before slipping on her headband, Miles gave herself a resigned stare, peering into the mirror for any imperfections or telltale signs of distress. She couldn't see any, and so with a short sigh, she headed out into the halls.

The corridors riddled through Silvia the airship's frame were bustling as usual. Miles personally thought that it was practically sinful for her comrades to be so appallingly lively at this hour (it was midmorning, but industrious as she could be, Miles was most active at night, and tended to be rather groggy and irritable until noon most days), but that was the way that Knave tended to run things.

Miles shook her head as she stepped out of the way of a few Comodeen officers who were talking animatedly back and forth over a wide roll of paper. Knave had been her steadfast friend ever since the two of them had first met back in Wonderland, and as the second in command of his resistance movement, she'd learned to put up with most of the carrot-top's eccentricities, but Knave's whole early-morning thing never ceased to drive her up the wall.

As she probably should've expected, Miles found the mess hall to be utterly packed; though many Comodeen members were still outside, just about everyone else seemed to be down here. And they were all so cheerful. Miles fought down the urge to twitch. They were so loud when they were cheerful.

Spotting open seats near the end of the table where Lisa and the Hayakawa twins were situated, Miles grabbed a tray of food and edged through the chattering masses towards them.

As she did so, Miles grimaced as she realized what was on the menu. Potatoes and seaweed paste, again. I would kill for barbecued newt just once in the next few months. Or even a snake or two. I would settle for snake.

But then again, given her druthers, Miles would most definitely rather still be sleeping. And it wasn't like the same old, same old on the menu was really going to hurt.

…Not that much, anyway.

"Good morning, Miles," Lisa called with a slight dip of her head and a smile; Miles couldn't help smiling in return. Lisa had enough on her plate right now without having to worry about her allies—Miles resolved to make a conscious effort towards letting Lisa's kindness despite her own problems help her today.

"How are you holding up?" Miles asked as she set down her tray, then sat on the bench, propping her face in her hands.

Lisa shook her head. "Don't worry about me. I'll be fine."

"That's what you always say," Miles said, shaking her head, promptly forgetting the fact that she herself was pulling a Lisa today. "Well, even if you're not particularly inclined to accept it, we're here to help, too."

Lisa's smile spread, growing wavery. "Thank you."

Miles waved a hand, ate a spoonful of mashed potatoes, and fought the urge to make a face. Man, she was really getting to hate having to eat this stuff all the time. It was seriously getting old.

"I can't believe we have to eat these potatoes again," Ai said suddenly from next to Lisa, crossing her arms. "Can't Cid's machines make anything else?"

"Calm down, Sis," Yu told her, patting her shoulder. "At least we've still got a lot of this stuff. You know Silvia hasn't been able to land for a while, what with everything that's been going on down on the ground."

Ai puffed out her cheek. "But still!"

Fungo, seated next to Miles, had already cleaned his plate, and offered the twins a big smile. "It's not that bad, you know."

"Of course it's not bad for you! You eat everything!" Ai snapped, glaring. "You know we've got plenty of food, but because of you, we're running out of plates!"

Fungo just laughed, which made Ai sulk even worse.

Miles sighed, massaging her temples. Of course today had to start out with yet another argument between the kids on board. Normally, she had no objection to the small people getting underfoot—after the Comodeen had taken Fungo in, he'd basically become a baby brother to her—but at times like this, they could really drive her insane.

"Stop arguing," Clear, on Fungo's other side, suddenly cajoled. "Really, we should just be happy for what we have, shouldn't we?"

Ai sighed, still looking a little bit disgruntled though most of her anger had been defused. "…Yeah, I guess you're right."

Miles gave Clear a grateful glance from the corner of her eye. She didn't know the boy very well yet, but from what she'd seen so far, he was so quiet and pacific that no onlooker would have any idea that he was the heart of the beast of destruction Omega unless they'd been told so beforehand. And given his temperament, sometimes even she would've had trouble believing it unless she hadn't known very well that the finely tailored suit and veil the boy wore were made from Flying Water, which served to subdue and control Omega's powers. (Of course she knew—she'd been the one to make them, with a little help from Cid.)

Managing to choke down another spoonful of potatoes, Miles turned to the kids. "Have any of you seen Cid anywhere today?"

Ai, Clear, and Fungo all shook their heads, but Yu nodded. "Yeah, he said he was going to be working on something secret today, so he's in his workroom right now. Somebody else will be doing the piloting today."

Miles drooped, not caring that everyone was giving her questioning looks. Well, there went the one bright spot in her day. Goddamnit. She'd just known this day was going to be crappy.

"…Are you okay…?" Lisa ventured.

"Don't worry about it," Miles said gloomily, waving a hand. Well, the least she could do was hope that she would be relatively unbothered so that she could mope in peace and quiet for the rest of today.

"Ah, there you are, Miles." She glanced up—it was Knave. "I've been looking for you."

"Good morning to you too," Miles said with a sigh.

"Come on, don't look like that. Anyway, you were with the rest of us at that meeting last week—do you have any idea where Tomioka might have put the stenographer's records? No one can find them anywhere, and that's the only record we have of the new plans for the update to the weapons system."

Miles sighed. "Doesn't Cid have the blueprints? Just ask him."

Knave just looked at her. "They're in Cid's workroom. You know that we're all under express orders not to go anywhere near Cid's workroom when he's busy there."

Groaning, Miles pushed back her tray. "Fine, fine. I get it. I'll help you look, already."

"Don't you want to finish eating first?" Yu asked her.

"No… Fungo can have it. I'll be fine. Let's go, then, Knave."

---

As a rule, nothing ever came easy for Miles on this particular day of the year. Everything was either annoyingly difficult, or unbearably boring.

So finding the missing stenographer's reports took two and a half hours of poking around every corner of Silvia's storage hold, shining flashlights into every cobwebby corner, and crawling around over painfully high stacks of crates… only to have one Comodeen member finally venture that he thought he'd seen the papers in a pile on Knave's desk earlier that morning.

And, sure enough, once they'd headed up to Knave's quarters to check, there they were.

What a waste of a morning. Go figure.

But before Miles could slink off to her rooms, hoping it wasn't too late to catch a little bit of shuteye and so escape a few hours of this awful day, a few Comodeen officials approached her with the job of going through the inventory. With no excuses, Miles wound up dragooned into the activity… and despite her best efforts to retreat afterwards, she was then called upon to help Lisa settle a dispute between the twins over whose turn it was to take the top bunk in the room they shared.

By lunchtime, Miles had a vicious backache and an impending temper explosion to add to her still-roaring headache and the itching need to crawl back into bed until tomorrow. To make matters worse, lunch was potatoes again, though this time they were served with instant noodles as a side dish.

And, predictably, she'd barely gotten halfway through her well-deserved (if ill-received) meal when a few Comodeen members came up to her with another complaint of something gone wrong: Test runs of the new version of Silvia's main cannon showed that there were a few bugs in the system, and someone was needed to puzzle out the malfunction.

"Look, why not go to Cid about all this?" Miles asked them with a groan.

"He's still working, ma'am," was the response.

Miles sighed and headslumped, barely avoiding going face first into her plate. "Fine… fine… but can I at least take a shower first…? Today's been really busy…"

The Comodeen members agreed that this seemed fair, if only to escape a famed Miles explosion over the issue. They could tell she wasn't in a good mood by now.

Feet dragging, Miles finally escaped to the relative safety of the shower rooms, making sure to lock the door securely before she turned the hot water on and stripped down to stand under its spray.

It never fails, Miles thought bitterly to herself. Every year on this same day, it's like I'm being punished for a few lifetimes' worth of bad karma. Nine years ago today I woke up one big mass of cramps with bloody sheets. Seven years ago today our world entered a losing war with Chaos. Five years ago today…

Five years ago today, I woke up in Wonderland to find out that my world had been destroyed…

Miles scowled into the hot water, then sighed and soaped her hair vigorously, taking a deep breath of the steamy air. Well, nothing too cataclysmic had happened yet. She ought to count herself lucky, going by that standard. If "lucky" could be applied to her at all today, that is.

Hearing an unfamiliar sound from the room next door, Miles frowned and turned the water down for a moment, then realized what it was and smiled crookedly. Obviously, somebody else was taking a shower in one of these rooms, too—she could just hear somebody singing over the steady drone of the water, though she couldn't make out words. It was nice, though, to hear that pure, rather lovely alto voice soaring through the unfamiliar melody it sang, since it had been a while since Miles had heard someone singing in the shower. Most of the Comodeen didn't go for that kind of thing, of which she was glad—most of them, especially Knave, had no singing voices to speak of, and she heartily believed that no soul should have to suffer through their caterwauling, no matter what they'd done.

…Except maybe Chaos, but then, that was a whole other matter unto itself.

Maybe it was Yu or Clear, although Miles was vaguely sure that she'd seen them running around in Silvia's halls before she'd managed to get in here. Oh, well. They didn't really seem to be sing-in-the-shower boys either. The way things looked now, she might never know, but it was enough to hear something pretty and get a brighter outlook on her situation. After all, she'd survived half the day already. That was a big accomplishment in itself.

With a sigh, Miles turned the water off and reached for her towel. Who was she kidding? The rest of the day would be crappy, too—it always was. Still, it would be over soon enough. She could at least stop moping and resign herself to it, since it obviously wasn't going to change anytime soon.

Besides, she still had a job to do.

Miles put her clothes back on and stepped outside, still toweling her hair off. Turning right, she began to head back towards the bridge to do a test run of the weapons system and see just what was wrong with it—and promptly collided with someone.

Instead of just the embarrassing little bump that usually occurred when two people knocked into each other in these halls and the awkward apologies that followed, however, Miles and whoever she'd run into fell over with a sharp, almost sickening crack as the person's head hit the steel floors and his sharp cry of pain.

Disoriented, Miles sat up, shook her head, and opened her eyes—then did a double-take, flinching back a little further.

Could this day possibly get any worse? she wondered to herself, anguished, as she looked him over.

He lay sprawled on his back, unmoving, his eyes still tightly closed and that pained expression lingering over his features. Like her, he had apparently just gotten out of the shower, and had had the misfortune of choosing to walk in exactly the opposite direction she had, which had wound up causing their collision. Unlike her, he'd chosen not to get dressed, and his clothes, which he'd apparently been carrying under his arm, were now scattered across the hall; there'd been a towel loosely wrapped around his waist, which had come undone and had slipped considerably, though it still miraculously covered the necessities.

And somehow, despite how long Miles had just sat gawking at him, Makenshi wasn't moving.

Backing up and then kneeling at his side, Miles bit her lip. I hope I didn't manage to knock him out… Tentatively setting a hand on his shoulder, she shook him very gently. "Hey, are you okay?"

Finally, a response: Makenshi let out a very soft moan and opened his eyes, looking up at her with a confused expression. However, there was something strange about his gaze—for some reason, his eyes looked almost unfocused. "……Miles…?"

Miles sighed. "Look, I'm really sorry about that… do you think you can sit up? You hit your head on that thing pretty hard…"

Very slowly, Makenshi did—then hunched over with another moan, putting a hand to his forehead with fingers curled in like claws. "…Why…?"

With a bitter grimace, Miles put her arm around his shoulders. "I'm sorry. That must really hurt… but do you think you can stand? I don't really want to move you too much after you cracked your head like that, but you can't just stay in the hall like this, okay?"

Silence from Makenshi. As Miles continued to watch him, though, he lowered his head in the minutest of nods, though even that tiny motion made him wince.

"Okay. Here, let me help you up…" Miles stood, holding out a hand to him. Makenshi looked up at her for a moment, then took it, struggling towards a standing position.

Unfortunately, Miles had been too busy worrying about Makenshi's ability to get up to remember his towel… until it slipped off his waist entirely, just moments before the swordsman staggered and collapsed against Miles, sending them both back down to the floor.

"I… I'm sorry…" Makenshi managed to say in a voice so soft that Miles almost couldn't hear his words. He'd landed practically in her lap, and was curled on his side facing away from her, his body trembling slightly.

"Um… it's not your fault, really…" Miles replied, trying her hardest not to stare. This is not good… I am sitting in a public hallway with a naked man halfway on my lap, and for whatever stupid reason I can't seem to keep my eyes off his… gah… this really isn't good! "Hey, um… do you feel dizzy at all? Is that why you can't stand?"

"…A little bit…"

"Crap." Making sure that her eyes stayed where they were supposed to be, Miles put a hand on Makenshi's shoulder. "Okay, I think you might have a concussion or something from the first time you fell, 'cause you hit your head really hard. This isn't gonna be easy, but I need you to walk with me so that we can get you back to your room. We'll take it slow, so it doesn't hurt your head too much. Just let me…" Very carefully, Miles eased him onto the floor, then gathered up his clothes from where they lay all over the hallway. As an afterthought, she grabbed his towel, then held it out to him. "But, uh, do you think that maybe you could put this back on first…?"

"…?" Makenshi opened his eyes, staring for a moment until he realized what she was holding. "Oh!" Blushing a violent scarlet, he took the towel and clumsily wrapped it back around his waist, tying it there with shaking hands. "…Oh, God…" Getting even redder, he covered his face with both hands, shaking even worse out of embarrassment.

Miles waited a moment for him to regain his composure, cringing a little in sympathy. "Are you ready to try getting up now?"

"…Alright…" With aching slowness, the two of them managed to get into an upright position, with Miles' arm wrapped tightly around Makenshi's waist and his over her shoulders, his fingers tightly clutching the fabric of her shirt. Pausing after every step, the two of them managed to get to Makenshi's room in about twice the time it usually took to get there.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Miles closed the door tightly behind them, maneuvering the swordsman over to his bed and holding out his clothes to him. "Um… do you think you could try to put some of this back on before you lie down? I'm gonna have to send down a doctor to take a look at you later, and we both know that towel isn't gonna stay forever."

Makenshi held out his hands for his clothes, slowly turning mostly away from her. Miles did the same, although she still glanced over her shoulder a little bit to make sure she'd see it if he started to falter.

After slipping off the towel (Miles tried desperately to keep her eyes away from his bare hips and failed miserably), Makenshi very gingerly stepped into underwear (which, thankfully, Miles did manage not to look at), then pants, before having to sit on the bed, holding his head in his hands.

"Okay, that's fine," Miles said, more out of pity than anything else (half-naked Makenshi still equaled an avid stare from her, after all). "Lie down, now."

He did so; she pulled a chair to his bedside from next to the door and sat watching him as he stared up at the ceiling.

"I really am sorry about all this," Miles told him. "I should've been looking…"

"It's alright," was his reply. "I wasn't paying attention, either."

Awkward silence.

"Hey… is it okay if I ask you something?" she ventured.

Makenshi said nothing, but gestured in the air that he didn't mind.

"Are all these scars from fighting Kaze?" Miles pointed to the faint brown and pink lines that traced over the pale skin of Makenshi's chest. "These look as though they really must've hurt. Poor thing."

"No… not all." Makenshi didn't turn his head to face her, but he looked towards her anyway. "Some were from training, long ago." He placed his hand on the thin, narrow whorl of fresh scar tissue just above his navel. "You know where this one is from."

Miles grimaced. "Yeah, I was there when that got stitched up." And she'd heard the story from Lisa, after they'd all met up again in this world. That was where the Earl, the old manifestation of Chaos, had speared him on his own sword, nearly killing him. Though Makenshi's other scars were already half-faded, this one was still vivid, and might remain so for years.

Makenshi sighed, closed his eyes, and then traced one long scar like a scratch that started an inch or so below his collarbones, then curved dangerously close to his left nipple. "And some of them… like this one here… some of them are from Chaos."

Not for the first time, Miles wondered about the full extent of what Makenshi had suffered at the hands of that awful creature. And not for the first time, Miles didn't ask. Some stories, she knew, were best left untold… and besides, she had the idea well enough without his telling her, so she didn't need to drag it from him until he was ready.

"It doesn't matter that much, though. After you've spent as long at Gaudium as I have, you get… desensitized to feeling pain," Makenshi said at length. "Scars fade in time. Memories don't. Eventually, that's all they can use to hurt you."

Remembering a certain field of clouds and the red-clad young man who had been there, Miles grimaced and—without thinking—softly ruffled Makenshi's hair.

He flinched; Miles yanked her hand away and kicked the bedside table. "Damn it, I knew I should've just locked myself in the damn bedroom and slept today! It's bad enough that this happens every single year, but now I end up hurting other people, too?"

Makenshi blinked, giving her a bewildered look. "What is it?"

Miles sighed and shook her head. "…Today's my twenty-first birthday." She made a face. "And don't you dare wish me a happy one. All my birthdays suck. Every single one of them has been unlucky so far, and usually anything bad or annoying that can happen does. Every damn year, without fail, something like this happens today.

"Nobody in the Comodeen knows what today is. Since I got to Wonderland I haven't told anyone, except you… maybe in hopes that that way I won't end up inflicting my bad luck on them." Miles grimaced. "Yeah right. Well, at least you'll be safe in here, since you and I probably won't see each other for the rest of the day. …I'm really sorry about all of this."

Makenshi just looked at her for a few moments, then reached out and took her hand, giving her a small smile. "It may be pointless to do so today… but I wish you happiness for tomorrow, and all the days after. May you be blessed in all your doings, and may fortune smile on you."

Miles squeezed his hand in thanks. "You're a real sweetheart, you know that?" Starting to smile despite herself, she stood up. "And you have a beautiful singing voice, by the way. I have to go now, but I promise I'll send someone down here to get you looked at as soon as I can." On impulse, she leaned down to kiss his cheek in farewell. "In the meantime, try to get some rest, okay?"

"I will."

Miles headed back outside, turning towards the bridge. Time to get the rest of her chores out of the way so that she actually could lock herself into her room for everybody else's benefit.

---

Along with her various well-meaning yet hapless Comodeen companions, Miles spent two and a half hours attempting to fix up a weapons system that she eventually discovered had never needed fixing in the first place, but was just being misfired out of very human error. She then spent another half an hour drilling the troops in the correct way to fire it. And as soon as that was done and even those awful mess hall potatoes started to seem appetizing, Miles was informed that the laundry needed hanging.

Parking herself in an empty corridor, Miles proceeded to throw shirts, pants, and underwear over the cables strung along it for that purpose. "I hate laundry," she grumbled. "So why is it that I always get stuck doing the damn laundry in this place?"

No use complaining. Once she was done with this and dinner, she would be just tired enough to go to sleep and just irritable enough to tell off anyone else who came to her with stuff that needed doing.

She didn't need to keep this up for much longer, thank God.

"Hey, Miles?"

It was Cid's voice, and that was enough to make her whirl around mid-curse. The inventor had come up the corridor behind her without her noticing, and was smeared with machine oil but looked pleased with himself.

"Finally finished your new toy, Cid?" Miles asked, shaking out the shirt she was holding and throwing it over the makeshift clothesline.

He nodded happily, making his feathery blonde hair flounce. "Yeah, and I was looking for you. Would you mind coming with me for a minute?"

"Uh, I still have to finish this up," Miles told him, pointing to the pile of wet clothes still in the laundry basket.

"It won't be the end of the world if they dry creased," Cid told her, then took her wrist and pulled gently. "Come on—it won't take that long, anyway."

"Oh, fine," Miles replied, unable to help smiling. It wasn't like she could possibly refuse Cid, anyway. They'd gotten a lot closer since the time he'd had to kiss her to break a spell that had turned him into a frog back in the days when they'd still been stuck in the Ocean Puzzle on Cid's other favorite toy besides Silvia—his submarine, Jane. Miles now counted Cid to be one of her best friends in the Comodeen, and was pretty sure she'd done a good enough job of hiding the fact that she sort of kind of liked him. She didn't mind being dragged away from her chores in order to get a first glimpse of whatever Cid's new project of the week happened to be.

Although, when Miles entered Cid's workshop, she couldn't help feeling a little bit confused at the circle of bluish-purple metal sat on his desk.

Before she could say anything, Cid picked it up and explained. "This is a special communicator I've made," he told her. "It's specifically designed so that it can be worn comfortably, like a necklace. The other half isn't done yet, but it's almost there—I just need to finish up the framework and it'll work perfectly." Handing the communicator to Miles, he pointed to a few small switches disguised as faux precious stones. "These are the switches that turn it on and off. I'll have to do tests on what the range is, but at least here on Silvia, it should work without a hitch."

"That sounds like it'll be pretty useful," Miles said, nodding, as she carefully examined the delicate ring of metal and wire. "So what'd you name this one?"

Cid was silent for a moment, and for some reason, he was starting to blush. "Well, actually…"

"Yeah, what is it?"

"I was wondering if you'd let me name her 'Miles'," Cid blurted.

Miles stared at him, speechless.

Still red-faced, Cid carefully removed the communicator from her suddenly nerveless grasp, undid the delicate catch of the chain that connected it, and slipped it around Miles' neck. "Happy birthday, Miles."

She mouthed at him for a few moments, amazed, before she found her voice. "How did you know?"

Cid scratched his head, obviously embarrassed. "Well… we've both been with the Comodeen for a long time, so it was easy to notice that you always acted depressed on the same day each year. From then on, it wasn't all that hard to figure it out. I mean, who wouldn't be depressed if nobody knew when their birthday was? So, I started wondering what I could do." He shifted uncomfortably. "Um, if you don't like it…"

"Are you kidding?" Miles interrupted him. "I love it! It's been so long since anyone's ever taken so much trouble for me… I can't believe that you did all this!"

Though he was still blushing, Cid smiled at her. "Actually… there's still one more thing. Come with me for a second."

The two of them headed back into the hall, with Cid leading the way. Miles remained silent, fingering her new present in wonder. None of this felt entirely real just yet.

"Okay, here we are!" Cid announced.

Miles pointed to the doors before them. "Cid, this is the mess hall."

"Yep." Cid nodded. "Go ahead, go in!"

Barely had Miles set her hand on the doorknob and started to turn it when a cheer erupted from the room—almost the entire Comodeen, as well as Lisa and the kids, were waiting inside with plates and plates of food along each table, none of it potatoes.

Miles just stood there, shocked.

"Happy birthday, Miles!" the Comodeen caroled as one.

"How did you do all this?" Miles asked, bewildered, as Cid shepherded her into the room.

"Well, it's been five years since you joined the Comodeen, so when Cid told us this, we realized that you'd gone five years without having a birthday party," Knave explained. "We all did what we could to help."

"We're sorry we had to run you all over Silvia today," Lisa apologized. "Cid insisted that this be a surprise, and keeping you so busy was the only way we could make sure you didn't accidentally find out."

"Sis got all the food from Poshepocket," Yu volunteered. "Everybody was sick of just potatoes all the time, anyway!"

"Makenshi wanted to be here too, but he fell asleep and the doctor said we shouldn't wake him up," Ai informed Miles. "Something about people with concussions having to stay still, I think."

Miles blushed and made a face; the Comodeen collectively laughed.

"We made sure to get you frogs' legs, too, since that's your favorite," Cid told her, patting her shoulder. "I'll just sort of look the other way while you inhale them."

This time it was Miles' turn to laugh. "I just can't believe you managed to do all this for me." Throwing her arms around Cid, she hugged him tightly. "Thank you!"

Once she finally let him go, Ai and Yu herded her towards the middle table, allowing her only a glimpse of Cid's stunned expression before they sat her down. "We hope we got the cake right," Yu said. "I hope you like chocolate, 'cause that's what Poshepocket had."

"Although we did kind of get into trouble since we didn't know how many candles to put on it," Ai added. "But Makenshi told us twenty-one, so it was okay. Make a wish!"

They must all have been in on this behind my back, Miles realized, shaking her head in amazement. It must have taken Cid a long time to get all of this planned. Incredible.

Aloud, she said, "Okay, I've got one," and with the practiced lungs of the Comodeen's best dartwoman, she blew them all out with one breath.

I wish I'll always have friends like these.

Miles glanced over her shoulder at Cid, still in a state of shock from being hugged.

Especially friends like him.

:owari :3: