Verdurous Seas, Cerulean Skies

Sweet Indulgences

Ledo didn't know what he was getting into when he let Amy teach him how to bake. The copious mess and the two squirrels hyped up on sugar flying about his kitchen were definitely inevitable, but he never anticipated finding himself on top of Amy on the kitchen table covered head to toe in flour, half-naked, and suffering from a sensation that made his shorts feel like they were shrinking.

And as he fell from the table, and off of Amy, he wondered how on Earth a peaceful day transformed into such a humiliating disaster.

~VSCS~

It all started late in the morning. Ledo had the day off and decided to spend it at home making a new flute for Bebel. The younger boy loved collecting ancient relics, and since he was especially fascinated with Ledo's cultural artifacts, he decided to finish the flute so Bebel could have something else to do while he was indoors. Amy was usually busiest during this time of day, so he decided to visit Bebel once he was finished.

His laser gun buzzed softly, adding to the calm ambiance of the apartment. Aria sat close by happily nibbling on a cracker. A gentle wind passed through the window, alleviating the heat. Morning calmly faded into afternoon. It was a perfectly serene day…

… Until someone knocked on the door.

On any other day, Ledo happily welcomed unexpected guests, but today was just too perfect, so being disrupted from his placid routine left him feeling a little peevish. But when he answered the door, his slight irritation diminished at the sight of Amy and Grace.

"Hey, Ledo!"

"Hello, Amy." The flying squirrel flew onto his shoulder, nuzzling against the crook of his neck. He rubbed her ear as he took note of the bags in Amy's arms.

"You're not busy, are you?"

He shook his head. "I was going to see Bebel in a few minutes, but otherwise I'm free."

"Oh, good! Do you mind helping me with something first? It won't be long."

Profoundly incapable of denying her anything, Ledo moved to help her with her bags. As soon as they were on the table, Amy began taking things out and organizing them neatly. They were food ingredients, but nothing that Ledo was familiar with.

"I don't remember if I've told you this, but Bebel's birthday is coming up soon," she began to explain, "and every year I make him something special."

"I see…" Ledo looked at the various packages, handling some to analyze their texture and girth.

One of the things he learned quickly after his happenstance upon the verdurous planet was that Earthlings loved to throw parties, something he originally thought was mundane and bizarre, but it was also one of the first things he grew fond of quickly.

When he found out that birth dates fit into that category, Ledo once again felt that vapid feeling in his chest whenever he compared Earth traditions with the rigid customs of the Galactic Alliance. Back when he was a soldier, birth dates were only used as part of a census, to keep track of population capacity, demographics, as well as the status of each individual. Birth dates, more commonly known as "birthdays" on Earth, had much more meaning here, where all life was cherished, but he'd yet to understand their significance.

Whatever Amy had planned, he was more than willing to help, especially since it was for Bebel.

"This year," she continued, "I want to make manjū buns. I would normally ask Melty and Saaya to help me, but they're busy." Little did Ledo know that Saaya and Melty were actually racing around the fleet on their surf kites, free as birds.

Today was also their day off, but instead of joining her friends on another surf kite excursion, the brunette decided to take advantage of this opportunity and spend her leisure time with the hoary-haired boy, just the two of them. Between his excavation job and her courier route, their time together was fleeting, and on rare days such as this one when they did have free time, it became a beacon for social gatherings. Although Ledo didn't seem to mind, Amy was starting to get agitated, especially by Melty's ironic jabs about "taking her sweet time to hook up with the hottie". How was she supposed to make her move when none of them could take a freaking hint?!

It wouldn't be long until Melty and Saaya figured out where she was, so she didn't want to waste another second thinking about it. "Let's get started!"

Ledo only knew a few things about cooking, so baking was very new territory for him. Amy began by introducing him to the unfamiliar ingredients, specifically the buckwheat and azuki bean paste. She let him try some since she brought everything in excess, especially the paste, which was kept tightly wrapped so neither Grace nor Aria could get to it. The long-eared squirrel could easily detect the sweet scents inside the bags and immediately flew down towards the one containing sugar.

"If she gets into any of the sugary stuff, she'll be flying off the walls, and not in a good way," Amy warned him. As if to emphasize her point, the flying squirrel tried gnawing her way into the bag. She gave up quickly, noticing that the bean paste was not properly guarded, and went in for the kill. She managed a lick before Amy kindly took the bowl away and covered it up, then shooed the poor squirrel out of the kitchen.

After all their ingredients were gathered, they started making the dough. They took turns stirring and heating the mix on the stove and, when she wasn't looking, Ledo would sneak a taste of the bean paste. It seemed the squirrels weren't the only ones that got easily hooked on sugar.

It was a nice routine, and the two couldn't help noticing how natural it felt. These moments were so few and far between, and now that it was just the two of them, they relished it. No words were needed as the teens were easily engrossed in each other, even without suspecting their requited feelings for one another.

"Thanks for helping me with this," Amy said timidly. "I know you'd rather be relaxing on your day off than baking. Some guys think it's just boring wives work."

"I don't mind," Ledo said honestly. "But why not bake at home?"

"Because I want Bebel to be surprised."

"Why?"

"Well, people appreciate gifts more when they don't expect them. Plus it's fun! I love surprising him just as much as I love making his surprise. His smile, the light in his eyes…" Ledo listened raptly as Amy reminisced, watching her react the same way as she'd described Bebel. Her smile lit up as it always did whenever she was overcome with immense glee. Her eyes gleamed with the same intense joy, blue as the sky on a sunny day such as this one. There was no doubt Amy and Bebel were siblings, the two always radiating like suns: bright, bold, and impossible to snuff out. "Bebel's never asked for anything, so this is really the only time I get to spoil him!"

After a few more stirs, it was Ledo's turn at the stove again.

"I was working on my flute," he suddenly spoke, "before you came here."

Amy's eyebrow quirked up in interest. "Oh? Were you practicing?"

He shook his head. "I was making one, for Bebel. I was going to give it to him today, but… he might appreciate it more when I give it to him on his birthday."

Amy's grin increased tenfold at Ledo's considerate notion. "That's really sweet, Ledo. I'm sure he'll love it." She interrupted herself when a thought came to mind. "Oh! I keep forgetting to ask. When's your birthday?"

Ledo had gone strangely silent and for a moment Amy thought she had unintentionally offended him. "I… I'm not sure," he answered after a few seconds of contemplation, but thankfully he didn't sound upset. "I haven't thought about it until now… Three months before I came here, I had turned sixteen. I've been on Earth for about seven months, so if I've calculated Earth's timeframe correctly, I should turn seventeen in about two months."

"Oh… wow." Seconds after the question was asked he was able to calculate the date of his birth without so much as a hiccup. "Wow" seemed like an appropriate, albeit lame, response. It just another quirk of Ledo's that made him the most incredible being she'd ever met. She recovered elegantly from her stupor and replied, "That's good! In two months, we should throw you a party or something!"

"I don't need a party. But… maybe you could bake for me, too…"

Her cheeks burned up a bit, and for a moment she was very glad Ledo's back was facing her. "O-Of course! Anything you want."

Ledo shifted a bit, his cheeks also enflamed.

After a while, the mixture started getting doughy, and Amy announced that it was ready.

"This is the fun part." Taking the dough off the stove, she quickly set it aside before laying down a sheet on the kitchen table, spreading the buckwheat powder all over it. "Now we get to be messy!"

Throughout a majority of the process, Amy kept her hands near Ledo's, teaching him how to carefully mold the bean paste into proportional clumps, and sometimes if she was lucky, his hands would accidentally touch hers. Once he got the gist of it, she put the dough on the sheet and covered it up with buckwheat so it wouldn't stick to their fingers. Afterwards she began cutting it up into pieces and enveloping them around each ball of bean paste. She then rolled them a few at a time across the sheet for good measure. After making three, she let Ledo try.

That was when things started getting a little too messy.

The afternoon heat was starting to get to them, but having the least resistance to the solar rays, Ledo began to perspire as soon as the first heatwave hit. He subconsciously wiped his forehead with the back of his hand aware that his palms were occupied and filthy, but he forgot to take into account the clingy, powdery buckwheat that had spread to his forearms, leaving a giant white streak across his forehead. Noticing this, Amy couldn't help laughing. Ledo's skin tone was already much paler than most of the residents of Gargantia, even Bebel, so the giant, bleach-white stain made his forehead look even more pristine.

In addition to his sweat, the dry buckwheat started to crust and fall. Catching on, Ledo smirked covertly before lightly flinging some buckwheat at her. Amy gasped as the powdery rain hit her in the face and her laughter elevated into animated squeals as the war raged on. Ten handfuls of buckwheat later, Amy noticed the ammo had been switched to flour and decided it was time to stop the frenzy since a majority of the starch was plastered all over the young excavator's body.

But it was hard to be serious when someone as serious as Ledo was acting so childishly. "L-Ledo—Ledo, stop!" Amy laughed as Ledo hit her one last time. "We're not going to have enough for the rest!"

He paused and looked around, finally noticing the condition of the kitchen. "Sorry," he said sheepishly, a rosy tint blooming on his cheeks.

She laughed again lightheartedly. "It's okay. I'm glad you're having fun."

Her hands reached over to brush the lingering powder off his cheek. He felt warm under her touch. Slowly, he put a hand on top of hers and, without warning, brought her doughy fingers to his lips. She nearly jumped at the ticklish sensation of his tongue running smoothly along her index finger.

He took her hand away from his mouth, savoring the taste. "… It's sweet."

"… Good." She dared not to look him in the eye, but curiosity got the best of her. Once blue met violet, the teens blushed and hastily stepped away from each other, flustered. "You should get cleaned up!" Amy winced at the high-strung, panicky tone of her voice and lowered it considerably. "I-I can handle the rest."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, it's no problem! We're almost done. Go ahead and clean yourself up."

She didn't turn around until he was gone, but even after he had left Amy couldn't help feeling ill at ease. Far be it from her to overreact about anything and everything that made Ledo, well, Ledo, but this was the first time he'd done something so… sensual. If there was a sign, any sign, that said take a chance, that was it! But as usual his unwitting charisma sent her into the foiling depths of stupidity. She had missed her chance and now she was hopelessly embarrassed. Melty would never let her live this down.

Sighing in defeat, the brunette finished making the manjū buns with the rest of the dough. She decided to leave the rest of the bean paste for Ledo as a special treat and a special thanks for sacrificing his day off to help her. As she was covering up the sweet filling, a startled cry from the other room stopped her in her tracks. Running through the veiled threshold between the kitchen and Ledo's private quarters, Amy saw something that made her whole being turn absolutely flushed.

Ledo, who had initiated the cry, was now laughing boisterously as Grace and Aria scrambled all over his body, licking and nipping harmlessly on his starch-covered limbs. And he was half-naked. Of course this wasn't the first time she'd seen him shirtless, but it wasn't like he was wearing a swimsuit. And although it was inappropriate to see him this way, Amy couldn't help staring. Melty would definitely hate her for this.

"AH! Grace!" The flying squirrel caught a whiff of that same sugary scent coming from her human companion and pounced, seeing the brunette also covered in that sweet, sweet, powdery ambrosia. She landed on her hand, which was sticky with dough and bean paste. As Amy forewarned, one lick and she was flying off the walls.

Grace's incredibly fast metabolic rate would leave her wanting more, so the first thing Amy thought to do was cover up anything that had a trace of sugar. Logically, she went to shield the manjū buns first, but the flying squirrel skipped over that and went straight to the good stuff: the azuki bean paste. "Grace, no!"

In her haste, Grace accidentally knocked over the sack of flour, creating a dusty-white fog in the kitchen. It was absolutely everywhere, including in the young woman's eyes, which stung badly. While wiping her eyes, Amy had backed up into something, or rather someone, and they both toppled over each other onto the kitchen table, knocking over the tray of manjū.

"Amy!"

"Ledo?" Amy moved her hand away from her face and, though it was still hard to see, made out the extremely pasty-faced image of half-naked Ledo.

Nose-to-nose and under the cloudy curtain of flour, the teens were lying in a very compromising position. It seemed as they fell, Ledo made it so he wouldn't crush her on the table. One of his hands was under her back while his other arm cushioned the fall onto the table. Unfortunately, his position allowed her to feel things that suddenly brought her virginity into question. Ledo didn't even seem to notice, fretting over her wellbeing instead.

"Are you alright, Amy?"

"Yeah, but um…" She shifted nervously, not able to form words.

As soon as she moved, Ledo stiffened. His face was once again inflamed in awareness and discomfiture, further exacerbating his condition. He hastened to remove himself, his arm slipping from the table, and before he knew it he was on the floor. "Ledo!"

~VSCS~

No one could've seen this coming, least of all the shamefaced young man. Somehow, he had managed to gracelessly stumble into the bathroom to wash away the flour and starch along with the rest of his pride. He had wanted to get closer to Amy and he jumped at the opportunity when she appeared at his doorstep, but that was not what he had in mind. And even though he kept reminding himself that he used to be an elite soldier prepared for the worst disasters, biologically he was still an adolescent. There were still things about his body that he wasn't even aware of; nothing, not even a lifetime of military training, could've prepared him for that baking catastrophe.

A gentle knock on the door brought him out of his mortified reverie. "Ledo? Are you okay?" He continued to scour himself raw. He wasn't sure if he was ready to even talk to her without feeling self-conscious about what happened. "I cleaned up the kitchen, and I left you a manjū bun. I was able to save them all, so I thought it's the least I can do for all your help…" Although it was silent, he knew she was still there, so he figured he ought to say something. He at least owed her an apology.

He approached the door reluctantly. "Amy?" He grasped the knob. "I…"

She pushed the door open for him, a very apologetic smile settling on her lips. "It's okay, Ledo. You don't have to apologize. It was all an accident. Plus if anyone should be sorry it's me. We don't get to be alone together often, and since we both weren't working today, making Bebel's special surprise seemed like the perfect excuse to come over."

Seeing her so bashful, Ledo felt even guiltier. "Next time, Grace and Aria should stay with Bebel."

She looked up at his modest heliotropes, skeptically hopeful. "Next time?"

He nodded. The prospect of being alone with Amy made him smile foolishly. There would be a next time, indeed, but it would be different.

"Oh, you have a little something on your cheek." Before he could reach up to wipe away the missed glob, the young woman leaned forward and pecked his cheek. She licked her lips in a savory display of coquettishness before grinning back at him innocuously. "You were right; it is sweet."

For the third time that day, Ledo's complexion was overtaken by a delightful, tingling sensation.

Amy giggled as he shut the door politely to deal with his issue. At least she finally knew how he felt.