Hi it's me again, (duh!) Thank you to the lovely people who reviewed, It does wonders for my self esteem –so if anyone else has anything they have to say about the fic just click the review button at the bottom.

Disclaimer; - I've only done this a few times and I'm already getting sick of it. I do not own Escaflowne I'm not even in possession of any esca merchandise o.k.?

Is this chapter fluff? I don't think so, I think it my have a few strands of fluff in it but not enough for it to be deemed fluffy (I think) I was going to add the really big angsty chunk of angst in this chapter but I decided to let you wait a bit more; it's too soon but can you see it creeping in?

Food equals Romance

Hikari walked over to her seat, still upset about her family's hostility towards her but at the same time she felt like a giddy school girl at the sight of Yusuke; she had to mentally slap herself to remember that this was the same Yusuke that she spent ages trying to avoid courting.  She did another curtsey as she stepped up towards the king and the Queen and then sat down at her seat.  Hikari quickly forgot the glares she was receiving when she sat opposite Yusuke; blushing wildly at his grins. This obviously didn't go unnoticed as Allen was smiling to himself and Hitomi and Van were exchanging knowing glances.

Yusuke took the opportunity to take a closer look at the girl with such a rare beauty. She had these bright red crimson eyes with a dark scarlet ring around it, they looked remarkably like Vino especially as they were gleaming from recently shed tears, he certainly could get drunk on them.  Her hair was strung up in a high ponytail and the ends were curled in to ringlets, his eyes followed the ringlets down to her lap were she had placed her hair to avoid sitting on it.  His eyes wandered back up at her face and began to examine the dress she was wearing; the first thing he noticed was that there was a lack of dress in a certain area, where his eyes seemed to linger for a remarkably long time.

Hikari looked up towards Yusuke's direction; his was gazing at something pretty raptly; she followed his stare down to the lace fringing at her dress and immediately drew out her fan over her bust blushing furiously.

She wasn't the only one to go red; Yusuke also went a light shade of pink and suddenly became over interested in his soup.  Allen couldn't help himself chuckling out loud alerting the whole table of the situation, causing further embarrassment to the two teenagers who were now looking in two separate directions. Hikari was gently fanning her blush, actually thankful for what she once cursed a useless accessory. 

Now Yusuke was finally looking away from her she took the time to examine what he looked like.  She noticed that he did look a great deal like his father except for his skin seemed to have a golden aurora to it and he had remarkably deep green eyes; forest green just like Fanalia it's hard to imagine without seeing him, but he looked like his country embodied.  He was dressed completely in black; he wore matt black trousers as well as a black shirt with the top two buttons undone making him look sexy without even revealing anything.  She looked back up at his head and examined his hair; it was a sooty black colour and fell over his eyes in the form of bangs adding a mysterious air to him.  Hikari didn't know why but she wanted to reach out brush them away from his face, to feel them in her hands she imagined them being soft like silk.  She felt another blush rise to her face as he caught her staring at him sending them back to looking in opposite directions.

When finally the table settled and conversation broke between everyone except the two of them, Hikari attempted to eat the soup; unfortunately this prove to be quite a dilemma as her sleeves insisted in take a bath in the tomato coloured liquid. She looked over to Allen for help who simply deliberately knocked her spoon off the table; Hikari interpreted this to mean 'how to be seductive while picking up a spoon'.  She tousled a few of her locks in the air when bending down to pick up the spoon and tried to act helpless, all as Allen had previously advised. 

'Men must have seriously deflated egos if they need women to act helpless to make themselves feel strong.'  Hikari muttered under her breath; which received a gentle kick from Allen who obviously heard this.  While Hikari was under the table she noticed that Yusuke was waving a napkin and a pen in her direction, she quickly picked it up along with the spoon and sat back down again. 

When no one was looking she unfolded the napkin in her lap and smiled in Yusuke's direction when she read his message; 'don't worry you don't have to act helpless to try to seduce me' she laughed even more when she realised that this could be interpreted in two ways.

'Don't laugh to yourself otherwise they will think you've gone insane' Allen muttered in between clenched teeth.  Hikari quickly showed Allen the note to avoid getting in trouble and he sighed saying in a defeated tone, 'to think I spent all that wasted time on you.' However his sigh quickly turned in to a grin as he realised his plan was going on track even if Hikari did it her own way.

So the dinner continued with Sanosuke dropping bits of torn up napkin in his soup, the twins still glaring at Hikari, Yuhei and Allen were still dominating the conversation at the table with the king and Queen about knights in Austuria, Celena of course was still denying the fact she could speak, while the two love sick teens passed various napkin written notes under the table.

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Dinner had finally finished and Allen's family assembled outside to see him leave to Austuria; Yuhei looking rather sad from the loss of company and Hikari trying her best to stop grinning madly at his long awaited departure. 

Hikari ran back in the castle eager to meet Yusuke running past her younger three brothers as she went.  As she ran past the line of boys Sadhura grabbed her wrist and pulled her sharply in his direction and slapped her as hard as he could possibly muster across her face and then walked off.  Hikari grabbed her red cheek and ran straight for   her room, her thin body convulsing with sobs.  She fumbled with the key for her room at the top of the door frame dropping it on the floor as she tried to grasp it.  She immediately fell on her knees and began to cry hysterically.

Yusuke was grinning madly as he looked down at the napkin with scrawled messages written all over it in black ink, he lifted it to smell the fragrance of crushed roses that Hikari had left behind on it.  He walked up to her room, every now and then speeding up from his normal pace due to excitement.  When he turned the corner he felt a sharp pain in his chest as he saw Hikari desperately trying to insert the key in the hole with tears streaming down her face.  He stopped for a while looking pained, as the sight of her distraught made his heart wither in his chest, with out any more haste he ran towards the slumping figure and held her close to his chest her tears soaking his black shirt.

He made soft lulling noises at the girl who he was cradling protectively in his arms; he turned around at the whispering of the maids and decided it was best to take Hikari in to her room rather than standing idly in the hallway.  He led Hikari to the bed and shut the balcony windows preventing any cold drafts from entering the room.  He walked over to Hikari whose tears had subsided and was cursing her self for crying out aloud. He sat down on the bed next to her and wiped away the last few tears from her cheek and placed a chaste kiss on her forehead as she moved away a few strands of silver hair from her face.  She snivelled and leant her head against his chest and he stroked her back gently with his hand.

Hikari's brows were knotted in confusion as she couldn't under stand why she felt so safe in his arms; it was like nothing could hurt her.  She had only known him for a day and she was sure she was falling head over heals for him, a completely alien experience to her as it usually worked in the reverse when it came to her.  After much debating internally she decided that she quite liked this foreign experience and let her self relax in his warm embrace.

Now Hikari seemed relax his pain also soothed.  He still didn't understand why she went from a pleasant disposition to hysterics; the red mark across her cheek didn't go unnoticed by him and he guessed she had been slapped; it hurt him to think about her pain and he felt inexplicable anger rage within him thinking about who caused it.  Yusuke tried his best to remain composed and quickly lost all train of thoughts in her soft breathing.

The two of them sat their quietly on the bed each wondering if the other felt the same way about them.

After a few moments Hikari grudgingly sat up from leaning against his shirt and kissed him gently on the cheek 'Thank you Yusuke,' she said quietly which was quickly followed by a yawn.

Yusuke got up slightly reluctantly and made his way out of the door his gaze never leaving hers.  He lent on the door he shut behind him and walked off to his room with new vigour.

Hikari smiled as she smelt her hands, she could smell him on her; he smelt warm, she didn't know how he did but he gave off a smoky musky fragrance that reminded you of wood cottages on the forest and lying on fur rugs next to the fire holding hands with the one you love and kissing; Hikari decided she would stop her thoughts there not wanting her mind to stray any further.  She removed her clothes and necklace slipped in to her negligee and went to bed. 

Thinking of him made her forget Sadhura and Tsuyoshi, thinking of him made her forget everything.

-------------------Hitomi and Van's bedroom--------------

The couple lay together in each others arms in the four poster bed.

'Van don't you think they made a cute couple? Kind of reminds me of us when we were that age, don't you think?'

'Yeah, except for I didn't look like a tyrannous villain who burnt down the town you were ruling over.'

'You can't hold that against her, just because she looks like Dilandau doesn't mean she should be treated like him; she gets enough of that from Allen and Celena.'

'I wasn't holding it against her, I was just saying it is a really freaky coincidence that the girl that was once Dilandau Albatou has a daughter that turns up looking exactly like him; and how do Allen and Celena treat her?'

'Can't you see? They treat her as if she were different; they are always on guard with her and anything outlandish she does they expect it to be Dilandau's fault, they don't mean to but they treat her like they expect her to turn in to him.'

'I was never blessed with intuitiveness, that's your frontier…he's flying.'

'Huh?'

'Yusuke's flying.'

'How do you know?'

'I can just feel it.'

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Hikari woke up with the scent of jasmine invading the air.  She quietly tip-toed out of bed and stretched, her body silhouetted next to the curtains that were glowing with the sunlight they kept veiled behind them.  She un-drew her balcony curtains and a smile crept to her lips and she leant her hands against the glass balcony window in a child like fashion.  The whole of her balcony was filled with small white flowers that once made there way up the trelace by her window, in the middle was a fiery orange lily; the same kind Yusuke had given her yesterday.

~Owari

Please review ^.^

-The backwards angel (-why do I bother to write that at the end of every chapter, you get the point that I'm a backwards angel now don't you? I must stop doing that.)