Chapter Five; Dinnertime!

The following Wednesday, what with Cloud coming over to Tifa's place again to hang out/have dinner with her (yes, again), it rained. Horribly. She opened the door to a sopping, soaking, absolutely and completely drenched, irrevocably wet Cloud Strife.

"Hey!" Grinned Cloud Strife, blond hair sticking darkly to his forehead. The relentless torrents outside didn't seem to have bothered him too much. She smiled and handed him a towel. He followed her as she walked into the kitchen.

"So, how's the weather?"

"Delicious."

"I can tell you thought so. You seem to have wet yourself with glee."

"Harhar."

"Bwhaha."

"Feel like rollerskating? It's great weather for it." he invited, with a casual motion towards the front door. She dropped unceremoniously to the floor. "I would, but I seem to have suddenly broken my leg."

His hair fuzzed out and stuck gracelessly in all directions as he cast a suspicious glance in her general direction. "Weirdo."

"Ahahah. Don't get me started. Have you had a look at your hair yet?" She asked as she stood up and brushed off her butt.

He cleared his throat. "Why? What's wrong with it?"

"Oh, nothing- Tea?"

"I'd love some t- Tifa.. how bad is the hair?"

*

It was early afternoon when he arrived, and the day being a Wednesday, the Walhalla was a bit busier than during their last meet-up.
Cloud sat back and regarded as Tifa bustled about back and forth, seeing to the guests and the shop. The restaurant, Ambrosia, wouldn't open until about 5:30, and even then, Tifa didn't need to oversee it neccessarily. She was just the manager and big Kahuna and all that. He smiled to himself. Imagine that girl.. only twenty-one and already running this joint. Everything going smooth as clockwork.. and she just bopped along, going her own rhythm, never needing anyone to catch her. He felt something twist. Perhaps jealousy, perhaps a form of helplessness.
He couldn't help but beam at her as she ran past, ruffled his hair, and called cheerfully back to him, "I'm off rollerskating, don't wait up!"
He laughed and yelled after her that he would be going through her accountancy records in the mean time, then, and she shouted back up to him that he couldn't quite be that bored, wouldn't he rather watch the grass grow?

He shook his head and went over to the window. Rain poured down, flattening the panorama into an obscure two-dimensional silhouet of a city. Kalm had become a city. He tried to peer past the rain to recognize some of the old downtown, but it was virtually impossible. His breath made a white mist against the window. He wrote ' PLEH' in it as he always used to, letters mirrored, like he had when he had been small and in school, zoning himself out, away from the teacher's dilapidatingly boring soliloquies and away from the little assholes who always sat behind him, using their ink pens on his too-large white shirts, writing crass words and their names, and what exactly they thought of Cloud. None of them had ever been smart enough to figure out what in the name of Holy the letters 'PLEH' could mean.
They couldn't understand that 'PLEH', letters mirrored, meant something totally different to someone who saw the window from the outside. Well, perhaps he wasn't giving the Nibel boys enough credit. They had all only been six at the time. Tifa still five-and-some-months.
He saw her in the reflection on the window, and turned to her, didn't say anything. She didn't either. Comfy silences are special.

She stood beside him and looked out the window, probably having as much difficulty as he had had a moment ago trying to discern the features of a city in the middle of a spring storm.
He watched her, her eyes squinting, her lower lip being chewed. Her hair had been pulled back into a braid.
"You going to take a break soon, or do I have to drag you to dinner?" he asked, fastening his eyes on her left shoulder. No reason, except that the particular sweater she was wearing dipped off of that particular shoulder. He ran his tongue along the insides of his teeth and didn't say anything again.

"No, I'm all done." She replied after a moment, as if she had been daydreaming and had suddenly realized he had been talking to her. He nodded and turned to walk away from the window, but she lifted her arm and rested her finger right beneath the 'PLEH'.

"So it was you, always calling for help from the windows." she said, and walked off to the kitchen.

He stared at the glass, at the fading letters in the moist residue of his breath, and felt as if all those long years, he had simply been waiting, and that waiting was now, peacefully, casually, coming to an end, and he followed her into the kitchen.

*

Neither of them feeling culinarily interesting or daring-'culinarily? is that even a word? how do you spell it then?' demanded a grinning Cloud when Tifa used it-, they browsed Tifa's cupboards in search of something cookable. Tifa was about to suggest they mosey down to the shop (her shop) and pick up some supplies, but Cloud nearly shrieked like a little girl when he came across the box of ninja-turtle-shaped macaroni & cheese.

"You just nearly shrieked like a little girl, Cloud."

"I didn't know you could still get these!" He ranted wildly, ignoring her remark. "I haven't seen these since my ninth birthday party in Nibelheim!"

She laughed and commented with a wink, "That's how old this box is, you know.. it was on your ninth birthday party that I bought this in that little Supermarket right down the street."

"Now we definitely have to eat it. Man, thirteen-year-old macaroni-and-cheese from our hometown, and in gnarly ninja turtle shapes!"
She stared at him, appreciative of how subtly sarcastic he was being. Hopefully.

"Gnarly! Gnarly.. Remember? And.. ah, cowabunga dude!" He grinned at her. "So, what else is on the menu?"

There was a flat sort of silence.

'Wasn't 'cowabunga' from the Simpsons?' she ventured.

He stared at her.

'Nahh..'

She shrugged.

He blinked.

Her eyebrows went up and then down again.

'Right. Well.'

'Right. Never mind.'

*

Together they prepared their meal of macaroni & cheese (which, to tell the truth, really wasn't quite as old as it may have at first seemed- leaving out of the picture the question whether or not five-year-old macaroni & cheese is any more edible than thirteen-year-old macaroni & cheese, for indeed, the macaroni & cheese spoken of here is no younger than five) along with slices of cucumber and tomato and the peculiar but obscurely logical choice of deep-frozen fish sticks with garlic mayonnaise. So much for lack of culinary daring.

It goes without saying that they did, of course, thaw and then fry the deep-frozen fish sticks before eating them.

Finally seated at the table, staring at the food and then at Cloud, who was staring at the food, Tifa commented, "You know.. if we were anime characters, you'd have the wildest niko-niko eyes right now. Really pointy wiggly niko-niko eyes."

He gave her a serious look, one that caught her off guard because she hadn't seen him be serious in over a year, and he was still very good at it.
She stared, and Cloud watched her thoughtfully and nodded to himself, and then replied, "And you.. you'd would be sweatdropping."

A slightly maniacal look crossed Cloud's face and vanished again. God, he was on a roll tonight. Tifa found herself grinning and groaning at him. 'I'm going to slap you,' she muttered, and didn't.

"So what would anime-babe Tifa do if anime-hunk Cloud started pairing the ninja turtles macaroni bits off against each other? Take that, Shredder!" and his eyes danced over to meet hers.

"That's when I would facevault," she said, a pitiful look on her face as she swallowed a bite of (thawed, fried, but previously deep-frozen) fishstick with mayonnaise.

"Good," he laughed, "because so would I. Like I would ever play with macaroni-and-cheese turtles."

"Yeah. As if."

"Yeah."

"Sure.."

"You don't believe me, do you? You're not being very supportive, you know."

"I'm hurt! How can you think I'm not a hundred percent behind you at all times, Cloud -ah, sorry, I meant Raphael.."

He smiled and looked at his plate. When he looked up he sort of did look serious, but normal, a slight smile on his face. "You have always been a hundred percent behind me," he said pensively, meeting her eyes with a clear look. She didn't know how to respond or what to think, and she furiously fought the flush shooting up her neck to her face. Why would she blush? He was a friend and she liked that he had said that. That he had noticed.

"Well, anyways," she filled in quickly, afraid of terra incognita, "it's good that I found them once, isn't it? They aren't quite thirteen years old, though, I got the box a few months ago from a packrat making money off of all the food she'd collected over the years.. but it's a good memory to have of growing up. I grew up with macaroni-and-cheese which my parents would buy from that shop. You know? I still remember exactly how it smelled there. Because the owner.. I can't remember his name. He collected herbs, right? But it always smelled strongest of-"

"Nutmeg." Cloud said. He hesitated, realizing he had interrupted her. "Anyways, that's how I remember it smelling."

She looked at him curiously.

"I was about to say nutmeg," she replied, and they smiled at each other. Looking down, she went on. "It's weird.. I actually remember lots of different smells from Nibelheim. The smell of the wood from my piano, the smell of the town's first vehicle with a mako engine.. the smell of the mouldy old wood of the well on townsquare."

He smiled and nodded, "I remember what Nibelheim smelled like when it rained." He glanced at her, pausing, "and I remember how the Nibel quarry trail smelled like leaves and dirt and rabbit shit in the fall."

"Aah! The quarry trail! I used to spend so much time there.. I could jump in puddles and climb in trees for hours and hours.. and, I don't know, my mom always said my clothes were so dirty that I had to have rubbed against rocks and bury myself in dead leaves. I can't remember, but I probably did."

He laughed. "Yeah, well, so did I. I always went and tried to climb up the one really big tree-"

"The one with the limb split off by lightning?"

"That one."

"I loved that tree.."

"I never could make it to the top.. I couldn't reach that one last branch.."

She giggled. "I could reach it. I used to be taller than you, remember?"

"Of course I remember. You used to be taller than every boy in Nibelheim.. luckily you stopped growing when I started."

"Too bad, really.. I think it would have been an enjoyable sight for all to see if I was, say, six foot eight by now, and you were still about four, four and a half..."

"Shut up! You know how horribly my ego would have suffered under that? Having your cute little neighbor girl who is a year younger than you be twice your size? I would be a strange, sad little man right now."

"As if you aren't already," she taunted.

His eyes narrowed glowingly at her, pretending to be menacing, and she raised an eyebrow and changed the subject.

"Hey, you're a better cook than I expected." Tifa remarked, and poured more wine for the both of them.

He dropped the I-am-glaring-menacingly-at-you act and retorted, "now what am I supposed to say to that? Thank you for having had such low expectations that they could only go higher?"

"That's mean! I've never had low expectations of you!" She exclaimed, then paused. "Well, I mean, except for the time you had to sort of save the entire Planet, I wasn't too sure about that.. not to mention the time you had to dress up as a chick and gather your skirts running to save me, or like the time-"

"Look, if you want me to chuck this steaming bowl of Ninja Noodles at you, just finish your sentence," Cloud said, and they both laughed.

"Nah." She grinned. "Never mind."

He grinned back at her and took another bite. "Mmm?" he asked as she gave him a pensive look.

"I just figured out what's different," she said, "you never used to smile so much."

"You're right. I never did."

"What did you do, last year, anyways?"

He gave her a long look. "Last year?"

*

A/N: This chapter is so fluffy, and the one person I can owe it to.. Shin-Chan! Okay.. don't watch that series if you want to have children, ne? Anyways, at this point in time, all Roku can say is, I'm glad people are patient enough to put up with me –those who have spoken with me know that if anyone is interested in where this is going, it's me. So, let's hope no one OD's on excessive fluff (a Valentine's donation? Hmm..) and stick wit' meh, next chapter will be all about my fiancé, Cloud.