Raspberry Heaven
'Answer Undefined'
If there was one thing that Kairi learned very quickly, it was the line between her home life and her work life. Physically, the line was no more than five blocks long and it was the line that Yuffie walked her along day in and day out, the older girl acting as though it were the most casual act, a second nature of sorts.
But the line was starting to get a little less straight and a little more tangled with each day Kairi and Yuffie meandered over its battered surface.
"Yoo-hoo? Earth to Kairi?" Kairi blinked rapidly and shook her head as a pale hand waved in front of her eyes. After allowing herself a moment to fall back into the regular fast pace of the bustling restaurant atmosphere, Kairi shot Yuffie a timid smile, giving the older girl a little shrug.
"Sorry, guess I sorta spaced out a little..."
"You've been like that for like... ten minutes. You sure you're okay?" Yuffie asked, the concern she held for Kairi quite obvious on her open face.
"Yeah, I'm good."
"Great!" Yuffie beamed and handed Kairi a dishtowel along with several clean new sets of silverware, neatly bundled up in individual light blue napkins. "Could you set up table twelve for four? Thanks!"
...Well. It was nice to know that some people were so easily reassured.
x x x
"Man, I'm wiped," Cloud muttered, trudging out of the kitchen as Yuffie flipped the 'Open' sign on the doorway over so that it read 'Closed' instead.
Yuffie then slid into one of the far booths of the restaurant, folding her arms on the table in front of her and using them to cushion her head. Saturday's were always crazy, but this particular one had seemed even crazier than usual. Really, Yuffie figured she should've been ecstatic because of all the profit and popularity the restaurant was getting. But all that was on her mind at that particular moment was a lack of sleep and a significant absence of caffeine.
Kairi, Tifa, and Aerith soon joined her, all of them looking equally drawn out and exhausted. Cloud leant against an opposite wall, eyes closed, arms folded, asleep to the rest of the world. Finally Yuffie dragged herself up, turning to Cloud with a wry grin and chirping, "Hey, we're not done yet, ya know. Besides, you're not the one waiting tables all day."
"Yeah, okay, fine. Whatever. You try slaving over a hot stove all day and see how you like it."
"I would. Really, I would, Cloudy-poo." Drawing on whatever surplus of energy it was that Yuffie always seemed to keep stored in case of emergencies, the black haired girl chucked a dish rag at Cloud, jolting the blonde out of his groggy state of mind with a giggle. "But the last time I tried to make a hotdog, I think it blew up in the microwave."
"You think?"
Yuffie shrugged, doling out cleaning rags to the other girls while she continued to happily babble on. "Yeah. Well, I mean, it was either the hotdog or the bun that blew up. Maybe they both blew up at the same time?"
Leon, who had been standing in the doorway to the kitchen for the past few minutes, rolled his eyes as laughter sprouted in the room, rolling over the walls and refreshing the tired residue that had been left after a hard day's work. That was the way it was, it seemed. If it wasn't for the upbeat attitude of his employees, Leon had no doubt that the restaurant would have completely flopped within its first week of opening.
Nonetheless... Leon was still Leon and the kitchen was still a mess.
"...Well. This was enlightening." Shooting Cloud a pointed look, Leon jerked his thumb over his shoulder and said simply, "Cloud. Kitchen. Go clean."
"Fuck you."
"Hn. Whatever."
As a general rule, everyone tended to hang around until the restaurant was cleaned from top to bottom. As it was though, Aerith had to catch a bus to the airport to visit her sister. There had been some babble about her eloping with some crazy hot-shot teacher of hers and Aerith's mother was going insane trying to deal with it all on her own. ...No one at the Polar Eclipse really understood what exactly it all was about, but they all knew that Aerith wouldn't be going if she didn't have a very good reason to.
On top of that, Tifa had a date. Granted, that wasn't nearly as important as Aerith's situation, but just as everyone knew Aerith was a responsible individual who did everything she did for a reason, they also knew never to come between Tifa and her sporadic Saturday-night dates.
So it was that the ten o' clock hour found the little restaurant with Kairi washing tables, Cloud washing counters, and Yuffie washing bathroom sinks. It was peaceful, for the most part, and it was the type of environment that Leon thrived in, deep in his back office with his calculator beside him at the day's sales spread out before him on his desk. Calm. Completely and utterly calm.
Kairi looked up from the table she was scrubbing as Yuffie burst through the door to the girls' bathroom, a dark brown jacket slung over one arm as she piped, "Oh, Cloud, I almost forgot. You left your jacket out here this morning and I put it in the bathroom so nobody would take... Cloud?"
"He's in the kitchen," Kairi said with a smile.
"Really? Wow. Either he's really tired or Leon's got him tied to one hell of a leash. ...Hehehehe..." At the quizzical look the auburn-haired girl shot her, Yuffie blinked, cleared her throat, and tried again. "Erm. Anyway! Clooooud!" she hollered. "I'm gonna put your jacket in your car, m'kay?"
"Huh?" Cloud's spiky head of blonde hair burst through the beaded curtain that gave way into the kitchen, a dishrag dangling from one hand and a sudsy plate clutched in the other. "Oh... um... Sure. The keys are in the pocket." With that he disappeared back through the curtain of pseudo-snowflakes and almost completely put the insignificant little incident out of his mind.
Almost. Then he remembered something.
"Wait, wait, wai--!"
"Whoa! Check out this cell phone!"
Leon's mind had finally gotten to a point in which it was relaxed enough to allow the brunette to somehow regain energy while not forcing him into a complete and total slumber. And on a regular basis, Leon would've ignored the chaos trickling in from the dining hall. But those two very poignant words were enough to pierce the veil surrounding him and it was those two words paired with one certain blonde pea-brain that jolted Leon from his rest.
...Cell...phone?
"What?" The question was out of his mouth and his feet had hit the floor before he knew what hit him.
"I didn't know you had a phone! Wow! It's a camera phone! Awesome! Smile, Kairi!" Yuffie pranced back and forth from foot to foot, the precious little silver trinket clutched in her hand, buttons pressed at her mercy, the poor phone seemingly squealing for its sad little life with all the beeps and buzzes it made as button after button was jabbed.
"Wait a minute, I don't remember you buying a--" Leon started, already halfway through the entrance to the kitchen, following rapidly behind Cloud as the blonde shot into the restaurant, scrambling for the tiny cell phone.
"How do you work this thing?" Shake, shake, shake. Beep, beep, beep, savemesavemeohgodsomebodygetheroff! Somehow, Leon's half-alert mind allowed him a fraction of a moment to feel sorry for the phone. But then it was once again dowsed in questions and annoying confusion that all seemed to point straight towards...
"Gah! Yuffie! Put it awaaaaay... Pleeaaaase..." Cloud fought desperately to get his hands on the phone, to pry it away from the chipper black-haired girl, anything to just put some distance between her and the tortured little gadget in her grasp.
"Just a minute! I'm trying to take a picture!"
"Um, Yuffie...?" Kairi said, trying to squeeze a word in.
"Hold up a minute. How much did that phone cost?" Leon was still confused.
"...Um... I don't know! It's not even mine! Yuffie! Gimme that!" Cloud was still flustered.
"If it's not yours, how come this little text-ie-ma-bob-thing says 'Hello Cloud'?" And Yuffie was still perfectly capable of saying all the wrong things at exactly the wrong time.
"I don't know! GIVE IT!"
"Cloud, where did you get the money for that phone? to think of it, where did you get the money for your car?"
"...My rich second-cousin died last month and--"
"Yay! Okay, here we go! Now smile, Kairi!"
"Cloud, tell me the truth!"
"Yuffie! Put down the phone!"
"Alrighty! Look! I got Kairi's pic--"
"STOP!" And everything did stop, right where it was, not another breath, word, sound, or peep broke the deafening silence that swooped down upon the room with a wicked vengeance. Leon's icy voice was enough to make the most hotheaded individual freeze where they were and it was certainly working its charm as he growled, "Yuffie, put the phone down and go clean the kitchen with Kairi. I need to talk to Cloud alone, alright?"
A small pout formed on Yuffie's lips as she shot her boss and old friend a scowl of her own before closing the phone with a sharp snap and tossing it to Cloud who had never looked so relieved as he did the moment the phone plopped into his hands. With a typical teenage roll of the eyes, Yuffie linked arms with Kairi and muttered, "Sheesh. Fine, evil overlord. Your wish is my command. Come on, Kairi let's leave them to bite each other's heads off in peace."
As the plastic snowflakes of the beaded curtain clinked cheerily against each other, signaling Yuffie and Kairi's departure, tension flourished in the dining room like freshly sprung flowers. Only these flowers weren't exactly the cute and spunky kind that tend to grow in shades of red and pink. Think ugly, smelly, black and brown flowers and then you'll have the picture.
"Leon, I can explain."
"Good. You'd better start in three seconds or you're fired." There was something lacing Leon's tone that told Cloud that the brunette was serious this time.
"Okay... Where do you want me to start?"
"Oh I don't know. Why don't you try your late night disappearances these past few weeks? The money you seem to suddenly be rolling in? How I seem to lose track of you in the blink of an eye and you show up hours later, hardly any explanation as to where you've been?"
At that, Cloud couldn't help himself. He made a sour face and spat, "You're not my mother, Leon! I'm allowed to go--"
"I'm not finished. Shut up." Cloud did. Leon continued. "You say all these things about how much you care and how much love you have. But then you're off with... Sephiroth within the hour." Leon had to force his voice into submission, refusing to let his manner give into the sadness that had been gnawing away at some part of him for quite some time. "You expect me to take you seriously, but how can I when you do all that?"
"Leon, there's nothing there between Sephiroth and--"
"Then what is it?!" Leon exclaimed, his control fraying and becoming tattered, swallowing as he tried to continue in a more calm and collected tone. "What is it then, Cloud? What makes you run away and then snarl and hiss at me for doing the same?"
"If I tell you... You can't tell anyone, Leon. I mean it. Everyone'll flip if they find out and it really won't be good..." Cloud chanced a quick look up at Leon, trying to read his face and seeing if he could trust the brunette with the secret he'd been carting along with himself for weeks now. As always, there was nothing in Leon's face that would give Cloud any reason to doubt him. ...Dammit. That's what Cloud had been afraid of.
Meanwhile, several yards away, Kairi tugged hesitantly on Yuffie's arm, whispering, "Yuffie, do you really think we should be listening in on them? What if... What if they're talking about something really important?"
"Then we have a right to know, right?"
"Well... but... What if it's private?"
"Then we have even more of a right to know." Yuffie shot the younger girl a toothy grin, but upon seeing that Kairi still doubted the ethical reasoning behind the little eavesdropping mission, Yuffie hurriedly changed her grin to a pleading look. "Hey, I just wanna make sure Cloud's not doing anything dumb. He's done it before." ...Well, that was true, for the most part. Yuffie was worried about Cloud. She just also wanted to know where he got the wicked-cool phone.
And it wasn't exactly as though Kairi could ever have said 'no' to that face anyway, so Yuffie was all clear as she turned her attention back towards the doorway into the dining room, carefully having placed herself just inside the kitchen, tucked behind the cover of the wall separating the two rooms.
As Cloud's voice drifted through the curtains, his words laced with secrecy and hesitancy, only making Yuffie shift her wait nervously from one foot to the other as she leaned closer towards the beaded divider. What on earth had the spiky-haired dork been keeping locked up?
Yuffie was about to find out.
"Leon... You know why we all came here. It was because of Yuffie. You know that. The restaurant and everything, yeah, okay, that was a great scheme on your part, but it's not what brought us all down here. It was Yuffie. And before her it was Rinoa. We were on..." Cloud paused, his hands flicking slightly, forcing several helpless gestures out as he tried to find the right words, the right phrasing for his thoughts. "I guess you'd call it a wild good chase, right?"
Yuffie cocked her head to the side, a small voice in the back of her head reminding her that Kairi was only a foot or two away. The younger girl would undoubtedly be confused and really, Yuffie wasn't even sure she wanted Kairi knowing all that took place before her own arrival to Destiny Islands. It wasn't really much to be proud of... but Yuffie refused to budge from her spot, wanting to hear what it was that Cloud was finally deciding to spill for the good of the order.
There was a brief silence in which Yuffie could clearly picture the now dimly-lit dining room, Cloud and Leon standing in its center, Leon nodding slowly with a slightly puzzled and perplexed expression falling across his face. Heh. Predictable.
"Okay. Go on."
There was a sharp intake of breath, a sudden gulp for air as though Cloud was just surfacing for oxygen before plunging once more into the icy waters surrounding him.
"I've seen them. Rinoa and Seifer."
If that wasn't enough to completely floor Yuffie, it was enough to at least make her eyes widen to the size of saucers and her jaw drop. And it was certainly enough of a reaction to draw a worried glance from Kairi, still oblivious to the story unfolding before her.
Words tumbled out of Cloud's mouth as he fought to explain himself, straining against the churning sea of questions and accusations that would undoubtedly be threatening to spill over from Leon's mouth at any given moment. "It's why I've been working for Seph, Leon! He... He's the one who convinced Seifer to come all the way to Destiny Islands. It's a business firm they're running-- a really, really big one. And Rinoa's here, Leon. She's here and she's with Seifer and she's fine. But she came because..."
And that was where Cloud caught himself, poised in mid-sentence, leaving words and thoughts dangling in the air as he tried to think of what to say next and what effect it would have on the dubious peace that encompassed the restaurant at that one given moment.
It would destroy it, that much Cloud was certain of.
"She came... because..."
"Rinoa's here?!" Plastic snowflakes hurtling to the side, Yuffie was unable to keep what little control she ever held over herself any longer. Rinoa was still on Destiny Islands! And here Yuffie had been thinking that all of it had been in vain, just some idiotic chase she'd gone on, hunting for a reason, an answer... for Rinoa. She'd thought for sure that she'd guessed wrong, or that Rinoa had long since come and gone. But Cloud had just said it, Cloud had seen her with his own eyes!
Eyes which were, at that very moment, widened in alarm as Yuffie pelted across the room, grabbing wildly onto Cloud's arm and shaking vigorously, her voice demanding answers, exclaiming, "Where is she? She's okay? Why is she here? Why did she run away? What's she doing? Does she still look the same? Does she still act the same? Is she okay? Is something wrong?"
"Stop!" Cloud wrenched his arm free, taking a few staggering steps away from Yuffie as he spat, "I said she's with Seifer, Yuffie. And I meant it. She's still with him. Still."
"...O-oh."
In a slightly more gentle tone, Cloud softly said, "I thought that by working for Seph, I could keep an eye on her for you. I know you're worried about her, but Yuffie, she's not yours to worry about anymore. Please... Trust me when I say that she's okay. But... I... don't think she wants to see you right now. It was hard enough to get her to see me."
Yuffie stood there, feeling ashamed for attacking Cloud as she did, feeling foolish for allowing herself to get her own hopes up, and feeling shot down and alone because... Rinoa didn't want to see her? But... Yuffie had come all this way. Did it really mean nothing? She was numbly aware of the silence that once again conquered the room, aware of the eyes rooted on her, waiting for her to cry or speak or run. Waiting for her to do something.
All except one pair of eyes, the ones brimming with sympathy, confusion, and somehow, hurt.
"Yuffie..." Kairi started.
"Sorry, Kairi. Guess you don't know what we're talking about, huh?" Yuffie grinned, trying to laugh at the situation and at Kairi's bewildered expression, but somehow unable to no matter how hard she tried. Why do I feel like I want to just protect her from all this shit? More importantly, why do I feel like I have to?
"No, I don't... not really..."
"...Well. Um... Erherm." Cloud spoke up several moments later, his voice shakily breaking down the silence, though the other occupants of the room still stood mute. "This has been... a romp through a field of daisies. Who wants to go out for ice cream?"
Somehow, Cloud wasn't really surprised by the vehement chorus of "NO"s that came from both Leon and Yuffie alike. The fact that the two of them were agreeing on something just had trouble written all over it and Cloud knew that if he didn't get out of there soon, bad things were just bound to happen. So with a mental 'oh, what the hell', he abruptly laughed and skipped over towards Kairi, the girl who's gaze cautiously drifted somewhere between Yuffie and the floor.
"Okay then, your loss! Kairi and I will have a great time! Won't we?"
"Huh?!"
"What?!"
"Cloud!"
"Too late now, you guys had your chance. Come on Kairi, the all-night ice-cream parlor won't be open forever!" Forgetting the contradictory words and the evil glares thrown at his back, Cloud mercilessly dragged Kairi from the restaurant, out into the cool night air. Hey, I'm doing the girl a favor. She doesn't want to stay in there... Who wants to stay in a situation where they understand absolutely zip of what's going on? Nooo one. ...Yeah, this is the right thing.
"Cloud, I'm not really sure if..."
"Hush, girl. I'm saving your ass."
"Oh. Um... thanks?"
"Never a problem. Hey, besides, I've been wanting to talk to you for a while!" Cloud shot Kairi a grin over his shoulder as the pair of them strode down the boardwalk, headed towards the illuminated neon ice cream cone at the far end of the planked walkway.
"Huh? You have?" Umm... I wonder if he knows that I don't think I really go for guys... And I wonder if he knows that everyone thinks he's gay.
"Of course! Well, you know, mostly about a certain black-with-artificially-bleached-blonde-hair-perky-dorky-individual, but you know. Talk is talk and ice cream is ice cream. You're up for it, right?" No sense in dragging Kairi completely against her will into the ice cream parlor. Cloud would simply gently shove her along and happily hold the door open, if that was what it took. And if it might possibly get his mind off of the wreck he'd left behind him back at the Polar Eclipse.
"Um... Sure... I... guess." So he does know. ...God, am I really that obvious? Kairi paused a moment before rolling her eyes as she mentally kicked herself. Of course she was. Even she was aware of the stupid looks she gave the older girl and the stupid blush she got around the older girl and the stupid... Well, alright, she would just settle for the solid fact that the entire world could guess at her feelings. Fine. Sure. Alright then.
The ice cream parlor was quaint and humble, traditional checkered table cloths and a long stretch of clean counter-space providing a sort of bar-like effect, dotted with tall chrome stools and red vinyl cushions. Pop-art adorned the walls, geeky old music played from somewhere behind the counter, and one very bored looking woman perched behind the register, gum smacking around in her mouth, occasionally bursting into a bubble before popping and smack, smack, smacking once again.
"Good. But first and foremost, what do you want?"
"Oh, I can pay for it."
"You sure?"
Kairi nodded firmly, fishing around in her pocket for a random five dollar bill she remembered jamming in there a few days ago. Granted, the poor thing had been through the washing machine and the dryer, but it was still perfectly fine, Kairi hoped.
The woman behind the counter let out a throaty chuckle, her voice coming out deeper than seemed normal as she teased, "Not paying for your date, hon? Sheesh, sweetie, what're you doing going out with some cheapskate like this bum?"
Cloud allowed himself to give the woman a crooked smirk before easily replying with, "She's not my date, ma'am. In fact, I'm gay. I'm reasonably sure she is too. So if you could just give me a single scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream on a sugar cone, that'd be great."
Well. That took care of that.
Kairi ordered a single scoop of raspberry sorbet before joining Cloud at the little table he'd deemed theirs, still stifling her snickers from the dumbfounded look still hanging off the cashier's face.
"I can't believe you said that!"
Cloud raised a single eyebrow as he lapped greedily at his ice cream cone before saying, "Well sheesh, she had no right going off like that. If she's gonna be so nosy, she can at least get some sort of information right."
The two spent several minutes simply savoring the sweet ice cream in front of them, ignoring the looks of contempt thrown towards them by the self-proclaimed island gossip behind the counter. Finally Cloud halted his onslaught on the poor defenseless ice cream cone, cocking his head to the side as he looked up and studied Kairi.
"I hope you don't mind me saying so, but you really don't seem like the type of chick who'd swing for girls, you know?"
Kairi blinked at him confusedly, swallowing a melted mouthful of sorbet before asking, "There's a type you have to be?"
Cloud's mouth stretched into a grin before he broke into laughter. "No! Of course not! It's just..." He smiled, gaze turning up to the ceiling for a moment, piecing his words together and taking his sweet time about it. "You know, there are some people you can just sort of tell right away with. I could tell Yuffie swung that way the second I met her. She's just sort of..."
"...Distinctly gay?"
"Yeah, that's it!" Both of them laughed, happily ignoring the scowls that had developed into full-blown glares coming from the nice old employee standing five yards away. Oh, who cares about her anyway? "But seriously... You do like her, don't you?"
"Pretty obvious, huh?"
"You'd have to basically be blind or stupid to miss it. ...Probably both, really." Unable to help but snicker at the blush that shot up onto Kairi's face, Cloud asked, "So what are you gonna do about it? You've known each other for a while now... You guys are friends... I don't get it. What's wrong?"
"Nothing! I mean... I have... You know. I um..."
"Don't know what you're doing?"
"...Wow. I must suck at covering stuff up."
"Yeah, you seem to. But don't let it bother you too much. It's even more annoying when people are good at covering crap up and you have to actually work to figure them out. Sheesh. That's a royal pain."
"...Leon?"
"Hell yes."
"Ah."
"But anyway. I just don't see what's holding you back. Either of you, for that matter. I know you don't know what you're doing, Kairi, but nobody's born knowing. And you gotta learn sooner or later. That's the whole point behind dating. You're supposed to be learning, you know?"
"...Um...?"
"Hmm... Well, let's see. It's like this. Everyone has different wants and needs, right?"
"Right."
"The whole purpose of dating is to start getting you exposed to other people's wants and needs, not just your own. You have to learn to listen to someone else, be there for someone else, and understand someone else. It's really all just a big sort of prelude to when you get much older and find the ideal person you wanna spend the rest of your life with, right?"
Kairi nodded slowly, popping another spoonful of sorbet into her mouth.
"Besides. It's experimenting. Not like... blowing chemicals up and stuff like that. It's just seeing what you like and don't like in a relationship. 'Oh, she's too clingy' or 'Wow, I need someone more clingy.' You learn all that stuff from dating and seeing lots of different people. So if you think of it as a sort of... learning experience?... Yeah. If you think of it like that, I don't get what you're afraid of."
"Well I guess I just never thought of it like that..."
"What did you think of it as?"
"I... um..." Kairi frowned slightly. "I don't know. I mean, I guess I never really thought of it at all. It was pretty much just... You ask someone out and they say yes or no. If they say no, you get all bummed and depressed. If they say yes, you get all happy and excited and you... just go out? I don't know!"
"Well... What is it that scares you about Yuffie? Why don't you ask her out if it's all that simple? Or... at least tell her something, right?"
x x x
Yuffie perched on a table in the dining room, her legs dangling loosely over the side, her eyes rooted firmly to the ground. Not a word had been exchanged between her or Leon since Cloud and Kairi left. Really, Yuffie didn't know why either of them hung around. Hmph. Well, Leon's probably pissed because Cloud went out for ice cream with someone other than him and I'm probably... Well... ...I guess I'm kinda pissed about it too.
But hadn't Yuffie just been gleefully hoping for another shot at Rinoa only a few minutes ago? What about Kairi? But what about Rinoa?! Arrrrgh, this is way too much thinking...
Suddenly, a small metallic chirping noise caused both Yuffie and Leon to snap their heads up, sharing equally confused looks before one single moment clicked everything back together. And at the very same moment with the very same motion, both turned towards the heap lying on a nearby table, forgotten in all the chaos that had blown over.
Cloud's jacket. And the innocent little cell phone cheerfully ringing away on top of it.
"Yuffie, don't--"
Too late.
x x x
Kairi's eyes widened, her brain cranking into overdrive. Jeeze, she hadn't thought one little random trip for some ice cream would involve so much thinking. But just like before, none of her answers really... well... answered anything.
"I... I guess I'm just afraid she'll say no. I don't know. Sometimes I know I'd be better off just getting it over with, but there's other times that I just... don't... know."
"Why don't you tell me something you do know then?"
That one was definitely easy enough.
"I know that I like her. A lot."
And the answer was just as easy.
"Then you've got nothing to lose."
x x x
Beep.
"Hello? Cloud?"
Yuffie's breath hitched in her throat, her feet nearly flying out from under her in sheer shock. Oh God. I... really wasn't... I didn't mean... I didn't think...
"Hellooo? Anyone there?"
"...Rinoa?"
"Wh-- Yuffie??"
(x) (x) (x)
And it's finally back. And the plot is finally jolting forward. Yay.
...Does that count as a cliffhanger of sorts? If so, I'm really sorry. XD
--Ori