Chapter Three
It was hard, at first, to take Mr. Bilbo at his word. It wasn't until a Wednesday a couple of weeks later that Kili began to realize that Mr. Bilbo hadn't been lying.
Kili walked into the bakery after school, intending to let his foster father know that he had made it home before going back out and up to the apartment.
"Kili!" Mr. Dori greeted him from behind the counter with a large smile on his face.
"Hi, Mr. Dori!" Kili replied with a grin of his own. He liked Mr. Dori. He was much older than Mr. Bilbo, with almost white hair and he always smelled like cupcakes. Sometimes, he would slip Kili a cookie with a wink and a finger to his lips. Kili didn't know why, though, because Mr. Bilbo had seen him do it a time or two, he knew, and had never said anything.
"Bilbo's in the back frosting a cake. I can tell him you went on up, if you'd like, but how about this instead," he said with a twinkle in his eye. "Why don't you sit down here and do your homework and I'll get you a cupcake when you're done? My grandson is going to be spending his afternoons here with me from now on, and I think the two of you would get along nicely."
Kili frowned as he thought over the suggestion. On one hand, a cupcake after finishing his homework sounded really good. Plus, Mr. Bilbo would be down here. He liked being near Mr. Bilbo. On the other hand, though, he didn't usually get along with other kids very well. They usually thought he was odd.
But Mr. Dori was looking at him so hopefully that Kili couldn't really say no. Besides, Mr. Dori was nice, so maybe his grandson was too.
"Okay," he said with a shrug, sitting down at a table by the wall near the counter. He pulled out his homework folder and decided to start with math. It was the easiest. They had just started long division, and Kili liked how it was like multiplying backwards.
Mr. Bilbo came out of the back with a pink box in his hands and smiled when he saw Kili sitting there. "Mrs. Taylor is going to come in for this around four," he told Dori, nodding towards the cake box. He then walked over to lean against the display case close to Kili. "Good day at school?"
He nodded. "Mr. Dori said he'd give me a cupcake after I finished my homework," he informed, hoping that was okay with his foster father.
"Well you best get to it," he said with a smirk and a raised eyebrow, causing Kili to grin and nod.
The bell on the bakery door rang out. "Ori!" Mr. Dori greeted enthusiastically, coming out from behind the counter to huge the kid who just walked in.
Kili turned slightly in his seat to get a better look at him. He was shorter than him, he noted happily, so even if he turned out mean, he wouldn't be able to push Kili around too much. But from the looks of him, Ori wasn't the mean type. He smiled happily enough when Dori swooped him up for a hug, but smiled sheepishly when Mr. Bilbo greeted him from behind the counter, dunking his head and letting his auburn hair fall over his eyes.
Mr. Dori led the other boy to the table where Kili sat. "Ori, this is Mr. Bilbo's son, Kili." Kili jolted at the man calling him Mr. Bilbo's son, but didn't want to protest. He liked the sound of it a little too much. "Kili, this is my grandson, Ori."
"Hi," Ori said shyly, giving him a tiny smile.
"Hi," Kili responded with a grin, figuring he may as well try to be friends with Ori. "Mr. Dori says he'll give us cupcakes if we finish our homework!" he told him excitedly.
Ori whipped his head up to look at his grandfather with hope gleaming in his eyes. Mr. Dori just laughed. "Yes, I did. I'll leave you two to it. You boys let me know if you need any help."
Kili heard Ori pull out his own homework as he turned back to his math worksheet. He only had a few problems left, which were dealt with easily enough. Teacher always said to go back and check your work, but Kili found that terribly boring. He'd already done it, why go back and look over it again? Instead, he took out his English worksheet and made a face. Contractions. He hated contractions.
To put off starting his next (and last) bit of homework, he looked up at Ori, who was biting his lips and furrowing his brow in concentration.
"What are you working on?" he asked curiously.
"Math," Ori replied morosely. Kili perked up. Math was one of his favorites. "We're doing fractions. I don't get fractions."
"I could help you!" he volunteered eagerly. "I love fractions!"
"Really?" he asked earnestly before frowning. "Don't you have to do that?" he said, pointing towards the English worksheet.
"I'm not so good with contractions," Kili admitted. "But I am good with fractions! I'd rather help you."
"I'm good at contractions!" Ori beamed at him. "Maybe we can help each other?"
Kili grinned. "Deal!"
Whenever someone in his class had ever asked for his help with schoolwork before, they had basically just wanted Kili to give them the answers. Kili didn't really like doing that, but figuring out fractions for Ori was more appealing than figuring out contractions on his own. However, it was quickly apparent that Ori would not be satisfied with just answers, which meant Kili got to explain. And Kili loved explaining things.
"You can't just add them like they are," he said as they began with the first problem. "The bottom numbers are different, see? You gotta make the bottom numbers the same first."
"How?"
"By timesing them to get the least common denominator," he said. Ori looked at him blankly. "Well, the denominator is the bottom number right?" Ori nodded. "The least common denominator is the smallest number that both numbers can go into." Ori nodded again in understanding. "Like if it were two and three, then the least common denominator would be six. Sometimes it's easier to just times the two denominators by each other."
Ori's eyes lit up. "So for this one, since the denominators are four and five, the least common denominator would be twenty!"
"That's right!" Kili crowed in triumph.
They went through each problem together, going faster with each subsequent problem as Ori got the hang of it. They then turned to Kili's English worksheet.
"So the apostrophe goes where letters are missing after you smoosh the words together?" Kili asked for clarification. Ori nodded eagerly. "But what about won't? How does that make sense? The missing letters are I. L. L, but the apostrophe is between the N and the T! And why is the O moved to after the W?"
Ori shrugged. "I don't know. That's just the way it works."
Kili scowled down at the worksheet. "This is why I hate English. It doesn't make sense!"
"Sometimes it doesn't," he replied sympathetically. "Some things you just got to remember."
"I'm not good with remembering," he mumbled with a frown, circling his final answer on the sheet.
"You're really good with math though," Ori comforted. "And I think you're better at remembering than you think. You knew most of the answers already."
"Hmm, maybe. Do you have any more homework?"
"Nope," Ori said with a grin. "Math was all I had."
"Me either. You know what that means?" Kili said with a sly grin before turning towards where Mr. Dori was wiping the counter. "Mr. Dori! We're finished!"
"Are you now?" he asked with a smile on his face. "Well, I guess it's time for cupcakes then."
The two kids exchanged grins as Mr. Dori put two chocolate cupcakes in front of them with swirly green frosting on top. "Enjoy, boys."
"Thanks, Mr. Dori!"
"Thanks, Grandpa!"
Kili wasted no time in unwrapping the cupcake and taking a big bite, surprised at the chocolate goo that flooded into his mouth. He chewed thoughtfully as he examined the remainder of the cupcake.
"How do the get the goo inside?" he asked Ori, who just shrugged. "And how do the spread the icing to be so swirly? And how do they make it green?"
"Would you like to see how?" Mr. Bilbo's voice asked. Kili turned and looked to where Mr. Bilbo was smiling from the door to the kitchen. He cocked his head towards the back. "Come on, I was just about to frost a batch. Why don't you two help?"
Kili grinned before walking as quickly as he could to the kitchen (because Mr. Bilbo had already told him not to run in doors). Ori followed him at a more sedate pace after looking at his grandfather for permission. Kili was jumping on the balls of his feet and nearly vibrating with excitement as he stood next to the table that held two trays of unfrosted cupcakes.
"Now," Mr. Bilbo said, smiling at the two boys. "What color should we make these cupcakes?"
"Blue!" Kili cried immediately. It was his favorite color.
"Blue it is," his foster father said. He grabbed a large bowl that already had white, fluffy icing in it. "Since I've already made the frosting, we're just going to add some food color to it." He grabbed a small white tube with blue writing on it. He squeezed a few drops into the bowl. He then began to stir the color in with something that sorta looked like a spoon, but wasn't.
"What's that?" he asked, pointing at the unknown utensil.
"This is a spatula," Mr. Bilbo answered.
"It doesn't look like the spatula Daddy flips pancakes with," Ori pointed out with a frown.
"That's because this," he said, holding up the utensil for the boys to get a better look at it, "is a baker's spatula. We use it to frost cakes."
"Are you going to use it to spread the icing on the cake?" Kili asked, wondering how the spatula could make the swirls of frosting on the cupcakes they'd had before.
"No, we will pipe the frosting on," Mr. Bilbo answered.
Kili immediately pictured frosting coming out of the bendy pipes from under the bathroom sink. "Pipe?"
His face must have shown his confusion because Mr. Bilbo chuckled. "I'll show you."
He and Ori watched as Mr. Bilbo took a large white bag thing out and scooped some of the now blue icing into it and twisted the bag close. He then held the bottom of the bag, which had a pointed metal piece on the end, over a cupcake and squeezed, making frosting come out. Mr. Bilbo squeezed slowly and moved the tip of the bag in a circular motion, making a perfectly frosted cupcake.
"Wow," Ori breathed.
"Can I try? Pleeeease?" Kili begged.
Mr. Bilbo laughed again. "Of course!"
He handed the bag over to Kili's eager hands and showed him how to hold it. Kili moved the tip of the bag over the next cupcake and squeezed like Mr. Bilbo had. He squeezed too hard, though, and a glob of frosting came out, covering the entire cupcake and spilling over the sides.
"Oh no!" he cried in distress, knowing Mr. Bilbo was about to be mad. He instinctively shrank into himself, preparing himself for a blow.
"Well, that's okay," Mr. Bilbo said, laying his hands gently over Kili's and ignoring how he flinched away from him. "That can happen, especially with a first try. Let's try another, hm?"
With Mr. Bilbo's help, he managed to very carefully swirl the frosting on the next cupcake correctly, though it didn't look as nice as Mr. Bilbo's.
"Very good!" Mr. Bilbo praised as Kili beamed up at him.
"Can I try too?" Ori asked softly.
Kili quickly surrendered the frosting bag to the other boy, smiling as his foster father helped his new friend with frosting a cupcake. Mr. Bilbo looked up at him and smiled back at him, looking so happy to be sharing things with Kili.
Maybe he had been telling the truth when he said he liked Kili being around before.
Things became better after that day. Kili became less reserved around Mr. Bilbo, who seemed happier and happier the longer he was there. He liked seeing Mr. Bilbo happy.
And he even had a friend! Granted, Ori was nowhere as good as Fili was, but that was okay. Fili was his best friend, but people had friends that weren't best friends, right? But maybe Ori was his best friend. Fili had said that they were brothers. That meant that Kili wasn't replacing Fili because you couldn't replace brothers.
So he didn't feel guilty playing with Ori when he came to the bakery after school every day (apparently Ori's fathers (he had TWO of them, how lucky was that?) didn't like him being at home alone while they worked). Sometimes, they would just sit in the bakery and either do homework or draw or play games, but Mr. Bilbo also let them go up to the apartment by themselves sometimes and play with Kili's toys up there or watch TV.
They were both drawing in the bakery when it happened.
Kili was concentrating very hard on drawing the spiderweb that he had seen on the stairs outside. The bell over the door broke his concentration and he looked up to see the biggest man he had ever seen. He wasn't big like Ori's Uncle Bombur was. No, this man was tall and broad like Batman was. He looked a little scary, if Kili was honest, like he imagined Batman would probably be if he met him in real life. Not scary in a bad way, though, if that made any sense.
What struck Kili the most was his hair. It was long, but it didn't make the man look girly, even if it were pulled into a high ponytail. Then again, Kili supposed it was hard to look girly with a beard. Girls didn't have beards, after all.
The man was all but forgotten, though, as Kili caught sight of the small figure standing behind him.
"Fili!" he yelled, up and running towards the other boy before anyone could react. If it hadn't been for the man next to Fili, he'd probably would have knocked them both to the ground as he ran into Fili and threw his arms around him.
"You're here, you're here, you're here," he murmured over and over, hanging on tightly to the blond boy he had begun to despair of ever seeing again.
"I'm here," Fili whispered back. "Told you I'd find you."
Kili pulled back a bit and grinned up at him, not caring that his eyes were wet. "What took you so long?" he demanded with a pout.
Fili laughed at him and tugged him back into a hug. "Sorry. New York was bigger than I thought."
Kili clung tighter to Fili. "Just don't leave again, okay?" he begged.
"Promise. Brothers don't leave," Fili assured.
"Good."
tbc...