CHAPTER 20:
Food Fight

Back in his room, Clef paced the small space. He reminded himself of Fyula swimming in circles in his bowl. So Hikaru thought all the secrets would be revealed if he but talked with Umi. He hadn't done that yet, and he cursed himself for not doing it sooner. How stupid he was!

In the kitchen, he could hear the noises of breakfast clearing away. Later in the afternoon would be a kendo demonstration from Hikaru and then the small party with Umi's graduation cakes. Time was running away too fast, and he still didn't have any answers nor an understanding of the situation between him and Umi.

With determination, he opened his door and stalked down the hallway to the kitchens. Umi was in there alone by this time. She had most of her hair up in a chef's hat that looked rather cute with her apron that was fastened around her waist. She moved from station to station within the kitchen with the grace that she had when she handled a rapier. He recognized that.

"Umi, we have to talk," he barked. "I can't wait any longer."

"Well, it will have to wait while I make these cakes, unless you can talk and stay out of my way at the same time," she said sharply.

"Umi!" he said in frustration, clenching his fists at his side.

She'd been busy mixing ingredients and hadn't looked at him. For every two steps forward in their relationship, they seemed to take one back. She was guilty of it as much as he was, she knew. She hated how she let her temper interfere with things. When he had repeated her name, she looked at him, really looked, taking it all in.

He was dressed with a soft but form-fitting black cotton T shirt that accented his biceps. He also had khaki cargo pants belted at his thin waist. This outfit worked for him, she realized. No, it wasn't a mage's robes and crown, but it showed off his body perfectly. His biceps were lean and strong at the arms of the shirt while his chest and stomach muscles were trim. The pants gave him an air of being confident, as if he was going to strike off for the jungle at any moment. He was... manly. Damn.

Umi blushed to be thinking about him that way. She swatted her embarrassment away. She wasn't a child, and neither one of them was in Cephiro any more.

"What is it?" she eventually asked in an encouraging voice.

"I need to know why I'm here," he breathed softly. "How did I get here to you? Hikaru seems to know, but she says I have to ask you. It will drive me crazy if I don't find out."

"Clef" she said, wiping her hands before coming to stand near him, "I don't know for sure. I only have guesses. But... well, there is something."

He watched her nibble on her bottom lip as if not sure what to say. Her gaze was far off as if remembering something. When her blue eyes turned their attention to him, he saw an expression of soul-deep sadness. Her answering voice was so quiet he had to get closer to her to hear what she said.

"Do you remember the day you came here? Do you know what day it was? No?" she paused as he shook his head no to all things. "It was my birthday, Clef. A day no different than this. After breakfast, my friends had made me a cake and brought it to me to blow out the candles and make a wish. I did that, and that evening we found you."

She was very still, waiting for his reaction and fearing what it would be.

"Was I your wish?" he inquired, his fingers getting twitchy as he wanted to touch her cheek and put a tendril of her hair behind her ear.

"You've always been my wish," she said ruefully, and turned her head to disguise that admission with an embarrassed laugh. "But don't flatter yourself. I never thought I'd see you again in this lifetime. I didn't have anything specific in mind when I blew out those candles, and these people aren't magical. They love me, but it's not Cephiro."

"That I know," he complained, thinking of his own lack of magic.

"I just," she paused in remembrance, "reached out with my heart as you'd taught us. I had no thought or images. I only wanted to be happy, and I thought I was going to be happy with Scott. But I made my wish and told no one until now."

She looked at him in challenge and then distanced herself by going back to mixing her cakes and preparing the pans.

"I have no magic," he blurted. "I'm here now, and something powerful beyond myself brought me here. I can't go back. I knew that perhaps always in the part of myself who still knew he was Clef, but I was certain on the ride to the hospital after I'd left the camping trail. There wasn't even a spark left in me. Unlearned children in Cephiro have more magic than that!"

He rubbed his arms as if he was cold, and maybe he was. He could have felt his magic in that very real way.

"I don't have the magic to loose you from your world, Clef. I never did," she said as she poured one mix into a cake pan. She placed it inside the oven to bake and then put the timer on for it.

"But when two hearts that beat together are determined…" he pondered.

That got her attention. She put her hands down on the wooden butcher block surface of the kitchen island. She waited expectantly for what he might say next.

"Umi, I loved you," he confessed. "Knowing I loved you was my burden to bear. Alone. I felt so guilty that you girls had to come to Cephiro to save us when we couldn't save ourselves. It would have been wrong for me to have wanted more from you. At least, that's what I kept telling myself. It was always to me to behave with decorum."

Umi actually laughed at him, scoffing. "You have as much of a temper as I do, and you want to discuss decorum?"

He frowned and grabbed a handful of flour, lobbing it at her head. A food fight was naturally the epitome of decorum. The flour hit her chef's hat, making it tip precariously as if to fall.

"You know, you left a scar on my heart," he growled. "I never forgot you and thought of you every single day the first years after you left. Then I had to put the thoughts of you away just to function sometimes. I am not weak, but you made me weak!"

Her mocking laughter filled the kitchen, as she pelted him with a ball of butter and sugar mixture. It landed right on his chest, destroying the clean appearance of his black T shirt.

"Do you think you were the only one who was hurt? Do you really? You're such a man sometimes, Clef!"

He swaggered and danced around her as they'd begun to circle each other emulating the way of hand to hand combat. Each of them was ready to pelt the other with portions of cake mix and not stop until the kitchen was a riotous mess.

"Nice of you to notice!" he shouted at her taunt.

"Oh, bite me," she retorted eloquently.

"It's like you were my very own Nova," he stated angrily as he monologued again. "But unlike her left behind in Cephiro, you took a part of me with you when you left. I know that's what you did!"

He threw another gooey handful of the mixture at her face just to emphasize the point.

"Yeah, so what's that mean?" she sneered at him after she wiped the gob off her cheek.

"It means I wanted to be with you!"

"Well, I wanted to be with you, too!" she said in a tone one used for another person who was a complete imbecile.

"So that's it?" he questioned, backing down from his anger a bit. "Me in my garden feeling lonely and thinking of you, and you here on your birthday making a wish?"

"Yes," she said, still not completely down from her anger, "that pretty much sums it up."

"Our thoughts and powers aligned," Clef said in astonishment. The very idea was amazing. But if it was love, the poets of both their lands had said love conquered all.

Their fight at a momentary truce, Umi moved in front of the ovens checking the cakes. It was also an excuse to turn her face away from Clef. She had the cold terror in her veins wondering to herself, Now what? She didn't have to think about it very long when she tried to walk away from the ovens. The mess they'd made from their mini food fight had made it so her foot slipped out from under her, and she fell hard on her outer thigh.

In concern, Clef rushed to her but also fell, landing hard on his side with his head near her knees.

"And this is why we don't rough-house in the kitchen," she gasped in a mocking teacherly way.

"Ungh!" was Clef's inelegant reply. He crawled on his side closer to her, and when his head was close to her knee, he looked up at her.

She reached out to touch his cheek, using a light caress. He was so beautiful to her, and he was hers for the taking. She shifted position from sitting on her hip to sitting on her bottom and then pulled him closer to her. The end result was like he was leaning across her, a position perfect for making it easy to hug him from behind.

She did so, enjoying the feel of him in her arms. There was so much rightness to this, she thought with her eyes closed.

Clef sat up and turned at the waist to better face her. When he placed his left hand on her face, she opened her heavy-lidded eyes. Without much preamble, he leaned forward to gently kiss her lips. They were soft and warm. The kiss was as chaste with him only sucking her bottom lip lightly.

"Oh," she breathed out, letting him come closer to kiss her more fully. She held her hands out like a surgeon after scrubbing, but she used the power in her forearms to grasp him by the shoulders and pull him to her. She was not going to miss any of this kiss.

He put his hands on her waist to hold her, and made a trail of smaller kisses from the corner of her mouth to the side of her throat, which she exposed for him wantonly. The soft sighs of pleasure coming from her mouth drew his attention back there where he kissed her in earnest. Giddily he thought to himself that her mouth tasted better than any cake she could ever make, and he laughed at himself for thinking such a cliché.

At the ringing of the food timer, they jumped as if they'd been caught doing much worse than kissing in the kitchen floor. No one saw them, but they couldn't help laughing nervously about it.

Umi got up apologetically. "I have to finish my cakes so they're ready in time."

"Okay," he replied with an inquiring tilt to his head.

She smiled secretively at his unasked question. "Yes, I want to do that again, but later. And you have to change your shirt."

He looked down at himself and the mess he'd become. "It was worth it," he said smugly before walking out of the kitchens. If he stayed, he would have tried his best to drive her to distraction, and while he would have enjoyed it in the short term, it would have hurt the kids' enjoyment of the graduation party.

Clef was almost cartoonishly happy when he encountered Steve in the courtyard a few minutes later.

"So tell me about Umi's friend Hikaru," he pounced without comment on the other man's disarrayed clothing.

"Cute, very cute. Loves everyone. And a fighter. She'll knock you on your... well... Let me say, if you fight her at the kendo demonstration, you're going down."

"Fair enough," Steve replied, looking off into the distance where Hikaru was talking with a few of the students. She had the kind of charm that wrapped people around her finger.

Steve didn't know what to ask when he looked at his friend, so he settled for a question of the obvious. "So things are going well then?"

"Yes, they are," Clef answered while taking long strides to where the people including the Japan-loving Joan were gathered around Hikaru. He'd noticed Derrick sitting in the group of students and he had an idea.

He sat down quietly beside the teen and waited, not wanting to rush the conversation. Derrick finally pointed out, "You look like you had a fight with a sack of flour and lost."

"I did," Clef said to him with a twinkle in his eyes. "Listen, I've been thinking about something, and I wondered if I could tell you my idea."

Derrick was still unsure about things with Clef. He'd barely spoken to him since the man's memory had returned, and Johnson was innately distrustful anyway. The normal part of him resented the loss of his friend Harry, even if he had annoyed him, too.

"Do what you want," he said sarcastically. "It's a free country. I can't stop you."

"I'm going to have to leave the ranch soon. I don't know where I'm going yet, but I can't just stay here and live off someone else's kindness without contributing. It wouldn't be right," Clef said while studying the young black man's face.

"You could get a job," Derrick mumbled.

"You're right. I could, and I might. But that's not really what I wanted to talk to you about. I've been thinking, and if it's okay with you, I'd like to give you Fyula. He needs someone to take care of him, and I can't do it if I'm traveling."

Clef held up his long-fingered hand to stop any protests before Derrick could make them. "I know it's just a fish and maybe not the most exciting pet in the world, but I don't know where I'm going or how long I'll be there. I know I can trust you to take care of him."

The teen didn't say anything at first, but he looked over to the building where the kitchens are and saw Umi emerging. She was in her baking outfit and completely destroyed with flour and cake mix. Giving a sidelong glance to Clef, he saw he was the same and looking over at the young woman like a lovesick puppy.

"So are you going back to Japan with Miss Ryuuzaki?"

Shaking his head, Clef stared at him in astonishment. "What!"

"You like her. I just thought you were going to go with her," Derrick replied as if he didn't care.

"I might," he breathed in response. "I haven't talked to her about that yet, and there's something else."

Clef debated the wisdom of confiding in the boy, but he decided Derrick's street smarts would be an advantage in helping him understand. "I don't have any identification of any kind. As far as the government is concerned, I don't exist, and without a passport I'm not getting anywhere near Japan."

He hadn't been speaking loudly. In fact, what he'd said had been only for Derrick's ears, but while the males had been huddled in conversation, Joan Carter walked over to them. Derrick, who still sometimes called her "Creepy Carter", gave her a nasty look. She paused without joining conversation, and after an uncomfortable pause with her staring at them, she sped off to her office like she was on a mission.