viva_la_materia | ℵ 13 ℵ

[...er.

What?]

[He doesn't even recognize this handwriting.]

...who is this?

[Pause. She hadn't planned to be sneaky, but...oh, she loves a secret...]

Just answer the question! Geez.

[...pause. So... this person wants to remain a mystery. Now he's extremely curious who it is.]

I don't have a favorite cookie.

Why do you want to know?

It's a surprise!

Sooo, chocolate chip, then? Only crazy people and zombies and folks with allergies don't like chocolate chip.

What kind of surprise? [Suspicious Cloud is suspicious!]

Whatever.

[No further messages appear on that page. However....]

A few hours later, there is a knock on the door of Cloud's room. A mysterious, totally unidentifiable, super-sneaky knock.

(What? Shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits is still sneaky if you don't know who's knocking it.)

Though Cloud hadn't forgotten about the mysterious person asking him about cookies, he'd put it out of his mind temporarily. He normally spent his free time outside, studying various winter plants and other things like that, but he was actually in his room today. He told himself it was to organize his notes, and possibly rewrite some, and he was doing that. However, the purring cat that had settled himself into his lap gave something of the lie to his true motives.

Well, it was nice and warm.

When the strangely syncopated knock came, he looked up from the careful ink drawing of a fern he was brushing onto the blank page of one of his precious non-Sphere journals, and grimaced slightly. He didn't want to get up and disturb Adashino, so he pitched his voice so it could be heard through the door. "It's open!"

Well, that was an endorsement if she'd ever heard one. Marbles swung the door open and breezed inside, looking around for the funny pale-haired guy...ha! There he was, at a desk, drawing something. Looked way better than he had the last time she'd seen him, too. Alcohol did not become him.

"Surprise~!" she singsonged, and held out the plate of cookies she'd labored over. "Cookies!" It had been easier than she thought to bake 'em. Well, it hadn't been harder, anyway. She had a feeling somebody had taught her, once upon a memory wipe.

Anyway, they were chocolate chip and still warm, and she hadn't even eaten more than a few on the way there. It was the due of the chef, she figured. Had to see if they tasted all right.

To say that Cloud was surprised would be a bit of an understatement. He blinked at Marbles, then glanced down at the cookies. After a moment, he set his brush aside and leaned on one elbow--careful not to smear his drawing. "Hello again. And just how did you find out where I live?"

At least now he knew who had been asking him about cookies.

She shrugged, which turned out to be difficult to do with the right flair while carrying cookies, and decided to set the plate down on his desk to free up her hands.

"I followed you home," she said, offhandedly, and perched on the edge of the desk next to the cookie plate, careful not to sit on anything that looked important (or still wet). "You probably didn't notice, on account of being crazy-drunk at the time. And because I'm good at sneaking."

As she put down the plate he whisked his journal out of the way, putting it safely to one side so the ink could finish drying completely. Thinking of that... he picked up the brush and started to clean off the ink with a slightly damp rag he had sitting nearby for just this reason.

His hands hesitated at her words, and he glanced up. "Ah..."

Well, he shouldn't be too surprised. Probably half the damn Sphere had been in that bar, and it stood to reason at least some of them would have seen Smoke drag him back here... he returned his attention to the brush, wanting to get the ink off before it dried. Dry ink was hell to remove without damaging the bristles, and he liked the way this one wrote. "I see. And you followed me because...?"

Good to know he was paying attention. Marbles drummed her heels lightly against the side of the desk, slightly impatient. "Because I wanted to be able to find you again."

It seemed like an obvious answer to her. She glanced down at the plate of warm cookies. "Are you going to eat those?"

He took a few more seconds to satisfy himself the brush was clean enough, then he set it aside as well. "...a pretty straightforward reason." If she was telling the truth. Given her reaction to first seeing him... and the question about poisoning... his lips curved into a faint smile, he really couldn't resist. "Say, you didn't poison these, did you?"

One of his hands slipped into his lap, where he began scratching Adashino behind the ear gently, and a little absently. The cat's increased purring was likewise tuned out in favor of teasing Marbles.

"I--hey!" Marbles gaped at him for a second, then thumped her hands down on the desk in annoyance, curling her fingers around the edge, and blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. "No. No, they're..."

She trailed off into a sigh, staring at the hand further away from him, then made a face and added, "Sorry about that. The, um...the meat buns were good. Those were yours, right?"

He chuckled a little, softly, at her indignation, then picked up a cookie and took a bite--partially to prove he really didn't think she'd poisoned them, partially because she wanted him to, and partially because it just seemed polite.

Marbles was lucky he could eat worse things than cookies with a straight face; sweet things like this really weren't his favorite. But he chewed the bite, swallowed, and shrugged off her apology--literally. "Yeah, they were." He'd just bought them in the Bazaar on his way over to the party, but he decided not to quibble over how little time he would have had to poison them, if he'd wanted to.

She nodded, leaning forward a little and watching him curiously as he ate. It was the first time she could remember making cookies, which was almost as good as the first time you really make them, right? So she was hoping for some kind of reaction, but instead he was making...it wasn't even a face, really. It was a non-face, the kind you used if you were playing poker. The kind you didn't use when you picked somebody's pocket because it was too obviously innocent.

Well, crud. Marbles sighed, exasperated, and swiped a cookie off the plate herself. It was only fair, if he wasn't going to make transported gasps of delight or spit it out everywhere or something useful.

"So," she said, through a mouthful of crumbs (they weren't the best cookies in the world, but they were at least worth a face, she decided - and a good one, too). "How come you're called Cloud?"

Sorry, Marbles. He said he didn't have a favorite cookie for a reason... but Cloud could see his attempt to appease her had failed. Oh well.

He laid the half-eaten cookie aside for now, the better to pet his cat. She seemed to be enjoying them, so he may as well let her. "Hmmm... it's a name that just seemed to suit me." One hand reaches up to finger his hair--yes, the color did have something to do with his name-choice. "And the man who greeted me was Sky-san. I guess there were a few other names I could have picked, but I think this one suits me best."

Hunh. Marbles wrinkled her nose and helped herself to another cookie, absent-mindedly. "I dunno," she said, looking him up and down. "You don't look much like a Cloud."

She wasn't sure why she was so sure of that, but she was. She knew it in her gut, somehow. His hair was all wrong, for one thing...

The movement of his hand caught her eye, and she glanced down and finally noticed his pet. Her eyes lit up with delight. "Hey!" she exclaimed, and carefully extended a hand, palm-down and fingers twitching, to the cat in his lap.

Cloud raised his eyebrows a little at that. "I don't, huh. What do you think a Cloud looks like?" If he was curious if this was some kind of weird setup for a joke. Maybe she was about to imply he wasn't puffy enough, or say he couldn't fly. Something like that.

As she abruptly took interest in his cat, he grinned slightly--and then grimaced a little as Adashino got up to sniff at her hand, claws going through his pants and into his leg. He lifted the cat onto the desk, setting him next to the plate of cookies. "His name is Adashino."

"Adashino, huh?" Marbles chucked the cat gently under his chin, then gave his owner a thoughtful look. "I dunno. More colorful?"

Pushing off the desk, she landed lightly on the floor and turned, pointing at the plate of cookies. "Sooo, are you going to finish those or not?"

He shrugged slightly. "Just a name that popped into my head." His hand went up to finger his bangs again. "Colorful, huh... well, I'm definitely not that." He'd have to say he was probably the opposite of colorful, and that suited him fine.

Adashino leaned into her attentions, and looked somewhat annoyed when she stopped scratching him. Cloud rubbed the cat behind his ears, and had the grace to look a little sheepish. "Ah... when I said I didn't have a favorite cookie... mmm. I don't really like sweet things. Thanks all the same for making them."

"Huh." Marbles propped her hands on her hips and frowned at the cookies, then up at him. So much for surprise cuisine. Geez, was he always this close-lipped? She was never gonna find out anything useful about him this way.

"Well, fine," she said, pouting and blowing out a sigh that ruffled her bangs, "but you could have said something. Anyway, somebody ought to finish them." She picked up the plate, matter-of-factly turned and headed for the door. Sometimes you had to make a tactical retreat, right? Pausing in the doorway, she looked back over her shoulder, feeling like there was too much retreat involved at the moment and not enough tactics.

"I like your cat," she said. That felt fair. With that, she ducked out the door and snapped it shut behind her.

Cloud was just about to point out that he had told her he didn't have a favorite cookie, and he hadn't realized she was going to make them for him--but she scooped up the plate, and headed for the door before he could.

Blinking a little at both her statement and the door snapping shut, he looked down at his cat. "...I think I annoyed her, 'Shino."

His cat maared, nudged at his hand, and he laughed lightly. "At least she likes you." Scooping up the animal once more, he deposited him back in his lap and reached for his journal. He hadn't finished his drawing yet...

A few moments after Marbles left, it was as though she had never been there at all.

ℵ 13 ℵ

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QL [Tagging fail forever. OTL]

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QL [aaaand Marbles, out!]

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