Joyous Weed

Kadaj enjoyed the fact that, during this holiday or whatever it was, they made things so dark. Cloud, Tifa and the kids used to annoy him with bright things and open windows and lights on and so on, but now, during this Halloween, they made everything dark and scary. Why couldn’t the house always be like that? He’d tried to ask Cloud that, begged him even, but Cloud kept saying no, and then Kadaj lost his trail of begging when he managed to mistake Halloween for being Hello Weed and even added in that since weed was all around them during spring, summer and fall they could just as well greet the weed all of that time if this was the way to greet it. At that point he’d just earned a questionable look from Cloud, and the begging-for-it-to-stay-like-this had ended with how-to-pronounce-and-spell-Halloween-right, which took some time, considering that Cloud writing it down didn’t help much either, since Kadaj had just recently started to learn writing and spelling thanks to Tifa bothering to teach him. It wasn’t like he’d learned writing and spelling in his wicked childhood, and he still had some problems understanding it. All his life he’d only known how to read the most common words, and could only write his own name. Yet he knew that ‘hallo’ was so not the way of writing ‘hello’! But Cloud was stupid and clearly didn’t get that about Helloween, so in the end Kadaj had given up and just went back to his own room.

It was at his room that he’d discovered a pumpkin. Not in his room but outside, as he hung out of the window looking around. Seemingly one of the neighbours had this weird, round, orange thing with a face on in their window. And as soon as he’d seen it the thoughts of Cloud’s stupidity went over to a great need to know what kind of creature that was, so he immediately ran out of his room and downstairs, though this time deciding to ask Tifa since Cloud failed.

“Tifa! What’s that round, orange creature the others have in their window?” He said once entering the bar where Tifa was hanging up the last decoration.

“Oh, Kadaj! Hm…” Tifa finished hanging up the decoration before walking off of the chair she had stood on to do so, explaining while she carried the chair back where it originally had stood, “Round, orange creature…I’m quite sure it’s a pumpkin you’re talking about.”

Kadaj tilted his head, “What’s a pumpkin?”

“A pumpkin’s a fruit.” Tifa said, smiling at him before looking over the room to check if it all looked good. 

“So pumpkins have faces?” Kadaj was confused, since when did fruits have faces? It was just not right. But Tifa just laughed slightly before replying.

“No, no, no. Pumpkins are actually without faces, and have seeds and lots of pumpkin meat that you can eat inside it. But for Halloween, some people cut a hole on the top of it and take all of that out, then they cut out a face for it. It’s a Halloween decoration.”

”Oh…” Now it made sense. Sort of. Kadaj liked that about Tifa. She actually explained things to him in a way that made it understandable. Way better than Cloud. He was stupid.

“Tifa. Cloud is stupid.” Kadaj stated, making Tifa laugh.

“Is he now?”

“Yes.” Kadaj nodded, and then he turned and went out of the room again, bored with talking to Tifa. He wanted something else to do. Cloud was still sitting in the kitchen drinking his coffee. So Kadaj went back to him. The kids were out doing that Trick or Treat thing. Kadaj had actually been given the offer to join, and he’d been tempted to, but when he saw how stupid you had to look to do it, he refused. Now he was at home with Tifa and Cloud and even though things for once looked good in the house, it started to get boring.

“Cloud. You’re stupid.” He said to the blonde haired man by the kitchen table, who only offered him a slight glance in reply before looking back into nothing while he took another sip of his coffee. It annoyed Kadaj that he didn’t get a reply in words, so he sat down and continued, “Really stupid.”

This time Cloud nodded, and was quiet for a bit longer until he realized Kadaj’s angry glare at him and, having gotten slightly used to the youth’s behaviour, realized the problem, “I am really stupid, Kadaj.” Cloud then replied to satisfy him.

It wasn’t really enough, but good enough so that Kadaj could sit down more properly on the chair and relax a tad bit more, soon getting bored again, so he took Cloud’s cup of coffee out of the blonde’s hand and drank some of it. Cloud considered lecturing the youth in not to take others’ cups or glasses and drink of them without permission, but figured that since he’d already been labelled stupid for the day he would let it go this time. Kadaj seemed to expect the lecture though, as he’d gotten it plenty of times before, but Cloud just drank some more of the coffee himself. In the end, Kadaj let his head down on the table with a long, miserable sigh.

“Bored?” Cloud asked, as if it wasn’t obvious already, so Kadaj didn’t bother answering and just kept playing dead on the table, “Why didn’t you go trick or treating with the kids then?”

“Because you’re stupid.” Was the reply, which gained a humorous smile on Cloud’s lips. It was one of the reasons for keeping Kadaj in the house; he was one of few who could make Cloud smile. Kadaj himself seemed not to have noticed that though.

“No, seriously. Why?” Cloud tried to ask again. This time Kadaj rose from the dead by glancing with a bored look up at Cloud.

“I had to look stupid.”

Cloud shook his head, “You didn’t have to. It’s just bigger chances if you did.”

“Bigger chances of what?”

“Getting candy.”

Kadaj wrinkled his nose before he returned to the position of being dead on the table again. Cloud stood up and poured the few last drops of the coffee into the sink before cleaning the cup and put it away while Kadaj were thinking.

“You come with me then.” Kadaj concluded, not caring how much candy he got as long as he didn’t have to look stupid.

“Why?” Cloud asked, really not wanting to.

“Because you’re stupid.”

Cloud sighed, sitting back down by the table. Kadaj didn’t say more, nor moved. He did in fact make a very good impression of being dead on the table, until Cloud ruffled his hair so much that he let out a whine, and then Cloud was even more stupid.

Cloud would do so well Trick or Treating.