Summer Solstice

Happy For You

{{ "What?" He looked at me, his face was also a bit pale. "I'm not worried about Homer. He's, well, he's Homer. I'm worried about what he's going to do to my dad."}}

His dad? What could my grandfather possibly do to his dad? Homer was one of the elders, older by Patu by decades. I had always envisioned Homer as being strong and sturdy, but it wasn't as though he'd taken Patu outside to actually fight with him.

Right?

"Konai, why would you be worried about what my elderly grandfather could do to your dad, your dad's barely even forty." I turned from staring out the window to look at Konai, and noticed he was smiling, sort of.

"Your grandfather is the oldest tribal member in our village, you know that, right?" He turned and started walking back up the hall. "Yes, so... Patu has to respect his opinions?" I asked nonchalantly. "Something like that." He reached up and patted his arm, and a small cloud formed. Ahead of us Kaida had reached the kitchen door, and was pulling it open.

"Something like that?" I frowned. When had I heard him say that before? "Well, being an elder garners respect, right?" He smiled at my comment and stepped into the bright light of the kitchen. He wasn't pale. His whole left side was covered in.....flour. "No, being the eldest kind of makes him chief. Not that we've openly admitted such a thing." He walked around Kaida, who I now noticed was standing in the center of the kitchen.

Her mouth was covered with one hand and her shoulders were shaking. I followed her line of sight and gaped. Poor Joe had nearly an entire bag of flour coating his body. His hair was a grayish-black and I couldn't tell what color his shirt was supposed to be. The bag of flour lay torn in half on the counter, and Joe, who acted as though nothing was amiss, was hacking away at a piece of fish.

"Joe?" I asked as calmly as possible.

"Yes?" He turned towards me quickly, and a plume of white floated in all directions. Kaida let out a huge laugh, then continued laughing until I thought she might collapse from lack of oxygen.

Both boys ignored her, and went about emptying the grocery bag and mixing up the batter for the fish. I grabbed a broom and dust pan, willing to ignore the fact that the inside of their kitchen looked whiter than the ground outside. I had just finished cleaning up most of what was on the floor, when Kaida stopped wheezing.

"Good grief, what the heck did you do?" She reached up and grabbed the recipe book they were looking at and closed it quickly, sending another wave of flour out in their direction.

"I don't want to talk about it." Konai grabbed the new bag of flour and tore a whole in the top. Little Joe looked at him warily, then at the kitchen door. "They've gone outside." Konai murmured. The moment he'd said it, Little Joe's arms relaxed and he sighed in relief.

"Um, Konai, did you guys get in a food fight?"

The glare he cut me only lasted for a fraction of a second, he blinked quickly and gave me a small half smile. "No, I just got a little messy when my dad asked me...." He rubbed absently at a spot on his chest, "...he said I should stop this." And he gestured between himself and I.

Oh.

His father had asked him to break up with me.

A sore spot formed in the middle of my chest and I rubbed at it for a moment. "So, I guess you got upset?"

It was Little Joe's turn to laugh. "Yeah, something like that." He snorted under his breath.

I stared at Konai for a moment. His eyes finally met mine, and under all that flour, I saw his cheeks turn a dull bronze color. "I didn't want to...I couldn't let you go."