Studio Ghibli Oneshots

Who took the last piece of cake? [Howl's Moving Castle]

(Howl's Moving Castle Oneshot, set after the movie ^_^ And a little bit of Sophie x Howl ^_^)

Howl and Sophie, along with their little family travelled through the sky. Their new castle and home was just as perfect up in the sky, there was no difference from when it was in the ground. Okay, maybe there could be some small things that was a bit of a problem - like those masses of birds flying around. Otherwise, it was all good and everyone was happy. 

That was until one mysterious thing happened... 

Howl stood by the garden outside, looking down at the clouds drifting by beneath him in a slow pace. He smiled. He loved this castle, now especially with Sophie being a part of it as much as he. Markl and Calcifer seemed to like the new flying castle more than the one at the ground, even though they sometimes said that it did got a little lonely. For Howl it didn't matter, flying or not, it was still his own little castle. Though, these clouds did look a bit better from up here than down there... Howl's thinking time got interrupted when he suddenly heard light stomping steps behind him. 

"Who took the last piece of cake?!"

"Hey Howl!" He turned around to the familiar voice, seeing a slightly angered Sophie on her way to him. He chuckled a little bit at her facial expression, which was pouting and puffing out her cheeks with furrowed brows. "Yes?" He asked and she crossed her arms over her chest confidently. "You know that cake I baked yesterday?" Howl nodded and she sighed. "Well that's bad, because you weren't supposed to know about it." She said huffing a little bit. He shrugged his shoulders, it was pretty hard not to notice somebody baking around here, especially if that person was a beginner to it. 

She turned around. "Maybe it wasn't the best idea to tell Markl about the cake..." She whispered slowly to herself with a troubled expression. Howl chuckled. It's also pretty hard ignore a excited Markl saying "Cake!" over and over.

"However Howl, the cake was supposed to be a secret. It was supposed to be kept as that too and kept uneaten but," she glanced behind her at the boy talking to Calcifer in the background, "I so know those two probably would eat it up before it happened, so I did a secret plan." Howl raised his eyebrows and chuckled. "You did an extra plan for your cake?" 

 She nodded. "Yeah, I placed more than half of my cake in a place to obvious for them to notice, so I thought they wouldn't find it becuase of that, but of course they did. But then I cut the left half in two pieces, and hid it behind another place they probably would find, but to make them think that it was no more cake for them to find." She started to chuckle at herself. "My extra plan was to place it by a place no one would ever see and find, not even think of it as of that matter."

Howl nodded, intensly listening on her little Cake story. It started to sound like a detective story of some sort with a hidden treasure or something, in his ears. She's definietly the best at story telling, because it's hard to not get draggd in. She pinced her nose. "I really thought they wouldn't find it, I really really did. But then my, if i may say excellent, plan tunred out to be a failure. When I woke up today and... it was gone." She sniffled a little bit and Howl patted her head. "My little piece of cake is gone..." She mumbled with a sad tone. 

Howl lowered down to her eye-level. "Why would you bake byt the way? I've never seen you bake before, and never thought that you would. How come?"

She darted away with her eyes in different direction and scratched her neck. "Um.. eh... You know... because of... things?" 

How stared at her with little amused smile. "Things?" 

She didn¨t have time to answer, because suddenly Markl and Calcifer came up to them, with Markl holding Calcifer in one of his hands and something else in the other. Hwol tilted his head and smiled at him with curious eyes. "Markl, have you eaten you the cake?"

Markl scratched hos head and peaked down at calcifer, who mimicked Sophie's annoyed expression. "Um... Actually..." He started and fumbled with his words, not knowing how to place them in a sentence. How raised one of his eyebrows, normally Markl wouldn't act like that. However the case was, Howl took it lightly, what big deal is a little piece of cake really? He couldn't help but chuckle at the whole situation secretly, but without no one noticing. "Did you?"

Markl closed his eyes and scrunched his whole face and held out one of his hands, not the one he held Calcifer in. His hand trembled a tad bit. "H-Happy Birthday, Howl!"

Now it was Howl's turn to stop his amused expression. He forgot his own birthday? He stroked a hand through his thick dark blue hair as he stared at Markl's hand. Markl had unravled the cloth around his hand, and to tell that abig plate underneath it was shocking. He held out the cake, the whole cake. 

Sophie's expression softened and she walked up to stand beside Markl. Now they both stood in front of Howl, both having warm smiles upon their lips. "Here's your gift, seems like it was whole after all." Sophie said and gave a look at Markl. He needed to explain this. 

After a short while, when Markl had explained that he knew about Sophie's plan and came up with one himself and it somehow turned out like this. They all shared the cake, and had Howl having the last piece of cake. Then, Howl and Sophie stood alone by the garden.

"Howl, sorry about all the trouble, I planned for everthing to go smoothly on your birthday-"

Howl interrupted her with peaking her lips and hugged her closely. "I didn't even remember my birthday, thank you for remembering for me and making such a big effort for my sake." Sophie's face flustered and she nodded and warm smile still placed on her lips. "Any time, Howl."

 The castel slowly drifted away behind the clouds, and you could smell a fain sent of pastry in the air. Sophie walked inside the castle and Howl still stood outside by the garden. He held the last little piece of the cake that he kept. Maybe it wasn't the best cake, but since it was made by the heart it made it way better than most cakes. He grinned and picked it up to his mouth.

Too bad one of those birds just had to come flying by and make him drop it...