His eyes simultaneously light up and freeze in shock when he sees her, and for a moment, he's in complete disbelief.
He hasn't seen her in years, not since she transferred out after sixth grade. He didn't even know she was coming to this school. He hadn't seen her during summer freshman orientation, either. Today's only the first day, and though he expects to meet people he didn't met during orientation, he didn't expect to see her, of all people.
The next thing he knows, he's leaving his lunch table. He ignores the questions he's receiving from the friends sitting at the said table. He can feel their eyes curiously following him as he makes his way over to the girl, whose back is slightly hunching over as if she were looking down at something—probably her phone, by the way her arms are bent—and turned away from him. Still, he reasons, who else even had russet hair as long as and practically the exact shade as hers?
He can feel the grin already erupting across his face. He knows everything they say about high school, how miracles and drama and romance blossom like fungi after a rainstorm. He doubts her presence is going to mean drama or romance—that'd be weird, considering their history—but it's undoubtedly a miracle.
After all, he's about to reunite with one of his best friends from elementary school.
His footsteps are silent as he walks up to her, and he can feel the adrenaline consuming him right now. When he's directly behind her, he reaches out his arms and pulls her into him, ignoring her shriek of surprise as he wraps his arms around her belly from behind.
"Why didn't you tell me you were coming here for high school?" he immediately demands. Despite all their Facebook chatting, texts, and e-mail, she never bothered to tell him that little tidbit?
"I'm sorry?" she says, already attempting to pry herself out of his grip.
He furrows his brow. Her voice doesn't sound familiar. Confused, he lets her go. She takes a step forward and away from him. She then turns around to face him, finally revealing her face, which is contorted in confusion.
His eyes widen.
Her bangs are completely different, and her eyes are brown whereas his sixth grade memories tell her that his best friend's eyes are a greenish-blue. Her cheekbones are lower, her face is slimmer, her nose is more angled, and her lips are slightly fuller than what he remembers of his best friend from sixth grade.
She doesn't look like her at all. Even if peoples' appearances change after time, they don't change that drastically.
She's not her.
Hot embarrassment shoots through him well before his confusion clears up, and he can feel the tips of his ears reddening. She looks up at him with a perplexed expression, and her gaze makes him feel even more awkward.
"Oh…uh, sorry. I thought you were someone I know," he admits, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly.
She flashes a smile. "It's alright, happens all the time," she says jokingly. "Hey, I'm Leaf," she continues, sticking out a hand.
He takes it. "Gary."
"By the way, if that was supposed to be a pick-up scenario…" she begins, releasing her grip and ending the handshake. "…you've really got to polish up."
"Aw, really?" he says, playing along as he places a hand over his heart. "I'm wounded. That was one of my better ones, too."
"A tip for next time, then," she says, a smile gracing her lips. "Don't start with trying to make them uncomfortable. You come off as preternatural."
He chuckles, liking her sense of humor already. "So I made you uncomfortable just now?"
"No," she replies. "You'd need to try harder than that."
He frowns. "Really? Damn. That was the entire point of it, too."
"Don't worry about it, I just don't get uncomfortable easily. I practically grew up with uncomfortableness."
"Yeah?"
She smiles. "Yeah."
"Challenge accepted, then," he declares, smirking. He literally just met this girl, and he isn't sure why exactly he's saying this to her, but somehow, conversation with her just flows. "Before the end of the year, you're going to be so uncomfortable with me that you can't even stand it. You'll run away every time I'm so much as in the same room as you."
She raises an eyebrow. "Confident, are we?" she taunts. When all he does is respond with a smirk, she continues, "Sure, but that's not fair. To make it more interesting, by the end of the year, you're going to be so uncomfortable with me that you can't even stand being in the same…mm, city as me."
"What's the prize?" he asks, amused.
"Pride," she responds with a coy smile.
He sticks his hand out. His smirk doesn't leave his face. She accepts the gesture with a smile that's just as cocky as his. A moment later, she lets go. She begins backpedaling for a short while, but doesn't lose eye contact with him for even a second. All the while, her expression is entertained.
Once she's about ten yards away, she calls out, "See you around, Gary!" before finally turning around and away from him.
He finds himself watching her until she's out of his sight, and realizes that, for some reason, he just can't wipe the smile off his face.
He's slamming his locker shut and locking it when he hears his name.
"Gary."
He turns to face her, and he casually looks down at her as she peers up at him.
"Hey," she says. "Good morning."
"Hey, good morn…ing…?" he says, the greeting sounding more resembling of a question when he's taken aback by her moving forward and wrapping her arms around his torso. He hesitantly returns the gesture, placing his hands somewhere a little above the small of her back.
They stay that way for another second or so.
Then he feels her relaxing her grip, and for a moment, he thinks she's ending the hug. He stiffens, though, when he feels her hands slip into his back pockets.
She gets up onto her tiptoes, and he can feel her breath near the nape of his neck as she whispers, "Does this make you uncomfortable?" in his ear.
Her face is out of his peripheral vision, but he can practically see her grin. He smirks. He knows what she's doing.
"I'd appreciate it if you put more effort into it next time, Green," he replies casually.
She retreats, withdrawing her hands and finally releasing him from her embrace. He does the same. His bare arms say that they miss her warmth already, but he does his best to ignore them. She looks up at him with a cheerful, amused expression.
"I'll try harder, Master," she says, rolling her eyes.
Just then, the first bell for first period rings.
She turns to leave and bids him, "See you, Gary."
He says nothing as he watches her leave, because he doesn't really get a chance to reply before she's already a couple of yards away from him. He watches her until she's joined by one of her friends, who flamboyantly bounces up to her and begins talking eagerly to her in hushed tones. He catches his name a few times.
As he turns in the opposite direction to head to class, he casually sticks his left hand into its corresponding back pocket.
He's never really cared for back pockets before, but, he muses, perhaps they're actually quite useful.
Cross-country practice just ended, and he's still in disbelief of the fact that the main set had been 30x400s on 1:10. His legs ache and there's a burning in his stomach that makes him feel almost nauseous.
He waves good-bye and mutters a few "good job"s and "see you tomorrow"s to his teammates as he swings his bag onto his back. He turns to leave the park that is his team's training area as he checks his phone for the time, which turns out to be twenty after five. He heads for the train station, his eyes glued to the screen of the device as his feet take him to a destination he's already gone to literally hundreds of times.
He's passing by the front entrance of the school, a landmark he has to pass to reach his destination, when someone catches up to him and begins walking beside him. His attention is averted from the device in his hands and focused on the newcomer, whom he flashes a grin.
"Leaf," he says in greeting.
"Hey," she replies.
"Why're you still here?"
"Club activities," she says simply. "And you had cross-country, yeah?"
"You know me too well," he says with a dramatic air as he places a hand over his heart.
She rolls her eyes and mutters something that is illegible to him. Then her brow furrows as her eyes flicker from his face to the rest of his body. Her gaze soon returns to meet his, although it's now a bit more disdainful. Her nose wrinkles ever so slightly, and a wince is pulling at her features.
"Where's your shirt," she says flatly.
He cocks an eyebrow and the corner of his lips pull up. "Where it should be," he responds. "In my bag."
"Try—oh, I don't know—on your body?"
"I think where it is right now is a perfectly fine place for it to be."
"Not everybody wants to see your half-naked body in all its grossly sweaty glory."
"Why not?" he challenges. He pauses to smirk before continuing, "Does it make you uncomfortable?"
She shoots him a quick exasperated smile before tossing her hair over her shoulder with a quick flick of her neck. "C'mon, Oak. You're better than that," she chides, laughing.
He chuckles. "You'd be surprised."
He jogs to catch up to her because she's already thirty or so yards away from him when he sees her. His cross-country hoodie is already shed and he's clutching the clothing in his hand as he moves closer and closer to her, his backpack bouncing slightly with every step he takes.
He wishes he could stay to talk, to keep her company, even if only for selfish reasons. He can't, though, because he's already late for a doctor's appointment. Besides, she's already walking with someone.
He's a few feet behind her when he tosses his hoodie so that it lands on top of her hair, draping over her entire head. When she reaches up a hand to pull it off, he's already past her. He turns around to run backwards for a few seconds because he wants to see her reaction.
She's puzzled at first and her brow is furrowed, but she quickly recognizes the cobalt cross-country clothing that bears the mighty word "Oak" in gold letters on the back. She raises an eyebrow but smiles, and her expression is questioning as her friend beside her watches on in bemusement.
Her smile makes him smile.
"You looked cold!" he calls in explanation.
"I'm not!" she shouts.
"Give it back tomorrow!" he replies, already turning back forward again.
"Take it now, stupid!"
"Why, does it make you uncomfortable?"
He's even farther away from her now, but he can still hear the sound she makes that's halfway between a snort and chuckle.
"As long as you don't mind getting it back smelling like unicorns and rainbow and girl!"
He raises a lazy hand to signify farewell and/or that the discussion was officially over. He can barely hear her now, anyways. Admittedly, he's a bit cold without the thickest layer he brought to school today. Right now, as he runs in the brisk cold, he's clad in only a T-shirt, thin V-neck sweater, and jeans.
It's alright, though, because there's something inside him that's burning.
It's a nice kind of burn, he decides.
He approaches her during division. By now, he knows that this is usually the ten minutes of her day when she's either trying to finish up homework at the last minute or desperately trying to catch a few extra minutes of sleep.
Her back is curling slightly, and her head is placed over the crevice created by her folded arms on top of her desk. He knows she's awake, though, because she's shifted six times too many in the past minute for her not to be.
He taps her shoulder twice, and no more than that. If it had been once, she could've—and would've—chosen to believe that it had been an accident and ignored it. Thrice or more seems desperate. Twice is fine. Twice is perfect.
She lifts her head to look up at the disturber of her peace with a bleary yet agitated gaze.
"What?" she snaps, clearly irritated and not in the mood.
"I heard an interesting rumor today," he replies, sticking his hands into his pockets and leaning against the unoccupied desk next to hers. He disregards the edge in her voice.
"And you think I'd care because…"
"It concerns you."
He knows that got her attention, even if her response doesn't clearly show it. He can tell by the way her eyes flashed and the way her left foot is now fidgeting that she is, at the very least, slightly intrigued.
"Fine, what is it?" she mutters, resting the side of her head on her arms.
"There's speculation that we're…dating," he says, carefully watching her for her reaction.
She makes a sound halfway between a snort and an exasperated chuckle. The corner of her lips pulls up slightly.
"Does that make you uncomfortable?" he asks, his own smirk beginning to grow.
She eyes him suspiciously but bemusedly. Clearly, he thinks, she knows that that one line had been his punch line all along and most—if not the whole—reason as to why he had approached her with something as trivial as this.
"They're going to have to try harder than that," she says, and he's amused at the fact that she's laughing a little.
He joins her, because there's not much else he can do. Because he has other things he wants to say, other things he wants to declare. Other things that he wouldn't mind literally spelling out for her.
But he can't. Not now, anyways.
Just then, the bell rings. He chuckles, musses up her hair, swings the strap of his backpack onto his shoulder, and is out the door before anyone else has even left their seat.
He's wiping a few beads of sweat off his forehead as he treks through the hallway to the closest water fountain, because the gym is stuffy and he actually somewhat tried during those pacers just now.
He smirks as he runs a hand through his hair. He'd lasted the longest. Naturally.
He's still in smug spirits a few seconds later when he sees her turning the corner, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She'd been runner-up in the survival-of-the-fittest challenge just now, and she had only gotten out a minute or so before him. From that knowledge, he quickly infers that she just had her drink of water.
He watches as her eyes flicker to him and a playful smile erupts on her face. He returns it, only his is a tad cockier because he can't help it. He begins to slow down and she does the same until they're at standstills in front of each other.
"You only won because I let you," is the first thing that leaves her mouth.
He raises an eyebrow. "I'm not even breathing hard."
And it's true—he's not. However, the same parallel can't be said for his heart, whose pumping had just quickened by a few beats per minute. She crosses her arms over her chest and shifts her weight onto her right foot.
"So?" she says tauntingly. "I can best you in anything if I try."
He chuckles because he knows she's kidding, because he knows she knows he's on varsity for both cross-country and track and that he's a healthy postpubescent boy. She may have played soccer since she could waddle on stubby baby legs and justified to everyone ever since that she's naturally athletic, but she still has nothing on him.
He can prove it.
"Yeah?" he says quietly.
He's moving towards her and before she can respond, he's got her shoulders in his grip and is pushing her into the wall behind her. She tries to resist by planting her feet firmer on the ground and stiffening her body, but it doesn't work because before either of them really know it, she's pressed up against the wall and he's leaning—no, towering—over and bemusedly watching her. He moves his right arm so that his forearm rests against the wall on a spot directly over her head. His other hand is planted right beside her shoulder so she can't escape. He's so close to her that his body is no more than two inches away from hers at any given point, and the thought unnerves him a little.
He ignores the feeling in his stomach, the acceleration of his heart, and the sudden electricity coursing through his body. He plays everything off by pulling his lips up into a smirk.
"You were saying?" he says casually, as if he didn't just push her up against a wall like in those annoyingly cliché romance chick flicks he's suffered through in the past beause of the antics of his sister.
She's looking back at him, a confidence burning in her eyes that scream "challenge accepted".
"I could escape if I wanted to," she whispers, eyes twinkling. She's clearly amused. "You don't have any leverage on me, Oak."
"But you're not escaping," he points out, ignoring the exasperated look she gives him.
"I don't want to hurt you," she quips with a smile so innocent that it's evil.
He snorts. A thoughtful expression crosses his face. "How uncomfortable does this make you?" he wonders aloud, inching his face ever so slightly closer to hers.
She laughs softly, and her face is bright with playfulness as she retorts, "Not at all. You know, I expect more from you." She pauses as a playful smirk curves her lips. "Does this make you uncomfortable?"
He smiles slightly and backs off, stepping away from her as he lets his hands fall back to his sides. He turns and begins walking away to continue his journey to the water fountain, and as he does so, he briefly wonders if she can see through the nonchalance of his smile. A moment or so later, he hears her steps walking in the opposite direction back to the gym.
He releases a heavy sigh when he definitely knows she's out of earshot.
"More than you know," he mutters under his breath.
As he runs a hand through his hair, he can't help but feel that maybe, just maybe, he's the most cowardly person on the entire planet.
It's the end of practice, and he's laughing and trying to jab and call Tristan, one of his teammates, a few obscene names as payback for pouring an entire bottle of water into his hair. He's just succeeded in playfully pushing the blonde into a tree when, out of the corner of his eye, he notices her sitting at a bench nearby, hunching slightly over her binder and tapping her lip with a pencil.
Grinning, he gives the blonde one more shove before sauntering over and plopping himself down on her left, dripping a bit of water onto her in the process.
She doesn't look away from the algebra worksheet she's doing, but he knows she's fighting a smile as she sarcastically says, "Well, aren't you cool?"
He smirks. "I prefer sexy."
She lifts and turns her head to look at him, and he finds himself studying her bronze pupils and the specks of dark umber in them. He knows it's sappy, but somehow, she captivates him with the way her eyes remind him of caramel and chocolate and earth and warmth. Her eyebrow arches and she stops writing.
She surprises him by cracking a soft smile and reaching out her left arm to gently wipe away a few drips of moisture running down the side of his face.
He feels a familiar swooping sensation in his stomach, one he's been suffering whenever he's in her presence. He doesn't smile because he wants his expression to be unreadable, because he's afraid that anything else would give him away. He's studying her face, but she doesn't meet his steadfast gaze because she's busy watching her own sleeve dry off a part of his seemingly-spiky-but-surprisingly-soft sepia hair.
Finally, he closes his eyes, reveling in the feeling of her touch as he leans back against the bench. Her hand follows his movement, and it doesn't cease its stroking.
"Does this make you uncomfortable?" he murmurs quietly.
He reopens his eyes just in time to see something in-between a smile and a smirk make its way onto her face.
"No. Does it make you uncomfortable?" she replies lightheartedly.
He smiles softly. He knows that that's their script, but he can never help but hope that someday, she'll improvise from it.
"Eh," he says, shrugging, even though it's a bit of a lie.
He always says something along those lines because it's what she's expecting him to say, because she's expecting him to follow the script, because it's a script that literally their entire friendship is built on.
...Even though it's what he hopes for, he still wonders if improvising would ever even be worth it if it meant having to risk moments like these.
They're in Survey Literature, and he notices that, not unlike himself, she's completely bored. Her seat is two away and diagonally across from him, and he can see her doodling in the margin of her notes. She's close enough to give him butterflies, yet far enough for her to not notice. The angle is perfect from here because he can watch the different expressions that are always flitting across her face.
Suddenly, an idea strikes him.
He tears off a large chunk of blank paper from the corner of his current page of notes as quietly as he can. On it, he quickly scrawls, "Hang out after last day of finals next week? ...you know, as long as it doesn't make you feel uncomfortable." Satisfied, he crumples it up into a small ball and tosses it onto her desk when their teacher's back is turned.
He can tell her attention is piqued by the note, because after she reads it, she looks back in the direction that it had been thrown from. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her turn her upper body to face him for a moment, and he can assume that a small smile had made its way onto her lips. He casually fixes his gaze on the blackboard and fights a smile as if he hadn't just passed her a note like children, as if he were actually interested in the lecture. He notices her turn back around to dance her pen across the note, and a moment later, the same crumpled piece of paper lands back on his own desk.
He casually reaches for the small ball and smooths it out to read it.
Under his own message, the words, "sure and fyi, I know what you're doing, but just remember—you asked for it," had been scribbled.
He can't help but grin.
He sighs and closes his eyes, taking a moment to revel in the June sunshine. He sticks his hands into his pockets and leans back into the metal park fence, ignoring the slight discomfort of the bulge that is his backpack as he does so.
They'd agreed to meet here, so right now, he's waiting for her.
His thoughts drift as he waits. He's worrying about his geometry final he just took when he feels arms wrap around his neck and a body press gently into his. Suddenly, all thoughts of math vanish from hs mind. He blinks open his eyes in surprise and looks down at the girl who's on her tiptoes and innocently beaming, but he can see the mischief in her eyes.
"Does this make you uncomfortable?" she asks.
"And hello to you too," he says as he loosely wraps his own arms around her waist.
She grins and lowers herself away from him. He releases her as well.
"So," she starts conversationally as they begin walking. "Finals are already over. You're running out of time."
"I know," he says.
He doesn't retort that part of their deal is that her goal, in addition to remaining impervious to his attempts, is to try to make him uncomfortable as well and that so far, he hasn't said that she's made him uncomfortable. She evidently knows this, but she hasn't quite realized that he always avoids directly answering her whenever she asks if he's uncomfortable. He doesn't want to concede that she's already made him uncomfortable more times and with more intensity than she could ever know.
But, like she says—he's running out of time.
They're sitting under a large maple tree that's somewhere in the middle of a large public park downtown, a park that's no more than a five minute walk from the frozen yogurt shop they had just been at. Her head is on his right shoulder, and her eyes are closed. He marvels at the fact that she can relax like she is right now while he himself is only that much away from completely losing his cool.
Something swells within him as he recounts the fifteen or so minutes they had just spent at the frozen yogurt shop. Their game had, as expected, continued even there. They'd fed each other tastes of their yogurt off of each others' spoons, and he'd felt the curious looks and knowing smiles they'd received from onlookers. He fights a chuckle when he recalls the little girl who had come up to their table and wondered aloud if they were going to get married like the pretty girl and handsome boy in the story her parents read to her before she goes to sleep. Her perplexed expression after they told her that they weren't even a couple was, as the girl currently beside him had described it afterwards, "beyond adorable".
His eyes flicker to the resting girl beside him, and he watches her chest and shoulders rise and fall with each soft breath she takes. He knows she isn't asleep, though, because out of the corner of his eyes, he can see her foot bobbing.
As his eyes travel down to her foot, an idea strikes him.
He slowly moves his arm so that his fingers are grazing the outside of her left calf. He feels her stiffen, and he knows it's because she's incredibly ticklish. He continues to trace light circles as his hand gradually moves up her leg. He can tell by the way she's biting her lip and creasing her brow that she's trying incredibly hard to resist laughing. He smirks, and continues moving upwards to the outside of her thigh. She shudders slightly.
He knows that if she weren't wearing a skirt as short as she's wearing right now that she'd be much more resistant to his advance, but luckily for him, she is.
His hand lingers there for a moment, right beneath the hem of her crimson skirt, as he deliberates. He mentally takes a deep breath, and then his fingers are slowly sliding down the circumference of her leg and into the area of her inner thigh—
The next thing he knows, he's on his back and sprawled on the grass. It takes a moment for his mind to register the fact that she shoved him away and, in the same movement, maneuvered herself so that her body, propped by her legs and arms, is currently hovering over his.
Her eyes are bright with amusement as she chides, "The rules don't allow sexual harassment."
He raises an eyebrow. "So that made you uncomfortable?" he asks, propping himself up on an elbow.
She smirks and lowers her head so that it's down beside his. Her skin doesn't touch his, but she's so close that he swears he can feel her body heat anyways.
"No, I'm saying that for your own good," she quips softly in his ear, and an involuntary shiver goes down his spine as he ascertains the meaning of her words. He instinctively stiffens, and he's convinced that she noticed it because she sultrily whispers, "Does this make you uncomfortable?"
His mind blanks. It isn't because of the close proximity, because he's been this close to her before—well, maybe partially because of the close proximity—but more so because of the fact that her body is the only thing that's trapping him to force him to stay where he is. That, and the fact that there are strands of her hair tickling his face and neck.
Also, her scent is driving him wild.
He's not thinking straight when he breathes, "Yeah."
He doesn't register what he's said until she abruptly pulls back from him, her eyes wide with surprise. Her mouth is slightly slack, and disbelief and shock is etched into her face. She blinks exactly four times before she retracts her right arm and leg and hesitantly begins to get off of him.
This time, he's slightly aware of what he's doing when he reaches out his arm to grasp hers, stopping her from moving any further. She looks back at him confusedly, and the previous shock in her face is doubled.
"That doesn't mean you're allowed to leave," he says with a faint smirk.
She doesn't move a muscle as she looks back at him with even more confusion and surprise than before, if that was possible. Despite the fact that she's officially the winner of their game, there isn't a speck of happiness of any kind in her face.
She doesn't smile when she says, "But the game's over."
His mind runs wild, wanting to believe that the reason she isn't happy is because she's more upset than would be considered normal about the fact that their game's over, and that she's more upset than would be considered normal about that fact because of underlying reasons that he hopes exist.
He can feel the ball of nervousness that's growing in his stomach, the quickening of his heart, and the excess adrenaline that must be coursing through his body because his head suddenly feels a bit light. He swallows the saliva that's accumulated in the back of his mouth.
And with it, his pride.
"The game's been over," he whispers.
She studies him intently, her expression unreadable. "What are you saying?"
"You've always made me uncomfortable," he mumbles, making sure to unwaveringly meet her eyes. "Everything you do makes me uncomfortable, Leaf. Your... presence makes me so uncomfortable that I can barely stand being in the same room as you." He pauses for a moment before continuing, "But I do stand it, because it's a type of uncomfortable that's…addicting beyond belief, because…"
He blows out a breath.
"...I'm more uncomfortable after you leave the room than when you're in it," he finishes.
Her face remains stone for another moment, and for that moment, he's silently panicking and worrying that he's completely obliterated everything.
Then, her expression changes.
The first new emotion that flits across her face is relief. The way her face softens so suddenly and drastically catches him off guard, and he's left mentally stumbling. After that is slight disbelief. And after that are mixtures of exasperation, exuberance, effervescence…
…and, finally, adoration.
She's narrowing her eyes and opening her mouth to retort something undoubtedly nasty when he takes a gamble, smirks, and abruptly raises himself to touch her lips with his. The feeling is better than any runner's high he's ever gotten or feeling he's ever felt, and just everything about her captivates him in a way that he couldn't break free of even if he wanted to.
After what may have been either a moment or eternity, she breaks away, but her eyes are shining and she's smiling the widest he's ever seen her smile. He himself is grinning so wide that he swears his face is going to split. There's a moment where neither of them say anything.
Finally, he breaks the silence.
"Did that make you uncomfortable?"
She throws her head back and laughs. "You know, somehow, I've always been uncomfortable around you."
-*-fin-*-
..haha so anyways, the main inspiration for this was a story I read on Fictionpress that had DTMYU as a theme, too, a while ago (it was godly). I finally gave in after a month of "should-I-or-shouldn't-I" and wrote all the little scenes during school this past week.
This is the part where I mention Aqua(Starlight), who's a great writer and a dear in helping me double-check Gary's personality and for being the main reason as to why I actually ship ors/lgs.
as always, thanks so much for reading!
Edit: 6/11/13: changed the ending so that it's a little less corny. :p (not that you can really tell cuz you can still squeeze gallons of high fructose outta this arghsdkfewle0)
