TITLE: deep sea divers
GENRE: romance
WORD COUNT: 4000-ish
RATING: probs t, but idk that could change WINK no
NOTE: i— my summary EP 24 don't take me srsly
(i wrote this just to make them kiss— repeatedly)
not even embarrassed bout it
pretty much ringo and shouma being typical teens & being awk bc they deserve to go thru the awk stage, IF ONLY THEY HAD THE CHANCE
fluff fluff fluff
idk i just wanted to dish this out I GOT FRUSTRATED W/ THIS PIECE life awful cries rages
DEEP SEA DIVER(S)
he's always consumed her like fire.
She hears about her (very first) somewhat kiss through Yuri and Tabuki, respectively.
It's all a rather self-suffering affair.
"— what do you mean me and Shouma-kun have k-k—" and the words leave her mouth through debatably strangled hiccups, "—done the liptouching t-thing already?!"
Her arms are moving and gesturing a little dangerously, her eyes flashing, because what the hell.
Yuri and Tabuki exchange a rather awkward look over quickly cooling tea and slightly stale scones and cookies. Shouma's off in the restroom doing god knows what, and Ringo's pretty ready to throw the first punch. Her tea sloshes around the edges of her pretty teacup dangerously as she bumps her leg up and down; the waiter is eyeing her sketchily as a drop tips over the edge.
She scowls back in his direction, her nerves frayed and on the edge.
There's a rather long pause, and—
"— I, well, what did you think happened at the lake?" Tabuki eventually sputters confusedly, his brow crinkling cutely between his perfect blue eyes. Yuri looks much too amused, and a year and a half after getting over her stupid crush/obsession/questionably stalkerish behavior, Ringo feels like slapping Tabuki.
(He's just so incredibly dense, really.)
Yuri's chattering in the background about the event ("Oh, it was fabulous max!"); Ringo pauses, allowing Tabuki's question to soak into her mind for a few seconds, her forehead wrinkling in thought. (Like, WTF, what lake?)
It takes a bit for the memories to catch up to her heart, and she remembers too-big, clean smelling clothes, her sinking into watery depths whilst saying her dramatic goodbyes; she remembers rays of sunshine on closed eyes, and a gentle pressure against her lips. Her eyes widen suddenly, and it's a little like something akin to a soap opera— her hands slam into the table, and her teacup (finally) drops and shatters and spills all over a pristine, sparkling white floor.
Yuri's aimless talk eventually tumbles to an awkward stop, and the café turns to stare at her. The pieces are all sharp angles and ugly splinters; Ringo flails her hands desperately, apologizing half-heartedly to the annoying waiter that waves her off with a flick of his hand.
She's still standing, her mind a little numb, and she's not quite sure how to feel at all— her mind is opening and closing, and her fingers curl into her yellow skirt. Yuri stares back at her, her purple eyes piercing, and a knowing smile crawls across her face.
This cannot be good.
"— what's wrong, Oginome-san?"
Ringo's not really expecting it— she's been in love before, (probably) — but her face blossoms and brightens and flares a dark scarlet at just the sound of his voice. She cringes as his hand lands on her shoulder casually, his hand warm against her skin, and she doesn't dare turn around to look at his (stupid, stupid) green eyes.
(She's never felt like this before, and it's like what and oh, no and damn, fuck, stupid Shouma.)
She can imagine the way his brow furrows, how his left one goes deeper than his right, how his concerned little frown would make its way across his (stupid) face, how his stupidly perfect and pretty green eyes would reflect the light and sparkle, and how she'll stupidly feel better at all of his stupid kind words.
He's so stupid.
Before she knows it, (all while she was insulting him and his stupidity) he's made his way in front of her, and with a sudden realization, she notices that his face isn't, unfortunately, stupid. It's damn attractive today, for some reason, and she's uncharacteristically horrified and terrified and, well, attracted. She turns a billion times redder as he stares at her carefully.
"What?"
She takes a single glance at his lips (which touched hers, like—?!) as he speaks, and her blood pressure rockets. Ringo swallows, her eyes twitching away from him. He grabs at her shoulders, because hedoes things like that sometimes, and his frown is growing concerned; she can feel her heart beginning to chatter in her rib cage, can feel her stomach flutter and giggle, and oh, god, it feels like she can't even breathe—
— and, (as she tends to do), she slugs him in his (stupid) face and runs.
Ringo trips just once on a silly little bit of her own cooled tea, and her leg slams into the pieces of her shattered tea cup. She hears his cry of protest— partly from her punch, mostly because he cares far too much about everybody— and she ignores it with a well-placed kick and a desperate lunge for the café door.
She makes it about three feet outside the café, affectively bumping into a couple of tiny grade-schoolers, before falling again. Just as she's about to rise and sprint and run and maybe she'll fly to America, the door opens once more with a little twinkle of a stupid fancy bell.
Ringo flinches as he grabs at her wrist and effectively pins her back down to the ground. Oh, god, he's too close, too damn close, and lips, lips, lips.
His eyes are sharp with suspicion as he looks over her; she can't quite place it for once, because now, now, she can't look at him and his stupid, pretty green eyes.
It's ridiculous.
Yuri and Tabuki eventually sidle their way outside, their eyes respectively sparkling, and it's all rather disturbing. Tabuki seems to make some off-handed comment, and she's not listening because Shouma's so close, and he's breathing on her, and wow, her head is going to explode with all the red, red, red.
When Ringo does tune back in, her heart spontaneously combusts (which seems to be a recurring theme, today).
"— why don't you just walk her home?"
Her head swings towards Yuri, her mouth gaping as she struggles for words. "I— I don't need to be walked home!" she cries out weakly, because his hand is still encircling her wrist delicately, and this has never bothered her before.
Yuri looks remarkably unimpressed. Ringo glares.
"Your leg looks quite battered up."
"I can take the subway home!"
"This café is within walking distance for you, silly girl! You walked here," Yuri reminds her with a painfully bright and innocent smile. She internally groans and feels the urge to punch a wall/destroy something.
"I don't really mind," he says easily, his eyes still flitting towards her leg in concern. She wants to swat at his head like she usually does (like, could he be any worse at reading her obvious signals?), but then her eyes flicker towards his lips, and she can't do anything at all to him because her brain is currently malfunctioning due to too much blood flow from her heart to her head.
"I— I," and she hangs her head, feeling defeated; Yuri looks much too excited about the entire affair. But, really, she can't go home with Shouma because she's having like— (what can she even define this as?) — hormonal issues, or something.
Ringo meets Tabuki's eyes imploringly, widening them pleadingly. His blue eyes soften, and she swears she's going to win, but then Yuri's stiletto stabs into his foot, and he's effectively won into silence and sweating weirdly.
("FML, FML, FML.")
She takes a few deep breaths to calm down (after she sends one last puppy dog pout towards Tabuki, which he replies to with a strained nod and whimper). Ringo's done this before. She's walked home with him tons of times. She can be totally normal.
Like, totally normal.
"Then it's settled!" Yuri cries happily, her perfectly manicured hands clapping together cheerily. "Well then, Ringo-chan, giddy-up onto Takakura-kun's back!"
Ringo pretty much chokes and dies.
His back is actually bigger than it looks, and he's probably stronger than he looks too. She should've expected it, probably, seeing as how he used to lug around all her baggage back in the day.
Ringo doesn't dare lean too far onto his shoulder, because damn, that'd be far too close to his face, and she can't handle that right now without possibly spontaneously combusting. Her arms nestle themselves comfortably around his neck, and her fingers interlace and swing about like a necklace; her legs are swung through the crooks of his arms with her feet dangling off the ground.
Yuri and Tabuki are long gone, along with her protests— because her leg is being such a pain in the ass— and all that is left behind is a lightly tense, very awkward, silence.
On occasion, she can hear the coos and twitters of old ladies and young high schoolers, and it's embarrassing and awful and incredibly embarrassing/awful.
Honestly, Ringo is half expecting Shouma to say something snarky because he can be a bit of an ass-hat sometimes (most of the time), but he remains in quiet; half of her is relieved she can't see his face, his eyes, his damn lips, but on the other hand, she has no idea what he is thinking. His head is stooped low, and it makes her wonder what he's brooding about, a little.
Even so, she doesn't dare talk, because she'll probably sound like a dumbass love-sick teen, and her embarrassment has rendered her incapable of anything outside of gibberish. It's like a noose around her neck, the strains of conversation completely disappeared and gone from her grasp. She's grasping at straws for anything to say, and nothing, and this has never happened before.
Instead, to fill in the tension, Ringo burrows her head into his neck and hides her face deep within his soft sweater; she feels his back straighten and snap slightly as she nuzzles into his neck sleepily, and she laughs softly against his back (because this is all she can manage to do for him, for now). He smells like something kind and homey, and a little like vanilla, she thinks, and yet there's a hint of masculinity within it (and how the hell can vanilla even be masculine, anyway?)
That frightens her though, because since when did crybaby Shouma become just a little bit— dare she say it— manlier? She smiles briefly at the idea as her eyes slip closed, her eyelashes brushing delicately against her cheek, and she tries to forget about everything (as she tends to do).
On the way to her apartment, there are a few broken pieces of conversation between them, but she mostly sleeps, and he mostly broods. There were times when his fingers would brush against her leg, and it would stupidly enough, make her burn a bright, bright red. Sometimes though, Ringo could see how the tips of his ears would blush scarlet, and it would make her laugh silently as she blew hot air against them.
He always does a girly-screech thing, and all it does is make her tighten her hold around his neck until she's close too him, too close.
Maybe it's his ear tips turning red, maybe it's because it's warm, but maybe it's mostly because it's Shouma, but she eventually realizes she quite likes riding on his back.
(Not that Ringo would ever tell him, of course.)
"— sorry."
Ringo quits focusing on the single little brown speck on the back of his neck and looks up, her mouth quirking to the side curiously. His pace slows in front of her apartment, and she waits somewhat impatiently for him to continue, her leg bouncing against his side in an urge to hurry him along. Shouma's not facing her, and she's a little relieved, because as if she could take seeing his face right now.
"What for?" and she can't quite keep the tremor out of her voice.
His hand rakes its way through his hair, and it sticks up at odd, irregular angles from the back. She giggles quietly, imagining his frustrated face, that odd little wrinkle between his eyebrows, and it's funny because he's so stupid and typical and predictable. Ringo can read him like an open book.
"I— well, you were kind of dying at the time, you know? But you liked Tabuki-sensei, so I just— I couldn't tell you I was the one who saved you, because I thought for sure you'd punch me and dammit,you punch so damn hard, and, and I thought it would just be better if you believed he saved you, and, and—" he rambles, his voice faltering all around the edges.
She swallows hard, slightly alarmed.
"— it's okay," she eventually tells him delicately, her fingertips digging and dipping into his shoulder. She focuses on his crinkled collar, on the wrinkles in his sweater, in how his ears turn red at the tips. They've stopped outside of her apartment door, the bland, dull lights against their backs. Ringo wants to reassure him, somehow, but she's not quite sure how.
"I— no, it's not," he shoots back, his shoulders squared. "I— if it helps, it was just CPR and it was really professional. It doesn't really count," he says weakly, "and I mean, I understand if you want to think that way, since I'm no Tabuki-sensei, and I'm not that great or manly or anything, and, and—"
Ringo purses her lips, because she hates how he degrades himself, because he always does stupid things like that, because Shouma's Shouma, and all he's ever been is stupid; in a surge of thought and effort, she slings her arms around her neck and squeezes against him tightly. His neck grows remarkably warmer against her arms, and a slightly wicked grin makes its way across her face. Shouma's sputtering something ridiculously idiotic at this point, because he's just as awful with relationships and girls.
"Put me down," she demands with a light slap against his back, the noose much weaker than it previously was, and it doesn't feel like she's been sucker-punched in the chest. Her face still turns light pink at the sight of his lips, but the lighting is dark, and Shouma has terrible eyesight. Ringo flinches as her leg touches the ground, and his hand firmly loops its way around her arm and through her elbow.
He's so, so stupid, because doesn't he know what that does to her?
Ringo takes a single glance at his face, and she feels a tightness in her chest that she still can't quite understand, can't quite place. It takes just one look at his sea-green eyes, at his weird mop of blue hair, at his furrowed, concerned brow, and she falls hard (and she admits it, this time around).
Shouma's gaze is all on her leg while she looks back at his swollen, slightly red cheek. A swell of guilt rises within her because damn, did she really hit him that hard?
She brushes her fingertips lightly across the red mark, and he stiffens suddenly, his eyes rising and flickering and meeting hers.
Ringo grins almost impishly, and she swallows her pride, swallows her embarrassment as she stands on her tiptoes and plants a gentle and (slightly rough) kiss against his cheek and mumbles an apology against his heart.
She then untangles his arm from her elbow, rolls backwards onto the balls of her feet, lunges for the handle of her door, and runs inside, slamming it behind her with a rattle all within five seconds.
(She's always been a coward.)
Her back slams against the door, and she pants slightly. She swallows, hard, and she makes herself swear she isn't going to open the door, like, ever.
And then she turns back around, because she can hear him being weird behind her door; her fingers curl around her knob one more time because she just— she just wants to see what kind of stupid face he's making this time around. Ringo opens it a crack and peers outside.
Shouma's making several, quite interesting strangled noises from his throat, and he's incredibly red, and his (pretty) green eyes are rather wide and confused and dazed. Ringo laughs lightly, a snort making its way through, and his eyes finally refocus back on her.
His stupidly pretty green eyes clash against hers, and suddenly she's burning red all over again with just a single look, and it's so ridiculously like those silly dramas her friends like to watch. He looks as if he's about to quirk a brow, ask a question, (all while looking extremely flustered), but she interrupts him.
"— and don't apologize," she whispers hotly, her courage slowly leaving her, weakening her, taking away her backbone. She breathes hard, because damn, Shouma sucks all the effort out of her, and he makes it so hard to breathe, some days.
"I— I think," Ringo continues a little uncertainly, squeezing her eyes shut, because this is so uncharacteristically weak of her, "I'm okay."
She can imagine his single blink, and she hears him take a single step forward, hears the scuff of his shoe against the concrete, and she squeezes her eyes even tighter.
"— with?" and it's all rather cautious.
They are dangerously treading on thin, fragile ice between something and something more.
She wants to stay silent, really, because she's not quite prepared to say anything, and this is all Yuri's fault, and what if something changes, and, and, the words echo around her head, bounce inside her mind, and everything is begging with her to say something, say anything.
Her voice pitches higher, and she struggles with the words, because she always struggles with Shouma, always, always, always.
"— with, with kissing you!" Ringo finally squeaks shrilly, her brown (and not nearly as pretty) eyes flying open, a challenge flaring within.
Their eyes meet and bump together and fight and argue and clash, and then everything turns bright, bright red, and it's all like fire, everything is like fire. Shouma looks as if he's about to say something, but (as she tends to do), she slams the door in his face because embarrassment and she's a coward and dangerous.
Her back slowly slides down her ugly, plain door as she burrows her head between her knees.
There's utter silence for what feels like years, and it's terrible and gross and she should just escape to America, dammit!
Ringo's not expecting a reply, because that was an awful halfway, half-assed somewhat confession, but she hears his shoes as they shuffle nervously outside her door against the asphalt. His voice slips and slides and makes its way beneath the cracks of her door, and his words (as they tend to do) slip and crack and destroy and melt her heart.
Her fingernails dig into her thigh as he talks.
"— I, your lips— were, um, really— soft," he eventually manages, his voice cracking like a boy fresh out of puberty, his words just as uneven and hacked off and not pretty and not romantic as hers.
Ringo freezes, the words registering and digesting, and she can't breathe for a little while (which seems to be happening constantly, these days).
After a few moments of his (stupid) words bouncing around her head, she manages to roll her eyes, the ice cracked and shattered and it's now a little bit like something more; a choked, half laugh bubbles and escapes from between her lips, because he's awful, awful, awful at being romantic.
Ringo stares at her socks before wriggling her toes, and with a determined, and yet somewhat scared nod, she stands.
Ringo brushes her legs off, and with a tight turn of her heel, she opens the door just one more time; he looks stunned and guilty, squatting in front of her door, and so, so stupid, and he's definitely not expecting to see her. He rises to meet her, his hands already poised in a "please calm down and don't hit me" gesture, and she snorts as she grabs at his collar.
She nearly giggles at how his eyes squeeze shut, as if waiting for something (like a slap, perhaps?), but instead, she tightens her hold and effectively wrinkles his pristine collar, all neat folds and polite creases. Ringo tugs on him impatiently because he's too tall, and his back is too straight, and he's too tense; when he finally gives in with a rather defeated sigh and comes just a little bit closer, she stands on her tiptoes and inspects his face carefully.
He's really, really pretty, she thinks; probably cuter than her, she thinks sulkily. His eyes are the prettiest green she's ever seen, and his smile is always too, too kind, and his eyelashes are disturbingly full and long for a boy. He arches a brow in reply as her eyes make their way around his face, her nose scrunched in concentration. She raises her hand and traces her way down his face, and she draws a light, kind circle around his still slightly swollen cheek.
"Oginome-san?" he breathes against her lips.
She sighs into him in reply, her arms wrapping themselves around his neck, her fingers making their way to his (now wrinkled) collar again. Her lips get dangerously close, dipping into him with just centimeters between them, and she can feel his breathing quicken against hers right before she smacks her lips against his.
Ringo can see how his eyes widen, his green eyes reflecting and tracing the contours of her face curiously, before she feels his long eyelashes brush against her cheek as he gives in, over and over andover. Her fingers dig into his collar like a lifeline, and his fingertips are clumsy as they trace against her sides.
They're both respectively awful kissers it would seem, as it's full of clacking teeth and varying pressures and banged bottom lips. The kiss isn't sweet, nor is it pretty, and altogether, it's something along the lines of being both ugly and painfully bittersweet, but maybe it's also everything they've ever been to each other— Ringo's perfectly okay with that, she realizes, and after all this time, all it does is make her smile against his chapped lips.
It lasts a total of ten seconds, and when they part, he looks equal parts confused and still expecting a slap at some point. Ringo kind of wants to call it a revenge plot, but in the end, all she's ever wanted to do is kiss him.
Shouma pauses after the kiss, a crooked grin crossing his face as he tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear thoughtfully.
"— your lips are really soft," he repeats goofily, his voice still slightly cracked all around the edges, and god, he's so unromantic.
She still turns crimson though, because Shouma's Shouma, and he's always, always done absolutely ridiculous things to her heart.
"… stupid."
NOTE: hello, i write raging cliches to fill the void in my heart that is MY OTP DOESN'T GET TOGETHER IN THE END
ugh
somebody teach me how to write with these two properly, pls.
xxx.