A/N: Shipping a pair in Beyblade has always been difficult for me. I have soft spots from almost everyone but big fat zero when it comes to pairing. Somehow all of them will always remain as children oblivious toward feelings like love. But here I am, writing Max/Emily which is secretly my favorite pairing. This pair is quite unpopular, why not contribute one?
Excuse the lame title, I'm suck at giving one.
Disclaimer: Beyblade belongs to Aoki Takao. I do not own it, if I did, Max would have been that secretly sinister character who parades around with a smile. I'm not talking about Brooklyn, but Max would be someone like him.
(What About The Beach?)
She had tried to ensure herself that this was no love. That the skipping heart, the sudden flutters of butterflies in her stomach, and the crawling heat on her cheeks. No, none of them was love.
It was nothing but a normal reaction a girl had when she saw someone worthy of attention, someone who looked pleasant and very agreeable in her eyes. Surely, every single girl in the world had experienced such feelings whenever they caught an attractive looking man in sight. Especially when the said man was showing his interest to them.
Emily tried to rationalize the surfacing feelings she had whenever she saw the childlike blonde, Max was a fine looking young man, everyone agreed and who was her to say otherwise?
It began in a completely normal morning in the second floor of café shop where Emily was enjoying her breakfast which consisted of butter roll and steaming cup of coffee. Her books were piled up on the table beside her laptop.
Max had made his entrance with one hand raised in greeting and a grin, revealing his set of pearly white teeth that could blind every single being on earth. The blonde had already grown out of his green baggy pants and overall, replacing them with dark jeans, pale yellow shirt with rolled up sleeve; revealing his lean yet toned arms, and dark green suspender.
His sneakers didn't make a sound against the wooden floor as he casually sat on the chair across of her. He leaned back to his chair with one hand on his lap and another on the table. His eyes were glinting with glee as usual, they were shining so bright that Emily began to see stars twinkling in them.
His alabaster skin brought up his aquamarine eyes more. Max had not tanned at all, not even after he spent days under the brilliant summer sky. Michael had earned himself good tan and had more girls flocking to his left and right. Max, however, had somehow ruled out the ability of growing tan altogether.
Maybe because he was half Japanese, Emily remembered she had come up with the theory sometimes ago. Had it not for Max's habit of lapsing to his father's tongue in the middle of conversation, Emily would have forgotten that he carried the gene at all. But then she remembered Max's father had a dark toned skin and dissed the idea altogether. Whatever was the reason, she secretly envied him for it.
Emily suddenly realized that she had been thinking about a boy's appearance like a teenage girl with stupid crush and berated herself. Not to mention she had also been staring at him, which was not only rude but embarrassing as well.
She nursed her expression to neutral, acknowledging him with quite 'hey' then sipped on her coffee.
Max didn't say anything but continued on drumming his fingers on the wooden table, his grin still intact and eyes still radiating with contagious happiness.
"So, what do you think about the beach?"
Emily felt her heart leapt to her throat and control herself not to choke on her coffee. She felt nervous and uneasy. At the same time, she also felt strangely excited.
It only took one glance at Max's incessantly drumming fingers to tell her she wasn't the only one feeling so, Max had a habit of drumming his fingers when he didn't feel comfortable.
With a bashful smile, she looked at her half-eaten butter roll and said, "Have papers to work on, sorry."
The dejected look on Max's feelings almost made her take back her words as guilt making its way to her stomach. However, the expression was gone as instant as it came and Max reverted back to his chirpy self. He said something like; 'later then', before going on to talk about his first experience in cooking pasta.
And before she knew it, he and Max had somehow spent their breakfast together everyday, in the same café, in the same spot on second floor, with varied menus. She'd be working on whatever task she had been given and he'd be the one to do the talk.
His talk was always random and trivial. He'd start with a talk about his school, then he'd jump to whatever news he saw on TV and before they knew it, they would be talking about beyblade. Part of Emily's logical mind didn't understand why she indulge herself in this seemingly mundane conversation, but then the carefree smile on Max's face magically convinced her that for once, she didn't need to know why.
"Summer is almost over, " Max said, using his leg to tilt the chair backward so he was facing the ceiling. His plate has been cleared off of peanut butter Panini, his choice of breakfast that day.
Emily hummed lightly in response, sipping on her coffee before returning back to her work, "I'm almost finished."
With a jerk, Max tilted the chair back to its original position, making a loud creaking noise against the floor. His eyes sparked with unconcealed excitement, "So, what about the beach?"
"If I didn't know better, I'd say you're dying to see me in a bikini, " she said smugly.
Max casually laughed and Emily pretended that her heart wasn't beating just a little bit faster than usual when Max said, "Maybe I am."
Another hum and the bespectacled girl saved her document with quick ctrl+s. She smiled triumphantly, confident that she'd earn perfect mark. Emily then looked at Max, who was drumming his fingers again. The enthusiasm in his face wasn't betraying the emotion on his bewitching aquamarine eyes.
"So, the beach? Today?"
Emily had tried to tell herself again that this was no love, she was just feeling this way because Max was admittedly attractive. And Max was showing his interest in going to the beach with her, if not in seeing her in bikini. The orange haired girl didn't have bikini, the only swimsuit in her possession was a dull dark green one piece that she had purchased almost five years ago. Maybe it was time to buy new one, she thought.
Apparently couldn't wait much more, or he was just being a childish as usual, Max whined, "Emily!"
And then she saw them, light blush dusting Max's freckled face. Her logical mind told her the blush was due to excitement but no matter how excited Max had been before, she had never seen him blushing. She tried to come up with another logical and scientific reasoning such as the heat of the summer finally got into him, but another part of her argued, it wasn't likely to be the cause. The air cooler in the café had made her shiver even in the middle of the summer.
"So? Go or no go?" Max whined again, this time even with pout on his face.
All the while, Emily was having a difficult time of convincing herself that this was no love. Her heart wasn't beating so fast like it's going to burst any second just because the blonde in front of her had been coming to the café to spend breakfast with her everyday just to get her into going to beach with him.
Only then it occurred to her; she had never told him where she always has her breakfast. But then how did he even know where she was?
"I…" Emily opened her mouth but clamped it shut again. She had wanted to ask him about her recent discovery, but then she thought maybe it'd be better if she didn't know at all. And wouldn't it be weird to bring it up just now after so many mornings they had spent together? God, it sounded so wrong; the mornings they had spent together.
"You know what, you can just tell me that you don't want to go at all, " Max slumped back to his seat, losing all positive vibes he had been radiating a minute ago. "Instead of making me wait like a fool love-struck…" he paused and creased his brows together to find a word but only settled with dejected, "…fool."
"I will go!" She blurted out, making Max's head snapped up to look at her. She looked down to her half empty cup to hide her pinkish cheeks, "If it'd make you feel less like a… love-struck hormonal teenage boy."
The last part was said smugly and meant to be sarcastic but Max let out a hearty laugh which made Emily feel like the butterflies in her stomach were going wild.
"Well, I can't really argue with the love-struck part but let me make this clear, I'm not hormonal at all," he said with a grin. The honesty in his voice made Emily's blush deepened even more.
How could he be so carefree and open like this? She didn't remember ever seeing Max with guarded expression unless he was feeling totally upset. Which was ironic because his beyblading style was famously known to be defensive.
"Right, so you're love-struck." Her statement was met with Max's blinding smile and enthusiastic nod.
"So," Max drawled, suddenly looking much like seventeen years old he was and gained a newfound confidence without losing his childlikeness at all. "Are we going straight away or there's somewhere you want to stop by?"
After eradicating all trace of blush on her face, Emily gratified back to her usual self; ever so prideful smugly composed girl with sharp tongue. "My house first then I want to buy new swimsuit."
Max arched one brow, "What happened to your old one?"
She smirked as she got her things to her bag, "Let's just say certain someone wanted to see me in bikini but I do not have it at the moment."
The Max gave her another grin before finishing his hot chocolate. He fished out his car keys out of his jeans pocket and twirled it on his fingers. Emily looked up to him with hardly hidden excitement as she got to her feet and walked ahead.
This was no love, she mentally told herself as her lips twitched into a smile. Max had fallen into step beside her and started talking, this time about how Michael had talked him about getting tan. Emily looked at him crossly before he laughed and pulled her hand into his and said it was just an idea.
Either Max was wonderfully oblivious or he was the kind of person who wore his heart on his sleeves, Emily was amazed that he had made the act of holding hand so casual as if it bore only little significance.
Emily was about to berate herself again for being the only one affected by their entwined hand before reminding herself once again; this was no love.
This was just going to be.