Hi, guys! :) Here's a little thing I tried to quickly put together for Valentine's Day over the span of a few days (at first I, um… kind of forgot that this particular holiday was going to happen, you know, this week *sheepish chuckling*). But, unfortunately, I don't have a lot of time, so I'm kind of hurrying through this… One important thing I should mention: This is not the special project I mentioned in the notes of the latest chapter of Braving the Storm! This was kind of just an impromptu thing I decided I wanted to do, which turned out to be fun, easy, and the final product came out way better than I thought it would. But the special project is still in the works, and should be uploaded in a few days (possibly today if I can force my brain to churn out something I don't have to erase the second after it hits the page, which is a lot of what's been happening). On a side note, I'm not exactly sure what defines a "snippet", so I don't know if all of these qualify as that. But even if they don't, hopefully you'll like them anyway. :) So… I think I'll just save the rest of my ramblings for the note at the end (which you might want to read, because there should be some good news there). ;) With that, I present my Valentine's Day present to the Blue Dragon archive and its readers! After the disclaimer, read on! :D

Disclaimer: I do not own Blue Dragon: Tenkai no Shichi Ryuu, or the first season. Um… I don't know what else to put. XD

The village has recovered nicely, he thinks.

There are still the scorch marks on the ground and on buildings, that new plants and new coats of paint won't completely cover, because the scars are deeper than just outward appearance. But the villagers - their bodies, minds, souls - have more or less healed.

He hadn't really planned on coming here. He had come down to the Surface mostly to celebrate the Shu-tachi's birthdays - all of them were turning thirteen in two weeks - but it's been half a year since the last time he's seen her, and he'd be lying if he said he hadn't missed her. And he tries to avoid lying to himself if he can.

A few of the villagers recognize him from when he helped out around the village six months ago - the ladies who had him carry a bunch of stuff in particular - and they all wave and say hello as he passes by, gestures that he returns sincerely. He's just thankful that she is the only one who discovered what he really is; if the other people knew, he's not sure if he would be so welcome.

He sees her before she sees him, at a distance. She's helping out around the village, still, even though there isn't much to be done; he supposes that maybe it's just in her nature to be helpful - or maybe it's a need to just be doing something, to be useful. He can relate with both. She looks just like she did the last time he saw her, her hair and shirt and skirt exactly the same - but she's wearing that red hat she usually wears with her overalls. Probably because this part of the planet gets cold this time of year; after all, that's why he was wearing a hooded cloak (hood down after he came into the village) over his usual uniform. Her hair isn't as stuffed inside of it as when she wears those overalls, though, and he thinks it looks... nice.

His voice rings through the crisp winter air. "Linda!"

She snaps her head in the direction the sound of him had come from, her eyes wide. And then she beams at him, dropping what she's doing, and runs toward him. "Noi!"

He had not expected her to crush him in a tight embrace, her arms wrapped securely around his neck. Dreamed about it, hoped for it, maybe. But not expected it.

"I missed you," she whispers hoarsely into his shoulder. "After the battle with Kaiserswerth, or whatever it was called, and you told me you were leaving... I thought you weren't going to come back..."

I would have come back sooner if I could. To see you. "I missed you, too."

They soon slip into light-hearted talk, Linda telling him about the ways the village had both changed and stayed the same. When they come to the topic of why he's visiting, he couldn't help but notice the pinkish tinge to her cheeks.

"It's been a while... I just wanted to see you again," he tells her.

"There..." Linda swallows hard. "There wasn't any other reason?"

"No," he shakes his head in slight confusion. "What other reason would there be?"

"Well... Today's Valentine's Day."

He suddenly remembers a conversation he'd had once with Marumaro and Bouquet, and the realization comes to him like a bucket of ice water to the face. Flushing and cursing his bad timing, he answers, "I... didn't realize. They don't have Valentine's Day where I come from."

"They don't?" Linda looks so surprised, then, that it makes Noi feel self-conscious. Before he can reply, she nods, mostly to herself, a determined gleam in her gray eyes. "Can you meet me at my house in about an hour?"

He nods, perplexed, before they both say goodbye, and he watches her go toward her home. He's curious about what she could be up to, but decides to wait until the time she'd specified to find out. In the meantime, he has to find something to do for a whole hour...

It wasn't as hard to wait as Noi had thought. He had taken Linda's example, and went around helping the villagers with little errands. Before he knew it, he was fifteen minutes late.

He walks up to the front of it, knocks. In a few moments, Linda opens the door and tells him to come inside and make himself at home. He looks around; there isn't much in the way of decoration, but there are a few minor trinkets on the walls or on top of the typical furniture. Most of the things are completely Linda's - she lives with a kind old woman (a woman that lived with relatively sparse accommodations before she began looking after the young girl) who took her in after Linda's parents were killed during one of Grand Kingdom's attacks.

"So, what's the big surprise?" He asks lightly.

He thinks she might try to be evasive, but instead, she gives a bright smile. "Come with me to the kitchen - I'll show you."

She takes him by the hand - he almost starts at the contact, because he's not used to it, from anyone, let alone the girl he might (translation: very likely) has a crush on - and leads him through an ajar door. Once they're inside, she lets him go, turns around and smiles at him warmly, hands clasped behind her back and eyes closed. "Happy Valentine's Day, Noi."

At first he opens his mouth to say - to say something, but he doesn't even know what it is anymore when he looks to the right. On the center of the kitchen table, on a plate, is a chocolate cake in the shape of a heart.

Sweets. His heart is beating a little faster as he wonders how she knows him so well when their meetings have been so brief. He wonders if she thinks about those short meetings nearly as much as he does.

Either way, the cake is delicious.

From Linda - To Noi

He leaned back in the wheelchair, letting the sun warm his face. It was unusually warm for a mid-February day, but that wasn't really a bad thing when you were in the mountains (the first year he'd been here, the hut had been snowed in); at any rate, it made for a pleasant Valentine's Day.

Andropov wished he could get up and walk normally again (though his chances were more or less good that he'd be able to one day, he still had his doubts). If he could, he already would have been back from one of the village stores and would be presenting Kluke with the bought chocolate. Maybe then he could have told her how he really felt, instead of doing what he'd done last year - pretending that the chocolate Kluke had given him was nothing more than a nice gift from friend to friend, ignoring the bitter taste of the unspoken lie in his mouth that wouldn't leave no matter how much of the sweets he ate (though half of that might have been because Kluke made it herself).

But, maybe one day.

He heard it in the distance - the distant hum of Kluke's motorbike. She must be done with the shopping. I wonder what we're having for dinner, the last part was unwelcome - the thought of Kluke cooking never ceased to make him wince.

Soon he was watching her come to a stop in front of the house, shuffling a paper bag in her arms as she swung her legs over the side of the vehicle, so she could hop off, the first thing she did being to greet Andropov. And any worries and distress about "last year" were soon forgotten for the present, because, as always, just being near her filled him with nothing but happiness. He cared so much for her; he imagined that he could be content even if she never knew about his feelings, as long as he could continue to be by her side.

Only later, after they've eaten (the food was almost half-edible this time, which definitely counted as an improvement), do the worries return to nag at Andropov from the corner of his mind. But they don't have anywhere close to as much strength as they did before - Kluke is good at chasing away bad feelings.

That very thought is in his head when a wrapped box suddenly falls into his lap.

Looking up, he sees Kluke smiling at him warmly, the slightest hint of pink dusting her cheeks.

"I bought it from the store this time. I promise."

From Kluke - To Sergey

"It's a human custom."

And that offhanded explanation just makes it even more baffling, because that's precisely the reason why it makes no sense that Michael is doing it.

"They're strange when it comes to things like this. Humans, I mean."

Which is why it makes no sense that he's doing it, and it falls directly under the heading of Strange Behavior Due To Humans. And here Rottares had thought that Noi was the only one of them who'd suffered from that. (It's way her of saying that she misses him, without saying it to anyone, including Noi, and definitely not admitting it to herself.)

"But, thinking about it, maybe it's not such a bad idea."

But, thinking about it, did you, perchance, intake some kind of mind-altering substance while you were down on the Surface?, is what Rottares wants to ask. But, "I see." is the only answer she gives to that particular statement.

"Happy Valentine's Day, Rotta." He says simply, the foil-wrapped sweet an offering in the center of his hand. She thinks that there's probably more emotion involved when the humans say that phrase.

And, on the inside, she feels maddeningly flustered - because, of all things, he called her by her shortened name - as if she's of a higher standing than she is and she's being courted- but it's Michael, and he wouldn't court her. Would he? But, thankfully, she's had years of practice keeping a tight rein on her emotions - more than usual with a Superior Life Form, who are most often trained to not be overly emotional - and an even tighter rein on keeping the emotions that do occasionally slip out from showing on her face. So, near tonelessly, she only answers with, "Thank you, Michael."

She must be imagining it, then, because Rottares thought she saw a hint of disappointment line his features. But, Michael is already turning away, leaving to find out what Rudolf would have him do next. She repeats in her head that she imagined it, but it feels like a half-lie.

When she tastes the chocolate, Rottares thinks she understands how Noi became so incredibly fond of the sweets that humans make; the taste is similar to some of the finest dishes made in the capital city back on their home world. (It's been so long now since she was last home, she doesn't really remember what the capital looks like. It's a disturbing discovery, to say the least.)

She wonders if it's possible, for one so void of emotion (or one who tries to be so void of emotion) - if it's possible for one Sky Dragon to become that fond of another.

From Michael - To Rottares

It had been six months since the medal ceremony in Nirvana, six months since they'd won, and six months since the last time he'd seen Kluke.

Though Jiro wondered if brief smiles and half-finished "hello's" really counted as seeing someone.

He wished that he could have had a more appropriate time to see her - not Valentine's Day, of all things. But it had been a long time, and he wanted to take advantage of every opportunity he got.

There had been a serious malfunction with one of the White Brigade mechats - Doctor Tarkovsky's mechat in particular, which made the issue a little more pressing. Because of the high priority, they had called on Kluke, thanks to Shu's input. ("She could fix it in her sleep, no matter what was wrong with it, even if it was blowing up - and she would enjoy it.") By some coincidence, Xi had been asked to store some tools and machine parts some time earlier (she stored things sometimes, as part of her new information gathering service in Nirvana), which were the same things that Kluke needed now. Since Jiro had been Xi's "assistant" in the interim, until he decided what turn his life would take next, he ended up being the one to bring the stuff to Kluke.

He felt nervous in a way he hadn't in over two and a half years, the times he spent with Kluke; she'd smile at him in that way she only would for him, and the nerves would hit him in a wave... No, Valentine's Day was not appropriate at all.

But the moment he saw her, he relaxed.

Bent in front of the mechat panel, wrench in hand, another tool handle held between her teeth, right hand gloved with black grease, a streak of black oil across her forehead where she'd probably wiped at, and her eyes green pools of unyielding determination mixed with excited fascination; this was not the toned down Kluke he had fought alongside against the Superior Life Forms - this was the Kluke he had known and traveled with, the unsure Kluke turned fierce protector of her companions, the Kluke that was obsessed with any machine on sight, the short-tempered Kluke that would blow up at someone for certain things that set her off, the Kluke that he had confided in and trusted maybe even more than Zola.

Kluke must have dropped something on the floor earlier - a bolt, or something - because as he continued further into the room, his boot bumped into something metal that skittered across the floor.

Kluke's head shot up, her right hand stilling, the left hand taking hold of the tool her teeth held securely - a screwdriver, he discovered - and her head turned in his direction. The moment she saw him, a radiant smile was lighting up her face. "Jiro!"

For a second, just a second, with her beaming up at him and him bringing her a toolbox, they were back out on the road two years ago, doing the early morning repairs that had steadily become a routine, and he would sit beside her as she worked with the tools in his arms and sometimes they would talk...

And then they were back in the present, like a rubber band snapping back into place. Jiro wondered if it had just been him, or if she had felt it, too. Her expression didn't seem any different...

Despite this, Jiro raised a free hand in greeting, grinning slightly. "Hey, Kluke."

"Come here, come here!" Kluke waved him over. "It's been so long since I've seen you!"

And soon he was sitting beside her, just like in the old days, as she sifted through the contents of the toolbox as they casually chatted about what they'd been up to since they'd last spoken. It was nice, something he'd missed dearly - though it didn't seem quite so nice, nor did he miss it quite so much, whenever Kluke talked about Andropov.

Eventually, the repairs came close to being finished. Soon, he'd have to go.

But there was something he had to do first.

"Kluke?"

"Hm?"

"I..." His eyes slid to the side. "After you're finished with the mechat, can I talk to you about something?"

"I don't see why not," she grinned. "I don't have anything else planned."

That was how he found himself leaning against the wall while Kluke washed her hands, feeling several kinds of stupid for bringing it up at all. She has better things to do than waste her time with this...

But Kluke didn't act like he was wasting her time, only smiled at him and asked what he wanted to talk about. It made him feel a little better about the whole thing.

He was fairly surprised at how easily the words came out. "Well, I'm sure you already know this, but today's Valentine's Day." He only took a second to watch her hands flinch in surprise before continuing. "And you're a good friend of mine, Kluke - maybe my best friend," as he said this part, he couldn't shake feeling like he'd lied; not that the words weren't true, because they were - but it felt as if he'd left something out. "So that's why I want to give you something, in honor of both of those things." It's not too late; you can still go, come back, go and find something better. You don't have to give her a stupid gift like a- He yanked it out of his pocket before any more doubts could invade his thoughts. His face felt like it was burning; the embarrassment was probably trying to combust him. The gift sat there in his palm, perfectly round-

"An orange?" There was incredulity in her voice, just as he'd expected, and he had to try very hard not to visibly grimace. The following question, however, he didn't expect. "How did you know?"

"Know what?" He looked at her quickly in surprise.

"Oranges are my second favorite fruit, after strawberries," she explained faintly. "But more than that, I have a minor vitamin C deficiency, a manifestation of SCI, otherwise known as Severe Cold Intolerance. Shu and I both have it, but I'm one of the few who end up having a vitamin deficiency from it. It's not a bad deficiency, though; I just need vitamin C a little more than other people." She smirked, a little more impishly than really seemed appropriate. "Shu used to freak out and force orange juice into me whenever I got a cold."

Jiro allowed a slight grin. "Scurvy, then?"

Kluke snorted. "Seriously, Jiro? With the recent developments in medicine? There hasn't been a case of scurvy in over 1,200 years."

And that's how he ended up sitting on a crate, his fingers sore underneath the nails from peeling the orange (though he couldn't bring himself to mind), listening as Kluke recounted tales of childhood and oranges and colds and Shu freaking out. Their knees were pressed together, though neither were bothering to do anything about it, and Jiro was split between wanting to pull away and wanting to stay there as long as humanly possible, because he could feel the warmth of their legs side by side, and it was making him dizzy and nervous and ecstatic since they'd never been that close before.

When the orange rind was finally absent, and the orange slices fell open like a blooming flower, Jiro thought that it probably wasn't as good as chocolate, but the unusual way the fruit had fallen open had an odd similarity to the shape of those heart-shaped boxes of Valentine's candy.

From Jiro - To Kluke

He really couldn't believe it, couldn't believe that he was actually doing this. I must have finally lost my mind.

"Is it chocolate?" Bouquet clung to his arm, giddy.

"That would be telling, wouldn't it?" Shu spoke lightly, trying to cover his nerves. "But, no. It isn't chocolate. Something a whole lot better than chocolate." I hope.

Bouquet's eyes sparkled with excitement. "A Valentine's Day gift better than chocolate?" She followed this with a girlish, ecstatic squeal.

Shu couldn't stop a small smile from forming; Bouquet's exuberance was encouraging. It made what he had planned seem a little less hard to do.

But he wished that time would slow down a bit - it seemed only a second later that they had reached the rooftop. Bouquet let out a breath of delight, releasing his arm for the moment as she stepped forward.

The sky was a deep red-orange with brushes of pale yellow, and the occasional wispy cloud made purple by the setting sun. And they had a perfect view of it from that spot, as well as the way the city's white buildings were tinged reddish-yellow by the colors of early evening. Shu had learned, actually rather recently, that sunsets such as this were what Nirvana was known for.

Bouquet spun around to face him again, hands folded behind her back. "Isn't it beautiful?"

"Mm." Shu gave a small, agreeing nod, albeit a distracted one. He was finding it hard to concentrate on anything, since his stomach felt like it had been filled with a bucket-load of worms. He wondered if it might be a variation of the infamous "butterflies-in-stomach". It would be time for him to give his gift, very soon. Come on, Shu, you made it this far; don't lose your nerve yet.

He wished that he knew more about girls; he couldn't help feeling that it would make this so much easier. He knew the obvious things - basically, the more well-known things that made them different from boys - but... His grandfather had given him somewhat of a talk about women when Shu was nine years old, and it had gone about as smoothly as his final battle with Nene a year later. Looking back on it and comparing the two, though, he wished that he'd had a concrete slab fall on top of him during that conversation, if only to put a temporary end to his embarrassment. As it was, at the awkward end, Shu had immediately fled to his bedroom to suffer his mortification in private, which essentially meant lying face down on his bed and wishing the disturbing images in his head would go away.

But, that was then. This was now.

Yet he didn't feel anymore confident about it.

"Shu?" He nearly jumped at the sound of Bouquet's worried voice; her worried face was suddenly in front of him.

"Oh. Sorry." Shu held his hands behind his back nervously. Do not run back downstairs. Do not. "I'm fine."

"... If you say so." Bouquet answered after a moment, not sounding at all convinced.

Shu took a breath to steady himself. You fought three major battles in which you almost died every time, not even counting the lesser battles you almost died in. You will not run away from something as simple as this.

But maybe that was it - it seemed like it should be, but it wasn't simple at all. Whichever way this went, it would decide - at least part of - the rest of his life.

"Bouquet..." His voice sounded distant, almost dreamlike - but there was something else underneath, something heavy and unfamiliar in his tone; he moved towards her, taking hold of one of her arms in each hand.

"Sh-Shu... Wh-what are you..." Her face looked a little redder than usual, but it could have just been the lighting. Maybe that was the same reason the purple of her eyes looked a little darker than normal.

Shu swallowed past a thickness in his throat. He rarely got this close to her - the last time had been during their failed "date", right before his first showdown with Rudolf, when she'd tried to kiss him, and her face had been so near his own that he'd started to panic, because he had been able to feel the warmth of her lips-

He swallowed again. Just two more steps, really. Looking at her, though, the things he'd planned to say dissipated, and he was unable to remember them. Instead, he tried to put to words his exact emotion, exact feeling about this moment. "Bouquet... There's a lot I wanted to say to you now, and a lot that I should have said already. But even when I should be saying it, I'm still not able to. So... I'm hoping that maybe I can say it better through action rather than words." It wasn't until he heard her gasp did he realize that he'd fulfilled the first step - his fingers were hooked under her chin, tilting her face up.

And he didn't realize that he'd complete the last step, either, until he noticed that their mouths were barely a centimeter apart.

Kissing Bouquet - his first kiss - was both everything he'd expected and nothing at all like he'd thought it would be. It wasn't easy to describe, the closest description being a series of contradictions. He couldn't think; his mind was flooded with thoughts. Everything around him seemed to stop; everything raced past him in a rapid blur. He felt a cold, shuddering chill down his spine; he felt like fire was flowing through his veins. His feet felt like they'd stuck to the floor; he experienced the sensation of floating. His heart stopped; his heart raced.

Eventually, they pulled apart, and Shu realized when he opened his eyes that they must have closed at some point. He looked down at Bouquet; her face was definitely flushed, and her eyes were definitely darker. He wondered if things would ever be the same between them - if he had just completely ruined everything the two of them had, or if he had made what they shared something so much better. He imagined he wouldn't be able to tell right away, even though he was eager to know.

He almost managed to say what he'd desperately wanted to tell her for so long now, what he'd been too afraid to say. I lo... I lo-

I can't even think it, he thought, bitter amusement mingling with self-deprecation.

He would have to save it for another time, then, and hoped she would understand. He decided to say something else, something that wasn't as good, but that she would hopefully still accept.

"Happy Valentine's Day, Bouquet."

When she hugged him and started crying joyfully, he thought, happily, that maybe she wasn't as mad as he had thought she'd be.

From Shu - To Bouquet

And it's done! Wow, that turned out a whole lot better than I thought it would, especially considering that I hadn't really planned it out… Anyway, these are all favorite pairings of mine; I did them from least to most favorite. However, that wasn't the order they were made in – the first was Andropov x Kluke, then Shu x Bouquet, Jiro x Kluke, Michael x Rottares, and Noi x Linda last. There… probably wasn't any point in mentioning that, but… On an almost-unrelated note, it was nice to finally use Andropov's first name (I've been trying to find a story to do that in for over a year). :D Oh, as for that good news – I won't go into details, but things are kind of looking up for me to some degree… So I'll just put it this way and leave it at that – the Plus adaptation will soon be on its way. ;D Anyway, if you can, please review and let me know what you think! :) This story won't have anymore chapters, so there won't be any updates… The poll results will not be changed, since this story wasn't planned. Please feel free to vote anyway, though! :) So… I think that's everything I need to mention. See you soon! :D