First Class Idiot
He realized he'd never be satisfied watching her from afar.
He thought he did, before. But humans did tend to know less about themselves than they normally think. They were meant to know less because it was the people around them that tells them what they don't know.
It was her best friend who first pointed it out to him.
You like her. She teased him, You do.
And he doesn't believe her because as far as he knows, its her, the bubblegum haired girl he had a crush on ever since she joined the guardians in their middle school. They became friends, best friends. At least that's what they were in his female alias.
And it was supposed to stay that way. He was supposed to be still crushing on the girl who gets so easily flustered, the girl who can't seem to decide between two guys, the girl who his fake identity is best friends with.
But no. Because she came in like a tempest. She takes his position as Queen, takes his position as the most prettiest girl, takes his position as Amu's best friend. She created disorder in his life, and she wasn't satisfied with just taking over his positions.
She brings out the worst of him, with all her annoying comebacks that are meant to be insults. And the worse of all, just a year ago, she takes over his heart too, and he only realized when he was too deep into it, far to deep to see where he was in the darkness.
It was a hole he dug, and he was the only one to blame for it. But he thought that he doesn't want to blame anyone, because he was okay with it. He sees comfort in her, and he finds that in the dark hole, she was his light.
And he should stop seeing her that way because he was now staring at her and anytime soon, she will notice him staring and she will tease him about how he must have fallen in love with her and then he won't know how to respond.
Because he was sure that he would say 'Yes,' he did fall in love with her.
"How is he faring, Temari?"
The small female character of his would-be self floated in front of him, observing— examining his face. "The pupil is enlarged, face is flushed. The voice has dropped in quite a pitch and pulse rate is high. Shall we make further examinations, Rhythm?"
"No you will not," says he, amiably. "You will stop teasing your owner or before he glues your eggs together and you will find yourselves sleeping out in the cold."
"Ah, but that's what you need, don't you?" the ever familiar voice says, and her scent washes over him.
He makes a heroic effort and wrenches his treacherous mind—and body— away from the visions of what had caused him to take a cold bath in the middle of the afternoon in the first place, of… of her taking a bath, rubbing lotion over her delicate skin and, he's doing it again.
Putting dabs of perfume on her wrists and throat and the back of her— "And why would you say that?"
He just had to ask her. Now the idea of sleeping out in the cold, burying himself in the snow is just exactly what he needs, right now. Because he became so horribly aware of the fact that his voice had dropped an octave once again.
And she blinks at him, once, and then again. She sits beside him, and he is painfully aware that the lobby is empty and that they were the only ones in there at the moment.
"What are you doing?" he asks her, he really has to shut up. He has to think of something else because his body was now reacting to her scent.
"You sound hoarse," she says as she places a cold hand on his forehead. Her pink lips fall into a frown and his eyes immediately locks on with it, watching as she speaks. "You're not sick, are you okay?"
"No," he says and then quickly corrected himself. "Yes."
"The pupil is enlarged, face is flushed. The voice has dropped in quite a pitch and pulse rate is high." Rhythm whispers in his ears and he was sure that the little floating clown heard him because she giggles. Giggled.
"Hey," she says and he breaks out of his thoughts. He notices she looks nervous, her tongue running on her lips for a while and he knew whatever she does next will be the last straw. "I need to ask you a favor, will you—"
"Can you be still and not do anything for a while?" He says, trying to look at anything else but her.
Where is Amu anyway?
He can see her move and she stares at him, slowly stepping forward. He doesn't trust himself to speak, because he knows that he cannot control himself.
He realized earlier that he'd never be satisfied watching her from afar, so he should tell her now to stand back. He closed his eyes, trying to block her out.
"You're being awfully rude," she scoffs. He feels her hands on either side of his cheeks, forcing him to face her, but he keeps his eyes close. "Oh my gosh, will you just listen to me?"
He doesn't reply.
"Nagihiko!" she warns him and he opens his eyes, flipped them around so she was now the one sitting and he was the one hovering on top of him. He sees her open her mouth in unpleasant surprise, but he can't stop. He dives right in and kisses her.
It started messy, teeth crashing because of her opened mouth. But she immediately squeaks and shuts them, she places her hands on his chest to push him away, but he growls.
He had managed to count to ten, before he pulled away. She breathed in heavily, because even if she wasn't responding to his kiss, she was exhausted from trying to push him away.
"What the heck were you—"
She didn't finish because he kisses her again, but this time softly. And she wasn't as stiff as she was earlier. It wasn't more than three seconds and he pulled away. "I warned you to be still. I warned you and you didn't listen."
He knows he messed up because she was staring at him, her fingers on her lips as if what happened had just sunk in to her. She stands up and he moves back, standing on his full height. He notices how she had reasonably grown since she transferred five years ago, and that she was now up to his chin.
She doesn't say anything to him as she turns to run away. It takes half an hour for his characters to come back, one confused and the other giving him a pointed look.
"We saw Rima running away, she's with Amu, in case you're wondering." Rhythm says.
"You made an A-grade idiot of yourself, didn't you?" Temari smiles.
Nagihiko glares at her.
"Oho," says Rhythm, "First class all the way?"
. . .
The fact that the girl, who tried to push him away as he practically kissed for more than ten seconds, was avoiding him didn't help at all. Although he couldn't blame her, anyone would probably do the same. He practically molested her.
He wanted to apologize, but he figured that he no longer had the right to be near her. He tried for a week, and he was so close to just giving up until a certain blue haired guy caught his attention.
"Iku-nya, he's the guy who kissed the shrimp!"
Nagihiko just found out how the little characters loves gossiping. They probably know everything that was happening everywhere. He also just found out how much he wanted to strangle his two would-be self.
And as if sensing his murderous aura, both came out of their egg and flew towards Ikuto and Yoru.
"You should've seen him," Rhythm snickered.
"Are you going to apologize?" Ikuto asked him, and Nagihiko glared at him. The older boy took his hands out his pocket and raised them up mid-air. "I saw the shrimp at the greenhouse, I'll keep Amu busy for you."
But Nagihiko knew the older boy only wanted an excuse to bother Amu. Well, he was going to play along. Ikuto grinned and Nagihiko shook his head, thanking him anyway as he headed to the Royal Garden.
Nagihiko spotted her by the round table with her books spread around her as she jotted things down on her notebook.
He was going to apologize, but now he realized he couldn't.
He wasn't sorry.
He cleared his throat, and not looking at her face, he spoke, "You didn't listen to me when I told you to stop moving."
Idiot, what was he saying?! He glanced at her and saw her blink in anger.
"You kissed me because I ignored your order?"
"And you were awfully close."
"What?"
"And I've been wanting to do that for a long time ago."
"How is that my problem?" she croaked in embarrassment. The pencil she was holding fell into the floor and the gem hanging on it snap into two.
"It's mine," Nagihiko admitted while he picked the pencil up. "And all I can say is that I promise not to do it again."
Rima was silent as he finally mustered the courage to look straight into her eyes. They stared for a few seconds before Rima nodded, "I'll pretend you said sorry and forgive you."
"At least I'll try to promise," Nagihiko quickly added and Rima snapped her head up to face him.
"Don't make me regret my decision, purple face." Rima warned, "What I need now isn't a boyfriend but a friend, you'll have to settle for that or you won't have me at all."
"I'll settle for that." Rima smiled at him and he chuckled, "For now."
"Nagihiko!" Rima warned.
And all was well for Nagihiko, because looking into what Rima had said earlier, the future wasn't definite.
He'll just have to win her over. At least now he could make a move on her.
A/N: This one-shot was made with love. My love for Rimahiko. If only my love for them was strong enough to actually ask peach-pit to draw even a four-panel manga of them. You'll probably notice the title is 'meh', that's because this one-shot was dubbed 'the oneshot who shall not be titled' before I finished it.