"Hey, Amu-chi, what's the meaning of love?"
Amu looked up from her magazine and looked at the ginger in front of her in surprise. "Why do you want to know, Yaya?"
The two girls were sitting on the grass in their school grounds, which were as big as Seiyo Academy had been when they were in elementary school. Now in high school, the two of them had hardly changed, Amu still being 'cool and spicy' on the outside and Yaya still loving cute things and speaking in third person. Sometimes old habits died hard.
Yaya shrugged and looked at the ground. "Yaya just wants to know."
"Eh? Why do you think I would know?" Amu asked, taking a bite out of a biscuit.
"Ikuto, duh! You two have been together forever!" Yaya exclaimed, throwing her arms up for effect.
Amu sighed and said, "That doesn't mean I know the meaning of love, Yaya. I don't think there's a real definition for love. It's what you think."
Yaya puffed out her cheeks, a sign that she was thinking, then let her breath out with an exasperated sigh. "Amu-chi's right. Yaya thinks it's when you feel like you've eaten too much candy that your stomach is going to explode and the fluttering feelings comes up to your chest and you wonder what it is and your face turns pink like cotton candy, but you can't control it!"
Amu blinked for a few seconds, then smiled. "And you've felt this way before?"
"Yaya certainly has!" the younger girl said, nodding. She kept up her defiant stance until she realized what she had just said, making her cover her mouth with her hand, her eyes growing wide.
"Yaya, who made you feel that way?" Amu asked, smiling wider.
Standing up with fake tears in her eyes, she bounced up and down, saying, "That's a secret, Amu-chi! A secret!"
"If you say so, Yaya," Amu said, shaking her head. "But you should confess to whoever is making you feel that way, alright? It's not good to hold your feelings inside." There was a pause, then she mumbled, "And trust me, I know a lot about that. Now, I have to go home, since I promised Ami she could see Utau today."
As Amu walked away and out of sight, Yaya thought about what she had said. Amu was right, of course - if she kept her feelings in for too long, she would explode. The thought of it scared her. She didn't want to take out any emotional issues on her friends or her little brother, who was still too young to understand what she was going through.
She sighed and decided that a nap may do her good, so she laid down on the soft grass under the shade of the tree. For the first minute or so, she could only hear the faraway laughter of kids and the birds chirping in the branches above her. After those first minutes, she heard footsteps, and they sounded like they were coming towards her. At first she thought it was Amu, coming back for something she had forgotten, but then she heard his voice.
"Ace?"
Her eyes flew open, but that was the only sign of her surprise. She was honestly too lazy to sit up and look around for Kairi, though she knew he had approached her from behind. "Yes, Kairi?" she questioned. "And remember that it's Yaya, not Ace."
"Oh, right, Yaya." She heard him move closer to her line of sight, so now she could see his legs and torso as he sat down, but not his face. She was always getting butterflies in her stomach when she was around him, and while being unable to see his face was helping that somewhat, she knew it wouldn't last. There was more rustling, then he spoke again.
"What are you doing? Everyone's pretty much gone home."
Yaya closed her eyes and smiled. "Yaya thought she would take a nap." She hesitated, then said, "She needs to think about something, and she'd rather do that with a refreshed brain."
She thought she heard a snort, but she ignored it. She was used to those reactions. "By the time you wake up, it'd probably be night time, right? You may as well go home, then sleep," was the answer she heard and expected. He hardly ever said anything to her that wasn't sensible advice or a scolding. Why she liked him was a mystery to her.
"Yaya doesn't want to," she said. "She doesn't want to go home because it's not peaceful there. There's a six year old boy there, you know? He doesn't know what leaving his sister alone is."
Yaya knew that Kairi couldn't disagree with that, as he used to be a six year old brother who bothered his sister, but he would still try and get her to leave.
There was a pause. "I'll walk you to your house if you like."
This time Yaya did sit up. She had walked home with others before, but never with Kairi, who preferred to never cause a misunderstanding or cross boundaries. She was surprised to say the least. Her words came out with a stutter, "Y-Yeah."
The two of them stood up and Yaya grabbed her bag, which was leaning against the tree. She smiled at Kairi, who nodded at her, and the two of them left the school grounds in silence. It was slightly awkward, as Yaya didn't know what to say. Her mind was still wondering what possessed Kairi to actually ask to walk her back. As far as she knew, she had never asked anyone else before, and why her? Wasn't he always reprimanding her and telling her she was too immature?
She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she almost didn't hear Kairi when he said, "What were you thinking about earlier? Maybe I can help."
Yaya doubted that, but she could always try and be sneaky and see how he wanted a girl to approach him. That was her main concern when it came to him anyway. "Well, um, when you liked Amu-chi, did you ever get butterflies when she was around or did you just blush all the time like we saw you do?"
She could tell that he hadn't been expecting that question, but he answered it regardless. "I didn't really get butterflies. It was just a kind of-"
"Alright," Yaya interrupted, not wanting to know how much Kairi had been infatuated with Amu. "When you love someone, you usually get those feelings, right?"
"Yes, that's right, Ace - I mean, Yaya. That's how people usually feel," Kairi said, pushing his glasses further up his nose. "I assume you're asking because you feel that way?"
Yaya nodded, feeling her face grow warm. "Since you're a boy, Yaya can ask you," she said, trying to be casual. "If a girl wanted to approach you in that way, how would you want them to go about it?"
"I don't know about the boy you're asking about, but I've never really thought about it. No girl has ever approached me in 'that way', as you have so called it, so I wouldn't know," he said, not looking at her.
Yaya forced herself to face him like she always did, just so she didn't seem suspicious. "Would you prefer to be confessed to directly? Or in a love letter? Or maybe with some kind of romantic setting?"
They were in the local park by now, and it was getting dark. The sun was almost down, but Yaya wasn't worried. She had been out and about at night before, and her parents didn't mind someone of her age going out as long as her younger brother didn't. While she was happy for the freedom, somewhere deep down inside she wished that she could have the protection he had.
Kairi sat down on a nearby bench, having seemingly forgotten about escorting Yaya home. She didn't mind, so she sat down next to him and waited for his answer.
Finally, he replied, "Well, I'd honestly be flattered either way. I don't really care. Being confessed to directly is preferable, though."
Yaya took a deep breath, unaware of how she was going to answer, but her emotions somehow built up and made her blurt out, "I love you, Kairi."
The silence that followed her outburst felt like it went for an hour or two, even though it was only around a minute. She wanted to run into the forest-like area in the park and climb up the trees, hiding there for the rest of eternity. Maybe she could pretend she forgot something at school, or something of the like. Yes, that seemed like a good idea.
Before she could even voice her excuse, Kairi spoke. "That was certainly direct, Yaya. Even though it was abrupt and completely unexpected, I have to say I reciprocate your feelings and it would be an honor to start a relationship with you."
It took her a few seconds to understand what he was saying, knowing that he sometimes used big words when he was nervous. She grinned and crushed him in a hug. He stiffened a little, and she was worried that she had done something bad, but then he turned and awkwardly hugged her back. It may not have been the perfect hug, but it was for her, mainly because it was with her, well, boyfriend. She would have to get used to that word.
After to the two of them let go, Kairi stood up, coughed, and offered his hand out to her. She beamed and took his hand.
"We'll go back to your house now. It's getting dark," he said, and the two of them walked away from the bench they would spend many days on in the future.
Yaya still didn't know the meaning of love, but she knew that sometime in the future she would figure it out.
Ah, I hope you liked it! I kind of wanted a somewhat mature version of them without changing their personalities a whole lot and making them OOC. I hope it worked! Reviews are welcome.