Note: When I use italics it means the characters are thinking. This is a one-shot and if requested enough. It might have a second part.
"Please Rima!" Amu begged.
"..." The blonde made an attempt to flatly turn down the request but one glimpse at Amu's honey eyes stopped her. Now how could you turn down a face like that?
"Fine." Before Rima could finish her syllable Amu erupted in shouts of joy.
"THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!" One swift movement and Rima was scooped into a suffocating hug. After a minute of protests Amu dropped Rima and bolted the other way.
"Wait! What am I doing again?"
"Go to art room 4 in the North hall! The teachers needed two guardian volunteers to re-paint it! Again, thank you!" Her pink hair soon disappeared entirely in the opposite direction. The little queen let out a sigh.
She trotted across campus to the North hall. Once inside Rima looked for Art room 4 and found it at the very end of the long corridor.
Loud music spilled from the cracks on the sides of the door. Heavy vibrations could be felt through the floor. For a moment, Rima wondered if she was in the wrong place.
The realization hit her like she had walked into a clear glass door. Painfully and unexpectedly. Amu's words echoed in her mind. 'The teachers needed two guardian volunteers to re-paint it!' There were only two guardians who would listen to that kind of music so loudly, and one wasn't a guardian anymore.
'Amu Hinamori, you will pay for this.'
With a one shove she threw open the door. 'Please let me be wrong.'
Nagihiko faced the wall neatly pulling his paint-drenched brush up and down. Almost as if for show, he removed his white painter's hat and wiped at the sweat on his forehead. His attire consisted of a white pair of painter's overalls over Seiyo's white uniform dress shirt.
Rima swept the room with her eyes and took in her surroundings. It was a fairly large room that had been emptied of all teaching products. In the back close to where Nagihiko was, there was a window spilling light into the room. A ladder was tucked in the corner for hard to reach places. On one of the ladder rungs there was another pair of overalls. There were paint brushes, rollers, cans of paint and trays to pour the paint in scattered about the room. Next to Nagihiko was a small portable boom-box pumping out ear-shattering beats.
Her first act was was to stomp across the room (shutting the door behind her) and abruptly clicking the off button on the boom-box. Nagihiko looked down with a startled expression. This was phase one in her plan to make this experience as hard as possible for him.
"Mashiro-chan? I thought Amu was coming to help me." Despite his words, he didn't seem all that disappointed.
"Change of plans. Besides I couldn't leave Amu in a room with a cross-dressing liar like you anyway." Rima huffed.
The boy had been caught so off guard his cool attitude wavered in the moment. Best thing he could manage was a light laugh. 'That was harsh.'
"Um-"
"Is that mine?" Rima pointed to the limp painter's uniform on the ladder. All the right answers got caught up in his throat and a nod ended up being his only response.
"Let's character change." Sensing his master's hesitance Rhythm tempted at an easy way out
"No I've got this."
"That's cool man, doing your own thing. Just remember you have no game on your own." Rhythm was answered by a hand swatting at him to go away. A deep breath and he regained all his composure. Nagihiko jogged over to the uniform and brought it back to her.
"They made this originally for Amu so...it might be a little baggy."
Rima held the garment up. Not only would it be baggy, the cautionary apron was an entire swimming pool compared to her.
"I can't wear this. It's too big and it'll get hot over my clothes."
"You could take off your sweater. Might as well take of your shoes and socks while your at it."
Rima glanced down and took notice of Nagihiko's already bare feet.
"Take off my shoes."
"Eh?" She couldn't have said what he thought she sai-
"Take off. My. Shoes. For me."
In a flash she was sitting on the lowest ladder rung. Her slender legs crossed one over the other. She really liked to test him didn't she? He got on his knees in defeat and took off her little black flats one by one.
Rima felt like a Queen on her throne and in a way, she was. Nagihiko stood up and shoved his hands in his pockets.
"Now what?" He asked.
"Help me put these on." Rima handed the overall back to Nagi. Clumsily she yanked off her bulky black sweater. Like a young child she held up her arms in anticipation for a parent to dress her. Nagihiko held the overalls out for Rima to step in. She did and he adjusted the little gold buckles on her straps so it would fit her arms better. Nagihiko brushed back his hair and sat down. He pulled some safety pins out of his pockets and pinned up her pant legs so they wouldn't drag on the floor.
"How's that?" Nagihiko asked with satisfaction. If you had asked him, he though it was a pretty good job. Rima had a different way of seeing it.
"Now when I'm painting high places it'll get in my hair."
Nagihiko looked Rima up and down. He wasn't about to admit he couldn't meet her expectations.
"Here." Nagihiko twirled Rima around and tied her curls in a high ponytail at lightning speed. With ease he twirled her hair into a loose bun. At this point the whole ordeal was second nature. To secure the hair he scooped it into the back of a hat snugly pulled that over her head. Almost all of Rima's hair was hidden except for her bangs, but the hat's brim would cover her bangs from any falling paint.
"Now it won't."
Rima couldn't think of any further problems. Seemingly defeated she was content to grumble beneath her breath.
The atmosphere only heavied as Nagihiko clicked on his music and returned to painting.
"Could you at least turn that down?!" Rima barked. Without question he did so. Reluctant to begin painting her eyes glazed over the room again and settled on the window. Fumes from the paint were already becoming unbearable. Why hadn't Nagihiko opened the window already? Did she have to do everything around here herself?
Her small hands closed around the window ledge. She used the entirety of her strength against her nemesis Window-kun and still it wasn't enough. Prying open the darn thing was impossible, not due to her petite-ness. The thing seemed to be glued shut. Was Nikaido-sensei trying to kill us? Actually, don't answer that.
Rima pushed on the window again with everything, she saw the previous creamy color of the walls had spread from the window ledge to the window itself. It wasn't glued shut, someone had accidentally painted it shut.
Nagihiko looked over at Rima and saw her scratching at the base of the window. Was she going to jump out the window just to get away from her? He set down his paint brush and stood next to her.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm trying to get the window open."
"By scratching away the part that holds the glass in place?"
Rima stopped just for a second to give him a look, a look sour enough to make anyone want to crawl under a rock. "I'm scratching away the paint. Not the window frame. We need some air in here."
Nagihiko turned, he maybe had something that could help. A handy little toolbox sat in the corner, a quick ruffle through it's contents provided him with a couple of screwdrivers. Then a thought occurred to him right then. 'Was this child labor?'
He held out a chisel for her. "You can scratch it off faster with this, and I'll help you." Rima took it and they slowly worked at the paint until it looked sufficiently loose.
"Let's try to open it now." They dropped their tools and on three pushed. A satisfying crack emitted into the room as the window jerked open.
"That's better." Rima said putting her hands on her hips. "Now I can paint."
Nagihiko smiled at her, opening the door would have have been just as efficient.
They both figured there could be no more distractions and began to do some real work. Rima went straight for the biggest brush they had and with little care slapped the paint to the walls. In her mind it became a game, stripes, dots, swirls of bright white covered the slightly more off-white. She had no intention of evenly painting the walls as her mind became consumed in this haphazard form of creation.
Rima paused to look at her creation as did Nagihiko. Never had he witnessed such an atrocity. The way she ended her strokes in exaggerated flourishes would attract anyone's attention. Some parts of the wall were whiter then others as you could tell they'd been painted over twice, where some had been not at all. Very much a contrast from the wall Nagihiko had worked on, all the strokes were even.
'You're perfect and I hate you for it.'
Another snooty huff and Rima turned to continue on her wall. A second away from making another stroke and she was frozen in place. Irrational as it was she was too scared to make another movement. The perfect boy would see her make another mistake, and he would laugh.
"Like this." His hand gently rested atop of hers and guided her movements."You can't slouch so much."
Nagihiko came closer, pushing her back to his chest and wrapping his free hand over her waist. His sudden touch made her flinch and squirm.
"Wow, Rima! You're a natural!"
"Really-" Rima turned around to look at Nagihiko but before Rima could finish and before Nagihiko lost the nerve from Rhythm's character change, he leaned down to steal a kiss. The result was much like in the movies, where everything fades but the two of them added to the sensation of lips being met. All she could see was Nagihiko's gently closed eyes. The rest of her body went limp and her mouth burned...in a good way though.
Rima backed up against the wall in an attempt to pull apart but she was only followed. He slickly reached down and intertwined their fingers. There was nothing she could do to protest, but it didn't seem to be a problem. The longer the held the better it felt, the more natural it became. Without thinking, he softly pressed their tangled hands to the wall. Rima felt the sensation of damp paint in full force along the back of her hands.
This time when he kissed her, he really kissed her. Rima felt everything through a sensitive haze, it was difficult to process the fact she was in a situation with the boy she adored from first sight. All Rima could processes was the sweet taste in her mouth and how her tongue was moving involuntarily.
Her eyelids gently drifted shut. They were unable to tell how long things lasted that way, but each second was a warm bliss. At last, Nagihiko pulled away, a bit out of breath. Rima opened her eyes, her chest heaving up and down. She felt a heat in her face in the hopes he wouldn't notice. It was a shame her hair curtain wasn't there to hide behind.
Rima rubbed her sleeve back and forth against her lips trying to wipe away what she had just done.
Nagihiko gently touched his lips, he never wanted to forget what they had just done. In fact he wanted to do it again.
"Um." They said at the same time.
"We should finish painting." He suggested.
"Yeah." Was the quick reply.
Never before had a room been painted so quickly. They packed up all the stuff and left the room together. Unfortunately the two also had to walk the same way to get out of the school and needless to say, it was a silent journey for the most part. As the two rounded the end of Seiyo's halls that were drenched in the soft orange sunset, Nagihiko spoke.
"Mashiro-chan."
"What crossdresser?"
"Do you like me?"
Even the walls strained to hear through the thick silence.
"...I do."
"I can't hear you. What did you say?"
"Yes!" Her soft voice shouted as loudly as possible. She covered her mouth with her hand and lowered her voice. "I...I like you."
Nagihiko laid a soft peck against her lips.
"That's all I needed to hear."
Yay! I got it done! I'm really proud of this! Hee hee! I just think it's so sweet!