a/n: i dont really like this but its been in my drafts since august and im sick of looking at it
Bubblegum has always been her favorite flavor. But she supposes spearmint will do.
Seniors are annoying; there's fifteen people in her English class, and eight of them are catty girls with acrylic nails and cursive script and bubbly laughs that churn the pink lemonade around in her stomach. The rest are boys that she does not know, and they're abhorrently lewd. She remembers waitressing at least three of them before. She blows a dull green bubble. It snaps around her front teeth.
They're supposed to be working on their papers about the novella they'd spent four weeks overanalyzing, but she instead finds entertainment through scribbling in her notebook's margin. Her paper has been completed for three days. Cats are her favorite thing to doodle. Cats and dancing slippers. Glitter trails from the tip of her gel pen and forms a heart. One of the boys across the room cracks a joke regarding the length of something, and her eyes are rolling before it finishes spilling from his revolting tongue. She fills the heart in with violet ink.
The dismissal bell startles her more than she'd like to admit to. There's a clack on the floor as her pen jolts from her fingertips, and she's too hot in the face to even consider retrieving it with fourteen witnesses. The room clears in a gaggle of messy chatter. Grip lands on the desk's edge, anchoring herself as she leans downward. Around her shoulders is a billowing of soft brunette when she is again sitting straight, and it is not but a millisecond later that she's nothing in her grasp again, claiming ownership upon only a yelp and two contracted shoulders. The gum gags her.
"Jounouchi..!"
Her chest bursts in a hammering thrum, and he's just standing there, grinning as broad as the day is long.
"Sorry." Their hands brush as the pen exchanges between them. "Scare ya?"
She shakes her head, folding her notebook closed and feeding it to her book bag. Thoughts are formulating, and everything is quiet aside from the bustle out in the hallway, and she's wondering what it is that he's even doing here, and she's sure this is the first and only time he'll ever lay step into an AP classroom, and-
Within his rugged fingers, the crinkle of cellophane sets off a switch in her mind. A hoard of leaves and stems poke out from both ends of the wrapping; springtime stares back at her.
"Tulips, 'cause," an airy laugh lets out, "they were less expensive than roses."
There's never been a moment in which she's struggled more for speech. Again, their fingers meet in brief grazing, but it is for another reason that she is washed in haze. She feels as if rivers should soon flood her cheeks.
"They're beautiful." Her smile of glossed lips illuminates the atmosphere. "Thank you so much."
"Hey, don't mention it. Happy birthday, Anzu."
He predicts the silence that follows. Her fingertips ghost over yellow petals. Hands buried in pockets, he shrugs shoulders, shuffles feet.
She's slow to speak next. "...You're the only one who remembered."
And he's forced to double take, because, "Huh?"
Despite the words, her smile does not fade the slightest; she nods. "You know how forgetful Yuugi is with dates and everything. I'm sure he'll remember tomorrow and feel awful about it."
He can only agree- he wouldn't be surprised if the kid forgot his own birthday.
She continues onward. "Honda mentioned it about a month ago. I should give him credit for that, at least. And...I haven't seen Bakura around for a while. I guess he's excused."
"Well..." Shoe bottoms scuff absently at the ground. "Guys are dumb sometimes."
That draws a chime of amusement from her, as to argue would be a punch to the gut of veracity.
"I'm serious," he says, mistaking her laughter for a brush off. The seat in front of the desk she sits at slides against the tile, and he places himself in it, straddling the back to face her. "You need some female friends. They won't screw you over."
"Oh, that's so not true." She knows this from past experiences. "But...I still talk to Miho sometimes."
"What," he scoffs, "she makes sure call around Christmas time every year?"
Azure eyes roll. Though, twice consecutively, he isn't wrong. It must be a new record.
"Well, Shizuka's my friend. And Mai-"
"And when's the last time she came around?" Jounouchi gripes, and she senses the grind to his molars is more from personal annoyance. Her head tilts, and her eyes are a collision of ocean mist and the footsteps in the sand. He can't seem to compel his tongue to oblige to quiet. "I mean, who the hell promises, 'see ya around!' and doesn't so much as send an E-mail in two whole years?"
"Maybe it's for the best," Anzu soothes. She tucks a lock behind an ear and- God, if those aren't the most gorgeous flowers she's ever seen. Never before has she appreciated such a screaming yellow. "It's tough to compete with all that."
His jaw cocks forward. "Compete? What do you mean by that?"
Anzu's smile is radiant. "Never mind. ...It's nothing important."
"Oh..." he says next, and their gazes are locking and their insides are blazing. "Yeah, she sure is a strong duelist. All those Harpy cards, man."
A long whistle accentuates his words; she's staring at him, and decides to herself that three in a row was too ambitious.
"Right. I still can't believe I won against her that time." Truly- she cannot; she cannot believe even her oldest victories. And she cannot believe its possible for someone to grin so vibrantly. He laughs, and it's too bright and it's too sweet. And she, simply, cannot believe.
In the next moment, the legs of her seat are scratching against the tile, and her Mary Janes clack flat and she's got both arms over his shoulders and he's never been hugged so tightly.
"Thank you for the flowers. I really, really appreciate it."
Her lips grace his cheek for a lingering second. The scent of her neck is a fragrant cherry blossom. He wishes to drown in her.
"It's no problem, Anzu. Really."
She lifts the bouquet to her chest. Her hands are delicate. She's like porcelain, Jounouchi concludes. Faultless, smooth.
His shoulder earns the most gentle of touches from those delicate, delicate hands, and he watches her walk past. She's a dancer, a model, a luminary.
"Oh- and sorry if you can't read my writing too well." Mixed inside his words exists some sort of chortle. "My hands were shaking like crazy."
Anzu pauses, Anzu blinks. Anzu searches among the leaves and cellophane and petals knocked stray, and grasps lightly upon the folded piece of cardstock that tends to accompany floral arrangements. The border around the edge is an abstract pattern of cobalt. In the center: her first name, carved with blue ballpoint. Another instance of uncertainty asphyxiates her to the point of silence. She knows not at all what to relay, what to drop from her mouth that could in any way alter the situation for the better. She can't find words of her own, so she instead focuses upon someone else's.
Her fingers ablaze with quivering, she folds the card open, and her eyes glow like a wash of novas.