a/n: Okay, so this is not my best. It really isn't, and I had this entire thing planned out but it didn't turn out the way I would have liked it to and I didn't want to rewrite it, in case I made it worse. But, that's just me being hard on myself. If you liked it, please review it! Reviews help me so much and thanks for reading!

It was late afternoon on a warm Saturday, when the sun shone through my window just enough to let me see what I was writing, but not too much that it would blind me. I'd been sitting at my desk for a couple hours now, and I'd gotten through most of my workload, but there was still a small stack of paperwork I hadn't finished. I guess part of me wanted to procrastinate because I knew that as soon as I submit this work, I'm bound to receive an even bigger stack of papers. Seriously, why was there so much anyway?

Red's sitting on my right, doing God knows what. Every time I tried to peek over at him, he'd hunch over and cover whatever he's working on with his arms, but I do know that he has at least four pencils, a couple erasers, a box of color pencils, and…I think that's a ruler? He was annoyed that I wasn't responding to him earlier. That bastard probably snapped the thing in two.

I force myself to power through my work and finish whatever remained, but I kept getting distracted. This guy keeps nudging my elbow at random intervals and it completely interrupts my thoughts, and I have to restart the same damn sentence over and over again. I know I can't strangle him for being left-handed, but I'm dying to.

After another five minutes of this, I glance at him from the corner of my eye, and he's erasing something, bumping my elbow when he switches that eraser for another one that looks exactly the same. He leans back a little into his chair and puts his hands up to form a rectangle and starts zooming in and out from his picture like kids do when they pretend to be photographers. I looked down at his paper but I seriously couldn't make out a single thing; it's drawn too lightly. He picks up a pencil and starts shading in something else that I can't see, spinning the paper around in different directions to get different textures. Bump, bump, bump. He leans in so close to the paper, his nose brushes against it and his eyes almost cross as he blows on his art. I haven't seen Red draw anything since we were kids watching cartoons and slurping juice boxes. I guess it's sort of nice to see him try to pick it up again.

I bury my face back into my paperwork, a bit more at ease now that I knew what Red was up to. I managed to finish it all in half an hour, trying really hard to ignore the little nudges from Red. I know my apartment is small and I don't have very many tables or hard surfaces to work or draw on, but did this idiot really have to sit at my desk next to me? He could have at least sat on my left, that way our elbows wouldn't have to touch and my hand wouldn't make random streaks across the page.

I put down my pencil and stretched my hands above my head, taking in a deep breath. As my left hand lightly massaged my right, I scanned over my papers to make sure everything's in order. Some time through the second stack of papers I switched from pen to pencil to make the jerks from Red less permanent. More elbowing. A pencil breaks. I cringed a bit at the hole I made in one of the papers when I pressed down too hard on my pencil. This shit looks horrible. My handwriting looks like I wrote all this during an earthquake and it's all thanks to Red. Whatever the hell this bastard is doing better be important if it's going to cause me this much trouble.

He's scribbling something furiously, and I'm terrified that he might actually start a fire at the pace he's going. His tongue is sticking out and there are eraser shavings somehow stuck to his face, but he just brushes them off with his slender fingers and continues to draw. All of this effort has got to be worth it. I bet it's beautiful. Throwing down his pencil, he picks up his art and holds it up to the light from the window, probably to get better perspective or whatever. He's squinting, and lays the paper back down with a sigh, scratching his head. I leaned in closer to get a better look at his work. I don't understand; he'd spent hours on this, how could it not fit his standards?

"…Red. It doesn't have to be perfect. It probably looks amaz-"

-ingly disgusting. I mean, what is that? Snatching the paper from his hands despite his protests, I look over the thing. It's a profile of a stick figure of some sort, messily shaded in at different angles of green, surprisingly simplistic compared to the proportional desk it's sitting at and the window in front of it. He's gotten all the shading right, I guess. There's chicken scratches scribbled near it with an arrow pointing to the person, but I can't read a thing. I think there's a bronze crown or something on the stick figure's head, and it seems to be holding a short yellow stick in its right hand. There is a literal mountain of papers surrounding the wooden desk—wait, a mountain of papers? I look back at the stick figure, and I start to notice that the spikes coming out of its head isn't a crown…it's hair.

The idiot…drew me.

Red stops grabbing at my arms and sits back down in his chair once he understood that I knew.

This is what all that build-up led up to: Red's lame attempt to draw me. It's cute and childish, but it doesn't stop me from bursting out laughing.

"HAHAHAHA! I-I can believe tha-at this enti-ire time you were, you were drawing m-meeee,"

I know I shouldn't have been laughing as hard as I was, but it's more out of appreciation and happiness than of spite. I mean, how often does this sort of thing actually happen? He colored my entire body after my name. He was making such a big deal out of it, I thought it was going to be some elaborate masterpiece but it's that. Still, I wouldn't want it any other way.

"Wh-what does this even say?" I asked between snickers, pointing to the scribbles near the head.

"…It…It says 'G-Green…' with a heart…" Red replied, clutching the box of colored pencils to his chest.

"You're such a dumbass."

But I love him to pieces.

"S-stop laughing at it!" His pale face started to glow a red brighter than his eyes as he turned away.

This only makes me laugh even harder.

I put the drawing back on my desk for later. I pulled him closer to me and leaned down to kiss his forehead, wrapping my arms around his thin frame. "I'm just kidding. I love it, Red."

And I meant it. The fact that he had put in so much effort to try to make it as perfect as he possibly could, just for me, made me happy. I don't even care what his annoying elbowing did to my reports, his drawing makes up for all of it. He makes up for all of it. I absolutely adore the little things he always did for me, like how he sits only on the edge of the sofa in case I need room to lay down on it, or how he leaves me cute one-sentence sticky notes on random pages of my paperwork on nights he knows I'll be coming home late. This was just another thing I loved about him. Another reason I loved him.

I rested my head on his shoulder, his head buried itself into my neck, and we stayed like that for a few minutes. I took my time to breathe him in, to savor that delicate and distinct aroma that only Red could give. I swear, if I closed my eyes I could remember being up on that snowy mountain again, surrounded by cold air and pine trees. The memories of tiring climbs up frozen mountainsides and overnight visits in that damp cave appeared alongside memories of two silly kids camping out in that forest right outside of our town, comparing how many bug Pokémon we've seen and counting stars when night came.

I snapped out of my nostalgia when I felt Red's arms finding their way out of my smothering embrace and his hands around my face, bringing it in front of his. Staring into those ruby eyes, I could see myself smiling at the thought of being with Red right here, right now. His lips brushed against mine in a fluttering kiss, so cold I thought he had blown on me instead. I returned the gesture with another kiss, passionate and needy because his sweet lips were irresistible.

Red gently pulled away, and rested his head on my shoulder, breathing into my ear.

"…I love you." I whispered.

"Yeah."

To this day, that weird little drawing of his is posted on our refrigerator by two magnets we made out of a broken ruler. We couldn't just let that go to waste, it's part of Red's masterpiece. He ended up even signing the thing for me after I begged him long enough.

I actually took his writing hand with my left hand and signed it myself. It looked more like, "Ked," but whatever.

Every morning after he opens the refrigerator, I nudge him a bit with my elbow.

"Hey, Red. You should draw more pictures of me so we can cover up the fridge."

And every morning it's the same response.

"Whatever."

.

.

.

Whatever.