Give Me a Reason to Smile Again
K/N: Hmm... I do NOT own the idea here... My friend Yentl own it, and he...is kinda get bored and suck, so... Arhgh!! Whatever, Read and Review!!
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Disclaimer: I do Not own anything in this STORY, But I need your Reviews.
Give Me a Reason to Smile Again
Chapter One: Fingerpainting? You're Kidding, Right?
Zakuro walked in silence beside Minto, one of the privileged few people she dared even greet.
It wasn't that she was an unemotional block of ice that was mean and cruel to every person or thing she saw, but Zakuro was just a natural loner. She always preferred to be alone, to be left in her own business. One would think it gets tiring, always being alone, willingly observing others from the shadows, but this was the life she chose.
It didn't matter if she was eight, eighteen, twenty, or an eighty-two old person wrinkly and gray, living with sixteen cats in a musty run down apartment. She deserved it. In every corner of her mind, in every millimeter of her soul, Zakuro Fujiwara knew she deserved this. She would suffer alone with no one else around to bring down along with her. She didn't want this, but it had to be done.
And so, the young Fujiwara's once colorful view on life dimmed. She became colorblind. Not in the physical sense, but mentally. Shades of gray were all she saw. When one was bent on suffering to somehow earn the forgiveness of the dead, it happens.
If one would ask her what she'd think of kids going out of their way to please a parent, she'd tell them the parent most likely bribed the kid into obeying or perhaps the child was seeking praise.
Rainbows were no longer colorful and uplifting in spirit. Although they held the promise of worldwide floods to never happen again, the rainbow only existed because there was one. There was a worldwide flood that wiped out billions of men, women, and children. That so called beautiful rainbow reminded Zakuro of all the condemned souls.
Nothing was ever black and white anymore to her. There was always a bit of good in the bad, a bit of bad in the good.
Zakuro was almost starting to enjoy the repeatedly seen scenery they passed walking to school everyday when Minto spoke up.
"Onee-Sama, why don't you ever smile? Every time I see you, it's either frowns, scowls, or no emotion at all." said her, wished she could saw her smile.
"Because I never had a need to." She answered simply.
"Have you ever wished you did?" asked Minto, gave her a dazzling smile.
"Mint-Chan, enough with the nonsense." Zakuro frowned. Her breath would not be wasted on pointless questions. "I have other things to mull about other than a simple gesture such as a smile."
Minto immediately jumped at the chance to use her loophole to further prove her point. "See?"
"No, I don't see." Zakuro interrupted flatly.
"All I see is your brain going to mush from continuously reciting the multiplication tables in class."
She ignored her comment. "If smiling is such a simple gesture to you, then why don't you ever do it?" She frowned, then shut her mouth up. Zakuro was not a type of person who would easily take a suggestion from another people. Especially from her.
They passed the gates of their school.
"I refer to my previous statement. Furthermore, I'd appreciate it if you'd stop interrogating me like a criminal and to cease your fruitless analyzing of my habits."
The two arrived at the classroom and took their respective seats.
The teacher, whose name Zakuro never bothered to remember, had started class off with passing out speed drills with a three minute time limit. Zakuro took the paper, completed it, and wrote down how long it took her about the same time Minto did. They were so mind-numbingly simple. Her mind drifted back to the young heiress's question.
"Onee-Sama, why don't you ever smile? Every time I see you, it's either frowns, scowls, or no emotion at all."
"What business is it of her?" Zakuro thought, trying to push her mind away from it. Try as she might, she couldn't help but replay the conversation in her mind.
"Have you ever wished you did?"
"No, I haven't. Such foolish inquiries."
"If smiling is such a simple gesture to you, then why don't you ever do it?"
Although Zakuro had told Minto she had no need for the simple gesture, truthfully, she didn't know. "Is it really that hard for me to smile?" She frowned. "No, I've done that on multiple occasions." Her lips were about to tilt up just to show she could, but then Zakuro stopped. "Why do I feel the need to prove myself to her?" She allowed a soft sigh to escape her lips.
Discussing pointless questions in her head proved to be just as useless.
Once the class had turned in the speed drills, the teacher made an announcement. "Today, class, I have received special permission to redecorate the east wall of our school!" She exclaimed happily. "Each of you will have your own little section to do whatever you want by finger-painting. Doesn't that sound fun?"
All students but two erupted with joy. Pudding, holding a can of orange paints. Berry smiled and brought a can of white and Pink Paints with Ichigo. Lettuce, preferred with somewhat natural paint.
Minto looked at the teacher with that flat eyed stare of her, wondering if she was still sane. Zakuro diverted her sullen gaze out the window.
"There is no way I'd participate in that. Not even if the teacher drags me out there kicking and screaming."
After School, Zakuro found herself staring up at the courtyard wall with a dead panned expression on her face and a bowl for paint in her hands.
"Come on, Onee-Sama, cheer up. I'm sure this'll be lots of fun." Minto tried to encourage her that it would be quite enjoyable, though her face stated otherwise. She grimaced at the sticky paint that landed in her face from Ringo and Berry, who were carelessly flinging it around.
Pudding, in particular, was having the time of her life chasing poor Lettuce around with her paint covered hands. Kishu bounced up to Ichigo and tried to get her with his own paint. Not wanting to get any more paint on herself than necessary, Ichigo sped off with Kishu hot in pursuit. The teacher, on the other hand, was frantically attempting to restore order.
Zakuro stood there against the wall, avoiding any stray heaps of airborne paint. She scanned the wall to see if anyone had actually done what the teacher had intended for them to do.
Her ice blue eyes jumped from splotches of paint to the next when finally, her eyes settled onto a smiley face.
"If smiling is such a simple gesture to you, then why don't you ever do it?"
"Not this again…How many times must you invade my mind, Minto-chan?" On the inside Zakuro may have been a wave of bitterness, self-loathing, and confusion, but outwardly, she remained impassive as ever.
Minto had spotted Zakuro off to the side after she escaped from Pudding. Temporarily taking it upon her to make her business hers, she saw fit to fabricate some other emotion from her regular ones. She snuck out of her line of vision.
Zakuro froze when something wet slid down her cheek. Her whole body stiffened considerably and the color in her face waned. "Blood?" Having lived in fear and paranoia had taken its toll on her. Sometimes, even the simplest things would scare her. The creak in a door at night, the revving engine of a passing car and the tires screeching to a stop, footsteps behind her lone figure, gunshots, screams, and the dark.
Brown blue eyes widened in fear. What was in here with Zakuro?
"Zakuro?" Minto's worried face peered into hers. Zakuro hadn't seen her worried since the last time they had a close encounter with Deep Blue.
Zakuro snapped to attention when she entered her line of vision. Her fingers slowly reached up to her face. Zakuro hesitantly touched the wet trail down her cheek and pulled her hand down to examine.
Blue paint.
Any woman that put self-preservation as one of her priorities would've immediately seen how the intensity in Zakuro's ice blue eyes went up a few notches. The cause of this could've ranged from anger to lust, but seeing as how Zakuro looked as if she wanted strangle Minto, it was safe to say it was probably one of the angry emotions.
As much as Minto loved being around her, she didn't feel like sticking around long enough to identify the specific emotion that flashed across her face. Zakuro was never one to easily lose her composure over little things, but apparently, smearing blue paint in her face might have been an exception.
"Minto …" She growled out.
That was all the encouragement Minto needed to run away from the normally calm Zakuro Fujiwara.
Zakuro ran after the dark blue haired girl, her lips pursed into a determined line. She dashed past Berry and grabbed the bowl of paint from her hands.
Purple paint.
"Perfect…"
Moments later, Zakuro collapsed onto the school's courtyard breathing heavily as she appraised her new work of art. She watched as a flustered Minto, splattered head to toe in purple, scramble back and forth out of embarrassment, trying not to be seen.
She ducked her head to hide the smile that was beginning to form, but it didn't quite get there. A shadow suddenly enveloped her tall figure.
Looking up, she found not her Otou-san, not Deep Blue, but a certain Minto Aizawa standing over her with an entire bucket of paint in his hands.
Even with her face flushed crimson and panting from exhaustion, Zakuro managed to shoot up at her with her dead panned stare. "Minto, you wouldn't dare."
"Justice will prevail." She grinned.
The two were backing up and running in no time flat.
"It was a joke!" Came the panicked cry from Minto. "Smile and laugh already!"
Blue paint covered Zakuro. She stopped and glared at her retreating form in the iciest manner she could.
"If she held it as dear to herself as to see me participate in this activity…"
She muttered darkly under her breath. She walked over to the table full of art supplies, grabbed the first thing she could reach –the lavender paint- and dumped it into her hands.
Moving over to the wall, she smeared the lavender onto a blank space on the wall that no one had yet to splatter with airborne paint.
"That should satisfy her." Zakuro glared at the lavender smear on the wall as if her misfortune was all its fault. She turned and made her way to the restroom to make herself at least halfway decent when she entered her home.
That afternoon Zakuro was still irked over what had happened even after a somewhat relaxing bath. She was lucky she had bought special shampoo to wash out anything or else the paint would have been an absolute nightmare to wash out, that hasn't been released yet.
"Hopefully, Minto wasn't as lucky." She thought darkly.
"Smile and laugh already!"
"Why did she have to go and say something like that…?"
Zakuro massaged her temples in annoyance. "I-The last time I heard it was when Otou-san hissed into my ear…" Her face screwed up in disgust as her mind drifted back to the memory which was so clearly scorched into her brain.
A soft knock interrupted her thoughts. Zakuro whirled around only to remember her door was locked. She hopped out of her chair to find out who wanted her while calming her heart that seemed to leap into her throat.
A certain Minto Aizawa was standing at her door shuffling her feet with her head down. Zakuro could see in her neatly kept dark blue hair that some flecks of purple still remained. Minto took a hesitant look at her, and Zakuro raised an eyebrow. She ducked her head down again and took that as a cue to start speaking.
"I'm…really sorry for getting you so upset today. I was just carried away. I'm really sorry, I was having a small bit of fun and thought you might liked to be included…I know you don't like socializing, but-no, I'm sorry. I should've known better. I'll do anything you want in return to make up for it."
Zakuro was at first, shocked. The great Minto Aizawa apologizing? It took less then one second to regain her typical cool composure. "Minto…" She started.
"Hmm?" She looked up at her through her bangs.
"I know how you can make it up to me." A side of her lips lifted.
"What is it?" She asked while wondering what was going through that mind of hers to make her smirk likes that.
"I want to see you run ten laps around the park, swim four laps around the pool, drink an entire gallon of water, do one hundred sit ups, sixty push ups, pick up my groceries from various places, and endure an entire hour of Ryou-san's soap operas."
Minto's face had gone from apologetic to a pale horror stricken expression. "A-are you serious? That's what would make you happy?" She spluttered. "Torturing me is what would satisfy you? That's sadistic…"
Zakuro's smirk only widened. "Thank you. I am very well aware of what that is." She turned and closed the door behind her. "Meet me at the park in ten minutes." The door clicked shut.
The poor dark blue-haired Mew was left gaping at her door.
K/N: Mmm... I hope this story is a MxZ enough... Read and Review!!