Characters don't belong to me.
This is a Shounen-Ai, MxM, don't like? Don't read.
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For Me?
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Chapter 2
The Reminder
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She had told him to meet him at the Diner, and as he stepped out of the small studio which he had occupied for the past four years, he had a mind to return to get under the covers. The temperature seemed to be 20 below 0 degrees, and with four blocks to walk to get to the diner, Leon once again wondered why he was trying so hard.
But if he didn't get there, he would have to suffer her irritating complaints. And although he cared for her very much, he didn't have the patient to deal with it. With that in mind, he shoved his hands in his coat pocket, and walked rapidly toward the diner.
The warm air was welcoming as he stepped through the doors of the café; he took off his scarf and walked toward the black haired young woman that was waving at him from a seat next to the back door.
She looked as lovely as ever, with reddened cheeks and pink lip gloss, natural beauty that needed no other cosmetics, and he wondered how he had gotten the chance with such beauty. Leon took a seat in front of her after giving her a sweet kiss.
"I'm glad you're early, I was about to order without you," she mocked. "Can you believe the things I've seen just today? And it's only eleven. You're not going to believe that Seifer and Quistis will host the Christmas celebration! Oh my goodness and they have no sense of style of entertainment. I can just imagine the disaster."
Oh, right. How could he forget the blabbering, but he had learned to just ignore the ranting and focus on the good things, most of the times. He picked up the fading menu and went through the list.
"And Rufus and Scarlet were making out like bunnies, after all the denial," she whispered. "But I can't say that they'll be happy if his father finds out about it… since we all know Scarlet is not very… ladylike."
The French toast sounded like the very perfect dish, along with some hot coffee.
"Of course, only someone who wished to die a slow death would squeal on them, but poor Reeves, he was walking with me from the dorms and he saw them too. He was heartbroken. I can imagine how he must've felt seeing his ex with such a spoiled son of the university's president."
After making up his mind, he closed the menu and looked at his girlfriend, and when he saw that she was about to move her lips again, he interrupted her before she continued.
"Rinoa, do you know what you're going to order?" he asked, trying his hardest no to come off too rude.
She seemed surprised, and smiled sheepishly and took up her menu. She went through the first appetizers when her concentration took a turn to something more recent, and suddenly, the sad smile was making Leon too curious as to not to ask what she was thinking about.
"Nothing much sweetie, it's just that we still haven't put up a Christmas tree at your place, and it looks so devoid of holiday spirit," she said sadly. Leon raised an eyebrow at that. Without remembering if she had decided on her order or not, he raised his hand and waved to the waiter, anything to take her mind off of this. "It's such a wonderful feeling to have a tree at home."
"My place is too crowded for such a thing Rinoa," he responded. "Besides, I don't want to."
In truth was that he considered celebrating the holiday with family, and since he wasn't with them at the moment, he reasoned that his decision was right. And as long as he never did anything that would bring up family, he would be just fine.
"But you need a Christmas tree sweetie," she said. "After we finish here, we'll go shopping for the right things," she nodded to herself, readying herself for the task ahead.
Leon suddenly glared at her, the look silencing her without pause. Like hell he would agree to that.
It wasn't that she was afraid of Leon, far from it. She had known him to be quite forceful when angered, but he has never shown any violence behavior toward her, nothing more than a strong grasp on her arms. He was quiet, but easy to irritate sometimes and easy to anger, but his charm was stronger, and that's what she liked.
But his eyes held such intense glares, that they never failed to stop anyone right on their tracts. Anyone that didn't know him like she did, she supposed.
She was aware that when Leon said something, he expected it to be done, no questions asked and no doubts shown. But she was stubborn in her own way. It was the same stubbornness that had finally caught Leon, after months of trying to get his attention.
For Leon, Christmas carried too many memories of home, and stopping the memories was what had stopped him from forgetting about his reasons for leaving in the first place, and taking the first ship out of Twilight Town to Radiant Garden, a ship toward home. And during the special holiday the desire was stronger.
He remembered his father, Ansem, bringing in the largest tree that he could get his hands on. Having Aerith and Tifa shop for the decorations and picking the perfect colors. Of Yuffie, begging and hoping that she would be the one to place the bright star when all was done. When Cloud and Leon pretended not to want to do anything with decorations, but quietly excited to participate in the any way possible.
He shook his head in hopes to get rid of the memories, and growled under his breath for having them shoved into his head on such a cold day.
The waiter had made it to their table, and Leon quickly placed his order. Rinoa seemed to snap out of a trance and panicked when she realized that she didn't know what to order. In the end, she ordered the same as Leon.
When the time came, and Leon had asked for the check, he noticed that Rinoa had barely touched her plate, not feeling the slightest concern about it, he ignored it as he waited for the waiter.
She realized that her miserable looking eyes and her loss of appetite weren't going to warm him to her ideas, and she mentally cursed herself of not having her mother's skills.
Julia had the most perfected skills of making Mr. Caraway fall for her every whim, unfortunately, Rinoa didn't inherited that useful ability. Maybe it was a skill that didn't seem to work with Leon and not with her lack of talent.
While Leon was making the payment, Rinoa thought of a great idea.
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When Leon walked into his apartment a week later, his eyes almost fell out of their sockets.
The walls of his small studio were filled with holiday's confetti and a three feet pine Christmas tree in a corner, with colorful lights and bright decorations. Standing under the archway that divided the small hall from the kitchen was one self-satisfied looking Rinoa.
Leon found himself taking deep breaths and calming himself, and when he thought that he was quite calm, he looked at her as if she was a stranger.
"What is the meaning of this?" he asked. Ignoring the slight tremble of his voice, he walked in and closed the door behind him.
"Silly, what does it look like? It's a surprise," she stated, seemingly quite proud of herself.
He stood and looked around his apartment once more, slowly feeling the irritation coming. He dropped his book-bag with a bit of force onto the floor.
"Who told you to do this?" was what he wanted answered. "I told you I didn't want this Rinoa, wasn't I speaking in the right language?"
She heard it in his voice, the suppressed anger that he was trying not to show.
"I know you didn't mean it Leon, everyone loves to get into the Christmas spirit. I figured you didn't want to admit into not having enough time to get into it, so I saved you the time and started things for you," she said. "This way, we can celebrate our first Christmas together the right way."
"I told you I didn't want this Rinoa," he stated a bit more tersely. "What part of the whole thing didn't you understand?"
The smile slowly faded from her face.
"Take this stuff down," he said. "Take it down right now."
"But Leon… there's nothing wrong…"
"I said, take it down!" he shouted, making her start and pout sadly. When she showed no signs of doing just that, he started walking briskly toward her, and she took a step back without meaning to.
How he would have forced her to do what he had wanted, stood without saying, for fortunately for Rinoa, the telephone rang, and the moment dissolved into curiosity as Leon looked toward the telephone and then toward the clock.
He never received any calls at such hours of the night. It was past ten o'clock; surely people had manners as to not bother others at this time.
Turning from his previous route, he quickly reached for the ringing phone.
"Yes?"
His eyes widened in recognition after a few seconds, for on the other line there was someone he knew.
"Mr. Merlin?"
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Tbc
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