Before anyone kills me on charges of being a bad speller, I'll have you know that the word in the second sentence is intentionally misspelled. Oh, and my last chapter was missing a period at the end of the second sentence, too, but that wasn't my fault because it was in my saved draft. (What a prick, you say I am? Why, thank you!) Now reed on! 8) (And yes, I actually thought that was funny.)
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100 Themed Drabbles
Ala Verity
11. Past (Word Count: 768)
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Mamoru's eyes skimmed over the top line of the page.
I past by the corner store by the arcade today and saw a jacket I liked
Mamoru automatically reached a hand into his pocket and pulled out a pen. The writing utensil honed in immediately on the offending word—"past"—and crossed it out neatly. Then, he scribbled above the line a single, corrected word: "passed."
"Mamoru-baka, what ARE you doing?"
Jamming the pen hastily back into his pocket, he turned around to see a steamed-looking Usagi standing, hands on her hips, in front of him.
"Nothing!" he replied quickly in a voice that fooled nobody. And Usagi, evidently, was not Nobody.
"Let me see that!" She snatched the paper out of his hands and, recognizing the handwriting as her own, began to flush. "Wh-where did you get this? You thief!"
"Hey," he said defensively, holding up his hands, "You dropped it when you left for the bathroom, okay? I only caught a glimpse of the first sentence!"
Her eyes narrowed as she looked back at the paper, as if to check for proof of his truthfulness; not, Mamoru thought, that she was actually expecting any. The look on her face, therefore, when she caught sight of the tiny correction at the top of the page was priceless.
"Y-you—you corrected my work?!" she sputtered, looking from the now-confirmed Grammar Guru-Freak of the Century to the sheet in her hands. "You're psycho, insane! Stop reading my stuff!" And crushing the paper into a bookbag pocket, her face pink with a mixture of amazement and anger, she stormed without another word to the double-doored entrance of the arcade and out into the breezy autumn afternoon.
Of course, it was just windy enough to cause a certain crumpled sheet of paper to fly, unnoticed, out of a certain pigtailed girl's backpack.
"Oy, plot twist," Mamoru murmured to himself with an ironic grin as he got up to retrieve the paper. Smoothing it out before him, this time he read the entire original message.
I past by the corner store by the arcade today and saw a jacket I liked. It would have looked good on Mamoru, actually, and I would've bought it for him, only he's too big of a jerk to appreciate something like that. Too bad—the bright blue would've brought out his eyes.
Mamoru stared for a very long time at the note, reading and re-reading the sentences written in untidy scrawl across the page. Suddenly, after a twelfth scan through, he jumped up and, checking his watch hastily, shouted to Motoki, "Hey, what time do the stores on this block close?"
"Generally? Around five, why—?" His friend turned around, but Mamoru was already bolting out the door, folding a piece of paper and sliding it into his shirt pocket for safekeeping.
Motoki shook his head at the napkin dispenser he was refilling, confiding in it sadly, "I'll never get what goes on in that crazy head of his…"
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The next day, Usagi was sitting at the counter when somebody slid into the seat next to hers. Thinking it one of the girls, she faced the newcomer and said,
"Oh, hello-ohhh—" She caught sight of Mamoru. "Oh, just hell then, it's you." She promptly turned around again.
However, she suddenly stopped mid-turn, her eyes wide as if she had just seen a lion tap-dancing in a tutu. Turning her head slowly around to face Mamoru again, she gaped in evident surprise and practically had to spit out, "When did you get that jacket?"
"Yesterday," Mamoru replied smoothly, pretending not to notice her astonishment.
She cleared her throat. "I see you've finally, ah, ditched your old one, then."
"Yup."
She glanced at him—and his new, blue jacket—one more time, then blurted, as if she could not resist, "So who do you like enough to actually trash your beloved jacket for? You never change for anyone!" She turned away quickly, but Mamoru detected a slight blush—and was that…a little jealousy?—in her face. He hid a smile.
"Just a friend of mine. She thought it'd look good on me." Usagi looked up at him, startled, and Mamoru flashed her a quirky grin. "Says it brings out the color of my eyes."
A look of dawning comprehension slowly spread across her features, just as Mamoru added with a twinkle in his eye,
"So…what do you think, Odango? Is it a keeper, or what?"
It might have started with the past, he thought to himself, but it was time to move on to the present.
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That just means he's finally willing to move past the purely argumentative stage with Usagi, that's all. But ah, what a transition! As you might have guessed, the next drabble theme is "present"—ahhh, the wonders of double-meanings. Consider this the first in a set of three—"past," "present," and "future!"
Hope you enjoyed! Write and review! Ala Verity
