Author's Notes – Well, I guess people still found the poll I told no one about. Not a surprise to see what was chosen as the forerunner though. Hehe. Well, I hope this won't be completely predictable.

(Prompt: Lemons)

Rinoa's surroundings were quiet, but that particular detail was expected, given the location. So were her next set of actions, which consisted of cracking open a thick, meaty book and diving head-first into the introductory page. What was not expected, the anomaly among all givens, was her choice of book.

Although only a select few knew of her love of reading, far fewer knew of her preferred reads although she knew of practically anyone else's. Quistis liked indulging in mystery novels, Selphie enjoyed fast-paced adventure stories, Zell pretty much stuck to Weapons Monthly and Irvine....well, to put it in sparse terms, Rinoa pretty-much had a feeling that he preferred the pictures to the words in the type of magazines he 'read.'

Squall on the other hand...was a different story.

Rinoa knew that he was extremely well-read, the only one more so than her (in her own humble opinion, of course) but it was impossible to pin down a specific favourite among everything he pored through. It was as though he was a purely indiscriminate reader, open to anything, especially when he was in a bored state.

From all the stories she'd heard over the course of the past year and a half with the gang, Rinoa had come to the conclusion that this was a carryover habit from his days as a student. Normally, it was quite amusing to see his nose in the most random of things when she'd drop by for a visit to his office or dorm unannounced.

After she flipped to the next page, something she saw out of the corner of her eye prompted Rinoa to hastily wedge her finger in the fold as a temporary bookmark and close the book. Turning to look on either side of her, she was rewarded with nothing, only to come to the conclusion that she had been mistaken and perhaps slightly paranoid.

"...I didn't know you read horror books."

Rinoa jumped as her loud yelp caught the attention of the closer passersby, causing them to stare at the Commander and herself at the moment. Needless to say, this didn't help her already-flushed cheeks any as she looked up.

"I wanted to branch out reading-wise." she quietly told him. The look on his face still did not help her cause any. "I mean, you poring whatever you happen to find made me think about how I just have this teeny niche of stuff I read."

"...You said the exact same thing when I asked you what you were reading in your dorm the other day. You're lying." he pointedly said in a register barely above whisper-level.

Pretty sure that she was running up a fever at this point, Rinoa made an effort to calm down and talk about the incident rather than to side-step around it. "...Alright, maybe I'm just trying to distract myself with something that's completely not my thing after how weird things got after you were reading over my shoulder then."

Pausing for a moment, Rinoa sighed a little.

"No offense but...I don't think I can look at another lemon the same way ever again."

Squall tossed her a rather quizzical look. "...The lemon meringue you forced me to help make from that cookbook wasn't bad."

Rinoa tossed him a quizzical look of her own. "...You actually tasted it after it went all over you when I dropped it?"

"It's kinda hard not to when some of it was on my face, Rinoa." he dryly began before bending over slightly to whisper in her ear. "...And, I'm sure you must have tasted it at some point too."

Rinoa had to concede with a nod and a bit of a blush forming on her features; she had indeed tasted some meringue on his lips on that fateful day.