Not entirely happy with how this one turned out (let's be honest, I'm a perfectionist so nothing I write will probably ever make me 100% happy because of my stupidly high standards for myself) but I got them to where I wanted them in the end so it did it's job. This one takes place a couple months after the spring entry. I mentioned some school things and, just to be clear for future entries, they're about 16-17 here so they would be in year...2 of school? I believe? I'm basing it off their ages in the dub where Tyson turned 13 in season one so he'd be 14 in season 2 and 15 in season three and this fic is set two-ish years after that. Thanks so much for the reviews guys! I hope you enjoy this one!

Summer: Wisteria

Tyson having arrived on time should have tipped her off something had changed. Not even arriving on time but arriving early.

She'd walked to their meeting place that morning, carving out enough time to get there before anyone else. She liked to take her time, to let her eyes wander and to allow herself to relax in the slow moments. Those came few and far between with beyblade related duties and schoolwork and home expectations. She liked that little break when she was just Hilary, living and breathing and feeling the wind on her skin and watching birds fly by and being a tiny smudge in the window of someone passing by to continue their day.

But Tyson was already there, hands shoved into his jacket, head tilted back as he looked up at the sky, navy hair freely blowing in the cool wind, sans hat for the first she'd seen him in a while. And when she blurted out her surprise at the sight of him, instead of getting some sort of comment about making him wait or tapping at an invisible watch on his wrist, he simply shrugged and allowing an easy, lopsided smile to form on his face.

"What are you doing here?" she all but demanded. Not that she didn't want him there but, well, it was Tyson. Tyson never arrived anywhere early.

If her gruff questioning bothered him, he didn't show it, instead shrugging his shoulders and answering, "Waiting for you" as if it were the most obvious answer in the world. Which…okay, it kind of was but, still, he never waited for her. She always waited for him. And now, somehow, he was early and she was on time. "What?" he asked when she continued to gape at him. Huffing a breath, he rolled his eyes. "You're always getting on me for being late. Now you're getting on me for being early?"

"I didn't say anything!" she protested.

He reached out and pressed his finger to the tip of her nose. "Your face did." She batted his hand away and he chuckled. "Wanna get going?"

"We have to wait for the others," Hilary said, still eyeing him, now checking for any signs of a head injury. Nope, nothing out of the ordinary. No extra bumps, though she supposed his head was thick enough he'd have to be hit with a sledgehammer for it to make any sort of dent. And he seemed pretty coherent, if not a little forgetful. But that was par for the course.

"Right, about that." Grin turning sheepish, Tyson rubbed the back of his neck. "It's just us." He stuck his finger between them and wiggled it in the space.

"What?" Hilary's eyebrows collided and she set down the heavy basket she'd lugged from her home, using her free hand to grab her phone from her skirt pocket. God, why'd she go with this flared style over her usual pencil type? The pockets were much easier to find without the pleats. This is what she got for giving into the fleeting "Are the others okay?" she asked while simultaneously forcing the screen to flip upwards with a jerk of her thumb.

"They're fine." Tyson's hands covered hers before she could blink, forcing the lid to snap closed. The phone slipped from her grasp, his fingers trailing against her palm and knuckles as he continued speaking. "Kenny's studying, Max is babysitting his sister, Kai's…doing whatever Kai does, and Ray's flight was delayed so he's not getting in until later."

"Wait. All of them aren't coming?" Her frown nearly pulled her whole face down. "But we had plans."

"Yeah, well, what can you do?"

She hummed. That was unlike them. Especially for Kenny who, like Hilary, tended to give notice far in advance if something had come up or his plans changed. Max was more flexible, tending to go with the flow. Ray was half and half, sometimes he was on time, sometimes he had other matters to tend to that he put first and it slipped his mind to explain his late arrival. (Hilary gave him a pass for that one, he lived long without being within reach of a cell phone.) And Kai, well, at this point they acted on assumption he never wanted to show only to be surprised, and thankful, when he did.

"Well…okay…" Something twitched in Tyson's face, though his smile never wavered. "But, we're going to have a little too much food." She waved the heavy picnic basket in her hands, nearly toppling to one side behind the shifting weight pulling her over.

"You say that like that's a bad thing!"

It was her turn to roll her eyes. "Should've known the human garbage disposal would clean up." Pushing a small sigh out her nose, she looked at him. Finally, really looked at him. Speaking of cleaning up… Her eyes bounced up and down from his head to toe. It was one thing for him to not be wearing his hat, it was another for him to be wearing anything less…comfortable. Sure, he still wore his typical jacket but instead of the many sets of yellow shirts he tended to don it was replaced with…a white button down? Not his uniform shirt, she could recognize that starched white right away, but this came close. "You look…nice?" And then she winced. She didn't mean for her confusion to pull though so much but, well, Tyson in nice clothes was like Max wearing something of complimentary colors.

But Tyson's shoulders bounced in a harmless shrug, her reaction rolling off his back. "It's a nice day," he stated simply.

Well, he wasn't wrong.

And that was just the first thing ticking off her antennas. They stood up straighter when they approached the ticketing booth and, before she could even shift the weight of the basket to her other hand, Tyson had whipped out and passed along enough yen to pay for them both. Tyson having money? That was a stretch. Tyson paying for her? That was another.

This time she didn't bother to hide the incredulity from her face.

"What?" he asked, tucking the receipt into the front pocket of his jacket. "No sense in both of us paying. You can get me next time. Besides, you have all that food so…"

She shifted the basket from one hand to the other; the handle left reddened indents in her palm. She shook out her hand. "And yet usually you're recoiling whenever I bring something." Which was rude because she wasn't that bad a cook. She could barbeque with the best of them! As for everything else, well, sometimes the recipes were a little too pretentious and she couldn't justify spending an absorbent amount of money for a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Who needed Himalayan salt when good old fashioned table salt could do the trick? And she didn't always have time to run to the store, so substitutions were her only option. How Ray could justify going for the best for every ingredient still left her baffled. The quality in her food didn't suffer from her choices. …That much.

"Hey, I have an iron stomach." Tyson patted his center as if to prove a point. "I can handle whatever it is you've prepared."

"For your sake, I hope you can."

Flashing smiles at one another, they moved along the path with the crowds entering the park. After walking a few minutes, the crowd thinned out, groups and friends clumped together, taking their time strolling down the path, talking, taking pictures, with giggling children weaving between the legs of the park goers. And before long it was just them, strolling side-by-side, looking around at the trees and scattered flowers lining the path.

Every now and then the basket would bump her knees and she'd sigh, switch her grip shake out her hand, and carry it on the other side. Only, that would make her heavy handed and unbalanced and she bumped either it or herself into Tyson's side. She'd apologize, he'd chuckle and say it wasn't a big deal, and they continued walking. But the last time she let out a big huff about it, while silently cursing all her friends for making her carry such a heavy thing for them to not even show up, Tyson stopped her hand-off halfway though and took the basket from her hands.

His fingers curled around her grip, thumb shifting across her knuckles and his free hand carefully peeled her fingers off. A plethora of questions fluttered through her mind, which was a vastly different flutter cresting in her stomach at his touch though they were both rooted in confusion. Confusion towards his apparent thoughtfulness and just how much it'd been happening lately.

The stomach fluttering.

It first poked and wiggled into her mind when it still fizzed in her stomach after he'd taken her to the hobby shop for her first beyblade. She sat back, thought about it, and pushed the feeling aside. It was simply excitement for trying something new. And then it happened again during their practices, when he'd take her over to his home to teach her all the basics and how to launch. She wanted to help him with his homework, he wanted to help her with hers as it were. He helped position her arms, adjust her grip on the launcher and the ripcord, and fixed her stance with little touches here and there. She may as well have been burned with how the touch of his fingers carried over for a few days and the fizzing shifting into full-on waves of flutters, like cresting and rolling on the sandy shores of a beach.

"You can't eat it yet," was all she managed to push out her mouth as her brain hadn't quite caught up to reality yet. Tyson had already taken the basket out of her hands and held it strong in his left hand. His launching hand.

"Yeah? What're you gonna do about it? You gave away your only weapon!" He lifted and wiggled the basket as if to remind her. Then hefting it up, he held it to his nose and took a big whiff. "Seriously, what's in this?"

She swatted at the arm of his jacket when he started lifting the lid. She may as well have hit a rock with how her hand bounced off him. Her eyes lifted and descended over the bulge barely contained beneath his sleeve stretching over his arm and she sucked in a breath. Between her and Kai pushing them to go to the gym more often and his kendo lessons she knew he was in some sort of shape but…nothing like this. The movement of Tyson's eyebrow twitching upward sent her eyes rocketing to his face and she turned away from him, scoffing. "Don't be so uncouth! Don't you have any manners?"

"I'm carrying your basket and you just hit me. I don't think I'm the one having problem with manners, Smartypants."

She hoped her following glare radiated the appropriate levels of shut up she wished her tongue could say, at least it'd deflect from the heat crawling up her neck at having been caught looking at him. Not staring. His physique surprised her, is all. He wore such loose clothing all the time, and their school uniform were regulated to fit them all without being too loose or cling too much. So this was just…a surprise is all.

The path continued to wind through the park and every now and then Tyson would stop, look at a patch of flowers, read the placard attach, make a humming noise, and keep going. She'd dutifully stop with him, keeping her head facing forward though her eyes swiveled his way. Every glance at him rewarded her with the same sight: his mouth pressed in a line and his jaw held tight.

It wasn't until they passed the field of hydrangeas did she nudge him with her elbow. "You're quiet."

His eyes cast down at her. "I'm thinking."

"That's why I'm worried."

"Ha ha."

"I don't want you to hurt yourself." She cracked a smile and a moment later he shook his head, huffing out a breath that sounded familiarly annoyed. A relieved breath eked out of her.

"Keep it comin', Hils, I have a deadly weapon in my hands."

"Tyson! You wouldn't dare hit me with that!"

A grin exploded on his face; she nearly saw a twinkle in the corner. "I meant your food."

"Oh! You—jerk!"

At that, she stomped ahead, her legs working double effort to propel her up the hill the path took her. Her arms swung in her righteous indignation and with every footfall she imagined stomping out that…that…infuriating smile on his face! She was just trying to be nice! She was worried! Tyson being quiet was like Kai being talkative. It was strange, out of the ordinary, not normal. And she was worried. Something had to be on his mind to make him so un-Tyson-like all morning, but that didn't mean he could be a jerk about it.

But the longer she walked the more the fire bursting in her cooled, her shoulders slumped, and her breath heaved. Stupid Tyson! She worked hard on it and while, yes, the food was supposed to be for everyone, with him being the only one around to eat some of it it…. Well, it didn't mean more, not exactly. But his discernment of her mistakes wouldn't come from such a place as if Ray were to make a comment about it.

Doubling over, her fingers dripped her knees, the pearl pink polish shining bright beneath the dots of sunlight pushing in between the heavy shade above. Humming, she stood up and tilted her head back, taking in the sweet, scented air. The delicious scent curled and rolled in her lungs, shoving her heightened nerves aside.

"Geeze, Hil, d'you know how heavy this thing is? Can't believe you made me chase after you."

Placing her hands on her hips, Hilary opened her eyes, ready to give Tyson a piece of her mind for ruining her tranquility when she stilled. Holding tight high above her head, a curving canopy of plum-colored flowers cascaded across an archway. As if dangling off comets suspended in motion, petals twirled and danced from the sky, dotting the landscape around her. One such petal landed on her cheek, so soft, as if a cloud had passed by and caressed her skin. She pinched it between her fingers, rubbing the satiny scale until it curled in on itself.

"They're wisterias, if you want to know," Tyson said. Hilary whirled around. The question passing through her mind must've read on her face because he continued as if she spoke. "I used to come here."

She couldn't see it. Tyson Granger, who lived and breathed on adventure, got a high from adrenaline, who charged into situations with little forward thinking, would come here? Hilary looked around again, at the intricate stems twisting and twining along the steel structure, at the sunbeams wiggling their way through, casting slats of golden light on the path below.

He appeared by her side. She knew. The flutter came back when his arm brushed against hers, burning her more than the sun's warmth did. "My mom liked them too."

A soft gasp escaped her lips and her head rocked forward, grounding her. He dropped his chin, locking eyes with her and the rest of the air in her lungs seeped out at the tender look in his eye. With a small smile, he extended his arm. "Should we keep going? There's a place to sit down just ahead."

Feeling much like a bobble-head, all Hilary could do was nod. If she didn't trust how fast her emotions bounced up and down, she didn't trust her mouth either. Or else she'd risk saying something she regretted, like wondering if that look was for her benefit or his mother's.

Eyebrows raising and smile growing, Tyson wiggled his elbow. She'd have to mull over that answer another day. It was a nice day; she didn't want to waste it fussing over something she already knew the answer to. After all, she wasn't one to divulge in fairy tales.

So she took his arm and allowed him to lead her away.