AN: I know I should have posted the last chapter of To Not Fall in Love months ago, except the messy sop in there is making me cringe. Here's a drabble-esque, and quite crappy one-shot. Stare
Some hide themselves beneath a mask of indifference...some, a wall of fiery temperance and others...giggle their way through everything. Still, a small percentage hid behind an unwilting, almost challenging stare. Nobody tried to look past his intense, scrutinizing eyes. Perhaps they just didn't care. It didn't matter to him; he would much rather be alone.
She could feel the force of his stare on her back through her thin tee. It was an unusually hot and dry day. The trees looked scorched and the grass beneath her feet gave with a dry crunch with every step she took away from him. Was she the guinea pig of yet another one of his scientific observations? She was being watched. Her every clumsy move in home economics, her every carefree swing of the arms, her every smile…he knew all about them.
"He's staring at her," this obvious fact was often said in hushed tones. She pretended that she didn't know, oblivious to the whole concept of this weird guy staring at her for God knows why.
It was supposed to be creepy. This was sort of like being stalked. How could it not be creepy? Yet, how could she explain the feeling of emptiness when the almost comforting weight of his stare wasn't there one day?
It was more like the warm look of a protector who admired his charge than a psychotic axe-wielding lunatic.
She was curious. Why…
Today, she sat at the base of a tree, the fractured shadows moving about in the hot breeze. She waited a bit then turned her head to look beyond the tree, straight at him only a few feet away. He visibly flinched as if shocked by static electricity, but his stare never wavered.
In the corner of his eye, he caught her mouth curved upwards into a smile before breaking out into a full-fledged grin.
"You know," he heard her say, "you can talk to me. I'm not going to bite."
Her comment took him off guard and he was at a loss for words.
"Hiwatari kun, care to join me for ice cream?" she said.
"Okay."
This time, while they sat beside each other on the dry grass, Satoshi's eyes ventured out to the cloudless blue sky and fields dotted with yellow dandelions. It was a world Risa accepted and embraced. If it felt like this, he wanted to do the same.