Disclaimer: I doubt any of us own Beyblade…
Well, y'know that feeling you get when you watch something or a certain song plays and you get an idea? Yeah, that's what happened.
Sighing, I sit on top of one of the boxes in the warehouse. I freely let my left leg hang over the side while I prop my right leg so that my knee is upright and lean a lazy elbow on it.
"Ozuma, I'm gone. Gonna settle something with Rei," the olive-haired younger brother of Mariam waves a hand at me nimbly, pulling the hood on his cloak over his head and runs out the door.
I close my eyes lightly. I don't even see why Joseph bothers wearing the hood since he's been harassing Rei for a while now. I place my left hand on my left leg, grasping the knee a bit. I don't understand why I'm so tense.
"Ozuma!" a cool feminine voice calls from above. Of course I know that voice; I'll never forget it, never hate it.
I open my eyes, managing a cool stare to give to her, "Yeah, Mariam?" I ask, a bit nervously. I've had a small crush on her even before the elders assigned us to the mission. No one would believe how happy I was inside when she was assigned to be on my team. Then, over time, the crush just grew and as much as I tried to deny that I had feelings for her, she could never stay out of my head for very long.
Mariam sends down a smirk from the stairs she's standing on. I've never seen her smile, except in the presence of food, of course, but she's never even smiled sincerely for anyone; it's always a smirk of some kind. Even during Beyblading and she's winning, she smirks, never smiles. And truthfully, I've wanted to see her smile, or better yet, make her smile. Now, I just gave up denying I like her. I know I like her, and that's that. Okay, so maybe I don't like her... Ilove her.
"We have any food yet?"
My eyes blink in bewilderment, giving her an odd stare, "Um, yeah," I jerk a thumb over to another one of the crates a few feet from my left, on which are placed four sandwiches and a water bottle. Why I failed to get four water bottles questions even me.
A happy expression lands on her face and she jumps down to get the food items. I watch, staring at her and finding myself entranced with her movements and with her. She races over to the crate and once she's there, she clasps her hands together in anticipation.
"Wow! And you got the kind I like, too!" she picks up two sandwiches at the same time, taking bites into the one in her left hand.
I stare at her with a questioning look on my face, ignoring the urge to smile warmly at her. Reluctantly, I look away from the violet-haired girl, staring down at the ground before me, trying to think about something that isn't related to Mariam. That is, until I see a red-clad foot come into my view, just to my left.
I look up, turning my head slightly to the left, seeing Mariam's pair of emerald eyes staring down at me. I blink inquiringly at her. I notice that the sandwich that was supposed to be in her left hand was gone, while there was a full one in her right hand.
"Do you want yours, Ozuma?" Mariam asks, holding the sandwich in her right hand to me.
"Uh," I utter out, my jaw slightly open, "What happened to yours?" I ask. I mentally hit my head for asking that. Of course she ate it! How stupid can I get? Ugh, stupid Ozuma! Stupid, stupid Ozuma!
Mariam raises a light violet eyebrow at me, "I ate it, Ozuma," she says flatly. Then she hands on her hips, and does something that scares even me. She leans in real close to my face, but her eyes are observing my expression, looking for something, I'm assuming.
She puts on a curious look, "Did you switch places with Dunga or something?" she asks, straightening her posture and looking down at me.
I try my hardest not to blush, so I put on an upset look and shake my head, glaring at her, "Of course not, Mariam." I answer a bit firmly. She gives me a disbelieving look and I tremble a bit inside, although I, myself, don't know why.
"Okay, so you want your sandwich or not, Ozuma?" Mariam asks again, obviously annoyed that she's being stalled from her food.
I jump off my crate, "No, it's okay. I'll…just eat Dunga's…" I walk over, hovering my hand over one of the sandwiches, feeling that Mariam's eyes are watching me from behind. I pick up the sandwich which I dubbed Dunga's, turning around to find that Mariam was sitting on the crate across mine, her slender ivory legs crossed gracefully and her left hand pushing against the edge of the crate, making her left shoulder raise a bit as she's happily eating away at her sandwich with…her eyes closed. Okay, so I didn't feel Mariam's eyes watching me, but something inside me tingled when I went, like I wasn't supposed to make an idiot of myself while she's around.
Nervousness… it floods itself through my systems when she's around me, and I can't stand it. I go back to the crate I was previously sitting on, resuming the same position and taking small bites from the edge, staring at Mariam, and luckily for me, her eyes were still shut. And for some reason, I smile at her, although she can't see me, I feel that I just can't help but smile at her.
Perhaps getting a feeling that she's being watched, Mariam opens her eyes and catches me off-guard, "Were you just smiling?" she accuses, raising one of her lavender brows at me and putting a weirdly lost look on her face.
I don't see what the big deal is. I know that she doesn't smile, but I know that I do all the time…right? "No," I retort, taking a bigger bite from my sandwich than I had previously.
She pouts just a bit, "Aw, and I thought I actually saw you smile at me…you're always such a grouch about our stupid mission." She says carelessly.
W-What? She did not just say that… Not knowing how to answer that, I get off the crate, going over to find my cloak. Mariam jumps off her crate and watches me.
"Ozuma?" she asks gently, knowing that she crossed a line with that comment. I ignore her, knowing that I'll have to hit myself later for ever ignoring someone like Mariam, but I manage to get myself in my cloak, then smooth out some wrinkles in the front, "Where're you going?"
She seems concerned… it didn't seem like her, 'Away from you' I wish I could say that to her, but I just can't bring myself to do it, "Out…" I reply curtly, although she's behind me, I lower my head and close my eyes.
"Tyson again?" she assumes with a slightly annoyed tone in her voice.
I say nothing, but I bring the hood over my head, leaving her all alone in the warehouse if I go. Quickly, she manages to object, "Wait! Ozuma, I'm gonna come!"
Slightly confused, I turn around, seeing Mariam grab her cloak and run to me. And as if we're in a big hurry, she slips her cloak on like that. She even places the hood over her head.
Now I know something's wrong. Mariam hates the hood. I even hate it when she wears the hood; it conceals her hair, and I personally don't like that, but it at least gives me a prevention from touching it.
"Why?" I ask, more accusingly than curiously, "It's just Tyson. I'm sure I can handle it alone, Mariam." What am I saying? Of course I want her to come with me!
Mariam brushes her right stand from falling to much into her face, "I wanna see the looks on his little friends when you beat him."
"Uh?" I ask softly. Why is she so confident that I'll win? Is she expecting something to happen?
She eyes me accusingly, "You do have a plan to beat him, right?"
She's right, I always do somehow… "Of course I do, Mariam," I reply firmly, "I have it all planned out; his overconfidence with breed carelessness."
Mariam just looks at me, "I'll bring Sharkrash just in case…" she says a bit uneasily. I take it that she doesn't believe me.
After a long session of running, jumping and sneaking, we find Tyson and his friends near the river side where I recall they had previously had a small picnic. Mariam remains to my right. I lower my hood, because I figured; if we're just going to spy, wear the cloak and hood, spy and challenge is wear the cloak without the hood and just challenge is no cloak at all. Mariam seems to have noticed this pattern too and lowers her hood.
For a while, we just stand on the hill above, looking down at them and I cross my arms while Mariam just places her hand on her hip like she always does.
"Hey Ozuma…" she starts. I turn my head slightly to her, "where's Joseph?"
I look downward, searching for the brunet in oriental clothes, since Joseph said he'd be challenging Rei again, but I liked to call it harassing him. I found Rei, but no Joseph. That was odd. And Dunga was on his emotional rampage, challenging Kai off somewhere.
"Let's go," I tell her, jumping down. Mariam seems to understand my concern and follows. It took a while, but then again, we picked a pretty high hill. Our shoes came in contact with the hard ground, at long last.
"Mister X!"
And as I anticipated, Tyson yells my alias to me, to mark my presence. I really wish he'd stop doing that since it gets so annoying after a while. And this annoying boy runs over to us, brandishing a fist.
"Tyson." I reply simply.
Soon enough, Tyson's other teammates run over, including that little witch with the brown hair. Max squints, and I'm assuming that he's looking at Mariam, and then he utters her name softly.
For some reason, I step in front of Mariam, but she doesn't seem to mind it. Tyson gets Dragoon out, rambling on about how he's gonna teach me a lesson or something, but I seem to have lost my taste to battle him. My main concern right now is how to get Max to stop looking at Mariam. She's just making her eyes wander around innocently, yet at the same time, uncaringly.
Since we haven't technically started a match now, it's not really considered backing out, is it? "I'm only here to find the whereabouts of Joseph." I say simply.
"Huh?" comes out of the mouths of all of them, with their jaws slightly opened in confusion. I wouldn't blame them; every time we come around, we demand a battle, but on those side occasions that Tyson challenges me instead, and normally I'd agree... just to take their bit-beasts to lock them away in the stone, where they belong.
Even Mariam is confused at what I'm saying, "Ozuma, what're you…?" she begins to ask over my shoulder.
I cut her off, "I'd rather we know where all our teammates are before I battle. If not, I get distracted." I'm not telling her the whole truth though. Oddly enough, something inside me wants to find Joseph and make Mariam happy.
Mariam remains quiet, and I take it she understands. I sigh to myself, "All right, so will you tell us what happened to Joseph?" I look at them all in turn, but a fix a hard glare at Rei, knowing that he had something to do with it.
"We're not telling you anything until you fight me!" Tyson insists, getting his launcher all ready. I resist the urge to roll my eyes at his bigheadedness.
I glare hard at him and Mariam comes close behind me, "Ozuma!" she exclaims near my ear.
Feeling that I have no choice, I take out Flash Leopard with my launcher and ripcord. Snapping Flash Leopard to the launcher, I get myself in a ready position and look at Tyson who does the same. I have to time for this.
Max looks back and forth at us, "Three…two…one…"
"Let it rip!" Tyson yells out.
I merely reply with a simple yell or some kind of battle cry. I really have no time for this. My original plan was to make myself lose a bit on purpose, to get Tyson overconfident, and then he'd think the match was in the bag, until I hit him back with everything. But that would take time, time I didn't have. So, I'll just have to hit him strong and fast.
"Attack, Flash Leopard!" I yell out angrily. Tyson responds with an attack of his own. I growl a bit in annoyance, "Tyson, just tell me where Joseph is."
"Not until you lose!"
I try not to roll my eyes. At least he's overconfident. Maybe I should go back to my first plan. So Flash Leopard spins in place and Dragoon comes along to start banging into it, and I don't fight back. After a few more of that, he's weakened Flash Leopard's spin pattern a bit, but it's enough to make him cheer, smirk and drag a thumb over his lips.
Everyone behind him starts cheering and congratulating him. For what? He didn't win yet. Like I said; his overconfidence breeds his carelessness. He thinks he's got this whole match in the bag.
"Flash Leopard, attack!" I yell out, breaking their little ceremony. The once wobbly Flash Leopard straightens up and starts glowing the crimson red. I'm assuming that Tyson's used much of his power just to 'weaken' me down a bit, and I'm also assuming that he doesn't have enough to counter.
Flash Leopard slams into Dragoon, hard enough for it to get sent back to it's owner's hand. It seemed rather quick, but it's better for me. My black blade flies in to my hand and I glare at them, "Now, where's Joseph?"
All their eyes fall on Max, although I don't know why. He shifts around nervously, then he sighs, "Fine, I'll tell…you." He points a finger at Mariam.
She looks at me for a bit, but I nod my head to the blonde who grabs her wrist and pulls her off away from us. Their backs are facing us, while Tyson and the others just smile and wave cheekily at me.
They come back after a few seconds and I look at Mariam, a curious look on my face, "Well?"
She sighs. I don't like where this is going already… Nothing upsets Mariam, just annoys her, and I know her well enough to know that, "I'm going out…tonight."
Ignoring the fury and anger inside me, I merely raise a brow in question, "With who?"
"You'll find out later." Mariam assures me, apparently not wanting to say while the Bladebreakers were still around. She turns, heading back for the top of the hill, her cloak flowing gracefully behind her.
I follow, but stop to send a glare back down at the Bladebreakers, suddenlyhaving a stronger hate for them. I turn back quickly, to follow Mariam. Once at the top, I ask, "Mariam...?"
She stops me, "Don't worry about anything,Ozuma." She gives me a convincing look. She turns again and begins to walk back to the warehouse.
I hesitantly follow. Although completely against it, I'm not sure I trust that tone.
End of that.
Well, there was a lot more I wanted to put, like Ozuma's jealousy and anger while she's preparing for the date, then when she's on the date, with Ozuma eventually following her, but I wasn't sure…
