Imoutoshipping (Bakura Amane/Kawai Shizuka)
. . .
It was the kind of day that was good for throwing rocks into puddles, Amane decided. And then, after that, maybe jumping in those puddles. But she'd see.
She hummed a tuneless song to herself, letting the hum vibrate against the air as she ran with her arms spread out on either side of her, pretending she was an airplane or a bird or whatever her mind decided she wanted to be at that moment. She jumped up onto the rise of a low wall and ran down that like a tightrope walker. All the while, she kept her eyes trained on the soaked sidewalk, counting drenched worms that wriggled against the concrete while she looked for particularly good rocks or particularly deep puddles or both, because a combination of the two was always best.
She ran out of wall to run on and hopped lightly down to the sidewalk. She skidded to a stop in front of the street, made a show of looking both directions like she was supposed to, and then darted across towards the park.
It was a bright day, with the blue sky cool overhead, matching the radiating coolness of the drenched world below. Amane loved the way that a good rainstorm made all the colors look darker and deeper. Maybe she'd draw it with her new crayon set when she got home.
Still making her airplane humming sound, she vroomed into the park, kicking up dust and wood chips. The park looked empty, she saw. Probably because no one wanted to get all wet. That was fine with her, she had the place to herself then! She tilted her arms like a turning airplane and vroomed towards the swing set.
And the she skidded to a stop, her heels digging into the ground and her arms wheeling around and around to try and steady herself because oh, there was someone here!
The girl was smaller than Amane, her legs not reaching the ground at all from the swing (Amane was very proud of the fact that she could touch the ground now with her feet and use them to push herself higher). Her short red hair was messy and wind-tousled across her face, hanging over her eyes, her head tilted towards the ground so that her face was cast into shadow. She wasn't really swinging, which, Amane thought, was a really big shame because swings were lots and lots of fun, and it was just sad if you just sat there and slowly kicked your legs back and forth! Then she thought, maybe the girl didn't know how to swing yet. Or maybe she was waiting for someone to push her. She was still little, littler than Amane anyway, who was going to be five soon, and that was a big number, probably bigger than the little girl on the swing. Littler girls and boys liked to wait for their bigger friends and siblings to push them, so maybe she was just waiting.
Amane stared all around the park, looking up into the trees and leaning her head to look under the playset. She even turned in a big circle, but she didn't see anyone else around, so who was she waiting for to push her? The soft creak, creak, creak of the barely moving swing was the only sound in the park, accompanied by the faraway hum of cars in the city center.
Amane turned back to face the girl, tapping her chin thoughtfully like her daddy did when he was thinking really hard. It helped, or something. The girl wasn't looking up, and in fact didn't seem to have noticed Amane at all. She looked pretty sad now that Amane thought about it. Maybe that was why she wasn't trying to swing.
The mystery of why the girl wasn't swinging was going to drive Amane crazy, but the more important question on her mind was how to get the girl to start swinging, because swinging always, always made her feel better, and if the girl just knew how, then maybe she wouldn't be so sad!
It took her a few seconds, but after a few moments of tapping her chin over and over, she came up with the only possible idea. If no one was going to come and push the girl, then Amane would have to push her instead!
Pleased with this conclusion, Amane scurried forward and darted around the girl. The girl's head jumped up as she felt the swing shift when Amane grabbed the chains just above the swing seat, stepping back with it to pull it back. She let out a squeak when Amane let go and she swung forward. Amane giggled as the girl's legs snapped up against the bottom of the seat and she gripped the sides of the swing even tighter.
"You have to kick your legs back and forth!" Amane said. "That's how you go higher!"
"No!" the girl shouted back. "No!"
Amane blinked. No? She didn't want to swing? Oh...okay then. Amane caught it on the back swing and dug her heels in, drawing the swing to a stop. As soon as it was still again, the girl jumped off and scurried back, whipping around to face Amane with her hands drawn up near her face. Amane cocked her head. The girl didn't want to swing? Now that was a mystery that Amane had no answer for. Swinging was the best thing, why didn't she want to?
Now that she could see the girl, she could see that there were big fat tears rolling out of her light, nut-brown eyes. She was pretty, Amane thought. And it wasn't fair that she had to cry...who made her cry? Amane only cried when she was mad at someone, so maybe the girl was mad at someone?
"Hi," Amane said. "I'm Amane. What's your name?"
The girl swallowed. She sniffled through her nose.
"Shizuka," she mumbled.
That seemed like a mouthful, so Amane decided to shorten it.
"Shizu-chi?" Amane said.
Shizuka blinked. She frowned, sniffling again. Amane grinned.
"You can call me Amane-chan if you want," she said.
Shizuka still didn't answer, but it looked like her tears were getting a little thinner. That was good! Amane jumped around the swing so that she could stand in front of Shizuka. Shizuka jumped, startled at Amane's sudden movement, but she didn't jump back. Amane put her hand out in front of her.
"Let's be friends! Do you want to play on the slide with me? Do you know how?"
Shizuka stared at her hand for a moment. She swallowed. She rubbed away a tear with the heel of her hand and sniffled one more time. Then she looked up at Amane's eyes, curious and uncertain. Amane gave her the biggest smile she could muster. She looked like she needed to have some fun, and Amane wanted to see if she could make her smile instead of cry! Everyone knew smiling was lots better than crying.
Shizuka started to put her hand out, and then hesitated, her fingers curled just in front of Amane's hand. It was taking everything Amane had to be patient and wait, like her brother always told her to. Finally, finally, Shizuka put her hand into Amane's.
"Kay," she said. "Okay. Let's play."
Amane beamed. Oh, this was a good day! She had made a new friend already!
"Yay!" she said, jumping up. "Shizu-chi! Come on, I'll show you the best games. We can throw rocks into puddles and stuff!"
Shizuka didn't talk much, but as Amane tugged her towards the playset, she did make the tiniest, barest hint of a smile. And Amane had been totally right—smiling was much better than crying.
. . .
A/N: This was a cute one! In case you couldn't tell, Shizuka's probably crying here because her parents just got divorced and she had to leave her home and her brother behind to live in a new town. Amane's not the type to really ask those kind of questions though, so it didn't come up in the story proper. Next is Immatureshipping (Jonouchi x Noa).
