Title: Valentine's Day

Genre: Humor, Romance

Summary: Aerie decides to not spend Valentine's Day alone. After all, how can you say no to a guy with a heart-shaped pizza?

Saturday, February the fourteenth. Valentine's Day. Couple's Day. The day of amore. In other words, the day most people would not be spending by themselves in front of the television, wearing sweats and a t-shirt, munching on an entire bag of potato chips.

Of course, most people are not Tanaka Aerie.

This is exactly where she found herself around noon on that particular Saturday. Her classes at New World City University had ended early that morning, so as soon as she got home to her shared apartment, she changed into her slouching clothes and plopped herself on the couch with a bag of Lay's.

Aerie shoved another mouthful of chips into her mouth with one hand, while channel surfing on the remote with the other. Her roommate, Eliza, had a date this afternoon, so she had the entire third-floor apartment to herself. Finally finding a suitable channel, she curled up more into the comfortable furniture and prepared for an afternoon of solitude.

Or so she thought.

A knock at the door roused her from her zombie-like television-watching state. She muttered something under her breath as she got up from the couch and crossed the living room to the door. She peeked out the eyehole and was completely unsurprised to see her neighbor standing out in the hall, a victorious smirk on his face as if he knew she had risen from her TV program. He had both of his hand behind his back, clearly displaying that he was hiding something.

A bit grumpily, she opened the door and gave him her best bored expression. "Can I help you?" She asked in a monotone.

As expected, the smirk widened. "I hope I'm not disturbing you, Aerie dear, yoi." He said with mock-politeness.

Aerie narrowed his eyes, knowing full well he didn't give a damn whether he disturbed him or not. "Of course not," she answered suspiciously.

"Fantastic! Now, may I come in, or are you gonna make me stand out here all day?"

"Why should I?"

He took one of his hands from behind his back and placed it over his heart. He gave her a wounded-puppy look. "C'mon Aerie, you're killing me here." The look was met with a mask of indifference. His expression turned into a grin and he leaned forward conspiratorially. "I've got something for you," he said in a sing-song voice.

Begrudgingly, Aerie opened the door wider and let him walk through. He did so, keeping his body facing her so she wouldn't see what was behind his back. When she tried looking over his shoulder, he clicked his tongue in denial.

"I'll show you what it is in a minute, yoi," he promised.

Annoyed, she replied, "Why did I even let you in here in the first place?"

"Because you love me." It was said with the most mischievous smirk in the world, she wouldn't have doubted Satan himself had been the one to teach it to him.

Aerie rolled her eyes. "If it makes you happy to think that, then think it."

The smirk stretched into a grin that revealed perfect, white teeth. "You didn't seem to disagree on New Year's Eve," he pointed out.

A bit of color rose to her cheeks, both out of embarrassment and anger. "That's only because you barged your way in here and forced me to sit on your lap."

"You didn't seem to mind what we did after that."

"I was tired and you were being really pushy that night."

"Still, most ladies don't give up once they've had just a taste of Marco like you did, yoi."

She rolled her eyes again. "What do you want?" She asked irritably.

He leaned in closer to her. Deciding to be stubborn, she didn't lean away. He stopped when he was millimeters away from the outer shell of her ear.

"What I want is," he breathed, "for you to stop being a stick-in-the-mud on holidays."

Aerie released a breath she didn't know she had been holding. "You sure know the way to a woman's heart, Marco." She lifted a hand to his chest and pushed him away.

Marco chuckled. "I try." With a flourish, he brought the object out from behind his back.

It was a cardboard pizza box, with a smiling chef pictured on the top pulling a steaming pizza from a brick oven. Aerie raised an eyebrow at the blond man. Taking this as a cue to continue, he flipped the top of the box open, revealing the contents.

Aerie's eyebrow crawled further up her forehead. "What is this?" She asked.

Marco gave her a lazy smirk. "It's a heart-shaped pizza, yoi," he said triumphantly.

She could see that. The only problem with the pepperoni pizza was it was not cooked. It was still covered in plastic. Aerie pointed this out to him, and his smirk grew.

"That's because I was planning on cooking it for us later," he said, "after-"

"Hold on, did you say 'us'?" Aerie cut in.

The blond rolled his eyes. "Yes, Aerie, us. I bought this pizza for the two of us. That way we could eat it after-"

"Why?" She interjected again.

"Well, if you would stop interrupting, I will explain." He snapped impatiently. When she was silent, he continued. "As I was trying to say, I wanted to make it for the two of us after you go on a date with me."

Aerie blinked in surprise. "Date?"

"Yes, it's what two people do when they like each other and want to get to know each other more."

"I know what a date is," she retorted. "I was just making sure that was what you said. Did you lose a bet?"

He snorted and rolled his eyes, not bothering to dignify the question with a response. "Do you want to or not?"

"Sure." Marco almost dropped the pizza in shock. "Where are we going?"

Now it was Marco's turn to blink. "I... I don't know..."

"You ask me on a date, and you don't know what you want to do?"

"I honestly didn't think I would get this far," he admitted. "I was totally expecting you to slam the door in my face."

Aerie sighed in exasperation. "Why wouldn't I say yes?"

"Because you're you," he deadpanned.

"Keep talking and I'll change my mind and go back to channel surfing with my bag of chips." She warned.

"Fine." The two stared at each other while Marco's mind raced to find a suitable place to go for a date with the woman. "What if... What if we went ice skating at the new skating rink in town? Haruta's been and she says it's pretty sweet."

Aerie smiled a little. "I'd like that. Just give me a couple minutes to get changed."

~...~

The rink was built close to the apartment building, so the couple walked there. Aerie had never been ice skating before, so it was amusing for Marco to watch her attempt to get her balance on the thin blades.

The two spent the rest of the afternoon there. They only left once the rink was closing, and by then the sun was going down.

Aerie's legs and butt were sore, but that was to be expected. She did manage to fall quite a few times on the ice. Once she even pulled Marco down with her by accident. He just laughed it off, even though he had landed rather hard on his knee.

She snuck a glance at the blond walking beside her. He walked casually, omitting an air of pure confidence. His tall stature and muscular body made anybody think twice about approaching them on the darkening street.

A lazy smirk appeared on his face as his electric blue eyes found hers. "Like what you see, yoi?" He asked smugly.

Aerie responded by punching him in the arm, hard, while muttering, "Idiot."

He turned his gaze back to the street. "If you say so," he murmured.

They reached the apartment building they both lived in. He opened the door for her like the gentleman he wasn't and walked a small distance behind her. They walked to the elevator, passing several of the other residents, many of whom gave appreciative whistles at the sight of the couple.

Aerie's cheeks burned slightly as they entered the metal carriage. Every time the two of them were seen together, the other residents made a big production over it. It didn't help when Marco would play along with them and attempt flirting or physical contact with her. Normally she would brush it off, but recently it had become harder and harder for her to ignore them.

After what seemed like an eternity, the elevator reached the third floor. Once again, Marco allowed her to walk through first, while trailing behind her as they made their way to the apartment. She fumbled to fit her key in the doorknob. She finally unlocked it and pushed open the door.

It was dark inside, so Aerie flipped on the light switch. She was met with the most astonishing sight in her young, twenty-year-old life.

On every available surface, even the couch, was dozens and dozens of red roses. Aerie felt her jaw drop down to the floor.

Marco hummed in thought. "Now, I know I didn't order this many roses."

The brunette turned to look at him with wide eyes. "You... You did this?"

"Hn? Oh, not all of this. I only ordered a dozen roses." He shrugged. "Vista must have heard me wrong when I told him how many I wanted."

Or he did this on purpose, the sneaky bastard. Marco added silently to himself. He better not have charged me extra for these when I didn't order them. He glanced at the woman. Then again, her expression is totally worth it.

Aerie walked to the couch and picked up one of the flowers and lifted it to her face. She closed her eyes and inhaled its scent. She reopened her eyes and met his gaze.

"You didn't lose a bet, did you?" She asked in understanding.

Marco smirked and put his hands in his pockets. "Nope. That, darling, was something you made up all on your own."

She placed the rose back where she had gotten it and moved to stand in front of him, just within arm's reach. "Why?"

Now it was his turn to pick up a rose. He held it in front of his mouth and grinned at her with his eyes. "'Cause it's just like the ocean, under the moon..." He sang in a nice baritone.

Aerie clapped her hands over her ears. "Not that song," she moaned.

Of course, he ignored her. "Well, it's the same as the emotion that I get from you..."

She tried to cover his mouth with her hand, but he neatly avoided her grasp and took her wrist in his own hand.

"You've got the kind of lovin' that could be so smooth~" He twirled her under his arm and pulled her back into his chest. "So give me your heart, make it real..."

He leaned in to her ear, much like he had hours earlier, to whisper the final line of the song. "Or else forget about it." He shifted his arms so he was hugging her around the waist from behind.

"Happy Valentine's Day, Aerie," he murmured before leaning forward to plant a kiss on her cheek.

Aerie froze for a second, blood rushing to her face. A couple seconds of silence passed before she cleared her throat awkwardly. "So how about that pizza?"

She was sure they could hear his laugh all the way down the street at the skating rink.

So how is it these one-shots are turning into Marco/Aerie moments? Your guess is as good as mine.

I know Valentine's Day isn't until next Saturday, but I have a hot date then with two sets of identical twins, so I wouldn't have been able to post it.

What did you think? Favorite, follow, and review please!

~Batman

P.S. The song Marco is singing is called "Smooth" by Santana. Look it up :)