Woah, I'm actually updating? Now THIS is weird. It's okay, guys, I thought I was dead, too.
I can't promise regular updates, but I can promise that I will finish this story if it's the last thing I do. Feel free to bully me into on Tumblr- I'm turnabout4what. :D
Eeeenjoy!
(O)
Yeah, Franziska was a perfectionist. It was sort of cute, but also kind of annoying sometimes. The good thing about having a perfectionist for a girlfriend is having someone painstakingly look over every detail to make sure something is good enough for you. It was pretty flattering. But you also have to wonder whether you meet their standards.
"You need to take better care of your cuticles," Franziska said, frowning. She was painting my nails a nice shade of purple, and there wasn't a single smudge or dot of color outside of the line of my nail. It was kind of magical.
"Oh, whatever. It's not like you can see them when there's polish on top of them." I made a point to twitch my finger a bit, hoping Franziska would mess up her perfect paint job, but somehow her crazy reflexes prevented that from happening.
"Stop moving." She raised an eyebrow. Crap, she's onto me.
Maybe it was the way she fixed up her nails after I painted them for her, correcting all the little mistakes. Or maybe it was the way she frowned at my hair when it was tangled, or scoffed when I tried to take her to get Eldoon's. But there was some sort of insecurity that was welling up under that gaze, because I knew I'd never be perfect in her eyes.
"Don't you get stressed out trying to make everything perfect?" I looked up from the smooth rocks of the patio to the beautiful view afforded by Franziska's estate. It was so perfect that it seemed fake, almost, like a really beautiful flower that's about to wilt.
"Stress is the ally of excellence."
"Do you not have a single thing that you let yourself be bad at, though?"
"Of course. I do struggle with perfectionism." She smiled.
"Besides that. You don't have a single thing you like to do that you're bad at?" I asked, cheeks puffed up.
"It's impossible to enjoy doing something you're bad at," she reasoned.
"For you, maybe. But I suck at doing your nails, and I still love doing them. I can't swim, but I still love thrashing around in the water. I can't... " I paused for a moment and grinned. "Franziska, can you sing?"
"I leave the creation of music to professionals."
"You can't sing! This is great." I tried to move my hand, but Franziska held it with ferocity.
"Don't smudge your nailpolish. Anyways, I am perfectly capable of singing with the proper amount of practice, as I can do anything I set my mind to."
"Have you never sung before?" I asked, attempting and failing to raise an eyebrow.
"Of course I have! It's simply a foolish activity for someone my age to partake in."
"It's okay if you're not good at it! Nobody will know but me."
"I am not going to sing."
"Franziska, you don't have to be perfect at everything. I just want you to be not perfect at one thing. I'm not perfect at a whole lot of things!"
"But isn't that why you like me in the first place?"
"What, your perfectionism? No. I like you because you're determined, and you're cute, and you can beat people up physically and mentally while looking cute. I don't like you because you beat yourself up over every little mistake you make."
"I don't want to sing."
"You don't have to sing, but I just want you to make a mistake. On purpose."
"It isn't really a mistake if you do it on purpose."
"Purposely set yourself up to fail, then." I smiled. "Please?"
"What is the point?"
"Because screwing up can be really fun, and really freeing." I looked into Franziska's eyes, and she stared back. It was some sort of an awful staring contest where I knew I was going to lose, but eventually she heaved a sigh.
"What should I sing?"
"I dunno." I thought for a second and grinned. "Something really romantic and cheesy."
She started singing a hint of something and then stopped, face overcome with nervousness. "I'm the only one here. I'm not going to judge you or anything," I reassured her.
We sat there uncomfortably for about a minute or two as she gathered up the nerves to sing, my nailpolish long dry but being protected from harm in her hand anyways.
"Really romantic and cheesy?"
"Yup."
Another minute. At one point she took a deep breath and breathed it right back out. It was hard to imagine how hard it was for her- I was used to doing dumb things out of sheer instinct.
Eventually, something resembling a melody came out, soft and really off-pitch but beautiful anyways. "A-All of me loves all of you… All your curves and all your edges, all your perfect imperfections."
Man, this was my jam. My awful cheesy love song jam. I joined in, much louder and much worse sounding, and she smiled a little. "Give your all to me! I'll give my all to you. You're my end and my beginning, even when I lose I'm winning..." I beamed, and the next part of the song sounded like a screaming goat's mating call, and I laughed. Franziska laughed a little too, a look of wonder in her eyes.
"Isn't it fun?" I asked.
"It's you. You're the one making this foolish activity enjoyable." Franziska was blushing.
"Franziska! You're actually having fun!"
"I have fun a great deal of the time!" I leaned over to hug her. "You're going to mess up your nail polish," she protested.
"I think it had more than enough time to dry." I kissed her on the cheek.
"All that, and you don't even kiss me on the lips?" She smirked.
"I was scared you'd bite me or something if I got too wild." I laughed, and she let out one contented huff that half resembled a giggle. Her lips met mine a little too softly, so I ran my fingers through her hair and pulled her face closer to mine. She pulled away about an inch from my lips.
"You'd better be right about that nailpolish being dry."
"Yes, dear." She stopped resisting just as I leaned in to kiss her, and our teeth collided. Franziska's hand lost contact with the ground and she fell backwards, the back of my hand sparing her head from colliding too roughly with the ground. "Perfection," I said, grinning, and she actually laughed. I leaned down on top of her and locked lips with her again, my tongue making sure her teeth hadn't shifted since the last time I'd run an in-depth evaluation of the inside of her mouth. They hadn't, but I made sure to double check anyways.
Happy and star-struck, I caught a glimpse of something purple out of the side of my eye and realized the little bottle of nailpolish was dripping all over the patio. "Oh, shoot," I said, sitting up.
"Hmm?" Franziska was still somewhat entranced, but she managed to sit up too. She saw the pool of purple and groaned. "That'll take an eternity to clean up."
"Huh? Do you not know how to clean up nailpolish?" I asked, amused. She apparently didn't, so I ran inside and found the sugar jar, and ran back to the scene of the crime, plopping down next to my girlfriend. I poured the sugar on top of the offending stain, and almost immediately it began clumping up. "See? Easy. It's funny how much people like me learn when they make mistakes all the time." I ran my hand through it and it had already completely absorbed the nailpolish, wiping away easily.
Franziska stared in disbelief. "I don't understand."
"Me neither! Isn't it great?"
Franziska sighed. "You're always full of surprises."
"Do you like it that way?" I asked.
"Sometimes." She smiled a little. "Sometimes I don't, but they always seem to work out well in the end. But it can get quite stressful."
"Are you saying I stress you out?" I asked, grinning.
"Yes. But it's worth it." She rested her head against mine.
"Honestly, sometimes I wonder whether I'm perfect enough for you," I said, staring at the ocean far in the distance.
"And why would you worry about that?" Franziska asked.
"I don't know. You just do your striving for perfection thing, and I'm just… Me."
"Haven't you discovered by now that I'm rather vocal about the things I dislike?" Franziska turned to look at me, but my eyes were still focused on a boat in the distance.
"I mean, yeah."
"If I didn't like you, I would tell you."
"I'm not worried about you disliking me. I'm worried that you don't love me, I guess. Because I make a lot of mistakes, and I don't strive to be perfect or anything."
"Maya Fey, I would not kiss you if I didn't feel some intense compulsion to. I do love you."
I looked at her and smiled. "I love you too."
"I love your childlike laugh and your foolish sense of optimism, and I love how I end up feeling like a fool when I'm with you." She smirked. "You're also very cute, if I might add." Part of me didn't want to believe that all this was real, but Franziska was right: If it wasn't, and if Franziska really didn't love me, our relationship would've crumbled long ago.
I smiled. "You are a fool, you know."
"I've discovered that we're all quite foolish in the grand scheme of things."
"Good. It's more fun that way."
Franziska smiled. "All of me loves all of you," she began singing shyly, and grinning, I joined in and sang as obnoxiously as I could. We'd barely made it till the end of the chorus until I was shut up by Franziska's lips on my own because I was just that annoying.
We were fools and we were in love and we were happy. What more could you ask for?