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001
ultraviolet
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It isn't very often, but sometimes Ruby swears that she's someone else under dirt, under the sweat and the scars and the callused, bruised knees.
The rest of the time, though, he tells her how beautiful, how simply radiant she could be, if she were willing to touch up her face with a dab of blush, a tad of mascara, and a hint of eyeliner.
"Ya know, I won't let ya near me with that gunk!" she screeches, jumping up and grabbing onto a skinny branch and pulling herself up, up into the treetop. Away from Ruby, of course, who will not dare disturb his precious outfit with shenanigans.
Still, he brandishes the make-up high and proud. "Just once!" he calls out. Yes, even one time would freeze a beautiful image of her in his memory. And that would be enough even for him.
"No."
He sighs and slumps at the base of the tree, dejected by her blatant refusal. "Fine then. Some other day…" She throws an apple at his head from the top branches. It hits him with a thump, and he puts a hand on his cap in pain. "Hey, what was that for?"
"You're bein' an idiot!"
"Well, you're some sort of… of barbarian!" He too crosses his arms.
And for the longest time, they just sit there in half-annoyed, half-amused silence.
When the sun begins to set, he glances up to where Sapphire sits dangling her legs from the branch and smiles to himself. She hums quietly and stares off into the distance, no longer thinking about his attempt to paint her lips the color of blood. (Not that he wants to do that, since she has lovely lips all by herself.)
He stands and walks away, off toward home. He can live with that ultraviolet image of her, framed against the setting sun, and positively glowing.
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Author's Note: This piece is the third part of the ten-portioned series 'Boxes of Chocolates'. Each encounter is a private love note, and each of the separately–published stories will cover a different shipping. Each chapter is a different drabble about the shipping; I'll do five per story, possibly more.
The full list: SpecialShipping (Ambiguous), AgencyShipping (Menial), FranticShipping (Tenacious), ChosenShipping (Exploitable), PanderShipping (Retrospective), CommonerShipping (Parametric), FeelingShipping (Harmonic), OldRivalShipping (Stoic), MangaQuestShipping (Vivacious), and HaughtyShipping (Loquacious). I'm perfectly well aware that the publishing format I ended up deciding on is annoying, but I figured that dividing it up by shipping would be the best way for everyone involved to pick and choose which ones they would like to read, without being 'exposed' to opposing shippings.
Please take a look at the others, if you like this one, and enjoy. (For the record, they won't be published until I actually finish writing the first drabble for each of them. I didn't want to spam the forum completely, so… just keep an eye open, I guess. They'll be in the order above.)
Also, I should mention that these aren't necessarily sequential. I write what I can, based on the theme I'm given.