Title from Girl Anachronism - The Dresden Dolls. Inspired by platehate's and patricaselina's works on AO3.

She awakens to a noise. A clattering noise. A clattering noise outside.

Yuzuki flings the blankets off of her and rushes to look out her window, amber eyes wide in curiosity. It's the middle of the night, her parents are out, and Ryousuke's most likely still asleep. Not to mention how their guards are ridiculously incompetent - it's the perfect setup for something interesting.

With the help of the narrow shafts of moonlight cutting through the bleak darkness, Yuzuki just barely catches the glimpse of a shadow darting across the courtyard. She cranes her neck to see through her window, but nothing is moving spare for the swaying flowers. Biting down on her lower lip, and praying that she won't regret this (or, somewhere in the dark corners of her mind, she wishes she will regret this, because that sounds way more interesting), Yuzuki unlatches the window and flings it wide open. She sticks her head out excitedly, strands of golden hair falling over her shoulder.

Nothing.

"... Hey," she calls out. "Hey!"

Still nothing. If she's horribly unlucky, the guards would have heard her, but they're usually asleep around this time of the night. (Oh, she knows. She memorizes these things for these specific situations. They're also heavy sleepers, so she's most definitely safe.) Gritting her teeth in annoyance, she cups her hands around her mouth and yells, this time; "Hey!"

At first, there's utter silence, just the ringing of her voice into the night. Just as Yuzuki's about to stomp her feet and maybe throw a tantrum, she hears a shuffling noise and a sound that smells strangely like something being dragged on the ground. She hastily leans over the windowsill even more, nearly half of her torso out in the air. It's a miracle she hasn't fallen out yet. "Anybody there?"

Finally, something moves in her line of sight. Yuzuki makes an excited kind of sound and focuses on where she had seen the movement. What had looked like a bush reveals itself to be a strangely-moving lump, before the... thing... (well, what else can she call it?) unravels itself to reveal a young boy, just about her age or maybe younger.

In fact - the first person she's seen who's her age and not Yuu or Chiyo.

"Down there! Yeah, you!" She calls - it's a little louder than she intended, but she does this so often that even if the guards do awaken, they'll just think she's yelling to herself again. (So long as they don't decipher the words, of course.) The boy looks up at her, looking slightly intimidated. "What're you doin' here?"

"I-I'm not a robber or a thief or someone who's gonna hurt you!" the boy squeaks out in a single breath. "I-I mean-I just-"

"So then, what's your name?" Yuzuki interrupts, resting her chin on the edge of her palm as she props her elbow up on the windowsill. It's not like she was feeling particularly sleepy, anyway. "And you didn't answer my question! Why're you here?"

"I-I would've answered you if you hadn't interrupted me-"

"Name!" Yuzuki barks.

The boy flinches. "I'm, um, Wakamatsu Hirotaka!"

A pause. How had he even pronounced all of that so easily? Yuzuki shrugs. "Okay, Waka, whatever. So, hey, Waka-"

"D-Don't call me that!"

"Waka, why're you here? That's the third time I asked you that! Answer me!"

Wakamatsu... no, it's too long. Waka. Waka draws himself up indignantly, frowning up at her. "Well! Um, I..." Then he seemingly retreats back into his shell, all shy again. It's kind of cute, Yuzuki thinks. "... I got hurt. And... And people were chasin' me, so... I ran here to hide for a lil'..."

"Oh, really? S'that it?" Yuzuki sighs, crossing her arms and laying her chin on them. "How boring. Oh, hey, if you're hurt, wanna come in?"

"... What?" Waka blinks, though Yuzuki can't see very clearly. She can, however, see how confused he is. "Can I really just do that?"

"I guess not," the blonde says, looking thoughtful. Then, after a little while, she says, "How're you hurt, anyway?"

"My arm really hurts. I think I'm bleeding somewhere on my leg, too," Waka says, voice growing softer.

In response Yuzuki leans out further and eyes the young boy carefully. Though faint, she can make out the scent of something metallic, which she supposes is the blood. "If you're bleeding... that means it's pretty serious, huh? Okay, I'm gonna go down."

"Wh-What?"

Before Waka can say anything else, Yuzuki's already walking out of her room dressed in only her nightgown and her fuzzy bedroom slippers. She, of course, makes sure to close her door and make it look like she locked it, before making her way down the stairs and towards the front door. When she peeks out of a nearby window, one guard is asleep, while the other looks on the brink of dozing off as well, so Yuzuki opens the door a crack and slips out before the barely-awake guard can catch her.

She runs into the courtyard, expertly dodging the watchful (?) eyes of the other guards, and finds Waka curled up into a lump again near the bushes. The metallic stench is getting stronger, and Yuzuki kneels before him, poking his arm experimentally. "Hey, you there?"

Waka yelps. He scrabbles to his feet before making a pained squeak and sitting back down, holding his right leg out. It's bleeding, alright, from a seriously big gash on his knee. Yuzuki vaguely wonders what caused it, but she doesn't really care right now. "It hurts," he says, then looks up at her with big, wide, puppy eyes. The blonde stops in place - sheesh, he's really cute, huh. "Can't... Can't you help me? Just a bit? I'll leave tomorrow morning, promise."

"Okay, sure," Yuzuki says, hoisting the boy up in a princess-carry. She isn't particularly careful about how she does it, though, as Waka lets out a cry that would have woken up half the mansion if Yuzuki hadn't slapped a hand over his mouth. "Hey, keep quiet! The guards might wake up and then they'd get mad at me for sneaking out!"

"I'm more worried about what they'd do to me," Waka complains, shifting slightly and wrapping his arms around Yuzuki's neck. "Please be careful with my leg, it really hurts..." A pause. "Um... you know, you never told me your name."

"Oh." Yuzuki carefully steps over a tree root. "It's Seo Yuzuki. Not like it really matters, but."

"Alright." He nods. "Please be careful on me, Seo-san."

"How old are you?" Yuzuki asks, her eye twitching.

Waka blinks confusedly. "Six, Seo-san."

"Hah!" She points at him dramatically, which leads to poor Waka nearly falling down onto the grass. "I'm seven, so that means you should call me Seo-sempai!"

"... But... But I thought the '-sempai' is only for students in school, or something. And I'm not a student, nor are we in a school."

"Yeah, but." She hesitates. He's right, about the second part, at least - she's definitely a student in school, though it's not like she likes it. "It's always Seo-san this, Seo-san that, and Seo-sama there. I'm sick of it!" She stomps her foot for emphasis, though that causes her to lose her balance and nearly fall sideways onto the grass. She does drop Waka, though, who makes a sound that vaguely resembles a dying animal. Yuzuki scoops him back up in her arms, undeterred. "Only Yuu and Chiyo ever call me by just Yuzuki! So. Call me Seo-sempai. It's new, and I've never heard it before. You get to be special, Waka, don'tcha like that?"

"Please don't drop me again, Seo-sa-" A pause. "Seo... -sempai."

Yuzuki grins broadly. "That's better. Keep it that way."

Yuzuki wakes her personal nurse in the middle of the night and points at Waka, who'd fallen asleep sometime through her trek in the mansion. Must have been when she had started humming along to her steps, but she can't quite remember right now. In any case, she makes the nurse pinky-promise not to tell her parents or Ryousuke about this, and just help Waka out. After that, she sits on a stool in the infirmary, watching Miyako help Waka with his injuries.

She dozes off somewhere ten minutes in, having gotten bored, but when she wakes up, she's back in her room. Her door's locked and everything. The digital clock on her table reads nine in the morning, and she idly thanks whatever deity that today is Sunday. Immediately, Yuzuki hops off her bed and runs down the hallway in her bare feet, dodging maids left and right before bursting into the infirmary, eyes wide in excitement. "Waka!"

The empty beds greet her. Miyako walks out from the back room, not looking entirely surprised at the young blonde's appearance. "Yuzuki-sama? Wakamatsu-kun left early this morning. Said he couldn't impose, though I did try to let him stay until you woke up."

"Where's he now?"

"He didn't tell me, so I wouldn't know." Miyako places a stuffed tanuki on her table, humming to herself all the while. "Ah, yes. I believe Sakura-sama is arriving soon?"

The next time they meet is three days later. It's also at a more reasonable time to be up and about.

It's three in the afternoon and Yuzuki's singing along to a song on the radio with the window open to let the breeze in. (Her parents had insisted she throw the old thing away, but Yuzuki loves it, however bad the audio can get with static and even if it's ridiculously bulky. Sentimentality, maybe, but she loves her iPod too, so it's not really the same thing.) The song gets to its chorus and Yuzuki belts the lyrics out by memory, tapping along to the beat with her fingers.

Something thumps outside. In seconds, Yuzuki's abandoned the radio and has her full attention outside the window once more, peering downwards. For a moment, nothing moves or makes a sound and then-

She hears a snore.

Yuzuki's eyes narrow. Her vision zones in on a mysteriously-colored bush - no, a lump... a person. A boy.

The blonde rushes down the hallway, down the stairs, and throws the doors open, consequently smacking a poor guard in the face. Yuzuki could care less; she's still running when she arrives in the courtyard and trips over the unmoving lump, eliciting a yelp from both of them.

"Waka! You're back!" Yuzuki yells excitedly, jumping about as soon as she climbs back on her feet. Her legs have grass stains and blotches of mud all over them, but she can barely bring herself to care. "What is it? D'you forget something here?"

"That's not it! And don't just - just run over me, Seo-sempai!" Waka protests, rubbing his back as best as he can. "An-Anyway! I didn't forget anything here, but I thought it'd be rude if I just ran away without properly thanking you for helping me in my time of need. So!" He bows, deeply and stiffly, sounding like he'd much rather just leave already. "Thank you for helping me, Seo-sempai!"

"Ah, but I didn't really do anything," Yuzuki remarks, staring at his bowing form. It's a sight she's long grown used to. "Anyway, I don't really care. Shouldn't you be thanking Miyako?"

Waka straightens, nodding quickly. "I've already given my gratitude to Miyako-san! She's very kind."

"Yeah, she is. Anyway!" The blonde grabs hold of his arm and starts dragging Waka towards the front doors. "Let's go in! I just remembered I wanna watch this cool movie, so come watch it with me!"

"W-Wait! Why should I? And Seo-sempai, please, my arm still hurts! I-I can walk! Somewhat!"

Yuzuki spares a look behind her, then shrugs. "Oh, can you? But then you'd run away from me, like last time. Don't want that happening again, do we?" Then she looks over at the front gate, where the guard is looking at her and the boy she's dragging incredulously. "Ah, don't worry," she calls. "I dunno how he got in either, but he must've climbed in or somethin'. Anyway, he's with me! So, yeah, stay away an' all."

The guard blinks, before replying; "Yuzuki-sama, Kashima-sama has informed me that his daughter will be arriving soon. Please prepare accordingly."

"Yeah, sure, whatever." Yuu? Yuzuki hadn't been expecting her, but maybe she can get her and Waka acquainted. That'd be nice. They'd get along. Hopefully. Returning her attention to Waka, who's long since given up on getting the blonde's attention, she exclaims, "My friend's comin' over later. Be nice, okay?"

"It's like I'm your pet dog now, or something," Waka replies, sounding half-irritated and half-resigned.

"That doesn't sound too bad. Hm..." Yuzuki looks over her person for a moment, then slips off a particularly expensive bracelet her parents insist she wear (for potential suitors in the future, they murmur to themselves, though Yuzuki always stuffs it in her drawer when she remembers to) and throws it over the gate. "There, Waka! Fetch!"

"What?!" the boy barks - heehee. He's cute, the blonde thinks to herself. "I'm not climbing over that gate again! It takes me ages!"

"Huh." Yuzuki shrugs. "Well, whatever. Never wanted that thing anyway. I'd rather you give me something!" She whirls around, eyes sparkling in excitement. "What about it?"

Waka hesitates, a frown crossing his face. "I..." he falters. "I wouldn't be able to get you anything good."

"Well, so long as it's from you," Yuzuki says, completely nonchalant. "I think I'd still accept it anyway."

The boy stares down at her, agape.

"You know, just so I can show it to you some time and say, 'wow, Waka, you've got no taste!'."

Wakamatsu Hirotaka reviews his life choices as he is (letting himself be) dragged into the mansion by the amber-eyed girl.

"Who's this?" Ryousuke asks, face scrunched up in annoyance. "Are you dragging in stray dogs into the house now, Yuzu?"

"You've got a point," Yuzuki says slowly, looking Waka over. The boy blushes, though she's not sure if it's because of anger or embarrassment. Probably both. "He does look like a dog. He said so just a while ago!"

"T-That was-!" He shakes his head, then faces Ryousuke. Waka stands up a little straighter, his expression more serious. "Um. It's nice to meet you. I'm Wakamatsu Hirotaka." He bows. "I'm here because of Seo-sempai, but I'll leave if you don't-"

"You're not going anywhere 'cept for where I tell you to!" Yuzuki yells, before hooking her arm around Waka's and dragging him over to her room. "Bye, Ryou! Don't tell mom and dad!"

Ryousuke stares after them over his shoulder. Waka manages to wave a goodbye and a "please excuse me!".

Yuu comes up to her room about halfway through the movie. Yuzuki's too busy laughing her skin off to notice the knocking or the exclamation of "I'm comin' in!". Waka has two blankets wrapped around him, and he's reverted to a shaking, shivering lump. Again. When Yuu enters, she doesn't even blink. Instead, she plops down on Yuzuki's other side and contents herself by swinging her legs back and forth and nodding along to the blonde's loud remarks.

When the credits roll, Yuzuki switches the television off and stands up to drag the blankets off of Waka. "Hey, hey, get up! Yuu's here! I wanna introduce you two!"

"You made a friend?" Yuu exclaims, jumping up excitedly. "Who're they? Did your mom introduce you two?"

"No way, I picked him up off the courtyard like a stray dog," the blonde responds, finally yanking the blankets away from the poor boy, causing him to roll off the couch and continue trembling violently on the floor. "Waka, come ooon! Don't you wanna get t' know Yuu?"

"H... Huh?" Waka hesitantly opens one eye, followed by the other. He leaps to his feet, eyes now completely wide open. It's likely because, of course, he sees Kashima Yuu in all her boyish beauty, and how this Kashima Yuu is also smiling very pleasantly at him. "Oh. Um." He bows. "It's nice to meet you, my name is-"

"He's Waka, this is Yuu," Yuzuki interrupts, oblivious to the way Waka's face falls. "Waka, Yuu. Yuu, Waka."

"Hello, nice to meet you, Waka-chan!" Yuu greets, swaying on the balls of her feet. (Of course, Wakamatsu Hirotaka doesn't know that she's a she. All the more amusing.) "How did you and Yuzu-chan meet?"

"No, really, my name's-"

"It was nighttime and he went to our courtyard to hide, 'cause he was being chased and he got hurt, or something," Yuzuki explains, and Yuu looking completely taken. "So I went down and brought him to Miyako, but in the morning, he ran away! He came back here just a while ago, though. Ah... and I lost that bracelet of mine 'cause of him." She points over at the stricken Waka with naught a hint of accusation in her voice. "I told him to fetch! But he didn't want to. So. I'm bracelet-less, now."

"Whaaat?" Yuu whines. "But that bracelet looked so nice on you!" She takes hold of Yuzuki's wrist and traces the outline of where the bracelet had been, almost wistfully. "And it was so expensive too. Aren't you parents gonna be mad?"

Yuzuki shrugs. "So?"

Waka hesitates. Then it clicks. "Are you two a couple?" He gasps, bringing his hands to his mouth. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to... uh... interrupt your couple time!"

"Hmm?" Yuzuki tilts her head to the side lightly. "What're you talkin' 'bout? I'm not her girlfriend." She sticks her tongue out teasingly. "Mom always tries to get me to marry her someday, but that's totally not happening. Even if they're super-rich an' all."

Yuu nods. "And also 'cause Yuzu-chan would beat me up if I tried to woo her!"

"Ah... wait." Waka pauses. "You..." he turns to look at Yuu. "You're... a girl?"

Yuu grins and nods, again, unperturbed. "Surprise!"

"But you look so much like a boy!"

Yuzuki snorts. It's rather unladylike and her parents have been trying to get her to stop doing it already, but she's far too gone. "Yuu's always got a bunch'a other rich girls around her. She knows how to juggle these ladies like a real man. Not just a boy."

"Aw, Yuzu-chan, you're makin' me blush!" Yuu giggles, cupping her cheeks with her hands.

Waka stares at the both of them unabashedly, silently wondering how they were even friends at all, before speaking slowly. "So that's... what a real man's s'posed to be? Someone who gets all the girls?"

Yuzuki nods, crossing her arms. Yuu doesn't respond, settling for smiling a smile that resembles Miyako a bit too much.

"What if you get just one girl?" Waka wonders aloud. "Does that mean you're just a boy and not a man?"

"D'pends on the girl you get, I guess," Yuzuki replies, adapting a thinking expression. "If you get Yuu, for 'xample... you'd def'nitely be a man, 'cause she's, you know, a woman. But if ya get Chiyo..."

There's a momentary silence where both Waka and Yuu lean forward attentively, even if the former has no idea who Chiyo is.

"... I dunno. That just makes me wanna beat ya up."

"W-What?" Waka yelps. Yuu starts laughing.

It becomes routinely, after a while - Waka somehow magically appears in the courtyard, just by her window, and Yuzuki notices his presence one way or another, even if Waka (according to him, anyway, and Yuzuki doesn't feel like listening to his testimonies) was just 'passing by'. Also, it appears that it's easier to see if the boy is outside at the moment if Yuzuki sings loud enough for him to hear, because he always falls asleep and his snores are loud enough to make the deaf hear.

Sometimes the guards don't allow her to leave the mansion under her parents' orders (something like getting herself dirty all the time, though Yuzuki has no idea how they find out, since she always takes a bath to get rid of the grimy evidence), and so the blonde has to entertain herself by yelling a conversation with Waka with her up above in her room and the boy sitting (or lying down) down below in the courtyard. Through that, she learns a little bit more about him - he's homeless, for one, and he doesn't have any living family members left. Yuzuki invites him to be a part of her family to make up for it, but his face always gets all red and he stammers a decline before leaving. In any case, he had lived with his family in a poor, run-down excuse of a house for some time until several shady men - people his father had borrowed money from, she later learns - arrived and proceeded to beat the money (or the lack of it) out of Mr. Wakamatsu. Waka himself ran away to escape, and ended up in the courtyard, where things began.

The years pass by like this - often, Chiyo and Yuu stay for a girls' sleepover, so Yuzuki can't invite Waka, though she does tell him what happened the next day, and when it's a girls' and boys' sleepover (though that's pretty darn rare), Yuzuki sneaks by the guards and drags Waka into the mansion. (This means they can't talk about girl stuff, but Yuzuki's fine with that, because it's not like she had a lot of stuff to talk about that was categorized under "for girls only" anyway.)

Then the suitors start coming.

The first one is when she is thirteen, Ryousuke fifteen (or is it sixteen? She doesn't quite remember, nor does she care) - her parents introduce her to a boy her age named Okada, and tell her to get acquainted with him. For a while, she's amused by the new face, but she gets rather bored easily and dares him to get on a truck for entertainment. Then the truck starts moving and, well, it's not technically her fault. She narrates what happens to Waka (who's already much taller than her, though she's still strong enough to drag him around), and the boy isn't wholly surprised.

It doesn't stop there; the suitors come and go, though Yuzuki doesn't even know they're vying for her affection to marry into the Seo family. Yuzuki pays them little attention, because it's not like she's seriously interested in most of them; they're not fun to tease like Waka (or as cute as him, she thinks, but she doesn't mention that), or as easy to get along with as Chiyo (she's fairly sure most of them are only putting up with her so they can marry her, kill her two days in, and get the money), or as... well, she's not sure how (and why) she's friends with Yuu anyway, but they are, and they get along, so there's that.

Mikorin - sorry, Mikoshiba is easy to embarrass, though, even if she doesn't do a thing. He visits at the same time Yuu is around, and the two hit it off rather quickly. That is - Mikoshiba challenges her to a number of things and loses every last one, and somehow the two of them become friends in the process. Yuzuki doesn't very much care, but it doesn't look like the redhead is interested in her at all, so it's fine with her.

On her sixteenth birthday, her parents officially give her The Talk - specifically, why the suitors are important and why Yuzuki has to seriously pay attention to them and put on her best, even if it's just an act. (She can drop the act once they get married, anyway, but with her family's power, her husband would be forced to put up with Yuzuki for the money and fame. In the end, it's a win-lose situation, Yuzuki and the Seo family getting the 'win' half.) They lecture her to dress better and act more refined, so on and so forth, and Yuzuki nods along to it all, barely paying attention.

When she gets back to her room, it's late at night, and she's damn tired from listening to boring men go on about topics Yuzuki can't bring herself to care about. She opens her window and sings the chorus of an old folk song out of habit before remembering that Waka (no, she's not a child anymore, it's Wakamatsu... no, she still can't resist calling him Waka, though she doesn't know why) barely comes over anymore. She lets out a breath and slumps against her wall, sliding her feet across the floor until she's sitting down, legs straightened in front of her.

Singing. She's always liked it, but she's also always needed some sort of motivation to sing nicely. Waka was her "motivation" way back then, so now, she doesn't have much of a reason to sing other than boredom. And she's rarely bored nowadays - at least, rarely bored in her room. God knows exactly how bored she gets every time she's dragged off into that annoyingly-decorated room to listen to suitors once more.

Tap. Tap.

The blonde's eyes fly open. Yuzuki scrambles to her feet and sticks her head out the window so far that for a split second, it feels like she's falling. There are rocks on her windowsill, she notices, but right now, she's more focused on the boy staring up at her.

"Waka? That you?" she calls. She can barely believe that he's there after nights and nights of not seeing him, not having someone to talk to about her day, not having someone to drag up to her room and watch (shitty - but she doesn't know this) movies with.

"It's me, Seo-sempai," he replies, looking fidgety. He drops the cluster of pebbles in his arms unceremoniously (Yuzuki recognizes them as the decorative pebbles from the garden - she's almost proud) and looks from side to side, clearly uncomfortable for some reason. "Um. Seo-sempai... I, uh..."

"What is it, Waka? Spit it out," the blonde says, resting her chin on her palm (just like before, way back then - but she doesn't remember this, either) while staring down at his face with the help of the moonlight. He still looks babyish, but Yuzuki can spy the serious expression he has on his face. "Or did'ja just miss me?"

Waka seems to steel himself for a moment, inhaling a large breath and slowly letting it out. Just as Yuzuki's about to snap something like hurry it up already, Waka, he yells, "Happy birthday, Seo-sempai!"

A pause. Then, "... Wha?"

"W-Well, it's your birthday today, isn't it?! July 7?" Waka cries, now looking awfully distressed. Still as cute as I remember him. "O-Or did I get the date wrong?! I couldn't have! I made sure-!"

"Stop yellin', you're gonna wake up the guards," Yuzuki replies, dangling her arms out the window and settling her chin atop the windowsill. She looks the very epitome of unladylike. "Oh, and. Thanks. I guess." She can't quite believe he came all the way here for the first time in forever to wish her a happy birthday. "But s'not like you greeted me when I was fifteen, or fourteen, for that matter. Why now?"

"Well," Waka says, looking a little prouder of himself. "I got you a present! I've been saving up and doing part-time jobs to earn the money I needed to buy your gift, which is why I've been around less." He dips his head slightly. "I'm sorry about that."

"A present?" Yuzuki cracks a lazy smirk. "Yuu gave me a box of pepper spray. You think you can rival that?"

"When did this turn into a competition?!" Waka sighs. "Anyway, I... don't think I can come in this time around, can I?" He gestures to the general direction of the front doors vaguely, his expression drooping. "I don't really know how I'm to give my present to you either if neither of us can get closer to the other..."

"Ah, then I'll jump down," Yuzuki says, slamming her fist against her open palm. She's wanted to try that out for some time, anyway, so this just makes for the perfect opportunity.

"What?!" Waka screams - looks like two years hasn't changed his tendency to panic at the slightest thing. "Don't do that! You might get hurt, Seo-sempai! And if you do that, how are you going to get up?! Aren't your front doors locked?"

"I'll climb up. And I won't get hurt, since you'll catch me," Yuzuki says confidently, already changing out of her nightgown and into a t-shirt and shorts. She's not wholly concerned about the boy below catching sight of her near-naked form, since it's not like it really means anything by this point. (The idea of them being more than friends doesn't repulse her, though - but she doesn't say that.) When she finishes, she peers downwards at Waka once more, who's clutching something between his fingers and walking back and forth, muttering something to himself. Yuzuki raises an eyebrow, before saying; "Hey, you ready?"

"W-What?" Waka looks back up, eyes wide. "Y-You're not seriously going to jump down, Seo-sempai! There's no guarantee I'll catch you, after all (but it makes his heart flutter for just a little bit on how confidently the blonde had said he would catch her, makes him feel like she's putting so much trust in him), and... well, how are you even going to climb up?!"

Yuzuki shrugs. "Dunno. I'll figure that one out later. Now, ready or not!"

One leg out, then two - and suddenly, she's falling this time, for real.

It's a feeling she can't quite put a finger on, because she can't describe it very well - it's feeling the open air below you, the uncertainty if you're going to land on your feet or break a leg, and the euphoria of simply falling free; a childish glee, among other things. She's fallen from high heights before, of course, as a child, but for some reason, it's nothing compared to this, the poetry of the situation - an amber-eyed girl jumping out of her window in the middle of the night, waiting for the boy below to catch her.

Similarly, it could also be described as her flinging herself out of her room and grinning at the utterly horrified look on Waka's face, but details, details.

But, still - when Seo Yuzuki feels the pair of warm, strong arms wrapping around her, she feels her breath hitch, her heartbeat stop, and Wakamatsu Hirotaka's face is so, so, too close to her own. They're close enough that she can reach over and count how many freckles are dusting his face, close enough to see the Caribbean blue in his eyes, close enough to brush the hair off of his forehead and press her lips on his -

She could do that, if she wants to.

But she doesn't.

Even if she wants to, even if for just a little bit - she refrains from doing so.

Golden strands of hair, loosened out of her ponytail, tickle his cheeks. The cool midnight breeze blows around them.

Wakamatsu blinks once, twice, before flushing an admirable shade of red and setting Yuzuki down, stammering something or other that both of them can't bother to decipher. Yuzuki's still stock-still, eyes a size wider than normal, one hand clutching the hem of her shirt. She isn't normally like this - come on, she tells herself, what's gotten into you, Seo Yuzuki? And she wants to reply to herself, no matter how delirious she's starting to sound - Wakamatsu Hirotaka has gotten into me.

"S-Seo-sempai?" Wakamatsu stutters. "I'm sorry! Di-Did I hurt you somehow? Wait, no, that can't be it, you've hurt me more times in my life than I to you. Ah, anyway!" He gestures to the still-open window, the curtains blowing slightly in the wind. "How are you going to get up? I've asked you this thrice already!"

It takes the blonde another second to regain her composure, or what she has that can pass for one, before she looks back up at her room. "Eh..." A pause. "You think if you carry me, and then throw me up high enough so I can hang onto the windowsill..."

"N-No way!"

In the end, they'd settled for sneaking in the storage room and using a ladder. The ladder doesn't even reach all the way up to the top, but it goes a little more than halfway, which Yuzuki supposes is good enough. They set it against the wall before the blonde remembers what she had even jumped down for.

Whirling around to face Wakamatsu, she places her hands on her sides and looks at him scrutinizingly. "Where's my birthday present, by the way? You said you had one for me."

"Oh." He blinks. "I, uh." It's obvious he hadn't been looking forward to Yuzuki remembering - if anything, she thinks he hadn't forgotten about it at all in the heat of the moment and had simply been praying that Yuzuki wouldn't remember. Well, too bad for him, she supposes. "That is..."

"Just give it to me already," Yuzuki says, her voice rising slightly into a whine. "I'm sleepy and all." That's a lie - she'd much rather stay down here in the courtyard with Wakamatsu and talk with him until three in the morning, but she isn't going to say that.

"A-Alright!" He takes a deep breath, exhales, then presents a small, rectangular box to the blonde, who raises an eyebrow. "Happy birthday again, S-Seo-sempai!"

Some small hope in the back of her mind rises up, that it's not just any box, but the box her parents have been waiting for suitors to bring out - but Yuzuki crushes that hope immediately, because engagement rings are given in squarish boxes, not rectangular ones. Nevertheless, she accepts the box with a mumbled "thanks", and opens the lid, almost tempted to tear it right off and fling it on Wakamatsu's face. (She doesn't know why, but maybe it's because she just misses him so, so much.)

Inside is something small and sparkling in the dim moonlight. It's decorated simply, bronze entwined with cerulean, and it has a pair of crystal embellishments on it. The ones her parents gave her are much better, much more expensive, much more fit for a girl of her status, but Yuzuki can't help but think that this, this is the thing that she is going to treasure.

Seo Yuzuki takes the bracelet out of its box and slips it on her right wrist. (She doesn't know this yet, but she isn't ever going to take it off.) "Um, thanks," the blonde says, looking up into Wakamatsu's bright ocean eyes once more. Something makes her want to shy away, to pull her gaze off of him and climb up the ladder, jump onto the windowsill, and hide in her room for days, but she pushes it down. She's horribly out of it today, she can tell. "Though this thing sure is damn cheap."

"Wha-?!" Wakamatsu glares at her, or what she supposes he thinks is a glare; it's nothing much but the simple narrowing of eyes and a slight frown, and he still looks adorable with that expression on, and so the menacing part of the "glare" (which it's not, it's more of a pout) is subdued by a significant amount. "I-I saved up all my pocket money in the last two years to buy you that!"

"Really?" Yuzuki turns the box over, but there's no price stuck on it, to which she clicks her tongue at. "Huh. Whatever. You have some bad taste, though, kid."

"I'm not a kid-"

"But hey, since you bought it for me already, I guess I don't have much of a choice but to wear it," the blonde interrupts, twisting the bracelet around her wrist absentmindedly. The colorless crystals glint in the faint light. "So, is there anything else? Aren't you gonna sing me a birthday song?"

"No..." Wakamatsu sighs, then perks up all of a sudden. "Oh, Seo-sempai! Speaking of singing, do you know who the famed Lorelei is?"

She does a double-take, as she had already started to climb up the ladder. "What?"

"Lorelei of Roman Academy's Choir Club!" He giggles to himself like a twelve-year-old girl getting excited over her favorite pop idols (which, Yuzuki thinks, sounds like a rather accurate description of him right now). "I don't attend that school (or any school, for that matter, but he doesn't tell this to Yuzuki), but she has an unofficial website on the internet by her fanclub and her songs are released there available for download! I'm a huge fan, and... and since I've been having some severe insomnia for a while (similarly, he doesn't mention the cause of his insomnia is the massive amount of part-time jobs he's applied for)... I listen to her songs to fall asleep immediately. It's like the work of a goddess!"

"Are you done?" Yuzuki asks uninterestedly, her voice just barely avoiding cracking. "And, uh, yeah, sure. I know my - her songs."

"I know you do!" Wakamatsu nods eagerly, his previous serious expression wiped away from his face, replaced by a look of awe. "I've heard you listen to some of her songs before. Even if you're intolerable to be around, you have good taste in music!"

"..." She sighs, before clambering up the ladder and reaching the top, to which she jumps up and grips onto the windowsill, then flips her body to land in her room, unscathed. "Thanks for the gift, and stuff. Even though it's real cheap and I could sell it for a hundred yen in school and no one would be the wiser."

"Seo-sempai-!"

She yells a "'night, Waka" down to him before closing her window shut. Looking out the corner of her eye, she can still spy Wakamatsu (she idly notices that she's mostly stopped calling him "Waka" in her head, and something deep inside of her cracks away at that realization) shouting something to her, but she can't bring herself to try and decipher the words. She sighs, flops on her bed, and lifts her arm to observe the bracelet dangling from her wrist.

There's no real light to observe it by, but it still looks so beautiful and ugly at the same time.

Can you tell how much I value Seo/Kashima? Because I do. A lot.

Slacker, 3/31/15