Heart Shaped Petals

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Ink Burns

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

This is a work of fanfiction, produced according to the principles of transformative fair use as put forward in US copyright law, and abiding by the custom and practice of fan-produced work in Japan, where the source texts were created. No author is in any way affiliated with any of the creators of the source texts, nor with the companies who distribute their products, nor any other rights holder, and these stories were not authorized by either the creators or the producers. Ink Burns is a fan site and the material here is freely provided for the enjoyment of fellow fan-community members; there is no commercial infringement.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 US license at the Ink Burns fanfiction archive (http://alltrees.org/archive/).

Published on 2007-05-16 13:56:19.

Attributions can be made by author's name and a link to the archive.

This ebook edition was published on May 16, 2012 by the Ink Burns fanfiction archive.

Heart Shaped Petals

It's graduation, and Mizuki's intentions are finally unmistakable. Romance, I-3

Yuuta supposed it was all sorts of good omens and stuff like that for the third years to graduate just as the sakura were blooming, but this year he felt just a little lost, watching the petals fall over everyone's carefully pressed uniforms.

Mizuki-san was leaving.

He walked beside Yuuta, under the trees, hands tucked into his pockets. "So, Yuuta-kun. What are your plans for the next year?"

Yuuta blinked. "You know what my plans are. We've talked about it. You're the one who wrote my training menu for the next two months."

"Not your tennis plans, your academic ones." Mizuki-san gave him a sharp look. "You'll need to keep your grades up to the mark, to join me again a year from now."

Yuuta stopped and looked at Mizuki-san with a certain exasperation. "Yes, Mizuki-san. I know that," he pointed out, as patiently as he could. "But my grades have always done just fine, here. You know that."

Mizuki-san shrugged, as if tossing something off his shoulders. "Well, I suppose so."

Yuuta's mouth tugged up at one corner. Maybe he wasn't the only one who was feeling jittery about this graduation. "I'll be fine."

Mizuki-san turned to face him, silent and inscrutable for a long moment. "Yes. I believe you will." And then his lips curled just a bit, the way they did when some plan of his was about to succeed, and he lifted a hand to cup Yuuta's cheek. "You always have so far. It's one of the things I like about you, Yuuta-kun."

Yuuta had to swallow hard as Mizuki-san's thumb brushed over his cheekbone. It was hard to catch his breath all of a sudden. "Oh... Good..." This was not the place he'd expected Mizuki-san to do something like this. He was glad Mizuki-san had, because damn it was nice to be sure, finally, but...

Mizuki-san took one light step toward him, and Yuuta's heart started going faster, and--

"Mizuki!"

Mizuki-san stepped back again, hand slipping away with a last brush of fingertips as Akazawa-senpai came around the curve of the path.

"Mizuki, are you coming with--" Akazawa-senpai broke off, brows rising slowly as he eyed the two of them.

"Ah, are we leaving already? Yes, I'll be right there," Mizuki-san said, as collected as if Yuuta wasn't standing beside him turning red.

"Sure," Akazawa-senpai agreed in a tone knowing enough to make Yuuta squirm. As he turned back down the path, Mizuki-san huffed and looked at Yuuta out of the corner of his eye.

"Perhaps we can continue our discussion later, Yuuta-kun."

"Yeah. Sure," Yuuta managed. He nearly lost his breath again at the way Mizuki-san smiled, rueful and genuinely amused for one unguarded moment.

"Perhaps you'll visit me at St. Christopher's dorms; I'll send you my room number." His fingers stroked the back of Yuuta's hand. "Until then."

Yuuta thought, watching Mizuki-san walk down the path, that that almost-promise might just have been worth the entire past year.

End