Someone’s playing a cruel prank on her and frankly, Kitty’s sick of it. Sure, the first few weeks she’d understood–torn notes, stolen gym clothes, weird plants in her locker, it’s run-of-the-mill new kids treatment.
But they’re three weeks in and the flowers are still streaming in like it’s Day 1. She’s pretty sure Q is collecting the petals behind her back, even though she tells him not to.
“Some of these are rare!” he protests as he shoves them into his backpack. They’re getting crushed under the weight of all his books. “Like really, really rare!”
The first week had been camellias, according to Q. White and pink buds, delicate petals layered in a seemingly endless ring around the center. Q had swooned amidst her coughing fit.
Week 2 had brought sakurasou and a raging case of hives.
“These aren’t even native to the area,” Q had shrieked. “This is a Japanese flower–the primrose! The petals are so small… and such a pretty shade of purple!” Kitty had offered a sympathetic sniffle, her nose buried too deep in a tissue to note the delicacy.
The worst part is the allergies. Portland is a nightmare in Spring but she scrapes by with a box of Claritin and cutting her schedule in half. She only steps outside out of necessity. Having petals showered on her head every time she reaches for her textbooks is a completely different story.
And now Week 3 has brought cornflowers, if Q’s expertise is to be believed.
“They’re blue,” Kitty says, picking one up by the stem. Q yelps at her lack of delicacy. “Corn isn’t blue.”
“They have a history,” he sighs at her ignorance. “And a lengthy set of meanings too.”
“Pretty sure I don’t need a dictionary for that one,” she laughs. “This must be the Korean way of saying fuck you and get out of our school.”
Q’s responding smile is strained.
“You gonna take them again?” she asks. He shrugs guiltily in response but he’s already reaching for the stems.
“It’s a pretty shade of blue,” he says by way of explanation and Kitty shakes her head.
“If you wanna keep the creepy, stalker flowers, that’s all you. It’s like they know my schedule too because they always sneak them in when I’m at classes! Anyways, same time, next week?”
Q grins and bumps his fist against hers in response.
“Sweet Williams?” she echoes on Week 4. Q nods back violently. “Doesn’t look much like a William to me, haha!”
Her joke is received with silence because Q is on 4 hours of sleep and traded in his humor for brawns at birth.
“Okay… or not,” she finishes and tosses the bundle in his direction because she knows he’ll scoop them up off the floor anyways. He’ll probably give them to Florian too and the poor guy won’t even know they’re second-rate.
“Sweet Williams,” he echoes dully and Kitty doesn’t even know if it’s the flowers or last class’ lecture that sucked the life out of him. Professor Lee can be draining on a good day and Hades-soul-sucking-levels-of-evil on a bad one. “I think I’m starting to get it.”
“Get what?” Kitty prods but Q just stares at her blankly in response. “What’s there to get?”
He studies her in the crappy hallway lights, gaze swinging like a pendulum between her and the lockers and back to her again.
“I don’t know. I’m not really sure what there’s here to get.”
Week 5 brings honeysuckles that litter the ground when she reaches for her history textbook.
“Seriously?” she yelps, grinding one underfoot as she fishes for a pencil. “Again?!”
The sneezing starts up again just as Eunice and her posse walk by. They smother their disdain the same way that the Korean haminis do when she walks in the streets with a crop top–that is, not at all. Kitty looks up at the sky and wonders again, why her?
“It’s like they’re trying to make me look stupid,” she says and doesn’t even feel bad when her locker slams shut on a petal, tearing it in two.
“No,” Q mumbles when he thinks he’s out of earshot. “You’re definitely not the one that looks stupid here.”
There are no flowers when she opens her locker on Week 6 and she nearly cries from the relief. Finally, her anonymous-stalker-slash-creep-slash-weirdo-who-only-communicates-passive-aggressively-via-flowers has chosen to let her live in peace.
She closes her locker and nearly screams. Yuri is standing in the open gap, leaning against the wall with a flower in her hand. She’s cupping it like a candle flame, like she’s shielding Kitty from it. Or maybe shielding it from Kitty?
“Please,” she says and there’s desperation edging into her voice. She nudges the stem in her direction with a flick of her wrist.
Record scratch. Rewind. That’s a flower in her hand. That means Yuri’s been the one leaving her flowers? Yuri’s been the one leaving her hate messages, telling her to get out of her school?
“You have to know what this one means,” Yuri says and she sounds tired, like she’s been stretched out on a hanger for weeks and left out to dry.
She sighs and unfurls her hand to reveal a bright red rose behind it. Oh. Oh.
Red roses–Kitty’s seen those ones before. In shojo mangas and chickflicks and every convenience store within a two-mile radius before Valentine’s Day.
“That’s… not an ‘I-hate-you’ flower,” she says slowly. Yuri shakes her head in response and the smile tugging on her face looks worn.
“It’s an ‘I-like-you-please-go-out-with-me’ flower, Kitty,” she replies.
“Oh.” Behind her, Q gives an awkwards two thumbs-up. He knew, she realizes belatedly. She shoots him an angry why-didn’t-you-say-something look and he gives her a half-shrug with his jaw set out in response. “Oh.”
“You don’t have to force yourself to say yes out of pity. I–”
“No!” Kitty’s always had a tendency to leap before she looks and her mouth tumbles on forwards before her mind has time to catch up. “I mean–no, I, ugh! What I’m trying to say is you’re smart and beautiful and you never have a hair out of place and you saved my tourist ass when I was stranded in the airport on that first day. And you’ve helped me carve out a space for myself at KISS and made me feel like I really might belong, even when the whole universe seemed to be telling me otherwise. I think I would’ve packed my bags and given up by now, if it wasn’t for you.” Yuri’s smile has tumbled out into a full-blown thing and Kitty sucks in a deep breath before continuing.
“I guess what I’m trying to say is that I didn’t know someone like you could like someone like me.”
“Surprise?” Yuri says. Her lips are half-hidden behind the rose but Kitty can still make out her smile.
“Are you free Saturday?” Kitty asks suddenly because she’s overcome with the urge to nail this down now, to put a ring on her finger before she can change her mind. She has six weeks to make up for and Kitty Song Covey doesn’t do things halfway. Yuri blinks at her.
“I think so?”
“Then it’s a date! I’ll bring you flowers–what’s your favorite kind?”
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FILL: Team Kittyuri
Date: 2024-06-21 12:50 am (UTC)Word Count: 1224
------------------------------
Someone’s playing a cruel prank on her and frankly, Kitty’s sick of it. Sure, the first few weeks she’d understood–torn notes, stolen gym clothes, weird plants in her locker, it’s run-of-the-mill new kids treatment.
But they’re three weeks in and the flowers are still streaming in like it’s Day 1. She’s pretty sure Q is collecting the petals behind her back, even though she tells him not to.
“Some of these are rare!” he protests as he shoves them into his backpack. They’re getting crushed under the weight of all his books. “Like really, really rare!”
The first week had been camellias, according to Q. White and pink buds, delicate petals layered in a seemingly endless ring around the center. Q had swooned amidst her coughing fit.
Week 2 had brought sakurasou and a raging case of hives.
“These aren’t even native to the area,” Q had shrieked. “This is a Japanese flower–the primrose! The petals are so small… and such a pretty shade of purple!” Kitty had offered a sympathetic sniffle, her nose buried too deep in a tissue to note the delicacy.
The worst part is the allergies. Portland is a nightmare in Spring but she scrapes by with a box of Claritin and cutting her schedule in half. She only steps outside out of necessity. Having petals showered on her head every time she reaches for her textbooks is a completely different story.
And now Week 3 has brought cornflowers, if Q’s expertise is to be believed.
“They’re blue,” Kitty says, picking one up by the stem. Q yelps at her lack of delicacy. “Corn isn’t blue.”
“They have a history,” he sighs at her ignorance. “And a lengthy set of meanings too.”
“Pretty sure I don’t need a dictionary for that one,” she laughs. “This must be the Korean way of saying fuck you and get out of our school.”
Q’s responding smile is strained.
“You gonna take them again?” she asks. He shrugs guiltily in response but he’s already reaching for the stems.
“It’s a pretty shade of blue,” he says by way of explanation and Kitty shakes her head.
“If you wanna keep the creepy, stalker flowers, that’s all you. It’s like they know my schedule too because they always sneak them in when I’m at classes! Anyways, same time, next week?”
Q grins and bumps his fist against hers in response.
“Sweet Williams?” she echoes on Week 4. Q nods back violently. “Doesn’t look much like a William to me, haha!”
Her joke is received with silence because Q is on 4 hours of sleep and traded in his humor for brawns at birth.
“Okay… or not,” she finishes and tosses the bundle in his direction because she knows he’ll scoop them up off the floor anyways. He’ll probably give them to Florian too and the poor guy won’t even know they’re second-rate.
“Sweet Williams,” he echoes dully and Kitty doesn’t even know if it’s the flowers or last class’ lecture that sucked the life out of him. Professor Lee can be draining on a good day and Hades-soul-sucking-levels-of-evil on a bad one. “I think I’m starting to get it.”
“Get what?” Kitty prods but Q just stares at her blankly in response. “What’s there to get?”
He studies her in the crappy hallway lights, gaze swinging like a pendulum between her and the lockers and back to her again.
“I don’t know. I’m not really sure what there’s here to get.”
Week 5 brings honeysuckles that litter the ground when she reaches for her history textbook.
“Seriously?” she yelps, grinding one underfoot as she fishes for a pencil. “Again?!”
The sneezing starts up again just as Eunice and her posse walk by. They smother their disdain the same way that the Korean haminis do when she walks in the streets with a crop top–that is, not at all. Kitty looks up at the sky and wonders again, why her?
“It’s like they’re trying to make me look stupid,” she says and doesn’t even feel bad when her locker slams shut on a petal, tearing it in two.
“No,” Q mumbles when he thinks he’s out of earshot. “You’re definitely not the one that looks stupid here.”
There are no flowers when she opens her locker on Week 6 and she nearly cries from the relief. Finally, her anonymous-stalker-slash-creep-slash-weirdo-who-only-communicates-passive-aggressively-via-flowers has chosen to let her live in peace.
She closes her locker and nearly screams. Yuri is standing in the open gap, leaning against the wall with a flower in her hand. She’s cupping it like a candle flame, like she’s shielding Kitty from it. Or maybe shielding it from Kitty?
“Please,” she says and there’s desperation edging into her voice. She nudges the stem in her direction with a flick of her wrist.
Record scratch. Rewind. That’s a flower in her hand. That means Yuri’s been the one leaving her flowers? Yuri’s been the one leaving her hate messages, telling her to get out of her school?
“You have to know what this one means,” Yuri says and she sounds tired, like she’s been stretched out on a hanger for weeks and left out to dry.
She sighs and unfurls her hand to reveal a bright red rose behind it. Oh. Oh.
Red roses–Kitty’s seen those ones before. In shojo mangas and chickflicks and every convenience store within a two-mile radius before Valentine’s Day.
“That’s… not an ‘I-hate-you’ flower,” she says slowly. Yuri shakes her head in response and the smile tugging on her face looks worn.
“It’s an ‘I-like-you-please-go-out-with-me’ flower, Kitty,” she replies.
“Oh.” Behind her, Q gives an awkwards two thumbs-up. He knew, she realizes belatedly. She shoots him an angry why-didn’t-you-say-something look and he gives her a half-shrug with his jaw set out in response. “Oh.”
“You don’t have to force yourself to say yes out of pity. I–”
“No!” Kitty’s always had a tendency to leap before she looks and her mouth tumbles on forwards before her mind has time to catch up. “I mean–no, I, ugh! What I’m trying to say is you’re smart and beautiful and you never have a hair out of place and you saved my tourist ass when I was stranded in the airport on that first day. And you’ve helped me carve out a space for myself at KISS and made me feel like I really might belong, even when the whole universe seemed to be telling me otherwise. I think I would’ve packed my bags and given up by now, if it wasn’t for you.” Yuri’s smile has tumbled out into a full-blown thing and Kitty sucks in a deep breath before continuing.
“I guess what I’m trying to say is that I didn’t know someone like you could like someone like me.”
“Surprise?” Yuri says. Her lips are half-hidden behind the rose but Kitty can still make out her smile.
“Are you free Saturday?” Kitty asks suddenly because she’s overcome with the urge to nail this down now, to put a ring on her finger before she can change her mind. She has six weeks to make up for and Kitty Song Covey doesn’t do things halfway. Yuri blinks at her.
“I think so?”
“Then it’s a date! I’ll bring you flowers–what’s your favorite kind?”
Yuri looks up at her shyly before she smiles.
“Catnip!”