#d96

Chrome Dokuro was thrust into immense anxiety before she could have ever objected to the massive pile-up of essays and homework glaring at her even when her head pressed hard into her pillows and covers. There were no options of running away presented to her, no chances to find little loopholes in her education everyone seemed more keen on than herself.

There were too many who cared about him. Too much noise before the final alarm by the bed where mussed, blond, hair turned over underneath the layers of heavy blankets tangling a muscular form in their grasp.

Groans filled with agony, the weak pull of sitting up when all he wanted to do was flop back down and forget college ever happened with a stroke to messy locks. Studying made him ache, made his head throb by morning worse than any hangover he'd crawled out of. And the swarm of his homework under the bed had toppled out of his satchel by then. The opened case spilled out all over the floor as his arm fell off the edge of the mattress just to feel around for the blaring sound of his clock truly forcing Dino Cavallone out of his warm bed.

"Dino, do you need a ride?" Was the first words he heard that morning. The shouting, the hushed panic of thundering steps of men just dying to be the best assistant they could be before 10 am.

He was hardly able to stand, but everyone else was already gathered by the door waiting to see his exhausted face again. To see the dark circles and that less than pretty boy glow he emitted before 12 in the noon time. Dino loved college, but what he loved more was a serious break in the monotony.

Chrome couldn't remember all the fairy tales she had read, but this wasn't exactly one of them. It was on the tip of her tongue the entire time; her mind harping to their story since day one when it was like she sat there dreaming. Shyness through her eyes away from his form in the study hall nervously because if he saw her staring then it was all over. 

She never thought about him that way before until it was all coming down to chance. 

The chance that he so happened to be in the same place almost all the time, the coincidence that he just so happened to be handsome, and the reasonably possible way that he always knew the right thing to say after stumbling over his own legs and plowing straight into the tiled floors so clumsily and without a care.

To be honest, she never saw anyone that way. Dino was just foolishly similar to the same pains she thought she could feel too. His eyes would droop before class. His only breakfast was whatever he could stuff in his mouth before he was hounded about making his way out of the brilliantly red car by the school's campus Chrome people watched daily.

His books were crammed with papers, and his hands teeming with restless trembling that came when one student breathed word of a quiz he was certain he would fail. 

It was, frankly, something she had never before laid eyes on. The concept that someone so different could be so alike to her. 

When he waited next to her, he liked to talk, his idle stance by the shaded wall so simple that she couldn't find meaning in why he'd be so close. The garden nearby flowing with stones and clear water, roses peaking out between tall posts that had strewn themselves over the lawn so vast that Dino could have waited anywhere else before his classes.

But he chose to see her instead.

"It doesn't seem like you got any sleep either," His voice made a point to chuckle slightly as he formed out a small yawn, his back leaning further to the stone wall as his guest looked up to him from her smaller shape on the green. "I can't afford another test failed though."

She wanted to offer him so much because her heart said she should. Coffee for his sleeplessness, notes for the tests he'd missed tossing and turning, an apology because she was just standing in his way of the blotchy shade while the sun started to creep along his back.

But her nerves refused to stop leaping out of her skin. It was like Chrome were stuck on one line- and saying sorry again and again seemed so silly while she fidgeted in a small blush faced away from his mocha eyes. 

Loose curls fumbled over the face that was slowly sinking back into that sleepy gaze he tried to force away even when it was all just forged from rolling straight out of bed. She could sense his playful nature seeking to come out as he snickered when she glanced at him holding back a powerful yawn where he stretched out tall along the stones.

"I don't mean to bother you if I am,"

"No...not at all,"

Dino noted the immediate response as though he had gotten the reaction he had wished for. Her speech was relaxing, her tension fading with subtle steps toward bells in the distance like it tolled for them to follow upon a path leading away. Her skirt ruffled, legs moving slowly as he found it mildly difficult to realize how he stared for so long uselessly when his voice never called after her.

She was something different. A break in the loud voices and the early wake-up calls- the demanding and the coddling all escaping his mind as he fell hard to his soul for the thoughts preying on his brain thudding against his skull.

God, he was a mess, but he was melting over the slightest of things. Things like how he'd grown to feel as though the break he wanted were walking away from him in a shy duck toward her class without a word, but slender fingers offered merely a wave of closure that he jumped at.

Though there was no need for a kiss, he imagined her lips to be so soft. And there was no reason to believe they were meant to be, but Dino wondered restlessly if her hobbies were like his own- what they could share and discuss no matter where they were.

They could stay home, go for dinner- his eyes shut suddenly as he leaned into the breeze caressing his skin softly. And she was gone. Her body pale, but nowhere among the peachy earth simply devoid of further students, he took interest in as he hurried along, unable to forget the mere words she said.

Her heart was a tower, built up with walls. The walls unlike the books forming a barrier where they could speak alone among the hollow room where voices echoed. Her trembling lip like the fluttering pages turning as he leaned in, his chin touching the table as he laughed until the tint of red returned to her cheeks. If he felt so warmly, then so shall she. Her stomach turned to knots where the room seemed silent and listening. The eyes of all watching and yet obscured by the hard covers- her walls hiding how she toyed with the hem of her skirt where he could not see.

He liked what she did. His opinions light and so gentle like the way he spoke to her with a grin causing shivers along her back. 

If he wasn't supposed to be so close then why did he lean that way- his eyes locked to hers energetically as his leg bounced as though he too could stumble and fall at any moment?

Wealthy, but rich in good looks. Poor in his combat, until he was frothing mad and determined the way she'd seen, but he was a gentle giant with his face beginning to blush as Chrome managed to form such a kind conversation. The friend he'd sought among the endless hours of monotonous work, but never found among strangers and students.

"I always wanted to learn more about you," He breathed so gently behind the books still covering their speech. "You're quiet, so I never heard anything about you."

"I-I'm just myself."

Words around her caught her eyes; the flashing phrases of textbooks and notes alike that surrounded her making her hallucinate things like "affection," "tenderness," -

"Then I like you," 

Her face was timid at the response- her body recoiling with a small gasp Dino replied to in an urgent raise of his hands and brows. 

"N-Not like that yet- o-or anything!" He spoke as though he were falling apart at the thought of romance so soon. His brain scrambling for better words as Chrome started to leave, but only so he could not see how she blushed so madly. How her ears, neck, and shoulders spread with the dusky pink as she escaped and told him they would see each other again.

They did. They saw each other often, whether it be the looks they shared in the hallways when she had yet to face the truths- the truths that she blushed endlessly at his face. All the times they shared out on the greens just trying to keep up that same, energetic, pace he had with all the bumps and the bruises she treated with a shy smile.

The moments together she adored so much it gave her chest a tightness impossible to shake. Like the shake of her head, her hands, her body that learned the cold was no match for sharing in his jacket loaned to her and on the hook just waiting for him in her lonely apartment spiced with little touches now.

His notes spilled on her desk. The clutter that made home a little more home. His hair tie when hers was misplaced and nowhere to be found as shaggy locks fell loose and brought about that timid nature all over again.

It was every detail. Everything. It all meant the very world to her when Chrome Dokuro sat alone just gazing at her books that didn't bring about the same, little, grin she gave when he appeared over the pages looming like a shadow and in baggy tees, jeans- it all was as carefree as his self.

That's why she liked him. 

But it wasn't a game of guessing reasons why, not a list of excuses to find the courage to just speak to him like he was more than the friend she always wanted- not another journal to express the feeling of happiness that pounded out of her chest and lips when he asked her to lunch a hundred times- but the notion that all these things built up into the one time it all mattered more than any moment they ever shared.

When his voice was draped in a veil of shyness. The loop of his hand over his mouth just to muffle the way he coughed nervously and shivered like he was facing a summer cold across the table. 

He'd asked her to lunch a hundred times or more, but not with his hand crossing the border of wooden planks to skin. Smooth knuckles that jolted faintly when they were warmed by his hold- eyes flustered yet fixated on the dust of blossoming pink Dino didn't want to hide until her face was stirred up with shock.

"I-I-" Where were his big boy words now? The proud, dauntless, attractive- the point is, Dino Cavallone without a single thing to say as he watched Chrome Dokuro fidget in her seat and still master that wondrous smile. 

While his courage could falter, her rose up. Maybe it was him. Maybe he gave her the reason to light up like that- glowing as his hand latched to hers tightly and didn't wish to let go when he finally managed the words he felt he should say.

"If you want to go somewhere after class today," Dino tried, trailing a bit as her head tilted, violet locks dripping along her neckline. Delicate fingers lacing slowly around his in the caress of a gentle breeze somewhat like her expression.

Light, breathless, the elegance of nature itself as she held back that timid gaze. "I would love to take you."

"That sounds...wonderful- b-but you don't need to do that!" Chrome insisted, her voice faltering as she suddenly reiterated again. "I would love to go."

"I-If you want to."

"I wanted to learn more about you," Dino wanted to say, but he didn't. But he learned so much about her. The way she smiled, her radiance, her tastes- how she cringed at spicy foods, but laughed when she was cherry red.

Her hand held everything she passed- grazing railing, lamp posts, stands, and his hand that sweat when it pressed between her knuckles softly. He learned that she adored sweets, but wasn't picky.

She couldn't blow a bubble with her gum, but it was cute to watch her try, and cuter to see her try and dance in the shaky movements he provided in the corner of the park to faded radio music straight out of his cell.

He was a clutz, she knew- stumbling over heart, words, and steps when clashing with her calmness. That innocent gaze shattering his tough guy act when they learned the moves together, slowly, getting better with the days and the minutes passing until it all came to the moment blurred in time.

Frozen. Clockwork paused just to have her forehead leaned to his in a bend so he could see those deep eyes through wispy bangs. Arm around her, embraced in his warmth with the jacket she adorned in both their scents. Fur-topped, tickling her nose as she buried it into him sweetly and watched him melt into the feeling. 

If there had been a time, that was it. To repeat what circled in his head- harping at him, singing out like a siren's call as Dino muffled his voice into her hair.

"I wanted to learn more about you," He breathed nervously, heart thudding hard even against Chrome's fragile form. "And I love every single thing."

His lips moved to her cheek, hands feathering through the intricate touch of her bangs that fell right back into place when she gaped. Lost in the bliss of his warm lips touching to her skin and leaving that gentle peck.

The affectionate graze of his palms rubbing past her neck as he didn't want to let go. Dino Cavallone smiling so hard that she slammed herself back into his hold and wouldn't let go. Not until he walked her home. Not until he was at her door, and not until he said he would get to see her again.