A/N: Written for the WIXOSS bingo - the non-flash version, #128 - strawberry.

Strawberry Lips

Yuzuki's lips would have the taste of strawberries.
At least, they should.
They don't.
There's something wrong with this image.
He just doesn't know what.

She looks like his sister.
It's not right though.
None of this is right.
Not his sister.
Not the kiss they shared.
Not the want for it all to explode into something more
and God, if their parents caught them on his bed, or the couch, or the bench in the park
or the kids from school, looking for proof to what they already knew
even before...

Who bloody cared?
Actually, that was something Yuzuki would more likely say:
Yuzuki whose lips should taste like strawberries except they don't.
They don't taste like anything red. Bananas, of all things.
Yuzuki hates bananas. How mushy they are. How delicate. How quick to bruise.
If either of them were delicate, it was him, not her.
Except when it came to love, it seemed.
Except when it came to him.

He'd noticed ages ago, of course.
He was the subtle one. Not her. And too subtle because he might have been able to spare her a little grief if he'd been more obvious instead.
Maybe he should have been. Then the lips he lightly kissed would taste of strawberries like they should
in his dreams, except they don't right now and he's not in a dream but reality
and maybe this is how reality is, how Yuzuki really tastes, and he's confused because it's not quite like he imagined...

But, somehow, he knows that something else has changed as well, and it's got nothing to do with him.
At least, not directly to do with him. Maybe he'd pushed her too far, too far away, concerned about all those voices he really shouldn't have been listening to in the first place except he had
and she hadn't, because she was strong and vivacious like that, and he loved that
and wished he could be like that as well, and protect her just a little bit...

Because there's something different about Yuzuki now and he doesn't quite understand what it is.
Maybe that's why her lips don't taste like strawberries when they should.
Maybe that's why she seems more delicate, less fiery, less red.
Maybe that's why she seems to not even like red any more, because she wears it less now
and wears less glaring colours more, and he doesn't really understand why.
She says it's because she's more comfortable now, but she seems less comfortable to him.
And maybe he's imagining it but she seems to flinch every time he says her name.

There's a rumour, going around, that not all girls are who they appear and sometimes he wonders
if the girl whose lips taste like bananas is really Yuzuki, his Yuzuki, at all. Sometimes they're the same
but at other times they're so different he's sure there's something else, someone else.
But that sounds wrong too because Yuzuki is strong, and surely she wouldn't have had to rely
on something like these Selector Battles to gain his kiss
when she could have just asked him instead?