AN: P.S.- I was this (a pinch) close to calling it 'Why Seasons Change' as if I was going to explain how seasons change. I have not-a-clue why seasons change, outside of "the Earth spins around like a beach ball."
-Scrapbook-
Spring
She likes to stare at him during class. Maybe she thinks he can't feel her eyes on him—(he can).
When she should be crossing numbers, solving equations, Sana is peering at him from between the tips of her fingers—pretending to hold his head (or squish, depending on whether or not he had the time to make her angry again).
When Satan-sensei whacks her desk with his ruler, she flinches as it grazes the skin of her thumb. She sneaks a peek at him while Satan-sensei calls her a "useless baka-fish" amidst her apologies. He doesn't look at her, but his eyebrows twitch—a special something only she catches. It means he wants to kick someone—a special something only she knows.
...During break, he pulls her to the side and holds her face in his hands, suspiciously asking if she wanted any special favors.
When she kisses him on the cheek and declines ("It's okay, because I like fish," was her reasoning, "If he called me a leek then I might be mad") he doesn't look convinced. At all.
...It's not an accident when Satan-sensei comes in the next day to find a hole in his desk, amidst a disarray of shoeprints.
When the flirty transfer boy asks her for her number, she doesn't need to look at Hayama to know he's secretly monitoring them from the corner of his eye.
...A few days later, Sana wonders if it's a coincidence that the transfer student opens his bento to find all his sushi missing.
Summer
She likes to stare at him while they're resting on their stomachs atop his backporch. Maybe she thinks he can't feel her eyes on him—(he can).
When she eats watermelon, the juices dribble down her chin, to which he wordlessly puts a napkin on her face.
...He doesn't know that she does it on purpose, just so when he kisses her it'll taste like watermelon (though he does notice that almost all their kisses remind him of fruit).
When the sunlight becomes especially oppressive, and the fabric on her back sticks to her sweaty skin like a moist tissue, she knows what kind of thoughts he's having.
...It was a mistake to wear white. He splashes water on her shirt the entire afternoon.
When she falls asleep on the crook of his shoulder, he doesn't tell her his entire arm went numb for an entire hour. He doesn't say anything to her about how he kissed her in her sleep as payback, either.
...(Though it would explain why she was suffocating to death in her dream).
When night falls, the air feels wet when he bikes her home, her arms around his waist and her chest pressed tightly against his back.
...She doesn't know why she feels warmer than she had under the sunlight.
Autumn
She likes to stare at him after they've fought. Maybe she thinks he can't feel her eyes on him—(he can).
When he finds Naozumi's picture inside her wallet, he doesn't say anything to her about it—even if he leaned away when she tried to rest her head on his shoulder.
...Sana figures it out, eventually—especially when she finds the picture and discovers someone had drawn a Hitler mustache on Nao's face.
When she tries to bake him a cake for his birthday, they wind up in another brawl when he says "this thing," gesturing towards the cake, "looks like it came out of Kamura-san's butt." Within minutes, Satan-sensei opens the door and finds the entire classroom dripping in cake batter.
...It is good his attention is on the mess, and not on Hayama (who had his very angry girlfriend pinned to the ground while he kissed the cake mix off her cheeks).
When she waits for his apology, it never comes.
...She wants to hear it—even if she's already forgiven him.
Winter
She hates being sick the most, because she can't stare at him when she's in bed, feverish as a poison mushroom and drinking apple juice through a purple straw.
When she tells the crack in her ceiling, "I'll bet he misses me", she doesn't know that he's in class fighting sleep, with his forehead pressed against the desk telling his pencil, "I'll bet she's faking it."
...She's happy when she sneezes three times in a row, because it means he's thinking of her too.
When her fever starts inching toward critical degrees, she thinks she's hallucinating when she feels his hands—cold, cold hands—brushing the hair off her face and gripping her warm, clammy fingers. She thinks she's dreaming when she feels his lips pressing against her forehead.
...She's not.
When she's lying in bed at night, shivering in icy sweat and radiating campfire-heat, she doesn't know he's lying right beside her. She doesn't know he has his arms wrapped around her waist, or how intimately their bodies are pressed together and their legs are intertwined. He leaves after her fever breaks, but before she awakens.
He never tells her about this—even when she asked him "Is it my fault?" after he went on sick leave for the next two days. "Stupid girl," he said, "I didn't even touch you while you were sick."
...She didn't believe him (he couldn't have known that she was actually awake through half the night).
Sometime in between
She likes to stare at him in her dreams. Maybe she thinks he can't feel her eyes on him—(he can).
When she sleeps, he kisses her so softly that she thinks of cherry petals tickling her lips.
When he sleeps, she whispers nonsense in his ear so softly that sometimes, he only pretends to be asleep so he could hear her say "IloveyouIloveyouIloveyoutheskyisblue."
Somewhere between the seasons, they finally lock eyes.
This time, neither of them looks away.
-Fin-