"Now what did I do to have a son who willingly washes the dishes at six in the morning?" Anne Kennedy mused from her seat at the kitchen island. Leon wiped his hands on the oven towel before hefting himself onto the countertop by the stove, much to his mom's now-exasperation. "And now he's a teenage boy again who shouldn't be putting his butt where people make food."

"These are clean pants!"

"Butt. Down."

A sigh as loud as he could muster rattled out his chest and dropped down to stride to the other occupied seat at the island. Casey pointedly refused to acknowledge his existence as her pencil flew over the last of the algebra homework she should've finished last night, tipping her head down so her hair curtained around both her face and the worksheet.

"Need any help?"

"Mind your business," she retorted. The corner of his lips quirked up as he nabbed his phone from near the fruit bowl before he jabbed both sides of his little sister's stomach and dashed out the kitchen the second her arms flailed out.

"Leon!" Casey shrieked as he made his escape towards the living room and the backpack he left on the couch. "I don't even know how you got popular when you're so annoying!"

"Love you too!"

He slung a bag strap over his shoulder and finally took the time to sort through the litter of messages on his lock screen; team chat, team chat, Claire, team chat, Sakura, team chat, team ch—

Wait.

He scrolled back up near the top, between something about the guys begging Chris not to kill them at practice today.

Sakura: next time let's try the new crepe place at the mall [6:08 am]

Next time.

Small flutters crept up his chest. He pressed his lips together to keep from smiling too wide, and it wasn't long before his cheeks started to heat up even when no one was there to watch him. But first he needed to calm the hell down—they barely became friends last night and he still had a hard time making out all her expressions, and after donuts he was still iffy about if she was fine with hanging out outside of school.

But she said next time.

He sent quick replies to Claire and the team before backtracking to Sakura's messages, thumbs hovering over the keypad. Three weeks with each other's numbers and their history's barely longer than what he could see now, but he didn't let that deter him. She didn't seem like much of a talker to begin with, and all the times he happened to look over at her table during lunch, Shino and Kiba did most of the chatting.

He wondered what kind of crepes she liked. He preferred sweet ones himself, anything with strawberries and bonus points for chocolate. If she liked chocolate too, maybe he could get her one of those—

"Come on!" Casey's voice bounced from the front of the house. "What're you even doing?!"

"Drive if you want to leave so bad!"

"I'm glad you forgot I'm thirteen!"

Leon tucked his phone in the inner pocket of his letterman away from prying eyes and nosy sisters and grabbed the top of said nosy sister's head to steer her out the door. "Mom's still got the booster seat in storage."

She tried to swat his hands away. "You're messing up my hair, jockstrap!"

"And what are you going to do about it, snot rocket?"

"Have a good day at school, you two," Anne bid them dryly as they bickered the entire way out the door.

::

"You're smile-y today." Claire jostled his arm as she threw one leg over the bench and dropped her tray on the garishly orange table. "Spill."

"I'm always smile-y."

"Well you're extra smile-y, and that makes you suspicious." She poked him accusingly and picked up her orange. "So spill before you call me in the middle of the night because you and my equally dumbass brother needed help putting out the fire the rest of your team started under the overpass because your last brain cell already got burnt up."

"I... Okay, I'll ignore you coming after me like that." He paused. "But I appreciated you showing up with three fire extinguishers." She raised part of her orange peel in a toast. "But seriously, it's nothing. I just had a good morning."

He stuck a celery stick in his mouth and glanced around the cafeteria, and it was around this time that the freshman got used to what an eyesore it was.

The best way to describe the school? If Halloween threw up all over the building and the janitors refused to clean it. Black lockers and doors, orange along the hallways and floors unfortunately all the lunch tables, and who could ever forget all the murals of Lucky the Jackrabbit: pitch black, weirdly lanky, beady copper eyes, and front teeth that were just too sharp to be natural.

Lucky had a reputation for making kids cry by just standing at games.

The student body treasurer took bets on how many kids would cry at each event as one of their more successful fundraisers.

His gaze landed on the table under one of the staircases, wedged in the corner and completely taken over by the three people at it. Shino's back was to the bustle of students, long hair pulled up in a neat bun and wearing that baggy green jacket he was content with year round. Then there was Kiba right across from him, grinning and waving his hands around to nearly knock something over with each jab or karate chop.

And to his left, Sakura. Her backpack pillowed her arms as she stuck her nose in one of those trivia books Leon sometimes saw in gas stations.

Her head tilted before she raised her head and scanned the sea of teenagers until she spotted him.

She held a peace sign in front of her blank face.

He struggled down a snort and waved back.

"Oh. My. God."

He winced.

"You like—"

"Before you jump to conclusions like you love to do, we're just friends and I don't want to hear it."

Claire burst out laughing so suddenly the orange smushed between her fingers. "I hate to break it to you, lover boy, but if you looked at me the same way you just looked at her I'd have to knock some sense into you." He grumbled and mulishly pushed over some napkins. "Walk me down your country road of love and tell me how you went head over heels in a matter of weeks."

"Wha—Who said it only took weeks?"

She leveled him with that same look she gave Chris whenever he stole her fudge stripes. "Dude. Come on. You don't acknowledge her for forever, then you're on a project with her, and now you've got this dopey Romeo look—"

"Dopey Romeo—"

"—and I'm all over it." She shook off the orange remains off her fingers, and he was half afraid she'd actually try to eat them before the bell rang. "First, do you stand a chance? Because if you got into a fight you'd definitely lose. And second, do you know what you're getting into?"

Her voice dipped into concern that briefly sucked him back into the disaster that was his summer before sophomore year when he dated her. It was only a couple of months but the sheer thought of it still prickled his skin and felt like a sucker-punch to the gut. Claire went on a warpath when she found out what happened after the break up, and he didn't have any right to be upset at her scrutiny. She was only worried.

(She was a whirlwind who upended his life and stomped on his heart with red-soled stilettos.)

Leon chanced another quick peek across the cafeteria. Sakura's listening to whatever Kiba was saying now, one brow cocked but expression impassive like always. It was weird, because when he used to look at his ex, it was a thrill and a rush that took and took and took until it left him hollow at the end.

But when he looked at Sakura...

He turned back to his best friend and grinned. "I like her," he finally admitted, "and she doesn't hate me, so I think that gives me a pretty good chance."

Claire blinked. Slowly.

"... Fuck, I'd kill for your optimism."

(There's fifteen minutes left of lunch.

Leon doesn't notice either Kiba's or Shino's eyes occasionally burning through him for the rest of it.)

::

She liked sweet things, she mentioned after he pulled up into the mall parking lot and saw her sitting on the curb with her skateboard, the one with the moose skeleton painted on the underside of the deck. She'd also said chocolate wasn't really her thing but she wouldn't turn down any chews or hard candies, especially the fruity-flavored ones.

"So what's the best Starburst flavor?"

"Yellow."

"That's the wrong answer."

Leon thought he saw a ghost of a smile before she replied, "Yeah?"

"Pink's obviously the superior choice."

"I have enough pink in my hair for my taste," she replied dryly as they stepped into the food court this sleepy Sunday evening. He couldn't be more thankful that mandatory 'family time' lasted from morning church to early afternoon lunch, and not too long after Casey would have wheedled herself a few hours at a friend's house. That worked for him just fine; the last thing he needed was to sit through his father's gruff attitude for the one day out of the week he took off from the police station.

"That's an even bigger reason to rep it!"

"Then if I get Starbursts anytime soon, I'll save the pink ones for you." Sakura read the menu behind the counter, and he didn't need a mirror to see the light flush crawling up his neck. "Tell me what you want, I'll cover you for the burgers."

"Oh, that's okay—" one hand was already reaching for the back of his jeans— "you don't have to—"

Then she latched onto his wrist and tugged him closer without even looking. "I wasn't asking."

Only then did she turn her head, eyes boring straight into his as she plucked the wallet from his frozen fingers and slipped it into his back pocket herself. For some reason he wasn't going to think about right now unless he wanted to melt into a puddle here and now, Leon's brain refused to process both that strong grip and those eyes that were so dark he could drown in them. His thoughts kept stuttering and his words kept falling flat on their faces before making it past his tongue, and he almost tripped over his own feet when she pressed a palm against the small of his back and guided him towards the register.

He was bright red in the few steps it took to get there.

And he almost buried his face in his jacket when he realized the cashier saw everything.

"One banana crepe," Sakura said, completely indifferent to the burning embarrassment in the atmosphere as she dug out her own wallet. "And he'll have...?"

"Uh." He coughed. The cashier pressed her lips together and very politely stayed laser-focused on pressing the buttons on the register. "Str-Strawberry and nutella." He coughed. "Please."

His fingers brushed against his wrist. It was still warm.

God, he was so screwed.

::

It was around seven thirty by the time they meandered out the mall.

Sakura looked down at her phone and pulled a face he'd never seen on her before; her brow furrowed, lips downturned, and the most long-suffering exasperation breathed out in her sigh. So she could make faces like that too, huh?

"Something up?" he asked. She shook her head.

"Ah, someone I know needs me at his shop. He just texted about it."

"Is it far from here?"

"About thirty minutes on my board." Its tail lowered onto the asphalt, the wood echoing a quiet thunk in the lot. "If the sidewalks are empty, I can make it sooner."

"It'll be fastest if I drive you," Leon said. She glanced down the main road, her frown deepening.

"It's not that far."

"Even if it was, I'd still be willing."

"Won't I be wasting your time?"

He leaned against his weathered blue pick-up handed down to him by an uncle back in the Midwest, and he stole a moment to observe the picture she made. Sakura was one of the taller people in their grade and had a good couple inches over some of the team, him included. Besides her hair he'd never seen her in another bright color, and every time she brushed back the strands on the right side of her head, the black piercings she had all along the curve of her ear sometimes glinted in the sun.

Leon didn't know how he'd gone so long without giving her so much as a 'hey' in the hallway. She was aloof, quiet in that don't-mess-with-me kind of way, and never seemed interested in anything that went on around school, so maybe that was why no one else ever approached her. But ever since that day they drew the same number from a hat, every half-hearted passing thought had been proven wrong.

In those two weeks, they went to coffee shops and cheap cafes with their laptops, keyboard clicks filling up the comfortable silence between them as they traded drinks to see how many things on the menu they could try in the most cost-efficient way possible. When he got tired of analyzing and ended up on his phone for a while, he'd send her a Words with Friends match. She'd say either nothing or not much at all and played every game with him to the end.

In those two weeks, he started to like listening to the sound of her voice. Then he started looking forward to their meet-ups. Not too long after that, he started wondering about her favorite color. What kind of music she listened to. If she liked pancakes or waffles better. If maybe one day they could go out together as more than project partners.

Calling her different would've made him sound like every other cliché.

But lucky for him, he was a cheesy kind of guy.

"How could I be wasting my time if I'm with you?"

Sakura stared at him for a decent handful of seconds before her free hand flew up to her mouth to stifle her laughter. The corners of her eyes crinkled and she lit up like the twinkling fairy lights strung all over his sister's room. "You're cute, Kennedy," she chuckled. "I can see why your locker was stuffed with candy-grams on Valentine's Day."

He leaned forward. "So... does that mean you'll let me give you a ride?"

She snorted and picked up her board. "Yeah, a ride would be nice. Thanks."

As she got into the passenger seat and Leon walked around the longer way around the truck, his grin impossible to push down. Okay, so she might not have taken him seriously. Like. At all. But it was the first time he'd seen her smile so wide, and it was the first time he'd ever heard her laugh.

So, so, screwed.

(And that can't stop him from smiling either.)