Evening Out With The Bae (Stormy)

  Stormy was having a dull day. It was dull to the point where she had legit considered throwing herself out the window for a bit of excitement. Problem was, then she'd be hospitalized and stuck in a bed for a really long time. Nooot quite worth it. Perish wasn't around at the moment, hell, she was moving out soon! Without her around, Stormy wouldn't have anyone to annoy to ease her own boredom except Takeshi who either cut her pay or beat her up. The idea of being the only employee at Himura Cafe reaaally sucked in her mind. The young red haired woman lay face down on her bed mumbling grumpily to herself when her phone rang.

...She got a call from Valo! Finally something to brighten her day! ...Not that she had a crush on him or anything... yeah right.

  His message was really cryptic, and the way he said things left lots of room for her pervy mind to misconstrue things, but knowing him, he probably didn't mean anything weird by it. Seeing as she legit had nothing else to do (besides all those chores she was pretending to be unaware of shhh) Stormy decided she'd humor him and swing by. The girl wore some of her usual attire, a cropped t-shirt, a black leather jacket, trousers, boots, and metal knuckled gloves. Seriously, more people needed to wear those.

  Upon arriving at his house her gaze seemed to completely pass over the front door and lock onto the windows. The first floor windows were probably locked... what about the second floor? She considered climbing her way up, bet hell she could probably make the jump, riiiight? Stormy walked up to the house, and taking a breath, she leaped upwards, and perched lightly on the window sill.

Just kidding.

Stormy went crashing through the window and landed in whatever part of the house was on the second floor.

"Well, that just happened," she muttered, "I'LL PAY FOR IT I SWEAR!"

   Stormy stood up from the pile of shattered glass, fortunately her leather jacket and gloves had helped to keep her from being cut by the little pieces. She let out a whistle and was trying to comb her ridiculously long red hair back into place when Valo walked into the room. The poor guy looked a bit shaken up. Shit, she probably should've thought about the fact that breaking in might scare him... it was just more fun than knocking on the front door, y'know? And scaring people was kinda fun too.

"Yeah, yeah, bro. Who else would it be but me?" she wiggled one of her feet in the air to shake some glass shards off her boot, "

"I... I... uh... you know what. I'm totally cool with this."

Somehow Stormy didn't buy that at all. He was just too nice to be mad at her, wasn't he? How sweet. He suddenly got all excited again like he did on the phone call, and she walked over to him.

"Oh yeah? Show me. I'm hella bored."

Stormy's eye brows shot up when Valo suddenly began to pull his shirt off.

"Woah woah woah, bro, watchu doin'? Don't expect me to rip mine off too, we just--" it occurred to her that she was getting the completely wrong idea once her emerald hues fell on the markings.

   She remembered that day all too clearly... Valo legit risked his hide to save hers. All in all, Stormy felt kind of lame for needing to be saved in the first place, and guilt for being the reason Valo went through that much pain. Admittedly, however, the situation had helped her realize that she actually cared about this guy. And there weren't very many people she actually gave a fuck about.

"That's damn hard to believe. I probably wouldn't believe you if I hadn't seen you get burnt myself, but now that's just gone..." Stormy stroked her chin all detective-like, "What kind of black magic is this?"

She paused for a moment, before a smirk formed on her lips and she wiggled her eye brows.

"Also, hot daaaamn, you're look'n good, boy."

  Stormy snorted with laughter when Valo reacted to her comment. His face flushed and was in such a rush to cover himself back up again he put his shirt on inside out! Ha, what a dork! But at the same time, Stormy couldn't help but find it absolutely friggin adorable. Was it was cruel of her to enjoy making him flip out so much? Maybe. She dismissed the thought.

“What’re you apologizing for? I said you looked good,” she smirked, “Tsk, and now you’ve got your shirt on inside-out…”

As she spoke she slowly moved closer. If he didn’t moved, she’s be standing nose to nose with him.

“That’s no good… you might just have to take it off again and fix that,” she whispered in his ear, her lips practically brushing against it.

  Stormy was being a huge flirt, and Valo probably figured this was her normal behavior. Because of this, she doubted he’d ever guess that she had never, ever gone past that. That’s right, she’d never kissed anyone, or done a thing past flirting. You could say being flirty was another way she had of asserting confidence, but it was a farce and would probably back fire one day since she was utterly unprepared for anything more than that.

  A little flirting, occasionally the other person flirting back, that was what she did. In this case however, she had some genuine interest in this boy, though she wasn’t sure what he felt for her, if anything. The incident in the cafeteria made her feel like there must be something there, unless he was the type to go save random people on a whim.

   The corners of Stormy's mouth turned up in a smirk when Valo blushed, but she noted he didn't seem to freak out half as much as she expected. Yeah, he was being quiet, looked notably flustered and all that, but he seemed more relaxed than all the other times she messed with him. Maybe the trick was losing it's effect due to over-use? Bummer... eh, she'd find some other way to make him freak out.

   Just then, he apologized, and Stormy found herself rather confused. What for? He moved his hand to her cheek and she furrowed her eye brows a bit, not realizing what he was doing until it was far too late.

Stormy had been beaten at her own game.

When Valo kissed her, she felt her entire body flush with heat, and her eyes widened.

Whatwhenhowwherehwhy--

  The girl was completely still for a moment, but allowed herself to relax. She closed her eyes and leaned into the kiss, holding it a while before turning her head to break away. The young woman was visibly flustered, and her emerald eyes were fixed on the floor. However, she kept up her usual smile, even if it looked a bit awkward. That was her first kiss. What a funny thought. She wasn't gonna tell him that though, pssh.

"Well... aren't you adorable," the corner of her mouth turned up, "Heh. I never thanked you for saving my hide at the cafeteria."

She lifted her gaze and locked eyes with him.

"Thanks for that. Even if it was fucking retarded."

"It was dumb, though! You were like, one of their main guys against that red haired monster guy and you put yourself out of the fight for some chick who was just watching."

   At this point Stormy was never gonna admit that she was glad he did what he did, aside from the thank-you. She would continue to label it as dumb, mostly because she didn't know how to deal with the situation-- she hadn't seen some one put themselves in harms way for someone like her in a very long time. That was what she thought was stupid, not what she had said earlier. She didn't hold herself in very high esteem, so when someone put their life on the line for her... it was just hard to grasp why they would even feel compelled to do something like that.

"Yeah yeah-- you seem pretty level-headed most of the time," the corner of her mouth turned up, "My swaggah must be too much for you."

  Once again, she was making light of the situation simply because she wasn't entirely sure how to deal with it. Admittedly, she wanted to kiss him again, maybe apologize for calling him stupid, but nah. That wasn't how she rolled. Besides, she'd just gotten her blush to die down, and was a whole lot more flustered than she'd ever admit. She'd just have to keep acting light hearted to get away from the deeper things she couldn't cope with, and keep acting confidant to hide how nervous she was.

"'You say'n you've fallen for me, cutie?" she grinned somewhat deviously.

  Stormy listened to him, and the smile remained on her lips. However there was an almost dazed look in her eyes. The more she listened the more she really realized that, yeah, this guy had fallen for her. Granted, she'd met guys who had been attracted to her for her looks, but they were always driven away because Stormy wasn't exactly the kind of girl you could settle down with. Perhaps now that she was bound to this school things could be different?

   She didn't hop to a knew town every other night. She stayed and lived in one place, like most high schoolers did. Maybe she could let herself... fall for him? Though she didn't want to admit it to herself, she  had a thing for Valo for quite a while. Aside from being totally adorable, he seemed like a pretty genuine guy, and he didn't seem to hate her for all the stunts she pulled. If she was going to fall for anyone, it wasn't going to be a guy that would yell at her for going bungee jumping and then confine her to the kitchen. She'd just end up burning it down anyway.

  Stormy wrapped her arms around his neck, and rested her head on his shoulder as she let out a small chuckle.

"You want to know about me, eh Valo?" she whispered in his ear, "That's sweet. But... I don't know if that's a good idea."

Stormy let go of him and tilted her head to the side, a slight smirk tugging at the corners of her mouth.

"I'd love know more about you though, buddy 'ol pal. I like you~" 

   While she was subtly deflecting things, Stormy was being honest. She wanted to know more about Valo, but she didn't want to talk about herself. Sure she could say things like her favorite hobbies, places to eat, and all that pizazz, but she didn't know if she wanted to talk about her back round. You see, the girl was used to pretending it didn't exist. While she thought about it from time to time, she was always happier when she pushed those memories into the darkest corners of her mind, and she was convinced that was where they needed to stay.