Ash was barely into the movie, he had been playing with his basketball the whole time. They were both having another one of their movie nights—a romantic comedy again. He'd be lying if he said he didn't love these nights, but it was only to hear Serena talk about her favorite scenes or random notions about her and the film in general. He loved hearing her talk, even if it was nonsensical to him. Of course, he replied, giving his own opinions and insight—barely.
"Why couldn't this lady just tell her lover she wanted to get married? This was all pointless."
"Are you complaining again?"
"No," Ash clipped, his eyes on his basketball that came down to himself after he gently threw it in the air, practicing his form. "Never."
"You are and besides, you can pick a movie for next time, you know?" Serena said, going back to her investment in the film that lit up her laptop screen.
It was alarmingly strange for them to be this attached to each other. They were together most of the time and spoke the same. They called at night and Serena had a thing for being with him during their free time at school. Sometimes their talks were about him and basketball, just opening up. She loved it even if she wasn't all that familiar with the sport—Ash loved that she tried.
"Are you watching the movie or are you acting out Lion over there?"
Ash frowned, but a light laugh fell from his lips at her inaccuracy. "Leon? And... I am paying attention."
"No, you're not," she chastised, "but it's fine. You just owe me."
"I owe you for not watching a movie?" Ash questioned, the doting smile still carved on his lips.
"Yes. You said you would do this with me and you're not following through." She went on scolding him, but he could hear the fondness in her tone.
"Technically, I didn't agree to this."
"Well, you..." Serena stopped, dragging on the last of her word as if she was trying to think of an excuse.
To not embarrass her further with her fumbling, he decided to come to an agreement. "Fine. I'll owe you."
"And I'll owe you for not watching any of the movies you wanted to watch yet."
"Really?" He held his basketball, the spark in him too great to continue doing anything, but listen to her, his grin aching with how much it had stretched. "More of the drawing game lessons then?"
"I don't know about that, but..." She bit her lower lip, teasing him—unintentionally—sort of. She wanted to roll her eyes, but instead took a screenshot of how he looked on the phone.
Ash's nose scrunched up. "Did you just take a screenshot?"
"I did." The second Serena smiled, he did the same, feeling satisfied at himself, and by her reaction. "God, I hate you so much."
His laugh was deep, his voice laced with tease. "I highly doubt that."
She hated that he was right.
"How about another flower lecture?" It slipped out of Ash. His mind circulating with the awe-inspiring remembrance of that day. Her passion and blazing happiness. The colors, the beauty and everything that surrounded her... and him. He wanted that feeling again. He noticed how quiet she had gotten, and then he realized he might have gone too far.
"Except that," she whispered, her voice had lost its flirtiness and confidence and seemed to dither.
"Serena, about what happened at the flower shop—"
"It's okay," she exhaled quietly. "We don't have to talk about it."
He couldn't read the tone in her voice anymore, but he knew that was the end of that conversation. She did that a lot. Ignore—
"Great, here. This is my favorite scene. Watch it."
"Yes, ma'am."
She also loved to give him orders and he wasn't complaining.
It was soon two in the morning and Serena couldn't be any more awake. She had showered and put her hair in a messy bun – and went to bed before twelve, as she always did. The movie was done and she had fell asleep on Ash again. She assumed he ended the call when he realized she did.
But now, there was just no way she could sleep.
Maybe it was because she had, in fact, drank cups of coffee just to focus on her schoolwork, or maybe it was because she simply couldn't stop replaying that whole day in her head, non-stop. How she couldn't bring herself to forget the things that she had so intently memorized about Ash, what she willfully learned about him, everything she kept imagining and speculating that couldn't wait.
She wanted to put it down. To put him down.
To freeze all the little shots of him she had taken with her brain, so she wouldn't ever lose them. She could.
Sitting in her pajamas on the corner of her bed, Serena couldn't look away from her phone sitting on her nightstand. When it came to herself, she already had the device in her hand, unlocking it and opened to her home screen. Her thumb scrolled to her camera roll and and her eyes fell to her recent picture, ignoring the others. It was as instinctual as breathing, as moving a limb, as talking.
She waited a second, two, waited for something to come to her, and she clicked on it. The first thing she noticed was his brown eyes with golden specs hidden. Terribly, lethally gold. The background was dark, but in the light he was in, she swore she could see it.
The shine when he looked at her.
Her gaze soften, her heart already a gear faster. This was the same Ash she spent the whole day with, the same mouth that grinned and joked and made her laugh. The same untamed hair that was never in place, the rebel strands falling over and around his face, unconformed, and how that contoured his features.
The same eyes she never looked at for too long, too incisive, too cutting. The slope of the jaw, sharp, the turn of his ear partially hidden by tousled hair. The tilt of his brow, the sharp inquisitiveness and confidence that accompanied his sights. The edge. The focus.
She thought about the long, tufts of eyelashes that shaped his look. The usual arch in his thick brow, the keen shape it made when he was concentrated, always set to whatever became his eye's target. His Z marked cheeks, unique and fitting. His mouth, to the stabbing part his lips made when he was listening attentively to something, full and stout and impossible to look at just once.
He was so serious and so handsome, too.
Serena's realization of her actions only kicked in when her phone when dark, her reflection showing through it. She laid back in her bed, completely, utterly astounded. She was feeling several things. She had to go back to sleep. She swallowed hard, looking back down at her phone before her. She didn't rightly know why — perhaps she had an idea, but in her gut, she could feel it.
She was in trouble.
Throughout the day, Ash felt oddly frustrated, like something wasn't right. It was stupid. His practice with Serena went well the other day and she seemed enthusiastic instead of pissed, which was a plus. However, for some reason, Ash couldn't shake the feeling she was underestimating him.
He kicked his shoe against the sidewalk and tried to walk lighter as she suggested, heading back to his dorm.
It bugged him that she tossed aside the idea of doing the tango so quickly. Maybe he just wanted her, which he knew wasn't a good reason. He had a feeling she wouldn't be wanting to do anything like that anytime soon. All that aside, she claimed she wanted him to succeed and yet she was choosing a dance he never felt confident in. Not that he thought he was the master of the tango, but he excelled far more at that style when they tried it.
She seemed to enjoy it more too, why would she still choose the waltz?
It was baffling. He knew Serena was incredibly intelligent and capable when it came to dance. She choreographed for other people and she chose things for other people, so what was this really about? The closer he got to his dorm, the more confused he grew.
"What timing," a girlish voice greeted him when he stepped into the building. "If it isn't the infamous Ash Ketchum."
"Dawn," Gary said, hushing her quickly.
He glared at the three people sitting before him on the common room couches. Gary had his arm around the orange haired girl, Misty, and Dawn, like Gary said her name was, sat beside her.
"What are you three doing?"
Misty raised her brow. "What does it look like?"
"I don't know. Sitting?" Ash huffed, the girl clearly had a smart mouth. "That's why I'm asking."
"We're hanging out, Ash. We're waiting for Paul to get here." Dawn definitely had a bubbly personality and Ash still tried to comprehend how she got through Paul. "Would you like to join? You had your practice with Serena yesterday, I assume? Tell me all about it."
"You know, Dawn, we can let Ash head back to the room," Gary said nervously to the proposed idea, knowing Ash wouldn't want to stay.
Ash keeps forgetting she's one of Serena's best friends alongside May. Misty was the girl Gary always talked to and possibly tried to get down with. Maybe he already has. It didn't matter and Ash didn't have the interest or want to know.
He rolled his eyes. "I'm staying."
"He really is as grouchy as everyone says." Dawn laughed, shaking her head. "I don't get how Serena has been looking forward to it for a while now."
"You know what I don't get," he snorted and took a seat across from them. Misty kept her ears open and eyes on the conversation. Gary almost looked disappointed, but Ash chose to ignore that since Dawn looked so thrilled to be talking about it.
"I'm listening," she said and leaned forward, immensely interested in what he was going to say.
"Why did she choose the waltz for us to dance?" Ash asked, staring at the three on the other side.
Dawn was surprised and slightly narrowed her eyes, questionably. "Are you... upset? Were you hoping for the tango?"
Ash ignored the suggestive movement of her eyebrows at that. "We're just better at it. At least that's what she said and now we're apparently doing the waltz."
"I have quite the idea that you just wanted to dance close to Serena."
"What?" He stood back up immediately and cleared his throat. Deep breaths. His voice was pretty mechanical. "It has nothing to do with that."
It maybe had a little to do with that.
"She told me I was better at the tango," he tried to explain, looking around the room. "She also told me she wanted me to succeed at this, yet I don't know what she's doing. I still have to go along with it because we're doing this and I want her to..." The more he spoke, the quieter he got, which was rather unusual for the raven haired boy, "accept my apology."
Dawn wiped faked tears from her eyes and cupped her hands together as she pressed them against her cheek. "You really do care about Serena."
Gary sighed. "I've been trying to tell all of you this."
"It was hard to believe you when I hadn't had the chance to talk to him," Dawn said with a laugh while Misty nodded, crossing her arms.
Ash flared his nostrils, attempting to lie. "This isn't about that. She has been a huge distraction and if she accepts my apology, we can both move on."
Dawn scoffed, a mischievous grin on her face. "We've heard about it, but it's hard to lie with me, Ash. You're only calling her a distraction because you can't stop thinking about her. It's called having feelings. I'm sure you know what that means?"
Ash looked to his roommate, a vein sure to be showing on his forehead at this point. "Gary, can you please deal with your friends. They're irritating the hell out of me."
Misty's jaw clenched as she brought her hands together to a satisfying crack of her knuckles. "I can definitely give you something to deal with."
"That won't be necessary," Gary said, placing an arm in front of Misty to keep her from standing and a hand on her fist. "Nobody has the energy to deal with either of this."
First being couple's therapist, now a peacekeeper? He needed to be getting paid full time.
"No need to worry," Dawn said, ignoring both of them. "She liked you or still does—I don't know—but the real reason she didn't want to do the tango is because she's scared she's going to fall for you again."
Ash froze, his heartbeat sure to have skipped a beat. Is that why she reacted like she did because of the flower shop? He didn't know and the idea of her not wanting to do it for that reason was—
"Dawn, should you be saying that?" Gary pressed.
She shrugged, gently moving back to pat down on Gary's shoulder with her closest hand. "These two are never going to get together if someone doesn't do something about it."
"No, that's not it," Ash said, standing up to head back to his room. He eyed Dawn, walking in the direction he should've gone minutes ago. "With our situation, we won't be getting together. We're just—" Friends. "—Never mind."
He was going to convince her to change to the tango tomorrow. If she was scared for some reason, he was going to convince her they should do what the competition best suited to them.
The next day in the dance studio, Serena bounced around the room waiting for Ash to show up. Their first practice went exceedingly well and she was impressed he seemed to enjoy himself. She even laughed with him. It felt nice to have things back to normal a little when teaching him how to dance.
She could tell he was upset she chose the waltz, but really, it was the safest thing for the both of them. Ash didn't want a distraction and she didn't want her heart to go through hell again. It was painful enough the first time.
"Teach!" His voice startled her and made her jump. As per normal, he slammed the door open, and placed his bag to the floor. "I have an important question."
"Ash?" He was always loud upon arriving to practice, but he wasn't usually this uptight. "What's going on?"
"Tell me again why we're not doing the tango? You really breezed right over it yesterday."
She blinked because that's not what she expected him to say. "I already told you. This is what you'd feel more comfortable with."
"Is it?" Ash mocked, walking right up to her, getting close to her. His eyes were intense, and she walked him as he spoke. "You said you want us to succeed, so why are we doing this style when there's one we're much better at it?"
Her brow furrowed, an icy glare was shown in her eyes. "You're the one trying to make things up to me. Don't you think you should listen to what I say?"
"You're the one who said you wanted us to succeed. If you want us to win, why won't you choose the dance you know we excel at?"
Serena bit her lip, mostly because she knew he had a point. Ash was so much better at the tango than the waltz. It suited his body and their chemistry was incredible, quite frankly. She sighed and backed away from him. "I take it that you want to do the tango instead?"
"That's exactly what I mean," he replied, folding his arms.
She sighed again, running her hand through her hair. She could have self-control. She could stop herself from making it about them. There were plenty of people she danced with that she had absolutely no feelings for and it was never a problem. She supposed in this case the problem was the feelings.
"I did come up with something for the tango as well," she admitted. Truthfully, it wasn't as if she didn't consider or didn't prepare, but didn't know this was the direction they were meant to go in.
"Show me," he said.
She took a deep breath and moved towards him, taking his hand. Being this close to him, knowing how he was going to touch her, made her suck in her breath, her knees shaking for a moment. As Serena looked for him again, her mind was already made.
"Okay," she whispered and pulled his arm around her lower back, their bodies pulled flush together. She could smell his cinnamon scent this close and she wondered why he smelled so sweet all the time. She took a deep breath. "First, I had us... going across the room and stopping at the end where you dip me down. You have to keep your eyes locked on mine. I'll trust you to keep me from falling."
Ash slid his hand up her back, letting her dip down, his brown eyes locked on hers. "Right, like that. Now you'll... pull me back up after a few seconds."
He didn't say a word. He simply listened to her, following all her instructions. His chest heaved a bit when they would stop and she couldn't tell if he was slightly winded from being so close to her or if he was feeling his muscles working.
"Next, I'll drag my leg out, and wrap my arm around your neck. You have to... lean into the pose."
He closed his eyes and wrapped his fingers around her hand that sat at his, his body leaning in towards her. He really was much better at this style. He held the poses nicer, his body seemed to chase hers, and it was a much more grounded dance. It suited him. It suited his personality and though it was still beautiful looking, Ash captured a sensual manliness the dance required.
How? Serena had absolutely no idea. Gentleman wouldn't be the first category to put Ash's name under.
"I need to... smooth out a few more parts," she whispered, "but I thought the final pose could be me hooking my leg around you, staring down into your eyes. We can practice that another time though it's getting a little late—" She was mumbling and about to pull away from their close position.
"Show me," Ash spoke again. Determination flashed across his brown eyes and Serena knew she wouldn't be able to pull away. "We have to finish the routine."
"Okay," she said quietly. "You'll dip down a bit and... support my lower back while my leg will drape over yours."
Without the music, things felt even more tense. She could hear his breath as he slid his hand lower, cupping at her lower back. Her leg wrapped around his and her fingers brushed over the back of his neck. She felt his other hand twitch against hers and she swallowed.
"This is... the pose for the end," she breathed.
"I see."
Ash's voice had went low, his eyes flicking to her lips. She saw his head tilt, angling towards her, and his breathing shallow. He was going to kiss her, and god, did she want him to, but she knew they couldn't. Serena slid her hand to his chest and pushed him back, pulling her leg down to the floor in one swooping motion. He blinked, looking confused by her distancing herself.
"That was... my idea for the tango." Serena stopped, as sharp as she did before. Ash watched as she measured her words, as she weighed them and made sure to place them correctly before she spoke again, so, so careful. "I think you might be right that this one is better, so we'll focus on it."
"Serena—" She never saw him look so confused in her life. It was kind of cute and it made her want to kiss him more. Dammit. She really had to get out of there.
"You seem to get the movements more. It fits how your body moves," she said, nodding her head. She shoved her shoes into her bag and slung it over her shoulder. She fumbled for her phone on top of the piano.
"I really have to go get other written homework done and I'd like to map out the section missing. It'll be faster with the song, so... we'll have to practice timing." There wasn't much of a reaction on his part. He breathed and blinked, and looked at her all the same, but had no idea how to answer. "Although, you have good timing for some reason," she rambled, the words falling out of her mouth faster and faster. "I'll just see you tomorrow—"
"Listen, Serena," he said and gently grabbed her wrist before she could leave. His tone was even. Properly paced. It had all the control hers lacked. "Talk to me. Are you sure this is what you want to do?" He asked, his brown eyes staring at her intensely. It was one of the first times, he asked her something so bluntly. He really did seem to care if she was feeling uncomfortable.
"This is going to be... pretty good, Ash." She looked him in the eye to speak, and her words came out like a confession, faster than she could hold them back. "There's nothing to worry about."
"I'm not worrying—"
Her heart twisted up inside and it could be heard when she spoke. "That's good. I'm sorry. I have to— I'll see you later, Ash."
He tried to stop her, but she was already dashing out the door. She ran through the hall and out the door, the cool air hitting her skin as she panted, her breath curling into the air. She was too thankful to be out in the cold. Normally, it was him leaving her behind, but Serena's heart was pounding so fast, she thought it might come out of her chest if she stayed around him any longer.