Cyrus felt his phone vibrate, and he sighed, not really wanting to deal with whoever had the nerve to text him during his coffee hour. He didn’t recognize the number, but he pulled up the text message anyway.
Meet me at Lake Acuity asap. <3 Cynthia
After turning his phone a multitude of different ways to figure out what in the world “<3” meant, Cyrus sighed and looked at the text message again. Did he really want to spend any more time with Cynthia than was absolutely necessary? No, not really. And yet, something deep within him seemed to urge him to go, a fuzzy feeling in his stomach that he absolutely abhorred. He debated with it for a few more minutes, but soon the feeling in his stomach became so unbearable that he had to stop.
“Look,” he said, staring down at his stomach, “if I go meet up with her, will you go away?”
In response, the feeling seemed to subside for a few seconds, but it just as soon came back full force.
“Fine, fine, I’ll go,” Cyrus muttered, walking to his closet and picking out his best winter clothes.
~~~
“Hey, you actually came,” said Cynthia, sounding genuinely surprised. “That’s consideration right there.” She made a checkmark in her book.
Ignoring the notebook, Cyrus sat next to her on the snowy lakebed. “How did you get my number?” he asked.
“Mars gave it to me.” He made a mental note to dock her pay.
“So why did you want me here anyway?” asked Cyrus, shifting his legs a bit. Even with his heavy jacket and scarf, it was still freezing.
Cynthia smiled at him, seemingly immune to the cold. “I just wanted to see you,” she said.
Cyrus fought back the blush creeping onto his face. “You made it sound much more important than that,” he muttered.
“Well, seeing you is really important!” she retorted. Cyrus wasn’t sure, but he swore he heard her add a soft, “At least, to me it is…” The blush began to creep back, but he shook it away. That is, until Cynthia leaned in incredibly close to his face and grabbed his scarf. “Hey, nice man-scarf,” she said, all smiles.
“C-could you not, please?” he snapped, pulling his scarf from her grasp. She blinked at him, then smiled wider.
“Aww, but it’s a cute scarf!” she chirped happily. Cyrus raised an eyebrow.
“…here then,” he said, removing it from around his neck and gently wrapping it around hers. “It’d look better on you anyway.” He wasn’t sure why he’d just given her his scarf; he convinced himself it was because he didn’t want to wear it around her anymore.
Cynthia slowly laid her hands on the scarf, looking down at it in disbelief. “Wow…How gentlemanly, Cyrus! I didn’t know you had it in you!” Cyrus narrowed his eyes, and then narrowed them more when Cynthia pulled out her notebook. “Chivalry, check!”
“Cynthia, that’s not an emotion.”
She blinked. “…well fine then, generosity,” she said, making a check anyway.
“Cynthia, I don’t think that’s an emotion either.”
“Well, I don’t care, it’s something.”
Cyrus sighed, trying to keep a straight face. “Look, can’t you give this emotion thing a rest for a minute?” he asked, voice straining a bit.
“Ooh, aggravation. Check.”
Cyrus felt a nerve bulge. “Dammit, Cynthia, I told you to give it a
rest!”
She sent him one of those innocent, heartrending smiles. “Anger. Check.”
His face went completely red. “I swear, Cynthia, if you make one more mark in that notebook,” he growled, “I’m going to take it, rip it into shreds, and then burn it.”
Cynthia raised an eyebrow. “Rage. Check.”
Cyrus almost shouted in anger, but he was stopped by a snowball to the face. He blinked, unable to comprehend what just happened. “Cool it, hothead,” said Cynthia, tossing another snowball up into the air. “Wouldn’t want to let your emotions get the better of you, would you?”
He stared at her for a minute, still caught between rage and confusion and maybe something else. Finally, he slumped down. “I hate you,” he muttered.
“Hate, check.”
Cyrus sighed. “Fine, I guess I’ll give you that one.”
Cynthia made another mark in her notebook. “Defeated, check.” She looked up at him and gave him possibly the cutest smile he’d ever seen from behind his scarf, and, though he’d deny it forever afterwards, he found himself smiling back.
