SoMa Four Seasons Challenge

Spring

🌸📷Spring📷🌸

"Look at all the flowers, Soul!" she smiles, pointing to a cluster of daisies that had only just begun to bloom while clutching onto his jacket with the other hand. "Let's go look at them."

"They're just flowers, Maka," he mumbles, though with her insistent pulling, he finds his feet to be following hers towards the patch of tiny flowers.

She crouches down, releasing his arm to smooth her skirt under her legs before picking at one of the white flowers and holding it up to him. He grudgingly takes it, looking around to make sure that no one else saw his brief... Ah, lapse in masculinity?

"And those over there!" she chirps, rising so quickly that he had to grab her bicep to steady her.

"Careful, Maka," he urges, releasing her arm before he was caught holding it for too long. Even if it was just a second, it felt like too long, like she'd notice it anyhow.

"I think these..." she holds up a pink and red flower, and he'll be damned if her takes it from her and... Oh, hell, she'll get mad if he doesn't, he decides as he takes it from her. "Yeah, these are called Indian paintbrushes."

"Are you making me a bouquet or something?" he questions as he shows her the two flowers in either hand.

"No! But I think that I could make you a flower crown," she suggests with a sly grin, and he blanches. How uncool were flower crowns? They were so girly and... Ugh. He would not wear it, no matter how much she persisted...

Twenty minutes later, he found himself to be grimacing away from her camera, avoiding all eye contact with the lens as she tried to coax a smile out of him.

"Soul, come on! It's cute," she says, lowering the device for a moment, and he glances over to her.

"It's girly. I'm a death scythe, remember? If this gets leaked I am so dead," he states, crossing his arms over his chest while remaining pointedly interested in a bird in a far tree.

"Would I leak a picture of you? I just think it's so cute, and one day you could show it to your daughter and she'll think it's so cute too," she pouts, her bottom lip sticking out slightly. "It's just a picture."

The only way his child would ever see such a thing was if Maka herself showed her. Then again, his future plans for her would leave Maka in a very easy position to do so, particularly if he was gone out to a mission or something of the sort that required him to be away from home for longer than a day. His wife and daughter could have a field day with that, he was sure.

Finally, after moments of silence and self-loathing for being able to deny her such a childish demand, he turns toward her camera and meets her green eyes, those eyes that he got lost in whenever he looked at her.

"Smile!" she commands, pressing her eye to the camera, then pulls away when he doesn't.

"This is all you're getting," he growls, his eyes narrowing at her. "No smiles."

"Fine," she mutters and snaps the picture, causing him to blink at the bright flash.

"You didn't even look through it," he protests. "How do you know it was a good picture?"

"Oh, now you want a good picture? I thought you didn't want a picture at all?" she teases, grinning at him while holding the edge of her sundress down from the growing wind.

"Shut up," he grumbles, his cheeks tingeing pink as her dress flared up, though he didn't see anything more than a brief expanse of thigh. "Are we done being here?"

"You know, you're terrible at changing the topic subtly," she mutters as she lets her camera hang from its strap around her neck once more.

"Subtle? Me? When have I ever been subtle?" he crows, throwing his head back and laughing.

Click. Ah, shit.

"Maka, what the hell was that noise?" he asks, his gaze sliding to her slowly. He finds the culprit, clutched in between her hands. If cameras could be guilty this one sure as hell was.

"Nothing," she chirps too quickly, and she barely manages to sidestep him as he lunges for her. "It's a good picture!"

She takes off in a giggling sprint, her camera clutched into her hands tightly as she wove through people here and there, carefully avoiding dog leashes and running children.

He's following her immediately, though he's less graceful in the weaving through people and pets part of the chase.

"Maka, give me that damn camera!" he yells as she makes her way from the park down the streets on the familiar path to their house.

"Momma, look! He has flowers in his hair! That's so silly!"

The glare he sends the small girl falters as he registers her words. With a quick snap of his headband, six or seven flowers fall to the ground at his feet and he curls his hands into fists.

"Maka, get your ass back here!" he howls, taking off in the direction of the blonde haired girl.

This was not a good end to his spring, not at all. It didn't send a good vibe for summer...