PART I

PREFACE

Jasper has been planning this day for as long as he can possibly remember.

From when he saw this girl — who wasn't just a girl but something a little more — and knew that he wanted her. Wanted her in the type of innocence that a puppy wants affection and a bird wants to fly, as if there is no home in home unless she was there with her pretty smile and her too-wide eyes (to him, they were precious).

From when he struggled with his bony knees and his scrawny frame trudged up to her like a trembling martyr — because it was scary, for Christ's sake, trying to talk to someone with teeth as straight as hers — and pulled the sleeves of his shirt over his fists as he said, "Hi, I'm Jasper. Would you like to play with me?"

From when she looked up, her eyebrows arched like a bridge that bends, her lithe frame nestled in a garden (she is a flower among these beds) and stared into his eyes. "I'm Rozes." She watched him beam and then added drily, in a voice a six year old shouldn't have be so cynical, "and no, I'm good."

From when he noticed the fire in her eyes, puffed out his chest and told her earnestly, "I'll play with your flowers, Rose!" and he missed the flash in her eyes when Jasper accidentally stomped over the plants, crushed them under his feet (like his heart, because he wanted to offer his with petals growing out of it).

From when she kissed her teeth and made a sound in the back of her throat. "It's Rozes. With a 'Z'. And you just ruined everything so, as my mommy says, bugger off, thanks."

From when he stitched up his heart with a needle of prickled stems, forgot about the thorns piercing into his stretch of skin as he smiled (red and blooming and her) and told her, as confidently as a self-deprecating kid with knobbly fingers and large elbows could, "One day I won't ruin everything. And you'll be happy with me."

From when she replied, all snark and stinging and sharp, "I thought your parents would have told you that lying is a bad thing to do!"

Jasper has been planning this day for as long as he can possibly remember. He's hoping to create a moment to etch into the framework of her memories. One, he's hoping, she won't ever forget.

_____________________

PRESENT

Jasper hates the check-up line; hates that his back hurts as he carries the boxes of chocolate, everything in between of romantic, sappy and disgustingly nostalgic. As he waits and writhes and internally seethes, he grips the boxes with vice, because this is taking too long.

"Jasper! Can I buy a teddy bear?" Orion Franta — who has curl fries for hair and cocoa for eyes — whines beside his smaller best friend.

When Jasper fails to respond, too busy with planting seeds in his mind, Orion sighs exasperatingly. "Why doesn't anyone want to be my Valentine? Why couldn't we do it?"

"Fanta Pop," Jasper hisses through clenched teeth, "I'll be your teddy bear some other day. Right now just help me with the bloody chocolate, will you?"

"Eleven years later and you still haven't grown out of your chicken arms," Orion snorts, reaching out to catch some of the overflowing sweets before they toppled over. "Really, you should consider hitting the weight room. Or buying me that huge teddy bear. Good bicep exercise."

"Do you think I should get a teddy bear, too?" His question isn't answered because Jasper flounders with the stuff in his hands briefly, snarling and forgetting about the teddy bear. "Why couldn't these things be lighter, man?"

"Because, I don't know, there's, like, fifty thousand calories of diabetes elixir in your hand?" Orion says sarcastically. "Honestly, your plan to get Rozes is so cheesy it makes me feel lactose intolerant."

"She likes chocolate," says Jasper, shooting his friend glares. "She was discussing it with her group of friends, remember?"

"With Veeolets? How would you know?" Orion inquires, narrowing his eyes. "You eavesdropped on them, didn't you? You sorry excuse for a boy!"

Jasper just smiles, trying to fend off the wine blooming on his cheeks, "So yeah, she likes chocolate."

"Doesn't Rozes think you're really lame or something? I mean, I guess I see her point..."

"You're pretty aggravating, you know that?"

"Big words? Damn. Lame and a nerd. Jasper, my boy, you're really going to need more than just that chocolate."

"I'm not buying you the teddy bear anymore, Soda Boy," Jasper snaps, feeling slight pleasure in the way Franta wilts (like a rotten weed in a orchid of wild life). "... but do you think the chocolate's going to work?"

"I don't know, bro," still sulking, Orion replies, "Rozes is pretty hard to make of. She isn't the best out of the fish in the sea, if you catch my drift — hah, I just made a pun — ahem, but she's something else in her own way. Still don't see why you act like she's the only thing you want to net."

"Because she's the only blasted reason the nets out, you dolt!" Jasper says loudly, gulping as he notices the startled looks given to him from other customers.

This also prompts him to look around, and he internally groans at how the check line has moved barely an inch, meaning he'd have to be stuck here with aching arms and weak muscles for longer.

"Okay, that's it." Hot liquid, bubbling as boiling water's surface, ignites in his chest; a match catching onto the fabric of his lungs. "This is way too ridiculous."

Jasper steps out of line (no regret in having the boy struggle to scurry on over) and stomps his (puny, colossally clumsy) feet all the way over to another unsupervised register and deposits everything in his hands onto the counter. "Franta, drop everything."

"Oh, hell, no!" Fizzing like the soda pop of 'Fanta' Jasper teasingly calls him daily, Orion crosses his arms protectively over the sugary candy. "I did not just wait forty-freaking minutes in a slow as heck line— " Orion pauses for a moment before turning around and shouting at the top of his lungs, "—your customer service stinks, RestCo!"

"Thanks, dude," some long-haired register barely glancing in their direction shouts back, and if Jasper wasn't flooding his senses with red (it's always red) then maybe he would've smirked, "we really try our best!"

"Moving on," Orion begins again, ignoring the change of subject, smoothly enunciating his words in way so Jasper knew his best friend's thoroughly pissed. "I did not wait this long, have cramps go up my arms holding chocolate that isn't even mine, snuggle up to an elderly lady just so you would end up quitting in the middle and tell me to drop everythi— "

"You're not going to drop anything unless I promise you a teddy bear, are you?"

"Waiting for you to."

"... Oh, remove that freaking smirk on your face. Fine!"

The audible clunk of plastic meeting the rubber conveyor belt is heard rather than seen (Jasper's eyes are closed, lashes fluttering the base of his cheek, the hairs of a dragonfly), and the unmistaken cheer in Orion's, "Thank god! My mom put a ban on hugging me until Monday when I almost popped the button on her blouse from squeezing her so tight! What's your plan?" is enough to make Jasper vow to make more friends.

Any friends, really (maybe a teddy bear would be a good option).

"Let's go," Jasper says curtly, before walking over to exit sliding doors, not having to look back to see if anyone is following because Orion's sneakers slapping the floor is enough indication. "We're going to go shopping."

"You make no sense. What the heck were we doing now, then? Flying?"

"If you keep asking questions, Fanta, I'll send you sailing out of this parking lot. Now trust me, I know what I'm doing."

Jasper turns to his friend, his shades, which were formerly tucked behind the rim of his shirt, are now placed on his dainty nose. It is dangerous, the way that sparkle in his eyes glows, but it is enough to convince Franta to walk the bread crumbs he leaves behind.

Orion sighs, before jogging up, looking purposely at the boy who is as unpredictable as the weather. "I'm coming anywhere as long as I get a teddy bear. Anywhere but Queen Bee's house. There are specific bedrooms you need to go to that I really don't."

__________________________

PAST

Rozes is the type of girl that never caught your eye unless she opened her mouth,  the absence of the clouds revealing her sunlight. Her existence becomes brighter, her excellence pouring colour into her words, painting them as they appear and making a black and white world more vibrant.

Jasper didn't know he was living a monochrome life until he saw her splatter of art, her technicolor spreading hues to a colourless sunset, an empty page of routine, of systemic expectations. He hadn't minded his life in shades, but now, all he sees are the possibilities in impossibles.

Jasper is a small little thing, a bush to a tree, but his personality is spread far like a forest. Unfortunately, many do not notice the type of boys like Jasper unless he acts instead of speaks, because speaking never got him far.

The first time he proclaimed his undying love for Rozes was when they did a school play. He had to play the little stewards boy that fell in love with the royal. He hated acting, hated it like a type of itch you could never reach, but it was a full class effort and try as he might to weasel his way out of it, he was stuck to the roots of the production as soon as his teacher said he was.

So he sat atop the stage, his ten-year old self all skin and bones and hollow cheeks, nervous in a tight costume and an audience that waited for his next couple lines — the ones he never got right when he'd practice. He darted his eyes to the handcrafted props, the careening chipped wood of floorboards, to the other actors behind the curtains giving him urgent looks, yet he couldn't find it in him to see the one girl he is supposed to.

"Ahem," Rozes's cough made the air feel tighter, and still Jasper could not transfix himself on the object that needed it. "I said, I wonder where that old, poor boy may be, for he crossed this dawn with the hopes of bringing me words sweeter than honey. Could I dare think he ripen me with what I think he shall? He may be gone for long, but I wish he spoke, I wish I knew."

Jasper sighed, knowing that as awkward as it probably would be, that he needed to open his mouth.

But when his eyes caught hers (that amber fire still blazing like it would suck the oxygen out of him), caught the small impatience, the crack of her armour — that made her seem a little more human and easier and strong — he didn't need a crowbar to pry his lips open, because the words tumbled through him like the honey she spoke of.

"The dear maiden must've read my mind, for there is no other words left to say but how much I loved thee," his voice was soft and gentle, their eyes held a connection he was too scared to wither, carried in the deathly silent room with more magnitude than any scale is capable of measuring. 

There is a flash in Rozes porcelain face, a flash of awe and confusion and, if Jasper is bold, of interest, but the curtains fell and she scurried off her to her new cue, and he to be gone from the play. While it usually brought him relief to be away from those beading eyes, he couldn't help but feel like a spear was used to shred his arteries, because now all wanted was to see that look again.

He wanted to say those words again.

(Well, until Rozes haughtily told him the next day that he needed to work on speaking 'without such significant pauses because it ruined the rest of the show' and he held back his love for a little bit).

_________________________________

PRESENT

Jasper slips through stores like a man on a mission (he's just a boy in love) and Orion, who follows like a whisper still yet to meet the ear, has seen enough toy stores, book stores, and basically any store that anyone who is not going to do anything at them should become introduced to any of the outlets.

"Are you seriously telling me that you can't find anything you like?" says Orion, frustrated with the amount of walking they'd been doing the whole day. The novelty of toys waned once they were ten minutes in without a purchase. "I'm not exactly a pet dog, Jazz, I can't exactly drop to the floor and sit here. My legs are killing me!"

"You do know you can just stand outside and sit on the benches, right?" Jasper tells him bluntly. "Waggle your tail at a passerby if you get hungry. Maybe they'll let you lap up their leftovers."

"Not funny," says Orion, narrowing his forest eyes. "What are you even looking for?"

"Uh..."

"I'm officially dubbed the smarter one between the two of us."

"Shut up, wise guy. Why are you here, anyways?"

"Other than being the best friend in existence?"

"You're just as invested in this shopping as I am," Jasper notes, his curiosity piqued at the way Orion darts his eyes around the room. "You're looking for something, aren't you?"

"No," says Orion defensively. "I'm making sure you're not going to get something so stupid that Rozes will blow you off before you have a chance to speak with her! Uh, hey, what about this toy ca — is that a teddy bear?! Buy this!"

Jasper, sure that Orion is hiding something in the way his lips turn the colour of the moon when pursed, decides to let him off the hook. "We're not buying you a teddy bear now! I'll get it later! 'Sides, that's 35 dollars." Jasper does a double take. "Holy crap, that's 35 dollars! Who in their right mind... Stop drooling! C'mon, Soda Boy, let's look over to the sales section."

"Did you notice how soft that thing's fur was?" Orion says, mesmerized by the blue ribbon dangling around its neck. "Oi, why can't you buy me one of these?"

"You aren't worth thirty-five dollars, bro," Jasper says, hitting the back of Orion's head when he gasps loudly. "Or ten, but I'd rather buy you the ones from RestCo than these rip-offs."

"You say such things about our friendship that it dangles on a thread, my good man!" Orion cries out dramatically, before rubbing the space that Jasper hit again. "To be your punching bag will forever be my fate. I think I will refund my application to be your Valentine now."

"Thank God, because it was never accepted."

"For a boy without a heart, you're certainly one helluva heartbreaker."

"Oh, would you just cut the... Hey, what's that?" A pale, mauve coloured doll catches the eye of Jasper. "This is kind of cool."

"Yeah, if girls totally dig the Annabelle and Chucky vibe," Orion says. "Then again, Rozes does seem like she might have a psycho streak. I mean, she might actually be into you. That's insanity right there."

"Why couldn't you just stand outside?" murmurs Jasper, but still fixated on the colour. "I mean, I don't really like the doll  — crap, is its eyes following me?  — but the colour of the dress."

"I think the only dress you want Rozes to wear is white," Orion snips, avoiding the arm Jasper swings blindly at him.

Jasper shakes his head. "I don't really want to buy the dress. It's just the dress kind of reminds me of—wait." Jasper peers closer at the design twisting like a labyrinth around the fabric in swirls that entwined and shaved into hedges. "I think it has a pattern of roses on it."

"If you buy her that doll, the only kiss you'll get is the one you'll do kissing her ass goodbye," Orion says, still slightly creeped out by the beady eyes. "Woah, yeah, I think its eyes are following us. C'mon, let's go."

"Wait," Jasper stalls. "I don't want to buy the doll, but I think I might have another idea for what to buy her now."

Orion freezes his foot before it touches the ground, closing his eyes. "Please don't tell me..."

"Let's go to the shop down the street."

"Cheese and rice, Petal Boy, do you even listen to me sometimes?"

"I often try not to." Jasper quips at him, leaving Orion in his dust as he made his way to their next destination.

"... The teddy bear, Orion. Just think of the teddy bear."

•∞•

No new content, just reshuffling parts to seem more organized!