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“Aw, c’mon, Yuumi,” Jinx giggled, flopping to the ground with her voluminous pale lavender pigtails whipping around behind her, “Wouldn’t it be fun, though?”
She positioned the last chocolate in the giant heart-shaped box, swatting away its chattering teeth with only a cheery hum of semi-malicious joy.
“No,” the cat didn’t look up from grooming her paw, “Absolutely not.”
“Ughhh!” Jinx rolled her eyes, “It’s just the same thing over and over, every year!”
“You’re bored with putting chocolates in explosive boxes and turning bouquets of roses into long range death rockets?” Yuumi lay her head on her paws.
Jinx gave an exasperated sigh and flopped onto her back, her pigtails forming a heart above her head on the clean bright grass that would, when the Day of Hearts came back around, become a churning battlefield of love and warfare.
“Will-they-won’t-they, slow burn, only one bed, stuck in an elevator, enemies to lovers, childhood friends to enemies to lovers to roommates to accountants-bla bla bla-give me something new!”
Yuumi flicked an ear, “We-well, what about injecting a little pathos and tragedy?”
“Nope, I’m not gonna deal with coughing up flowers again. That’s just ughh it makes me wanna strangle ‘em with my own hair…”
“I am sorry, Jinx,” Yuumi coiled her tail, “But I take my delivery very, very seriously! I can’t just let anyone go popping around the multiverse, there could be dire consequences for entire timelines-”
Jinx hopped back up and bobbed her head enthusiastically.
“-No!” Yuumi yowled at her, and clutched the heart-shaped portal key to her fuzzy little chest with a flick of whiskers, “And that’s final.”
Jinx pouted.
“Fine, fine…I was just curious, gosh.”
Yuumi’s ears flicked.
“Ah.”
“I mean I’ve got to have one, right?” Jinx sighed, “I’m not – I’m not lonely or anythin’ – I’m just wondering if all those other me’s out there actually…you know…and who it might be?”
“Young one,” the cat tutted, hopping off Book to curl her tail around Jinx’s legs, “You must trust these things will come when they are ready. You have time. When the time is right…”
Their voices receded into a quiet bubble of conversation beneath the fluffy white clouds.
No-one heard the faint giggle drifting on the breeze.
“Oh,” said a voice, shivering out of the twilight cast by the shadow of a tall white marble pillar set upon the battlefield nearby, wherein a small figure leaned, “But what if someone decided…”
Mismatched eyes glinted with mischief as they settled on the key around the cat’s neck.
“…that the right time is right now?”