Work Text:
“God damn it… god fucking dammit!” A string of curses quietly left a woman’s lips as the sun blared down on her hood.
She pulls the brown rag off her head, revealing long pink hair that splay messily on her back and on her concealed weapon that she purposely snuck through the gates of the amusement park. The amusement park goers can see Sharpshooter (suspiciously) hiding behind one of the poles of a ride, with her long, manicured nails threatening to dig into the metal. They nervously go around her quickly when they see an aura of pissyness form around her – perhaps if they were quick, nothing bad would happen and everyone would make it back home in one piece.
Sharpshooter paid no attention to her surroundings though, her entire focus is on that oblivious, overly happy, idiotic pair waiting in line for the Cyclone roller coaster. The object of her affection smiles –so very sweetly– to Yuna.
Ugh, I can’t believe I’m really stalking these idiots… She sighs as she runs by the same train of thought obsessively for the 50th time. She finds herself cycling the same thoughts to occupy the long wait times.
She closes her eyes for a moment, reminiscing about happier times. It felt so fresh as if the dream happened yesterday… Every smile the heterochromatic ginger had ever graced her with made butterflies kick up a storm in her younger self’s stomach. Every hand held, every kind word and compliment motivated her to keep working on herself, pushing her own limits in the battlefield, and to continue being in Chaos’s good graces so she can always be rewarded by him. The Sharpshooter back in her disciple-days with Chaos had eventually grown into a fine woman in no time. It had been several years since he’d taken her under his wing, and although they had to separate due to her own mistakes, she was thrilled to see him when he welcomed her back into his arms.
He’s too kind to me… she vividly recalls thinking as she nearly tackled him to the ground when they had their reunion. I have to apologize for making such a stupid mistake… surely if it’s him, he’d forgive me!
“Hey Kirine, it’s been a while! I’m glad you’ve been doing good all this time.” The same unchanging smile graces his face again, making her cheeks flush that familiar heat.
“J…Jeremy, I–”
“Oh– I have great news, meet my girlfriend Yuna! I met her in a candy store after finally being released…”
Suddenly whatever he said afterwards blurred in her ears. Girlf–
“Kirine?”
Sharpshooter violently pushed herself from him in utter disbelief on her face. Things were never the same between them again.
It’s all that bitch’s fault, if she never… Sharpshooter blinks out of her perpetual thoughts, noticing Chaos and Yuna are no longer in line anymore.
“Ah, dammit!” The pink haired woman looks around as quickly as she can for any bright orange colors in any of the roller coaster seats blazing by or in the crowded amusement park grounds. Her search ends pretty quickly as she finds Chaos and Yuna pretty quickly as they exit the ride. Chaos cutely twiddling at the ends of Yuna’s black hair as she wears a face of annoyance. She has the same lollipop on her lips as she tells him off in the distance, but Chaos only laughs.
Sharpshooter, with renewed vigor, tails the two with a minimal distance of 20 feet between them. She situated herself behind a tall tree as the happy pair waited in a much shorter line to a less popular ride. A kid with his mom passes by and stares at the out-of-place gift user and juts an index finger at her.
“Mommy, why is that woman hiding behind a tree like a weirdo?”
“Shh, don’t point.” She quickly guides her son away from a glaring Sharpshooter.
“Dumb brat… You’re lucky you’re not a villain.” Sharp utters under her breath, with bloodlust accumulated from her terrible day. Her glare deepening when her ginger target is already in the ride, smiling like the biggest dumbass in the world with Yuna next to him, gasping a bit to not lose her lollipop in her mouth.
He looks so happy… Her eyes falter a bit at the scene, softening a bit. She finds herself unable to continue to look at the pair, so she ends up staring at her dirtied boots from all the scuffles of today. How unfair…
Chaos and Yuna get off the ride, yet again interrupting the stalker’s thoughts. Sharpshooter tails them again and violently pauses when she sees the couple enter in the Ferris Wheel of all rides.
Shit, anything but THAT one! She mentally cusses, gripping the sides of her hoodie. She contemplated really hard if she wanted to follow them into that. She didn’t have any luxury of time to dwindle on her thoughts if she wanted to get a seat close enough to spy on them, so she instinctively moved, tickets prepared in advance in the case she felt the need to follow them on any ride.
“Thank you, ma’am, this way please.” The ticket usher takes the ticket and puts her in a seat a few carts back from Chaos’s. Sharpshooter takes a seat, slightly swallowing a lump stuck in her throat. She can’t help herself still though, as pink eyes located the cart they were on easily.
Chaos and Yuna were chatting from a distance about 3 carts ahead. She was close enough to see the details of the freckled-face beauty, but not nearly close enough to catch any snippets of conversation. They chat carefreely about halfway up the wheel, then their mouths slow down as the conversation dies out. Sharpshooter’s keen eyes can see Chaos’s eyes narrow at Yuna, he playfully snatches the candy from her mouth, suspending it between his callous fingers. To Sharp’s horror (though not to her surprise), he slowly descends hungrily for a kiss on the black-haired bit–
Crack.
She could feel it, the familiar sound of her heart at its last strands of not shattering once again. The arbalist is immediately dunked back into her turbulent thoughts unwillingly; back a few years when Chaos, along with his twin sister, approached her to talk privately after finishing their mission. They walk back to an unoccupied room to continue their discussion.
“Hey Kirine, I know that things between us left off a little tense last time… so I wanted to patch things up a bit. Maybe there was, er, a misunderstanding, but I was really hoping that you and Yuna would be as close as you are with me, since we’re all fam–”
“Are you an idiot?! Don’t kid yourself, Jeremy, you are NOT my family!” She didn’t mean for her reactive outburst to come out like that, but she couldn’t stop now. “You were never family to me, you were…!”
Sharpshooter couldn’t speak out the rest. Not especially when her eyes locked onto Chaos’s shocked and frozen ones. Highnoon, hanging by the doorframe visibly, found herself glaring at her former comrade, but she held her tongue.
Chaos snaps out of it pretty quickly and tries his hand at deescalating the rising tensions. “Sorry, I didn’t know how you felt, I… shouldn’t have assumed.” His smile was sad and apologetic.
No, no no. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go… He shouldn’t ever look so defeated… Her mental image of her strong, kind savior crumpled, and she knew deep down that it was all her fault. Everything was… but there was no way in hell she could ever admit that.
“It’s not… that’s not what I… I just hate it when you always talk about her–!”
“Why do you hate Yuna so much?”
Because it’s so unfair, I knew you first…!
“Why?! I… I just don’t understand.” Her brain works overdrive to direct the conversation away from her true feelings. “What’s so good about her? She won’t even last a fraction, no, not even a minute of our lives! Why do you care for a stupid normie like her?!”
“Kirine, I love you…” Her heart stops when he suddenly confesses, her anger takes an immediate halt as her hopes lift up higher than she anticipated, “but don’t ever talk badly about Yuna like that again.”
His voice was stern and serious. Sharpshooter knew she’d messed up if even someone as kind as he could look this angry towards her.
Crack.
Just like that, she could almost hear the pieces of her heart shatter into a thousand fragments for the first time. She wasn’t quick enough to grab the turmoil and wrestle it down her throat – so it manifested in her eyes as tears rolled down her flushed face.
“K…Kirine??” He blinks in shock.
“...Jeremey BUMstein, you’re such a fucking idiot…!” She screams and runs off, leaving a startled Chaos in the dust.
As she ran, she could hear Highnoon huffing at her older brother, “See, I told you she changed after all those years. Why don’t you ever listen?”
“Ma’am?”
No response.
“Ma’am??”
Sharpshooter pants in real-time… She doesn’t even realize the same ticket usher had already opened her door for her to step out.
“Ma’am, are you alright? Are you afraid of heights?”
She rubs her eyes violently and shakes her head as walks off towards the exit shakily. Without bothering to find out the whereabouts of the idiot couple, she sighs in exhaustion. The sun had long peaked and already begun to set, painting everything in the distance in a brilliant orange. Her hand runs across her hair.
What was the point of today…? Whatever.
Sharpshooter leaves the amusement park altogether and heads towards a familiar bar closer to the headquarters of where she’s stationed. She signals to the bartender for her usual, and just when she’s about to take a sip, she hears someone familiar.
“Sh-Sharpshooter?!” A gasp.
“...Claymore? What are you doing here, I thought you didn't drink.”
“What do you mean what am I doing here, I thought you died with everyone else…! So I wasn’t imagining things when I thought I saw you…”* His blue eyes softened, at least someone from his District 17 squad was alive!
“Nah, I was held hostage by total idiots.” Sip. “...So that’s why you were drinking, huh?”
Claymore laughs bitterly. “...And that I lost my sword. Twice.”
Sharpshooter couldn’t help but chuckle. “A swordsman losing his only weapon, not once but twice? Don’t tell your master, he’d be disappointed.”
I don’t wanna think about it…He was sort of on my case for drinking in the first place…” The swordsman groans, face dyed in pink from the drinks. He squints at her before continuing, “By the way, were you… crying?”
Sharpshooter instinctively covers her eye with her free hand, pulling up a half-assed lie. “... I hadn’t noticed.”
“... Let me guess, Chaos?”
She couldn’t help but gasp and flush all over again, like a little girl. “How did you know–?!”
“Um, actually everyone knew.” Claymore tried not to laugh and look away awkwardly.
“... It was that obvious?!”
The swordsman gives a slow nod and another sip towards his growing alcohol addiction. “Yeah… It was obvious to everyone who worked with you. I think just about everyone in our team knew. Which was why Heavy Smoker slowly stopped putting you and Chaos together in missions. It wasn’t… professional, he said.”
That bast– “I see…” She downs her shot.
“Well, at least you’re okay.” Claymore gives a light laugh.
“...Define ‘okay’...”
“Alive. Alive is what I meant. We could at least cheers to that?” He smiles sappily at her. Sharpshooter sighs and raises her glass in reciprocation.
“Yeah, fine.”
Clink.
The End.