Peetie's Valentine

Peetie was on a quest.

"You would think," he said aloud, drawing stranger-than-usual looks from passersby, "that in a galaxy as technologically advanced as the Snickers Galaxy, one would be able to find red construction paper!"

Surely he wouldn't have to send Sailor Yavin to Earth for such a thing! The 'Muggle,' as his Sailor Jedi friends referred to him, stormed through the Temple towards the Council Chamber.

"Yoda!" he yelled, pounding on the door. "On Coruscant red construction paper there is not! Do something about it, you will – yes, mmm?"

"Peetie, what are you doing?"

The Earth-boy turned around to face Mace Windu. "I'm petitioning the Council!" he announced.

"The Council doesn't meet for another standard hour. But as we have more... pressing issues to discuss than the paper supply on Coruscant, I suggest you stay in the Room Behind the Waterfall and find... perhaps, some... pink construction paper?"

"She doesn't like pink," Peetie said, surprised that such a powerful Jedi would not know this. "Oh!" He brightened as he remembered something he'd always wanted to say. "Dude, Pulp Fiction was sweet!"

Mace raised an eyebrow. "Peetie, go back to your room," he said, motioning slightly with his hand.

"Okay!" Peetie said, turning around and walking in the direction of the Room Behind the Waterfall. "I'm going back to my room!" He repeated the command several times before walking into a column. The impact jolted him out of the mild Force trance Mace had put him in, leaving him somewhat confused and still without red construction paper.

"Oh no!" he lamented as he started to realize what happened. "I must be weak-minded!" He shuffled back to the Room Behind the Waterfall. "I guess I'm not Toydarian, either," he mumbled. His face brightened, though, when he saw Yoshiko come around the corner with her hands full of, what else, but red construction paper!

"Where in the world did you find that?!" he exclaimed.

"In the arts-and-crafts room, duh!"

Peetie blinked. "We have an arts-and-crafts room? Ah, the mysteries of the Room Behind the Waterfall!"

"Oh, I know," she said, thrusting the stack of paper into his hands and leading him to her room.

Peetie had re-carpeted Yoshiko's room with scraps of red paper, glitter, glue, and magic markers. He worked on the floor, busily expanding his mess, while she lounged, yawning, in a very large beanbag with pink fur. She flipped slowly through Bantha Beat, glancing down at Peetie's progress every few moments.

"You know, you could just send a Holo-Valentine," she said when he'd got his glitter-crusted fingers effectively stuck to a can of Diet Quasar-Cola.

Peetie furrowed his brow, trying to get his fingers off the can without spilling it all over his work in progress. This was his third attempt, and so far the best looking one, and he didn't think being soaked in a puddle of carbonated sugar water would improve the effect. "I think this certain someone would appreciate a real valentine," he said.

Yoshiko shrugged and went back to her magazine. Peetie yelped as he ripped one hand off the can, leaving a bit too much skin behind. Yoshiko grimaced. "Flowers won't work either?"

"Don't... have... any... credits..." Finally, he was free of the Quasar-Cola, but had paid with the top layer of epidermis. He went back to cutting lacy patterns and squeezing globs of white glue onto big red hearts, creased in the middle.

Yoshiko glared impatiently over her magazine, and finally lowered it into her lap with a huff. "So.... who IS she?!"

Peetie grinned mischievously. "Not telling!"

Yoshiko shot him a dark look, and then slowly picked up her magazine. "Xarae?" she asked, not looking at him.

"Xarae?!" Peetie said incredulously, a long shred of red paper dangling from his still sticky hand.

Yoshiko didn't answer, but glanced at him a minute later. "Chikako?" She flipped a page.

"Negative, Captain."

"Priire?"

Peetie snorted, visions of delicate red valentines and smoking blasters dancing through his head.

"Ciel?"

"Nyet nyet, Comrade."

"Annika?"

Peetie shook his head, carefully shaking gold glitter from a large heart onto a Yoshiko's fluffy pink rug.

"Minae?"

"Nope."

"Kyoko."

"Nope."

"Miyuki."

"Nope."

"Nom."

"Nope."

Yoshiko sunk back into the beanbag, lifting her magazine again in front of her face so that only her heart shaped odango peeked over at Peetie. She flipped a page. Another page. Another.

"Ooh, 'How to Keep Your Makeup Luscious Looking in Hyperspace.' Dude, where's 'Secret Life of N*aboo?' It was on the cover..."

Peetie, bent over his project, smiled slightly. He knew Yoshiko too well to think she'd given up...

Glitter flew everywhere when she tackled him, rising in a shimmering cloud above their heads. "If you don't tell me," she hissed, her hands around his neck, "I will kill you! Right here on my bedroom floor!"

"I'm not telling!" he croaked, shaking with laughter that was currently being prevented from escaping his throat. "Never! Never ever ever!"

"Tell me!" she shrieked. "Tell me tell me tell me! Now!"

"No!"

"I'll never speak to you again!"

"Good!"

"Peeeetieeee!!"

"Um?" a quiet knock came at the door, and Yoshiko glanced up from her victim.

"Oh, hey Kairi-chan," she said casually.

"Kairi-chan?" Peetie said, straining his neck around to see her. She was a little blurry from lack of oxygen, as well as being upside down, but the shining red streaks in her hair and sparkling turquoise eyes were unmistakable. He shoved Yoshiko off with little effort and jumped to his feet, brushing glitter and paper shreds off his faded blue t-shirt. "How are you?"

"Fine," she said, straightening her skirt absentmindedly and turning to look down Yoshiko, who was now in a ruffled heap at Peetie's feet. "Chouko insists she found a restaurant that serves something remarkably like Earth pizza – except they call it Floop. Her and Sutaru and Minae and I were gonna go check it out, if you want to come."

"Sure," Yoshiko said, slipping on a book called 'Disgruntled Ninja: Part III' as she tried to get to her feet. "When you leaving?"

"In about forty-five minutes," Kairiku answered, glancing at her wristwatch.

Yoshiko looked at a pig-shaped clock on her desk and nodded. "See you downstairs?"

"Yep," Kairiku smiled, and stepped out of the room.

" 'Bye, Kairi-chan!" Peetie called after her. She flipped a striped ponytail and glanced a smile over her shoulder as the door slid closed.

He immediately dove back into his valentine-making work, leaving Yoshiko staring down at him with raised eyebrows. "Kairiku!" she announced.

Peetie poured glue generously. "What about her?" he asked nonchalantly.

"It's her! You like her!"

"Do not," he mumbled.

Yoshiko squealed, covered her mouth with her hands, and flopped onto her bed, suffering from a rather severe giggle attack. Peetie kept working in silence.

"You're not gonna tell her, are you?" he finally grumbled when her laughing had subsided.

The giggling resumed.

"Okay, okay," she finally said breathlessly, pulling a shiny pink throw pillow off her face. "I won't tell. But – wait, you're giving her a valentine, aren't you?"

"I'm not going to sign it, silly!"

Yoshiko rolled her eyes. "Well, that's probably smart, anyway," she said.

"Why's it smart?" he asked, looking somewhere between insulted and confused.

"Darling, you do realize you're giving a big, red, heart-shaped valentine to a girl who is currently dating Darth Vader?"

Peetie sniffed. "Yo', he's not Darth Vader yet."

"Any day now," she said, twirling a light blue spiral of hair as she stared at the ceiling, "he'll be able to strangle long distance. Ooh, maybe you'll be his first victim!"

"Shut up."

"The guy cuts off his own son's hand... think what he'd do to some punk trying to steal his girlfriend!"

"Shut up!"

"Luke... I am your father..." Yoshiko said, speaking down a few registers. "Peetie... I am going to kick your a-"

"Yo'!"

"I find your lack of faith in Anakin's ability to beat you up disturbing..."

"Will you please shut up?"

"The ability to shut me up is insignificant, next to the power of a jealous boyfriend..."

"I'm trying to work here!" Yoshiko raised her eyebrows and shot him her "tell me again whose room this is?" look. "Sorry," Peetie mumbled into his nearly finished valentine.

His hostess grinned. "Apology accepted, Captain Needa."

Peetie shook his head, but for the most part, ignored this, and the other random accusations that followed. (He was a traitor, and part of the rebel alliance; he had failed her for the last time; sister... so he had a twin sister...) He'd never imagined the thousands of times he'd forced Yoshiko to watch the Trilogy would come back to haunt him. But finally, he tilted his head and looked critically at his masterpiece. Yes, this just might be acceptable...

"What do you think?" he asked, holding up the large red heart, carefully decorated and scripted with handwriting so nice Yoshiko wouldn't have believed he'd done it himself had she not been sitting there watching him.

"Impressive," she said. "Most impressive."

Peetie rolled his eyes, but laughed.

He slid the valentine under Kairiku's door very early on Valentine's Day morning before he went to bed. He couldn't think of any way – short of bugging her room – to witness her reaction, so he just hoped he wouldn't spot it in the bin of things-to-go-to-the-trash-compactor later that day. Not that it mattered, really, as she couldn't possibly know who it was from (assuming a certain someone kept her mouth shut).

But as Valentine's Day progressed, Kairiku behaved exactly as he'd expected: she did just as she always had. As far as he knew, not a soul knew she'd received a mysterious valentine that morning. Except for Sutaru, he thought, as he watched the pair barely exchange a secretive glance when, after lunch, Kirana said, "If you could receive a valentine from anyone in the Galaxy, who would it be?"

Yoshiko and Peetie exchanged a glance much like Kairiku and Sutaru had a split second earlier.

Many of the attached Senshi answered with the name of their significant other. Someone said Lance from N*aboo, and someone said Chris (Peetie shuddered). Dr. Lovac was mentioned, along with several other celebrities; Chikako refused to answer, Peetie found himself suddenly tongue-tied, and Yoshiko immediately rattled off the name Bartholomew Dmitriov Chang, the Third. She began to give his curriculum vitae but (wisely) nobody bought it. Kairiku blushed a little, but went ahead and said Icky Spartan. This was met with surprise, and some disgust in the Muggle corner.

"Icky Spartan?!" Peetie gagged, trying to mask his bewilderment by looking sickened.

Chikako screwed up her face, thinking. "Wait, he sings 'Livin' La Vida Crazy,' right?"

"Mm-hmm," Kairiku nodded, "and 'She-Booms.' "

Peetie sighed. Not only was he competing with Darth Vader, but it seemed Icky Spartan had dibs on Kairi-chan's heart, too. "Yo'?" he said quietly.

"What is they bidding, my -"

"SHUT UP!"

She giggled.

Peetie reached over and pulled a flower out of Chikako's hair. ("Thief!" she said, though she was far more concerned with unwrapping a popsicle, as lunch hadn't seemed quite enough.) Peetie held it out toward Yoshiko. "Since I can't have my first choice, will you be my valentine?"

"Gee, that sounds most enticing," Yoshiko answered sarcastically. "I'm not sure I've got time... there's a contest I'd really like to get second place in, that's keeping me busy. Oh, and I'm thinking of going for the Silver in the Galactic Games. Pole vault, probably. And did I tell you about the beauty pageant I'm in? I'm really hoping I'll get to be a runner-up..."

"Come on... I'll let you call me Bartholomew Chang."

Yoshiko's eyes narrowed as she considered the offer. "Okay. I'll be your second-choice Valentine, but on one condition."

"Sure!" Peetie agreed.

Yoshiko smiled. "Here it is," she said, beginning to stand up on her chair. "I get to stand up and yell PEETIE LIKES KAIR-"

The announcement was cut short by the tackling so typical of this friendship: Peetie and Yoshiko crashing to the floor with the former's hand firmly over the latter's mouth, and it was punctuated by mildly surprised exclamations from nearby Senshi, and giggles from those who managed to complete the sentence in their heads. The girl in question either didn't notice or pretended not to notice the commotion, though, and continued talking to Sutaru, whose brown eyes flickered over the crash scene and then went back to her friend's face.

"Thanks a lot, Valentine," Peetie growled, still pinning the villain to the ground.

"Yo' we'co'," Yoshiko answered from beneath his hand, her blue eyes glittering with amusement. "'is wi' 'e a 'ay 'ong re'e'ere'-"

"What?" Peetie removed his hand to see what the brat had to say for herself.

"I said, 'This will be a day long remembered-' "

Peetie replaced his hand. "I swear, you're going to grow up to be Darth Vader's speech writer."

"A' 'east I 'don' 'ike 'is 'gir'riend!"