After math Blaze walks to her locker to drop her bag off for lunch.
She opens her locker to find something surprising.
"Oh uh hello." Blaze froze then grabbed the black rose from her locker.
It was a single pitch black rose.
Blaze looked at it in awe.
"How beautiful."
Blaze sets her bag in the locker and begins walking to the cafeteria to meet her friends. As she walks she sets the rose in her hair proudly.
~~~~~
Blaze sits at their table as the girls were all talking about their gifts to the guys.
"Oh Blaze! Have you gotten anything yet?" Amy asks urgently.
"Actually I found something interesting in my locker.." Blaze smiles as she gently grabs the rose from her head.
"A black rose? Why would anyone give you THAT?" Rouge scoffs getting glares from Amy and Sonic..
"Isn't that a symbol of...death?" Silver looks oddly at it..
Shadow stares at the rose with a frown..
"Is someone threatening to kill you??" Tikal gasp.
"Surely not." Blaze giggles lightly.
"Hmm has there been a funeral lately?" Sonic thinks.
They all watch Blaze as she looks at it dreamily..
"Blaze, how are you not worried about this?" Silver sighs. "I don't like this..who would put a pitch black rose in your locker?"
"Calm down everyone. This isn't a threat." Blaze glances up at Silver.
"Oh really?? That flower resembles mourning and death!" Silver growls."Here let me have it." Silver reaches for it.
"No, Silver. It's the first time I actually get something on Valentine's Day, and you're trying to take it away from me..This rose doesn't only resemble death." Blaze hisses.
"Then what?" Silver stops reaching for the flower.
"They have a postive meaning such as new beginnings and major change. Perhaps a new beginning to a relationship? Either way..I'm keeping this." Blaze smiles down at it.
Shadow chuckles.
"Stop laughing..it's creepy." Sonic looks to Shadow.
"You guys are so uncultured." Shadow rolls his eyes.
"Oh. Did you know that's what black roses meant?" Rouge smirks to him..
"Of course I did." Shadow folds his arms.
Sonic mumbles "oh yeah..he IS emo.."
Shadow growls. "Watch it, Faker."
"Well Blaze. If you're happy then I'm happy for you." Tikal smiles.
"Thank you Tikal..I'd love to know who has given this beautiful rose to me. I would like to thank them." Blaze puts the rose back in her hair.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It's now the very end of the day and Blaze feels like she has successfully redeemed herself from when she was in that funk.
Blaze gathered her belongings from her locker along with her rose. She gently tucks it behind her ear.
She then closes her locker to see Shadow leaning on the lockers.
A smirk on his muzzle.
"Hello, Shadow." Blaze smiles..
"Great work today. I see that rose had you feeling...better than usual.." He glanced at it in her hair.
"I suppose you could say that..ready to go to work?" Blaze smiles as she begins walking out the building.
"No..." Shadow grumbles.
As the two made it out of the school building they caught up with the rest of their friends.
"Hey Shadow hurry up and walk me home." Rouge flaps her wings. "My show is coming on TV tonight!"
"Can't." Shadow states blandly.
"Uh why not? We always walk together.." Rouge folds her arms.
"It's Tuesday. The Princess and I have to work on a project...sadly." Shadow groans.
Everyone els watched as they go back and fourth.
"Well if you don't wanna do it. Then just skip it. You skip everything else." She shrugs.
"Actually-" Shadow was interrupted by Blaze.
"No, Shadow will NOT be simply skipping." Blaze puts a hand on her hip.
"We have to work on this project together. He'll get in trouble if he keeps skipping everything, Rouge."
"Sassy." Sonic snickers then gets elbowed by Amy..
Rouge's eye twitch. "Who are you? His mom? Cmon Shadow- if you don't want to work then let's go." She begins walking, but turns around when shadow didn't move.
Shadow stayed put beside Blaze.
"Principle's orders." He shrugs Rouge off.
Rouge glares at Blaze then turns on her heel to walk home.
Silver laughs nervously. "Hehe looks like you're walking with Blaze and I."
Shadow ignores Silver and begins walking with the two to their house.
~~~~~~~~
It's been two hard hours of working from Shadow and Blaze. They had been in her room finding and researching information for their project.
"Are we freaking done yet?? I hate this soo much." He groans angrily.
Blaze giggles at his frustration..
"No, but.." she paused tilting her head. "We finished the harder part. Now all we have to do is add pictures to the PowerPoint. You know Shadow you're pretty smart."
"Are you implying that you thought I was an idiot?" He growls at her.
Blaze thinks as she looks down at her black rose in her hand. "Not an idiot, but smarter than I thought. If you actually tried you'd be near the top of the class.."
"Psh. It's not worth my time.." Shadow leans on a pillow on the floor.
The two were now across from each other sitting on the floor. Shadow watches Blaze as she continues to mess with the rose.
"I didn't expect everyone to be so clueless about this rose." Blaze speaks to herself.
"Yeah they're all uncultured swines...I'm glad You understood." Shadow mumbles.
Blaze quickly looks up to him.
"I'm not sure what I'd do if you thought you were being threatened again.." Shadow rolls his eyes.
Blaze widened hers.
"Did you.." She didn't finish her sentence.
"Major Change." Shadow continues to mumble. "I've started such change when you were assigned to me. I actually started giving some thought to my grades and attendance."
Blaze was frozen as she listened to his words.
"I have something to look forward to everyday because of you...and that's working with or against you in gym.
A Change for the better it seems..all because I met you. I know this isn't something Valentinesy or anything like that. I just thought I'd give you something for well....existing I guess."
Shadow stood up looking away at Blaze with a small blush.. "Perhaps a white rose would have been more appropriate.." He mumbles to himself.
Blaze has never had anything said to her like that. This all seems crazy. Especially since it came from Shadow, but man is she happy knowing its from him...
What does she say..
"Thank...thank you.." She whispers looking up at him. She went silent for a moment.
"Can I...can I hug you?"
Shadow froze surprised by the odd request.
"I suppose yo-"
He was cut off by Blaze quickly hugging Him tightly.. he slowly put his arms around her to hug her back..
Well this is new. Very new.
Blaze pulls away wiping her eyes.
"I apologize for crying. I never cry.." She chuckles lightly. "This just really touches me.. Thank you again."
Shadow looks down at the floor.
"Uh, don't worry about it.. uh so what kind of pictures do we need for the stupid project.." Shadow changes the subject..
"This is Geography. what do you expect?"
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