Valentine's Day was upon me, and once again I didn't have anybody to celebrate it with. Nobody was going to be taking me to dinner or buying me chocolates or flowers or—
Whatever, it was just a day. I hadn't even told Cinder Glow about it; in the pantheon of human holidays, it was bottom-tier. Or maybe that was my cynicism talking.
Really, though, it was a holiday for two. Not in remembrance of something or in honor of something, just a celebration for couples and if you weren't, that was too bad.
And had we lived in a vacuum, the subject never would have come up.
Cinder Glow had twigged to the idea of stores selling themed goods quicker than I had expected. Granted, I didn't know anything about Kirin stores, maybe they had their own Hallmark Holidays and maybe some of the more cynical Kirins griped about it. Or maybe they went all-in for whatever holiday was currently on offer.
I hadn't told her about it, but she'd figured it out. Maybe we didn't speak the same language, but she could see the displays in the store. I could have tried to convince her that it was part of the Superbowl celebration, but that didn't seem right. Sure, she probably wouldn't see the irony of candy hearts honoring the Eagles and the Chiefs, and I could have spun a tale that might have made sense.
Why was it that a holiday official enough to be marked on every calendar made me grumpy? No other holiday did that, even it it was one that I had no care for.
No care for, ha. The last time Valentine's Day had rolled around when I'd had a boyfriend, I'd had all sorts of expectations. They'd been dashed and we weren't together any more and the less I thought about it the better.
I hadn't told her about Valentine's Day, and she didn't notice the first week the pink cardboard displays were out. The aisles in the store were always full of pallets of special offers, after all, and boxes of chocolates weren't all that different from boxes of Lucky Charms, at least not as Cinder saw them.
How did she see things in stores? I still hadn't figured out what got her attention. Sometimes she wrinkled her muzzle or frowned or flattened her ears as we went through, other times she was drawn like a moth to a flame to the weirdest things. She'd spent ten minutes playing with a clicky pen before deciding to buy a whole pack of them.
There weren't any candies besides conversation hearts that had writing on them, at least to my knowledge.
Cinder had bought a box of them, and she was sitting at the kitchen table, sorting them. That was a weird thing she did. Our Halloween candy had included little bags of M & Ms—fun-sized, as the bag claimed—and she'd sorted them by color before eating them.
Conversation hearts not only had different colors, but different messages. She was sorting by message rather than by color. Currently CRUSH IT was leading the rankings, but U GOT THIS was coming up strong. What happened to the old messages like I LUV U or BE MINE? Maybe conversation hearts were being more inclusive.
I watched her sort the entire box. I knew she saw that I was there; her ears had perked as soon as I'd walked into the kitchen.
She studied her neat ranks of sweet chalk hearts and then pushed one in my direction. YOUDA BEST.
It would be churlish to refuse a heartfelt . . . heart.
"Thank you."
Her eyes were locked on the heart as I picked it up, then put it in my mouth. It tasted just like I remembered.
"Do you celebrate Valentine's Day?"
Cinder shook her head, then lifted a hoof and waved it in a 'so-so' motion. She picked up a heart, tapped it to a hoof, then set it back down.
"Hoof . . . heart?"
She shook her head, tapped a hoof, then the heart.
"Heart hoof?"
Cinder nodded. She air-nuzzled, then pushed the candies away.
"Yeah." I pulled out the other chair and sat down. "You and me, sister."
Singles Awareness Day. Not an official holiday because how do you market it? A card for yourself? Netflix and nothing else? Solo dining in a restaurant while an attentive waiter waits on you hand and foot?
We settled on Netflix and nothing else. What better way to celebrate than with another kindred soul, after all?
Nothing romantic; that would not have been in the spirit of the almost-holiday. I thought the occasion called for something that was the exact opposite of romantic, which would have been a horror flick.
Cinder surely would have objected to that. She was too cute and innocent to enjoy horror. The next best thing was a documentary, and David Attenborough was the perfect host.
As the occasion required, we sat together on the couch, sharing a blanket. Also in the spirit of sharing and laziness, rather than cook something I used an app on my cell phone to get Domino's delivered.
One pizza was plenty for two roommates to share, or at least I'd thought it would be. If we hadn't stayed up late celebrating, it might have been.
Midnight rolled around, there were still more films in the queue, and we were both in that zen-ish state where getting up long enough to make more food—so long as it wasn't too complicated or time-consuming—was acceptable.
I had microwave popcorn, always a reliable fallback. Several choices: normal, extra butter, and movie theatre butter. Tonight was an extra butter night, and Cinder watched the bag spin around in the microwave as it cooked. She liked the microwave, and had figured out how to use it, and it was always fun for me to watch, too. If it was something new, I'd have to punch the buttons, but Cinder understood microwave popcorn.
Had I just been by myself, I would have eaten it out of the bag. Since she was with me, I grabbed a bowl, she tilted the bag, and then her horn lit around the sorted then scattered conversation hearts.
The two of us sat on the couch, watching David Attenborough narrate the secret life of painted dogs while eating a surprisingly good extra butter/conversation hearts bowl of popcorn.
Not how I'd expected to spend my Valentine's Day, but I'd take it.
Author's Note
Figured I ought to write a Valentine's Day fic.
Where I am, it's technically Feb. 15 now. Where you are it might not be. Regardless, enjoy.
Source
For once I didn't research before publishing, but I'm sure that conversation hearts will go on sale now that the holiday is over. I'll report back.
In case you didn't know, Cinder Glow is relentlessly adorable, and I could totally see her as the kind of kirin who'd sort her candy before eating it. After all, we all know the blue M&Ms are the best, and you gotta know what you're working with before you commit to eating a package of 'em.
Also, how about that Superbowl? I sure didn't watch it. ~~I hear Rihanna won.~~ EDIT: I have learned that Rihanna's ASL interpreter actually won.
