"Take her. Subaru." Sakura took a stand between the two sides. "I'll handle them."
"No. Sakura." Subaru took a step forward but Kira's hold on him held him back. "I won't leave you."
"Your job is to protect her Subaru." Sakura said without looking at him. "If you don't protect her, who will?" Sakura turned her head slightly back at him but still focused most of her attention to the enemies in front of her. "Go." She told him again.
Sakura grabbed Kira's wrist and pulled her with him as they run away from the fighting. They were after Kira so she needed to be protected. Sakura is strong. Despite the number of the enemies, he knows they are no match for her. If they had all stayed, they would have to fight and protect Kira at the same time. This was better the better strategy: to keep Kira away from the fighting. Sakura will be fine, he's sure of it. So why? Why does it feel like he's choosing Kira over Sakura.
~N~N~
A knocking on the door made Kira jumped up. Subaru laid a hand on her arm to signal her it was alright. Subaru approached the door with caution and look through the eye hole. He opened the door and stepped aside to let his sister and Seishiro in.
"Kira. Are you alright?" Hokuto asked as she walks toward Kira.
"Yes, I'm alright." The two started to chat.
Subaru closed the door absent mindedly. Sakura had called him a few minutes ago, saying that the ones after Kira had retreated and that she was on her way home. He asked if she was alright and she said yes. She sounded ok. But why did she go home and not here?
"What about you?" Seishiro asked.
"Huh?" Subaru looked up from the door.
Seishiro smiled. Subaru had always been easy to read. "Are you injured?" He asked again.
"No. I'm not injured." Subaru managed a smile and leaned against the back of his sofa.
"What are you waiting for Subaru?" Hokuto asked with her knowing smile.
Subaru looked at the two ladies in the kitchen. "What?"
"Goooo." Hokuto emphasized the "o".
"Go where?" Only Subaru would be genuinely confuse.
"Where else?" Seishiro put an arm on Subaru's back. "To where your heart is of course." He teased.
"Whaaa?" A blush appeared on his face.
"Subaru." Hokuto's smile faded. "We're here now. We'll take care of Kira tonight. Go to Sakura."
"No. Sakura is safe at her home. Kira is under my protection so this where I should be."
"This is where you should be when Seishiro and I aren't here to protect Kira but both of us are here now." Hokuto decided to become serious. "So the place where you should be is by Sakura's side."
"Hokuto is right." Kira said. "I'm safe here so you should go to her."
Subaru stood in silent. Part of him wants to protest what they're saying but another part doesn't.
Hokuto winked and Seishiro knew his that was his cue. "Come now Subaru. Shall I make up your mind for you?" Seishiro put both hands on Subaru's shoulders and turn him toward the door. "We're kicking you out for the night Subaru. You'll have to find another place to sleep at."
"Whaa. Wait." Subaru protested. "Seishiro."
Seishiro opened the door and pushed Subaru out. "Good night Subaru."
"Night." Both Hokuto and Kira said simultaneously before Seishiro closed the door, locking Subaru out.
Subaru stood outside his door. They really did throw him out of his own apartment. But he didn't dally long before rushing off.
~N~N~
"Gosh. He really is too stubborn." Hokuto commented. She glanced at Kira and sipped her water. "Oh darling." She knows the look on Kira's face.
"I know." Kira looked down to hide her sad smile. "But a girl can dream can't she?" She asked rhetorically. "What girls wouldn't give have someone look at them the way Subaru look at her." Kira said with a wishful expression.
~N~N~
"Sakura!" Subaru called out as he busted into her room from her balcony.
"Subaru!" Sakura yelped in surprise as she quickly turned away from him and swiftly put on her pajama top.
"Sor…sorry." Subaru hastily apologized and avoided looking directly at Sakura. Despite the embarrassment of walking in on Sakura while she was still dressing, he couldn't help but noticed that he delayed a bit before averting his eyes. "Sorry." He murmured again through his hand, which was covering the lower half of his face. This one was partly for walking in on her and partly the not-so-nice and immoral thoughts that were going through his mind.
"It's ok." Sakura said as she finished dressing. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be with Kira?"
Subaru took her questions as a sign that she was done dressing and he could turn toward her. "Hokuto and Seishiro are with her now." He looked at her. Her cheeks were still flush with pink. Arms around her body, like a protective shield. "I was worried. I wanted to see how you are."
"You don't have to worry so much. I called to say I was fine remembered?" She gave him a reassuring smile as she walks to her bed.
The effort to keep her voice neutral, like she was hiding something, did not elude him. Neither did the fact that she went to sit on the bed without make a move toward him. She didn't want him here and he suspects it wasn't because she was worried that Kira not having enough protection. He frowned.
Sakura pretended not to notice. "Since you've checked on me and I'm ok, you don't have to stay." She forced a smile.
Ignoring her words, Subaru glides toward and onto the bed. Reading her eyes and slight movement, Subaru knew Sakura was about to flee off the bed. He cut off her chance before she was able to act on it by setting both hands on the bed, trapping her between them.
With nowhere else to go, Sakura receded back as much as possible which wasn't much due to the head board of her bed. "You're running." He kept his eyes on her.
"N..no." She stammered and looked down. She could feel his stare.
Subaru tilt his head to the side and lower to have a better view of her eyes. "Sakura. Are you injured?" He asked again. Baiting.
"No." She said in a small voice.
If he wasn't so close to her, he wasn't sure he would have heard her. Nevertheless, he got what he wanted. Seconds before her answer, he noticed her eyes flitted to left shoulder and quickly back down.
Left shoulder. Left shoulder. Under her clothes. Subaru blushed at the thought but still, he reached up behind her.
"No." Sakura yelled as her hand shot up to hold her shirt in place. Stupid Subaru for being so perceptive at certain things!
"What are you hiding from me?" Subaru narrowed his eyes at her.
"It's nothing." She said too quickly in a voice that was of a child trying to hide the fact that she did something she shouldn't have.
"Then show me." His voice: demanding and unyielding. Sakura looked up to Subaru: he was not to concede this one. "Please." His eyes softened.
Knowing that she wasn't going to win this one, Sakura release her grip on her shirt. But still wary, she kept her hand on her chest. Subaru slowly pull down her shirt revealing her bare shoulder and the upper part of her chest. The absent of fabric also revealed what she was trying to hide from him: a deep red gash running below her clavicle, from an inch below shoulder to above her breast. The wound was clean, not deep enough to touch bones or fatal but it was deep enough to draw blood, lots of it.
"You lied." He looked up at her, the hurt evident in his eyes.
Sakura bit her lips upon seeing the expression on Subaru's face. She didn't mean to hurt him like that. She just didn't want him to worry, with everything going on. "I'm sorry. But It's alright now. I'm fine. It doesn't hurt at all."
"It's not alright." Subaru whispered as he lean toward her shoulder and pressed his lips to her skin, on top of the wound.
She could feel her face heating up. "Su….Subaru." Sakura tried to shrink away but he refused to let her do so with the hand gripping her shirt on her back. "What are you doing? Stop." He didn't.
He continued to graze his lips against her skin; small kisses and sometimes more. Sakura shivered at the touch of his lips. Her wound, her skin was burning at contact. With each passing moment, Sakura found it more difficult to keep herself from making strange noises so she pressed a hand to her lips, hoping it would be enough. Her heart felt like it was going to jump out of her chest.
Her protests had stopped but resumed when Subaru's kisses started moving down her body. His lips traced the gash from her shoulder toward the more private area. "Su…Subaru." He didn't stop and kept going. Her heart was beating faster with each kisses. "Stop. Subaru. Please." Despite her protests, she wanted his kisses. She liked the feel of his lips on her skin but it was going further than she wanted. He's not going to stop. Sakura shut her eyes.
As he makes his way down her wound, he could feel the change in her temperament. His kisses were exciting her at first but now they were scaring her. He was going further than she wanted. Both her hands now gripped his shirt tightly, desperately trying to push him away without any success.
Subaru opened his grip on her shirt and pressed his whole palm on the back of her shoulder pushing her toward him, reminding her that he wasn't going to let her go. When his lips reached the skin just above the rim of her bra, Sakura swore his lips curved into a smile at another one of her attempt to get him stop.
"I won't go further than this." And he didn't. Instead he went back up toward her shoulder.
Sakura opened her eyes and loosened her grips on his shirt. Would he have continued despite her protest? Subaru wasn't that kind of person. His kisses doesn't hurt, weren't forceful. They were comfortable and safe. She lied to him. And then she didn't trust him to not hurt her.
Subaru knew it was time to stop when she heard her sobs. He looked up to see tears streaming down her face in full. Sakura covered her face with both hands, which were free to move, when she realized Subaru had stopped kissing her.
"Am I hurting you?" He asked softly with a hint of guilt in his voice.
Sakura shook her head. "No."
"Then why?" He reached up to caress her cheek.
"I'm sorry. I lied to you." Sakura couldn't stop the tears from coming. "Then I didn't trust you to stop. I'm sorry." She said between hic-ups and sniffs.
"No." Subaru said too quietly. "It's my fault. I shouldn't have done that to begin with." Referring to the kisses. Thinking about it made him blush. When did he get so cunning? He wasn't sure what had gotten over him that made him do that. First it was guilt for leaving her. Then heartache over her lie. Then more guilt over seeing her wound. Before he knew it, he was attacking her. He just wanted to say sorry for leaving her, to show that he didn't choose Kira over her, to protect her, to ease her pain but he ended scaring her instead. "I'm sorry. For leaving you." He buries his face into the spot between her neck and shoulder. "I…"
"Stop." Sakura lowered her hands from her face and put her arms around him. "I don't see it that way." She knew what thoughts were going through his mind about leaving with Kira. He was just the type of person that would overthink about a situation like this. But then that's just one of his cute points. "And I'm the one that should be sorry. For lying to you."
Subaru smiled defeatedly. "Can we compromise and agreed it's both our fault? Please." He brings his head up to look at her.
Knowing that they both blamed themselves for what happened tonight, Sakura decided it was best to do as Subaru suggested. "Then we both need to make it up to each other?" Sakura said with an innocent that brought a smile to Subaru's face.
"I feel like you already made it up to me." He leaned down to kiss her wound again. This time with a mischievous smile on his face as he looked up at her.
Sakura gasped: surprised at how Subaru was acting. "Subaru! Stop. When did you get so cunning?" She scowled him.
"Hahahaha." Subaru pulled Sakura down to lay flat onto the bed and the movement made Sakura yelped in surprise. "Sorry." He looks down at her, admiring her golden brown hair spreading out like a halo. "What should I do to make it up to you?"
She thought about it and became shy. "Stay with me until I fall asleep?"
Subaru signed and Sakura gave him a confused look. "Seishiro and Hokuto kicked me out of my apartment." Now it was his turn to be shy. "So is it alright if I stay here tonight, even after you fall asleep?"
The thought of Subaru spending the night made her cheeks burn. But the thought of him sleeping next to her is nice. And she can't really throw him out now can she. "Uh huh." She nods her head and pushed herself to the right to make room for Subaru on the bed.
"Wait." Subaru place a hand on her side to stop her. "Stay on this side." Another look at her bare shoulder deepened his blush until he tears his eyes away and pulls up her sleeve to cover it. "I don't want to accidentally hurt you. I'll sleep on this side." He motioned to the right side of Sakura.
He got up off the bed and turn on off the light before returning to the side he is going to sleep on. He slides under the cover.
"Good night Subaru." Sakura continues to looks at Subaru like she was waiting for something.
He laid on one arm and the other wraps around Sakura protectively. His fingers caressed her cheek and leaned in to give her the kiss on her lips that she was waiting for. "Good night Sakura."