The wind howled, a solemn hush spreading like bleeding twilight through the obscurity of their hiding place amongst the tall bamboo shoots, concealing them from the world's prying eyes.
Hiei's labored exhales heaved and sighed, as if it kept an eerie cryptic rhythm with nature's somber quintessence.
Teeth grazing the soft ashen surface of her skin, his thoughts became clouded, but not absent.
"I am not one to be tantalized." He said darkly, voice a charred heap of syllables and breathless words expelling a twisted love he could not bear to convey properly, lest he hurt both her mind and body.
She said nothing, just stared back at him, body a listless lump beneath him though her eyes shimmered with an innocent desire.
It hurt him to know that it would soon be tainted.
"And I am not one to wait."
The instant he grabbed her hands and tore them away from the x-shaped cross they had formed across the trembling plane of her chest, he suddenly stopped.
She was crying.
He had gone too far.
He was not a gentle man. He was not a merciful man. He was not a good man.
But he had gone too far.
Staring into the endless startling profundity that was her shivering gaze, he let go of her bruised wrists, ironically defeated by her sheer vulnerability.
When he felt her move, he thought she was going to slap him. And truth be told, he welcomed it. He expected the blow, the soft sting it would offer his cheek, the physical pain minimal but the symbolism of the violent gesture barely lost on him.
Instead, he felt the warm silk of deft fingertips pressing gently on both sides of his neck.
The agony of her rejection never came, and amidst tears she opened herself up to him even further like a dew kissed morning glory under the dawning rays of sunrise.
Keiko only spoke once.
"Don't be fooled." She sighed delicately, a sob welling up in her chest, but never released. "I won't break."
