Kitase-chan: ^_^ I'm so happy to be writing an Amuhiko story again. It won't be long - I'm thinking it will be either a two- or three-shot. Um, there's not much else to say, for the moment. So... hope you enjoy it~!

Before We Danced – 1.

.Show Me How To Fly.

"Young master Nagihiko!"

Run.

I ran. My feet beat down on the pavement until the pavement turned to grass and still I was running, faster than a bird flies. I couldn't take it, being in that house on this day. I had felt breathless, like I was suffocating.

Happy birthday, Nadeshiko. You're so pretty in that dress. How does it feel to be eight years old, darling? Dance for us. You're so graceful.

You're perfect.

I was perfect. I was the perfect actor, the perfect dancer, the perfect liar.

So why did it feel so stretchingly empty? So numb?

Occasionally, it didn't. Sometimes, the soaring passion for dance would make my feet move of their own accord, and make everything seem okay. At other times, I hated myself.

I hate you.

There was rarely any logic behind a child's feelings of hatred, but it didn't stop me from feeling it. I stopped running and dropped to my knees on the damp grass, breathing painfully until the tears stopped constricting my chest enough for me to unclench my fists and take in my surroundings. I might have been lost, and I might not have been. It didn't matter at that moment; I was simply in a place that wasn't home, and that was good enough.

I wiped my eyes and sniffled. The trees were larger here than I was used to, but they were only to my left. To my right the ground sloped downwards in a gentle hill until it joined a large park that wasn't Seiyo's park. I was far enough away from the people there that no one would bother me. So I lay down on the grass and spread out my arms and legs, and pretended I was floating on water.

I closed my eyes and let the breeze roll over me. There was no one here except Nagihiko. No – not even him.

"Are you crying?"

The voice was incredibly soft, even for a little girl. I opened my eyes and saw a pinkette who looked to be about my own age gazing down at me. She kneeled beside me.

"I'm not crying." It was true, I wasn't crying. I had stopped crying. I sat up and crossed my legs, and wiped the last tears away to prove it.

She tilted her head slightly. I looked at her without blurry vision, and for the first time I realised how pretty she was. Her hair fell softly around her face, and the wintry day had flushed her cheeks a rosy red. Her clothes were worn untidily; like someone else had dressed her and she had made an effort to mar their work. Both her hands clung tightly to a worn out teddy bear.

"Are you a boy or a girl?" she asked, in that blunt way children do. Evidently she hadn't expected the question to sting like it did, because her eyes widened slightly in surprise when I bit my lip to stop it from trembling.

"I'm... a boy." I don't know why I told her. Maybe I just wanted someone to know, someone new who would treat me as they had treated me seconds ago, when we met.

She nodded as if I had made a true comment about the weather. "What's your name?" she asked.

"I don't have a name."

She crossed her legs and placed the bear in her lap. "I don't have a name, either."

I smiled slightly and she smiled back, glad to have cheered me up. We were silent for a moment, and I listened to the breeze playing through the treetops.

The girl reached her bear's small paw and touched me tentatively on the knee. "Why were you crying?" she asked quietly.

I shrugged. "Because... I'm not real." I pulled up my knees and wrapped my arms around them. I rested my cheek on my arm and gazed at her.

"...Not real?"

"I act like somebody else every day. People don't know me. The person they think I am doesn't exist, and the person I really am doesn't ever happen, so he doesn't exist either."

She was quiet for a moment.

"Oh," she said softly. "You sound just like me."

I was surprised. "Really?" I asked. I had never met anybody who thought I was just like them before. "Why?"

She hugged her teddy bear closer. "I'm very shy. When I'm around other people, I act differently." She giggled. "I act a little bit scary." Then she sighed. "But that's why people don't know the real me, either. I think it's why I don't have any friends." She stared down for a moment, and then buried her face in the teddy bear's fur.

I didn't want to see the girl sad. Especially when she was being so nice to me. I reached out and shook the bear's paw. "I'll be your friend," I told her quietly.

She looked up. Her eyes widened slightly. "You will?" she asked. "You don't care that I might be scary and aloof?"

I nodded. "For as long as you don't care that I might change tomorrow."

Her grip on the bear loosened, just a tiny bit. She didn't say anything, but watched me with those wide golden eyes.

I stood up. "Come on, let's play a game." I smiled and held out my hand for her to take.

The girl hesitated, and took it. "What sort of game are we playing?" she asked as she stood.

"A flying game," I answered. With her hand in mine, I turned towards the top of the hill.

"What do we do?"

"Roll down," I explained, chuckling. She lay down on the ground and clenched her skirt in her fists, and then rolled. I followed suit. We both cried out in shock, getting breathlessly dizzy as the world spun at an odd angle. We could have been hurtling through space. When we reached the bottom we collapsed into laughter. She recovered before I did, and stood wobblingly.

"Race!" she exclaimed, and darted back up the hill.

"Ah!" I hadn't realised she was that fast. I ran after her but still reached the hilltop an instant later. She giggled and nudged me playfully, almost pushing me back down. "Hey!" I protested. I pointed to the trees. "Well, watch this." Knowing I was well in my element now, I scrambled up the nearest tree with ease. She gasped as I reached higher than seemed possible. I plucked a leaf from the very top branch, and made my way back down.

When I landed on the ground, she was gone. "Huh...?"

I heard a giggle from behind a tree. "Hide and seek!" she called out in explanation, unwittingly giving herself away.

"Found you." I smothered a laugh at the look on her face. She covered her eyes and counted so quickly that she was almost stumbling over the words. I quickly found my own hiding spot, and though I was completely silent, she found me almost instantly.

We laughed and played like that for what must have been hours. During that time we scurried, leapt, climbed, everything. But we didn't dance. Dance was beautiful. Dance was performance, and we weren't performing.

After she had tugged me along to a nearby stream and we threw the leaf I had collected into the tumbling water, she turned to me.

"You told a lie," she said softly, as if she was afraid to hurt me, but she had to let me know.

"A lie?" I questioned. The bubbling stream ran beside us, but I suddenly felt quiet again.

She nodded. "All of this was fun. But you said it was a flying game. We didn't fly."

"I..." I wasn't sure what to say.

Her pink hair shivered in the wind and she hugged her arms around herself. "I don't think I'm ever going to fly," she confessed. The corners of her mouth dropped a little. "But it was fun to pretend for a while..."

I shook my head. "You will," I said gently. I knew it was true. It only seemed right, that this girl should fly.

She looked up at me, her sensitive gold eyes disbelieving. "Do you think so?"

I nodded. "It's a promise, okay? If one day I can jump, then one day you will surely fly."

She giggled. "Those things are different. Jumping is easy."

I shook my head. Jumping wasn't easy, but she didn't know that.

The girl stared at me for a moment. And then, she jumped. My eyes widened at the sound of her small feet lifting off the ground and landing back down. She tilted her head. "It's just like that. You see?"

"I see." I jumped too, in exactly the same way that she had. It wasn't a very high jump, but it still counted.

I smiled. "That proves it. One day, you'll fly."

She nodded. "Maybe." Suddenly, she dropped her bear to the ground and wrapped her arms around me in a hug.

"What's this for?" I asked. I was surprised, but I hugged her back.

"Just nothing," she replied. She let go and walked a few steps back from me, picking up her bear. "I have to go now. Mama and Papa are probably fretting. They don't know where I am."

"Okay," I smiled. "Well, goodbye, then." I watched her anxiously. I suddenly didn't want to part from this girl.

She looked melancholy for the briefest moment, also. Then she smiled brightly. "Goodbye, boy with no name," she giggled. She squeezed my hand once, before she turned and ran away. She headed for the park, and I climbed up the tree behind me so I could get a better view of her leaving. I climbed to the very top, but eventually the girl disappeared, and I couldn't climb any higher.

Kitase-chan: That concludes this chapter. Short, I know. xD

Leave a review and let me know what you thought? Thanks for reading~!