Kanazawa was tidying his desk, looking for a stack of papers he had forgotten to grade and now couldn't find. He would have just left them and procrastinated until tomorrow, but his grades were due and this was the last day he had to get them done. Why on earth did music education have so much paper work, anyway? It stressed him out.

It stressed him out even more to acknowledge that it was getting late. The windows of his classroom were streaked with amber, the sunset a large margin wider of the same color. He really didn't want to have to turn on his classroom light because that would make him have to stay longer and find those stupid papers. He really didn't want to stay.

He heard a light knocking on his open door and shifted. Shinobu stood in the entrance, smiling and still holding his knuckles to the sun-covered wood.

"What are you doing here Shinobu? It's late."

"I was wondering the same thing about you."

"Papers…"

Kanazawa gestured with remorse towards his messy desk and the sea of paperwork that inundated every inch of space. Shinobu changed expressions as he walked farther into the room, approaching the desk. He laid his finger on a paper near the corner of the desk.

"Do you play grading paper 'memory' or something?"

Kanazawa frowned at the attempt at a joke, a cruel joke due to the situation as well as by the looks of his desk. The older man placed the back of his hand near the bridge of his nose.

"More like 'twister.'"

Shinobu smiled and surveyed the desk, making sure he scanned as many name slots as he could. He lifted slowly at the top layer. Then the second and third layers. He really wasn't being very helpful.

"You're not helping anything Shinobu; tell me what you actually came here for."

He laid the layers down.

"Sharp as always, I see."

Kanazawa looked him over, not seeing anything he hadn't already seen many, many times. The "tender" Shinobu: completely adept and brilliant, adored by students, revered by teachers, soft and politely spoken. He bordered on eloquent, but by turns was also pithy, though the points were turns in speech rather than the usual kind of remark. And Kanazawa was aware of it all. Shinobu answered.

"I really just came by to see how everything was going. I haven't visited you for a while."

Kanazawa gave a tired smile.

"Everything's going, as it has. Nothing's changed much."

"The Concours are over now."

"…Yes, they are."

"And everyone did well, I hope?"

"Yes, they did."

Shinobu knew already. He'd had the opportunity to play with (and teach) several of the members himself and found each one of them wonderfully talented with different strengths. It hadn't been very long since the Concours had ended anyway and Kanazawa wasn't going to change much regardless.

"Are you feeling old already?"

There was the turn and Kanazawa glanced up to see it resting on Shinobu's smile. He almost reminded Kanazawa of someone else; someone who had participated in the Concours, except Shinobu's nature wasn't quite so dark or elegant. It was colloquially unsettling however.

"Not yet, but getting there."

"I see. Not tired yet then?"

Kanazawa moved up and reached into his pocket for his pack of cigarettes. At this late in the day, no one would care if he smoked inside.

"That,"

He said as he placed a cigarette in his mouth,

"is a different story."

He lit up, flicking the lighter out and replacing it in his other pocket. He breathed in, letting the smoke course his insides, seep into his blood. None of it was pleasant, but the feeling moved rapidly through and he felt the bitter gesture of pleasure light up inside him again. Shinobu observed.

"I see you also haven't quit yet."

Kanazawa blew a long stream of smoke towards the ground.

"No. Don't plan on it anytime soon either."

"A shame."

Shinobu turned back towards the desk, slowly trailing his fingers over the flat surface. He wasn't really looking at the papers. He wasn't really looking at anything. He spoke again.

"How have you been in the meantime then?"

Another breath of smoke, this time into the middle of the air as Kanazawa looked towards the door.

"Same as usual; tired, irritated, wondering why I became a teacher, all the good things."

Shinobu smiled again, more things on this smile than the last one.

"You haven't changed, even since I was in grade school."

He stopped his finger on a staple holding together several forms. He allowed himself to reminisce.

"I remember one of the first times I saw you…I was probably in my…second year of high school…maybe. And you'd only been teaching a few years. You had only just started smoking, getting used to the new batch of students and trying with much difficulty to stay afloat with grading papers…"

Shinobu tapped his finger on the staple.

"Of course, it was very different having such a laid-back instructor, one who could pass for an uncle…"

Kanazawa perked his ears at the avuncular comment, moving to adjust his posture and sit straighter. Shinobu continued.

"And you weren't ever really sure back then…the other teachers all tried to tell you what to do, but you just kept on with whatever it was that felt right. It resolved plenty of problems, and brought just as many to you when students started wanting you to sort out their problems for them. As though they couldn't…"

He revised his expression to a lighter one.

"I'm happy I never had any problems all those years ago. It's comforting to think the time we spent together so long ago was just that, before you became so tired…"

Kanazawa snapped at him, though not angrily.

"What, are you trying to make me feel old?"

Shinobu paused.

"Is it working?"

The end of Kanazawa's cigarette flared and dulled.

"It was working before you even came in."

Shinobu continued smiling.

"Maybe you sensed a problem, then? One you couldn't sort out."

Kanazawa gave him a quizzical look.

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't talk about my desk that way."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt its feelings."

Kanazawa gave Shinobu an unamused look and turned back to face his desk. He held the cigarette in his mouth and continued shuffling through papers. Shinobu stayed silent while Kanazawa kept looking. Every moment or so, he thought he'd found them but they always turned out to have his small scribbling on them, which disqualified them from being what he was looking for. He eventually spoke from the corner of his mouth.

"There must be some other reason you're here."

Shinobu bloomed at the recognition, although he'd noticed all along that Kanazawa didn't stop noticing he was still standing there.

"There is."

The cigarette dangled dangerously.

"And what might that be?"

Shinobu strode forward quickly, taking the cigarette from Kanazawa's lips and stomping it out as the man turned surprised. He leaned up and pressed his lips onto Kanazawa's, firmly, strongly, making the recipient slowly set his hand down on the desk to steady himself. Shinobu waited until Kanazawa began to react; then there was a movement of both their hands on either's cheeks, with Shinobu trailing his onto Kanazawa's neck, gripping it simply without any real pressure.

Neither of them expected for it to last long. That wasn't the point.

Before it ended, Shinobu sucked the air from Kanazawa's mouth, tasting the bitterness and breathing the smell of smoke deep into his throat. The older man leaned back hastily, pulling away as Shinobu exhaled. Kanazawa coughed lightly, regaining the use of his lips and breathing as deeply as he could. Shinobu smiled.

"I also haven't kissed you for a while."

Kanazawa could have guessed the motive.

"And that would be, what? Three weeks?"

The smile deepened.

"And four days."

Having finished regaining his composure, Kanazawa leaned back on the desk again, rubbing his forehead.

"Sometimes I feel like I should worry about you…"

"No need, but the feeling is appreciated."

Kanazawa looked at Shinobu again. It was true; their relationship was anything but regular as neither of them would admit to it being serious or to be taken for granted. The "visits" as Shinobu called them rarely amounted to what they were covered as and just as rarely trespassed into anything that would fully connect the two men. Even Kanazawa, as laid back as he was, wasn't sure what Shinobu wanted.

"Is that all you came for then?"

Shinobu moved his face into a parody of pain.

"Ah! I'm hurt that you think so. I really did come to see you, you know."

Kanazawa sighed.

"I don't get you."

The parody lessened.

"Maybe it's better that way."

Shinobu knew that what he wanted was Kanazawa himself. And, by his logic, the less attached he was, but the more connected he was, the fewer chances there were of losing the man he'd been visiting these past years, even in his student days where Kanazawa was just trying to sort out a problem but didn't realize that the problem could have been a person.

If he could stay in the older man's life without allowing himself to be tied down, he assumed his power would remain the same. There was no harm after all in a simple kiss, nothing more than a flirtation, no consequences to be seen. Shinobu couldn't decide which of the two of them was the weaker man; Kanazawa for always giving in, or himself for being too afraid to commit. He hoped he'd figure it out one day, but he had no plans other than future visits.

Kanazawa had gone back to his desk.

"I can't find the papers."

Shinobu leaned over and then walked around the side of the desk. He noted an open brief case on the ground with a stack of papers with no scribbling on them. He then walked back around to the other side of the desk and pretended to keep looking.

Almost giving up on the imaginary papers (he was starting to doubt they existed at this point), Kanazawa tried to solve a topic that had been bothering him for a long time.

"Why don't you ever come see me at home?"

Shinobu stopped.

"I don't know where you live."

"That's a lie."

Shinobu started again.

"You're right. It is."

Kanazawa sighed and tried another time in the innumerable times he'd already tried to deduce the motive, the secret motive that Shinobu had. What was the reason? Was Shinobu trying to do something? Prove something? Protect something? What was he hiding?

"It does become degrading after a while to be used this way."

Shinobu looked up. He didn't notice Kanazawa was taking a gamble.

"What do you mean?"

"I might get a girlfriend sometime, you know…"

Shinobu lied.

"I know."

"And I wouldn't appreciate the kisses any more than I do now."

Shinobu remained cool and lied again.

"I can imagine."

"It's going to happen one of these days…"

"I'm sure."

"It might have already…"

Shinobu stopped eagerly moving the papers around. He might have given himself up. He turned and sat down on the desk and leaned back until Kanazawa was in view. It was worth being a little truthful, even if showing a few feelings counted as truth.

"You haven't."

Kanazawa smiled.

"No, I haven't."

Shinobu closed his eyes.

"Good…"

It really wasn't that Shinobu liked Kanazawa. It wasn't even that he loved him. It was that he loved him too much. His visits, kisses, movements, even cigarettes completed the orbit of his life, circling slowly into the midst of his aspirations. Everything was future, business with Shinobu. He had to enjoy his present so it could be his present, for everything in the future was a thin plot of lines that stretched to where he couldn't see, a set of plans he never really intended to pursue.

And Kanazawa was a single departure from his schedule, where nothing but real things happened with the only real person he knew. Certainly he existed in a reality that spun around him in the beautiful haze of colors, children, and music, but perhaps it was the voluntary acceptance of reality that made his visits so important.

Kanazawa had hit on something.

"Come visit me at home sometime."

Shinobu opened his eyes.

"You really need to stop smoking."

Kanazawa laughed.

Shinobu wasn't really a problem to him anymore. He used to be, but had grown from problem to reoccurring mess, a mess he didn't mind being in the center of every time it wandered innocently into his line of sight. Kanazawa could see accurately enough that a mess always has its hidden beginnings, purposes, but it was still a mess and he was only starting to think about how to work on it.

"Would you not come over if I didn't?"

"That doesn't matter. You smell almost as strong as the smoke."

Kanazawa frowned and tried to take it as a compliment. He had a feeling that Shinobu had meant it as one anyway. Shinobu moved up and got off of the desk, heading towards the door. Kanazawa watched him go, wondering if that was really the end of this visit. Before he left the room though, Shinobu held onto the door frame and swung around, smiling again like he'd done when he'd first entered the room.

"The papers are in your briefcase, by the way."

Kanazawa stood up straight and almost dove over his desk to check. To his delight, the papers were sitting there from where he'd left them several hours earlier. He then began to become annoyed at having missed them for so long. He looked back up to ask Shinobu how long he'd known they were there, but Shinobu was gone.

Kanazawa stared for a moment and sighed. He reached for his briefcase, closed it and left the room, the sun almost out.

###

A/N:

Why did I write this pairing? Because someone asked me to…well, indirectly.

Anyway, hello! I hope you enjoyed my Shinobu fic. It was the first time I've ever written Shinobu before (to my knowledge), so I hope my characterization of him works well enough. I don't think of him as a dark character…just a convicted one in a way (although conviction is sometimes scarier than darkness, but oh well).

And Kanazawa, I haven't written for a long time. This pairing occurred to me though when I was trying to think of someone to pair with Shinobu. I was also looking at Kanazawa's bio in the manga and when Nami said that he was "33 and single," I thought,

"Not for long…"

Oh dear.

Also, Japanese education, I don't know. I briefly researched it a little for grade numbers, but I didn't find much in the manga to support Shinobu actually going to the music school or not. (I didn't look hard) So I might have made some of it up.

If there are any inaccuracies, big "Oh well" from me. So sorry!

Anyway, I hope you liked it well enough anyway and thanks for reading! Please review!