A/N: For Shera. Happy belated birthday. (: Oh, and you guys should check out her account. Nice stuff on there.

A Fine Line

Hana thrust the thermos into Ryohei's face as soon as he opened the door. She glanced uninterestedly at the bare chest of the man before tilting her head up to glare at him.

"Kurokawa...?" Ryohei sneezed, much to Hana's distaste. "Why are you here? You know that I'm extremely sick... right?"

She raised an eyebrow. No shouting? No screaming into her ear? A half-hearted 'extreme'? She assumed his throat hurt if he wasn't screaming like a fool. His nose didn't seem too clogged up if he was speaking properly though

"May I come in?" Her words were polite, but her tone did not mirror them. Before Ryohei could answer, Hana was already pushing her way past him to the kitchen. She was comfortably familiar with the layout of the apartment since she'd been to it several stayed there whenever her brother was in Namimori.

...For some bizarre and very questionable reason, Ryohei preferred to stay in a dusty apartment that was unused most of the time rather than her childhood home. Kyouko told her that his unknown job made him have to leave at the strangest times and that he would prefer not to wake everyone up if he had to leave in the middle of the night.

Very, very suspicious.

But this wasn't the time to be questioning the unnamed job of Kyouko's brother. Her friend had given her a job and she intended to do it as quickly and efficiently as possible.

"Sit," Hana ordered when a bewildered Ryohei entered the kitchen after her. He seemed dazed and sluggish, which further indicated to her that he was still pretty sick. In no time at all, she had dumped the thermo's contents, rice porridge, into a bowl and handed him a spoon.

"Eat now," she demanded. Ryohei stared at her stupidly. Hana sighed. He would just keep on giving her that look until she explained, wouldn't he? "Kyouko was worried about you when she found out you got sick. She wanted me to see how you were doing since she's still in Italy." Hana didn't mention how she brought the porridge of her own accord.

It wasn't important.

Ryohei's eyes lighted up like a 100-watt bulb.

"GREAT!" he shouted out before letting out a wheezing cough. Hana wrinkled her nose. "I'll dig in then!" He spooned a mouthful into his mouth and in no time at all, he was done with the entire bowl and the rest of the thermos. "That was really good, Kurokawa!"

"I'm glad you liked it," Hana said, half-sarcastic and just a tad pleased.

Hana blinked when she saw Ryohei looking at her dress shirt. She had forgotten to take off her name tag for the job interview that had been barely an hour ago. On the tag was 'Kurokawa Hana' in her accomplished printing.

"Your first name..." Ryohei trailed off. Hana could feel a frown marring her features. She put a hand on her hip defensively.

"...You don't like it or something?"

"Oh no!" he denied. "I like your name! Gives you lots of EXTREME surprises since you aren't really like your name."

Hana opened her mouth to retort at his awkward compliment-insult. Her words stopped short when he plastered on an enthusiastic grin.

"I like surprises!"

Hana's eyes widened in shock. She was feeling more... what would be the word? She wouldn't allow the word 'flustered' to enter her head. Just. No.

"Call me Hana then," she said without thinking.

It was only when he started to blush that she realized he was embarrassed. Hana pursed her lips and could feel her cheeks slowly heat up.

What... had she said? She had just said something. Something that she hadn't meant to say, but it had come out anyway. Why had she said that? Hana could feel her cheeks heating up even more. Letting him call her by her first name meant that the line between them as acquaintance, connected only by their relationship with Kyouko, was officially gone. It makes our relationship sound more... more...Hana could feel her already heated face flushing to the colour of a beetroot red. This wasn't like her at all, to be not only blushing, but also turning a bright red.

...Intimate.

Hana was worrying -why was she doing so over something like this?- over the simple fact that she had just given him permission to call her 'Hana' right when he chose to call her by it.

Funny how even after all these years, he was still as tactless as ever.

Funny how even after all these years, instead of despising it more and more, she had come not to mind it.

"Hana, are you okay?" he said carefully, uncharacteristically quiet from his usual boisterous volume.

Hana frowned. Him saying her name wasn't exactly pleasant, but not exactly unwelcome either. She looked up fully at him then. At the strong lines against his tanned, chiseled face, at the knit in between his brows as he gazed down worriedly at him and at his dark amber eyes that were glazed from the fever he had.

Hana's mouth finally curved into a small smile.

"Yeah, I'm all right."

Ryohei gaped at her.

Her cool black eyes reflected irritation and the pithy excuse for a smile turned into a frown upon seeing him gaping. What was it now?

"What is it?" she snapped. Her scathing voice seemed to bring him out of it and he grinned at her again. Hana instantly felt uneasy. The last time -just a moment ago- he had done that didn't produce results she quite liked.

"I just think I was wrong now!" Ryohei exclaimed. Hana's eyes narrowed in suspicion and she crossed her arms protectively against her chest. She wasn't about to become all flustered again. Whatever this tactless dunce of her best friend's brother said, she would not get flustered.

"Your smile was nice just now!" His grin widened. "Like a really pretty flower!"

Her resolve cracked like a mirror and the pieces crushed into fine dust.

Ryohei looked worried again. "Hana, are you sick? Your face is all red now!" His mouth became an 'o'. "DID YOU CATCH MY COLD? HANA? HANA?" he repeated when she didn't answer.

Hana sighed, her cheeks still mottled with a light pink. He was tactless, loud, slow, an idiot who linearly only thought of boxing and everything else she was supposed to hate.

"HANA?" Ryohei hollered out gruffly, despite being five feet from her.

Hana pursed her lips and decisively decided that she didn't like him saying her name.

Not at all.

But she didn't tell him to stop.

A/N: Thanks for reading. Reviews would be great to tell me what you thought. :D