I had done nothing for the next few hours, except for keeping a constant vigil upon the woman that had fallen ill right before me. She was sleeping so hard, as if having some inescapable nightmare in her unconsciousness; and I frowned in pity for her, I remembered very graphically when I was plagued by nightmares. But this woman was so beautiful to me, for she was so voluptuous and yet so very calming to look at. One look at her reminded me of the burning of ice, but yet the burning wasn't painful, it was more like the gentle burn that one would get from a hot tub or a massage pad to help with back pain. I ate a peach that I had in a fruit bowl in the kitchen, and still kept watching for any signs of recovery. The Bag Raiders song "So Demanding" started playing on my phone and I saw the illuminated screen to see a picture of myself and Minato clinking soda bottles at a party in the dark in hi-def with a lit sparkler in my mouth. The white letters spelling out: "Minato Sahashi" were what truly caught my attention. My phone was rumbling as my phone rang, so I could tell that he was calling me. The time was 9:35 by this standard of time, so it wasn't too surprising. I answered the phone. "Minato, hey."

"Nathan? I didn't expect you to be awake so early." he responded.

"I already recieved a wake-up call." I stated with a chuckle. "No worries."

"Who woke you up?" he asked.

"A friend from America, John Hoffman. He woke me up at around 3:00 a.m, and I've been up and about ever since."

"Three? Geez, aren't you tired? I mean, I remember you being a heavy sleeper." he commented in a surprised reactional way.

"I slept at nine, so I'm okay. Six hours will sustain me for a little while." I answered reassuringly. "What's up, Minato? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, thanks for asking. I'm going to take the entrance exam in a few days, I was thinking of cramming in some study time so that I could have a sharper chance to pass." he said.

I heard the woman start to groan and open her eyes. My eyes flickered to her and I replied to his request, "Later tonight, come to my home and bring your materials. I have to go now, I'll talk to you soon, buddy."

"Okay, bye."

"Bye."

I hung up the phone and put it into sleep mode as I got on one knee and watched as she woke up and saw me. I smiled warmly, trying to show friendly intent to this woman. "Hey, miss. You feeling better now?" I asked her. She rubbed her eyes and then sat there looking at me with a blank and tired look on her face, with cloudy eyes. I began to smile as I rubbed the back of my head, my cheeks slightly heating up and blushing. "Well, you sure look like you're on the road to a speedy recovery." I commented. "But why were you wandering out there at 3 in the morning?"

She looked like she took a small blow. "I have nowhere else to be." she slowly admitted to me. I looked into her eyes and looked at her while my heart beat loudly. "If you want, this room could be yours. You can live here with me." I offered to her.

My heart began to beat faster and faster. 'Why is this happening to me? Stop beating so fast, I just met her for god's sake!' I thought to myself. But she was very beautiful, and her voice was quiet and precise, yet I could taste the slightest reveal of of beauty in her voice. 'Am I connected to this woman somehow?' She was wearing something similar to a white kimono, with a large V opening further up the outfit and chains upon her cleavage. A tattoo of a bird and a yin yang emblem adorned her forehead, and her cloudy yet sharp grey blue eyes dashed at me. I never was used to having any kind of real commitment to anything except for the arts, but now I was being allured. She smelled of fresh snow and pine, even though there was none of that in Japan at all. "I would like that, mister..." she began as I woke up from my train of thought and I realized we hadn't even introduced.

I smiled warmly aand offered her a hand to get up from the bed. "Nathan Felix. Not a usual name around here, but what can you do?" I introduced as I giggled. "You can call me Nate if you want."

She held my hand and I pulled her up from the bed gently. We were almost touching of the bodies and her head wasn't leaning in, yet her lips were still not that far away. "Akitsu." she simply stated to me. "My name is Akitsu." she specified.

I heard her stomach grumble and mine did as well. I closed my eyes and chuckled. "Perhaps I can make you some breakfeast? Since you are living here." I suggested bashfully.

'Stop being bashful, you'll scare her away.' I scolded myself. "I can cook." she answered thoughtlessly.

"Huh? But I could-" I started to object.

"This would be gratitude for you, Nathan." she interrupted cool mindedly.

I blinked confusedly, for I have never had another woman cook me food before. But I wasn't against the idea of having it done. I smiled. "Well, you can do as you want, Akitsu. Just be careful, there's a lot of art studio stuff down there." I answered to her case.

X

My phone rang again, and it was Minato calling once again. I took the initiative to finsh a few strokes of a paintbrush upon a paper before answering it. "Yo." I greeted.

"Nathan, what's goin' on?" he asked casually.

"I'm not actually busy or anything." I answered as I put the call on blue tooth and kept painting. "So you can visit when you want."

"Oh, yeah, I kinda forgot." he slumped mindlessly.

I smiled and continued to paint. "Knowing you, it's actually not even surprising that you forgot that anymore." I mocked.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he pitifully exclaimed at me.

I grinned and kept working. "Nothing bad, stop whining. I'm actually getting used to you being so funny about everything."

"So can I just come to your place?" he asked, trying to get off the comedy routine subject.

"Dude, just bolt over here. I'm going to finish up this painting right now anyway." I snapped, humorously.

"Alright, alright! I'll see you soon." he whined in relief as we hung up.

"Am I going to have to pay for this, Nathan?" Akitsu asked from behind the stand and paper I was using.

I let out a grin and a scoff. "Of course not. I'm doing this free of charge, Akitsu." I answered in a somewhat surprised way. "In terms of both money and other stuff, you aren't paying for this."

I finished up the painting and it was of Akitsu standing in the middle of a small, light blizzard with a sliver moon in the White Mountain sky. Green pine barely hung to the branches and snow and frost littlered the trees and small bushes of flowers and berries. She was not looking at the moon, but rather the was looking affectionately at me- in the sense of whoever would be looking at it, she'd look back at them. I showed this to her, demonstrating how it was easier to make it snowing instead of just trying to make it sunny. "I hope I didn't do anything wrong, Akitsu. You just... seem to be that kind of warm ice person, you know?" I apologized as I saw her ever so slightly smile to me, like an infinitesimal crack in a glacier.

"I like how well you made the setting. Where did you say you were from?" she asked with a very microscopic hint of cuirousity and appreciation. 'Geez, I'm going nuts' I scolded myself.

"I'm from Strawberry, Arizona. It's a small town in the middle of the White Mountains, a pine forest chunk of that state. It snows a lot during the winter up there, and I really liked snow." I explained somwhat hesitantly as I blushed a very light shade.

"You like... snow?" she asked me, as if somehow I had swept her off her feet.

I smiled and got up from my stool in front of the stand in the big studio room I have with an overhead skylight that was 12 feet by 16 feet and three 2 feet by 3 and a half feet windows on the walls. All of my pastels, paper books, charcoal, paints, brushes, pencils and all else were littered upon the shelves and cabinets that Minato and I moved into the place in the previous day. As I looked around and back to Akitsu, I answered her question. "I love the snow."

"That's new. People don't usually think much of the cold as a good thing." she sombered slightly as she looked away.

"I enjoy the cold. I like wind, rain, snow, hail, sleet, all of that good stuff. I like nature coming out to me. If it were snowing tonight, I might just..." I almost finished saying as I noticed that she was absorbing my words, almost devouring them like some chocolate creppe delicacy.

"'You would' what?" she paraphrased and interrogated calmly.

I looked away and scolded myself silently, but my decision was not changed by my sudden flux of logical thinking around a woman. "Akistu, I would kiss you." I blurted. "Even though we just met, I would be romantically inclined to you if there was snow. Call me weird, but that's how I think."

My phone vibrated and So Demanding played in my pocket. I was alarmed as I answered it rapidly, trying to keep as calm as possible. "Minato, hey. What's up, now?" I asked in a greeting.

"I'm at the front yard, where are you?" he asked and explained.

"I'm in that art studio room, where we unloaded all of my art stuff." I answered as I looked to Akitsu, with some affection in my eyes. "I'll be in the living room with you in just a second."

I hung the phone up and looked to Akitsu. "Um, could you do me a huge favor?"

"What is it, Nathan?" she asked with what I could almost swear was a sparkle in her eyes, even though they were unchanged and emotionless otherwise.

"Can you stay in here? I'm going to be with a friend of mine in the other room, so I'll be busy helping him study for a little while." I elaborated.

"Is he a college student?" she asked in response.

"No, he's studying for the entrance exam to a college he wants to go to, I think it was... Shinto Teito U. " I explained. "I've been helping him study for months, and its gotten to the point where I could say he'd get in very soon."

She was looking at that painting I made of her, as if she could truly feel that environment around her. Her skin showed goosebumps, but mostly soft goosebumps. Those were the kind that were the happy kind, like a combination of a Bob Ross artistic tape and few hours of listening to TLC and Prince, or looking into your best memories and the better half of yourself. Akitsu liked that painting very much, and I'm glad I didn't charge her like I would most commissions and customers. I felt her with my eyes, and I could almost hear her begin to have an emotional thought in her head, like ice being covered in coffee with how supple it is when it melts. "I know that there is a small chance of snow tonight, from my weather application on the phone." I announced to her. "In the time I am with my friend, pick out a frame design for that painting, okay? And then... we'll see if it snows tonight. Sound good?" I asked her, my voice starting to become syruppy.

She had stars twinkle in her emotionless face, and even that became moulded into something of beauty and excitement for the night. Her breathing was silent, but I could tell her heart was racing just as much as mine was. "Yes." she answered. "It sounds good, Nathan."

I walked into the room where Minato was waiting for me and I smiled while wiping my hands with a hankercheif in my back pocket. Walking over to him, I was glad I met the guy. He was actually a lot of fun to be with. "Hey, Minato! Glad you're here, this place is too quiet without the sound of someone else here." I both truthfully told and falsely told, for I had company that I was hoping to not reveal to him yet. For all I knew, she might rub him the wrong way and scare him away. Knowing Minato, the act of scaring him wasn't going to be difficult, he's still a little soft skinned and easy to freak out.

"Hey, Nathan. Are we going to...?" he asked skeptically.

"Yeah, yeah!" I answered vigorously as I walked us over to the kitchen. "There's free space here, we could use it."

XXXXXXX

I was walking Minato back to the apartment complex that he lived in, because he had asked me to accompany him for protection. As we began walking from the palace, I gave him a look of confusion. "Since when do you need me to walk you home?"

He shrugged a bit and started to laugh it off like he usually does, with his eyes closed and his hand rubbing the back of his head. "I don't know, to be honest. Things just seemed eerie tonight, so I wanted you to come with me in case of a mugger or something." he pitifully answered.

"Who would mug you? You're not too rich, and your phone can easily be replaced." I bluntly asked, revoking his logic.

Minato slowly palmed his face in a self scolding way. "Besides, I think that you shouldn't be afraid. This area is actually peaceful at night and in the morning, so don't be so afraid." I continued. "I've got your back, man."

He smiled at me and I looked at my phone for the time. It read: 8:30 p.m. I looked to the weather app for Akitsu's sake and... it showed the impossible. It read: 30% chance of snow; cloudy. I looked up to the sky and put my phone to sleep to show that there were clouds gatheed all about, and it was colder this evening. 'What? But it's March.' I thought to myself. 'What is this, God's heartwarming time?' I walked with him, talking to him about the weather and how strange it was. Then the conversation became about strange things occuring, shifted into the kinds of movies we've seen, and as we got to his place, the conversation about who was a better candidate for the next voice actor of a character on the next Final Fantasy game that he and I saw an ad for would be. We came up to his building, and I stood there with him. "Well, man, it's home sweet home." I said to him. "I'll see you tomorrow if I can, I'll be a little preoccupied."

"'Preoccupied'? With what?" he asked me. "I've never seen you doing much aside from sleeping and keeping up with your stuff being shipped from America." he went on.

"I'm going to be making myself public, opening myself for commisions and a good day's give and take." I answered with a smile. "I've got a good studio, might as well use it."

"Oh, well, are you going to need help? I mean, I have free time and I'll be able to-" he began to babble.

"Minato. I'll be alright, man. I'm good at my thing, I promise you. Text me any and all requests for commisions, you'll get a discount." I declared to him softly yet sternly as I walked away. "30 % off!"

"Just 30?" he asked.

"If you're a regular, and you're good with it, it'll add to 40%! Goodnight!" I called out as I began to walk my way home, slowly and doing as much as I can to give the snow its good time. 'Come on, just snow. At least something special, just this once. Even though it is March... Oh well.' I thought to myself as I recieved a text message from Johnathan.

It was a picture of Vegeta from Dragon Ball Z, with a fishface and no hair, in a sissy fighting stance. In white words, it spelled out: "Vegeta, look! Bald people!"

I put my phone to sleep as I chuckled from the message, and the chuckling became laughter. "F**king Johnathan." I said to myself as I came close to my house. "Okay, Nathan, think... It's March, and it might actually snow, all in order to give you a chance to sweep some woman off her feet; all in which you found looking at your house at 3 o'clock in the morning. And now she's going to be living in your non-expensive palace for free. You're insane." I kept saying to myself as I walked into the house and wiped my feet.

"Akitsu!" I called out for her. "Akitsu? I'm home. Hey, it actually looks like it's going to snow tonight, so perhaps we could watch for..." I called and stopped as I recieved a text from Minato.

It read:"It's snowing now! Are you seeing this?" I looked over and walked outside. Sure enough, it was lightly snowing. Sprinkling white frozen water was falling upon us, in the early Spring. I was getting really excited, almost freaking out. "How is it...? Where's—?" I asked as I saw Akistu stand in the middle of the front yard, as if waiting for me to see something that she made. I looked to her and then my heart became like a drum, beating repetitively and loudly while making vibrations that I could slightly feel in my chest. I became excited and somehwat repetivively in melancholy, for I have been in many situations similar to this. Hopefully, nothing bad would happen. 'This is a dream' I thought to myself. 'I'm dreaming up all of this crap and I'm actually going to get that wakeup call really soon.'

Akitsu looked my way, as if expecting me to look at her as soon as I saw the snow. "Nathan, it's snowing." she said to me, like a little kid showing off a trick, but that kid speaking with very little emotion and showing slightly more than she sounds like. "You told me that you like the snow."

"I do. I actually love it a lot." I responded affectionately. "Akitsu, how is it that you are demonstrating the snow to me?"

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Are you making the snow fall somehow?" I asked as I smiled. "I never thought the X-men were real, nor did I think that Storm would be you, Akitsu." I joked a bit.

"... I'm not an X-man." she replied with the hint of cofusion. "I'm...I'm-"

"—the most beautiful woman on Earth." I interrupted in a complimentary way.

Akitsu was very good at trying to hide it, but I could tell that she was desiring me. I had excited her and made her feel good with that one piece of a sentence. She was breathing very quietly and yet so heavily and I could feel her body heat begin to radiate from her soft, light skin. She was starting to sweat a bit too. That was a good sign to me, and yet one of confusion; that didn't sway me. "Akitsu..." I started to say as we got close to one another. "I don't care how the snow came around."

"Nathan—"she calmly and nearly emotionally gasped.

"—I'm not going to try and force you. If you want to start something with me, I'd love it... but it's your choice." I finished and interrupted.

She looked into my eyes and I could feel that underneath the masterful efforts to keep it hidden under an icy corona, she was melting inside, and her heart was falling for me. I was doing my best to keep calm, but deep down I desired her and wanted her love. "My ashikabi!" She strongly cried out as she kissed me deep, our tongues dancing in one another's mouths.

'Ashikabi? I never heard that word before. Perhaps it just means "heart" or "love" in another language.' I thought in the furthest reaches of my mind as I kept kissing her. Then came the most theatrical moment of the kiss. Wings of icy blue light and ionized frost blazed from her back in arcs, and the symbol above her brow glowed blue and white before it dimmed down and stopped glowing again. She and I stopped kissing and she let out a breath of joy and relief, then began to repetitively breathe like that while keeping a calm look. "Akitsu, sekirei number 7. I'm at your service, now and forever, master." she announced as she looked into my eyes. They were exponentially widened, and my mind wasn't even so much focused on anything other than one thing.

"Call me Nathan, not just 'master', Akitsu." I requested in tamed hysteria.

She smiled a tiny bit and walked into my home after answering me with, "Yes...Nathan."