Sweat. It poured off of me, slipping into my ears and turning my face bright red. I was breathing so hard I was practically hyperventilating. I couldn't stop running, I had to run, run as hard as I could. I didn't know why or how I had gotten here, all I knew was that I had to run.

Something was on my heels and as my head whipped around, hair sticking to my face in wild disarray, the ground suddenly dissapeared and I fell forward with a startled, terrified scream.

I fell and fell the feeling of falling not bothering me as much after a while. I landed in a heap, groaning as I tried to get up. That didn't feel very good. My hand slipped and I picked it up, grossed out that there was crud on the floor. My hand was stained red and I froze, looking beneath me. It was leaking out in an ever growing puddle and I realized that there was blood pouring down my arm!

I jerked awake, terrified. Looking around blearily and gasping for breath I found that I was still on Shuuichi's couch. My body was covered in cool sweat and I shivered, puling the blanket around me. I laid back down, trying to go to sleep but all I picture were my wrists, pouring blood.

I held them up and stared at them. They were fine. I tried to calm down, but found that I couldn't. The darkness made me nervous. I slid off the couch and padded almost silently to the kitchen. The digital clock (Shuuichi had to explain that to me too) was shining the time in fluorescent green. I groaned when I realized how obnoxiously early in the morning it was.

The floor was cold and I took a seat, tucking my feet under me to best utilize the warmth of the blanket. I stared out of the window, sadness coming over me. How could I do that to myself? It was a return of the same question from before.

I got up from the chair, knowing I wouldn't be able to sleep. I tiptoed down the hall and stopped at a familiar door. I reached out to turn the doorknob, but hesitated at the last second and softly knocked. A few seconds ticked by and I went to knock again, but the door suddenly opened.

I gaped, rather startled, and then felt the blood rush to my face. Shuuichi leaned against the door, hair out of its pony tail and splayed across his chest. The button up was rumpled and open and I was blessed with a perfect view of his lanky stature. He had surprisingly defined muscles and at that moment I was under the impression that my face would explode and looked away at the floor.

"I-I… Had a, uh, nightmare and was-" I stuttered out, but he cut me off.

"What are you waiting out here for?" He asked. I looked up, a bit stunned and was once again blown apart by his excessively good looks. I went quiet, uncertain of what to say and feeling awkward because it was obvious that he'd been sleeping.

But standing there in the dark hallway made me feel nervous and scared, so when he motioned for me to come in I skittered forward like a scared rabbit. He pushed the door closed, until there was only a sliver of light, after I was all the way inside and then smiled at me before rolling back into bed. I stood there, uncertain of what to do. I had been planning to sleep on the floor or something, but… Shuuichi suddenly cleared his throat, I looked up.

He had pulled back the covers and I inched forward.

"Come on." He said, his voice throaty and low with sleep. I slipped onto the bed and pulled up the covers, using my own blanket as a pillow. I kept as close to the edge as possible, doing my best not to bother Shuuichi. My back was cold and the blanket was pulling a bit but slowly his breathing evened out and I relaxed a teensy bit.

My heart was beating in my ears, so loud I was almost certain that Shuuichi could hear it. But of course he couldn't, he was sleeping. I shifted a teensy bit and that made him stir. I froze, breathing shallowly and waiting until I was certain he was asleep.

I finally sighed and closed my eyes. Sleep came quickly after that. I slept like the dead, I was just very comfortable and warm and I felt safe. It was a deep, dreamless sleep.

I woke up, feeling groggy. It was warm and comfortable. The room was dark so I hugged my pillow tighter and burrowed back in to return to sleeping. After a few moments of comfortable silence I furrowed my eyebrows, wondering why my pillow was moving. And heated. I froze.

Well, this was awkward.

I went rigid in my position. I slowly pulled my arms back and tried to retreat, but found that I couldn't move. I slumped and the grip on my waist pulled tighter. I slowly looked up from my position and truly cringed when I saw red hair.

Yes, this body was attached to Shuuichi. I looked up to his face and found it peaceful. He really did look much more relaxed in his sleep. I wriggled, trying to pull away again and his expression screwed up. I stopped moving and it relaxed again. My face burned and I buried my head back where it had been.

Not that that was really any better because his shirt was still open. I groaned and closed my eyes, rolling my neck. At least he had pants on, because this would be a whole new level of awkward otherwise. After a few moments of this I realized that he was not going to wake up or let me go (not that I was really complaining about the state of things) and rested my forehead against his stomach.

Shuuichi, you are ripped.

I thought off-handedly and sighed again before shifting and getting comfortable again. Might as well go back to sleep if this was going to be the state of things.

My arm shook and I whined, not wanting to get up. I was just so extremely comfortable. It shook again and I reached up, waving away whatever was bothering me on instinct. It stopped and I settled in again. My shoulder shook and this time I growled and glared up at the source of the annoyance.

My eyesight was blurry and I squinted, the colors clearing into a recognizable shape. Oh shoot. My face froze as I went from annoyed to surprised to embarrassed all in a second. All the blood drained from my face.

"Morning." I squeaked out, realizing that I was still attached to Shuuichi and let go quickly, moving backwards. But I miscalculated and my fingers slipped off of the edge of the bed. I tumbled over backwards, landing on my back and taking all of the blankets with me.

I coughed, mostly out of pain and sat up, rubbing my back. That was not the best way to wake up in the morning. As I looked up I realized that Shuuichi was frozen into place. I picked up my hand to wave and see if anyone was home but he suddenly chuckled, then he started to laugh and I found a laugh bubbling up in my own stomach and before I knew it both of us were laughing. Rather loudly and obnoxiously, but the situation was rather funny.

As the laughter finally began to die off I scratched my head and then stood up, feeling my face heat up. He looked at me and then his own face turned red and we both looked away, feeling awkward.

"Sorry." I finally coughed out. He immediately sat up straight.

"Oh, no, uh… I'm sorry I guess I just-"

"No, I'm sorry. It was my fault and-"

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"Look, this really isn't going anywhere." Shuuichi finally said and we both laughed awkwardly, trailing off.

"I suppose this won't happen again…" I murmured, not actually meaning to say that out loud. Shuuichi turned flaming red and I found it nearly amusing to watch him try to stutter out an answer.

"N-no, it-it's fine, I just, I didn't expect…" He trailed off, took a deep breath then restarted. "It's fine if you want to stay in here, it just surprised me is all."

I looked up, shocked and felt a smile begin to grow and looked to my feet suddenly to hide it. Embarrassed and trying to hide my happiness.

"Thanks… It really does help…" I said, voice small. "With the nightmares and all… They usually stay away with you…" I shut up at that, not meaning to mention it and shuffled about, kind of wanting to just run out of the room and die from embarrassment. As the silence stretched out I twirled my thumbs, glancing up shyly.

Shuuichi's face had gone slack and he looked a bit ghostly. I panicked, wondering if I'd killed him and waved my hand in front of his face, trying to gain a reaction. He snapped alive at that and looked away, running a hand through his hair.

"It's no problem." He said, then abruptly slid from the bed. "I'm going to take a shower." He muttered, then practically bolted out of the room.

Sleeping in the same room as Shuuichi became a bit of a routine after that, though we didn't repeat the incident again. I slept on the floor, effectively nullifying the problem. After a few days he told me that he needed to return to work and so that left me home alone from morning until fairly late at night.

I didn't know what he did for a job, but he didn't bring it up so I didn't ask. Actually I found Shuuichi's stash of books, well more like library and spent most of my time reading. At first I could barely get through a page in half an hour but over the course of a few days I began to speed up. His books were too hard though and when he found that I'd been reading he got me tons of easier books on loads of different subjects.

It turned out that I had an almost extreme hunger for learning and he almost couldn't keep me supplied with enough books for me to curb my boredom. In all of those subjects I started to learn tons of things I didn't know and brought it up to Shuuichi, who began teaching me. I didn't really see him all that often seeing as he would bolt into the shower before I woke up and come home after I was asleep. During all of this we also decided on a name for me because after a while I had realized that I couldn't remember my name. So we came up with Eva. He would teach me on the weekends, but he worked then too and after about a month of this I found myself getting frustrated at the routine.

This was just obnoxious. It was even obvious to me that he was avoiding me. But why? That was the hot question and it burned at the back of my mind and began to even distract me from reading. On one night when Shuuichi came home particularly late I stayed up, working on math at his desk. It had piles of books on it and sheets of paper with my rather beautiful, delicate, chicken scrawl covering them.

When I heard the door close I put away the papers and tucked my legs under me before turning toward the door. Moments later he opened the door, looking like he was just going to collapse into bed.

"Hi." I said and he practically jumped out of his skin when he saw me sitting there, ever so calm and nonchalant.

"Oh… Oh, hello Eva-san." He said, voice a bit high. "Why are you still up?" He asked, sounding a little bit nervous.

I raised an eyebrow and leaned back in my chair.

"Because I wanted to talk to you." I said as kindly as possible, but I could tell from his expression that he wasn't really having it so I sighed. "Well, straight to the point then. Why are you avoiding me?"

Judging by the extremely shocked expression on his face that was not a question he thought that I was going to ask and he went still, his face blank. I blinked, having already known that he probably wouldn't have much of an answer.

"Why do say that?" He finally choked out and I almost laughed.

"It's even obvious to me that you're avoiding me, unless every person feels the need to work all day every day of the week." I trailed off, suddenly feeling a bit too rude and sighed. "Did I do something to cause this?"

He opened his mouth and closed it, then opened it again as if to say something, but nothing came out. Finally he dropped his head.

"No, you didn't do anything…" He murmured, my face turned confused and I felt like he was lying. "It's just that… Well, I've never really lived with, you know, a… A girl before…" His voice faltered, and he tugged on his ponytail, ducking his head.

I blushed, not realizing that. I guess I'd just always assumed that he had been with girls before and this wasn't like totally new but he was in the same boat as me. I ducked my head as well and a blanket of nervousness settled over the conversation.

"Oh… I… I guess I just thought…" I trailed off. "You know, you don't have to avoid me. You could have just mentioned it. I feel the same way and that's fine if you want me to go hang out on the couch or something if that makes you more-"

When I said that his face dropped and he held up his hands.

"No. No. That's not what I meant! I just figured that you'd feel better if I wasn't here so often and… Stuff…" He said and I nearly grinned at the uncharacteristically slang style of word choice.

I smiled shyly.

"No, I definitely prefer it when you're here." I offered and smiled up at him.

That funny, crooked grin made its appearance and we both laughed quietly in truce.

"Okay… Let's just work through this as it goes." He said, as smart as always. I nodded.

"And let's just promise each other to mention when somethings wrong?" I asked, he nodded as well. I stood up from the chair, my legs tingling as they woke back up, and Shuuichi reached over and flipped off the light.

We both settled into our respective spots.

"Night, Minamino-san." I whispered after a minute.

He chuckled.

"Good night Eva-san.