"Are you sure you don't want to take any with you?"

Harvar's pace didn't waver as he laced his shoes. He took a few deliberate moments to rock on his feet, as if testing the soles. Then he straightened, satisfied, before finally turning around. "You can keep the Chinese," he said curtly. Yet his words were tinged with warmth, surprisingly modestly.

Jacqueline shrugged, letting her hand slip from her fridge. She sautered up to him as he shrugged on a jacket, offering a smile. Once again, the offer to crash on the couch died on her lips - as their meister's dates went on later and later, so did their evenings together. What started as coffee somehow grew to movies and terrible TV shows on either her or his couch. But the logical next step always fizzed out before reaching fruition.

Both of them knew it. Which is why they hadn't asked. Not yet.

Jackie crossed her arms as he wrapped a scarf around his neck. "Warm enough?"

Harvar's eyes caught hers, and for a second she can hear the unspoken words that reflected in his eyes. A snarky comment about her, her warmth, but that, too, was never quite spoken. "I'll manage," he said instead, and if there was something like disappointment that lived in her system, it was quickly gone as he pressed his hands into hers. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Her mind whirred; she wasn't aware of any other dates planned for the next day. And then heat flooded her cheeks, and Jackie could only hope she didn't turn an uncharacteristically brilliant shade of red. Sometimes she felt as if her face didn't emote at all, yet this time, she wondered if he could read the surprise on her features, and then the embarrassment.

Of course he'd see her tomorrow. They had school the next day.

So she gave a quick 'of course'. Jackie knew he wasn't a speech specialist by any means, but she swore she saw the corner of his lip twitch. It reached his eyes, changing the chocolate to molten, the facade cracking before her.

And as she closed the door behind his retreating figure, Jackie let her fingers rest against the heavy wood. The pinpricks of heat danced from her spine to her fingertips, generated by their contact, his presence. She closed her eyes as she felt the sparks displace from her into the doorframe. For much longer than she'd like to admit, Jackie wondered if he, too, was able to discern things in the other's voice that only their meisters could.

...

She got the text message just as she left the classroom, ironically the only one she didn't share with Kim. Her meister had a spare, perfectly planned to align with Ox's.

Can you come home?

The words were burned into her mind, and for a moment, Jacqueline was scared. So scared. Peace had been present, but it'd been unstable, in a flux. People may have called Harvar the ruthless one, but Jackie was the prepared one. The ready one. The paranoid one, sure, maybe, but how was that a bad thing, if her meister was in danger?

Too soon. Too soon, she repeated in her mind as she ran outside. She didn't mind the breathlessness, the sweat that clung to her bangs and stuck them against her forehead. She didn't mind the heat that pulsated at her fingers, around her neck and in her temples. Too soon, the peace wasn't perfect - and this was a testament. What if, what if - Jackie shoved the intruding thought as far from her mind as she could.

Kim was in the lobby, her voice low. Her pink hair was visible above the couch, as well as two, perfectly straight, protruding hair-spikes that she only knew too well. Jacqueline paused and heaved a breath, which were harder to take than she would've expected.

"Are you okay?" The words tumbled from her lips, sloppy and reckless.

Her meister twisted her head. "I'm -" Kim faltered. "We're - leaving." She threw Ox a scathing look, so full of anger that it made even Jackie recoil. Ox seemed to take a similar stance; his mouth fell open, something vaguely like her meister's name on his lips, but the person in question turned her head pointedly. "Let's go." And then her fingers snaked around her wrist, gently yet firmly guiding Jacqueline with her.

The Demon Lantern shot a helpless glance behind her, then to the door. Ox didcall Kim's name then, but her meister had stubbornly set her eyes forward. Poor guy.

And as she stormed off, she caught sight of his white jacket. Black hair, orange sunglasses. Harvar strode up to his meister, hands in his pockets, talking lowly and incomprehensibly from their distance.

Then his eyes caught hers, and she felt the same prickly heat attack her spine.

They stared a moment longer. Somethingwithin her stirred; not quite defiance, but it was if she were reaching out. Just like that, there was contact; she understood. It only took that look. She understood.

They'd have to talk.

"Come on, Kim." Jacqueline carefully maneuvered their hands so she was leading instead, and she concentrated hard on her own fluttering heart instead of her meister's. But whether her staccato beat was collateral from Kim, or it solely belonged to her, she didn't know. She never knew. At this point, she didn't care. But her heart thumped painfully in her chest, her emotions in turmoil, and the last thing she remembered was his lingering stare.

...

"Hey." His voice was low, unassuming.

"Hey," she responded, equally lowly, and she took up the spot beside him.

It was strange. They certainly didn't plan for this encounter. Yet here they were: as casually as they had several instances before, perched at their favourite spot one of the more crowded corridors within Shibusen. It would be painfully easy to return back into old habits, to relish in the odd if not prickly tranquility that was his presence. To let everything go: to slip into a passive state and merely watch the people go by. But she wasn't calm - not since the fight, especially not now, when her heartbeat tripled once more. Not calm, as heat rose from her core, as the outmost edges of her body craved his flickering, blue warmth - as the noise in her heart became unbearable, painful.

It was adrenaline, exhaustion, fear; an exhilarating fear, quite different from the time he'd threatened her life.

Harvar was overwhelming. Despite his quiet demeanour, his serious and calm composure, he was overwhelming. And for the first time, their silence wasn't peaceful. It wasn't relaxing. Instead, tension crackled between them, vicarious sparks attacking their spines relentlessly, dissolving into sticky and barbed heat.

They were too much like their meisters.

Words weren't Jackie's go to. It wasn't the way they worked. Yet her brain thrashed, fighting for something to say, to describe what she felt. It was painful, it was tangible - she could feel it in her throat, like a lump, swallowing her words against her volition. Every time she could even begin to identify the emotion in her body, the syllables died in her throat. She merely sat, like a wavering flame, unsure if she wanted to burn or snuff out entirely.

"I like you."

His voice could have been part of the ambiance, yet it still managed to catch her by surprise. His words were sincere - they'd never been more before. And they were warm. So warm that she could almost feel it, and yet it was never right; it prickled and stung but it was there, fiery, in no means safe.

Those three words were strong. Harvar's eyes said everything - it was stronger than liking, it was so much more. But it was all he could ever allow.

Jackie inhaled.

"I know," she responded, and she couldn't get the damn tremor out of her voice. Jackie met his gaze evenly. Behind the tinted lenses, she could see the emotion in his gaze, in the dark brown irises she didn't realize she found comfort in.

But it was all she needed to know, for his stare held the words she couldn't say - and in some sick, cruel sense of irony, they both understood, because they both felt the same way.

Their meisters always came first.

And it wasn't due to a sense of duty, a sense of code or binding that was against their will. It was exactly the opposite. She loved Kim. That was never the question. It wasn't that she didn't love him enough - it was that nothing would ever compare. She wouldn't let it.

His fingertips danced along the back of her palm. Harvar didn't initiate; rather, she was unsure of who exactly touched who first. It didn't matter - his touch sent small sparks shooting down her hand, along her bloodstream - and she realized she could discern the difference between his lightning and this. The Lightning Spear in him made the hair at her neck stand on end; these sparks lit her entire being.

He was overwhelming.

She didn't know what drove her. Was it rejection? Need? Attraction? Respect? All of the above? Jackie didn't dwell. But her eyes closed - and for five seconds, all she knew, with a violent certainty, was a soft, surprisingly gentle press against her mouth.

As he pulled away, she could still feel the sparks dance on her lips.

It was frustrating - so frustrating - as the words came and gone, never once alive enough to actually pass through her throat. Instead, she sat numbly, and though she looked, she didn't see. The sparks jumped off her lips and dissolved deep into each muscle of her mouth, spreading like wildfire through her capillaries, igniting her very body. She was buzzing. Tension snapped and sparked and for several, reckless moments, she wanted nothing more but to press her lips once more against him. If only to get another taste of the sparks, if only to sate her need for companionship, if only for another taste of him - which was so sweet, and so fleeting, and so unbearably unreal that she wasn't sure if she were in denial that he kissed her, that she liked him, that any of this was happening.

Another person passed by. And with their movements, she felt her hair lift with the motion, carried ever so slightly by the generated breeze, before falling against her arm, tangibly cool against her flushed skin.

It was as if nothing happened and yet everything did. Jackie glanced and was surprised to find herself even a bit shy. Not as if she regretted it one bit. But she met an equally hesitant glance - just a quick one, only his eyes moving as the rest of him pointed forward. In typical Harvar fashion, he made no move of acknowledgement.

Jackie broke the contact first.

She took in a deep, almost shuddering breath. With the pad of her finger, she brushed along his palm. It was warm, even to her ownskin. The familiar melange of sparks eased their way up her arm, a combination of his natural and her own reactory ones. If she could put colours to the sensations, then she'd see in blues and whites and oranges, flashing like fireworks before her irises.

Simply, easily, and just as mutually - confusingly - their fingers twine together. She didn't know who kissed who; she didn't know who did what. Only one thing was certain: his hand was in hers, and his fingers were too big -too long. They furled around the back of hand, curling and settling into the dimples of her knuckles. Her own, slimmer digits ached from the stretch, and all the while the contact snapped, popping along her veins, settling into warmth, uneasy.

She exhaled.

There was still much to say, much to discuss. Even if they did, she already knew where it would go. Even in these fragile moments, where he was close enough to touch, where she felt free enough to be like the protagonists in the books she'd read - giggly, in love, normal. The worst part was, was thatshe knew all of it was easy enough to shatter.

No. For now, Jacqueline was content to just be like this.