Tell Me

7

When she took him to the hospital later that evening, he had received such a scolding from the nurse on duty about the dangers of self first aid that for a moment she saw a glimpse of the puppy the waitresses liked to talk so much about. Guilt was written into his features and in the curve of his back as he slouched forward as if to hide. They sat in one of the small service rooms waiting for the doctor, sitting side by side because he refused to sit on the white crinkly paper, and before she even realized it, he had taken her hand in his and silently awaited his punishment.

She nudged him slightly in the arm, careful of his bandaged hand, "Nervous?" she asked, looking down at their hands. It hadn't meant to come out teasing, but when she looked back up he was pouting. Well, as close to pouting as he was going to get.

"No," he grumbled. His lower lip protruded slightly and his knee bounced up and down impatiently. She had never seen him so fidgety and she gently squeezed his hand, butting her head against his uninjured shoulder.

"Right," she said, but the smile on her lips was already spreading by that point and the overwhelming urge to kiss him was becoming hard to ignore. She decided against it, though, on the pretense that the doctor could walk in at any minute (nerves may also had something to with it but she was going to blame the doctor), and rested her cheek against his arm. He was warm, always was, actually, and she loved it. It wasn't a burning like how his eyes sometimes looked, but a simmer that seeped through her skin and stayed there. "Well, either way, I've got your back."

She didn't need to look to know that he was smiling.

In reality though, it was probably Gou who was nervous. In the moment the kiss didn't seem like much, more of a natural occurrence that was the result of the convenient happenstance. How he had looked so handsome, smile gleaming, eyes glowing and a head full of sand, that made the action seem simply subconscious. It was just now, after the fact, she was nervous. Nervous of this second step and exactly what it entailed and it brought with it the fact that she had few people to share it with suddenly to mind. It wasn't that she never noticed it before, people had a tendency to avoid her as a result of her tumultuous family situation. Chigusa had always been the exception, but at the moment she wanted to talk to someone a little closer to home.

She had questions, some stupid and some not, and they had been bubbling at the back of her throat for a while now. She had been young when her parents were still together, but youth was nothing but a rose colored lens through which she saw the world and those memories told her that her mother had been through what she was experiencing now. It was reassuring in a way and disheartening in another.

However, in the end it was nice knowing that she wasn't alone.

She figured it was by the sea where the small fluttering sensation in her stomach transformed into something a little bit more difficult to ignore. It was a late blossoming and she could practically pinpoint every moment that rose blush would flutter up her cheeks and she would humorously think about how much like Seijuurou she had become.

Perhaps it was the new found openness that led to it. The way he would walk into the gym and toss off his jacket like he was whipping off cape, baring the skin and the rippling muscles underneath (and the slowly healing scar), which she always found impossible not to admire. She'd smile sheepishly because of it all, happily, and suddenly his bravado would vanish in a puff of hot air, his cheeks turning a color that matched his hair as this goofy grin spread wide across his face.

They had always been somewhat close, but as the days passed she found him sitting closer and closer, his hands seeking hers with a confidence she had never seen in him before. Sure, he had yet to shed any further light on his life, but the fact that he aloud her to step through the door so to speak was enough, even if the lights were still off. In a way she could tell there was something he was keeping from her, something particularly important at that and it was only out of concern that occasionally she would press him for details.

"Everything going well?" she asked nonchalantly one evening as they lounged about on the floor of the ring. It was one of those throw away questions, one she hoped he knew he wasn't obligated to answer.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw him go still, his eyes wide and afraid as if speaking a word would scare her away. She sat up slowly then, pulling the elastic from her hair and shaking it free. She busied herself by gathering the strands neatly back into confinement, patiently awaiting his answer or his careful avoidance. When she looked to find him struggling, mouth opening and closing and mind working a mile a minute as he chose the perfect words to say, she sighed and decided to change the subject.

"Say, Sei, would you like to..." her throat got caught but she swallowed and continued. "...come over sometime?"

He froze, his thoughts coming to a screeching halt and his eyes blinked confusedly. "Come over?" he repeated, making sure he had heard her right.

A tiny smile found its place on her lips, "That's right. 'Over' as in my house."

It was impossible to miss the slight slackness to his jaw as his mouth opened in surprise. "I uh. . . sure, I guess. Why not? Is it a special occasion?"

She looked down to the floor, "Not really," she said, absentmindedly drawing circles on the ring floor. "Though, my mother will be there." A slight glance upward though was all it took and the somewhat apprehensive look about his face made her wish she could stuff all the words back into her mouth.

"That's fine with me, but-"

She smiled lightly and looked away, "Actually, never mind, forget I said anything."

He watched as she stood, dusting off her hands on her tracksuit. "What? Why?"

She shrugged, but it was that shrinking shrug he didn't like seeing, "I don't want to bother you with stupid things."

He reached out and grasped her hand before she had the chance to vacate the ring, tugging gently to pull her back down to sit knee to knee with him. "You're not," he stated, firmly and truthfully, as he tried to catch her gaze through her bangs. "And I want to."

When her eyes caught his, he smiled and she offered a tentative quirk to her lips in return. "You sure?"

"Say the word and I'll be there."

And so, when they stood outside her door a couple nights later both of them were more than aware of how clammy both of their hands were, but neither of them said a word about it. Instead, it only seemed to encourage Seijuurou to tighten his grip around her hand. She hadn't told him to dress up, what was a little dinner together with her one remaining parent after all, but when she went to meet him at the train station, it looked like his jacket had been pressed and he sported probably the only pair of dress pants he owned.

"Nervous?" she asked. He merely swallowed hard around the lump in his throat and grinned. "Good. So am I."