Chapter Seven - Day One Hundred Forty One
Shin stepped into the early morning air and out of the hut for his customary walk. The outings had first been suggested by Takana with the explanation that he needed to move about a bit more in order for his leg to heal properly and strongly. That had been three weeks ago and now, whenever the weather permitted, he would make a large enough circuit around the hut to get a good walk in but close enough that if the weather turned for the worse suddenly, he could get out of the storm before he froze to death.
Today was unseasonably warm and Shin took full advantage. He'd taken a walk the day before but had cut it short when dark and threatening clouds started to appear, which had been both a mistake and a gift.
Looking up at the quickly darkening sky, he cut off the path he normally took and headed back in the direction of the hut. He could already see its tell-tale smoke trail after only a few minutes of hiking as he continued to eye the clouds; they were dense and looked to be full of snow. It wasn't long before small flurries of flakes began to swirl around him. If he had been farther away, they might actually have made him nervous but now that the hut was only a few hundred yards away, he actually found them pleasant. Perhaps another storm would prompt the woman to teach him a new game or partake of the one they had played not too long ago. He actually found himself desiring increased contact with her. He wanted her to speak with him, to give him a reason to speak with her. He didn't know why he found it so difficult sometimes to think of things to say to her that didn't sound as though he simply wanted to talk. But then there was that, why didn't he want to just talk to her for the sake of talking to her? Why did the idea bother him deep down? Why should it? He shook his head. He was tired of fighting his first instincts on everything he said and did. He longed to just be able to do them without the nagging feeling that he was acting improperly somehow, that she should be beneath him when she had done nothing but prove herself to him day in and day out.
She was clever, talented in both healing and carving, full of wit and in her own way, and in a way that he increasingly saw her as, quite attractive. He shook his head again. He needed to stop thinking about her like that no matter what his instincts told him. The living area of the hut was far too small and the winter promised to be too prolonged to begin thinking thoughts related to her being female and him male.
He gathered a burst of speed and tried to walk more without his crutch, welcoming the slight discomfort as a way to redirect his thoughts. The wind began to pick up suddenly and gave him a new appreciation for the warmth the hut provided and he congratulated himself on choosing to cut this particular walk short.
He approached the hut from the side and wasted no time in throwing back the entrance cover. What he saw made his breath seize in his lungs and made the very woman he'd been thinking about spin to face him. She only faced him for the briefest of moments however before she covered her face with one hand and pulled up the hem of her bathing robe back over her shoulder with the other. What he'd seen was gone in an instant but it was burning into his eyes and his mind forever. He had seen the creamy white skin that she kept hidden beneath layers of cloth. He has seen the curve of her slender back when she faced away and the softness of a full breast when she turned to him.
Shin spun around to face the other direction once the impact of the scene made itself known to the brain that was all but completely fixated on the sight he had just witnessed.
"This Sessh..." He stopped mid sentence, unable to finish the word he had started. The unfinished word startled him almost as much as her nudity had. However, the awkwardness of the situation quickly jumped back to the forefront of his mind and he finished what he had originally meant to say. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..."
She cut him off before he could finish his apology. Her voice sounded just as flustered as his. "It's ok, I just expected you to be gone longer."
"The weather started to turn; it's snowing as we speak."
She finished dressing and told him to come inside before he got sick. He'd done as she asked and had not been able to get the sight out of his head even in sleep as his nighttime visions were filled with her nude form. Needless to say, there were no games played that night and it was not on that evening that he spoke simply because he wanted to speak to her. Neither occupant spoke and both retired early though sleep came slowly for both of them.
AN: Sorry to everyone for the tiny chap, another will be out very quickly.
