Who Needs Enemies (when you've got friends like me)
Upon first sight, he felt guilty. Even coating the words with kindness couldn't help her disposition. To say the least, Saki was a mess.
Her hair fell in the same silent waves, but was frayed. As if she had tried to get some sleep and ended up tossing and turning instead. Bags under her eyes were a testament to that assumption. And her clothes, though disheveled, seemed put on haphazardly. But her eyes didn't reveal a thing. No, it even appeared as though they were saying "I look fine, I feel fine, I am fine." so much to the point of where it became an unhealthy habit.
Hatori reached out to touch her cheek, maybe get a sense of how she was feeling, but Saki would have none of it. She raised the plush, speaking of her victory, to subtly dodge his hands.
It was his small seahorse which had been hiding, or rather been shoved, under his bed for some time now. Silently he cursed himself for not having tossed the rag out the window, but he never had the heart to throw away a gift.
"I see you've found something personal…other than files."
"More personal than files, Sohma-san." She quipped, walking toward one of the huge windows with the plush in hand.
For a minute he imagined her petting the plush as one would with a feline in their arms, but as she turned to face him, eyes distant, the image faded and instead of a plotting girl with a cat, he simply saw a woman. A very tired woman.
He shook his head. "You should get some sleep."
"Impossible." She stated, kissing the plush "It's not in my nature to sleep."
"Ah. That's right. Biologically enhanced humans don't need sleep."
Saki didn't smile at the joke offered because she wasn't done with this man. Just because he could fairly easily amuse her, didn't mean she was about to let him get away with his last cowardly act. Hatori stayed still as her eyes remained cold, seemingly freezing him to the spot. "Precisely." She finally uttered, moving back toward him.
Hatori forced himself to remain passive and still, though his feet were urging him to back away. He allowed himself to run away once, at some point, this had to end. And he was going to make sure that that time was now.
She closed the distance, her eyes level with his chest. Her head inclined, challenging him to run before she whipped one of her arms away from the plush, bending it above his heart. Her thumb raised, pointer finger extended to simulate a gun aiming at the beating organ.
"Bang."
He blinked.
"You're dead."
"So it would seem."
"Is that what you imagined I would do?" she paused, her hand flattening on his chest "Is that what you feared?"
He sighed, itching to grab her hand and toss it away as if it were acidic. Burning through his skin and melting his heart in the third degree. "Looks that way, doesn't it?"
She pulled her hand away, sensing his unease about it. "A hand is only a hand, Hatori. Yet it seems mine is more trouble than I previously thought…"
"That's not it." He rubbed his brow. It was high time he stop hurting this girl. Hatori was a doctor for physical infirmity, not emotional. And he was tired of causing her pain. She didn't deserve as much from him. Spotting the plush, he extended his hand in askance.
Saki handed it over without a word.
He fingered the snout and smiled. It was easy to remember how ridiculous he felt when he opened the present. The seahorse bit wasn't so far-fetched, but a smile on its snout? Seahorses don't smile. Still Momiji was so anxious when Hatori cracked his own smile at the object, immediately thanking the boy and receiving a rambunctious hug of excitement. It was a moment he'd treasure, but the plush wasn't treated as nicely as it should have been.
While Hatori didn't have the heart to throw it out, he also didn't have the heart to show it out. It was either hide it someplace no one would think to look or burn it. Obviously the first option won his opinion as the latter of the two didn't seem logically sound.
Hatori looked at her with a huff. It wasn't her he was afraid of. If it was, he would have never come back to the condo. At times like this, he wished he could explain his problems openly with her if only for her peace of mind. Then she would understand why he so feared a woman's touch. As gentle as it may seem, in the end, it would be a slap in the face.
"I may never be able to go without some kind of discomfort when you touch me, Saki. But that doesn't mean I fear you. Moreover, I fear the consequences of such actions."
Saki slowly nodded, looking through him. She must have known. The dim light in her eyes told him she did.
Hatori reached out, watching in triumph as Saki backed away in confusion. He cupped the side of her face and pulled it toward him. Her eyes widened.
"Good. It's not just me, then." He spoke, examining her expression.
"I have tricks up my sleeve all the same, Sohma-san."
He laughed. "I don't doubt that. And please. Hatori."
She nodded and allowed herself to be escorted to the couch. "Going to force me to watch boring news reports all night?"
"If it makes you fall asleep, I might just."
Saki grinned as she settled in to the white, firm cushions of his couch, Hatori's weight dipping it more to her left. She closed her eyes and felt him still as if something had spooked him. Must be their close proximity because she didn't imagine there was anything or anyone else with them to possibly scare him. Then she felt a warmth wrap around her shoulders before another settled on her cheek and up her face.
She peaked from behind heavy eyelids to find her head nestled against his chest, his strong arm wrapped around her frame and pulling her close. Now knowing why he went rigid, Saki opened her mouth to protest. Hatori sensed the dispute, decidedly stopping it before it could start by patting her head.
"Shh. Go to sleep." He demanded in hushed tones, watching silently as Saki's eyes drooped closed and opened only to repeat the same process a few more times before finally giving in and settling in to sleep.
Her breathing evened out fast, speaking of her exhaustion in tones no one could seem to understand. Hatori, barely moving his head to look, watched her stir, her hand finding its way on to his chest, clutching desperately at the fabric. He let out a sigh. As long as her other hand didn't find its way on to his back, he was in the clear, but just to take the extra precaution…
Hatori grabbed one of the accent pillows and shoved it behind his back, wedging a blockade so that her hand wouldn't be able to poke through.
Not great, but better for sure.
Leaning his head back, he decided closing his own eyes for a minute or two wasn't going to hurt him in any particular way. He hoped. Easy to say he was tired himself. Sleepless nights from work, from Akito, and on top of that his worry for Saki grew much more in the few days he spent with her. More so in those that he didn't. It was all a formula for a shut down like hers.
And maybe that wasn't so bad. Hatori needed some sleep too. After all, Shigure's house couldn't amount to good sleep when rat and cat bickered all the time.
Arm going limp around Saki's shoulder, Hatori succumbed to the same darkness that was sleep. The same darkness and the same warmth; a pleasant warmth that, in the back of his mind, he knew he could only receive from Saki.
XXXX
There are only a few ways you can wake from a really good sleep. Being the less appealing option you can jolt awake, you could very well also sleep-talk yourself awake after the ending of a nice dream or you can very lazily open your eyes to realize that you had no desire to go back to sleep because you were fully rested. And Hatori did just that.
When his eyes opened, he couldn't have been more useless than Ayame trying to win over his brother's heart with demands. The first thought bubbling to his head in urgency was pushed back by the more pleasant, sleep-drenched thought of how great that was. Hatori hadn't have slept that sound in, well, decades it seemed.
Then he noticed the lump of two pillows to his side. One was the small one he had placed behind his back and the second was a bigger one, set as a divider. But there was no one on the opposite side of it.
Hatori jumped awake, fully aware that Saki was not next to him where she had been before. Feeling a vague sense of disappointment, Hatori reached over to feel the couch cushion. It was cold; revealing the general lapse of time Saki had been gone. How did I not wake up? He thought, a bit frazzled by the development.
"Ah, you're awake." Saki stepped in to the open, a towel draped over her head, a white button down shirt covering her body. Her hands were rubbing the towel hard against her skull, speaking of the drenched state her hair was in. Seems a shower was at its ending when he awoke.
He cocked a brow. "That's my shirt."
The girl paused, looked down and smiled. "It is. Would you like it back?" she fingered the lapel, slowly drawing nearest the secured button. She flicked the first one open and moved to the next.
"No. Keep it." He stated, inwardly growling. It was bad enough he could see through the filmy shirt in the first place, he didn't need her bearing it all without even some semblance of coverage.
"You're too kind." she continued along the room, turning to enter the kitchen and open the fridge. Saki single-mindedly grabbed the water bottle before letting the door close. "You've seen me naked before…I don't see what's the big deal, come a second time, Ha-san."
Hatori's head lolled to the side, gazing at the kitchen as she walked out, staring at her sipping on cold water.
The big deal is you're being naked…and my being a man, he thought hesitantly sighing. In order to change her in to warmer clothes, yes, he had seen her, but he was a doctor, a professional. Letting forbidden desires get in the way of his work was not ethical. And he'd never had such a problem with that before. He was able to shut out his mind and focus on the problem and patient at hand. Clothes on or off had never been a problem.
Until Saki.
His eyes had lingered a second too long and for a moment he thought to himself that she was beautiful. But after dressing her, he felt completely immoral; disgusted by his outlandish thoughts that only a depraved mind would offer. Hatori thought he was immune to such emotions anymore. What was it in her that unearthed this change?
Suddenly Hatori wanted to know something more about her. Something that had nagged him since the day he brought her to the empty condo. Something that drove him away in doubt. It was easy to want to know, but as he opened his mouth, he found it hard to ask. Quickly shutting his mouth in disapproval, Hatori hummed a sigh and turned his head away.
Saki replaced the cap on the water-bottle and walked over to him, sat next to him. Slowly she placed the bottle on the coffee table, trivially noting that it too was glass, transparent and indefinitely easy to break. "You're a lot like Tohru-kun…" a slight smile was beginning to caress her features. Talking about her friends often did that sort of thing to her "…when you want to ask something, you tend to hold back and refrain from asking it. Though she tends to be a bit more vocal than you, she immediately regrets asking the question and tries to cover it with unnecessary babble. It's her way of apologizing."
"Are you saying silence is equivalent to babbling?"
"No. But I am saying, stop regretting asking a question…when you haven't even asked it yet."
Hatori stared at her in disbelief for a few moments before regaining his composure. There was still a little demon on his shoulder, poking him in the eye and telling him to ask the question, but he was more than satisfied with her just being there. The question demanding an answer could wait, for now.
"Have you eaten anything yet?"
"Hm…perhaps…" Her eyes drifted away. Scanning the ceiling, he was reminded of the way Kana used to look up when she was thinking before she would jump up and give him an answer or a boisterous idea. "…if air counts as substance..." And with that he was reminded how much of Kana, Saki did not resemble.
Hatori folded his head in his hands. "Then I suggest we get food first."
