A/N: Hello Lovelies! After a few lovely messages, I've decided that I will continue this, because I don't want to let those select few people who are following this story down. I thank you for all of your kind words, and I hope you like this chapter. Updates may not be quick, but I WILL finish this story for you. If I do happen to post chapters to new works in between, please don't be alarmed! I promise I will always return to this :)
I apologize for the lack of Kiba/Hotaru action recently, but they're kind of stuck in a situation that I can't rush! Something is coming soon though, I promise ;)

Enjoy, and don't forget to review!

Hotaru's breath had well and truly caught in the very back of her throat. She had come face to face with a girl she had formed so many opinions of without ever actually officially meeting. She was so intimidating with her height, her looks, her Chunin status. Hotaru's heart had begun to thump harder and harder against the walls of her chest. If Tora's ears and nose were as good as everyone claimed for it to be, she was sure she would be able to smell exactly how nervous and sick to the stomach Hotaru suddenly felt.

Tora looked annoyingly comfortable and smug as she sat within the large window frame, leaning back as if she had lived within Hotaru's apartment for years. What the hell did she want? Had she sensed Kiba's jealousy last night and come to threaten Hotaru about it? The way she calmly blew smoke rings from her mouth and watched them disappear in to the treacherous weather outside never initiated that she was mad, but Hotaru would still tread lightly no matter what the reason. She had dealt with her fair share of temperamental Inuzukas - She wasn't about to add another to that list.

Tora's legs were the kind that seemed as if they stretched out for miles, smooth and radiating a golden, healthy glow as they swung playfully from the open window. Her hair was catching in the wind blowing through the open glass, wafting her curls gently, though it's bitter temperature didn't seem to affect her or the misleading smile she wore across her face. Hotaru's confidence had decreased tenfold by just looking her. She was definitely a sight to behold. It was suddenly very, very clear as to why Kiba took such an interest in her.

"What are you doing here, Tora?" Hotaru managed to ask through the pounding in her chest. She tried sounding confident, though she knew she wasn't convincing the talented Inuzuka. There was no hiding from her nose.

Tora took another drag from her cigarette, letting the filtered ashes disappear into the wind outside. "Relax, Red. I'm just here to have a chat."

"You could have used the door. Or, you know, asked to come around."

Tora smirked. "Attitude. I can see why Kiba has a soft spot for you."

"If you're here to talk about Kiba, I'm not interested."

"Well, you see, I don't really care if you're interested or not." Tora took another drag of her cigarette. "How in love with Kiba are you, Hotaru?"

Hotaru fell silent again, her eyes widening with surprise. "I'm… I'm not in love with Kiba."

"Why not? He's in love with you, you know."

It was as if the room had started spinning, the walls and furniture closing in with each nauseating twist and turn. It was all too much for Hotaru to take on, with her budding romance with Reito and the whole weirdness of the current situation and the fact that Tora didn't even seem the least bit affected by this apparent fact. Love? Surely this was some kind of devious plan Tora had concocted to draw Hotaru from her barriers and get her to admit that she too was in love with Kiba. Maybe it was all some elaborate plan to humiliate Hotaru in front of him, a spiteful act out of jealously after the events which had unrolled last night.

Whatever it was, Hotaru was not letting down her walls that easily.

"Kiba is not in love with me. And I am not in love with him."

Tora's grin stretched from ear to ear, letting her head fall softly against the wall behind her. "You're wrong."

"I'm not wrong," Hotaru stated bitterly, "You need to leave."

"You're both as stubborn as one another, you know that? Forcing yourselves to like people you don't like, failing to admit how passionate you are for each other. It's like watching children in a school yard."

"What do you want me to say, Tora?" Hotaru threw her hands to her hair in frustration, clenching her locks and trying to hold back the tears threatening to spill from her bright green eyes. "Even if Kiba did love me, do you honestly think I'm just going to take him back? After he left me alone in a bed one morning without any explanation? After I've had to live with knowing he's sleeping beside you every night? Knowing it literally took no more than five fucking minutes for him to choose you over me? You're both as stupid as one another if you think I'm going to leap in to his arms once you leave here tonight."

"Wow," Tora snickered, finishing the last of her toxic cigarette. Her blue eyes sparked with interest. "If Kiba wasn't so infatuated with you, I'd marry you myself."
The stunning Inuzuka closed the gap between Hotaru and herself, using her eyes to scan every inch of her face, her skin, her figure. A crooked smile crept into the corner of her mouth as she slowly brushed a strand of red hair from Hotaru's face. "I've played the oblivious girlfriend for quite some time now. I'm not stupid, and I'm definitely not deaf. Conversations can tell a lot about a person; what they're thinking, what they feel, what they want to know. But a nose can tell more. You're welcome to stay set in your ways. But don't make Kiba miserable by allowing him to stay set in his."

Hotaru watched as Tora walked around her, heading for the door. She bit her lip with curiosity. What conversations? What did she mean by playing the oblivious girlfriend? The brunette had Hotaru's mind buzzing with so many dizzying questions which would drive her insane if she allowed her to leave. "Wait," she mumbed, barely above a whisper. "How do you know all this?"

Tora turned to face her, her hand still resting upon the door handle. "I'd recommend paying a visit to that cute Nara nin. He'll be able to fill you in on Kiba's situation."

"What about your situation, Tora."

Hotaru was surprised by how seemingly unaffected Tora was, or pretending to be, anyway. She was confused with how easy it seemed to be for her to just hand over Kiba with a polite, almost relieved kind of smile which only made the situation a whole lot weirder.

"I am not my parent's puppet, Hotaru. Being a heiress is not me. To be completely honest, being a wife is not me. I can't see myself being with the one man for the rest of my life." She flicked Hotaru a mischievous grin. "I love Kiba, don't get me wrong. But I wouldn't be able to love him forever."

"Then he deserves someone better than you." The words fell from Hotaru's mouth without any restraint. She wasn't nervous anymore. She was angry.

"You're right, he does. He deserves you."

There was a moment of tense, unbreakable silence, before Tora took it upon herself to calmly exit the apartment.

It was empty again.

The apartment was still, cold, and Hotaru didn't know what to do with herself. She had worked up a perpetual anger that she just couldn't discard of. Was she mad at Tora for just handing Kiba over to her like a used toy? Or was she mad at the fact Tora was about to break his heart?

She sat down upon the lounge with her head in her hands. There was only one person who would be able to solve the dazed state of confusion she was in and solve the puzzle pieces Tora had just scattered over Hotaru's floor. And that person, was Shikamaru Nara.

The following morning, Kiba awoke to the scent of a familiar Inuzuka standing at the bottom of his bed. He realized he hadn't seen Tora at all last night. He suspected it had something to do with the night of his party, when he had taken her to his room after his awkward conversation with Hotaru and Reito. He had every intention of fucking her, to pin her down and let go of everything that had built up inside of him over the past few days, and he knew she would have loved that. But, as he stumbled hand in hand with Tora into his room, his drunken state had him murmuring Hotaru's name as Tora undressed.

He considered himself lucky to be drunk enough to not feel as embarrassed as he should have.

He scanned his amber eyes over Tora, noticing that she wasn't wearing her regular, somewhat revealing attire. She looked as if she was dressed for training. For travelling. It was then he noticed the suitcase at her feet.

Kiba raised an eyebrow as he sat up in his bed. "What's going on?"

Her face was soft, mellow. In some ways she looked sad. It was strange to see her like that, he thought, as he had grown so accustomed to the lustrous, seductive expressions she wore within the sheets. "I've just got out of a meeting with our parents," Tora started, sitting on the side of his mattress. "Endo and Akamaru have done what they need to do. We're heading back to the Stone Village for a while."

"You're lying," Kiba replied instantly. "There's more to it than that."

Tora was silent as she drew tiny circles on his bedsheets. The fabric was soft beneath the tips of her fingers. "Before I leave, I need to ask you something Kiba. How badly to you want to be clan Heir?"

"That's still a few years away yet."

"I know," she responded. "But it's something you need to start thinking about now."

"You're leaving, aren't you?" Kiba swallowed the lump in his throat. Everything about her was off – her bitter smell, her slouched demeanour. Hell, even her voice was unrecognisable.

"I've talked to your mother. We all knew this visit wasn't just about Endo and Akamaru. It was to test if the two of us had a future."

"And do we?"

Tora sighed, looking him dead in the eyes. "You tell me, Kiba."

Kiba slowly began to succumb to his forged act, the boulders holding together his façade slowly crumbling and dismantling his walls. Tora knew about Hotaru and his feelings for her. He had tried to hide it through sex, thinking maybe if he was constantly conveying his passion to her through physical expression then maybe she would forget about it, but that wasn't the case. Tora was smart. Talented. From the very first conversation the two had shared in Kiba's room on the day that she arrived, she knew his heart belonged to someone else.

Kiba's voice softened as he averted his eyes towards his bedroom window. "You know about her, don't you."

"She's so your type," Tora replied with a stifled laugh. "Sarcastic, fearless, aggressive. I don't know why you considered leaving her."

"I panicked. As soon as I smelt you I was reminded about being Heir."

"And you knew that if you stayed with her, you wouldn't be allowed to become Heir?"

Guilt crushed the walls of his chest. "Something like that."

"You need to tell her the process, Kiba. You need to tell her what dating you involves. If becoming Heir is really that important to you, so important that you would end up marrying someone you have no connection with whatsoever, then tell her so she can move on." She stood from her position on the bed, grabbing her suitcase and moving towards the door. She stopped when she reached the frame, looking back at him one more time. "And if that's the case… you really need to re-evaluate your happiness."

Kiba closed his eyes, taking a deep breath and letting the air infiltrate his entire lungs. All the talk, the thinking, the thought of Reito stripping Hotaru away from him – all of it had his blood simmering. He was agitated. Confused. Annoyed. He hoped the controlled breathing would aid in calming him down, though deep breaths were never going to be a permanent fix.

He had only just turned eighteen. He didn't know what he wanted yet.

"I'm sorry it never worked out, you know, between us," Kiba murmured softly.

"Me too. Don't worry though, there's about 4 guys lining up for my hand in marriage back at the Stone. I don't exactly look like someone who's going to spend the rest of their life alone." Tora laughed at her own arrogance before waving goodbye. Kiba gently waved back, watching as she left his room one final time.

He had gone from having one great girl, to two, to none. Today was already going to be a huge day, and this just made it bigger.

Shikamaru Nara's house was just how Hotaru imagined it would be. A one-storey, elongated building made from old timber, unvaried and simple, with minimal gardening surrounding the front porch. The whole house was painted a white cream, some of it beginning to peel beneath the windows and above the door frame as she approached the front steps. There was a narrow, stone footpath Hotaru presumed lead to the back, possibly to the stables or paddock which contained all their deer. She assumed they were deer – she knew their family were associated with producing deer related medicine, and soft thuds composed of small hooves pattering against mud echoed throughout the trees towards the back of the home.

She knocked on the door once. She waited a while, fidgeting, hoping to find something interesting to rest her eyes upon. Unfortunately, the house was so believably plain that the most appealing object to the eye was the doormat beneath her feet. It was brown, withered, with the mud ruined image of a Buck head.

There was no answer. The longer she waited, the more agitated she was beginning to feel. Suddenly finding out what Tora had taunted her with before leaving her apartment had become her number one priority. She had received very, very little sleep the night before because of it. She had thought about Tora's comment regarding Kiba's 'situation' – was he sick? Leaving? Having trouble at home? What did that comment even mean? She also couldn't stop tossing at the fact her and Kiba may still be a thing, leading her to believe she would eventually have to tell Reito that she wasn't interested. But could she let go of Reito? Could she find it within herself to actually give Kiba another chance? Hell, did Kiba even want another chance?

Finally there was a shuffle heard from the other side of the door. It swung open to reveal a tall brunette woman whose hair was pulled in to a low pony tail, revealing the hooped earrings hanging from her lobes. The bottom of her crimson dress was stained with mud, as were her boots, which had appeared to leave a trail of muddy foot prints along the floorboards within her house. The woman looked tired, however her eyes perked with a confused curiosity as she eyed the red head standing in the door.

"Can I help you, miss?" the woman asked as she stuffed what appeared to be a piece of deer antler into the pocket of her apron.

"I was just wondering if Shikamaru was home," Hotaru replied with a polite smile. At least, she hoped she looked polite. She wasn't exactly the warmest looking person, with her blood red hair and fiery features.

She continued to look at Hotaru as if she were some kind of foreigner. "Are you aware of what day it is, dear?"

Hotaru hesitated for a second – her brows furrowing slightly as she tried to remember if she had missed something. Was it someone's birthday? Was there some kind of party that he had to attend? She couldn't for the life of her think of anything Shikamaru could be bothered to attend. "No, Ma'am, I don't believe I do."

"Shikamaru is sitting the final stage of his Chunin exam today," The woman leant through the screen door, pointing in the direction of a large, steel stadium in the distance. "I'd be over there watching him, but unfortunately his incompetent father only remembered to reserve one ticket."

Oh my god. Hotaru's hand involuntarily slapped her own forehead, her shoulders slouching in to an utter state of doltishness. She couldn't believe it. She had got herself so worked up over a singular comment that she had forgotten that today was one of the biggest days of the year. A day that one of her old team mates was competing in. A day that another two of her current best friends were fighting in.

She asked herself why Ino or Sakura hadn't contacted her in regards to seating arrangements or getting there, before reminding herself that she hadn't even bothered to check her mobile in two days. For all she knew, there were probably tonnes of messages from the two socialites that Hotaru hadn't even read yet.

"Right! So he is!" Hotaru forced a laugh as she rubbed the back of her neck anxiously. "I better go see how he's doing. Sorry to bother you, Ma'am!"

Yoshino Nara shook her head as she watched Hotaru sprint from her home and on to the gravel road leading towards the stadium.

Of course the final stage was today. That would explain why the streets were so quiet and desolate on her way to the Nara house this morning. Almost every kid, teen and parent were sitting comfortably within the stadium seats, chowing down on hotdogs and overpriced soft drink as her friends battled it out for a guaranteed position in the university.
Hotaru sprinted around another corner, almost losing her footing as the gravel slid out from beneath her. She was only a few blocks from the stadium and making good time. Ichiraku's ramen stand was a blur as she darted past, as was the Hokage's mansion and the Academy building half a block after that. One thing that wasn't a distant blur, or simply a building with no significant meaning, was the hospital. Hotaru's pace slowed down, almost to a stop, her legs wandering aimlessly at the base of the steps leading in to the large building. Her mind thought of Reito.

She remembered she had another date with him that night. Should she text and ask if he wanted to join her at the Stadium for the exams? Or should she not bother mentioning it? She knew he wouldn't take too kindly to the offer, with his all too apparent grudge against violence and shinobi. But what if the exams didn't finish before seven, when he was meant to pick her up? What if she didn't get to talk to Shikamaru before involving herself even more with Reito?

All the questions ticking over inside her mind were beginning to make her dizzy. With a heavy sigh, she made the decision to shake the situation off and continue to sprint towards the stadium. Guilt weighed down on her chest as she did so, but supporting her friends was more important than a date. At least, she hoped it was.

Images of the handsome Inuzuka scolding her with disapproving looks blurred her mind. So much, in fact, that she hadn't realized she had finally reached the gates of the stadium until she felt the thud of her face against someone's chest. She rebounded off of them and on to the ground, her face flushing red with embarrassment. She hated how she could sometimes immerse herself in so much thought that she would be totally unaware of her surroundings. It worried her, too, that one day it may happen during a mission and cost her her life. Or worse… somebody else's.

She jumped up quickly and brushed herself off, beginning to apologise between exhausted breaths. "Shit – Sorry! I wasn't watching where I was go-"

She stopped, suddenly, her jaw hanging as her heart skipped six beats. There, standing in front of her with amber eyes as nervous and uneasy as her own, was Kiba.

The blurred murmurs of the large crowed within the stadium slowly began to fade out. The whistles, the horns, the padding of their footsteps against the steel floor beneath the grandstand… all diminishing into silence as the only thing Hotaru could hear was her heart, pounding way at the walls of her chest. Hinata stood behind him, her nervous fingers fiddling with each other at the front of her jacket. She too had been absorbed into the complete and utter awkwardness of the situation. Her lavender eyes had no idea where to look – they darted from Kiba, to Hotaru, then towards her feet, before looking towards Kiba again. It was almost as if she was waiting for him to speak, to say something, anything, but his nervous lips just couldn't bring themselves to do it.

"H-Hello, Hotaru," The Hyuga managed to smile through a stifled giggle. "Its good t-to see you again, it's been a while. I hope training with y-your new team is going well,"

Hotaru could hear Hinata's words, but she was much too fixated on Kiba to bring herself to reply. The two of them stood there, staring at each other, expressions of anger and sadness and eagerness just pulling from each other's faces like souls being sucked from a being. She hadn't been this close to him since the night before he left.

She was torn between wanting to attach herself to him, to wrap her legs around his waist and plant gentle kisses on his neck, to feel his large arms wrap around and hold her tightly. Fighting those urges, however, was the need to slap him as images of him and Tora flooded her mind. She wanted to push him against a wall and deal him the hardest whack she had ever given. She wanted to cry and to scream, to use him as a punching bag for all the sadness and anger he had caused her over the past week.

But she couldn't do any of the above. She was frozen. Paralysed.

Kiba opened his mouth to talk, though it closed as soon as he did so. For a moment it appeared he was going to offer out his hand, to step towards her somewhat, but that to was ceased as he continued to fight some kind of inner demon within him. He swallowed once more. "Hotaru – "

"Hotaru! The 'hell have you been!" Genma sprinted out of the gates and towards the pair with a piece of paper in his hand. He shot Kiba a deathly stare as he did so, causing him to look away. It was the first time Hotaru had ever seen Kiba shy away from a challenge. "Where were you this morning? I went to your house to give you your ticket and you weren't there."

Hotaru knew straight away that Genma was putting together some kind of puzzle within his mind. Hotaru's absence from her apartment and now her appearance with Kiba of all people in front of the stadium was all a little too suspicious for him.

She snatched the ticket from Genma's hand, being the first to break eye contact from Kiba. "Let's go," she murmured beneath her breath, before pushing past him and entering through the stadium gates. The two made a beeline for the grandstand.

Hotaru trailed quietly behind Genma as he led her through the crowd of people and towards her seat. "You're quiet," he said, not bothering to turn and look at her.

"I thought you were meant to be on a four day mission," she responded quietly. She didn't really want to dwell on the Kiba subject.

"I was. Something went down with one of the Sound nin who was meant to compete today. I was called back early."

"Sound nin?" Hotaru asked curiously.

"It's confidential. Say, why weren't you at your apartment this morning?"

"I went to Shikamaru's," her voice trailed off as she passed Kiba and Hinata in their seats. Kiba attempted to make eye contact with her before she forced herself to look away.

Genma raised an eyebrow, peering at the ticket to double check what row Hotaru was seated at. "Well that's stupid. He's been here all morning."

"I realized that."

"And that doesn't explain why you were hanging out with that Inuzuka mutt," Genma asked on a more serious note. "I hope nothing happened whilst I was away."

Hotaru had to bite down on her lip, stepping extra cautiously around the topic of Kiba's party. "Nothing happened," she reassured the Jonin.

Surely enough, Genma had been nice enough to make sure Hotaru was situated next to Ino and Sakura, who had already purchased their hot dogs and soda. They both looked stunning, wearing their large brimmed sun hats and floral spring dresses.

"Wait, there's only one seat?" Hotaru asked. "Where are you going to sit?"

"I'm refereeing, Red. Catch you after the tornament." He winked before turning on his heel and heading towards the arena.

"Well, it's nice for you to finally grace us with your presence," Ino said as she pulled her sun glasses to her nose. "We were starting to think you had fallen off the face of the earth."

"Give her a break, Ino," Sakura chimed in with a smirk. "Reito's got her all love struck."

Hotaru forced a laugh, but the two girls couldn't be farther from the truth. Reito hadn't caused her to be love struck at all, and although she wished she could fall off the face of the earth and forget about boys, training, studying and being responsible for two deaths, she was still very much firmly planted to the ground.

"You don't look great," Sakura said on a more serious note. "You look… tired."

She thought about Sakura's words. She wasn't all that tired until she stepped foot in to the stadium. It was as if her eyelids had suddenly doubled in weight. "I'm okay," she replied. "What have I missed?"

As Ino drabbled on about Shikamaru's fight and how much she wanted to rub Temari's face in the dirt, and as Sakura followed by praising Naruto for his efforts with Neji, Hotaru could feel a set of eyes burning deeply in to the back of her skull. She knew those eyes belonged to Kiba. They were burning with guilt, regret, sadness. She rested her head in the palms of her hands for some sort of emotional relief, before her new sought tiredness began to slowly take over. She lifted her head up woozily, her vision blurring, trying to focus on the arena before her. "Hotaru…" a voice, who she presumed was Sakura's, echoed amongst the surrounding blur. She tried to turn her head in an attempt to focus on the pinkette, but the tiredness was growing stronger, and it wasn't long before her surroundings had morphed in to a deep, velvety blackness.

There was a familiar beeping, in a familiar room, with a familiar wooden window to the left of her bed.

It was dark outside. The familiar green lines attached to the monitor machine rose up, and then down, repeating itself endlessly as Hotaru stirred to consciousness. She had an ache that expanded throughout her whole head, making it difficult to even lift or roll over.

It was noisy. She remembered her previous bout in hospital after the Chunin exams, where the only noises were the footsteps of nurses pacing through the hallways to check on their patients. As her eyes tried to open, she could hear footsteps sprinting throughout the halls, the rumbling of the metallic stretcher beds, the yelling of doctors asking for available nurses, and most of all, the groans and cries of hospital patients being rushed in to emergency.

"Hotaru?"

She lifted her head painfully at the voice, propping herself on to her elbows as a boy entered the room. It was Reito, dressed in a white doctors coat and a clip board clasped in his right hand. His eyes brightened, closing the door behind him to drown out the rest of the painful hospital noises.

"Reito," Hotaru murmured, realizing as she sat up that wired were attached to her head. "What the hell is going on? What are these wires attached to me?"

Reito grabbed her wrists in an attempt to keep her from pulling at the wires and calm her down. "Hotaru, stop. You need to calm down.""

"Explain to me what is going on, why is the hospital so busy? Why am I here?" She said through panicked breaths.

"You've been in what's considered a level three localized coma for two days," His voice was trying its hardest to remain calm, professional. "There was an attack on the city during the Chunin exam."

"What! An attack on Konoha?" Hotaru sat up as her mind went in to panic mode. Her breathing increased, and so did her heart, as the green lines on the monitor beside her bed started to beep faster and faster.

"Hotaru, you need to calm down, if you can do that for me I'll explain everything."

She looked towards him once more, noticing his eyes that were once filled with so much intensity and life now looked so weary and tired. There were heavy dark circles above his cheek bones and his tanned skin looked drained from exhaustion.

"There was an attack by the Sunagakure and Otogakure nin at the stadium. They had placed those who attended under a Genjutsu as they made their move. You were one of them. There was a boy called Gara, from Suna, I think, who released his One Tail and attacked the village from the centre, allowing the Sunagakure and Otogakure nin to invade from the outside while our forces were distracted."

"Oh my god," Hotaru said as she raised a hand to her mouth. She felt sick to her stomach. "Is… is everyone okay?"

His eyes remained dull. "Sort of. Sakura and Sasuke were injured pretty bad. Naruto suffered severe exhaustion and the emergency ward has been full of injured Chunin and Jonin. Anbu are still pulling people from the rubble."

"How many deaths?" she asked. She didn't even know if she wanted to hear the answer.

"There's no total yet," he swallowed nervously, "But the Third Hokage was among them."

She let a singular tear spill down her cheek, sitting more stagnant than a statue as her mind absorbed all of the awful information. The city was in shambles. She wasn't sure that she would be able to handle the devastation that was to confront her as soon as she was well enough to leave the hospital.

She brushed away her tear, taking in a slow, deep breath. "When can I leave?" she asked with a raspy voice.

"Not until your brain activity returns to normal. The chords that are attached to your temples – those are what potentially kept you alive."

"Alive? What do you mean?"

"We were unable to wake you up from the genjutsu. We had medical staff try and release it, but it failed. The second option was to induce pain in an attempt to wake you up, which had apparently worked before, but even then you still remained in this weird, comatose state. You were alive… it was just as if the lights were on, and nobody was home." Hotaru noticed how agitated and somewhat angry Reito seemed to be as he explained her situation. She knew that his anger was a result of excessive worrying. "You know you could have died, right?"

"I wouldn't have died, Reito."

"Yeah, you could have. If I wasn't coming in every second hour, between stitching up leg wounds and monitoring head trauma patients, trying to stimulate you with light and sound and absolutely anything I could come up with in order to get your brainwaves clicking again then you would probably be a fucking vegetable, Hotaru. And you still think becoming a Kunoichi is fun? Fulfilling? Good luck with that."

She squirmed uncomfortably beneath the covers, attempting to shuffle away from him and his newfound anger. His eyes were wide and his chest was rising up and down, and for a brief moment she was actually scared of him, thinking the stress he was suddenly placed under with the large intake of hospital patients was about to make him snap.

"Jesus Christ, I'm scaring you," he ran his hands through his messy hair, turning towards the door. "I'm sorry, Hotaru. I didn't mean to upset you. I have a few patients I have to check on... I promise I'll come back and visit when I've calmed down a bit."

She nodded, swallowing as a chilly breeze swept through the window and across the room. "Take your time."

"I didn't mean to get mad at you, you know. I just had an awful feeling that you were never going to wake up."

"I know, Reito. You're tired. You need sleep." She nodded for him to continue, gesturing towards the door. She offered him a smile, feeling bad for being distant. She knew he was overworked. His anger was not intended. She glanced beside her, noticing the bunch of flowers sitting within a crystal and glass vase beside her bed. The flowers were a mix of blue, purple, turquoise and violet – all colours as cool as the room itself. They were beautiful. "Thank you," Hotaru added before he left the room. "For the flowers."

He paused, not bothering to face her. "They're not from me. They're from Kiba."