If I close my own eyes hard enough, then
I can see, remember, the raging winds across the tall grass
Made them look like waves, a raging ocean
We would stand beneath the trees, as long as the storm would last…

7
Destiny to Submit

She was standing at the dojo gates, almost as if waiting for someone. Maybe for me?

She looked so much better. In just a few weeks a little more meat and color had been added to her frame. Her clothes were the same, but someone, perhaps herself, had made a valiant attempt to mend them. She leaned just over the gate on her elbows, arms crossed over one another and hanging down, her eyes on the ground. Her hair was pulled back into a low ponytail, and I examined the new detail gingerly, worried for just a moment that it would make her look even more like Kenshin.

But, no, not really so much. The difference was in the length. Kenshin's hair was shorter at the sides where it framed his face, but her hair was longer except where the bangs had been trimmed away. The sides of her hair curved against her cheeks as it swept back into the tail.

She looked up, finally seeing me, her eyes blinking as if coming back from layers of thought. That bothered me only slightly; Kenshin would have known I was coming long before I could have ever walked up on him…

…but that only mattered for a second. Despite my promises to myself I would remain at arm's-length, I was so very relieved to see her.

Even so, I meant it purely as a joke when I spread my arms, grinned broadly and said, "Did you miss me?"

A joke, I said! But she quickly vaulted over the gate without bothering to open it, and I found my arms full of Himura Shino.

"Sanosuke, you came back!"

I blinked down at her. "Of course I did. I said I would, didn't I?"

She pulled back, a little bit of red across her cheeks. "I-I'm sorry, Sano." Flustered, she rubbed at her shoulder.

I raised my eyebrows. Pleasure filled me (she had missed me!), mixing a little with new worry. The goal here was to be getting Shino to focus on Kaoru. Stones be damned, my weird feelings be damned, but that's how it should be. Kaoru would make Shino happy. Of that I was more certain than the sun would be setting tonight.

I shrugged like it didn't matter and opened the gate. "Come on, Shin-chan, let's go inside. Did I miss dinner?"

I felt her snag sleeve and glanced down at her, prompted by the gentle tug. "Um…Sano…" Her eyes drifted to the dojo and then back up to me. "I…um… I want to wear my hair down," she blurted.

I blinked. "Well, that's fine," I said slowly. "But it's really nice the way you have it now…"

Again she puzzled me by glancing at the house before looking back at me. "I really want to wear it down, Sano," she repeated, her voice a bit strained.

"So wear it down. What are you doing, asking me for permission?" I reached out and slipped my fingers into her hair, hooking them under the tie and pulling it free. "There, Shiden-me. Happy now?"

She looked up at me, surprised at the silly endearment that I had rolled in my mind often these last few days, but had never meant to use. I winced at yet another slip of my tongue, but she only smiled. A slow, sweet smile that melted away the usual pained look in her eyes, if only for the moment.

As always, I couldn't help but smile back. If a silly nickname could spread sunshine on her face like that, I wanted to use it as often as I got the opportunity.

Then her eyes dropped to the hand that still held her hair tie. "S-sano…your arm. You can't be…you're not still--"

Her slender little fingers hovered over the bandaged part of my chest, but I grabbed her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. "It's nothing. It's so much better now, Shiden-me," I said, the emphasis on my new endearment for her distracting her and buying me another slow, bright smile.

I followed her into the house, though I was less eager for dinner now.

I walked behind her, upset with myself. What was wrong with me? I knew I was a little brash, but I'd never had such a miserably complete lack of self-control. Shino's supposed to be giving smiles like that to Kaoru, not me! She was supposed to be getting cutesy pet names from the kendo teacher, not the street brawler. How could I be so thoroughly screwing up without even trying?

We found Kaoru in the kitchen, burning the rice. Of course. Some things never change.

His smile was warm when he turned from the failing dinner to smile at me, but his words of greeting died on his lips when he saw Shino.

Shino quickly turned to me, her expression a mix of guilt and pleading.

I looked from one to the other, mystified.

"Shino," Kaoru said quietly. "What have we talked about?"

Her eyes dropped to the floor, a subtle rise of her shoulders as if she expected a blow. I tensed, the nightmare-feeling clawing at my heart again. There was absolutely no way that Kaoru--any Kaoru--would--

"I don't like to wear my hair back, Kaoru-san," Shino mumbled, eyes still down.

My jaw dropped. Is this why she was bugging me about wanting her hair down outside? Because he was making her wear it tied back?

He crossed his arms over his chest, frowning deeply. "Shino, your hair is very pretty, but it would be best if you got used to it tied back. It's in the way all the time. So either get used to it or cut it short."

The nightmare just transformed into something really ugly. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Sudden anger spread over the shock. "Why is it your business how she wants to wear her hair, Kaoru?"

He blinked at me. "It gets in the way. All the time," he repeated. "Especially when we're training--"

"Well, you're not training right now, are you?" I wasn't quite yelling, but my voice had risen enough that Kaoru shut up and Shino was looking from him to me, eyes wide.

"Now, now," she stammered, raising her hands. "It's okay, Sano. I'll just tie it back again, I don't mind, really."

I still held her hair tie, but when she reached for it, I closed my fist tightly over it. "No," I growled, more harshly than I meant. "You want to wear it down, and now, you're wearing it down. I don't see any reason you should tie it back just because this little boy wants you to--"

"Sano."

Shino's voice was still quiet, but it had that hard, commanding quality that I knew very well from a similar redhead, and I knew better than to brush aside. I shut up immediately.

"There's no need for you to be rude," she said in the same tone. Her eyes were different. There were the beginnings of the "battle expression" that I had expected to see in the alleyway in Kyoto.

Before things could escalate any further, Kaoru took over the situation. Politely, he asked Shino if she could attempt to salvage the disaster he'd made of dinner. Then he quickly led me outside, saying that we needed to talk. I followed easily enough, trying very hard to ignore the fact I was no little bit hurt that she was angry with me. It was almost worse than her being afraid of me. Almost.

Barely in the fresh air again, Kaoru whirled on me and demanded, "How did you do that?"

I took a step back, surprised by his excitement. "What?"

"I've been trying to get a rise out of her for a couple of weeks now, and nothing's worked! Now you just come in and fly a little off the handle--and not even at her!--and finally there's some fire in her!"

"Hey, I did not fly off the handle!" I said, reminded of why I had started to get angry in the first place. "Shino's not a child! She's a little more than a decade older than you! Where do you get off trying to tell her what she can do with her own hair, or dress, or anything else like that?"

Now it was his turn to draw back. His mouth hung open for a moment before a contrite expression spread across his face. "Sanosuke… I'm sorry. I apologize," he said. "But give me a chance to explain. Please."

Just like that, my anger deflated. Or maybe not quite then. Maybe it was when I searched his face for sincerity, saw again the gentle features and sapphire eyes… So like Jou-chan's.

Suddenly I felt awful. This was Kaoru. Kaoru. Who was my friend as much as Jou-chan was. Who deserved my trust and friendship the same as she. How could I have believed for a second--

Shino had been right to call me down.

I rubbed the back of my neck, muttering my own apology.

"No, I was kind of out of line," Kaoru said. "But I was doing it for a good reason." He sighed as he sat down on the porch, motioning for me to do the same if I wanted. "Sanosuke, I'm not really one to care much about peoples' pasts. Not yours, not Shino's. Even if I got a little curious about you two, neither of you seemed to want to volunteer information about yourselves, so I figured it didn't matter. But, the past still exists and affects us even if it's not spoken of to others." He looked at me, his eyes frowning deeply. "Sano, how much do you know about Shino?"

I shrugged, not sure what to say.

"Shino told me you wanted to help her get stronger because she reminds you of a friend."

"Yeah."

"But she's not the friend she reminds you of, you know…?" he said, his voice rising in an odd note I didn't understand.

I crossed my arms over my chest, suddenly feeling the need to be both defensive and to…brace myself. I had the sinking feeling Kaoru was about to tell me something I didn't want to hear. "I know everything I need to know about Shino. More than enough to want to help her. What are you getting at?"

Kaoru smiled humorlessly. "Did you also know then, that Shino was a slave?"

"WHAT?"

He had ducked his head even before he was finished speaking, apparently having expected an eruption.

I was aware of a steady stream of colorful curses I had learned from Rei-baba herself pouring from me before I gathered myself enough to use real words again. "What do you mean, she was a slave? How in all the hells could she be…!"

Kaoru blinked owlishly at me. "Well…that can be pretty easily, Sano. Very easily. She's a woman, she's alone, very poor, probably been an orphan for most if not all of her life. If she was an orphan, she could have been sold off by her village. That happens all the time for children who don't get taken in by anyone when their families die. Or she might have even sold herself off to avoid starvation, or from recruited by brothels, which don't always take no for an answer. Or any number of less likely but not-uncommon scenarios of being taken as a payment of debt or kidnapped off the street for slavers that won't make their quota otherwise. It happens all the time."

"It shouldn't," I spat heatedly. "Especially not to her!"

I swore again. Shino, a slave…? It was impossible, it was--

…but…Kenshin was a slave too.

The memory of him telling me a little about the time he'd spent in the hands of slave-traders as a child hit me like a kick in the stomach.

Oh, God… Shino…walking with her head down, her reluctance to meet the eyes of others, the striking lack of boldness, the reflexive recoiling from raised voices. It was not only possible, it was really so.

Shino must not have received the mixed blessing of having her slavers slaughtered by bandits. For her, there had been no rescue, no Hiko Seijuro to take her in.

Kaoru laid his hand on my shoulder, pulling me from my thoughts. He watched me, frowning. "Sano, I don't understand why that's so hard for you to believe, or why you're so upset. It's terrible, but it's like that everywhere in today's world."

I blocked him out, visually at least, by digging the heels of my hands into my eyes. It wasn't Kaoru's fault. Not called for to be angry with him. He had nothing to with any mistreatment of Shino, and it also wasn't his fault that he didn't understand why I was so affected by a girl I was supposed to barely know.

Trying very, very hard to keep my voice steady, I said, "She been telling you her life's story these past few weeks?"

"Of course not. I just told you she won't talk about herself much. All of that I just told you were guesses. But I do know someone owned her once."

"How do you know she was a slave?" I prompted. It was a poor attempt at hoping that it somehow wasn't true after all.

Kaoru's voice hesitated a moment before answering. "I know she was a slave because I accidentally walked in on her in the bath not long ago. She's got a…a lot of scars. But there's a mark in particular, on the inner part of her arm. She had been branded, Sano."

I looked up from my hands sharply, his words biting like the lash of a whip.

She would have been as awesome with a sword as Kenshin. I know it.

I watched her move. She was fast and graceful, the sword already seemed a part of her. I barely noticed Kaoru, training beside her, for watching Shino.

But it was hard to look at Kaoru anyway, without remembering his words.

They still stung and burned, and I was tired like I really had been physically beaten.

Kaoru had tried to explain to me what the deal with Shino's hair was. He said he thought that once she realized she had to listen to what he said, he after all being her teacher, she sort of started slipping back into a "slave mindset", or so he put it.

She became blindly obedient, stopped talking as much, and only rarely when not spoken to first, and then starting showing an upsetting, obviously-relapsed habit of flinching anytime someone put their hands anywhere near her face.

Worried, Kaoru had tried to come up with something of a plan to help: she had picked one thing, a single thing to be absolutely unreasonable about, while being nice as usual about everything else, hoping that the unfair needling would get Shino to fight back a little.

That was the "rise" he had said he had been trying to get out of her. But instead of fighting back, she turned to me instead when I came back, like I was some kind of authority figure to her too.

"Don't do that anymore," I had said to Kaoru, feeling a little like I was going to throw up. "Just leave her hair alone, okay? She needs to wear it down."

"She just wants to hide her face with it, you know."

"I know. Leave her be about it anyway."

It seemed useless, but if it made her so uncomfortable to tie it back…

My emotions where Shino was concerned were so alarmingly out of sorts. I knew this far too well and wished there was something I could do about it, or at least could explain to myself why it felt like something had gripped my intestines in a vice and twisted.

Of course, my blood would boil with the thought of someone using Kenshin so… The thought of what someone might do to him, to Kenshin, to so damage his spirit he'd need somebody's consent to do whatever he wanted with his own God-damned hair made me want to hurt someone. A lot. And for a long time.

But I couldn't pretend that Shino was just riding the end-tails of my love for my friend anymore. Truth was she had earned a fair-sized portion of my heart all on her own.

Even when I wasn't around her back at Rei-baba's place, the constant scent of sandalwood oil drove me crazy with missing her, wanting to know if she was happy in the place where I'd left her.

And now the world had come crashing down once again with the freakish idea that the only thing I'd thought that I'd done right, bringing Shino to the Kamiya dojo had done maybe a little more harm than it had good.

"Sano?"

I broke from my thoughts to see that their lesson had ended, Kaoru had disappeared, and Shino was kneeling in front of me, all without me noticing.

"Are you sick again?"

She was so near, and as always her sweet scent worked its strange magic, relaxing my wearied mind. I shook my head to say I wasn't ill. Her hair was tied back again, to keep it out of her way while she was training. I reached out and deliberately pulled the tie free again, watching her hair spill around her face and shoulders.

She smiled at the gesture, moving around to sit beside me. "You're still hurt," she said, eyes on my wrapped arm. "You're still using your left hand for everything. Don't tell me its nothing," she said quickly when I opened my mouth to do just that.

"As long as I can still hold my chopsticks, I'll be fine," I said instead, grinning lopsidedly with the half-hearted joke. "Just don't worry, Shino. I got a crazy old hag a little to the north helping me out with it. It barely even hurts anymore."

Her lips thinned at my words, either at the impolite terms I had used to describe someone who was helping me, or that I suggested that she shouldn't worry about injuries she knew weren't that bad and should have healed a long time ago. Or both.

"Shino," I said, as much to change the subject as because I needed to know, "Is this okay? I mean, do you like it here?"

"It's nice here," she said, noncommittal. Keh. Typical rurouni-type answer.

I tried again. "Do you like learning swords?"

"Uh huh." Well, I'll be damned. A straight answer, gently enthusiastic.

Encouraged, I said, "So you, um…don't mind staying here a bit longer and learning more?"

She looked amused. "I don't have anything better to do."

I raked my good hand through my hair. "Shino…I'm an idiot, you know. Most everyone who knows me says so. Sometimes I even amaze myself how dumb I can be."

"What are you talking about, Sano?"

I shifted guiltily, not looking at her. "Well…I was so set on making sure that you learned how to defend yourself and fight back a little, I didn't think about…other things. Like what you might do…afterward. Instead of thinking about helping you gain a really useful skill that might help you live or something--"

She chuckled softly and I looked up at her. She smiled gently. "Ah, Sano. I'm not so helpless as that. I have lots of skills that could help me live. I can sew really well, read and write, fish, trap. I've taken on little jobs from time to time, things like picking fruit and waiting tables and such. Enough times to consider them skills. I've carried around this old sword for a while, but before you came, I never had a way to really learn how to use it. That's a truly useful skill. Now no matter where I go from here or what I'm doing, I'll be stronger. You're not an idiot at all. I'm really grateful, Sano."

"I…I didn't mean to imply you were helpless."

"I'm not offended." She curled her fingers around the hilt of her sword, which I noticed for the first time was the same old piece of junk. "I…might have really gotten hurt that night in Kyoto if it hadn't been for you, Sano. I never did thank you properly for that, did I?"

"No need. You helped me too, remember?"

She shrugged.

"Shino?"

"Hmm?"

"You really want to stay here and learn, right?"

"Yes."

"Good. Then come over here. I want to teach you something myself."

I got up and walked out into the wide-open of the dojo. Puzzled, Shino followed.

I turned back to her and took her by the shoulders. "You remember when you said you wanted to pay me back?"

She blinked. "Y-yes."

"Well, now's the time. I'm going to need some real effort from you on this one. Okay?"

"Okay."

I assessed her for a moment, wondering how to begin.

She was much shorter than I, so of course her head was tilted up to look up at me. I thought for a second, a decided this was a good a place to start as any.

"Keep your eyes on mine," I instructed, "but lower your chin just a little. Stand strongly, don't look away."

Quizzical look still on her face, she did as I said.

"Kenshin…" I hesitated. "Kenshin was kind of small, just like you. But no matter how much taller someone was, he never actually looked up at anyone. Only with his eyes."

She blinked again in surprise. "What are we trying to do, Sano? Make me more like Kenshin?"

I snorted. "You are already too much like him as it is. It's just, Kenshin's the best model I have for this sort of thing."

"What sort of thing?"

I hesitated again, not certain if I was treading somewhere delicate. "You don't hold yourself very well, Shino."

"I don't?"

"No. Well… Kenshin was…humble. Very humble. Used to call himself unworthy all the damn time, though the rest of us had our opinions about that. But. Whatever Kenshin ignored of his own pride, he still kept up his digni--" I winced at the sudden memories of him running from policemen trying to arrest him for violating the sword-banning act, of getting knocked on his ass by the "monster bird-kick of rage" in a fit of Misao's temper, and of Kaoru beating the hell out of him the first time we brought Megumi home and decided maybe "dignity" was just a tiny bit too strong of a word.

"He took a lot off people, but it was always very clear that there were boundaries," I amended. "No one that he didn't want to touched him, no one he didn't allow to bullied him, and no one ever made him do something he didn't really want to do unless he let them make him."

"He let people bully him?"

"Yeah," I said, grinning with a mix of fondness and sheepishness at yet another memory, this one of me dangling Kenshin in the air by his shirt when he dared to suggest I'd gotten burned up in that fight with Hyottoko. "But we're straying from the subject. Just listen."

She stood up straighter, looking up at me with her eyes, but keeping her head perfectly level, an indulgent little smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. "But Sano, all this doesn't look like I'm paying you back. It just looks like you're trying to help me again."

"The 'payback' part is coming. You see, I'm going to ask you to do something you're probably not going to like to do."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. So listen: the next time someone tries to push you around, try this." I took a deep breath and hollered, "Get your hands off me, you scumbag!"

Shino jumped back, startled.

I quickly steadied her, grinning at her wide-eyed expression. "I knew you wouldn't like the yelling, but you'd better get used to it. I want you to do a lot of it for the next ten minutes or so."

"Yelling? Like…like that?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Because strong words like that will throw your opponent or attacker off-balance and empower you, and I want you to learn some. Go ahead and try it."

She turned the most adorable shade of pink, staring at me like I'd gone mad.

I smiled as encouragingly as I could. "Come on. I know you're used to being quiet and all, but you can do it."

She bit her lip. There was a silence, and my confidence wavered slightly. I wondered if I wasn't pushing too hard.

But when she looked up, her eyes were determined. I heard her pull in a deep breath, and I readied myself.

At breakfast the next morning, it took me almost three tries to make myself understandable enough to get seconds.

Kaoru passed me more food, looking from Shino to me with raised eyebrows. "What is with you two? Why are the both of you so hoarse you can barely speak?"

Shino looked at me, grinning. I grinned back. Kaoru rolled his eyes.

I tried to tell him we weren't meaning to keep secrets, but couldn't quite manage. Just one afternoon of my own "lesson" to Shino had pretty much caused my voice to give out, and hers wasn't much better.

It was actually fun, the little shouting-match we had gotten into. Making a game of it, of wits and comebacks, all of it loud and in the end had us on the floor laughing like a pair of idiots. I couldn't remember the last time I'd had so enjoyed myself. And Shino, her sparkling eyes and that little flush on her face from so much yelling and laughing, she looked almost drunk with fun, and the after-effects of it showed. She didn't really stop smiling all day.

I stayed for three days after that, just because I couldn't bring myself to leave any sooner. It felt good to be there, like being back home. How Kaoru and Shino fell into the familiar patterns of Jou-chan and Kenshin. There were differences too, of course, but I didn't really mind.

There was a noteable void, thought. Yahiko. I missed the little brat, and I still worried that this world's form of him might need help, but there was no real way of finding out that I could see. I was still hoping that a solution might present itself, as it had with Shino.

I might have stayed longer, but I found myself running out of both salve and tea.

Believing my friends to be busy in the yard testing poor Shino's endurance for downward swings, I sat with my back to the door in the room where I stayed, smearing the last of Grandma's medicine on my burned skin, wishing futilely that either it would just heal or that it at least wasn't such a large area to be burned.

Should have brought a second bag of the special tea that eased the sickness that came every few days, but I hadn't expected to want to stay longer. Hell, I'd come almost expecting Kaoru and Shino to, well, be acting like Jou-chan and Kenshin.

Although I knew from the appreciative gazes Kaoru gave Shino that he found her attractive (only a blind man wouldn't), I had observed the two of them together to see that it wasn't the same open-hearted love that Jou-chan had quietly cast over Kenshin for as long as I knew them.

This didn't trouble me as it should have. Extremely annoyed, I wrapped my poulticed arm in new bandages and tried to make myself feel troubled. I just assumed those two should be falling in love. They would be beating around the damn bushes as usual, but the truth should have been obvious to anyone with a pair of eyes.

Still I wasn't troubled. I didn't examine my feelings too closely, terrified that I'd actually find myself happy over this very backwards state-of-being. Again, did being a different gender make such a difference in things?

As a male Kaoru was far more mellow than the female Kaoru, not nearly as prone to running around yelling and his temper was kept carefully reigned in, as befitted a responsible man. Those were the big differences as far as personality went. But he was still as bright, enthusiastic, and as kind as Jou-chan.

Just as Shino was meeker and more vulnerable than Kenshin, but still had his great heart and amazing inner strength.

I tried to think about how Shino might have been looking at Kaoru, but every time I was near, I found her looking back at me. The only time she gave full attention to him was when training.

I snorted, about to tie off the bandaging where I'd finished up at my side when I hear a small, creaking noise. I breathed out in frustration, and without bothering to turn around, I reached out and pulled the shoji open. There was a satisfying thump as the two sneaks, with no door any longer supporting them, fell inside my room, one of them bumping against my lower back.

I looked over my shoulder at them. Shino had fallen in first, Kaoru tumbled on top of her. "Exactly why are two spying on me?" I said, reaching for my jacket.

Kaoru growled, frustrated. "We wouldn't have to if you'd just let us take a look at those wounds, Sano. There must be something wrong not only for you to still have to treat them, but to be hiding them as well!"

"Um…Kaoru-san?" came Shino's muffled voice.

"What? Oh!" He jumped off her quickly. "Sorry, Shino."

I stood up as well, shrugging my jacket back on and turning to see her straightening her clothes as well. "We're worried about you, Sano," she explained.

I fought to keep from beaming at her as I noticed she didn't look at the ground as she said this, even though she was a bit embarrassed about trying to get a peek at my unhealed burns. She kept her chin up and her eyes on me.

Instead I said, "You two are like a couple of kids. Peeking in on people. Hey, come to think of it, I heard you two have been practicing that little art on each other. Is that a regular part of swords-training?"

Shino's jaw dropped and Kaoru's face reddened. "Walking in on the bath was an accident!" he said a little shrilly. Shino turned bright red with a blue tinge just under her eyes.

I laughed as I walked past them and out the door. That was cruel, I know, but it had the desired effect: distraction.

How could I tell them why these weeks-old injuries won't heal when I didn't know the reason myself?

It was harder than the first time. Hard to look at Shino, who had in the moment I muttered the first syllables my parting words lost the last traces of her happy glow from our silly shouting game. I had forgotten for a short time how deep the hurt was settled into her eyes.

The return of old pain had been accompanied by a thick silence around her, as if there were words she wanted to say. I knew, without knowing how I knew, that she wanted to ask me to promise to return again, just like the first time, but she didn't felt like she had the right to ask again.

I hadn't been thinking about Kaoru, or Kenshin, or home, or anything else when I pulled her into my arms, holding as tightly as I could without actually harming her. All I cared about was soothing away the pain again. It was all that mattered. How she fit into my arms, the way she pressed her forehead against my chest, the way I could rest my own forehead on her hair, where her scent was strongest, it seemed so right, like I was whole for the first time I could remember.

It almost completely obliterated the faint jolt I got when I sensed Kaoru quietly slip inside to give us privacy, soothed away the apprehensions that I was being a fool, losing them in the wild spring scents that made up Shino. Her little fingers clutching at my jacket, holding me to her just as fiercely. I was scared. I was happy. I wanted to take back the embrace. I wanted to stay just like this, forever.

But forevers aren't measured by the actual Forever, and at some point between a prolonged goodbye and being too dazed to remember the last of my tea leaves and herbs found me shivering and sweating at Rei-baba's door.

I found her vivid cursing funny as she pulled me inside and pushed me to sit down by the fireplace. I was a little disappointed the place didn't smell so much like sandalwood oil anymore.

"You're a very stupid boy," she informed me, rummaging around for something to treat the fever.

"Yeah," I agreed, blinking sleepily at her back. I wasn't really listening to her berating me for not knowing how to take care of myself.

I was thinking about the redhead I'd left at the dojo, my whispered promise to return in only a few days, and I was sure the full eyes that looked up at me and the soft lips that brushed mine had to all be nothing more than the torments of the fever-dreams.

Shino really wanted me? Not Kaoru…?

"What are you crying about now?" Rei-baba snapped.

"Eh? Wh-what?" Was I talking out loud?

Her words were harsh, but her hands were gentle as she put a blanket around my shoulders.

"Forget it, Stupid Boy. Just go to sleep, I'll finish yelling at you in the morning. Dream of that girl I see in your eyes. Stop whining about wanting to give her away. And stop thinking about it so much. You're going to hurt yourself."

I looked up at the old lady's face. "Shino says I'm not stupid at all."

It was a goofy thing to say, but I my brain was swimming in vapor and heat, and at the time it seemed very important that Rei-baba know that.

She took the tea from fingers as I nodded off, and I heard her murmur, "If she says so. After all, Kid, yours is a brain only a love could love."

Author's note:

Took too long for this one. Sorry. Been picking up a double shift at work for the last week, and I'm just so very tired. I ask for patience. (This means you, Fil.)

I wish I could take more time about this story. It could be a much better story. Or maybe it's okay as it is. I'm not sure anymore. Maybe I'll rewrite it more to my satisfaction someday. We'll see.

For now: my silly little cousin made a request that Sano have an endearment for Shino, and after casting about, I made a small list of potential names and let her pick one out. "Shiden-me" was the one she wanted. It means "Violet Lighting-Eyes." She thinks it's cute. I'm just glad she didn't want him to call her "Ichigo-atama" (Strawberry-Head).