Disclaimer: see part 1.

Steel Rose

Part 8

By Random1377

Kitsune stumbled a bit as she made her way up the Hinata's staircase, wondering when it had gotten so long. "Mmm too far," she complained, glancing at her right hand with mild confusion. "What happened to my drink? Oh yeah… dumped it on that prick's head…"

What had possessed her to go out with a coworker, she still was unsure, but it had seemed like a good idea when she said yes.

"KeiKeiiii," she called, cupping her hands around her mouth. "KeiKei, where arrrrre youuuu?"

She sighed.

What am I doing? I'm shouting for some guy that ALMOST kissed me to come save me from some loser that DID kiss me… God, I am some kind of drunk… and what is that annoying tapping sound? Sounds like a typewriter.

Blinking, she realized that she was hearing the sound of shoes on stone – or rather, Keitaro's shoes on the stairs as he hurried to her side.

"What?" he asked urgently. "What's wrong?"

"Wrong?" Kitsune echoed. "Nothing's wrong besides the fact that the stairs won't stop spinning."

Keitaro took a good look at her, clearly looking for broken bones or visible bleeding. "You were shouting for me," he said lamely. "I thought you were hurt."

"Ohhh," Kitsune grinned. "You heard me."

"Heard you? You were bellowing at the top of your lungs – everyone heard you."

Put her hands on her cheeks in mock amazement. "I thought I was whispering."

"Have one too many tonight, Kitsune?" Keitaro offered, blushing as he held out his hand for her to take.

"KeiKei honey, I've had a few too many," Kitsune said happily. "I mean really like, a lot too many."

"So I see."

Kitsune ran a hand through her hair. "Help me to bed?"

Though the mere mention of bed made Keitaro weak in the knees, he nodded, gingerly slipping an arm around Kitsune's waist as she leaned against him.

"My hero," she crooned, laughing out loud as they stumbled up the stairs. "Mmm… worst date ever," she lamented as they somehow managed to reach her room push the door open. "Few drinks and he thinks I'll sleep with him – I'm not that kind of girl!" She snorted suddenly. "Gotta buy me dinner, first."

"Er, sorry it was a bad date," Keitaro muttered uncomfortably.

Kitsune smiled drunkenly. "If you don't stop being so sweet I'm gonna eat you up."

Trying to remind himself that the girl was tanked, Keitaro mumbled, "I wouldn't taste good… too stringy."

Pressing herself closer to his side, Kitsune breathed, "Yeah you would… I can tell just by looking at you, Keitaro."

"Uh well, here's your bed," Keitaro babbled, trying not to notice that Kitsune was, once again, braless. "See you in the morning."

"Ooo," Kitsune hummed, resting her head against his shoulder and wrapping her arms around him, "you're still gonna be here?" Slowly, she brought her mouth up next to Keitaro's ear. "Can you keep a secret?"

"W-w-what?" Keitaro stammered, squirming uncomfortably as Kitsune leaned more of her weight against him, trapping him up against the wall.

"Promise you won't tell?" she breathed, nuzzling his ear with her lips. "Cross your heart?"

Keitaro nearly pointed out that she would need to let him move his arms to be able to do that, but decided that simply mumbling, "Sure, I promise," would be easier.

Kitsune pressed herself even closer, molding her body to his as she licked her lips, inadvertently brushing Keitaro's ear with the tip of her tongue and drawing a tiny yelp of surprise from him.

"Can't tell anyone, ever…" she whispered, "just between the two of us… our secret…"

Nearly swooning, his brain traveling in every direction, Keitaro barely managed to gasp, "Ok."

With every curve of her body glued to his, Kitsune licked her lips a second time before uttering her simply, three word secret.

"I'm a virgin…"

Had he not been caught at such an awkward angle, Keitaro would have gaped at her… but as her face was directly next to his, all he could do was turn his eyes her way. "Wh-what?"

"I know," Kitsune giggled, hearing the incredulity in his voice. "I'll bet you thought I sleep around all the time… but the truth is that I act like I do because being close to guys really, really scares me." She rested her cheek against his shoulder. "I've never even… let a guy touch me before. If they get too close, there's always an excuse to push them away…"

Keitaro found that he had absolutely no idea how to reply to this sudden confession.

After a moment of quiet, Kitsune whispered, "I've never found a guy I feel comfortable with. I'm twenty-one years old – can you believe that? A twenty-one year old girl that's never even been touched."

"I can… believe that," Keitaro said sympathetically.

"Keitaro?"

"Hmm?"

"Would it… make me a slut if I found a guy I was really into – you know, a guy I was comfortable with, who made me laugh, and really cared about me… and I slept with him right after we started dating?"

"Well, I don't… have any experience with… with stuff like that," Keitaro mumbled, "but if you loved him, and you knew it was what you wanted… no, I don't think sleeping with one person makes you a slut."

"Keitaro?"

"Yeah?"

"….you don't know any guys like that, do you? Because I really need to get laid."

Keitaro barked a short laugh, caught off guard by this sudden, light joke. "No," he chuckled, "I don't, really."

"Mmm," Kitsune hummed, "too bad… because I only know one… and he's too preoccupied to notice me."

"Anyone I know?" Keitaro asked lightly.

Pulling back for a moment, Kitsune gave him a soft, tipsy smile. "If you did, would you hook me up with him?"

Keitaro returned her smile. "Would it make you happy?"

"It would."

"Then yeah, I'd try."

Kitsune nodded, licking her lips as she said, "Ok, he's about five nine, kinda blackish-brown hair, brown eyes… cute smile… umm… wears glasses… likes to sketch."

Keitaro averted his eyes. "Sounds like a cool guy," he mumbled, his back stiffening as Kitsune's fingers stroked the back of his neck.

"He is," Kitsune whispered. "He really, really… is… and I think I'm falling for him."

"M-maybe you should tell him."

Kitsune let out a long, deep sigh, resting her head on his shoulder and hugging him tightly. "I can't," she said tiredly. "Too many other people love him…"

Keitaro opened his mouth to reply, but before he could speak, Kitsune turned and kissed him gently on the cheek.

"You should go now."

"Huh? How c-"

"Because I'm about to do something I'll regret in the morning."

Planting a hand on his chest, Kitsune pushed him out of the room, slipping the door closed and leaning up against it to keep him from pulling it back open. She closed her eyes as a soft, hesitant knock sounded on the thin wood… but she offered no reply.

Eventually, she heard footsteps padding away from her door.

"Liar," she whispered to herself, pushing away from the door and staggering over to collapse onto her futon.

"…you wouldn't have regretted it at all."

( 0 0 0 )

Keitaro drew careful lines on his sketchpad, taking great pains to detach himself from any conscious thought as he painstakingly detailed the steel rose Motoko had given him. Where thinking about art helped him avoid uncomfortable thought patterns, actually sketching something enabled him to go into a Zen-like state of nothingness, where all that mattered was his subject and his paper.

Motoko had noticed and identified his meditative trance when he had drawn her, but at the time, she had been too wrapped up in her own issues to comment on it or retain it at a conscious level.

And Keitaro, just then, had a lot of reasons to avoid thinking.

I really should use colors in my drawings, he mused, forcing himself to stay focused as his thoughts tried to clamor for attention. Maybe I could even figure out a way to do a color wash on the rose – add some red to the petals, green to the leaves… I wonder how that would look…

So engrossed was he in drawing that he missed the tentative knock on his door the first two times.

"It's open," he called on the third knock, keeping his eyes on the sketchbook as his door slid open and Shinobu stood on the threshold.

"Sempai?"

"Hm?"

"Can I come in?"

"Sure."

Walking nervously to his side, Shinobu knelt and gazed over his shoulder. "Amazing," she whispered. "It looks just like it."

Keitaro smiled, pleased by the praise. "Thanks," he said honestly. "I'm not good at sports, or studying… or anything else besides cleaning, really, so sketching is all I can do to kill time."

Shinobu nodded. "It's the same with me," she said. "I'm good at cooking, but I don't get very good grades at school and I'm not on any teams or anything because I'm… I'm so small – but I try not to let it bother me, Sempai, and neither should you."

"Thanks, Shinobu," Keitaro said, deciding that this was a very grown-up viewpoint for such a young girl. "I'll try not to."

"Hey Sempai?"

"Yeah?"

"There's… a new Chow Yun Fat action movie starting this weekend, and I remember you said you liked him, right?"

"Uh huh."

"So maybe… we could go see it?" Shinobu asked hesitantly. "We could ask Motoko and Su – you know, like last time. They liked the play, right?"

"Yeah," Keitaro said, glancing from the rose to his sketch and back again. "Yeah that sounds like fun…"

And Su will suddenly have to be somewhere, he thought, and Motoko won't feel like going… and then it'll be just the two of us. Again.

"Hey, Shinobu," he said, looking up from his sketch. "Maybe…"

"Yes?" Shinobu asked. "What is it, Sempai?"

He couldn't do it.

Staring into her bright, shining eyes, Keitaro could not bring himself to say, 'I think you should understand that I just see you as a friend,' the words he had so carefully orchestrated over the past few nights. The hope in her eyes was too much. He had to look away.

"…maybe we should catch a late show this time," he said lamely, "you know, get some dinner first or something."

God, I'm such a wimp, he thought miserably. But I can't just tell her no… I can't…

"That sounds great! Umm, night K-Keitaro…"

Keitaro looked up, shocked by the sudden, bold use of his name… but all he caught was the swirl of Shinobu's skirt as she swept out of the room.

"Great," he echoed, looking down at his sketch. "Yeah… great…"

The frantic denial stage had passed, moving Keitaro into numb acceptance. What can I do? he thought, scratching a few extra details into the rose on the sketchpad. Naru barely talks to me anymore… Motoko's CIVIL, but that's about it. Kitsune is…

He let that thought line go, since it just dead ended in confusion and dull, throbbing headaches.

"Why," he whispered to himself, studying his drawing for a long moment. "Why oh why oh why does stuff like this only happen to me?"

Throwing himself backward onto his futon, Keitaro gave up on thinking for the evening. It just seemed like the best thing to do just then…

( 0 0 0 )

Motoko pushed Naru's door open without bothering to knock, steeling herself for the confrontation she was about to provoke. This has gone on long enough, she thought, stepping inside as Naru looked up from her homework. There is too much unhappiness in this place, now… it is time to put an end to it.

"Hey," Naru said carefully, "what's up?"

"I came to talk about Keitaro," Motoko said evenly. "I'd like to know what's going on between you two, since you haven't spoken to him in nearly a week." She waited for a moment to see if Naru had anything to say before she concluded, "Essentially, what I'd like to know is if you're really giving up on him after everything that's happened between you two."

Naru stared at her for a long, long moment, her eyes entirely unreadable as she simply inhaled and exhaled, showing no sign that she had even heard Motoko's bold questions.

"He's with Shinobu now," she mumbled finally, looking back to her homework. "It's outta my hands."

"Are you really ok with that?" Motoko asked softly. "I know… that you care for him, Naru, so-"

"It doesn't matter whether I'm ok with it or not," Naru cut in flatly. "I asked, Motoko – point blank, 'Do you want to be with me?' and he kept finding reasons not to. Now tell me, why should I keep trying when he doesn't even want me?"

Motoko bit her bottom lip. "Well," she said carefully, "do you love him?"

"Yes!" Naru exploded, hurling her pencil across the room. "No! I don't know anymore! I thought I did, but you know what? All this studying, all the time away from him… it's been easy on me, you know? Really easy… so if it's that easy for me to just push him out of my mind, can I say it's love? I thought if you loved someone, they were supposed to be on your mind all the time."

"I don't know," Motoko admitted. "I don't really know much about being in love."

Naru sighed, rubbing her eyes tiredly. "I think you do," she said bluntly. "The way you look at Keitaro sometimes… I didn't want to say anything before, since I wasn't sure what I was doing, but when you guys were engaged, I could tell that you were thinking about letting it stand."

How does she know that? Motoko thought guiltily.

"Perhaps at the time," she said coolly, "but now I-"

"Wait," Naru said softly. "I want to say something."

"Hmm?"

"I think you love Keitaro."

"N-Naru!"

"And I think Kitsune loves him," Naru continued, "and I know for a fact that Shinobu loves him." She shrugged ironically, adding, "Su says she's married to him, so we know how she feels… and yes, I think I love him too… but I don't think that I'm in love with him. Now before you get all pissy, I don't know if you're in love with him either, but I don't have any problem saying that everyone in this dump loves that dumbass one way or another."

Motoko pursed her lips. "Fair enough."

"But what I know right now is that I can't spend time worrying about how I love him, because I've got too many other things going on. I've laid my cards on the table, Motoko, and he's keeping his up against his chest. The ball's in his court, the next move is his, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera."

"Just like that?"

Naru threw her hands in the air. "No, not 'just like that,'" she said irritably. "You think I haven't thought about this since that night? God, it's all I have thought about – and it's getting in the way. Maybe it's a copout, but it's just too much for me to think about it anymore, so I'm not going to. Can you understand that?"

Motoko took a deep breath.

"Yes… I think I can."

"Good, then are we done here?"

Shaking her head, Motoko replied, "The matter of Shinobu is still-"

"I'm out," Naru cut in sharply. "Look, I know he's in a bad position, but I literally can not help him on this one. If he'd said yes," she drew a shaky breath, "if he'd said yes, it would have been an easy out, but-"

"You don't honestly believe that, do you?" Motoko interrupted. "Keitaro's right – it would have crushed her if he told her that you – or I, or Kitsune, or anyone that lives here – was the reason they couldn't be together."

Naru shrugged. "Again," she said coolly, "this can't be my problem anymore."

Averting her eyes, Motoko nodded. "I understand," she said smoothly. "Then, I'll leave you alone now."

As she moved to the door, Naru whispered, "Hey."

Motoko looked back over her shoulder.

Though her eyes were on her books, Motoko could see that Naru's cheeks were red.

"I'm sorry."

Sighing, Motoko pushed the door open. "Me too," she said quietly, "but I understand."

Without another word, she left, making sure to close the door behind her… because if Naru was going to cry, Motoko did not want to see it – not because she was not empathetic, but because if she tried to comfort her, Naru would just push her away.

And to be in a position where she knew someone else was hurting and could do nothing about it was more than Motoko could bear just then.

Continued…

Author's notes: no notes for this chapter.

Hawker-748 pre-read for me and corrected several flaws, because I'm still too poor to buy the manga for myself.