Warning: Implied intimacy between minors.
He doesn't say anything as she crawls beside him; merely shuffles over slightly so that she can fit on his futon. They aren't facing one another, but Anna can't find room to complain. After all, as much as she hates to admit it, isn't she intruding on him? Though they were engaged, she had often gotten the feeling that he didn't really enjoy her company all that much.
The silence between them isn't exactly silence—what with the soft music from his record player drifting out of his headphones—but it is still awkward enough, and both of them wonder what they should say to break it.
"I'll… miss you, you know," Anna murmurs to thin air, feeling her eyes prickle uncomfortably. She doesn't cry very often, and she doesn't want his last image of them together to include her with red, puffy eyes. Perhaps it's a little vain of her, but she doesn't really care at this point; she is just a teenage girl, and she is allowed a little vanity.
"Yeah…" he mumbles back, voice partially muffled by his pillow. "I'll miss you too, Anna."
Slowly, she turns to lie on her back, staring at the ceiling blankly. "Promise me that… that you won't get yourself killed, or anything stupid like that…"
Yoh huffs quietly in laughter, moving to face her, and giving her his characteristic grin, all awkwardness forgotten. "Nah, you trained me too well for that." Privately, he thinks that nothing his opponents could do to him would ever be as bad as one of her training sessions. If he can survive through that, he can survive anything.
"Finally you're grateful…" she replies, a little dryly.
He rolls onto his back also, wide grin still plastered across his face. "All it took was a few near-death experiences, eh?"
Suddenly, she finds herself wondering, "Where's Amidamaru?"
Blinking, Yoh sits up and looks around, a bit surprised. "Uh… I don't know."
Looking somewhat flustered, said samurai ghost glides off, a pink tinge on his translucent cheeks. Though—being dead—he had forgotten many of the mortal customs he had once known, he still remembered that there were some things that people didn't necessarily want others to see.
Probably, he thinks to himself, this is one of them. Besides, if anything were to happen, and he were see something… Well, he didn't know how he would ever be able to look at Anna the same way again.
She watches him for a long moment, missing the warmth his torso had provided just a few seconds ago, and waits for him to settle back onto the futon beside her. When he finally does, she wraps her fingers quickly around the fabric of his yukata, pressing her face into his chest. "I don't want you to leave," Anna whispers fiercely into his skin, "but I know you want to become Shaman King—that you deserve to be Shaman King—and that I can't make you stay. I just… don't want to be left behind, all alone…" she admits, voice wavering slightly as she finishes.
He rolls his neck slightly, resting his head on top of her own, and says with a chuckle, "You still have Manta and Tamao to torture while I'm gone."
"That's not what I meant," she mumbles, twisting so that she can see his face. "You know that."
Yoh sighs quietly, tearing his head away and looking down at her. "Yeah… I guess I do."
Without warning, Anna moves up and presses her mouth abruptly against his. It is clumsy and awkward, and takes some getting used to, but it was… nice. When they finally pull away, their faces are both rather red, and Yoh finds himself noticing the way her sleeping robe is sliding down over her shoulder. Breathing heavily, Anna grabs him again, and pulls him down on top of herself.
She had always been a passionate person, in her own way.
Tapping his foot irritably, Tao Ren knocks on the door once more. When no one responds—not that he was expecting anyone to this time, since they hadn't the last dozen or so—he turns to the ever-patiently floating spirit behind him, requesting grumpily, "Bason, look through the windows upstairs, and see if there is anyone home."
When, moments later, his guardian ghost returns, blushing madly and looking a bit frazzled, he demands to know what the spirit saw. He's rewarded with a stuttering, "A-ah… They're in… his room… ehh…"
"Asleep?" Ren grumbles, turning around and leaning on the doorframe. Wisely, Bason says nothing in response, not trusting his voice anyway. The Chinese shaman sulks for a moment by himself, before blinking. "Wait… they?"
And quite suddenly, Ren has a good idea of why they didn't hear him knocking.
AN: Inspired by chapters 77 and 78. Thanks to silver-kyubi for bringing this situation to my attention. I tried to keep everyone in character, and am not very confident that I succeeded. Also, I have a problem with tenses, so there might be errors.