Author's Note: Ok, I'm gonna keep this note short, cuz I feel like sleeping tonight :P
BlackWingedGabriel: The weekly basis works fine I hope you enjoy yourself. Know I will :P
Dust-in: Thanks for the compliment I hope my writing continues to meet your expectations.
Silent KrysOfDeath: Yes, Masaya should die. A million deaths. It would make a great movie . Are you by any chance ShikyoNoKrys? Cuz if you are, kudos to you. Your fics are hilarious . Oh, and chapter length…. shrug. I like shorter chapters. Allows me to write once a night and still somehow sleep . They also kinda end up that long whether I try for longer or not, and I'm used to drabbles, anyway. Guess it's a habit :P
Everyone else whom I dun name cuz I wanna go sleep :P : Thanks for the reviews . Hope you enjoy the next chapter. So, without further ado…
Disclaimer: Dun own it. As many of my teachers say, the proof is in the pudding :P. Oh, and if I did own it, I wouldn't have given rights to 4Kids. That is a travesty in itself.
Ichigo gently led Kisshu down the hallway, nudging open her door and sitting him down on her bed. If she hadn't been so occupied with worry, she would have found the situation rather interesting; the last time she had been in this room, her feelings towards him had been so very different…
She shook her head, desperately trying to curb those thoughts. They were important, she knew, but they would have to wait. The iciness of Kisshu's skin reminded her of that. Only one thing mattered now, and that was warming the poor boy before he slipped into a possibly permanent unconsciousness.
How to do it, though? A frown furrowed the cat-girl's brow as she frantically pondered the question. Ideally… ideally, she would have a supply of heated blankets and the like, but, judging by the last day, the ideal would remain far from her reach. Thus, she was left with… with… She was a young teenage girl and, life-threatening or not, the situation and its only apparent solution inspired a tinge of pink in her cheeks. No. I have to do this. It's all I can do…
"Kisshu." He failed to meet her eyes. She crouched down before him, trying to grasp his attention. It took a great deal of her courage to keep from panicking at the glazed look in his eyes.
"Kisshu!" she spoke louder, allowing some of her anxiety to leak into her tone, and the shivering alien suddenly looked at her, seeming surprised, as if he hadn't noticed her there before. As if she had been different before… She bit the inside of her cheek; she couldn't worry about that now. Later, when this unnatural vulnerability was gone; later, when his life wasn't in danger because of her abominable foolishness…
Suddenly wanting to reassure him, she forced a nervous smile. "Kisshu, you're going to have to take this shirt off, all right?" She had to get that wet thing off of him if she could ever hope to warm him.
"I'm tired…" he murmured, and Ichigo's composure faltered when his eyes began to close. Sudden fear seizing her, she grabbed his shoulders and shook him lightly, quickly remembering that he still had that gash crossing from shoulder to chest.
He didn't answer her, but her purpose seemed to reach him; he made to remove the night shirt, but his hands were trembling too badly. Quickly seeing that it was useless, the girl softly ordered him to hold his arms up as high as he could and carefully pulled the shirt up over his head. Throwing the soaked garment, along with her jacket, over her desk chair, she immediately grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around the alien's trembling shoulders.
Not good enough, not enough, she continued to remind herself, and her next decision was made with a forced disregarding of that little voice in the back of her head softly reminding her of Aoyama's shining brown eyes, his soothing voice, his loving touch. Had that voice not been weakened by the urgent nature of the situation, she may have hesitated, but it had been. She could barely hear it as she hastily changed into a set of dry pajamas. For the smallest moment, she balked at the idea of changing with the alien in the same room, but a single glance at his hunched over, shivering form simply drove all such foolish modesty from her mind; she wouldn't need to change under-garments, anyway. And it was her fault.
Clad in her warmest set of pajamas, the girl returned to the bed, sitting down next to her charge and shaking him lightly by the shoulder.
"Come… come here, Kisshu." Her voice shook as the gravity of what she meant to do hit her. Nevertheless, she continued, pulling the boy to her, unwrapping the blanket from around him and wrapping it around the both of them, then pulling the other blankets over them. A few moments later, she lay with the shivering alien against her, both wrapped snugly.
At this point, what she was doing hit her. It really hit her, and she found herself suddenly nervous about touching him, even just allowing her skin to brush against his. The prospect of it terrified her, and as she stared at him, she pulled back, suddenly desperate to keep away, to try to seize back what was so close to being lost. As she lay, tense, anxiously trying to avoid contact in the compromising position she had put herself in, she managed a good look at the alien boy's face; a good, long look taken with eyes full of doubt. Yet, as they held their gaze, as the boy curled up in a desperate effort to conserve his own body heat, they softened. The doubt in them melted away, and a few tears slowly ran down her cheeks. That guilt was back; it permeated her psyche as she tentatively reached out to feel Kisshu's skin. Her stomach clenched, her eyes blurred, when its iciness registered against her fingertips.
Slowly, her teeth an uneasy pressure on her bottom lip, she wrapped one arm securely around his torso, then the second, constantly aware of her move she was making, constantly aware of his tremors, and of the bandage covering half his chest. A small voice reminded her that later, she'd have to change it. A faint red showed through its white fibers; he had probably opened the wound again.
When her body first came into full contact with Kisshu's, she uttered a soft gasp, partly because of the impossible coldness of his skin, but also because her mind was frantically reminding her that this was Kisshu, her enemy, her relentless stalker and tormentor. This was not Aoyama-kun's shivering body huddling next to hers for warmth; her fingers were not resting against Aoyama-kun's bare chest. She did not smell his tender scent; his black hair was not tickling her cheek.
This was not Masaya, yet as the minutes ticked by, Ichigo relaxed anyway. The tension left her muscles; her breath grew steadier. After a while, she gathered herself again and began to rub Kisshu's arms as furiously as she could without aggravating his injury in an attempt to help his blood circulate.
A few minutes of this left her surprisingly exhausted, and she allowed herself to rest, arms still wrapped around Kisshu, struggling to keep her eyes open. Help in that department came rather unexpectedly; the alien, who she had thought too weak and exhausted to follow her actions, gave a soft, shaking sigh before burying his face in her chest, a barely-audible "Ichigo" breaking her drowsiness.
Again, her first reaction was a wave of revulsion; persistent reminders of her love, her life, her mission filled her consciousness as the barely-lucid Kisshu gently nuzzled her, curling up against her for her precious warmth, a pleading pressure against her chest.
Her heart raced. Her mind swam. Her cheeks, caressed by feathery strands of Kisshu's hair, blazed scarlet. For a few moments, she could hear only the pounding of her blood in her ears, could only feel Kisshu's trembling body against her tense one.
Then, as if a spell had been cast, her anxiety waned. Her mind cleared, and she found her lips being tugged into a tender smile. Her hand, so hesitant just a few seconds ago, came to a rest on Kisshu's head. Slowly at first, then with growing ease, she smoothed back his hair, running her fingers through it in an attempt to… I'm just fixing it a bit, she told her logic, yet underneath that shell of denial ran the thought: It'll help him feel better.
Gradually, the shivers wracking his body diminished, and his breathing evened out. After a while, Ichigo patted him gently, murmured his name, and confirmed that he had, indeed, fallen asleep. She noted that his skin was warmer. Not precisely as warm as she knew it should have been, but a definite improvement. With a quiet sigh, she decided it was all right to allow him full sleep.
Finally granted relief from her worry, Ichigo drifted into stray thoughts, quickly delving into those that had been vying for attention for the last few hours. Those familiar voices quickly began issuing their reprimands:
This isn't Aoyama-kun!
Kisshu's an enemy. He's going to… he'll… he can…
You're hugging him. You're actually touching him! How can you?
But this time, oh, if she had been more alert, if she hadn't been swimming in fatigue and blessed relief, she would have noticed that this time, those thoughts were lost in the tenderness resonating with each beat of her heart. They were strangled by the way his body nestled against hers, by the undeniable need he had for her, by the inescapable feeling of peace this moment inspired, the peace she reveled in, yet did not recognize because it instilled such a deep feeling of calm.
The thoughts disappeared into the silence, replaced with a soft exhaustion that gently forced Ichigo's eyes closed. The last thought she had before slumber took her into its waiting arms, was a bemused, What am I doing? Its existence was short-lived; as Ichigo drifted off, one arm wrapped around Kisshu, her other hand resting against his hair, it dissolved into the realm of Later, later…, and was extinguished by a drowsy It doesn't matter…
Author's Note: Eh…k. Yea. That's chapter 9, folks . Sorry for the lack of daily updating; I think I needed some sleep. Just a little :P Oh, and work started back up again. Yay animal hospital! Read and review, please.