FASH: Here's some more lovely Shin/Sena coming your way! Wow, I can't believe I got so many reviews for the first chapter, I hope this next part is up to your standards.

""-speech

''-thoughts

Sena awoke to the sound of his stomach growling and with a sigh he attempted to roll over, not wanting to get out of his warm bed just yet, only to find that he couldn't move.

His eyes snapped open and he tensed before remembering why exactly he wasn't able to move. Shin hadn't loosened his grip at all during the night and when he finally got out of bed he was probably going to have a huge kink in his neck.

"Sena." Shin nuzzled against him again, relatively peaceful until his own stomach began to growl.

"Sounds like we're both going to need some breakfast." Sena laughed quietly before glancing out the window, it was still really dark outside and even if he tried he wouldn't be able to make out where the hands of the clock were pointing.

"I'm sure that there are some people up by now, come on, let's get out of bed." Sena patted his hands against Shin's arms and the older boy reluctantly let go, allowing Sena to stand up and stretch out his cramped muscles before he turned back to Shin, holding a finger to his lips in the customary 'hush' gesture.

"Alright Shin, when we go downstairs we'll have to be very quiet so that we don't wake anyone up, okay?" He whispered.

Shin made no signs of understanding, but Sena had already expected that and just hoped that by speaking quietly Shin would get the idea that they were trying not to make too much noise. He was pretty sure he would understand that much, after all, he had such intelligent eyes.

Sena lead Shin through the hallway, down the stairs and towards the kitchen, not being able to help but feel proud of himself as Shin crept behind him, completely silent.

Upon reaching the kitchen Sena blindly stumbled around in search of the pantry, bumping in to various pieces of furniture several times before the light of a candle flame flickered behind him.

"What are you doing?" Asked a familiar voice and Sena turned to see the girl from yesterday afternoon looking at him curiously. "You're both hungry because you skipped dinner, aren't you?"

Sena nodded on behalf of the both of them and the girl sighed before moving into a different part of the kitchen.

"I hope an apple will tide you both over until the normal time we get up to make breakfast because I want to go back to sleep." She came back and handed Sena two apples before yawning. "Next time just come down for dinner, I sleep right beside the kitchen so I can hear when you run into things."

"Sorry, I really didn't mean to."

"It's okay, just as long as you don't make a habit out of this, the lady of the house didn't seem very happy that you didn't bring her son down too, so it really would be best for you to just eat at the normal, scheduled times from now on." She glanced at Shin out of the corner of her eye before turning back to Sena. "My name's Suzuna by the way, you're Sena right?" She yawned again.

"Yeah, that's me."

"Well Sena, see you in about four hours at breakfast." Suzuna left the kitchen, leaving her candle on the table to provide them some light.

Sena handed Shin an apple and bit into his own gratefully, managing to make if halfway through the piece of fruit before noticing that not only was Shin not eating his, but he was staring at him expectantly.

"Oh no, I'm not doing that mouth to mouth feeding again, you must have eaten apples when you were growing up." Sena said in exasperation, but Shin still stared at him expectantly and refused to bring the fruit to his lips, even as his stomach growled again.

With a final bite of his own apple Sena tossed the core into the compost and sighed, rummaging through the drawers for a small knife. After finding one he took the apple from Shin's hands and ignored the almost smug look on the boy's face.

"If I didn't know any better I'd think that you planned this. But even if you did plan something, I'm not relenting." He began cutting the apple into small slices, paying close attention to try and keep himself from getting a cut in the near darkness.

"You may think you know what's going to happen. But I already told you that I wouldn't be doing that mouth to mouth thing anymore."

It was nice to be able to talk to a human being for a change. He hardly ever conversed with anyone other than his parents or the mares in the stable. And in the case of his parents he was usually talked at more then he himself spoke, being the one who was listened to for a change, even if the person who was listening didn't really understand, was a wonderful feeling.

He held up the first apple slice.

"Alright now, say 'ah."

Shin cocked his head curiously and Sena took his right hand and held it against his throat.

"Ah. Ahhhh."

Shin opened his mouth going: "A-ahhhh." and Sena took the opportunity to pop the apple slice into his mouth.

Shin chewed on it thoughtfully before swallowing and opening his mouth again. "Ahhh."

When Shin finally finished the apple Sena took the candle that Suzuna had left them and lead Shin back up the stairs and to their room, tugging lightly on Shin's nightshirt when the older boy began making himself comfortable on the brunette's bed, leaving some extra room for Sena.

"You know that I'm back now, so you can sleep in your own bed, right?"

Shin made no move to get out of Sena's bed so Sena settled himself down in Shin's, not entirely surprised when the older boy followed after him.

With a sigh Sena blew out the candle and settled down for a couple more hours of sleep.

'I wonder how long it'll take for him to be able to sleep on his own?' It was a puzzling question, especially considering that he'd probably been sleeping by himself for several years, so he decided not to think too hard about it.

He woke up to the sound of someone knocking against the bedroom door and he slowly moved from his previous position of being curled up against Shin's warm chest to get up and open it.

From the other side Suzuna was smiling at him widely and announced that breakfast would be ready soon.

"I figured that you'd feel exhausted from oversleeping, so I decided to give you a bit of a wake up call."

"Oh, thanks."

"No problem." Suzuna titled her head slightly and looked over Sena's shoulder into the room. "So, after I left the kitchen last night you were still speaking loud enough for me to hear a couple interesting things. What's this about mouth to mouth?"

Sena went red and sputtered, the sound of his distress woke Shin up and the older boy was in front of him in a flash, glaring down at Suzuna in an extremely intimidating fashion.

Suzuna just grinned back and Sena nervously took hold of Shin's hand and pulled him back. "It's okay Shin, everything's okay." He reassured while sending a distressed look Suzuna's way.

"Oh, I won't tell anyone if that's what you're worried about. I imagine that his mother would have a cow if she knew your lips had gone anywhere near each other's. I was just wondering if, since you'll be eating with other people today, you needed me to steer clear of certain foods to serve him."

Well, that was going to be helpful, he half expected that she was just here to make fun of him or something along those lines.

"Well, he doesn't know how to use utensils yet, so just stuff you could eat with your hands."

Suzuna nodded along. "Good, good, but does he know how to use a cup? We don't want him to get dehydrated."

Sena pursed his lips together and glanced at Shin, gripping at the other boy's hand just a little tighter. "I... I'll try and teach him how to use one."

"Good, and while you're at it you may want to teach him a couple other things, apparently Elf Bro saw him sneaking around outside a couple of hours ago to, uh, 'do his business.'"

Sena assumed that by 'Elf Bro' she meant Hiruma, who had oddly pointed ears, and digested the other information she had presented to him.

"Really? I hadn't noticed that he'd left at all." He turned to look at Shin who noticed and stared right back.

"Why would you notice? It's not that hard to sneak out of a room while another person is sleeping unless..." Suzuna trailed off and gave Sena a knowing look before turning back around. "In any case, you'd better get dressed and come down to the dining room soon."

Sena turned to look Shin up and down before thinking out loud. "Someone else dressed you in you nightclothes, didn't they? Then how are we..." He trailed off and went pink, the colour deepening when Shin curiously ran a hand across his cheek.

"Alright, come back inside the room, we've got to figure a couple things out." He dragged Shin back inside, closed the door tightly behind them and sat him down him his bed before opening the drawers and rummaging through them for an easy set of clothes to slip Shin into.

Undressing and dressing Shin while keeping his eyes shut for nearly the entire time wasn't exactly the ideal way for him to spend the beginning of his morning and by the end of it Shin wasn't looking very happy and kept trying to shrug the tighter clothes off, not used to the feel of them.

When the movements to free himself from the restraining clothing got a little more violent Sena took action and gently placed his hands on Shin's shoulders, looking down at him beseechingly.

"Please just keep them on, I promise you'll get used to it, please?"

Shin looked uncomfortable and ran a hand over the loose material covering Sena's chest as if to ask 'why do you get to wear this?'

"I'll be changing too, once I know you're not going to rip yourself out of your clothes. I know you're not used to it, but I really need you to keep them on. Can you do that for me?"

Shin eyed him intently as he ran one of his hands down the row of buttons on the shirt Sena had put on him.

"Sena?" He questioned and the brunette nodded.

"Yes, for me, for Sena." He pulled away and Shin reluctantly refraining from ripping out of his clothes, much to Sena's relief.

"Alright, I've got to change now too, so can you turn around?" He asked, figuring if Shin was able to catch his drift about the clothes then he might understand what he was saying this time around too.

Apparently he was wrong though, Shin didn't move.

"Turn around?" Sena twirled his finger around in the air for a moment before figuring that might confuse Shin more and instead he turned his body around, keeping his back at Shin for a few seconds before facing him again.

Shin still didn't budge and Sena was fairly certain that if they both didn't come down soon someone was bound to get impatient and agitated.

"Alright, new plan. Could you cover your eyes for me?" Sena made a show of covering his own eyes before taking Shin's hands and lifting them up over the older boy's eyes. When he pulled his hands away Shin's hand fell back down into his lap and Sena pulled them up once again, rubbing at the back of them lightly before letting go again.

This time they stayed in place and Sena turned around and changed as quickly as he could, not wanting Shin's hands to fall away before he was moderately dressed.

When he finished he turned back around and was pleased to see that Shin's hands were still covering his eyes. With a grateful smile he took Shin's hands in his own and moved them back down.

"Thank you very much." He was smiling wide enough to show off his teeth for the first time, no longer afraid that Shin would take the baring of his teeth a challenge, as he lead Shin downstairs for breakfast.

His smile was quick to fade when they finally made it to the dining room, he couldn't help but feel as if there was some sort of murderous intent directed at him as he sat Shin between his mother and himself.

At the head of the table the lord of the house gave the pair a small smile, across from him Hiruma smirked and Sena didn't dare turn to see what the lady of the house's expression was.

Thankfully breakfast itself wasn't an entirely awkward experience, Shin was well behaved and would eat certain things with his own hands as long as he saw that the boy beside him was eating as well, although sometimes he sent Sena a look that lead the brunette to believe that he wanted to be hand fed again.

And Shin was a quick learner, after watching Sena demonstrate how to drink from a glass several times he mimicked the movement and Sena beamed at him proudly before he noticed the look being sent at him from above Shin's head and the smile was once again wiped off his face.

Seijuro's father, noticing the tense atmosphere going on to his right struck up a conversation with Hiruma.

"Are you certain that you can't stay any longer? We really could use more of your advice."

Hiruma leaned back in his chair. "I've got other things to do and I've already given you my opinion on certain matters, just make sure you follow my advice." His eyes trailed over to the lady of the house before locking back on the man at the head of the table. "I'll come back in a couple months, at the end of spring, to check up on everything."

Sena quietly bit into an apple as the two men conversed and couldn't help but wonder what would happen when the blonde left, would Seijuro's father and mother really follow the advice that Hiruma had given them? He hoped so, things seemed to go a lot smoother when everyone did whatever the blonde told them to do.

When the blonde left the table to get all of his things ready to leave the lord of the house cleared his throat before turning his gaze to Sena.

"Now then Sena, Hiruma has given me the contact information of a speech pathologist that he thinks will be able to help Seijuro learn how to speak properly. I'll be sending him a letter that will ask him to come as soon as possible and stay for however long it takes to teach my son how to properly communicate with people."

Sena nodded along, not entire sure why he was being told this.

"But he also told me that it wouldn't be strange if Seijuro didn't take any interest in this at all if you're not also trying to get him to speak, can we expect your cooperation?"

"Yes, of course." Sena replied and Seijuro's father smiled widely at him.

"Wonderful, I'll go to my study and write up the letter right now. I'm hoping that he'll be able to make it here before winter sets in and it gets harder to travel due to the snow." He stood up from his chair and walked out of the room.

It was eerily silent for several seconds before Seijuro's mother took a deep, calming breath and looked at Seijuro, her face softening instantly.

"I'll see you later Seijuro, do try and be on your best behavior." She said before standing up and making her way out of the room, completely ignoring Sena's presence.

Sena wasn't sure what he preferred, being glared at, or being treated like he didn't actually exist.

After awkwardly finishing his breakfast in the intense silence that followed Sena sat back in his chair and sighed.

"Your mom hates me."

Shin cocked his head to the side curiously in response.

"I bet once you don't need me around anymore she won't even give me my job as a stableboy back and'll order me to stay off the grounds so that we can't see each other ever again." He slumped further into his seat and Shin, probably in an effort to make him feel better, grabbed onto him and pulled him into a protective embrace.

"Sena. Sena. Sena." He whispered in a tone probably meant to match Sena's comforting one, but the end result was a bit more husky than it should have been and Sena was embarrassed to feel himself blush because of it.

Then, just to make everything more embarrassing, that's when Suzuna came in to begin cleaning up and upon seeing the two boys as they were she went red and apologized for interrupting before rushing back out.

Sena wanted to move after her and tell her that whatever she thought was going on was just a misunderstanding, but Shin's strong arms prevented him from doing so.

With a sigh he relaxed himself into Shin's embrace, not bothering to protest when the older boy pulled him into his lap without much effort.

"I wonder how long it'll take for you to get tired of me? I was only a stableboy to begin with, I'm not that special." He traced small patters over Shin's chest with the tip of his index finger.

"I wonder how long it'll take for your mother's ideals to rub off on you and you'll never listen to me again." He frowned a bit at his own pessimistic thoughts, it wasn't like he really could have expected something strange like this to last for a long time anyways.

"Hiruma will be leaving soon, we'd better go see him off." He tried to move out of Shin's embrace but once again the boy wouldn't let him go so Sena settled back down with a wan smile.

"I suppose I'll just enjoy these protective moments that you have while they last."

It was nearly an hour after Hiruma left that Sena noticed Shin was acting stranger than normal. He seemed to be constantly alert and he explored around the house, as if he were looking for something. When he was done with his exploration he turned to Sena who'd been trailing behind him, eyes glinting.

"I suppose everything is to your liking then?" Sena asked dryly before something rather unexpected happened.

Shin gripped him by the wrist and ran right out of the house.

Sena made a variety of protests and when that didn't work he tried to pull his weight back to get Shin to stop. Which he did, but only long enough to scoop Sena into his arms and throw him over his shoulder before starting up again.

Sena realized, rather belatedly, that Shin must have been planning to escape back to the forest all along. He knew that Hiruma had been the one to track him down, knew that without his leadership the others didn't stand a chance of capturing him and once he was certain the blonde was gone he made a break for it, bringing Sena along with him.

This was not good, from what Sena could catch glimpses of from his uncomfortable perch he could tell that Shin was running incredibly fast and so far no one was following after them. By the time everyone in the Shin household realized that they were gone they would already have too much of a head start for them to catch up.

'Oh God, where is he taking me?' They had entered the forest now, most of the brilliant coloured leaves had already fallen onto the forest floor, blurring together when Sena's eyes stayed locked on the ground, and Shin still wasn't slowing down.

In one final, valiant effort to free himself he braced his hands against Shin's back and pushed up, but just as he did so the back of his head smashed into a low branch.

He fell back into his previous position, unconscious.

He awoke with a start several hours later to the sight of Shin hovering over him and, stifling a shriek, he moved to sit up, only to have Shin move closer in concern and have their foreheads collide.

Sena fell back to the ground, hands clasped against his forehead and rocking back and forth from the pain while Shin shook it off and recovered in just a moment.

"Sena?" He gripped Sena's hands in his own and pulled them away, frowning when the brunette didn't respond.

"Sena?"

Sena had gone completely still and he stared up at Shin without blinking, allowing the situation to slowly sink in.

The sun was high in the sky so he'd been dead to the world for at least a couple hours and in that time Shin had taken him deep into parts of the forest Sena never would have dared to venture. He had absolutely no idea where he was and had no idea on how he could get back to the town, although he highly doubted that Shin would let him out of sight for too long anyways.

'I am so doomed.' He slowly sat up and ran a hand through his hair nervously, trying his best not to hyperventilate.

Shin could survive out here, Shin was used to braving the elements and surviving in the wild. Sena was not.

He stood up on unsteady feet, all too aware of the worried look being sent his way.

"Shin, where did you take me? How do I get back home?" He asked shakily and Shin took his hand in a comforting grip, pulling him off in another direction.

"This isn't good, this really isn't good." Sena muttered as he followed Shin, eyes glued to the ground although he wasn't really seeing it.

Thus when the ground beneath him became a little uneven and slippery it was all too easy for him to fall into the river they had been walking beside, Shin's grip on his hand had loosened and although he did make a grab for him it was too late.

Sena hit the water and sputtered before getting out of it as quickly as possible, already beginning to shiver from the cold. The day was just getting worse as it progressed and if he didn't get out of his freezing, wet clothes soon he was bound to get sick.

"Sena." Shin worriedly swept him into an embrace, resting his chin atop Sena's head once again as he lead Sena through several narrow openings through the trees and into a rocky cave.

Sena's eyes were drawn to the ground when he felt it become softer through his socks and his eyes widened slightly at the pile of furs he was treading upon. He was fairly surprised they weren't giving off any rank smells and could only assume that Shin had taken these from anyone foolish enough to travel this deep into the woods.

"I guess these is how you survived the winters, huh? After the first couple of winters with your mother bear that is." Sena moved out of Shin embrace and removed his shirt quickly before laying it flat on the ground. He moved to remove his pants, but paused when he felt fingers trailing down his spine.

"Sh-Shin, now's not the time for any weird explorations." He stuttered as he was turned around to face the older boy who was staring at his exposed chest curiously.

'Well, he's never really seen me without a shirt on since it was dark at the time, maybe he thought I was different underneath or something?'

Shin's hand pressed against the center of his chest by his heart, once again mimicking the gesture on himself, although he frowned upon discovering the material was in the way and once again tried to rip himself out of it.

"Stop that, you can't tear up these clothes, we'll need them when we go back home, because we will be going back home." Sena said as he began undoing the buttons, Shin's eyes keenly trailing the movements of his fingers.

"There, now we can take that off, although I can't imagine why you'd want to take of your warm, mostly dry layer of clothing so that you can compare our heart beats." Sena sighed and slipped the shirt off of Shin, placing it beside his own before coming to stand in front of him. "Alright, where were we..." Sena took hold of Shin's hand and held it over his heart, smiling a little when Shin copied the movement on himself.

"Can you feel that? That's my heart beating. My heart. Do you think you can say heart? Heart."

Shin eyebrows furrowed. "Heaaa... Rrrrt."

Sena smiled widely. "That's very, very good." He cooed. "You're really getting the hang of this, you didn't even need to rest your hand against my vocal chords this time around. I bet I could teach you a lot of words. We're in a cave, a ca-ah!"

Shin's hand was moving, his thumb curiously rubbing against his nipple. Sena took a surprised step back and tripped onto the furs, Shin staring down at him with raised eyebrows before moving to follow Sena down, presumably to find out why Sena had reacted in such a way.

The brunette quickly rolled to the side and threw his wet shirt back on, no longer as worried about getting sick as he was about Shin doing any more explorations.

"Well, I think I've had enough of being shirtless for today, I think I'm just going to close my eyes and try and pretend that this isn't happening." Sena said as he laid down of the furs and clenched his eyes shut, not bothering to open them when he heard Shin shift around or when it suddenly became unbearably silent.

He stayed like that for a long while until deciding it was awfully strange that Shin was being so quiet and keeping his hands to himself, so he curiously opened up one eye.

Shin was nowhere to be found.

"Now would normally be a good time to try and escape, if I knew how to get home." He sighed and closed his eyes again. "I wonder what he left for anyways? Maybe he got sick of me? But that doesn't seem quite right..." He trailed off as he heard a shuffling sound come from just outside of the cave and he nervously shuffled backwards, tensing up.

'I hope there aren't any other wild animals that decided to make this place home.'

He sighed in relief when Shin walked in, although he tensed up again when he saw what Shin was carrying.

A dead rabbit.

The older boy smiled and sat down beside him and dug his nails into the soft underbelly of the animal, beginning to rip away it's flesh.

'Don't look, don't look, if you can't see it, it's not happening.' Sena chanted to himself as he turned away and covered his ears, already feeling slightly sick from just the thought of what was happening beside him.

'This answers so many questions in a way I never wanted them answered.' He tensed when he felt a hand on his shoulder, trying to get him to turn back around and he valiantly resisted for as long as he could before Shin overpowered him.

He clenched his eyes shut, refusing to look in fear that he'd be sick from the sight. But being that he was unable to see meant he wasn't prepared for what Shin had in store for him next. Apparently he figured that if he was hungry, Sena would be hungry.

Sena blanched when he felt something mildly warm and almost slimy being pressed against his lips. He quickly shook his head and moved back until he was pressed up against the wall of the cave, hoping that Shin would get the drift that he didn't feel like eating raw meat.

When Shin didn't follow after him he allowed himself to pry open one eye to see Shin staring at him curiously as he chewed.

"Thanks for thinking about my well being Shin, but I'll be fine." Sena said breathlessly as Shin moved forward, hand reaching out to lightly grip on the hinges of Sena's jaw.

'He isn't going to-' Sena tried to clench his jaw shut as Shin's face came closer and his fingers pressed a little harder to open up Sena's mouth before he slanted his lips over the brunette's.

Sena brought up his hands to push against Shin's shoulders, struggling to push the larger boy away as he mimicked what Sena had done a day before when Shin had refused to eat the soup they had been given for lunch.

Sena gagged as the first piece of pre-chewed, raw meat entered his mouth and he fought even harder to get away, the feeling of sickness he'd had multiplying tenfold.

Shin moved back after transferring the food into Sena's mouth, probably to get another mouthful, but Sena didn't let him have the chance.

He broke away and ran out of the cave before landing on his knees and spitting the contents of his mouth out, dry-heaving and gaging at the taste it had left behind.

"Sena?" Shin came up behind him cautiously, one hand comfortingly trailing over Sena's back as he knelt beside him.

"Never. Ever. Do that again." Sena managed to say as he caught his breath and wiped at his mouth with the sleeve of his damp shirt before clutching at his sides and curling in upon himself.

Shin worriedly pulled him into his arms and brought him back into the cave, gently laying him down and running a hand through his hair.

"Sena?"

"Just leave me alone." Sena managed to whisper out, not surprised at all when Shin moved even closer.

He felt oddly exhausted after that little misadventure, if you could really call it that, and he closed his eyes in hopes that when he opened them up again this would have all turned out to be a bad, realistic dream.

Instead when he opened them up again hours later he felt sweaty, feverish, weak and just plain awful.

He groaned and tried to sit up without much success , the sound and movement attracting Shin's attention to him and the older boy moved over towards him, eyes scanning over Sena's unfocussed eyes and his flushed cheeks before curiously setting a hand again his face with a frown, doing the same to his own face. His frown deepened as he felt their difference in temperatures.

"Shin, we really need to go back home." Sena mumble lowly as he pushed himself up onto his feet, trying to ignore the sudden dizziness that swept over him as he stood.

"We've got to go, staying out here is just going to make everything worse." He stumbled towards the mouth of the cave, Shin following behind him closely, gripping onto him when Sena began to stumble.

"Please, just take me home." He pleaded as he allowed himself to sag in Shin's embrace, the couple of steps he'd taken had used up seemingly all of his energy.

"Take me home." He whispered again and Shin looked down at him, worry all over his face.

"Home?" The older boy repeated and Sena slowly nodded, trying to think of a word that Shin would recognize to associate with what he wanted.

"Parents. Take me to where our parents are."

"Parents?" Shin repeated, something like realization dawning in his eyes.

"Yes, parents." Sena mumbled weakly before he was out for the count.