w00t! Another longish chap! 2272 words! Yatta!

"Are you going to let go of my face any time soon?" I asked as I fumbled in the darkness caused by his bandaged hands. I wasn't sure why he was bothering to hide my eyes—I already knew that we were on the road to his apartment. But I played along for the most part. It wasn't as if I minded the way his rough fingertips felt on the delicate skin of my eyelids.

"Soon, Sakura-san, soon. Work with me."

I lightly touched the back of one of his hands to balance myself—I could feel him shiver at my touch. I remember thinking that it was quite interesting that I could make him shiver even on a mid-July afternoon. "I already know where we're going, Lee-kun."

I could feel his inconsistent breath in my hair as he chuckled at my rebellious tone. "If you won't work with me, then at least humor me."

I sighed much too loudly than necessary, causing Lee-kun to chuckle again.

It really didn't take us that long to get to his apartment, though it would have been much faster if I'd been walking by my own power—but that's not exactly important. What is important is what the inside of Lee-kun's apartment looked like that day. He'd pushed all of the furniture up against the walls, and there were streamers all over the place, all of his favorite colors—orange, red, blue, and of course green. And hung from the ceiling was a bright banner that read "CONGRATULATIONS, CHUNIN!" in big red letters.

I looked over at Lee-kun, who was grinning madly. "Are you serious?" I asked.

"It's not a lot—no one else felt like coming—but it should be fun. I found a station where they play nothing but nothing but party music." He laughed. "And there's cake."

Cake! "Well then, what are we standing here for?" I said, grabbing his wrist and tugging him inside.

Before that day, I would've said that a two-person party would be a snooze-fest, but I also would've been wrong. Rock Lee knew how to throw a party. He could make it seem exciting and pulse-pumping, even though he and I were the only people there. I laughed a lot at that little celebration. Everything just seemed funny for some reason. As Lee-kun spun me around by my fingertips talking about how that now that we were both chunin, we would be able to go on missions together, I just kept giggling. He chuckled too, especially when the Macarena kept coming on.

"This station is on a loop!" he said, sending me a sarcastic glance. "They play fifteen random fast songs, and then go back to the Macarena."

"Never thought you to be a conspiracy theorist," I replied, barely even concentrating on my movements.

"Go ahead and count the songs until this one plays again."

If I replied in any way but the affirmative, this would surely turn into a wager—spending so much time with Tsunade-sensei was giving me a gambling itch, much to the despair of Shizune-senpai. So I just nodded and finished that demeaning dance. Once it was over, I hurried to turn off the radio.

"Didn't want to prove me right?" Lee-kun muttered, still dancing to whatever little tune was always playing inside that odd head of his. I watched as his body moved with that nameless rhythm, and for some reason, I wasn't sure whether to laugh and look away or to join him. Both options were highly appealing, but only the first seemed feasible.

So I giggled behind my hand and averted my gaze. "No, that's not it!" I scrambled for an excuse. "I, uh…wanted to try some of that cake that you promised me!"

And without a word, he cheerfully flitted away to the kitchen.

Somehow, in the midst of what followed, Lee-kun ended up sprawled out on the carpet of his living room, and for some reason I thought it was okay to put my plate on the hard surface of his toned chest. By now he'd changed out of his jumpsuit into a mint-green-paint-spotted white t-shirt and a pair of olive-green sweatpants. He kept his arm bandages on though, which bugged me for some reason. It didn't go with the rest of his apparel. His clothes said that he was home-Lee, but those damn bandages reminded me of when he was ninja-Lee. I mean, even I was out of my ninja clothes—I now wore a pair of blue-jean cutoffs and a raspberry tank top—so what was his problem? I was going to say something to this effect, but Lee-kun beat me to the vocal punch.

"I've known you for a year," he said, his words making my plate bounce a little. A few crumbs tumbled onto his paint-stained shirt as he chuckled at the thought.

"I've known you for a year, too," I said quietly, carefully picking up each individual crumb and flicking it away. Onto the carpet. Where would we be without you, baka-chan?

Lee-kun turned his face—letting his cheek rub up against my bare knee—to look at me. "I can't believe how much things have changed in just one year."

I picked up a chunk of cake and dropped it into his grateful mouth. "Yeah. When I first met you, I probably would've punched you out if you'd told me, 'Just think, Sakura-san. Someday you might eat cake off my chest.'" I laughed and pointed at the aforementioned cake. "This is a little creepy when you say it out loud."

He nodded, crinkling up his eyes and blushing.

"But hey, Lee-kun?" He looked up at me, smiling expectantly. "Hey, I'm sorry for being so mean to you when we first met. I judged you based on your looks, and that was wrong of me. I'm so sorry about that."

He surprised me by laughing gently. "Don't worry about it, Sakura-san," he said, unconsciously leaning into my knee again. "That is in the past. We were different people back then."

I didn't know what to say to that, mainly because of how true it was. I did feel like a different person from the bubbly, long-haired genin that had so easily ignored that green-clad boy's promises of eternal affection and protection, the girl that had thoughtlessly made fun of everything that I could now hardly live without. So, speechless, I nodded and stuffed more sugary goodness into my mouth.

After about ten minutes of comfortable silence, I found myself bothered by Lee-kun's bandages again. After all, I have a bit of a one-track mind. I have to make up for the fickleness of my second mind somehow, right? Eventually I took my plate off of his chest and replaced it with his closest hand. Lee-kun, who may have been asleep, opened his eyes at the movement and cheerfully asked me what I was doing. I replied with a question of my own.

"Do you wear these all the time?"

"Wear what?"

"These bandages."

"Oh, those? Yeah, except for when I bathe."

"Even when you sleep?"

He shrugged indifferently.

"Why do you wear them at all? For your Lotus attacks, right?"

He nodded, confusion towards my attention quite clear on his face.

"Well, then why do wear them at home?"

He gave me a blatantly incredulous look, one eyebrow raised so far up that it disappeared under his disheveled bangs. "Sakura-san, have you ever seen my arms?"

I didn't even have to think. "Nope. I think Naruto did once, but he didn't give any details. All he said was that you trained more that Sasuke-kun." It didn't hurt very much to say his name, not while I was so close to my Lee-kun.

Lee-kun looked like he would've preferred that none of us had ever seen his skin…which of course made me curious.

"So, uh," I mumbled, picking up his hand and studying his rough fingertips. I moved his hand to the side to reveal one of my eyes to him. "So, can I see your arms?"

He visibly paled and I could feel his arm tense up. I could see it in his dark eyes that he had to concentrate on not snatching his hand away from me. "I'm really not sure if that's a good idea, Sakura-san."

A bit self-conscious, isn't he?my second mind murmured, helping me to tighten my grip on his hand.

"C'mon, Lee-kun. It's not like I'm going to think any less of you. I just want to see you without any barriers. Just this once. Please?" As I said them, the words suddenly seemed very true.

He bit his lip, taking his hand from me. "Someday," he said. "Someday I'm going to figure out how to say no to those beautiful eyes of yours." As he spoke, he started unraveling the bandage on his right arm. It took him a minute or two, either because he was going purposefully slowly or because the bandage was ridiculously long—or both. But after those couple of minutes, his arm was completely bare.

He sat up and gave his hand back to me. "Ugly, isn't it?" he mumbled, referring to the mountain range of scars that criss-crossed all over his skin, making sickening patterns of wear and tear. Rather than replying, I ran my finger over the biggest scar, the one that dragged from the side of his wrist to the inside of his elbow. I winced as I imagined how much blood there must've been when this scar was fresh.

"This is what being a taijutsu master does to your body…?" I looked up to meet his gaze. "Lee, does your entire body look like this?"

He laughed sheepishly. "No, not my entire body. Just my limbs." When my eyebrows shot up, he laughed a little harder. "My legs aren't as bad, though. Don't worry."

I shot a quick glance to his sweat pants.

Before Lee-kun could cover up his scars again, I grabbed the bandages, bunched it up in my fist, and threw it across the room. And before he could respond to the action, I grabbed his other hand and started unraveling that bandage too. He gave me a self-conscious smile and let me continue, wincing as I revealed a dark, fresh bruise. I pulled the rest of it off quickly, and threw it aside as quickly as if it were a poisonous snake.

It was at that moment—the moment when there were no barriers between us and he was just a boy and I was just a girl—that I realized that falling in love with him would not be very hard if I would just take off the bandages on my heart and let him see me for what I really was, too. I had several reactions to the realization—and not all of them were all that positive. But on the whole, I was okay with it. There wasn't any shame in realizing that I had the capacity to love him. Besides, I liked being around him too much to cut off our relationship just because it was changing.

Lee-kun lied back down on the carpet, closing his dark eyes. It was at that moment that his cuckoo-clock chimed out eleven times. Was it really that late? I hadn't even noticed the passing time, and that was just weird. Whoever said that time flies when you're having fun knew exactly what he was talking about.

"I should probably take you home," Lee-kun murmured, not moving to follow his suggestion.

"Says who?" I asked, earning a closed-eyed just-for-me smile.

"Conventional society," he chuckled, turning a light shade of pink.

"What the hell does that mean, best friend?"

He rewarded me with a deep blush. "N-n-nothing a-a-at all, S-S-Sakura-san."

His stutter very nearly made me lose my cool and start laughing. Instead, I yawned and got on my stomach, positioning myself so that the two of our bodies formed a right angle. "Now, do tell me how convention would keep me, a girl who lives on the other side of town, from sleeping over with you, my best friend. You're not suggesting that—"

He got out of the conversation by letting out a loud snore.

"Oh, I know you're still awake." I yawned again. "But whatever. If you're asleep, then I still can't go home. It's pitch-black, and I have absolutely no sense of direction."

"Lose-lose situation," he muttered in between snores.

"You're telling me," I said, letting my eyes droop shut.

I really should sleep near Lee-kun more often. Not only did I not have a nightmare, but the sleep was actually pleasant, full of the warmth that kept me alive for so long and not just the heat of summer.

Of course, when Lee-kun brought me home Sunday morning, he might as well have been throwing me to the lions. But it didn't matter. I was content. Unlike the broken little girl that Lee-kun had rescued from her own frigid bedroom, it did not hurt to say goodbye anymore, no matter what was on the other side of my front door. Last night's realization—the idea that I would just unwrap my heart and let Lee in, I could have the love that every little girl dreams of—made me feel strong, brave. I wasn't ready to unwrap my heart all the way, but as I watched Lee-kun walk away, knowing that he would always come back for me, I decided to just take off the first loop of the bandage.

The first of many, eh, baka-chan?

I giggled. We'll see, nee-chan.

(A/N)

I must say, this chapter is my pride and joy. So full of symbolic, semi-romantic, flirty crap that i could just DIE...in a good way, of course. :-) In all seriousness, i'm not sure what other people will think, but that doesn't matter. I lurv this chappy so, so much! ((hugs chappy.))

If you recognize a sentence from Breathing, you get a cookie!
Miyazaki A2