"Naruto-kun and Sakura-san love you." Hinata said to him, with quiet authority in her voice. "More then I think you know."

A perfect non-answer.

--------------------------------------------------

There was silence, mostly, after that.

Hinata thought that the feeling of that silence had changed. She wondered if she'd upset him. He'd fallen silent again. After a moment, she turned her head slightly. He was reading. There was a certain tension to his expression, quiet as he was. She was half-trying to be unobtrusive, but she felt herself leaning on the byakugan, slightly.

"Does it show you anything?" he said, all of the sudden, without looking up. There was a trace of irritation in his tone.

No, not irritation. Not exactly. Anger? Not that exactly either.

"Just your chakra." she said. And his body heat.

"I can't read your mind," he said, after a moment.

And she didn't know what to say, in response to that. She couldn't read his, either. She was trying to read him, his voice and his body language. But maybe she was reading him wrong. She did think she was attracted to him. She did think that she liked him. What could she do? She didn't know what could be done.

So she returned to her accounting work.

She couldn't think of a way to approach the subject with him. Maybe he didn't like her.. and probably, he didn't. He didn't seem to like anyone.

And a few minutes later, he opened the shutters to the garden and climbed out into the snow. He left without a word.

Alone, Hinata let her breath out slowly, trying to release this tension.

--------------------------

It was too fucking cold out. His bare toes almost froze to the roof. He couldn't concentrate, he had to circulate chakra just to keep his extremities from freezing. It forced him back inside.

He wouldn't make her reject him to his face. But maybe, he should. Maybe he needed to hear it. And maybe it would force him out the door faster, as if he couldn't afford to stay here.

Not that he was ready. His chakra was still too low to be comfortable. And he remembered... that whenever he was anywhere, for any length of time, he ended up having to find places of his own where he could be alone with his thoughts. People would start to bother him, and he'd have to get away from their eyes and their voices. Not that she was bothering him...

It was this feeling, too. This is the way he'd felt forever. Homesick. Wanting to go home. The way he'd felt after a long day at school, or in training. But there was no home to return to.

Sakura. she'd said. Naruto.

He could have gone a lot longer without hearing those names again. He could have spent a lot more time without having to think about this.

--------------------------------

Was it appropriate? At all? No, of course it wasn't. She'd found a man in the woods. A stranger. She'd found a strange man in the woods. She'd never known him, or spoken to him. She knew him by name only.

And by reputation.

She brought him home, she gave him space to heal. She found herself, and maybe she should have expected this, thinking about him. Fantasizing. She passed one hand over her cheeks, feeling the heat in them. It was embarrassing, and it was completely out of line. Who would feel this way? Maybe a lot of girls would, he really was attractive. He wasn't that hard to talk to, or to be around, if you didn't push him. But she didn't think he'd feel the same. Why would he? He was a runaway ninja. He'd refused- completely refused- to return, even when Naruto chased him. He didn't want to be here. There was something else he was doing. Something that he couldn't do here. Or maybe he just resented it that much, the village.. and the people in it.

She felt ashamed for her family. Weren't the Uchiha distant relations? Very distant, now. The blood was so different that their eyes had changed. She wandered to the kitchen for a snack. She asked Miya when she found her.. why hadn't they taken him in, when he was a young child, all alone?

"It's complicated." Miya said.

She was too shy to talk to boys. She was too shy, she had been too shy to say anything to Naruto for years. That was no exaggeration. Years. She didn't feel like eating anything. And Miya was busy with the apprentices, she didn't have time to chat. Hinata didn't want to go back to her room, even though he was probably still not there. She didn't know what to say to him. She found herself wandering the house.

It was familiar. And it was home. Even what her father had said to Kurenai-sensei that Hinata was worthless, Kurenai could do with her whatever she wanted, because to him, her life was nothing...

..even then. This house. These rooms, this familiarity. It had comforted her. She'd missed it terribly, when she followed Kurenai out the gate.

And Naruto-kun had married Sakura-san...

It was strange.. stupid, that she could still cry over this. She wiped her eyes with her fingers. It was just a little sting of tears. She wanted to be beyond this, stronger. She couldn't be this weak. Maybe her softness was not completely useless, but this was not it's place.

Naruto had married Sakura. She was happy for them. She was wandering through her house, through the tatami rooms, where she would sit with her father and Neji to discuss the house's business. And sometimes her aunts and uncles, her grandparents, sometimes all of these people would be there, too. She couldn't feel too sorry for herself when she was so protected, with so many people around her.

And maybe... she would be strong enough to make something of herself. She would become a jounin. She would become the administrator of the Hyuga clan. She would meet someone else. She would have to, as the heir, it would be her duty to marry. She would have to continue the line. She found herself running her fingers restlessly over the rice paper walls. She stepped closer, and gently rested her cheek against the wooden crossbars. The future would be bright, if only because it meant that she could change more and more. She could reach higher. She would meet someone else...

She closed her eyes.

And then, she wouldn't feel so strange around Sakura-san...

..and Naruto-kun.

She didn't think Sasuke liked her, anyway. She'd imagined that connection. She'd imagined the way they'd moved together out in the training garden, as if they could feel one another's unconscious thoughts. But it was her imagination, what was there to this, other then the fact that he had accepted sake and tea from her? That he hadn't slapped the teacup out of her hand? He hadn't even looked up for at least half of those times. He'd stood and waited and then pushed her chair in for her. But his expression was still too opaque, she couldn't read those eyes of his.

And it didn't mean anything. She only imagined that it did...

..because she was lonely. And she knew it. And because everyone asked her why she didn't have a boyfriend. Why she'd never had one.

She was shy. But that's not all there was to it. She knew... she knew... that she had hidden behind Naruto-kun. She'd used the idea of him to avoid talking to other boys. She knew this. Shino-kun told her to think, to examine herself. To find the parts she wanted to change. Change them.

"It will not be easy." he cautioned her.

So she wiped her eyes, and went back to work. The accounts had to be balanced. That was a clear and present reality. The house had to be run. Tomorrow's lesson plan had to be looked over, she wanted to think a bit more about how she was going to approach the material. As soon as the snowstorm ended and the academy opened again, she would go back to work. Life would continue in it's ordered routine. She paused, pen in hand, and she turned to look over her shoulder. Outside, in her little rock garden, the blizzard was howling in a world of white.

---------------------------------------

Sasuke was watching the power lines as they sagged under heavy wet snow.

Maybe with such flimsy lines of communication.. he shook his head. Maybe the lines got crossed. Maybe he didn't really understand her at all.

He was up in what he figured must be their attic. He'd scaled down from the roof and forced a window to get in. He'd chipped the wooden frame slightly in the process. This entire house.. this entire little pocket of warmth in the middle of a freezing blizzard... He curled his lip, slightly. It was too perfect. They kept everything so clean, and so well-tended. That army of serving staff... if that was the skeleton crew, he wouldn't like to be around when her full family returned. It was one thing to have the small cell of his brother, his parents and himself tucked into a quiet community of relatives. But she had a real genuine dynastic ninja clan, living and present, right now. He tucked his knees up under his chin, watching the snow fly through the damaged window. The Uchiha had been just a smaller, darker version of them. The Hyuga sun... he fingered the woven crest stitched into his shirt. His family had been a clan of workers, compared to this. Police, judges, lawmen. He sighed. He still wanted it. That life. To be a police captain, like his father had been.

But that would be difficult now that he was a criminal, would it?

He'd had to turn away from the desire to be part of something larger then himself. Attachment to your name and attachment to your clan and attachment to the rules, and Itachi had spoken, on and on, in some terrible kind of symmetrical rhythm. He could take his Otokagure atonal training now and read subtleties into Itachi's voice, make himself see all kinds of things that probably weren't there.

Run away, run away, Itachi had said. To go through life as Sasuke always had since, getting pissed off about five or six separate things before he even got his ass out of bed. To take fucking offense at everything everyone said, because he couldn't forgive them for anything. For having things he didn't, that he could never have again. For not realizing there was just no way back for him. They kept pulling at him. Reaching for him. Trying to save him.

Sakura had been fucking twelve, it was understandable. He'd been twelve, he'd had no idea how to deal with her. His mother wasn't around to teach him the right way to behave with girls. He only had the example of her and his father. And their relationship existed behind closed doors, even when they talked to one another. He'd never even seen them kiss. He'd never seen his father hug or show any particular affection to his mother. So how the hell was he supposed to know what to do?

And he didn't think Sakura would want him anymore, if she saw him now.

He still wasn't sure how he felt about her. She was bright and very pretty. She was a bit too loud for his taste. He wondered if it had been mostly about fighting with her friend. They quarreled over him, but as they were shouting his name back and forth, they never seemed to actually look at him, or notice him at all. It was all about what they thought he was. It was all about him being another version of Itachi- smaller, lesser and somehow disappointing, naturally. He didn't know how to tell Sakura that that this wasn't the way he really was, not inside. It was just the way he found to deal with the rest of the world. It was just him surviving. But he both enjoyed the attention and resented it. And worried about it. And sensed that the situation might get a bit out of control. And mostly just avoided it, if he could. Or ignored it. It wasn't that he disliked her.

He knew that she must have her own problems. But they seemed so small and easy, next to his. And to Naruto's... at least Naruto knew what it was like to be all alone. And he knew, also, that he lost his temper with her sometimes. And he didn't mean what he said. He knew that it hurt her, he just didn't know how to respond to her in any other way.

But, Naruto... Naruto was such a fucking idiot, following him.. refusing to give up, to just fucking give up on him. If he hadn't decided to abandon the mangekyo sharingan, Naruto would be dead now. Naruto had been out cold, lying at his feet! He couldn't believe the idiot.. would he be happy dying that way? For him? For nothing... it was just stupid. Yes, Naruto was a friend.. he and Sakura were his only friends. But it made no difference. And even if things had been different, and they could have just been normal friends... he thought he'd still have to break Naruto's stupid face now and then. Naruto had a real talent for getting on his nerves.

And neither of them seemed to understand that he was already dead, the world was already over. Nothing they could say or do would change that. He explained this to them. He told them, bluntly. He remembered being confronted with Sakura on the exit road of the village, already fighting his own weakness. Listening to her fan those flames, unable to just turn and walk away from her, because he didn't want to hurt her. No, it hadn't been meaningless. He liked her, he liked Naruto... most of the time. But he had to go. He had to kill his murderous piece of shit of a brother. If he ever wanted any peace, if he ever wanted to end his own life and face his parents in the other world.. which he wasn't even sure he believed in. If he was ever to set his conscience to rest, he had to do this. He had to. He didn't want to hurt them. He wished they could just forget him, go on with their happy, unblighted lives. They couldn't save him. He didn't want to ruin their lives too, he felt bad enough.

So he ran the hell away. And that wasn't the only reason. He had to become harder and stronger. He had to get himself in deeper, that was the only way. He couldn't do it in Konoha, and in their arms. They were pulling him away from his entire plan of attack, and he could imagine another way, suddenly. He could see himself happy with them, forgetting. He had to go. He had to pull away from them. Not because it meant nothing, what they were doing. Because it was fucking working.

He closed his eyes, tightly.

Naruto had screamed his name, his voice thick with tears. He'd never forget the sound of that.

But it was cold up in the attic, too. So he climbed back out, and crept back into Hinata's room. He saw that she was not there, and he was glad she was not, when he caught one loose pant leg on the latch as he climbed through her windows. Orochimaru's training had married his body so much to subtleties of chakra flow; it wavered through his balance. The chakra level was rising, but what he had was still damp and slow. He just wasn't healed.

And he was tired of reading. He was sure now that Orochimaru had abused the sharingan. He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.

So he went down the hall, down polished wood stairs, past a charcoal brazier that was melting small cones of sandalwood incense. He could hear the wind through the walls. He found the kitchen, which was deserted. Except for the old woman, who was wiping down the countertops.

"You're really messed up, aren't you?" the old bitch said. He wasn't in the mood for this.

"Shut up, you old hag." he muttered.

"Watch your mouth," she replied, calmly. Her tone was almost amused. It was almost kind. She brought him tea, and sweets. Like he was a child.

But he was hungry. The seal was working hot and hard under his skin, healing him. So he ate.

"Why don't you tell me what the problem is." she said. She was drinking coffee. There were no other staff members in the kitchen, or the outer rooms, or ever the deep freeze locker he saw gleaming behind the cloth doorway divider. He looked. He examined the whole area, everywhere that was in earshot. He didn't lift his head or move his eyes, but he made damn sure to do it all the same.

"You know what the difference between you and her is?" she said.

He didn't say anything. He didn't even look up. He just continued eating mechanically.

"She helps herself." she said.

He fucking knew that. He knew it. He was tired of people telling him that he didn't want to be saved, that he wanted to destroy himself, that he didn't want any help and that he fucking..wasn't... he lost the train of thought. People- annoying fucking people- telling him things he already knew. And they didn't understand, and they couldn't understand and they would never understand and he was tired of talking, because nothing was going to change ever and they didn't understand that either.

He could see that Hinata was leading a good life. She had a family, a safe home, a respectable job and she was dedicated to her training. He knew that, he'd spent the last fucking day and half lusting after that, and everything else about her. Goddammit.

"No one's doing this to you except yourself." she said.

He bit back the scowl. He didn't look up. He continued eating. He swallowed.

The words burst out of him. "You," he snarled "don't fucking know me." He set his cup down hard and got up. The chair squealed back over the tiled floor.

He half-expected her to scold him for cursing at her. But there was only silence. He stared at the sticky patterns on his empty plate, standing. She was watching him over the rim of her coffee mug. She had small eyes that were just a bit too knowing for his taste.

"I know something about life." she said.

He thought for a second that she looked like someone who had a scrap of wisdom. But he looked away, and didn't want to talk to her at all. "Put the dishes in the sink." she said. And then that chance was gone too.

-----------------------------------

Sasuke had come back to her room. Hinata could tell that he probably didn't want to see her. She could feel him in there, that heavy chakra energy field, like traces of lightning tickling up and down her arms. The way the sky would feel, heavy, just before a thunderstorm. She knew he was there, even as she walked towards the room. She stopped, halfway down the hall.

It was too late, he'd heard her. She heard the slightest sound of his foot on the floor. She knew it was only because he was injured. If he had not been, she would not have heard him. She wouldn't have been able to tell that he'd risen from the bed. She saw that he was standing to avoid casting a shadow into the hallway. But he knew she was there. And he must have known that she would know he was there, as well.

Which meant it was unlikely that he was waiting by the doorway to ambush her. But she felt that she had to catch her breath before moving forward.

But I'm not afraid. she told herself. This isn't fear. It wasn't, it was just like being hyper-aware of his presence, of reacting so strongly to him. He was quiet. But he had such a chakra halo to him, she could feel what he meant, what he must be feeling... she almost didn't have to wait for him to speak at all.

But she was probably imagining that. She gathered herself up, smoothed her hair, straightened her jacket and the mesh shirt under it. She cleared her mind. She would pretend nothing was wrong. Because nothing was, was it? She didn't know, she couldn't begin to judge. She had no basis for judgment with him. But if she had any say in the matter, she would pretend that there was nothing wrong, that he was just tired, or what they'd said to one another hadn't meant what she'd felt it had, what they'd done together had essentially never happened. Things only suggested in her imagination didn't happen in any meaningful way at all.

But what she had, and what she knew was real... she would do what she could to make the best of that. That was how she had come to live.

She opened her eyes, and he was leaning on the doorframe, watching her.

She controlled her startle reaction. But she couldn't stop the little gasp that hissed out of her.

As she stood rooted to the spot, she found herself studying his face again. Exactly as she had before, as Miya bent over him with bloodied hands. She thought that he could look very arrogant, and very dismissive. But it didn't seem like his natural expression. It didn't seem to ring true with the other impressions she had of him. Maybe it was just a role he played? Maybe it worked for him. But as she looked, and he looked straight back, the electrical charge of the silence grew unbearable. She had to break it. She would say something meaningless and polite. She drew a breath to speak.

"Do you want to go for a walk?" he said.

It was hard to put her finger on it. He spoke very steadily, and with a sleek confidence that just seemed completely innate, like it was something he didn't have to think about at all. At another moment, this would have taken her breath away. But, caught off balance by the sudden question, she found herself frowning instead. "A walk?" she murmured, almost to herself. "Outside?"

He shrugged. But there was no cold indifference in the gesture. He was watching her too closely.

She was aware, again, of the press of her heartbeat. She wet her lips slightly. She needed that little half-second, before she could speak again. "But it's so cold outside." she said. Her hair was slithering over her shoulders, against her cheek. She tucked it back. His gaze had that heavy electrical quality, too.

"We could use chakra." he said.

She breathed, and got herself pulled together again. Walking silently as she could, she slipped past him in the doorway. She felt the long edge of her jacket whisper over his arm. She saw him move slightly to let her pass. But in doing so, he actually angled to move closer to her. It was a strange, subtle move. It took her a second to register it. And that was several steps later, she was across the room. She was at the window, gently pressing her hand to the wooden cross-frame.

She felt his eyes on her. On the back of her neck. A little hinting tingle.

She thought that if she were any other girl, if she were anything like the others girls she'd known, the ones who were so beautiful and confident and ready for this sort of thing.. she'd just be forthright. She'd turn and face him. She'd have some way of judging if these signals she felt.. that she thought she felt.. were real. She nibbled at her lip slightly. It was still freezing outside, she could feel the cold creeping through the wood. And the wind was howling.

She head him shift position. The energy changed. He must have looked away.

She leaned against the window, very slightly. The glass was so cold that it bit at her skin. She didn't know. She could swear that she'd hurt him, just then. That he'd been waiting for an answer, and he'd taken her scatterbrained distraction for an unspoken rejection. She turned, just slightly, to look over her shoulder.

He was still standing by the door. This time, he'd leaned against the wall beside it, his arms loosely crossed over his waist. Neji's shirt fit him in a way that emphasized the sleek knots of muscle.

He looked both so much older, and so much younger then eighteen. Something in his body, crisscrosses of scar tissue on the pale forearms she could see, for the former. Something in the eyes, the finely sculpted structure of his jaw, for the latter.

And he'd done it again, caught her staring at him, lost in thought. Debating with herself, unable to trust herself. She closed her eyes. She bowed her head slightly.

She wanted to walk towards him, put her arms around him. The sleeves of her woven jacket had picked up the heat from the tatami room's wall. The fabric was warm, against her arms. She loved the feeling of putting on warm, soft clothes. She wanted to wrap him up in that feeling, make him feel better. She could swear that she sensed that he wanted that. He wanted her to touch him, to comfort him.

But until she could be sure...

"All right," she said, softly. "The east garden is sheltered. It won't be so cold there."

Miya was not around to nag them about wearing proper clothes. Hinata lead him downstairs, and she felt him following her, his eyes on her. She had to admit that while it was an intense feeling, it wasn't something that felt disturbing, or bad. She didn't feel like he was glaring at her or sneering. He was just watching. Like he was simply aware of her, and interested in her, and paying close attention. It was almost something that felt nice.

And a bit dangerous, because she still wasn't sure where he stood.

She took him to the large closet near the front entrance to the main house. She found a warm fur-lined coat of Neji's... it was fortunate that he and Neji were more or less the same size. She found her own quilted down jacket, and zipped it up over her mesh shirt. She thought that Miya would object to the sandals, but she had worn them in worse weather. They'd use chakra to keep their feet warm. And they'd probably keep moving. And as she slid the heavy iron bar locks from the east gate, she thought distantly that Sasuke really did look best in black. The fur-edged collar was a subtly different shade of black, next to his hair. She turned. She got the door open. And they walked, in the relative stillness of the solarium beyond.

The wind couldn't find a way around the high sheltering wall of the house. But it was still cold. She'd been a step ahead of him, but he moved so that he'd fallen in step with her, and they walked side by side. The koi ponds were still and black. The fish were like gold coins drifting under the water. She walked with him through the rock gardens, past the little stone spirit houses and their thick caps of snow. The wind could not reach here, but the snow still came down. Sasuke carried the lacquered umbrella, keeping it off their heads. And it meant that she had to walk fairly close to him. She could feel his body heat. She wanted to put her hand on his arm, it seemed like everything else in their current position suggested it. But she held back...

Though he didn't say so directly, she had the feeling that the subject of Naruto, or Sakura, or almost anything involving his life in this village was something that he would prefer not to be reminded of. She watched him, turning her head now and then to glance at him. And a few times, he turned his head, that slow elegant motion, to look back.

He was sparing with words. He used them directly, and efficiently, like precise weapons. She'd heard him speak that way several times now.

But, she didn't think that he was really, truly cold. He was quiet. But he did seem to explain what he was thinking, mostly, if you asked. And if you listened, he would tell you. He seemed to only get annoyed with people who didn't understand the first time, and pressed him further. He seemed to feel that he shouldn't have to repeat himself.

Hinata thought that she was not exactly like this herself, she wanted others to understand her. She didn't mind if she had to tell them a few times, she wanted to be close to the people she liked, and who were kind to her. She felt a slow rush of nostalgia for her own team, for Shino and Kiba. They were so different then Sasuke was. They were normal, somehow. They acted like normal people. She just didn't know Sasuke well enough, yet. Maybe she'd never know him well. He'd leave in a few days. She knew this was a hard fact. She'd had years to slowly get to know Shino and Kiba. And while maybe Sasuke seemed a bit like Shino on the surface, she could tell that he didn't have Shino's inner calm. Shino would never have that faint threatening twinge of energy that Sasuke had, either. They were just so different.. he was just so different. Maybe Miya really had been right, maybe the massacre of his family really had turned him into someone who only looked like he wasn't a dangerous stranger.

But she could swear.. that all of that was misdirection. She could swear that she could trust him. She just didn't have a reason to believe it, yet.

"I think that you're probably not a bad person." she said, without meaning to. Her voice was distant and thoughtful, she hadn't really meant to speak her thoughts that way. But having done it, she didn't feel that she had done anything wrong. And she felt his energy shift, again, so slightly. The quality of the silence changed. She heard the heavy fabric of his coat rustle, too, as he moved...

...closer to her, a few millimeters only. But he was only shifting the umbrella to his other hand. It took her a second to realize that. And before she could, he was gathering his arm gently around her shoulders. She felt the light touch of his hand on her back. She was holding her breath, waiting. That too, took a moment to realize.

They were at the far end of the garden now, they'd walked many minutes in silence. They were in the cherry grove, now, and the bare trees reached up all around them.

"Over here," he said, almost as an afterthought. He lead her to one of the stone benches, and then swept the snow off with the collapsed umbrella, so they could sit down. He didn't remove his arm. She thought that he actually moved it slightly, as if he were gently touching her hair, where it spilled over her back. She drew a breath, and spoke, finally.

"I think that I could have liked you, if there was more time." she said.

She turned her head to look at him, to see if she had offended him. "I think I do like you." she said, again.

That unspoken look, the question why? "I guess it's just a feeling." she said, watching his eyes, and the way he looked against the somber wintry colors of the frozen garden.

He looked away, and after a moment, he bowed his head slightly, and closed his eyes. He seemed to be thinking. She waited, she had the patience to allow him to speak, in his own time. And in whatever way he wanted.

"I never noticed you before." he said, finally.

"Well..." she murmured, a bit embarrassed to admit this. "I'm shy, so most people don't notice me at all." She looked up, into the bare cherry branches. The snow was collecting on them in lines and in the shallow pockets where they forked. Spring was far off, this cold weather would continue. She thought that this was the proper season to meet someone like him. He seemed to belong in harsh climates, and they framed the high contrast of his dark hair and eyes, against the slightly unhealthy pallor of his skin. She imagined that he must have had a bit more color to him, once. She could imagine him seeing healthier days, when he'd have gotten more sun. And maybe more love. Naruto and Sakura loved him, they loved him so much. But he didn't seem to feel it.

"I wasn't looking." he said. "So I didn't see you." She felt him gather that hand to her shoulder now, running his fingers slightly through her hair as he did so. She held very still, concentrating absolutely on that one thing.

"I think I like you," she whispered.

He raised his other arm. The motion was slow, seemingly as slow and gentle as the falling snowflakes. He gathered his arms around her, and pulled her a bit closer. She closed her eyes, imagining she could feel his heartbeat, somehow, through the layers of heavy cloth that lay against her cheek. She felt the faint touch of his lips against the side of her forehead. He was warm, and alive; and for at least this moment, he wasn't gone or in danger. He was here. She'd spent so much time thinking of him as nothing more then something Naruto wanted. She hadn't thought of him at all. She'd never considered what he might be like, at all.

She raised her head slightly. She touched his cheek, then his lips with one finger. She could see his eyes change slightly as she did. Not soften exactly, he had no softness in him. But she found that she didn't find him intimidating. She still felt that she couldn't be sure of what she thought she saw, when she watched his eyes like this. But it seemed that he looked at her kindly. And he smiled, too, slightly. He even pulled her closer, as she moved to touch his lips with hers. He ran one slow hand through her hair, pressing it finally to the back of her neck.

She paused to breathe, pulling back slightly. She thought briefly that it was a good thing Hanabi was not home. No part of the house would have been safe from her. She could imagine Hanabi bursting from the snowbank. Haha! Oneesan and Meanie, sitting in a tree! It must have shown on her face, that mix of disapproval and love she felt for her sister.

"I don't know very much about this," he said. She was close enough to feel the whisper of heat as he exhaled. And she felt suddenly alive with warmth, resting in his arms. She thought he must have been able to feel her heartbeat, it was almost deafening to her. She had to force herself to think straight, and to behave responsibly. She found herself distracted from that again, considering what almost sounded like affection, in his voice.

And the look in his eyes said that he was asking her if this was acceptable to her.

She forced herself to think, to answer the question properly. And she looked down, her eyes wandering over the longish strands of dark hair that fell over the fur edging around his neck. "I don't either." she admitted. "I've never even had a boyfriend."

"You're a kunochi." he whispered. His hands tightened on her, slightly. He was almost breathing hard.

She looked up past the dark fringe of his hair and into the snow-whitened sky. It was cut by the bare branches that crossed over them. "It's not the same." she said. "I'm not trying to kill you."

A whisper of a chuckle. It was the first time she had heard him laugh.

"We'll manage." he breathed. She was close enough, her cheek pressed to his, to feel the faint hum of his vocal cords as he said it. "If you want to, then I'm willing."