January 17, 2004

I had gotten up early that morning, to see Ryuzaki staring at his laptop. It was obvious he hadn't gone to bed last night. The day before, they had taken out the cameras in the two households, but not my room. I figured it was a precaution more than anything. I draped myself over the couch, wet hair draped over my shoulder, and waited for any instruction he could give me.

"You're up early again, I see." Ryuzaki hardly looked at me. "You've hardly slept in the past eleven days." It was fact. But underneath it, one could hear the underlying question, "What's wrong?"

"One would think dreams have no meaning. That they shouldn't be anything to fear. And yet..." I trailed off.

"And yet there are some things we never want to see, real or imagined." He finished for me. He turned to me with understanding eyes. "I assume these dreams are a personal subject, and should not be questioned upon, so I will respect your privacy." Oh, the irony.

"Thank you." Was all I said. I checked the wall clock to see that it read 7:30 am. "Is there anything you intend for me to do today?"

"No. But I'll be leaving the room for a while." I scanned my memory to remember what day it was.

"Have fun, then." I moved back to my room, hoping to avoid Watari's parental wrath over not ordering breakfast yet.

As if reading my mind, I heard Ryuzaki murmur aloud. "You might as well eat breakfast out here. Watari will only get upset if he finds out you went back in your room." I froze.

As I turned around, I noticed he was watching me from the corner of his eye. I walk back into the room, defeated, and began looking at this hotel's menu. I felt like something not quite breakfast-y this morning. I rung up room service. "Yes, I would like to order room service. Do you do anything other than breakfast at this time?... Great. I'd like a sourdough deli sandwich. Oven roasted turkey and chicken. Muenster cheese. Lettuce, spinach, and pickles. And mustard please?...Great. Oh, and can I also get an order of chocolate chip pancakes with whipped cream, with a bowl of strawberries on the side?... Fantastic. Thank you. Alright, I'll be waiting."

"That's an awful amount of food." He observed aloud.

"Yes, well. You haven't eaten yet, so I ordered you breakfast." I replied. "It should be here in half an hour, so you have plenty of time to eat."

"That's very kind of you." His answer was somewhat stilted.

We waited in silence, until Watari opened the door. When he noticed I was awake, I could see him about to make sure I ordered my own breakfast.

"She already ordered. And it looks as if my breakfast has been ordered for me as well." Ryuzaki commented.

"Very well." Watari smiled. He began puttering about in Ryuzaki's room, cleaning here and there.

"He sees you like a daughter, it seems." I looked over to Ryuzaki to see his eyes following Watari's movements in his room.

"Hmmm. It certainly looks that way." I murmur.

"And you treat him like a father figure." He continued his observations. I had no answer for that. "And you act strangely aro-"

A crisp knock at the door signaled breakfast's arrival. I pulled in the cart myself, then chose to turn on the coffee pot for the others for when they arrived.

"As I was saying, you act-" I stole a strawberry from his bowl, only to pop it into his mouth, to shut him up.

"Eat before your breakfast goes cold." I eyed him, sending the message loud and clear. Don't talk about it.

He obediently began to eat, watching me as I bit into my custom deli sandwich. We ate in loaded silence, sizing each other up. Something must have occurred to him, because I practically watched the light bulb fade on. It didn't just turn on. I could practically see the idea becoming his sole conclusion. As soon as understanding dawned on him, I averted my eyes to my food.

"You-" Ryuzaki was cut short by Ukita opening the door to the extra room, yawning loudly, as well as Soichiro and Aizawa coming through the hotel suite door.

"Coffee." Aizawa groaned tiredly.

"There's some brewed. Go get some." I called.

"You're an angel." It was said jokingly.

"An angel..." Ryuzaki mumbled quietly, still watching me through his bangs.

"If you aren't careful, you'll give me a god complex." I teased, trying to ignore the intense stare from the direction of Ryuzaki's occupied chair.

"Ryuzaki. It is time to go." Watari called from the door. I could feel his stare leave me.

"Alright." I watched him get up, but instead of turning to go, he moved his half empty bowl of strawberries by my empty plate. "I hope you don't mind finishing this for me." He spoke lowly to me. The way his voice reverberated, it almost sounded like a purr. I fought down a blush as I picked a strawberry from the bowl and popped the whole thing in my mouth. I was glad these things had been de-stemmed. He seemed interested in the motion, as he watched the strawberry disappear behind my lips. His gaze was unreadable.

And just like that, the moment was over, the others being none the wiser.

I watched him leave the room, with only one thought in mind.

What the hell was that?!

It was a few hours later, that he showed back up to the hotel, and I had dressed down in my smock, paintbrush in bun, used paintbrush behind ear, and a tarp covering a huge chunk of the floor, standing in front of a canvas, obviously painting out my frustrations. The others had gone to get lunch, so I had decided it would be good to bust out my paints.

"I see you're busy." He had managed to get right behind me, looking over my shoulder and in my surprise I turned, and accidentally painted his nose a shocking shade of crimson. Time stopped as we stared at one another. I could feel panic setting in. With slow deliberateness, I pulled my smock up and carefully dabbed away the paint. It seemed like neither of us had remembered Watari was in the room, because we both turned to him with marginal surprise as he cleared his throat.

"Have you ordered lunch yet?" He asked me, in a stern voice.

"I haven't gotten hungry yet. I figured if I got hungry later, I would go down to the cafe around the corner. They have amazing frozen coffee. And really private booths." I replied, trying to erase the awkward few moments prior.

"You drink frozen coffee in the middle of winter?" Ryuzaki inquired.

"I'd be indoors, so I see no reason as to why I shouldn't indulge." I shrugged.

"You have a point... Yes, I think I'll join you." I stared at him in confusion.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"Yes. You make frozen coffee sound amazing." I could easily detect the lie.

"They have delicious strawberry shortcake too." I offered.

"Even better."

I stared across from me, at the head of messy black hair through my glasses. "Why did you really want to come along?" I got right down to the point.

"I keep getting interrupted when I try to bring up something with you." He paused as the waitress brought our orders, mine a plate of onigiri with smoked salmon fillings, and a french vanilla frozen coffee, his a plate of short cake and a cup of hot tea. I noticed he also had a bowl of sugar next to him to add as much as he liked. "I wanted to discuss with you the subject that I was on earlier."

"With all due respect, Ryuzaki, I don't want to discuss this." I folded my arms in front of me.

"I think we should." He countered.

"For what reason?" I glared.

"Perhaps your interest is requited."

I stared, dumbfounded.

"Granted, with this case being what it is, I cannot humor such interests at this time, but perhaps when it is over, we can fully discuss it over lunch again?" He soldiered on, despite my shocked unresponsiveness.

My glasses slid down my nose enough to see him clearly enough to catalog everything about him. He's keeping direct eye contact, his form is leaning forward more than usual, but not due to the seating. He's licking his lips, probably to get the whipped cream off of them. His fork is hanging freely from his hands, his breathing is even, yet he still is fidgeting ever so slightly- I pushed my glasses back up.

"Whatever you deem best, Ryuzaki." I murmured quietly. We ate quietly, and quickly, but decided to order another drink each, to go.

As we walked back to the hotel, side by side, he stood straight, sipping at his warm, tea flavored sugar in the hot drinking cups every cafe seemed to use. "You know..." He looked down at me. I looked up, straw still between my lips as I continued to gulp down an icy mouthful of frozen coffee. "I really would like to try one of those some time." His gaze was completely unreadable.

I smiled, and offered my drink up to him. He stared at it, debating if it was worth it in this weather. "I promise, I don't have cooties." I teased. He looked me in the eyes as his lips closed around the straw, and took one slow draw from my drink. I watched him consider the flavor, before swallowing, and pulling away from the straw. I raised my eyebrow.

"Not bad." He spoke as if he hadn't just made drinking frozen coffee erotic.

"You might like it better if they added extra sugar. I think you'd like the double chocolate chip one." I chuckled.

"Hmmm." It was not a rebuff, or an agreement, but he continued to watch me from his peripherals.

We made it up to the room without incident. When we entered, we both saw the others looking through the files they had on hand. Everyone looked up at us as we entered the suite.

"Made any progress while we were gone?" I asked absently, setting my drink on the coffee table, and pulled on my smock.

"Not just yet." Soichiro Yagami's voice was grave. I clucked my tongue absently in aggravation.

"Hang in there. We'll get there." I tried to sound encouraging. Maybe it would have been more convincing, if my painting looked more cheerful, instead of the washed out colors of buildings and people milling about.