"Hurry up," Takuya called from the door.

"Okay, okay," Zoe shouted back. She stood from the chair.

"Easy there," Koji reminded.

Zoe didn't reply. Koji went outside of the room, Takuya, JP, Zoe and Koichi following.

"It's really creepy when nobody's at the hall," JP shivered in fear.

"We'll cover you," Koji said to Takuya and Zoe.

"It's not like we're having a war," Takuya rolled his eyes. "I'll carry you from here, Zoe," Takuya insisted.

"You don't have to. I can—"

Takuya didn't let Zoe finish instead, he threw her across his back as he had before, and she could see the extra effort it took for him to be as gentle as he was.

"Never mind," Zoe muttered. She locked her legs around his waist and secured her arms in a choke hold around his neck.

"Don't forget to close your eyes," JP warned severely.

Zoe quickly tucked her face into his shoulder blade, under her own arm, and squeezed her eyes shut.

Before Takuya move, a classmate of theirs in English room with satiny copper skin and long, straight, crow-black hair was standing behind them.

And then she asked. "Where are you going?" in a melodic voice, and Takuya and the rest face her full on, a smile on half of their faces.

"Oh," Koji said, surprised. "We're going home," he said.

"Why?"

"It's healthy to ditch class now and then." JP smiled at her, but their eyes were still troubled.

"Well, I'm going," their classmate, Jane, told them. "Besides, the teachers' are out."

"We'll see ya later, then." Koichi waved. Then she was gone.

"That was close," Takuya whistled.

"We've got your back, Takuya," Koji said.

"Yeah, you always know how we got your back," JP smirked.

"Just go if you don't want Zoe to lose some more blood," Koichi snapped.

"Thanks guys," Takuya muttered.

Zoe could hardly tell they were moving. She could feel him gliding along beneath her, but he could have been strolling down the sidewalk, the movement was so smooth. She was tempted to peek, just to see if he was really running on the street like before, but she resisted. It wasn't worth that awful dizziness. She contented herself with listening to his breath come and so evenly.

She wasn't quite sure they had stopped until he reached back and touched her hair.

"It's over, Zoe."

She dared to open her eyes, and, sure enough, they were at a standstill. She stiffly unlocked her stranglehold on his body and slipped to the ground, landing on the backside.

"Oh!" She huffed as she hit the ground.

He stared at her incredulously, evidently not sure whether he was still too mad to find her funny. But her bewildered expression pushed him over their bush, and he broke into a roar of laughter.

She picked herself up, almost fall again because of her dizziness, ignoring him as she brushed the mud and bracken off the back of her jacket. That only made him laugh harder. Annoyed, she began to stride off into the house.

She felt his arm around her waist.

"Where are you going, Zoe?"

"To take care of my wound. You don't seem to be interested in taking me inside the house anymore, but I'm sure I will be fine without you."

"You're going the wrong way."

Zoe turned around without looking at him and stalked off in the opposite direction. Zoe opened the door.

At home, she went to look at herself in the mirror first thing; it was pretty gruesome. Blood was drying in thick steaks across her cheek and neck, matting in her hair. She examined herself clinically, pretending the blood was paint so it wouldn't upset her stomach. She breathed through her mouth, and was fine.

She washed up as well as she could. Then she hid her dirty bloody clothes in the bottom of the laundry basket, putting on new jeans and button up shirt as careful as she could. She managed to do this one-handed and keep both garments blood-free.

Zoe tripped and Takuya caught her again. "Don't be mad, I couldn't help myself. You should have seen your face." He chuckled before he could stop himself.

"Oh, you're the only one who's allowed to get mad?" She asked, raising her eyebrows as she reached for the First Aid.

"I never said that."

"Who cares?" She sniffed.

"You look better than a minute ago," he changed the subject.

"Thank—don't change the subject!"

"You hit your head pretty hard, didn't you?"

"I'm serious!"

Takuya grinned. "You're sort of welcome."

"Well, then, no thanks, sort of."

Zoe had to have seven stitches to close the cut in her head. After the sting of the local anesthetic, there was no pain in the procedure. Zoe held Takuya's t-shirt while he was sewing, and she tried not to think about why that was ironic.

Takuya was at Zoe's house forever.

"Now, I can say thanks—ouch!" Zoe shrugged.

"I love you," he replied. "It's a poor excuse for what I'm doing, but it's still true."

Zoe chuckled as she punched playfully Takuya's arms.

It continued like that for the rest of the day. While Takuya and Zoe walked together in English, when they met each other after Spanish, all through the lunch hours, Takuya questioned her relentlessly.

Zoe was still trying to remember the last time she touched Koji's cell phone. She felt self-conscious, certain she must be boring him. But the absolute absorption of his face, and his never-ending stream of questions, compelled her to continue. Mostly his questions were easy, only a very few were triggering her easy blushes. But when she did flush, it brought on a whole new round of questions.

Such as the time he asked her favorite gemstone, and she blurted topaz before thinking. He'd been flinging questions at her with such speed that she felt she was taking one of those psychiatric tests where you answer with the first word that comes to mind. She was sure he would have continued down whatever mental list he was following, except for the blush. Her face reddened because, until very recently, her favorite gemstone was garnet. It was impossible, while staring back into his chocolate-brown eyes, not to remember the reason to switch. And, naturally, he wouldn't rest until she admitted why she was embarrassed.

"Tell me," Zoe finally commanded while she's eating her lunch. "Am I on an interview?"

"What's the matter for asking questions to my girl?" Takuya sighed, surrendering, staring down at her hands as she fiddled with a piece of her hair.

"I supposed if you asked me in two weeks I'd say onyx." She'd given more information than necessary in her unwilling honesty, and she worried it would provoke that strange anger that flared whatever she slipped and revealed too clearly how obsessed she was.

But his paused was very short.

"What kinds of flowers do you prefer?" he fired off.

Zoe sighed in relief, and continued with the psychoanalysis.

Biology was complication again. Takuya had continued with his quizzing up until Mr. Broman entered the room, dragging the audiovisual frame again. As the teacher approached the light switch, Zoe noticed Takuya slide his chair slightly away father away from hers. It didn't help. As room as the room was dark, there was the same electric spark, the same restless craving stretch her hand across the short space and touch his hot skin.

Zoe leaned forward on the table, resting her chin on her folded arms, her hidden fingers gripping the table's edge as she fought to ignore the irrational longing that unsettled her. She didn't look at her, afraid that is she was looking at her, it would only make self-control that much harder. She sincerely tried to watch the movie, but at the end of the hour she had no idea what she'd just seen. She sighed in relief again when Mr. Broman turned the lights on, finally glancing at Takuya; he was looking at her, his eyes ambivalent.

He rose in silence and then stood still, waiting for her. They walked toward the gym in silence. And, touched her face wordlessly—this time with the back of his hot hand, stroking once from her temple to her jaw—before he turned and walked away.

Gym passed quickly as Koji and Zoe played badminton. Koji spoke to her.

"I didn't felt about when we were in the Music Room," Zoe told Koji.

"I'm so thankful you hit your head pretty hard," Koji chuckled.

"What date is today?"

"September twelve," Koji answered.

"Whoa, time is really moving fast."

"Yeah, I wished it would just slow down."

"We've still got one hundred miles away from graduating, so let's make every second counts."

Koji grinned. "Say, how's your head?"

"Better," she admitted. "But when you go over to my house, I'll make sure you tripped in my garage and hit your head on a hammer."

"Sure, I guess so."

"Bye, then."

Zoe hurried to change afterward, ill at ease, knowing the faster she moved, the sooner she would be with Takuya. The pressure made her more clumsy than usual, but eventually she made t out the door, feeling the same release when she saw him standing there, a wide smile automatically spreading across her face. He smiled in reaction before launching into more cross-examination.

His questions were different now, though, not as easily answered. He wanted to know what she's missing now, insisting on descriptions of anything he wasn't familiar with. They sat in front of Nathan's house for hours, as the sky darkened and rain plummeted around them in a sudden deluge.

She tried to describe impossible things like the scent of creosote—bitter, slightly resinous, but still pleasant—the high keening sound of the cicadas in September, the feathery barrenness of the tree, the very size of the sky, extending with-blue from horizon to horizon, barely interrupted by the low mountains covered with purple rocks. The hardest thing to explain was why it was so beautiful to Zoe—to justify a beauty that didn't depend on the sparse, spiny vegetation that often looked half dead, a beauty that had more to do with the exposed shape of the land, with the shallow bowls of valleys between the craggy hills, and the way they held on the sun. She found herself using her hands as she tried to describe him.

His quiet, probing questions kept her talking freely, forgetting, in the dim light storm, to be embarrassed for monopolizing the conversation. Finally, when she had finished detailing the cluttering room at home, Zoe paused. And had an idea.

Zoe pulled Takuya into the rain.

"Cut the questions for a while, Takuya," Zoe smiled on the rain. The rain grew stronger than they thought.

"I'm not yet finished," He said in relief.

Zoe threw a pile of mud to Takuya by surprise. "She hits! She scores!" She announced.

"You're asking for a game?" Takuya asked. "I'm gonna give you one!"

For the rest of the fifteen minutes Takuya and Zoe were throwing each other of mud under the strong storm.

"I had enough, Zoe," Takuya surrendered, laughing.

"You're more of like an attacker than an avoider," Zoe noted.

"You know, your father will be home soon."

"Dad!" She suddenly recalled his existence, and sighed. Zoe looked at the rain-darkened sky. But it gave nothing away. "What time is it?" She wondered out loud as she glanced at her water-proof watch. She was surprised by the time—Nathan would be driving home now.

"It's six o'clock," Takuya murmured, looking at the western horizon, obscured as it was with clouds. His voice was thoughtful, as if his mind were somewhere far away. She stared at him as he gazed unseeingly out the windshield.

She was still staring when his eyes suddenly shifted back to hers.

"You better get inside," he said, answering the unspoken question in her eyes. "If you don't wanna get sick." He smiled wistfully.

"I love the rain. Without the rain, it would be hot forever." She frowned. "Not that it's hot around here much."

Takuya laughed, and the mood abruptly lightened.

"Nathan will be here in a few minutes. So, you want to wait for him outside, raining pretty hard, or you're gonna dry yourself inside…?" he raised one eyebrow.

"Thanks," she said. "Tomorrow's Saturday, then?"

"Yep!" His face was teasingly outraged.

"It's true, Time is Gold."

"Yeah, so don't miss anything."

"I won't." Zoe smiled. "Will you need an umbrella?"

"Nope." As he grabbed his backpack at their terrace.

"But you're books will get wet."

"Take care." Takuya kissed her on the cheek then he was out of sight.

The rain grew louder as it glanced down at her. She decided to wait for Nathan outside.

"Hey, Zoe," called Nathan

"Dad," she said, moving closer to him.

"Zoe!" Nathan called as he recognized Zoe.

"I'm going to pretend I didn't see you outside, Zoe," he said disapprovingly.

"Dad," Zoe whined while she opened the door and flicked on the porch light.

"Why were you on the rain?" Nathan laughed.

"I missed the rain." Zoe went inside, leaving the door open behind her and turning on the lights before she grabbed a towel. Then she stood in the stairs, watching anxiously Nathan.

"Get dry before you catch a cold," Nathan was saying.

"It's been a while," Zoe replied.

"It seems like you've been under the rain for hours. Were you playing mud?"

"Technically yes, but—"

"Take a bath," he interrupted.

"I hope I'm not a bad time for you."

"No, it's great. Hurry up. There's a movie."

Zoe grinned. "What's the movie?"

"Stay Alive—I know how you love horror movies," he added.

"Are you hungry?" Zoe asked.

"I'll cook. Just take a bath, please," he replied, Zoe moving in her bathroom. She could hear Nathan cooking.