A/N: Thank you to Senna-X3, Kimyona-chan and Carbonara for reviewing. (:

Kisses to My Sweetheart
Chapter Two

It was when they passed by the house that she began to panic.

"Hey..." Masami began hesitantly. She didn't really know what to say. The shock of passing the house and going down the road OUT of Namimori was still there. Masami frowned. They were speeding down the empty road through the Namimori forest. A slight twitch of his head told her he heard her.

"...So you really ar etaking me to help you with the Foundation stuff?" her voice went up a notch in volume to compensate for the loud wind rushing through both their ears. It was a complete shocker... Hibari... Asking her for help.

Is the world ending? Hibari was just too proud to ask anyone for help. He actually commanded people to do stuff for him and they both knew that doing that would never go well with her.

"...No."

There was a pregnant silence between them then, save the howl of wind going past her ears. It was loud. Masami was sure it would have been louder if not for how she was wearing Hibari's helmet. It was oddly comforting having his helmet on her head. It smelled a bit like his favourite tea and him. Her arms tightened imperceptibly, her helmet-covered head awkwardly digging into Hibari's back.

He didn't seem to mind.

Masami did her best not to fidget with the helmet. It was obviously too big for her head so she had compensated by tightening the chin strap. The result was some wiggling room, but nothing too bad.

The green of the trees flickered out of her vision. They were now on the open road. Masami found her voice again. "Then where exactly are we going..."

Hibari didn't answer her.

Masami frowned. Him not answering was making her more worried about where they were going. It was so nerve-wracking, so annoying, so Hibari.

Feeling a little vindictive, Masami squeezed her arms around his ribs tightly. She felt him stiffen slightly. She was close enough that she could see the small upturning of his mouth. She felt a cold feeling in the pit of her stomach. She saw the tightening of his grip of the handle bars. She paled.

"Don't you dare-AHH!"

The engine revved loudly, overlapping her loud shriek.

A ryokan.

They had ended up going to a ryokan.

Masami gaped, awed at the sheer largeness of the interior. She could tell the establishment had been here for a long time. The ceiling was high up, giving the illusion that the place was bigger than it really was, which was already huge. There was a grand staircase leading up to the second and only floor (apart from the ground floor).On the wall to the right of the entrance was a large painting. It consisted of a stone pathway leading up to a large shrine, much like Namimori's very own shrine. The stone pathway was lined with opaque white paper lanterns that stretched all the way to the shrine itself. Masami cocked her head. Was it something special? A festival, maybe?

"Miss, if you would please follow me."

Masami swerved around and smiled back at the middle-aged woman in a yukata. She was one of the employees at this ryokan, right? A flicker of movement in her peripheral made her turn her head. Hibari was following after a nervous-looking man with glasses and a balding head. The man had attempted to hide the shiny parts of his scalp by combing the remnants of his hair down like a wheat field. Masami noted that the woman before her was wearing a subdued blue and the man was wearing traditional wear of the same colour, but a different cut.

"Miss...?" the woman repeated.

Masami was broken out of her stupor. She offered an apologetic smile.

"Sorry," was all she could come up with before trailing after the polite woman. They walked in silence for a while and Masami took the opportunity to study the red carpet beneath her moving feet and the various shouji doors they were passing as they moved further into the floor.

All in all, the inn was traditional and charming in its own rustic way. Exactly what Hibari liked.

"Are you and Hibari-san together?" the woman asked and Masami almost choked on her own spit at the sudden question.

"W-what?" she managed out stupidly. She had heard, but maybe there was a chance her hearing was failing her.

"Oh, well, you may not have noticed when you were looking at that painting, but he was constantly glancing at you every now and again while he was talking to my husband." The woman let out a small laugh. "I never imagined he would have a girlfriend..." Masami cocked an eyebrow. It seemed even out here, Hibari was famous. Or infamous.

...She wouldn't be surprised if it was infamous.

"He isn't-I mean, he kind of is. No, wait. He is, he is, but I think we're fighting right now since we haven't seen each other for a few months and he didn't try to call me at all even though I tried and then all of a sudden, he whisked me out of our town while I was still in school -hence why I'm in my uniform- and dragged me all the way here for a... a..." What were they doing here anyway? Her frazzled mind couldn't come up with a reason.

"...a vacation?" the woman finished lightly as she waved to her balding husband, who was scurrying past them. She continued on, oblivious to Masami's gaping mouth. "Young people can be so romantic sometimes."

A vacation? Romantic? She didn't know what to say to both. Hibari going out of his way to take her all the way here for a vacation, like what normal people did? The guy had considered sleeping on the school roof a nice"vacation" from biting people to death without the hassle if interacting with people.

And romantic? Masami blushed. Was that really a good word to put anywhere near Hibari's name? He wouldn't do all of this for her.

Would he?

"We're here," the woman announced. "The best room in this humble inn." She turned to wink at her patron. "Hibari-san ordered that we keep all the nearby rooms vacant. Perhaps because you would be making a lot of noise?"

Masami waved off the comment easily. "He just doesn't like people 'crowding' is all." She stepped in front of the shouji doors and nodded gratefully at the lady. "Thanks for leading me here."

"It's my job to help the customer." She turned to go, but my before bowing. "Hope you enjoy your stay, Miss," were her parting words before she left.

Hibari was looking through drawers, beds and wherever else someone could hide surveillance or traps in when she walked in. His sense of caution made sense. After all, being part of the mafia tended to make people paranoid, and with Hibari, a little more so than before. Masami watched him for a moment. He was now searching the bed. She blinked. Weird. Something about a bed being in such an old inn was alien to her mindset. Why did Hibari want a bed in their room anyway? She knew he wasn't above sleeping on a futon. Masami flinched as he watched him cast a glance at her after checking under the pillows.

He seemed to be able to tell what she was thinking about in her expression. His splayed hands on a pillow pushed down on it more meaningfully. He smirked wickedly up at her, eyes smouldering with not-so-hidden intentions.

"..." Masami slowly shut her mouth, lest it unhinged from the amount of gaping she was doing at the moment.

"I-I'm going to go check the bathroom for anything," she stuttered out before swiftly making her way to the bathroom and pushing the door to a close.

Masami's hands gripped the sides of the sink. She could swear she heard a creak from the amount of strain she was doing to the porcelain. She put a hand to her forehead, brushing some errant strands away from her face. She looked up at the mirror and grimaced at her appearance. Her light hair was matted from her head being under the helmet for hours and sweating, her face was a ghastly shade of white, the exception being only her red, blushing cheeks and the skin under her eyes was mottled purple, making her resemble a panda. Her uniform wasn't doing too well either. It was horribly wrinkled. Masami groaned.

She looked like she had gone to hell and back. The niggling in the back of her head about what exactly was going to happen on their vacation was on her mind. She shook her head frantically. Bad thoughts, bad thoughts.

She needed to get some clothes. Hopefully, the ryokan had a robe she could borrow.

Masami swung open the door. She needed to go see that kind woman and ask her if-

Have this on before I come back, read the note she found on top of the clothes on the bed. If she wasn't too busy staring at the clothes, she would have noticed the authoritative, bossy tone the note's words had.

And the damn, authoritative bossy thing was a note.

It was a simple, light, navy jacket with a white lining. Nothing over the top.

That just begged the question of why Hibari wanted her to wear this. She didn't know much about ryokans since she'd never been to one before. Yeah, she did know that they usually had baths with hot springs, but not really any particulars.

Masami's fist tightened around the fabric in her hand before relaxing. She'd just have to take a bath. If Hibari wasn't here before she was done, she would look for him. Simple as that.

He'd gone to see the onsen of the place.

Hibari's eyes closed as he leaned back on the couch lackadaisically. His damp hair was clinging to his high cheekbones and his face was slightly flushed from entering the hot room of the onsen. He'd gone to this inn a few times before, but had never paid attention to how the baths were, so he had gone to check.

Hibari's ears perked up as he heard the sound of the shower turning off. Five minutes later, she emerged from the bathroom. She was humming a slightly off-tune song. She wasn't paying mind to her surroundings, much to his displeasure. He took the chance to observe her.

He could see that she wasn't wearing a shirt underneath the robe and he knew that it was a bath robe and should be used for that purpose, but it still annoyed him. She hadn't tied the sash well, so he could see the valley between her small, perky breasts. A stray drop water travelled down her neck to trail between the valley, down her stomach to the certain place that the robe was barelycovering. He blinked. The movement of her towelling her hair dry made the robe slip off, revealing a shoulder with a prominent scar. He frowned at the scar.

And that was when she noticed him.

"Whoa! Kyouya!" She began to hastily cover herself. "You're back!"

Hibari silently stood up and walked to her. She watched him unblinkingly, dazed eyes suddenly at alert. She backed up a bit, barely missing him trying to grab her arm.

"I thought we were going to sleep..." she muttered, eyes downcast. Hibari raised an eyebrow. It was almost 9... and she wanted to go to sleep... If he had gone out of his way just to sleep, then they might as well have stayed in Namimori.

His patience ran out when she tried shuffling past him to escape. Without another word, he snatched her wrist and proceeded to lead them out of the room.

It was when they were out of the room that she finally seemed to realize what they were doing. Her eyes lit up.

"Are we going to the baths?" Hibari nodded as they continued to walk. She cocked her head in contemplation. "Then you could have gone without me since I'm going to a different bath than you-"

"Unisex," he interrupted.

"What?" Masami tried to stop in her tracks, but he simply started dragging her.

"We're going to the unisex bath," Hibari clarified smoothly, amusement creeping into his voice at her expression as he turned to look at her.

"... Could you repeat that?"

Ryokan: A traditional Japanese inn.
Onsen: Hot springs

A/N: I got the idea for this fic from a show where the characters were preparing for this road trip that never ended up happening. As for the ryokan/onsen idea, it came from an anime I'm following called Hana-saku Iroha! A ryokan and onsen just seem so traditional and Hibari to me.

Kimyona-chan: I realize there are more people that are waiting for an update for Possesion since, yes, this is a new story so I would expect not too many people would know about it. - -; I'm working on the next chapter of Possession, but there is no guarantee that I will update while working on this story. I would like to ask that you don't pressure me for updates, especially when I'm writing this for a friend of mine.

Carbonara: Oh, her name's Masami because this is a spin-off of another fic I'm writing at the moment. (: