A/N: Silly, I know. Thanks for reading. Sorry for typos. Reviews are love. -Taryn(:

03: Soft

The rain had been falling hard all day long. Already she was soaked, not ten yards from the school yard and on top of that, she was struggling to put some papers in her bag, while at the same time trying to keep herself walking straight.

The stupid leaflets of the assignments kept getting stuck on the edge of the bag. Dripping water from her hands onto the paper didn't help because they just stuck to the threadbare rucksack even more. One time she tried, then a second. Prim's voice piped up from her side, talking about her day at school, as she danced around the wavering puddles of gray. Katniss tried to listen to her sister and to deal with the infuriating papers, but as a result she was forced to turn her head. She couldn't hear Prim's soft voice over the rain sputtering against nearby umbrella's or buildings, so her attention was not nearly focused enough on the assignments. Essentially, they were useless papers, because she wouldn't read them later, and she wouldn't hand them in.

On a split decision she let the three or four papers that wouldn't shove inside her bag fall to the pavement, into mud puddles and the raindrop glittered grass, uncaring. Prim looked at them momentarily, until Katniss waved a careless hand and asked her to say what she was saying before.

"Well, today in school we were being taught–"

"Excuse me?" cut in a soft, uncertain voice and Katniss stalled in her walk.

Prim stopped too, but she hadn't heard the voice. She lifted her big blue eyes to blink at Katniss. Raindrops splattered the blonde hair to Prim's pale forehead as she looked up at her sister, a inquisition in her eyes. Katniss didn't move. Maybe she had imagined it. If Prim hadn't heard...

Then the voice repeated itself, "Excuse me? Katniss?"

Prim turned on her toes before Katniss did, eager to please those who sought her out. The voice however came from a boy that had meant his pardon toward her bigger sister. A bigger sister which felt a sudden twist inside her stomach at the sound of the voice. She turned about, but much less eager and very wary.

At the sight of him, she was surprised to note he wasn't holding an umbrella like most kids from town. The rain seemed to eagerly devour the dry stitches of his clothes and skin, clinging the fabric to his every muscle within the biceps and shoulders. Katniss saw on glance they were noticeably tense and wound up. She felt the muscle in her own hands clench. Wet fingers cramping around the shoulder strap of her bag.

Of course it's him, she thought, equal parts agitated, and, peculiarly, anxious.

Suddenly aware of the dripping strands of black hair hanging over her forehead into her eyes, she brushed them aside self-consciously, before raising her gaze to meet another timid one. His eyes were a washed out sort of blue in the dull light of the cloudy, gray afternoon in District 12. About his back she could spot the rest of the students leaving the school yard; two distinctive groups separating in two different directions. One group streaking with black hair and dark skin toward the lower half of the district, and the others taking their time picking their way around puddles and holding coverings over their heads, if not sharing them with others, all bright and blonde.

She refocused on the boy in front of her at the sound of his voice. "You dropped these," Peeta said.

Was it just her or did he seem a bit breathless, as though he'd run after her to grab them?

"Oh," she said, forcing her lips to form the word.

Sweet rain water on her cheek slid into her mouth as it moved and she licked her lips. She didn't have the heart to tell him she'd dropped them on purpose. Not when he stood before her shivering in the cold air, the rain make his clothes hang over him like a wet blanket. The papers were already wet and sticky, though. Peeta held them out to her, and she didn't reach out a hand to take them. She just stared at the papers. Tried to think of something to say. Something not mean, she hoped.

Prim shifted uncomfortable in her wet clothes.

Peeta took a step closer, thrusting the papers timidly forward an inch or two, as an indication. An invitation for Katniss to take them back. He didn't meet her eyes, as they strayed left to right, across the puddles along the sidewalk. He looked so uncomfortable. Why? she wondered. Because he's talking to a girl from the Seam and he's worried people will start to notice their little gathering of three if they stand there a minute too long? Unjustified irritation took hold of Katniss. She found her heart. "You can keep them," she said, not harshly, but dismissively. "I wasn't going to do them anyway."

Prim cocked her head slightly at the exchange of the two, but Katniss merely grabbed her by the hand and began in the opposite direction away from Peeta. Not one word, she thought, we have not talked, ever. He saved my life and I never thanked him for it. Not one word, she thought, and he's trying to help me again... and all I do is shove him off for prejudice?

Katniss' doubts are swallowed by her stubbornness.

They made it three yards before she heard the sound of heavy footsteps scrambling after them. Prim turned back first, surrendered Katniss' grudge, tugging at Katniss' hand, insisting her sister to give the bakery boy some attention, too.

However, it seemed the bakery boy didn't need attention. He simply walked up to the side of Katniss that Prim wasn't on and took the shoulder strap of her bag. He didn't tug or pull, simply, laid his hand across the strap just over her shoulder, against her upper back and she stiffened at the warmth. Heat seeped through her damp shirt to her skin and so distracted by her shock that he'd touched her, let alone talked to her in years, she watched unresisting as Peeta tucked the three or four papers into her rucksack.

She almost scowls at the mere fact he did it so smoothly and so quickly, the papers sliding right in, unresisting of his big square hands. The action took no more than a second, and Katniss couldn't find her voice to snap. She raised a hand, as a second thought, as Peeta was closing the bag. When his hand withdrew, hers met the right height and caught against his.

For one heartbeat, their wet fingers tangled together.

Peeta pulled away quickly, cheeks a deep, warm red. Katniss let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding. "Sorry," Peeta said, and then shuffled away, running off back toward the schoolyard.

"That was nice," Prim pipped up from Katniss' side.

Katniss shot her little sister a reproachful look. It was too nice. Even after she'd brushed him off, he'd insisted. It was strange. But even stranger, throughout the whole walk home, Katniss could not focus on Prim as she spoke... there was another thought in her mind that demanded her perplexed attention...

...as all she could think about was that Peeta is strange...

…that she really didn't want the papers...

..and inevitably, numbly, peculiarly.. she thought, to herself, deep in her chest..

…he has really soft hands.