His phone went off at five-thirty, just to be safe, and Kariya wanted to kill it because finally– finally!– he had fallen asleep (restless and unpleasant, but without nightmares and sleep nonetheless), but he got up anyway.

He practically fell into his clothes, almost forgot to add the coffee in… well… coffee, and had trouble a moment finding his keys. Somehow, through it all, he got out the door and walking through the streets with his eyesight fairly functional and all of his clothes on.

The stairs up to her own apartment felt impossibly long, but he made it, though all he did was take a step toward her door, reach out a hand, then draw back. Finally he opted to sit by her door instead, gazing at the ugly carpet like it was the most intimidating thing to be sitting there.

At one point, he must have fallen asleep because next thing, her door was opening and Uzuki was blinking at him as she reached for her morning paper, confused and a little disturbed. "Kariya?"

His head rested on the wall against his back and he gave her a lazy wave and a sigh.

"What… are you doing?" she finally said, throwing her newspaper inside, then looking down at him. "What are you holding?"

Getting up slowly because his legs were completely dead and steadying himself with one hand on the wall, he said, "A peace offering."

"What," was all she said, narrowing her eyes at him.

He passed her the small plastic bag and she looked inside. "Cookies?"

"That's what they told me when I bought them. They're still warm."

"Kariya," she began, surprise finally registering on her face. "It's six in the morning."

He squeezed his eyes shut, pressing his palms to them. "I know. No one has cookies for breakfast."

"I didn't say that. I said it's six in the morning," she reminded him. "Come on in, you weirdo."

Obedient, he followed her inside, then sat at her table, pressing his forehead into the tabletop. "It's so early," he groaned.

"I was wondering if you really realized how early you actually got yourself up when you've been running on like… no sleep," she said as she sat down across him, dumping the cookies onto a plate and passing him a mug of milk. "I was also wondering if these cookies are for me, or you."

"You," he told her. "I've got to get through today still."

"Yes, yes you do," she agreed, reaching for a cookie and taking a bite. She hummed at the warmth and chocolate.

Kariya finally looked up, rubbing at his face and giving another sigh.

"Well, I'm glad that you would go through this for me," she said, trying to get him to meet her eyes as she brought the cookie away from her mouth.

He wanted to express his confused exasperation. Before, she would barely talk to him, and now she plainly appeared to be quite normal. "What do you want from me?" he muttered into the crook of his elbow, staring at the wood of the table.

"Maybe I just want you to stop shutting me out," she said passively.

His eyes were moments from hers with that response. "Shut you– what?"

She took her time answering, gazing over his head, one elbow on the table, hand cupping her cheek. When she was ready, she met his eyes. "I ask you questions about your past and you refuse to answer."

He tried to keep his expression easy.

"See?" she said. "Right there. You're already getting prepared to reject me."

"I'm not rejecting you," he protested. "What if I don't want to talk about me? What if I don't want to talk about my life? I decided to become a Reaper for a reason, Uzuki. I could have easily chosen to live again."

Her gaze was steady. "You're making me guess. Would you rather I formed a very wrong opinion of you, rather than tell me yourself?"

And his gaze was iron. "You don't need to judge me by my past. That's over. I can't even remember half of it, anyway. Judge me by what I do here– with you."

"But–" she faltered. "I barely know anything about you."

He blinked, then leaned back, elbows off the table. "What do you want to know?"

"How did you d–"

He stopped her before she could continue. "Uzuki, you want to know about me, right? Not what I've done. Correct?"

Fish-like, she opened her mouth, then closed it. She looked at her hands, then back up at him. "What's your favorite color?"

Then he smiled, bright and calm. "There we go."

Halfway through the day, they had parted ways– mostly for Kariya's sake. He needed to take a shower, then nap as long as possible or he would most assuredly "die" (meant to be ironic, of course, but he said it quite seriously). He was dead asleep, as the case may be, when she knocked on his door.

It was the usual production in getting to answer it. Fall out of bed, stumble through the mess in his room, then as soon as he could properly see and balance himself, he would open the door.

Her presence was met with a smile– a smile which she had, quite frankly, missed badly.

"Hey Uzuki."

And she smiled back. "You followed the rules, right?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

She passed him through the door, tossing her messenger bag onto the table, then rummaging through it. She produced two shopping bags. "I'm making you dessert."

He laughed. "If you cooking kills me a second time, I swear, I bringing you to Hell with me."

With a scoff, she replied with, "This is baking, Kariya, and I'm good at that. No more toxic waste for you."

"Thank Heaven." He threw his arms in the air in praise.

"Stop making death jokes. They're not funny." She began to look through his cabinets for a rolling pin. He sat on the counter, watching her, and refused to help because he had done his job– this was his reward.

She puttered around, pulled out the recipe card, then began to start. When she pulled out the coconut and graham crackers, he became more curious about her concoction than before.

"What are you making?" he said, mildly dubious. He leaned ver to try to get a good look at the recipe, but there wasn't a name. It was written very carefully in the very recognizable handwriting of Uzuki's.

She looked haughty for a beat. "You'll just have to see, won't you?"

After her haughtiness came an indignation of sorts when he said, "This isn't the only surprise, is it?"

"Of course not."

He focused his attention on her bag pointedly, and she reacted instantly, dashing out a hand and snatching it up. She hung it on her shoulder, giving him a what-are-you-gonna-do-now-huh? look, and continued doing mysterious things with his kitchen.

"Am I allowed to leave? I feel like I'm cheating."

She laughed at that. "Sure. Go be a hermit if you like."

With a perfect smile, he said, "I resent that."

"Well then, don't leave. Stay here and cheat." Uzuki shrugged, but didn't even look up.

It was with a sigh and clench of the jaw that Kariya finally gave up, leaning back against the empty wall without cabinets and drawing his long legs up. He listened to the sounds of her moving about, doing her thing, and it was almost calming– calming enough that he was on the brink of falling into sleep, eyes closed, when she said, "Alright. Moving on."

He squeezed his eyes tighter closed for a moment, swallowing, then opened one, brown gaze meeting her pious blue. "It's not something I'll have to wait through?"

"No," she said slowly, puckering her lips thoughtfully. She reached a hand into her bag and pulled out something small and silver. If it weren't that it was small, he would have flinched, but she tossed it to him, then slipped up onto the counter with him, pulling another something out of her bag and tangling it in her fingers as he registered what he was holding.

"An iPod?"

She smiled. "Newest one out with all your favorite songs and the new albums you've been looking at. I figured you could do with something nicer than that old walkman. It barely works." She took a breath as he thumbed the home button.

His eyes widened a little in surprise. "The beach? For the… this picture thing?"

Her laughter was a little on the nervous side. "We never get to leave Shibuya much. I remember once you telling me that if you could visit one thing, it would be the glass beach. Fort Bragg in California? I looked it up. It's really cool. Anyway– that's what the picture's of."

"Oh."

Did he like it? She couldn't tell.

He looked at the lock, then did as it told him. He was shocked to discover he needed a code. He glanced at her, suspiciously amused.

"Go on. Guess." She was fidgeting with the thing in her hands, watching him almost earnestly.

Kariya looked back down at the numbers, then with some quick tapping, unlocked it– in one try.

Uzuki didn't know how to react to that. He certainly wasn't– reacting... He wasn't reacting. It was like he was the one that set the code.

Except for the fact that his eyes were focused and narrowed on the screen, thumbs swiping it and tapping the folders that she made, then circling back to music.

Then he looked satisfied and she was allowed an exhale that she wasn't even aware she was holding back.

"Do you like it?"

He was silent, but his countenance was lighter– as if he did.

She had spent hours on this thing, and he wasn't even bothering to answe–

"Yes. I love it. Thank you, Uzuki," he said, words a little tight and faint… and she couldn't understand why.

She gingerly placed the thing in her hands on top of the screen. Headphones. "I thought of getting a speaker system, but I–"

"This is fine," he said quietly, picking up the headphones and draping them around his neck. He tapped the screen again and a song started to play– wordless. It was one of the ones she had picked blindly from his original collection he had let her borrow (that she had promptly forgotten to give back, let alone listen to). It was slow piano, soft noise, voices, and a lone guitar, like water, beautiful and peaceful. He met her gaze, setting the iPod aside and giving her a small smile that she couldn't interpret well. It looked sad– to her.

She crinkled her brow in return, glancing at the timer. "Five minutes. Look, Kariya. If you don't like it, I'm sor–"

"No," he said thoughtfully, then laughed a little. "My bad. I really love it, Uzuki. I just felt a little funny for a moment there. This week's been a weird one– that's for sure." He shoved himself off the counter and offered her the bright, calm smile she had been looking for.

The song silenced and shuffled to another, noticeable more peppy and less peaceful. His smile turned to a grin. "Wouldn't have thought to put that one in."

Uzuki couldn't help a smug grin in return, more than a little relieved. "That one's my pick."

"Ah. It does seem like you," he agreed. "What other chirpy, sparkly assassination attempts did you plant in my 'gift'?"

Her laugh was one caught off guard and hardly matched her words. "You jerk! Don't insult my music."

"It's not music. It's like… little puppies trapped inside a beat."

"At least my songs aren't about drugs."

He snorted. "I wouldn't be so sure about tha–"

The timer went off and he finally registered the delicious smells coming from the oven he horribly neglected. It was a strange occurrence.

She jumped off the counter, close to as enthusiastic as he'd ever seen her. "This is the best part. I think you'll like it."

Reaching for a hot pad, she swung the oven open and pulled out a flat pan of… something that looked distinctly edible and smelled amazing.

"What is it? I mean… What's in it?" Kariya asked, coming forward and pulling a fork out of a drawer.

"It's hot is what it is. Let it cool off," she insisted, shoving away his homing-in utensil.

Immediately he protested. "I waited a week for something like this. I'll let it cool– don't worry." He forked a corner out and it was gooey and looked like it could definitely end his no-sugar streak. He blew on it, watching Uzuki's controlled fit of annoyance.

He smirked, and trusting that at that point, he wouldn't be burned, popped it in his mouth.

It was close to being too sweet. It was a little on the hot side, chocolate-y and tasting of graham and toasted coconut. "Whew. Kudos to you, girl."

Her tantrum of a face turned helplessly into a pleased smile. "Good, huh?"

He fought his immediate urge to agree and shrugged instead, just to push her buttons. He took her punch in the chest and shrugged that off too as she dissolved into a sort of eased content in laughter. Likewise, he couldn't help but laugh as she held onto the counter.

"You know how much I missed you, Kariya?" she said through her laughter, then sobered a little while shaking her head.

A guilty, mollifying smile crossed his expression, then switched back to a tease, eyebrows raised. "No. Better tell me."

She caught the apology, then rolled her eyes. "Like a new iPod and Magic Cookie Bars couldn't tell you that."

He cast a look at the said treat, "Well, they certainly are magical." then leaned back against the counter, face content and relaxed. "And it's a strange adjustment to have this instead of ramen."

"But you like it," she confirmed.

"Yes."

She reached to tuck a piece of hair behind her ear, recovering from her laughter and he watched her, that odd, sad expression replacing his contentment.

"What?" she demanded. His eyes drifted down until they rested at his shoes.

"Thanks for forgiving me, Uzuki."

She blinked, breath catching in the sudden change of mood. "It's nothing, Kariya. I was being stupid." He raised his eyes to her again and stayed there for too long a while for her to think it was natural. "And you. You were being stupid about it, too," she added.

He smirked ruefully. "I've always been stupid." His breathing seemed careful. Repressed.

"Are you okay?" Then it was as if something had hit her very hard. Everything came together abruptly and it hurt.

"Kariya, did you run out of points?" she said suddenly, straightening and grabbing the front of his shirt, face frightened and in utter denial and panic.

He opened his mouth, expression undefinable except that his eyes weren't meeting hers.

"Kariya! No!"