Sorry I slacked off for so long! No excuses, though. I swear I'll try harder once school ends. Oh well, read on!
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"Would you like to stay here Baron?" Baron whirled his head to her as his jaw dropped in shock. He wasn't quite sure if the shock was because of the suggestion, or the fact that he had just been considering it.
Haru shrugged, but he could see her cheeks were tinged a pale pink. "I-I was just thinking you could sleep on the couch or something," she said, looking down at her lap. "I-it's not like you have anywhere else to go, right?"
Baron's heart lurched in his chest, but he restrained his face from appearing so eager. "Are you sure it would be all right?" he asked. "What about your mother? What would she say?"
Haru waved her hand. "Oh, don't worry about Mom," she replied. "She won't mind. I'll just tell her you're my friend and you have nowhere else to stay. That's the truth, isn't it?"
"Well..." He wasn't sure about this. It wasn't that he didn't want to; he just wasn't sure if it would be... well, proper. After all, he was a bachelor, had been a bachelor for many years, and Haru was an innocent young woman. He may have loved her, but he certainly had no interest in ruining her reputation because of it.
"Please?" Baron dragged his thoughts back at Haru's pleading whisper. He turned to look at her, saw her big brown eyes, her flushed cheeks, her lips curled downward and quivering. "Can't you stay?"
He didn't want to see her cry, so he smiled, reached out and took her hand in his. "Of course I'll stay," he said, giving her hand a gentle squeeze, "if you absolutely insist."
Haru grinned and threw her arms around his neck. "Oh I do, I do!"
And so, Baron found himself being dragged away again, this time down a hallway and into Haru's bedroom. She left him in the doorway and went digging through her dresser drawers, finally pulling out a stack of fabric. She tossed the bundle at him as she moved to her closet and grabbed another heap of cloth and tossing that at him as well, and finally to her bed where she picked out two pillows and piled them on top. She guided him back to the living room and showed him how to turn the couch into a foldout bed, and she helped him spread out the sheets and arrange the pillows. Their hands briefly touched beneath one of the blankets, and they both blushed and looked away.
Once she was satisfied with that, she sent him into the bathroom and told him to shower. He played around with the knobs for a few minutes and admired the multitude of shampoo bottles on the tiled shelf before he stripped down and stepped under the streaming water. He yelped as it fell like icicles on his skin, and almost bit his lip through when he turned the other knob and scalded himself, and he finally just stood under the water for a few minutes and hurriedly got out. His skin was tingling and he couldn't see, and he had to grope around for the fluffy white towel Haru had tossed him in her excitement and dried off.
He slipped into the soft cotton T-shirt and the baggy black shorts she'd given him, smoothed down his hair, and avoided looking at himself in the mirror. He still wasn't comfortable with the fact that the face staring back was still that of a stranger.
Haru had flopped onto his bed while he was gone, but when he returned she squealed, pinched his cheeks as she told him how cute he was, then disappeared into the bathroom herself. He sighed, rubbing his cheek where she'd pinched it, then went and sat down on his bed.
It was warm where she'd been sitting, and he sank into the plush cushions. Bored, he aimlessly flipped through a magazine she'd left on the arm of the couch, barely glancing at the pictures lining the pages. Instead, his attention was drawn to a line of picture frames on the wall opposite him. Dropping the magazine, he stood up and strode toward them.
Photographs, he quickly realized upon closer inspection, of lots of women. Most of the faces he didn't know, but the little brunette with the broad smile and round eyes was almost as well known to him as his own face. Well, his old face. Haru.
Many of them included a younger Haru and redheaded women who resembled her. Occasionally there was a man in some of the older ones, and other people who he guessed were relatives. But, as he looked, he decided his favorite was her most recent one. Her dark hair—which he noticed had been sheared off but had now reached her original length—was swept back across her forehead, revealing her twinkling eyes and her equally sparkling smile.
He smiled. The camera loved her.
Baron didn't realize she was right beside him until she spoke. "Oh jeez, I hate that picture," she said. He jumped, managing to just barely contain the unmanly yelp that almost slipped past his lips. Once he was over his shock, he looked down at her. She was blushing a brilliant rosy pink, twisting a lock of damp hair around her finger.
"Why do you hate it?" he asked, turning to look at the photograph again. "I think it's quite flattering."
"Really?"
"Of course." He voiced his thoughts from earlier: "The camera loves you."
Haru turned an even deeper shade of pink as she waved her hand dismissively. "Heck no, I look like a total dork. The smile looks fake and, unfortunately, the short hair doesn't look nearly as cute head-on. Plus that pink shirt totally washes me out and I had a zit on my forehead that day. That's why my hair looks funny."
"I don't think you look funny. I think you look be—" He stopped, clamped his jaw shut as his cheeks mirrored hers. He had never embarrassed himself so many times in one day.
"So, um… we should probably get to bed," Haru said after several awkward moments of silence. "It's getting late and um… okay, goodnight." She turned to go.
"Haru?" She stopped. "Thank you again for taking me in. I appreciate it."
She smiled, one even more brilliant and genuine than the one in the photograph. "Sure thing Baron. Anything for you. Goodnight."
"Goodnight." She quietly exited the room, flipping light switches off as she went. Baron approached his make-shift bed and pulled the sheet up to his chin. He placed his head on the pillow and closed his eyes. In a few moments he was dozing, then deeply sleeping, never once noticing the glint of gold outside the living room window, watching him sleep.
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