Chapter Five- Allergic Attraction

Train sneezed.

"Cover your mouth, Train- chan," Eve scolded, pulling the basket full of fresh produce away from his reach warily. He sniffed, rubbing his nose in his sleeve.

"Sorry, Onee-chan," he muttered into the coarse fabric.

She turned away from him and looked down at the eggs and comparing them with the list given by Tearju. Train's skin prickled slightly as he stifled another sneeze. Where had this come from? Worse yet, it was the seventh time he sneezed since he walked into the town with… with…

"Atch-chooo!"

...eighth time he had sneezed since he entered the town with Eve. He kept returning to the possibility that it was nothing more than an allergy, and kept looking about for something out of the ordinary that might have been agitating his acute senses.

He rubbed his nose in his sleeve again and blinked absently when Eve weighed down his left shoulder with the basket. Holding it properly he watched her dig into her pockets while the street vendor watched them anxiously.

"You need change?" Train asked.

"Yes," she responded, not looking up. "Do you have?"

Before he could respond her hand already found its way into his pocket. He flinched, "Hey, Princess, that's equivalent to stealing!"

"Not really; I know you, you know that I'm in your pocket and you're willingly going to give me the remaining coins you have."

You seem pretty sure on that last point, Train thought sourly as she counted what she had found before fishing for more.

He was about to let loose another retort before she scented something and paused, glancing over Eve's back before…

"Acthc-hooo!"

Half an hour later, his cranium still throbbed from that unexpected rain of fists. At least they weren't metal: he was thankful for Eve's present state for that, and so far for that alone.

By now, both their hands were weighing down with stuff—Train was aware that they didn't only buy food, so he called it stuff—and Eve was still intently walking down the road, Train tailing her half heartedly.

"Princess," he moaned pleadingly, then paused and corrected, "Onee-chan, please, can't we go back to Tearju's now?"

"Just because you're satisfied with having your milk doesn't mean that I am," she said, looking over her shoulder at him.

"Who said I'm satisfied? I'm only satisfied when I'm drinking milk," he said at her back.

"We'll head to the mansion after we visit the bookstore."

Ugh, more weight, Train thought as he willingly let his face show agony. He sneezed again. Eve paused before him and he stopped in his tracks, wondering if he should turn and run from now. Sure, the sneeze didn't hit her, actually it was in his sleeve but technically he didn't cover his mouth like Eve asked him to and… he found himself making up excuses and pleads in his head, all of them repeating onee-sama, onee-sama, onee-sama…

"There it is," he heard her say.

My soul leaving my body beforehand? Train thought miserably.

"Train- chan," Princess yelled at him. "The bookstore is right here."

He sighed with relief and walked up to her, following her into the air conditioned room that reeked of crisp books, and Train hoped to find shelter from his allergies here.

"I won't take long, okay?" Eve promised before bouncing off somewhere. "Stay with our stuff!"

"Hai, hai, onee-chan," Train muttered under his breath, settling himself on the carpeted floor among the bags and bags of stuff and stuff… and milk. Cautiously he glanced around and pulled out a cool, slender glass bottle filled to the brim with the desired beverage, and licked his lips at the sight of it, remembering his dry throat.

"Excuse me, sir?" a disapproving voice said and he looked up at a smartly dressed young woman looking at him with a deep frown. "I'm afraid that no eating or drinking is allowed in the bookstore, and will have to ask you to place your bags at the counter at the front door, please."

Train sighed and hefted to bags to the indicated area, settling himself down in his lonely space, looking at the now pleased woman with an accusing stare.

"Thank you for co-operating, sir," she said with a smile and then walked off.

"That's one reason why I don't like bookstores," he muttered under his breath and leaned back against the wall, unsettling the shelf and sending books flying from who knows where crashing down onto his head, shoulder and in his lap. "That's reason number two," he muttered unpleasantly.

Slowly, under the scrutinizing stare of the same woman from before, he began to pack back the books which, other than most others in the store, were older and coated in thin layers of dust.

"Don't you ever clean these things?" Train asked the woman who stood with her arms folded at the foot of the ladder which he was standing on.

"That's not my department, sir," she said easily, tucking a clearly brown strand of hair behind her ear.

He turned back to his current task, childishly mouthing her latest statement to his satisfaction. Finally finished, he and the employee exchanged glares before she walked off and he—very carefully this time—settled down against the shelf and blew out a sigh. At least he was safe from sneezing in here: even among the dusty tomes he had been breathing evenly.

And then…

"Atch-chooo!"

He rubbed his face in his sleeve harshly, resulting in his face becoming flushed. This was ridiculous! Either he was developing a cold, or something was following him. As he braced himself for the next series of diaphragm mishap, he caught a glimpse of golden blonde hair by the bookcase to his left, and assumed it to be Eve, scanning through what was available.

Eve wasn't there all the time, so he sneezed when she was there. Alright, that made sense.

What?

He got to his feet quietly and peeked around the bookshelf, glancing at her, and holding his nose. Experimentally, he breathed in and choked down a suspected reaction, resulting in a cough. He was allergic to Eve?

Or at least something that rubbed off on Eve.

Or Eve in her current state.

He paused. He'd never thought of it before. The only thing that had changed was Eve became physically older, as Tearju said, a result in the release of hormones. But then that doesn't explain why he was…

There was a loud crack in the book store and everyone jumped at the abrupt break of silence. Eve winced when a female voice cried out: "Sir! If you break it, you buy it!"

"Train," she hissed, walking to where she had left him. Sure enough, one of the bookshelves were broken and—Lord only knows why—Train's head was bleeding on it, most likely from ramming his head into the firm wood.

"I'm sorry," Eve said to the fuming woman, the same woman who had dealt with Train thrice before, who turned to her with a look of question. "He's my little brother. I'll take responsibility."

She nodded but frowned, obviously wondering how they could be siblings when not one molecule of them looked like they were related. "We'll have to speak to the manager," she continued. "He just went out for lunch, but if we go now, we might catch him."

"Alright, I'll come with you," Eve glared at Train, who hadn't moved. "Train-chan, don't move a muscle. You should be exactly like that by the time I get back."

"Yes, Onee-chan," he mumbled, his voice shaky.

The two women left the room and Train released his breath that he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He tentatively rubbed his bruised forehead, and smiled awkwardly at the realization that drove him to a state of shock to injure himself.

Eve, his still 'little' Princess—still little because despite all the metamorphism by the magic of nanotechnology she was still only fourteen—their lil' princess was in the…

A scream outside knocked him back into reality. He jumped to his feet and through the door, he assessed the situation swiftly. The woman who he dubbed 'Irritation in Human Form' was being shielded by Eve, who stood her ground before three burly looking gang members who held threatening weapons in their hands.

Eve was aware that she was defenseless, but she refused to be rendered helpless either. "Leave us alone, we have no business with you."

"You say that like you know what we want," one of them responded, looking at both of them greedily. Eve bit her lip, getting the message.

Unfortunately, so did Train.

The first one to speak was the first one to get knocked to the ground as Train spared no mercy unleashing a powerful kick across the back of the man's head. He fell to the ground in a dizzying spiral, his wooden club cracked beneath Train's shoe. He glared at the startled men remaining, feline characteristics more than evident; it was dominating. His eyes were still, yet he stared both of them down at once. "Get lost," he growled, kicking their comrade to their feet.

In a flurry of movement they were gone, and the only evidence of the previous scene was a splintered club and droplets of blood drying fast on the concrete.

"That was so cool," the woman behind Eve said with awe twinkling over-enthusiastically in her voice. Eve held her tongue as she let her guard drop. She stared at Train who in turn stared at the ground, and something was flashing through his eyes as he was deep in thought.

The next few minute were a blur to him. Eve was granted several free books and chose three of Train's behalf, knowingly choosing for herself, and he noticed that the manager had arrived to hear the whole story. Naturally there was some sort of praise for that, and the issue with the broken shelf was forgotten. But it all fell on deaf ears as Train still stared at the ground, his brain failing to compute the conclusion he had come to: Eve was in heat.

He only registered that he was moving when he noticed that his shadow was bobbing up and down in front of him. He looked up, then over his shoulder at the town where the sun was setting behind it. He hardly felt the weight in his hands, but wondered who he had ended up holding the bags anyway.

"Train, are you going to speak at anytime soon?" Eve asked worriedly. "You haven't said anything in over an hour."

He shook his head, then grinned as his personality reappeared like magic. "It's nothing, Princess, just thinking to myself."

"For a whole hour?" she asked, disbelieving.

"Is that unusual?" he asked, tempting her to continue.

"For you, for that long, most definitely," she responded.

He turned away from her, suppressing a sneeze. "Really, Princess, your retorts are too swift for me."

She stopped walking and stepped in front of him, laying the groceries at their feet. He avoided eye contact. "What's the matter, Onee-chan?"

"Did something happen while you fought off those people today?" she asked him, trying to best to fish the truth out of him. "Did you remember a painful past or something of the sort? You know you can tell onee-chan about it."

He scoffed, chuckling slightly. "Yeah, I know." He paused, "It's nothing, Princess, really."

He tried to step past her but she cut in front of him and he froze when her scent hit him. "You really don't trust me, do you?" she accused him.

"Princess, it's not…"

"You think just because I'm a kid I can't help you? How can I anyway when you won't allow me to know what you're thinking?"

"Princess," Train said seriously.

"I can't understand unless…"

"Princess!" he yelled, pinning her against a nearby tree. Eve didn't retaliate, but grimaced at his strong grip on her shoulders.

"Honestly, I'm not keeping anything from you just because you're a kid!" he lowered his voice as he chuckled somewhat grimly. "Right now that's the last thing I see you as."

He felt her tense when his forehead pressed against the bark directly above her shoulder. Her scent was intoxicating, though imaging this woman in from of him as Eve was enough to keep him from going further.

"Train, what are you…?"

"Just wait a sec, Princess," he asked.

Eve immediately noticed that he stopped calling her onee-chan. It seemed obvious enough that he didn't see her as a bigger sister anymore, and his current behavior was making her wonder what he was thinking. A suppressed shiver ran down her back when his hair grazed her neck, and his free hand closed her in, clawing at the tree's trunk as though he were forcing himself to suppress something.

All at once he eased up and Eve was standing on her own two feet, Train smiled at her as though nothing happened. "We'd better get to Tearju's before the sun comes down, huh?"

The totally perplexed Eve only blinked. "W-wait," she muttered. Something was missing.

"What?" Train looked over his shoulder and dropped the bags he was holding when Eve pulled him to her level into a kiss.

Huahahahaha! I am evil, eeeeeeevaaaaaaiiill to end this chapter here! While I was typing the evil laugh there I said, "Mua… ha ha… ha…I need to put an extra 'ha'." So then, altogether now: Muahahahaha!