I still don't own any of the characters... I do not even own more than 10€ at the moment, I believe...

Anyways, hope you enjoy it. This chapter was especially tricky (annoying) to write, but it will become more interesting from now on.

Chapter 5: The Morning After

When her eyes opened that next morning, one thing was clear: The sun was definitely shining much brighter that day. And by brighter she meant too bright!
Also, who (the h***) had made that stupid Bulbul bird captain of the cheer squad?! Throwing her pillow over her eyes, Kazuha groaned in frustration.

She would never drink again. At least not that much.

"Kazuha, I'm leaving for work! At least take notice of that, so I know you're alive!" Her father's voice, which had woken her up in the first place, boomed through the bedroom door.

"Registered!" She shouted, annoyed, and flinched at the volume of her own voice. She would probably stay in bed all day. Listening to her father's footsteps down the stairs, she slowly tugged the pillow from her face, blinking at the daylight streaming through her curtains. Her dress and new shoes were carelessly tossed on the floor. Slowly, she lifted her head and groaned again. Headache. Kazuha got up reluctantly, shuffling towards the bathroom. There had to be pills for that somewhere.

A sudden knock on the door made her moan again. "Not now, dad..." she started as the door opened, but turning around she was staring at a stunned looking, somehow dumbfounded Heiji.

"What are you doing here?!" she questioned, touching her hurting forehead.

"I...uhm... We..." he started, but could not form a sentence. His gaze dropped down her body and a small grin started to form on his lips before he slightly turned his head to look away. Just then Kazuha realized her state of dress, or rather: Undress. She had not bothered to put on pyjamas the previous night, but staggered into bed only in her underwear. "Oh god! Heiji!" she shrieked, turning around to cover herself. She was half- naked and that ahou had the impudence to grin about it. Sudden images of his lips descending on hers and the feeling of his fingers on her skin returned to her head. The heat of embarrassment mixed with an unexpected heat pooling in her stomach. "What are you doing here? I mean, how did you even get in?!" Kazuha jumped to her closet, taking her bathrobe and shrugging into it.

"I, well..." She heard Heiji take a breath. "Your father let me in." He eventually sighed. "It's sunday. We always meet up on sundays." When Kazuha turned around he shrugged. "I'm sorry. You know I always just enter your room." A stupid grin was still playing around his lips, which caused Kazuha to flush even more. She wished she could be furious with him for just walking in on her, but first of all – he was right: They normally met up on late sunday mornings to watch TV and eat breakfast together, before doing something else for the day. (Often, this included some stupid investigation of his...) And secondly, and she hated to admit that, their kisses the previous night had left her rattled. She did not really know how to handle the situation. And him ogling her and grinning about it did not help. She threw a stuffed koala at him, which he deflected before it could hit his head. He chuckled. "Really, I'm sorry. But I'm just a guy. We can't help it. You are a woman, after all, I guess." - "YOU GUESS?!" she roared, aiming one of her new heels at him. He started laughing and fled the room. "Making breakfast!" he shouted from the steps. "Join me when you're... decent." She could hear the smirk in that last word. Fuming, she went to the bathroom. At least he had distracted her from her headache. Which returned instantly.

"Need pain killers..." Kazuha mumbled before closing the door.

Heiji was making pancakes. He knew chocolate chip pancakes would be the only way to better Kazuha's mood, now that he had walked in on her changing. He felt the corners of his mouth twitch and could not help it. The images of her, clad only in skimpy black lingerie, lingered in his head. He grinned. How had he never noticed that she wore such kind of undergarments? How had he never noticed that she had such curves? Heiji coughed slightly, feeling his cheeks heat up.

Well, he had noticed - the previous night.

He had noticed the softness of her hair and the well- known smell of her shampoo had suddenly driven him crazy.

He had noticed the way her skin felt under his touch and the goosebumps his fingers caused on her exposed flesh.

He had noticed the swell of her breasts against his chest and the perfect roundness of her bum when his fingers innocently traced her back.

And while it had pleased him, it also freaked him out. It had taken all his self- control to part from her lips when he heard the gasps of people staring at them. Even more so, when he delivered her home and she was standing in front of her door and her hair looked slightly tousled and her lips... Those damn lips! He should never look at them again.
So, as he drove home, he decided that all his reactions were perfectly normal for any male. What guy in his right mind wouldn't like to kiss a beautiful girl? He decided that he would go on as he did every sunday – meeting his best pal (and yes, he had decided that 'pal' was the perfect term to describe Kazuha) and just forget what had happened. It was just pretend. Kazuha knew that, as well as Heiji did. The only problem was, that now that he had seen what had been under his fingers some hours ago, the images in his mind would not stop.

Shaking his head, Heiji saved the first pancake from burning to a crisp. He needed to concentrate. On something else than the soft moans she had made while he had kissed her lips and traced them with... "Dear god, just stop it!" he scolded himself loudly.

"Stop what?" Kazuha entered the room in one of her usual outfits: Shorts, a green top and a slightly see- through, white peasant shirt. Relieved, Heiji sighed and put the dark brown pancake on a plate. "I nearly burned your breakfast," he mumbled and started cooking another one. She looked normal, which made him relax. He was the great detective of the West, for goodness sake. How could his mind (and hormones for that matter) play such tricks on him? This was still Kazuha and he did not feel a thing looking at her right now. Alcohol and too much skin: Those were the true culprits.

He finished making breakfast and they sad down on the couch. Heiji recognised that she sat down a little farther from him than she normally would. Anybody would have missed the slightly bigger distance, but to him, as a detective, it was obvious: Her feet did not touch his leg as they normally would when she curled up on the sofa, and she did not slouch as comfortably as she typically used to do. Heiji gulped. Somehow, this seemed to bother him more than it should.

"Kazuha," he started, squinting his eyes a little bit, "Don't act stupid, ahou!" Kazuha, who had just put her plate on the coffee table and taken a bite of her pancakes, glared at him. "What did I do?"

He scoffed and pointed at the space between them: "Just sit as you normally do. There's no need to keep your distance, it's not as if I'm going to ravish you!"

She blushed and scooted away another inch. "I... I have no idea what you mean. I always sit..." But before she could finish her sentence, Heiji had lifted her by the waist and put down right next to him. "You always sit RIGHT HERE," he growled in a low voice, "and you nearly sat on my lap yesterday, so don't be shy now!"

Kazuha was shocked. She could not move. But the worst thing about it was, that she could not pinpoint what had triggered this reaction. The sudden movement? His low voice next to her ear? The images of her trying to get as close as possible to him the night before? Or just the electric sparks his hands triggered on her skin, even through her clothes?

Suddenly, she had the urge to do something. To move. Decidedly, she shoved against his chest. "How horrid of you to bring that up!" Kazuha felt the heat return to her cheeks. "I mean, we had to do something. Our act wasn't working." She turned her face towards her abandoned plate. "It was all part of the play," she mumbled.
When Heiji did not react she looked up at him. "Right?"
Kazuha could not read her best friends expression. Was he angry? Or just stunned? Slowly, he nodded. "Right," he mumbled. "Just don't let the act get between us."

Kazuha nodded affirmatively and curled her legs up on the sofa, again, this time brushing Heiji's side with her legs. A shiver ran down her spine. Turning on the TV, he took a huge bite of his pancakes. "Well, at least keeping up the act should not be as hard from now on," he grinned. When she looked at him, he added: "After all, I've already seen you nearly naked, what are some small kisses in public compared to that?"

Kazuha hustled him playfully for that comment, even though his voice sounded as happy as it normally did. "Ahou!" she chided, but her mind was already wandering again. How should she survive more kisses of that guy?

Especially now she had realized that her feelings might not be as innocent as she had believed in the first place.

Please leave me a comment, so I'll be motivated to write more :D

Big HUGS! 3 Ria