Chapter 43 - Bell Flower

The absence at the table was surprisingly more noticeable than Yakata could have ever thought. It wasn't that the kitchen was empty; Ino was there, as usual.

But Nadeshiko wasn't.

"Ah. Yakata-kun, good morning." Ino's voice sounded tired. "Breakfast?"

"Wh-where is Nadeshiko-san?"

The embarrassment of the fact that he'd asked about her first hit him a few seconds later, compounded by Ino's silence, and her later sigh.

"She's always gone on Saturdays. I thought she'd tell you."

"Always…? Um, why…?"

"…ask her yourself if you want when you see her next, it's not any of my business where she is. Breakfast?" She didn't even try to sound cheerful at the end.

Yakata's stomach reached up and wrapped around his heart. "But… but she is coming back, right? She, she's not, um, she's not gone for good?"

When Ino turned back to look at him there was such pity on her face. "Of course she'll be back, Yakata-kun… Now tell me what you want for breakfast."

"…anything's fine."

Yakata sat down at the table, feeling Nadeshiko's missing presence, his eyes and his mouth feeling tight from worry.

He barely tasted the rice, the soup, the fish that Ino brought him.

Nothing made sense still.

He went back up to Hajime's room after he was done eating. He had nothing else to do.

Nadeshiko wasn't there to bring him to the flower shop, anyways. He had no guide, no willing hand.

(His hand had held onto hers so tightly there, but she'd still gotten away, and it hurt.)

Nothing made sense still.

There had been the park, the day before; and Sasuke, afterwards. "She's not someone I want you to be around," he had said.

But why would he not want Yakata to be around her? She was kind, and she bought him shaved ice, and would have taken him to the library if…

And Yakata found himself thinking about that look on her face, after she had finished dealing with Yatsu, and how awful it had looked.

(How frightened he had been.)

He rolled over on the bed, clinging to the pillow, frowning, eyes closed tight.

Why did nothing make sense?

He just wanted…

(…a friend.)

(Because he was her friend, she had said so herself.)

He didn't want to think about all of the things in between, all the things that Sasuke, that Ino had said, that Yatsu, that Nadeshiko had said.

He just wanted to forget.

And when he opened his eyes, he saw the dried flowers on his desk in front of him, all red-brown and barely green.

(He saw his father's eyes, just like his, just like hers.)

When he went downstairs, he asked Ino if she could take him to the flower shop anyways, when it was convenient for her.

Her mouth turned into a smile he could not read. "What, you want to go today too?"

"I, I, I need something to do."

(Being in that place, he got the feeling that he'd be able to forget.)

Her smile lessened, softened by the reality. "Let me get my purse."

"You know, I could take you to the library today if you wanted," Ino said, when they were halfway there, just past the station. "Nadeshiko told me this morning to, ah, offer, see if you were interested."

"No, thank you," Yakata replied. He kept close to Ino, almost hiding behind her, but he did not touch her.

(He always felt more comfortable taking the walk with Nadeshiko. With all those people around.)

(Even the noises seemed louder now.)

"Well, all right."

(Yakata would rather have gone with Nadeshiko, and they both knew this, to some extent.)

Inoichi had the radio on, as usual, when Ino and Yakata arrived. His face, when he looked up, was equally surprised and pleased. "Oh…? Has my beloved baby girl come to visit me today?"

"Daddy, please." Ino covered up her smile, small and embarrassed, with her hand. "I'm just dropping Yakata-kun off."

"Ah, Yakata-kun! Afternoon! Didn't expect to see you here."

"Hello, Inoichi-san," Yakata replied.

"I'll be back to pick you up before dinner, you understand?" Ino said. She shifted the purse on her shoulder.

"Aw, you're not staying?" Inoichi's face was a perfect puppy-dog pout.

"No, I am not. I'll be back in a few hours." She turned to leave, but paused. "…have fun, Yakata-kun."

"Thanks, Ino-san."

She left, and the man, the boy, and the radio sat in an uneasy peace for a short time, before Inoichi cleared his throat. "So, Yakata-kun, I'm afraid there's not much for you to do, though I would certainly appreciate the company."

"Ah, um, why is that…? I mean, did… did you already get the arrangements done for the day…?"

"No, no, Nadeshiko already came by and filled the orders herself." Inoichi waved his hand, almost dismissively, where he stood behind the counter.

Twist. "She did…?"

"Mhm. She always comes in early on Saturdays, gets it all done for me before the shop opens. She works so hard, that girl."

"But she's… she's not here now, is she."

"No, no, she left a while ago."

"Ah, I see…"

Inoichi looked over his glasses at the boy standing, small and unsure, in the center of his store, and he went over and put a hand on his shoulder. "It's all right, she'll be back tomorrow."

Yakata's eyes lowered.

("Where did she go, anyways?" he wanted to ask, but the words were not given form.)

"I still could have you help a little. The floor could use sweeping. That sound good?"

Yakata didn't say anything, but there was something in the tilt of his head that could have been taken for a nod. Inoichi went to get the broom.

It was quick, mindless, silent work. And when he was done, Yakata gave the broom back to Inoichi and leaned against the entrance of the back room. It was clean, and empty.

"She really will be back tomorrow, honest." Inoichi was speaking, looking over his shoulder at Yakata. "This happens every week."

Yakata found himself vaguely startled, like he'd been shaken out of a daydream. "You, um. You, you already said that."

"I know, I know. But you just look so sad, boy. It's going to be okay."

"B-but I'm not…"

(But he was sad.)

He kept his eyes on the floor, on his elbow, on anything that wasn't Inoichi. "Wh-wh-why are you so, um, so worried about me, anyways…"

"Well, I like you, if that's reason enough," Inoichi said. "Why wouldn't I worry?"

Yakata's lips stretched in what was either something that dreamed of being a smile, or something trying to hold in a cringe.

"…well, that, and the fact that Nadeshiko cares about you so much. You're really special to her, you know? She wouldn't want to see you so sad over her, either."

Yakata looked up, slowly, his heart pounding in his ears. "Special…?" His mouth felt suddenly very dry.

Inoichi nodded, and his own mouth creased into what was almost a reluctant smile. "Really special. Given the way that she treats you… well, I just get the feeling that you mean a lot to her, Yakata-kun."

Yakata opened and closed his mouth a few times, as if trying, weakly, to gather words in it. "But, but, uh… why, why, why do you… say that…?"

The reluctant smile lessened, pulling more wrinkles into it. "Yakata-kun… Nadeshiko's always had a hard time getting to… know people. Since she was very small. She prefers keeping to herself more than reaching out and talking to someone. So the fact that, well, she's out there just about every day with you… Well, to me, that's saying a lot."

("He is my friend.")

His face warmed, and it became harder to suppress his smile; he looked at the wall of flowers instead of Inoichi, shuffling his feet. "Ah, you… you mean it?"

"I'm her grandfather, I know these things," Inoichi replied. His voice sounded so kind. "Besides, I have never heard her laugh so much in my life. That is something. I'm glad she has you, Yakata-kun."

They were not living flowers, but they were beautiful and they were familiar.

("Did you know that there's a language to flowers?")

"Inoichi-san, um, do, do, do you mind if I a-ask you something?"

"Why sure, go right ahead."

"Na-Nadeshiko-san… did the all orders this morning. But, but are there any that still need to be filled, for tomorrow, that I could, that I could, um. Perhaps try my… hand… at?"

"I dunno, Yakata-kun. No offense to you, of course, but flower arranging isn't the easiest thing, and I'd prefer to sell her handiwork if possible."

His fingers dug into his palms. "Ah, right, of, of, of course… I'm sor-"

Inoichi's sigh broke the apology, and he walked away from the till, and past Yakata, into the back room. There was a wooden scraping, a metallic scraping, and when he came out, he was holding a folding table under his arm, and he set it up next to the cash register. "No reason why you can't practice, though." He threw a grin over his shoulder. "Go get a stool and I'll get the rest of the supplies."

And when Yakata breathed in, the smile on his face just grew and grew. "Sure…!"

Inoichi gave him a pair of clippers, binders, and little pots of "garnishes;" from the wall he took daisies, chrysanthemums. "The cheap stuff. You're just starting out, but we can move onto the fancier—well, y'know, the more expensive stuff—once you get the hang of it, okay?"

Yakata wasn't offended. He ran his hands over the petals, and he let yellow pollen dust his fingers.

He was, apparently, a very quick learner. Inoichi wasn't the first to say it; rather, it was a pair of female customers who were in to pick up a bouquet who noticed, when paying. "What a cute little assistant! What's that you're working on, there?"

Yakata looked up for a moment before averting his eyes and drawing his arms close to him, a pinch of lavender between his fingers. "Oh, uh, I'm, I'm… I'm not an assistant, I'm just practicing…" The white carnation in his left hand was almost finished.

"Awfully good for just practice…" The shorter of the two, a woman with blue-green hair in a smart bob, looked over the clusters of yellow and white flowers that Yakata had pushed into the corner of the table, and, of all things, reached out and picked one up. "Inoichi-san, are these for sale at all?"

Inoichi spoke before Yakata could object. "Well! I wasn't planning on selling them, but I suppose it could be yours for… 20 ryou? Does that sound good?"

"That sounds marvelous." The woman held the little gathering up to her face, and when she breathed in the scent, she smiled. "It'll look wonderful in my kitchen."

"Oh, if they're that cheap, then I'll get one too. Is that all right, Inoichi-san?" She still had her wallet in her hand.

"More than all right, ladies! Go right ahead."

The woman took out an extra bill and gave it to Inoichi, and afterwards went to Yakata's table and chose a gathering for herself. "These are really beautiful."

Yakata lowered his head, adding the lavender to his chrysanthemum. "Th-thank you very much…"

The two of them left with laughter and smiles; Nadeshiko's work went with them, in a box, but Yakata's stayed in their hands.

"Well if that isn't surprising," Inoichi said, once they were gone. He leaned over, narrowing his eyes, focusing on Yakata's current project. "These actually are pretty good, even for just handfuls of things. You've got quite a knack for this, Yakata-kun!"

"…I'm just copying Nadeshiko-san," he replied, snipping away the bottom leaves of a daisy. "Like, how she did it."

"All things considered, Yakata-kun, she's a very good person to emulate." Inoichi reached out, over the counter, and picked one of the gatherings up. "…tell me, Yakata-kun, why did you ask to fill the orders when you came in?"

Snip. "I, I, I just wanted to… help in some way, I guess."

"Mm." It was a triplet of daisies; a yellow, flanked by two whites, and cushioned by a spray of white thyme and the daisy's leaves. Clean, simple, and eye-catching. It could have been her work. "You're really very good at this."

Snip, and a small smile. "Thanks, I guess… It's, it's nothing compared to what she… what she can do, though…"

It was partly true. Nadeshiko was capable of creating symphonies of blossom and meaning. Inoichi hadn't seen work like it since his own grandmother, a matriarch of the Yamanaka clan, had passed away, years ago.

But Yakata's work, while an imitation, had that same heart. "Mind the till for a moment," Inoichi said, "I'm going into the back room."

When he came back, he had a small plastic tray with holes punched into its surface, and he began putting Yakata's work in them. "Ah, what, what are you doing…?"

"I think we ought to try and sell these, Yakata-kun. They're very well-made."

Yakata sat, quiet, and very still, hands in the middle of his work. "I, I, I don't really think that, but…"

"'But,' nonsense. You've already sold two." Inoichi put the tray, now complete, on the other edge of the till, near where he kept his calendar. "We'll see what happens."

Yakata reached for the florist's tape. "…whatever you say, Inoichi-san…"

Inoichi brought him a handful of yellow roses after some time had passed, after five, six, seven more gatherings were sold. They were already-bloomed, already-discounted, but only as a precaution. "I think you're more than ready for the bigger stuff."

The boy's bandaged hands held them carefully, like they were made of glass. "I'll… I'll try my best," he said.

His best was beautiful. And Inoichi stayed silent, allowing the words of his customers to be his compliments as they came in, floating and random, like butterflies. His own words would just have frozen the boy and his careful hands, and he knew this.

(They would have frozen Nadeshiko's, too, once. A long time ago.)

(There was a memory he kept very well-preserved in his mind, of an eight year old girl with hands so cautious, one would think that she was afraid to even use them, and a spontaneous heaven of marigolds appearing from her fingers.)

("It's your work, and no one else's," Inoichi had told her, "and that is what makes it the most beautiful.")

("…it's nothing but an imitation, but… thank you, grandfather.")

(It was the first time he had heard her speak in months.)

But it was at the end of the day that he made a gamble. "Yakata-kun, I think you've done enough of those little ones. Why don't you make one last big one, before you go?"

The boy looked up from his work suddenly, his eyes snapping out of the sleepy, familiar peace that had come upon them once he had gotten a pace going, between customers. "Huh?"

"My daughter should be coming to pick you up in about an hour or so. I want to see you make something really great. Put your whole heart into it. Okay?" The old man gave him his most confident smile. "The whole store's at your disposal. Use any flowers you want."

"Ah, no, I, I, I don't think I could…"

"Yakata-kun." He put his hand out and onto the boy's shoulder. "I know you can. Show me your best work."

Yakata swallowed, once, and then nodded. "…okay, Inoichi-san. I'll, I'll try."

Inoichi was, to his delight, neither disappointed nor terribly surprised. He could feel excitement growing in his hollow old chest when Yakata left the little table and spent a good fifteen minutes with his face in the wall of flowers, in the back room, choosing his materials carefully. Lemon balm, pink yarrow, willow leaves.

The afternoon light was yellow, and soft. And he worked with an intensity on his face that was as soft as the light, his teeth gently biting his lower lip.

"Why a yellow rose?" Inoichi asked him, after his hands had been still for some time.

"Huh?" Yakata looked up.

"I'd think that a red rose would go best in this sort of arrangement," Inoichi continued, gesturing toward, but not daring to touch, Yakata's work. "Considering the color, anyways. The pink yarrow is especially striking."

(Pink yarrow, a cure for heartache.)

"Ah, well, I, um… I thought that a red rose wouldn't fit that well, actually," Yakata replied. "They mean passionate love and… and that just didn't seem, um, right. So, so, so I went with yellow instead, for, for, um… friendship." He ran his thumb over one of the lenten rose leaves he had used for an accent.

(Lenten rose, as a cure for melancholy.)

"Ah, though, I, I, I thought to balance out the color with the elderberries…" he continued, with a strange, defensive power in his voice. "So it would be an equal mix of yellow and red, see… Well, and the lavender kinda just looked… looked nice, I guess, it evens out the red in another way…"

(Elderberries, for kindness and sympathy. Lavender to soothe the heart.)

"A wise decision. It's very beautiful, Yakata-kun. I really think she's going to like it."

His face turned a very subtle shade of red. "She…?"

(There, nestled next to the yellow rose, a single, flesh-red dianthus.)

"I know who you made this for. You should give it to her." Inoichi stretched his back, standing straight up. "I'll go get a box for you."

"Oh, no, please, you, you, you don't… you don't need to… I mean, I, I, I used a lot of stuff in it, I'm sure it wasn't cheap…"

He went into the back room anyways, and came out with a white box made of cardstock. "Consider it payment for your work today. Besides," he added, putting the box in front of the boy, "it'd be unfair for such a work of art to not be seen by its intended audience."

Yakata lowered his eyes, and his face reddened further. "I don't… think it's art… but, but thank you, Inoichi-san."

The old man's smile widened with recollection and genuine happiness. "You're welcome, Yakata-kun."

With careful, little hands, Yakata put the flowers in the box.

"What's that you got there?" Ino asked Yakata, when they were walking home. "Flowers?"

"…yeah, just, just something I made…" He held the box with just the tips of his fingers, and close to his chest.

"Oh, you made something? Can I see?"

Yakata just shook his head, his lips tightly closed, his eyes away from her.

"Haha, well, all right. Though I wouldn't mind seeing it, myself, sometime," Ino said.

(Though, she told herself, she'd have to be careful to keep it from Sasuke, or at least the fact that Yakata had made it, whatever it was.)

"…sure…"

A small silence.

"…um, Ino-san, a, a question?"

She looked down at him. "Ah, yes?"

"Is, is, is Nadeshiko-san home yet?"

"…no, she probably won't be for a while."

"Ah, I see." He didn't look as saddened by this as she'd thought he would. It confused her, slightly, but it did not worry her.

That was the most she got out of him, the entire way there. "I already got dinner started," she told him, when they got home and were taking off their shoes. (He'd set the box aside, gently, on the foyer step, while he took off his sandals.) "You can come down and set the table any time."

"Ah… Sure, Ino-san."

He went up the stairs with a surprising quickness, and lightness, at least to her.

Yakata, personally, felt like his heart was going to pound right out of his ears and straight onto the floor. Why was he even nervous? He just had to... open the door, put it down, and leave.

Nadeshiko's room was right next to Inou's. And she wasn't home yet, Ino had told him herself.

He swallowed, and tried to keep his hands from squeezing the box too hard. He couldn't damage the contents, that would be… awful.

Nadeshiko's room was right next to Hajime's, but Yakata had never been inside. Even though Ino had offered, once, twice, for him to go in and borrow a book from it, but he couldn't do even that.

(He had wanted to, once, twice, but he couldn't even allow himself to want too terribly, for so many reasons.)

He breathed in, gathering what invisible strength he could, holding the box in the fragile crook of his elbow.

He just had to open the door, leave it there, and return.

And he turned the knob.

What struck him the most about her room was how faintly wonderful it smelled; not the false sweetness of a perfume, but the growing sweetness of living flowers. Like grass, and cut stems, and water. Her window, golden with afternoon light, was slightly open; a breeze pushed at the plain curtains around it. Her small bed had sheets of a pale tea green without so much as a wrinkle on them.

He had to shake himself after he noticed he'd been standing in the doorway for a good minute, and he shut it behind him, closing his mouth tight with embarrassment. Nobody had seen him, but…

At the other end of Nadeshiko's room was a desk; three bookshelves were lined up against the wall with the door. Yakata's eyes stayed on them for a while as they passed.

Nadeshiko had books. All arranged alphabetically, and neatly, like how it had been at his school. Everything had a place.

And the titles, the bare pieces of art on the spines, the curious, mysterious flowers in the absent spaces held his eyes captive for far too long, he had noticed. No, no, he had a job to do.

Just in and out, and gone.

There was her desk, over there. So Yakata went to it and put the box down.

He thought, for a moment longer, on if he should leave it in the box, or out.

"It'd be unfair for such a work of art to not be seen by its intended audience," Inoichi had told him. And, barring the embarrassment that had come before it, Yakata found himself agreeing with this, more than before.

Gently, he eased his fingers around the arrangement and took it out of the box, and, gently, set it down on her desk. He stepped back with the box in his hands and looked at it, tilting his head, almost appraising it.

Did it look right?

He almost bolted when he heard a noise at the window, a rustling almost, and a voice.

But when he was at the door, reaching for the knob, he saw at the window not any human intruder but instead a cat; black, with white paws. It tilted its head at him from the window box where it was standing, paws on the sill, and meowed.

Yakata almost had to laugh at how fast he was suddenly breathing. "Wh-wh-what are you doing here…?" he asked it, a little smile budding on his face. Still holding the box, he went over to the window. It stayed, almost waiting for him, and pushed up against his hand when he reached out to pet it. "You kinda… you kinda scared me, you know."

It meowed in response, its ears bending beneath his fingers. Its eyes, when they opened, were a pale, glassy green, and they looked right into his, and Yakata looked back, though his eyes followed the line of the cat's back to its tail, and into what it was standing on.

Nadeshiko kept flowers at her window. And he couldn't help but smile when he saw them: marigolds. With the afternoon light hitting them, it was like she had the sun itself growing there.

The cat meowed again, turning around, now; its back slid under his palm, his tail between his fingers. And before Yakata could do anything more, it was off, walking lazily across the roof, and out of sight.

He stayed at the window for a bit longer, before leaving. He closed the door behind him, quietly.

His heart felt calm.

Eventually, he folded up the box and threw it away, before setting the table with Karai and listening to her talk about her training. Dinner was eaten, quietly, that evening, as was the norm, and Yakata left to train with Sasuke afterwards.

Nadeshiko was still gone, and he tried not to let it worry him when he sat down and meditated, gathering what Sasuke called chakra, concentrating it in his hands, in his feet, in his chest, feeling it move around. He kept his mind in all those places, in every place except his heart.

She'd come back, anyways. That's what he'd been told and that's what he had to believe.

She'd see it.

(And maybe it'd make her feel just that little bit better. But that was an arrogant and a very small hope.)

"You seem more at ease today," Sasuke told him, when they were walking home. "What changed?"

"I, um." He combed his mind for the right words. What was it that Sasuke had said to him? "I'm, I'm not letting it bother me anymore. What, what, what, was bothering me before, I mean."

Sasuke's smile was a precious thing, and it was medicine for Yakata's heart, fluttering just that little bit more in the anticipation of wrongness. "That's good. You shouldn't waste your thoughts on things like that."

(He hoped Nadeshiko would see it.)

Yakata bathed alone, after they got home, as usual. Sasuke always waited until he was done before he went in to take a bath of his own, which Yakata supposed was fair. He'd always hang around in the kitchen for a while until Yakata emerged in fresh clothes, using a towel to dry off his hair.

"You don't want to go walking around in a towel, do you?" Ino had told him, on one of his first nights back. "Always remember a fresh change of clothes when you go to the bath, and leave the dirty ones in the hamper, okay? I'll wash them for you."

Yakata had remembered, always, since that night.

(Funny, how on that very first night, the night of meetings and unfinished portraits, someone had left out clean clothes for him anyways, even though he didn't know. Catching him before he could fall.)

It was funny, but that evening, Yakata's hands didn't hurt as much. And he flexed his fingers around the towel, finding almost a pleasure in the strength and the lack of pain. He was improving.

The weak strength in his heart all but shattered as he walked up the stairs to Hajime's room, and the door to Nadeshiko's room opened as he neared it.

He paused, the towel on his head. He almost wanted to cover his eyes with it, seeing her standing there. She looked almost hollow, almost breakable. "Yakata-kun."

He covered one of his eyes with the towel; his bangs stuck to his face. "Oh, um, Na-Na-Nadeshiko-san…"

"Did you have a good day?" she asked.

The words almost made him lose his balance. "Oh, um, yeah, I… I guess I did…"

(Had she not seen…?)

"That's good to hear." She was not smiling.

Yakata did not know whether to move or stay. He took the middle road and spoke. "And you, Nadeshiko-san? Did you, um. Did, did you have a good day…?"

Wherever she was?

She closed her eyes, and they were a cold, heavy black when she opened them. "It was all right."

He hastily covered his face with the towel and made like he was drying his hair again, so he didn't have to look at them.

(He should have known better than to think that he'd make a difference.)

(It wasn't art, he was just an imitator.)

(If she'd even noticed.)

"…well I'm, um. I'm, I'm glad to hear that." His voice was very quiet, obscured by his shame, by the towel.

(The sickening feeling that he could have done more to take that pain from out of her eyes.)

"So, uh… good night! I guess…" He still had his face covered, and he kept his eyes to his bare feet as he started down the hallway again.

"Wait, Yakata-kun."

Her voice had power, and it held him. "Y-yeah…?" He almost couldn't look over his shoulder at her.

"…were you the one who left those flowers in my room?"

Why didn't it feel better, knowing that she had noticed? "Ah, um, yes. I, I did."

"Where did you buy them? Because I don't recognize that handiwork from anywhere."

He tried hard not to look at her, his chest growing tight. He pulled the towel around his shoulders and tried everything, everything not to get drawn into those black hole eyes. "I, I, I, um. I didn't buy it, I… I made it."

"…you made it?"

"…yeah." Pull. "I, um. I uh. I just. I thought you might like something to, to, to, uh… cheer you up. Because yesterday didn't… didn't turn out so great. I mean, at least…" He blinked a few times, frustrated. His eyelids felt tight, like they didn't want to close. "I just didn't want you to… to feel so sad, Nadeshiko-san. I, I, I thought it'd… help. Like, um, at, at, at least a little…"

Oh great there it was, he was sounding like an idiot, he wasn't helping, he wasn't doing anything useful, and he just knew that those eyes were as pain-filled as ever, and he sounded like such an idiot.

(He knew it wouldn't have made a difference.)

"…I'm sorry, just, just forget it, I'm sorry." He could barely hear his own voice, tight and high. His feet began to move, and he pulled the towel away from his shoulders. He had a feeling he'd be screaming into it once he was in Hajime's room.

But there was an arm, and it was reaching for his hand, and grabbing it.

Gently.

She turned him around and pulled him into her arms. His own arms folded up over his chest, the damp towel pressing against his skin.

He could feel her hair and her breath against his shoulder. She smelled like earth, like marigolds, and incense.

"Thank you, Yakata-kun. It's much more than I deserve."

Her arms felt warm. Her words had power.

And Yakata, his eyes wide and suddenly swarming with tears, all the breath taken out of his chest, unfolded his arms from under her and he hugged her back, and tightly. The towel fell to their feet.

He closed his eyes and put his head somewhere near her left arm; he pressed his ear against her chest, and he heard her heart beating at a pace much quicker than he'd have imagined from her, like she had just been running very far and very quickly.

(Just like his heart.)

He couldn't even say, "You're welcome."

But he didn't even have to try and not worry about it, because he wasn't. What tears were leaking out of his eyes were small, and grateful.

It felt.

All right.

She was the first to let go, and he let go almost immediately afterward.

(It was okay to let go of her here. Somehow, he knew, she wasn't going to disappear.)

"I think we both need some sleep," she said.

She was smiling, and there was warmth in both her smile and her eyes.

"Yeah. I'll, I'll see you in the morning, Nadeshiko-san."

The boldness of his words almost surprised him.

Until her smile deepened, and sweetened, and she tilted her head ever so, ever so slightly. "Yes. I'll see you in the morning."

She returned to her room and closed the door. Yakata picked his towel up from off his feet, but instead of screaming into it, he wiped his eyes and laid it over the chair at Hajime's desk and went to sleep with his hair still slightly damp.

(On the desk, the old arrangement she had given him, dried heart-red and earth-brown, sat next to the photo of his father and his family, next to the book that she had given him.)

And he saw Nadeshiko again in the morning.