When Eld gently pulled away from her, Kaze felt a tad bit disappointed. She couldn't help that, though. It was a lot like something Eld had said to her before she went back to Galaens. What exactly he said, she couldn't remember, but it had something to do with feelings, and . . .

I can't . . . remember.

Oh well. Eld was right about the whole tired thing, anyways. Kaze was feeling fairly fatigued. A good night's rest right about now would be perfect.

"Mm--let's," Kaze replied with a smile.

She wasn't definitively cheery, but all things considered, it might have been a little harder to get her to become cheery like she was when Eld first met her. She'd naturally reach that point eventually, anyways, though.

Good...she's smiling again. He was glad to see Kaze's mood improving; he didn't like seeing friends upset, especially when he was arguably the initial cause of it.

Unfortunately, when he let her back to the clinic, he discovered that there weren't any free rooms--all of them had patients, and while he might have been able to ask permission for her stay in one or move patients earlier, now he couldn't let her stay there without disturbing the rest of the patients.

Which left him with only one option. Motioning her to be especially quiet, he crept into the house part of the building, and led her back to his room. Once they were inside and the door was shut, it was safe for them to talk quietly.

Naturally, he never thought about how it might make a girl with a crush on him feel, being led into his room late and night and shutting the door behind them.

"Well...it isn't much, but if you want a bed to sleep on you can have mine. I can either take the futon," he gestured towards it on the floor, which looked like it hadn't been used in some time, "or sleep on the couch if you prefer."

Kaze dazed out a bit as she followed behind Eld. She didn't remember where his house was. Even if he were to tell her where to go to find it, she wouldn't have remembered. And so, somewhat spaced out, she followed Eld to his house--or the clinic, rather, and continued to follow him blankly as he checked the rooms to see if there were openings, only to discover that there were not any open rooms in the first place! Kaze simply shrugged her shoulders and continued to followed, again blankly.

In time, she found herself in Eld's room. Eld's room. Eld's room. It wasn't that bad. She glanced around a bit. It was a little too neat, but still. Kaze wasn't going to judge him for that!

"Oh," Kaze replied, a bit confused.

She didn't really see the point of the futon. It was just kind of laying there on the floor and didn't really look that comfortable. While it was sweet that Eld would give up his own comfort for her sake, she wasn't going to let him do that! That would've just been horribly uncool on her end.

"Couldn't we just share the bed?" she asked, thinking little of it. It seemed like a completely innocent act, to her. And for longest time, with Eld and a certain someone, it was a completely innocent act.

"Ummm..."

He knew she meant nothing by it; it was simply a practical thing. There was one bed, and two people, and nothing else that was terribly comfortable to sleep on. Kaze had no way of knowing that there was another girl he'd shared his bed with as just friends. She also had no way of knowing that girl still regularly did, even if they were currently somewhere between friends and boyfriend and girlfriend again.

Innocent or not, he wasn't exactly keen to share the bed with anyone else. "It's not really that big of a bed. It's probably not a good idea." Not to mention that if one of the girls walked in before they woke up, he was quite certain they would not accept it as such an innocent thing.

She still didn't get it. Sure, it was a small bed, but they could either sleep on their sides or something, or sleep on one another. That, too, she thought with the utmost innocence.

"You can sleep on me," Kaze declared with a shrug of her shoulders.

Which may have seemed completely random for her to say, but at one point, it was a suggestion between Eld and the girl he loved. However, this was the exact opposite of that suggestion.

"You don't seem too heavy," Kaze thought aloud.

The next motion might seem completely random, but it was all perfectly sensible to Kaze. She lifted her hands to put herself upon the front of her shoulders, then slightly on her belly, and then, at last, on her breasts. She pressed them down somewhat, then squeezed just a bit. It was all perfectly innocent, and just a means to confirming her suspicions of softness.

At this, she had come to one conclusion: "And I'd be pretty comfortable, I think."

A light red rose to Eld's face, which was fortunately hard to see in the dim light. "I...don't think that's the issue..." While he didn't think that sleeping in the same bed was something they really should do (and, a fourteen year old and sixteen year old who were friends was a bit of a different situation than a sixteen year old and a twenty-something year old), Kaze didn't seem to be attaching anything more than friends to the action. And really, if Eld hadn't ended up going out with the girl he'd shared a bed with, he probably wouldn't have either.

He didn't want to depress her or anything by outright rejecting the idea, so he decided to take a different approach. "W-Well...I still need to take a bath to get cleaned up, so why don't you go ahead and lay down?" he suggested. With any luck, by the time he was done she'd have fallen asleep, and he could sleep on the futon.

"Oh," Kaze reacted aloud, again.

A bath? Kaze thought for a second. In the end, she didn't really think much about Eld suggesting that she lay down and wait for him to get done in the bath. Kaze instead tapped her index finger upon her cheek, withdrawing it only to find that she had a bit of dirt upon her finger. As the only light entering the room was from that of the window, it was a little hard to see, but even Eld would be able to see that her hair was kind of mussy, a little dirty, and that she had a bit of dirt on her cheeks.

"Can I take a bath, too?" Kaze asked after a moment of thought.

Again, it was something she didn't attach any romantic significance to. Had Eld, in fact, shown romantic affection for her, it would be an entirely different. Kaze would have thought twice about this, and decided against even bringing the topic up! But as is, they were friends--so it was harmless, right?

Eld gave her a puzzled look for a moment. She was kind of dirty, actually; she could certainly use one, and he knew he didn't like to go to bed feeling dirty, so why should she?

"Oh, sure," he replied.

If it was unusual that he was so open to the idea, the reason would be revealed by what he said next: "Do you want to go first, or should I?"

Kaze thought about this for a moment. It didn't take her horribly long to make decisions or anything like that, but this seemed kind of important for some reason.

"I'll go first?" she said questioningly.

Really, she didn't know which would be better. Which would be, truly? Going first or going second? Going together might be a little weird, and he might not want that to happen anyways, and she wasn't about to suggest it, because then he'd just totally get weirded out or something like that!

"And then we'll go to sleep?"

Kaze set her index finger upon her lower lip and looked up to the ceiling as if all of her answers could be found there--a telltale sign of her thinking deeply.

"Or . . . should I go second and then we'll go to sleep?"

"It really doesn't make that much of a difference," Eld pointed out, but then he thought about it some. If he were to go first, rather than rely on Kaze being asleep already, he could just lay in the futon and pretend to sleep. That way, she'd just take the bed and at worst would think he'd just being overly polite.

At first it seemed like a great idea, but just as he was about to suggest he go first he realized the snag. With Kaze's memory, he was rather afraid she'd forget which room was his--and knowing the luck he had she'd walk right into his parents room. Plus, it would ultimately be kind of rude to leave her to clean and find her way back in a place that was new to her.

"You can go first," he replied. Besides, he just wanted to wash the writing off his forehead, while she actually needed to get clean a lot more.

The baths went fine. Kaze got kind of lost after hers and had to rely on Eld eventually getting her and leading her back to his room, where she could sit and wait--or, rather, lay on the bed like he hoped she would, and get to sleep before he was done washing his face off, and maybe taking a little bit of a long time to do it, in hopes that she'd be long since asleep by the time he got back to the room . . .

But in the end, he'd walk back in to see Kaze sitting upon his bed, still clad in a towel. Her hair was actually quite long! When she had it pulled back into long pig tails, it looked a lot shorter than it actually was, but when allowed to hang down all the way, it came down to about the middle of her back, or at least a little above it. It was strange how sometimes, something as simple as letting one's hair down made someone look like a completely different person.

There she was, a long towel wrapped around her chest and hanging down over her thighs, concealing all that'd otherwise make her indecent, sitting upright against Eld's headboard, looking out into the sky through his partially opened window, feeling a gentle, warm breeze coming through. The breeze felt nice.

There, Kaze looked much more serene, much more . . . natural, as if she wasn't just spacing out, nor giggling or laughing or acting a little bit goofy--she was just happy.

Regardless of the situation, Eld always enjoyed baths, so it was likely he would have taken longer than he needed even if he wasn't waiting for someone to fall asleep. Unfortunately, it turned out to be for naught anyway. Kaze was still awake when he returned.

The sight of her was enough to make him forget what he'd been hoping for anyway. He felt his breath catch; he'd called her pretty before, but sitting there, clad only in a towel (but still modest) and with hair down, lit only by the moonlight shining through the window...she was downright beautiful. It was a sudden reminder that despite acting like his age, she was a full grown woman already.

It took a few moments for him to catch himself, and a few more to work up the nerve to speak. "O-Oh, you're still awake." Okay, it wasn't a great line to say, but he had to remember what he was doing.

"Oh? Oh! Yes, I am," Kaze was at first surprised to hear Eld's voice again, but quickly caught her surprise and let it go away just as quick.

Kaze looked to Eld expectantly, with her head slightly cocked to the side. She figured he was going to climb into bed here in a moment to go to sleep. That she was prepared for! All she'd have to do is lie down flat on her back, and he could just use her as a pillow, and all would be fine. Again, he didn't look like he weight that much.

"I was just watching the moon while waiting for you," she replied cheerily, "It's a really beautiful night. And you can really get a great view of it from here. I'm kind of jealous!"

Though, not quite as cheery as she had been when she first met Eld. This was a much more serene cheeriness, the kind of cheer that was akin to someone in their own element, and just downright happy to be there--like Etsu Hikane when she was able to sit outside and watch the sun go down, whether she was alone or not.

"Y-Yeah..."

Truthfully, it was only recently that he'd been able to appreciate that view again. The incident that started all the craziness in his life had nearly cost him his life under the full moon, and for a long time seeing the moon made him edgy, so he had to sleep with the curtains closed.

That train of thought got his brain back into working order; well, she wasn't asleep, but it was possible she wouldn't object if he just laid down on the futon.

Before that though, he had to ask something. "K-Kaze...why didn't you get changed?"

"Oh. Uh . . ." Kaze looked to her dress folded up on top of the futon and the pair of underwear next to them. Those could've actually been useful. "I don't know. I forgot, I guess."

All water under the bridge, though! Kaze figured it'd all be okay. She was perfectly fine in a towel. It covered all it needed to cover, after all, without much of a risk of doing otherwise--at least, no risks that Kaze managed to figure in to the scenario.

Nonetheless, she scooted down on the bed so that she was lying flat on her back instead of sitting up against the head board. She lay in the middle of the bed, a lot like Eld did every night, and looked at him expectantly once again. In fact, she even motioned for him to come to her.

"Hey, let's lay down?" Kaze asked, "I'm kinda tired."

Kaze was still going off of the idea that Eld was going to use her as a pillow tonight. Which totally made sense to her, because she was much more comfortable than just a thin little mattress on the floor.