Looking over at the aforementioned futon with a bit of longing that perhaps might otherwise be directed at its sleeping occupant, Natalie sighed softly and wondered if perhaps balling up on the too-short sofa might not have been a better choice.

She all but glared at the digital clock on the DVD player not three feet from her. Six-seventeen in the morning. After another minute of trying to get comfortable, Natalie sat up with a quiet groan and looked back at the ruffled locks of black hair that stuck out from under the blanket which covered the rest of Jin's sleeping form. The urge to reach over and tousle that hair a bit more was hard to resist, yet she managed to stave it off.

She heard the quiet click of the front door and lay back down, wondering how her brother managed to be so silent while he readied himself for work. She hadn't even known he was downstairs. After their arrival the night before, they'd discussed weekend plans, but those would have to wait until David got off from work this afternoon. If nothing else, his absence would give them a chance to settle in, and maybe she could show Jin around a bit.

If only she could get a little more sleep..

***

Seven o'clock found Natalie still awake and restless. She sat up, rubbed her bleary eyes and look over at the lump in the covers a couple of feet over, where Jin lay on his futon. It seemed he was still sleeping rather well. "That makes one of us," she thought.

Quietly, she rose and made her way to the bathroom. With a small smile it was noted that the one perk of waking up so early was that - with her brother already gone to work and Jin still asleep - there'd be no vying for the shower and no lack of hot water. She entered the bathroom and shut the door behind her, undressed and put her pajamas in the hamper, then pulled the shower curtain to and reached in to adjust the water. Just prior to turning it on, however, she stopped. "That's right... all my stuff is upstairs." She and Jin, upon realizing their stuff was going to be in the way in the bathroom or living room where space was minimal, had both carted their luggage up to Astaroth's more spacious bedroom, since most days he would be gone before either of them were ready to start the day.

Wrapping a towel around herself - the last one, lucky for her - she exited the bathroom as quietly as she could and went upstairs to get her clothes for the day.

As quiet as she was, Jin still heard the door as it creaked open, for he was awake. Well, sort of awake. Brushing a hand through sleep-mussed hair, Kushina leaned up slowly and looked at the clock. Ten after seven. Since Natalie wasn't on her futon, he assumed that she had just exited the bathroom, and therefore the shower must be free. "No time like the present," Jin thought to himself with a sigh.

Moments later he was adjusting the shower, about to strip when he realized there were no towels. He also noticed that even though Natalie apparently just gotten out of the bathroom, the shower stall and curtain were mostly dry. Luckily, this meant that he would get the first shower, and therefore not run out of hot water this time. Why she hadn't jumped at the opportunity, he didn't know, but maybe she'd wanted to eat first or something.

Leaving the shower running - it'd take a moment to get warm anyway - Jin went to the laundry room to find a towel.

Unknown to Kushina, while he was rummaging for the towel, Natalie came back downstairs and once again claimed what she believed to be her bathroom time. As she noticed the shower running, she frowned. "I don't remember leaving that on..." she thought to herself, but shrugged it off as a lapse in memory. The door was open, as she'd left it, after all. She closed it, then hung her towel on the rack and entered the blissfully hot spray of water with a pleased sigh.

While she enjoyed the shower that wasn't quite meant for her, Jin returned to the bathroom with his towel and some clothes, frowning at the closed door. "I don't remember closing it..."

The thought was once again chalked up to the forgetfulness of sleep-blurred thoughts as he entered the bathroom. The door wasn't locked, as he assumed it would have been if anyone had been in there to begin with. The towel on the rack was completely missed by him as he laid his upon the edge of the sink, on top of neatly folded clothing. Natalie's clothes - lying on a shelf - also escaped his notice as he undressed and pulled back the shower curtain, one foot already in the stall...

And that's as far as he got. Rather than the empty shower he'd expected, the space was occupied by a very naked, soapy brunette, who stared at him with doe-wide eyes.

Her hair was piled atop her head and covered in suds, and her hands were buried in the locks, caught in the middle of washing. Shock kept them there, rather than covering herself, just as shock kept him standing there.

Jin, now with very wide eyes himself, could only stare and blink as she did. Neither noticed the other mirroring their expressions for the short, yet completely frozen moment, as each pair of eyes were drawn to things other than the face by the sort of instinct that one cannot – at least at first – resist.

In fact, Nat's gaze was wandering quite a ways from Jin's wide, golden eyes. Blushing deeply and mouth agape, her attention was soon drawn back to Jin's face when he stammered in the most unsteady tone she'd ever heard him use. "Uh... I... um... Nat...?"

Her face lit with an even brighter red as she noticed that he was staring! Never mind the fact that she'd just been doing the same thing - though notably his eyes had more places to wander toward than hers - and possibly with an even more blatant interest. With a small shriek, Natalie grabbed the removable shower nozzle and aimed it straight at his blushing face, causing Jin to shut his eyes and turn his head as he quickly stepped back. He slipped on the now-wet tiles and fell to the floor, but was thankfully close enough to the sink to grab his towel and quickly drape it over himself whilst Natalie - wrapped in half the shower curtain that still revealed more than she realized - squeaked at him. "P-pervert!!"

Mouth ajar in surprise at her outburst, Jin stared at her. "Me?? The hell? You're in my shower!"

"Am not!! I was in here first! You're supposed to be asleep!"

Then it hit him, both had intended to use the shower without knowing the other's plans. "I... I thought you were done..." he said a bit sheepishly.

"Well I'm not!" She was still a half-octave higher than normal, and still red as a tomato.

He scowled at her with his reply. "I can see that, now. Why didn't you lock the door??"

She opened her mouth to reply, but found no words that didn't sound stupid, and closed it slowly. When she noticed his gaze not on her face any longer, topped with his deepening blush, she looked down and came to a mortifying realization. Against her wet body, the off-white, too-thin shower curtain was giving her less decency than a wet t-shirt contest. She jerked her body away from the plastic and channeled a small bit of chi into her left arm, the only part of her body aside from her head that was poking out. Drawing it back, she yelled, "Stop staring!"

"I'm not st-"

By the time the burst of fire flew at him, Jin was already up and moving, holding the towel haphazardly around his waist. The chi hit the towel, but missed its primary target just as he slammed the door behind him. A small, surprised curse was drowned in the thud of the door, which Jin leaned against once it was safely shut. His cheeks were still quite red, and the glimpses of her still burned stubbornly in his mind. He hadn't exactly meant to stare, it was just one of those things that one can't quite help, like the 'deer in headlights' syndrome. Not like she hadn't done her share...

And she had left the door unlocked...

That thought, combined with Nat's hypocritical accusations, put a small scowl of irritation on Jin's face. ’She doesn't have any room to talk...’ he thought. The smell of burning cotton caught his attention and he looked down, able to pat out the small fire on the towel before it got out of hand. The towel now ruined, he sighed heavily and trudged back to the laundry room, defeated in his hopes to get the first shower and thoroughly embarrassed on top of that.

"She should've locked the damn door..."

***

More than an hour later, Natalie fumbled around in the kitchen, preparing breakfast from the meager offerings of Astaroth's refrigerator. Jin seemed more than content to avoid her, the two passing each other with only blushing glances and little else. Natalie growled quietly as she dropped the whisk for the third time, grumbling in her mind that she might be able to concentrate if not for that little incident. She was going to be paranoid about showering for days.

At that moment, Jin walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, apparently intent on getting something to drink. She was half surprised to see milk instead of something alcoholic being retrieved from the fridge and set on the table. While his stare was kept studiously on the task of extracting a glass from the cabinet and pouring the milk into said glass, Natalie chanced to let her eyes linger for more than a mere second. Jet black locks caught the morning light that streamed through the kitchen window in a way that told her his hair was still shower-damp, and though he now wore a pair of black jeans, the fact that he had yet to don a matching shirt lead her mind to finish the picture inspired by his unclothed half.

And what a picture it was...

She looked away, blushing furiously at her own train of thoughts that was loaded with plenty of unspent female hormones. "Dammit, Natalie, just flip the stupid bacon. Or do you wanna burn that, too?" her mind scolded her as she continued her task of making breakfast.

Behind her, Jin sat at the table, quite content to mentally re-establish his former stoic composure. 'Walls of personal space and impending doom' Astaroth had once dubbed Kushina's seemingly unmoving and apathetic attitude towards others. Walls that, pebble by tiny pebble, Jin was working on lowering to a more genial level. Walls that, moments ago, had been shot all to hell by a very unexpected surprise. An unwelcome surprise. Gold eyes darted to the woman tending the stove, to the long chocolate tresses that didn't quite hide the way her tank top hugged her body and her jeans rode low 'round softly flared hips...

Alright, maybe mostly unwelcome. The fireball was certainly a tad too much. And that she didn't lock the door. And that she had hopped into what he intended to be his shower. Whatever little inner voice that threatened to put in 'well, you could have shared...' was immediately squelched.

Thus passed the uncomfortable period of silence that lasted from her finishing up breakfast to halfway through the two of them eating it, at which point the jittery flip-flopping of Natalie's stomach and the niggling of her conscience prompted her to speak.

"I... I'm sorry," she said between nibbles of bacon. "You know... for trying to burn your butt..." She almost wanted to ask if she'd succeeded at all, but refrained.

Jin looked up to meet turquoise eyes, blinking a couple of times and blushing plainly - in spite of his best efforts not to - as he nodded. When she kept looking at him, apparently expecting something, he swallowed the bite of food he'd been working on and spoke.

"I'm sorry..." Natalie started to smile before he finished. "...that you didn't lock the door."

The scowl that formed on her face should have warned him about the kick to the shin that was coming, but he failed to read the signs properly and a second later was scooting his chair back out of striking range.

"Ouch... What was that for??"

Blue eyes rolled and leveled a flat look at him. "Never mind. Oh, and.... unless we wanna be teased mercilessly, I don't think we should say anything about it to David..."

"About what?" asked Jin, already playing towards that as he continued eating.

Natalie couldn't help a small smile as she resumed her meal. "Good."
 

*-*-*-*

The morning's events threw the rest of the day a bit off kilter, but the further along things went, the easier their interactions became. This was mostly due to the external distractions of one of Kyoto's largest malls where the pair was currently spending a good bit of the day browsing and wasting time until David arrived home. During their outing, Natalie discovered Jin to be less gripey about shopping than the average male tended to be, whilst Jin in turn discovered that - unlike most other females apparently were - Natalie had little interest in shopping altogether. Well, for clothes at least, for it was accessories and various other things that seemed to attract her attention the most. At this point, Jin himself was sure he could leave her for a while and come back, for her to have not even noticed that he’d gone in the first place.

Personally, he mostly enjoyed shopping for his particular taste in clothes or music, and very little else. Natalie, however, found no end of entertainment in the sometimes cute, sometimes obscenely funny gifts, cards, and various ornaments they were currently browsing. Jin had never seen much reason to venture into any store like this, and saw very few items of interest even now. Plus the rather crude humor displayed in some of the objects was working against him as he tried to keep him mind on anything but the earlier incident.

And Natalie was not helping, either.

He found it a bit amusing that she fawned over things like a stuffed 'chocobo' or a mechanical penguin alarm clock (as useless as he found such things), yet he was quickly discovering that this seemingly innocent, saint-like healer had a decidedly dirty sense of humor. She blushed now and then, but could not restrain her giggles at things like straws shaped like ‘male-stuff’ or a stuffed, battery-operated dog that humped whatever it was clamped to, barking and howling for effect. Edible underwear, cartoon or anime gag gifts, static globes... all seemed worthy of her attention.

While she pointed and giggled, Jin mostly just blinked and gave mild comments like "... ok" or "uh-huh." It became more obvious as she moved from one area of the store to the next that Natalie was just as amused at him as she was with the items she came across. She found it quite adorable, the way he'd blush - just slightly - and pretend not to see certain things. Although sexual humor kept her mind wandering back to a much-less-humorous event in very recent memory, it didn't keep her from enjoying a few laughs.
 

She came across a small rack of even smaller outfits and picked up a random selection, holding it over the front of her body. Meant entirely as a flirtatious joke on her part, she cocked one hip and dipped her chin while holding up the flimsy lace and nylon 'French maid' costume, smiling cutely. "So what do you think?"

Aside from the look on his face, what Kushina said was far from what he was actually thinking, "... I don't think your brother would allow you to ever wear anything like that."

She lightly thumped his shoulder with the hanger before placing it back on the rack. "I meant, how do you think I'd look in that?" She blushed as she said it, but couldn't resist. Natalie knew an honest answer would be impossible, but the tease would be interesting enough.

Another blink, a deeper blush, and Jin answered without really answering, "I don't think you'd actually wear it, so it doesn't matter."

'Ohhh, touché,' Natalie thought, smirking. "Well, I wouldn't put it past me, given the right circumstances..." She grinned as that obviously made Jin a little more uncomfortable than he already was, then relented. "Nah," she said truthfully, adding, "It's got too many frilly things. I'm not into that."

"Thought so." He relaxed only a bit and asked, "Can we go now?"

Natalie frowned, "In a minute. I wanna look at the cards..."

The extra color that had left Jin's face as he sighed in slight exasperation returned when she grabbed his hand and pulled him to the showcase of various greeting cards. He was still unused to the familiar contact she favored him with so often. It made him wonder if she were so comfortable with everyone, or if she only did such things with him. That thought was interrupted when she picked up a card and held it up for him to read.

"Read this to me," she said with a slight pout.

Jin blinked, glanced at the card, and blinked once more. "Why?"

"I wanna know what it says. I can't read Japanese, silly."

He frowned and looked at the card again. "Um... it's a dirty joke."

"Yeah, I figured. But what does it say?"

"Well, when you learn to read Japanese, you'll know."

Turquoise eyes rolled. "Aw, you're no fun."

Jin simply gave a small smile in response, which Natalie had come to dub to herself as “the polite smile”. Granted, it was the only kind of smile she’d seen from Jin - aside from that cute, wry smile he did once in Tokyo and hadn’t done since, unfortunately - but it didn’t hurt to believe that others would come as they spent more time together. With virtually nothing else left to explore in the mall, as well as feeling slightly hungry, Natalie brought up the suggestion of them heading somewhere to eat. As she expected, Jin gave a wordless gesture in compliance - probably just to get away from this store, she figured - except not with a smile, but with the more common small nod.

They left the store and walked toward the food court, glancing at window displays as they went. A kids’ clothing store, a gift shop, a candle shop, a punk/goth specialty store Nat had insisted on browsing earlier, a music store where Jin bought a CD… then familiar electronic noises caught her attention.

“Cool, a video arcade!” Natalie said. She didn’t remember this mall having had an arcade section the last time she was in Kyoto, but it was a welcome surprise nonetheless. “Hopefully they’ll have an empty DDR machine too!” she added, her hunger temporarily forgotten as a feeling of anticipation and hope rose to replace it.

“What’s ‘DDR’?” Jin asked. At that Natalie quickly spun around, staring at him as if such a question should never have been asked.

“You mean you haven’t heard of DDR?!” Natalie questioned. Well, it was Jin, she had to remind herself, taking the quick opportunity to ask him another question. “Have you ever been to a video arcade before?”

“Yeah, I have,” was his reply.

“And you’ve never played DDR before?”

“I already said I haven’t heard of it,” Kushina responded. “Is me not playing this game that big of a deal to you?”

“Well, no… not exactly, but…” Natalie started in defense as she mentally scrambled for more words to say. She had made a tiny big deal out of it, but she couldn’t let him know that. “…but it’s just better to show you than tell you about it, that’s all.”

“I see.” Jin uncrossed his arms. “I guess you’ll have to show me this game then,” he added as he started to walk towards the arcade machines, with Natalie close behind him a split-second later.

They passed all sort of games, from new fighting games to virtual reality booths to arcade classic shooters like ‘House of the Dead’. Finally they came to a game with a raised platform with two sets of lit squares with arrows on them.

“This the one?” Jin gestured towards the machine with the words ‘Dance Dance Revolution’ emblazoned across the top. There was only one machine available, which was currently occupied but it allowed Kushina to observe and gauge the game’s objective. While it appeared straightforward enough - step on the arrows on the platform in time with the music - it did little to kindle his interest.

Natalie’s perspective, naturally, was different from Jin’s own, as evident in her reply. “Yep! Isn’t it cool? I hope that guy doesn’t stay on too long, although he is pretty good…”

“You could just challenge him,” Jin offered, pointing out the empty pad next to the current player.

“I can’t play against him, I’m not that good,” Natalie said. “We’ll wait until he finishes, then we can play.”

“We?”

“Well, you’re gonna play it as well, aren’t you?” Natalie asked.

“I didn’t intend to play it,” Jin replied. “I only wanted to know what it was.”

“Aw c’mon,” Natalie protested. “You can’t come all this way and not try it at least once? I said I’d show you DDR, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did, and you can see that I’m observing it now,” Jin countered.

“Are you a man of your word, Jin?” Natalie suddenly inquired.

Although caught off guard by the sudden randomness of her question, Jin managed to respond. “Yes, I am.”

“Now, you specifically said that I’d have to show you this game, yes?”

“Yeah, but where are you going-”

“Now in order to show a person this game, it’s necessary that they experience it so they could truly see for themselves what the game is like. So you agree, in this case, that it’s only right that this person makes sure to honor the wishes of that particular person, right?”

“Waitaminute…” Jin trailed off, but was unable to continue his thought.

“I said I’d show you this game, as per your request, did I not?” Natalie’s voice appeared to take a strangely serious, ominous tone at this point. “You of all people can understand my desire not to dishonor my own words now, don’t you?”

“But… that’s not…” It was futile to continue, he realized. She’d got him. “That’s low…” was all he could mutter.

The guy that had been on the machine finally finished, stepped off with sweat on his reddened face and with his breath coming in quick pants. Natalie, taking no chances at anyone else getting on the game, quickly hopped on, pulling Jin by the hand.

Once they were standing in their places, she put some money into the machine and selected the difficulty level and a song. Jin blinked at the slow melody, eyeing her as if she'd mildly insulted him.

"What? It's a slow song because you have to get used to it. It's harder than it looks..." she explained.

"I'll manage," he replied, and she almost chuckled.

The song began, and she took the steps with ease and relative style. She loved this game, and though this pace was slower than she liked, she didn't want to turn him off to it.

She watched him out of the corner of her eyes, this pace allowing her to do so. He didn't move with the slightest bit of grace added for any effect, merely stepped and adjusted his feet to the correct arrows at the correct times. He almost missed a few where one had to jump on two arrows at once, but managed to land at least a "good!" rating, if not always "great!" or "perfect!"

Jin, though there was the slightest crease between his brows from concentration, showed no other outward strain. It was harder than it looked when it came to getting the right timing, but once he understood the beat, he could move accordingly without having to watch the arrows so closely.

The song ended with Natalie having a near perfect score (she’d gotten sloppy on one part while watching Jin) and Jin having a decent score himself. Natalie turned to Jin as their scores were displayed on the screen. "Wow, you did great for your first time. So what do you think?"

"It's not that hard," he said. She grinned, having hoped to hear just that.

"Really? How about a bet! Winner of the combined scores of the next two songs gets a favor from the loser."

Gold eyes narrowed on her skeptically, "You're trying to set me up again, aren't you? Like the way you got me to play this in the first place..."

Giggling at his expression, one brow raised a tiny fraction as he looked at her almost accusingly, Natalie shook her head, smiling. "No, it's just a friendly bet. Come on! I promise it won't be all that bad when I win." She purposely used the term 'when', and it had just the effect she hoped for.

Reluctantly, Jin nodded. The game wasn't that hard, and he was sure he could do better. "Just don't take it personally when you lose."

Natalie hid her grin and withheld her retort, simply selecting the next song. This was a faster beat, a hip-hop style that, while she didn't really love to listen to that kind of music, she did love to DDR to it.

And, as Jin soon found out, that she did well. He couldn't take the time to look at her directly, he was far too busy trying to keep track of the arrows on his screen. What he did notice was that a lot more "great!" and "perfect!" exclamation bubbles were popping up on her side than on his. This wasn't good...

He picked up on the beat quickly enough, but again, where Natalie stylishly moved to the song, her hips involved as much as her feet, Jin only stepped on the arrows as he had to. What he didn't realize was that all the arrows that popped up in odd times and places were catching him with his weight improperly balanced. Natalie knew the formula of movement; a certain pattern of arrows meant a circular stepping pattern in one direction, effectively meaning she turned a full circle. The opposite pattern resulted in the same thing in the other direction. Particularly hard were the double-step jumps in certain patterns. Her partner, however, only stepped in whatever way was most convenient, and it was working against him.

By the end of the second song, Jin found himself with only about half the score Natalie had, even though he was able to finish the song. He was also - much to his surprise - just slightly winded. So was Natalie, a fact that would have made him feel better had it not been for the bet he'd just agreed to and the fact that her score was higher.

"Whew!" she said, thumping the toes of her boots against the steel squares between the steps. "I'm sooooo out of practice... I never used to get out of breath in anything less than ten songs! Man... I should practice more..."

Jin simply stared at her, which she missed as she cycled through the songs. He suddenly stepped on one of his arrows, reversing the cycle. "I think I'll choose the last one, if it's alright with you." He had a feeling she knew most of these already, and was picking in her favor. She made no protest, though, and eventually he came across a song he was surprised to find he knew.

Instantly, he chose that one. It was a rock song with heavy guitar rifts and a fast, changing beat. Natalie blinked and stared at him, her turn to be shocked.

"Do you know what the difficulty level of that song is?"

The screens lit up with the music video of his selection as Jin replied. "No... but I know the song."

"Knowing the song isn't the same as knowing the steps..."

"It can't be too hard. I'll do better on a song that I'm familiar with."

Having heard that before from others, Natalie relented with a doubtful, "Alright..."

They barely had time to adjust their stances before the arrows flooded the screen, and Jin suddenly had a very bad feeling about his choice. Natalie was a flurry of compact movement, her feet alternating between quick, light steps to hard stomps that abused the plastic covered sensors on her machine.

Jin moved as quickly as he could decide which arrows actually had to be hit first. They all appeared to blur together, rushing over the screen before he could hit half of them. His meter was dropping quickly, and for the first time in a very, very long while, he felt physically awkward and unable to keep up. Less than halfway through the song, the words "game over" covered his screen and he cursed mildly, stopping all movement to lean against the back support rail of the machine as he watched Natalie finish the song.

Only then did he realize that she wasn't just skilled at hitting the arrows, she was actually making it look good. Apparently, to her, ‘not that good’ meant ‘I can make this look easy’. If it hadn't been for the look on her face, how she was completely zoned with all her attention on that screen, she would have looked as if she were actually dancing, and pretty well.

With the barest hint of a frown and silent contemplations on just what she might ask of him when it came time to collect on the bet, the Kushina descendant watched her complete the last dance. Once it was done and the screens unnecessarily displayed their scores, she stepped off with a fine sheen of sweat on her brow and her breath coming in soft pants.

Without really thinking, she exhaled heavily and mused, "Wow... I can't believe I'm sweating already! I'm gonna need another shower..."

Both colored a bit instantly, before Jin cleared his throat and broke the awkward silence. "Ok, so what do you want?"

Natalie blinked, "Huh? Oh... that. I dunno... I'll have to think about it." Her grin told him easily that she did indeed intend to come up with something really 'good'. He sighed.

"Aww... it won't be bad, I promise."

"Mmm hmm." Boy, did he sound skeptical...

"I do! And anyway, look at it this way: even though you lost," she paused long enough for him to frown at that, "at least you aren't a DDR virgin anymore!"

"That's supposed to be a good thing?"

"Of course. Everyone should try a bunch of fun stuff at least once. You look like you need some fun."

"I have fun..." he said defensively. She smirked and grabbed his hand again.

"Sure you do. Now let's go get that food, I'm REALLY hungry now!"

That much he could agree to, and so let himself be pulled in the direction of the food court.
 

*~*~*

After lunch and a few more hours of walking the local shops (and two failed attempts on Jin’s part to talk Natalie into letting him buy her lunch or something simple to settle the bet), the two returned to Astaroth’s apartment, walking in just moments before the owner himself returned. When David came into the living room to find his houseguests lounging on the couch, he couldn’t help a wry smirk at his sister giggling flirtatiously at something previously said and Jin looking oblivious to whatever she found humorous. ‘Oblivious to a lot of things, that one,’ Astaroth thought to himself.

He stood at the end of the couch, shrugging out of his blazer as he replied to Nat’s initial greeting of, “Hey! How’d work go?”

“Long. Boring. I did get the chance to destroy one young jerk’s self confidence, though. It was the highlight of my day.”

Natalie rolled her eyes at him, but couldn’t help a grin, one that suddenly spread at what she saw peeking out of his blazer’s pocket. Before her brother couldn’t realize what she was doing, Natalie had already snatched the reading glasses from the pocket.

“You wear glasses? Oh my God… when did this start??”

Even Jin blinked in surprise. “You wear glasses? I didn’t know that…”

Astaroth blinked and stammered, “I… no! I mean… it’s only for grading the chicken-scratch those brats call writing.”

Natalie giggled mercilessly and waved the spectacles around. “Aww! Look Jin! He’s blushing!”

Jin chuckled while his friend grumbled and snatched the frames away from his sister, tucking them safely back into the pocket they’d been taken from. Natalie pouted and flopped back against the couch, almost toppling into Jin’s lap, though she didn’t seem to mind.

Shaking his head, David walked back towards the bathroom. “I’m gonna get a shower, then we can talk about what we wanna do tonight.” A moment later, he came back out of the bathroom with a small scowl, wearing only his slacks. “Don’t either of you know how to replace towels?”

Both sat on the couch and felt that awkward bit of discomfort return. “Sorry,” they muttered in unison without looking backward toward him.

“And which one of you left the towel on the floor?”

Natalie winced, “That would be me…”

David walked back into the main area, fresh towel from the laundry room in one hand, the other hand holding a white towel by one corner. “Then what the hell happened to this?” A fist-sized burn stood out starkly.

Jin and Natalie glanced at each other, then Kushina began, “It’s Natalie’s fault…”

The accused girl turned a shocked expression his way, gaping at him until he continued. “Something on the stove caught on fire and she put it out with the towel.”

Natalie blinked and closed her mouth while Jin looked absolutely straight-faced. Astaroth raised a doubtful eyebrow. “… there is a fire extinguisher under the sink.”

“I forgot about that,” Natalie offered with a sheepish grin.

With a sigh, Astaroth retreated to the bathroom, calling over his shoulder, “Well, don’t forget again. It’s gonna be hard enough keeping clean towels with three people in the house.”

The silence that followed between the two still sitting on the couch was broken only by the faint snicker of Natalie’s uncontained mirth.

“That was close,” she mused a moment later. Jin nodded as she curled up against his side, again in such a close and familiar manner. He didn’t really know how to react, except to let her do as she would, which she appeared to be content with. They watched television for a while in that position.

A short time later, David exited the bathroom with a towel slung around his hips as he headed upstairs. With the bathroom and the bottom of the stairs set behind the living area, he saw the backs of their heads, Nat’s brown locks barely visible as she leaned her head on Jin’s shoulder.

David smiled to himself. Natalie was just the thing Jin needed to help him loosen up and live a little, not to mention learn to feel more. And Jin was the only person Astaroth would ever trust to take care of his sister. That he lived in Kyoto and Jin in Tokyo was a little unfortunate, since it meant Natalie would have to choose where she would start her new life. He found himself hoping she’d choose Tokyo, though.

As he went upstairs, he called out to the pair. “You guys need to get dressed if you still wanna go out tonight…”

“When and where are we going?” Natalie shouted back as she heard him reach his bedroom. He left the door open to talk while he dressed. The apartment was really small.

“We’re leaving in an hour or so, and we’re going to The Kiwi.”

“The bird or the fruit?”

“The nightclub.”

“Is it fuzzy at least?”

“Funny.”

Jin chuckled at the siblings’ banter as it continued.

“Are there kiwis there?”

“Only slices on some of the drinks.”

“Of the fruit or the bird?”

“You dumbass.”

“’Cause that would be gross… if it were the bird…” Natalie continued her senseless babble meant to annoy David. It worked in a mild sort of way.

“There are no kiwi birds there. And if there were, I wouldn’t take you, because you would make pets out of them and bring them to my house.”

Natalie pouted and grumbled, “No, because you’d slice them up and eat them.”

“You two are strange,” Jin put in. Both defended simultaneously.

“She is.”

“He is!”

The conversing continued as the pair of the couch got up to dress for a typical evening out. Except that – with this particular trio – any ‘typical’ night on the town was guaranteed to be anything but…