Blame It All on Me. Part 1

Chapter 6. Rain and Heartbeat

The girl was covering her breasts and held her hair up to keep it out of the way, and tried to remain calm. When the last turn of the bandage was unwrapped and only the patch remained on the skin, Arina looked questioningly at Kakashi over her shoulder.

"How about you lie down and cover yourself up, and then, just like now, we'll bandage you again..." suggested Kakashi.

The girl nodded in agreement and Kakashi turned away. She settled down on her back, covering the top of her chest with the dress and pressing her hands over it to keep it in place.

Kakashi first removed the old patch and ran the diagnostic again. He frowned in surprise: this time the wound no longer looked fatal, as if it had become less deep. If he hadn't been confident in himself, he would have assumed that he was wrong the first time. And something was telling him that it wasn't the skilfulness of his medical chakra (his skills were, in fact, too basic, which usually made it easier for him to act in a traditional way). And not even the subsequent procedure. However, the wound as such had not gone anywhere yet, so he carefully removed the old patch, rinsed it again and treated it.

"Oddly enough, everything is much better than I thought. But if we hadn't missed yesterday, I think it could have been even better," he grumbled. Arina couldn't really answer anything, so she just snorted in response.

After that, the new patch had to be fixed again. Kakashi turned away once more, and Arina got up, carefully holding the patch with one palm and again settled into a sitting position with her back to him. When Kakashi approached her from behind and put his palm on top of hers, the girl flushed. After a short awkward pause, he muttered in embarrassment: "you can let go now", and Arina pulled her palm out from under his like a scalded cat, burning with shame. However, if she could look back at that moment, she would have seen that Kakashi was just as flustered as she was.

In fact, this feeling did not leave him the whole procedure: he could not help but recall the first time he dealt with her injury. Yes, he really tried, as far as possible, to maintain decency – if he could, he would have acted with his eyes shut entirely. But even so, there were moments that were beyond his control, and now he involuntarily remembered them. Besides, despite all his efforts, he still brushed the girl's chest lightly the moment when she pulled her palm out from underneath his and slightly twitched herself.

Oddly enough, when he treated the girl's wound the first time, even though he saw much more than was appropriate, it felt less awkward back then, than now, when, in fact, he did not even see anything. Was it because the first time he regarded the girl only as a patient? Or did he just belatedly feel the full range of emotions for both occasions?

Somehow managing to bandage Arina, he ended up cowardly handing her the loose end of the bandage and offering her to fix it herself, since it had to be done from the front, and hurried to get away. The girl sighed furtively: she herself had already managed to fantasize to the point that she wondered what would have happened if at some point she just leaned back into his arms... She was a little annoyed by her own inconsistency – after all, until recently she had shied away from him, and now she was – at least in her mind – almost ready for any wild acts. When did everything change so much? And what would he say to that?..

☙ ❦ ❧

It kept raining the whole day, just as Kakashi had anticipated. To pass the time, at first he entertained the girl as much as he could with conversations, or rather, monologues. She literally felt how hard it was for him: he was obviously not used to talking so much, which made her incredibly uncomfortable too. But she didn't know how to end it apart from running off into the rain from him. Then he finally apologized – he needed to get something for lunch – and, with obvious relief for both of them, ran off into the rain himself.