A bra might have been much more revealing, but revealing wasn't what Kaze was going for, here. A sarashi was infinitely more comfortable, albeit at the cost of support, and easier to sleep in. Generally, she just went about her day sans a bra or a sarashi or anything of the sort, but because Eld would have been uncomfortable were she just wearing a towel, Kaze bucked up and wore a sarashi! So . . . so he'd better appreciate what she was doing for him! Even though he didn't like her like that, like she did-- or used to? Used to, darnit! --he'd still better appreciate the effort she was making for his comfort! Nonetheless, this was still fine by her. She was about as close to nude as she was going to get.

"Well, that's good then," Kaze chimed happily as she slid onto the bed.

Now that the detail of clothing was taken care of, she was able to focus on the bigger picture at hand: sleeping. And Kaze was a little tired.

"Should we go to bed, then?" Kaze motioned towards the bed.

Eldridge Tsukimono was a lucky guy. Not every sixteen year old boy had a beautiful woman four or five years older than him dressed in only her underwear, beckoning for him to sleep with her . . .

Eld opened his mouth to protest for a moment and a state that he was going to sleep on the floor, but then he shut it. What was the point? So far, every attempt to diffuse the situation only made it worse--he was afraid something really drastic would happen if he still tried to sleep on the floor. Besides, even if he insisted, she'd probably do something like crawl in next to him or even pick him up in his sleep and deposit him in the bed.

Unbeknown to him, his main mistake in understanding women was that sometimes they could act just like he might expect men to.

"Y-Yeah," he assented, defeated. At least with all the girls drinking, it would be well into the afternoon before any of them woke up. He probably didn't have to worry about anyone coming back.

Though as he climbed into the bed, he did make an effort to lay down beside her rather than use her as a pillow as she'd suggested...

Kaze climbed in bed first, following Eld's acceptance of the idea, and laid down a little bit in the middle, flat on her back, but still leaving Eld enough room to lay on his side if he wanted to. She kind of expected him to use her as a pillow, but wasn't particularly disappointed or upset by the fact that he willingly refrained. He was still next to her, and for some reason or the other, that felt nice.

"Hmmm . . ." Kaze hummed contently.

It felt nice, actually. Eld might not have liked her like, well, that, but he was still laying beside of her, and the bed was small, so she could definitely feel him there, and he was warm and soft and comforting and just . . . all around pleasant to lay next to. His bed was already quite comfortable, let alone Eldridge Tsukimono himself. Kaze released a content sigh and shut her eyes. Comfort was a good way to make a person sleepy.

And she was already quite tired, to boot.

"Good night . . ." the woman then whispered quietly.

Eld was grateful she didn't insist he sleep on top of her. At least this way, if someone did walk in it would be much easier to explain to them. It still wouldn't look good, though.

"Good night," he replied.

Sleep wouldn't come easily to him that night; that wasn't strange in and of itself, but usually when that happened it was for very different reasons.

Sleep came natural to Eldridge Tsukimono that night. His scythe was in the corner, but the spirit within it made absolutely no effort to contact him that night.

When he'd inevitably open his eyes again, however, Eld would not find himself within the confines of his bed, resting next to a beautiful woman he'd only recently met. No . . .

He'd instead find himself elsewhere, beyond the clouds. Air would whip about his clothes and threaten to tear him limb from limb as he plunged into an everlasting nothing of billowing clouds, propelled by gravity, dragged down by the weight of the world, ripped through the clouds, and descending ever downwards, down-- down-- down, towards the earth, the people, and the homes . . .

Even despite all of Eld's abilities, there would a distinct sense of vertigo--as if he weren't experiencing his own rational thoughts and feelings, but someone else's altogether, yet he'd experience them all the same, living through them as if they were truly his own thoughts and feelings. Those thoughts . . . they were flighty, hard to keep hold of, yet so simplistic and single minded. To grip one thought was to lose another, to go after the lost thought was to lose the previously gained one; it was all a jumble of thoughts, and yet the more one tried to keep hold of an entire train of thought, the more one forgot about what lead to its conception.

And yet . . . none of those feelings were truly strong. Each and every one of them started off as lax as possible. The sickening feeling of vertigo was vague initially, but throughout the drop, it would become worse--so bad, in fact, that Eld might inevitably feel the urge to vomit or scream or shout or cry, as fear of death would inevitably grow in his heart, yet still even that fear would not begin strong, so weak it could be overlooked, but strengthened over time.

But to think about that fear was to lose its important; to concern oneself with that one feeling was to forget where the feeling had come from, and to inevitably forget that there had ever been a feeling there at all.

Unlike the earth, which could be scarred, the water which could be polluted, or ice to be melted, the wind was independent. It remembered no faces.

While Eld was, to a certain extent, used to suddenly ending up in another place when he slept, that place was not miles of above the earth with himself plummeting down.

But that still wasn't a problem. After all, even if it was somewhere else, he still had a good idea who was involved with it, even if he had no idea why she'd send him high into the air. Kageko? Is everything alright?

Worry began to creep into him when, after several long moments, he received no response. That wasn't normal...was it? He was suddenly uncertain of himself; what if, somehow, he really was thousands of miles up?

That, too, was okay though; he had the skills to deal with it. In fact, this was something he'd practiced, slowing his fall from great heights. Normally he needed to start before he was actually falling, but he was also much higher in the air, so he had plenty of time to slow his fall.

But as he reached out with his Qi, he made a startling discovery--he didn't remember what to do with it. He struggled to recall the details; he should have been able to, it wasn't that long since he'd last done it, but the harder he tried to recall what he needed to do, the further the knowledge seemed slip away from him.

Fear gripped his heart; he no longer remembered falling asleep. All he knew was that he was plummeting to his death, with no way to halt it. A cry escaped his lips as he flailed his limbs in panic, as though if he kept reaching there would be something he could grasp to stop his descent.

And with a rapid pace, Eld would hit the ground--but by then, all fear and sickening vertigo would all cease to matter; they'd be long lost feelings, there, but unimportant, returning to a lax state, as if balancing out in their own right--

There'd be no pain upon reaching the earth. Only darkness . . . and thought.

Emotions, thoughts . . . all fleeting like the wind, memories on a wind, drifting across the sea, memories lost to the faceless reality of the sky. The wind was far from apathetic; it could be strong, it could be gentle, but it rarely found itself in the same place twice, and so quickly lost the memories that it collected over time.

Yet these memories would flash by Eldridge Tsukimono, nonetheless. They were countless in number; images and words, all flashing by as if he were experiencing scene after scene in succession, living through the eyes of a happy child, sitting by her grandfather at the edge of a peer-- the eyes of a man scaling a cliff, looking towards the sun and feeling a strong breeze that fatefully dislodged his foot-- the eyes of the mage, twirling wind about his finger like it was second nature-- the farmer atop his windmill, repairing its blade, only to encounter a sudden, unexplainable gust-- the boy passing a paper airplane to his friend across the street . . .

Memories. Fleeting Memories, some pleasant, some unfortunate, yet imperative all the same--the kind of memories that could craft a person into what he or she was bound to become.

But in the end, Eld would find himself standing upon an empty, lonely beach, the sand between his toes, and the waves lapping upon the shore. Behind him, there was nothing, just an endless field of barley. Before him, the ocean, initially calm, but with the still wind came a behemoth upon the horizon. A storm cloud-- a funneling storm cloud out to see, pushing ever closer, with no end in sight.

Upon the first clasp of thunder, he'd awaken.

As though his sudden forgetfulness was its own self-defense mechanism, the fear of falling (as he'd forgotten he as asleep or how even how to prevent himself from falling) was itself soon forgotten, and as he hit the ground he felt--nothing. He wondered if this was what death was like, forgetting that he knew very well what death would be like.

And then he remembered, if only for an instant. But remembered what? Images came to him, images of strange people and foreign places, but they slipped away as fast as they arrived.

Dizzied from the sudden rush of scenes, by the time he regained his senses he found himself on a beach. Behind him was farmland as far as he could see, and before him, the ocean.

It was interesting; he was fairly certain he'd never seen the ocean. How would he know what it looked like enough to dream about it? Or was he really dreaming? He couldn't remember. Maybe he was at the ocean after all. That would be nice...he always wanted to see the ocean...

Just as he was thinking it might be nice to go for a swim, he noticed the storm clouds on the horizon. And they were bad ones, very bad ones. It looked like a tornado was coming in, but he wasn't sure if tornadoes happened over water. In any case, it looked like a tremendous storm, the likes of which he'd never seen...

And then, just as the first peal of thunder reached his ears, he woke up.

That was...strange... It was better than the nightmares he sometimes had without Kageko watching over his dreams, but at least those were...understandable, if not pleasant. This was something out there altogether.

It made him a bit uneasy, but he told himself he was worrying over nothing. It was just too long since he had anything resembling a normal dream; he'd just forgotten how random and bizarre they could be, he was certain.

Deciding that he could use a bit more rest to clear his head, he turned over, and whether by chance or as a last remnant of the strange affliction his mind had in the dream, he forgot just what the situation had been like when he fell asleep...

Eld would find his face laying upon something very soft. Very soft, indeed! Skin--yes, it was another person's skin, but soft as if he were laying his head upon a cushion. A soft cushion, roundish and not too large-- a good handful, yes, if one were to attempt to gauge such a thing.

Which Eld had done, whether it was intentional or not. His hand was placed upon another such cushion, whereupon he'd be able to discern that it was, in fact, a handful.

However, there was something strange about it. There was cloth in the way, but it was extremely loose cloth, and very thin cloth at that--cloth which was, for that matter, in the form of strips that weren't actually sewn together in every place, but just enough spots here and there to keep it from diverting to individual strips of cloth. Eld would find this out, too, as the act of turning and laying his head upon a strange new pillow and placing his hands up close to his face resulted in one of his hands, the one that found itself close to his face, had accidentally wormed some of its fingers between the strips of cloth, while his other hand rested against soft texture of skin, albeit lower than his other hand. The back of that hand would feel like it was meeting something hard--like . . .

Ribs.

Were Eld to open his eyes, he'd not only find that the sun was beaming down upon his face, but that he was laying in a position that he'd been trying to avoid last night-- and a little more intimate than originally thought, to boot.

He wasn't sure why, but as he turned over it seemed like his pillow got much softer. It was also kind of lumpy, though; his head seemed to be on a kind of large lump, and one his hands found another one. He was fairly certain he normally took better care of his things than that, so he wondered how they got that way without him noticing. Well, he wasn't too worried at the moment, as it was comfortable and that was all that mattered. He snugged up a bit closer and yawned.

It was then that his fingers went past cloth (the pillows must have been in really shoddy shape) and felt...something warm? Now that was odd, and his other hand was kind of warm too.

He opened his eyes and realization slowly dawned on him as he blinked the sleep from them. That's...not...a pillow...

Once upon a time, that realization would probably have sent him scrambling away and tumbling off the bed into a heap of pillow and blankets and generally cause a huge scene. However, recent times had got him a little more used to these kind of things, so while his head was spinning and sputtering he kept his body from following suit.

Slowly, carefully he turned back over to face the other way. Please let her be sleeping, please let her be sleeping, he prayed as a mantra in his head, embarrassed as hell.

Was she asleep? Eld hadn't looked to her face when he woke up, and he'd been too preoccupied with other thoughts, including thoughts of absolute embarrassment, to take into account if she was breathing the nominal sleeping rate or if she was breathing the nominal waking rate. In any case . . .

"Hey there, hasty," Eld would hear Kaze whisper.

Although it was impossible for Kaze to intentionally sound seductive, she could kind of sound seductive in her own right when she tried, it was just paired with something else. In this case, it was a little bit of confusion and a pleasant surprise; confusion, pleasant surprise, and mock-seductiveness all wrapped up into one single tone of voice.

Not that it would matter. In the end, what would matter most was how she reacted physically, not verbally: by wrapped her arms around Eld from behind and pressing up against his back-- setting her hands upon his hips, and very subtly giggling into his ear.

There were two possible reactions Eld had been fearing if she was awake: one was getting kicked, punched, or otherwise beaten up and knocked off the bed for his transgression.

The other was more or less what she did.

"S-S-Sorry a-about t-that," he whispered, suddenly less worried about how anyone else would interpret this and more on how Kaze did. What if she thought he did it on purpose? "I-I-I w-was h-half a-asleep."

"It's fine, it's fine . . ." replied Kaze.

Her tone was kind of a hushed whisper now, still a little confused and surprised, but now a little more relaxed and actually kind of . . . nervous, a little bit. There was a good reason for it, of course. Kaze was thinking of something she hadn't really given much thought to before. It made her a little nervous, but it didn't show at all.

"I just didn't think you liked me that way for some reason . . ." For a reason she couldn't really remember, for sure, but for some reason, she was pretty convinced of that. And it was kind of disappointing whenever she thought about it, because Eld was a pretty fun person to be around, and she liked him quite a bit.

So, Kaze reacted to the thought as she figured was necessary, considering the most recent action of Eld's before he turned away from her and apologized: squirming her hands a little south of his hips. It was a reaction she hadn't given any thought. It just seemed right. And it kind of felt right, too. In more ways than one.

"T-T-That's b-because--" But his explanation was interrupted, as Kaze's hands began to move in a way that though he liked it very much he could not let them go farther. He was certain if they reached their presumed destination, any resistance he had would crumble away.

So he jerked away, resulting in him tumbling off the bed and pulling a good portion of the blankets and a pillow on top of him.

"--I-I-I t-told y-you t-that." He still wasn't thinking clearly enough to realize she probably forgot already--he was almost beginning to wonder if she had anterograde amnesia, but she clearly recalled at least general ideas if not specifics.

He just hoped she understood that there was a difference between liking her like that and being attracted to her, because there was plenty of evidence supporting the idea that he was the latter.

There was a lot of silence between them after that. It wasn't long after-- in fact, it was kind of immediately after the fact --that the two of them got dressed and started out. Kaze fashioned herself with her dress again and pulled her hair back into two lengthy pigtails-- and they were off, out of the Tsukimono household once again.

Quietly.

Unnervingly so.

"I-- I-- um . . ." Kaze whispered nervously before going silent again.

They were walking with approximately six feet of space between them. Kaze was noticeably nervous and extremely embarrassed. Without a doubt, she had touched something. She could have sworn she had. The knowledge that she had done that to Eld, whether or not he was already in love with someone else, was a terrifying realization that made her feel like what the man in the bar had called her yesterday, whatever it was that he had called her. It didn't make her feel good at all.

However, what hurt worse was the idea that Eld was a little upset with her. As Kaze walked, she nervously glanced at him, only to avert her eyes again-- and then look back.

"I'm really sorry!" she blurted out at last, "I completely forgot! Pl--please don't don't be mad-- I really didn't mean to forget, I promise!"