1. Spark

"Would you put some clothes on?" Hanabi threw Konohamaru's shirt from the previous night at his head.

"Ow, take it easy would you? What, do you never get hangovers or something?" Konohamaru rubbed his pounding head as he stumbled out of his bedroom, trying to remember the night before. It was all clear in his head up to the point the mess with Shino's insects was cleared up. He thought he remembered offering to walk Hanabi home? How they ended up here he had no idea. He'd been on duty so much recently he'd forgotten what it was like to kick back and relax; clearly he'd taken it a step too far last night.

Hanabi was sat at his kitchen counter nursing a mug of coffee. She handed him his own as he chucked the shirt on, and he immediately reached for the aspirin. She chuckled, "I guess we went a little overboard last night huh?" Her soft, sympathetic smile made his heart jump a little bit; he was so used to the tough, playful Hanabi that this almost caught him off-guard.

"Yeah you don't say..." he said, thinking of their current predicament. They looked at each other awkwardly. He decided to just come out with it; being tactful was never really hid forte. "Do we talk about last night? Us? Any of it?" he asked, letting Hanabi take the reins on this.

She just laughed. "We're not kids anymore, Konohamaru. You can say the word, we had sex." Her hand grazed his as she leaned across to grab a spoon. His mind was immediately taken back to last night, the feeling of her soft skin against his. He snapped back to attention when she started talking again. "And although it was very nice, we won't be doing that again."

"Nice?" Konohamaru said incredulously. "It was just nice? Were we in different rooms? Because I was killing in there from what I remember." Hanabi rolled her eyes as she sipped her coffee.

"It was great, okay? You killed it," she appeased, earning a grin from Konohamaru, "but we can't let that happen again. We're too close; we're friends, colleagues, hell we're almost family. We can't let that become awkward, we have to just be as... normal as possible. Think you can manage that?" she asked reluctantly. She knew what she wanted but she was also smart enough to know what was right.

"Yeah, absolutely, you read my mind." He'd been setting himself up for disappointment since she started talking. When he looked at her face he suddenly thought there was nothing more beautiful, and he'd been blind not to see it before. Why had he never noticed her this way before? But she was right, there was too much danger in this continuing so things had to be normal between them. It was just up to Konohamaru to now figure out how to go back to normal.

A whole week went by; the two met as normal, talked as normal and interacted as normal so no one would suspect a thing. All would have been fine; except the whole week Konohamaru couldn't stop thinking about Hanabi. Every time she laughed it sounded more beautiful in his head; every time she told a joke or shared some advice he found himself in awe of her humour and intellect. What was happening to him? Finally, he decided to pick up the phone on Friday night.

Hanabi sat with her phone in her hand debating whether to call or not. She had once made so much fun of her sister for agonising over love, but now she realised how complicated it all was. Why couldn't she get him out of her head? If he was able to act normal so easily, why couldn't she? Why did she catch herself daydreaming about the smallest things; his eyes or his hands, or even just the way he said her name? She groaned in frustration. Of course this was all stupid. They were never going to be together, she knew that. But would it hurt to call him over tonight?

She jumped as her phone rang. She didn't even have time to read the full name; she just picked up as soon as she saw the 'K'. "Hello?"

"Hey, Hanabi, it's me. Listen, I know we said we were going to put all that stuff from last week behind us but-"

"Can I come over tonight?" she blurted out, instantly cringing over her eagerness that she just couldn't hide.

There was an audible sigh on the other end of the line. "See you in twenty? I need to tidy up a bit."

Her mouth curled into a smile. "Absolutely. And Konohamaru?"

"Yeah?"

"You better be killing it again tonight." They both smiled at that.

"Roger that."