A/N

If you haven't read "Breathless" I urge you to read that before you read this. This is the second companion piece to that, so, it would make more sense if you did.

TMoh

Joie de Vivre

"Just this once, let me breathe into your heart…"

Her lips are a peach color, sometimes even darker when she holds that smoking white stick between her teeth like a stick of candy.

He's not sure what it would taste like, her lips on his, but sometimes when they just sit there under the crying red hues of the sunset, he looks at her and he can imagine it. He imagines that of course her being a woman, it would be soft, but at the same time it would be hard, because he's harsh and she's obviously grown from a soft child to a rock hard adult. There would be smoke, due to their obvious nicotine addiction—one that he's glad she shares with him—but, there might be the slight twang of sweet and sour acidity slowly melting between their skin like sugar in bitter coffee.

It's a crap analogy, but her sleeping on his chest, again, deems to be a pretty good excuse to him not thinking straightly. He hasn't had anything to drink, with the minor exception of some tasteless red wine she practically forced down his throat earlier that evening, so, he can only think that the only reason he can't think isn't because of her but because the room has suddenly become unbearably stuffy. The little voice in his head screams 'denial' but he ignores it.

She's curled up on his bed like a helpless little girl, her arms wrapped around his sheets like a lifeline, while one of her hands cradles her bandanna, fingers etching little circles into the plain blue stitched pattern. She shifts, and he can feel the softest of breaths of her lotion fed skin against his wiry calf. Needling his way out from under her, he stands, still in the customary suit and blazer that comes with the job. With her like that in his bed and absolutely no innuendo to be found, he needs a smoke and now.

With a swipe of his hand, he grabs the pack of cigarettes and saunters out to the balcony where the sun is just beginning to set, the clouds throbbing red and pink on the tops of the nearby skyscrapers. He's always had it in for the sunset, the way it bleeds and it ends in a fantastic rapture of colors, while slowly the tips curl into a sickening bruise. In some ways, it reminds him of her, because some moments, he'll see her, the women behind the playful mask. Cryptic and enigmatic and all the other words that spell 'mysterious', that's what she is when she thinks nobody is looking,. She smokes and she laughs and she sneaks through his window and watches the same sunset with him, but behind that, she cries and she wants to kill, and she wants, wants, wants, it all to just go away so she can stop smiling for the whole cheerful shining world.

Sometimes, she comes to his place early and falls asleep, all humorous façade dilapidated for a straight sad smile etched into her cheeks as she mutters jumbled and frantic phrases in her native language. He never understands what she is saying, only that she's apologizing or pleading forgiveness in such a way that he wants to just grab her shoulders and kiss her awake until they both can't breathe, taking in the reckless abandon residing in their lungs.

'but…' he thinks to himself, taking in the last lingering fingers of the sun, with the cigarette held crookedly between his lips, 'I couldn't…wouldn't…'

Kissing her…it would be so…unfathomable. If she let him…if he let himself…

He laughs at the shadow of himself stretched to unsightly proportions on the wall behind him, before sliding the glass doors open, leaving them untouched as he ambles to the kitchen. She's awake now, he can tell by the confused and perplexed shuffling in the bedroom. She's pulling on her boots and when she emerges, he's stirring something in a pot and smoking his third cigarette, staring at the mixture like he would a death sentence.

Cocky, assured, and plain terrified, all at the same time.

Her hair is a pure rat's nest, the knots tangled on the top of her head like a bush in the dessert, wild and untamed. The red rings around her eyes prove that she drank a bit too much wine than her small frame can take, and the pucker of her lips say one thing. I need a cigarette, and now.

He takes his hand off the ladle, and fumbles in his pocket halfheartedly before she groans in exasperation, folding her hand on her hip while bopping her way through the cluttered mess of milk cartons and foldable chairs. As his fingers brush against the cardboard box in his pocket, her fingers deft and small, snatch the smoking stick from between his lips, before she closes her mouth around it, sucking on it like a piece of chocolate.

"Mmmhmmm…" she smiles, teetering around before plopping brusquely on a squeaking metal chair in the corner of the kitchen, "just what I needed…"

He turns back to the pot, shifting out another cigarette and content with just holding it between his lips, the corner of his gaze lazily resting on her pert figure, which is shifting around in the chair, trying to get comfortable. By the time he snaps the burner off, declaring his pasta concoction to the world in silent reverie, she's upside-down, her back resting against the seat and her long legs splayed up and over the back of the chair. He can see the pale cream of her thighs right where they end at her high socks and begin at the cuffs of her tan shorts. Willing his wandering eyes away, he manages in a scratchy voice, now rummaging through his other pocket, because this time, it's him that needs the cigarette. And he blames it in that whiny imaginary voice, 'It's all because of her'

"Just make sure you don't choke on that, sugar, I'm not one for mouth to mouth resuscitation."

She just giggles, a short spout of illiterate twittering chirps that frankly, bug the hell out of him, because he can't for the life of himself, understand the secret meaning behind them.

He never has been good with that kind of thing concerning girls, and he prides himself wholly on the others when they manage to drift themselves into the conversation.

"Really, Turkey? I always thought you were a mouth to mouth kind of guy…eh…guess I was wrong."

He leers at her before slapping heaping portions of pasta in two plastic colored bowls, trying to keep his eyes on the wall and not her lips pushing and prodding the cigarette in little rotations. She sits upright again, fixing her stare straight at him while flicking the leftover cigarette in a lone ashtray lying on the floor.

"Nah, you're totally right, sugar, but, I don't kiss kids. I'm a ladies' man, not a babysitter."

He hands one bowl to her—the red one—while he keeps the blue one to himself, grabbing two forks and flopping down cross-legged on the floor across from her. Nonchalantly, he hands her a fork and shovels a red starchy blob into his mouth, pinning the still smoldering cigarette between his two fingers. He's just staring, staring, staring, at a vacant spot on the tiled floor, while she contemplates the steaming bowl of food nestled comfortably in her lap. Her voice is tight, mocking, and drawn out, lips twisting upwards in what seems to be a sneer, but her knows her well enough that it's just confusion.

"What…is…this…?"

Through a mouthful of chicken and tomato sauce, he waves the fork in a midair dance, lingering the points at her before digging into the bowl again, a fleck of red on the corner of his lips. Briefly, she wonders what he would do if she went over and wiped it off with her finger—or better yet, kissed it off, letting her lips remain near his for the tiniest of seconds. 'He'd kill me…totally, indefinitely make sure I'd never be able to open my mouth or walk again…' Then she remembers his latest words, and mentally cringes. 'I don't kiss kids…'

Her mind protests loudly, as if she can hear herself proclaiming in a whiny voice. 'I AM NOT A KID'

Then she realizes that he's started talking, and pretends with a jerky little nod of her chin, that she's been hearing him the whole time.

"—consists of tomato sauce, chicken or some kind of other bird, spices, and noodles that resided in the back of my cabinet. All four food groups, every kid needs 'em."

She ignores the obvious put down, and stirs it vacantly with her fork, her eyebrow still raised at the blend of white blobs, and red blobs, mixed with some kind of stringy cheese she just hopes is parmesan.

"So…since this is chicken…does this mean Turkey here is an apparent carnivorous cannibal?" she gasps mockingly, smiling widely at his lips, which are twisting into an irritated frown, "how horrifying!"

She scoops at a piece of chicken, bringing it up to her lips and licking it inquisitively, before stuffing the whole chunk into her mouth, chewing experimentally. He forces himself to look away, because her tongue darting out of those pale pink lips is just too much, even for him.

"Though I have to say…" she manages through a stuffed mouth, her smile pleased and evidently satisfied with the taste, "your little chicken girlfriend tastes pretty damn good…"

'Not as good as you would…' he thinks before he can even stop himself, his body turning rigid as he stares straight down at the bowl, studying the pattern of the noodles, and how they crisscross against each other. He needs to change the subject… 'Or else, she's going to bring me to an early death…' he thinks resentfully,

"Did you know that you talk in your sleep, kid?"

Her look is indifferent as she stabs a few more of the pasta and a stray scrap of chicken and briskly shoves it into her mouth. "Really…mmm…what did I say?"

Stubbing the cigarette out in his cup, he frowns, running through his hair with long lean fingers.

"I don't know, couldn't understand a thing…"

And then he realizes whether she's talking in her sleep or just sitting there in his kitchen, spearing pasta mercilessly with a fork, beyond her smiles, he hasn't understood a single thing.

He finds that somehow, after all the times he's declared to himself and on occasion to the whole world, that she's an annoying little twenty something year old brat who doesn't have a grip on life, he finds, he wants to know her. That scares him, that little feeling in his gut that smiles at the stupidest things he learns about her.

She likes the sunset, she likes his cigarettes, she doesn't like doors, and she likes him—at least he wishes she does.

"Hey, kid, how do you get through my window anyway, we're like on the…second story…"

She mumbles through a mouthful of tomato paste, her grin growing wider as she stuffs the last remaining pieces into her mouth, setting the bowl down with the loud smack of plastic.

"Mmm, fire escape, Turkey. And we're on the third floor. Just so you know, an' all."

"I knew all of those…"

"Sure you did, Turkey, sure you did."

Giggling, she gets up and stretches, her arms splayed out in front of her, while the front of her tank top dips dangerously forward. The sinewy muscles in her legs are flexing and then relaxing, a smooth rippling wave of skin and tissue. He can't help but stare openly as she flicks her hand in front of his face, waving it teasingly with a smirk.

"Nuh-uh, no looking you old pervert Turkey."

He stands up, chest hovering dangerously close to her own, the bowls now forgotten in the mess of his kitchen. They stare at each, the silence eating up the rumbling sounds of evening traffic and the singing of the wind chimes on the neighbor's porch. It covers everything up, and they just can't look away, feeling the rapid beat of their hearts rising and rising until one of them just has to say something or else they might suffocate. So he inches forward a little more his eyes still smoldering.

She chuckles nervously in the back of her throat and he decides that now would be a good time to start talking. 'Or else I'll black out or something…' he thinks slowly, trying to choose words that won't make the two of them more nervous than they already are.

"So…why the window?" he asks, his hand edging towards the tips of her inky jet black hair and then curling into a fist by the side of his hip.

She's in her lazy standard pose now, one hand on a hip and the other in front of her face, as she makes a show of scrupulously inspecting her nails. Her voice is still tipped with a jumpy edge though, and he thinks wryly that he can actually know when she's uneasy. 'Though…she doesn't make it that hard to tell…'

"Because people that use doors have no imagination."

He counters, lips teetering into a dangerous snaky smirk.

"I use the front door…"

"I guess you just don't have any imagination then, Turkey."

He sees her look impassively back to her nails, eyes fading into a cloudy glass surface as she smiles in a slapdash fashion.

She thinks for a second that his smile is way better than hers, with light lips and attitude, and that certain softness that she'd like to touch with her finger tips. And he's thinking the same thing about her; because they're so much more alike then they'd like to admit. He's closer when she looks up from her hand, his left pinky just lightly tracing the line on her lower lip before ghosting effortlessly over the top.

"On the contrary, sugar, I have much more imagination then you'd think."

His voice is low and though it's not dark, it's not lighthearted either. She shudders, because of his finger, and because of his voice, which she has discovered is a raw grating song, pelting against her skin like rain on pavement.

Her voice is light and it is wavering, and it's appropriate because of the way he's looking at her, and because of the way his words travel roughly up her spine and make her just a little light headed.

"Y-you sure?"

He's so close, too close she thinks, for comfort, though in a way, she's the most comfortable she's ever been around him.

He replies slowly and she doesn't know it, but he's not too sure of himself at the moment, just like she's not too sure what exactly he's thinking.

He mutters, lips slowly brushing against her own in the lightest of frictions, though she can feel a million sparks flying between them.

"Yeah…"

He finds that he wants to say more, but before he can, her lips are pushed against his, and his hands are suddenly on her face, thumbs brushing against the soft peach fuzz skin of her cheek. She doesn't know how long they're standing there in the middle of the kitchen, kissing each other like two young students who have just figured out how to kiss, but she knows that when he pulls away, her lips cherry red from contact and heat; that it hasn't been long enough. He backs away even further and she starts to rapidly pace, practically jumping over the papers and a certain blue plastic bowl to get to the bedroom. He follows and stops when he finds her standing in front of the window, another cigarette in her mouth unlit as she looks at the dimming cityscape.

"..This was…this is…it was a mistake."

She just keeps silent as he says this while trying not to stumble all over the words, the headlights of a car on the street below flashing off and on, loud rock music rumbling from the half open doors. She's halfway out the window now, and he steps forward.

He wants to stop her, but he doesn't know how.

He doesn't know why.

And she doesn't know why she's running away; she just knows that she is.

Her hands grip onto the bright orange of the fire escape, and she risks a look at him.

"A mistake is something you regret for the rest of your life. I don't regret it…do you?"

He answers back with a straight face, his eyes staring at his feet.

"I should."

She laughs, at herself, and at his pitiful tone before she crawls all the way out, hanging to the ladder, one of her legs dangling limply.

"You should lock your window…" he looks up to see her smile sadly, eyes hard and vacant like they were when he first met her, he can see the tendons in her fingers tighten, and she ignores his eyes on her face, "you really should, or else, someone could get through."

Then, in a ringing of boots on metal, she scrambles down the ladder and he stares until he sees her disappear, letting himself stand and then cower weakly on the bed, one arm over his eyes.

He wants to know her, but he doesn't know how, so he pulls a cigarette out of his pocket, along with a ragged drawing that she scribbled one day on the back of a receipt. There are two stick figures, and one is hanging on the side of a couch, while the other lies snoring on the ground, the Z's above its head making it startlingly obvious that it's asleep.

One has black hair, the other stop sign red, and in one motion, he crumples the paper in his palm and tosses it onto the floor.

He's kissed her, and he's looked into her eyes while he's done it. He's tasted the smoke on her mouth, and he's seen the lonely shadows in her eyes, as she desperately tries to drink him up. He likes to think that somehow, he breathed a little into her heart, but, he doesn't know how to tell. He doesn't know how to do a lot of things, mostly things concerning her.

In her own way, like him, as she walks down the street, the taste of smoke and tomato's still strong in her mouth, she feels enlightened, but at the same time, she feels like she gave it all away, and didn't get anything back. She doesn't know if he locked the window like she told him to—deep, deep, deep, inside, she wishes with all her heart that he won't ever close that damn window—but, she's too tired to check.

She wonders how on earth she ever survived without a friend like him, and that someday, she'll walk through his door, and with a kiss, they won't be friends any longer. She wants that to happen anyway—not like it ever will—but sometimes, a girl has to dream, and forget that it will never happen.

In the smoky haze of his apartment, on his sixth cigarette, he breathes it in, and suddenly like that, he knows that she wants him to want to be with her.

He just doesn't know how.

Until he does, outside of his apartment she'll stare at the door diffidently, and inside on his bed, he'll gaze at his window, a cigarette smoking between his lips, while he watches the cream curtains ripple from the breeze.

A/N

I really wasn't impressed with this when I first started the beggining. I kept having to do little touch ups here and there to get the effect I wanted, but in the end, it turned out okay. I didn't want it to have way too much fluff and drama, but, I couldn't not have a little Reno/Yuffie drama somewhere in this trilogy, so most of it's in this one. I just pray that it's not too overhwelming and cheesy.

The third one should be out by next next, hopefully, so, wait, wait wait.

And thank you previous readers for reviewing the last one, and of course even if you didn't review, i'm always happy that someone is reading my work.

Joie de Vivre-Joy of Life-in rough French translation.

Feedback's a babe with sunglasses,

Until the next one,

TMoh.