A Dash of Chili Powder

114

[Mine was bad too. ><]

Amaya blinked her wide purple eyes, the breath stolen from her lungs as Rage suddenly embraced her. She huffed and let out a soft whimper, instinctively throwing her small arms around him, holding onto him for dear life. 

And she just...let herself go.

All the pain and suffering, misunderstandings, hurt, confusion, disgust, self-loathing, bottling, disappointment, fear, unknown feeling... All of it just poured out of her face in tiny moans of sadness, streams of unstoppable tears. She couldn't hold it in anymore. She couldn't stand it. She never thought about it until now.

But now that she did, she only cried harder.

Amaya closed her purple eyes and held on tighter, hiccuping and choking on each tiny tear. "Rage-kun," she whimpered softly. "Rage... R-Rage..."

Gracie

Rage flinched back a little when Amaya hugged him tightly, as if her tears would wash her away. She kept repeating his name while he knelt in total shock.

A strange kind of warmth overtook him as he hugged this cold girl. His panic and self-consciousness and unease dimmed like the relief of heat after spending a long time in the cold.

He didn't know what had upset Amaya, or if she had even been upset at all, but Rage knew she'd needed this. She'd needed to cry. He closed his eyes and kept his arms around her securely but gently, in an accepting, empathetic embrace.

Me

She whimpered helplessly, sniffling and hiccuping in Rage's arms. She held him tightly, burying her face into his shoulder, and she tugged on a lock of his soft, short dark hair. "I have to go," she mumbled somberly.

To be quite honest, Amaya didn't want to go on that mission today. She didn't want to go track some stupid jackass and hunt him down. She didn't want to do anything in regards to her shinobi life. She wanted to take a break. She wanted to stay with Rage. She wanted the comfort that the tall boy offered.

But she still had duties to her village.

She sighed quietly and gently pulled free of Rage's arms, releasing him and she fished around in her satchel. Pulling up one of his gargantuan hands, she delicately placed a piece of peach candy in his palm.

[Its okay ><]

Gracie

He didn't want to let her go. There was no way Amaya - no, any person - could properly function on a mission in such a state. But the hands that softly took his arms from around the girl made Rage relent. Grudgingly, but relenting all the same.

Rage let his arms drop and he sat back on his feet while he knelt, orange eyes on Amaya's bare feet. He didn't realize right away that this meant she was still there until her cold hand took his right one. His eyes blinked in wonder as Amaya placed a round peach candy in the center of his palm. Rage stared at the confection the color of his own eyes without any real reason to stare.

Maybe he was buying time. For some reason, he didn't want to look up and see Amaya's tear-stained face. He dreaded it. The sight would probably choke him up. Someone like Amaya shouldn't ever be made to cry.

What an odd thought.

Rage finally popped the candy into his mouth, relishing in the sweetness that washed over his tongue. He gave her ginger cookies, and peach candies were the return gift. It was a strange ritual, but Rage liked it. It meant that, if nothing else about their strange relationship was special, at least this aspect was. That thought made him happy and a little sad.

He brushed a trailing tear from Amaya's cheek with his thumb without really thinking about it, and then stood up. He bowed to her a little before leaving her room.

[In a way, I see Rage as a peach candy and Amaya as a ginger cookie. Rage is sweet but not overpowering - in fact he has a dulled flavor. He's a treat to be enjoyed quietly and gently. Amaya, however, comes with spice and can knock you off-balance if you're not ready for what you're about to taste. But if you know her, you can appreciate her spiciness. ^w^]