After the sake had been poured, it had seemed that Tenzo was becoming more comfortable around her; he had even laughed at her little jest. Similar to most people, Kameko liked to set people at ease and have enjoyable times. However, the frivolity did not last long. Her casual query brought up the dark matter which had caused his family to leave Konohagakure. The massacre had been terrible, but having grown up in Kumogakure, the long-past event had not affected her village nor anyone that she had personally met or known; had she been too trivial in her conversation-making? It certainly had not been her intent to force his thoughts to the Uchiha’s bloody past, but she had done so; consequently, the young man abruptly shut down, closing himself off again. Blue eyes watched, full of concern, as Tenzo threw back the little cup of sake as though it was a liquor meant to be shot, before getting up and stalking over to the window.

A moment of uncomfortable silence passed between them. There was little that she could say that would be adequate at this point, and she half expected him to turn on his heel and walk right out of her room. She watched his back, and was surprised when he addressed her again, beckoning for her to join him. Rising, she left the drinks on the table and joined him in the little space that he had made for her beside him. Hands rested lightly on the windowsill as she gazed out as his request. What she saw was obvious: Konoha at night. There was a way he asked it that suggested to her that that was not what he was asking. After a moment, she began, “I see the sky; the dark clouds hiding the moon and stars behind them, lit from below by Konohagakure.. The lights of the village, marking the lives of everyone here.” The landscape was so different here than up in the mountains of Kumogakure. After a moment, she commented, “Possibilities… so many different possibilities.”

As she spoke, the corners of her mouth turned up without her necessarily intending them to; just enough of a smile to where her youthful face creased with dimples. That was why she had come here. The landscape was new, and the climate was pleasantly warmer; however, those did not matter to her in the big scheme of things, for she was biased enough to think the there was no sight more beautiful than the mountains in Kaminari no Kuni. No, it had been the people here that had driven her to visit. The culture of this country was slightly different; it almost seemed that they were more cautious, more secretive by nature… though she refuted that idea the moment it crossed her mind for she certainly had not met enough people to make such an assessment. Really, it was just that they were new to her, and new things created new possibilities for growth and change. But for someone who grew up here, for whom this was all commonplace… “What do you see when you look at Konohagakure?” she asked Tenzo. The question was less of what he saw out her window but more of what he felt of the village that he served as shinobi. Did he see it as a violent place, one which had driven his people out generations ago, or was it more of his clan’s promised land, the place where he was destined to be as a bit of an ancestral home?

Kameko turned her head slightly as Tenzo moved behind her, keeping him in her peripheral vision. He gently laid his hands on her shoulders and pushed lightly on them, obliging her to take a step closer to the window. She remained thus for a moment, expecting him to point something out to her in the semi-darkness that lay over a light illuminated Konohagakure. Soon, he moved from speaking about the view to speaking about her own appearance. The young woman turned to face him as he spoke poetically, lavishing her with ever greater compliments, as smooth as any courtier; though he professed to have grown up from humble origins, he had picked up on a manner of speech with fit his clan’s noble reputation, even if it was a bit over-the-top. She offered a smile in response to the flattery; it did not send her heart aflutter, but it certainly catered to her vanity. “Most likely,” she confirmed in response to his question, with a light-hearted, teasing tone. The sudden eloquence led her to believe that he offered the praise in such a flowery way for dramatic effect, not out of strong feelings of genuine adoration.

As he changed the topic to answer her query and briefly summarized the history of the hidden village’s origins, the topic was a familiar one; it was something that she had been taught as a child in school. His words soon moved to more current events, and they portrayed his view as being a rather dark one. Tenzo seemed to be jumping from mood to mood, idea to idea. In one breath, he was playfully calling her beautiful beyond compare, and in the next, he was cynically claiming that all beautiful things existed to deceive, to hide ugliness underneath. It was true that she certainly wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies; she recognized that she fell prey to more than one of the seven deadly sins at different times, in varying degress. But, no… He wasn’t referring to her, but to the village where she hailed from, Kumogakure. “…this peace is nothing more than a lie.”

The words quelled her vanity in thinking that this discussion just had something to do with the two of them. Between his manner and his words, she sensed something darker than mere discontent, and the fact that he was sharing his doubts about Konoha with a foreigner, with a kunoichi from a rival village, suggested something more.. seditious… Her face must have shown some measure of the surprise she felt at the assertion, for the young man took a step back and continued, a measure of resentment creeping into his tone, before confessing that he said it all because he wanted no secrets between them.

It was hard for her to keep track of the connections that he was drawing which led to the jumps in topics, and she was caught off guard when he abruptly moved himself against her, his hands on the windowsill behind her neatly pinning her in the spot. The young woman reflexively leaned back, but she already stood close enough to the window that it made little difference in the space between them. Her hands had instinctively flown up at his sudden movement towards her, and her palms now rested lightly on the young man’s chest, at the moment neither pushing him away nor welcoming him any closer than the intimate proximity which he had already claimed. There was a moment where she just stared at him, her bright blue eyes wide with surprise as they met his ebony ones, as her pulse raced from the sudden closeness and the uncomfortable feeling of being trapped. Suddenly, she felt that she could understand how a caged animal might feel, and she became very still.

Kameko swallowed, before questioning, “What.. What are you asking of me?” Her voice was soft, half a whisper, but it was easy to hear when they were so close. The way that he jumped from idea to idea made it hard for her to keep clear what it was that they were talking about and what it was that he wanted from her. Besides her desiring to understand the answer to her query, her question also served to give her a moment to put her whirling thoughts together. She barely knew the man whom had trapped her within his arms, and while she did not understand his offer, she understood instinctively that she did not like the feeling of being penned in and considered ways to extricate herself from the situation, outwardly maintaining a neutral expression.

Through the thin material of her shirt, Kameko felt the warmth radiating off of Tenzo’s hand on her waist as he held her close while leaning in in an intimate manner. As he spoke into her ear, the feeling of his warm breath on her skin sent goosebumps down her arms, unseen beneath her sleeves. In other circumstances, it might have sparked more amorous feelings, but these were not those. Having felt as though she was penned in, trapped, she had immediately judged flight impossible, and her body had instinctively gone into the third, less spoken of, part of fight-or-flight: the freeze. It was a response that was not uncommon to the young woman; whenever there was conflict that she felt unable to deal with in the other two ways, she would make herself small and still, hearkening back to an prey's desire to avoid being noticed by a nearby predator, such as a rabbit holding absolutely still to avoid drawing the attention of the nearby cat. It wasn’t until he moved in to kiss her that she resisted, spurred into motion by his presumption.

Though they were close in height, only a couple of inches’ difference between them, Kameko had sensed that she would not be the victor if it came to a physical battle of wills between them, so she had initially sought to avoid letting it come to that. Now, those slender hands of hers exerted force against his muscular chest; it was not a shove, but a firm push against him, her refusal of his amorous gesture and her intention to recover the space between them clear. He was a stranger to her, and even more than that, his moods fluctuated from high to low from one moment to the next, making his next actions unpredictable to her; it was that foreignness which made his assertiveness read as domineering.

The young woman did not put enough force behind the gesture to compel him to step back if he chose to resist her, testing out who this man was before putting it to a conflict that she sought to avoid. She would have to take other measures should he refuse her silent request, but if he complied and stepped back, she would neatly step to her left, away from his hand on her waist and away from the confining wall, recovering some space to maneuver within. A blush colored her fair cheeks, but otherwise she was composed as she addressed him, “It’s getting late. I think you should go now, Tenzo.” The words she chose made it sound like a suggestion, but there was a clip to the ends of her words which made it sound more like a command.

Perhaps she should have recognized that this was what he had in mind when he showed up late at night with a bottle of sake. Although, despite the culture of the villages which sent youths into battle from a young age, it did not change the fact that she was still barely old enough to be considered an adult and retained enough naivety enough to be surprised by his forwardness. She considered it to be a good thing that she hadn't made much progress into her sake before he had called her over; it tended to lower her inhibitions, which was the main reason why she rarely drank.

It seemed that as Kameko’s tension eased with his backing away, Tenzo’s only rose. There was stiffness in the set of his shoulders, as those dark eyes of his fell to the floor, refusing to meet hers. The young man seemed genuinely contrite as he apologized to her, though the bashfulness seemed sharply at odds with his previous forwardness; perhaps it was being rejected that caused his abashment. She could not say that ‘it’s okay’ for if it was, she would not have needed to push him away, but she could accept the sentiment; she did so with a nod and replied in a slightly softer tone, one that did not have the same authoritative ring as she had previously delivered, “It was just a misunderstanding.”

Would that misunderstanding be forgotten in the near future? No, probably not; the silence required that something be said, and she wasn’t the type to create enemies when she could avoid it. Besides, there were those tendrils of remaining caution that warned to avoid a confrontation between them, despite his currently apologetic manner. She trailed behind him as he made his way back through the hotel room to the door and waited as he bent down to replace the sandals on his feet. When he straightened again he addressed her once more, as though to clarify that she had indeed turned him down. Whether his proposal was in regards to the political ramblings he had begun with or if he was referring to one of a more intimate nature, her answer was the same, and she did not correct his belief. Instead she said courteously, “Of course,” in response to his thanks.

His voice had taken on a hollow tone, the wind sucked out of his sails; the night had clearly not gone the way that he had planned, and although there was some ounce of regret that he was leaving on such a low note, she had no intentions on inviting him to stay longer. She sensed that any words that she might add would only sound as empty as his did to her, so she went for brevity rather than a false sense of cheeriness over a night which had without a doubt not ended as such. Her slender hand reached up, and nonchalantly, her fingers ran through her dark hair, brushing it back. She would not rush him to take his leave, since he made clear that that was his intent, and the small gesture was as much of a fidget as she offered to the awkwardness of the situation.