His gaze ran up at the sky, and watched how a small spark of orange exploded and scattered into the form of a flower. This was only the start, and he was, quite frankly, getting impatient. He held his cup of sake by his lips, and took a drink... It was sure worth the money it cost him. One of the best drinks he's ever had.<br/><br/>The steps of someone behind him warned him of the coming of another person that found his or her way up the roof of a house, on the edge of which he sat. He didn't bother looking. The steps of a cat and silhouette with a waving mane of hair told him quite clearly whose presence it was. "Didn't you say you're afraid of heights?" he asked silently.<br/>"I am. But didn't you say you will share the sake when you get some?" a woman's voice replied back. She sat beside him, and crossed her legs underneath the fabric of a black hakama, similar to the one he himself wore.<br/>"You're persistent." he chuckled.<br/>"I bet you climbed up here to escape from sharing with me!" she accused him, theatrically turning her head away and pretending to be offended. She smelled of flowers... "Aren't you a jerk, Haruki?"<br/>"Not as much as you're a flirt, Nyoko." Haruki poked her with his elbow, and took another drink from the fine sake. Nyoko gazed into the distance, watching the starting fireworks.<br/><br/>All of a sudden, he stood up abruptly, and handed her his cup. "I wouldn't be mean to you. You can finish it, Nyo." A mischievous undertone could be heard in his voice, but before Nyoko glanced into the cup, he leaped up into the air, and plunged down from the precipice. A flash of black and red moved through the air, and disappeared somewhere in the crowd.<br/>Only then she noticed that the cup was completely empty. Typical Haruki.<br/>"You bastard!" she yelled after him, and climbed to her feet to run down from the roof and find her comrade.<br/><br/>Haruki was, however, already far from her. He passed through the crowd that has gathered between the stands, and was just making his way towards the river to get a good place to watch the fireworks. Was.<br/><br/>Till someone threw a bottle at him. He could feel a faint pressure between his shoulderblades... And something dripping down his long hair. His face, till then content, turned into an expression of utmost rage.<br/>The sound of shattering glass warned him of the bottle that just broke on the ground, and he turned around and leaped over the shards, walking with long steps in the direction from which it came. How could someone be so careless? His hair was now completely soaked, and he hated it, he loathed it from the bottom of his heart! This someone just asked for a punch that would launch him higher than a firework!<br/><br/>There was some startled stranger in that exact direction. Haruki quickly figured out that it must have been him that threw the bottle - no one else so suspicious would be in sight. He raked through his crimson hair, and his narrowed eyes' gaze was aimed at that man, as sharp as the blade of his sword, hanging by his side. His other hand was clenched into a heavy fist.<br/><br/>"Explain me what was that supposed to mean." he growled at him, keeping his head up. "And do it now, otherwise I'm going to beat the hell out of you. What piece of trash throws bottles at people?"