Nick stretched, yawning hugely, feeling comfortable and at peace. He remembered where he was and lay motionless, savoring the cool cross breeze that drifted through open windows of the apartment. His mansion in Bel Air was climate controlled in every way, and was always the perfect, thermostat-set temperature, silent and comfortable; he'd almost forgotten this feeling, this slight morning chill that came from having your windows open all night, of hearing the cacophony of birdsong and children, of lawnmowers and sprinklers. It brought back memories of his childhood in Brooklyn.

He turned his head to look at Sumire, who slept next to him. Her braid lay next to her head on the pillow, and he again marveled that in the months he'd known her he'd never seen her hair uncoiled in all its glory like this. The mouse on her face had darkened and spread to color the area under her eye and along her cheek, and Nick could see, now that it was daylight, a long scratch, caused perhaps by a ring on her attacker's finger when he'd punched her.

He looked at her hands, which lay on top of the quilt, loosely curled, relaxed, and he saw that she had chafe marks around her wrists. Two or three fingers on each hand had fingernails that were ripped down to the quick and bloodied, and must have been very painful. How tall was she? He, Nick, was six foot three, which made him nearly too tall for modeling, and Sumire barely came to his shoulder; maybe five three? And could she weigh a hundred ten pounds?

She was tiny.

They should've been able to snap her in half like a bread stick.

How, how had she fought off those two animals, all alone, with no weapons but her two small hands?

He kept thinking of her, on the messed up bed, Larry of the pony tail, with his meaty hands, holding her vulnerable wrists over her head as Danny tried to open her legs. Then, somehow, she'd performed the time honored move of kicking him in the family jewels, and then she'd flexed her lower body up over her head and kicked Larry in the head, thereby effectually disabling both of them.

He, Nick, probably couldn't have done such a thing, even though he was a foot taller, and outweighed her by at least sixty pounds. He couldn't reconcile the person sleeping in front of him with the fighter who had performed the feats of the night before. He reached out and smoothed some hair off her forehead, because she was sleeping and he knew he could.

She turned her head away in her sleep, brows drawing together slightly.

Nick heard a light tapping at the door, and quickly got out of bed before it could awaken Sumire.

"Nishimura-san, good morning," he said, opening the door and stepping out. "How can I help you?"

"Good morning, Nick-san," she replied with a smile, giving a slight bow. "I was looking for Sumire-chan, is she still sleeping?"

"She is, but I'm sure she'll be up very soon," he responded.

"Well, she's supposed to help me spread some ground cover and mulch back here? And the gardening center just called and said they can deliver it today instead of next week if I can take delivery, so I was coming to check if she was free, you see. I'd rather get it done today, because next week it's supposed to get up in the hundreds." The woman made a face of discomfort. "That doesn't sound very nice, does it?" She shook her head.

"Well, Sumire-chan took a nasty spill last night, and she's really, really sore, so I doubt she'll be in any shape to help you today," Nick began.

Nishimura-san leaned back, putting her hand over her mouth. "Oh, dear. Is she okay? I'll tell the gardening center to just wait until next week then--" she turned to go.

"No, Nishimura-san, Nishimura-san, please, listen--" Nick entreated, reaching for her hands. "I'm free today, as it happens, Sumire-chan and I were just going to run lines, so this is perfect! I'll help you, and she can sit in the shade and help me, see? This will get me out in the sun, get me a little exercise, which I desperately need, and it will keep her immobile and quiet, which she desperately needs as well." He looked down at the woman's face. "You know what she's like, you know how she tries to do too much. If you and I are working, she'll have nothing to do but sit in the shade and call out my lines to me. Perfect, like I said." He smiled at her.

"But, you're a big, famous movie star," Nishimura-san said doubtfully. "You really want to help an old woman spread mulch in her garden? Haul bark all over the place?"

"I can't think of a better way to spend a sunny day," Nick said truthfully, putting his hands on her shoulders. "Just give me some time to run home and get some clothes? Maybe grab a cappuccino?"

"Of course, of course," she answered, nodding. "They won't be delivering for a couple hours, anyway. She patted Nick's chest as she smiled. "Oh, how wonderful, thank you, Nick-san, domo arigato!"

"My pleasure," he answered as she went down the steps.

He went inside to tell Sumire the plan.

She was just sitting up in bed, moving very carefully, making a face as she did so.

"Oh dear Jesus god, I feel the way I felt the first time I ever went riding with my cousins in Boston," she moaned. "We left in the morning, and rode all day, and I felt great, but the next day I felt like I'd been tortured on a rack."

She looked over at Nick. "Did I hear you talking to Nishimura-san?" she asked.

He nodded, and told her about the mulch/bark plan.

"Oh, no, Nick, you don't have to do that," she protested. "I can do it. I just need to hop out of bed and take a hot shower, you know, get my muscles warmed up and all that?"

Nick gave her a look. "Yeah? Let's see you 'hop out of bed,' then," he said skeptically, crossing his arms.

She swallowed gamely, made her hands into fists and pressed down on the mattress, trying to move her body to the edge of the bed. She gritted her teeth as a squeak of protest escaped her. She tried again, and finally accepted defeat, letting her breath out and relaxing where she sat.

"Okay, maybe I'm not up to hauling around bags of mulch," she admitted. "But that doesn't mean you have to do it."

"If not me, then who?" he countered. "They're already coming to deliver it today, and she certainly can't take care of it herself. I need to hit the gym today or something, get in some kind of exercise, and this is something I can do while I run lines with you, so it kills two birds, right? Not to mention it gets me outside, which is a nice change." He smiled at her. "Now can we get you in the shower so I can run home and grab some clothes, get this show on the road already?"

Sumire shrugged. "Sounds like you've got the whole thing figured out already, so I'll just shut my mouth, I guess."

So Nick quickly got her unbuttoned and left her in the bathroom, after which he got her buttoned into a fresh shirt with a minimum of fuss. The only dicey part of the whole maneuver was getting Sumire into her bra. This morning, she couldn't lift either of her arms very well, so he had to fit the front over her as well, which he did, as quickly and efficiently as he could, from behind. He forced himself to think about football statistics, going to the dentist, and playing video games with his brothers, and not the soft, fragrant girl standing in front of him. His hands trembled as he hooked the back of the pink lace over her fine back, but he got it done without touching her skin, and quickly pulled the sleeves of her shirt over her arms and buttoned her up, leaving her standing there as he got her breakfast and left it out before leaving to go pick up some clothes.

When he returned, the supplies had been delivered, and Sumire was already sitting on the shady patio with some iced tea and the script.

"Okay, I'm ready to haul some mulch," he declared, adjusting his LA Clippers baseball cap.

"And run lines," Sumire added with a smile.

So they began, with Nick doing the lion's share of the heavy lifting, and Nishimura-san doing the spreading, with the help of a rake.

"How would you guys have done this if I weren't here?" he asked at one point. "I mean, these bags weigh, like, twenty pounds each."

"Usually we use the wheelbarrow," Sumire answered. "Or we each take one end. It's going really fast today because of you." She didn't add that it was really fun to watch him work, too. He'd gotten warm and taken his shirt off, which only added to her enjoyment.

"Wheelbarrow? I should be doing that, too," Nick exclaimed. "I could move three bags at a time, and start helping with the spreading."

They went back to running lines as he used the wheelbarrow, with the working going much faster.

Nishimura-san said something to Sumire in Japanese, and Nick looked at her for a translation.

"She says you sound incredible," Sumire told him.

Nishimura-san nodded at Nick. "I can't believe you don't speak Japanese," she said. She turned back to Sumire and said something else.

"No," Sumire protested.

"Now that I understood," Nick interjected as he cut open a bag of mulch and began to spread it. "And I agree. You are an amazing actress, Mimi-chan." What he was thinking, but didn't add, was that he found it absolutely incredible that someone who lived her life so controlled, so throttled, could be so uninhibited and free when reading a character. She had the ability to completely lose herself and become unrestrained when playing a character. He wondered if she could do it when motion was involved, and not just reading. If so, then the next step was to see if she could it in front of a camera, in front of other people; if she could, then the sky was the limit.

"You understood her?" Sumire repeated in disbelief. "When we started this, it never occurred to me that you'd actually learn Japanese, Nick. I mean, more than a few phrases here and there. Your linguistic ability is unbelievable. Japanese isn't like English, it's really, really hard."

"What? I thought English is really hard," Nick said, turning around to face her.

Sumire gave him her small smile. "That's kind of a myth perpetuated by English speakers. If you mapped out the English grammar, you'd see that it has a relatively simple deep structure, compared to, say, Chinese, or Finnish, Russian, or Japanese. Spelling in English can get gnarly, because it's an amalgamation of Latin, Greek, Germanic, and proto-Indo-European, but even then, it's just a matter of having a certain kind of memory, you know? It doesn't take brains."

"Bummer," Nick declared. "So knowing English doesn't make me, like, some kind of genius?" he asked with a smile.

"Just think about this," Sumire countered. "The next time a reporter on the news is interviewing students in China or the Netherlands or wherever about something, first of all, just realize that those students are being interviewed in English, which is their second language, you know? Then ask yourself if students in America could be interviewed for Dutch or Chinese news in Dutch or Mandarin? Probably not. There's a reason English is taught all over the world as the default second language."

They continued to work and run lines until late afternoon, by which time all of the mulch was spread. Nishimura-san offered to buy them dinner, but Sumire demurred, and Nick followed her lead. Nishimura-san finally gave up bowing and thanking them over and over as she went into her house.

"Isn't she the cutest?" Sumire asked, shaking her head.

"She's a doll," Nick agreed, taking his gloves off and hitting them against each other to remove some of the dust. He pulled his relatively clean shirt on.

Sumire tried to rise from her chair and gave a little squeak of anguish as her body protested. She'd been sitting in the same position all afternoon, and her body had stiffened up again.

"This is going to take a while," she said in a hissing whisper as she sank back into her chair.

"How did you get down here?" Nick asked, crouching next to her.

"I was a little warmed up from my shower, I guess? I don't know," Sumire answered. "I'll be okay," she tried to assure Nick. "You go home, you must be dying for a shower and all that. I'll just take my time, I have all night," she joked.

"I'm not leaving you," Nick said, shocked. "I brought clean clothes and PJs and everything. I'm staying."

"What? Nick-san, no," Sumire protested. "Please, you've already done so much. Really, I'll be fine. Go home. I feel so bad, keeping you here."

"Absolutely not," he replied. The truth was that he enjoyed her homey, cheerful little apartment. His mansion felt cold, almost austere, compared to her place, and he didn't like being there. "In fact--"

He surprised her by reaching out and picking her up, forcing her to grab him around his neck to keep from falling.

She let out another squeak, this one of surprise, as she was lifted high off the ground in the warm dusk.

"Nick! Nick, no, I can walk!"

"How? How can you walk when you can't even stand?" he asked reasonably. "Please, tell me how you're going to manage all these stairs, hm?" As usual, he took them, two at a time, making it look effortless.

"Nick, stop! Stop I can do--"

"Oh, shut up, we're already here," he shushed her, lowering her feet carefully on her porch.

"Oh." She looked around. "Oh. Well, thank you. Very much."

"You're welcome." He grinned at her. "Now, how about shower, pizza, and a movie?"

She gave him a look. "Sounds good. Really good."

"Great." He bopped her nose. "I'll shower first, since I'm dirtier, if that's okay?"

"Um. Sure. Sure, Nick-san. And thank you again. For everything."

"You're very welcome again, Mimi-chan."