Chapter 7 - The Kiss

When I regained consciousness, I could feel a hand on my shoulder, shaking me lightly. It was Nazo-san. “Koizumi-chan, I’ve already paid, it’s time to go,” he said quietly.
“Okay, okay,” I replied sleepily.
He helped me up, and we walked out of the restaurant. “What was your vision about this time?”
I was still a bit disoriented. “Sosuke and Inu-kun were teaching me how to play guitar.”
“Sosuke is E.M.O’s guitarist, right?”
“Oh! Sorry about that. Yeah, that’s right, and Inu-kun is the nickname I gave their other guitarist.”
“The really tall one?”
“Yeah, that one.”
“Why do you call him Inu-kun?”
“Because sometimes his hair reminded me of dog ears.”
He laughed. “You give them such funny names.”
“Keep in mind that I was five years old when I made up these nicknames.”
“I bet you were very cute as a five year old.”
“Yeah, they dressed me up in Lolita outfits all the time.”
“How cute! Do I get to see the young you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember ever meeting you.”
That worried me a bit. If I had any sort of future with Nazo-san, surely I would have seen him as a child. I hoped sincerely that I had only forgotten my memories of meeting Nazo-san. He sensed that I was worried and squeezed my hand.
“I’m fine. I was just worrying over nothing,” I said reassuringly.
“Koizumi-chan? Can we play Shogi today?” he asked hesitantly as we entered the hotel elevator.
“Yes! We are definitely going to play Shogi today! No force on Earth can stop me from playing Shogi with you today.”
“Yay!” he waved his arms in the air and clapped.
The cuteness was at such a high level I thought that, if I didn’t hug him, I would spontaneously combust. He brought his hands down around me and rocked back and forth in an extremely cute manor.
“Is anyone in the hall?” he asked as the elevator doors opened.
“Nobody we know,” I giggled.
“Okay, let’s go!”
Nazo-san kept his arms tightly wrapped around me, and we stumbled all the way back to his hotel room. After about a minute I convinced him that he couldn’t play Shogi while I was in his arms, and he let go. Then I slowly began to realize that I didn’t want to play Shogi. The ignition of my relationship with Nazo-san had given me new incentive to train. As we sat, I could feel his loss of interest become apparent.
“Koizumi-chan…I know you’re very excited to learn how to play Shogi, but I…,” his eyes glanced down to the table.
“Don’t worry about it, I don’t want to either,” I said with a smile.
“You don’t?”
“Not right now. I was actually thinking of getting some training done if you don’t mind staying in the bedroom.”
“Oh…” he sounded quite disappointed.
“Did you have something else in mind?” I looked at him curiously.
“Yeah, but you don’t have to…”
I put a finger to his lips. “I want to do whatever you want to do.”
“It’s no big deal, I just…”
“Shh, just tell me what it is.”
“Well, I just thought it might be nice if we talked for a while. I wanted to get to know you better.”
“I think that sounds like a wonderful idea. We should talk for a while before I train. So, what do you want to know?”
“How about you tell me a story about yourself, then I’ll tell you a story about myself?”
“Sounds good to me. Is there anything in particular you want me to tell?”
“Actually, there is. I want to know about your first kiss.”
“Believe it or not, that is a story that I can actually tell…a true story.”
“I don’t think you needed to clarify. I knew you would tell the truth.”
“I was just making sure.”
“Okay, story time!” He held his feet and started rocking back and forth again.
“Here goes. Before Kureno-kun joined our team, we had another man on our team. Many years before that man left our team, we had five members…the end.”
“That was extremely vague.”
“Oh, did you want to know about the kiss?” I teased.
“You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”
“Well…sort of.”
He gave me a tackle hug, but accidentally lost his balance and fell onto his back. “You little sneak!”
I had landed right on top of him, but I made no attempt to move. “I’ll tell you, if you really want to know.”
“Tell me.”
I waited for him to get situated into a more comfortable position. “Ready?”
He nodded. “I’m ready.”
“Alright, to be totally honest, I don’t even remember the guy’s name. He was very forgettable. It was during one of those “danger lurks around every corner” horror movie missions. I had received his confession long before the danger began, but, when he kissed me the danger was all around us.”
“Was that a metaphor?”
“Not one infinitesimal bit. It was meant to be taken completely literally.”
“Did you have to kill Shinigami?”
“No…I’ve never killed a Shinigami before, but I have had Shinigami training. Actually, these were a different type of paranormal criminal.”
“Go on.”
“Why are you so anxious to hear about my first kiss?” I giggled uncontrollably because, taking into consideration the amount of space between our faces was slowly decreasing, I was a bit nervous.
“You’ll see.”
I continued my story to keep myself from exploding. “We were alone together in a cave, and I was constantly complaining about the temperature. He was unusually quiet all of the sudden, and I thought he had disappeared, but, when I turned around he was right there. His face was no farther away from mine as yours is now. I blushed with surprise, and he kissed me.”
“But you didn’t kiss him back, did you?” the grin on his face was growing larger by the second.
“No, I did not. As a matter of fact I remember being infuriated by his actions. I was so infuriated that I broke his nose.”
“So you’ve been kissed, but you’ve never kissed anyone?”
“That’s right, and you know what’s worse? Misaki was him kiss me, and she told everyone else that we were having an affair! Then it happened again!”
“You’ve been kissed more than once?”
“No, only once. After that little incident, that man was demoted and sent to a lower grave. The second incident happened with the man who previously occupied the grave where Kureno now resides.”
“Another confession?”
“Not at all. The bad guy had begun his long and quite ridiculous monologue. I said I loved him, but I didn’t have time to get ‘as a friend’ out of my mouth before the enemy beheaded him. That memory is fresh in my mind, because it happened on the mission that occurred previous to this one. Misaki was the one who was infuriated this time. I never did find out why.”
“So, everyone thought you were having an affair again?”
“Yeah, but that wasn’t the reason he got demoted. He got demoted because he died before we had previously predicted. That is considered to be a very bad thing.”
“That’s strange about Misaki though. She doesn’t seem like the kind of person who gets mad easily.”
“She’s not, and that’s what worries me about what happened back there. I’ve never seen her so mad in my life.”
“Don’t’ worry about it. You probably weren’t even the reason she was angry.”
“You’re right…I’m not usually like this. I guess I’ve just been thinking too much.”
“That isn’t always a bad thing.”
“Oh really? Well, since you must have been doing quite a bit of thinking yourself, let’s hear your story.”
“Alright, but I don’t really want to tell you about my first kiss. Can I tell you about my favorite kiss?”
“Was it your high school sweetheart?”
“No, it wasn’t during high school. Actually I was the same age I am now.”
“Really? How was it?”
“Give me a second and I’ll tell you.”
At that moment the space between us disappeared. Then I knew I was out of it. If my mind had been working right, I definitely would have seen that coming. I didn’t question it. I just kissed him back as passionately as I possibly could. Then I found that I was having trouble stopping. Eventually I allowed him to break the kiss, gasping for air. I think I may have overdone it just a tiny bit.
“That was more than a second, “I teased, blushing and burying my face in his chest.
“I don’t think it’s possible to describe how beautiful that kiss was in any spoken language I know if,” he said breathlessly.
“Oh, Nazo-kun, don’t lie to me.”
“I could never lie to you, Koizumi-chan.”
“That was the first time I ever kissed a guy before, so I know you’re lying.”
‘You must be a natural then.”
“That’s it. I have to train right now!” I tried to get up, but he held me there.
“Why now? You don’t want to be with me?”
“No, because I love you, silly!” I giggled and kissed his nose.
He frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“The more I train, the greater the chance I have of being able to stay with you.”
“How can I help?”
“Well, this will probably be better for you if you stay in the bedroom. I’ll train for about an hour, and then we can order some room service or something.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“I’ll see you in an hour then.”
“Okay.” He nodded and walked into the bedroom.
As soon as the door had closed I ran straight to my broken lamp, and plugged it in. I tried to stay as calm as I possibly could. My hands shook violently…I was still a bit nervous about getting injured by the electricity. To save my shaky thumb from being cut open again I started with the cord. I noticed that my control over the element was growing. The electricity was forming into shapes that I pictured in my mind. The realization that I was using the power to move things with my mind to master my element made things much simpler.

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