The Time It Takes To Fall

A Good Kisser

USA, 2019 A.D.

The hand that wiped the condensation from the bathroom mirror revealed a wet smile and sparkling copper eyes. Kai grinned at his reflection as he rubbed a towel along his head, drying his freshly cleaned hair. He felt warm and tingly all over— though the feeling had nothing to do with his recent hot shower.

He brought both hands up to cup his face and stared at his reflection in the mirror. Somehow, he looked changed— as if all the years of misery had faded from his eyes and left behind the boy of long ago. His face was that of the young prince who had learned to love, rather than the old man who fought to find it once again. He was everything that he had forgotten and somehow the only thing that he could remember how to be.

Kai ran a comb through his hair then dressed in his usual outfit of a sweatshirt and jeans. He brushed his teeth and watched his happy expression all the while, even sticking his tongue out at himself in the mirror.

He exited the bathroom and went into the kitchen. He grabbed a bowl and filled it to the brim with the flakey balls of Cocoa Puffs and dumped in only a sprinkle or milk to dampen the crunchy food and fill in the empty crevices. He dug around a drawer for a spoon and came up with a dusty utensil, not hesitating for a moment before dunking it into his bowl and bringing a heading spoonful up to his lips. Cereal was one of the few foods he found to be a true creation of God through his many years upon the earth.

The night before played through his head on an endless, blissful loop. It was just him and her eating their sandwiches as the sun set. Then her lips were on his and hands were pushing him to the ground. Then the lightning came, dragging them out and away hand in hand.

But the night of happy memories had not ended there; Kai drove Cinder back to her apartment and there they stayed for two hours talking and laughing and kissing in Kai's truck all the while. They had each professed profound affection for one another— though neither had gone so far as to say that they loved the other. It didn't matter to Kai; he was just happy that she cared for him in any sort of way.

In the moments before she left his car he considered telling her his secret—who he really was. He had thought of mentioning it when she had asked for him to tell her something he'd never told anyone before, but he'd been a coward. No matter how much Blue egged him on to tell Cinder, he was still afraid to divulge his deepest darkest secret of her—the one that had once destroyed her.

So rather than tell her the story of his life, he'd kissed her goodnight for the first time in hundreds of years; he couldn't have asked for anything more.

The rest of the night was a haze as Kai drove about the rainy town, singing songs that he thought he had forgotten centuries before. He'd wandered through the streets and let the rain fall down upon him and drench him to his skin. He couldn't feel the bitter sting of cold, and he knew that even if he were physically capable of feeling any sort of physical ailments he wouldn't have felt anything of the sort that night.

He was completely and most incandescently happy, and there wasn't a thing in the world that could bring him down.

***

"What happened to you?"

Cinder stopped humming, pulling herself out from under the hood of a Camry and attempting to hide her ever-present grin with a scowl. She did not succeed.

"Aces, there is something terribly wrong with your face," Thorne held up his hands in front of himself as if he were taking in the measurement of her face with his fingers. He squinted his eyes tight and let out a low whistle.