息を切らして
She forgot to breathe.
She forgot to think.
She forgot to blink.
She forgot that up until this moment in time she'd existed as an actual person, with real memories, tangible ties to other people.
She forgot that she'd been kissed on the cheek before. By her mother, father, Midori, Shiori more times than she could count when her best friend randomly whipped out her phone for half a dozen selfies to post on her Instagram. Of course she had. It would be hard to find anyone who hadn't been kissed on the cheek at least once in their entire lives. Kisses on the cheek were normal. Italians – or was it the French? – greeted each other that way. No one had died by spontaneous combustion from that, as far as she was aware.
But never had she been kissed on the cheek by a man that she knew and could admit to herself that she was in love with. Her father most certainly did not count. Neither did Ryu when she used to carry him around when he was a bumbling little baby too young to consider kisses 'gross'.
The thought to move away from him was the furthest away from her mind as his lips brushed over her cheek. That was probably what Shiori would tell her to do right now – get away before she got too close and entangled and hurt in the end. But she wasn't thinking clearly. Her thoughts screeched to a clunking halt, and her breath froze to icicles of fire in her chest, piercing her straight through.
It was the barest touch, a gentle press his lips, a hint of apples and the sweet scent of saké mingling in the warm breath on her cheek, but it was enough to set her heart racing. All the nerves in her body lit up, blazing as she unconsciously tensed and relaxed all at the same time at the unexpected touch to her skin.
Her eyes were wide on his, unblinking as she stared at him – and he was watching her too. There was a knowing half-smile playing on his lips as he gazed into her eyes, never once looking away when he leaned back to give her some breathing room.
"Was that painful?" he asked in a voice that had a very different, unfamiliar heat pooling low in her abdomen.
She stared stupidly at him. She was still stuck on how soft his lips had felt on her cheek, and trying to understand the disappointment that surged through her when he moved away. Her brain was slow and sluggish as she tried to force it away from what Shin just did, as she tried to think about anything but the feel of Shin's lips on her bare skin.
"S – sorry," she stammered when she realized she was gaping at him, immediately back-pedalling to doing what she usually did when she was lost or confused; apologizing in case she'd done something wrong. Her cheeks flamed as her gaze darted from his to her hands clenched in painfully tight fists in her lap. "I didn't – I wasn't – I..."
Shin smirked at her stuttering, greatly amused. "Why are you apologizing?"
In a desperate bid to defend herself and to make him stop grinning at her like she was the most captivating thing to hold his attention, she retorted with, "Are you drunk? How much saké have you had?"
What she really wanted to say was, Why did you do that when I'm in love with you, idiot! Kissing her on the cheek – even if it was in a friendly manner, which only made it all worse – was not going to help her get over her inane feelings for Shin.
"I can't get drunk."
She stared. "What?"
Shin grinned wickedly. "It's impossible for me to get drunk."
Sorry what. Run that by me again.
"That is not possible." She bluntly declared.
He shrugged. "Ask Kouta – I've tried, but I never get drunk, no matter how much I drink." He chuckled drily. "You have no idea how many times I've had to pretend I'm as drunk as everyone else when they're all acting like idiots."
She blinked at him, mouth opening and closing as she tried to take in what he was saying and make sure she understood him correctly.
Shin couldn't get drunk. When with the other Daitengu, he only pretended to be drunk to not spoil the mood. If that was actually possible, then it meant he was sober right now. Sober enough that he knew what he was doing when he kissed her on her cheek.
Did he...did he know? Did he actually know about her feelings for him? Had she slipped up somewhere and he figured it out?
The flare of excitement in her stomach was doused in a bucket of ice-cold water when she unwillingly recalled Shiori's phone call on Ukabarenairei. She remembered what she'd told Pai about why Kouta had taken so long to tell her what he felt about her, about why Shiori wanted her to be careful with how close she got to Shin.
Shin noticed the dampening of her mood, saw her shoulders drooping in disappointment she tried to hide behind a fake smile he hated seeing her don.
"Why?" she asked softly, dropping her eyes to her hands again. She began picking at her fingers, knowing she was doing something that would cause her only grief later on. The wound from what skin she tore at would swell uncomfortably for a week before it healed. It would hurt. She kept at it. "Why did you do that?"
She didn't want to look at him when he let her down. She knew he would reject her kindly, because that was the kind of man he was. He'd just kissed her cheek to...she didn't know.
She needed to know, though. He would let her down, but she needed to know why he'd kissed her just now. Even if he did it the way he would if she was his little sister, it would be better than letting her imagination run wild.
But remembering Shiori's phone call reminded her why she had decided to keep her feelings to herself.
"It's like two sides of a coin. One side, it's amazing to be in a relationship with Hengen because if they're with you, they're with you."
I won't get hurt, she thought to herself resolutely.
"But then," she closed her eyes as she waited for the impending blow to her heart. "Hengen can't be in a relationship with someone their True Ayakashi doesn't accept. It just won't work, no matter how they both try."
"Because," Shin tilted his head to the side, eyes twinkling in merriment at the way she tried to avoid looking at him. "I care about you. And not just as a friend."
She blanked.
Her hand jerked and she winced as she pulled a bit of loose skin completely off, but she ignored the pain as her eyes darted up to his in child-like befuddlement, unable to understand what he'd said. There was no way she'd heard him right. No way at all. She was hallucinating.
"What?" she repeated, for what must've been the millionth time in the space of barely half an hour.
Shin looked like he was fighting to keep himself from laughing at her stupefied expression. He leaned forward again, but this time it was to tap the end of her nose. She blinked owlishly at the move, nerves tingling where he touched her.
"I," he enunciated slowly. "Like you."
That...that can't be right. I'm hearing things.
"But Shinigami..."
A shadow crossed his eyes at the name, but she ploughed on. She needed to make sure she was understanding him right, that she hadn't gone so completely round the bend that she'd started imaging him saying such a thing to her because she wanted it to be true. It would break her heart if she let herself leap to conclusions only to have her wings clipped and her soul thrown to the rocks below.
She couldn't believe this was happening.
Not in her wildest dreams had she ever thought this could happen. Maybe some part of her had known for a while now that she was in love with Shin, but after what Shiori told her, after what happened in the Torimaku, with Shinigami hating her so much because she trapped him under the Mask again, she'd completely thrown away any realistic hope of something like this happening.
So...how could this be?
Could she really run away with what he was saying, knowing that she'd break if she relied on him only to discover too late down the line that he didn't feel as much for her as she did for him, couldn't be with her as completely as she wanted him to be because of Shinigami, still somewhere inside him?
"What about him?" he asked, still fixing his intent crimson gaze on her.
This doesn't feel real.
"Shii-chan said that Hengen cannot...if Shinigami does not accept me, it cannot..."
Shin raised one brow. He didn't seem too concerned. "Yes?"
She gazed at him helplessly, trying to make him understand what she meant without her having to say it.
He looked right back at her unwaveringly, expectantly.
She shook her head as she shifted so that she was sitting with her legs bent under her. He watched her move, never leaving her as she tried to sift her befuddled brain around to some semblance of sentience, rather than the mush it had dissolved into at his words.
"I..."she gulped nervously. I can't believe I'm about to say this out loud. "I – I l – I like you," she paused at the brightening in his eyes, tripping over her words as her heart hammered in her chest. Unable to stop herself, she lifted her hands to cover her cheeks as she blushed furiously. Her hands were so cold, or maybe her cheeks were just so warm with heated blood, that her palms burned when they touched her skin.
Was he...was he happy that she finally admitted she liked him? Could she really believe that he had those kinds of feelings for her?
Shin reached out and pulled her hands away from her face, but he didn't let go. A wave of fire rode through her when he held on to her hand, lacing his fingers with hers and tracing small whorls around the back of her hand with his thumb. She stared down at their intertwined hands, his strong, tanned hand almost swallowing her smaller pale one. She wished she could keep her hand right there, that it could belong with his.
"I'm glad we're on the same page." He said gently.
She looked up at his words, and he smiled disarmingly at her. She almost forgot what she was supposed to be saying.
"But I..." she steeled herself to just come out and say it instead of circling around the issue. She kept her hand limp in his, afraid that if she tried to move it away she would only hold on to it instead. "I do not want to get my heart broken because your Makashi hates me. He wants me dead, Shin-san."
I can't let myself break like that, she thought despairingly.
Her memories painted her as a stone-cold killer teetering on the verge of total oblivion. Kuniumi's insanity leaking into her didn't help matters at all. She didn't want to think about what could happen if she let herself run away with Shin, only to fall.
She halted when he grinned at her, frowning in confusion. Why did he look so entertained by what she was saying? Did he think this was a joke? Her rankling ire was abruptly cut off when Shin leaned forward again. Their faces were so close, so, so close, she could count his eyelashes.
His eyes never wavered from hers as he said, "May I?"
Her heart clenched, touched that he would ask, her mind struggling to catch up and understand what her heart had already understood of what he was asking. Mutely, dumbly, she nodded, thinking he would kiss her cheek like he did only moments ago – but this time he didn't move to kiss her cheek.
This time his lips pressed against hers.
He was hesitant at first, just touching his lips to hers to see if she really was okay with his move. When she didn't immediately shuffle away as he'd half-expected her to, when the chill of the night air against her skin had her leaning into his warmth, he smiled against her lips. She felt it, his smile, his beautiful, disarming, knee-buckling smile.
Shin's arm wound around her waist, pulling her closer to him, and her eyes fluttered closed. Her hands had lifted, maybe to push him away, she didn't know, but when his mouth touched hers all such thought vanished, and her hands fell to his shoulders.
His lips on hers were unbelievably soft and tender in a way that sent dizzying waves of pleasure straight through to places she didn't know she had. Her stomach churned with the thrill and agony his touch gave her as she pressed herself closer to him, following his lead as he coaxed her mouth open for him. She felt the touch of his tongue to hers and lightning crackled through her veins. His hand came up to cradle the back of her head as the other rested on the curve of her hip, drawing her closer to him in a distinctly possessive hold.
She didn't mind that at all. She could feel his heart thump wildly beside her own, and that alone sent her head reeling in the chaotic swirl of sensation his touch drew from her.
Before anything more could happen, Shin leaned back, and she had to suppress a quiet gasp at how unexpectedly deserted she felt when the frigid night air touched her tingling lips. Hazily, she opened her eyes to meet his full of dark promises she couldn't understand. His face painted in harsh lines of steel control, and she wondered what would happen if he – went farther. Just a bit.
With a wry smile, he touched his forehead to hers, a gentle and intimate move that left her breathless in a different way to what he'd just done. She closed her eyes as she allowed herself to relax against him, to let him hold her as she'd wanted him to for so long already.
"Do you think," he said. "I'd be so selfish as to kiss you if all of me didn't want to?"
She gulped nervously, her mind still replaying what had just happened, how it felt to have Shin touch her like that, kiss her like that, on a loop that was driving her mad. She squeezed her eyes shut, a small, hesitant smile pressing her lips together as she tried to hide it, afraid of what would happen if Fate saw her so happy and decided to steal it from her.
Or rather, if Kuniumi saw her happiness and decided to traipse in and ruin it all with the reminder that she was not as normal as she so desperately tried to make herself out to be. Kuniumi had been gone for days now, but strange bouts of lethargy sometimes overtook her...almost like Kuniumi was trying to come back.
"Does that – " her voice came out husky, in a way she'd never sounded like before. She cleared her throat and tried again. This time she sounded at least a bit normal, even though she was still more than a little breathless. "Does that mean that he...?"
Shin grinned devilishly at her. He lifted her hand and laced his fingers with hers, tangling them together as he gripped her hand tight in his and turned it. He pressed a kiss to the back of her hand. She forgot what breathing was all over again as his glowing red eyes found hers raptly watching him.
She found that she wasn't scared of those eyes the way she was of Shinigami, because this wasn't him. It was, but in a different way, a more whole and complete way. This was Shin. She recognized all parts of him, the good and the bad. She wanted it all for herself, and wondered if he could do the same for her.
"He – we – accepted you from the moment we laid eyes on you." His gaze grew serious as he kept her hand held in his against his cheek, watching her quietly, waiting. "Can you accept us, after everything we've done to you?"
*art by me
**original image not by me I can't draw to save my life, I just edited it like heck