"Remember over break you won't have any homework as long as you all get this lab report done by Friday." Mr. Cerone called from the front of the class.
Ki pushed her ugly, green, obnoxiously large goggles up the bridge of her nose with the back of her hand. Lyra looked up from where she was weighing out grams of salt in a little white dish with a smile.
"I think we'll have it done by Thursday." She whispered, shaking out a few grams of salt with such a precision, Ki swore she could almost see the determination in her eyes.
"Yeah, me too. I mean we're almost done right? This is the last test?"
"I think so, the rest is just the questions or whatever... but we can work on those later." Lyra mumbled, holding up the white dish with a note of satisfaction.
"Are you implying that you're coming over later?" Ki raised her eyebrow with a grin.
"I mean I wasn't, but I can be now."
"You should..." Ki grinned. "So we can work on... chemistry."
Lyra giggled. "You are literally the worst."
"I know. I'm proud of it."
Ki sighed as she grabbed the salt from Lyra and set it down on the black table in front of the solution bottle. Lyra took a step away from the table as she took a deep breath.
"I think I'm gonna go get a drink real quick. You good?" Lyra's hand settled on her shoulder.
"It's not that hard, Lyra. I'm just babysitting your salt." Ki rolled her eyes with a smirk.
"You better keep a damn good eye on my salt or I'll kick your ass." She laughed, slowly sliding her hand off of Ki's arm.
"Go get a drink, Lyra. Nothing's going to happen to your salt." Ki laughed back, shaking her head as her girlfriend started to walk away.
She leaned against the table as she watched Lyra leave, her eyes following her all the way to the front of the class, and then out the door. When she was no longer in sight, Ki sighed, staring back down at the salt in boredom, wishing it could miraculously tell her what to do next.
While she was too busy staring at the dish in front of her, someone bumped into the table, shaking her thoughts up to the culprit.
Her eyes immediately darted up to Taron, who was not only wearing a playful smirk, but also not returning back to his table. She gave him a minute to admit he was sorry and turn back around to his lab table, but her time span came and went without him saying a word.
"Yeah?" She asked, her lips pressed in a thin line.
"Sorry I don't know how to say your name, but you're friends with Lyra right?"
"Um it's just Ki, pretty easy actually." She sighed, slightly relaxing as he nodded in apology. "But, why do you want to know?"
"Do you know if she's got a boyfriend? I know that's a really dumb ass question, but I just... wanted to know I guess." He shrugged, his whole seven inches of height on her making her feel intimidated... or maybe it was just the nature of his question.
"She doesn't." Ki darted her eyes down to the table, making sure she kept her rising redness under control. Ki had no idea what Lyra wanted people to know at this point. Being out to their friends was one thing... the whole school? Completely different. That was just asking for a hate crime or a threesome proposal.
"Oh woah, wait really?"
"Yeah, but you can go tell Aloric to fuck off, I know that's why you're asking..." She sighed as she watched Lyra walk back into the room with a smile as she passed the first lab table.
There was a certain aura about her that brought a certain happiness back into the room. Ki couldn't help but smile as she glanced back and forth between the table and Lyra's beaming expression.
"Actually I wasn't asking for him..." He interrupted her gaze.
"I kinda need to get back to work." Ki pointed down to the salt dish.
"Do you think she'd go out with me?"
She looked up to him, almost in pity as she flat out said, "no."
"Hey Taron." Lyra smiled as she turned the corner to their lab table. "Need some salt?" She offered, picking up their bag.
"Uh no, we've got enough actually." He shrugged with a smirk. "I was actually coming to talk to you."
"What's up?" Lyra scooted in next to Ki to look at her salt sample, her elbow rubbing against Ki's arm as she picked up the dish from the tabletop.
"Are you going anywhere over break? I was thinking about going to see the midnight premiere of a new horror movie with some friends... maybe you'd want to join?"
"No, I'm actually staying here, my dad's coming in for the holiday, so just another boring week around this small ass town..." Lyra started mumbling as she delicately sat a drop of solution into the dish.
Ki elbowed her nervously, hoping she would catch on to the nature of his question.
"Oh!" Lyra darted her eyes up to Ki, and then back to Taron with an awkward smile. "Um... you meant like a date?"
"Well... um..." He started getting flustered from her straightforward question.
"I'm sorry. I'm a total idiot... I'm not really looking for anyone right now."
"Oh, okay. Cool, yeah that's cool. Um... I'll just let you guys get back to work then." Taron awkwardly snapped his fingers as he started backing away.
"Sorry... Taron." She whispered, watching him turn back to his table with a cringe worthy grimace on her face.
He shifted a few things around on his table before directing his attention back towards Aloric with a defeated sigh.
"I was really bitchy wasn't I?" Lyra whispered, glancing over to Ki.
"What? No way. I could've never handled that so effortlessly."
"What was he even talking to you about?"
"He wanted to know if you had a boyfriend. I said no, and nothing else." Ki nervously leaned in a little closer to Lyra's side. "I didn't know if saying 'she has a girlfriend' was the right thing to do, so I didn't."
"Good, no that was fine. And I..." Lyra slid her hand around to the lower part of Ki's back, wavering her hand against her spine as she leaned her head in closer to talk. "I don't mean this in an offensive way, or anything... but can we not tell people... yet? I know you didn't, and I don't know how you feel, but I mean... I really would love to stay out of the spotlight for right now."
"No yeah, we're on the same page one hundred percent." Ki mumbled back, nodding as she tried to keep her focus off of the fluttering sensation Lyra's hand on her back was giving. If they stayed that close for another minute more, Ki didn't know if she would be able to breathe without kissing Lyra.
"Good, good. It's not that I'm ashamed of us or anything, I just need to put that out there. I love us... I just don't want the attention." She spoke so closely to Ki's ear that she could feel her breath on her face with each word.
Ki's heart was racing from the proximity. It was getting harder and harder not to turn her face and steal Lyra's smile right from off of her lips. She wanted to so badly it hurt. The overwhelming feeling of needing her right in that moment was growing the more they stood in this unusually close position. It was leaving Ki speechless. It was dangerous.
"Yeah..." Ki let out a faint whisper.
"You okay?" Lyra turned her head to look at Ki, so close that if Ki were to turn her head in the slightest, their noses would be touching.
"I... yeah. We should get back to work." She cleared her throat, pushing her goggles up the bridge of her nose once again.
"Okay." Lyra nodded, sliding away, taking her hand and the delicate touch it left on Ki's back, away.
Ki took a deep breath in and looked down at the table instead of looking over to Lyra. She closed her eyes as she set her hands out on the table. She was so obviously flustered that if only one person in this whole room was watching them, they'd have it all figured out. It drove her crazy, but there was nothing else she could do. Lyra had that effect on her, and nothing she could do could change it. She prayed no one could see how transparent she was. All it would take was one. One person and they would be done for.
————————
"Kizokira, I swear to whatever fucking higher power exists, I'm gonna kick your ass if you park in the driveway crooked again!" Shori came in shouting from the garage.
Ki's head bolted up from the book she was staring into and then to Lyra who was sitting on the living room couch next to her. Lyra glanced at her and started cracking up laughing as she leaned back into the cushion.
"I swear, Andi has the tiniest ass car I have ever been in and I still had to park at an angle to stay out of the fucking yard because you don't know how to pull your car into the damn driveway straight..."
"Sorry Shori, she's not very good at doing anything straight." Lyra giggled from the couch as she held a devious smile on her face.
"Oh my god..." Ki gawked at her, closing her book in her hands and hitting it against Lyra's shoulder. "Lyra!"
The sound of Shori running through the kitchen was lost behind the sound of Lyra's contagious laughter that was now combined with Ki's.
"Shit Lyra, I didn't know you were here, sorry about that..." Shori rubbed his hand behind his neck as he made his way into the kitchen.
Lyra waved her hand at him with a cheeky smile, as if playing innocent like she had said nothing wrong. Ki sighed as she pushed her book onto the coffee table in front of them and turned to glance at her brother.
"What were you even out for anyways?" She kicked her feet onto the table.
"I had to work, thank you very much." Shori mocked her with a sarcastic grimace on his face.
"Thought you didn't work today..."
"Well, I got offered overtime, so the more the better." He shrugged.
Ki complied with a 'mmm' and draped her arm around the back of the couch so that her hand barely rested on Lyra's shoulder.
"How was work then?" Lyra popped in, looking past Ki to her brother.
"It was pretty shit, but at least I got paid more."
"What was so awful?" Ki mumbled.
"I mean... this one girl brought in her car and it was in terrible condition and I honestly think Ryan's gonna be there all night working on the transmission... but I was stuck with it first and I got grease all over my damn face and some got in my eye and now I'm struggling." He sighed.
"Go take a shower before Andi gets home or you know he'll tell you how much you smell like a tire." Ki threw a crumpled up piece of her notebook paper at her brother's face.
"I don't smell like a tire." Shori self consciously lifted his shirt up to sniff as he disregarded the paper as it hit his hand.
Lyra laughed as she kicked her feet out on top of Ki's lap. "If you aren't going to take a shower, you should help us with this lab write up then." She grinned, glaring over at Shori.
He quickly picked up his bag and pulled out his phone acting distracted as he started shuffling towards the stairs.
"Should I listen to Conan Gray or EDEN in the shower?" He smirked back at her as he motioned his phone up.
"Do us all a favor and choose neither." Ki rolled her head back onto the couch cushion in an attempt to glare at her brother behind her.
"How about that new Ariana Grande album?" Lyra raised her eyebrows at him with a mischievous grin.
"Lyra, no." Ki's face deadpanned as her girlfriend started laughing.
"Lyra, yes!" Shori pointed at her as he started trying away on his phone.
"Please Shori, noooooo..." Ki groaned closing her eyes.
"You can blame your girlfriend for this one."
"Go away." She whispered in defeat, rocking her head back forward to stare at her lap, now holding Lyra's legs.
"Thanks Lyra." Shori purposefully sang as his feet started their short trek up the stairs.
"You're welcome... as always Shori." Lyra whispered begining to raise a hand slowly to the side of Ki's face.
As the sound of Shori's footsteps faded down the hall, Lyra's delicate touch traced a piece of hair hanging out of her loose ponytail from the front of Ki's hairline to behind her ear in a single stroke. Ki closed her eyes as Lyra's fingers lingered behind her ear, gently tracing their way down her jawline until they stopped at the bottom of her chin. Ki opened her eyes as she felt them pull her attention in Lyra's direction.
"What was it that he called you?" She mumbled as she guided Ki's face towards her with those two fingers underneath her chin.
"What do you mean?" Ki looked down at Lyra's wrist—covered in tan lines from hair ties and bracelets.
"When Shori came in, he said something different..."
"Kizokira." Ki closed her eyes in a hushed tone to hide her name.
"That's it."
"It's my name. Like... my real name."
"Kizokira." Lyra whispered, sounding out every vowel and slightly rolling the r from her native tongue with such a delicacy, Ki knew she had never heard someone take such a precise, yet exquisite attention to her name. "Just as intriguing and beautiful as you."
Deep down, Ki was flustered by the way her name fit so perfectly on Lyra's tongue. The way it nearly sent shivers down her spine in an incomparable way to when anybody else would butcher it, or use it in an fiery exclamation. Lyra an emphasis on the flow of the word instead of harsh consonants it contained, nearly transforming it entirely into something else than Ki was used to. But it was just a name. Ki wouldn't let herself blush over such an minute thing.
"I'm neither of those things, but kudos to you for trying." She retorted with a smirk as she looked up at Lyra with a taunting glance, fighting back the urge to ask her to say it again.
Please, do.
"I think you are so very mistaken Kizokira." Lyra smiled, leaning her face over onto the couch cushion.
Ki swallowed as her smirk faded, turning into that blush she was trying so very hard to keep away.
"Do you think there's any meaning behind it?" Lyra traced a star pattern into her thigh as she she looked down at her leg lying on top of Ki's.
Ki cleared her throat awkwardly and watched Lyra's hand with such a precision she could predict in what way her finger would cut over to complete the pattern.
"No." She mumbled. "I've looked it up... nada. Either my mom was just completely out of it and named me after gibberish, or the name means something to her that I will never know."
"Hmm. Kinda makes you wonder doesn't it? Like what mystical force rains down on our parents and is like 'this is the name for your child'..." Lyra waved her fingers about in a magical motion as if gesturing she was some sort of child naming wizard.
Ki laughed. "No Lyra. I have never once wondered that."
"Okay well it happens I swear. Nobody can just pull a name out of their ass and be like 'yeah alright sounds fine,' like... it has to mean something, right?! Everything has to mean something..."
"That is way too philosophical for my dull understanding of the universe to even begin to question."
"Maybe I should be a philosopher then." Lyra's face lit up.
"Lyra..." Ki rolled her head over on her shoulder.
"I mean I could, but I'd rather not... I think if I was left with too much time thinking about the universe and my life, and what makes what happen, and why things happen, and why I'm here... I would probably die."
"Yeah, me too."
"There's just so much out there, you know? Like... it's a lot to think about."
"I'd prefer not to think about how small I am in the scope of all of the world and history." Ki sighed, her head starting to spin at all the different ways her impact on the world meant practically nothing.
Not only was it a lot to think about, it was hard to think about.
"There is just one question I really want to know though..." Lyra said in a hushed tone as she stared off somewhere into the rest of the living room.
"What?"
"How do we fall in love?" She whispered with a determined curiosity.
Ki glanced to the coffee table where her feet were sitting on the edge as they supported Lyra's. The idea was so foreign to her she just had to stare out at the table as she began to think about the process.
"I... I mean... I don't know." Ki mumbled.
"Like what tells us who we are going to be attracted to? Or who is going to be the one? Or what makes us actually fall in love with someone? Like what in our brains constitutes that extra level between liking and loving?"
"I'm pretty sure there's some like chemical explanation or something with scents that make us attracted to people."
"No, no, not that... I mean like what creates genuine feelings, like past the state of basic attraction? Hell what even are feelings?" Lyra's face was focused on the bookshelf in the corner of the room when Ki stared at her with a astonished confusion.
"Lyra that is such a deep question... now you really have me thinking about this and I hate it." She mumbled in a serious voice as she analyzed her girlfriend's still features.
"Sorry." Lyra whispered shaking her head back into focus. "God, sometimes I get like over analytical when I'm tired. It's like drunk rambling, I'm sorry."
Ki stifled a laugh. "Seriously? Stop apologizing I was messing with you."
"Yeah." Lyra rushed a smile.
"What's wrong? Long day?" Ki let her arm hang over the back of the couch.
"I mean... sorta... not really." She slowly pulled her legs off from on top of Ki's. "I don't know."
She shifted around on the couch so she wasn't angled away from Ki anymore, but instead curling into the open side her arm left open.
"I think it's just the fact that Thanksgiving is so close... and my family... without Cy..." Her voice tapered off as she wriggled her arm between Ki's back and the couch, pulling herself closer.
"Oh yeah, your dad is coming in right?"
"Yeah, and Cassie with her new boyfriend apparently. I didn't know that was a thing, but I guess now family dinner includes boyfriends."
"I'm sure it won't be that bad. You guys will just have a normal dinner, even with Cassie's... boyfriend... around."
"Fuck Cassie." Lyra whispered. "It was supposed to be a family thing, but whatever I guess... invite a stranger that no one in our family has ever even heard of before."
"Shouldn't you give him a chance first? At least don't outright hate him yet."
"Yeah, I guess so. It just sucks that she gets to bring someone along with no questions asked, but if I were to bring you I'd get a 'really Lyra, is now the time?' or a 'this is family only' or maybe even a 'why do you have to be such an attention seeker?' you know what I'm saying?"
"I get it." Ki nodded slowly. "Maybe you should just ignore them anyways." She added a shrug.
"What you mean, like, bring you to dinner?"
"That wasn't really what I meant, but if you wanted to, I would go. But I mean if not, just do your best to put up with them without making a scene about the boyfriend." Ki wrapped her arm around Lyra's shoulder instead of hanging it behind the couch.
"No, I think I like that idea actually..." Lyra started to smile. "Fuck it. You should come to dinner."
"You sure? I'm not sure that's going to end up well..."
"Yeah, it'll be great. That way if they say something shitty, I'll have you there to run away with... and by run away I mean go to my bedroom and cry in your arms."
"That is so... depressing." Ki laughed, leaning her head into Lyra's.
"It's true though."
"Well lets just hope it doesn't get to that."
Lyra smiled as she turned her head to look over to Ki. "Here's to hoping a family reunion won't turn out like shit." She said raising an invisible glass to the air.
"To family reunions." Ki nodded with a laugh, bring her own invisible glass up to meet Lyra's.
Between laughs, their eyes met, captivating each other with a glare of adoration. Ki couldn't help but let her eyes wander to the light line of freckles that barely appeared on the bridge of her nose, tracing their way underneath her eyes with a shadow like stroke. Ki had remembered the first day she noticed them; sitting on this same couch, watching a movie she didn't pay attention to, letting Lyra fall asleep on her lap, and realizing all she wanted was someone to love. How clueless she was to the fact that that girl was right in front of her. She had wasted so much time trying to be her friend, when any conscious person would've noticed it was obviously more than that between them from day one.
Lyra leaned into her face, resting their foreheads together with a light sigh, as if releasing a sense of stress that she held in her head. Ki closed her eyes as their noses brushed together, her hand that she once held at her side, now pulling at the curve of her girlfriend's neck, bringing their mouths closer, but not together.
She stayed there—their lips mere millimeters apart, but still agonizingly not close enough. Her heart was beating out of her chest, a high feeling rising in her stomach as if dropping down the peak of the highest roller coaster she could manage herself to get on to. Her breathing was unbelievably slow, the feel of her own heat escaping her mouth coming back to her.
Ki lingered in this position, fighting down the extreme urge to just close the gap. Lyra didn't move at all in her hand, she just stayed where Ki reluctantly left her, accepting the space between them as she waited.
Lyra's hand began to slowly trace up the arm that Ki held her face in, her fingers curling around her arm as she reached her wrist.
"Ki..." Left Lyra's lips in a breathless whisper, putting a word in the space between them.
"Can you feel it?" Ki whispered back, her thumb brushing over Lyra's bottom lip in a desperate attempt to hold it off a little while longer.
"Feel what?"
"Let me show you." She backed away, opening her eyes cautiously as Lyra's face stayed frozen in the moment.
Ki pulled her hand back from Lyra's neck and instead used it to push her shoulder back gently into the couch. Lyra looked up at her in a mild sense of amusement, as a smile almost dared to reach her lips.
She leaned down to Lyra's face and just when Lyra was raising her face up to meet with Ki's, Ki pulled back, lowering her head to the left side of Lyra's face instead. Lyra let her head fall back into the cushion, her face wearing confusion along the crinkle of her forehead.
"Hold on a second." Ki whispered into her ear so delicately so that if anyone else would've been in the room, they wouldn't have known she'd said a word.
She placed a gentle kiss in the outline right behind her jaw, tracing her fingers up the back of her neck, watching the way Lyra leaned her head back into the pillow, opening the base of her neck as Ki moved down along her jaw.
"See I don't know about you..." Ki left another kiss on the empty skin left underneath her chin.
"But whenever your lips are about to meet mine..." She slowly moved down to her collar bone, leaving Lyra in an agonizing high as her eyes were closed against the back of the cushion.
"It's like I'm on the top of a roller coaster..." She kissed her neck again, taking in the satisfaction that she got from seeing Lyra so helplessly in the same boat. "And I'm just waiting for the drop."
"You know what I'm saying...?" She brought her hand up from her shoulder and traced her index finger along Lyra's slightly parted lips, pausing as she moved her mouth to be on the other side of the finger.
Lyra's eyes opened slowly to meet Ki's, the desperation reading in the unbelievable glare she was giving.
Ki slowly removed the finger from between their two mouths, but still left the space open between them, waiting for a response.
"So... can you feel it?"
Lyra scanned her eyes for an answer, coming up close to nothing as she held her lips parted there with Ki's, both of them waiting for the answer to set them free. She looked down to her lips and Ki felt her eyes burning into her, as she reached her own hand up to hold the base of Ki's neck.
"Yes." She whispered breathlessly in the small space between them, rushing their faces together in a dire need to close the space.
As their lips met, Ki leaned into the feeling that gave way—the feeling of going down the roller coaster, knowing the anticipation of reaching the top is out of the way, but still feeling on the edge of her seat as Lyra searched for more.
Every kiss with like Lyra was like being on a different ride. Each one different. Each thrill special in its own way. Each twist and turn taking her deeper into a field of her own mind she didn't know existed.
She had remembered Shori telling her how special things felt when it was your first love, how quickly and suddenly everything takes over. It was like that... but it was also so powerful. Lyra may only have been the first, but she felt like forever. She was the strong feelings that Ki couldn't shake. The security that being around her entailed. The first thing on her mind in the morning, and the last when she went to sleep. The one she had grown to love. The one thing she had grown to rely on keeping her afloat.
She was Lyra Meclane.
She was the first person Ki had ever loved like this before.