I looked at where her face should be, subtly took a deep breath, and waited until the two lights appeared as though surfacing from underwater. Nothing I wanted to say felt like it would come out right, so I just waited for her response. My heart still raced.
How did she feel about this new experience? Not as a member of a species that practiced kissing but as someone who had feelings for Chika, I just hoped that she didn’t find it uncomfortable.
“There was a bit of suction, huh?”
Those were the first words from the lips I had just been touching. I felt my heart racing overtime, pumping blood up to my face. Including her comment that it was like when you’re sleeping, Chika had ended up teaching me how to kiss. How utterly pitiful.
“How was that, Kaya?” she asked.
How was it?
“Um, well, I doubt it would make sense to you, but I’m happy.” I answered as earnestly as I possibly could, knowing that she wouldn’t fully understand me. Even so, I was glad we still had time before dawn. “As long as it wasn’t unpleasant for you, I’m glad.”
“It wasn’t. It just felt strange. It was like when you get too excited hugging a friend and your faces collide, but you were doing it carefully, lovingly.”
Of course I’d never embraced anyone I’d call a friend, so that was beyond my experience.
“Are there any rules to it? Or routines?”
“No, I don’t think so. But what we did just now is what they call a ‘kiss’ in my world.”
“There’s no set time or force?”
“No, not really.”
“Even I could probably do it, then.”
“Hm? No, uh…”
I realized that my explanation had been lacking. She seemed to have misunderstood me somewhere.
Getting close and pushing your lips against someone else’s was called kissing. But she must’ve thought that the person on the receiving end wasn’t kissing just because those actions were performed upon them. Just as hurting someone and being hurt were different, there was a clear distinction between kissing and being kissed. That was very likely her train of thought. In other words, she probably assumed that she still hadn’t kissed anyone yet.
“Kaya, would you bring your face closer?”
And now, knowing that there were no strict rules, she seemed to believe that she too could perform this kissing that she had just been taught. I had even told her that it made me happy.
“Does it mean anything to cup someone’s cheek?”
“No, I was just using it as a landmark since I can’t see your lips.”
“I wonder if I’ve got the right impression of it, then. Could you lean in this way a little bit?”
It was sneaky of me, but I did exactly as she said. I hesitated to tell her that the one who receives the kiss was an equal part of the action.
Her body, and her lips, drew nearer. I knew what was about to happen. I pretended to be surprised.
“Okay, Kaya.”
“Okay.”
“Close your eyes.”
She had probably mistaken this for a rule as well. Not bothering to correct her, I shut my eyes.
All my attention was focused on my lips, so I was genuinely surprised by the first sensation that came to my body. A soft, familiar material grazed my neck, then something thin came down in the space between my neck and shoulders. I realized it was her arms.
I didn’t open my eyes, but not because of any rule—because I hated the thought of Chika stopping. Just as a child might try not to wake from a dream, my eyes stayed firmly shut.
I felt her hands clasp behind my neck. She strengthened her grip, and I relinquished myself to the gentle pull toward her. Slowly, second by second, she overlapped her lips with mine, gently, as though to seek confirmation that she wasn’t doing something wrong.
Soft and sweet.
After we were firmly pressed together, she slid her bottom lip up to touch my upper. I swiftly realized that she was imitating me. This meant that it would be over soon, I thought to my dismay. The first time, I had resigned myself to it.
Why couldn’t I do so a second time?
Before her lips left from mine, I pecked gently back at her bottom lip. Then, as if imitating me, she moved her lips and nudged back. I did the same again and got the same response. As we repeated this again and again and again, something like saliva got mixed in. Realizing this, I pulled away slightly.
“Chika…!” I said, still close enough that my trembling voice made her lips quiver. My eyes were still shut.
“Yeah? What?” Her voice, which seemed to course through the arms still wrapped around my neck, made my heart and brain shudder.
“I realize that no matter how many times I say it, you won’t understand what it means when I say I like you.”
I lowered my voice, even though there was no one around to hear us.
“Uh-huh?”
“I know there’s nothing we can do about that, but it still makes me sad. So it’s selfish of me, but I’m never going to forget the way that I feel about you right now. Even if the feeling fades, or blurs, or we one day stop seeing one another, or even if I die and become nothing but a ghost, I will never, ever forget what I feel in my heart in this moment. Please forgive me.”
All I had ever dreamed of was having something special, immutable. For my dreary days never to return. Now I had that here inside of me, and so I let her know.
“I forgive you,” she said. “And I’ll never forget you sharing a special feeling from your world with me. I don’t understand rohmanse like you do, but I’m glad that you feel such a significant way toward me, and that’s the truth.”
“Why aren’t we in the same world, Chika?”
“I don’t know. But…I hope we can cross that border one day.”
We could not live together.
“Chika.”
“My dear, dear Kaya.”
We could not be together forever.
“I like you, Chika.”
“I know.”
I didn’t know if she even fully understood me.
I didn’t even know her real name.
All we could do was affirm one another’s existences here in this intersection between our worlds.
There were people in that world who were closer to Chika than me.
There were people in that world who saw her more than I did.
There were people in that world who understood her better than I did.
I knew that all too well.
And yet, in this moment that we now shared, just being here, alive, I was more connected to her than anyone else. This I believed. It wasn’t an over-assumption.
My eyes still shut, I wrapped my arms around where her back should be. She didn’t resist as I hugged tighter, pulling her close. She held me tighter as well.
For the first time in my life, there was someone who I yearned to be so close to that our very beings would meld into one. And so I remained, until numbness overtook my whole body.