This is just a little bit of sap cooked up from inside my head. Enjoy.
"… the hell?" Kai rolled over in bed and stared at Ming-Ming groggily, his eyes sliding in and out of focus, open and shutting. She grinned at him and climbed into bed, cuddling up next to him, well aware that she was avoiding a lecture purely by timing her return at the point during the night where Kai slept the heaviest.
He didn't sleep until four or five in the morning, sometimes even later, but when he did, nothing short of her screaming at the top of her lungs would wake him up enough to even talk coherently.
"Mm … airuvin?" See? What more proof did anyone need?
"I've been out," she replied airily, correctly translating to "Where have you been?" with the ease of long practice.
"Mmgatha!" Slightly more force but twice as incomprehensible - even Ming-Ming had to stretch her imagination until "I gathered that!" appeared a reasonable option.
"Then why did you ask?" She got back out of bed without waiting for an answer. Her head was stuffed-up with lack of sleep and too much to drink, it felt as though she had a bad cold. As if to counteract this and her stinging eyes, every nerve in her body was tingling and she once again found tears surging up, a tight little ball in her chest. She swallowed them back with a gasp, and felt the shift in Kai's state of awareness.
"What happened?" His voice was hoarse, the edges of words blurred into soft curves, but his concern came through loud and clear.
"Nothing's wrong, don't stress!" She turned to face him, smiling at how young he looked, sleepy, without face-paint and with his endearing habit of nuzzling the pillow. "You look like a kid." He scowled at her and buried his face in the pillow with a groan.
"I'm older'n you," he grumbled through the thick fabric.
"Yeah, and sometimes you don't look like it." She laughed loudly at her own joke and went up on tip-toes, spinning dizzy circles in the middle of the room, around and around until her stomach protested.
"You're off your head," he said with more than a hint of satisfaction. She hissed at him, cat-like, her weird and wonderful mood unchanged.
"I needed to be." Kai stared at her, his eyes owlish in the early morning light.
"Why?" he demanded. He tried to sit up, but the effort required was too much and he bounced back down again. "Why?" He spoke through a wide yawn. Ming-Ming shrugged and suddenly darted forward. Climbing on top of him, she hugged him tightly and gave him a quick, awkward, but nonetheless intense kiss, tongues touching briefly, both lips sore from the bump. "Whazzat for?" She shrugged again and darted out of the room.
She walked down the corridor outside their flat, humming and swaying backwards and forwards to an inner tune.
She was so happy that it hurt; a strange, powerful mix of joy and relief and love for the entire world.
It had started with Mathilda shyly admitting something during their trip round town, in a hushed voice, quickly following it up with, "I'll understand if you don't want to talk to me anymore …" which, of course, Ming-Ming couldn't allow. She'd hugged the younger girl and whacked her round the head with a shopping bag full of clothes and told her in no uncertain terms that it would take a nuclear bomb to hit them both directly before she would stop being friends with her Maddy just because of something like that.
Then she'd said a little something too, and the two girls had grinned at each other in relief that someone else understood and shared their feelings, and gone on to buy two ice-creams and three new tops to celebrate.
Later, evening-time, over a drink or two, she'd told Mariah; someone who she knew would understand, had experience, who wouldn't, couldn't judge her harshly. Mariah had grinned and made jokes and got rid of Ming-Ming's nerves easily, finishing with another round of drinks, her round this time, and an offer of an ear to bend whenever Ming-Ming needed one; "Always here for you, babes, you know that, right?"
She knew, just as she knew Maddy was, and she loved them for it.
It was nearly three in the morning when she had turned to the only person both awake and coherent and broached the subject in a way not dissimilar to Mathilda's earlier attempt.
Julia was an unknown element. She was the one person who Ming-Ming was unsure of; hopelessly nervous about; didn't want to ruin an amazing friendship by telling her and getting the wrong reaction.
Maddy had patiently listened to her worries and sheer paranoia, happily offered to tell Julia herself, in fact. Ming-Ming had declined, with a vague feeling of needing to sort this out on her own.
And if sorting it out required the nerves she could only gain after a decent few Breezers, then so be it.
So, she told her, finally understand what had made Maddy so scared as she heard near-identical words coming from her mouth.
"Why the hell would I judge you for that, honey?" She had looked up and smiled a smile so wide that it had hurt the corners of her mouth, because Julia understood as well. The tightness of nerves disappeared as she sat there, being reassured, just talking and laughing, just as they always had done.
Maddy, Ju, Ri. Three girls who had wormed their way into her heart and permanently sat on a big button marked "Platonic Love and Trust". She could trust them, of course she could; how stupid she had been to think otherwise!
"You and me forever, ok?" she whispered. The happy-sad bubble welled up inside her again and this time she let it burst, let the tears flood down her face. "Forever and ever and ever."
Climbing back into bed, she pressed her hot, damp face against Kai's back.
"I love Ju and Ri and Maddy," she announced sleepily.
"Wha' did you do to 'm now?" There was no answer, and Kai thought that she must have drifted off to sleep until a whisper came, breeze-soft,
"Told them that I'm bi."
"Oh, that." Kai rolled over and held the shivering, damp-eyed girl close. She nestled her head against his chest and shut her eyes.
"You know I love you too, though?" she whispered.
"Yeah, you just don't let me sleep."
Random ending, what can I do? It was getting too sappy. There'll probably be one person reading who recognises themselves in this; let's just say I have my own three.
Forever and ever.
xIlbx
PS: Review!