Disclaimer: Bleach is owned by Tite Kubo. He created this world, I'm just playing in it.
For reasons that are unknown to me, every word I've written for this story beyond the first chapter has been a long and excruciating process. I honestly can't explain why working on this has been like using a cheese grater on my brain.
Part of it is likely because I was stupid enough to change my methods and be posting chapter while I'm still writing it, doubly stupid since I'm doing that with two stories at once. Part of it may just be the story itself but I think the largest percentage of it has been my state of mind which has been a tattered mess for most of this year.
Oh well, at least the chapter is done and I think I am going to stick with this one until it is done before I go back to anything else. I know this will disappoint readers waiting for the next chapter of A Chance Encounter but believe me, both that story and this one will be all the better if I just concentrate on this for now and get it done.
It may only take another chapter or two to finish this one anyway, can't say for sure since I never plan these things out. But between the difficulties I have already had with it and my desire to get it done I think I can expedite things a bit. Despite my never planning anything out I didn't envision this being a very long story anyway so it shouldn't be a problem and I think it will still convey what I want it to.
Enough of my rambling, here's Chapter 3, Enjoy and please leave a review if you would be so kind.
Lonely Exile
Chapter 3:
Ichigo groaned as he flopped back onto the soft grass of the park, his body thankful that today's training session was finally over. As it turned out this had been exactly the thing he had needed and there was a ...rightness to it that he could feel in his bones. He was enjoying learning how to properly wield a blade and Lisa was a very good and very thorough teacher. There was no life or death learning here though, that would have been a recipe for disaster in his powerless human body.
She took the time to teach him the correct way to hold the sword and the proper footwork. He was learning proper defensive techniques and she taught him that not every blow had to be fatal, that wearing down your opponent with your stamina and with the infliction of lesser wounds were just as valuable. He had earned a myriad of bumps and bruises from her bokken by way of correcting his form or illustrating her point on why he should do something a certain way. Individual style was one thing, but he had to learn the basics first before he tried to incorporate his own additions.
"Graceless as ever," Lisa snarked. "But at least you did make it through the cool down exercises before you collapsed."
"Yeah, yeah," he said as he waved a hand dismissively. "So why the aggressive approach today. Did I do something to piss you off?"
"No," she answered as she stepped up to his prone form, her bokken resting across her shoulder. "Just thought I'd give you the equivalent of a pop quiz to see how well you could put into practice the things I've been teaching you for the past month."
"And?" he asked, rolling his eyes.
"You've done remarkably well," she admitted. "Better than a lot of the recruits I used to get for my squad from the Shinoreijutsuin."
"Do you miss it?" he asked after a moment. She didn't answer right away and the slight frown on her face had him about to apologize for sticking his nose where it didn't belong. When she sat down next to him he sat up.
"Overall, no," she answered. "There are a few things that I do miss, but far more that I don't. I could go a few more centuries without ever setting foot there again."
"How many others did Aizen do that too?" he asked quietly.
"Hundreds, thousands," she shrugged. "No one really knows but the numbers were large enough that the disappearances of souls was noticeable. We happened to be the only ones to survive where others apparently died almost immediately. If not for Kisuke and Tessai we might not have even lasted long enough for Central to sentence us to death. And thanks to Yoruichi we all managed to escape."
"The more I hear about this Central 46 the less I like them," he said.
"Good, because they can't be trusted," she cautioned. "No one even knows if the way they operate is truly by the Soul King's order or if they just do what they want. He appoints them but who knows if he pays any attention to them beyond that."
They remained quiet for a few minutes before Ichigo spoke again. "How did you all manage? I mean, you all had Hollows and you had to come to a new world."
"It definitely wasn't easy," she answered with a frown. "Kisuke, Tessai, and Yoruichi made sure that we remained unseen and kept us from disrupting the world around us until we could defeat and control our Hollows. We spent years fighting through anger and despair and dealing with the spectre of being violated in just about the worst way possible. It was our common tragedy and our burning hatred and desire to kill Aizen that helped us keep it together. I don't know if any of us can say that we have ever healed from the trauma of what was done to us or if we've just learned how to lock it away in a little box somewhere deep in our souls where it will never be seen again."
"I'm sorry," he apologized. "I guess it was pretty rude of me to ask." He hadn't really considered how traumatic or how awful the situation had been for them and he really felt like an ass for bringing it up. He really should have known better especially when he recalled how much desperation and despair he felt when he was first dealing with his Hollow.
"Don't worry about it," she said. "Actually, I'm surprised that you hadn't asked before. I expected you to back when you were training with us."
He shrugged "Given my own situation I guess I had more sense back then than to be insensitive enough to ask."
"Well, tact never has been one of your strong points," she drawled. "But you're forgiven."
He rolled his eyes. "Well at the risk of continuing to be tactless, I gotta ask...why the school girl uniform?"
She smirked at him. "For one thing, I think it's cute. You're probably thinking it has something to do with my choice of reading material since the school girl look is a popular fetish genre...and you may be at least partly right there." Her grin widened. "Plus, how bad ass is a school girl carrying a sword? If Mashiro can go with the whole Tokusatsu superhero look, why not a school girl with a sword? It's a classic."
"Seriously?" he drawled.
"The first one may be the higher percentage...but the second isn't far behind."
"Of course not," he deadpanned.
"The real truth?" she said, looking sombre now. "One of the last times I went through any real angst about what had been done to me, I would spend time sitting on top of a building near one of the high schools watching people go about their lives and I would see all of these girls going back and forth in their uniforms. They knew nothing about Shinigami or traitors, or having your soul violated and infected with a Hollow. They didn't know about having everything you knew taken away from you and having your world literally turned inside out. Right then I would have given anything to have all of my memories erased and just be one of them. No real worries, spending time with friends...seeing how much you could make that uniform challenge the dress code like they all were. Normal things. No monsters, no death sentence hanging over me, no constantly looking over my shoulder hoping there wasn't an assassin lurking there to take my head or stab me in the back. I just wanted to live life like they were." She snapped out of the dour mood. "Since I couldn't do that I did the next best thing, I went and got a uniform. I couldn't be who they were, I can only be who I am and wearing this helps to remind me that I'm stronger than I was then and that I will make sure that I always am."
"Well, for what it's worth you wear it well."
The moment he said it his mind screamed 'Why?!' Just what the hell was he doing? Sure, he had long ago acknowledged that she was attractive and if he were to be brutally honest with himself he knew that he was feeling some kind of attraction towards her. He didn't really know why and he hadn't bothered to explore those thoughts any further, figuring that it was just some passing notion he was feeling since they had been spending a lot of time together. He didn't say things like that to anybody so why her and why now?
"Hmm, so Berry-tan are you finally starting to notice the opposite sex or does the school girl thing just hit your perv spot?" The usual flat, deadpan delivery did nothing to show the actual curiosity she was feeling. Since this was Ichigo she knew that he wasn't just perving on the look. He'd gouge his eyes out before he'd leer or perv out about something. Cripes, a month of teasing and he still turned red if she so much as threatened to flash him her panties again. Was he beginning to show some actual interest?
She hoped that was the case as her interest in him had been growing as they spent more time together, convincing her that it hadn't just been some temporary notion going through her mind in the midst of a bout of loneliness. Truthfully, she wanted something to happen and at times she wanted to push the issue a bit but she didn't want to scare him off. She knew that her usually stern looking demeanour and blunt words were off putting to many, though Ichigo seemed immune to it. With him it had more to do with him and the main reason why he always seemed to remain at a certain distance from members of the opposite sex that had an interest in him.
As a nine year old child the love of his life, of course, was his Mother. Losing her and blaming himself for the loss had damaged his ability to let anyone truly get close to him and thus far no one really had. He may not even consciously realize that he was keeping people at a distance, and while some of his best friends were actually female, it was unclear how far any of his thoughts went beyond just that friendship with them. She had to wonder what made her think that she might fare any better than anyone else had. Maybe it was just the desperation of loneliness influencing her thinking.
"It's not like I've seen you wearing anything else," he countered, knowing just how lame and weak it sounded.
"True," she agreed. It struck her then more so than it ever had before that she didn't have anything else. How pathetic was that? "But I'll still take the compliment." As offhand and obscure as his compliment was, when was the last time she got a sincere compliment of any kind from someone about how she looked?
"Thanks for training me by the way," he said in an attempt to get himself out of the awkward spot he had created for himself. "This was exactly what I needed. And...I guess I needed to be around someone that knows the spirit world and who doesn't treat me like I'm going to fall apart because I can't see spirits anymore."
"You're welcome," she said. "Truthfully, this has been good for me as well. It's the first time that I've honestly felt like I was free in a very long time."
"I guess being in hiding you really couldn't go out and interact with the world a whole lot," he surmised.
"We got out more than you might think," she offered. "Once we stabilized and began to learn how to utilize the new power we had, we started getting out a bit. You've seen how we all act so you have some idea what it was like for us to get stir crazy."
He shuddered. "I can only imagine."
"Staying hidden all the time wasn't going to be possible and we did want to keep up with what was going on in the world around us," she continued. "Kisuke kept us informed about any shinigami that came to town and we took every measure we could to watch out for them ourselves and keep them from sensing us. We rarely ever went anywhere alone and didn't stay out for long. We also stuck to some of the shadier parts of town where people are less likely to notice you or care about who you are. We were taking a big risk but it was better than staying hidden behind a barrier and never leaving our hole."
"At least you are finally free now," he said with a slight smile. That little smile faded when he saw the slight scowl on her face.
"It tastes a little bitter though," she said. "And not just because of what Central did rather than helping us after Aizen was done with us. It's entirely possible that they never even actually sent anyone to hunt us down.
We all have a theory that once we left the Soul Society they figured that we had either died or turned completely into Hollows and ended up in Hueco Mundo. Shinji's trying to look into it now that he's back there but that's what we all think he will find." The look on her face became one of outright disgust. "We spent over a century hiding in fear and paranoia, looking over our shoulders with every breath we took and it cost us. We may be free now but that isn't going to fix the damage and the toll it took."
"I'm sorry," he said sincerely. He didn't know what else to say. What could he say? He was a little shocked actually because this was the most emotion he had ever seen from her or heard in her voice. It was obvious that what had been done to her and the other Visored was a deep wound than even now had not fully healed and might never do so. How could it?
"Nothing for you to be sorry about Ichigo," she assured him, her tone returning to normal. "If not for you we wouldn't have our freedom back." She cocked her head at him slightly. "You know, you're a tricky one Strawberry. Somehow you got me to vent all of that without even trying. What's next? You going to charm me out of my clothes and have your way with me right here in the park?"
His eyes bulged, his face lit up like a neon sign, and he spit and sputtered, words coming out in broken gibberish as he vehemently and indignantly defended himself against such an accusation. A few seconds later her demeanour unexpectedly broke and she found herself sprawled on the grass laughing her head off. Her facade rarely ever broke, the mask of seriousness almost never left her face for any reason no matter what she was feeling.
She could tease and flirt like she had been with him and like she always used to with her Captain, and she could bring herself to the ragged edge like she had with the things she had told Ichigo about her past. All the while the look on her face and the inflection of her voice rarely ever changed no matter what her emotions were. With what she had told him she had brought herself much closer to that ragged edge than she had been in a long, long time and her teasing words to him had been meant to bring her back from that edge. His reaction though had tipped her over the edge in the opposite direction.
She wasn't one to ever cry when things reached a point like that and on the exceedingly rare occasions where she ever did, no one else ever saw it. She made damn sure of that. She knew that holding ones emotions in wasn't good and the unspoken way of coping among the Visored had always been to let it out through the aggression of their training sessions. None of them ever held back and it had always helped to take the raw edges off. Hiyori was always willing but with the time she had been spending around Ichigo lately they hadn't sparred a lot. And considering just how much she had been willing to open up around him and speak of her past...and that was another surprising issue all on its own...she should have seen a breaking point coming.
Fortunately that break had found its release point in riotous laughter to Ichigo's priceless reaction to her teasing. And it felt so damn good, like a great reservoir of stress had broken through the dam and was draining away in a flash flood. The more she laughed, the funnier his reaction got as he looked both puzzled and comically indignant. She didn't care right now if she looked and was acting like someone else had taken over her body. She didn't care if she looked ridiculous. She didn't care if he was getting a good look at her as both her skirt and short top rode up as she rolled around and writhed through the wave of blissful and cathartic hysteria. Hell, it only made the look on his face that much funnier. At any moment she expected a fountain of blood to shoot from his nose and send him rocketing across the park.
Eventually the fit ceased and she just lay there, a little dishevelled and the usual serious look hadn't quite returned to her face yet. She felt...good. A little drained, but good.
"All good now?" Ichigo asked dryly, trying to cover the fact that he was having a hard time keeping his eyes off of the display before him.
"You have no idea," she breathed. "I don't remember the last time I let go like that. Thanks."
He raised an eyebrow. "Glad to help...I guess?"
"Give yourself a little credit Strawberry," she urged. "You listened and that's more than most would do. I might even thank you by letting you have your way with me."
Hmm, that was new. She was sure she heard something like a release of steam and a popping sound, and he seemed to have passed out while sitting upright. Poor guy, he really needed to loosen up.
It was a couple of days later and she realized that she may have pushed him beyond his threshold. Generally, he was never really talkative but was even less so than he had been. The other indicator was in the way that he looked at her when he thought she didn't notice, and the way he didn't when she did. She figured that he was likely wrestling with the thought of just how serious she had been with what she had said. It probably wouldn't do him any good to know that if he hadn't blown a fuse and blanked out and had shown some interest in taking her up on it, that she just might have drug him off into the bushes then and there.
As it was, her long standing loneliness and desire for some physical companionship combined with how she felt when she made that statement had given her a mighty itch to scratch once she got home and into the shower. No matter how good that felt it couldn't match the spectre of what her imagination had conjured up in the process.
So, what to do? Keep pushing, back off, play it down the middle and see which way things tilted? The last two could see things end up stuck in neutral and never moving in any direction while the first option bore the most risk. If anything was to happen between them she didn't want it to be one sided or based solely on her needs. He didn't deserve to be caught up in a selfish, one sided relationship no matter what form it took. She really did want him to be happy and have a sense of peace and belonging. They had been getting along well, talking to each other about things that they likely wouldn't have and thus far hadn't with anyone else. That was a good base to have for anything that potentially might happen between them, or at least she hoped it was. Her willingness for something to happen had connected with her desire and need and was challenging her ability to let him come around on his own. A serious push just might be the only way to move things along because letting things just sit and go nowhere wouldn't do either of them any good. Well, tonight there just might be a chance to fix that.
They had snuck into the school to train in the facilities of the Kendo club, something they had done before when the weather looked like it wasn't going to allow them to train outside. Ichigo had been rather unenthusiastic about it at first but it hadn't taken long for him to finally just shrug and go with it. They weren't doing any harm and when they finally left the stuffy training hall the pool wasn't too far away. Sitting on the edge with your feet dangling in the cool water was a nice way to relax afterwards.
When they exited the still and too warm air of the training hall, they were met with more of the same outside. The rain that was expected earlier hadn't materialized and it was a warm and increasingly muggy night with no breeze. Reaching the pool they began removing their shoes and socks. Ichigo still seemed to be unable to look at her.
"You're never exactly a chatterbox Ichigo," she began. "But I'm beginning to feel insulted by this level of quiet."
His posture stiffened with a jerk but he still didn't turn to face her. "Sorry, I've just had something on my mind."
"Gee I couldn't tell." Her tone translated to 'well duh!' "And apparently that something also makes it nearly impossible for you to look at me too. Did what I said the other day really rattle you that much?" Might as well throw it out there and see if it stuck.
He spun around fast enough to nearly give himself whiplash. The sudden inability to speak left him with his mouth hanging open and his face quickly turned scarlet. Not only had she removed her shoes and socks, but her top and her skirt as well and she was in the process of removing her bra.
"W-what the hell are you doing!" he blurted out as he turned back around just as quickly.
"I want to go for a swim and I can't very well do that in my clothes now can I?" she snarked. "Stop being so dramatic, it's not like you haven't seen a naked woman before." He flinched when her discarded panties made contact with the back of his head. "Or did you think I don't know what Yoruichi did? We do talk."
"A little warning would have been nice!" he insisted.
"Why? You'd act like this either way so what's the difference?" she countered. "Besides, you haven't answered my question."
"How am I supposed to answer that...and while you're freaking naked?!"
"Answer honestly and stop making excuses," she shot back, a bit of frustrated anger beginning to creep into her voice and getting his attention. "Did what I say get to you or not?"
"Yes, it did alright!" he shot back. "You're always teasing me so how the hell would I know if you're serious or not?"
"Judging by the way you keep looking at me when you don't think I can see it I'd say you're hoping that I am serious," she countered.
"W-what?" he sputtered. "I don't..."
"Oh stop it already," she growled. "You're so damn afraid of letting someone get really close to you that
you act like you don't see what's going on around you. You've done it for so long and with such conviction that you've convinced yourself that you really are oblivious to the interest any girl shows in you, like you don't even notice them." She glowered at him. "And that hurts them worse than if you just flat out told them you weren't interested."
He was stunned into silence. Not because what she said was a sudden and new revelation to him, but because it wasn't and hearing her say it had made the truth of it sink all the way into his mind where it had only skimmed the surface before. Until now its presence had been known but barely acknowledged and certainly not to its full extent.
On some level he knew that he had been keeping people from being able to have a relationship with him that went any deeper than just friendship. It wasn't that he wanted to be alone, it wasn't a conscious decision that he had made, but everything he did and every sputtering excuse that stumbled out of his mouth led to that state and that outcome. But it wasn't until she said it that it occurred to him that he might be hurting others by doing that. He thought that the only one he was doing any harm to was himself and he could handle that. Hurting someone else...not so much..
"Have I been hurting you?" he asked quietly. He was unsure if he was asking the right question or not, he was still confused and unclear about her intentions and her feelings. He was afraid that he was assuming too much or that his own growing interest in her was skewing his thinking.
"You're not hurting me because I understand why you do it," she answered. "For me it's frustration more than anything." The look on his face told her that he still wasn't quite getting it, or at the least he wasn't believing what it implied.
She sighed and felt like she was deflating. 'Well, I'm already naked, might as well bare the soul a little too.' "Imagine if you can," she started. "Spending better than a century without being able to have a close relationship with anyone. Without having a physical relationship with anyone, unable to feel the touch of someone you care about. You're terrified that you will lose yourself to your hollow and that you will be unable to stop it from hurting others. You live in isolation so no one can find you, only able to venture out on rare occasions where you see a world that is already virtually alien to you changing and progressing and all of the people in it going about their lives while you remain on the outside of it all and unable to be part of it."
"You grow hungry for interaction with others that you know you can't have. Even among your own comrades you grow lonely but you know that if you took the chance and met someone and built a relationship that the danger was always there that one day Central's assassins would find you and kill not just you but anyone you were with. You fear that your hollow will take over and you will have to watch helplessly as it guides your hands to kill your friend or lover. Over time, you begin to lose the ability to feel almost anything other than the anger and hatred over what first Aizen and then Central did to you."
"You begin to forget what positive emotions feel like while you become intimately familiar with that anger and hatred and the thirst for revenge and justice for what was done to you. You find yourself drowning in a sea of despair and cold loneliness and it takes everything you have to not completely lose yourself and the sense of who you are. You end up numb to the world around you."
"Then you came along and shook things up. You were like us and you were ready to take the fight to Aizen where we had just sat around and wallowed in our misery and did nothing. You defeated him and it gave us back our freedom. Honestly, I didn't know what to hell to do with it. I started to spend more time out of the warehouse and figured I might as well patrol the town while I was at it. It gave me time to think and the emotions I had lost touch with slowly began to wake back up. At the same time I would see you out and around and I could see that you were headed in the opposite direction."
"You looked like you were starting to shut down like I had and I didn't want to see that happen to you. My loneliness and reemerging desires made me start to see you differently than I had before. I began to really see you for who you were and I realized that I did indeed like you and was attracted to you."
His eyes widened at the admission and he was practically gaping like a fish.
"But with your own issues...and the fact that you really can be dense when it comes to the opposite sex," that got a bit of a scowl in response. "I felt like I was banging my head off the wall because you didn't seem to be noticing anything. I know some of that is on me as well considering how long it has been since I even tried to get close to someone, thus the frustration. That's why I said what I did and that's why I'm standing in front of you naked right now. I wouldn't be letting you see me like this if I wasn't interested." She smirked. "Or if I didn't want you to take advantage of it but that's probably asking too much of you."
She thought he was going to choke on his tongue, or maybe catch on fire given how red he just went. It took a moment but he did manage to compose himself. Even if his eyes did wander much to his scowling consternation.
"I'm sorry that you had to live like that," he began. "And I'm sorry about how I've acted. You're right. I think I've known, at least for a while about what I was doing but I couldn't really admit to it. Stupidly though I really didn't realize that I was hurting anyone...I never wanted to do that. Ever since my Mom died it's been really hard to let anyone other than my sisters be that close to my heart and I was...am...scared to death of losing anyone close to me like that again."
"It's understandable," she said gently. "You were only nine, at that age the greatest love in your life was your mother. There's no way that wouldn't have a profound effect on you."
"Other's shouldn't have had to suffer for it though," he said. "Unfortunately I guess there isn't a lot I can do now to fix that."
"Unless you start a harem as an apology," she deadpanned. The delivery was as important as the timing and the timing had him face palming and nearly falling into the pool.
"I'm having enough trouble with one let alone a harem," he sighed.
"Believe me, it would work, but you're right," she agreed. "You're already having enough trouble as is." She looked into his eyes. "So...are you interested in me Ichigo? At least answer that much for me so I know where I stand."
In her eyes he saw...something, something that he hadn't seen before. He didn't really know how to describe it but he knew it was significant. Expectation? Hope? He could even see what he thought was a hint of the loneliness she had spoken of. He wasn't a stranger to the feeling and he could only imagine...well, no he couldn't really...what it must have been like for her given what she had told him. Truth be told he was getting tired of his own loneliness and keeping others at a distance. What good had that done him? All it had done was develop and build an ache inside of his soul that he had gotten so used to that he had barely been able to recognize it for what it truly was. In those moments where he had recognized it he just buried it and hid it away again. Maybe it was time to stop doing that and try something else.
"Yeah, I am interested in you Lisa," he admitted, feeling like a ton of bricks had just slid off his back.
She took and deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment, letting it out slowly before reopening them. A warm shimmer seemed to radiate from the centre of her being, leaving her feeling a number of things that she hadn't felt for what seemed like forever.
She smiled lightly. "I'll try and take it easy on you Strawberry, but no guarantees. It's been a long, long time but I'll try not to jump you at the first opportunity."
He blanched slightly. No, he hadn't missed the part of her explanation where it had been better than a century since she had been in a physical relationship. He'd also be lying if he said he didn't want to know what the physical part of a relationship was like and that he was scared to death to find out. No doubt a number of his male acquaintances would be mortified to hear that but he didn't care.
"I appreciate that," he said, rubbing the back of his head and hoping that he hadn't heard his voice go up a little. "I've never been in a relationship so it's not like I have any idea what I'm doing."
"What we've been doing is a good start," she said. "Spending time together, talking and getting to know each other. Let the rest come naturally. You might be surprised." She took her glasses off and set them on one of the starter blocks at the end of the pool. "Now, I've been standing here naked all this time and giving you a free show, I think it's about time you returned the favour." She smirked. "Fair is fair."
He turned scarlet and lost the ability to speak. He wanted to try and make excuses but no sound would leave his mouth as it opened and closed uselessly.
She set her hands on her hips and continued to smirk at him. "You know, I've already seen nearly all of you anyway considering the beatings you used to take from Hiyori and how torn up your clothes would get."
"And if I remember correctly the last few times she called me a pervert and accused me of flashing her," he drawled, rolling his eyes.
She waved her hand dismissively. "I think she actually likes you. She was embarrassed but she only knows how to really express any of her emotions through anger."
She should really stop doing that, hitting him with things that cause his brain to come to a screeching halt. She hadn't been lying though. You had to know Hiyori pretty well to be able to even partially decipher the meaning behind her tirades because she really did seem to only know how to express herself through the single emotion of anger. Pretty much it was her default setting and when you got right down to it it was a pretty sad state to live in. Then again, being the damaged people they were the Visored all had their peculiarities.
Unless she was reading her mercurial little friend wrong, and she doubted that she was, Hiyori's ranting at Ichigo's barely dressed state, a state she had been the cause of, was because she couldn't admit that she liked what she saw. She didn't know how to handle the feeling and that feeling scared her. So she had done what she always did, ranted and threw one of her sandals at him and chased him around the training room. Any further discussion about that though could wait until later.
She sighed. "Fine, I'll cut you a break this time and save you any further trauma. I'll dive in first and you can strip and join me while I'm not looking. But," she poked him in the chest and smirked. "Next time you are getting naked first and I will be watching."
Unable to resist one last parting shot, she grabbed his head with both hands, pulled him down, and kissed him before turning and diving into the pool. It took a moment for his mind to reboot...again. He kind of felt like he had just taken several left and right jabs to the head. Not enough to harm him but certainly enough to disorient him and leave him reeling. He should be used to having crazy things happen in his life but tonight had still thrown him for a quite a loop.
And as he watched her leisurely swim down the length of the pool, he smiled and realized that he was okay with that.
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