VII

Mitsuru did not dare move. Not a finger, not her a tiny twitch of the eye, nothing. Her entire body was frozen but her mind was racing. How to react? The images she had tried to ban from her thoughts now came rushing in with force. There was no use in resistance, inappropriate things were all she could think of.

What was left of her rational thinking fought a desperate fight against her body and large parts of her mind. She could not let happen what everything in her was pushing her to do. It would erase all the clarity with which she asserted the incident between Takeba and her right now. It would make her appear weak-willed and driven by bodily desires. On the other hand, it would also honestly potray what she wanted for once; not what someone wanted her to appear like, wanted her to behave like.

A warm breath brushed upon her neck and interrupted Mitsuru's train of thought. Although she tried to surpress it, Mitsuru's whole body shivered. And much to her terror, it was not an unpleasant shiver. Not at all unpleasant. The rational part of her thinking died down more and more; the images grew in number and intensity.

Mitsuru heard herself sigh and breath more heavily than she ought to. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, moving her neck closer to the source of the warm breath. What was she doing? That was not her will – or was it? Was her rational only emposing something on her that other people taught her, that other people told her to be right? Where did this impression of right and wrong even come from?

The motion of Mitsuru's head did not go unnoticed by Takeba. She tilted her head and slowly let her lips meet with Mitsuru's neck. Mitsuru shivered even more and had to press her teeth together to not let out a moan. This was not good. With every moment, her resolve was weakening and the response of her body to Takeba was strengthening.

Slowly, very slowly, and with extreme caution, Mitsuru lifted her hand that had been hanging lossely by her side. She felt like she was in a trance as she positioned her hand upon that of Yukari which had been resting on her hip. Yukari's skin felt just as soft and warm as Mitsuru had remembered it; she lightly brushed over it before she entwined her fingers around Yukari's.

She could have thought about how weird it was that something as simple as hands put over another could evoke such a feeling in her; she could have continued to battle with herself over whether what she did was right or wrong – but instead, Mitsuru just concentrated on Yukari's fingers in her hand and on how much at home that contact made her feel. Yukari's fingers and hers – it felt like a unit that was meant to be together but had been ripped apart and now that unit was joined again. Mitsuru never wanted to let go of Yukari's hand again; it perfecty fitted into her own and it made her feel all sorts of pleasant things.

Yukari still had said no word; instead, she reacted to their entwined hands by slowly moving her lips up Mitsuru's neck, placing a kiss every half inch on the way up to Mitsuru's jaw. This was a lot, too mch maybe, like the night with Yukari had been. Was this a sign that this incident had not been a mere accident but something that the both of them wanted, the both of them longed for?

The thought drowned when Yukari's kisses reached Mitsuru's jaw line. Thoughts were washed away by this warm, familiar, pleasant feeling that filled Mitsuru's entire body, and washed away by the images that were still increasing in number and intensity. Mitsuru's moral doubts had obviously left her conscious mind, as she now imagined delicatly undressing Yukari and pressing kisses all over her body without regret.

Something in Mitsuru snapped. The dam that had been holding back her desires gave way, collapsed and there was no stopping anymore to her lust. With a releasing moan, she broke loose from Yukari's embrace and quickly turned around. Yukari blinked at her in surprise about Mitsuru's abrupt motion. Mitsuru, though, did not give her a lot time to ask what this meant but instead almost threw herself at Yukari.

She curled her arms tightly around Yukari's slender waist und burried her face in Yukari's shoulder. Everything around her smelled of the other girl, her whole body was in contact with the other girl's body; she could feel how warm Yukari was, and how her body trembled slightly. After a little while of hesitation, Yukari's body seemed to lose tension and she put her arms around Mitsuru's neck. They now stood in a complete, in an intese embrace; each of them consumed in feeling the other with all her senses.

They remained like that for a period of time that Mitsuru could not estimate at all. Yukari's chest slowly raised and lowered as she was breathing, the faint touch of air as she exhaled brushed over Mitsuru's sensitive neck. There was no need to estimate time, no need to move, no need for words. As it was, everything was just perfect for Mitsuru. She felt like she was in an equilibrium she had been out of for a long period of time.

Yukari carefully pulled away from the embrace and looked at Mitsuru. The look on her face was a mixture of puzzled and glowing with happyness. Mitsure was slightly let down by the end of this wonderful embrace but Yukari's rosy cheeks and big round eyes made her smile.

"Senpai," Yukari said hesitatingly "I'm … I'm not sure I understand all this. I mean, you-" Mitsuru cut her off by playfully putting a finger on Yukari's lips. "There is no need to understand. You just need to feel."

Mitsuru moved closer to Yukari to give her a little kiss on the lips. To Mitsuru's surprise, Yukari responded immidiately and the kiss turned into something just as intense as the embrace before. Tracing them up the sides of Yukari's body, Mitsuru moved her hands onto Yukari's shoulders. Once she had a firm grip on them, Mitsuru started pushing Yukari slowly. At first, Yukari reacted surprised and withstood the gentle pressure but when she realised that Mitsuru was actually intending to push her somwhere, she carefully let herself be pushed back.

In a way, Mitsuru admired the trust that Yukari had to have in her to let herself be pushed backwards without any means of seeing what was coming behind her. Mitsuru knew quite well what her goal was, though, and she directly steered against the next wall. Yukari's back met with the wall and now Mitsuru moved her hands from Yukari's shoulders to under her thighs, so she could slightly lift Yukari. Yukari held on to the back of Mitsuru's head as she was pushed up against the wall.

Mitsuru used her body weight to hold Yukari up against the wall and let her fingers explore Yukari's thighs while her lips were exploring Yukari's collar bone. A deep moan from Yukari confirmed Mitsuru in what she was doing, so she continued up Yukari's thighs, to the region where her skirt ended and Mitsuru's hands subtly found a way under the skirt, up to more delicate parts of the thigh. At the back of Mitsuru's head, Yukari was playing with the thick strands of Mitsuru's hair. She slowly removed all the loose strands of hair that hung into Mitsuru's face. Then she laid a finger under Mitsuru's chin and slwoly raised Mitsuru's head.

For a moment, the movement of Mitsuru's hands stopped and they both looked into each other's eyes without saying or moving anything. Yukari then removed her finger from Mitsuru's chin and instead cupped the side of Mitsuru's face in her whole hand. The red-haired girl closed her eyes in delight and smiled. The hand on the one side of Mitsuru's face was soon mirrored by Yukari's other hand, who now had the entire face cupped tightly in her hands.

Although Mitsuru still had her eyes closed, she felt that Yukari was moving in very slowly for a kiss. First, it was just a peck on the forehead, a more intense kiss on the forehead and then a full kiss on the lips. The both of them were so lost in the kiss, they barely took the time to breath anymore because that would have involved breaking their intense contact for a split second.

As they slowly broke the kiss, they looked at each other again. This time, they were both blushed and also breathing more heavily than usual. Mitsuru felt an indescribable rush of happyness and she felt like all she wanted to do now was to tell this woman that she loved her all night long.

Wait – what? Tell her that she, that Mitsuru … loved her? Was that correct? Or was that just caused by the sudden rush of emotion in her chest; that she could not distinguish mere lust and excitement from love anymore? Love was a clean, a noble, an almost holy emotion to her. What they shared now felt somehow dirty to Mitsuru, so unbound, so animalic, so roaring. Right now, Mitsuru thought there could be no better emotion than what she felt right now.

Everything in her body and mind was tingeling, her view had become but a rush of colours and Yukari, the smell of the other girl bewitched her, her ears heard nothing but the heavy, fast breathing of the other girl. She was unbelievably aroused and felt like she was ging to burst into a thousand little pieces if Yukari touched her only a little more.

But could that be love, really? Mitsuru had attributed this rush to mere physical attraction, the fact that her body longed for somebody, longed to be this intimate with someone that she knew she could rely on. It seemed temporary to her – extremely pleasant and stimulating, yes, but still temporal. Like a phase that would be over after her body had discharged her held-back sexual energy.

Love on the other hand – love had always seemed to her like a once-in-a-lifetime chance, something that was more or less eternal once you found it. Something that one had to strife for, something that you could only share with the one person that was made for you. This whatever it was that she shared with Yukari had seemed nothing like that, though.

Yukari had been there for her in times of need, and she had offered to Mitsuru the intimacy she had needed so badly. They were no soul mates, they simply were to friends and fellow SEES members that happened to be able to provide sexual satisfaction for each other. There was no epic tale of them searching each other for half their lives behind them, Yukari had simply come up …

Then it hit Mitsuru. Yukari had come up to her, yes. More than once, even. But what if … what if Yukari actually had been fighting for the chance to make that very move? What if for her, this was not a spontaneous get-together but something she had wanted for a long time? Mitsuru, at least, had been completely oblivious about Yukari taking any interest in her.

Did that mean that Yukari was in love with her? What did that mean for herself? Mitsuru got lost in thought again.

"Is … everything alright?" Yukari asked as she lightly brushed a finger over the face of the pensative Mitsuru.

"Yukari," Mitsuru said, "we need to talk."