A/N: Part of a fic swap with my dear ship mate Suzanami from two years ago. It's my version of Fuu and Ferio's first kiss.

She understood that he wanted to take it slow with her.

She understood that he wanted to court her, to do the prince thing right, since he saw her as such a lady.

She understood all of that and she admired that from him.

Respected him, in fact.

But…to put it delicately, she was beginning to grow…impatient.

This was the third delegate meeting she'd attended, meaning it had been about three months since Hikaru had abolished the Pillar system, and Fuu and the others had made several trips between those meetings, and Ferio had yet to do anything other than chastely hold and kiss her hand.

She looked across the circle of delegates to where the Prince was sitting and studied him. Hikaru sat in between herself and Umi. Hikaru seemed to be paying plenty of attention to each speaker, sneaking glances at Lantis, and Umi…well Umi seemed fairly bored, but she was at least taking notes.

Ferio sat next to the left of Clef, and to the right of Ascot, and was rubbing his chin in contemplation as Geo concluded the findings from Autozam.

Part of her wondered if maybe he was just humoring her, or that he didn't find her pretty enough to want to kiss her properly and was just delaying it.

There was, of course, no rational reason for her to think that.

He caught her looking and smiled at her, winking.

She blushed and looked way, smiling despite herself. She tried to focus on the Guru, who was bringing the meeting to a ceremonious close.

Well, okay, so maybe he didn't think she wasn't pretty.

But then what was he waiting for?

Did he think that she didn't want to kiss him?

The thought hadn't occurred to her before, but upon it's genesis, she began replaying their interactions over in her mind.

"You know," a familiar voice said from her left, surprising her out of her thoughts, "I know the Guru's an engaging speaker, but I don't think he said anything that had the delegates glued to their seats,"

She glanced around the circle of chairs briefly, noticing they were long since emptied before she looked at the speaker and smiled at him, "Well then you clearly weren't paying close enough attention."

Ferio grinned at her, reaching over and taking her hand. He entwined their fingers together and kissed the back of her hand, "You know me, far too much going on in this mind to pay too much attention to what the long-winded Guru has to say."

She smiled at him and stood, tugging on his hand, "You should consider yourself lucky that he's already left. If he had heard that comment, you'd be on the receiving end of one of those 'long-winded' lectures."

He grinned at her, standing and following her as she led them towards the forest at the edge of the palace gardens. He ran his left hand over their entwined fingers, "Are you all right?"

She bit her lip at the question, "Why do you ask?"

He shrugged, "You didn't seem like you're usual, attentive self. You looked like you were worrying about something."

She bit her lip again.

He stopped on the path and tugged her arm so that she faced him. She studied the ground, avoiding his gaze.

He leaned down slightly to catch her eye, "Fuu? You don't have to talk to me about it. But I want you to—,"

She let go of his hand and wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing his lips and interrupting him.

At first, he didn't know what to do, in fact, in an attempt to avoid doing something wrong, he stuck his arms straight out away from her.

She pulled away and took a step back.

She was bright red when she saw how dumbstruck he was.

"I-I'm sorry." She stammered, wringing her hands, "I shouldn't have done that. But you hadn't done anything and I've been…It just seemed like someone should—,"

He had closed the distance between them, placing one hand on her waist and another on her cheek, pulling her back to kiss her properly.

There was passion in the kiss that she hadn't been expecting, and her only reaction was to wrap her arms around his neck to make the kiss last as long as she could manage.

He pulled away slightly, resting his forehead against her, "I have been waiting to do that for so long."