Warnings: None

NOTE: This can be read any time after chapter 95 of Lucky Child.

Children of Misfortune

A deleted scene in which NQK returns to her hotel room after her date with Jin and finds the girls waiting up to gossip with her about it:

"My First Kiss (Went a Little Like This)"

The minute the door shut behind me, a light flicked on in the living room, and Atsuko solemnly intoned: "Well, well, well. Look what the wind-demon dragged in."

Shizuru, Atsuko, Botan and Yukina had been sitting around the living room (apparently in the dark) waiting up for me; Atsuko now sat in a pool of yellow light, dramatically silhouetted like a villain from a Bond flick. Shizuru's cigarette burned in the near-dark, a smoking point of fire in the night. I gulped at the sight, and I gulped again when I met Botan's gaze.

Her magenta eyes were narrow. Calculating. Assessing. Like a sniper about to go in for the kill.

"Oh. Uh. Hi, everyone," I said as I gingerly walked into the dim space. "You're awake."

"Of course we are," Botan said, eyes narrowing further still.

"Decided to wait up and see just how late you'd be," Atsuko said.

"Seems your date must've gone well," said Shizuru, voice drier than overbaked cake.

"That's enough chatter. Spill it, woman." Botan rose from her seat on the couch and placed her fists squarely on her hips. "How was it?"

"How was he?" said Atsuko.

"What did you two get up to for—" Shizuru checked her watch; her brow shot up. "—ten hours?"

Botan did a double-take. "Ten hours?!"

"Date must've gone really well, in that case," Atsuko said with a lascivious grin.

They all stared at me expectantly, and I got the sense there would be no escape unless I gave them at least some of the requested details. I sat with a huff on the closest chair, hunching in my seat, gripping the armrests tight.

"OK. Fine." I picked at the chair's fraying hem with my fingertips, not meeting anyone's eyes. "It went really well. And he was great." A blush suffused my face. "Happy?"

"Not remotely!" Botan skittered over and fell to her knees beside my chair, desperately grabbing my wrist. "I want details!" She gave my arm a shake. "Details, woman!"

"Yes, all of the details, dammit!" Atsuko said.

And Yukina piped up with, "Atsuko explained to me what a date entails, and I must admit that I, too, am curious. If you don't mind sharing, I would love to hear more." Bashful, she twisted her sleeves between her fingers. "I am told dinner and a movie is a standard first date activity. But I don't precisely know what a movie is…"

"Well, he might enjoy seeing a movie with me sometime," I said, remembering Jin's otaku-for-humanity streak, "but no. We didn't see a movie. And a movie is—"

I explained the concept as best I could, but that meant I needed to explain things like electricity and cameras, and soon Botan realized I was trying to change the subject and she cut me off, quick. I couldn't help but cower under her glare, the truth pulled out of me by the force of her withering look.

"We didn't see a movie," I relented. "Instead he flew me around, since he's a wind demon and whatnot. And we had a picnic on top of Hanging Neck Rock."

Yukina gasped. "So high!"

"That's one hell of a view," said Shizuru.

Botan sighed wistfully, her grip on my arm relaxing. "I'll bet the sunset from up there was just magical."

"It was," I said, but I didn't want to get into the fact that I'd spent more time kissing Jin that watching it; I breezed onward, pun inteded. "So we just sat up there and talked until it got dark, and he flew me home. And now I'm here, talking to all of you."

Botan pillowed her cheek on her hand. "Oh, what a lovely date."

Shizuru grinned. "Sounds like Jin could teach the boys in Human World a thing or two about how to treat a lady."

"They would probably benefit from lessons, yeah…" I fidgeted. "Uh, Atsuko?"

Atsuko (whom I had just realized was staring intently at my collarbone) didn't even blink. "Yes?"

"…why are you looking at me like that?"

She shrugged. "I'm just looking for hickeys, that's all."

At once I clapped my hands on either side of my neck, sitting up with a strangled gasp of shock and embarrassment and confusion and oh my god did Jin give me a goddamn hickey, that bastard?! Atsuko started cackling; Botan's jaw dropped while Shizuru began to puff like a train on her cigarette.

"A-Atsuko!" I said (or groaned, or something equally pathetic). "Please!"

"Yes, Atsuko, don't be crass!" Botan scolded. "Of course Keiko doesn't have any hickeys!"

(Yukina, meanwhile, said "What's a hickey?" in the smallest, most innocent voice imaginable, but no one seemed to hear her—or at least no one wanted to be the one to explain such a thing.)

Shizuru, who had managed to smoke her cigarette down to the filter in about nine seconds, stubbed the embers out in the ashtray at her elbow. "Well," she said, glancing at my neck, "I didn't see any hickeys..."

I looked at her with gratitude. "Thank you, Shizuru."

"… but that reaction of yours was pretty suspicious." She lit up again, eyes both cool and interested. "And that makes me think the possibility of a hickey isn't so farfetched."

I slumped again and covered my face in my hands. For a second no one spoke, but soon Botan's voice cut the silence.

"Keiko—did something happen?" she said.

"No," I muttered against my palms.

"Then why are you turning red?!"

"No reason."

"No reas—oh my word, something did happen!" She dragged my hands away by the wrists, looking utterly aghast, scandalized and pleased. "Did he kiss you, Keiko? You have to tell me if he kissed you! It's girl-code! Or something!" She stared with big, watery, pleading eyes—eyes that still held razor focus, because this was a woman on a mission, and she had no intention of letting me go without getting her prize, first. "Please tell me? Please? Pleeeaaase?"

It was tough to resist when Botan pulled out her Kitty Face. I'm ashamed to admit I held strong for only a little longer than a minute or so, but my resolve crumbled when Botan's eyes reached peak watery and kitty-ness (not to mention when Atsuko and Shizuru both shot me looks that promised retribution should I not start talking right the hell now).

"Ugh, fine!" I said, flopping backward with a grumble. "We kissed, OK? You happy?!"

Atsuko shot to her feet. "Nice, Keiko!" She held up a hand. "High five!"

I ignored her and covered my face again. "Shut up shut up shut up—"

"How'd kissing work with those fangs of his, by the way?" Shizuru teased.

Kissing had worked just fine with those fangs of his, I wanted to say—but I didn't, because I was far too mortified to admit I'd kind of liked the fangs, not to mention that Jin was the type to nibble a little, which I'd also found I enjoyed and was entirely too mortified admit to anyone. So I said nothing and settled for snatching up a pillow and screaming into it regarding the indignity of the entire situation.

Botan didn't pick up on my awkward conundrum (although Shizuru and Atsuko both did, judging by the looks on their faces). Botan just sighed and leaned her cheek against the arm of my chair. It turns out she was preoccupied by other things.

"Your first kiss!" she said. "On top of Hanging Neck Rock during a sunset! How romantic!"

I tore my face out of the pillow to blurt, "Wait, wait—that wasn't my first kiss!"

"It wasn't?" Botan said.

"No! Of course it wasn't my first ki—wait hang on. Uh…" Only belatedly had I recalled that all my kisses in living memory hailed from my first life, not my second. My eyes popped open wide, jaw dropping with a gasp. "Holy shit, that was my first kiss, actually." The thought had my eyes screwing up in consternation. "Huh. Weird."

"Weird?!" Botan squawked. "How are you not making a bigger deal out of this?"

"Wait a minute, no!" I said, ignoring her as something else occurred to me. "That wasn't my first!"

Atsuko did an impressive double-take. "Wait, who the fuck else have you kissed? You have the social life of a nun!"

"Yusuke!" I told her. "Yusuke was my first!"

Atsuko and Botan both promptly bellowed, "YOU'VE KISSED YUSUKE?"

The pair of them looked utterly flummoxed by this assertion, shooting to their feet so they could stare at me in what appeared to be horror. I just frowned as I glanced between them, brows lifting dangerously close to my hairline.

"Botan, you were there. Remember?" I said, gesturing at my mouth. "Life energy to wake him up from a coma and whatnot?"

"Oh." Botan deflated. "Right."

"And Atsuko, how did you not know about that whole situation?" I said. "Yusuke's your kid!"

Atsuko looked ready to commit murder. "It's because Yusuke doesn't tell me shit, apparently, that's how!"

Bringing up my kiss-of-life(-energy) with Yusuke had the desired effect, successfully distracting them from my date with Jin as they complained about Yusuke's pronounced lack of communication skills. They ranted about how he just loved to keep things from people for a good hour before Yukina started yawning, prompting everyone to head to bed for the night. As Atsuko began to snore, however, I found myself lying wide awake in the dark, body curled around a pillow as I traced the line of my lips with a slow, soft fingertip.

The kiss-of-life with Yusuke didn't really count as a kiss, did it? And that made Jin my first real kiss in this lifetime.

And that meant my first kiss had involved fangs.

I had no idea where Keiko's love-life would lead in this version of reality, but something told me that if this was how it started, there was no telling where it might end up—and if this was an omen of things to come, then her love life was sure to be interesting, indeed.

NOTES:

This chapter is entirely a product of me realizing that the Jin kiss would've been NQK's first REAL kiss in this life, and Botan would most certainly ask about it. Scene felt entirely disjointed from the main chapter, however, so I moved it out of LC and into here. Didn't even try to fit it in, it was so tonally different. Skewed too far into "silly humor" territory!

Next omake will be a scene I wanted to include in Jin's date with NQK but couldn't quite find a spot for.

This chapter is 1000% named after a song by mid-2000s band 3OH!3 (and also Kesha). Whatever happened to that band, anyway…?