Warnings: no beta, OOCness, English is not my first language, inconsistent tenses, i am very bad at prepositions

Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended.

A/N: i watched jenna marbles's dog kissing booth video for the nine hundred millionth time and this fic was the result

He was in a big tourist trap of a city, so Leon supposed that seeing a crowded funfair on a summer evening wasn't out of the ordinary.

What was out of the ordinary, though, was seeing someone he intimately knew operating a kissing booth, and judging by the looks of it, the booth was kind of popular too.

Kissing booth, the sign said. One dollar only. All proceeds will go to the local soup kitchen.

He was just milling around the place and looking at the sights when he saw the gaudily decorated booth of pink, white, and red, and inside was her, a woman who wore a form-fitting red dress that showed off all her tantalising curves.

It wasn't hard to decipher why the kissing booth was popular.

Leon was in the city for a pit stop; he had been driving all day chasing clues and interviewing people, and he needed to rest. He didn't know what possessed him to check out the carnival near his hotel, but he was glad that he did, because there he saw her. She was the first thing he thought of when we woke up, and last thing in his mind before he fell asleep, and even when he was asleep, there she was haunting his dreams. Even when he was awake, there she was haunting his daydreams.

And there she was, kissing strangers for charity.

He had to wrack his brains for why Ada would be manning a kissing booth of all things, but this was Ada, and a lot of the things she did offered more questions than answers.

There were ten men lined up, and Leon had a bad feeling about every single one of them. He did not like them all, not one bit, especially that dude at the front who looked like a city-dwelling lumberjack who spent way too much time at Starbucks and—

Oh. The city-dwelling lumberjack just leaned in for a kiss and—

The lumberjack-looking dude dropped a bill in the donation box and stepped away, the queue behind him moving along. Leon needed to talk to Ada, about why she was doing this and why she was here, but how would he do that? Should he fall in line, or march right towards the start of the queue?

Falling in line meant that he had to let these guys kiss Ada, and that thought shouldn't have bothered him because she wasn't hers. He had no claim over her. He had no right to feel possessive and jealous over something that wasn't his.

Besides, it was for charity. It was for a noble cause. He shouldn't be feeling these ugly thoughts when Ada was supposedly doing this for something good. So he fell in line like the well-mannered man that he was and waited for his turn to…Oddly enough, he wasn't even thinking about kissing her; he just wanted to have some answers. And him trying to get answers out of her…wasn't that ninety per cent of their encounters?

He looked at everywhere but the kissing booth. There was no meaning to those kisses; it was just a quick pressing of the lips. These were probably just some guys wanting to kiss a hot chick, or maybe some of them just really wanted to donate, and the kiss was just a very nice bonus. But whatever their reason was, Leon decided that he didn't like them, if only for the fact that they had kissed Ada.

More people had fallen in line behind him. He heard whispers about how the soup kitchen's kissing booth this year has a smokin' hot lady and she's so much hotter compared to the one last year! He didn't pay these men any attention, because doing so with further irritate him.

The man in front of him left, and it was now Leon's turn.

Ada didn't look surprised to see him.

"It seems like you already knew that I'm here," Leon said as he dropped a dollar into the donation box.

"It's hard not to notice someone as cute as you waiting in line," she said, her eyelashes fluttering. And then, with an amused smile, she added, "Especially with how you're glaring and scowling at everyone."

"I'm not glaring or scowling at anyone," he said a bit too defensively. Okay, maybe he was a bit pissed. So what? He wasn't particularly fond of the thought of Ada kissing other people, let alone the sight of it.

Ada leaned on the sill of the booth. "Come get your kiss, handsome."

"I don't want your kiss—"

"That's new."

"—I want answers."

"About what?"

"About why you're here, and why are you running a kissing booth."

Behind him, Leon heard someone say, "Hey man, are you done? There are people waiting."

"Then wait," Leon said harshly as he dropped another dollar into the donation box. He didn't even look back to see who spoke.

"I'm doing this for charity," Ada explained. "The local soup kitchen needs funds."

"Yes, I can see that." He leaned forward, bringing their faces inches apart. "But what's your goal here?"

"You're holding up the line, Mr Kennedy," she purred.

"Look, man," the guy behind him said, "there are people—"

Leon turned around and gave the man—kid?—a death glare. The guy looked no older than twenty, and Leon didn't think that the kid was legally allowed to fall in line at a kissing booth.

"How old are you, kid?" Leon demanded. He gave the boy the most authoritative stare he could.

"T-twenty-one," the boy squawked, looking mildly intimidated.

Leon rolled his eyes; he believed that the kid was lying about his age. "Go home to your mama, kid, and give her a big, nice kiss on the cheeks."

The kid may look intimidated, but he didn't back down. "I would. If you leave now and let me get my turn."

The other men behind the kid grumbled, their annoyance evident on their faces. There was a small possibility that Ada was doing this out of the goodness of her heart, but the bigger possibility was that this was a cover, and Ada was working her real job. If Leon got in the way, well, she may have a soft spot for him, but it didn't mean that she wouldn't get angry at him.

He felt Ada tug his sleeve.

"How about you wait for me and I'll tell you what you want?" she suggested.

Leon doubted that she would answer his questions directly. Or if she did, it wouldn't be the full truth. "When will you be done here?"

She looked at her wristwatch. "Three minutes."

He surveyed the queue. "Do you absolutely have to kiss these men?"

"Yes. They were waiting in line."

"Is kissing these men crucial to your real job?"

She scrunched her eyebrows, as if in thought. "No."

"Then they can go and your job won't be affected?"

"No, it wouldn't."

"That settles it, then." Leon turned around and rubbed his hands, and then addressed the men behind him. He clapped his hands once and said all too gleefully, "All right lads, you can all leave now. Kissing booth's closed."

"What do you mean?" the boy from earlier said. "We've been waiting!"

"Yeah!" another said. "You can't do that!"

"I can and I will!" Leon replied as he made a show of dropping five one-hundred-dollar bills into the donation box. "Go find someone else to kiss!"

Despite the chorus of complaints, the men eventually dispersed, even the boy, who looked like he was about to cry. Maybe they decided that it wasn't worth getting into a fight over a kiss from a lady in a kissing booth.

"You wouldn't take your money back, would you?" Ada asked as she drew the curtains to the booth closed. "The soup kitchen needs it."

"Then the soup kitchen can have it," he answered, "if you tell me what's going on."

She took the donation box and walked. "It's a front for the dodgy business of this woman I'm investigating. She looks so sweet and helpful, but she's just using the soup kitchen to hide her illegal arms trade."

Leon followed her. "So this money's going to that woman?"

She looked at him. "No. It's going to the soup kitchen. My target would be in the hands of my clients by midnight."

"Are you going to tell me what your job's all about?"

She drew her eyebrows together, looking at him like he was a piteous child. "We both know the answer to that question." She then brushed his cheek with her thumb. "But don't worry; our jobs won't intersect this time. At least not yet."

A few minutes later, Ada stopped in front of a stall selling funnel cakes. She handed the donation box to the woman behind the table, saying, "We received quite a lot today."

"All thanks to you," the woman said. "Are you going home now?"

"No," Ada replied, hooking her arm with Leon's. "I'm gonna have some fun."

The woman sent them off with a grin.

"Who was that?" Leon asked as he followed Ada to yet another destination.

"She's the one who will take over the soup kitchen once my target gets what she deserves." She took a mirror out of her purse and reapplied her lipstick. "She's a good one. She'll make good use of the money."

Leon thought about how the people he knew—the people he worked with, the people he worked for—would demonise Ada if they learned of what she had done and the kind of people she worked for. At one glance, Ada seemed like a villain, but there was kindness in her hidden underneath layers upon layers of the armour that she had built to protect herself.

And that was why Leon could never bring himself to be done with her, because he wanted to peel all those layers away until all that was left was the real Ada untarnished by life's tribulations. The armour she carried was dark and heavy, but she wouldn't let him help her carry it. All he could do was walk beside her when she allowed it. He held her dearer than life itself, and he would continue holding her until, god forbid, she told him to stop.

Ada led him to a shooting game. There were several moving targets in front of them, and around them were prizes in the forms of stuffed toys big and small.

Leon raised an eyebrow. "Are you challenging me to a shooting game?"

She smirked. "Please. It's not a challenge if I can beat you with my eyes closed. That wouldn't be fair to you."

Leon chuckled. He would let her win this round, but there would be hell to pay next time. "All right, what do you want?"

"That one." She pointed to a medium-sized stuffed lion with a blue ribbon around its neck.

"That's all?" he asked as he paid for six rounds.

"And that huge bear too."

"Yes ma'am."

Minutes later, Leon shot all the targets with deadly speed and accuracy, much to the surprise of the stall owner and some onlookers. The stall owner handed the lion and the humongous bear to Ada, and Leon laughed at the sight of her being dwarfed by the bear. He offered to hold the bear for her and she handed it to him, then she led him back to the funnel cake stand.

"Hey Lena," Ada said, taking the bear from Leon. "This is for Jerry's daughter. He mentioned wanting to buy her a teddy bear for her birthday."

The woman—Lena—gasped. "Oh, gosh! This is huge! Jerry's daughter would love this! Oh, thank you so much, thank you!"

Ada led him away again from the funnel cake store, the lion stuffed toy tucked in her arm, while her free hand held his.

"Who's Jerry?" Leon asked. He could see the funfair's exit.

"A regular at the soup kitchen." She turned to him. "Well, I gotta go. I still have a job to do."

He nodded. "Be careful, okay?"

She let go of his hand then cupped his cheek. "You know I always am." She leaned forward and gave him a lingering kiss on the mouth, and then she whispered against his lips, "I owe you so many kisses."

"Just pay me when you see me again," he replied, surging forward for another kiss. "The interest's gonna rack up, though."

"Then I'll just have to make sure to see you as soon as possible." She planted one last kiss on his lips, and then another on his cheek. Her hand trailed from his cheek to his chest. "See you soon, Leon."

He watched her walk away, lion stuffed toy in arm, until she disappeared. On his way back to his hotel, he caught sight of himself on a store's glass walls and saw Ada's lipstick mark on his cheek.

He didn't have the heart to remove it.

So he walked back to his hotel, lipstick mark on his cheek, uncaring about the few odd glances he received. He wore it like a badge, like a symbol for a vow that she wouldn't break.

She had a debt to pay and he would collect it within every inch of his life. He didn't own her and he wasn't certain if he would ever get to call her his, but during these stolen moments with her, she belonged to him and him alone.

A/N: if this fic seems like it was rushed... that's because it was