Disclaimer: I do not own Vandread or any of its characters. This plot is a product of my imagination. Any similarities to other fan fictions are unintentional. I also do not own the song that's included in this chapter. "If I believed", which was sung by Patti Austin, rightfully belongs to those whoever own it.
Panic RoomBy bishounen lovah
Chapter 5: Some Like It Hot!
If I believed in paradise I'd swear I must be there.I'd swear I must be there right now with you.
If I believed in miracles, I'd know that one is happening to me.
Aishiteru, Parfet.
The words resonated in her mind again and again. So much, in fact, that she could no longer distinguish if they were real or just plain wishful thinking. But one look at his serious face (more serious than usual, that is) told her that it wasn't her imagination.
Duero had just professed his love for her.
Does he mean it or is this his idea of a sick joke?
Again she got her answer from his face. Even in the soft glow that her light tube was emitting, she could see the nervous flicker of his eyes. Aside from that, she took notice on how his body was slowly stiffening and how he unconsciously held his breath as he waited for her response.
Yes, this is definitely real.
But if I don't believe in paradise
And miracles aren't real.
Will someone tell me what is this I feel?But like some kind of chain reaction, one doubt omitted by certainty leads to more questions.
Do I love him?
Maybe. Then again, maybe not for who could really say what love really is? Love is not an alien concept to her. She loves her job, her friends and even her machines.
But loving a man is different. She has nothing against him because he's a man. It's just that no woman from Mejer had ever fallen in love with a man from Taraak.
Is it possible?
Again, maybe, maybe not. Parfet felt like she's venturing into unchartered space. It was terrifying…and exciting. She knew that her lack of answer was disappointing Duero. But this was a matter that's not to be treated lightly. One wrong step and she might fall in an abyss of emptiness.
You wanna believe it's love this time.
I wanna believe my heart's not telling me a lie.
But with you I can't deny,
If I believed in paradise I'd swear I'm there.
She raised a hand to touch his now averted face and tipped it back closer to hers so she could see his every expression even without her glasses. She took them off earlier because the wire rims were conducting the cold to her face. Her brown eyes, she knew, held the confusion and fear that she felt. She did not want to lose her best friend over this matter nor does she want to leave it unresolved.
"How can you be sure that it is love that you feel for me?"
She saw from his facial expression that he was debating with himself. A couple of minutes of tense silence passed before he finally spoke up.
"Actually, I'm not sure if it's really love."
Parfet almost dropped on the floor (anime style) from disbelief and disappointment had it not been for his arms holding her close to him. Perhaps he had just been caught in the aftermath of their kiss and thought that saying those words, though not heartfelt, would be appropriate.
If I believed in magic spells it all would be so clear.
A magic spell must have brought you here.
If I could see the future I'd see if you and I were meant to be.
There were two things bothering her mind right now. If he did not meant saying 'I love you', how come he was nervously waiting for her answer? And if she did not love him, how come her heart felt very heavy?
She had to know the truth.
"If you didn't know for sure then why did you say such a thing?"
"Because it just popped out of my mouth. I'm sorry. I'm not baiting you or anything. It's just that I've never been in love before. I've been analyzing how I feel towards you for a long time and I can't find a logical reason for them. And since it's illogical then it must be love that I'm feeling."
Trust a man to say such a thing but Parfet didn't mind. In fact, a part of her seems to understand his theory. Love is such a dynamic and variable concept that it can be considered as illogical. She wanted to know more…to grasp his line of thoughts.
"How do you feel towards me?"
But I don't know any magicAnd tomorrow's just a dream.
But something in this fantasy is real.
Again, there was that look on his face as though deciding if he should answer her and what he should say to her. After a while, he had this faraway look as if he retreated in his own world in order to find the right words.
"It's weird really. Each morning I wake up and find myself feeling good because I know that I'd be able to bump into you somewhere and be able to spend some time with you. When we're together, I feel even better. I enjoy all our conversations and I never fail to feel reluctant whenever we have to part ways. At night before falling asleep, all I can see are your smiles and wonder how your laughter affect the rhythm of my heart."
Duero turned his head back to face her and looked deeply into her eyes. "So that's how I feel. I don't know if it's love but I'm pretty sure that it is. I'm not making any sense, am I?"
She just stared back at him with glossy eyes, having difficulty that she was with breathing. It was as if he read her memories for those were her exact experiences when it comes to him. Well, except for the laughter part since she never even heard him laugh.
"Actually you are making sense. If it's really love that you feel then I suppose I'm in love with you too because I feel the same way."
His eyes turned a shade darker at her confession. The look that he sent her brought a fiery blush on her cheeks, sent shivers down her spine and made her toes curl in her boots.
Yes, this is love. Only love can make a person feel this way. It's a warm feeling that spreads all throughout the body, making the heart fill up and feel like it's about to burst with happiness.
I love him and he loves me back.
The thought was making her dizzy. Either that or the fact that he was now swooping down to catch her lips with his.
~Scene Change~
"Eww! They're at it again!"
But even though Barnette yelled those words she couldn't quite tear her eyes off the screen. The others were having the same difficulty although Jura managed to cover Paiwei's eyes with her hands in order to block the girl's vision from the passionate lip lock.
Parfet kissed a man! Twice! And they're still at it!
Barnette was fully convinced that they had now signed their friend's death certificate. Duero may be a decent man but a man nonetheless. Who knows what kind of disease the pigtailed engineer had contracted from him by now.
Once the kiss was over and the pair had resumed to just holding each other, the five women and Paiwei gave a collective sigh. It was a sigh of relief as well as disappointment and longing. The sigh of relief came from Barnette because she couldn't quite stand the unthinkable act anymore while the sigh of disappointment came from Pai since she didn't get to see the action.
And though they would never admit it out loud BC, Meia and Jura were curious on what it feels like to be kissed that way by a man. From the looks of Parfet's blush and smiles (albeit timid), it seem as though the kiss was a pleasant experience. No, pleasant seems like an understatement. They couldn't put a finger on the right word, which made them all the more curious.
"That was, er, interesting," Jura spoke up after a while. She didn't want to comment aloud that their little experiment was going quite well since she doesn't know if what had just happened was actually a good thing.
"Hn. By the way, Meia," BC said, "that was a nice song you provided. Where did you get it?"
"It was a gift from my Homme. It's from her collection of musical relics. I doubt if those two heard it though. They seem to have a world of their own," Meia nodded towards the holograph.
"I believe you're right or else Parfet would have found the hidden transmitter and speakers by now. Ezra, where are we now?"
"We just passed room temperature."
"Right. Don't make it too hot in there. We don't want them passing out. Paiwei, change the position of the camera to a better vantage point."
"Hai!" The girl conjured a virtual eye gear and RC out of nowhere. The video set was actually a birthday gift from Parfet. The camera was shaped into a small frog and can leap around like one too. It was so Paiwei could spy on the Nirvana crew without even having to leave the sick bay. And now she was using the instrument on the person who gave it to her. It was a sick thing to do and would have bothered her conscience if ever she had one.
~Scene Change~
"What was that?" Parfet sat up straighter.
"What was what?"
"I thought I heard something move among the boxes."
"I didn't hear anything." Duero strained his ears but the sound that his best friend/girlfriend heard did not repeat itself.
"Hn. Must be my imagination."
Their gazes met and locked again. Her face started burning up again from the intense looks he was giving her.
"Anou…is it just me or is it getting hotter in here," she said as she felt a trickle of sweat slide down her back.
"Come to think of it, the whole room seems to have warm up. I thought it was just…" he broke off as he flushed.
"Nani?" she prompted softly, curious at to what had made him blush.
"Um, well, I just thought that, ah, that the warmth has something to do with us being, er, close like this."
She would have been amused if she weren't too surprised. Duero had never stumbled on words before. It was quite endearing actually. She would have been content on just gazing at his beautifully chiseled face had she not found the rising temperature uncomfortable.
"It's getting hotter by the minute," she wiped her brows with the cuff of Duero's coat sleeve. Much as she was reluctant to separate from him, she couldn't quite stand the heat anymore.
So they shrugged out of the trench coat they were sharing and moved a few feet away from each other. Duero was now stripped to just his pants and black tank top and tossed his coat on top of the boxes. Parfet followed suit and removed the top of her jumpsuit, tied its sleeves around her waist and slipped her glasses on.
She sighed in relief as she felt the air brush against her hot skin. It was a good thing she had on a skimpy black halter-top that stopped around her midriff and left her shoulders and back bare.
Perhaps it's too skimpy, she nervously thought when she saw Duero looking at her hotly.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Nothing," he replied as he walked towards her. "I was just thinking how sexy you look."
"Love is blinding your vision and insights," she protested although couldn't help but feel thrilled at his words.
"Probably. But for me there is no woman more beautiful and sexy than you in the whole universe."
He reached her and placed his hands on her tiny waist and slowly slid to her back to pull her closer. She almost jumped from shock as he felt electricity course across her skin. Though it was very warm, she could feel her goose bumps rise in reaction to his touch.
He called me beautiful. And sexy.
And from the way he kept on staring at her with half lidded eyes, she felt like such. The last thing she thought about before his lips touched hers was how lucky she really was to have met and fallen in love with Duero.
Pleasant shivers ran up and down her spine as his mouth moved over hers. She never thought that a kiss could be such. She could see thousands of stars behind her tightly closed lids and could feel the adrenaline rushing to her brain.
She let out a breathless sigh and slid her hands up his firm biceps when he nibbled her lower lip. She would have fallen down, since her knees suddenly felt very weak, had she not been able to lock her hands behind his neck in time.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
At first she thought it was her heart beating hard against her ribcage but as the sound progressed she realized it wasn't so. It was the sound that she had heard earlier.
"There it goes again."
"Huh?" replied a slightly disoriented Duero.
"Didn't you hear it? I think it came from behind the boxes." She crouched on the floor and crawled around in order to get a better look to where the sound came from.
Thump!
"Parfet, watch out!"
She looked up just in time to see the boxes falling down on her.
To be continued…
Glossary (in order of appearance starting from chapter 1):
Anou – er; um; well
Itai – exclamation of pain; ouch
Daijoubu – 'Are you all right' (when asked in question); 'I'm all right' or 'It's all right' (when stated)
Oy – hey
Nani – what
Hai/Aa – yes
Mou – exclamation of exasperation
Arigatou – informal 'thank you'
Iya/Iie – no
Honto ni? – Really?
Gomen ne – informal 'I'm sorry'
Okashira – leader; boss
Yare yare – good grief
Ne? – Right?
Baka – idiot; stupid
Aishiteru – I love you
Bishlov's notes:
[1] Ohohohoho! Fooled you didn't I? I told you I won't put in hentai scenes. And I didn't lie to you. There were some discarded clothes and tumbling boxes, weren't there? They're just not related to each other hehehe. Btw, the part about the 'unveiling of age-old secrets and mysteries' would come in the next chapter. This one got too long. And if you're looking for my evil grin, you must have missed it when you read that cliffhanger hehehe.
[2] Regarding the song, some of you might have been wondering why I chose such an old one. If I remember it correctly, in the episode that tackled Meia's past (you know, the part where she almost died) they featured an oldie called 'What a Wonderful World (or was it just 'Wonderful World'?). Anyways, that's why I chose an oldie too. Took me a week to find an apt song. Btw, did I get the 'Homme' part right? I'm sure that the other female parent in Mejer is Femme although I'm not that sure about this one.
[3] Thank you to all of you who reviewed. Special thanks to those who contributed such useful information that I missed or gotten wrong like the name of the planets (TheArchimage, dementedchris, Ayce Shade, Jacob and Byakko) and Parfet's eye color (JadOo). And about the Japanese words, I got your point Avarice. Sorry to those who are not familiar with such words. I placed the glossary for your convenience and I would try very hard not to use them. I won't make any promises though since I type anything that comes first to my head.
[4] ME WANNA SEE THE SECOND STAGE!!! Dang! Wish AXN would show it.
