A/N: Again with minor, unimportant revisions (aside from the major fact to revise that this fic appeared twice over, which has been annoying me for quite a while now...)
However, the reason for these changes - as anyone who's made it this far might want to know - is that the third instalment of the Senses Arc is written, and pending beta! That's right, after months of agonising over not writing it, it wrote itself in two days flat, as has the fourth instalment, also pending rewrites at this time.
Once again, many thanks to all reviewers for this fic so far, you've been a real source of motivation for me, and I hope you can find the time to read my other Tyson/Max fics, I'd love to hear what you think!
Until the next set of pointless revisions...
Akai
28/04/03
TASTE
The fact that Max actually had a life before he moved to my town is something I don't really think about that much. I mean, if he reminds me for whatever reason then sure, I'll remember, but really, as far as I'm concerned, Max only started to exist when he moved into the house twelve minutes walk from mine.
That's probably why I was surprised when Max got a letter and said it was from "a friend at school." I blurted out, "What friend?" which, of course, made him smile.
"Okay, first of all, "Which friend?" probably would've been more flattering, Tyson," he laughed. I grinned at him with a mouth full of toast (I'd stopped by his house for breakfast. Did I mention that Max's dad is the best cook?) and said, sort of muffled, "Fine then, which friend?"
"It's not which friend, Tyson, it's which school," he corrected me, and I remembered about that whole "other life before he got here" thing. But even though I'd remembered that, nothing could stop me being surprised by what happened next.
"Hey, it's from Lucy!" he said, sounding real pleased.
"Who's Lucy?" I asked with my mouth full.
"My girlfriend."
He said it so casually, but I practically spat out my orange juice.
"Your what?" I exclaimed, spraying this mixture of crumbs and OJ over his dining table. I'm lucky Max ignores stuff like that, or he'd have kicked me out of his house long ago.
"My girlfriend. Well, my ex-girlfriend, but I still talk to her a lot. We broke up when I moved here."
I finally swallowed, and said, "Max, you had a girlfriend?"
He glanced sideways at me, smiling. "Yeah, I had a girlfriend!" he said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "It was only for a year or so, but-"
"A year?!"
"Calm down, it was just a kids thing."
"A kids thing?!"
"Yeah. You know, holding hands in the playground, kissing, stuff like that."
Kissing?
I didn't even realise I hadn't said that out loud until Max flicked my forehead and said playfully, "Hey, where'd my echo go?"
I flicked him back and said, "So, why didn't you tell me you had a girlfriend?"
He shrugged, said, "It wasn't a big deal," and flicked me again.
Of course, after that, I had to start pounding him, and he gave as good as he got until we were in a proper fight. Well, a proper play-fight anyway, sort of like when jocks wrestle for fun.
But then I heard a smashing sound, followed by Max wailing, "Aww, man!"
Max's dad showed up the way he tends to when we break things, and told us not to worry about it, but that he thought it'd be better if we played outside.
It's easy to see where Max gets a lot of his habits. Him and his dad are a lot alike - luckily for me, that includes the way they both laugh off things like broken plates, or forget kicked out, I'd have been banned for life!
Anyhow, when we were outside and lying on the grass, I must have been acting strange or something, because suddenly Max was saying, "What's up?" I asked him what he was talking about, and he said, "You're just quite quiet, that's all. Penny for your thoughts?"
I didn't even have to think about it. That's just the way it is now.
"Well," I said hesitantly, "I was just wondering... I was just wondering what it's like to... you know, to kiss a girl, and stuff like that."
A lot of people think Max treats everything lightly because he's always laughing or smiling or cracking some joke, but the fact is that he knows better than anyone else when it's not okay to laugh. I don't know how he does it, it's instinct or something I guess, and if you don't want to be laughed at, he won't even crack a grin.
"It's weird," he said finally, sounding thoughtful, like it was an effort to remember.
"Weird?" I prompted, kind of hoping he'd expand on that a little.
"Yeah. I mean, it's nice, after a while, but it's weird too. But the more you do it the more you want to do it, so I don't know." He grinned. "Maybe it's just that it's better when you're older than twelve?"
"Yeah, maybe," I said, unconvinced. Suddenly I was looking forward to getting married a whole lot less. "So... how come you picked her to be your girlfriend?"
He laughed. "It wasn't exactly "picked" - I think we got set up by her friends. We were at some party, and they were playing Spin the Bottle and stuff like that, and I kept getting paired off with Lucy."
By her friends - as in, she was the one who liked him. That made sense; I bet Max was really popular.
"Spin the Bottle? Is that when you first kissed her?"
It was a lot easier to ask that stuff lying on the ground and facing the sky with my eyes shut, knowing that Max was doing exactly the same. It felt like just another stupid dream of mine, and when I opened my eyes and woke up, it'd be over, and I wouldn't have anything to feel embarrassed about.
Not that I would anyway. All Max said was: "Yup."
"So..." I searched for a subtle way to ask, then gave up. "What was it like?"
I heard him shift around a little, and wondered if maybe I was making him uncomfortable by asking these questions. "Hey, Max," I said quickly, "You know, you don't have to answer all this stuff."
"I know."
I stopped talking, figuring that if he didn't want to answer, he wouldn't, and left it at that, reaching up to scratch my nose.
My hand hit something. I opened my eyes.
Max was leaning over me, looking startled and a bit embarrassed.
"Hey Tyson," he said, smiling nervously and apparently at a loss for words.
"Hey Max," I echoed. "So..." I cleared my throat. "What are you doing?"
"Nothing," he said, and settled back down to the grass. He lay on his front, resting his head on folded arms, and carried on looking at me. I tried to relax, the way I'd been a minute before, but it wasn't working; I knew his eyes were still on me. Then I tried to ignore him, but that didn't work either.
Eventually, I turned to him irritably, and snapped, "What? What are you looking at?"
Max didn't say a thing, and he didn't look embarrassed any more either. Instead, it was like he was studying me, sort of... I don't know. He just was.
So I tried to study him right back, but the truth is that with Max, that's harder than it sounds. I mean, I know this seems like something a mom (or my grandpa) would say, but it's true, Max wears his heart on his sleeve. You can just tell what he's thinking, right away. It's not like he tries to hide it, he doesn't need to, because Max just doesn't think bad things about other people.
Because I couldn't think of anything else to do, I ended up saying, "What?" again, but it didn't come out right. It was too quiet, sort of a whisper.
He didn't answer. Instead he pulled his arm out from where his head was resting on it and raised his hand.
What are you doing?
He reached out and touched my cheek, really gently.
I was terrified, but there was no way I was showing Max that, so I just kept staring at him, daring him to look back.
Which he didn't. His gaze was fixed on his hand, which moved down my face.
His fingers touched my lips like he was a blind man reading Braille. I felt my heart beating faster and faster - which is weird, because I could swear I'd totally stopped breathing.
I wasn't completely out of it though. For example, when Max leaned closer to me, I had enough reflexes left to roll away and stand up, real quick.
"What are you doing?" I tried to yell, but ended up squeaking. Sometimes I really hate being thirteen.
He grinned up at me. "Nothing," he said lightly, just like before.
"I'm in no mood for games, Max!" I snapped. Geez, why don't I just stick a big sign on me that says "Mom"?
It's okay though, because just like before, he laughed it off. "Calm down Tyson, you'll get a heart attack or something. Look," he said coaxingly, "I wasn't trying to freak you out or anything, it's just that if you want to know what something feels like, you have to do it yourself."
"You were going to kiss me?" I squeaked even more obviously. He nodded. "But... But..." I spluttered. "But Max, you're a guy!"
"Yeah, I'd noticed," he laughed. "Why, you'd rather kiss some girl you don't know?"
I was taken aback. "No... But that's not the point!"
"Then what is the point?"
I had no idea.
"Look, the point... The point is..." I tried to figure something out quickly. "The point is, you shouldn't have done that! I'm not, I mean, you're not supposed to... To..."
He stood up and brushed off the grass from his knees. "Hey, Tyson, why don't we just go inside and get a drink? Something to eat?" He reached out a reassuring hand.
I went bright red and knocked it away, stepping back. "Back off Max!" I said sharply, raising my voice. "Just..." I took a deep breath and let it out. "Back off, okay?"
Max nodded, but he looked stricken. "Sure, Tyson. I'm sorry."
I wasn't listening. I'd started running.
Max had tried to kiss me. He'd tried to kiss me, and I'd totally freaked out, just like a little kid! Max must've thought I was such a moron. I could just imagine him telling Kenny, or Rei, how they'd all laugh about it. Geez, I could even see Kai cracking a smile over this one...
I screeched to a halt by the river, and glared into the water. "Hang on a second," I said out loud, after glancing around to make sure no one could hear me. "How is this my problem? Max is a guy and he tried to kiss me! That's just plain weird!"
Did that mean Max was...
I started running again before I could finish that thought.
Max called the next morning, like I'd known he would. He was sorry, I was sorry, we told each other to forget about it and that was that. Everything went back to normal.
Well... Almost normal. The fact is, things had changed, and we both knew it. We were... careful around each other. We watched our words, and we especially watched how close we got. If our knees touched by accident, we moved away immediately and mumbled an apology, just like regular guys do. We stopped calling each other, touching each other and hanging out with each other so much. We were acting just like all the other guys our age, just like we were supposed to.
And I hated it. I hated every second of feeling awkward, and I hated feeling like I didn't know what to say. I hated noticing Max reach out to ruffle my hair or flick my forehead then stop, remembering what I'd said to him. I hated the way we kept slipping into silences on the phone because neither of us wanted to say anything wrong. I hated- Look, there's no point going over it, I just hated it, that's all! We weren't really friends anymore, and that sucked. It sucked big time.
I'm not used to... you know, regretting stuff, but the three weeks we went through that - I regret those. I probably always will. I know I should have said something at the time, tried to fix it in some way, but at first I was too embarrassed, then I just didn't want to bring it up again after we'd pretended it was all over. Basically, Max and I were drifting apart, and I didn't know what to do about it.
What was even worse was that I couldn't get kissing out of my head! How stupid is that? I mean, it's never even been in my head before, but then suddenly I couldn't get it out! Every time a kissing scene came on TV, I was practically taking notes. I felt really pathetic, but there was no way I'd be that freaked out by someone kissing me ever again. Well, not even kissing me, he hadn't got that far. I'd gotten freaked out before then.
And that's another problem. Because the other thought I couldn't get out of my head for that whole three weeks was:
Would it really have been that bad just to let him kiss me?
And that scared me. I mean, I know there are guys out there that like... other guys, I guess, but that's not me! I'm not one of them, and Max isn't either!
But how could I be so sure of that? I mean, Max had tried to kiss me, and he'd been so okay about it! And here was me, wondering what it would have been like. Besides that, I actually missed the way he'd throw his arms around me, or grab my hand, or even when he'd pull my hat off (though there's no way I'll tell him that one!) I'm pretty sure normal guys don't care how much their other normal guy friends grab their hands, if that's something they even do at all.
Eventually, I couldn't think about it anymore. I figured the only way to find out would be to go and see Max, get him to kiss me, and figure it out from there. I could stop wondering what it would be like to kiss him, he could stop feeling like he had to back off quite so far, and we could go back to the way we were before.
It was a perfect, foolproof plan.
Famous last words.
Max is so lucky, he lives right above his dad's shop and training area. This means that if you want to get in after the shop's closed without setting off the alarm, you have to go to his back door. Just inside the back door is a narrow corridor where they keep their coats, shoes and junk like that, then there's a door to get into the shop, and next to it there are stairs going up to the first floor, where they live.
I got to the back door and rang the bell before I could chicken out, then just waited for Max to come down.
I almost had a heart attack when Max's dad answered the door.
"Tyson!" he said, greeting me with Max's smile. "I haven't seen you in a while. How have you been?"
"F-fine!" I stuttered, trying not to look like I'd showed up just to get his son to kiss me.
"And your beyblade?"
A cool thing about Max's dad is that he only ever talks to me about things I like, like Max, food and beyblades. I relaxed a little when he said that, and replied, "Oh, Dragoon's doing good too! Thanks for the repairs after that last battle, by the way!"
"No problem, Tyson. I'm just glad to hear it's lasting. That's a good blade you got there." I grinned proudly, and was about to ask him a question about the attack ring when I remembered why I'd showed up, and stuttered guiltily again.
"You want to come in?" he offered. "I've just put dinner in the oven."
"Oh, yeah!" I said enthusiastically without thinking. Seriously, he is a great cook. "That'd be great, thanks!"
And again, I remembered.
"I- I mean, it would be great, if I could, which I can't, come to dinner that is, because, because I have this thing I gotta do, and I've got to get it done, but I just need to speak to Max real quick and, and, is he home?" I said in a rush, feeling myself getting redder and redder.
"Sure, I'll just get him for you," Mr Tate said, looking amused the way only a grown up can. "Ma-ax!" he called up the stairs.
"Yeah?"
The moment I heard his voice, the reality of what I was doing, hit me like a train, and I froze.
I was here to get Max to kiss me.
Suddenly this plan seemed a whole lot less perfect. I began to look for escape routes in every direction, but it was too late.
"Come downstairs, you've got a visitor!"
I could almost see Max sitting at the kitchen table watching TV the way he always did just before dinner. It's a familiar scene, one I know well and love to be a part of. I heard his chair scrape on the linoleum floor as he stood up.
"Coming!"
Max's dad flashed a grin at me. "I'll see you later Tyson. Thanks for stopping by, Max has been a bit down lately." He was gone before I could ask any questions, and Max reappeared a moment later.
I caught a glimpse of him before he saw me. Looking at him critically, I could see that his dad was right; he was down about something. I wondered whether the new attack he'd been developing with Draciel wasn't going so well. We'd been working on it before this whole mess happened, and he hadn't asked for my help since then. That's another thing I missed, working on my beyblading with him.
But just as I was thinking that, he looked up and I knew it wasn't that at all. The moment he saw me, his face just brightened, like my showing up on his doorstep had solved some unsolvable problem. "Hey Tyson!" he said happily. "What's up? You want to come in? My dad's just made dinner."
"Sure!" I said eagerly, then slapped myself in the forehead. "I mean no, no I can't, I'm only here for a second."
"Okay, so what's up?"
I opened my mouth and nothing came out. Max waited expectantly. I tried again.
"I..."
"Yes?" I noted sourly that he seemed to find my speaking problems as amusing as his dad had.
"I've been thinking," I said slowly. I waited for a "Did it hurt?" type comment, but none came. Like I said before, Max just knows when to give it a rest. Encouraged, I carried on, and said, "I've been thinking about that day, when you..." I swallowed. "And I was..." "Oh," he said apprehensively, his face falling. "Look, Tyson-"
"No!" I squeaked, and he looked startled. I cleared my throat. "No, just listen for me for a second. I've... I mean... That is, I..."
I gave up. "Go on, just laugh," I said grumpily, so he chuckled.
"Tyson, what is it you're trying to say?" he asked, making it all sound so straightforward. I sighed and began to speak for what I was determined to be the last time.
"What I'm trying to say," I said as fast as possible before I could mess it up again, "Is that I've been thinking about it a lot, and I think you're right, that you should kiss me." I took a deep breath. "So... come on, let's get it over with."
I squeezed my eyes shut and waited to feel something on my lips.
Nothing.
I waited a little longer, then pried open one eye.
Max was trying so hard not to laugh that he had both hands clapped over his mouth. I relaxed my face and glared at him, at which point he burst out laughing. "What is so funny?" I asked in a disapproving voice. He just laughed some more, wiping his eyes before he could speak again.
"Okay, first of all, Tyson, do you even realise how ridiculous you looked?"
If looks could kill... "Look," I said with some annoyance, "I haven't exactly done this before, I'm not sure what you're supposed to do."
At this, he stopped laughing. "Hey, Tyson," he said gently, "The only reason you looked so funny is because you're all tensed up. If the idea of kissing someone freaks you out that much, then you're really not ready to do it."
If I were a dog, I would have raised my hackles, whatever they are. Here was some guy my age telling me that I wasn't ready to do something he'd done years ago!
"Besides," Max continued, "Kissing should really be a natural, spontaneous thing. This sort of planning never works out well, believe me."
Believe him? The guy's my age! What gives him the right to say this stuff? I rolled up my mental shirtsleeves. Max Tate would kiss me tonight whether he wanted to or not. I wasn't about to put up with being patronised by some random blonde kid who obviously didn't know what he was talking about.
"And besides that-"
"Shut up, Max!" He looked taken aback. "I mean- Geez, you sound like Kenny!" I burst out, and Max laughed. I shook my head. "No, don't laugh!" He stopped straight away, and looked wary. I couldn't blame him; this had been a pretty weird five minutes.
"Look," I said reasonably, "If I say I'm ready, then I'm ready, and I want you to kiss me."
This time, he shook his head. "Tyson, you're not ready."
"I am."
"You're not."
"I am!"
"Fine then, kiss me."
My eyes practically popped out of their sockets. He didn't say it in a mushy way, or even a happy way. To be completely honest, at that moment, Max just sounded exasperated. "Wh-What?" I managed to choke out.
"Kiss me."
"But... why?" I flailed, stalling for as much time as possible.
He sighed. "Look, Tyson, you screw your face up when you think someone's going to kiss you. To me, that says you're not ready, but you say you are. Now, all I'm saying is that if you're honestly ready for this, then you kiss me."
I rubbed my head. This had seemed a lot easier when I was thinking it through in my bedroom. Max was stood watching me with his arms folded, piling on the pressure just by being there. Not that any of this would have been possible if he hadn't been there, but that's not the point! Frustrated, I pushed out all irrelevant thoughts like that one and turned my brain around. I tried to figure out how to get the nerve up to do this, tried to remember from the movies I'd seen exactly what was involved with actually kissing someone.
While all these thoughts were fighting each other in my head, I caught sight of Max.
He was smiling at me, this understanding smile, and I knew that as far as he was concerned, this discussion was over.
"Goodnight Tyson," was all he said before turning away.
At that point, I abandoned my thoughts completely - after all, the thinking approach hadn't worked so far. I reached forward and grabbed Max's shoulder. As I wrenched him around to face me, I practically leapt forward and landed against his lips.
That has to be the worst first kiss in history. Ever. I mean, I had no idea what I was doing! Actually, I'm pretty sure Max had no idea what I was doing either. I was just sort of clumsily trying to make my mouth and lips move at the same time and keep them against Max's mouth, that's all. Hey, it's a lot harder than it sounds, and I didn't exactly have any prior experience to draw from!
Anyhow, it was awkward and bad and I was really embarrassed, but when I stepped back, I just had to say "Ha!" as triumphantly as possible. I'd said I'd get Max Tate to kiss me, and I had! Well, I'd kissed him, anyway. And I tried to make it triumphant, but it actually came out half-triumphantly, half-uncertainly, and I didn't sound sure of anything, but that wasn't the point! It was all done and over, I'd kissed Max and I could go home with the job done.
I also meant to leave straight away, waving nonchalantly, maybe with some throwaway line like, "I'll call you!" or, "See you at practice!" Instead, I swallowed, resisted the urge to wipe my mouth and remained staring at Max.
I expected him to laugh, I really did, but it seemed he was as shell-shocked as I was that I'd actually had the guts to do it, and all he could do was stare back with his mouth still open.
Suddenly I was afraid. This hadn't gone to plan. A lot of things had gone wrong, and I hadn't thought any of that through. I could feel my cheeks go red as I realised what I'd just done, and looked at the floor, trying to block it out. I just wanted to run away and forget about it, but I couldn't do that either.
I forced myself to look back up at Max, beginning to work out an apology in my head that could even come close to making up for this, when Max lifted a hand. His left hand, not that it matters. At first, I wondered if he was going to hit me, but it wasn't in a fist.
He reached out and touched my cheek, looking at me with that shocked expression the whole time. I looked straight back at him, standing as tall as I could, really conscious of how I must look. My bangs suddenly felt like they were in the wrong places, but I'd die before I'd lift a finger to shift them.
With his hand still on my cheek, Max stepped forward, leaned in and kissed me, right on the lips.
It was different this time, very different. For one thing, despite what I might have thought while I was mad before, Max did know what he was doing; that much was obvious. He didn't bother with all that open mouth stuff they do on the movies, the stuff I'd been trusting to teach me how to kiss for the past three weeks. Instead, he just pressed his lips against mine.
It was like you'd give someone a peck on the cheek, except it was on the lips and lasting longer. Once I'd figured that out, I realised that it was no big deal, I could do that! I mean, who hasn't given their cousins or grandmas or moms a peck on the cheek every once in a while, even if they didn't want to? So I kissed him back, just like it was his cheek and not his lips. And it was easy.
Except a moment after I did that, he- well, I'm still not sure how he did it, but he tilted his head round and pushed my mouth open even more. Suddenly I realised that this was kissing, proper kissing like I'd seen on those movies. It took a little while to get used to, but it was okay. Interesting, even.
Then he put his tongue in my mouth.
If he'd done that right at the start, I probably would've jumped back as fast as I'd jumped forward when he turned away from me. By that point though... Max was right: kissing is weird, but the more you do it, the more you want to do it. This was actually turning out sort of... I don't know. Fun, I guess, but I don't see why. I mean seriously, kissing is about the most disgusting thing you could think of! I mean putting your tongue in someone else's mouth, touching their tongue with your own - how gross is that?!
I guess it's different once you've done it, because now me and Max kiss all the time. Well, not all the time. But when we're on our own, and we're not beyblading or eating or doing anything else more interesting, kissing's definitely a fallback. And it's nice, y'know? I like kissing Max, and I like holding his hand - that's something else we've been doing recently - and I really like doing both at once. Basically, I wanted things to go back to the way they were, and they have, but better.
Max was the one to stop that kiss, of course. After all, at that point, he was the only one with any clue about this whole kissing stuff. (I'd just like to point out that that's not the way it is anymore, okay?) Anyhow, when he did, he didn't walk away with a cheery wave or a throwaway line like I'd planned to. Instead, he put his arms around me and just held me tight against him. I was so stunned from everything that had just happened, it took me a moment to hug him back.
"I've missed you, Tyson."
It was nice, holding him like that and having him hold me. I felt something at the back of my throat, and realised that even though we'd never done this before, I'd missed it all the same.
"Same to you, Max."
There was a pause as we just held each other, made the most of the moment, and the fact that things were back to normal between us. I was so relieved and grateful and happy, I've never felt anything like that before or since. It was good just to have someone to hang on to.
After a few more moments, I heard Max ask:
"You want to come in for dinner?"
Another pause.
"Oh yeah."
"Cool!" He jumped back and grinned at me, laughing. I've actually never seen Max look so happy, and that's saying something. I wondered just how down he must have been in our three week non-fight, and was going to ask him, but decided to let it go as he bounded up the stairs yelling, "Da-ad! Tyson's going to stay for dinner after all!" and I heard his dad yell back, "Yes, I thought he might!"
Instead, I just laughed for the first time in three weeks and followed him up.
However, the reason for these changes - as anyone who's made it this far might want to know - is that the third instalment of the Senses Arc is written, and pending beta! That's right, after months of agonising over not writing it, it wrote itself in two days flat, as has the fourth instalment, also pending rewrites at this time.
Once again, many thanks to all reviewers for this fic so far, you've been a real source of motivation for me, and I hope you can find the time to read my other Tyson/Max fics, I'd love to hear what you think!
Until the next set of pointless revisions...
Akai
28/04/03
The fact that Max actually had a life before he moved to my town is something I don't really think about that much. I mean, if he reminds me for whatever reason then sure, I'll remember, but really, as far as I'm concerned, Max only started to exist when he moved into the house twelve minutes walk from mine.
That's probably why I was surprised when Max got a letter and said it was from "a friend at school." I blurted out, "What friend?" which, of course, made him smile.
"Okay, first of all, "Which friend?" probably would've been more flattering, Tyson," he laughed. I grinned at him with a mouth full of toast (I'd stopped by his house for breakfast. Did I mention that Max's dad is the best cook?) and said, sort of muffled, "Fine then, which friend?"
"It's not which friend, Tyson, it's which school," he corrected me, and I remembered about that whole "other life before he got here" thing. But even though I'd remembered that, nothing could stop me being surprised by what happened next.
"Hey, it's from Lucy!" he said, sounding real pleased.
"Who's Lucy?" I asked with my mouth full.
"My girlfriend."
He said it so casually, but I practically spat out my orange juice.
"Your what?" I exclaimed, spraying this mixture of crumbs and OJ over his dining table. I'm lucky Max ignores stuff like that, or he'd have kicked me out of his house long ago.
"My girlfriend. Well, my ex-girlfriend, but I still talk to her a lot. We broke up when I moved here."
I finally swallowed, and said, "Max, you had a girlfriend?"
He glanced sideways at me, smiling. "Yeah, I had a girlfriend!" he said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "It was only for a year or so, but-"
"A year?!"
"Calm down, it was just a kids thing."
"A kids thing?!"
"Yeah. You know, holding hands in the playground, kissing, stuff like that."
Kissing?
I didn't even realise I hadn't said that out loud until Max flicked my forehead and said playfully, "Hey, where'd my echo go?"
I flicked him back and said, "So, why didn't you tell me you had a girlfriend?"
He shrugged, said, "It wasn't a big deal," and flicked me again.
Of course, after that, I had to start pounding him, and he gave as good as he got until we were in a proper fight. Well, a proper play-fight anyway, sort of like when jocks wrestle for fun.
But then I heard a smashing sound, followed by Max wailing, "Aww, man!"
Max's dad showed up the way he tends to when we break things, and told us not to worry about it, but that he thought it'd be better if we played outside.
It's easy to see where Max gets a lot of his habits. Him and his dad are a lot alike - luckily for me, that includes the way they both laugh off things like broken plates, or forget kicked out, I'd have been banned for life!
Anyhow, when we were outside and lying on the grass, I must have been acting strange or something, because suddenly Max was saying, "What's up?" I asked him what he was talking about, and he said, "You're just quite quiet, that's all. Penny for your thoughts?"
I didn't even have to think about it. That's just the way it is now.
"Well," I said hesitantly, "I was just wondering... I was just wondering what it's like to... you know, to kiss a girl, and stuff like that."
A lot of people think Max treats everything lightly because he's always laughing or smiling or cracking some joke, but the fact is that he knows better than anyone else when it's not okay to laugh. I don't know how he does it, it's instinct or something I guess, and if you don't want to be laughed at, he won't even crack a grin.
"It's weird," he said finally, sounding thoughtful, like it was an effort to remember.
"Weird?" I prompted, kind of hoping he'd expand on that a little.
"Yeah. I mean, it's nice, after a while, but it's weird too. But the more you do it the more you want to do it, so I don't know." He grinned. "Maybe it's just that it's better when you're older than twelve?"
"Yeah, maybe," I said, unconvinced. Suddenly I was looking forward to getting married a whole lot less. "So... how come you picked her to be your girlfriend?"
He laughed. "It wasn't exactly "picked" - I think we got set up by her friends. We were at some party, and they were playing Spin the Bottle and stuff like that, and I kept getting paired off with Lucy."
By her friends - as in, she was the one who liked him. That made sense; I bet Max was really popular.
"Spin the Bottle? Is that when you first kissed her?"
It was a lot easier to ask that stuff lying on the ground and facing the sky with my eyes shut, knowing that Max was doing exactly the same. It felt like just another stupid dream of mine, and when I opened my eyes and woke up, it'd be over, and I wouldn't have anything to feel embarrassed about.
Not that I would anyway. All Max said was: "Yup."
"So..." I searched for a subtle way to ask, then gave up. "What was it like?"
I heard him shift around a little, and wondered if maybe I was making him uncomfortable by asking these questions. "Hey, Max," I said quickly, "You know, you don't have to answer all this stuff."
"I know."
I stopped talking, figuring that if he didn't want to answer, he wouldn't, and left it at that, reaching up to scratch my nose.
My hand hit something. I opened my eyes.
Max was leaning over me, looking startled and a bit embarrassed.
"Hey Tyson," he said, smiling nervously and apparently at a loss for words.
"Hey Max," I echoed. "So..." I cleared my throat. "What are you doing?"
"Nothing," he said, and settled back down to the grass. He lay on his front, resting his head on folded arms, and carried on looking at me. I tried to relax, the way I'd been a minute before, but it wasn't working; I knew his eyes were still on me. Then I tried to ignore him, but that didn't work either.
Eventually, I turned to him irritably, and snapped, "What? What are you looking at?"
Max didn't say a thing, and he didn't look embarrassed any more either. Instead, it was like he was studying me, sort of... I don't know. He just was.
So I tried to study him right back, but the truth is that with Max, that's harder than it sounds. I mean, I know this seems like something a mom (or my grandpa) would say, but it's true, Max wears his heart on his sleeve. You can just tell what he's thinking, right away. It's not like he tries to hide it, he doesn't need to, because Max just doesn't think bad things about other people.
Because I couldn't think of anything else to do, I ended up saying, "What?" again, but it didn't come out right. It was too quiet, sort of a whisper.
He didn't answer. Instead he pulled his arm out from where his head was resting on it and raised his hand.
What are you doing?
He reached out and touched my cheek, really gently.
I was terrified, but there was no way I was showing Max that, so I just kept staring at him, daring him to look back.
Which he didn't. His gaze was fixed on his hand, which moved down my face.
His fingers touched my lips like he was a blind man reading Braille. I felt my heart beating faster and faster - which is weird, because I could swear I'd totally stopped breathing.
I wasn't completely out of it though. For example, when Max leaned closer to me, I had enough reflexes left to roll away and stand up, real quick.
"What are you doing?" I tried to yell, but ended up squeaking. Sometimes I really hate being thirteen.
He grinned up at me. "Nothing," he said lightly, just like before.
"I'm in no mood for games, Max!" I snapped. Geez, why don't I just stick a big sign on me that says "Mom"?
It's okay though, because just like before, he laughed it off. "Calm down Tyson, you'll get a heart attack or something. Look," he said coaxingly, "I wasn't trying to freak you out or anything, it's just that if you want to know what something feels like, you have to do it yourself."
"You were going to kiss me?" I squeaked even more obviously. He nodded. "But... But..." I spluttered. "But Max, you're a guy!"
"Yeah, I'd noticed," he laughed. "Why, you'd rather kiss some girl you don't know?"
I was taken aback. "No... But that's not the point!"
"Then what is the point?"
I had no idea.
"Look, the point... The point is..." I tried to figure something out quickly. "The point is, you shouldn't have done that! I'm not, I mean, you're not supposed to... To..."
He stood up and brushed off the grass from his knees. "Hey, Tyson, why don't we just go inside and get a drink? Something to eat?" He reached out a reassuring hand.
I went bright red and knocked it away, stepping back. "Back off Max!" I said sharply, raising my voice. "Just..." I took a deep breath and let it out. "Back off, okay?"
Max nodded, but he looked stricken. "Sure, Tyson. I'm sorry."
I wasn't listening. I'd started running.
Max had tried to kiss me. He'd tried to kiss me, and I'd totally freaked out, just like a little kid! Max must've thought I was such a moron. I could just imagine him telling Kenny, or Rei, how they'd all laugh about it. Geez, I could even see Kai cracking a smile over this one...
I screeched to a halt by the river, and glared into the water. "Hang on a second," I said out loud, after glancing around to make sure no one could hear me. "How is this my problem? Max is a guy and he tried to kiss me! That's just plain weird!"
Did that mean Max was...
I started running again before I could finish that thought.
Max called the next morning, like I'd known he would. He was sorry, I was sorry, we told each other to forget about it and that was that. Everything went back to normal.
Well... Almost normal. The fact is, things had changed, and we both knew it. We were... careful around each other. We watched our words, and we especially watched how close we got. If our knees touched by accident, we moved away immediately and mumbled an apology, just like regular guys do. We stopped calling each other, touching each other and hanging out with each other so much. We were acting just like all the other guys our age, just like we were supposed to.
And I hated it. I hated every second of feeling awkward, and I hated feeling like I didn't know what to say. I hated noticing Max reach out to ruffle my hair or flick my forehead then stop, remembering what I'd said to him. I hated the way we kept slipping into silences on the phone because neither of us wanted to say anything wrong. I hated- Look, there's no point going over it, I just hated it, that's all! We weren't really friends anymore, and that sucked. It sucked big time.
I'm not used to... you know, regretting stuff, but the three weeks we went through that - I regret those. I probably always will. I know I should have said something at the time, tried to fix it in some way, but at first I was too embarrassed, then I just didn't want to bring it up again after we'd pretended it was all over. Basically, Max and I were drifting apart, and I didn't know what to do about it.
What was even worse was that I couldn't get kissing out of my head! How stupid is that? I mean, it's never even been in my head before, but then suddenly I couldn't get it out! Every time a kissing scene came on TV, I was practically taking notes. I felt really pathetic, but there was no way I'd be that freaked out by someone kissing me ever again. Well, not even kissing me, he hadn't got that far. I'd gotten freaked out before then.
And that's another problem. Because the other thought I couldn't get out of my head for that whole three weeks was:
Would it really have been that bad just to let him kiss me?
And that scared me. I mean, I know there are guys out there that like... other guys, I guess, but that's not me! I'm not one of them, and Max isn't either!
But how could I be so sure of that? I mean, Max had tried to kiss me, and he'd been so okay about it! And here was me, wondering what it would have been like. Besides that, I actually missed the way he'd throw his arms around me, or grab my hand, or even when he'd pull my hat off (though there's no way I'll tell him that one!) I'm pretty sure normal guys don't care how much their other normal guy friends grab their hands, if that's something they even do at all.
Eventually, I couldn't think about it anymore. I figured the only way to find out would be to go and see Max, get him to kiss me, and figure it out from there. I could stop wondering what it would be like to kiss him, he could stop feeling like he had to back off quite so far, and we could go back to the way we were before.
It was a perfect, foolproof plan.
Famous last words.
Max is so lucky, he lives right above his dad's shop and training area. This means that if you want to get in after the shop's closed without setting off the alarm, you have to go to his back door. Just inside the back door is a narrow corridor where they keep their coats, shoes and junk like that, then there's a door to get into the shop, and next to it there are stairs going up to the first floor, where they live.
I got to the back door and rang the bell before I could chicken out, then just waited for Max to come down.
I almost had a heart attack when Max's dad answered the door.
"Tyson!" he said, greeting me with Max's smile. "I haven't seen you in a while. How have you been?"
"F-fine!" I stuttered, trying not to look like I'd showed up just to get his son to kiss me.
"And your beyblade?"
A cool thing about Max's dad is that he only ever talks to me about things I like, like Max, food and beyblades. I relaxed a little when he said that, and replied, "Oh, Dragoon's doing good too! Thanks for the repairs after that last battle, by the way!"
"No problem, Tyson. I'm just glad to hear it's lasting. That's a good blade you got there." I grinned proudly, and was about to ask him a question about the attack ring when I remembered why I'd showed up, and stuttered guiltily again.
"You want to come in?" he offered. "I've just put dinner in the oven."
"Oh, yeah!" I said enthusiastically without thinking. Seriously, he is a great cook. "That'd be great, thanks!"
And again, I remembered.
"I- I mean, it would be great, if I could, which I can't, come to dinner that is, because, because I have this thing I gotta do, and I've got to get it done, but I just need to speak to Max real quick and, and, is he home?" I said in a rush, feeling myself getting redder and redder.
"Sure, I'll just get him for you," Mr Tate said, looking amused the way only a grown up can. "Ma-ax!" he called up the stairs.
"Yeah?"
The moment I heard his voice, the reality of what I was doing, hit me like a train, and I froze.
I was here to get Max to kiss me.
Suddenly this plan seemed a whole lot less perfect. I began to look for escape routes in every direction, but it was too late.
"Come downstairs, you've got a visitor!"
I could almost see Max sitting at the kitchen table watching TV the way he always did just before dinner. It's a familiar scene, one I know well and love to be a part of. I heard his chair scrape on the linoleum floor as he stood up.
"Coming!"
Max's dad flashed a grin at me. "I'll see you later Tyson. Thanks for stopping by, Max has been a bit down lately." He was gone before I could ask any questions, and Max reappeared a moment later.
I caught a glimpse of him before he saw me. Looking at him critically, I could see that his dad was right; he was down about something. I wondered whether the new attack he'd been developing with Draciel wasn't going so well. We'd been working on it before this whole mess happened, and he hadn't asked for my help since then. That's another thing I missed, working on my beyblading with him.
But just as I was thinking that, he looked up and I knew it wasn't that at all. The moment he saw me, his face just brightened, like my showing up on his doorstep had solved some unsolvable problem. "Hey Tyson!" he said happily. "What's up? You want to come in? My dad's just made dinner."
"Sure!" I said eagerly, then slapped myself in the forehead. "I mean no, no I can't, I'm only here for a second."
"Okay, so what's up?"
I opened my mouth and nothing came out. Max waited expectantly. I tried again.
"I..."
"Yes?" I noted sourly that he seemed to find my speaking problems as amusing as his dad had.
"I've been thinking," I said slowly. I waited for a "Did it hurt?" type comment, but none came. Like I said before, Max just knows when to give it a rest. Encouraged, I carried on, and said, "I've been thinking about that day, when you..." I swallowed. "And I was..." "Oh," he said apprehensively, his face falling. "Look, Tyson-"
"No!" I squeaked, and he looked startled. I cleared my throat. "No, just listen for me for a second. I've... I mean... That is, I..."
I gave up. "Go on, just laugh," I said grumpily, so he chuckled.
"Tyson, what is it you're trying to say?" he asked, making it all sound so straightforward. I sighed and began to speak for what I was determined to be the last time.
"What I'm trying to say," I said as fast as possible before I could mess it up again, "Is that I've been thinking about it a lot, and I think you're right, that you should kiss me." I took a deep breath. "So... come on, let's get it over with."
I squeezed my eyes shut and waited to feel something on my lips.
Nothing.
I waited a little longer, then pried open one eye.
Max was trying so hard not to laugh that he had both hands clapped over his mouth. I relaxed my face and glared at him, at which point he burst out laughing. "What is so funny?" I asked in a disapproving voice. He just laughed some more, wiping his eyes before he could speak again.
"Okay, first of all, Tyson, do you even realise how ridiculous you looked?"
If looks could kill... "Look," I said with some annoyance, "I haven't exactly done this before, I'm not sure what you're supposed to do."
At this, he stopped laughing. "Hey, Tyson," he said gently, "The only reason you looked so funny is because you're all tensed up. If the idea of kissing someone freaks you out that much, then you're really not ready to do it."
If I were a dog, I would have raised my hackles, whatever they are. Here was some guy my age telling me that I wasn't ready to do something he'd done years ago!
"Besides," Max continued, "Kissing should really be a natural, spontaneous thing. This sort of planning never works out well, believe me."
Believe him? The guy's my age! What gives him the right to say this stuff? I rolled up my mental shirtsleeves. Max Tate would kiss me tonight whether he wanted to or not. I wasn't about to put up with being patronised by some random blonde kid who obviously didn't know what he was talking about.
"And besides that-"
"Shut up, Max!" He looked taken aback. "I mean- Geez, you sound like Kenny!" I burst out, and Max laughed. I shook my head. "No, don't laugh!" He stopped straight away, and looked wary. I couldn't blame him; this had been a pretty weird five minutes.
"Look," I said reasonably, "If I say I'm ready, then I'm ready, and I want you to kiss me."
This time, he shook his head. "Tyson, you're not ready."
"I am."
"You're not."
"I am!"
"Fine then, kiss me."
My eyes practically popped out of their sockets. He didn't say it in a mushy way, or even a happy way. To be completely honest, at that moment, Max just sounded exasperated. "Wh-What?" I managed to choke out.
"Kiss me."
"But... why?" I flailed, stalling for as much time as possible.
He sighed. "Look, Tyson, you screw your face up when you think someone's going to kiss you. To me, that says you're not ready, but you say you are. Now, all I'm saying is that if you're honestly ready for this, then you kiss me."
I rubbed my head. This had seemed a lot easier when I was thinking it through in my bedroom. Max was stood watching me with his arms folded, piling on the pressure just by being there. Not that any of this would have been possible if he hadn't been there, but that's not the point! Frustrated, I pushed out all irrelevant thoughts like that one and turned my brain around. I tried to figure out how to get the nerve up to do this, tried to remember from the movies I'd seen exactly what was involved with actually kissing someone.
While all these thoughts were fighting each other in my head, I caught sight of Max.
He was smiling at me, this understanding smile, and I knew that as far as he was concerned, this discussion was over.
"Goodnight Tyson," was all he said before turning away.
At that point, I abandoned my thoughts completely - after all, the thinking approach hadn't worked so far. I reached forward and grabbed Max's shoulder. As I wrenched him around to face me, I practically leapt forward and landed against his lips.
That has to be the worst first kiss in history. Ever. I mean, I had no idea what I was doing! Actually, I'm pretty sure Max had no idea what I was doing either. I was just sort of clumsily trying to make my mouth and lips move at the same time and keep them against Max's mouth, that's all. Hey, it's a lot harder than it sounds, and I didn't exactly have any prior experience to draw from!
Anyhow, it was awkward and bad and I was really embarrassed, but when I stepped back, I just had to say "Ha!" as triumphantly as possible. I'd said I'd get Max Tate to kiss me, and I had! Well, I'd kissed him, anyway. And I tried to make it triumphant, but it actually came out half-triumphantly, half-uncertainly, and I didn't sound sure of anything, but that wasn't the point! It was all done and over, I'd kissed Max and I could go home with the job done.
I also meant to leave straight away, waving nonchalantly, maybe with some throwaway line like, "I'll call you!" or, "See you at practice!" Instead, I swallowed, resisted the urge to wipe my mouth and remained staring at Max.
I expected him to laugh, I really did, but it seemed he was as shell-shocked as I was that I'd actually had the guts to do it, and all he could do was stare back with his mouth still open.
Suddenly I was afraid. This hadn't gone to plan. A lot of things had gone wrong, and I hadn't thought any of that through. I could feel my cheeks go red as I realised what I'd just done, and looked at the floor, trying to block it out. I just wanted to run away and forget about it, but I couldn't do that either.
I forced myself to look back up at Max, beginning to work out an apology in my head that could even come close to making up for this, when Max lifted a hand. His left hand, not that it matters. At first, I wondered if he was going to hit me, but it wasn't in a fist.
He reached out and touched my cheek, looking at me with that shocked expression the whole time. I looked straight back at him, standing as tall as I could, really conscious of how I must look. My bangs suddenly felt like they were in the wrong places, but I'd die before I'd lift a finger to shift them.
With his hand still on my cheek, Max stepped forward, leaned in and kissed me, right on the lips.
It was different this time, very different. For one thing, despite what I might have thought while I was mad before, Max did know what he was doing; that much was obvious. He didn't bother with all that open mouth stuff they do on the movies, the stuff I'd been trusting to teach me how to kiss for the past three weeks. Instead, he just pressed his lips against mine.
It was like you'd give someone a peck on the cheek, except it was on the lips and lasting longer. Once I'd figured that out, I realised that it was no big deal, I could do that! I mean, who hasn't given their cousins or grandmas or moms a peck on the cheek every once in a while, even if they didn't want to? So I kissed him back, just like it was his cheek and not his lips. And it was easy.
Except a moment after I did that, he- well, I'm still not sure how he did it, but he tilted his head round and pushed my mouth open even more. Suddenly I realised that this was kissing, proper kissing like I'd seen on those movies. It took a little while to get used to, but it was okay. Interesting, even.
Then he put his tongue in my mouth.
If he'd done that right at the start, I probably would've jumped back as fast as I'd jumped forward when he turned away from me. By that point though... Max was right: kissing is weird, but the more you do it, the more you want to do it. This was actually turning out sort of... I don't know. Fun, I guess, but I don't see why. I mean seriously, kissing is about the most disgusting thing you could think of! I mean putting your tongue in someone else's mouth, touching their tongue with your own - how gross is that?!
I guess it's different once you've done it, because now me and Max kiss all the time. Well, not all the time. But when we're on our own, and we're not beyblading or eating or doing anything else more interesting, kissing's definitely a fallback. And it's nice, y'know? I like kissing Max, and I like holding his hand - that's something else we've been doing recently - and I really like doing both at once. Basically, I wanted things to go back to the way they were, and they have, but better.
Max was the one to stop that kiss, of course. After all, at that point, he was the only one with any clue about this whole kissing stuff. (I'd just like to point out that that's not the way it is anymore, okay?) Anyhow, when he did, he didn't walk away with a cheery wave or a throwaway line like I'd planned to. Instead, he put his arms around me and just held me tight against him. I was so stunned from everything that had just happened, it took me a moment to hug him back.
"I've missed you, Tyson."
It was nice, holding him like that and having him hold me. I felt something at the back of my throat, and realised that even though we'd never done this before, I'd missed it all the same.
"Same to you, Max."
There was a pause as we just held each other, made the most of the moment, and the fact that things were back to normal between us. I was so relieved and grateful and happy, I've never felt anything like that before or since. It was good just to have someone to hang on to.
After a few more moments, I heard Max ask:
"You want to come in for dinner?"
Another pause.
"Oh yeah."
"Cool!" He jumped back and grinned at me, laughing. I've actually never seen Max look so happy, and that's saying something. I wondered just how down he must have been in our three week non-fight, and was going to ask him, but decided to let it go as he bounded up the stairs yelling, "Da-ad! Tyson's going to stay for dinner after all!" and I heard his dad yell back, "Yes, I thought he might!"
Instead, I just laughed for the first time in three weeks and followed him up.