Go wasn't such a bad kisser.
Not thar Rei had much to go off of. She had tried to kiss him before once, when they had been thirteen and barely more than a couple of little kids. Back then he hadn't even kissed her back, he'd just ran away, and that had been really, really…not good. But this was good! And besides, it wasn't like she had kissed that many guys before anyway. This was good. This was totally worth sneaking him into her room, beyond worth skipping out on a job at a haunted house, super worth more than whatever it was that everyone was blowing up her phone about.
If five texts even counted as blowing her phone up.
She opened her eyes. She didn't know what she had expected to see considering the fact that she had left her phone to charge on her nightstand. She didn't know why she even cared. She was making out in her room with her boyfriend. Sure, she'd just had to time to this perfectly, if wasn't every day that mom had to stay late at work and Dad broke two of his molars because he tried cracking crab with his teeth. It wasn't every day, too, that she traded half of her life savings to her sister to get some privacy with her boyfriend…her boyfriend who she liked a lot and who was a good kisser and who she, of course, was happy to have been kissing…who didn't make her feel like she was missing out on whatever it was that she was missing out on.
Whatever was worth six texts now.
"Are you alright?" said Go as he pulled away from her. She could see her phone now, at least, and the rest of her room, too.
"I'm fine!" said Rei quickly. Her eyes were darting around her room now. She wished that she had cleaned it up more before he came over. She had seen this coming, the probability of it, when she had gotten up that morning but unfortunately there was only so much time before school. Enough time to hide her embarrassing stuff and put her dirty clothes in the hamper like Mom and Dad were always telling her to. Not enough time to get some better decorations, she was kind of old for all of this Sanrio stuff…not that she would ever have let Mob hear her saying anything like that. There wasn't anything wrong with it for certain, it wasn't like she had hot anime alien guys taped to her walls like Tome did, that would definitely have taken Go right out of the mood. No, all she had were Sanrio characters, idols, and pictures of her and her friends put up everywhere…watching her…
She loved Mob and Tome, she really did, but it was weird having them watch her and Go make out even if it was just in pictures.
"Are you sure?" asked Go
"I am, I really am." Said Rei as she reached over and turned the clothesline of pictures around. Of course the string didn't stay twisted. It quickly turned around and went back to the way it was before. She should have seen that coming…she chose not to look. She didn't need to look over and see pictures of her friends and wonder what they were doing and if they were mad at her and if they were doing something amazing right now while she was making out with a guy who was still darting his tongue around like a hyperactive lizard with a hot chip addiction.
"Really? I mean you've been looking around a lot and you're phone's been vibrating a lot and…uh…we can stop if you want to." Said Go
"Why would I want to stop? I'm the one who invited you over." Said Rei. Boys! She had never been able to understand them and maybe never would. Or maybe it would get easier the older she got. Tome understood Inukawa, she even understood him better than he understood himself or so she'd said, and Mob…well she and Teru had the most perfect relationship Rei had ever seen. Even more perfect than Reigen and Serizawa, though she wasn't sure if it was alright to count them since they were adults…maybe it was. She hoped that she and Go were as happy as they were when they grew up…
When they grew up…when she grew up…with her boyfriend….her boyfriend Go…
"I know but we've been making out for a while and, uh, yeah. It's been a lot of making out." Said Go
"You'd rather do something else?" asked Rei, the bed groaning as she sat up a little straighter. She wished that she hadn't been wearing her uniform. It was stiff and itchy because mom used way too much starch and the worst kind of fabric softener, and it made her look all boxy, and these weren't even her colors! But at least she was wearing a skirt, Tome had said that skirts were important for stuff, and it sounded like maybe Go finally wanted to do more than kiss…
Maybe being his girlfriend wouldn't be such a long, never ending, drag after all.
"Uh…" said Go as his eyes went wide. They really were pretty. Blue. She liked blue eyes, she decided, maybe because she wasn't used to seeing them. Or maybe all the cutest boys just had blue eyes. Teru had blue eyes, though his were darker, and Sho had blue eyes too but his were lighter and they went better with his hair since it was red, and according to the internet most redheads had blue eyes and not green, and he had these freckles around his eyes too that just made them pop and-
-and Go, her boyfriend who finally wanted to do more than kiss, was right there.
"What's on your mind?" asked Rei. Go looked at her, then the door, then at her again….oh!
"That door doesn't lock, I slammed it too hard and…yeah, it doesn't lock anymore, but we're totally alone in the house." Said Rei as she scooted closer to him. She tossed her stuffed animals off the bed as she scooted, apologizing in her head the whole time. Sorry Hello Kitty, sorry Pompompurin, sorry Gudetama, sorry weird owl thing with the one foot from a claw machine…
Go was staring at her now. She had to remind herself that he couldn't read minds.
"What are you…what are you doing?" asked Go as he watched her toss her stuffed animals onto the floor. She hadn't realized that she had so many. She must have been giving them weird looks of something, that was it, that was why he was being all like this. Noticing the stuffed animals on the floor and not her or the fact that, wow, her bed was actually a lot bigger than she had noticed.
"Making room. I never noticed how many stuffed animals I had." Said Rei
"Making…making room?" asked Go
"Yeah. Wow, my bed's pretty big too. I never noticed that before." Said Rei
"I never noticed either! I mean it's bigger than mine, mine's got clothes in it and stuffed animals…uh…other stuff in it. But yeah, this bed is big and, uh, nice and stuff. For a girl's room! I mean girls rooms are nice! I mean, uh, I've never been in a girl's room before and…it's nice." said Go as he scooted back. She got closer and he just moved back…oh, right, he was making room for her…he was making room for her because this was finally happening!
Something was happening.
Rei wanted to look into the future. She wanted to know what would happen, because there was so much that she wanted to happen, and so much that she had been waiting what felt like a lifetime to happen, but also stuff that…that she wasn't sure what she would do if it happened. Like…like a lot of things that she had prepared for but only in the sense that Tome had given her a bunch of…of stuff that she had gotten from the clinic and…and Rei knew that if she couldn't even think it or say it then she shouldn't have been doing it and…and it wasn't like they were even going to do that and if they did then that was the point of having a boyfriend so what was she so worried about!
And she didn't even know if that was going to happen!
"Your blanket matches your, uh, hair…and stuff. It's nice. I mean pink and red are nice together." Said Go. Rei brushed her hair back behind her ears. Her roots were starting to show. She needed to fix her hair. He was looking at her hair and he was probably just looking for something nice to say because 'your roots look like your head is bleeding but in reverse because your hair is naturally black but dyed red' was a mean thing to say and also very awkward and oh God! She was being awkward now, wasn't she? She needed to see what he wanted but…but in doing so she might wind up changing the future because she'd be too focused on making the future look right and-and-and-
-and he was still looking at her roots!
"And I like, um, how you're letting your hair get longer. It's pretty and…and you're pretty, I mean. I always thought that you were really pretty and pretty cool and it's pretty cool that you had mad over and, uh, hey! I've got some new chips and they're pretty-" said Go
"Thanks, I like it…and I'm glad you like it to. What else do you, uh, like?" asked Rei. She wanted to throw herself off of the bed, headfirst so she gave herself amnesia, and then if she was lucky she'd wind up suffocating in her stuffed animals and then that would be the end of her. Then she would never have to even think about how dumb she had just sounded. What did he like? That was the least attractive thing that she could have asked!
"About you or your room or chips?" asked Go
"Huh?" said Rei, pulling back a little too fast.
"I mean what do you want me to say nice stuff about? I know that girls like it when you say nice stuff to them and, I mean I mean it, and it's kind of my job to make you happy and stuff so…uh…you're pretty and you're room is cool and I have chips. I went online and found ones that are so spicy that it's technically illegal to have them." said Go. Rei wrinkled her nose. Chips? They were alone in her room and he wanted to eat chips and talk about her decorating skills? Which were, of course, pretty good but still.
Was it something that she'd done?
"Chips again?" asked Rei. How was she supposed to compete with chips? And why couldn't she compete with chips? What did chips have that she didn't have? She was pretty…at least she tried to be….
"Technically these are crisps because they're potato sludge that's been shaped into a chip and then baked. It's actually really cool-" said Go
"We can eat chips later. Don't you want to, you know, not make out?" asked Rei. She did the eyebrow thing Tome did sometimes when she said something that could be taken the wrong way, that she wanted to be taken the wrong way, that…that it looked like Go was going to take the right way.
Boys!
"Yeah! I mean we can stop making out if you want! We did it for a while and, uh, if you don't want chips I brought my DS if you want to play something or we could go to the park and throw rocks at trees or we could go to this cool alley and burn stuff and break glass-" said Go
"No, I mean do you want to do something else here?" asked Rei as she reached for his hand. He pulled his hands back and sat up straighter than she'd ever seen him sit before.
"We don't have to. I mean I don't want to, uh, rush you and I know what you said before but we only started going out and, uh….we can just hang out if you want to. I mean we don't hang out that often, I mean we've been hanging out everyday after school, but…uh…we can hang out some more?" asked Go. Rei shook her head. She had heard, before, that boys could be complicated but that seemed like it was kind of a lot.
"Seriously. My parents won't be home for a while and I bribed my sister. We can do whatever you want." Said Rei. Go nodded…and didn't do anything else. He just sat there on his knees with his hands pressed against his thighs and his eyes looking at…her AKB48 poster…the big one above her bed with all of the members of all of the teams and…and he was just staring at it. But which one! There were ninety of them and they were all so much older than her and-and did he think that they were prettier? And-and-and-
-and now she was biting her nails!
"Great." Muttered Rei as she looked down at her nails. Hours of work ruined. Tome had done little galaxies and spaceships and aliens and stuff and now all she had to show for it were chipped nails and a weird taste in her mouth. Just great,
"I want to…um…tell you how cool your nails are." Said Go
"Huh?" asked Rei
"I mean your nails always look cool and stuff. I think that it's cool that you're so creative and stuff like that. I'm not that good at drawing, or painting I guess." said Go
"Oh, Tome did these. Mine aren't as good as hers." Said Rei
"Not true. I remember one time you did these really cool pink and purple flames-" said Go
"Those were supposed to be fireworks." Said Rei as she shook her head. That whole day had been something that she wished she could have forgotten. She had been up all night trying to get it right but every time she tried to fix it she just wound up making it worse. Not that it had mattered in the end, of course, since none of the guys had cared about her nails. She was older enough to know that guys didn't care that much about stuff like that…not that she was entirely sure what it was that they cared about but she knew that it wasn't nails.
"Which are a kind of flames and therefore are awesome." Said Go. He smiled at her, there, and she felt a warm feeling crawling up her back and settling on her face.
"It always goes back to fire with you, doesn't it?" laughed Rei as she pulled at her school shirt. Was it hot in there or was that just him?
"Well yeah, fire is awesome." Said Go as he put his hand down on her bedspread. It didn't start smoking in there so it must not have been him, not his powers anyway, because he was kind of cute. Maybe on the boarder between cute and hot. Or maybe it didn't matter what he looked like, maybe it mattered more what he made her feel.
His hand was right there. So was hers. But he wasn't doing anything. So what was she supposed to be feeling right now?
"What about…um…" said Rei
"What about what?" asked Go
"What about me? Am I…am I awesome?" asked Rei as she reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear. It was getting to that weird length. Not long but not short either. She needed to cut it and dye her roots. She looked dumb. She looked like…she didn't know what she looked like but she knew that she didn't like it. Boys both noticed and didn't notice these kinds of things. They noticed when a girl was cute but they didn't notice specific things she did, unless it was Teru of course, but not every guy could be Teru…and anyway she didn't want to be dating Teru.
She was dating Go. She wanted to be dating Go. And he wanted to be dating her…right?
"Hell yeah! I mean you can see the future, which is awesome, and you're good at making things, which is awesome, and you're really good at art, which is really awesome, and you're just really awesome, alright? Like those blue hot chips that you wouldn't think are hot but are actually so hot that if you're not careful they get under your nails and your fingers turn red and swell up and your mom makes you soak your hands in milk all night…but in a cool way." Said Go
"Thanks…I guess…" said Rei. She knew that he meant well. She knew that being compared to hot chips was the highest kind of comparison that Go could make. She knew that he liked her…but she also knew that he never acted like it…and she knew that she didn't like that at all.
"But if I'm so awesome then why are you being all…like this?" asked Rei
"I'm all sweaty because it's hot in here." Said Go as he pulled at his hoodie.
"Then why don't you just take that thing off?" asked Rei. She hadn't meant it like that, like however Go thought she meant it, whatever it was that made his eyes go all wide like that…or maybe she had. Maybe she had but she didn't know that she had because she hadn't been planning on meaning it that way but her subconscious thoughts had slipped out. That happened when people were focused on something, Reigen had said that people gave away more information than they thought they were when they said even the most mundane things, and maybe Go was as good at reading people as Reigen was…
Rei didn't mind.
"It's not that hot in here, I take it back! And anyway I kind of have to keep this on because today we were in the science room and I wanted to see if I could light the burner thing with my powers but I think I turned the gas on too fast and I kind of set myself on fire…but it didn't hurt! But I really messed my shirt up." said Go
"Wait, you caught fire? At school? Everyone saw?" asked Rei as she leaned back. There was no way he had caught fire…but that would have explained why he smelled like smoke…but then again he always kind of smelled like that. She couldn't believe it. How was he going to go back to school after that? Everyone was probably talking about what had happened…he had to move. That was the only thing he could do. Move, change schools, change his name, get plastic surgery, and just have an entirely new life!
"Yeah, it was really cool! Well, I thought that it was." Said Go
"But you're not, you know, worried? About what everyone thinks of you now?" asked Rei
"Everyone thinks I'm awesome…well, not my science teacher, I'm banned from unsupervised lab time, and I think that my mom is going to be pretty pissed at me too about this…hey! You know a lot of crafts and stuff!" said Go
"Crafts?" asked Rei. She did like crafts but they were alone…but this was important too, wasn't it? Doing things other than making out. Because they were in a relationship and that was what people in a relationship did. Like how Tome and Inukawa played videogames, or Mob and Teru went shopping and played soccer and…and those were mostly things that Teru was into…but still! You were supposed to do things other than make and mess around with your boyfriend.
But did he have to want to do those things right now?
"Yeah, like, can you fix this?" asked Go as he pulled his hoodie up…and, yes, there was a massive hole burnt into his uniform…and she didn't know how to sew…
"Sorry I can't." said Rei. That was just too much. She would have had to learn to sew and figure out where to get fabric…he frowned and put his hoodie down…
"Damn it, I'm going to be grounded until I'm dead and probably for a few years after that." Said Go. Rei shook her head. No, no way was that happening. Not now. Not when they had just started going out. Not when they had just started making out. Not when she had just started having something to talk about! And not when they were so close to, well, anything!
"But I can try! I don't know how to sew but…but I do have a lot of glue!" said Rei. She didn't even have to look into the future. She knew that this was going to work. She had done something like this before. She had cut the collar and bottom off of a shirt that she had outgrown and glued them to a shirt that fit her so it always looked like she was wearing layers…she just needed fabric that was that color…her eyes moved downwards to the pile of stuffed animals on the floor…
She had never really liked that owl anyway.
"Stay there, take off your shirt, and give me ten minutes." Said Rei as she held out her hand. She didn't have to tell him twice. He took off his hoodie and then his uniform shirt and that left him in only an undershirt…which was pretty much just like wearing a normal shirt so it wasn't even that much of anything…and anyway she couldn't get distracted now!
She had work to do.
It wasn't her best work, fixing his shirt with cut up pieces of her old owl plushy and hot glue, but it looked alright…from a distance…but it was just a uniform. Nobody looked that closely at those and, really, grey was such a boring color anyway. Nobody could have made that uniform look good even if it hadn't been made out of owl fur.
Though Go really did try.
"Whoa! You fixed it! This is so cool!" said Go as he put his uniform shirt back on. Rei checked the time on her alarm clock…it hadn't even been ten minutes. She looked out her window. The sun was still high un the sky. High-ish? She didn't know how to tell time by the sun but it didn't look like it was that late. It didn't look like she was cutting it that close and if she was…
She checked the future.
"Good." said Rei as she checked the future. Near zerpo percent chance of getting caught. That was what it felt like, anyway, and she knew that she could have been wrong about those things sometimes…she was going to risk it. This was a rare chance to do something and she wasn't going to let it slip away. Her phone vibrated again. Whatever was happening it was important, the kind of thing that she knew that they were going to be talking about together, the kind of thing that she wanted to add to…and now she could.
Or at least she was going to be able to soon.
"More than good. You can hardly tell I almost set myself on fire! Takeshi's never going to believe-" said Go as Rei leaned in and kissed him. She had seen this in a million movies before. Usually the guy did it to the girl, though, but this was the twenty first century and she was going to kiss her boyfriend quiet if she had to…and it was a 'had to' sort of thing.
Once he got started talking about Takeshi there was no stopping him.
And the last thing she wanted to do right now was talk about Takeshi. She wanted to kiss him, and she was kissing him, but he wasn't kissing her back. Not in any real way. She pulled away. He leaned back so hard his head thudded against her wall. She, a part of her anyway, hoped he'd given himself even half the headache that he was giving her.
Seriously!
"Am I bad at this or something?" asked Rei, crossing her arms. That must have been it. There must have been something that she had done to make him, her own boyfriend, not want to kiss her…and it wasn't fair! She had read about his and practiced and planned and-and she wanted this! She wanted someone to love her, and someone to do stuff with, and all of that other boyfriend stuff and she had him but…but somehow she was still messing this up! All of her friends not only had relationships but perfect ones and she…
She had someone who barely even kissed her back.
"N-No! I just-" said Go
"Because it's like, I don't even know, it's like you don't want to kiss me at all…and that makes no sense! We were doing so good before and-and it must be something that I did but I don't know and-" said Rei
"It's not you, it's me!" said Go
"…I know that's from a show, Go, I don't know which show but I know that it's from a show." Said Rei. He at least could have been serious about this. She knew him, she had known him for years, and she knew how immature he could be…but he could have at least been mature when he was talking to her about something this important.
"Ok, ok, it is but…uh…I like you a lot and you like me but it's…it's hard for me to kiss you-" said Go
"What? What did I do?!" cried Rei. Hard to kiss her? What did that mean? Was she bad at it? Had practicing on her pillow not been the kissing hack she had thought? Had he been out there kissing other girls before this? Lots of them? Older ones who knew what they were doing and didn't stay up all night reading articles like '100 kissing tips' or 'kissing for complete braindead dummies' or 'kiss like a pro or die alone with feral cats'?
"Uh…I meant…uh…when your phone is blowing up like that! Like it's been right now. It's…distracting? And bad for the, uh, mood?" said Go. Rei nodded and looked down at her bedspread. It was suddenly very interesting, much more interesting than the fact that she had totally forgotten that silencing phones wasn't just for school and the movies. She'd been killing the mood this whole time…so it had kind of been her fault…
But on the bright side he still liked her!
"Because it might be an emergency and I don't want to, uh, keep you from an emergency and…uh…here, let me give you your phone." Said Go as he started to reached over to her…over past her.
"I'm closer." Said Rei as she turned around.
"Yeah, but I'm the guy and I'm supposed to do nice stuff for you and stuff." Said Go
"It's fine." Said Rei as she grabbed her phone and…oh. That was a lot of texts from Mob and Tome…and missed calls. She frowned. If she was getting actual calls then this was important. She put in her password quickly, only messing up once, and went right to her messenger where she found-
"Puppies!" shouted Rei, grateful that she and Go were alone…though, thanks to the sudden smell of burning, not too grateful for his powers…but whatever! She didn't care if her house burnt down and she and her family had to move into a box or whatever! There were puppies!
So. Many. Puppies.
"Oh man, I'm sorry about your bed-" said Go
"Forget my bed, look at this!" said Rei as she kind of…shoved her phone right into his face. She would apologize for that later, much later, after they were done looking at all of the pictures of actual, real live, puppies! That Reigen and Serizawa were keeping! This was perfect! They could turn Spirits and Such into a dog café and play with the puppies all day and have puppy sleepovers, too!
"Cool! That's, like, a million dogs!" said Go
"I know, right?" asked Rei
"That's so cool! You can race them, or have them pull a sled…but in the winter, and you could teach them tricks-" said Go
"And we could open a dog café and make clothes for them to wear-" said Rei
"And you could shave patterns and stuff into their fur-" said Go
"Or dye them different colors-" said Rei
"Or, like, color their fur to look like flames and then put glitter on them and shine lights on them so it looks like they're on fire but not in the kind of way that would make Sho kick your ass." Said Go. Rei laughed and kissed him, quick, because she didn't know if the mood was still ruined. He made a weird sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a gasp as she pulled away from him. It was kind of sweet, actually.
"You're really sweet, Go, you know that?" asked Rei. Go nodded and tucked his head down into his hoodie.
"That's weird-weird, I mean I should be hot because I, uh, eat so many chips and…stuff." Said Go
"That too but you're also really sweet. I didn't know you were so into dogs which is like, come on Rei, you have one so of course you're into them." said Rei
"I have a…right, yeah, I told you I have a dog now." said Go
"Uh-huh….hey, you should bring your dog over to Spirits and Such. We could have a dog play date." Said Rei
"That's…an idea. I think, uh, it's a good one but I just remembered that I have to go home and…and do dog stuff!" said Go as he nearly jumped off of her bed. She was nearly bounced off of it as he jumped to his feet. She checked the time…yeah, it was getting kind of late, maybe…
"Are you sure you have to go? It's not that late. I mean it's kind of late but not that late." Said Rei. She couldn't believe that he was just going to take off again. Didn't he see what an opportunity this was? That they wouldn't have this again for a while? Didn't he see…well, he did have a dog now and his dog needed him for whatever 'dog stuff' was.
"It's a long walk home, I mean in this traffic, I mean…uh…you're really great and I love hanging out with you but I have to go." Said Go in a serious voice that he had never used before, not around her anyway, and she…well, she couldn't argue with that now could she?
"Come on, I'll walk you out I guess." said Rei as she climbed down from her bed. She couldn't help but feel disappointed, even if she shouldn't have, because he had things to do and a whole dog to take care of. She knew that she should have been happy to have been able to spend what little time that she could with him, and that she should have just been happy to be with him and all that other stuff you were supposed to feel when you liked someone, but feeling the way that she knew she was supposed to was hard…
So she was disappointed…and not just because she had missed out on finding all of those puppies.