Cheeks
Anon prompt from PromptsEvelark: A cheek kiss that missed.
Young children!Everlark.
Six-year-old Peeta Mellark has a dilemma - he kissed his best friend, Katniss Everdeen, on the lips! What is a young one supposed to do?
P.S. The Hunger Games Series belongs to Suzanne Collins.
Peeta missed Katniss' left cheek and landed right smack on her pale pink lips. Yikes! He was just saying 'hello' as his Paw taught him before it had happened.
Kisses on the cheeks are normal, right? Peeta thought. It's to greet family and friends, and Peeta has been doing it ever since he can remember. He kisses his Maw on the cheek every morning, he kisses his Paw when he wakes him up for school, he kisses his Auntie Effie even though her perfume makes him sneeze, and he even kisses his stinky brothers, Rye and Wheaton, on their birthdays. Delly kisses him first when she sees him in the park, but he always makes sure that he returns the kiss on her plump cherry cheeks after. He kisses his friends, Katniss, Madge, and Leevy, every Saturday when they have their play date. Kisses are all routine.
But today, his lips slid. And Katniss turned her head towards him just as his lips brushed her olive skin. Maybe it was because his lips were cold from the popsicle Paw bought him, and Katniss got startled. Maybe Katniss wanted to kiss him first today? Or maybe it was just his unlucky day? Either way, what's a six-year-old supposed to do? A kiss on the lips is a new thing, and he hasn't seen anyone from his family do it.
Without warning, Peeta's cheeks felt hot like oven doors, and his heart made loud tha-thump, tha-thump sounds in his big ears. His lips are still on Katniss', puckered fully like King Henry, Maw's fat goldfish at home. He willed his legs to move and his arms to push himself back, but they were like rocks sinking in the ocean. When he opened his eyes, Katniss' eyes were closed and scrunched up like … like ...
Holy heavensbee! I have to marry Katniss! Peeta screams inside, eyes wider than King Henry the goldfish. And kisses lead to babies! That's what his Maw tells his older brothers, Rye and Wheat, every night at the dinner table.
"Lip kisses are a no, no, and must be avoided at all times," Maw said.
Panicked, he pulls back his angelic face, turns around swiftly, and runs as fast as his chubby legs can take him. He passes by Delly, who is just arriving at the park. Leevy is not far behind her, swinging between her mom and dad. Madge is late, like always. And the rest of his six-year-old friends are probably buying ice pops, as his Paw said earlier. It is a hot day after all, and Ripper is selling fresh pops with chunks of fruits at the park entrance.
"Hi, Peeta!" Delly chirps, and she gives him a spirited wave. She's always jolly, that one. Her lemon-yellow skirt bounces over her knees like butterfly wings. "My tooth fell off! Wanna see?!"
No, he doesn't. Peeta has bigger problems to think about! "Later, Delly!"
"Alright!" She skips around in her impressive matching shoes and hums Ring-a-Ring O'roses.
Reaching the old oak tree a ways away from the jungle gym, Peeta presses his back on the dense and rough bark to catch his breath. The tree trunk is so huge and the tree so great, he's certain no one will see him hiding there.
Taking a quick glance back from where he came from, he tries to spot Katniss beside the red and orange slides, but she is nowhere to be found. Clumsily searching his pockets for his hanky, he comes out short and spies the white fabric his Paw always puts in his right pocket, splayed near the wooden seesaws. Instead, he lifts his right arm and vigorously rubs his lips on his sleeves. He even wets his lips a couple of times with his tongue and wipes them after. Peeta tasted a gentle hint of mint, like in tea, and thought it was nice.
A minute passes, but the panic still hasn't subsided. Cato aggressively playing stick swords with Marvel catches Peeta's attention. He slides down to the ground, lowering himself in his nook between two large tree roots. Cato likes to mock him, saying he is very fat and calling him "chubby buns" and "brioche boy" all the time. He tells him he's soft and weak, getting every one of his pack to follow his teasing.
Marvel does the same and tells him he's stinky even though he smells like cinnamon and dill. He can't help it that the scent of the bakery clings to his clothes and skin. Katniss thinks he smells good, and she even told him a couple of times over the summer. Peeta never did understand where Marvel was coming from.
"Oh, Katniss," he sadly whispers to no one in particular. He picks up an oak leaf and twirls it between his fingers. He really liked her as his friend, and they had a lot of fun playing tag and hopscotch.
Katniss likes collecting tree nuts and leaves like the one Peeta is holding now, and she always puts them in her bag to take home for her baby sister, Prim. Last Saturday, she told him that her baby sister was turning two, and she wanted to buy her a cupcake from the Mellark bakery. Peeta offered to give it to her, but Katniss was headstrong about refusing it. She said it was her gift, so he couldn't possibly give it to her for free. To trade instead, Peeta asked her to bring him berries from the shrubs near her fence. The Everdeens live on the outskirts of the city, practically in the woods, so she picks a lot of wild berries for her snacks in school. They hatched a good plan to store the cupcake in Peeta's superior lunch box. Katniss would return it the day after, filled with the berries he asked for as a fair trade.
But now they can't do that anymore. They can't be friends anymore, because he will have to marry Katniss. He kissed her, not just kissed her, but kissed her straight on the lips. She will have a baby in … well, he doesn't know how many days, but Katniss' mom is a doctor, so she will know for sure how long to wait. He hopes Katniss will have a baby girl. A tiny thing with the same long raven hair as Katniss does and gray eyes that looks like the full moon. He thinks of food and where they will live and supposes his room is spacious enough. And his bed has a trundle bed for cousins who sleep over. Katniss can sleep on his thicker mattress, while he takes up the trundle bed instead. It should be large enough for her and the baby. Comfortable too, when he keeps the window open.
For food, the bakery always has lots of food, and even though his Maw is strict with getting pastries, she is okay with serving day-old rolls of bread. They're still good as long as you reheat them in the oven and put a bit of butter on top or inside. He can fatten Katniss up in no time, and the baby can have all the fresh milk they use for baking.
House, food, and milk. That should be enough to live by, right? It would be nice to be with Katniss all the time at home. For sure she will sing lullabies to the baby as they cuddle at night. That would be wonderful and not bad at all. Peeta loves her voice, loves the sweet notes she makes that silence all the birds in the park. How lovely it would be to have his little songbird for a roommate. She's going to make a great mother, and he knows it.
Katniss will drive out all his nightmares too. No more boogeyman, werewolves, zombies, and ghouls. Rye can shut up about scary stories because Katniss will give it to him if he ever tries to scare them and the baby. She's not afraid of anything. From now on, there will only be fairy tales and happy ending stories in their bedroom.
Kissing Katniss on the lips wasn't so bad after all.
It's not unfun to be married and play husband and wife. He wonders if he should call her "love," or "dear," or "sweetheart." Auntie Effie calls Uncle Haymitch "darling" or "honey buns," and he calls her "cuddle bear" or "my star." Wheaton calls his girlfriend "baby," which is odd because she's not a baby at all. She's even taller than Wheat. Other times he calls her "kitten" or "lovebug." Well, Wheaton has always been the strange one in the family. Rye, Peeta gathers, will be even more bizarre when he goes to high school. He has all the signs of weirdness and mischief about him.
High school.
What will happen now with school? Maw and Paw don't get to go to school anymore. They work all the time and wear thick glasses all day to do chores. Maw answers phone calls and takes customers' orders, and Paw bakes and bakes and bakes … and cleans. There are no rest days except Sunday mornings. On Saturdays, his Paw drops him off at the park with Mr. Everdeen because he has to deliver cakes. Married life is just about work, work, work, and no fun!
I don't want to live like that! Peeta thought. He likes going to school. Likes chatting with his friends and teachers, especially Mr. Cinna, his art teacher. He lends him his watercolor set, and they paint carrots and flowers during class. The handsome Mr. Odair is awesome too! Especially when he brings them to the district pool during the summer. Peeta will miss everything about school and work for the rest of his life from now on.
Oh, the horror!
Married life is no fun. No, no, no, no, no!
Why did I have to kiss Katniss on the lips today? Peeta scolds himself while pulling his fat and curly locks. He's now back to his original dilemma, and tears begin to form at the corners of his eyes. Above all, he doesn't want Katniss to live a sad life. He wants to keep listening to her adventure stories, to see her climbing trees, and to hear her laughing out loud when he pushes her forward on the swings. Katniss loves swings.
Kisses on the lips are such evil things!
"Hey!" Katniss all of a sudden pops her head from the side of the oak tree. Her braid dangles on her shoulders, almost reaching the ground with its length. "Are you okay?"
No, I am not, he pouts.
Six-year-old Peeta Mellark is very much not okay. He kissed his bestest friend in the whole wide world, and now he has to marry her and work for the rest of his life.
"Sorry for kissing you," he says wearily and then rubs his lips with the back of his hand. He's rubbing it like an eraser, erasing dark pencil marks on paper.
Katniss shrugs her shoulders and then kneels before him. She hates seeing her boy with the bread unhappy.
Crumbled leaves and dirt cling to Katniss' green jumper, but she doesn't care like always. "So what? What's wrong, Peeta?" She tilts her head slightly in confusion and wrinkles her eyebrows at him.
Where does Peeta even begin? How can he explain their already ruined young lives?!
"Momma and Poppa do it all the time," Katniss says convincingly, picking up a nice-looking stick. She runs it through the dry leaves and makes a pattern, oblivious to Peeta's entire world crumbling inside him. "They then say 'I love you' or 'good night' after. It's no big deal, Peeta," she says matter of factly.
"But … but …"
"We can rub our lips and spit it out if you want to?"
Peeta's eyes pop at the revelation. Why didn't he think of that? Of course, they can spit out the kiss! The answer was right under his cute button nose. "That's it!"
"Yeah, it's so easy, Peeta." Katniss looks left and right and then back at him. Peeta's blue eyes are back to being bright now, and she's glad. "Together then?"
"Yeah, together!" he answers cheerily.
Hooking their pinkies like they always do when they make promises, they rub their lips over the back of their thumbs, grinning in the process. They both rub it five times, making sure they get every bit of the kiss out of their lips. Then they gather saliva inside their mouths before unbecomingly spitting on the ground like little hooligans.
Peeta feels relief right away. The tension in his round shoulders leaves him, and the sun on the horizon looks alive again in his eyes. They both brush their lips on their shirt sleeves and smile at each other.
"I'm never kissing you again, Katniss Everdeen!" Peeta swears with his adorable, squeaky voice. The most charming expression grazes his freckled face as he beams. He's determined not to repeat what happened today.
Oh, if only he knew where their lives were heading. Fate will fill it up with birthday cakes, high school dances, love letters in lockers, toasting, babies, and ... lots and lots of kisses.
"Okay," Katniss replies, her olive skin glowing. She then grabs his hand, so they can run back together to play with their friends. "Never ever?"
"Never ever!"
- the end -
I haven't posted much in a while, and this is my attempt at getting back into it. I hope you enjoyed it!
Un-betaed. I was just so happy to have some writing done again =)
Let me know what you think! Thanks for reading!