*Looks up at update time* IT'S BEEN OVER A YEAR?!
SWEET JESUS ON A T-REX!
It all began when we tried to buy alcohol.
We arrived at the convenience store in no time, with Kyoya in the lead. He was a surprisingly fast walker considering the fact he must have been wearing the uncomfortable, formally stiff shoes of Ouran's uniform. I had to nearly jog half of the time to keep up with him.
We entered the store, and immediately found the aisle for alcoholic beverages. At that moment, Kyoya decided to depart from my side, like the ninja that he was without me noticing until I turned to ask him if the drinks were expensive end ended up finding myself looking at a blank wall.
"Dammit…" I muttered, turning back and walking down the aisle.
I walked about 3 steps when I saw her. The one person I didn't want to see in the entire world at this time. The one person I'd forgotten to call. The one person I'd been avoiding.
Alex stared at me from across the aisle, her crystal blue eyes wide with surprise as she stood there, shopping in hand.
"Kate?"
"Alex."
"Hey…" She said, walking towards me. I stood there, like a rabbit in the headlights, preparing for that Optimus Prime of a truck to smash my face in.
"Hey." I replied quickly.
"What'cha lookin' at?" She asked, turning to the alcoholic beverages I was beside. "I thought you'd quit underage drinking…?"
"Um…yeah, I did." I told her, sighing inwardly that she didn't bring up the events last Friday. I turned to the shelves of alcohol. "I've got some people over though, do you remember me telling you about my old boarding school?"
"Yep. Parkinson, right? The British equivalent of hell." She replied in a jovial manner.
"You'll never guess who literally turned up on my doorstep…" I told her, grabbing a random bottle of vodka off of the shelf and rummaging in my pockets for my wallet.
"No way! Your old friends are in Japan?! I'm so meeting them! We have to compare notes!"
"Notes?"
"I need notes on the pranks they've pulled so I can start afresh for April fools!" She explained, throwing her hands up in the air with excitement. "When will you next see them?!"
"Now, actually." I told her, going over to the counter and flashing my ID. "Do you want to come meet them? The host guys are there too. Actually….Kyoya should be somewhere around here, if I'm not mistaken…"
"Would I ever! Let's go!" She exclaimed, grabbing my arm and dragging me out of the convenience store.
"Wait! Kyoya's still in-"
"Shall we go ladies?" A calm, deep and measured voice said from behind me, making me jump out of my skin with fright. By the time I calmed down, I realized Kyoya was here.
"Hello Miss Greenwood." He remarked as we walked back to the others. "How have you been?"
"Fine," She replied, smirking to herself as she continued to drag me along. "and yourself?"
It was at that moment I finally put two and two together. That sly demon Kyoya somehow knew where Alex was and planned for us to meet! Or, even worse, the two conspired together!
'What the hell were they thinking when they planned something like this?!' I mentally screamed. 'What else have they been planning behind my back?!'
As mad as I felt though, a small but noteworthy part of me was thankful that I had encountered Alex that day. I felt like I would have kept avoiding her if we didn't meet at that moment, so planned or not, I was grateful.
Only a small part of me though, the rest of me was still fuming.
COOL TRANSITION
The inclusion of alcohol to my friends' 'little gathering' certainly spiced things up a bit.
It became apparent that despite the millions of champagne bottles the Ouran kids must have drank at their fancy dinner parties, not a single one of them had any tolerance for alcohol. Looking around the trashed living room of my house, I made a note never to invite rich kids to a binge-drinking fest again. Sofa cushions were taken apart and tossed onto the floor, toilet paper had been strewn about the house like some kind of movie, and most notable, our curtains were missing. At some point or another, if I remember correctly, the twins had gotten to a point in which their perception of reality had been altered, and they believed themselves to be climbing up mount Everest, when in fact they were scaling the curtains in the front hall, pulling them off the rails in the process.
To be fair though, I can't really be on my high horse all that much either; at the time, I was indeed tipsy, and running into doors whilst giggling my head off quite like everyone else. If I remember correctly, the only people who had been moderately calm were Haruhi, who was quietly sipping on a soft drink in the corner of the room, waving off Tamaki's slurred advances indifferently, and Mori, who remained stoic as ever sipping on a beer. Did he even try the other drinks? I can't remember seeing him with anything else, but I found it surprising to see him as a beer-drinking kind of person. Perhaps he never had the chance to, as the entire evening he was attempting to restrain Hunny, who if I remember only had one glass of ginger beer, was running up the walls and climbing on every person imaginable.
Anyway, I'm going off on a tangent. All I needed to say is that everyone had gotten plastered, and thus, from experience, I believed that they probably wouldn't remember what happened in the morning.
The events of that night had been pretty fuzzy for me too, but there is one specific event, I remember with disturbing clarity. The memory is like an HD photograph amongst out of focus images, and is likely one I would never, no matter how many times I attempt to cover it up, forget.
COOL TRANSITION
It was in the middle of the party, that point in which all the people around you begin to blur together into a messy crowd. I stumbled, glass in hand, through the bustle of people, blinking far too frequently to have any hope of seeing straight, bumping into what felt like a thousand figures before finally reaching my destination.
The roof.
I opened the door, vision blurring, and stumbled out into the open air. The cold breeze was like having a bucket of ice chucked over me, and my eyes widened, staggering at the slightest touch of that cold gust. I reached for a handle to steady myself, and that's when I saw him.
On the other end of the rooftop, there staggered a distant figure of a man, dark hair ruffled to submission, covering his eyes as his head dipped toward the ground, swaying as if the breeze were a hurricane.
His head jerked up at the slam of the door, and we walked toward one another. I felt slightly, ever so slightly more sober at the sight of the man.
When he spoke, his words were slurred, but no so much that I couldn't understand him.
"I…I am not…drunk!" he declared, grabbing my shoulders as I attempted to contain my tipsy giggles. "Kate Farnest stop laughing!"
"Sorry!" I exclaimed, sinking to the floor as my giggles increased, "I…didn't see you as the type…to get smashed is all!"
"You're as bad as Haruhi when…when we cross-dressed!" he blurted out, before also succumbing to the absurdity of the situation and bursting out laughing.
We sat against a wall that lined the staircase which lead to the roof. There, we talked. About everything and nothing, too intoxicated to even care what we said would embarrass us. A while later I discovered that when Kyoya was drunk, he turned into the worst keeper of secrets of all time. He said everything he thought without even a moment's hesitation.
"-and Tamaki! What an idiot! How...how the hell am I even friends with that fool?!" he ranted, his gestures animated and his voice louder than I'd ever heard it before. "In fact…how the hell am I friends with any of them?! A crossdresser? A set of twins? A Lolita and a dude that I'm not even sure speaks Japanese he's so quiet! And…Tamaki?!"
I laughed once again, unable to contain myself, "You tell me," I yelled to the skies, "you keep writing it down in that damn KIRA of yours! What the hell do you even write in there, huh?!"
It was then he turned to me, apparently completely ignorant to my declaration, and he said, in hushed tones.
"And you, Kate…"
I paused, turned to him. Noticed he was unnaturally close, but had no intention of moving.
"I don't…get you," he declared.
And that was when it happened.
That was the moment.
We collided.
People often describe in novels that the first kiss is like a set of fireworks going off in your mouth, or sweet honey being poured into you as your lips collide, or sweet, plump lips locking into place like they were meant to be there, forever.
My first kiss was nothing but awkward, uneasy, and overall sloppy. Neither of us seemed to have an idea what we were doing as our lips smashed together, and when we finally did part it appeared that said fireworks were still in the basement, or the honey was still in the jar, or the lips just weren't feeling it today.
Kyoya got up, quickly, and stumbled away without looking back. I watched him go, remaining where I was, not calling out, not daring to follow.
My first kiss was nothing special.
So how was it still able to blow me away; to the point where my legs could no longer support me in that moment?
That remains a mystery to even me.
Woah guys...it's been over a yEAR?! Are you even still reading this thing?!
Erm...well. Reading back on this story; I'm not proud of it. I, in all honesty, have NO IDEA how to write a romance, but hey, this is practice? I've decided to try and continue it, but updates shall be irregular.
I know where I want to go from here, it's just a question of tying up loose ends here...which somehow I've got a lot of!
So, yeah. A somewhat delayed comeback, but to be fair it may/may not have been worth the wait!
See you around!