"Here you go, Usagi," Motoki said cheerfully, setting her chocolate milkshake on the counter. The arcade was busy today, and he was too preoccupied to notice that he'd placed the glass beyond her reach. Usagi wasn't about to complain to Motoki, and there was absolutely no way she'd ask the ever-infuriating baka to pass it to her, so that meant . . .
Usagi sighed, resigned, and beside her, Mina giggled, throughly enjoying her friend's discomfort. Tamping down her nerves, Usagi rose from her stool, balancing precariously on it's crossbar, and planted one hand on the counter, leaning across Mamoru to reach her delicious prize.
Mamoru looked up, confused and disoriented, his reading interrupted by Usagi's acrobatics.
"Don't mind me baka," Usagi said with poisonous sweetness, so close to wrapping her fingers around her glass.
Then she felt two small, treacherous hands pushing on the small of her back, and she tumbled into the baka's lap.
She hit her elbow on the counter as she fell, and her first response was a shrieked "MINA!" Then she realized — she was on Mamoru's lap.
Usagi could feel the heat rising off him like asphalt in the summer. One of his arms was brushing her back; the other, her cheek.
She blushed, tingles shooting down her spine, making her want to shiver, despite Mamoru's warmth. Burning with embarrassment — and with some other, deep-rooted emotion she didn't want to name — Usagi pushed herself into a sitting position, trying to touch Mamoru as little as possible.
Once she was sitting, having tried to steady her racing pulse and failed miserably, she tried to meet his gaze. She caught a glimpse of sapphire blue eyes and very pink cheeks before she had to look away.
"Hi," she whispered, all cockiness gone, desperate to break the awkward silence between them.
"Hi," he responded, voice husky. "Um . . . "
"I'll just get down now," Usagi mumbled, but neither of them moved.
Usagi watched his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. Time seemed to pass irrationally, leaping toward the moment he put his hands on her waist, and she gasped, feeling her head swim.
If Usagi had thought he was warm before, now it seemed like the heat of his hands would burn through the thin fabric of her shirt. Pulse galloping and breath sawing, Usagi moved to back away, until Mina's cackle stopped her short. "Sorry Usagi," she said, not sounding sorry at all, "but someone took your seat. Well, mine actually, and then I took yours."
Usagi shot a glare at her friend only to find that Mina's blue eyes danced with mischief and delight.
"No, I can just leave," Mamoru rumbled, his voice deeper than normal, raw and rough like a scratchy wool blanket, wrapping Usagi in it's folds and making the temperature rise to an almost unbearable level. "I've finished my coffee anyway." He cleared his throat gruffly, and Usagi imagined she could feel the vibration in her own body.
Scooting the stool back with a harsh squeal, Mamoru lifted Usagi off his lap and set her on the ground. Her knees were so wobbly she had to lean on the counter for support. For one brief, heart-stopping second, his knees grazed the skin of her stomach, and then he stood, dwarfing her.
With no more than a nod to Motoki and an instinctual moment of eye contact with Usagi — which was all it took to make her cheeks warm and her stomach erupt and her heart pound — Mamoru turned and exited the arcade, walking a little faster than he normally did.
After watching him turn the corner, Usagi shakily clambered onto Mamoru's vacated stool. The plastic was still warm from his body and the air was still fragrant with his scent, coffee, and something sweet, like flowers, and something else that was cool and sharp, like the sky after a rainfall, and it was almost as if he hadn't left.
So Usagi sat for a moment and breathed it all in, waiting for her heartbeat to slow down.
A snicker met her ears, and Usagi turned to face her devious friend, who was sitting on the stool Usagi had occupied not five minutes ago. True to her word, Mina's previous seat had been taken by a young boy, but Usagi had no doubt that her friend had made sure it happened this way.
"Mina, I know you planned this," Usagi growled.
"Who, me?" Mina asked innocently, a smile lighting up her beautiful face.
Usagi scowled.
"Okay, how's this? You can yell at me all you want . . . as long as you tell me you didn't enjoy sitting in Mamoru's lap."
Usagi's mouth fell open in shock. She wanted to deny Mina the pleasure of being right, but her throat closed stubbornly, refusing to let any lies out.
Mina grinned, smug. "That's what I thought."