There's not enough Room for so much Love in these Hands

~o~

Another day, another battle, and one less enemy.

"I can't believe this..."

Nagisa really couldn't believe that even after finishing off the Dark King, they still had to fight enemies that came out from the darkest corners of the city. Having more fellow warriors who shared with them the task of saving the world from Darkness did little to relieve her.

"Are you feeling tired, Nagisa? We can go to my house so you can rest," Honoka suggested, still holding her battle partner's hand.

Nagisa sighed heavily. Neither of them had their transformation activated anymore, they were no longer Cure Black and Cure White, now they were just Nagisa Misumi and Honoka Yukishiro, a pair of high school students like any other.

"I'd love to, I feel tired. Today's training was hard and then those enemies attacked us..." The girl complained, still not letting go of her friend.

Her best friend.

"Calm down, Nagisa. Come on, let's go, I'll make you tea, we can stop for some Odango on the way and you'll take a nap, I'll wake you up before lunch. If you want to stay for lunch, of course," Honoka proposed with a smile, she already knew the answer in advance.

"I'd love to! Will you cook? I love your grandmother's cooking and... Um, don't tell her, but I like it a lot more when you cook," Nagisa confessed with a recovered smile. Both of them walked towards the humble Yukishiro residence.

They didn't let go of each other's hands.

"Well, when I cook something that I know you're going to eat, I put a little more love into the food. You know, the secret ingredient," Honoka said playfully, now tangling her fingers with Nagisa's.

And poor Nagisa felt her face burn, she decided to look to the side, the lines on the sidewalk looked very interesting right now. She still didn't let go of Honoka.

"Um... Thanks. You always go to such lengths for me."

"Don't worry, Nagisa. I do what I do because I care about you and I love you very much. You should know that already."

"Honoka!" Nagisa panicked as she looked everywhere but at Honoka. "Don't say such weird things."

"I don't say weird things, I'm serious. You're important to me and I love you very much."

"As friends, right?"

Honoka smiled. "Yes, as friends."

Nagisa laughed nervously as she brought her free hand to the back of her neck. She couldn't stop feeling that heat on her face, much less calm the accelerated beating of her heart. "I... I love you very much too... As friends, of course."

It was Honoka's turn to laugh, but her laugh was always cuter, more feminine, more striking to Nagisa because of the cute tone of her best friend's voice.

Nagisa's hand that was holding Honoka's hand now felt tingling, for some reason there was a feeling of anxiety that forced her to do something more than just hold hands with her, as if being like this wasn't enough, as if between the two of them they were holding something between their joined hands and that something wanted to escape.

Honoka, on the other hand, almost felt guilty for being there and enjoying the way Nagisa was panicking. But it wasn't like she could do anything for her, that's just how Nagisa was, she had to calm down and figure things out on her own.

What Honoka could do was add a little more fuel to the fire. Because she loved Nagisa and she wanted her to feel all the feelings she had for her. They weren't kids anymore, they would soon go to college and the best thing was to make clear (but little by little) her romantic intentions towards her. And something in Honoka's heart knew that Nagisa was aware of what was going on in her heart, but Nagisa was dense as a brick.

"Because of you now I'm going to do something weird," Nagisa muttered as soon as she stopped waving her free hand like crazy. Her other hand now began to press her friend's hand a little harder to the point that she noticed it.

"Nagisa?" Honoka stopped and looked at their joined hands.

"This is your fault!" Nagisa shouted and ended up hugging Honoka tightly, tighter than she had planned, so tight that Honoka wasn't able to hug back because her arms were trapped.

This time it was Honoka's turn to blush. Feeling Nagisa so close so soon hit her harder than the blows from the enemy they had just defeated. "Nagisa?" Honoka tried to break free so she could at least hug her too.

"It's your fault," Nagisa murmured against Honoka's shoulder. At least she had reached Honoka in height in that last year and the hug allowed her to speak into her ear. Not that she was aware of what she was going to provoke with such an attack. She did just that, saying her next words directly into Honoka's ear. "You say things that make my heart go weird."

Honoka gulped, the only thing she could do was hold on to Nagisa's jacket. Feeling that, Nagisa held on tightly to Honoka's jacket too. "And it bothers you that I do that?" She asked in the voice she could muster.

"Yeah, because I don't know what to do. I want to do a lot of things but I don't know what things I want to do and that makes me angry," Nagisa confessed.

Honoka smiled. "Then the advice to do what your heart tells you doesn't work, right?"

"Exactly, because my heart isn't helping me right now."

"I'm sorry," what Honoka could do was lean on Nagisa's shoulder.

"And what are you going to do about this? This is your fault," Nagisa pointed out.

"Well, now I can hug you instead of just holding your hand."

"But I like it when we hold hands."

"Oh, then I can do this."

And with that, Honoka sweetly kissed Nagisa's cheek. And thank goodness they were both hugging each other or Nagisa would have fallen dead to the ground. That attack was too much for the poor girl and now it was Honoka who held her tightly so that she wouldn't fall to the ground like a rag doll.

A couple more minutes passed before Nagisa could stand on her own feet.

"Better?"

"Better."

"Didn't I bother you with what I did?"

"No."

"Fine."

"But I'd like to stay like this a little longer, I like holding your hand, but just doing that... Ah... It's not enough anymore."

"We'll do whatever you want at whatever pace you want, Nagisa."

"Thank you, Honoka."

A few more seconds of silence, at least until Nagisa's stomach broke it with a powerful roar of hunger.

"Let's change plans, let's go buy Odango first like you said. I'm hungry."

"And then I'll cook something for us to eat together when we get to my house."

"Deal."

But they hugged each other a little longer before carrying out their plans for the afternoon.

FIN