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It’s the first time you’ve done anything like this, and it’s new and exciting but also kind of normal. Casual. It’s not like your heart is racing. But it’s nice. You definitely want to do this, again, someday, but for now you are stuck with your lips on his forehead, his messy hair (even more messy than usually) tickling your nose and your cheeks and your lips. Why are you even doing this? Ah, yes, it’s a cheer up kiss. You are never quite sure what to do in such situations, since Ren usually laughs when he’s around you. But now he was crying, and kissing his forehead was the first thing that came into your head. Admittedly, it worked. You can’t hear him sobbing. You lean back and look at his face, smiling. He smiles back.
-
You fundamentally misunderstood the point of an Eskimo kiss. Granted, the instructions weren’t clear enough. When he came to you with the new discovery, all you caught was that it was supposed to be on the nose. Ren has never been that good at explaining things in the first place. And there you were, your lips on the tip of his nose, his eyes looking up at you (such a good perspective!). You asked if that’s what he meant, but no, no it wasn’t, he shook his head and you are now looking away. Not for long, though, since you can feel his hands on your cheeks as he’s gently guiding your head to face him. He leans forward and rubs your noses together. That’s what it was supposed to be. God. He’s smiling, though, and blushing (you’ve both been blushing for a while now, to be fair), and now you’re smiling too, and you both end up laughing so hard he slips and pokes your cheek with his nose.
-
You hear sniffling, and your heart drops. He slipped a moment ago, but you didn’t think it’d be anything serious. But there he is, not standing up, still kneeling on the ground, and weeping. You run up to him and kneel up in the mud as well. Perhaps it was a bad idea to play catch when the ground hasn’t fully dried yet, but it’s too late to beat yourself up over this now. Instead, you can ask where he’s hurt. And you do. He looks up at you, changes his position a bit so you can get a clear view of his leg. Indeed, there is a nasty scratch under his knee, and the knee itself is red. At least there’s no blood, but it still looks bad. Think fast, Shuugo, you say to yourself. Can I kiss it better?, that comes out spontaneously. He nods. You place your hands on both sides of his leg, and kiss what seems to be the worst spot for a while, and then leave little smooches around it. You look up at him, and he looks back at you in awe. It worked, Shuu-chan! Thank God it did. You can’t help smiling.
-
It’s time for the first game, and you are not going to play, but he is. You don’t mind. One of you was bound to be the reserve, you guess. You’re proud of him already, and you are glad to be his reserve. You are friends. You wouldn’t feel like a good one if you felt envious. It’s going to start soon, and he’s getting ready, and there’s one last thing you need to do, the sign of your support. You touch his shoulder, and he looks at you nervously. You are smiling, so he relaxes at the sight of your face. You take his hand and squeeze it. He looks at it and back at you, and that’s when you lean forward and kiss him on the cheek, gently and quickly, and then you pat him on the back and walk away, still smiling. Good luck, Ren.
-
You are walking home together and it’s snowing. It’s actually really cold, but you are practically immune to that, you just feel your nose freezing. It’s probably red by now. As always. You look over at him and can’t help noticing he, unlike you, is cold. Of course he is. He forgot to take his gloves. He’s trying to warm them up, but it’s no use. Sigh. You take his hands and he looks up at you (he’s still smaller than you!), and you both end up stopping. You kiss the centre of his palm, and then the other one, and you repeat that before switching to kissing his fingers, first on the right hand, then on the left one. You love his hands, even though they feel kind of hard against your lips. His fingers especially, they are covered in…are those calluses?…from all the pitching. You throw a lot, too, you do it whenever you can, but your hands are still soft compared to his, and you wonder if you’re not working hard enough. But, of course, you’re no match. You suddenly realise your lips are still on his little finger, and you look at his face. It’s red. He’s blushing. You can also feel that his hands got warmer. Well. Your method worked, at least. You just take one of his hands and continue walking, dragging him behind you before he manages to catch up.
-
It’s been a while since you kissed him anywhere. You have to admit you drifted apart a while ago. But now you see him, at last, you are together again, at least for a moment, and before you know it, he’s in your arms (or you are in his, you aren’t sure) and you are happy just with this. But then you hear that he’s whispering your name almost right into your ear. Instinctively, your lips are drawn towards the part of him that’s the closest to you, which so happens to be his neck. He definitely felt this, because you hear him chuckling as warm tears hit your back (why was he crying? Oh, right. He was probably this happy to see you…). In any case, he doesn’t seem to mind, so you do it again, you leave small kisses along his jaw line, and his neck, you can feel the veins pulsating under his skin and under your lips. You register that he’s still giggling, and you remember that he’s ticklish there, and you can’t help snorting. You stop kissing and just continue hugging, because you really missed that, too.
-
It’s his birthday, and you finally get to hang out again, and you are just sitting and reading and looking at things. You, actually, are mostly looking at him, finding pleasure in witnessing his excitement over all the things he got. Then, suddenly, he is looking back at you, and you can tell there is something that needs to be said (or done) between you two. You just wait and smile. You always do. He points at your lips and then seems to want to point at his own, but instead, he actually asks you, he asks if you could kiss. Granted, you should have suggested that yourself. You nod. You expected you’d have to do everything yourself, but before you can, he positions himself closer to your lap, places his hands on your cheeks (just like that…one time…when you were kids…) and leans forward, and all you can do is blush a deep shade of red. He closed his eyes, but yours can’t seem to want to be shut, so you just look at his face, so close for the first time, from under your eyelashes. You put your own hands in his hair, still so messy and so fluffy, and you just play with it while his forehead gently pushes against yours. He pulls away, very slowly, pants for a while, and smiles at you, his old big smile, just as bright as the one he’d often give you when you were kids.
-
You are going to have to leave soon, and you don’t want to, you never want to. You attempt to kiss him one last time before you’re gone for a few months (assuming you will meet up on your birthday, if not, it will be even more, and you don’t want to think about this possibility), but instead of his lips, yours end up on his chin, just below, and then you target the corner of his lips, and before you can do anything else, he takes over (over your lips, that is), and his enthusiasm makes you fall back onto the floor, with him on top of you, his legs resting on your sides, his hands in your hair, and his lips still on yours. You wrap your arms around his waist, firmly, and close your eyes. You will have to go soon, but for now, this is all that matters, and you don’t want to let go for as long as possible. He pulls away and rests his head on your chest. He doesn’t want you to go. You don’t want to go, either. But you will return, you always do. You draw circles and infinity signs on his back with your finger, enjoying the sensation of his hair tickling your chin and neck. Happy birthday, Ren.
-
You managed to meet up for your birthday, too. Here you are, in fact, still celebrating in your room, with a bunch of candy on the desk, just like there was when you were kids. You will never feel like you are too old for anything. If anything, childhood is where you find comfort. He doesn’t mind either, you can tell, since he’s currently stuffing his face with something. You don’t even need to know what exactly. You cover your face with your hand and chuckle, and he looks over at you, looking quite a lot like a hamster with stuffed cheeks. You’re making a really weird face, probably. That happens. Wait, though, is that frosting on his…ear? Of course it is, there was cake, after all. You let him know, and then, obviously, you lick it off, which is cliché as can be, but you live for that. His ear turns red while you’re doing that, and so you giggle at the sight, right INTO his ear.
-
You catch him staring at your eyes every now and then, which, you guess, is not unusual. People do that a lot, for some reason. Apparently, your eyelashes are very, uh…pretty, was it? You were born with them, so you don’t really see anything special about them, and so you can only shrug at that. You’ve never really cared if you’re attractive or not, but you kept being proven you are. Ren, however, has been especially into them for a while. He sighs, and you can tell something is going to come out of that, so you look him straight in the eyes and wait. You can see he’s trying to look away, which is kind of disheartening, but then he looks straight at you again. He gulps, and the question comes out, without breaking eye contact between you two. He wants to kiss your eyes, which, you guess, is not all that surreal, but you have no idea how it’s supposed to work. You blink a few times, before agreeing, as long as he doesn’t poke you in the eye on accident. He sits in your lap, which, in turn, overwhelms YOU, a bit. You close your eyes and wait, feeling your face heat up (even after all these times), and eventually, you do feel pressure on your eyelid, and it’s kind of hot and kind of wet, and you can bet your eyelashes are tickling him, at least a little. He briefly presses his lips against them as well, in fact, and you open just one eye too look at him. My God, he’s smiling (and blushing. And giggling). He’s probably been waiting to do this for a while. You roll your eyes, both the closed and the opened one, and you grin at him, to which he reacts by blushing even more than before, which you never expected was possible.
-
It got a bit too hot for you to function normally, and so you ended up lying around in just your shorts, which, you guess, is fun too. You’re not talking a lot, but, actually, you both can also enjoy silence. Words are the source of misunderstandings, after all. You are both lying on your bed and just breathing. You look at his figure, leaning against the wall, his tired expression, his exposed stomach, and his bare legs that didn’t quite fit onto the bed, and so he keeps them hung in mid-air. Your legs are curled up on the bed, your feet inches away from his torso. Perhaps it’s the heat getting to you, but you get an idea. And you go with it. You straighten your leg and your foot ends up resting in the middle of his stomach. He stares at it, cocking his head a bit to the side. In times like these, he really does remind you of a small bird. Adorable. You close your eyes and chuckle, and that was a mistake, because you suddenly feel your body sliding down. You open your eyes and see he’s holding your foot up. That’s what you get for your own surprise, it seems. You sigh, pout and look down, trying to fix your position back to what it was, but you feel certain pressure on the sole of your foot, and you instinctively look up again, only to realise the pressure is actually a kiss, much like the one you remember planting on his hands long ago (middle school?…). He lets your foot go and pouts just like you did a moment ago, and you grin, and kneel next to him. Still grinning, you lean down until your cheek’s resting on his stomach, with your hands on his chest. You turn your head so your face’s now almost entirely hidden, and you plant a few kisses around his belly button, before blowing a surprise raspberry (just for a moment, because you end up laughing at it, right into his tummy, almost suffocating). You pull yourself back up, grinning, and look at him with certain pride. For now, whatever you had going on is a draw.
-
You have no idea where he is. Somehow, you lost him. Must be the weather. The mist. You are scared, even though he can’t be far away, really. You can’t move. He will have to be the one who finds you. You clench your fists and bite your bottom lip, and close your eyes. And wait. Not more than a minute later, you feel arms wrapping around your waist, and forehead resting against the back of your head. You open your eyes and put your hands over his, smiling softly. You didn’t even hear his steps. You suddenly feel his lips on the back of your neck, and then slowly moving down your spine, stopping somewhere on the level of the top of your ribcage. Your shirt is thin, and the kisses make your whole body shiver, but it’s nice. Before you know it, his head is resting on your shoulder, you can see him from the corner of your eye. He plants one final kiss on your shoulder, making you smile. He takes your hand, and starts walking in front of you. You catch up, squeezing his hand to make sure you won’t get separated so easily again. Ever again.
You will always be together.