Chương 183: 69. First Taste 3

I'd assumed the world would have the decency to pause after a first kiss. Give you a moment to breathe. Let me run the sentence I just kissed Maki Kushima all the way through at least once. Three seconds to reassemble myself into something capable of speech. It didn't. The wind kept moving. The city stayed lit. Life didn't stop. And Maki was right there in front of me. Criminally close. Still flushed. Breathing no steadier than mine. Looking straight at me without flinching. Which was the problem.

If she'd looked away, cleared her throat, said let's head back or about what just happened—, I could've used that exit. Climbed back into something resembling a rational person. She didn't. She just looked at me. And I found out, in real time, that sometimes a person can dismantle everything you were bracing to hold onto with nothing but one steady gaze. I moved first. No dramatic decision. Not even a proper internal monologue—no okay, I'm going to kiss her back. Just something faster than thought taking over.

By the time I caught up with myself, I'd already stepped forward, reached out, and closed my hand around her wrist. Maki startled. Visibly. Brief—like she genuinely hadn't expected me to come back for a second round this fast. Honestly, neither had I. But we were past the point where pretending served any purpose. And I knew one thing with absolute certainty: if I let this go now, I would be furious with myself the entire way down the mountain.

So I looked at her, voice dropping to something that didn't quite sound like me:"That one didn't count." Her lashes moved.

"Didn't count how?"

"Wasn't complete." My throat was dry but I wasn't done.

"Too short. That was a test." She looked at me. The tips of her ears went red again.

"So right now you're—""Telling you," I said, holding her eyes, feeling like maybe this was the most direct I'd ever been in my life, "the test is over." And I kissed her. Not like before. Nothing tentative about it. I didn't give myself time to reconsider. The moment I reached her, I felt her breath catch—her brain running the same half-beat late as mine, catching up to what was happening. Then her fingers tightened. Not pushing me away. Grabbing the front of my jacket. My heartbeat nearly rang in my ears.

This one lasted. Not lost-track-of-the-world long, but long enough. Long enough to know with complete certainty: Maki wasn't pulling back. She wasn't pulling back, and somewhere in the moment when my breath went ragged and unsteady, she leaned in—just slightly, just barely—to meet me. Just that. Just a little. I almost didn't survive it. Stolen story; please report. The wind, the night, the city lights, even the Yukikaze that had dragged me back to reality not two hours ago—all of it went far away.

Nothing left but her, and the warmth of her lips, and my own completely undignified inability to breathe properly. When we finally separated, I didn't speak. I looked at her. Because I needed to confirm: had I just kissed the last of my escape routes—maybe she's just like this, maybe it was just the moment—into total wreckage? Answer: yes. Total wreckage. Maki was flushed. More than before. The composure, the precision, the way she categorized everything and kept it sorted—half of that was simply gone.

Her breathing was visibly unsteady. Her eyes were still on me, but there was something in them I almost never saw: something close to being caught completely off guard. Good. So it wasn't just me. So you're like this too. [Maki's POV] She kissed me again. Not like the first time—not that response she probably hadn't fully thought through yet. This was deliberate. Her own decision, her own momentum, coming back in. I should have been the one to steady first. That's how it always goes. At No.

22, at the Student Council, anywhere that required reading the room and pulling things back from the edge—I was the stable one. I thought tonight would be the same. I thought I could bring her up here, let her see the view, let her see the Yukikaze in the harbor below, give the mission pressure somewhere to go—and then let her take me safely back. I thought the first kiss was the ceiling on tonight's loss of control. It wasn't. When she grabbed me, I knew it wasn't. Because Hoshino's hands aren't usually like that.

She talks tough and she's not short on stubbornness, and when she's performing bravado she'll make herself sound like nothing touches her. But when she actually decides something, she stops performing. She just moves—directly, without much ceremony, almost unreasonably so. Like right now. The test is over. The most absurd thought flashed through my mind in that instant— She knew I was testing her. Worse than being seen through was the fact that when I heard those words, I felt something close to relief.

When she came back for the second kiss, I should have stepped back. Or at least held on, kept things from moving too fast. I didn't. Because I didn't want to. And worse—in the moment she came close, I realized I remembered everything about today with more clarity than I'd intended: How rigid her spine was the first time she officially took me somewhere. How her eyes looked when she took off her helmet at the port.

The expression on her face—soul practically leaving her body—when Captain Tobita mentioned the secondary school group. And just now. Standing in front of the whole city at night. Already flushed. Still saying all of it anyway. I shouldn't have been thinking about any of that. But I was. And she kissed me longer this time.

Long enough that I became very clear on one thing: if I said now that this was just atmosphere, just a convenient stop on the route, just supplementary visual reconnaissance—that would be genuinely unconscionable. When I grabbed the front of her jacket, I wasn't trying to stop her. I just needed something to hold onto. She ran warmer than I'd expected. Not just her lips—all of her.

She walks around looking like she could argue with the world for three more rounds, but here she burned like she'd been keeping everything unsaid stored in her breath. I almost laughed at her. Couldn't. Because I wasn't doing much better. I knew, with complete clarity, that if she moved one step closer I wouldn't move back. And if she asked right now—do you also——I wasn't sure I could give her the same clean, contained answer I'd give anyone else. Dangerous. But I didn't mind. … No. Not didn't mind.

The truth was I hadn't been able to mind her being close to me for a long time now. I just hadn't finished saying that sentence yet. Looking at her, I was certain of one thing. Maki Kushima was genuinely rattled. Not surface-level rattled—not the kind where the ears go red for a moment and then a single sentence about efficiency pulls everything back into order. Something deeper. Something she hadn't fully gotten back under control.

That knowledge hit my chest like a release and then burned hotter immediately after. I laughed, low, head dropping slightly. Even I could hear what it sounded like.

"…You're rattled." She looked at me, not quite back from the kiss yet.

"What?"

"You actually get like this." Two seconds of silence. Then, very quietly:"Whose fault is that?" I almost ceased to function on the spot. Wait. Hold on. This wasn't her usual mode. Maki ran precision strikes—she didn't do close-range counters while you were still reassembling yourself from the last hit. That was against the rules. I looked at her, throat dry.

"You're really…"

"Really what?"

"Out of line."

"So are you." Fair enough. If we were tallying who crossed first, she'd probably say she just opened the door. I was the one who kicked it off its hinges. That thought made me laugh—actually laugh. Maki watched me, and something in her breathing finally started to settle. Night wind curved around us, lifting a few strands of hair across her forehead. I wanted to brush them back. The thought arrived and I was already doing it—fingertips grazing the side of her face before I'd decided to move.

Her lashes trembled, very slightly. She didn't pull away. So unfair. Genuinely so unfair. I withdrew my hand. At this rate, even if we made it back to No. 22 tonight, I'd be operating at about forty percent capacity the whole way. Time to salvage something. Like saying one very important thing.

"Maki."

"Mm."

"Can I ask you something?"

"What?" I looked at her. Completely serious and not serious at all.

"Tonight. We go back to No. 22." I paused. Then finished the sentence.

"…Or we don't." The wind went still for a moment. The whole ridge, the whole sprawl of the city below, the Yukikaze in its harbor, the bike that had carried us here—all of it seemed to wait for her answer. And the moment I said it, I realized— I'd just asked away every single escape route I had left.