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“So, question.”
“Sure.”
“About the first day we met…”
Dan Heng’s gaze stills as he remembers many things from that day.
“…Yes?”
A grin, wolfish in nature.
“I wanted to ask about the nature of…Your CPR methods.”
Her raven-haired friend freezes, almost questioning what he heard. Issue was, he had a sharp sense of hearing— there was no denying what Stelle had just blubbered.
“You still remember that? What about them?”
Stelle clears her throat, chest puffed up in a dramatic fashion. The demeanor was meant to imitate some sort of superior, but the image is broken by the silly grin on her face.
“Well, Dan Heng… I just think that your methods may be a bit off and I wanted to get your angle on how you were trained to do CPR. It’s a little of a concern to me, you see…”
Dan Heng sighs.
“Yes, boss. Would you like to demonstrate the proper method to me?”
“Oh?” Stelle laughs and moves her hands to her hips. “No, no. It starts with building off of what you first presented to me. Would you first be able imitate your methods from that day?”
“Stelle,” Dan Heng begins, raking a hand through his spiky muss of hair, “It was quite a while ago. I don’t remember exactly what I did that day.”
“Fair,” she says, and it’s not enough to stop her momentum. Little could, once Stelle had her mind set on a goal, he thinks affectionately. “Then I’ll try something different, since I remember it quite vividly. It’s one of the earliest memories that I have that aren’t fuzzy, after all.”
Dan Heng nods.
“Alright. Then, what do you need me to do?”
“Sit here.” She points to the posh cushions of the Astral Express’ seats.
Dan Heng nods and complies, sitting himself down.
“Right,” Stelle says, and she comes closer to him. Dan Heng notices how the lighting of the Express made her eyes sparkle like finely cut citrine, a contrast to the way that they seemed to glow like amber in the closed confines of the archive walls.
“So,” she says, and he had barely noticed how much more distance Stelle had crossed in such a short time. She had a hand on the cushioning behind him, poising her body to be leaning over him. While they normally stood at the same height, this gave her an advantage in height. “I need your permission to be a little weird.”
Dan Heng coughs.
“You seem to have taken those liberties already.”
Stelle snorts.
“Okay, okay. Let me clarify: Can I get closer?”
Dan Heng blinks. He feels a sweat flush through his body, trying hard to ignore the fact that her words were making his mind race.
“I— well. Sure.”
“Good…”
And it happened so fast— Stelle leaned in, and at that moment his mind raced far out of his grasp. His hands felt limp at his side and his body refused to move, even as his eyes observed how soft her lips looked, how her eyelashes fluttered shut, how she was holding her breath as she leaning in closer, and closer, and closer…
And—
“Heh.”
It’s a chortle of a laugh in his ear, and Stelle pulls herself back.
“Well? Did that seem like a proper way to get oxygen back into someone’s system?”
Dan Heng is left with his face red— turning his head to gaze away, his covers his mouth with his hand and mumbles.