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“Look,” Akane starts, her tone low and serious, “I know you don’t want any trouble. I don’t want any trouble. You’re at the wrong place, at the wrong time.”
“Hey-“
“Ah ah ah, don’t interrupt me.” She says, intimidatingly, “I’m talking, so listen. We can go our separate ways. Get you back on your turf and off mine. That’s what I want. And I know that’s what you want.” She casually plays with something shaped like a gun in her hands.
“…”
“But I can’t just let you go now can I? What kind of message would that send. So, hand over the cash. Easy as that, we can both walk away.”
“Akane.”
“Cash.”
“We’re playing fucking monopoly why are you taking it this seriously.” Katana man says before gesturing wildly to the board game they were sat in front of. His metal shoe landed firmly on a housing complex owned by hers truly.
Akane waves the water gun at him, “I’m just playing the game now give me the money!”
“You know I don’t have the money! You piece of shit, I have nothing!”
“You should’ve thought about that before landing on Park Avenue!”
Katana man throws an entire wad of colorful fake money at her, letting it fly everywhere, “Take it! Goddamn greedy asshole! Sheesh, you get one date and suddenly you play monopoly like you own the damn game!”
“It’s not my fault you suck,” Akane says snidely, carefully picking up the fake money and counting it.
“Besides,” she continues, holding her head high, “It’s not just one date, she agreed to a second one too.”
“Congradu-fucking-lations, you’re still a dickwad.” Katana huffs, starting to pack up the pieces of their board game. He’d thrown everything he had at her, it was over. “You know, you’d still be making googoo eyes at her from across a shitty fast food place if it wasn’t for me.”
“Shut the fuck up maybe?”
“Yeah yeah, whatever, even assholes like you deserve to be happy or whatever.”
Akane starts sorting the cash before helping put it away, “Oh thanks, I’m gonna cry.” She says flatly, “I’ll dedicate my first kiss to you.” She adds sarcastically.
“First?” Katana man pauses his cleanup
“Y…yeah?”
“You,” he politely coughs, “You didn’t kiss her on the first date?”
“No?”
“No?” Katana man repeats. Akane can feel herself start sweating.
“N…no.” She slowly closes the monopoly box. “Should…should I have?”
Katana man puts a hand to his chin in thought, “well…that depends.”
“It depends!?” Akane nearly shouts.
“Yeah! Did you get close?”
“Close? Um, a little at times? I guess? Why!?”
“Like, at the end of the date. Did you go in for a hug?”
“No!” Akane says with full panic in her voice, “Fuck! Was I supposed to!?”
“I dunno, I'm not a lesbian! It might be different for you guys!”
“Agh! Fuck! What if she hates me!? God why didn’t you tell me before we went on the date!? God! Fuck! You’re useless!”
“Woah hold on now.” Katana man holds up his hands in defense, “We don’t know anything yet, like you said she agreed to the second date. Just kiss her then. Or hug, I don’t know.”
“Fuck, okay. Fuck. Yeah. Okay. Yeah okay I can do that. I just…I just have to work my way to that.”
“Yeah, I mean like, what, you’ve kissed before right? It’s like that, but with a bit more practice.”
Akane looks off into the distance with slowly growing abject horror.
“…you’ve kissed girls before, right Akane?”
She says nothing.
“Sawatari!”
“I need to make a phone call.” She stumbles to her feet, knocking over the monopoly box in a mad dash out the room.
-
Katana man watches from a distance as Akane stands awkwardly in the hallway, their brick of a landline held up to her ear, he can overhear the dial tone. Then a click.
“Hey uh. Higashiyama! It’s me. Um. Akane. Akane Sawari.”
Katana man feels like he swallowed a lemon whole.
“Yeah…yeah I-uh huh. Y-yeah-oh! Uh! N-no it’s fine!”
He vaguely recalls something he read in a magazine once about romantic partners rubbing off on eachother. He really hoped it wasn’t true.
“Y-yeah, no…n-no I liked that! That was fun, yeah.”
He can feel his respect for Sawatari drop like a brick from a plane.
“…mhm!…d-do you um…do…um…w-would! You uh! W-w-wa-want to meet up again? I-I-I know you said earlier b-bu-but I-“
Katana man plugs his ears, he can’t stand this.
-
Akane hums in excitement. She’s trying really hard not to show it, fighting every urge to keep the grin off her face as she stares out the window.
“Thanks for the lift.” Akane huffs in the most nonchalant tone she can muster. She's pretty sure it’s still obvious how smug she feels.
“Yeah no problem, just don’t blow it this time.” Katana Man scoffs.
“I didn’t blow it last time!” She exclaims with a start.
Katana just grumbles back at her before pulling the car into the parking lot for the arcade.
“Are you ready this time?” He asks, voice uncharacteristically serious.
“Of course I am.”
“Plan of attack?”
“I’m gonna go in, and attack before I have a chance to lose my nerve.”
“And?”
“Once the enemy is subdued we’ll have a nice long date in the arcade.”
“And afterwards?”
Akame smirks venomously, “Then I walk her home.”
“Rock solid plan,” Katana Man huffs, “And what if the target returns fire?”
Akame sweats, “I’ll handle it.” Unlocking the van doors, she steps out and turns to the arcade.
“Wait! Before you go you’ll need some protection in case things get heated.” Katana calls out.
Akane, a bit confused since this wasn’t in the planning beforehand, just turns and gives him a dumbfounded look. “Protection? I have have Snake?”
He suddenly throws something at her which Akane only barely manages to catch before it would hit her in the face. It was small, flat, and had a weird texture.
“These days you never know what fine ladies are packing…” he says, looking wistfully off into the distance.
Opening her hand Akane finally looks at what he threw at her. A condom.
“I’ll kill you!” She shouts, kicking the door of the van as he laughs maniacly, revving the engine before driving away, “I’ll kill you dead bastard! Piece of shit! Motherfucker! You’re dead meat!” She chases the van for a few steps before it completely leaves the parking lot leaving her there fuming.
“Uhm…”
Akane whips around instantly to the familiar, nerve wrecking, insecure stuttering of a familiar girl. Kobeni, in her typical casual outfit, had once again snuck up behind her. How much of that did she see? Akane wonders worriedly. How does she keep sneaking up on me? Adding to her already nervous disposition.
She clears her throat and shoves the condom in her pocket, trying to take some initiative in the situation.
“Hi-Higashiyama! Hi! I uh, didn’t see you there…” immediately her throat feels like its full of cotton and she wants to punch herself in the face because of it.
Kobeni, who looked so adorable in her dress and matching beret in Akane’s eyes, stood there a little confused. An ever growing familiar nervous but genuine smile across her face.
“H-hey A…Akane.” She replies politely, Akane feels a seriously sudden heavy blow to her heart caused by the sweetness that was Kobeni. They were on a first name basis! Her heart could explode! This woman was dangerous on more levels than physical.
“Um,” Akane does her best to collect herself, “Hey so uh. How are you? R-ready to go to the arcade?” She awkwardly offers much to her internal screaming. “You look good!” She quickly blurts out before Kobeni could even answer her question.
To her credit, she can see the blush break across Kobeni’s normally tear-ridden face and that makes every decision Alanes ever made feel worthwhile.
“Th-thanks, I like it too.” She responds meekly, “Y-you also look nice!” Is similarly blurted out, “A-and um, thanks for taking me to the arcade again! I um, I really appreciate it. I-I don’t g-get to come here of-often.”
If she didn’t know this girl could take lives like checking boxes Akane would’ve sworn an oath to protect her. It was something greater than luck that blessed Akame with the chance to spend time with Kobeni.
The two make their way into the arcade, where they spend a nice short date racking up tickets in skeeball and crushing it on the rhythm games, only to fail miserably at the racing machines. But with all that, the end of the date came to a close sooner than Akane would’ve liked. She still had one thing to do before they parted ways though.
This was the tough part, she was totally unprepared. Yes she’s practiced with imaginary targets before, but that was obviously nothing like the real deal! What if she messed up!? What if Kobeni hated her lack of lip service experience. What if she killed her for being a bad kisser.
She couldn’t lose her nerve! Not now!
“Y-yeah um, I’m so happy we could hang out like. This. Do-do you mind if I…um!” They start walking out of the arcade and Akane goes in for the classic arm around the shoulder couple hold. A dangerous technique she’d only seen in movies. But, it would set the perfect romantic mood for a kiss.
Her hand only ghosts Kobeni’s shoulder before a set of knuckles find themselves firmly dislodging her nose.
“GRHG!?”
“O-I-oh my-oh my go-god! I-I’m so s-sorry! Ah! I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry!!” Kobeni cries as Akane staggers where she stands, head spinning.
“It-it was an accident! P-purely instinct i-I’m so sorry!”
“I-it’s okay!” Akane wheezes, understanding the exchange that took place. “I-I startled you, no worries.”
“Oh my gosh I’m so so sorry, it-it wasn’t intentional!” Kobeni frets and sobs, worrying terribly over her. She grabs tissues from her purse and starts shoving them onto Akanes face.
Fuck, Akane thinks, that went poorly. She holds her head up to help with the excessive bleeding. It was also kinda hot she had to admit. Kobeni was so cool and strong, blubbering mess as she was at the moment and all.
“No no it’s okay, it’s cool, I’m fine.” Akane affirms, “This… is definitely a bad time to admit it, but I was just going in for a…kiss.” Maybe it was the slight head trauma, but Akane’s fears felt lessened now that she’d taken one of Kobeni’s blows to the face.
“K-kiss!?” The girl exclaims.
“A-ah, y-yeah, a-sorry that was t-totally inappropriate!”
“N-no it’s um! That’s okay!” Kobeni looks at the ground bashfully, still holding kleenex to Akane’s possibly broken nose. “S-sorry I uh, p-punched you for that…”
“Again I-it’s cool, I totally went in too quick!”
They stand in silence for a moment before Kobeni squeaks out an almost inaudible, “D-do you still want to?”
Akane doesn’t quite catch it immediately, “Huh?”
“I-I understand if not!”
“N-no! I’d love to! M-more than anything!”
“R-really!?”
“Yes! A thousand times yes! Shit! I didn’t fuck up that bad?”
“N-no! I was the one who punched you,” Kobeni exclaims, “I-I could uh, I can-I can k-kiss. If-if you want?”
Akane swallows a lump in her throat and turns her head back down, “I’d…love that.” She says very seriously, resting a hand very, very slowly on Kobeni’s shoulder. No decking her in the schnoz this time.
Okay okay okay it was happening! Akane thinks, face heating up unbelievably so. Kobeni aims her face at hers, eyes screwed shut, lips pursed.
Akane, for lack of experience, mimics it and pushes their faces together.
“Ow-“
“Fuck-!”
In the collective lack of experience either of them had, noses collided before lips did causing Akane to recoil in serious pain and Kobeni to flinch.
“Ah shit-shit sorry, shit, fuck,” Akane elegantly puts her pain into words. Holding her sore nose as Kobeni mimed the motion herself with a similar pained muttering.
“Sorry,” she whimpers, “Sorry I-i don’t know what happened th-there-“
“It-it’s fine! Just a bad angle is all,” Akane says, blood now soaking the tissues and getting all over her hands and face. “Shit. No really it’s my bad for-for trying this, what the hell.” Maybe this was the work of some devil curse she invoked unknowingly, the inability to kiss without injury. “I’m really fucking this up,”
“N-no not at all! It-it’s just as much my fault-“
“It isn’t!” Akane cuts her off bitterly, earning an eep from Kobeni which causes some pain in her chest as well. “I mean-no it’s not to utter fault really-I uh. Hah,” a single bitter laugh. “I guess both of us are new to this, yeah?”
“Y-yeah, s-sorry,” Kobeni says meekly, “I-i can do b-better next time.”
“O-oh awesome, okay, uh, yeah, okay. Okay,” Akane nods like an idiot, “O-one more time then! One more time, we’ll take it real slow and easy.”
Kobeni nods, “Sl-slow and easy!”
“Slow and easy!” Parroting the parrot, Akane responds with a similar nod. They stand there for a moment, a bit dumbly. Before barely inching closer. It’s slow, it’s careful, it’s nerve wracking as they inch closer. Akane’s eyes are screwed shut so she has no idea how far they are but she can feel the warmth radiating off her.
She peeks a little, opening an eye just a little to see Kobeni doing much the same, intense and scrunched up expression.
After what feels like an eternity, their lips meet in a kiss so chaste one would wonder if it actually happened.
Recoiling a little fast, overwhelmed with joy and emotion Akane immediately punches the air in victory.
“Yes!” She shouts, “Yeah!” Jumping with joy even.
Kobeni has the much more subdued reaction of simply being very flustered.
I did it, Akane thinks, I kissed a girl! I’m dating a girl and I kissed her!
“We’ll have to do that again sometime!” Akane says excitedly, watching Kobeni nod in agreement as she jumps and punches the air again.
Collecting herself a little, Akane straightens up and offers to walk Kobeni to the station, she gets through the first syllable before walking nose first into a stop sign.