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“Do you realize how insane you sound sometimes,” Mydei says boredly.
Phainon sighs and rolls her eyes, pointing at the screen of her laptop. “Pay attention, ‘kay? Do you want to remain uncool for the rest of your life?”
“I fail to see how me not kissing anyone ever makes me uncool.”
Phainon groans and clicks her keyboard, her powerpoint titled Why We Should Kiss Each Other To Be More Impressive! – By Phainon :3 moving to its first slide.
- Being in your twenties and not having given your first kiss to anyone is ridiculous.
“It’s literally normal, Phainon,” Mydei groans. Another click.
- BENEFITS OF KISSING:
- Kissing someone for 15 minutes has the same effects as laughing; as in, you burn plenty of calories.
- It makes you happier, as it boosts serotonin.
- It also boosts our immune systems.
“And Kephale knows you need a better immune system,” Phainon says, smiling mockingly at Mydei.
Mydei sighs and closes the laptop, ignoring Phainon’s hey! when she does. Phainon huffs and crosses her arms, leaning back against the desk chair in Mydei’s dorm room. She fails to see the problem: Phainon has never kissed anyone (a lie), and neither has Mydei, this she knows because they’ve been friends for too long and they’re really close, trusting each other with their deepest, darkest secrets. Like how Mydei told her that she never had a girlfriend, one time when drunk, and was scared of not being a good kisser when she meets someone she likes; in return Phainon tells her about the death of her entire family before she moved to Okhema. Mydei had offered a shot of vodka promptly after and kept quiet.
Phainon has kissed people before. Some boys. Lots of girls. It’s not like she’s bad at it, but she’s twenty three, and the last time she’s ever kissed someone was when she was graduating high school and it was three in the morning and dark and stormy outside the club where she was trying to drown her sorrows. She’d been a cute, dark haired girl around her age, and that was it. At eighteen years old. She hasn’t kissed a single person in 5 years.
And, honestly, she’s not going to lie—the idea of lowkey manipulating Mydei to kiss her is really appealing, for she finds Mydei appealing. Strong, big, her waist small and her face round and pretty and Phainon truly, truly wonders, what exactly those lips feel underneath her own.
“Phainon,” Mydei begins, “I don’t need this. I didn’t ask for any kind of… intervention. I thank you for your concern but honestly, we don’t have to—”
“Is it because I’m a girl?” Phainon asks, pouting up at her.
Mydei blinks. “I’m a lesbian. You know this.”
“You could still refuse because I’m a girl,” Phainon counters.
Mydei, “you’re a total idiot. Have you thought maybe I just don’t wanna kiss you?”
Phainon, scoffing, “I’m just trying to help you out because you’re my best friend, Mydeimos. And maybe I don’t want you to be graduating college and doing your masters then entering the land of adulthood and having a boring 9 to 5 job where you barely have time to sleep properly and live the rest of your life not knowing how it feels to kiss someone. I’m doing this because I care about you!”
Mydei, totally unimpressed, arches an eyebrow and looks back down to the notes she has all over her bed. She has a final in two days and here’s Phainon, her most annoying and most cherished friend, trying to convince her to do…
She’s not going to lie. She has wondered, sometimes. Most of the time. All of the time, how it’d feel to kiss someone. Phainon, specifically. She was always there for Mydei, one of–if not the most cherished friends she’s ever had, holding her hand throughout the grief of being contacted by lawyers about her mother’s Final Will, then her father’s death not too long after, a freak accident, then his Will leaving nothing to her. Phainon helped her get back on her feet, working the same odd jobs to get into college together, landing a really good paid internship under one of the best lawyers in the country—Mydei thanks Aglaea’s existence every day—and managing to go back and continue her studies almost to the end, all while Phainon held her hand, did her meal prep, hugged her tight, kept her close.
As someone who raised herself because her father was too much of a drunk to even give her a glance, Mydei is a foreigner to the concept of love, affection, intimacy. She grew up touch starved, forcing her into violent bouts of anger whenever Phainon hugged her, at first, when she was sixteen and confused and hated by everyone around her in Okhema. She came to terms with the idea of her existing as an unlovable being. It’s okay.
Phainon has lost everyone she’s ever loved. Mydei has loved everyone she’s ever lost. They know how it goes. And for someone as smart as her, politics degree and future masters in law and all, Phainon confuses her to no end.
“It’s fine, Phainon,” Mydei says, finally, taking a highlighter and scribbling something down on one of her notes. “I don’t need you to do this out of pity. I’ve lived just fine my entire life this way, you’re acting stupid.”
Mydei continues reading her notes and checking things out on her laptop as she goes, memorizing terms and reciting her writing back to herself in mute. Phainon remains quiet, and Mydei ignores her completely. Tunes out of the existence of their hang out completely.
Then, there’s a hand on her shoulder, and it takes her out of her reverie.
Phainon squeezes Mydei’s strong shoulder, watching how the girl drops the highlighter and snaps into action, almost jumping out of her skin to turn around and look at her. Her eyes are wide and a bit unfocused before she settles into her familiar scowl, and Phainon gives her the softest smile she can muster, the hand on her shoulder moving to cradle the strong jaw she loves to trace with the pads of her fingers in their sleep, the sharp cheekbones that she likes to kiss soundly every time they see each other. She feels how Mydei’s breath hitches because her cheeks suck in slightly as she inhales through her mouth, and Phainon takes advantage of the situation to lift up her other hand and now she’s got Mydei’s face between the soft cradle of her palms, warm and heavy and present.
“Who says you’re pitiful?” Phainon says softly, her thumb brushing Mydei’s long bottom lashes. They’re so pretty. Phainon has counted them so many times. “You didn’t even let me finish my presentation.”
“Phainon…” Mydei begins, a frown settling on her forehead.
“The next few slides were me explaining why we should kiss, benefits aside,” Phainon continues. She steps closer to the bed, something primal inside her igniting with the way Mydei cranes her neck unconsciously so she’s looking at Phainon better, her back straightening obediently.
Phainon would love to do much more than kissing, but she has to start slow. “How your lips are the prettiest pink color, a beautiful coral shade that rapidly grew into my favorite,” she says, thumbing Mydei’s bottom lip. “They’re soft, they’re never chapped because you hydrate so well, and they’re always shining with that pomegranate flavored chapstick you carry around, making them pop. I like when I greet you because I like smelling it on you.”
Mydei’s breath shudders, her pupils dilating slightly as she takes Phainon in. Phainon brushes a strand out of her face, tucking blonde hair behind a prettily pierced ear. “Your lips camouflage when you blush, your entire face turns the same color, and it makes you look so… innocent. Cherubic. It makes my heart try to run away from my body. I’m quite certain that it wants to crawl out of my ribs and find its way next to yours.”
“What are you doing,” Mydei says breathlessly, lashes fluttering when Phainon presses the pad of her thumb to the middle of her bottom lip, lowering it slightly then letting it bounce back to normal. Phainon traces the line of her mouth, thumbing at the corners. “Phainon.”
“Kissing someone you love lowers your blood pressure, reduces stress, and encourages emotional bonding,” Phainon recites one of the slides of her powerpoint presentation. “It also increases sex drive and strengthens your immune system, which, as I was saying, would come in handy since you get sick often—”
“Why are you a Wikipedia article,” Mydei interrupts. She flushes coral pink when Phainon puts her index to her lips, quieting her down.
“Technicalities aside, I’d just really like to kiss you,” Phainon says as a way to finalizing her speech, though it feels kind of empty, lackluster, “I’ve been wanting to kiss you ever since I was fifteen and you tried to punch me because I threw my arms around your shoulder, because it’s not normal to be turned on when someone wants to kick your ass. It’s been eight years, and I think I finally deserve to taste you at least once.”
She’s met with pure silence. Phainon doesn’t care; she’s driven Mydei speechless many times in their friendship. She just keeps doing as she is, letting go of her pretty face and stepping back to her chair.
Phainon counts from five to zero inside her head as she settles back down on the sturdy desk chair, making sure to keep anything fragile out of harm’s way.
Four. There’s rustling from the bed. Phainon opens back her laptop.
Three. There’s quick footsteps.
Two. Her chair is spun around rapidly. Phainon smiles, almost feral.
One. Mydei straddles her, a hand tangling into the roots of her hair and pulling angrily. Her face is bright red and Phainon moans out, grinning and tilting her head back into Mydei’s hold, whose eyes are bright with unshed tears and red at the edges.
“You piss me off so much, you scoundrel.”
Zero. Their lips clash together, messy, unpracticed, not innocent in any way. Mydei moans into Phainon’s open mouth, their teeth clacking together and their noses squished before Phainon tilts her head just so and suddenly their first kiss is so much more enjoyable for both of them, with Phainon putting her hands on Mydei’s hips and pulling her impossibly closer and Mydei keeps a hand tangled on Phainon’s hair but the other one grabs her by the jaw, controlling, forcing her to stay put as Mydei messily sucks on her tongue, licks into her mouth, whines when their tongues brush and her hips stutter slightly on top of Phainon’s.
It’s addictive. Mydei’s mouth tastes like pomegranate flavored chapstick and leftover salt from some peanuts they ate earlier when Phainon had arrived. It’s delightful. Mydei finds her footing, she’s a natural, she kisses the air out of Phainon’s lungs and practically devours her, Phainon is sure her lips are already so swollen, she wants more, she always wants more. It’s hot. It’s so hot, and it’s cold outside, and the heating in Mydei’s dorm is broken but Phainon is sweating.
“Fuck,” Phainon gasps for breath, breaking the kiss and resting her lips against Mydei’s flushed cheek, breathing in her perfume, her shampoo. “I can’t believe that worked.”
“You’re an idiot,” Mydei murmurs, her voice hoarse. She pulls on Phainon’s hair so their lips can connect once more and groans when Phainon denies her, instead peppering kisses all over her cheek, her jaw. “You always do this. You always use sweet words against me.”
“They work perfectly, don’t they, your Highness?” Phainon whispers cutely against her ear, biting her pierced earlobe, tugging on the golden hoop. It was a present from Phainon for Christmas.
“Don’t call me that, Deliverer,” Mydei says through a shiver, her head falling back. She rolls her hips into Phainon’s instinctively. “You drive me insane. You get in my head. You make it impossible for me to… to think clearly…”
Phainon kisses down the long line of her throat, biting down softly right in the middle of where her carotid artery lies hidden, pulsating skin around it turning into the sweetest purple-pink color. Mydei sucks in a breath through her teeth and pushes herself as close as she can, her breasts pressing tightly against Phainon’s own chest. She’s hot all over.
“Doesn’t it feel good?” Phainon continues, now moving up and putting her lips against Mydei’s. She doesn’t kiss her, she simply lies there, feeding the words right into her mouth. “Kissing me. Is it not enjoyable, princess?”
“Phainon,” Mydei whines. Phainon catches her bottom lip between her teeth and bites down, tugging it gently, soothing the sting with her tongue right after. “You won this time, okay, just, please keep kissing me.”
Phainon smiles, all teeth and wild eyes and Mydei’s eyes widen slightly when Phainon shoots up a hand to grab Mydei’s face, squishing her cheeks and puckering her lips. Instantaneously Mydei’s hands fall down to Phainon’s shoulders, docile, compliant, and she tries to mutter Phainon’s name one more time before any sound is swallowed by the force of Phainon’s mouth against her own. It goes like this, time bending around them, dissolving into nonexistent particles, day fading into night, and Mydei on Phainon’s lap, until her skin is flushed and damp, until her throat has a tight shackle of hickeys and bruises, until her lips are swollen and red and bleeding, and Phainon can only take, and take, and take.
Mydei sounds pretty when she begs. Phainon wants to drown in the cadence of her voice, the taste of pomegranate and salt and the metallic tang of blood.
And this is how you successfully manipulate your repressed best friend into making out with you.