A lovely deceit [Akemi/Kath] [Valentine's event]

Her heart was about to pop out of her chest. Her left hand kept going through Akemi’s back over and over again and her right had kept playing with the girl’s hair. She was doing it. She was actually kissing her friend.

Even if it was shocking and completely new for her, Katherine felt at the right place. She had never kissed anyone before, but this was… very delectable. She felt at home, and she was enjoying every second of it. It felt eternal, but at, the same time, it went by so fast.

The time for thinking and judging herself had arrived, because the kiss was over.

Katherine’s green eyes started opening up slowly, until the realization of what they were just doing came to her, making her gasp. She could feel her face was red as a tomato right now. Her gaze was affixed on Akemi for a second. Even if she was the one who kissed her, she seemed just as surprised as herself. Akemi was on top of her, their bodies were still having full contact and their faces weren’t too far away from each other.

The number of thoughts that went through Katherine’s head in that instant was so wide that she couldn’t even keep one of them for long. So many questions, so many assumptions, none of them were leading her anywhere. For the first time in a while, she wondered if what she was living was effectively a dream.

It didn’t seem like it was.

“I-It was…” Okay, so trying to answer her friend’s question was maybe a good start, right? Except no words came out after this. She couldn’t even begin to describe what had happened, much less could she put into words how she felt about it. Even if 'conflicted' seemed like a good guess.

“W-Why did you…?” She hated to be one of those people who answered a question with another question but… this probably called for it. “… Why did you do that?” She asked, her green eyes escaping Akemi’s gaze.

There could be something Akemi found… interesting. If she tried to move away from Katherine and get off her, she’d find the Spaniard would oppose resistance to it, wrapping her left arm around Akemi’s hip. She was confused. She was scared. But she needed her there. She needed Akemi to be close to her more than ever.

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WC: 11070

Even if her physical language could come as confusing right now, Katherine was way beyond ‘buying’ what Akemi was saying, in a good sense. She would believe the ocean that was around them was made of chocolate if Akemi Amaya told her. She trusted her, she trusted her feelings, her emotions. That was exactly why this was striking her so hard she couldn’t even start to utter words. While she heard Akemi speak, Katherine began taking both hands to her mouth. Every word she uttered was even more beautiful than the previous one. 

All of this fell short when she uttered the words Katherine had somehow been waiting for. ‘I love you’. Her eyes started tearing up after hearing this, and the tears started to come out when she heard what came next.

Akemi wanted her to be happy, wanted her to be by her side. The weight these words had for Katherine was something she couldn't even start to quantify. Anything she thought she knew about herself, any self-analysis she had made of her feelings before, had broken in a thousand pieces. Akemi had broken any type of expectation she could have of this moment. Whatever she thought this would feel like couldn’t even begin to compare with how she was feeling right now.

And yes, she was blatantly crying.

Katherine managed to scoot Akemi to a side, and took a sitting position over the beach-bed, her legs crossed. She covered her mouth to avoid making too much noise, but the tears just wouldn’t stop coming out. Her hands then moved to cover her whole face. What Akemi had said was as accurate and relatable as it could get. Katherine didn’t know how long she had waited for this until this exact moment. She didn’t know how much she needed those words until it happened.

After around two minutes, Katherine began to calm down. How long could those minutes have been for Akemi? The fact that Katherine had been crying for two minutes had probably scared the shorter girl, but it wasn’t like she could have done anything to avoid it. Now, she was just left with the aftermath, those little hiccups that were always scattered on her voice after she cried.

It didn’t matter to her. It was time to let it all out.

“I… I love you, too.” She just had to say it again, didn’t she? “I’ve loved you since you took my hand and looked into my eyes at Whitewater. At that moment… I felt everything was going to be alright... as long as I remained... by your side. And now…” Katherine was interrupted now and then by her own ‘sniffing’. “… I keep getting that feeling over and over again. I can’t stop thinking about you no matter what I do or how busy I am. I feel I would die if anything happens to you." The curly-haired girl was just letting everything flow out of her. It didn't have an order. It didn't have continuity. She was just saying everything that had been inside of her since that day. "I just want to make you laugh. Hug you. Kiss you. And…” She made a pause, both hands still covering her face.

“… I know it’s… wrong. Because I’m a girl, and you’re a girl too but… I just can’t help it. I melt inside every time I see you. I was about to kiss you in front of the dressing room because I get hypnotized just by looking into your eyes. I can’t even begin to control these feelings and I just don’t know what to do about them.”

Well, that wasn’t quite everything, but she had run out of air, so that would do for now. She was extremely scared of having said all of that, but she wasn’t regretting it, not even for a second. She needed to let all of those things that had been clogged inside of her out.

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WC: 11747

The same accelerated heartbeat. The same flustering. Did this ever stop being so thrilling? Did it eventually stop feeling this good? Katherine hoped it did not. Her lips closed on Akemi’s over and over again, even if this time the kiss proved to be a lot shorter than the last one. Katherine separated from her friend (?), her cheeks showing a bright, red color. Actually kissing someone was… embarrassing. Especially after you stopped doing it and had to look at that someone into their eyes.

Katherine didn’t have much time to dwell on this, though. Akemi was asking questions. Very hard to answer questions.

If something good had come out of that last kiss, was that Akemi’s sadness was gone. Maybe kissing was actually… therapeutic. This didn't change the fact that  Katherine was having a lot of trouble answering this.

“I…” She tried to start elaborating. “… I’m hungry.”

She wasn’t kidding.

“Mind if we talk about this while having lunch?” It was almost 1 pm. Now that everything seemed to have calmed down a bit and all of the crying and kissing had taken a pause, it might be a good idea to eat something. “I believe we can get our ideas together better while we eat something.” Taking a seat and calming down was probably a good idea. They both needed time to think and put some order inside their heads. Besides… “There’s no reason to not continue with this amazing date Amy prepared for us, right?” Especially now that it was more of a date than ever. Again, the question of whether Amy had planned all of this or not popped inside Katherine’s head.

If Akemi agreed to this, Katherine would help her put on her dress back and would put on a white t-shirt and a jean mini skirt herself. Both of these she had previously taken out of the infini-store, for when she was done taking the sun.

After checking the insides of the storage device once again, Katherine would turn towards Akemi, asking what she wanted to eat. “They all look very good.” She showed a smile to her peer. “Just like Amy said, we’ve got bentos of all kinds of flavors here. I’ll take chicken and vegetables. What would you like?” Was Katherine’s choice a very beach-like meal? Not really, but she hated fish in most presentations, so she’d be more than happy to eat this.

“What kind of juice would you like? There are all kinds of flavors here too.” The green-eyed poured some red-colored juice that looked like guava into a glass for herself.

She still held in her head all the questions Akemi had asked and she was very much aware she would tackle those as soon as they sat down and started eating.

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WC: 12559.

It was a good thing to know that, like herself, Akemi wasn’t the kind of person to lose appetite. Mainly because Katherine was hungry and wouldn’t want to eat without her but also because she didn’t want Amy to had prepared those bentos for nothing.

Of course, she would return a smile to Akemi. She wasn’t angry at her or anything, feeling confused didn’t mean for a single second she didn’t want to be here with her. And she knew very well it also didn’t mean she didn’t love her dearly either. 

Katherine nodded at both of Akemi’s requests and handed her a bento and let her take the jar and pour some juice for herself. They then took a seat inside the roofed part of the platform at some wooden chairs around a wooden table. The ocean was right next to them. It was a truly beautiful place to eat, or to do anything, for that matter. They started eating. It was good! It shouldn’t be too surprising. Amelie had cooked for Katherine before and she had already shown her skills in the kitchen.

Using the chopsticks to take some of the food to her mouth, Katherine glanced at Akemi. Soooo… she was supposed to give some answers now, right? Well, the task hadn’t really got much easier; but Akemi could rest assured she was going to try her best.

Katherine stared at Akemi’s hand for a bit. Then, she lifted her gaze.

“I’ve got no idea of what we're doing.” She decided to start by answering what seemed to be the hardest and at the same time the easiest question of the three. She didn’t have a clue. Was it hard to admit? A bit. But that didn’t make it less true. “If you’ve got any idea, please tell me.” Her eyes went back to her bento, looking fairly confused. What they were doing was obvious, the dimensions of it were what made Katherine think it was completely crazy.

Regarding the first question… It was probably a good thing Katherine didn’t actually understand what Akemi meant by that because she would have freaked out. She took her time to tackle that one. “I guess we are… f-friends who… like each other?” It wasn't that easy to just say that out loud. Katherine was taking baby steps when speaking because she didn’t want to assume any feeling Akemi didn’t actually have.

What Katherine was about to say, however, meant more than anything she might have said before.

“I… really don’t know how to answer those questions. I’m confused too and even a little scared.” She confessed, looking away from her friend. Silence engulfed the environment for some seconds. Before Akemi could say anything, she decided to add something else. “I don’t know what are we or what are we doing. The only thing I know is that I had never felt anything like this in my whole life and that I want to… No, I need to be by your side, Akemi.”

There.

Katherine took a sip of her cup of juice for the first time, only for her eyes to widen up. She still swallowed.

“This… isn’t even guava. It’s watermelon."

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WC: 13105

In the juice department, Katherine wouldn’t define watermelon as ‘not fine’, but it was definitely not guava. That was a bit disappointing.

Disappointed was how she thought Akemi could be feeling right now. After all, she had thrown some questions in, expecting to get an answer, and Katherine had not been able to provide them. Still, the teenager shyly giggled at Akemi’s remark. That was a very cute way to correct her previous sentence. “I… think you’re right.” Her green eyes drifted back to her food as she showed a faint smile, blushing.

Those same green orbs would look for her friend again, listening closely at the proposal she was about to present. Even if it was true she didn’t know what she might be drawing near to, Katherine’s eyes still widened up slowly as she proceeded with her explanation. At the exact moment Akemi thrown the question, Katherine dropped her chopsticks.

“Eh!?” A squeal escaped her.

Taking her glass, Katherine started drinking some of her watermelon juice, honestly a bit more than shocked. Admittedly, she had even choked on her food a bit, so that would help. Her green eyes blinked repeatedly as she put her glass back on the table and stared at Akemi as she finished speaking.

Whoa. That had been some proposal, no doubt. If Katherine was confused before, right now her head was at complete chaos. Completely perplexed, she tried to utter some words as soon as she was able to, mainly to not leave such a proposal hanging.

“H-How would that work?” She asked. “You’re a girl, I’m a girl. How could we… go out? Like… Can there be a relationship with two girlfriends?” Maybe she should try to rephrase her worries a bit. “I-I mean, don’t get me wrong! I know there are people who… do that. But I-I don’t think I’m one of them!” Was she? “I mean… Oh, God.” Katherine moved both of her hands and intertwined them with her curls to grab her head, looking at the table.

Without making a lengthy pause to think, Katherine just threw everything that crossed her mind out there. “T-That’s… so sudden! I have never thought of myself as a girl who could like other girls! But now that it’s happening…” It was likely she was just thinking out loud now. “… I’m only realizing now that it means I have to date other girls? I mean… of course, I like you but… I had never seen any girl the way I see you, Akemi.” From one thought to the other, Katherine kept her rambling.

It had been a while since she had been invading by nervous incessant speaking. “H-How could I tell my parents? How could I tell Jazz!?” Huh, it was nice to see some things never changed. “I mean, I am, after all, in a date with another girl right now but I never thought…”

“... Oh, God.” The Spaniard let out a sigh and just stared at the table. All kinds of thoughts were going through her head.

If any of the girls thought Katherine couldn’t be a bigger mess than she was after that kiss, this was definitely proving them wrong.

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WC: 13649

It was only when her date asked her to slow down that Katherine actually lowered the pace of her words. Up until now, she had only been blurting out basically everything that went through her head. What was she doing?

“I’m sorry.” Her green eyes went to Akemi for a second, then back to the table. “I didn’t mean to scare you or anything.” One of the two freaking out was more than enough! They had to keep themselves together.

Still, Katherine listened closely as Akemi explained her feelings too while they kept eating. After the shorter girl gave her own insight on the situation, which only proved she was fairly confused and dubious too, Katherine had a bit of trouble identifying what she was feeling now. Not too long after she realized she was… actually calming down a bit.

She didn’t like Akemi to panic. She didn’t want her to feel bad or scared. However, knowing her friend didn’t know how to proceed either, somehow gave Katherine a sense of peace. The reason? Well, she needed to take these steps slowly and calmly. And, for better or worse, she didn’t want to be guided, she just wanted to be accompanied. She wanted to try this new thing along with Akemi. But she certainly didn’t like the fact of the girl proposing stuff that sounded too complicated or formal, because that felt as if she was being dragged into taking big steps. Needless to say, this was Katherine's issue and the girl hadn't done anything bad.

“It’s not wrong…” She started answering the question. Slowly, Katherine’s left hand slid through the wooden table, and looked for Akemi’s right hand, trying to intertwine her fingers with hers. That felt nice. She needed this if she was going to have these conversations. “… it’s just that... I know this may sound super selfish but…“ She had to be honest with her, right? “… I just don’t want to feel like you’re ahead of me and know what to do. I'm not ready to take those big steps from one moment to another. I like it when we’re... here. I like to feel we’re both confused and a bit clueless; the two of us.”

Katherine let out a sigh before continuing. “I want to be with you. I don’t know if I’m ready to use a word as g-girlfriends but… I want us to move forward to that together and only when we both feel ready. Not because of some social construction that says we have to.”

And just in case it wasn’t clear... “I love you.” Her eyes escaped from Akemi’s as she uttered these words. Gosh, would she ever be able to say this without blushing? “But I need time to get acquaintance with the fact that I do. And, while I do that, I want us to be together, so we can both slowly face our feelings and what they mean.”

Hmm. When did she get so mature? She definitely couldn’t say she had handled this perfectly but it wasn’t that bad either, right? Akemi admitting how lost she was regarding all of this definitely had helped.

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WC: 14095.