Chapter 110.
<strong>Chapter 110. New Year’s Eve. The Dazzling Fireworks Explode, Start of a New Year. (2/6)</strong>
<span style="font-weight:400">That’s it! The day Irene met me at my job. It was before that, right after I left for work. That was when things started to move behind the scenes.
<span style="font-weight:400">Was it really a coincidence that Irene came to the convenience store on that particr day? No, it wasn’t, it was all coordinated. Everything was. She didn’t get lucky. She made contact with Rosa and was informed exactly where I worked.
<span style="font-weight:400">Though she’d never visited me at work before, Rosa herself knew because I showed her when I had that phone call with the Owner.
<span style="font-weight:400">Alicia knew where I worked, but I’d requested her not to reveal anything to anyone. Being the good girl she was, she wouldn’t tell anyone if she was asked, she’d just act like she didn’t know. That included her own mother and Rosa. She was just that good of a girl. Rosa had no need to ask her since she already knew from the beginning.
<span style="font-weight:400">Damn it!
<span style="font-weight:400">Checkmate.
<span style="font-weight:400">It was… checkmate.
<span style="font-weight:400">Alicia knew I heard her when I added the word ‘too.’
<span style="font-weight:400">Her confession was thus received with her three simple words to me.
<span style="font-weight:400">I was furious.
<span style="font-weight:400">But at the same time impressed by the groundwork they’did out.
<span style="font-weight:400">Such a loss.
<span style="font-weight:400">A huge one.
<span style="font-weight:400">I’d always remember this one.
<span style="font-weight:400">There was nothing I could do though. I could only ept defeat.
<span style="font-weight:400">There were no moves for me to y. I’d slowly been ensnared in a trap, ambushed and blindsided in the dark of night.
<span style="font-weight:400">I had to ept her confession and return her love.
<span style="font-weight:400">A loss was a loss.
<span style="font-weight:400">I spun her around forcefully, raised my hand to pull down her hood as I simultaneously tore off the scarf wrapped around her neck which had obstructed her face.
<span style="font-weight:400">Before me, stood a girl with her hair a mix between a light orange tint to blond. She wore a shocked expression on her face as her steel-blue eyes rippled with emotion.
<span style="font-weight:400">She opened her mouth and said, “I was supposed to just confess quietly and leave without you ever realizing a thing. So… why? Why did you have to hear me! Why did you have to hear the words I so desperately didn’t want you to hear the most?”
<span style="font-weight:400">She’d just asked me something I could hardly believe. I doubted my own ears, it was that shocking to me, the words that came out of her mouth.
<span style="font-weight:400">The normal smile on her face was nowhere to be found. She was holding back her tears, the pain in her heart. The guilt over what she’d just done ate away at her.
<span style="font-weight:400">She’d really onlye here to say it and never have her voice heard. Had she been convinced by Rosa to do it this way? Just how did Rosa convince her though? I knew the process to which I found myself here, but not the process by which Alicia found herself here.
<span style="font-weight:400">I’d been confronted with a huge moral dilemma.
<span style="font-weight:400">A giant miscalction on my part.
<span style="font-weight:400">The girl known as Alicia was someone I considered my exact opposite. I only ever thought about things rationally. I weighed my options. But what about her?
<span style="font-weight:400">She was an irrational person who acted strongly based on her emotions. As a rational-minded person, could I truly understand her thoughts when they were irrational, to begin with? No, I might be able to do so to a certain degree, but when irrationality was involved there was no such thing as 100% certainty. There was always a small chance that things wouldn’t go the way I nned when someonepletely irrational was involved.
<span style="font-weight:400">As I already knew what she knew, what she was specifically aware of about me, I’d never anticipated this overly nice girl to do what she’d just done.
<span style="font-weight:400">She knew I was Rosa’s boyfriend and now fiancé. I’d proposed right in front of her. So what words could Rosa say to her to yield an oue like this?
<span style="font-weight:400">I didn’t know.
<span style="font-weight:400">The only thing I knew right now was the girl in front of me was ready to cry from the pins and needles stabbing into her heart. She’d resolved herself to have her love unrequited, only to suddenly hear the words ‘I love you too’ in return. It didn’t even include Rosa’s name at the end.
<span style="font-weight:400">I could only do one thing here.
<span style="font-weight:400">I opened my mouth, looked her in the eyes, and said calmly.
<span style="font-weight:400">“I love you too, Alicia. Please go out with me.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Wha-”
<span style="font-weight:400">I didn’t give her a chance to process my words or say anything in return. I pulled her close, wrapped my arms around her waist and back, then firmly kissed her on the lips. Her eyes were flustered, filled with shock.
<span style="font-weight:400">She tried to push me away, but I didn’t allow it.
<span style="font-weight:400">I’d lost.
<span style="font-weight:400">A devastating, crushing defeat.
<span style="font-weight:400">As such, I had to take responsibility for it.
<span style="font-weight:400">To ept her feelings and make her mine even if it wasn’t something I was alright with. It was what my precious girlfriend requested. And though I call Alicia an enemy, I didn’t hate her at all. Rather than hate, I was quite fond of her. Her innocent pure smile, I didn’t want to see it disappear because of me. Thus, I’d protect it since I’d already lost.
<span style="font-weight:400">Eventually, Alicia stopped resisting. Her body rxed and ckened in my arms. When I felt that, my tongue slipped between her lips and coiled around hers. Her tongue jumped back to try and escape like a frightened rabbit when it came into contact with a foreign object it had never encountered before.
<span style="font-weight:400">But I didn’t let her slip away and pinned it to the roof of her mouth where she could escape. When she realized she couldn’t avoid it, the initial struggle her tongue put up died down as she allowed her tongue to be embraced, though still somewhat bashful.
<span style="font-weight:400">She didn’t make any moves of her own and allowed me to do as I pleased. Our saliva swapped between our mouths. She didn’t seem to dislike it.
<span style="font-weight:400">When I cracked open my eyes a bit, I noticed Alicia’s face was illuminated with a variety of different colors as a result of the fireworks going off. My face was likely the same. In her half-open eyes that stared back into my own, I could see a hint of infatuation. The fireworks were reflected in her clear mirror-like eyes, making hers seemingly glitter amidst the darkness.
<span style="font-weight:400">I couldn’t help but pause my actions and admire her steel blue eyes, they’d drawn me in.
<span style="font-weight:400">When I stopped my actions I felt her tongue shyly poke mine as if embarrassedly asking me in a polite fashion to continue.
<span style="font-weight:400">I found her action too cute and couldn’t help but forcefully pull her tongue out into my mouth. It was like I was inviting a girl into my room and she was entering a boy’s room for the very first time.
<span style="font-weight:400">Her body stiffened up in fright. Where was this foreign ce? Her tongue was nervous being a foreignnd it had never been before. She quickly pulled her tongue back.
<span style="font-weight:400">I didn’t chase after her though. Would she work up the courage to chase, that was what I was most curious about.
<span style="font-weight:400">After a little while as if she missed the partner that made her feel good, her tongue peeked out a bit and took in its surroundings. The tip of her tongue brushed against my lips as it cautiously ventured ever closer to that foreignnd in search of her partner.
<span style="font-weight:400">I opened a gap up which her tongue discovered and approached warily. She peeked inside the hole and felt around slowly familiarizing herself with theyout inside. Once she feltfortable enough she advanced a bit further until the tip of her tongue poked my own.
<span style="font-weight:400">Hey, are you awake?
<span style="font-weight:400">Another poke.
<span style="font-weight:400">Wake up.
<span style="font-weight:400">When there was no movement, she let hers rest on top of mine before it slid off to the side and lifted mine up.
<span style="font-weight:400">Come on. Get up already. I’m lonely and cold out here.
<span style="font-weight:400">She wanted to be embraced, hugged, and warmed up.
<span style="font-weight:400">Seeing her adorable actions, I couldn’t help but respond in an appropriate fashion. My tongue curled around hers to embrace it tightly. She reciprocated and followed my lead.
<span style="font-weight:400">The friction between our tongues generated additional heat. The strings of saliva connecting us were heated up by each breath we took. We were breathing in each other’s breaths in a circr fashion to keep our mouths insted. We asionally took in some fresh air through our noses. But each time we exhaled that cold air had turned hot and steamy.
<span style="font-weight:400">With it being her first time kissing so passionately, it was hard for her to keep this up.
<span style="font-weight:400">Her right cheek was red from the cold wind blowing against us. Seeing as such I moved my right hand from behind her and ced my palm against her side to shield her from the wind and warm her up. I rotated our bodies to protect her further.
<span style="font-weight:400">She seemingly understood my intentions and started to melt from a sweet sensation slowly spreading through her heart. She pressed her body even closer to mine until there wasn’t a single gap. I stroked her cheek softly and gently caressed her ears with my fingertips.
<span style="font-weight:400">Feeling that sensation her eyes fully shut as her defense hit rock bottom. Any sort of wall between us seemingly crumbled in that instant. At this moment, she couldn’t care to think about anything aside from the strange sense of momentary happiness she felt.
<span style="font-weight:400">On yet another cold night like any other in this tundra-like city, two tongues were entangled in a heated back and forth struggle under the colorful flowers blooming in the night sky.
<span style="font-weight:400">Only when those fireworks ceased did the two tongues part as though awaking from a long dream.