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The game isn’t about kissing. It’s about not kissing. It’s about pulling away.
Only not quite. It’s more about not pulling away, but also not kissing — it’s about keeping careful distance, intimidating your partner into pulling away, it’s a little complicated to put into kissing or non-kissing terms, and it sounds kind of fun.
The most important rule is that if your lips touch theirs, you both lose. Kissing is losing and Sana would lose if she ended up kissing a stubborn Vilde or Mikael, for eksempel. There is one case in which a kiss, even a stubborn one that chased victory and not any other feeling, wouldn’t exactly equal a loss in her mind.
Sana shakes her head to clear it, as much as she can. Touching her lips to a guy’s just like that isn’t something she would really ever do, but one can consider it. In any case, that will be the only way she could lose. Because no matter what, she is not pulling away. And with how, thankfully, respectful all the girls are of her religion, almost up to the point of being scared of it and her, she can at least hope that as her last resort, they would think of that and pull away before kissing her, lest they call the wrath of Allah upon them, or whatever they think might happen. But it won’t come to that, because Sana can be more than intimidating if she wants to. Sometimes she gets told she is intimidating even when she doesn’t want to be, so she’s pretty sure she’s got this one in the bag.
There’s a small prickle of suspicion that she’s getting herself way in over her head playing this game, but she stomps that feeling into inexistence before it’s even taken root. The group was supposed to be split in two, the guys against the girls, but to make the incentive covert, everyone agreed to just randomise the participants. All this game will be is a chance for her to prove her superiority over everyone, which is not a bad thing on any day.
As they sit there on the couch and the floor in front of it, watching Elias and Eva have a stare-down, Sana hopes beyond hope that they pull away just so that she doesn’t have to watch her brother kiss one of her best friends, at least not this early on in the evening. Sana takes a deep breath and lets it out very slowly. Not like her brother would enjoy watching her macking on any of his friends, come to think of it.
Yousef is sitting on the other end of the couch, on the arm of it to be exact, and Sana isn’t about to look at him, because the last time she did, she was caught looking, and considered excusing herself out of the room to fix her make-up or something. She doesn’t look at him but it’s like she can feel him there, like she can feel every centimetre of space (and Mikael) that’s between them. She doesn’t know why she’s giving him that much attention, anyway. It’s not like she likes him or anything, it’s not like she can. Maybe she can admit that she likes him more than the rest of her brother’s friends, because he seems way more intelligent and overall more chill, like what occupies his mind might not be usual boy thoughts — which are, of course, thoughts of sex. It’s a cruel generalisation of her to make, but she’ll stop thinking it when she hears a guy from her grade talk about anything else. However, it is a hypocritical thought, that much she can admit — she knows that Yousef having those indecent thoughts isn’t something she minds thinking about. Well, so long as his thoughts were to be about her.
Elias shakes her out of her thoughts right when she thinks her neck is about to cramp up from how still she’s keeping her head so as not to turn it in Yousef’s direction. Laughing giddily, Elias leans forward, almost keeling over beside Eva, who is giggling just as loudly.
Eva pumps her fist in the air and bites her lips smugly – she’s won. Mutasim, who has his phone open on random-dot-org, randomises the list of names they have put in there and decides that Noora will challenge Eva next. To a cacophonous mix of disappointed shouts and excited hoots, the girls sit themselves down. It ends with Noora opting out first as Eva laughs, making kissy faces at her. Then it’s Chris with Mutasim, who loses to her, completely red in the face after almost touching noses with her. Elias and Yousef — who laugh through it, and Sana does too, then Adam and Eva, and then Sana’s name gets called alongside Adam’s.
“Careful,” Elias calls out to Adam teasingly, but it’s just protective enough for Sana to turn around and give Elias an unimpressed look. Before she sits down, her gaze catches on Yousef, who is looking at her seemingly without even blinking. When their eyes meet, he looks away, jaw set.
Sana furrows her brow before sitting down with a shrug, rolling her shoulders back and looking Adam straight in the eye.
By the startled look on Adam’s face, Sana knows she’s about to win this. The crowd starts wildly chattering as soon as Sana leans in a little — Mikael is making comments about the scene in front of them as if they’re all watching a tennis match, talking of the different tactics each of the players are employing. Sana closes her eyes and leans in — a tactic — knowing that Adam will be swayed by her apparent confidence into pulling away.
He does, and with a victorious smile, Sana sits back, makes the motion like she’s dusting her palms off, gets up and walks back to the couch. After high-fiving Eva, Sana turns and goes to sit, and in looking around herself she catches Yousef’s gaze on her. Still confident from her recent win, she raises her eyebrow at him, and watches him duck his head as he looks away. Sana sits down with a shrug and for a while all she does is watch people stick tongues out at each other, make kissy faces and false love declarations to make the other recoil in fear of receiving a kiss.
Sana’s having fun. And then Yousef becomes the one whose name gets called next.
“Wiiith Nooora!” Mutasim exclaims after tapping out a drum-roll on the carpet, and Yousef looks a little panicked, or maybe Sana’s only seeing what she wants to see.
Just Sana’s luck. Noora smiles shyly and sits herself down on the floor, all prim and proper, before Mikael’s even abandoned his spot on the carpet from his recent almost-kiss with Elias. Noora is still smiling, ear to ear, sitting back on her heels daintily as she waits for Yousef to walk over and sit down in front of her.
Sana’s stomach churns when he does. She leans back on the couch, playing with the hem of her blazer to distract herself, but she can’t take her eyes off them. It’s quite like a trainwreck in that she can’t look away, except the only casualty in this trainwreck could be Sana herself.
With how Noora and Yousef got along the other night, Sana wouldn’t be surprised if their group got to witness the first kiss of the night. Noora’s smile is still in place, her eyes softening as she looks at Yousef. Sana knows that feeling — she hates to admit it, but she knows it all too well.
Yousef, meanwhile, has got his lips pressed together tightly and is looking at Noora, unblinking, still.
Noora leans in slightly and Sana forces herself to look away, bites the inside of her cheek as she once again contemplates excusing herself out of the room. Except then there’s some shuffling to her side, the voices of the other people in the room change in tone and volume, and Sana flicks her gaze up just to see Yousef back away from Noora even though there was a meter’s distance between them. Noora raises both fists in the air in celebration, though the smile on her face is a little hesitant. Eva pulls her away and congratulates her, while Mikael loudly teases Yousef for chickening out. Sana stares, she only has eyes for him at this point, and it’s only a matter of time before he notices her looking. When he does, Yousef gives her a smile that looks a little shy.
Sana doesn’t smile back. She looks down at her hands, cherishing the moment so close to her heart, not sharing it with anyone even through the betraying nature of a reaction. Her heart is speeding up, ready to beat out of her chest, fluttering like a caged bird.
She sits back and watches Vilde almost kiss Mutasim, but halfway through their slow inching toward each other, Sana’s gaze is once again stolen by Yousef, and she fixates on the way his hair falls over his forehead. She ends up looking at him all until she’s called on again.
Sana employs the same tactic she had to Adam, to Mikael. When he doesn’t pull away, the crowd laughs and ooohs, and Sana shakes her head.
She opens her eyes and cuts her gaze to the side to acknowledge her audience, smirking. Lest they think that she’s not about to win, which she is.
Her eyes catch on Yousef, who is looking at her raptly, leaning back in the couch. Unlike the rest of the people, he’s trying to seem disinterested. The look he’s giving the scene is not angry but it’s dark, he looks more on edge than anything. He definitely looks like suddenly he’s not enjoying this game too much. Sana’s breath catches in her throat.
In her periphery, she can see Mikael’s lips moving, can hear him saying something like, “Ready for the kiss of your life?”
Yousef looks down at his hands with a frown on his face and Sana pulls back, away from Mikael. She clears her throat and then stands up, walks back to the couch, sits back in her spot without explaining a word of this to anyone, even herself. With Mikael still sitting on the floor, there’s no one between her and Yousef, and Sana fears looking over because she can feel his presence next to her more strongly than ever.
“What?” Sana asks the girls, who are all looking up at her with wide eyes and small smiles on their faces. The guys are all teasing Mikael, who is still sitting on the floor, too dumbfounded to even celebrate his victory.
“Didn’t think you were a quitter!” Eva teases, leaning into Sana’s side a little. Sana shakes her head and rolls her eyes, but can’t help the small smile on her lips.
“Could it be that you got a little flustered…?” Vilde asks in her soft voice, grinning, loving it.
Sana shakes her head again and scrunches up her face. “Yeah. I’m gone for Mikael now,” she says sardonically.
Vilde giggles and Sana shakes her head more fondly this time. Looking around, she notices Yousef again, who is looking away from her but has got a tiny smile on his face. He’s beautiful. Sana’s heart aches a little.
“Ooh Sana,” Mutasim calls to her, “You were too quick to go away. Look,” he turns his phone to her and she sees the names at the top of the list, the names of the next two contestants — her name, and his name.
Yousef slides down from the arm of the couch and sits next to her, looking over her shoulder at the screen. He’s a little too close for Sana to be able to act normally, so she stands up quickly and walks over to sit down. This will be easy, she tells herself, it’ll be the easiest win yet.
When Yousef sits down in front of her, looking like, well, Yousef, she almost believes it. Thinking of doing anything with him seems easy, and it’s when he speaks that she remembers why she likes him best out of all the guys she knows. Not that she needs many reminders, with how he looks and how he is.
Yousef leans in just a little, and, grinning, says: “I’ve actually been meaning to tell you something for a long time…” he begins in a proper confession-like fashion, and Sana rolls her eyes, trying to seem disinterested though the words make her heart skip a beat. Silently, she prays that her cheeks don’t redded visibly, and retorts faux-acerbically:
“Can it wait?”
Like he's wounded, Mikael shouts, "Yoooo!" in the background.
Sana’s done this before, and it’s met with loud approval and laughter from the crowd. Yousef smiles, not looking embarrassed, but like he’s proud of her. Sana’s heart races.
“You’re going down,” Sana mutters to regain some semblance of self, and Yousef cracks a wide smile.
“Oh, really?” he asks, his smile so bright that Sana can’t help the smile that tugs at her own lips. It almost sounds like they’re flirting. She shakes her head, still smiling because this is stupid, Yousef is stupid, so stupid.
Sana feels so exhilarated, like she’s never felt before, like she could crack up or break into a run. Although ready to burst out laughing, she tries to school her expression into a serious one, battling with her own mouth to get it to relax from it’s stupid curl.
Yousef just lets his own smile roam free, lets it transform his face into the most beautiful face Sana has seen to date. So stupid.
“This is boring!” Vilde shouts, sounding all too happy, and Adam agrees loudly, “Yeah, go on, move!” This earns him a swat on the arm from Elias, and Sana has half a mind to look over at them, but keeps her eyes forward.
Adam doesn’t heed to Elias’ violent warning and shouts out, even louder, “Just kiss her!”
Sana wants to roll her eyes, but something is stopping her. That something is the way Yousef’s eyes soften, the way his smile almost falls away. There's a shift in mood, so suddenly, it leaves Sana speechless.
Sana quirks an eyebrow at him, trying to keep her cool. The way Yousef looks at her almost has her shivering, and her own smile falls away. He leans in, and gauges her reaction. After a beat, not knowing quite what has possessed her, she leans in too.
“Get it, Sana!” Chris shouts, and the crowd erupts into laughter, all of them expecting Sana to pull away soon. She can’t. And Yousef seems pretty determined to win himself.
Yousef’s eyes are wide, now, she can see him tracking her every movement. Scared in the best possible way, she figures she’d scare Yousef off too, have this end as soon as it can. She leans in, expecting Yousef to pull away. He doesn’t.
They both stay there, the tips of their noses are a few measly centimetres away. They don’t move for a long time. Sana’s doing her best to keep her expression as one of confidence and seriousness, trying to bring it back to square one — she’s just here to win the game. There’s no feelings involved, there can’t be. It’s just that Yousef and her are both rather competitive.
Even if they’d both given up the last two rounds they participated in.
The worst thing is that people are buying that this is just a game, judging by their shouts. Or maybe they all just want to finally see someone succumb and kiss, and Sana’s heart lodges in her throat when she thinks she’s about to let it happen.
Sana casts her eyes down to Yousef’s lips, looks back up to catch him glancing at her own lips. Sana imagines leaning in just that bit of distance, the noise in the background now fading to a low hum so that the only sound she hears is Yousef’s shallow breathing. Very softly, Yousef blinks his eyes closed. He stays there for a moment, and then with an exhale, he moves back slowly, surrendering. Though to Sana, who has to take a moment to remember how to breathe, it feels as if he’s just kissed her.
Only he pulled away, and Sana’s heart sinks a little. She watches after him and pulls herself back, blinking her embarrassingly lidded eyes into a more alert-looking state.
Very quickly, Sana puts on her best victorious smile, though she doesn’t feel as victorious winning as she thought she would. She turns to the girls as she celebrates her victory, even if there’s an ugly sort of feeling rising in her chest — the cold realisation that maybe Yousef pulled away because he wouldn’t want to kiss her, not as part of a game, but at all. She wouldn’t have liked to have been kissed as part of a game, but she admits to herself that she would have liked to have been kissed, and to have kissed.
Sana pulls herself together and looks over at Yousef to gauge his reaction, only she can’t, because his head is obscured by Mikael’s, whom Yousef is whispering something to. Sana turns away and tries to gather what the girls are talking about. Then, something shifts beside her and she gets to witness Mikael stand up and walk over to Mutasim to discuss with him if they’d exhausted all the possibilities for pairs of competitors, and also how much time they have until that party they were supposed to be gearing up to go to.
Sana’s attention is taken away from the conversation when someone replaces Mikael in his seat next to her, when someone’s arm is pressed against the side of her own.
She turns and sees Yousef.
“Hey,” he says, and Sana melts a little.
“Hello,” she says offhandedly, but her half-smile betrays her.
Yousef says nothing more, but he’s looking at her, and he doesn’t really stop for the rest of the night. Sana can’t judge; she’s the same about him.