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The first time we kissed, you had asked me to hurt you. You were clearly already hurting. I could tell by the way you sobbed, pulled your hair, looked around the room like a trapped animal. You wanted a way out, and you wanted me to give it to you. You seem to think I like slapping you, when nothing could be further from the truth.
There's no way I could hurt you like that, Sorawo.
You looked so fragile then, full of pain. I don't know what the Red Person did, but they must have shown you something terrible. Something from the past that should have remained buried. There's no way I wanted to become a part of whatever trauma you were reliving.
You winced when I touched your cheek with my right hand, then looked confused when my left hand touched you. Your skin was hot from crying, soft from the tears. I could have held you in my hands forever.
Then, our lips touched. Yours were chapped from the cold and raw from throwing up. For a moment all I could smell was the trace of bile. I felt your racing pulse begin to slow where my fingers touched your neck. When I slipped my tongue into your mouth, I didn't care about the taste. I cared about you, cared about having you here with me forever. It was a kiss, Sorawo, a proper lover's kiss to bring you back to reality.
I didn't mind when you pulled away and gave me an angry look. You can be mad about it all you want, but it worked. You were back to normal. So what if I felt a little prideful that I could obliterate terror with love.
I only wish it happened under better circumstances. But our first kiss happening at a love hotel on Christmas is a nice consolation prize, isn't it?
The second time we kissed, I was upset. You almost left me behind to go to a scary place alone. Mom, Mama, Satsuki…I'm tired of people I love leaving my life suddenly. I don't want you to be another name that I find myself crying about on a lonely night.
You acted like you were burdening me with our adventures on the Otherside, like my life is far more important than yours. You seem to hold the word "accomplice" in high regard, but sometimes you don't seem to regard me as one. No. You treat me like a hostage, a bargaining chip unwittingly swept up into this whole affair. You have a good heart, a criminal's heart of gold. You don't want harm to come to a victim, so you'd rather take the fall. I am so not tagging along with you for that kind of self-sacrificial bullshit. I've always stuck by your side because we're accomplices, and anywhere you go, I want to be ready to face the music with you.
I gave you a quick peck on the lips as a reminder. We're in a partnership. The closest relationship in the world. A kiss is our bond. I wish you’d remember that.
I bit you in a hotel bathroom because you acted like prey over dinner. What you told me made me think the Otherside would devour you, and the only thing I could think to do was devour you first.
When you told me Satsuki tried to seduce you, I got angry. You're mine, and mine only. That's okay, right? You treat me the same way - I've seen your jealous glares when I talk about other people I've been close to. Well, I'm jealous too, and I wanted you to feel a little bit of the pain that shoots through my heart when you keep me at a distance. The ache that erupts when you're callous, like when you told me the next step of our relationship was to kill someone I loved.
You said it hurt. Good. I wanted it to hurt. When things get bad on the Otherside, all you seem to remember is pain. If that's how it is, I want to be the one who comes to mind when your consciousness starts to drift off in terror. I want you to remember me, our life together in the surface world, so you have a reason to stay here.
But I also yearn to feel you more intimately. I savored your scent as I pressed my lips to your shoulder. I loved the feeling of your tendons and toned musculature shifting softly under my teeth. I briefly lost myself in the swirling sensations - the slight pulsing of your blood, the taste of your sweat, the gentle rise and fall of your breathing. I want all those things to myself…just a taste was okay, right?
The third time we kissed, I was sad. I finally understood what Kozakura meant about Satsuki being someone that uses people. I was sad that the entire time we had known one another she had used my love to put me in dangerous situations, ready to discard me at a moment's notice. Sad that she'd used me as bait to ensnare you in the Otherside. Sad that I hadn't listened to warnings about her earlier.
Most of all, I got sad as I thought back on our times together. I know you'd be angry to hear this, Sorawo, so I will never say it to you. Maybe I should have been angry. It's easy to be angry at someone who betrayed you so thoroughly, but then again, had I even known a real Satsuki? How much of what charmed me about her had once been genuine? If even a fraction had been, she must have been a lovely person before she was warped by the Otherside.
When I saw you watch powerlessly as your doppelganger reached for Satsuki's hand, saying you'd made a promise, I got sad at that too. When she went away to the Otherside as a human for the last time, Satsuki broke the promises she made to me. What she left behind back then was a smoking crater, a shell of a person. There was no way I was going to let her hold someone else to a promise when she hadn't been able to keep her own.
You have dragged me back from the brink multiple times. Saved me from insanity. Brought me back to life. From the moment I met you, you never hesitated to throw yourself into danger for me. When I dragged your doppelganger away from Satsuki, I felt like every nerve fiber in my body was shrieking with fear. I was scared of whatever Satsuki had become, of drawing her attention and having my very being dissected yet again by her iron will. But I saved you in spite of that fear. We're accomplices. I would do anything for you that you'd do for me, if not more.
I kissed you to find my own sanity as it floundered on the shores of the unknown. I had to remind myself of a world where we had a future together, a future where we kiss so often I don't remember the occasion. I had to show you and her that I was done with her for good. I had to send a message to who she serves as an emissary that wherever you and I go, we go together. That's what accomplices do, isn't it?