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Two girls stood in a pure white room.
There was nothing in the room except for a sign stuck to one of the walls, situated above a door so that you had to crane your head to read it.
“A room you can't leave unless you share a passionate kiss ♡” was written on the sign in bold black letters.
…Yes, the heart was part of what was written on the sign too.
“F*ck!” The first of the girls to react was the shorter one, who cursed and immediately buried her face in her hands. She had striking red hair tied up into two drills, one on each side of her head, and in front of each drill was a black horn, signifying that she was not a normal human– instead, she was part of the species called “devil”.
“F*ck my life,” the devil, Teto, cursed, dropping to her knees and curling up on the ground like she'd just lost her life savings to gambling.
“Shut up. You're such a drama queen,” the second of the girls– named Miku –said rudely. Miku, who wore her light blue hair in long twintails flowing from the top of her head, looked at Teto with red eyes full of scorn. Miku wasn't a human either– evident from the beautiful yellow halo faintly glowing above her head.
“My reaction is completely normal, thank you very much,” Teto shot back, glaring up at Miku with dark blue eyes. Even if the devil had stood up, she still would've been slightly shorter than the other girl, which annoyed her greatly. “Anyone would hate it if they got stuck in a stupid situation like this with you.”
“I beg to differ,” Miku answered, her face twisting into that usual cocky smirk that Teto hated so much. “Pretty much everyone would die to be in a situation like this with me. I can't say the same for if they were stuck with you, though. You irrelevant teacher's pet.”
“At least I don’t flirt with everyone she sees!” Teto retorted hotly, getting back to her feet as she continued to stare fiercely at Miku.
“I don't flirt with other people,” Miku snapped, narrowing her eyes angrily. Her loss of composure lasted for only a second as she smiled again, smugly. “You're just jealous that everyone loves me and falls for my natural charm. It's okay to admit that you like me too, Teto. I can't blame you.”
“I hate you.”
“What a coincidence. The feeling is completely mutual.”
Both the angel and the devil stared daggers at each other for a full ten seconds before Miku finally broke away, face wearing a displeased frown.
“Whatever,” the blue-haired girl said dismissively, as she walked up to the only door in the room and tried jiggling the handle. “I don't have time to play with you. I have much better things to do,” she stated.
“Me too. Get out of the way. Or stay there, I don't care.”
Miku rolled her eyes as she took one step to the side. Barely a second later, a red trident whizzed past her face and wedged itself into the door, sending a blast of wind everywhere from the force and speed with which it had been thrown. Although the trident had just barely missed her, the twin-tailed angel merely looked unimpressed as she leaned forward a fraction to study what it had done to the door.
Except for the parts where the trident had gotten stuck, the pure-white door looked completely unchanged, like nothing had happened to it at all.
“That did nothing! You suck,” Miku called behind her shoulder (un)helpfully.
“Shut up! You do better then, moron!” Teto yelled, audibly stomping her feet and fuming.
Miku calmly pulled the trident out of the door and chucked it back to the red-haired devil, not caring if she caught it (she did). The angel then took a step back to assess the situation.
There were no marks left behind by the trident at all, and Miku had been stabbed by it before, so she knew how powerful it could be, even if it couldn't easily kill her because she was a supernatural being. Sure, she could summon her bow and arrow and take a few shots at the door too, but she didn't want to waste any arrows, and if Teto's weapon hadn't left a single dent, then Miku couldn't really hope for a different result with her own weapon.
There was definitely something weird going on here. She pinched herself, but she didn't wake up.
“Yeah, we're not getting out of this one that easily,” the girl with the halo said calmly, as she threw up her hands in defeat. She glanced around the room and it was empty as expected, with no hints or other objects to help the two prisoners make their escape.
Miku looked back at the sign with the instructions just in case, and she stared at it for a few moments before she suddenly placed her fist in her palm in an “aha” gesture.
“What? What is it?” Teto asked warily, from behind Miku.
Miku turned back towards the red-haired girl while pointing at the sign.
“It doesn't say it has to be on the mouth.”
“What?”
“‘Unless you share a passionate kiss,’ it says. It doesn't say it has to be mouth-to-mouth.”
“But we still have to kiss each other? F*cking hell,” Teto growled, frowning heavily. She let the trident in her hand disappear in a burst of red magic and then slumped to the ground, burying her face in her hands once more. “Why did this have to happen to me…”
“Stop whining already. I hate this as much as you do,” Miku snapped, feeling very very irritated that Teto kept acting like it was the end of the world. She wouldn't have even minded doing what the sign said if Teto wasn't so obviously against it. The chimera had a cute face that was completely spoiled by her insufferable, morally righteous attitude.
“You wouldn't get it,” the girl with the black horns huffed, as she buried her face in her arms, which she rested on top of her knees. “You're acting way too calm about this. You probably like that I'm suffering so much right now. Hurry up and call it off already. You win.”
Miku promptly bristled. “You think I did this?” she asked, voice filled with disbelief.
“I wouldn't put it past you,” Teto answered rudely. “You like causing other people to suffer. That's what I hate so much about you.”
“Wrong again,” Miku snapped, glaring down at the girl who was seated. “I do what's the most advantageous to myself at any time. If that causes other people to suffer, then so be it. That's not the same as ‘liking causing others to suffer.’ A dumb doormat like you wouldn't get it.”
“That's practically the same thing,” Teto stated calmly, and Miku rolled her eyes once more.
“Like I said, you know nothing. A pushover like you is only going to get taken advantage of one day. Then you'll see who's the smarter one here.”
“I'll be fine. But I'd rather be taken advantage of than be the one taking advantage of others,” the devil replied, face still buried. “You're a horrible person,” she added. “One day you'll get what you deserve.”
Miku let out an audible growl, frustrated beyond belief. Just how dense could this chimera be? Then she loudly stomped away, putting as much distance as she could between herself and her former friend.
…It looked like they would be stuck here for a while.
~~
“‘What would you do if someone was mean to you',” the little red-haired girl with her hair fashioned into two drills read aloud from her notebook, staring down at it while tapping a pencil against her cheek. “Today's homework is kinda hard… I can't say that I would try to beat them up. How are you gonna answer it, Miku-chan?”
“That's easy!” the little girl with her light blue hair tied into two small pigtails, Miku, answered with a big grin. “My elders told me that if someone is mean to you, it says more about them than it does about you! Maybe they're hurting inside or they're having a bad day. I would ask someone who's mean to me why they're being mean to me and try to come to an understanding!”
“Wow!” The red-haired girl, named Teto, widened her blue eyes with amazement at her friend's saintlike answer. “You're just like an angel, Miku-chan! You're so nice!!”
“You're nice too, Teto-chan!” Miku replied with a bright smile, suddenly giving her a side hug. “I know people are weird about your clan sometimes, but you're really nice too! I love playing together with you!”
Teto smiled widely and turned so she could hug her friend full-force. “I love you, Miku-chan!” she proclaimed, eyes full of childlike affection. “Let's stay friends forever!”
Miku's own red eyes shone happily, and she tightened her own hug around her best friend. “Yeah!!” she exclaimed, voice full of excitement. “I love you too, Teto-chan! We'll definitely be together forever, even when we're all grown!!”
~~
Teto woke up with a gasp, immediately raising her head from her knees, dark blue eyes wide open.
Crap. I fell asleep? she thought, as she looked wildly around herself and saw that she was still in the same white room as before. While getting lost in her thoughts and internally complaining about how everything in her life had gone to shit, she had apparently dozed off and ended up seeing a dream just now.
In her dream, she and Miku had been the best of friends, even though Teto had been from Darkclan and Miku had been from Lightclan. Clans weren't family, exactly; they were more like associations or organizations, and Lightclan and Darkclan usually tended to fight– thanks to a lot of members from the former calling members of the latter “evil.”
Now look who's the evil one, Teto thought with a frown, as she looked around the room and stopped looking when she spotted Miku. The angel was lying on her side, faced away from Teto. The red-haired devil had no idea if the other girl was sleeping, but the rising and falling of her chest definitely showed that she was still alive, at least.
Of course she was. It took a lot to kill supernatural beings like her (especially an angel), so every time Teto had thrown her trident at her, she had always done it out of pure spite rather than an actual attempt to kill.
Teto didn't know if she could ever kill anyone. She was a pacifist, after all, and even though Miku had drastically changed (and was now extremely fucking annoying), Teto knew for a fact that she would be extremely upset if anything fatal ever actually happened to Miku.
Because deep down, I still care about her. Unfortunately. Well, I care about everyone's well-being as a person, but her in particular, I…
The chimera glared at the blue-haired girl's lying form as more memories came to mind, all mostly unwanted.
She remembered the extreme sadness she had felt when she and Miku had had to part, as kids. Miku had needed to go to something called “Angel School”, to learn to become the perfect angel, and as a result, she wouldn't be able to see Miku for almost 3-4 years.
She remembered their tearful goodbyes but promises of seeing each other again, meeting once they were “better than ever” and “powered up versions of themselves”, Miku had said.
She remembered the way she would carry around a photograph of herself and Miku smiling brightly side by side, and on some days, the thought of seeing her best friend again was the only thing that got her through difficult times.
She remembered how her loneliness would seem to be amplified whenever she thought about Miku during secondary school, but whenever the red-haired girl was happy, Teto remembered thinking about how she would have so much to share with the other girl– how she was looking forward so much to reuniting, rekindling their friendship, and sharing all of her happy moments.
It might've seemed silly for the red-haired girl to cling so strongly to the past, but the memories of her happy days with Miku had been like a lifeline– sustaining her –and all of her excitement and hopes about getting to see her again had helped sustain her as well.
Teto remembered thinking about Miku so much– almost to the point where she started wondering if she was in love with her or maybe with the concept of her –but she also remembered when all of those hopes had seemed to be shattered in a single instant:
The Miku that Teto had met again in high school had been completely different from her younger self. It was as if the pure angelic little girl in Teto's memories had never existed at all.
Teto remembered the heartbreak and the angry disappointment and the bitter confrontations.
Instead of kind and sweet and gentle, Miku had turned harsh, nasty, and selfish. Whenever someone was in trouble, Miku would laugh at them without lifting a finger to help. She would tell people exactly what they wanted to hear, then secretly badmouth them behind their back. She had turned extremely cynical and mocking, and whenever Teto would object to her objectionable behavior, Miku would reply with insults instead.
That was what had led to many of their fights, with the both of them bruised and bleeding by the end. As supernatural beings, their scary-looking injuries were the equivalent of scratches and small marks on the average human (and the average human couldn't see Teto's horns or Miku's halo anyway), but Teto knew that Miku had successfully goaded her into violence more than a number of times.
The red-haired devil couldn't help it. Even though she was a pacifist, seeing how different Miku was from the one she had grown up with had pissed her off too much. Admittedly, Teto couldn't call herself much of a pacifist when seeing Miku provoked an emotional reaction almost each and every time, but she didn't harm other people, at least, so hopefully that counted.
All in all, Miku was a huge fucking pain.
Teto remembered thinking she should just give up on her once and for all, especially after Miku mocked her for being so attached to the past and made her so mad that Teto had thrown the trident straight at her head (when she usually aimed for other vital points), but Teto couldn't bring herself to do it; she couldn't bring herself to give up on her ex-best friend.
She had tried. She had ripped the photograph of herself and Miku that she had treasured for so long in two and deposited both pieces into the trash.
…But after a whole half day of agonizing, she had gone back to the trash can, picked the photograph pieces out, and carefully taped the photo back together.
(After all, past Miku had done nothing wrong. Why deny past Miku and punish her for older Miku's actions? They were like two completely different people anyway.)
…Maybe what Miku had said earlier had been right. Maybe Teto did like her. If she did, it was the “unhealthy obsession” kind of like. And it was an impossible love.
Teto didn't like the “present” Miku at all. The one she was ultimately attached to the most and couldn't bring herself to let go of was the Miku of the past.
The devil put her face in her hands once more, wanting to scream.
Why did things turn out like this? If only we could get a do-over. If only I could see her one more time…
She paused as something else occurred to her: something that had surfaced shallowly in her head once or twice but usually got completely driven out after Miku ticked her off once again.
Why did Miku turn out like that? Why had the angel changed?
The chimera uncovered her face as she thought back to the happy dream she had had moments earlier.
“I would ask someone who's mean to me why they're being mean to me and try to come to an understanding!” the younger Miku had said.
Talking with the older Miku had never worked because the light blue-haired angel would pretty much call Teto an idiot like three seconds into any attempted conversation, but the red-haired girl had to admit that she herself almost always went into every “conversation” looking to pick a fight. That didn't excuse any of Miku's behavior and her horrible attitude, but Teto had pretty much always been too angry to talk, so she had always resorted to violence just like Miku instead.
I wonder if there's a way to get through to her, the girl with the twin drills thought as she stood up from her spot and hesitantly made her way over to where Miku was. Ignoring all that, I still want to get out of here, so we can't ignore each other forever, she thought with an internal sigh.
When Teto stopped and stood in front of Miku where she could see the twin-tailed girl's face, she saw that Miku was indeed sleeping, lying on her side with her head resting on her arm and the other hand in front of her face.
Ahh, the drill-haired girl thought, taking a seat a couple of footsteps away.
She really did have the face– albeit slightly older –of the girl she used to, and probably still did, love.
If only that Miku would wake up and greet Teto instead. And then maybe she could reassure her and tell her that everything that had happened– all of the fights and breakups and horrible words –had all been a nightmare, and reality wasn't as unkind as she'd been thinking.
Who am I kidding? That's not going to happen.
I still don't know who she is, the chimera thought. ‘Cuz I was way too focused on who she was not.
Teto grit her teeth. Thinking about all of this was going to give her a headache, and they still needed to solve the question of unlocking that door.
“Miku. Wake up. I wanna get out of here already,” the girl with the black horns said grumpily, head resting on her own hand.
The angel opened her eyes. The peaceful expression that had been her sleeping face moments earlier almost instantly turned into a wary scowl.
“Here to argue with me again?” the blue-haired girl asked mockingly, as she sat up, running her hands down her own twintails as she did so. “Hate to rain on your parade, but unless you suddenly had a change of heart about doing what the sign says, we're not getting out of here anytime soon.” With a careless shrug of her shoulders, she added, “I know you think I'm a horrible person and all, but you should be glad you're trapped in here with me instead of someone else. I'm not sure if it'd work anyway, but someone else would probably be trying to force a kiss on you right now.”
“Not doing that is the bare minimum of not being a horrible person,” the devil deadpanned, eyes narrowed.
“I know. But still,” Miku said, done with fixing her appearance by the time she finished saying these words. She looked at Teto with a visibly annoyed look. “Anyway, what do you want?”
The girl with the two black horns coming out of her head fidgeted, pressing her pointer fingers together nervously as she averted her blue eyes awkwardly.
“I'll do it,” she said simply.
There was a pause. The girl with the yellow halo looked surprised for a moment before a smile broke out onto her face.
A condescending smile.
“What's with the change of heart? Were you afraid of never escaping and dying in here?” the angel asked provocatively.
“The same thing would happen to you!!” Teto snapped, feeling her anger begin to rise up again, but Miku only snorted.
“As if. I knew you would come around eventually. Even you wouldn't be dumb enough to want to stay here forever when there's a pretty easy way to get out. Also, you're extremely weak-willed.”
“Again with the constant attacks on my character!” Teto growled, looking more irate by the second. “Seriously, you make me want to punch you in the face. But I hate violence…!!” She balled her hands into fists before bringing them to her own face again– something she had been doing a lot.
Miku only smirked as she continued to do what she usually did: effortlessly push Teto over the edge, as if the red-haired devil was her plaything.
“For someone who claims to hate violence, you sure get violent super duper easily. Are you sure you don't love it instead?”
“That's not how that works! Arghh! I hate you!!!” Teto half-shouted, her eyes filled with fury.
The smug expression on the angel's face disappeared when the red-haired girl suddenly aggressively grabbed her by the collar. Assuming that the other girl might suddenly headbutt her, a slight look of panic appeared on Miku's face, but it was too late to escape. She squeezed her eyes shut as she waited for that familiar stinging sensation to return to her body.
She had been stabbed by Teto's trident before multiple times and come out completely fine, but that didn't mean being stabbed didn't hurt like hell.
Rather than pain blossoming in her forehead and slowly spreading out from it, her eyes snapped open when she suddenly felt the sensation of Teto's lips on her cheek.
The devil had pulled the blue-haired girl closer by the collar and was now kissing her on the cheek with seemingly everything that she had. “Passionately”, it could be said, just like the sign wanted. (Miku wasn't sure if what she felt from the other girl was hatred or love though.)
There was a loud click sound that sounded throughout the entire white room (Miku assumed that was the door unlocking), but she was still too stunned to move. She knew a kiss had been coming, but that didn't mean she would still be able to act like normal once it finally happened, especially if it was like this.
After a few seconds of this, Teto quickly pulled away, her entire face red. It was more like she shoved Miku away though, but the angel didn't really care about the specific differences, too surprised by this entire situation.
The devil didn't stick around long for a reaction. After pushing Miku away, she quickly jumped to her feet and booked it out of the room, swinging the door open easily and disappearing out of it.
Miku was left in her wake, and the blue-haired girl brought a hand up to her cheek where Teto had kissed her and turned and stared at the door the other girl had just disappeared behind.
Amazing, she thought, as an amused smile appeared on her face once again. She really actually did it.
END