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It was a warm summer day at the Firelight base. An odd, brief moment of peace. Powder could feel the sun on her back and paint drying on her bare arms and hands as she tried to paint the newest mural. She let out a huff of breath, blowing away a strand of blue hair that had been obstructing her vision.
“It’s coming along well, huh?” Ekko said.
He was covered in paint too; green and blue stained his hands. In the bright sunlight he looked more handsome than ever, his soft brown eyes shining with a quiet joy. Powder glanced at his work with a sigh. He was always so good at this. His designs looked like real people, standing shoulder to shoulder in unison, surrounded by green firelights. Meanwhile, she had her scribbles.
“Ugh, mine looks stupid,” she grumbled. “I still don’t know why you wanted me to do this. I’m not good at it.”
“Bullshit,” he said. “I love your art.”
“It looks like a five-year-old’s.”
“No, it looks like yours.”
He rested his head on her shoulder, his arm around her waist, smearing her clothes with paint. Jinx felt almost uncomfortably warm, suddenly hyper aware of how good his body felt against hers. When had he started making her feel this way with every touch? When did all those unspeakable thoughts come from whenever she saw his smile? Was this just what growing up meant? They were both almost fifteen.
She told herself it didn’t matter how she felt. They were friends. Maybe they’d kissed before, a few times, but that hadn’t meant anything. She tried to back away, cursing her pale face for the blush that had no doubt overcome it.
“Do you just love everything I do?”
“Most things,” Ekko said, so genuine her heart almost skipped a beat. “You’re quite the impressive person, you know.”
“Don’t tease me like that, Ekko.”
“I’m not teasing you. I’m serious. You’re…”
His voice trailed off as he looked down. For a moment Jinx wondered if he was flustered.
“A jinx,” she finished, before he could say something stupid.
“I don’t hate that.”
The funny thing is that he really didn’t. He never looked away from her darker side. Sometimes she even thought he was attracted to her violence. That he found all of her fuck-ups endearing. Which was ridiculous. She had ruined his entire life, which was something he seemed to forget easily.
“You should.”
You should hate me. Any sane person would.
He cupped her cheek in his hand, and suddenly Powder couldn’t think. Breathing seemed an immense task.
“I don’t think I could ever hate you,” he said. “No matter what happened.”
And she was the one who moved forward. She moved as if in a trance, as if this was something predestined and inevitable. Her lips touched his before she even realized what she was doing.
But he kissed back. Hard, heavy. One of his hands was curled up in her hair, and suddenly she was back against the mural, his tongue inside her mouth. She could taste the paint that now covered both of them. It felt so good, and she realized this is what she’d been wanting all these years. This and more.
They broke apart. Powder couldn’t manage to string a sentence together. Instead, she just gawked at Ekko.
“I love you,” he said.
“Why?”
She certainly couldn’t imagine any good reason. Then again, her brain wasn’t exactly functioning in the moment.
“Why not?”
“I love you too,” she said. “I love you so much that if anything happened to you, I think I’d burn down the entire city.”
Ekko stared at her for a moment. Maybe that had been a bit much.
“Okay.”
“…does this mean I’m your girl now?” Powder asked hesitantly.
“Do you want to be my girl?”
He took her hand, something that had happened a hundred times before. But this felt different somehow. Better.
“Yes,” she said.
And for the first time in her life, she felt like she’d made the right choice.