and getting closer to him, just like Misaki had told her.
“What are you doing? It's disgusting!” Adam exclaimed shocked, wiping his mouth by the palm of his hand.
“Thanks,” Kira replied sarcastically. “I'm trying to help you and you're paying me back this way! Sorry, but I have never kissed any boy before! I was just following Misaki's advice.”
“Kira, please! Misaki's boyfriend is Tsutomu, he's just a heap of testosterone and rudeness.”
“That's right!”
“Kira, you know what we are up to, aren't you?”
“Of course I do.”
“We are never going to pair off like them.”
“I know it. That's why I thought that, to make our story more realistic, we should try to kiss each other in public at least, so we wouldn't look like strangers from that point of view,” Kira reminded him. She had spent three weeks studying all the details of their absurd plan, which would finally help his dear friend to get free from all the advances of the girls trying to seduce him (since Youra had left him) and from his father's searching and accusing eyes, as he wanted to see him with a girl.
“That's right, but please, close your mouth! I don't want to get your tongue stuck into my throat,” Adam begged her, feeling slightly disgusted, then he tried to kiss her once more.
Kira kept her lips shut this time, but they were soft and the kiss was successful, even if the magical atmosphere she had imagined had vanished some moments before.
“Your lips are wonderful, Kira-chan. But unfortunately you aren't the right one for me,” Adam sighed, moved by his only true friend's efforts. “I'm a bit sorry because thanks to our story, no other boy will be able to...taste you.”
Kira's cheeks turned suddenly bright red, but she was serious and ready to go on with the text she had planned for that day.
She knew that if she pretended to have a love story with gorgeous and greatly demanded Adam Gramell, she wouldn't have any other chance to start a true love story, but she didn't care, as she had understood that she wouldn't have time for that, because of his studies and a part-time job she was looking for. She didn't want to lose her place as the best student in her class, together with the tidy sum she was putting by for her journey to Princeton.
COMING BACK
Lucas
Princeton, Kentucky, September 28 th 2018
“One more stunt like that, and I'll suspend you from school, Lucas,” the headmistress shouted angrily. “I don't care if the new term has just started. I'm not going to stand your rash acts any more, is it clear?”
“Yes, it is,” I answered slowly, with a bored half-smile, while I tried to hold back my anger which wanted to burst out against those two bastards, Garcia and Setton.
My knuckles were grazed because of the punches I had given that morning, but it hadn't been enough to prevent them from whining and going to the headmistress.
I looked around myself and saw all the students taking distances from me and from that woman, who was as spineless as an invertebrate, but who was able at the same time to terrify those silly idiots.
I had got used to stirring fear and disgust: there were some people who considered me just what I was, dregs and rotten merchandise. For some others I was instead just a criminal on bail, but I was such a good fuck as to prevent half of the girls who had already come to bed with me, from holding back their lascivious panties.
However, I couldn't stand all that notoriety anymore and I suddenly started looking for a cigarette. I needed to get out from that hellish place and take a pair of drags, if I wanted to avoid shooting my head before the end of the lesson.
I searched the back pocket of my jeans. It was empty.
“Hell, I threw the packet away before the headmistress arrived!”
Feeling really annoyed and anxious because of the way that day had started, I rushed to the door. If I was lucky, I could get to the dormitory just in time, take a packet of cigarettes and go back to my classroom, before the bell rang.
While all the people there were still staring at me, I walked along the corridor, with my usual defiant look.
I was going to get into the hall, when a vision dazzled me. Well, it had to be a vision. It certainly was.
I was paralysed by what my eyes couldn't realize yet, so I stopped, staring straight in front of me, till her eyes crossed mine.
I felt struck like I had never been before, when I noticed her surprise and her overwhelming happiness, which made her drop her trolley to the floor.
I was shattered and almost terrified by that vision, which was making my brain go haywire, then I saw her curving that small heart-shaped mouth I had never forgotten. Just when I thought I was recovering from that shock, I found myself plunging my face into her dark and sweet-smelling hair, while she threw herself into my arms and dragged me closer to her.
To the middle of a hurricane whirl.
I was left breathless as soon as the soft smell of her skin got to my nostrils.
“Lucas,” she whispered in a broken voice, piercing through my mind and soul.
I thought I would explode. I had to keep grasping at my rationality to avoid sinking into the emotional storm which was making my heart beat till it blew up.
I shut my eyes to wipe away that devilish illusion but when I opened them again, I saw it. Really. For the first time in many years.
“I've been missing you so much,” I could just hear, being suddenly captured by her wood-green eyes stuck into mine with an adoring and sad shade, while I could feel her soft and warm hands slipping along my neck and stopping on my drawn and incredulous face.
Her fingers brushed gently my left eyebrow, where I had a scar, and she half-closed her eyes for a moment. Then she stared back at me and smiled, deeply moved.
“Kira,” I was able to utter in spite of my dry throat.
As soon as I heard my own words, I understood I was lost.
***
Kira
I couldn't believe I was so lucky.
Adam was right when he had taken me to the shrine the day before I left and had forced me to buy a good-luck talisman.
It was working!
If
