Chapter 110. New Year’s Eve. The Dazzling Fireworks Explode, Start of a New Year. (2/6)

That’s it! The day Irene met me at my job. It was before that, right after I left for work. That was when things started to move behind the scenes.

Was it really a coincidence that Irene came to the convenience store on that particular day? No, it wasn’t, it was all coordinated. Everything was. She didn’t get lucky. She made contact with Rosa and was informed exactly where I worked.

Though she’d never visited me at work before, Rosa herself knew because I showed her when I had that phone call with the Owner.

Alicia knew where I worked, but I’d requested her not to reveal anything to anyone. Being the good girl she was, she wouldn’t tell anyone if she was asked, she’d just act like she didn’t know. That included her own mother and Rosa. She was just that good of a girl. Rosa had no need to ask her since she already knew from the beginning.

Damn it!

Checkmate.

It was… checkmate.

Alicia knew I heard her when I added the word ‘too.’

Her confession was thus received with her three simple words to me.

I was furious.

But at the same time impressed by the groundwork they’d laid out.

Such a loss.

A huge one.

I’d always remember this one.

There was nothing I could do though. I could only accept defeat.

There were no moves for me to play. I’d slowly been ensnared in a trap, ambushed and blindsided in the dark of night.

I had to accept her confession and return her love.

A loss was a loss.

I spun her around forcefully, raised my hand to pull down her hood as I simultaneously tore off the scarf wrapped around her neck which had obstructed her face.

Before me, stood a girl with her hair a mix between a light orange tint to blond. She wore a shocked expression on her face as her steel-blue eyes rippled with emotion.

She opened her mouth and said, “I was supposed to just confess quietly and leave without you ever realizing a thing. So… why? Why did you have to hear me! Why did you have to hear the words I so desperately didn’t want you to hear the most?” 

She’d just asked me something I could hardly believe. I doubted my own ears, it was that shocking to me, the words that came out of her mouth.

The normal smile on her face was nowhere to be found. She was holding back her tears, the pain in her heart. The guilt over what she’d just done ate away at her.

She’d really only come here to say it and never have her voice heard. Had she been convinced by Rosa to do it this way? Just how did Rosa convince her though? I knew the process to which I found myself here, but not the process by which Alicia found herself here.

I’d been confronted with a huge moral dilemma.

A giant miscalculation on my part.

The girl known as Alicia was someone I considered my exact opposite. I only ever thought about things rationally. I weighed my options. But what about her?

She was an irrational person who acted strongly based on her emotions. As a rational-minded person, could I truly understand her thoughts when they were irrational, to begin with? No, I might be able to do so to a certain degree, but when irrationality was involved there was no such thing as 100% certainty. There was always a small chance that things wouldn’t go the way I planned when someone completely irrational was involved.

As I already knew what she knew, what she was specifically aware of about me, I’d never anticipated this overly nice girl to do what she’d just done.

She knew I was Rosa’s boyfriend and now fiancé. I’d proposed right in front of her. So what words could Rosa say to her to yield an outcome like this?

I didn’t know.

The only thing I knew right now was the girl in front of me was ready to cry from the pins and needles stabbing into her heart. She’d resolved herself to have her love unrequited, only to suddenly hear the words ‘I love you too’ in return. It didn’t even include Rosa’s name at the end.

I could only do one thing here.

I opened my mouth, looked her in the eyes, and said calmly.

“I love you too, Alicia. Please go out with me.”

“Wha-”

I didn’t give her a chance to process my words or say anything in return. I pulled her close, wrapped my arms around her waist and back, then firmly kissed her on the lips. Her eyes were flustered, filled with shock.

She tried to push me away, but I didn’t allow it.

I’d lost.

A devastating, crushing defeat.

As such, I had to take responsibility for it.

To accept her feelings and make her mine even if it wasn’t something I was alright with. It was what my precious girlfriend requested. And though I call Alicia an enemy, I didn’t hate her at all. Rather than hate, I was quite fond of her. Her innocent pure smile, I didn’t want to see it disappear because of me. Thus, I’d protect it since I’d already lost.

Eventually, Alicia stopped resisting. Her body relaxed and slackened in my arms. When I felt that, my tongue slipped between her lips and coiled around hers. Her tongue jumped back to try and escape like a frightened rabbit when it came into contact with a foreign object it had never encountered before.

But I didn’t let her slip away and pinned it to the roof of her mouth where she could escape. When she realized she couldn’t avoid it, the initial struggle her tongue put up died down as she allowed her tongue to be embraced, though still somewhat bashful.

She didn’t make any moves of her own and allowed me to do as I pleased. Our saliva swapped between our mouths. She didn’t seem to dislike it.

When I cracked open my eyes a bit, I noticed Alicia’s face was illuminated with a variety of different colors as a result of the fireworks going off. My face was likely the same. In her half-open eyes that stared back into my own, I could see a hint of infatuation. The fireworks were reflected in her clear mirror-like eyes, making hers seemingly glitter amidst the darkness.

I couldn’t help but pause my actions and admire her steel blue eyes, they’d drawn me in.

When I stopped my actions I felt her tongue shyly poke mine as if embarrassedly asking me in a polite fashion to continue.

I found her action too cute and couldn’t help but forcefully pull her tongue out into my mouth. It was like I was inviting a girl into my room and she was entering a boy’s room for the very first time.

Her body stiffened up in fright. Where was this foreign place? Her tongue was nervous being a foreign land it had never been before. She quickly pulled her tongue back.

I didn’t chase after her though. Would she work up the courage to chase, that was what I was most curious about.

After a little while as if she missed the partner that made her feel good, her tongue peeked out a bit and took in its surroundings. The tip of her tongue brushed against my lips as it cautiously ventured ever closer to that foreign land in search of her partner.

I opened a gap up which her tongue discovered and approached warily. She peeked inside the hole and felt around slowly familiarizing herself with the layout inside. Once she felt comfortable enough she advanced a bit further until the tip of her tongue poked my own.

Hey, are you awake?

Another poke.

Wake up.

When there was no movement, she let hers rest on top of mine before it slid off to the side and lifted mine up.

Come on. Get up already. I’m lonely and cold out here.

She wanted to be embraced, hugged, and warmed up.

Seeing her adorable actions, I couldn’t help but respond in an appropriate fashion. My tongue curled around hers to embrace it tightly. She reciprocated and followed my lead.

The friction between our tongues generated additional heat. The strings of saliva connecting us were heated up by each breath we took. We were breathing in each other’s breaths in a circular fashion to keep our mouths insulated. We occasionally took in some fresh air through our noses. But each time we exhaled that cold air had turned hot and steamy.

With it being her first time kissing so passionately, it was hard for her to keep this up.

Her right cheek was red from the cold wind blowing against us. Seeing as such I moved my right hand from behind her and placed my palm against her side to shield her from the wind and warm her up. I rotated our bodies to protect her further.

She seemingly understood my intentions and started to melt from a sweet sensation slowly spreading through her heart. She pressed her body even closer to mine until there wasn’t a single gap. I stroked her cheek softly and gently caressed her ears with my fingertips.

Feeling that sensation her eyes fully shut as her defense hit rock bottom. Any sort of wall between us seemingly crumbled in that instant. At this moment, she couldn’t care to think about anything aside from the strange sense of momentary happiness she felt.

On yet another cold night like any other in this tundra-like city, two tongues were entangled in a heated back and forth struggle under the colorful flowers blooming in the night sky.

Only when those fireworks ceased did the two tongues part as though awaking from a long dream.