First Kiss

The voting commenced soon after. Following the line of students in front of the temporary booths made of metal poles and plastic screens, I waited until my turn to vote came.

Cramped in the voting booth that felt like a toilet stall and constipated with thoughts, I took much longer than a normal student to choose between the candidates. I stood staring at the ballot, reading the two names on it as if they were incomprehensible to me. On the one hand, I wanted to support Mamie. On the other hand, I didn’t want her to win and sink deeper into the industry.

In the end, I still voted for Mamie. After all, it was her journey, up to her which path to take. If you love someone, let them become a hooker. That wasn’t how the saying should have gone, but I wanted something profound to think about.

As I made my way to the exit, my gaze briefly fell upon Hanawa-senpai, and she stared back at me with a nod. Her expression communicated something along the lines of “don’t you fucking tell me that you didn’t vote for me.” So I replied with a smile that said, “I didn’t, so what?” At least this was what I thought we were conveying to each other. It didn’t matter, because there ended the window for our brief interaction as I crossed the threshold to the corridor.

Someone leaned against the wall, waiting.

It was Mamie.

“Hey…”

I halted to her… greeting? Not sure what she was trying to get at. So after thinking and calculating for a few seconds, I replied in the best way I could come up with.

“Hey?”

Awkward silence. Probably not what I wanted, but it could be worse. Right? A few more seconds of Mamie’s eyes flicking around the space, and I could no longer stand it. “Gosh! We aren’t reuniting after ten long years. What’s with this atmosphere?”

This brought a smile to Mamie’s face. “Maybe a change of scenery would help.”

She took the lead even though she had no need to, because I already knew where she was going—the rooftop.

The moment the open air embraced us, she started talking like normal again, as if the earlier awkwardness had never happened. “My mom also attended this college in the past. From the bits and pieces that she’d told me, I could tell that she fell in love with this world at first sight.”

“And then?” I asked as we reached the balustrade.

“She fell in love with another. My late father.” She flung her gaze to a distant place in the city again. With the evening rush hour approaching, the number of strangers and vehicles on the streets had started to ramp up, but we were both too far away to be part of whatever this procession towards home was.

I stared at her, knowing what she was getting at. A prostitute cannot have a family or children. No laws forbade it, but it was impractical nonetheless.

“Since when have you known about this?”

“I don’t remember, but I think I overheard my mom talking about it when I was really young.” She turned to me with a rueful smile. The breeze brushing by seemed to sap away more heat than usual.

“Oh.” I reached for an embrace, but she shook her head.

“It’s fine. I talked it over with her. Thanks for pushing me to do that. I think we’re okay now.” She reached into her blazer pocket and produced a wrapped gift. “Mom is also very grateful to you.”

I received the present with both hands and a slight bow. “Thank you.” Something from a working adult. Possibilities twinkled in my head, and just thinking about the potential value of the gift put a sublunary grin on my face. No shame in that, because every broke college student would surely feel the same way.

“May I open it now?” Honestly, I was already silently praising myself for maintaining politeness. Upon the hint of Mamie’s head bobbing, I tore open the paper wrapping so I could feast my deprived eyes and greedy heart upon whatever expensive gift Mamie’s mom had given me. Maybe it could be the keys to an apartment or a sports car. Or whatever rich people would give to each other. Dinosaur teeth?

My whole body trembled.

It was…

It was a pair of handmade cotton gloves. Purple. With irregular patterns and out-of-place patches of color. Frayed ends popped from the surface of the handwear. Probably no one would want it even if it were given out for free. And to top it all off, the recorded temperature was currently 28 degrees Celsius on this Tokyo summer day.

I looked at her, and back to the gloves, and at her again. “Your mother certainly has… taste.”

“What? I knitted it. It’s my thank-you gift.” Mamie rubbed her hands together, and her gaze was dragged to the ground, as if bound by gravity.

Again, I looked at her blushing face, and back to the gloves that she had made, and at her once more.

“I love it.”

“You hate it.”

“No, I really love it.”

“I went to the same lectures as you. I know all your lying techniques.”

Fine, she won. That earned a deep sigh from me, and I tried the gloves on. A perfect fit. So perfect that it would have been creepy from another person, but from Mamie, it felt destined. “I really do appreciate the thought behind it. That isn’t a lie.”

A bright smile tugged at her lips as she looked back toward me. “I can see that.”

She cleared her throat. “As for Mom, she said she would be willing to lend you money to pay for your tuition, with no interest of course. Because you are leaving this college, right?”

“That’s right.” Even I was surprised that no hesitation remained in my voice.

“So that’s really true…” Her head drooped again.

I devoted all my attention to the girl before me, trying to decode what her every subtle movement meant. That shouldn’t have been an issue, for I had been trained for weeks for this. Did she want me to stay? And if she asked me to, would I do it?

She spared me the torture of coming up with something to say. “I’m going to stay in the college, even if I don’t get elected as the representative.” Maybe she hadn’t spared me, because this felt more like a mercy kill, putting me out of my misery. Hopes and desires flushed down the drain. And from how she whispered those words as softly as she could, barely audible to me, she must have realized how the declaration would have affected me.

Regardless, this was her choice. A choice that she made herself. I had no right to coerce her onto another path, and I loved her too much to do so.

I love her…

Oh no, the ache cut deeper than I thought it would. In response to that, I could only turn away, looking out towards the vast urban terrain. And suddenly, I understood the point of fixating one’s focus on things so far away. It was to make everything feel insignificant, small enough to hold in my grasp, and for different flavors of people to spread across my vision, so a moment wouldn’t exist where all was quiet and cold.

“Hey!” came a yell while she gripped my shoulders. Still, no idea what it could mean. But I had no time to ponder, as she forcefully rotated my body towards hers. “What are you crying for?”

“Nothing… Nothing! I’m not crying!” I sobbed.

“Shuntaro. Shuntaro. Look at me.” She switched to grabbing my cheeks instead, so that my face couldn’t hide from her piercing gaze. “I love you.”

“Huh?” Those three words probably had more impact on me than “I’m pregnant” would have. Could hallucinations be this vivid? Uncertain, I could only wait for Mamie to elaborate.

“I want to be your girlfriend. And I’m not just saying that to calm you down. Yes, I’ll stay in this place and complete the degree, but I will also apply for an exemption for any placements. So, I won’t cheat on you. That’s a promise.”

Did I hear that right? Vertigo flushed within me, but it only felt slightly unpleasant.

“Huh? Huh huh huh huh…” I tried to voice my thoughts, but Mamie’s hands still sandwiched my face, squishing my lips and stripping me of my language abilities.

“Oh, sorry.” Mamie freed my cheeks from her makeshift restraints, and I inhaled an exaggerated puff of air. Whether it was because of surprise, suffocation, or the desire for dramatic effect, I barely knew myself. My concerns lay elsewhere, parsing the meaning behind her declaration.

My lungs stilled and primed for questions of confirmation to burst forth from my throat. “Do you really mean that? Do you really want to be my girlfriend, as in one half of-”

Mamie didn’t even let me finish asking. “Yes. Yes. Yes. If you don’t believe what I say, believe this.”

Her fingers wrapped around my gloved hands, and her warmth seeped through the cotton layer. Or perhaps it was my own body heat. Whatever. Because her lips glided towards mine. Her eyelids slipped to a close, and mine shut after hers.

When we traded breaths and touched mouths as if clinking glasses of wine, the simple gesture made me feel more connected to her than ever, more so than we were having sex.

This was far from the first time we had kissed, as we had done that countless times in bed, but we never did that in public. Not that this awakened any exhibitionist tendencies in me. I hoped not. Maybe in simpler words, I guess I could say that this tasted like a first kiss.