Benjamin Neith liked to think that he had good self restraint and that this self restraint was somehow a good thing in spite of the fact that he had recently stabbed a  yellow eyed physical manifestation that effectively proved that line of thought wrong. But habits died harder than Shadows did and even after his rescue, he found some of the personal restraints he laid on himself to be hard to break.Â
Case and point: Melody Barnes
It was safe to say that Benji had wanted to kiss Melody for months and the very thought was enough to send blood rushing to his cheeks. Three times he came extremely close to just biting the bullet and throwing caution to the wind but for one reason or another, he always had an excuse to hold himself back:
1) The first time was during a semi-regular outing to one of the arcades they frequented in the city nearby, she had pulled off a pretty stunning display of fighting game skill and completely buried him for the third game in a row. Her lips parted in a wide toothy smile as she teased him with a light bump on his shoulder (âAt this rate we would need to come here everyday for you to practice~â) The adrenaline from the game still pulsed through his body and for a moment he had a very good idea of how to get her to stop teasing him...but he quickly dismissed the idea because he wasnât going to be one of those guys who read more into a situation than they should have.Â
She was just being friendly: there was no need to make it weird.Â
2) The second time was in the heat of summer, lying back on the beach under the umbrella after getting dunked in the sand by a stray volleyball shot bouncing off his head. His head was buried in a magazine to keep his eyes from wandering over to Melody splashing around in the surf (she had caught his glance a few times earlier and Benjiâs heart nearly pounded out of his chest). Her boogie board dropped to the sand in front of him and he shielded his eyes from the sun as she all but pulled him to his feet, pushing him down the sand and into the surf where Logan and Adina were splashing around.Â
Something about the way her short, black hair stuck to her face, bits of sand sticking to the sunscreen on her skin suddenly conjured images of Baywatch and all the mouth to mouth that went with it.Â
But another volleyball slammed against the back of his head and Benji planted his lips on a clam in the sand instead.
3) The third time was mostly because he thought they were going to freeze to death.Â
She had invited him on one last ski run before the lifts closed for the day and of course that was when Mother Nature decided to rear her ugly head and white out most of the slope. They fought their way to an old maintenance shed off to the side of the run, barricading themselves against the outside as they waited for the snow to abate.Â
Of course it made sense to huddle together to conserve warmth and Melodyâs hands in his front jacket pockets were just there to take advantage of the hand warmers he had shoved down there (her fingers rubbing the back of his hand while they sat there was just a coincidence, clearly). But the longer they stayed in the shed and the more small talk they ran out of, the more Benji wondered if they were going to freeze out there before anyone saw them. He looked up at Melody who happened to swing her eyes around to catch his and for a moment, everything was absolutely quiet. One of her hands rested on his shoulder as he reached up to brush a lock of hair out of her face and for just a moment, he couldnât think of any reason he shouldnât just be completely honest with her.Â
Then the sound of Loganâs worried voice carried over the mountainside and the pair of them realized that they had to go grab Logan before he froze to death looking for them.
Soon after that, Benji had run out of excuses and soon enough, he found her warm, sweet lips pressing back on his as the realization that he had been completely wasting his time washed over him. In the scant few moments where the pair of them clung to each other soaked in warm spring rain, he kissed her for the time at the arcade, the time at the beach, the time at the skii resort. He tried to kiss her for every time he wanted to kiss her before that in a vain attempt to make up for all the time lost.Â
And whenever she asked why he would sometimes kiss her at odd times, he simply shrugged and replied that it was something he had always wanted to do.Â
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