five times kissed!!! -theflowergiirl
The Five Times They Kissed : Raph x Violet
@theflowergiirl
The first time, it was in a grocery store. They were just friends, they needed things for dinner, and someone started hitting on her. So he took her hands and he kissed her he pretended they were dating for the rest of the day. What he never told her was how warm it felt. How her lips felt against his, how long it had been since anyone had made him feel as though he could very well light on fire. What he never told her was that it wasn’t just a kiss, it was a beginning.
But she figured it out, and when he told her he liked it, she agreed, and he felt all the more confident, because here he was, about the beginning of something special, at the beginning of something new. Here he was feeling when he’d spent so many years not wanting to feel. Here he was, enjoying that state of being able to feel. Here he was, learning how to care. The first time they kissed, he learned to care for her.
The second time, it was at their shared apartment. He’d made dinner and she’d gotten all their blankets and pillows out and piled them on the couch. They watched a movie, minds on nothing but each other. It had taken him but one kiss to get addicted and like every addict, nothing could relinquish his desire, he wanted to feel her against him one more, wanted to kiss her properly and alone, wanted to make it mean something because in this world, meaning was so hard to find.
He finished his dinner and waited for her to finish as well, waited for bowls to be stacked together on the cheap coffee table. They’d gotten closer and closer, until they were sharing a blanket, sharing a pillow, and then, as if by telepathic signal, had begun without words. This time, this was no tense, fake kiss in a grocery store, this was no act to get something done, this was a real kiss with real emotions and real heart and real love…
And he couldn’t take it, the second time they kissed, his pulled away and shut down while she wept, because his heart was a broken one and broken hearts aren’t meant to share warm, whole kisses, broken hearts aren’t meant to carry love within them. Broken hearts were meant to flounder of dream of healing, and he had not yet learned such a dream had the potential to come true, and so, the second time they kissed, he learned vulnerability.
The third time they kissed, there was no calculation behind it, no thought or longing or hesitation. The third time, they came together in a fit of hot passion, and he remembered the heat of her against his skin, he remembered the way he wanted to covered every part of her in kisses, and yet to draw away for a moment was to let his heart’s fire go out and settle into a pile of ash and dust on the floor.
There was no more weeping, no more overwhelming anxiety to crush him and pull him away, just the two of them, a boy and a girl in love. He pulled her close, as close as he could, and in the end, when it was done, he kissed her goodnight, and for the first time in forever, he slept the night while she was at his side, calm and happy and everything he had never been before. Because he had her. The third time they kissed, he learned joy.
The fourth time they kissed, it was mindless. It was a sunny afternoon, light streaming in from the windows through soft white curtains, and he was sitting at the table working, still in pajamas, head buried in a story. She was always on his mind, but only at the back of it that day, as he researched a house the was famous for the many murders that had taken place over the years inside. They called it the Murder House.
It was almost to the last family to die there when she came from their room, it was no long his, leaned over his shoulder, and kissed him good morning, or good afternoon, rather. He smiled and kissed her back, touched her face gently, felt her soft skin between his fingers. It was beautiful, so warm and soft and perfect, and he had never been so at peace in his life. Never felt so good to be with someone.
What was it? The strange feeling that pulsed through his veins and steadied his heart and hands, the strange thing that made him smile whenever he saw something that reminded him of her, the rush that filled him when he saw her in person. What was this new things that was touching him so profoundly? What was it? He had never had it before. The fourth time they kissed, he learned love.
The fifth time they kissed was the last time. She stood on one side of the threshold, and he stood on the other, and though it was only the door frame to his apartment, there may have been an unbreakable barrier between them, allowing only emotions to leech through. He could feel her and yet he could not at the same time, and his eyes matched hers in the way tears stained them.
He needed to defy, and so he leaned across the barrier and he kissed her, in the purest way, simple and short, before he was back on his side, and she was back on hers. It would be the last time. Because he was a living boy with stars in his eyes. And she was a dead girl who had come back for one last reprise. When the door shut between them, it was the last they would ever see each other, and yet she would be in his heart forever.
Because he loved her, he loved that she had taught him to care, that she had taught him to be vulnerable, that she had taught him to feel joy. That she had taught him love. He would never forget her for the rest of his life, and ever day, he would fee empty because she was gone. He didn’t need to live it to know it. That life without her was life without true living.
The fifth time they kissed, he learned pain.