The First Kiss
At first, it was urgent. As if I had to put out this fire that had latched onto my heart right away or I’d go insane. Then… gradually slower. Not too fast, so we could get to know each other better.
“Haa. Smooch. Slurp. Haa. Smooch. Smooch. Haa. Haa. Suck.” Our tongues moved, tasting the inside of each other’s mouths. Every time my niece opened her lips, that pink cat’s tail flicked and swayed. The sweet temptation I had always wanted to grab and keep. Clumsy as she was, my niece tried her best to match my movements. When I brushed her palate, she twitched. When I touched the inside of her cheek, she trembled. When our tongues tangled, she shook. The strength drained from the hands that had been clutching my back. In return, I pulled the swaying girl tighter into my arms.
“Smooch, haa. Haa.” My niece’s lips parted slightly again. Unlike the confident way she had pounced on her uncle, her breathing was ragged now. Tears even welled up in her eyes.
“This… this… haa. What are you doing, Uncle? Who told you to kiss your niece like this? I thought my heart was going to stop.”
“I’m the one who got pounced on while just standing there.”
I pretended to check her pulse and stroked the nape of her neck. Her skin was so pale and clean that I wondered if white powder would come off on my fingers. Blue veins showed through like fresh seaweed. ‘Now I understand why vampires bite the neck.’ If she allowed it, I wanted to leave a beautiful trail of kiss marks right there.
“If you were going to kiss me, you should have dodged. Turned your head so our lips wouldn’t touch.”
Saliva trailed down from the corner of my niece’s mouth. I couldn’t tell if it was mine or hers. When I licked it with the tip of my tongue, her body jerked in surprise.
“Ha, haah. Y-you startled me. Haa.”
“Sorry if I surprised you.”
“If you keep doing this, you’re going to get punished, Uncle.”
Even while grumbling, she showed no sign of pulling away. I didn’t let go of her either.
“But, Uncle… just in case, I have to ask. My nose isn’t bleeding, right?”
“Why all of a sudden?”
“Just… I’ve never felt my heart pound this hard before. I got worried. You know, in movies, people kiss and then their nose starts bleeding and stuff.”
I reached out and pinched her nose lightly, as if stopping a nosebleed. “Huh.”
“What? What is it?”
I gave her nose another little squeeze. “Don’t tell me you actually got a nosebleed?”
She looked up at me anxiously, her voice nasal. I couldn’t help but laugh. Once she realized I was teasing, she started hitting my chest with her fists, grumbling. It had been a long time since I smiled this freely. Something warm, like a gentle breeze, stirred in a corner of my heart. The anxiety that had been pressing down on my chest… faded. The pressure that had been choking my throat loosened.
Smooch. Smooch. Heavier than pecks now, lighter than full kisses. Our lips met again and again, filling the house with soft, pleasant sounds. Smooch. Another smooch. After several kisses, my niece clung to me. Her long hair tickled the nape of my neck.
“Now that I think about it, Uncle… you must have kissed other women besides me. Of course you have. That’s why you’re so good at it.”
“……”
When I stayed silent, she poked my chest with her index finger. “Tell me the truth and I’ll forgive you. How many kisses have you had before me?”
“I… don’t really know. I never counted.”
“What? So kisses were that casual for you? I was counting every single one we just did.”
“The first one is different, but once a man and woman become lovers… they do it almost every day. Too many to count.”
“Fine. Then who was your first kiss? Don’t tell me it was that woman?”
“My first kiss… was with my sister. No, it wasn’t even a kiss. Just a peck.”
Whenever my sister came home from school or had something to brag about, she would give her little brother a peck on the cheek or lips. I remembered always looking for ways to make her happy just to earn that sweet reward.
“That’s just normal sibling affection. Don’t count that. You’re smart, so why are you pretending? You know exactly what your niece wants to hear.”
“There’s no point in hearing about my old girlfriends.”
Min-a used to ask about every single one too. Even when I asked why she cared, she never answered.
“I’m curious. What kind of people you’ve met. Whether any of them are still clinging to you. Actually, I already know one.”
My niece shifted her position. While talking about her aunt, she looked me in the eye and smiled. Her expression was full of confidence, as if to say, “Look who’s sitting on your lap right now.”
“If we’re only talking about kisses… it was a girlfriend I met in college.”
“What was she like?”
“Just… someone I dated while I was in school. It’s been over ten years.”
“How did it happen? How did you kiss her? Like we just did?”
“If it was like us… does that mean she pounced on me?”
Instead of answering, my niece pinched me. We stayed pressed together, bickering, then returned to the topic.
“On the way home after class… she told me to close my eyes because she had something to give me.”
“And then? And then?”
Why was she listening to my old love stories with such interest? I didn’t understand.
“If she had something to give, why make it complicated? Why tell me to close my eyes… I thought.”
“Liar! You must have had some idea. A girl tells you to close your eyes and you think she’s going to steal your wallet?”
“I don’t know. I’m still an idiot now, but I was even more of one back then. And then… I got hit just like you did.”
“How? Did she grab your head like I did?”
“She grabbed my neck.”
“And then? What happened next?”
“After that… I walked her to her house and went home. I had to keep my scholarship, so I didn’t have time. There were a few benefits because I was from a single-parent household and low-income, but I didn’t want to take money just because we were poor. It hurt my pride. I wanted to earn it myself through hard work.”
What was the point of listening to my old stories? Why did she want to know how I spent time with other women?
“Ugh… next. No, what about that woman? How did you kiss her?”
“Hey!”
No matter how our relationship had changed, I couldn’t bring myself to tell the girl I had just been kissing with tongues about how I used to kiss her aunt.
“Why? Was it so awful you can’t even say it out loud?”
“It was just… normal. We kissed normally, okay?”
“Was she your first kiss? Makes sense. With that temper, who would have dated her? She has no friends, right? It’s obvious just looking at her. She’s the kind of trash who blackmails people with money.”
Whenever Min-a came up, my niece’s language turned vicious. I gave her a light flick on the forehead. I told myself it was because Min-a was the subject between us, but I still couldn’t let her speak so harshly. I had a duty to raise my niece into a proper person.
‘At the point we kissed… wasn’t it already irreversible?’ From the moment I showed her my desire. From the moment we kissed and she clutched my back… But still. Even so. I wanted my niece to grow up right. Even if our relationship was something we had to set aside, I wanted her to become a good kid. A good person.
“Anyway, huh? How does that woman kiss? Does she twist her body all over? Or do her legs shake? Tell me so I can use it as reference next time I kiss you, Uncle.”
“I’ll lend you my laptop. Go find kissing scenes yourself.”
“Tch.”
My niece, who had been sitting on my thigh, shifted her hips as if uncomfortable. To hide the change that had happened while we were kissing, she awkwardly leaned her waist back.
“Stay still. I’m going to fall.”
“Get down now. You’re heavy.”
“‘Get down’ is informal. If you ask nicely, I’ll listen.”
“Please get down. You’re heavy.”
“I don’t feel any sincerity in that request. Hmm… If you kiss me one more time, I’ll get down.”
Smooch. I kissed her on the cheek. She still didn’t move from my lap.
“Is that a kiss? Not that. The other one.”
Next came the lips. She still didn’t budge. In the end, she clung to me again. This time, though, she was clearly better at matching the rhythm. Smooch, smooch. I gave her a moment to breathe, then kissed her again. Smooch, smooch. When I opened my eyes slightly, she had hers tightly shut, breathing hard. I moved my tongue in time with her. Only after an even longer, even sweeter kiss did she finally pull away, looking satisfied.
“Still, Uncle. Kissing me is much better than kissing that woman, right?”
A bright smile returned to my niece’s face.
“……Yeah. So now get down.”
“Good night. Oh, tomorrow—no, today. You’re not going to work today, right?”
“Yeah. Rest today.”
“Then play with me, Uncle. It’s to celebrate your niece’s first kiss.”
Even though she already knew the answer, she insisted on hearing her uncle say it.