Better Than Wine (5)
Seated on the bench and nibbling a strawberry cone, she glanced to the side. Seoyeon sat close enough that their shoulders nearly brushed.
In her hand, for the record, was a matcha ice cream.
They had wandered here and there all afternoon, finished an early dinner, and happened upon an ice cream stall. Buying a cone each and finding their way to a nearly deserted park near home — that had been only a moment ago.
"Here. Have some."
Perhaps sensing the look, Han Seoyeon smoothly held out the ice cream in her hand. She had clearly decided the gaze meant a craving for matcha, or at least a curiosity about the flavor.
In truth, Hitomi had only been looking that way with no particular thought at all...
"Ahh."
Still, there was no reason to refuse a rare bit of kindness, so she took a bite.
"...Ugh."
At once her face pinched at the chalky bitterness peculiar to matcha.
She lifted her eyes to Seoyeon's face. The look asked, plain as anything, what on earth this was supposed to taste like. Bitter, and chalky. She had definitely eaten something cold, and yet there was hardly any of that crisp, refreshing coolness to it.
Seeing the expression, Seoyeon chuckled.
"Not quite to your taste, I take it? I've seen you drink matcha before, though."
"No, the matcha was at least a liquid, so it was sort of fine. This is seriously... bleh."
Hitomi stuck her tongue all the way out to complain. Her face showed no sign of easing; it really had not agreed with her. As if trying to cancel the taste out somehow, she licked at her own ice cream again and again.
"What's the matter? Surely you don't want another bite."
And yet Hitomi kept stealing glances Seoyeon's way. She went on throwing looks over with the air of someone turning something over in her head, and Seoyeon tilted hers once more. After a reaction like that, there was no way she wanted another mouthful.
While Seoyeon puzzled over it, Hitomi seemed to reach a decision and took an enormous bite of her ice cream.
"Mnnnngh?!"
"...Hitomi? What on earth are you doing?"
The cold flooding her mouth sharpened into pain and clubbed her in the skull. She squeezed her eyes shut and trembled all over. Ninomae Hitomi opened her mouth and huffed, haah, hoo, trying desperately to draw a little warmth back in. What had she actually been trying to do? Han Seoyeon's sheer disbelief was only natural.
Even so, Hitomi tugged at Seoyeon's sleeve, demanding she look this way. Between her parted lips sat a half-melted pink lump of strawberry, and the lump seemed to squirm and heave along with her tongue.
"Hnn."
"Yes?"
"He... re."
She tried to get something across like that, but the sounds leaked out of her badly. Before long Hitomi gave up on making herself understood.
"So what exactly are you— mmph?!"
Instead she hauled Han Seoyeon in hard and pressed their mouths together.
She pushed her tongue in and passed over the ice cream she had been holding. The cool kiss tasted sweet, and somehow chemical. Seoyeon startled at first, then answered in kind, working her tongue — and whether she was licking the ice cream or going after Hitomi's, only she herself would ever know.
The ice cream had melted sticky, and because of it the wet sounds came thicker and sloppier than usual. Tongues wrapped in cold kept clinging together, each demanding the other's warmth.
That, of course, was only a matter of the mouth. May was nearly at its end, and taken as whole bodies, neither of them was anywhere near needing the other's heat. So if the two of them were holding on, it was only because each wanted the other herself.
"Mmm... haa, nnh..."
Pink liquid, gone translucent where it mixed with saliva, slipped out between their lips. By the time it ran as far as a chin, it was completely lukewarm.
"Eek?!"
Lukewarm, though, only by comparison with how it had started. When the cool liquid dropped onto her chest, Hitomi flinched hard. She jerked back in a hurry, their lips parting, and the lump of ice cream — slick with spit, yet still about the size of a little fingernail — fell onto her chest a second time.
"Auuu..."
Hitomi sighed as if at a loss. With a chest this size, it wasn't rare for something she was eating to end up down there... The trouble was that today, unlike usual, the tops of her breasts were bare.
"Here. I have a handkerchief."
"Nnh, thank you."
Red-faced, Hitomi accepted the kindness. She even lamented under her breath that it had gone into the gap, and carefully wiped her skin.
"...Why the sudden kiss? And with ice cream still in your mouth."
Han Seoyeon had been staring blankly into that alluring valley. She came back to herself a beat too late, looked away, and changed the subject, doing her utmost to pretend she wasn't conscious of the sight at all.
"...If the matcha taste stays in your mouth, Shion, it'll be a problem later, when I want to kiss you. S-so I was trying to neutralize it ahead of time..."
That was the answer that followed, in a voice shrinking as it went. Whether it had caught her off guard or not, Seoyeon was left speechless, and silence fell again.
"F-for that reason, you say?"
"Nnngh! Yes! When I'm with you, Shion, I turn into someone who wants to kiss you way too easily! Are you only going to be satisfied once I've said something this embarrassing out loud?!"
In the end Hitomi couldn't endure the shame, and she shouted.
"......"
Han Seoyeon didn't answer. She simply took a bite of her ice cream. Hitomi decided she must have grown embarrassed too, at the thought of keeping a conversation like this going.
"...Hitomi."
"Y-yes."
"The matcha taste is in my mouth again."
"H-huh?! W-wait. Shion, you don't mean just now you—?!"
It didn't take long to learn that she had been mistaken. The moment Han Seoyeon's words continued, Ninomae's eyes went wide.
There is a thing people do when they have nothing to say and feel awkwardly out of place — sipping tea over and over for something to do with their hands. What Seoyeon had done a moment ago had been nothing of the kind.
Han Seoyeon stared straight into Hitomi's eyes. Hitomi felt her face flare red all over again... and this time, she didn't look away.
"W-well, it can't be helped. Yeah. It can't be helped."
With a faintly trembling hand she brought the cone to her mouth. Another bite. At once her gaze shifted to Seoyeon, she overlapped their lips, and took a bite of those as well.
......♥
The wet sound rang out again.
It might have been a little too bold an act for somewhere so open... but Han Seoyeon showed no sign of minding their surroundings. Her sense of smell had already confirmed there was no one nearby. And Hitomi? From long before — from the moment she first planned the kiss — she had already scattered her familiars to check the area. She was, past any hope of denial, a premeditated offender.
"Ah..."
Once the ice cream in her mouth had melted away entirely, Hitomi let out another regretful sigh and slowly drew her lips back. But she immediately bit into the cone again and filled her mouth. By now she had abandoned even the original excuse of neutralizing the matcha.
She pushed the ice cream into Seoyeon's mouth once more, and together they melted it down and finished it off. Sweet liquid mixed with each other's saliva and went down their throats in gulp after gulp.
"...Haa, nnh... it's, all gone."
"...Ah. Yes. So it is..."
The exchange went on until the ice cream Hitomi had been holding was nothing but a cone. All they had done was sit and eat ice cream, and yet both of them were breathing a little hard.
Nibbling the soggy cone, Hitomi let her head drop against Han Seoyeon's shoulder.
"Uuu, I know it's a strange time to bring this up, but that was incredibly perverted of us, wasn't it...?"
"W-well... mm, it depends on how you look at... nnn."
Han Seoyeon fumbled the words. That she didn't deny it outright made it plain she felt much the same.
"It's all right. At the very least, I was just as lost in it."
By way of comfort, such as it was, she said so while gently drawing an arm around Hitomi's shoulders. But Hitomi stayed leaned against her and murmured on.
"No. But... uuu, that isn't where it ends."
"What do you mean by that?"
"......"
Han Seoyeon asked again, but Ninomae Hitomi fell silent once more. Instead she only nuzzled closer and let herself be held.
"No. It's nothing. Let's go home."
I wanted to do something even more perverted. Yeah... there's no way I can say that.
Only after a long while did Hitomi gather herself and get to her feet. Evening had only just set in, but they had been out walking a long time, and dinner was already done; heading back soon would be fine.
"Yes. Shall we head home, then?"
Han Seoyeon smiled at her words, bright and easy, and held out a hand. She didn't seem to have guessed even a little of what Hitomi was really thinking.
That was fine. She didn't need to know yet. Hitomi clasped that hand tight.
Not now. Not here. Right.
Seoyeon's warmth came through her palm. A worry rose with it — that her pounding heart might travel through their joined hands. Not here and now. First, once they were home. Hitomi drew a deep breath.
Today, you're definitely crossing the line, Ninomae Hitomi...! You're already wearing the underwear you set aside for this! Your resolve is at full strength!
And so the little animal who wanted to be a beast of prey steeled her will.
