Our Last Days as Children

[Nayt]

It was almost like time slowed down when Eld got closer and closer to her. She could feel his lips against hers and she remembered the excitement she felt from the first time.

It felt like a spark, followed by a wave of euphoria. Etsu returned Eld's kiss, giving in to the urges she had earlier in the day--urges she'd ultimately forced out of her head and disregarded to the very best of her abilities. Back then, back when they were modeling, she wanted to kiss Eld passionately. She really, really did. So now they were alone (she was pretty sure), and it didn't really matter if they were or were not. She didn't have anything else on her mind. Not even limitations. She'd all but forgotten that Eld and she could not be together under Eld's current circumstances. She'd forgotten about anyone that could be hurt by this.

And with none of that on her mind, she kissed Eld passionately--at least as passionately as she could manage. She draped her arms around his shoulders and held onto him, holding him there against her.

They certainly weren't nearly as dexterous in kissing as they were back at the lake--but then again, they were a little more aware of themselves back then . . .

[Zach Kaiser]

To Eld, there was only the kiss; he was incapable of thinking about why they hadn't done this again sooner, or where this might lead. Simple as he was right now, he only enjoyed the feeling of Etsu's lips pressed against his.

While for the most part he also couldn't notice that he wasn't quite as good at this drunk as he was sober (and he also wasn't entirely aware he was drunk), that something was wrong became evident when, due to forgetting to breathe through his nose, he was forced to break the kiss sooner than he would have liked and gasp for air.

He made something of a happy humming noise as he caught his breath, too.

[Nayt]

Etsu felt perfectly content just laying there, pinned by Eld, with his lips down against hers. She was in no way better than she was back at the lake--which was only slightly better than the way she was now. Having minimal experience with kissing, she wasn't too great at it. Regrettably, though, Eld pulled back eventually, just to breath. Silly. He had a nose. He could have breathed through that. She was certainly doing it.

And suddenly, that revelation was absolutely mind blowing. But moving on . . .

"Tsukimono-kun?" Etsu asked for his attention.

Prior to leaning up to place another quick kiss on his lips, of course. She could have kissed him all day. Why hadn't she, anyways? What reason had she not kissed Eld all day? In fact, why hadn't she done that yesterday or the week before or anything like that? Honestly, their rooms were right next to each other.

That, however, was almost entirely irrelevant to what her main train of thought was, which was all the way back to the lake again, and stirring about something that happened back then. Something dealing with Eld, what he did to her, and what she did in return. Which was nothing. She'd just fallen asleep.

"Why did you not have sex with me?" she asked bluntly.

[Zach Kaiser]

"Ehhh?" Even intoxicated, that question seemed strange to him. Though less embarrassing, and still worth an answer. This required some thought, though, and some recollection, neither of which were coming easily to him at the moment.

"I can't really remember," he confessed at last, "but...probably because...I thought you didn't want to?" This was more of an educated guess than anything. Etsu was really pretty and really sweet. He was fairly certainly he would have sex with her, given the chance. Which meant the only reason they didn't must have been because she didn't want to! Or at least because he thought she didn't want to, and she didn't correct him.

[Nayt]

"Oh," was all she said.

That's odd. There must have been some sort of grave miscommunication between them way back then, because she was quite sure that Eld could have convinced her to do just about anything with him. Really, he just needed to make the suggestion and it would've been done.

"I think I would have," she replied after a second of thought, "I do not know why I did not. Did you not ask? I am sure I would have said yes."

Which was really quite an understatement. Wow! Now that she thought about it, Eld could have asked her to do just about anything and she'd have done it! Well, as far as the topic of their discourse was concerned. And so long as it wasn't completely unnatural. Not one to keep her thoughts silent when under the influence, Etsu thought aloud.

"I think I would have done anything you asked," she said, "Actually, I do not think you asked for anything at all. Why did you not ask for anything?"

[Zach Kaiser]

"Hmmmm..." Eld frowned in concentration, trying to remember. It was a good question, after all, as he certainly would have liked to be touched by a girl. For some reason he got the impression it happened less than it used, though he couldn't recall why.

"I guess...because...I didn't think you would?" Which was certainly dumb sounding now, since clearly she would have! In a rare flash of insight, he recalled a reason that he didn't. "It was your first time doing anything and all...maybe I thought it would be...overwhelming?"

That didn't sound like a particularly good reason either, but it was the best he could come up with.

[Nayt]

"Oh."

That was silly. Why did he think she would not be ready? Or would be overwhelmed? She was more overwhelmed by what he did to her more than anything she could have ever done to him! That would have presented her with infinitely less new sensations and the like, and probably led her to be somewhat more calm in the months to follow. But no, that is just not how things happened.

"Well," she said, starting off a bit blunt, then trailing off as she-- in a rare show of sense --thought her sentence over. Except that she found it to be perfectly okay. "I am not very tired. Do you want me to do anything?"

Which continued to be a lie. That she was tired, that is, not that she was willing to fool around. That was actually true. She'd already said it herself back when they were eating dinner: she'd pretty much been willing to fool around for months. Just for some reason or another, she hadn't. Which was really disappointing, in hindsight, but oh well. There was always tonight, right?

[Zach Kaiser]

For a moment Eld was confused. "Like wha-oh, right." Then he remembered what they were talking about. It was sure confusing to talk about sexual things in such vague terms sometimes. He wondered why people did that.

This answer was significantly easier to find than previous ones. Sex had been on his brain ever since their conversation had turned to the night by the lake, and kissing Etsu had definitely caused a stirring down south.

"Yeah, I would like that very much."

[Nayt]

A lot of things happened between them following that. These things were likely to never be mentioned again, partly because of their morally questionable nature and partly because neither Eld nor Etsu were likely to remember the bulk of that night. This, in part, had much to do with the fact that someone, thinking they were a newlywed couple, brought champagne to their room, which only enhanced their likelihood of remembering nothing beyond their dinner. And probably just the middle of their dinner, too. They'd already gone overboard by then . . .

That being said, Etsu was unpleasantly surprised when she awoke to find herself sprawled up against the corner of an unknown bathroom, clad only in her underwear and a mostly unbuttoned shirt that didn't even belong to her, and stricken with the worst headache she'd ever felt in her life.

She raised her hand to clutch her skull, and for a moment was satisfied with just that. Then her stomach did a few somersaults and she decided right then and there that she needed to assume the position of prayer before an ivory idol--a task which demanded she grasp at the walls, try to pull herself up, almost succeed, fall harshly upon her bottom instead, and commence the act of crawling to the other side of the bathroom, where she was so graciously greeted with the upchuck dispenser of her dreams.

[Zach Kaiser]

The first thing he was aware of, before anything else, was that his head was pounding. That sensation took precedence over everything, and he spent several minutes trying various positions to make it feel better. While it didn't work, he eventually began to take stock of his surroundings.

This...isn't my room. Where the hell am I? Had it not been for the very real pain coursing through his skull he would have passed it off as some kind of oddly real dream and fallen back asleep. As it was, he could not deny he was very definitely not in his room nor any other room he was familiar with. This was unsettling.

While no answer immediately popped into his head, he realized that he was definitely dehydrated. There was a door off to the side that he suspected lead to a bathroom, but when he approached it he realized it was occupied.

He leaned against the wall next to it with a groan. He wasn't sure why a bathroom connected to some kind of bedroom that he'd slept in was occupied by another, but at the moment thinking about anything was painful. All he could do was try and resist the hurting while waiting for whoever was in there to come out...

[Nayt]

Eld would probably hear a number of truly horrible sounds coming from the bathroom as he waited. A lot of groaning and a lot of heaving, specifically. A lot of pain, too. But it was very familiar pain. Eld, as a doctor's apprentice, was probably no stranger to the sounds of violent, potentially projectile vomit.

Not long after, though, the toilet would be heard flushing, following by a long drawn out period of the water running--ultimately ending with someone crawling from the toilet to the door, throwing it open, potentially hitting Eld in the face with it, and mindlessly crawling out. Eld would soon find this person to be Etsu, who was not only without pants, but was in a button down shirt that wasn't even her's, all the way buttoned down and exposing her in a terribly immodest way, but Etsu sincerely gave not a single damn right now.

Unless otherwise interrupted, she planned only to crawl to bed, crawl into bed, throw a pillow over her head, and do her best to forget she was currently alive. Or that her stomach was still on a rollercoaster. Or that she was able to reasonably understand rollercoasters for the first time in her life, based entirely on how her stomach felt right now.

[Zach Kaiser]

"Hwa-!" Twitch reflexes allowed Eld to get his arms up just in time to avoid being slammed in the face with the door, as the person inside was not being terribly careful while exiting, which was understandable he supposed from what he heard inside.

A familiar figure climbed into the bed, but Eld was too intent on entering the bathroom to give it much mind at the moment. He downed a few glasses of water and splashed some on his face for good measure. It was only then, as his senses were starting to be able to process more than pain and what was necessary to alleviate it, that he realized who he'd passed.

"Etsu?" he asked as exited the bathroom. Things were starting to come back to him...he'd been in Galaens with Etsu, she'd gotten him into some ridiculous photo-shoot thing...

[Nayt]

"Urrrmmmmmm," Etsu groaned.

She recognized the voice. Regrettably. Well, not that she recognized it, but that it was there. It was terribly loud and booming and all the hell around her and she really wanted it to go away right now. Her head hurt so much, it felt like a pin drop would prompt it to explode.

"Whaaat," she whined, sounding about as miserable as Eld felt right now.

Then she finally recognized that it was Eld's voice, and that he was there in the room with her. Why was he there with her? Oh, wait . . .

. . . oh, no.

[Zach Kaiser]

"Etsu...why are you wearing...?" He trailed off. A better start would have been "why aren't you wearing" followed by "pants," "a bra," or "your shirt buttoned up to a decent level." Granted, she wasn't always careful about the state she walked around his house in, but she wasn't this bad and they were not at home right now anyway.

Something about the way she looked at him made him look down at himself. "E-Ehhh?!" He was wearing a shirt he didn't recognize and that went down a little below his waist but not quite far enough, which was important because he wasn't wearing anything below the belt save for a pair of socks.

"W-what the-oh god..." While his memory was still spotty, bits of the previous night were coming back, and even if they hadn't it was hard to ignore the evidence at hand. For several seconds he simply stood still, stunned, before disjointedly looking around the room for his clothes so he could get decent which was going to be a requirement before he thought about this any further.

[Nayt]

Etsu mentally assailed herself with every curse word she'd ever learned in both languages she so fluently spoke. Stupid, stupid, stupid! She said nothing. She couldn't. She couldn't justify it. She couldn't part her lips and say a damn word, because she suddenly knew what she'd done and she knew she needed to first get a good God-damn toothbrush, first, and take about a dozen and a half showers, second, and hate herself for the rest of her life, third. None of these were options, they were necessities.

Eld would find all their clothes piled up in the corner. The clothes they were wearing last night were bunched up in a pile overtop the bags of clothes they'd purchased yesterday. It was pretty well collected, actually. None of their clothes were scattered about. Some of them were either on their bodies or in that pile. It was very diligent of them. Which meant that at some point last night, Eld must have gotten into a fit of cleanliness.

Etsu didn't even bother getting out of bed. She just laid down on her front, face first in a pillow, actively refraining from venting her frustrations with a loud shout or a scream or something similar--less because she'd be heard, though; she was worried about how much worse her head would feel after . . .