Victory Storm "Love Hurricane"

“I know: I must take it easy. I mustn't hurry up. As you always say, make love and not sex with a stranger. Blah, blah, blah,” Kira kept saying like a robot, as she had memorized her mother's advice. Elizabeth had panicked five months before, when Kira had told her that her classmate Misaki wasn't a virgin any more.

“That's perfect.”

“However, Adam knows I'm not ready yet and that's okay for him. He told me that our friendship is the most important thing.”

“I hope so,” her mother sighed, surrendering.

Luckily the door bell rang at that moment, putting an end to a conversation which always made Kira uneasy, also because of her sense of guilt for all the lies she kept telling about Adam and herself.

“It must be Adam! Can you go and open the door? I'm still choosing the shoes I'm going to wear,” Kira asked her, trying to tidy up the clothes she had thrown on her bed.

She saw her mother hesitating for a moment, before she walked away.

“I'm really happy, do you know it?” she told Kira, then she went out of the room.

“So am I, mum. But please, hurry up now, or Adam will believe that I'm going to keep him outside in the cold. You know he feels it so much!”

“I didn't believe you could start smiling again, after we left Princeton and... Lucas,” Elizabeth mumbled cautiously. She hadn't spoken about that for some months, because she didn't want to make her daughter cry, but she felt that something was changing at that moment.

Kira suddenly stopped when she heard her friend's name, then, without raising her eyes from her clothes, she succeeded in answering after a long while, without surrendering to sadness.

“I'm going back to him, mum. I promised.”

Elizabeth started shaking because of her daughter's words and she understood she was wrong: nothing had changed.

***

Princeton, Kentucky, January 15

2017

As soon as the girl's mouth brushed his lower lip, he couldn't avoid moaning with pain.

“Couldn't you wait one more day, before letting Kurt split your lip?” the blonde girl said in a flute-like voice, making her tongue slip down his neck till his naked chest.

“Come on, get dressed. My lesson is starting in twenty minutes,” Lucas suddenly got nervous, trying to get free from that leech.

“Since when have you cared about school?” the girl laughed amused, putting her bra on with a theatrical gesture, trying to turn Lucas's attention on herself, but he didn't reply and without even casting a glance at her, he put his trousers on and walked away.

“Are you going to call me tomorrow? There's a party...” she tried again.

“No, I'm busy” Lucas said quickly in an irritated voice, making the girl's nerves jump.

“Are you ditching me, filthy bastard?”

“Just think as you wish. I'm going.”

“Is that all? We've just made love and you're leaving me like that now!” the young woman sobbed, on the verge of tears.

Lucas cast a quick glance at her and felt like breaking something, when he saw her tears. His hands were still hurting after his fight with Kurt, so he had hoped he could calm his fiery temper with the help of Jennifer's fabulous body, but, as it had happened to him four times before, he hadn't felt anything for her, excepted an overwhelming orgasm.

He avoided reminding her that what they had just done was mere sex, since he didn't know anything about her, just her bra's size.

“That's true,” he just answered, then he shut the door behind himself and rushed to his classroom, ready to start a mess and to annoy professor Kleyton.

***

Tokyo, Japan, January 23

2017

“Are you ready?” Adam whispered to her, approaching his lips to hers.

Kira swallowed hard and nodded slightly. She felt like a coiled spring and her heart was beating fast, while she kept wondering if she was doing the right thing.

“Listen, if you've changed your mind about it...” Adam got worried and moved away from her.

“Of course I haven't!” Kira got nervous. She had had that idea as she wanted to help her friend, so she couldn't back off now. “I'm ready.”

She could see Adam's face approaching hers once more, till she felt his lips on her own. She started, at a loss, opening her lips slightly and getting closer to him, just like Misaki had told her.

“What are you doing? It's disgusting!” Adam exclaimed shocked, wiping his mouth by the palm of his hand.

“Thanks,” Kira replied sarcastically. “I'm trying to help you and you're paying me back this way! Sorry, but I have never kissed any boy before! I was just following Misaki's advice.”

“Kira, please! Misaki's boyfriend is Tsutomu, he's just a heap of testosterone and rudeness.”

“That's right!”

“Kira, you know what we are up to, aren't you?”

“Of course I do.”

“We are never going to pair off like them.”

“I know it. That's why I thought that, to make our story more realistic, we should try to kiss each other in public at least, so we wouldn't look like strangers from that point of view,” Kira reminded him. She had spent three weeks studying all the details of their absurd plan, which would finally help his dear friend to get free from all the advances of the girls trying to seduce him (since Youra had left him) and from his father's searching and accusing eyes, as he wanted to see him with a girl.

“That's right, but please, close your mouth! I don't want to get your tongue stuck into my throat,” Adam begged her, feeling slightly disgusted, then he tried to kiss her once more.

Kira kept her lips shut this time, but they were soft and the kiss was successful, even if the magical atmosphere she had imagined had vanished some moments before.

“Your lips are wonderful, Kira-chan. But unfortunately you aren't the right one for me,” Adam sighed, moved by his only true friend's efforts. “I'm a bit sorry because thanks to our story, no other boy will be able to...taste you.”

Kira's cheeks turned suddenly bright red, but she was serious and ready to go on with the text she had planned for that day.

She knew that if she pretended to have a love story with gorgeous and greatly demanded Adam Gramell, she wouldn't have any other chance to start a true love story, but she didn't care, as she had understood that she wouldn't have time for that, because of his studies and a part-time job she was looking for. She didn't want to lose her place as the best student in her class, together with the tidy sum she was putting by for her journey to Princeton.

COMING BACK

Lucas

Princeton, Kentucky, September 28

2018

“One more stunt like that, and I'll suspend you from school, Lucas,” the headmistress shouted angrily. “I don't care if the new term has just started. I'm not going to stand your rash acts any more, is it clear?”

“Yes, it is,” I answered slowly, with a bored half-smile, while I tried to hold back my anger which wanted to burst out against those two bastards, Garcia and Setton.

My knuckles were grazed because of the punches I had given that morning, but it hadn't been enough to prevent them from whining and going to the headmistress.

I looked around myself and saw all the students taking distances from me and from that woman, who was as spineless as an invertebrate, but who was able at the same time to terrify those silly idiots.

I had got used to stirring fear and disgust: there were some people who considered me just what I was, dregs and rotten merchandise. For some others I was instead just a criminal on bail, but I was such a good fuck as to prevent half of the girls who had already come to bed with me, from holding back their lascivious panties.

However, I couldn't stand all that notoriety anymore and I suddenly started looking for a cigarette. I needed to get out from that hellish place and take a pair of drags, if I wanted to avoid shooting my head before the end of the lesson.

I searched the back pocket of my jeans. It was empty.

“Hell, I threw the packet away before the headmistress arrived!”

Feeling really annoyed and anxious because of the way that day had started, I rushed to the door. If I was lucky, I could get to the dormitory just in time, take a packet of cigarettes and go back to my classroom, before the bell rang.

While all the people there were still staring at me, I walked along the corridor, with my usual defiant look.

I was going to get into the hall, when a vision dazzled me. Well, it had to be a vision. It certainly was.

I was paralysed by what my eyes couldn't realize yet, so I stopped, staring straight in front of me, till her eyes crossed mine.

I felt struck like I had never been before, when I noticed her surprise and her overwhelming happiness, which made her drop her trolley to the floor.

I was shattered and almost terrified by that vision, which was making my brain go haywire, then I saw her curving that small heart-shaped mouth I had never forgotten. Just when I thought I was recovering from that shock, I found myself plunging my face into her dark and sweet-smelling hair, while she threw herself into my arms and dragged me closer to her.

To the middle of a hurricane whirl.

I was left breathless as soon as the soft smell of her skin got to my nostrils.

“Lucas,” she whispered in a broken voice, piercing through my mind and soul.

I thought I would explode. I had to keep grasping at my rationality to avoid sinking into the emotional storm which was making my heart beat till it blew up.

I shut my eyes to wipe away that devilish illusion but when I opened them again, I saw it. Really. For the first time in many years.

“I've been missing you so much,” I could just hear, being suddenly captured by her wood-green eyes stuck into mine with an adoring and sad shade, while I could feel her soft and warm hands slipping along my neck and stopping on my drawn and incredulous face.

Her fingers brushed gently my left eyebrow, where I had a scar, and she half-closed her eyes for a moment. Then she stared back at me and smiled, deeply moved.

“Kira,” I was able to utter in spite of my dry throat.

As soon as I heard my own words, I understood I was lost.

***

Kira

I couldn't believe I was so lucky.

Adam was right when he had taken me to the shrine the day before I left and had forced me to buy a good-luck talisman.

It was working!

If I only thought about all the sacrifices I had made in the last two years, working as a part-time receptionist to spare the money, pay my journey and finance a private detective who would look for Lucas.

Instead... Heaven had been on my side for once so, after my parents' separation and my mum's decision to go back to the USA, I had immediately packed my bags, even if I was attending my last year at High School.

However, I could never have dreamt of meeting Lucas so soon and even without the help of the detective I had found on the Net!

I thanked Adam silently once more for his support and because he had never let me give up all hope. I decided to spend half of my money to buy some designer clothes for him: that was his greatest passion. By the way, I knew his taste and his clothes size perfectly, since we had spent a lot of time together going around shopping.

I smiled happy for what my fate had given me: a perfect journey, a warm September weather, my mum's leave to stay in Princeton on my own, even if I had to live at the school dormitory, while she would stay at an old friend's in Davenport, waiting to get her job as social worker back.

But the most surprising thing had been Lucas, who seemed ready to welcome me in the town High School, when I saw him walking towards me.

Oh my God, I had been missing him so much!

I had had to grasp at my super self-control to avoid bursting out crying, but when I had seen him looking at me with his wonderful, wide open hazelnut eyes, that I could make out in a thousand, I hadn't been able to hold back and I had run into his arms.

Luckily I was used to Adam's tallness and I had stood on my tiptoes by instinct, to throw my arms around his neck.

I hadn't played basketball for a while, so I hadn't become much taller, while Lucas had grown a lot.