The soft press of Kairi's lips against mine, the unexpected warmth of her body, should have been a moment of pure, unadulterated relief, perhaps even the burgeoning spark of something more tender. Instead, it was a discordant symphony, a jarring clash of emotions playing out against the frantic, erratic drumming of my own hear
I had engineered this scene, a masterful charade of near-fainting, a desperate theatrical performance designed to buy myself a precious few seconds of respite from a truth too heavy, too terrifying, to bear. My gasps for breath were real enough, a desperate, choking sound in the quiet room, but they weren't born of oxygen deprivation. No, they were a desperate, futile attempt to regulate a system suddenly overwhelmed by a cacophony of conflicting emotions, a fragile dam threatening to burst under immense pressure.
