After
Chapter 3
Tomo and Kaori were currently enjoying dinner together in Kaori’s small, but cozy kitchen. Kaori finished chewing her bite of food and looked over across the table at her girl-friend.
Her hair had recently been cut to a shorter style, pushing her black, pine-tree branch like locks up closer to her head. Kaori had liked her long hair, but she found the shorter style had its own charms as well. This was the hair style Tomo had preferred since the last year of high school, but she really hadn’t the money to maintain it for the past several months. Thanks to Kaori’s generosity, though, she now had money for a hair-cut. Kaori had gone to get her hair done with her, but only to touch it up. Many things may have changed over the years, but Kaori’s distinctive hair style was one thing that remained constant.
While still staring over at her, Kaori was also very pleased to see Tomo digging her face into the food she had cooked for them. Her cooking was something Tomo had taken an immediate liking too.
On the opposite side of the table, despite her enjoyment of the meal, something was continuing to bug Tomo in the back of her mind. She stopped eating for a moment and brought her face up from her plate to look across the table at her companion. “Did they take care of your problem at work, yet,” she asked curiously.
“They’re still investigating it,” Kaori lied.
“Well, I hope they hurry up with it.”
“I think these things take time, but I don’t want to talk about that right now. How is your job hunt going,” she asked.
“I went and tried applying at a bunch of good looking places, but they kept looking at me like I was missing something.”
“Hmmm…” Kaori put her hand on her chin and thought for a moment. “Can I see your résumé?”
“What’s résumé? Is that some kind of French soup? Sure sounds good.”
“Are you serious?”
Tomo’s big, brown eyes just stared at her blankly.
“Ok, don’t worry about it,” Kaori assured her. “I’ll help you write one.”
“Ok, although writing a soup sounds kind of hard.”
“You’re probably going to need references too. Can we use any of your old bosses?”
“Well, the restaurant I was a waitress at closed the week after I was fired. Leena who I worked for at the flower shop I think is still in that coma she went into after her mental break-down, and last time I saw my boss from MOS Burger he said a bunch of really weird stuff to me. I think it might have been a voodoo curse or something, I’m not quite sure.”
“Okaaay, never mind,” Kaori said hearing more than enough. She thought for a little longer until the solution came to her. “I’ll be your reference. In fact, I’ll have you apply at my old company. Everyone in the HR department knows me. So if they see my name, you’ll at least get an interview,” she explained. “I really don’t like them, anyways,” she added in a soft murmur to herself.
“Why can’t I work at the company you’re at now?”
“No.”
“Oh, come on, it’ll be a lot of fuuun.”
“Not a chance.”
“Just think of all the jokes we could play on each other. Remember back at school when they were stupid enough to let me get my hands on the copy machine, and then I distributed that baby picture of Yomi taking a bath and eating a bar of soap to everyone in school. It could be like that every day... Eating soap, god, what a stupid baby,” she said before she laughed again at the prank from years ago.
“Even if you murdered me and then dragged me back up from the depths of hell, the answer would still be no.”
“Well, ok,” Tomo lowered her head giving up. She then perked it back up again, “But what if during this interview with this other company I ask the questions? That would be pretty funny wouldn’t it?”
“If you don’t take this seriously, then you’re not getting any more of my fish tacos.”
“WHAT,” Tomo asked looking completely shocked. “Not your fish tacos! Tomo stood up, pushing her chair back, and pointed her finger at Kaori, dramatically calling her bluff. “You wouldn’t!”
Kaori folded her arms and shot an icy, stern look right back at her. “I would.”
Tomo sat back down in her chair and stared down mournfully at the last folded tortilla on her plate. Its contents were red snapper, avocado, lettuce, tomato, daikon radish, and Kaori’s home-made special sauce. A future without this delicious specialty of Kaori’s seemed bleak at best.
“And if you don’t, you’re not getting any sex either.” Tomo’s head dropped into her plate. “But we can worry about that later. Tonight I was thinking maybe we could go see a movie. Maybe something romantic.”
Tomo lifted her head from her plate. The tortilla shell slid off of her face, leaving much of the sauce and other ingredients sticking to her. “Yeah, a movie sounds good.”
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The two women were now walking down a city side-walk together, hand in hand, on their way to the movie theatre. They passed by numerous people. Most didn’t pay them much attention, but a number still gawked at the sight of the two females holding hands.
Tomo glanced over and pleasantly examined the features of her companion. She used to find her trade-mark haircut humorous in high school, but it had really grown on her in the past couple of weeks. Her dark and very oval eyes, which were currently staring at the path ahead, were another thing she had started to really enjoy. She then focused in on her round cheeks, and that’s when she noted that they currently held an extremely rosy complexion. “I thought you said you weren’t embarrassed to hold my hand in public anymore?”
“I’m not,” Kaori answered her confidently.
“Than why are you blushing so much?”
“Because you’re holding my hand.”
“Oh, you’re so cute when you get like that!” Tomo said as she moved her lips over and planted a wet kiss on her reddened cheek, which caused it to blush even more. Not yet satisfied, she planted a string of several more kisses. “I could just eat you all up!”
Despite her nervousness of being in public, Kaori moved her head over and gave Tomo a short kiss on the lips. “Maybe later.”
Tomo laughed. ”I’ve taught my girl well,” she said as she started moving her palm back and forth across the top of the woman’s dark-brown haired head and kept on doing so.
“Please stop petting my head.”
“That’s a good Kaori,” she said as she continued to stroke the top of her head.
“I’m not your dog.”
“You’re a good girl, yes you are. Yes you are,” she said making a ridiculous face at her.
“Tomo, we’re in public,” Kaori pleaded as she noticed a whole lot more people were staring at them now.
“Would you bark for me?”
“No, I won’t bark for you.”
“Come on, bark for your master.”
“No.”
“If you bark for me, I’ll give you a little treat.”
“Stop it Tomo, we’re already at the movie theatre.” They stopped walking having reached the end of the line of people waiting for the outside box office.
Tomo removed her hand but then continued, “You’re going to roll over for me later.”
“Tomo, please, people can hear us. Ahhhhhhhhhh!” Kaori suddenly jumped behind Tomo and gripped onto her tightly from behind, as she began to shake and sweat uncontrollably. All of this had been in response to the man in front of them in the line turning around.
It was a middle aged man. He wore a drab, gray suit, with a white shirt underneath, and a loosely tightened tie resting over the top of it. Protruding from this suit was a stalk of a neck that held up a head with a boney, pale face and unkempt hair on top of it. While the two women remembered him having jet black hair, it was now beginning to show noticeable signs of gray. Underneath the hair was a pair of perfectly circular glasses that still seemed impenetrable, never disclosing what his eyes were really doing on the other side. However, below these was by far his most striking and memorable feature. That was his always gaping jaw which caused his mouth to continually be wide open, leaving him seemingly in a perpetual state of shock.
The man just stood there staring at them with his open mouth for what seemed like a very long period, until Tomo finally decided to greet him. “Mr. Kimura, funny seeing you here… heh, heh,” she said a bit taken back by the man’s sudden appearance herself.
His lips finally moved, “Well, good evening Tomo, and good evening to you too Kaori.” His body leaned, unnaturally far to the left so he could get a look at her. Kaori shrieked again, and pressed her head into Tomo’s shoulder to avert his glance. “I wasn’t expecting to meet some of my former, favorite students today. What a pleasure.”
“The same,” Tomo said not sounding too convincing.
“I’m curious, what have you two been up to recently.”
“Well, Kaori, she’s a big shot at the Daitokuji Corporation,” Tomo said pointing her thumb back at the shivering girl hiding behind her. “I’m going to be a corporate big wheel too as soon as I get hired at this new place I’m going to work at. Maybe even a vice-president or CEO or something.”
“That’s great. I’m always glad to hear my students are doing so well.”
“So what are you doing in town, Mr. Kimura,” Tomo asked. “Teaching Classic Lit?”
“No, I haven’t taught since my teacher’s license was revoked after the incident.” After the utterance of the last word in a disturbingly dark voice, his head turned 45 degrees clock-wise, and then suddenly snapped back into its normal position.
“Eeek,” came from behind Tomo’s back.
“Uhhhhh… So where are you working now,” Tomo asked almost not wanting to know the answer.
“I train seeing-eye dogs.”
“Ok… Do you like that job?”
“Yes. The pay is better than what I made as a teacher, and I feel great pride knowing that I’m doing something that really helps people.” Upon hearing that, Kaori began peeking back over Tomo’s shoulder.
“Well, that’s good,” Tomo said.
“Yes… Yes, it is. It’s a good thing… a very good thing… Well, it was nice talking to you ladies again. Beautiful day out isn’t it,” he asked staring up into the sky before he turned back around to face the other direction.
Still behind her, Kaori moved her lips near Tomo’s ear and whispered into them, “He seemed a lot nicer, and he didn’t even call me Kaorin. Maybe he’s changed.”
Mean while, there were 3 young, school-age girls in front of Kimura in the line. They were chatting amongst themselves loudly, gossiping about another girl at school. They were also becoming increasingly nervous because of the ominous looking man behind them who kept staring down at them through his glasses. “So you girls like movies, huh,” he suddenly asked them.
“Y..yy..yes,” the pudgiest of the three stuttered to answer the man with the gaping mouth.
“You know, I have a video camera. How would you girls like to make your own movies?”
“Ahhhhhhhh,” all three girls shrieked in unison and scattered away from the movie theatre and off into the sunset.
“CHOO CHOOOOO,” Kimura called out to them, which caused the girls in the distance to move even faster.
“Ok, maybe not,” Kaori said as another cold shiver ran up her spine.
After the three girls’ departure, Kimura was soon at the front of the line. The box-office attendant asked him for help, and he answered, “One for Hello Kitty vs. Doraemon vs. Pokemon: All-Out Cuteness Attack.” He took his ticket and disappeared behind the movie theatre door.
Kaori was relieved to see the disturbing man from her past gone from her vision. She then dug in her purse until she extracted her credit card, and stepped up to the box-office window. “Two for…”
“Mid Afternoon of the Not Quite Dead please,” Tomo asked as she cut off Kaori mid sentence.
“The Not Quite Dead?” Kaori asked her. “I thought we decided we were going to that romantic comedy, Sleepless in Sapporo.”
“Sleepless where,” Tomo asked playing dumb.
“In Sapporo. You know it’s the one about the couple who falls in love by instant messaging each other, but it ends up they were living right next to each other the whole time and never knew it. But then they find out they can’t be together because they work for rival political parties. It sounds so romantic,” Kaori said as she clasped her hands together and stared up into the sky with sparkling eyes as a parade of imaginary, tiny angels blowing trumpets flew behind her head.
“Blah,” Tomo said sticking two fingers down her throat and her tongue out in disgust. “That one looks boring, besides I heard this one is way more romantic.”
“How? It’s a horror movie. How could a horror movie possibly be romantic?”
“It’s about a young woman who falls in love with a zombie, but they’re trapped between two different worlds. She’s a rich high society girl from the city with demanding parents, and the zombie is an animated corpse who rose out of the dirt of the local cemetery. So they elope together and join the circus to become famous trapeze artists.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Would you please hurry up and decide,” the box-office attendant asked becoming increasingly annoyed. “We do have other customers you know.”
The couple however remained completely oblivious to him. “Aww, come on, baby. Have I ever lied to you?”
“Yes! Plus I don’t like horror movies, they’re too scary! I can’t even stand seeing blood.”
“Live a little, Kaori. Besides, I heard this one isn’t scary at all. The reviews say it’s almost like a kid’s movie. There isn’t even any blood in it, I swear.”
“Well, if there’s no blood and it isn’t that bad, mayb....”
“Great! Two for the zombie-splatter flick,” Tomo said as she ripped Kaori’s credit card out her hand and gave it to the man through the slot in the bottom of the glass.
“Finally,” he said irately. He quickly swiped the card, and printed out two tickets. “Here ya go, please enjoy the show and get out of my line!”
A few minutes later, Kaori passed through the swinging doors into the theatre showing Mid Afternoon of the Not Quite Dead. She was shortly followed by Tomo who was gripping a big tub of popcorn, a soda, and several boxes of candy.
Kaori scanned the theatre. It was largely deserted, being a sea of empty seats save for a couple of suspicious looking characters sitting in the back. “Why is there no one in here,” Kaori asked. It didn’t seem to make sense based on the sizeable line they encountered outside.
“Probably because it’s so popular everyone assumed it was sold out. I of course decided to come, because I knew that’s exactly what they would do. That must make me a genius.”
“I guess so.” They went and sat in a secluded row of seats near the front of the screen. Tomo instantaneously began digging her face into all the food they had bought.
“Want some jujubes,” Tomo asked with a mouth full of candy, soda, and popcorn.
“No, thank you.”
Tomo swallowed her food. “Why not?”
“I really don’t like them.”
“Don’t like them, what are you nuts?”
“Noooo, I just never liked them. I’m not real big on candy.”
“Not big on candy,” she asked in complete disbelief. “Ok, now that is nuts. Come on, just try one. For me, pleaaaaaase,” Tomo begged as she held out one of the small, red, gummy, pieces of candy between her fingers.
“Well, ok,” she agreed not wanting to hear anymore whining.
Instead of just handing it to her, Tomo instead kept the jujube held firmly between two fingers and pressed it gently against Kaori’s lips, and nuzzled it against them softly.
“Open wide,” she told her playfully. On command Kaori parted her lips, and Tomo moved her fingers and the candy through them and inside her mouth making contact with her tongue. She let her fingers linger for a moment over her tongue, until she finally released the jujube and slowly pulled her fingers back out of her lips.
Kaori chewed for a few seconds and then swallowed. “Some how they taste much better than I remember,” Kaori said as she gave Tomo a devilish smirk.
Tomo returned Kaori’s smile. “See, I told ya. You want more right?”
“Yes, please.”
Tomo kept slowly inserting the candy into her mouth one piece at a time, much to Kaori’s enjoyment. Then suddenly Kaori felt the need to reciprocate. “Would you like some Tomo?”
“You know I would.” Kaori then took the box of candy from Tomo, and shook it until one green jujube dropped into her palm. She gripped it between her thumb and index finger, and then moved it until it passed through Tomo’s soft, supple lips, and her fingers and the candy met her warm, wet tongue inside. After playing with her tongue for a few moments, Kaori removed her fingers. “Yum, really sweet, just like you.”
Kaori giggled. “You’re so corny.”
“Hey, I’m not cormamama…,” Tomo was cut off after Kaori stuck a hand full of more candy into Tomo’s mouth.
After Tomo finished gagging, they continued playfully feeding each other through the previews. After they ended, the two women then stared up at the movie screen, both in strong anticipation but for different reasons.
Eerie music began pumping out of the surround-sound system from all sides, before the words, “Mid Afternoon of the Not Quite Dead directed by George C. Camero,” appeared in big, foreboding white type across the huge black screen. Kaori already getting a bit nervous wrapped her fingers around Tomo’s arm.
The black screen faded into a mid afternoon’s fall sun shining down on an old, country road located in a sparsely populated farm-town somewhere in the United States. Slowly a car made its appearance from far off in the background from around a hill. It slowly crept up the winding road until it finally came close to the camera, and the camera turned to watch it drive further off into the distance.
The old, yellow sedan kept traveling over various beaten roads across a barren landscape that was only inhabited by dying grass and the occasional leafless tree. Finally, some signs of human civilization appeared in front of the car in the form of a field of short, chiseled, stone blocks that jutted up out of the ground. The old car kept driving closer over a gravel path until names, dates, and other English words such as “father” and “daughter” could be made out on the grave markers. Finally, after penetrating the heart of the cemetery, the vehicle rolled to a stop.
The passenger door opened up, and out walked a very attractive, young female. Her beautiful, shoulder-length, purple shaded hair, as well as her brown, almost amber eyes nearly glimmered in the sun. She was shortly joined by the driver who was an equally, young, skinny male with strawberry-blonde hair and aqua-blue eyes. He was holding a memorial wreath they had bought for the occasion, which had red and white flowers attached to the front of small cross. The boy and the girl walked forward some distance through the stone monuments, crunching dried up leaves on the grass as they walked.
“There it is,” the girl spotted the grave they had been seeking. They both walked up to it, and the boy kneeled down.
“I wonder what happened to the one from last year,” he said, after stabbing the wire stakes which held up the wreath into the ground in front of the head-stone. “Each year we spend good money on these things. We come out here and the one from last years gone.”
“Well the flowers die and the care-taker or somebody takes them away,” she explained.
“Yeah, a little spit and polish, you can clean this up, and sell it next year. I wonder how many times we bought the same one,” he asked as he stood up, mocking cynicism strong in his voice.
“You’re such an asshole Ken.” The pretty girl then got down on her knees, clasped her hands, closed her eyes, and lowered her head to pray silently in front of the grave.
Thunder suddenly crashed, and the loud sound boomed down through the theatre’s sound system. Kaori’s grip on Tomo’s arm tightened even more from the sudden fright and she leaned over closer to her chair, as she continued to nervously watch the film.
Back up on the screen, Ken looked up at the dark clouds from which the thunder had emanated. He then looked over to some distance back inside the cemetery where a man in a worn suit was limping along slowly among the graves.
Ken finished pulling his black, leather driving gloves onto his hands which he had taken from his pocket, and looked back down impatiently at his female companion who was still continuing to pray. “Yeah, like god listens to you anymore, ya big slut.”
“Shut your pie-hole,” she shouted up at him before she finished her prayer.
“Do you remember one time when we were small, and we were out here,” Ken recalled. “It was right over there,” he said pointing across the cemetery close to where the lone man was shuffling along and moving in their direction. “When that old guy jumped out from behind that tree, exposed himself, and said, ‘Look at these,’” he said impersonating the old man’s voice. “Ha, remember that, right over there?” The girl got up and started walking away from him. “Well, you used to be really scared here.”
“Ken.” Her discomfort was overt in her voice.
Seeing her reaction he said, “Well, you’re still afraid,” obviously trying to get further under her skin.
“Stop it now, I mean it,” she shouted at him.
A sinister smirk developed on his face. “They’re coming to get you, Sora,” he said in a creepy voice.
“Stop it! You’re ignorant!”
“They’re coming for you, Sora,” he continued in that creepy voice as he grabbed onto a tombstone for dramatic effect.
“Stop it! You’re acting like a child.”
“They’re coming for you.” He then saw that the man he had spotted earlier was limping even closer. The details of his face could now begin to be seen. His skin was as white as ghost and his face was positively ghoulish. “Look! There comes one of them now.”
“He’ll hear you,” Sora begged. The man kept walking in their direction, the space between him and the boy and girl becoming smaller and smaller.
“Here he comes now,” Ken said as he grabbed Sora’s shoulders. “I’m getting out of here!” He ran some distance away, and stopped in front of a particularly tall, obelisk-shaped tombstone. He then watched with a big grin on his face as the man with the torn suit, and un-naturally pale skin hobbled closer and closer to Sora. And that was the moment when from behind the tombstone, a female zombie with long, blonde hair appeared to bite deep down into Ken’s neck, causing red blood to spray up out of it like a geyser.
“WAAAH!” Kaori screamed before she buried her head between Tomo’s breasts. Tomo’s lips curled up into a Cheshire grin as she cradled Kaori in her arms and continued to watch the movie.
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Two hours later, the exit to the theatre opened up into a warm night, lightly lit by the rays from a crescent moon. Out walked Tomo, who still had a broad smile on her face, and Kaori who was still trembling with white dots where her eyes once were.
“Wow, that movie was awesome,” Tomo exclaimed. “My favorite part was when her left arm was bitten off, so then she swung it around with her right arm as a weapon. That was so cool! What was your favorite part?”
“None of it. I hated it. It was the scariest and most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“But it was romantic right,” she asked with a mischievous grin.
“Romantic how? It was all about eating people’s brains.”
“Awww, come on, you liked it. You were all over me the whole time. I think you were just using it as an excuse to be in my arms. Just admit it. I won’t hold it against you.”
Kaori blushed crimson. “Well… It was only because I was so scared.”
“Suuuuure, I believe you. Wink, wink.” An utterly terrified expression then developed on Tomo’s face. “Holy crap, there’s a zombie behind you right now!”
“AH!” Kaori jumped around to see no one there.
She turned back around to see Tomo bent over from laughing so hard. “Oh my god, I can’t believe you’re so easy!”
“I am not!” Kaori tried frowning at her. The inadvertently cute expression just caused Tomo to crack up again.
“They’re coming to get you, Kaori,” Tomo said in her best impersonation of the spooky voice from the movie. “They want to eat your brains.”
“Stop it Tomo!”
“They’re coming to get you, Kaori. Woooooooo,” she said wiggling her fingers in front of her face.
Having calmed down a bit from the fright, Kaori decided she was sick of being such a scaredy cat and would play along. “Stop it Tomo! You’re ignorant,” she said trying to mimic the actress’s voice.
“They’re coming to get you, Kaori.”“You’re acting like a child!”
Tomo then grabbed her own right wrist, and started wiggling her right hand around like it had gained a mind of its own. “Oh no, I think I’ve contracted the zombie virus,” she exclaimed. “I can’t control myself anymore.” Tomo then suddenly closed her eyes and dropped her head down to her chest.
Her head stayed down for several long moments, until Kaori came and pulled on her shoulder. “Tomo?”
Suddenly her head shot back up, causing Kaori to give a playful scream, and Tomo out-stretched her arms in front of her. “I’m coming to get you Kaori. I’m going to eat you!”
Kaori put her hands on her cheeks, and over-acted saying, “Oh no, what am I going to do. I better run away.”
She sped down the side walk as fast as she could in her shoes, and Tomo started a pursuit still with her arms out stretched, “I’m coming to get you!”
“I thought zombies couldn’t run,” Kaori shouted behind her.
“I’m a magic zombie!”
They made they’re way down a city block, zigzagging between other couples and the relatively fewer number of other unsuspecting pedestrians who were still on the street at this hour. Kaori was fast, but eventually Tomo put forth the effort to catch up. As she closed in, she reached forward and grabbed one of Kaori’s round butt cheeks which elicited a loud squeal from her. Finally, Tomo lunged forward and wrapped her arms around her waist, Kaori just being able to use a near by lamp post to stop them from piling over into the concrete. “Gotcha!”
“Oh no, somebody help me,” she said not too convincingly.
Tomo opened her mouth wide and then bit down on the back of her scalp.
“Ouch! That hurt,” Kaori said before she gave her a mild punch in the shoulder in retaliation.
Tomo then knocked a couple times on the top of her skull. “Hmmm, seems kinda thick. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to get my way through,” she said. “Well, if I can’t eat your brains, I’m just going to just have to settle for sucking your blood.” She then moved her lips over to plant them on the side of Kaori’s neck. Kaori gave another squeal before she pushed her off. “Oh come on, I know how much you like me sucking your blood.”
“But if you leave another mark, I’m going to kill you.” That’s when she saw him. He was across the street. The lamp post he stood under illuminated his handsome, good looks. She could also see that Ichiro was boring directly into her with his eyes, and he looked absolutely furious.
“Hey, what’s wrong, I didn’t think I was that good,” Tomo asked after she noticed that Kaori was trembling again and breathing in deeply. She was completely oblivious to the man behind her across the street.
“I… don’t… know.”
“Wow, you look horrible, even worse than in the movie.” Tomo put her hand over forehead which was sweating profusely and then moved it over to her chest to feel her heart pounding forcefully. “What’s wrong? Did the movie really scare you that much?”
Kaori nodded her head up and down a little bit.
“I didn’t know you would get that scared.” Ichiro gave her a final nasty scowl, before he walked away from them down the street and disappeared into a shroud of darkness.
“Me neither,” Kaori finally let out.
“Hey, look, it’ll be ok,” Tomo said to her as she wrapped her arms back around her and pushed her fore-head up against Kaori’s. “I’ll protect you from zombies all night if you like.”
After she said that an old lady walked by and gave them a real surprised look. “That’s right ya old-bag! It’s my job to protect Kaori from zombies,” Tomo shouted at her. The elderly woman then started hobbling much faster down the side-walk to get away from them.
“Tomo! That was so mean,” Kaori scolded her.
“But it was funny right?”
“Well, yeah.” She managed a short giggle.
“Hey you want to hit some bars?”
“How about we just buy some wine and drink it at home instead? What you said about protecting me all night, that sure sounded nice.”
“Ok.” Tomo then took Kaori’s hand and lifted it up to kiss the back of it. “I pledge myself to thee as your protector, my lady. I will defend thy honor to the death. I only ask for a small payment.”
“And that is?”
“Carnal pleasures later in the evening.”
“Oh, I definitely agree.”
Tomo then started inspecting the area, and then shook her head. “This just won’t do.”
“What won’t do?”
“This side-walk its way too cracked, what if my lady were to trip and fall on her head?” In reality it was perfectly smooth. “There’s only one solution.” She then got behind Kaori and attempted to scoop her off her feet. She succeeded in lifting her off the ground, and held her butt between her arms as Kaori held onto her shoulders. However, when she tried to step forward her arms began to buckle being too weak to handle the weight and they both fell backwards. “Ouch my butt!” Kaori then burst into laughter, having landed in her lap, and Tomo shortly joined in the laughing.
Kaori finally stopped laughing some time later, and removed a tear from the corner of her eye. “Thanks Tomo.”
“Thanks for what?”
“For being such an idiot,” she said gratefully.
“Wow, someone finally appreciates me.” They both got another hardy laugh out of that.
“I really do appreciate you,” Kaori said before she kissed her.
To Be Continued