Chapter 38: Your First Kiss Was with Me, Kihara!
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Rewinding the clock to two minutes prior, Nana was squatting by the riverbank, furiously plucking wild grass to vent her stress while privately mulling over whether she had been a bit too harsh with Momo earlier.
Among the three sisters, Momo was the one who cared most deeply about family. Nana knew full well that Momo had made those decisions out of concern for Lala, even while knowing how much Nana despised such sneaky moves.
'I wonder if that sly girl will take my words to heart. Tomorrow, after big sister goes to school, I should find a chance to apologize to her.'
'Apology aside, though, if she pushes things way too far, I'm still going to step in and stop her. After all, Kihara really doesn't seem like a bad guy at all.'
Possessing the rare ability to communicate with animals, Nana had gradually learned to rely on her raw intuition to judge a person's character through her friendships with creatures.
Although Momo frequently teased her that blindly trusting this intuition would lead to a major disaster sooner or later, Nana had somehow managed to guess right on countless occasions with her hit-or-miss instinct, effectively shutting her twin up.
Over these past few days of living together, the impression Kihara made on her was actually quite positive. Even while surrounded by a house full of beautiful girls, he hadn't done anything remotely out of line.
She could even play video games with him every now and then, enjoying an exceptionally easygoing and pleasant time.
This was a kind of experience Nana had never known in the royal palace. Having male friends of her own age was a total impossibility within Planet Deviluke's palace walls. If it weren't physically impossible, her father would have preferred for every single mosquito in the palace to be female.
The lingering irritation in Nana's chest gradually dissolved with the passing breeze. She flashed a wide, toothy grin at the crystal-clear, mirror-like lake. "As the elder sister, having a broad mind is a mandatory course! If I take the initiative to apologize to Momo tomorrow, she'll definitely be so shocked she won't be able to say a word!"
Her mind completely clear, she noticed a few fish drawn to the water's surface by her dangling tail. Always fond of animals, she used her ability without a second thought to greet them.
"Hello there!"
"Hello, two-legged creature!"
"My name is Nana! Do you have names?"
"My name is Fishy, and his name is Handsome Fish."
"What strange names! Where are your other friends?"
"Hello, two-legged creature."
"?"
Nana blinked in confusion. While a fish's memory was certainly longer than seven seconds, it didn't rule out the possibility that some individuals were simply slow-witted. Seeing these fish repeatedly echo the exact same opening greeting, she gave up on trying to hold a conversation.
Instead, she dipped her tail into the water's edge and began swishing it back and forth, coaxing the fish to chase it all around. The sight of them jostling eagerly after her tail successfully brought a burst of laughter to her lips.
However, completely unexpected to her, one of the larger fish suddenly leaped out of the water and clamped its jaws firmly onto the tip of her tail!
"Kya! Don't... don't touch my tail..."
The tail was the most lethal weakness shared by the three sisters. Having it grabbed was essentially the same as having their life force held hostage, and that was precisely the predicament Nana found herself in now.
The instant the fish bit down, a wave of numbing weakness surged through her entire body. Her legs, already stiff from squatting by the lake for so long, instantly lost all balance. She could only watch helplessly as she pitched forward, plunging straight into the lake!
To make matters infinitely worse, despite being a fantastic swimmer, having her tail bitten meant she lacked even the strength to kick her limbs. A massive surge of lake water flooded her nose and mouth as she gasped in panic.
It felt as if a tear had opened in her throat as the icy, bone-chilling liquid forced its way into her lungs. The water, tainted with a metallic, fishy taste, blocked off every channel where air could enter, while her eardrums buzzed violently under the water pressure.
Her desperate calls for help dissolved into a feeble trail of bubbles drifting toward the surface.
'No way... Am I really going to die on Earth because of a stupid accident like this?'
The lake water felt like a cold, life-stealing poison, slowly devouring Nana's body temperature bit by bit. The sensation in her chest shifted from a burning ache to a sharp, agonizing sting.
As dark spots began blooming at the edges of her vision—spreading out like drops of black ink falling into clear water—her sight gradually dissolved into total darkness. The freezing cold enveloping her limbs suddenly vanished, leaving only the delicate popping sounds of tiny bubbles echoing in her ears.
After that, Nana lost consciousness completely.
In reality, from the moment she fell into the water to when she was spotted, called out for help, and pulled out of the lake by Kihara, less than a minute had elapsed.
Yet Nana was completely unconscious, and her breathing had already stopped. Seeing this, Kihara immediately laid her flat on the ground, tilting her head back to clear her airway. Taking a deep breath, he leaned down, sealed his lips over her mouth, and blew air firmly into her lungs.
After blowing for about a second, he straightened his back without a moment's pause to perform chest compressions. After cycling through this routine three times, Nana suddenly arched her back, coughing up a massive fountain of lake water before bursting into a violent, painful fit of coughing.
"Cough, cough, cough... W-Where am I?"
Just as she barely managed to open her eyes and before she could get a clear look at her surroundings, Momo pulled her into a fierce, suffocating hug, bursting into loud, tearful wails.
"Thank goodness... thank goodness... You woke up!"
The heavy, anxious expressions on the faces of the onlookers relaxed as well.
Director Ranko, who had rushed over upon hearing the commotion, let out a deep sigh of relief as she saw the scene. Waving her hand, she instructed the assistant standing behind her, "No need to call the paramedics or an ambulance. Go grab two clean blankets and brew two cups of hot tea for them."
"Yes, Director!"
With the drowning incident resolved, Nana sat on a chair wrapped in a thick blanket, silently listening to a red-eyed Momo recount her rescue in a muffled voice.
When Momo reached the part where Kihara performed CPR on her, Nana's relief instantly transformed into absolute shock.
"Y-You're saying... Kihara... he kissed me?"
Momo rolled her eyes in exasperation.
"Artificial respiration is CPR! It is a completely different concept from a real kiss, okay? I thought you'd be weeping with gratitude toward brother-in-law when you woke up, but you're actually fixated on a trivial detail like this?"
"B-But even if you put it that way, his mouth still touched my mouth! If that isn't a kiss, what is it?"
"You almost lost your life, and you're worried about your first kiss?!"
"But I'm alive right now! Shouldn't I care about it?!"
"Honestly, brother-in-law should have just left a dummy like you in the water! How on earth does a girl who knows how to swim manage to drown in the first place?"
Speaking of that, Nana grew furious. She pointed a trembling finger at the culprit being turned into a grilled fish by Kihara in the distance. "They bit my tail! I couldn't summon a single shred of strength at all!"
"That... is indeed a tough situation."
Momo knew her own family's weakness inside and out, having felt the sensation of having her tail grabbed many times before. When the two sisters used to fight as kids, grabbing each other's tails was a common tactic, and that numb, helpless state made it truly impossible to control one's body.
The air suddenly fell into an unexpected, awkward silence. The twin sisters stared at each other with wide eyes, neither knowing how to break the ice and offer an apology first.
Fortunately, Kihara walked over right at that moment, holding a skewer of sizzled, mouth-watering grilled fish. Sensing the strange tension between the two, he used his expertise in lightening the mood and instantly cooked up a brilliant idea.
Slipping the grilled fish skewer straight into their hands, he pointed his thumb proud toward his own chest, raising his eyebrows with supreme swagger:
"Nana, the person who took your first kiss was me, Kihara!"
The moment the words left his mouth, aside from a plume of pink steam bursting from the top of Nana's head, the atmosphere failed to improve in the slightest. If anything, it became infinitely more awkward.
....
Thank you for reading.