After Darkness

*6. The kiss*

"Now you start following me?" Krist asked, knowing there was nothing wrong with Gawin being there at the ball. Almost every student from the uni was there.

"I thought this was an event for all university students," Gawin replied with a mysterious smile on his face.

"Doesn't sound like the kind of thing you like to do in your free time," Krist countered, feeling warmed by that little argument. Gawin ignited a flame that was smoldering inside him.

"I think you're going to find that you don't know me that well," the other replied. He also seemed to be enjoying the argument. "But if you want to know me a little better, meet me at the greenhouse in half an hour," and with that Gawin disappeared into the crowd.

Krist watched the crowd for a moment, almost as if trying to identify where Gawin had gone. It seemed very presumptuous of him to think that Krist would go on whatever kind of date he was planning. Honestly, Krist didn't even like him that much.

The boy walked through the crowd until he reached where New and Gun were. The two seemed to be deep in some sort of discussion, but nothing that would raise anyone's spirits.

"You think?" Gun asked, genuine curiosity in their expressions.

"Yes. By now he must have confessed and the two of them must be in the biggest making out," New replied.

"Who's going to be on the biggest make out?" Krist questioned. New's face turned red, and Gun coughed a little. The two were behaving as if they had been caught doing something wrong.

"Nothing... Two friends of ours who take the same extra History of Medicine class with me and Gun," New lied. Krist didn't buy that excuse, but his thoughts were still wandering to Gawin, and he couldn't bring himself to care about that at the moment.

"I'm gonna pretend that I believe in you guys", Krist spelled.

"So, why did you take so long to came here and where is Mike?" Gun asked, visibly trying to change the subject.

"I was dancing, and I don't know where Mike is. We split out after finishing the dance", he told. It was a half-truth. "By the way, you were right. He really is in love with someone, but he didn't tell me. I guess it's someone lame, like Eleanor or Earth", he joked.

"I guess so", New answered. He and Gun exchanged a look and both of them started to laugh about how silly Krist is.

New began to say that he and May were fine again and that this time he would behave better as a boyfriend. She was running late, but she would attend the ball any minute now.

After that, Gun started talking about how hard it is being Off's boyfriend, because people keep asking him to parties and Gun had to attend a lot of those social events that he wasn't really into. Krist knew Gun wasn't a shy person, but when his social battery ran out, he turned into a grouch.

Every two or three minutes, Krist glanced at his watch, trying to calculate how much time had passed since his encounter with Gawin. He wanted to be a mosquito to see Gawin's reaction when he finally realized Krist wasn't going to be there. Would he take a long time to figure it out or would he just wait 5 or 10 minutes and give up? If there was some way for him to witness this scene without having to go to the greenhouse...

But there was no way to do that if he wasn't there in person. Then an idea formed in Krist's head. He would sneak into the greenhouse and watch Gawin's reaction. When the other finally left, he would return to the party. That way he could have a little fun breaking his pretense.

"Guys, I need to take a pee. I'll be back", he excused himself.

With every step he took towards the hall, Krist wondered what he was going to do there. Why did Gawin get his attention so much and why did he want to see the boy drop the ball so badly when he realized he wasn't going to show up?