Poppy and Lotus [COMPLETE]

•❀Two❀•

"Oh my god...!"

Hours later when I'm home from school, I find myself in complete shock, slowly, slowly, slowly sliding down the other side of my tightly closed bedroom door. My breath leaves me in a jumble of awe-filled words -- barely making it passed my lips before my hand slaps over them.

My butt finally touches the soft wood floor in my bedroom. Even the sharp coolness of it against my bare legs couldn't take my mind off of where my impulsiveness led me to do something embarrassingly idiotic!

Today at school, I told my teacher I was going to the restroom in order to meet someone. It was Ren Yamamoto that I was meeting. I had kissed Ren Yamamoto. And it wasn't a peck. It wasn't because I was in love with him. It was all to settle a deal he made with me. I kissed him because I needed him to join the club I was starting. He had made a bet with his stupid friends that he could get the school's top 5 prettiest girls to kiss him on the lips. So he made a deal with me. And due to his taunting, I gave away my first kiss.

My first kiss!

My hands fly up to my burning pink cheeks. My heart hadn't stopped thumping excitedly in my chest since our lips touched. It was the shout of a teacher in the hallway for us to return to class that broke our kiss. We pulled away from each other so quickly that we both nearly fell backwards! I remembered scrambling back to my class and keeping my head down for the rest of the school day in shame before my memories blurred from there. Somehow I had made it home on my clumsy legs, but I couldn't remember the walk. All I could remember was the unexpected feel of Ren's lips and the warm, cozy feel of his arms cradling my small body against the largeness of his.

The one thing I was the most shocked about...was how right and good the kiss felt...the feeling still lingered on my lips...

After hours, it still hadn't gone away.

••••••
"Ayame, you've barely touched your food! What's the matter?"

I manage to snap out of my trance to acknowledge my family's worried glances at dinner a few hours later. I look at my mother first, the one who had spoken. Then to my father, who had a face full of our meal. When I looked over at my little brother and sister, I noticed they had taken their eyes off of their phone screens to glance over at me. Briefly.

"Um...the school's giving me until the end of this week to get three other members to join..or else they'll shut down my proposal.." I let out the words sadly and finish with a sigh, slumping over in my chair.

"Oh! Poor thing," my mother said sympathetically. It was nice, but it was to the point where I felt like a child who had fallen and scraped her knee. Not the kind of sympathy from someone who really understood how much this club meant to me.

"Ayame, why not join the sports clubs? I can see you enjoying those." My father says, wiping rice out of his beard. I roll my eyes. This man and sports. He would keep pushing it until the day he died. Even though he knew I never liked them.

"Now, dear, Ayame wants to start a club, so we should support her. None of your classmates are interested?" My mother cuts off my father's protest when she moves to wipe more mess out of his beard.

I shook my head, "Not even in the slightest. I don't know who else to ask...I don't know how else to advertise.."

"What have you been doing to spread the word?"

"I've tried going after people named after flowers since no one else would really join. I've only found a few, but they haven't given a definite answer..."

"Well! I do that kind of stuff at work!" My father raises his fist triumphantly, as if he'd found a solution to all my problems, "You don't have time to lose heart! You've got to be aggressive and you can't take no for an answer! You've got to do whatever it takes to get what you want in this world. This isn't an exception."

Aggressive, huh?

My stupid brain replays an image of how roughly I had grabbed Ren Yamamoto's shirt and kissed him. I instantly flush and stiffen up in my chair awkwardly. Why did I have to remember that now!

"It's just a dumb club. What's it matter if you can do it or not?" My little brother says while playing his game. I feel a twist inside and push my plate away from me, my appetite vanishing.

"Daisuke!" My mother tries to scold him for it, but I didn't particularly mind. He was always saying cruel things without thinking them through first.

"You wouldn't understand, I guess." I say back to him. He rolls his eyes but doesn't look at me while I speak to him.

"I know you're doing it cause all your friends don't have time for you anymore. Even a kid can understand that."

It hurt a lot more to hear it out loud than it did to constantly hear it in my head playing over and over. But he was right, to say the least. As horrible as he was to say it and hit a nerve.

My father slammed his fist down on the table, causing everyone at the table except me to jump in surprise. He opened his mouth and started shouting at my brother, who finally set his phone down to look my father in the eye while he was speaking.

"I'm not hungry anymore!"

As my eyes start to sting with the onset of tears, I reach down and yank the back legs of my brother's chair up so that it sends him falling forward and into his plate. My mother and sister burst into laughter, but at the moment I don't really find it funny.. I reach up to wipe at my eyes as I leave the dining room.