30 Kisses [HyuAi]: 4, 21, 26
Okay, now I've done all the themes that are simple for these two. Now I'll actually have to be creative. Ew.
21. violence; pillage/plunder; extortion
A little bet brings them a little closer. One tipsy, joking remark about her marksmanship, one calm, unfazed proposal lands them in the shooting range the next day. Hughes doesn’t have a hope of winning, but he enjoys watching her in deep concentration, precise and cool and controlled. Her shots cluster around the heart, his scatter throughout the outline. He concedes with a dinner reward; her small triumphant smile pays him back.
After dinner, nursing drinks that raise faint blushes in their cheeks, they make another bet over a game of darts. She manages to stick a dart in the wall, discovering that the overhand throwing motion is very different from aiming a gun. They laugh over her attempts, but she is only silence as he carelessly hits the bull’s-eye three times in a row, confident and smooth and quick.
He claims a kiss as the winner, but when their lips meet, he gives her everything back.
4. our distance and that person
Sometimes when they stand right next to each other, they are really standing miles apart. It happens when they are among the military public, as if they are afraid to acknowledge each other, as if they are somehow even less than strangers. It seems wrong when she salutes him, stiffly, professionally, and the distance yawns between them, too great to reach across even for a casual handshake. And all he wants to do is lean close, wrap his arms around her, and brush his lips across her cheek.
But the eyes are watching them, dark eyes, and the bright smile of the Lieutenant Colonel casts a dark cloud between them. They aren’t sure why they feel this way, why they act this way, why they’re hiding from him. They only know that neither has told him, that neither will tell him, that they are trying to find each other without him.
But he was the one who brought them together and now he is the one driving them apart.
26. if only I could make you mine
Hughes thought about taking her picture once so that he could gaze upon her when they were apart, but there was something wrong about the idea of capturing that beautiful, subtle face and imprisoning it in his breast pocket, where he would keep it close by his heart. There was simply something wrong about caging her, something wrong about possessing her, like clipping the wings of a beautiful bird to keep it mired to admire and stealing instead its beauty of flight. Indeed, he’d rather have her free even if that meant risking that she might fly away, even if it meant that she returned to the hand of another master.
He wouldn’t keep her picture because he thought there might come a day when that was all he had left of her as his own and he couldn’t bear the thought of pressing his lips to the cold image, trying to recapture the memory of her warm lips.
21. violence; pillage/plunder; extortion
A little bet brings them a little closer. One tipsy, joking remark about her marksmanship, one calm, unfazed proposal lands them in the shooting range the next day. Hughes doesn’t have a hope of winning, but he enjoys watching her in deep concentration, precise and cool and controlled. Her shots cluster around the heart, his scatter throughout the outline. He concedes with a dinner reward; her small triumphant smile pays him back.
After dinner, nursing drinks that raise faint blushes in their cheeks, they make another bet over a game of darts. She manages to stick a dart in the wall, discovering that the overhand throwing motion is very different from aiming a gun. They laugh over her attempts, but she is only silence as he carelessly hits the bull’s-eye three times in a row, confident and smooth and quick.
He claims a kiss as the winner, but when their lips meet, he gives her everything back.
4. our distance and that person
Sometimes when they stand right next to each other, they are really standing miles apart. It happens when they are among the military public, as if they are afraid to acknowledge each other, as if they are somehow even less than strangers. It seems wrong when she salutes him, stiffly, professionally, and the distance yawns between them, too great to reach across even for a casual handshake. And all he wants to do is lean close, wrap his arms around her, and brush his lips across her cheek.
But the eyes are watching them, dark eyes, and the bright smile of the Lieutenant Colonel casts a dark cloud between them. They aren’t sure why they feel this way, why they act this way, why they’re hiding from him. They only know that neither has told him, that neither will tell him, that they are trying to find each other without him.
But he was the one who brought them together and now he is the one driving them apart.
26. if only I could make you mine
Hughes thought about taking her picture once so that he could gaze upon her when they were apart, but there was something wrong about the idea of capturing that beautiful, subtle face and imprisoning it in his breast pocket, where he would keep it close by his heart. There was simply something wrong about caging her, something wrong about possessing her, like clipping the wings of a beautiful bird to keep it mired to admire and stealing instead its beauty of flight. Indeed, he’d rather have her free even if that meant risking that she might fly away, even if it meant that she returned to the hand of another master.
He wouldn’t keep her picture because he thought there might come a day when that was all he had left of her as his own and he couldn’t bear the thought of pressing his lips to the cold image, trying to recapture the memory of her warm lips.