first kiss

Hanamoto remembered it like this:

One of those balmy-bright evenings in June when he could crack open a beer without guilt. Four, in fact. After he and Hagu ate (dinner with Hagu: the box of takeout vanishing in tiny increments; turn your head and you'd miss that birdlike delicacy with some semblance of disappointment) they divided and conquered themselves into incongruous blobs. Hagu held a patty of clay in her hand. He settled his cheek against hers.

Hanamoto calculated her reaction down to the last twitch of her mouth: flinching, blinking, inhaling, puffing her cheeks and squeezing the clay out of its shape. He smiled against her cheek.

He slid his arms over hers slowly, carefully until his hands covered hers. He brought her palms together, to press the clay back into a patty. Hagu exhaled finally. Ingenuously.

As Hanamoto's hands oversaw her hands' work, his lips found a job in hers. He pressed them together: dry, nuzzling, their noses much too close. Hanamato witnessed the en vogue action of Hagu's eyelids fluttering shut, her hands white-knuckled and quivering under his—an honor; a hand-shaking, heart-rattling privilege of the first degree. Hanamoto encroached her mouth for something a bit more moist. The clay hung from her fingertips now.

He replaced it.

Who knew clay could be so erotic—but he was getting old, he supposed. Every detail counted.