[kiling - tagalog in origin;  the undeniable happy feeling you get when someone you love/cherish does something nice for you // some explain it as the giddiness you get when you see your crush]

She had never known hunger until she had met his lips. There was a ravenous passion in the pit of her soul that let her forget her surroundings and suddenly things were completely clear. The butterflies in her stomach had taken the form of a tornado and caused havoc around her body and mind and her hands. In all of her life, she's never felt so overwhelmed by so many positive feelings at once.

It was as if she needed him. Oxygen was only secondary to what her body needed to function and breathe and simply exist. This was where she belonged. Here. In his embrace, with his arms wrapped around her and his body to always be this close.

Someone cleared their throat, bringing Vera back to her reality. Her reality was a lot worse than she thought. Her reality was her blood on his face and on her clothes and his clothes and probably on the floor. Her reality was that she had just made out with her date in front of her (ex?) best friend and her old flame. Awkwardness could not even begin to describe what she felt. If that hypotethical hole from earlier was available, Vera really wanted to fall down it for a million years.

Unfortunately, life didn't just give her holes randomly for her to bury her head into it – actually, life didn't give any holes at all. Vera knew that once she turned around and faced Gemma and Mitchell's reaction, she had to deal with it and not find an immediate exit like she wanted to. The bathroom door looked so tempting to her, the same way the apple probably looked so delicious to Eve.

No. She had to do this, all she had to do was find something to say, something interesting that could possibly drag all the attention away from her. Her brain ran through all the possible conversation starters – asking them how they were would just immediately bring them back to her situation, asking them whether they had a lovely meal would just add to the awkwardness that was already in the air.

She had clearly underestimated just how strange her situation was – Mitchell's look of absolute disdain mixed in with shock (and a sprinkled with a little bit of something strange that Vera couldn't figure out) confirmed it for her. Vera immediately ruled out jealousy – there was no possible way that Mitchell could be jealous when he had Gemma. When his gaze left Vera's face, his frown deepened as he stared at Leon's face. Then he dropped his gaze to Vera's hands looped with Leon's hands and Vera noticed that his fists tightened.

Before Vera could open her mouth, before anyone could open their mouths, Mitchell huffed and left the bathroom in a fury. There were a few seconds of confusion mixed with the earlier awkwardness before Gemma realised what had just happened. If looks really could kill, Vera started to wonder who would come to her funeral because Gemma really looked like she wanted to vaporise Vera's entire existence.

Gemma didn't even have to open her mouth to let Vera know what she was thinking. Everything was Vera's fault. At least, that was what was radiating off her in waves. It wasn't rare for Vera to experience that angry side of Gemma – in year ten, some girl decided to pull on Gemma's ponytail for a joke so Gemma playfully punched her in the face, causing her to get seven stitches on her nose – but it was rare for Vera to be on the receiving end. Gemma had only been truly angry at Vera three times in her life: one) when Vera was five and Vera accidentally ruined Gemma's favourite toy car, two) when Vera forgot to book the fancy restaurant Gemma had planned for Mitchell's surprise birthday, and three) what was happening right now.

"Aren't you gonna run after your boyfriend? Seems like he's a bit pissed." Leon asked, his tone clearly mocking Gemma. "Who knows why?"

The smirk on Leon's face did it for Gemma. Vera knew Gemma was considering her options, she could see that Gemma's gears were changing and Vera knew that at least five of the options that Gemma could take would be incredibly bad for Vera.

Fortunately, Gemma chose the option that didn't involve hurting Vera (physically and emotionally) and instead to delay her punishment on Vera. Before Gemma left, she looked at Vera with a look that simply said that "this isn't finished" and closed the door.

Vera finally exhaled all the air that she didn't even know she was holding. Suddenly, the air seemed a lot less thick with just the two of them in the bathroom. She stared at the guy who had her blood on his face, on the tip of his nose, and who had just saved her from social torture. Knights no longer ride on white horses; they apparently slam doors into their damsel's faces.

"You're super attractive with my blood on your face." Vera rambled to herself more than to him, her eyes widening once she realised what she had just said.

"I didn't mean-that's not what I-I'm so sorr-" Her futile attempts at an apology tumbled out of her mouth at an alarming rate. Words didn't quite make it all the way into sentences so it just sounded garbled as it soon as it left her mouth.

"That's a first. Never been called attractive with someone else's blood on my face." He paused, then continued on. "Then again, never really slammed a door in my date's face. Sorry about that." He looked sheepish, as he turned around and walked to the sinks.

He pulled out dozens of paper towels and soaked them with water, and walked back to Vera, his sleeves soaked in water.

"It's not really your fault, it's my fault for getting stuck in here." Vera gratefully took the paper towels from his hands and started to dab at her face and her clothes. "I'm sorry about all of this. You didn't deserve to get accused by Mitchell."

Leon waved her off, "Mitchell would've accused me anyway, even if there was no blood. It's no big deal."

Vera paused, the soaked paper towels hanging on her hands in mid-air as she mulled over what he said. The water from the paper towels dripped onto the tiled floor, splashing onto her black Vans.

"Why?" The question came off more direct than she had originally intended. She faltered, "I-i-mean you don't know have t-to tell me, not if you don't want to."

"We've always had this friendly rivalry between us, ever since first year. Competition was good for the team, that's what our coach said anyway. Let's just say, it's not so friendly anymore." His voice sounded weary, as if the memory pained him to think about it.

Vera nodded, knowing the effects of what a painful memory could have on someone. "Oh. If anything, you rescued me."

"Ah, from Mrs Fireball herself." Leon chuckled, grabbing the bloodied towels away from her and chucking them in the bin. "She doesn't seem to be the biggest fan of you since it looks like he might be carrying a torch for you."

"Oh no, no. Mitchell doesn't see me like that – they've been together for four years and I'm pretty sure he sees me as a little sister."

He didn't look convinced, and Vera wondered whether she was trying to convince him or whether she was really trying to convince herself. Mitchell had never really said that she had reminded me of his little sister – mostly because he didn't have one – but he didn't need to. As much as it broke Vera's heart, she was just simply one of the guys while his heart was set on her best friend.

Vera paused, and continued. "Gemma's just angry at me because my friend called her a bitch."

"The black girl with lilac hair?"

She nodded, failing to fight the smile creeping on her face at the mention of Blaire. Blaire always made an impression on someone – even if it was just because she was black and she had lilac hair or even if it was the way she said hi.

"Yeah, good thing she said it before someone else did."

Vera knew she had no right to be defensive, and she knew that she couldn't defend her against Leon and not be deemed as a hypocrite but that didn't stop Vera from tensing. She couldn't help it. This was a girl that she had been friends with for as long as she could remember and Vera refused to let go of that.

"What do you mean?"

Vera knew that Gemma had her fair share of enemies but usually, it wasn't Gemma's fault. Gemma usually just let her anger get the better of her when someone did something her – it wasn't something that Vera could blame her for either.

Leon raised his eyebrow. "She's known as Little Miss Fireball by everyone in our football team because she's fiercely supportive of her boyfriend. Way too supportive."

She made a face. She didn't put it past Gemma to show an extreme side to loving support. That was just Gemma, Vera was used to it.

"There's nothing wrong with supporting her boyfriend." Even Vera could tell that her defensiveness was waning and her point was weak.

Leon crossed his arms over his chest, accidentally (or maybe not?) showing off his muscles. "She punched a guest ref in the face because he decided to give Mitchell a red card."

Vera bit her lip. "I'm sure there must have been a reason..."

"It was Mitchell's fault." His face darkened, and if this was some sort of televised show, Vera was sure that she would see a dark cloud above his head.

Vera's defence was falling apart. "I'm sure Gemma thought it was a subjective-"

"Mitchell almost broke a guy's leg by tackling him when he shouldn't have." Leon's eyes were narrowed and Vera knew he was daring her to continue.

He had won. It was either Vera was rubbish at defending her friend or Gemma really did deserve the title of 'Little Miss Fireball'. Vera relaxed her shoulders and threw up her hands in a mock-surrender.

"Fine, you win."

Leon stepped towards her, closing the gap between them. His voice was husky, a change from the Leon she was used to. Then again, she wasn't exactly opposed to this side of him.

"Yeah, I did win."

Before Vera could question him, he kissed her and probably stole the words right out of her mouth (and she wasn't complaining.) She wondered why his lips felt like home – like she was always welcome, like she could just sink into his arms and everything would be alright. From the pit of her stomach, a whirlwind of butterflies dared to take her to a much happier place. She knew it was just the intense rush of dopamine but she liked to think differently.

"Yeeep. You definitely won." Vera's voice turned extremely high-pitched, once she could finally breathe through her mouth. "No doubt about that."

Leon laughed, and (it was so cliché) she loved the sound of his laugh. It wasn't exactly music to her ears but damn, it was pretty close.

"Let's take you home, then." Leon mumbled into her hand before kissing it.

**

Traffic wasn't as bad as Vera had hoped. At the back of her mind, she wished that they could be sat in two-hour traffic just so that she could spend more time with him. Unfortunately, the roads were clear and they had arrived back at Vera's flat in less than ten minutes.

Once he had turned the engine off, Leon and Vera sat in silence. She was hesitant to let the day end and she felt that the feeling was mutual. He turned the volume up on the radio, his hand lingering on the radio knob.

"You know, sometimes, you can ring in and request a song and they'll do it."

"Well, yeah..." Vera didn't know where he was going with this and to be honest, she was a little bit scared. "That's what phone lines are for."

Leon didn't answer her and instead fiddled with the radio knob. Vera watched as his other hand drummed his fingers on his leg, rather impatiently.

"Well, I didn't do that."

Vera was about to open her mouth but the radio interrupted her, making her jump a little in her seat. Her eyebrow arched as she stared at him, her smile starting to build on her face as she listened into the radio.

"...Yo, Vera! Looks like Leon's super happy to take you out, and we're hoping you'll have an amazing date! Here's your favourite song!"

I'm Yours by Jason Mraz flooded his car and her ears. Her eyes welled up and before she could stop it, tears were falling out of her eyes. This was one of the nicest, if not the nicest, thing that anyone had done for her. She didn't know what to say or do but wipe her tears onto the back of her hand.

"Oh no, I got it wrong, didn't I?" Leon's tone started to rise, and through very blurry vision, Vera realised that he had started to panic. "I'll turn it down-"

His arm reached for the knob and Vera put her hand on top of his to stop him from fiddling with it. She clutched it, as if it was her lifeline and put her fingers in the spaces between his fingers.

"Thank you."

It was the only phrase that she could blubber out without completely looking like a mess. She was sure that her nose was red and her eyes were probably tainted with red too. She probably looked like a blubbering mess but his smile made everything better.

His hand cupped her cheek intimately, and kept his hand there for a while. She didn't know how long they were sat there like that but it felt like forever.

"You are actually one of a kind." He whispered, kissing her on her forehead. "I don't want to miss out on you."

Vera was going to cry again. She could feel the heat rising from her cheeks and her eyes pricking with tears – she couldn't help it (he was just so lovely.)

"You better not." She teased, smiling and biting her lip. "I hear experiences with me are nothing but surprises."

Leon chuckled, dropping his hand from her face. "I can't wait till the next experience."

Vera opened the door, and stepped outside. She bent down into his car and kissed him again, before quickly removing her body from his face. She walked to the entrance of her building, turning around to catch a glimpse of him only to meet his gaze again. She gave him a quick wave, not knowing what else to do with her hands. Giddiness had taken over her as she fumbled for her key-card, and she honestly couldn't remember the last time she had felt like this for a guy.

The revving of a car let her know that he was leaving and she wondered, as she closed the door behind her, whether he was feeling the same way as she did. She wondered whether the happiness lit his body on fire, the same way hers did each time she thought about him.

Cloud Nine feels pretty good right now, she thought to herself as she opened the doors to her flat and headed inside.