Chapter 29 - The Kiss

Before we could respond, a voice was heard.

"Okay, I'm good to go."

We all turned to look at Alia who had just arrived.

And with one voice we answered.

"Okay, here we go."

"In that case, it's perfect. Oh last thing, if you ever find one of them, join one of the other groups, so we'll all know about it at almost the same time." My father continued.

"Are you ready Alia? Shall we go?"

"Whenever you want Yù." She replied with a little too much enthusiasm.

"Well then, we'll leave you to it, good research to you.

"Good research to you too. My father answered.

"Do good research, sir. The two sisters replied in unison.

"Find mother and Nomiko. Shiro answered me.

"I promise Shiro, we will do everything we can to find them.

And with these words, we left the room, heading for the central square.

I must admit that I am not at all confident about leaving Shiro in Selstine's hands, I don't trust her at all.

But if my father considers her trustworthy, then I think we can leave Shiro in her hands.

"By the way, do you know where this central place is?" I asked Alia.

"Thank God I'm here, otherwise what would you do without me. Yes, yes, don't worry, I've already been to Dorta several times, I know where it is.

"Well then, I'll let you show me the way."

We arrived at our destination in about twenty minutes.

But it wasn't the kind of place I was expecting.

Normally, when someone talks about a square, you expect a statue or a building in the centre and a park or a spherical square around it.

But this square was more like a shopping street. A big alley in the centre and lots of little streets around it.

This means that we will have to search in each of them. Even if the most obvious thing is to concentrate our research on this big alley.

Even if there are a lot less people on this square than on yesterday's shopping street, the search might still be hard because this time I won't be able to refer to Shiro's white hair, nor to my father's, which are not very common and are therefore easily spotted.

My mother and my sister are the perfect opposite, they both have brown hair, half-long, like the majority of the women here.

So we started our search, for many hours, hoping to find them, but after more than five hours of searching, we had found absolutely nothing.

And it seemed to be the same for the other groups as no one came to see us.

"Yù, can I ask you a question?

"Er, yes, of course."

"Shiro's and your father's hair, is it natural?"

"Ahahah, so you were also surprised by the colour. It's really unusual, but yes, it's their natural hair, in my family I'm the anomaly. I'm the only one with black hair. As you can see, my father and Shiro have white hair, although Shiro has light blue highlights as well. Then my other sister Nomiko has light brown hair and my mother has brown hair. Usually what shocks people the most is that I'm the one with black hair while the rest of my family has very light hair.

"Yes, it's definitely disturbing. Since you have black hair, I thought your whole family would have dark hair."

"It's the other way around. What is your family like?

"I don't have a family anymore, they left me when I was 3 or 4 years old, so I don't remember much about them. All I know is that I have an older brother who must still be alive.

"Oh sorry, I didn't know."

"Nah, don't worry, since I don't remember them, I'm not sadder than that. In fact, I can tell you about it if you want. Since you don't know much about me, it's the least I can do."

"If you don't mind, I don't mind if you tell me."

"Well like I said, I lost my parents, but also my grandparents and my older sister when I was only 3 or 4, my older brother and the only other one besides me to be normally alive. Then after their death, I was raised until I was 10 years old, by friends of my parents. Then when I was able to manage on my own, I had to leave their house. That's when I decided that I would do everything to find my brother, so I travelled a lot through different countries and some people would have heard his name somewhere and think that he would be in the state of Karroé and I've been looking for him for 2 years now in this country, but unfortunately nobody has ever heard of him. So I suspected that the person who recruited me had lied to me. And I had to start all over again. So I thought I would end my life since I had nowhere to go and no one was waiting for me anywhere. But miracle or not, the day I was thinking of ending my life was a famous July 1, the day the 8 Great Patriarchs decided to launch this war. And that hope gave me the desire to live a little longer, which allowed me to meet you two days later and to be able to talk to you right now.

"Wow, now I was expecting everything but this. You've had a really tough youth actually. Anyway, just know that now you'll always have a place where someone will be waiting for you. No matter what happens."

"Thank you Yù. She answered, with tears in her eyes.

Suddenly, without me knowing why, my head came close to Alia's, and hers also came close to mine. I instinctively closed my eyes at the same time, I'm not sure, but I think I saw her do the same thing.

Then spontaneously I placed my right hand on the back of his neck and moved it up into his hair and at the same time I felt the touch of his lips against mine.

Strangely, I thought she was going to push me away but she continued and I felt her tongue brush against my lips so I did the same as our tongues locked together for about ten seconds before both of us at the same time decided to pull back.

"I... I... I apologize, I don't know what came over me." I answered as if to make an excuse.

I knew for a fact that I had just kissed him of my own free will.

I felt the time was right so I went for it and apparently she felt the same way.

I think this is the first time in 16 years that I have been in love. I can't say how long I've felt this way about Alia, but I know what I feel for her.

Love.

"Don't worry, I don't mind. On the contrary, I even liked it." She answered me embarrassed.

"Re... Really, you liked it?

Well, I must admit that for me too, it was the best kiss of my life. Certainly the first one too, but it was the best.

"Yes, of course I liked it."

"So, if I kiss you again, you won't mind?"

"Absolutely not, on the contrary I'd love to, so if you want you can kiss me." She replied, still as embarrassed as ever.

This time I didn't think it was worth answering her.

Instead, I preferred to kiss her again.