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It's not like I haven’t thought about what it would be like to kiss a girl. Back in school, the guys always boasted about kissing, and nowadays, Zelos is the one who keeps going on and on about how great it is. So, yeah, I've thought about it.

Occasionally, I'd take a look at the girls and wonder. Take Sheena, for example. Sure, she's pretty, and she can be nice when she wants to be, but after seeing what she does to Zelos, I'm not sure I'd be able to survive her wrath if I tried anything. Presea's whole not aging thing is a little creepy. I don't even know whether she'd be too young or too old! I never really thought about Professor Sage, though - she might have some sort of mind-reading power she could use to give me detention for the rest of my life. And trust me, nothing is worth that.

In the long run, I guess it never really mattered that much. What with trying to reunite two worlds, there are more important things to worry about than kissing girls. But that didn't really stop me from wondering sometimes.

Anyway, I'm getting off the subject. What I really wanted to talk about was the time Dad let us stay at our house in Iselia Forest for the night. It was a tight squeeze, but everyone managed to get a place to sleep. I got to sleep in my own bed, of course, and Genis, Colette, and Presea all slept on futons on the floor beside me.

I don't remember exactly why I couldn't get to sleep. It might have been something in Dad's dwarven potluck surprise, I don't know. Anyway, I was up, and I rolled over towards the window, where something bright and shiny caught my attention. Then another one flew by, followed by more of them. That was when I realized that there were fireflies outside.

I figured going out onto the terrace to watch them for a while would help me get to sleep. So I got out of bed, being careful not to wake up the others. However, I forgot about this one creaky floorboard right next to the doorway, and stepped on it. I froze, listening carefully to one of the futons shift a little.

I turned around to see Colette, sitting up in her bed and rubbing her eyes. I guess she was able to hear the floor creak with her angelic hearing.

"Did I wake you up?" I whispered. Well, I guess that was kind of an obvious question, but I asked it anyway.

"Lloyd?" she asked sleepily, "Where are you going?"

"I was just gonna go look at the fireflies," I answered. "I couldn't get to sleep anyway."

Her eyes widened. "Fireflies? There are fireflies out?"

"Yeah. There are a bunch of them."

"I want to see!" she said, a little loudly. I hushed her and told her not to wake the others up. "Oh... sorry. Can I - Can I come with you?"

"Sure," I said. I waited for her to get up and tiptoe over to me before walking outside. I went over to the railing and leaned on it, looking out into the trees. Colette followed me and did the same thing.

There were even more of them than I thought! There must have been hundreds of them, flying around the trees and flickering on and off, kind of like stars. It was really cool looking, to see all those little lights illuminate the entire forest.

"It's so pretty," Colette said breathlessly.

"Yeah." I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. She propped her head up with her arms, which were resting on the railing and stared at the little lights with big, bright eyes. It was... kind of cute, actually. Of course, this was Colette we're talking about, and it's not hard for her to act cute.

"It's so... romantic," I heard her mutter under her breath. Naturally, I had no idea what she meant, so I asked.

"Romantic?"

She jumped a little bit and looked at me. Then, she looked down on the ground and shook her head violently. "Ah - nothing! Nothing!"

What a weirdo, I thought to myself. I never had any idea why she could get so spazzy sometimes, and looking back on it, I just wasn't paying enough attention. After a long silence, Colette finally spoke up again.

"Lloyd? Can I... can I come closer?"

Why not? I nodded, and she came a bit closer. After pausing a bit, she inched towards me, until we were nearly shoulder-to-shoulder with each other. Since she was closer to me, I could tell that her face was turning red. I still didn't know what was going on, so, once again, I asked her.

"Colette, are you okay?"

"What?"

"Your face," I said, "it's all red. You're not getting sick are you?"

"No!" she squeaked, looking down again. "It's just - I'm fine, really."

Like I was going to believe that. After knowing her since forever, it was easy to tell when she was lying about something. "You know I don't like it when you do that."

"Do what?"

"When you lie like that! I mean, why can't you just tell me what's wrong? I'm your friend, aren’t I?"

She didn't say anything, and, after a while, she started to cry. That wasn't good.

"...Colette? Did I say something?"

She buried her face in her hands. Not a good sign. "I'm so sorry!" she said between sniffles, "I'm so sorry - for everything - for not telling you everything..."

By now I was getting worried. Had something else happened that she didn't bother to tell me? Was she hurt? "Then tell me! What happened...?"

Suddenly, she grabbed my hands, squeezing them tightly. She sniffled.

"Lloyd," she said, "you've always been so kind to me... ever since we were little, I..." she started shaking as she continued, "I always... thought you were my favorite person in the entire world..."

"Well, yeah, I mean, I like you too. We're friends."

I could feel her entire body shivering wildly. She was still trembling, but I couldn't understand why. "No!" she said, "No, no... I don't want that...!"

"What?" I asked, stunned, "You don't want to be friends anymore?"

"I like you, Lloyd..." she said quietly, "more than anything."

"So if you like me, why don't you want to be friends...?"

And then, finally, it hit me. The reason she was shaking and crying - it wasn't because she was hurt or sick. She wanted something; something other than my friendship. And then I began to wonder again. About what it would be like to kiss her. It actually sounded really nice. But why just Colette? Why hadn't I felt that way about any of the other girls?

I remembered the day before the oracle came. We had just been dismissed from class, but I had to stay behind to clean for sleeping in class again. When everyone had left, only me and Colette were in the classroom. Suddenly, for no reason at all, she came up and hugged me. I remember, in my confusion, feeling a strange warmth in my chest I couldn't explain. Then I remembered the day she lost her soul to Cruxis. After her eyes became dark and her smile disappeared, I was filled with both a gut-wrenching sadness and a blinding rage unlike anything I had ever felt before.

It was as if Colette could make my emotions multiply themselves by ten-fold; when she was happy, I was full of joy. When she was sad, the weight of her sadness was crushing me inside. When she had been done wrong, I wanted to make sure that whoever wronged her would regret it deeply. The thought of loosing her again would nearly drive me to tears. And, most importantly, the thought of being with her forever gave me more hope than anything else in the world.

I realized that I was in love with Colette.

I moved my hands up to her shoulders. Then I began to panic - what if I had been totally wrong about how she felt? What if I completely destroyed anything we've ever had together? What if this wasn't what she wanted at all? But, in the end, the benefits weighed much more than the risks.

So I kissed her. I had no idea how to do it, but somehow, it just came naturally. My hands and my mouth were moving on their own and I couldn't control them. My stomach did flip-flops and my heart nearly jumped out of my throat. I felt the same warmth I felt that day in the classroom, only now, it was about a hundred times stronger. Needless to say, it was a lot better than I ever imagined.

I broke off with her, still trying to comprehend what I had just done. Colette stared at me, frozen, with her eyes and her mouth wide open.

"I..." I took a deep breath before continuing. "I'm sorry if that wasn't what you wanted. I just... I don't like it when you're sad. When you're sad, it makes me sad, too."

The next thing I remembered was finding myself on the floor, with her on top of me - and this time, she was kissing me. Not that I minded. When we stopped I could feel her tears dripping onto my face. But, although she was still crying, she was also smiling.

"Lloyd," she said tenderly, "it's okay. That was everything I ever wanted."

A sense of relief and of pride swept over me when I heard her say that. I had just gotten my first kiss from the most wonderful girl in the world. I bet even Zelos couldn't top that!

She looked over towards the house and blushed. "Uh oh... we were kind of loud. I hope no one heard us..."

I turned her face towards mine. "Ah, let 'em," I said before pulling her down for another round.

Who ever said you couldn't have three first kisses?

The End