Checkmate ⚢

Chapter 32 Invitation

"Is this the part where we have to go to school for real this time?" Hana asked.

Althea sighed, and then tucked her in a tight embrace, remembering everything that had happened the day and the night before. Everything good and everything bad: the fights, the resurfacing pain, and the revelation of secrets, the feeling of betrayal, and the kisses they shared in privacy, the crying, the intimacy that followed, and the way she had allowed Hana to touch her. Hana's childish yet most charming questions and her bewildered face expression as Althea had told her about everything she needed to know. Althea cupped her face, losing herself again into the maroon depth of her iris, while her hands grabbed hers in a tender squeeze.

"I'm afraid so. It's against my better judgment to miss more classes than we already have."

"You'll have to tempt me to go." Hana puffed her cheeks. "I have no motivation."

"How about if I cook for you for breakfast, will that suffice?"

"Oh! It would!" Hana smiled and Althea mimicked the gesture, but it seemed to Althea that how Hana's lips curled was far more sincere than hers. Althea knew then that she was changed into a woman, perhaps in a way that she would have never thought she could be altered by another woman.

Yet Hana, with her dreaminess and cheerfulness, had managed to awake the inner child that had been hidden behind an adult mask for too long. Althea found her extremely beautiful that morning as they sat in his bed, flanked by messy sheets and ruffled pillows, wearing nothing but their hearts on their sleeves. Althea fingered Hana's back, while she rested her head on the taller girl's shoulder, carefully sniffing her skin hoping to preserve the memory of it forever.

The saccade sound of Hana's heart pulsating in her chest resounded like a melody. She could sense the forceful pounding as Althea laid her hand on Hana's chest and its mere pace brought so much confidence to her. This heart, the one that Althea was listening to, was beating for her and at that point, she realized that no heart had ever lived for her, before.

"Come now, Hana. What would you want for breakfast?" Althea asked

"Anything you can come up with, I'm not picky," Hana said. "Oh wait, I'm starting to get tired of potatoes being served in the cafeteria so something with fewer potatoes would be best!"

Time went by fast as the girls prepared their new morning routine with each other.

Hana settled to sit on the kitchen counter as Althea insisted to their cook that she would be cooking for their breakfast. After managing to tell the cook to step out for them, Hana had been browsing her phone for quite some time.

"Althea!" Hana said, frantically, and went off the stool to show her the phone. "Something happened! Someone posted this on social media!"

Althea leaned in and looked at the blurry photo posted by Millie—one of Wafiqah's friends at the NAN. "It's a photo of us leaving the Samhain together."

"Althea," Hana huffed. "You're missing the point. Look at the comments?"