Promise to Sirius (An Utapri / Uta no Prince-sama Fanfiction)

Chapter 50: First Kiss

Natsuki Shinomiya

"Eto... how... do I do this...?"

Natsuki whispered under his breath, his eyes lowered to the script shown on his phone screen.

"How... do I kiss her?" he asked himself softly, completely unsure how to do this.

It was a bright winter morning, just a few days after the five of them rode the party bus and moved into their new home. Natsuki had woken up earlier than he intended, unable to fall back asleep, only to check his inbox and find an email saying that he and the rest of his band had been chosen to star in a new romance drama, with him being chosen to be the main male protagonist. Shocked that he got chosen for the role, with a cup of freshly-brewed rose tea, Natsuki had immediately downloaded the script and gone through it in the living room, and worry coursed through him when he discovered that he had to kiss the female lead on the lips.

He had never kissed anyone on the lips before.

Neither had he dated anyone.

And based on the script, the main male protagonist was experiencing both for the first time.

So staring at the script, he knew that he truly, truly had to practise if he wanted to do well for everyone, for he was going into this with not even a single bit of experience.

"Eto... so... first... she grabs me by the collar of my shirt and pulls me closer..."

Getting more and more nervous by the second, he grabbed the collar of his own white shirt and jerked himself forward, causing himself to stumble. And as soon as he was done, he gulped, unsure he was doing any of this correctly.

"And then... she kisses me first..." he uttered softly, reading what was written on the script, "and I stare at her with eyes filled with shock and within a few seconds, recover and kiss... her... back, closing my eyes, tilting her chin, angling my head... deepening... the kiss... How... do I 'deepen' a kiss? How do I angle my head... let alone kiss properly...?"

Recalling what the script told him to do, Natsuki reached out into empty air, tried to pretend that he was holding a girl's chin - even though he had no clue whether he was holding it right, which he probably was not - and closed his eyes, trying to imagine the scene, hoping to properly picture what was supposed to happen and thinking maybe it would all fall into place and-

"Pfft!"

The sound of someone spitting out their drink startled him out of the awkwardness of the moment. Blinking in shock, Natsuki spun around, only to find Ranmaru staring at him with his jaw dropped, his heterochromatic eyes wide with what could only be pure terror, and Natsuki could barely bring himself to let out a few awkward chuckles before greeting the older male. "Eto... good morning, Maru-chan. Um... how long were you there?"

"Long enough to be horrified!" Ranmaru exclaimed, clutching a cup of water in his hand as he briskly walked over to Natsuki, shaking his head rapidly. "What do you think are you freaking doing, kiddo? Of all the many things I wanna see when I first wake up in the morning, that - whatever that was - is not it!"

"I was trying to practise my acting for the romance drama that we all just got chosen to star in," Natsuki explained, rubbing the back of his neck with an apologetic smile. "The email was already there when I woke up and um... my character has to kiss someone on the lips and I have not had my first kiss before so I don't really know what to do."

Ranmaru's eyes slowly widened in even more horror and Natsuki hesitated before speaking again.

"Um..." his heart faltered in his chest, "have you had your first kiss, Maru-chan?"