First Kisses

"Marnie,"

Marnie turned around, slightly perplexed that Nessa addressed her. But when she quickly whipped her hand up, a letter stuck between two of her fingers, she knew it wasn't a personal occasion.

"A boy wanted me to give this to you" Nessa explained.

"Oh. Thank you".

Marnie took the letter off her, and once her duty had been accomplished, Nessa returned to her bag without saying anything else. Interested, Marnie took a seat, and examined the letter given to her. The envelope didn't look anything special, and her name was written in fairly decent handwriting, but unfamiliar all the same. As she carefully peeled back the lip of the letter, Hop and Victor had approached carefully, and peeked over her shoulder as they all read the letter in silent unison.

The letter was long, but skimming through it and picking out the more important paragraphs, the boys could deduce that the writer had been a long fan of Marnie and her battling style and was quite charmed with her stoic but cute looks. Poetically put, it seemed that the writer had feelings for Marnie.

"It's a love letter!" Hop proclaimed as he reached the end.

"So it would seem" Marnie responded as she reached the end of the note.

Victor turned to her "What do you plan on doing?"

Marnie hummed, and neatly folded the letter back up "Probably nothing".

"Nothing? Really?"

"I'm not interested in dating at the moment," Marnie stuck the envelope back together, and set it to the seat beside her "I also don't think my brother would be too thrilled with me having a boyfriend either".

"Ah, yeah, Piers does seem like the overprotective type".

"But still!" Hop pouted "To even get a love letter, you're so lucky Marnie!"

Marnie turned around to face both of them "You two haven't gotten a love letter before?"

"I haven't," Hop answered glumly, then threw his finger to Victor "But this guy gets a ton of them".

"Is that so?" Marnie turned to Victor, who had turned a shade of pink "What do you do with your letters?"

"Er...I just...I'm not into dating either I suppose" Victor mumbled out shyly.

Marnie hummed "It must be hard to be attractive".

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"So," Marnie continued "Does that mean you two have never had girlfriends either?"

"Er..." Hop glanced over to Victor. He hadn't anticipated Marnie to continue this line of questioning; she was so disinterested in romance, so why did she have to insist on it now? Judging by the uneasy look Victor had, it looked like he thought the same too.

"No" Both of them said. But it was a lie, somewhat. They may have not had girlfriends, but they both had boyfriends, whom happened to be standing next to each other talking to Marnie.

"I see," She then tilted her head lightly "Then...I suppose you wouldn't have had your first kisses then, right?"

Hop felt his stomach clench up. Why did she have to get so personal about this? He had dozens of kisses with Victor by then, but he didn't want to openly admit that to a girl in the challengers changing room. Marnie must have noticed his discomforted look, so he quickly tried to hide it behind a smile.

"N-Nope! Not yet!" Hop lied with a chuckle.

Marnie hummed again, seemingly believing his white lie, and turned to Victor who pinched his chin between his finger and thumb in thought "And you?"