Shiemi

Ah, um, so it seems … my first kiss was stolen by a demon.

And not just any demon … it was that Amaimon fellow, the King of Earth. This weird boy with tired eyes and kinda cool clothes and a green spike in his hair. The same person who tried to kill all my friends and threatened to bite my lips off and gouge my eyes out. A demon among demons. He was the one who took my first kiss.

"Well technically it was a hamster …"

Eh, it's all a very silly story, really! You'd expect a first kiss to be a very magical and beautiful experience, in springtime with cherry blossoms and chapstick and fluttering eyelashes and the doki doki kokoro-ki and all those lovely things. That's all any young teen girl would expect. Not that I was expecting a romance so soon in my life, I mean, I was still in my innocent years after all.

Ahem …

But as it happens, I was just in the garden when I came across this little green hamster. It was the cutest thing! And hearing the frogs ribbiting in the pond I thought, well, WHAT IF this hamster was a prince transformed into a hamster only to be rescued by a maiden's kiss?! My mother often said I read too many fairy tales. But he looked at me with such an intelligent expression, you see. So I squealed quietly to myself and said aloud:

"Oh, hamster-san, is it true you are really a prince!?"

And he looked at me with his head cocked to the side as if to say, well, of course!

So I picked him up in my hands and lifted him up while leaning down to kiss him. He raised his head to reach my lips and everything. I gave him a peck, just a peck, and then suddenly there was a thud! and a body had fallen right out of thin air! Well, right out of the air the hamster had been occupying just seconds previous, I mean. And instead of the slightly damp hamster nose of before there was a real life pair of warm lips belonging to — well, what? A prince!?

It had to be! What else? I mean, of course it was … or so I let myself believe for that brief second. What hope! What joy! What malicious deceit! That green spike on the little vermin's head really should have been a dead giveaway. Ah … But, I mean, I had been in a weird state of hypnosis the last time I met him. I could hardly remember a thing about the encounter, and … and … oh, shoot.

So, heart beating wildly, I opened my eyes. And there were those scary drooping eyes boring right back into mine. And — oh my — we were still kissing.

"Gyaaaah!" I screamed.

"Ayaaahhh!" he screamed.

I fell backwards, then jumped to my feet in a panic. One of my geta fell off. "You — you're not allowed in here!" I shrieked, pointing wildly at the gate. "The garden! Oh, ah! — Help, help, a demon!" I gasped and rubbed my mouth on my sleeve, feeling my face growing hot and pink. "Puh, puh, puh!"

"Don't despair, m'lady," he drawled, bouncing to his feet and reaching down to pick up my lost shoe. He grinned at me, a horrible fanged smile, his eyes wild with amusement. His voice was lively but calm, like this was all very normal or something. "There's plenty more where that came from, now that we're officially wed."

I cringed away from him, feeling close to tears. Oh, Amaimon, what big ears you have! Oh, demon prince, what pointy teeth!

Ah — and — and did he just say wed?

I stumbled back, feeling ill and fluttery like I could probably faint. "My first kiss," I whimpered. "Stolen by a demon?"

"Well, technically it was a hamster," he said.

This was the worst. Even in that film with the kissing frogs, the guy turned out to be a handsome prince! Not a demon prince. None of the princes are ever demons.

But that's how it happened. It's really all very silly, right? It probably doesn't count … (haha) … And the problem's not that he's a demon, really — I mean, Yuki-chan is half-demon and .. and … well, never mind that but … but this demon tricked me! It really wasn't fair at all, him stealing my innocence like that! A girl's first kiss is supposed to be something else, something romantic and exciting and terrifying, a fond memory never to be forgotten. And here was mine, ruined by a psycho raving lunatic of a demon who, for whatever reason, decided it would be fun to curse me with a miserable love-life forever. No gallantry, no romance, no cherry blossoms at all! I cried myself to sleep thinking about it. What would my mother say? What would my future true love say? What would … what would the Pope say?

And, you know, I really think he believes we're married now.

That guy, Amaimon, actually left me alone after that, making weird faces at me like I was a cute baby and saying things to himself like 'personal space' and 'glass slipper' as he ran off outside the gate, clutching my geta to his chest.

But every once in a while I still see that demon prince, sitting atop the garden fence with an eery sense of balance. He watches me as I work in the garden, and I try my best to ignore him. But I can't ignore the feelings of wriggling worms in my stomach at the sight of him. It was as if he had hatched more chuchi eggs in my body, somehow, through that stupid little kiss.

I mean … why else would it feel like butterflies?