My Five Senses

By Shima And Tempis

Disclaimer: Mikhail, Jepta, Kobi, Metropolis, etc… They’re not mine. They belong to friends. Navi, and this story, are mine and mine alone. No stealing.

Author’s Note: Mikhail and Navi are around fifteen/sixteen. Mikhail’s older by about a year. I never asked Cee (Mikhail’s creator) what his foreign component was because she always just used Russian, with tan/lightly dark skin.

Touch Taste Smell See Hear

Taste

Sweeping is one of the most boring jobs on the planet unless your so-called guardian is sitting near you talking about the most random subjects she can think up.

“And Ray, my god. Can you believe he and Mik are actually related? They don’t act a bit alike. Ray is a drugged up bum. Mik is a gentleman. They don’t even share many looks. Maybe their eyes, but Ray’s just greasy.” Jepta was sipping from a bottle of water, watching Navi sweep the floors of the café one night after closing up. Navi did not need the extra cash Jepta always paid her—she was just bored. It was Friday, and Navi had no intention of doing her homework until Sunday night.

Navi snickered in response to Jepta’s ramblings. “Mikhail? A gentleman? Are you insane?” She kneeled down and swept one of her piles into a broom pan before dumping it into the rolling trashcan next to her. The sleeves on her shirt were rolled up and she had an apron on—Jepta refused to let her clean without one. Navi was pretty sure it just amused her; it had nothing to do with being professional.

Jepta took another sip, looking at Navi with an eyebrow raised. “That boy is more of a gentleman than most of the men I’ve dated, Navster. Stop being so hard on him.” She settled back into one of the many comfortable armchairs in one corner of the café. “Except for R—“

“Who dumped you, if I remember correctly. You even got engaged, and he took off.” Continuing to sweep animatedly, Navi ignored the penetrating glare from her guardian and best friend. “And you should be telling Mikhail to give me a break, Jepta, not the other way around.”

Rolling her eyes, Jepta got up from her chair and went back to the front counter, opening the cash register with a bang! and sorting through the money. “D’you take anything from the back today, Nav?” She called after a while, a pencil in her mouth as she tapped into a small calculator.

Navi took the garbage bag out of the trashcan and tied it closed. She strolled over to the counter, dropping the bag at her feet. “Naah, not today. Why? The money not adding up?”

“Yeah—oh wait, I remember. Gave Mik a free cookie today.” She wrote something down on the piece of paper next to her. Navi groaned, picking up the trash bag and going around the counter and into back storage. She kicked the back door open and walked towards the dumpster. She still could not understand why she did this every night: clean up, listen to Jepta rant about the men in her life, and get lectured about Navi’s own hatred of them.

She opened the dumpster roughly and tossed the trash into it. Taking her hand from the dumpster’s lid she let it slam closed. With a satisfied smirk, Navi turned to walk back inside.

“What did that poor dumpster ever do to you?” The young man leaning near the open back door in front of her was both familiar and unwanted. “Did it call you a hothead? I remember you hate that.” Mikhail tilted his head to the side, smiling.

Obviously not amused, Navi glared at him. “Why do you keep popping up everywhere? You’re like a freaking mole.” She attempted to get by him and go back inside, but he blocked the doorway. He was still much taller than she was, and there was no chance she could just shove him backwards. Mikhail had strength over her as well. “Move you overgrown oaf before I remove your ability to reproduce.”

“You wound me.” Instead of moving out of the way, Mikhail leaned against one side of the doorframe and leaned one foot against the other side, further blocking her way. “You skipped English today. Shall I tell Jepta, or would you rather do it?”

Navi gritted her teeth, stepping back and stopping her attempts to return inside. “Since when have you resorted to blackmail in order to have a conversation?”

“Since you taught me how. Now that I have you here, I’d like to know why we all had to miss your lovely presence in Mr. Silverwood’s amazing honors English class.” He looked down at her condescendingly with his arms crossed.

“Aw, you missed me? How nice.” Navi was still glowering. “I got hurt during gym, if you must know. Some butch girl bumped into me during soccer and the nurse made me lie down for the period.” Mikhail moved out of her way then, giving her access to the doorway, but Navi didn’t move. “Why do you care, anyway?”

“If you must no, I’m secretly pining for you.” Her eyes widened and Mikhail laughed. “I’m kidding. I thought you skipped because Silverwood was planning to read one of your pieces again.”

“Why would I skip because of that?” Navi asked, shivering slightly. At night Metropolis was almost always cold. Even in the summer. God damn it, Navi thought bitterly. Why wouldn’t she just go inside?

“Oh I don’t know, so you don’t get your precious pages taken away from you?” Mikhail shrugged a shoulder, returning to leaning against the doorframe. “The one he read was horrible, though. You’re off your game, Nav.”

Clenching her teeth, Navi balled her hands into fists. “I’m never off my game. My muse just felt like kicking me in the crotch instead of giving me inspiration for once.”

Mikhail tsked. It sounded funny coming from him, but Navi suppressed the urge to smile. “Such imagery, young lady. Maybe your muse was just waiting for the right time to whack you over the head with an idea.” Navi was starting to shuffle towards the doorway. She was now very aware of the cold.

“While I’d love to continue this conversation freezing my butt off, I would like to go inside. Jepta’ll make us hot chocolate, if you really don’t plan on leaving me alone.” Navi kicked at Mikhail’s ankle and he stood upright, entering the back storage room. Navi followed him, shutting the door behind them both. She could hear Jepta greeting him as he entered the main room. She came out after locking the door.

“Two hot chocolates coming up, with extra whipped cream.” Jepta was saying as Navi came in. Mikhail was already seated on a stool by the counter. Navi slid onto one beside him. She was rubbing her hands, trying to return feeling to them. Jepta made them hot chocolate and made a rather large show of adding the whipped cream to the point where some was falling out of the mug. Navi laughed then, feeling better.

Suddenly Jepta’s cell phone, which was on her hip, began to vibrate. “Aw, crap.” Jepta answered quickly and listened to the person on the other line. “Yeah, sure, I’ll be right there. Don’t worry, we’ll find his thcooter—I mean scooter. Uh huh.” After closing the phone and returning it to her hip, Jepta looked at the two teenagers. “Little Kobi’s lost his scooter again and is apparently giving Hayley hell to find it. I trust you can lock up, Navster?” Jepta didn’t even wait for an answer; she was already grabbing the keys to her motorcycle and her helmet, which she stored beneath the counter. She threw an absentminded goodbye their way before leaving the café.

They watched her go silently before going back to waiting for their hot chocolates to cool. Navi took a bit of her whipped cream on her finger and then licked the cream off. It tasted like chocolate. “Mmm… This makes locking up worth it.”

Mikhail was staring at her and she was trying to ignore it. Finally, after an awkward silence, Navi looked back at him. “What?”

“You have whipped cream around your mouth and on your nose.”

Navi started to wipe her face vigorously when Mikhail grabbed her wrist. “Huh?” She stuttered, before Mikhail took his thumb and wiped the whipped cream from her nose.

“I can get it, you know.” Then he worked on getting the stuff from around Navi’s mouth. The feeling of his fingertips there made Navi’s blush, and as a redhead, that meant it was extremely noticeable. Mikhail showed no sign that he noticed except the small quirk of his lips that quickly disappeared. “There,” he said when he was finished, “all clean.” Navi rolled her eyes before taking a bit of Mikhail’s whipped cream. “Hey!”

“You weren’t doing anything with it.”

“It’s my whipped cream. I’ll do what I want with it!” He grabbed at her hand but Navi dodged and swiped her finger down the side of Mikhail’s face, leaving a streak of whipped cream. She started laughing as he stared at her, rather bewildered. “You will clean that off right now, missy!”

“Don’t call me missy and I might.” Navi was having a little too much fun now. She pretended to pout. “What a waste of whipped cream.” And then, without thinking, Navi leaned forward and licked a little bit of the whipped cream off of Mikhail’s face.

The silence that stretched on after that was almost unbearable. Navi was trying to smile, play it off as a joke, but Mikhail was looking at her like she had just claimed to be the spawn of the devil (something he had pondered before). Unable to meet his eyes anymore, Navi turned back to her hot chocolate.

She was just about to change the subject when she felt Mikhail slide his finger down the side of her face. A creamy substance came with it. Her eyes widened, and she stared at him open-mouthed. He was smirking broadly. Then he leaned forward and licked a little bit off—but he didn’t stop. He just licked a little, then a little more. Navi had the thought, somewhere in the back of her mind, to pull away, but she couldn’t.

And when he was finally kissing her, all she could think was that he still tasted like chocolate and whipped cream.