It has been a while since time seemed to have been on Nick’s side and not drag, but the night he had spent talking with Rinoa seemed to have flashed before his eyes and before he knew it, the night has ended and everyone was getting ready to go home.

“Wow, it’s Christmas!” Nick realized as he looked at his watch and saw the time of 1:28 a.m.

“Let me be the first to wish you a Merry Christmas,” Rinoa grinned at him. “So, Merry Christmas!”

“Merry Christmas,” Nick chortled back.

“I should probably get going,” Rinoa blurted while slowly getting up, but hesitantly, as she did not want to leave the company that Nick provided for her.

“Oh…uh…yeah sure,” Nick said, while deep within he wanted to ask her to stay. “Uhm…bye, I guess”

“Have a good holiday,” she smiled at him as she began to walk away.

“Rinoa wait,” Nick called out abruptly, “Before I lose all my nerves completely, uhm…do you want to maybe go out sometime, or…or something? I mean if you’re busy and all, I mean, I would understand but, I just…you know…had to…had to at least try,” he said while scratching his forehead as his heart began to flutter in nervousness, a thousand beat at a time.

The smile on Rinoa’s face vanished as she heard Nick’s request, “Uhm…you’re a great guy Nick, you really are but…”

“No but’s,” Nick chuckled nervously

“There are some things you just won’t understand,” she walked back closer to Nick.

“It’s okay,” he said emphatically, while trying to not make his disappointment an obvious feeling. “I’ll just…go hide under a huge rock or something,” he said while chortling

“I’m sorry,” Rinoa said while leaning over and giving Nick a small peck on the cheek. “Merry Christmas,” she whispered and then finally walking away.

Nick stood in the garden, immobile, feeling somewhat foolish. He knew there wasn’t anybody around that could have heard or witnessed the plunge he suddenly took, but he still couldn’t help but feel barenaked and exposed.

Just as he finally got enough sense to start walking and go home, a sudden recurrence of Rinoa’s small peck on his cheek came back and just then he realized it seemed familiar. He couldn’t put his finger on it but it to him it seemed like it was something that once belonged to him but was unknowingly taken away out of spite and out of covetousness. He touched his own cheek, at the same spot where Rinoa had kissed him.

Question marks began to flutter over Nick’s heads as he tried and figure out if he, by chance, had known Rinoa from somewhere else but neither of them remembers. “Maybe I’m just being paranoid,” he concluded while giving it the shrug of the shoulder and followed the same trail Rinoa took, out of the garden, back into the banquet hall, and eventually, out of it, and made his way home. All was the same trail he had taken at the beginning of the night, but the only difference was that Janine was missing and everything was being taken backwards.