"Wait… why did you kiss me?"
Hermes blurted it out as soon as they exited the bathroom, faces flushed and hands still awkwardly brushing.
Aphrodite blinked at him slowly, avoiding eye contact. "Because… I didn't know how else to say it."
Hermes tilted his head. "Say what?"
And then something strange happened.
A tingling sensation bloomed at the back of Hermes' tongue, rising up into the roof of his mouth and spreading through his head like carbonation.
He blinked rapidly, and then…
Just above Aphrodite's head… he saw them.
Bubbles.
Dozens of pink thought bubbles, delicate and shimmering like champagne froth, rising and swirling above him. The bubbles popped and reformed, letters dancing like calligraphy across the surface… individual thoughts coalescing into sentences, then paragraphs.
Hermes gasped. "Mindbloom…"
He remembered the first time that he asked Aphrodite to kiss him. It was also so he could take Mindbloom from him, even just for a while.
