Just Between Us

“Huh?”

Sherry reached out with her hand again. But she found herself unable to touch Hanna who had been sleeping.

“Hm???” Sherry cocked her head. Well, now this wouldn’t do. A morning without hugging Hanna first thing? She tried again, more vigorously this time. Her arms reached out to coil around Hanna and her body approached at speed-

Only for it to feel like there was a thin barrier around Hanna. To an outsider it would look like they were entwined but for the party involved she could tell this wasn’t the same! The feel of Hanna’s warmth was a crucial part of the hug and without it Sherry couldn’t possibly call this a hug.

The noise and rustling blanket woke Hanna out of her slumber. She yawned and slowly turned to see Sherry mere centimeters away from her face.

“Wha- What are you doing?!” She exclaimed. Her body instinctively backed away from Sherry who tried to stop her but it was too late. The lull of Earth’s gravity quickly pulled Hanna toward the ground.

Sherry reached out to try and grab Hanna but again she found her hands repelled by some invisible barrier and was unable to grab onto Hanna’s hand. Instead Hanna hit the ground with a dull thunk.

“Ow…”

The look of sheer disbelief on Hanna’s face almost made Sherry laugh, unfortunately the situation was very real and it directly affected her as well.

“That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard in my entire life. You are joking right?” Hanna asked.

“I’m serious!” Sherry replied. “Look!”

She reached out and tried to grab Hanna’s hand. But like before, there was some weird invisible barrier that made Sherry unable to actually grab her hand.

“Are you making a fool of me or something?” Hanna sighed. “Look, I’ll just grab your- huh?”

It seemed that the barrier went both ways. Hanna attempted to close her hand around Sherry’s, but wasn’t fully able to. It looked like she was grabbing, but Hanna couldn’t feel Sherry’s rough yet gentle hands and there was just simply no explanation.

“See!” Sherry said with a frown. “There really is something weird going on!”

“I… Huh.” Hanna had no words. This was simply just inexplainable. But… given everything they’ve been through was this really that ridiculous?

“Gah!” Sherry tried hugging Hanna again but because of her inability to touch Hanna, Hanna was easily able to slip away.

“H-hmph!” Hanna decided that she could at least try to make the best of this situation. “Maybe this is punishment for how often you have been hugging me half to death!”

“But Hanna~! That’s not fair! You like it too don’t you?!”

“I absolutely do not!”

“Yes you do!”

“Do not!”

“Yes!”

“No!”

The screaming match caused Hanna to run out of breath. Sherry still pouted but no matter how much she complained it wasn’t going to resolve the absolutely bizarre situation occurring. Was this some after effect of the witch trials? But… Argh! Sherry scratched her head trying to come up with something that would explain this.

Hanna was trying to think of a possible explanation but couldn’t come up with anything either. She might have made that comment earlier but truthfully the situation worried her. A little part of her wondered if this was somehow some manifestation of the witch’s curse. That shouldn’t be possible though, right?

Together the two of them thought together in frustrated silence. Finally though, Sherry had an idea.

“What if we contact an expert?”

Hanna nervously clutched her dress. She took a deep breath in, and then out.

“Are you ready yet Hanna?”

“In a moment!”

“But you said that-”

“Argh, fine!”

Not giving Hanna anytime to back pedal, Sherry quickly pressed the call button on her laptop.

Ring, ring, ring. Each ring made Hanna more self conscious. This was such a ridiculous topic to talk about. Was this something they were really going to do?

“Oh my, hello you two. It’s been a while hasn’t it?”

A familiar voice answered their call. Sherry cheerfully responded. “Hi Margo!”

“Hello Margo.” Hanna responded with composure.

Sherry fiddled with the computer a bit more, something Hanna still wasn’t exactly used to using. The camera on her laptop had turned on and with that the three of them could see each other.

Margo seemed to be doing quite well on the island. She was still busy teaching and handling the administration work though it seemed like she found pleasure in it. Hanna tried to look beyond her word choice of “playing around with all these delightful kittens” and instead chose to believe in the kindness of Margo’s heart.

Which is exactly the belief she needed to have to ask Margo about their current… predicament.

After the standard and expected catching up, Hanna couldn’t help but felt like Margo’s smile became a little more devious.

“So, you two,” Margo asked unable to hide the expectation in her voice, “what knowledge of mine were you interested in?”

Hanna closed her eyes and sighed. “Well… you see-”

Not waiting for Hanna to finish though, Sherry interrupted. “For some reason Hanna and I can’t touch each other! Look!”

To demonstrate Sherry had for some reason decided to move her head closer to Hanna’s. The sudden approach caused Hanna to turn a bright red and she could over hear Margo chuckle lightly.

“Why, it looks like you two are as close as ever!”

“No!” Sherry turned around with a frown. “It’s hard to see but we’re not actually touching each other!”

Still stunned from before. Sherry tried to grab Hanna’s arm to raise it but was unable to. The “barrier” between the two of them prevented Sherry from actually being able to grab anything.

“Oh my, that is rather strange.” Margo mused. “And you said this started happening this morning?”

“Yes!” Sherry enthusiastically nodded. “Do you know if there’s some book that could explain why this is happening?!”

Thinking through all the books Margo had read, there was something that did somewhat resemble the strange situation befalling Sherry and Hanna.

“Well, I have heard that between two witches in a close relationship, if one of them began harboring secrets from the other then a thin barrier could be erected between them…”

“That’s it!” Sherry slammed her fist into her palm. “Hanna and I are da-”

“W-what that’s ridiculous!” Hanna interrupted Sherry. “No such magic could exist!”

“Well, I’m sure people would say the same about all of our magic abilities wouldn’t they?” Margo smirked. She already knew about their relationship, it was obvious. However watching Hanna squirm and try to deny it was simply… irresistible. Not teasing her would be more of a crime.

And best of all, Sherry made an amazing unwitting accomplice too. Sherry pouted. “What if the secret is that you don’t actually love me any-”

Hanna rushed and tried to cover Sherry’s mouth with her hands but failed to do so. “No! I still do- I mean, gah! Thank you Margo for the help! We should go now!”

“No, thank you for the wonderful show.” Margo smiled. Well, she wouldn’t get anymore from them she imagined. But there was always Nanoka at least. After Hanna forcibly shut off the call, Margo hummed a tune to herself as she decided to go look for her favourite target to tease.

On the other end of the line, Hanna was busy trying to placate a seemingly upset Sherry. A rare sight as Sherry would very rarely get angry about anything.

“S-sherry?” Hanna asked. “Um…”

“Hmph!” Sherry hmphed and turned away. “I know I’m not keeping any secrets so Hanna must be the one keeping a secret from me!”

“T-that’s not true!” Right? Hanna thought to herself, what could she possibly be keeping from Sherry? Unless…

An idea popped in Hanna’s head. No, that would be insane. That wouldn’t, couldn’t, trigger this weird magical effect that Margo was talking about.

“Hanna? Why did you turn so red?”

“I-I am not!” Hanna’s thoughts caused her to blush. No! It’s not possible. Simply impossible!

“Ah! You thought of it didn’t you! What is it?!” Sherry jumped on – or rather tried to – Hanna and put her face mere inches away.

“I-I did not!!” Hanna tried to squirm away but Sherry being practically on top of Hanna meant that Hanna had no way to really squirm or push Sherry out of the way.

“You did!”

“Argh fine!” At this point it was going to be worse than just saying it out loud. Hanna turned her face to the side to try and preserve her dignity. “I want us to…”

“Us to…?”

“To… To…”

Oh god this might be worse than her own execution. Hanna took a deep breath.

“To be more lovey dovey! I want you to kiss me more! I want you to cuddle me more!”

Hanna covered her face with her hands. God, why did she say that? It was so embarrassing and putting it into words was even worse. And more than that, Sherry didn’t say anything back. Maybe it was so cringe worthy that even Sherry of all people thought it was embarrassing. Hanna couldn’t bear to look and kept her hands over her face.

However, shortly after Hanna felt a familiar warm sensation grasp her forearms. With that annoying strength of hers, Sherry slowly pried the veil covering Hanna’s face. Hanna turned her head slowly. The smile on her face caused Hanna’s heart to skip a beat. It had only been what, a few hours? Yet Hanna really did miss the feeling of Sherry touching her.

Sherry obliged Hanna’s wishes and kissed her gently on the lips. She pulled back with a smug smile on her face. “Now there’s nothing between us! See! Was that so hard?!”

The lack of delicacy ruined the moment for Hanna. Her embarrassment turned into anger turned into something else. She quickly leapt up and kissed Sherry to her surprise. And kept kissing her, not giving her an opportunity to catch her breath.

After a few minutes, Hanna eventually stopped, panting and enjoyed looking at Sherry’s embarrassed face for once.

“I said more didn’t I?” Hanna responded.

“Y-yeah…” Sherry was at a loss for words.

The sight of a strangely submissive and demure Shelley caused Hanna’s heart to flutter. It made her desire something more than just kissing. She gulped, but shook her head. That’s a desire that she’d keep to herself for now. For now, kissing was more than enough. Hanna leaned down to kiss Sherry one more time but something stopped their lips from touching.

“Oh come on!”