"Anchor up to me, my love"

like usually a romantic scene gets Vibes to it. the people setting it up wanna build to it so they go into Romance Mode in a way you can feel and that's fine and dandy but,

i like the romance when a kiss slips in casually. when it's just, part of a scene, not the focus of it

when there's a heart-to-heart going on that's not about declaring love in so many words, and the smooch says "i love you i missed you here's something i've been dying to tell you", and then it's back to spilling out the deepest darkest fears while grocery shopping bc the kiss doesn't change anything really. it's the icing on the cookies that've already been baked

it's summed up in imogen's steady promise of "together either way"

after finally taking that leap asking for a kiss the moment she can't hear laudna's thoughts anymore trusting in laudna offer to share with words instead. laudna after her meltdown, after the kiss, after her stammering confession that she's a bad person and imogen telling her she's not, laudna being the one to kiss that time- at the end, finally perking up again enough to answer the idea of them together no matter what with her old catchphrase slash reassurance "... you're very capable~"

the warm answering chuckle, how softly imogen says "let's get these groceries", their start of a debate over what kinda bread their aged landlady might like best. all of it saying how nothing's changed. they just know themselves and each other a little bit better now

the scene isn't them getting together it's them BEING together

that's not the norm for romantic first kiss moments. im glad it turned out this way. im glad the kiss was a surprise, because the rest of the moment shows it wouldn't have mattered if laudna had said 'no'. these two have been in love in their own way the whole time and were going to stay in love kiss or no kiss