just this once

The afternoon light slants through the gym windows, golden and slow, painting long rectangles of warmth across the padded floor. The air smells faintly of clean sweat and the lavender spray you’d used to wipe down the mats earlier. It’s quiet, save for the soft rhythm of Yuuta’s breathing and the occasional thump of his back meeting the ground.

He’d come to you twenty minutes ago, all fidgeting hands and averted eyes, and asked—so quietly you barely caught it—if maybe you’d sit with him while he exercised. “It’s just... it’s more fun when you’re here,” he’d mumbled, the tips of his ears turning red. “I’ll work harder. I promise.” And then, after a pause so fragile it could have shattered, “Maybe... maybe I could get a reward? For each one?”

You’d raised an eyebrow, already smiling. “What kind of reward?”

Yuuta had looked at the floor, then at the ceiling, then finally—bravely—at your lips. “A kiss? Please?”

So now here you are, stationed at his feet, counting kisses under your breath and watching him fall apart in the sweetest way possible.

His back hits the mat again with a breathless little oof. His chest rises and falls beneath his soaked shirt, the fabric clinging to the lean lines of his body. Dark strands of hair are plastered to his forehead, and a pink flush spills from his cheeks all the way down his neck, disappearing beneath his collar. His arms lie limp at his sides, trembling faintly, and his legs feel like jelly under your gentle hold. But the moment his glassy eyes find your face, he smiles. Soft. Hopeful. Almost unbearably shy.

“Again?” you ask, already knowing the answer.

He swallows, throat bobbing. His voice comes out a little wrecked, a little pleading. “Please. One more. Just one more.”

You’ve lost count of how many times he’s said that. Every time you think it’s the last, he looks up at you with those impossibly tender puppy eyes and asks—never demands, always asks—and you are left helpless to refuse.

“Alright,” you murmur, giving his ankle an encouraging squeeze. “But this really is the last one, okay? You’re shaking.”

“I’m not,” he protests weakly, even as his stomach muscles visibly quiver.

“You are.”

“Then it’s... it’s happy shaking. Excited shaking.” His lips twitch into a sheepish grin. “Because I get another kiss.”

Your heart performs a pirouette in your chest.

Yuuta curls upward again, a strained groan escaping his lips. His abdominal muscles contract visibly beneath his shirt, and his face scrunches with the effort—but as he draws closer, his expression transforms. The furrow between his brows softens. His lashes flutter. His lips part ever so slightly, forming that unconscious little pout he always makes when he’s waiting for affection.

You lean in and press your lips to his. It’s soft and fleeting, a gentle brush that tastes of salt and the strawberry chapstick you’d smoothed over his mouth a little while ago. He exhales a shaky sigh into the kiss, a sound of such contentment that it wraps around your heart and squeezes.

He drops back down, limbs sprawling out like a starfish. His grin stretches so wide it bunches his cheeks, and his eyes stay closed, savoring the ghost of your lips.

“That was twenty-four,” you tell him, brushing a strand of hair from your face.

Yuuta’s eyes flutter open. He blinks at the ceiling, dazed and dreamy. “Twenty-four,” he repeats, as though tasting the number. Then, quieter, almost reverent, “Twenty-four kisses.”

There’s a long pause. His fingers drum absently against the mat. You watch the gears turn in his head, watch the way his bottom lip tucks itself between his teeth, watch the fresh bloom of pink spread across his cheekbones.

“So...” he starts, voice going all tentative and hopeful, the way it does when he’s about to ask for something he desperately wants but feels shy about wanting. “Technically... twenty-four isn’t a round number.” He peeks up at you from beneath his lashes. “Twenty-five is a round number. Sort of. It ends in five. That’s satisfying.”

“You said one more,” you remind him, though your smile completely undermines any pretense of sternness.

“I know what I said,” he admits, suddenly fascinated by a loose thread on the mat. He picks at it, avoiding your gaze. “But I’m saying something different now. I’m saying... please?” He lifts his eyes, wide and beseeching, and there’s a faint wobble to his lower lip that he is absolutely not doing on purpose. Yuuta could never be manipulative on purpose. (Or so you think) “Please, angel? One more kiss? Just one? I’ll be so good.”

You laugh, a breathless and giddy sound that makes poor Yuuta so so hopeful. “You’re already good, Yuuta.”

He shakes his head, flustered but persistent. “Then one more because I asked nicely? I did say please. I’ll say it again if you want: Please. Please, please, please, please—”

“Okay, okay!” You’re laughing fully now, and he’s grinning up at you like you just handed him the moon. “One more. But after this, you are resting. Actual resting. On the couch. With water.”

“And you?” he asks quickly. “Will you be on the couch too?”

“Obviously.”

His whole face softens. “Okay.”

He settles back into starting position, chest still heaving, muscles still trembling, but that tiny determined furrow between his brows is back. He takes a breath. Curls upward. The movement is slower than all the ones before, a true labor of love, his body screaming for rest but his heart screaming louder for one more kiss.

And when he rises, you meet him halfway.

This kiss is longer. You let your lips rest against his, let the warmth bloom between you, let yourself feel the way his mouth curves into a smile against your own. He exhales through his nose, a soft and shuddering sound, like you’ve just given him something precious.

Then his hands move.

They slip from his sides to your calves, fingers curling gently around them. Warm even through your leggings. You barely have time to gasp before they slide higher, skimming your knees, then your waist, then settling at the small of your back. He tugs—not hard, never hard, just insistent enough to coax you forward. And you go, helplessly, tumbling onto his chest with a startled squeak.

His back meets the mat. Your heart meets his.

“There,” Yuuta breathes, voice a little wobbly, a little triumphant. His arms wrap around you, locking you against him as though you might dissolve into the golden afternoon light if he doesn’t hold tight enough. His chin tucks over your shoulder, and you feel his smile against your temple. “Now I don’t have to stop kissing you. Now I can just... have you whenever I want.”

“Yuuta...” you murmur into the curve of his neck, your own smile pressed against his heated skin.

“Mhm.” He tilts your chin up with one gentle finger and presses his lips to yours again. Slow this time. Languid and sweet, like he has all the time in the world and intends to spend every second of it kissing you. His lips move with aching gentleness, and his fingers trace aimless little patterns on your spine—circles and swirls and what might be tiny hearts. You can feel his heartbeat hammering beneath your palm, fast and flustered.

When you finally break apart, you’re both giggling, noses bumping, breath mingling in the small space between you. His cheeks are flushed a brilliant pink, his hair is a mess, and his eyes hold so much adoration it makes you want him even more than you already do.

“Twenty-five,” he whispers, counting it like it’s the most precious number in the universe. His thumb strokes along your spine. A pause. His voice goes impossibly soft. “...Can I have twenty-six?”

“Yuuta!”

He laughs—a real laugh, bright and breathless—and pulls you even closer, burying his face in the crook of your neck. “Okay, okay,” he relents, his voice honey-warm and content. “ I'm tired though..I don't wanna do more sit-ups. I just want you here.”

His arms tighten around you. His breath slows. The golden light shifts across the floor, and outside, a bird sings.

“I love you,” he murmurs into your skin, so quietly you almost miss it. “So much. More than twenty-five kisses.”

You press a kiss to the top of his head, right where his hair is softest. “I love you too. More than twenty-six kisses!”

He giggles, the sound vibrating through his chest and into yours. “That’s not fair. I said it first.”

“Then I’ll say it more.”

His arms tighten. His smile presses into your shoulder. And the two of you stay there, tangled together on the gym mat, wrapped in warmth and love and the fading scent of strawberry chapstick, while the afternoon stretches on.

Perfect.