aisho dayo

time should heal these kinds of wounds, especially minor ones brought about by the foolish, unregulated emotions of a child. by the end of summer vacation, following blisteringly hot days chasing down the ice cream truck and nights filled with game show music, the memory of having to say goodbye to ajax is nothing but a light scar on your tender heart. it’s too harsh to say that you’ve forgotten about him, but it’s a little too easy to say he isn’t at the forefront of your mind. your images of him grow hazy as each new year passes, your ‘one and only friend’ replaced by many others you share interests and secrets with.

that’s why you don’t expect him to remember you when you transfer into his high school. it was completely unplanned, and you hadn’t even known he would be there. yet, there he is, sitting on a desk in the center of the room, surrounded by classmates who’ve clearly known him for much longer than you do at this point. you might not have recognized him at all, with the way he is now; he’s taller, of course, with the lean build of a student that clearly participates actively in physical sports, and his voice and laugh are deeper and richer (although the standard of all that is particularly low for you, considering the last time you’d heard him speak was a decade ago). but there’s parts of him that have barely changed, that make him distinct and immediately recognizable — the soft, copper lustre of his hair and the flat, dark blue of his eyes.

the latter glosses over you once as you walk into the classroom, an instinctive reaction to new motion, but it doesn’t take long for his gaze to snap back like a stretched rubber band, fixing on you and growing wider as his posture straightens.

even though a friend of his speaks to him, asks him something, he only says your name. everyone else’s eyes fall on you, and your step falters just past the doorway. even with all these other people looking at you, you can only feel his burning gaze.

“don’t you remember me?” he asks when you don’t say anything in immediate response. “it’s me — ajax.”

“oh, right—” you stutter, a little self-conscious at being put on the spot. “ajax! it’s been so long. wow, you’re… i didn’t expect to see you here of all places.”

you remember his smiling being bright, sure, but not this bright — the kind of wideness and lightness to it that seems almost disproportionate to such a mundane situation. of course, childhood friends reconnect; there’s nothing odd about that. but the way he hops off the desk and walks over in huge strides to sweep you up into a strong hug makes you feel like you’re the center of a spectacle, and the only thing that vaguely distracts you from it is the warmth of him enveloping you.

“she was my childhood friend — my first best friend, i should say,” he says by way of introduction to the others staring at you; they offer half-hearted noises of greeting that ajax pointedly ignores. you stand there, with his arm still around you, trying not to think about how you’re pressed into his side and how he smells like some fancy pine-note cologne that seems way too mature and serious for someone his age and demeanor. “funny how fate works out, huh? seeing each other after all these years, i mean.”

“it’s definitely unexpected,” you agree, and if he notices how embarrassed you are at all the staring he’s brought about, he doesn’t make it known; he just draws back, holding you at arm’s length and giving you a very obvious once-over.

“you look good,” he comments after a pause, so out of place that you’re not sure if this is just some weird formality or if he’s being honest for no good reason. you don’t even know if he hears your mumbled, ‘thanks,’ over the sound of the bell that has him releasing you with a quick, playful wink.

you think that’s that when you shuffle over to your seat, ajax taking his own place in the center of the room (at the desk he’d been perched on). after the initial novelty of the reunion wears off, you’ll just be background noise in the lively scene that is his life. you don’t expect much thereafter, sure that his priorities would lie more in his long-term friends, the elements of this school that are familiar and wholly more comfortable to him.

which is why you’re shocked when, during lunch time, a loaded tray plops down in the space in front of you, ajax’s body following soon after. he leans back in his chair with an easy grin, like this is the most natural thing in the world for him to do, like you’re not staring at him with half-chewed food in your mouth.

“what are you doing?” you blurt out before you can stop yourself.

“what? we can’t catch up?”

“we can, but…” you squirm, a little unsure how to put your feelings into careful words. “i mean, don’t you have friends you usually sit with during lunch?”

“sure i do,” he hums, breaking into the brioche roll on his tray with his thumb before picking at the foil lid of the butter packet. “but i’ve spent the last few years with them. i want to make up for lost time with you.”

you suppose that makes sense, although a small part of you still wants to point out that the last thing you bonded over was the sand in your shoes over a decade ago. still, you decide to let it slide; maybe it’s just a natural thing, to want to reconnect with someone you remember fondly from way back when. there’s no real harm in that anyway, and you can’t deny that you’ve now become curious about him too — about how he’s grown up, about how he’s changed, and about how much has stayed the same from what little you can remember of his younger personality. you’ll be the first to admit that he’s grown well, with an objectively attractive face and a confident demeanor that supports it excellently.

not that you think about that deeply as you chat with him. he’s eager to talk, to learn more about your life in the time you were apart, and after a short while of feeling interrogated, you find an avenue to ask him about himself too. you learn that he’s in the football club, and that he’s back to playing regularly after suffering a mild knee injury quite recently. he tells you he’s into fortnite, and that just last night, he’d gotten six victory royales in a row, all on solo (you congratulate him honestly because that sounds like a good thing). you find out he’s grown slightly allergic to shellfish and that his mom forces him to join country club mixers, but that everyone there is just an old auntie that’s always slightly tipsy and trying to get him to go on a date with their nieces.

you realize that ajax is, at his core, the same kid you’d known — smart and proactive, freely sociable and eager to try new things. it’s nice to know that he’s still appropriately self-assured, and you think it makes sense that people find him magnetic, as evidenced by earlier that morning. by the end of the lunch hour, you’re stuffed full with tidbits about him, and he’d drawn out as many factoids as he possibly could about you. you walk back with him to the classroom in silence, and when the bell rings, he ruffles your hair lightly before making his way to his desk.

still, you anticipate that this is just a temporary spike in interest from him. there’s so little you can wring out from this situation, and you’re sure that ajax has better things to do than coddle a childhood friend constantly. after all, he has better, closer friends worth spending time with.

for some reason, though, his attention on you doesn’t wane; if anything, as the weeks progress, he embeds himself more deeply into your life. the constant lunches together are one thing, and you even ask him if he’d rather you go sit with the rest of his friends with him, to which he smoothly replies that ‘we can’t talk freely to each other in such a big crowd.’ however, when he learns that you go home alone (after an off-handed comment on your part about listening to the same playlist every afternoon), he starts walking you to the bus stop, even if it’s in the opposite direction from his own route. some mornings, he waits by the door to walk you into the classroom, already firing off about the shitty fortnite run he had last night (someone had sniped him from higher ground, which is totally unfair and unethical, unless he does it himself, of course); other days, you find a cup of coffee (milky and sweet, the way he knows you like it, given that he’s asked about your preferences insistently) sitting on your desk, with a smiley face on the cardboard sleeve that’s drawn on in his signature red sign pen.

gradually, it feels like the years that separated you both melt away. after being out of touch for so long, you now can’t imagine a day without ajax talking to you. you settle into this comfortable routine of relying on him, turning to him for both trivial and important matters, seeking him out over small victories and huge upsets. by the time you’re a senior, it feels like you’ve come full circle. ajax is, once again, your best friend, as he had been all those years ago, now always by your side.

of course, he isn’t your only friend now; you’re both older, and it’s impossible not to have a network at school. you’re amicable to practically everyone, and so is ajax, despite the fact that he seems to dedicate a fair amount of time and energy on you.

“wanna partner up for the chemistry project?” he asks suddenly after a particularly boisterous lunch involving enthusiastic recounts of last night’s pro wrestling match highlights that he’d stayed up to watch live. “thought it’d be stupid to ask you right away last week when i didn’t have a topic to pitch, but i did some research, and i thought we could do like a—”

“i already have a partner,” you cut him off sheepishly. “theo texted over the weekend and asked me. sorry — to be honest, i thought you’d be sick of being my partner at this point, since we’ve done almost every project together this year.”

“oh.” he does nothing to hide the surprise on his face, but something else crosses his expression that you don’t quite catch. it’s gone in the blink of an eye, smoothed over by a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “is that your kind of roundabout way of saying you’re sick of me?”

“no way!” you’re quick to deny, and maybe you should’ve anticipated this, but ajax hadn’t really seemed like the type to care about doing everything together. then again, now that you think about it in retrospect, there’s precious little you haven’t done together to begin with. “you know i love working with you. but i mean — it’s no big deal, right? tell you what — how about we do the infographic for english class together?”

“why? were you planning on ditching me for that, too?” he jokes, his elbow digging lightly into your side. “just don’t get too sad when you end up doing all the work. no other partner in this whole class is going to pull their weight like i do.”

“wow, do you have space in your head to learn with all that hot air going around?” you laugh. “i’ll be fine. theo’s a good guy.”

“i’m sure,” ajax hums, somehow more to himself than you. you figure he’s already thinking of who else to nab as a partner, so you leave things at that. you try not to read too deeply into the fact that he takes a long, slow look at theo from across the room before he settles down into his chair and starts digging around his backpack for a working pen.

with the weekend rolls an unexpected text; it’s theo, with a whole two-inch paragraph about how freya had begged him to be her partner, and how he thinks that he might do better following her project proposal than the ‘weak one he’d pitched to you,’ and he’s really sorry, but it’s not too late to find a new partner anyway, and best of luck! you miss out on the finer details of the excuse, given that it’s only seven-thirty in the morning, but you get the gist of it. with a heavy sigh, you roll over and call the most recent number you’d dialled, the last log being just yesterday evening.

“morning, sunshine.” ajax’s voice is cheery, like he’s been awake for a while now — and, weirdly, almost like he’s been expecting your call. “you woke up early for once.”

“theo texted,” you grumble, rubbing fiercely at your eye. “backed out of being my partner.”

“what an asshole.” he does well at the task of sounding empathic and affronted for your sake. “did he tell you why?”

“god, i don’t know. something about freya, or that his pitch was shit, i think.”

“well, he and freya do seem pretty close,” ajax says sagely. “so why’d you call me?”

“i’m pretty sure this is an asshole move on my part after i ditched you, but if you still don’t have a partner…”

there’s a brief silence on his end that makes you think he might’ve been offended, and honestly, you wouldn’t blame him completely; it’s not like you can avoid making it seem like this is a last-ditch attempt not to do the project alone.

“i mean, sure,” he suddenly speaks up, his voice strangely breezy. “what kind of best friend would i be if i said no?”

“well, i mean — if you don’t want to, or if you — i don’t know — have a partner already, i wouldn’t want you to ditch them for me, either…”

“nah, don’t worry about that. even if i had one — and i don’t, so don’t worry,” he adds before you can argue. “i’d still choose you.”

“thanks, ajax,” you mumble, feeling inexplicably embarrassed. “sorry for putting this on you.”

“you’re not putting anything on me,” he laughs. “but i wouldn’t mind if you said i was the best best friend ever a little more often.”

“you’re totally the best best friend ever,” you concede. “come over so we can finalize the topic?”

“damn straight.” he makes a noise that indicates he’s getting up from bed. “see you in thirty.”

for the rest of the year after that, every project you do, you only do with ajax.

as the months go by, and senior year comes to a slow close, you feel like there are things that pile up — things you can’t put a finger on, can’t seem to fully unpack — between you and ajax. he becomes more insistent that you should come watch his games, even if that means having to wake up at ungodly hours on a sunday to go to a different school across the district just to sit in the rain and see him kick a ball around really quickly. after games where the team wins, he expects you to join him and his family for a celebratory meal at his favorite diner, and after games where they don’t, he expects you to go back with him anyway and have lunch at his house. he always makes you sit next to teucer, who likes to rehash the ‘cool parts’ of the games and how ‘awesome’ ajax was with his last legendary pass or attempted goal, and you just nod along, trying to ignore how smug your best friend looks, like everything’s going according to plan (although, what that plan is, you really have no clue).

on days he doesn’t have practice, ajax even takes you home from school, riding the stuffy twenty-minute long bus ride and trekking the fifteen minute walk home with you, rain or shine. he always makes it an excuse to come in and lounge on your couch, scrolling twitter and showing you things that tickle him, until the sun goes down and his mom texts him to get back for dinner.

you chalk it up to his being naturally clingy, perhaps a bit protective now that it gets darker earlier in the day. but there are also things that you just can’t find an explanation for, like the way he calls you names he never used to — sweetheart and angel make it into his vocabulary a lot more these days. you’d once given him a funny look when he called you ‘babe,’ but he’d just laughed and said it was a bad habit he picked up recently, although you can’t imagine what activity would have formed such a habit in the first place. you let it go because it doesn’t really bother you immensely, but you sometimes wonder if he’s just piling it on you so that he can see you squirm. you wouldn’t put it past him to run an experiment like that, anyway.

then there was that time college results had come in through the school. you’d only applied to a small handful of institutions, what with your program interest being fairly niche; your main hope was that you’d get into zapolyarny tech, the top university in the capital city with a reputation for churning out successful people. ajax had applied to it too, though he was a likely shoe-in for a spot there, what with him going down the sports scholarship track.

homeroom on the day results were given out was absolute chaos; after five minutes of trying to shout herself hoarse over everyone’s chattering, your teacher had just given up and left the class to its own devices completely. it had felt strangely reminiscent of the last day of kinder — people crowding together to compare results and talk about whose offer they’d accept. you’d opened your envelope to see the list of schools that you’d passed, relieved to see snezhnograd university and belovodye institute were on there, along with smaller colleges you’d applied to as a fallback. still, it had been a bit of a punch in the gut not to see zapolyarny as an option.

“trade you,” ajax had interrupted your line of thought, and his paper had slipped across your desk as he tossed it. you’d offered him yours before unfurling his, and you’d seen it there: zapolyarny tech, with the asterisk next to the name that means that he’d been successful in nabbing the scholarship to boot.

“wow, congratulations!” you’d exclaimed, and your happiness for him had been genuine; you’d spent weeks before this chittering about how amazing the campus looked in all the pictures and how you’d stuff yourself full with the all-day all-you-can-eat student caf options. “ajax, that’s awesome — on a scholarship ride, and everything!”

“hmm?” he’d looked up from your paper, blinking rapidly. “oh, thanks. but, man, i don’t know. kind of been having second thoughts about zapolyarny these days. just doesn’t seem like my kind of place, if you get me?”

“what are you talking about?” you’d laughed in disbelief. “you once said that zapolyarny was the place that would birth the superstar version of you. what do you mean, second thoughts?”

“nothing; i just don’t want my judgment to be clouded by a semi-free ride, you know?”

“why wouldn’t you want to take advantage of a scholarship? it’s a scholarship, ajax. they’re practically paying you to go to the best university in the country. what else is there to consider?”

“just other stuff. it’s complicated,” he’d said vaguely. “where are you planning on going, then?”

“i don’t know. i guess snezhnograd. they’ve got affordable on-campus accommodations, and it isn’t as much of a trip from here to there, especially in comparison to — what are you doing?”

you’d watched, appalled, as ajax encircled snezhnograd university on both your papers with his red sign pen.

“i think snezhnograd’s great, too.” his response had been unnervingly smooth and easy. “for all the reasons you just said.”

“i meant for me,” you frown. “you’re a completely different case. you didn’t even apply for a scholarship there; you’ve got family near zapolyarny!”

“snezhnograd’s got a great sports sciences program; at least, it seemed like it when i looked into them.”

he’d capped his pen with a click of finality, and you’d just stared at him, completely at a loss for words. there’d been no logical reason for him to choose a lower-ranked school when he’d gotten a huge shot at the most prestigious one, yet there he’d been, folding both your papers and leaving them under the teacher’s file for submission.

“ajax,” you’d tried to say evenly, worried the stress in your voice would come out slightly deranged. “this is… i mean, think about it. you got into the best school in the country, and you’re turning it down — for what? it doesn’t make any sense.”

“do i need to have a reason?”

“of course!”

he’d stared at you thoughtfully, his dull blue eyes a little hazy. “well, would you have visited me in zapolyarny, if i’d gone?”

“i mean — yeah, why not? i guess i would’ve gone once in a while—”

“if i asked you to come everyday, would you have?” he’d pressed.

“what?” you’d rubbed your temples, feeling an oncoming headache at the turn the converation had taken. “of course not. the commute time alone, and the fare—”

“then, obviously, this was the most sensible choice. that way, we’d be on the same campus.”

you’d fallen silent, completely stumped. a large part of you had wanted to ask why that was even a consideration in all of this, but you hadn’t wanted to seem accusatory, for some reason. ajax had put his hands on your shoulders, holding you at arms length and squeezing, as if trying to work you out of a stupor — which, really, he pretty much had been.

“don’t overthink it, angel,” he’d said, so soothingly your shoulders had somehow untensed. “we made a promise, remember?”

the last week and a half of your senior year are messy, to say the least. it’s an endless array of last-minute requirements and tests that no one wants to study for, and it’s ultimately exacerbated by the end-of-the-year event that everyone seems to be talking about: homecoming.

the game is one thing to be excited for already, but what seems to be causing an uproar among the student population is the dance that comes after. more than once, you’ve walked into school in a hurry only to bear unwilling witness to a homecoming proposal that ultimately makes you late for first period. today is no different; you have to squeeze your way between the lockers and a tight throng of kids taking videos (despite the fact that cellphones during school hours are strictly banned) of some junior guy who’d painted his chest to ask a girl out. you’re lucky that ajax is waiting by the classroom door (as usual) and has the presence of mind and required strength to pull you out before you’re crushed by a wave of backpacks.

“is it just me, or has it never been this crazy before?” you grumble as you walk into the classroom with him.

“i just don’t think you’ve ever paid attention to it as much,” ajax says pointedly, watching you drop into your seat. “you’re still not planning on going this year? it’s our last, you know.”

you’ve always been fine with sticking it out at home; the tasks of finding a dress, finding a ride, and finding a date all seem like a lot of effort for next to no benefit. the stress you’ve seen people go through for one night has created an insurmountable amount of fear around it for you. that’s just your perspective, though. despite the fact that you’ve encouraged him to go, ajax always joins you in your non-attendance. he makes it a point to come over around the time when the dance starts, bearing snacks and old noir movies that you can’t really understand but that he really seems to enjoy talking through.

you’re on the fence for this year, to say the least. ajax does have a point; you don’t have any other opportunity to go to a homecoming, unless you count attending as an alum, which just seems like even more of a waste of time given that you’d be in a completely different city by that point.

“i don’t know, actually,” you sigh, shaking your backpack so that your stuff somehow rearranges into a slightly less bulky form. “i guess it would be pretty lame to sit it out my whole high school life, right? but i just wouldn’t know where to begin, if i’m being honest.”

before ajax can respond, however, a new shadow grows over the space you occupy. you look up to see a classmate, thalia, stopping just by your desk.

“are you guys talking about homecoming?” she’s chewing on her lip, eyes darting between the both of you. you nod, and she shifts her weight between her feet before she continues. “that’s cool. um… i was thinking — ajax, i heard you didn’t have a date yet to the dance.”

“i don’t,” ajax says coolly.

“oh! cool; so i was wondering if you’d maybe want to g—”

“i don’t have a date,” he continues, effectively cutting her off. “because i wasn’t planning on going in the first place.”

the silence that follows is so thick that you feel like you’re genuinely being suffocated. you stick your foot out, catching ajax’s shin with the heel, but if it hurts, he doesn’t show it.

“you did say it’s our last year,” you murmur. “you should go, ajax. i think it’d be fun for you.”

he assesses you with a thoughtful gaze, and you can’t help but feel like he’s picking you apart for some reason, like he’s expecting there’s some kind of subliminal message to your words. thalia is just rooted to the spot, face flushed and looking a little regretful at having approached at all.

“we always hang out on homecoming night, though.” he says it slowly, like it’s some kind of gentle reminder for an amnesiac you.

“that’s just — he’ll get back to you,” you direct your words at thalia, who starts a little and looks to you. “he’s just… just give him some time.”

she nods and scurries off, likely less distressed at the lack of an answer and more relieved at being given an out from such an awkward turn of events.

“i’m not saying you have to go,” you sigh once she’s out of earshot. “but if you’re just sticking it out because i don’t want to, then it kind of makes me feel like a warden.”

“i don’t mind it, though.” his reply is honest and immediate. “i’d rather stay in with you.”

“okay, but that’s — i mean, you don’t have to.” it frustrates you that you can’t seem to properly articulate what about this just seems ridiculous. “you don’t have to make it a pity party. i’m not sitting around moping.”

you don’t expect him to plant both his hands on your desk and lean in; his face is so close to yours that you can see the quiver of his pupils as he looks straight into your eyes.

“you think that i just hang around you because i pity you?” his voice is quiet. you stiffen, forgetting how to swallow, forgetting how to breathe. “you think i don’t have any other reason?”

you blink slowly, practically short-circuiting. you want to consider his words, but you draw up a complete blank; it’s hard to think clearly when he’s this close to you, and when he’s so uncharacteristically serious. his gaze looks like it’s trying to tell you something, quite fiercely and forcefully, but what it is, you can’t properly decipher.

“um,” is all you can say after a sticky pause. “s… orry?”

he exhales in an inexplicably tired way, shaking his head. “look — if you wanna go, we’ll go. if you don’t want to, we won’t. and for the record, i don’t want to deal with a date i don’t really care about. that’s all there is to it. okay?”

you nod dumbly. he takes a moment to search your face for any sign of further response before he straightens up, leaving you with another hair ruffle. you could swear that he murmurs ‘good girl,’ under his breath while he does it, but you’re so out of sorts that he’s gone before you can bring it up and question it.

at the end of the day, you spend your last homecoming as you’d spent all others: with ajax, sitting criss cross applesauce on your couch, a bowl-sized pack of wild berry skittles tucked between his thighs. he’s spent more minutes of shutter island fishing around for his favorite flavor (grape) than actually watching for some reason, so you don’t feel too bad interrupting his concentration with an out of the blue question.

“think it’s going well over there?”

“over where?” comes his immediate response as he separates the different colored candies from the purple ones, letting them fall back into the pack with those hard shell tic-tic-tics.

“at the homecoming dance.” you lower the volume of the television because mark ruffalo’s yelling at leonardo di caprio over the sound of some kind of hurricane, and it’s a little grating. “think it’s… i don’t know. fun?”

“can’t be more fun than watching two guys trying to get to the bottom of some mystery at an asylum,” he shrugs before looking up at you. it’s only then that he notices you’re chewing your lip, and he pops the handful of grape skittles into his mouth before moving the whole pack to the floor. “what’s going on? are you having second thoughts?”

“no, it’s just — i don’t know. now that i’m thinking about it, it is our last year, so it kind of seems silly to be missing out on it.” you also want to say that you hate that you kind of ruined this for him, but you don’t want him to resent you even more than he probably already does.

“we can still go. i’ve got my learner’s permit, so if your parents don’t mind a couple of dings on their car…”

you snort, although the sound is pretty half-hearted. “like i’ll be able to get a dress at this time of night, anyway.”

“that’s what your worried about?” he has the gall to sound thoroughly amused. “just pick any old dress you’ve got upstairs. it’ll be fine.”

“right, because i’d blend right in with my just finished sunday service glam look.”

“you could show up in a potato sack; no one would care.”

“cool, let me just bust out my snazziest potato sack,” you say wryly, and he chuckles.

“that didn’t come out right. i meant that you could wear something plain, and you’d still be a smokeshow. plus,” he thumps his chest with an air of pride. “you’ll be walking in with me. i guarantee heads will turn. everyone’ll be so jealous, and you’ll instantly win homecoming queen.”

“forget it,” you half-groan, half-laugh, because now you’re picturing yourself walking into the school gym with your arm looped around ajax’s, and it somehow doesn’t feel like the most horrible thing in the world. “my thoughts were just going haywire for a second there.”

you make to turn the volume up again, but ajax grabs the remote, stuffing it behind a cushion on the far end of the couch. “hey, i was just kidding. what does it matter, anyway? i thought you were kind of averse to all that pomp and drama.”

“i mean, it’s not like i hate it; i just felt like it was so much work with so little pay off. but then — i don’t know. i was thinking about it, and i feel like there’s just stuff that happens there that makes the experience unique in its own way.”

ajax doesn’t even bother to hide his bemusement; he actually comically scratches his head before asking, “what kind of stuff?”

“dunno. dancing to old hits? drinking shitty punch? people fighting over the dates they wanted, making out behind the bleachers and getting caught by a teacher — that quintessential high school experience, i guess. but like i said, it’s no big deal.” you wave it off. “hand me the remote, would you?”

“you want to dance? we can dance.”

you watch him unfurl his limbs and stand, adjusting the waistband of his jeans. “i don’t mean here. i mean like the kind of experience that you only get by being there.”

“what’s the difference? close a couple of the lights, put on that dancey whitney houston song, and it’ll be basically the same thing.” his tone is light, but his grin is mischeivous, his hands wrapping around your wrists and urging you up with him. “or do you wanna line it up with the actual hour? around this time, they play ballads from the eighties and the parent alums slow dance.”

he doesn’t even give you the option to say no; his arms are already around your waist, dragging you closer to his torso.

“can we just forget i brought anything up and watch the movie?” you mumble, although you still let him maneuver your arms so that they’re hanging (a little limply) off his shoulders. “seriously, ajax…”

the rest of your protests, weak as they already were, die in your throat as he starts to sway the both of you. it’s all just awkward movement, graceless and with no sense of musicality, given that the background noise is just the muffled argument between leonardo di caprio’s character and some half-naked guy in a dingy jail cell. you’re pretty sure some important plot point’s being revealed here, but you’re distracted by the fact that ajax is so close to you, and he seems to be intently looking at your face, as if he’s hellbent on making this as realistic a homecoming experience for you as possible.

as the seconds tick by, you think you should be checking out or pulling away, but for some reason, you’re doing neither. you settle for staring at your feet as your weight shifts in time with his lead, and now you’re starting to realize how nice ajax always smells and how warm he is.

“hey, look at me.”

you comply before you can question it, and you regret it almost immediately. ajax’s face is so close to yours, and the deep blue of his eyes seem to be robbing you of both breath and speech. luckily, if he notices you’re acting skittish, he doesn’t make it known; he just smiles, weirdly tender and encouraging.

“you know it doesn’t matter if we’re at school or not, right? what matters is that you have these kinds of experiences at the right time, with the right people.”

“the right people, meaning you?”

“i mean, would you rather dance like this with — i don’t know, a snot-nosed junior that just wants to get in your pants for the night?”

it lasts for only a second, so you must have imagined it, but you could honestly swear that ajax’s hold on your waist tightens as he says that line. he makes it sound like a lighthearted joke, but something in his gaze seems to prompt you to actually respond.

“i guess not.”

he hums, seemingly satisfied with that answer. a few more beats pass with the both of you just swaying in the confines of some invisible square on your living room carpet. then, “what else was on your list?”

“huh?”

“dancing, and drinking punch, and — oh,” he grins, all lopsided and annoyingly attractive. “should we make out?”

“come off it,” you grumble, stopping your movement. neither of you step away, though; somehow, this position feels weirdly comfortable.

“i’m being serious.” his punctuating laugh is airy and low. “what — are you going to end your whole high school life without kissing someone?”

“that’s not — i haven’t — what do you…” you splutter, and his smile grows annoyingly wider. “that’s none of your business!”

“don’t be ashamed,” he chides. “i think it’s really cute that you haven’t had your first kiss.”

“as if you have!”

“of course i have. i’m not lying,” he adds in a matter-of-factly voice, just as you open your mouth to bite back. “i had it in middle school. she transferred out the year after. now, whether it was good or not is a totally different matter, but that’s not what we’re here to discuss.”

you hate that this information makes you feel inexplicably small. it really shouldn’t matter; it’s not like the marker for a successful high school life is how many people you’ve kissed (or if you’ve kissed anyone at all), but knowing that even ajax, who’s never seemed to entertain girls for as long as you’ve known him in high school, has already experienced what you haven’t — it makes you feel like an incomplete person, somehow.

he seems to take your silence as consideration, so he adds, “it’s not a big deal. people kiss all the time, and it doesn’t have to mean anything if you don’t want it to. besides, that’s kind of the point of having a best friend. you can think of it as a… trial run, or something. better me than that hypothetical snot-faced junior, right?”

it’s not even that ajax is a terrible choice for this. by all accounts, he actually seems like a perfect candidate: attractive, experienced (relatively, in comparison to you, at least), and, most important, trustworthy. he can’t be getting anything out of it, you think; he’s just doing it to be a genuinely good friend that doesn’t want you to go into college without a first kiss under your belt.

your slow nod’s almost imperceptible, but he catches it anyway. in one smooth swoop, ajax captures your lips, and you’re immediately assaulted by the sugary sweetness of the candy he’d just had. he tastes like artificial grape and that purple total care listerine he’d used in your guest bathroom before you’d settled down for the movie, and by all accounts, it’s not a bad mixture of flavors. at least it isn’t remnants of, like, roasted garlic and oil pasta and diet coke, or whatever else was on the proposed menu for homecoming.

with how gung-ho ajax is about practically everything in his life, you expect his kissing to be the same. you anticipate messy enthusiasm and a lot of tongue, teeth clashing and a lot of mistakes. but he’s so careful — so unbelievably slow and tender that you wonder if he’s just been lying to you about his personality this whole time. he takes his time letting your lips fit and melt together, doesn’t push for you to give more than you feel like offering at the moment. it’s when you exhale that a little bit of the fire in him seems to ignite, his tongue coming out to trace the parted seam of your lips, but he doesn’t go any further than that — like he’s a little worried, like he’s holding himself back. your slightly muddled mind can’t seem to decide what to focus on: the feeling of his lips against yours, or his hold on your waist, tightening and squeezing like he’s stopping himself from pulling you flush against him.

a dull thud from upstairs has you both jumping apart; you stare, flushed and wide-eyed, at him as a few more noises that follow remind you that your parents are home. they don’t come down, though, and soon it’s quiet again, but the weird atmosphere that had hung around while you were lip-locked has already been fully shattered.

ajax’s smile is a little sheepish as he speaks. “i mean, if we’re talking about people catching us…”

“i would’ve flung myself off the roof if they had,” you mutter, flopping back down onto the couch. you ignore the fact that your face is hot and that your lips feel all tingly. “enough about this homecoming business. can we please get back to the movie?”

you only catch a glimpse of leonardo di caprio before ajax’s tall form blocks your view. he leans in, arms outstretched and resting against the back of the couch you’re on, caging you in.

“no positive reviews? you’re being pretty cruel. are we even friends?”

“i don’t have any other experiences to compare it to, so what kind of feedback do you want?” you don’t want to explain that the kiss had left you feeling so flustered either, so there’s that.

“fair enough. anyway, i kind of like that that’s true,” he hums. his hand brushes your hair back, and he chances another light kiss against your forehead that you make a noise of protest against (that he pointedly ignores). “happy homecoming, angel.”

for the first semester at university, you’re required to live on campus. snezhnograd’s freshman dormitory is pretty nice, all things considered, and you like that you don’t have to wake up at ass o’clock to take the train to class. your roommate, lumine, is a tourism major who either knows everyone on campus or just had everyone in her graduating class attend snezhnograd at the same time for some reason, which means that she’s extroverted and eager to talk. you like that she’s also extremely generous with the food she makes — and that her cooking’s superb, too — so in all, you can’t complain about your set-up.

you can’t say the same for ajax, though. he’s rooming with a theology major named scaramouche, who’s apparently as pompous and as headache-inducing as his name and future degree suggest. he regularly texts after his afternoon classes end, bemoaning having to go back to their ‘stuffy dorm room’ where he’ll once again be ‘met with a barrage of facts about the history of religious thought’ because scaramouche, apparently, likes to study by using the conversation method, despite the fact that ajax has told him repeatedly that it bothers him that scaramouche uses a ‘condescending teacher voice’ when he goes about it. in fact, based on reports from ajax’s (admittedly biased) side, scaramouche doubles down whenever ajax complains and sometimes goes ‘pop quiz, everyone!’ just to piss him off.

most of your late afternoons and early evenings are therefore spent in the common areas in the dormitory building. somehow, ajax always manages to nab a sitting space with a free television (that, or he wheedles people into giving up their seats) so that he can put on hbo max on the off chance that he’ll catch a house of the dragon episode. he doesn’t even seem to like it for the story; he seems more interested in watching british people be snippy at each other in old english.

“i was thinking,” he starts, after checking hbo and seeing that it’s just heretic playing. “after first semester, we’ll have to live off-campus. do you have any plans for that?”

“not really.” however, now that he’s brought it up, you probably should start thinking about it; the semester’s more than halfway through, and it won’t be easy to find nearby housing unless you’re willing to sell your body and soul to a demonic landlord for it. “why? do you?”

“i was looking into a few apartments near campus, and a lot of them seem okay, but they’re a bit pricey if it’s just me renting, especially since most of them are two-bedroom setups.”

“sure you don’t want scaramouche’s name on the long-term lease with you?” you joke, and he throws you a wry look.

“funny. i was thinking — did you wanna check it out? you know, be roommates, and all that?”

you consider it; you don’t know much about ajax’s day to day living habits, but he seems to take care of himself pretty well. from what you’ve seen, he can cook, and he keeps his desk and room relatively clean. you don’t even know if that’s such a big point, given that you’ll have your own separate spaces anyway, and you can’t see him outright refusing you if you wanted to split chores.

“i’d probably have to ask my parents, but that wouldn’t be a bad idea,” you admit. “it might also depend on the rent and utilities cost, though.”

“would it incentivize you if we split it unevenly? we could go seventy-thirty. i wouldn’t mind at all.”

“why would we do that?” you throw him a bemused look. “fifty-fifty’s fine. just as long as it isn’t an overpriced loft or something, it should be okay, right?”

“no, they’re all just standard places. of course, it would be cheaper if we got a one-bedroom.”

“i’m not sleeping on the couch.”

“who said you had to?” you swear you see the ghost of a smirk flit across his face before it’s gone, back into that half-bored expression he’s had all afternoon. “there’d be room for a big bed.”

“ha ha. show me the apartments you were viewing, then. the two-bedroom ones,” you add firmly. he just shrugs and unlocks his phone obediently.

you spend the rest of the early evening scanning through potential listings and weighing out their pros and cons. it’s nice that ajax seems to be fairly agreeable to the options you like, with practically no pushback on his part. then again, you figure it’s just because he’s not a fussy person when it comes to these things. the conversation stretches even until dinner, where you’re discussing potential house rules, should the situation come to fruition, while ajax fiddles with the tabletop burner between you.

“honestly, if we’re trying to be practical, it’d make the most sense for us to have, like, a joint account for shared expenses.” you dip your chopsticks into the hot pot broth, giving the collagen soup a stir. there’s an obscene amount of thinly sliced meats stewing in there, courtesy of ajax’s argument that he’s ‘constantly growing.’ “it’d save us the hassle of doing math every time we have to go to the grocery or, like, go out for dinner, or something.”

“say less,” he chuckles. “this is all feeling very domestic. not that that’s a complaint, mind you.”

“i’m just trying to think about things that’d make our lives easier.” you tap your chopsticks over the rim of the container. “another thing too — if you’re going to bring a girl over, can you at least give me a heads up so that i can make plans or something like that?”

for some reason, he looks genuinely shocked. “what do you mean, bring a girl over?”

“i mean, we’re in college now,” you shrug. “you’re probably going to have a girlfriend or at least hook up with someone, right?”

the silence that falls over him is unnerving. it doesn’t seem like he’s given that any thought, which makes no sense to you. it’s not like there’s a shortage of cute girls for him to look at; in fact, at the dorm alone, he’s been stopped by multiple freshmen bold enough to ask for his number. you always have to walk ahead when this happens, so you just naturally assume he gives them his contact info before he catches up with you. and while it probably won’t happen this semester, given the dormitory’s strict rules, once he has a place of his own (sort of), he’ll be a liberty to bring home any one of them — or all of them, if he’s that kind of adventurous (honestly, you wouldn’t put it past him).

“are you planning on bringing guys home, too?” his question is laced with curiosity, as expected, but there’s also a hint of accusation, like he can’t decide if you’re trying to set up a double standard or something.

“i don’t have any immediate plans,” you reply honestly. “but i can’t guarantee it one way or another. if it happens, you’ll obviously be the first to know.”

he hums this low, thoughtful noise and starts picking the meat out of the broth. it’s a herculean task for him, it seems, because he’s never been comfortable using chopsticks. after a minute’s struggle, he gives up and starts using a fork. you notice that despite the fact that he’d ordered the meats for himself, he gives you a larger share of it onto your bowl before passing it to you.

“now that i’m thinking about it, i think i’d prefer if you didn’t bring anyone home.”

“oh.” you pause in the act of dipping your sliced meat into the peanut sauce, letting it soak in. “i mean, that’s fair.”

“i just think that space should just be our own, you know?”

“sure, i get that. but things happen, and sometimes you can’t predict how plans will go, so i’m just making sure we’ve got all our bases covered.” you crack a smile that somehow feels like it’s meant to be reconciliatory. “it’s not like you’d want me raiding the fridge while you’re at third base with your girl on the couch, right?”

“not going to happen,” he says flatly. “so don’t worry about it.”

“you say that now, ajax, but you’ll never know wh—”

“not,” he repeats, a dull fierceness in his gaze. “going to happen. trust me on this.”

you watch him shovel like four pieces of meat in a saucy, dripping wad into his mouth in one go, feeling perplexed. vaguely, you register that he’d dunked all that in chili oil, and it’s a miracle he isn’t hacking up a lung right now. “okay. i respect that.”

“so you won’t bring any guys over to our place either, right?”

“not if it makes you uncomfortable, i guess.”

“it makes me super uncomfortable,” he echoes quickly, like he’s eager to get the point across. you shrug in your concession, and though you hadn’t noticed him tense up, something in his posture relaxes. “cool. i’m glad we worked that particular kink out.”

you’re not sure you could even classify it as ‘being worked out,’ but you let him have it; since ajax had already been so docile earlier in the evening when you’d looked at options and started setting some potential ground rules, you think it’d be better to simply give him this.

you just make a silent promise that you’ll get out of his way once he inevitably goes back on his statement.

it’s almost a no-effort task to get your parents to agree to the set-up; they like and trust ajax, and they enjoy the fact that you won’t need to use a car for the rest of your university life even better, given that the apartment you all settle on is walking distance from campus. ajax puts his sports-honed muscles to work on moving day, carrying a lot of the semi-heavies and jokingly insisting that you just ‘sit on the couch the movers brought up so that it kinda looks like there’s already decor in the living room.’ he somehow has enough energy after the whole move to help you screw in your six-tier ikea bookshelf and cook an extremely flavorful pesto and spinach mac and cheese, at which point you realize you’re basically dead weight in this apartment, like a puppy that’s just waiting for its kibble and belly rubs.

you tell yourself that you’ll make up for it in chores, but ajax must have been a robot butler in his past life with the way he keeps things orderly, both in common spaces and in his room. the only thing you have to worry about is your personal mess, which you try to keep minimal and contained to your room at first — but then you realize that even if you wanted to do that, you couldn’t, because ajax spends almost as much time in your room as he does in his.

in the first few weeks of living together, he’d stick to knocking on your door before poking his head in through a crack to wake you up, letting the scent of whatever he’d made for breakfast waft in to arouse your senses. but as time passes and the semester wears on, he seems to abandon that tactic. more than once, your eyes have fluttered open only to widen in shock as you focus on the sight of him, settled on your bed with a small smile. you don’t even know if you sleep so deeply that his presence just doesn’t disturb you, or if he’s just that good at slipping in quietly. whenever you grumble a ‘what are you doing,’ he just ignores you and says ‘finally awake, sunshine?’

after dinner, he always follows you into your room, taking up a space on the bed he pretty much designates as his spot. you don’t usually mind it, given that what usually follows is a nice, long chat about everything and nothing all at once, or sometimes a card game (you’re both shit at poker, and you barely know how to play it besides, but it’s still fun trying to outbid each other), or a few episodes of whatever anime you’d heard was trendy these days, just to try. you just wonder if he’s doing this because he thinks it’s what roommates are supposed to do together or if it’s because he just has nothing better to do on his own.

“you’re on your phone an awful lot these days,” he throws at you casually, not even tearing his eyes away from the television. you don’t even know how he’s noticed; he’d seemed pretty engrossed in the show ever since the pink-haired kid had eaten the gross old finger. “gojo satoru not doing it for you, or is it a school thing?”

“sorry.” you put your phone face down on your stomach. “not important. just… something mualani — you remember her? from my globalization in teyvat class?”

“white hair? marine sciences major who ate all our fried shrimp beanballs? yeah, i remember her.”

“yeah. she — um, just introduced me to this app. i was just trying it out for shits and giggles.”

“what app?”

you pause for an embarrassing beat, though why you should feel any modicum of shame is beyond you. you’re an adult, and you can make adult choices, and ajax is also an adult who’d understand that naturally. still, your face is warm and pink when you mumble out, “tinder.”

you expect him to laugh at you or poke fun, but what comes next is veritably worse in the end: just this pointed silence that makes you feel like he’s actively judging you, either for being desperate enough to try tinder or being so out of touch that you’re only trying it now, at someone else’s recommendation.

“oh.” he doesn’t take his eyes off the television, but something about his tone makes you feel like he’s not really paying attention anymore. “meet anyone interesting?”

“to be fair, i swiped left on a lot of people.” not that he needs the useless preamble. “but… yeah, i’m… tomorrow. i’m going out with someone.”

“for?”

“just dinner downtown.”

“what’s his name?”

“albedo. he’s — he seems like a really nice guy. smart — he’s an engineering student from dragonspine university — and he’s really easy to talk to. and he’s… cute, i guess.” you don’t know why saying all this feels like pulling your own teeth out. the fact that ajax seems to be asking so seriously is making things worse, for some reason. you almost want to ask him if he knows anything about albedo, like if he’s some kind of serial killer you just haven’t heard about.

ajax mutes the television and leans his head back on your headboard, exhaling slowly. “so you’re not coming home tomorrow?”

“i mean — i didn’t think that far ahead,” you admit. “i just thought we’d have a normal date and… i don’t think that’d mean anything’s expected or required after.”

“you met him on tinder.” ajax’s laugh is weirdly humorless. “of course he’s going to expect you to come over after.”

“that’s not…” your voice trails off into nothingness when you realize how stupidly naive you sound. you are an adult, which means that adult things can and would happen to you. the memory of mualani saying she’d met a seemingly nonchalant gamer guy on tinder who’d actually rocked her world for a whole weekend surfaces, and you squeeze your eyes shut for a second. “okay, maybe. so?”

“so nothing. isn’t that what you wanted? why did you sound so surprised?”

“i wasn’t — it just wasn’t the first thing on my mind. some people go on dates just to go on them, you know.”

your phone trills, and because your curiosity wins out, you flip over your phone. you’re sure ajax can also see the message preview from albedo asking you if meeting at this restaurant near his place would be okay, even if you dim the lock screen quickly.

“sure they do,” he shrugs. “just not this albedo guy from tinder.”

you feel kind of stupid for not thinking about that; it’s not as if your messages had been overtly flirty, but it also makes a ridiculous amount of sense that, in this day and age, a first date from an online dating app would lead to some kind of intimacy.

and now you kind of feel in over your head, owing to the fact that you’ve never been remotely intimate with anyone else. it just hasn’t been high on your priority list as of yet, and while you could imagine yourself being okay with it now, you feel like, for a first time, you’d need some kind of emotional preparation you’re clearly not going to have, especially not with a virtual stranger (that you’ve talked to for about a week, sure, but still someone you’ve never personally laid eyes on).

“you okay?” ajax asks after you don’t end up saying anything to continue the conversation.

“yeah. it’s fine. i just…”

“didn’t think your first time would be with some guy you’ve never met named albedo?”

you groan. you’re not even sure if that’s going to be an experience you’ll want to remember, and maybe that shouldn’t matter in the modern world, but if all you’re going to take away from it is that you were awkward and self-conscious with some guy you’ve only spoken to a handful of times, you’d rather cancel the date. except common courtesy dictates that you really shouldn’t, and you don’t want to have to explain to albedo why you can’t go, or worse, lie about it, and also, you are a goddamn adult who shouldn’t be so worked up about something so trivial.

“i get it. what if he’s small? or worse, he sucks? totally valid reason to cancel a date, by the way,” ajax continues, and you definitely catch a bit of a smirk on his face before he smooths it out.

“that’s not what i’m worried about,” you say dryly.

“if you’re worried about anything, you should cancel the date.”

“it’s not like that; it’s just complicated for me. and it’s just — maybe if i had some time, or some advice beforehand—”

“or some experience,” he adds helpfully.

“yeah, or that. then it wouldn’t feel weird or like, i don’t know — daunting, i guess.”

“so get some.”

“time?” you can’t help but roll your eyes at how stupid it sounds. “or are you planning on giving me advice?”

“no, experience.”

“even more absurd.”

“okay then,” he shrugs, turning the television off and hauling himself off your bed. “then i wish you all the best of luck with your first date with albedo from dragonspine university, who probably has a small dick.”

you watch him gather his things — his hoodie that he’d been using to elevate his head, his phone, and the unopened pack of sweet corn chips he’d brought in to munch on — with this growing sense of despair. at the same time that what he’s saying sinks into you, you start telling yourself that you really shouldn’t consider it. it’s wrong on so many levels, with special emphasis on the fact that you both live together and will have to see each other every damn day, and also he’s your best friend, and you’re pretty sure there’s some truth out there about how friendships never survive these kinds of things.

but you have also kissed him, and ajax has never blabbed about it or even brought it up in any way that would jeopardize your friendship. in fact, if you’re trying to be really stupid about it, he’d been your first kiss, so it kind of comes full circle that he’d also be your first…

“ajax,” you squeak out before he can open the door to your room.

“my advice for you — and this is for free — is that if he tries to get you to dress up, or, worse, if he tries to dress himself up, you shou—”

“look, forget about that.” your throat feels exceptionally dry as you swallow. “um.”

he turns back to you, and suddenly you can’t bear to meet his eyes. in fact, you kind of feel like throwing up, so you just get all your words out in a flustered hurry.

“the experience you were saying — it won’t be weird if we just, um, if we just practiced, right?”

“practiced? what, like just the tip?” he seems to take pity on you when your pleading eyes shoot back to him, but he still looks vaguely amused. “weird though — nah. not at all. we’re closer than that, aren’t we?”

you are close. you’re close, and you’re both adults, and this is ajax — trustworthy, dependable ajax who always looks out for you and has been with you through thick and thin. this is going to be fine.

“yeah,” you breathe out, more to yourself than to him. “it’ll be okay.”

his smile’s reassuring as he sets one knee onto the mattress, beckoning you to come closer to the edge. you hesitate for a moment, then steel yourself with the thought that you technically started this, and that you have to see it through, and then you start inching closer to him, one jerky and minute movement at a time.

not that it matters, considering that at the next second, ajax has your ankles in a tight grip and tugs you towards him in one quick motion. you yelp, feeling the drag of the blanket on your back.

“what the hell!” despite your indignation, your voice is choked and small, greatly weakening the overall impact of your words.

“if i let you set this pace, it’s going to take us until sunrise before anything good happens.” his hand reaches up to cup your chin, angling your face towards him. like this, you can’t do anything but stare at him. “so just trust me and follow along, okay?”

you scan ajax’s features one at a time — his eyes, his nose, his lips, the shape of his face. maybe it’s just the situation that you’re in, but it feels like you’re seeing him for the first time. it isn’t the composition of all those things that makes it feel so foreign, exactly, but the way they are now — the way they make an expression that you feel like you’ve never seen on him before tonight.

he looks… hungry, you realize, like someone who’s been starving for days on end. his lips are slightly parted, looking like they’re ready to say something, but all that comes out at first are deep breaths that seem desperate to appear even. is he worried about something? does doing this actually affect him negatively?

you touch his wrist lightly. “hey, um — if you don’t actually want to do this, we don’t ha—”

“no way.” his response is sharp and immediate. “we’re doing this.”

“you just seem— i don’t know…”

“don’t worry about me. i’ve been more than ready.”

before you can even ask what that’s supposed to mean, he closes the gap between you two. it hadn’t been that long ago since you’d kissed him, but you only now learn that whatever it was that had happened back on homecoming night was not a real kiss — not in the way that really mattered. ajax’s lips move over yours in a more insistent frenzy that you can’t help but get swept up in; his mouth is still just as warm and as soft as back then, but the kiss he presses against you now is infinitely more sure, more demanding. you react without thinking, letting his tongue slip past your teeth easily, and you taste him much more sharply now too.

he coaxes your tongue into a sloppy dance that you think you’d be embarrassed about if you had even a modicum of the wherewithal for rational thought, but all that you can think of is how good and wet and right it feels. a groan passes between the two of you, though you can’t really decipher the source, and ajax’s weight bears down on you until you’re lying back onto the bed, his lips still hot and eager, locked on yours.

when you start to feel a little lightheaded, you tap his shoulder, and you’re sure the noise that comes after is from him this time — a grumble of dissatisfaction as he pulls away, allowing you room to breathe. “what is it? s’not good?”

“no, i just—” you don’t even know what to say, so you blurt out the first thing on your mind. “did you kiss her like that?”

“what? who?”

“that girl from middle school that you said—”

“let’s not fucking talk about her right now,” he mumbles, pressing another quick and firm kiss to your half-open mouth, followed by another, and then another, until you’re breathing hard again.

“i just—” your voice dies in your throat as ajax leans down, burying his face into the crook of your neck. you feel his lips there — warm, open-mouthed kisses followed by the graze of his teeth against your skin, the dig of them as he nips into you. your head lolls to the side, and he makes a pleased little sound at being granted more access, doubling down on his efforts. you think he finds a particular spot he likes, just above your collarbone, because his mouth lingers there, sucking dutifully on the inch or two of skin for what seems like a day and an age (in which time your mind grows a little hazier, your body a little more aroused) until he pulls away. he admires whatever mark he left there with the ghost of a satisfied smile.

“sorry.” even though he says that, he doesn’t look particularly apologetic. “think you might have to wear a turtleneck or something tomorrow.”

“what?” it dawns on you a second too late, and you flush, shoving at his shoulder weakly. “are you kidding me?”

“if you don’t want to, it’s fine. you could show it off — your first hickey.” his breath fans over the still tender spot as he leans back down, nosing at the mark. “actually, why don’t you?”

“you know i can’t do th—” you stifle a noise when his hands slip under your shirt, warm palms digging into your waist.

“hm? why not?”

“you damn well know why, ajax. it’d be rude to albedo.”

“right, of course,” he drawls out. his hands travel up your sides, dragging the hem of your shirt up with his wrists. you squirm minutely as he pushes the fabric up just under your chin, exposing your tits to the cold air. “albedo.”

you fling an arm over your eyes, suddenly feeling like you don’t want to see the exact moment ajax descends again, but you feel it anyway in all that darkness — the press of his mouth against your flesh, the way his tongue swipes out to flick your nipple playfully. it pebbles just at that, and you suddenly wish you could crawl in a hole and die when he hums appreciatively before offering it another light kiss.

“nice, smart, cute albedo,” he continues, and though his touches and kisses feel languid, there’s a slight hardness to his voice that has you shivering. “who’s going to fuck you tomorrow.”

you almost ask him what the hell he’s doing, but you get completely sidetracked by the feeling of his teeth digging into your nipple, and a yelp escapes you instead. your back lifts off the bed, and ajax uses that as an opportunity to slip his arm under you and around your waist. he keeps you half-arched, your chest pushed up, and sees that as a self-made invitation to attach his lips to your nipple, sucking firmly until you’re keening and weakly writhing in his hold.

the noises he makes are obscene, all happy and indulgent, and you wonder if he’s overacting just to piss you off, but it’s not like you can even ask; your own mouth’s too busy moaning anyway. at some point, your fingers had threaded into his hair, and now you’re tugging with all your strength’s worth. it just seems to fuel ajax all the more.

he sets you free when you hiccup a ‘wait, wait,’ gently easing you back down onto the bed. two fingers tap on the arm across your face, and you move it away, opening your eyes to the starry and all-too-vivid sight of ajax, straightened up, with his lips slick with his own saliva and reddened from effort, tugged down into a slight frown.

“you gonna let him see you like this?”

“i— he — what?”

“are you going to let him see you like this?” he repeats. his hand skims up the plane of your stomach, cupping the neglected breast and giving it a firm squeeze. his thumb drags over your nipple, once, twice, then settles flat on it, circling in slow, tortuous motions. “gonna show him your pretty body, all ready for him to take?”

“i don’t know, i—” you don’t know what answer to give him that will erase the slight hardness in his gaze. you don’t even understand where all these questions are from. “what does this even have to do with practice…?”

“practice. right,” he says stonily. “because you’re doing this for him.”

he rights his posture, standing at the edge of the bed and towering down over you. you don’t move, just watch him carefully as he reaches out, trailing his hands down the sides of your thighs.

“can you take off your shorts for me, angel?” he murmurs after a pause; his voice sounds strained, and you see his adam’s apple bob as he swallows hard. “panties too.”

you can barely hear the rustle of your clothing while you comply; your heart’s beating too loudly in your ears, your pulse throbbing in your temples. ajax helps you when your panties get caught around your ankle, and then you’re practically bare in front of him. he urges you to lie back again, but he’s got his hands around your calves that are pressed together, held aloft and giving you a false sense of decency.

it doesn’t last for too long, though. ajax eases your legs apart, and you can’t help the way your hands fly up to your hot cheeks as he gazes down at your exposed core. he looks at it with a concentration you’ve never seen on him — never in class, never in games. it’s like he’s intent on memorizing every inch of you.

“fuck,” he suddenly breathes out, startling you into a deeper shade of red. “fuck, baby.”

“what?” you squeak out, wishing he’d make eye contact or something so you could tell if he means that in a good or bad way.

“prettiest fucking pussy i’ve ever seen,” he hums, the volume of his voice strangely reverent.

“don’t — don’t say weird stuff like that, you assho— oh my god,” you whine, unable to keep any real heat in your voice as he swipes at your slit with a long finger.

“not weird. not kidding.” he drags the same finger down, easing your sticky folds apart and then coming away with an embarrassing amount of your slick on the digit. “holy shit. fuck, that’s pretty.”

you squeeze your eyes shut for another long moment, partly because you can’t look at him looking at you like that, but also partly because your whole body feels like it’s throbbing with arousal after just one stupid touch.

but they fly open when you feel ajax’s fingers again, this time fitting themselves right between your folds. it’s an imperfect measurement, his digits far too long, which means that the tips of them brush against your entrance.

“oh my god — what the fuck are you—” you squeal as he pulls his fingers apart, spreading your folds obscenely. “stop — stop messing around, jesus—”

you don’t even know if he’s agreeing to your request or not when he starts rubbing your folds, spreading your juices across the slightly puffy skin. it feels weirdly good, but also clearly not enough, and you soon realize it’s because you want something — want him — inside you.

he seems to read your mind, and in the next downward motion, his middle finger catches against your entrance, then curls inward. the tip of it teases at your hole, and you can actually feel the way you tighten around nothing, like you’re trying to suck him in but he’s just a few millimeters out of reach.

“pussy as pretty as this, and you’re just going to let some asshole look at it? touch it, just like this?” you’re not even sure if he’s talking to you or more to himself at this point. “no fucking way. not fucking happening.”

you cry out as he sinks a finger into you, up to the middle knuckle. it isn’t anything big, but it’s definitely a weird and unfamiliar feeling, having something inside you — but it somehow soothes the frustration in your chest. ajax’s gaze flickers up to your face now, watching the jaw-slackened expression that becomes more pronounced as he eases his finger further in, until it’s settled up to the knuckle.

“all these years — all this time that i did everything for you,” he continues, drinking in your little whimpers as he starts to pump his finger into you, slow and thorough. “and you were going to give your first to some jackass you’ve never even met before?”

emotions that you can’t fully decipher well up in your chest, a dizzy and patchy dawning at his words. ajax, who had always done everything for you. ajax, who had wanted every group project to be just the two of you. ajax, who was your first friend, your first kiss. ajax, who never wanted you to bring anyone home — who now refuses to tear his gaze from your face, like he’s willing an epiphany out of you.

“ajax,” you hiccup out, your hand reaching out to grip his wrist. “can — can we — can you slow down so — we can talk?”

“talk? sure, angel.” his finger presses up into the top of your walls, and you moan thinly. “let’s talk about why you shouldn’t go on that date with nice, smart, cute albedo tomorrow.”

a rough gasp rips out from your throat as he squeezes another finger into you, the stretch catching you off-guard; you tense, but ajax’s hand moves to press down lightly on your stomach, giving you this weird sense of groundedness.

“is it enough to say that he doesn’t know you well enough? that he doesn’t know you hate fancy, over-the-top restaurants like the one he was going to take you to, or that you’re always worried about the commute to downtown?” he’s speaking over your noises now, his fingers resuming their steady strokes — more deliberate now, digits dragging against your warm walls. his thumb stretches, dragging circles over your clit, and you’d be writhing at this point if not for the weight of his palm just under your navel. “or would it convince you if i said i don’t think he’d treat you right, the way you deserve? if i said he wouldn’t touch you right, fuck you right — would you cancel?”

“a—jax…” you choke out, tears welling in your eyes; the pleasure’s weird and tingly and so good, building up in your stomach and stretching to your fingertips and toes. “please, can we…?”

“if not any of that,” he murmurs, the movement of his fingers growing a little more forceful, a little heavier. you sob, squeezing at his wrist but making no real move to push him away; in fact, you’re pretty sure you’re keeping him there. “if i said the guy who deserves to see you like this should be me — only me — would you forget about him, angel?”

“som— something’s coming,” you whimper out, barely audible over the lewd noises his fingers make as they plunge into your warmth and wetness. “please, could you — s—slow down— just a little?”

“slow down? you pussy’s sucking me in so hard that i’m not even sure i can, baby.” the pressure ajax’s hand exerts on your stomach doubles, until you feel completely trapped under his hold. “s’okay. let it all out. don’t be scared; it just means i’m making you feel really good.”

a cry tears from your chest as he pumps his fingers in, rough and deep, and you feel your body lose control; in that moment, you tense, almost folding into yourself, and a rush of your juices sprays out of you, ajax coaxing it out for a little longer until you fall back onto the bed with a half-strangled moan. at least he has the decency to slow down after that, pulling his fingers out to rub your drenched folds like he’s offering some kind of weak consolation.

the ceiling above you starts to sharpen into focus as the tears that welled up out of pleasure drip down past your waterline. ajax’s fingers are stil busy, although the hand on your stomach has moved up again, fondling your breast with light, gentle squeezes.

you smack his arm, and he freezes, watching you sit up; it’s kind of comical, the fact that you’re still shaking a little post-orgasm, and he’s still making sure he’s got his hands on some part of you, despite the fact that you look a little miffed.

“are you fucking serious?”

“what? it’s totally normal to squirt. in fact, it’s actually really hot to me, personally…”

“not that! what were you even going on about this whole time? was there any other normal way you could’ve said what you said?”

“i thought the way i said it was pretty normal.” he shrugs. “why don’t you tell me when else i would’ve found the time and opportunity to tell you how i felt?”

“you didn’t have to be knuckle-deep inside me to do it!”

“agree to disagree. also, it can’t actually be my fault that you never knew. i’ve been clear about it from the beginning.”

you try to shake him off, but his grip on your waist’s like iron, and it results in a thirty-second struggle where you’re flailing your arms weakly and he’s trying to position himself comfortably in front of you. you stop, however, when ajax, now kneeling between your thighs, leans down, dropping his head onto your shoulder and giving the curve of it a light, almost imperceptible kiss.

“i’m sorry,” he says, sounding genuine this time. “i just… a part of me never wanted to tell you in case you hated me after it. if you said no… i don’t know what i’d do, to be honest.”

“i could never hate you,” you mumble, your cheeks a little flushed. you’ve never really had heart-to-heart talks with ajax before this, and you kind of feel like post-foreplay is an even weirder time to start, but you suppose you can’t blame him for the less than ideal timing.

“i thought i’d be okay, even if you never found out. if you did know, and you were just stringing me along… i’d let you, anyway. but then — god, if i think about someone else seeing you like this…”

you actually feel him shudder after, and your hand instinctively flies to the back of his head, threading into his hair.

“it fucking drives me crazy.” his voice is shaky, barely controlled. “i can’t. i can’t let anyone else have you.”

there’s a period of quiet where you can only hear ajax’s heavy breathing, and you sit there with your hands scritching against his scalp lightly, your own head fuzzy. you should probably be thinking over what he’d just said, and you sure as hell try to, but you draw a complete blank. maybe some tiny part of you had always thought there was a possibility that he viewed you as more than just a friend, but that small voice had been ultimately overwhelmed by a seemingly more rational one that insisted there was just no way.

“since…” you finally manage out, your words soft. “since when?”

“god, i don’t know. maybe i realized it some time in freshman year, but,” he lets out an amused exhale. “i’ve always liked you. since pre-school, even, which i know sounds stupid. ever since you did that show and tell with the glitter art kit your mom got you for christmas. then i thought i’d never see you again, and it killed me, which is crazy because it was a silly little kindergarten crush, and i really thought i’d forget about you, but you fucking came back. that first day you transferred in — god. i couldn’t believe you came back to me.”

you feel the minute turn of his head, and his lips are sealed against the crook of your neck. a warm puff of breath, and then another kiss, followed by another, firmer and sloppier, and another—

“ajax—”

“please,” he whispers, begs between searing kisses to your skin. his hands resume motion, skimming your sides and following the contour of them repeatedly; when they drag upward, his thumbs extend, grazing the underside of your breasts. “please.”

and you’re not even sure you know exactly what he’s asking for, but the almost broken way he asks makes you want to give it to him, whatever that may be. a light tug on his hair, and he’s lifting his face, meeting your eyes with a dazed sort of look.

you’re the one who initiates this kiss, soft and a little unsure, but ajax is quick to take the lead, fitting his mouth full against yours once you give him the in. his hands settle fully on your hips, giving them a firm squeeze and pulling you closer, until you’re flush against him. he licks his way into your mouth methodically, like he’s trying to make sure every tooth, every tastebud ends up tasting of him. and it does — the richness of him reaches the back of your throat, has you feeling dizzy and a little vulnerable.

you inhale sharply as he pulls away, cool air filling your lungs and your lips slick and swollen again, and even though there’s no reason for you to keep your mouth open, it stays that way anyway as ajax tugs his sweater over his head in a swift, clean motion, tossing it behind him carelessly. you’re face to face with his lean body, wired full with taut muscle, and now you actually feel like a hormonal teen perceiving the opposite sex for the first time. sure, you’ve seen glimpses of it when he runs from the bathroom to his bedroom after a shower or when he lifts the bottom of his shirt up to wipe his brow while he cooks, but having it on full display is a completely different story.

you clamp your jaw shut when he coughs, and your eyes snap up to his face, daring that slightly amused expression to say something. “what? i can’t look?”

“no, no, look. look as much as you want. please.” he grabs your hand, tugging it closer to his abdomen and letting the tips of your fingers graze the clear ridges there. “touch all you want too. you know this is all for you, right?”

“you don’t have to be weird about it,” you mumble, but the invitation is all you need. gently, your palm rests against his stomach, and you feel it sink in a little as he breathes in and shudders at your touch. you’ve probably just been turning a blind eye to it out of principle, but even objectively, you know that ajax is attractive; he has the face of a sweetheart and the body of a seasoned athlete, and now you can fully appreciate that fact. he watches you carefully, staying perfectly still, as you explore the planes of his torso little by little, dragging your fingers against smooth skin. you only stop at the waistband of his sweatpants, drawing your hand back — or you would have, anyway, if he hadn’t caught it first.

“you getting shy on me after touching me all sexy like that?”

“can you,” you hiss, trying to wrench your wrist out of his grip. “try to be normal about this?”

“you’re the one being abnormal,” he frowns, tugging your hand closer to his form again. the tips of your fingers brush against the drawstrings. “or are you planning on backing out?”

“no.” you can’t help but notice that it comes out way too quickly for your liking. “who’s backing out?”

he doesn’t say anything in response, save for a little huff of a laugh that tapers out into nothing when your fingers return to his waistband. now that you’re concentrating, you can see there’s a tent in the front of his sweats, and you’d rather die than make a comment about it, but it does seem sizable enough that it piques your curiosity. your fingers hook into the garter, and ajax shifts slightly closer as you tug down, the fabric getting caught in the anomaly for a split second before it stretches free and pools around his folded knees.

“i did that,” you mutter. “do the boxers yourself.”

if he finds your evident back and forth with your own confidence grating, he doesn’t let it show. in fact, he seems all too eager to comply, standing up to let his sweats drop to his ankles and wasting no time in letting his boxers join them, toeing them aside cleanly.

you don’t have any personal reference for what’s normal or what’s excessive, but you know for a fact you aren’t underwhelmed, to say the least. you try really hard not to, but it feels like you can’t stop yourself from gawking a little — how can you not when ajax is standing at the foot of your bed, fully hard and kind of… big? the worst part is that he doesn’t even look concerned about being so bare in front of you; he seems to be assessing your reaction instead, eyes intently focused on every change in your expression.

when you don’t say anything, he sighs. “i don’t expect you to overact or anything, but could you at least give me a sign that you’re still in the world of the living with me?”

“sorry.” your apology comes out high and reedy. “it’s just — you know this is my first time.”

“you know this is mine too, right?”

and it hadn’t dawned on you before, but now you feel completely stupid for not even considering that. ajax had seemed so sure of himself, and he’d brought you to climax once already, so it had been all to easy to assume he’d been experienced. but now that you think about it, there’s been little to no opportunity for him to have fucked anyone else, given that he’d spent most of his time with you.

and now you know why.

“right, sorry,” you breathe out. “could’ve fooled me, though. you don’t look nervous at all.”

“to be fair, i’m really not.” his lips quirk upward slightly. “i mean, no offense, but i’ve been waiting to get to this point with you for what feels like forever.”

“you didn’t have to — like, there were other girls you could’ve—”

“we really need to work on your listening skills.” leaning down, he cups your chin, thumb grazing your bottom lip before he leaves a suspiciously chaste kiss against it. “it’s you or no one.”

he presses a series of soft, light pecks against and around your mouth, and in the midst of all that, your posture untenses, with you slowly melting into his touch. when he straightens back up, you’re back in that now-familiar heady state of having your breath stolen just a little. his palm still stays, your chin resting on it, and you look up to meet the hunger in his gaze.

“tell me,” you whisper, and his eyebrows lift slightly, drinking in your every word. “how do i give myself to you, ajax?”

the exhale he lets out is broken and shaky, and for a moment, his grip on your chin tightens. strangely, it doesn’t feel dangerous or wrong; if anything, it causes you to focus on him just a little more. his thumb comes out again, this time tracing the shape of your half-open lips, following the rise and dip of your cupid’s bow before it stops at the corner.

“think you can use your mouth on me, angel? just for a little while. i just,” he breathes in deeply, like he’s trying to center himself. “just want to see what you’d look like. would you let me?”

you nod, and he smiles tightly, although not unpleasantly. gently releasing your chin, he steps back once, watching you shift yourself until you’re on your knees at the edge of the bed, sitting down on your calves. you’re basically at eye level with his cock now, and now that your focus is on it, you can’t help but feel a little intimidated at the sheer size of it.

“i don’t know how to — um,” you say lamely, tucking your hair behind your ear in some weak attempt to feel ready. “it might not… be good.”

“don’t even worry about that,” he replies, though his voice sounds a little choked. “trust me. just do… whatever feels right.”

you let out a soft ‘okay,’ and your hands come up, wrapping around the base of his shaft to angle him towards you a little more. you start a little when you hear a sharp intake of breath from him, but he quickly follows it up with “don’t freak. it’s fine, really.”

the tip of it glistens with a few beads, clear and viscous — precome, you realize, seeping out of the head. a light squeeze of his cock has a bit more dribbling out, and it strangely fascinates you. you wonder what it tastes like — what ajax tastes like when he’s turned on, how new it would feel on your tongue. without much forethought, you lean in, letting your tongue peek out to sweep the liquid away.

his reaction is instantaneous — a soft hiss, the tensing of his thighs. you can see his hands have formed fists at his sides, and his knuckles are white. when you look up at him, you see his jaw is tight, and his eyes are dark, heavy-lidded.

careful not to disrupt whatever state he’s in, you move in, pressing the flat of your tongue against the side of his cock. the taste of him here is different than his precome — less salty, much fainter. you drag your tongue slowly along his shaft, wondering if that’ll intensify the taste, but it doesn’t really work out that way, so once you get to the tip, you lap up the liquid again, humming as the odd flavor of it bursts in your senses. you like it best there, you decide, and you focus your tongue’s efforts on the head, enjoying the way his cock seems just as eager to release it with every swipe and circle.

you’re so focused on exploring that you don’t immediately notice that ajax isn’t quiet anymore. a particularly harsh “fuck” has you snapping out of it, and his hands sink into your hair, tugging your head back slightly in the process. you gaze up at him, tongue still partway out and dripping with his pre, and he looks back at you, half-crazed.

“shit. first time using your mouth, and you’re acting like this?”

“was it… not good?”

“fuck no. it felt amazing. makes me think you were born for this,” he breathes out. “listen — let me feel your mouth too, okay? open up for me just a little — atta girl…”

he groans out something incomprehensible as you let your jaw fall open to an approximation of his size. his hands replace yours at the base of his cock, steadying his shaft as he angles the tip towards your waiting mouth. with care you don’t expect from his tense posture, he slips the head past your lips, letting out a low noise as it settles against your teeth and tongue.

“fucking — god, look at you. are you kidding me?” his hands tighten in your hair, and you hum; his cock kicks a little in your mouth from the vibration alone. “this is even better than i’ve always imagined. you’ll let me move now, won’t you, baby?”

you nod, and he swears under his breath once again as his hips roll forward, a slow, smooth motion that pushes his cock another couple of inches into your mouth. you realize this is even better than licking at him; the taste of him completely fills your mouth, and the rush of his precum drips straight onto your tongue and down your throat. even his reaction is better; his gaze is wilder, more alert, and there’s a flush across his chest that makes you feel strangely proud to see. ajax takes his time, rolling forward at a languid pace that almost lulls you into a gentle stupor. you don’t even know why just this makes you feel good, but maybe it’s the sounds he’s making that make this all worth it.

“god, i knew your mouth would be this good. always dreamt about fucking it, and now i actually get to. you drive me crazy, you know that?” as if to make his point, he makes a particularly thorough roll of his hips, and just a little more of his shaft slips in, the tip now more than halfway across your tongue. “think you’ll be able to take it all?”

you shake your head meekly, and he chuckles.

“s’okay. we’ll take it slow. i’ve got all the time in the world to train that pretty throat of yours for my cock.”

you whimper, thighs pressing together; you’ve never heard him speak like this, and you can’t deny that it affects you a little too much. your eyelids flutter shut, and you focus instead on your other senses — the drag of his cock against the inside of your mouth, the low curses coming from ajax. you don’t know how long it lasts, but you can sense that growing throb against your tongue, becoming a little more insistent with each stroke. you think maybe, just maybe…

your eyes fly open as he draws back completely, your mouth empty all in one go. you breathe in a lungful of cold air before making a noise of protest. “why did you—?”

“i was ten seconds away from cumming,” he says breathily.

“so? did you… not want to?”

“not in your mouth.” when the look of confusion doesn’t leave your face, he laughs, though the way he smooths your hair back is so tender that you feel the weird urge to purr. “don’t get me wrong — it would’ve been hot, and i seriously thought about it. but i’m not going to bust a load like that when i haven’t even had a chance to fuck you properly.”

he swoops in for another firm kiss that catches you off guard, cradling your face as he guides you to lie back. you realize belatedly that ajax has a weird talent for being able to maneuver you without you really noticing — in the next moment, he has you in the same position as earlier, your legs spread to allow him the space to fit himself between them. only this time, his body’s just about as bare as yours, and you’re keenly aware of the way his cock brushes against your cunt as he inches in to close the gap between the two of you.

“you still feeling okay?” he asks when he breaks the kiss. you nod, and a smile quirks the corners of his lips upward. “good girl. let me have a look at you again, hm?”

your legs fall apart just a little more as he straightens up, like you’re offering the view of yourself to him; he takes it all in with an appreciative hum, and when he glances at your face for a split second, you notice his pupils are slightly blown. slick sounds fill the room as he strokes himself a few times, and you try desperately not to moan when he taps his cock against your folds, the shaft coming away with sticky lines of your juices.

you’re not as surreptitious as you think you are, though, because he says, “you don’t have to hold back on me, you know.”

“it’s fucking embarrassing,” you whine, although even that morphs into a mewl when he does the audacious thing of dragging his cock along your slit. “and you’re not helping.”

“oh, sorry.” something wicked creeps into his stupid little grin. “you saying you want me to stop?”

you’d rather die than have him stop now, but you don’t have to make that known to him. anyway, it doesn’t matter in the end; even if you want to say something, it dies in your throat the moment he pulls his hips back for another long grind against your folds — only this time, the tip catches against your entrance, and you flutter in desperation. your hips roll upward before you can even make sense of what you want, and ajax just looks pleased.

“yeah, i figured as much. was gonna see if you’d be willing to beg for it now, but you don’t even have to do that, do you?” his hands dig into the plush flesh of your waist, squeezing a little bit of the air out of your lungs. “pretty body’s telling me how bad you want it, loud and clear.”

you kind of wish he’d stop talking because it’s doing something to you, something like heat coursing through your veins and making you hypersensitive to even just the chill breeze from the air conditioning. but at the same time, there’s a large part of you that’s curious about what’s going on in his head; he seems infinitely more candid now than he’s ever been, and you wonder just how much of this is lining up with his fantasies.

another drag of his cock against your slit wrings a moan out of you, and your hand jerks out, nails digging into his chest. he doesn’t even flinch. “stop — stop teasing me already.”

“just want to get you prepped.”

“fuck, ajax — i’m so — please. i’m ready, trust me.”

his hips slow to a stop, and one hand leaves your waist, returning to wrap around his shaft. angling himself a little lower, he lines his tip up with your entrance, the soft curve of it bumping against the rim. his eyes flicker to you at the last second, and you’re ready to grab him by the ear for stopping again until he says, “it might hurt. you gotta tell me — you know, if it’s too much, or if you want me to stop. i’m serious.”

you nod, murmuring a quiet, ‘i will,’ but the deeper dig of your nails into his skin urges him forward.

tension locks your body as he pushes in slowly, the tip breaching your tightness. there’s an intense concentration on ajax’s face, his brow all furrowed, as he tries to battle the seemingly impossible fit. your walls ache at the drag, the stretch, and he’s barely in before he’s pushed out.

“shit,” he mumbles under his breath. “fucking tight.”

“m’sorry,” you whisper, mortified. “i didn’t mean to—”

“no, no — i didn’t mean it like that. just—” he exhales sharply, the thumb that’s still on your waist rubbing light circles. “it’s fucking hot. let me try again, okay? just relax for me.”

he waits for your assent before he resumes his efforts, and this time, you try not to work your body up to the point of rejecting him. it’s still a tight, uncoordinated endeavor, but he manages to slip in about halfway, at which point your body seems to at least be accepting that he’s there. it doesn’t hurt in the way you expect — there’s a slight discomfort, a dull soreness that gets easier to ignore as the seconds tick by. ajax stills like that for a while, and you realize he’s allowing you to get adjusted to his size before pressing on.

“how— uh, how is it?” he asks, his words a little thin and strained. “feel okay?”

“mhm,” you manage out, before realizing you’re not giving him much to work with. “doesn’t hurt much, i promise. you?”

“honestly?” he huffs out a laugh. “was really scared i’d fucking cum right then and there.”

you laugh, and the lingering tension in your form melts; you notice the same is true for him, and he even has the energy to look a little sheepish. “what was all that about fucking me properly then?”

“i’ll make good on it, trust me.” his hands return to your waist, pushing your shirt upward again to stop at your ribs.

“then don’t stop now,” you urge quietly.

he blows out a sharp breath before his grip’s tightening on your sides again, and he sinks further into you. your moans harmonize the moment he bottoms out, and you marvel at how strangely right it feels to have him in you, despite the fact that you feel so full you’re pretty sure he’s in your stomach, or something.

ajax isn’t all too composed, either; he’s breathing heavily like he’s trying to calm himself down, but the flush has spread from his chest to his neck and cheeks, making him look even more heated.

“you gonna cum?” you half-joke, although saying that out loud has you squeezing around him without warning, causing him to hiss.

“no way. no fucking way,” he says with a kind of resolution that seems almost baseless. “if i could just—”

he draws his hips a few inches back, inhales deeply, then pushes back in. the result is a low groan from him and a high, reedy mewl from you, the foreignness of something dragging against your insides feeling both odd and good. but maybe that sound is all he needs from you, because at the next moment, he’s setting a slow, steady pace, pumping into you smoothly.

the tightness is still there, but less pronounced, and the more he does it, the more the pleasure builds — a light tickle at your senses at first, but slowly growing into something more insistent. you’re not sure if you’re supposed to be able to tell if ajax is inexperienced, because it really doesn’t seem like it. the controlled movement, the perfect pressure against your insides — it seems like he’s doing everything in his power to keep himself in check and make you feel good. amid the slight haze of pleasure, you fixate on his face as a grounding point, noticing the tightness in his jaw, the slight frown on his lips.

“ajax, it’s okay,” you whisper, breaking him out of the focused trance he’d fallen into. “it doesn’t hurt. you can… you don’t have to hold back.”

“i can’t,” he murmurs, almost sounding mournful. “you don’t know how good it feels — how much i want to—”

“then do it,” you cut him off, both hands coming up to cup his face, keeping his gaze fixed on you. when he doesn’t respond, you add, “i want you to. please.”

you can almost hear the way the gears in his head click and whirr before they simply implode. with a soft growl, he buries his face into your shoulder, his teeth sinking into fabric against skin. he draws his hips back fully, then snaps them forward, burying himself back into you fully, and you squeal, your arms winding around his neck for some semblance of stability.

“that’s — that’s it,” you whimper, nails biting into the skin of his shoulder blades. “g—gave myself to you, remember? so just take as much as you want.”

“fuck— fuck,” he swears, muffled against your shirt. he does the same thing again, pulls almost all the way out before hitting home again, and again, and again, until you’re caught in a cycle of short gasps and cries. “don’t you dare say that without meaning it. gonna fuck this pussy until it’s all mine, understand?”

he probably feels you nod against the side of his head, which is good because you can’t seem to say anything coherent. his pace becomes rougher, the strokes more deliberate and forceful, and you feel yourself pressing deeper into the mattress, caught deliciously under his weight. at the angle, the depth he’s fucking into you, you’re pretty sure you can almost taste him on your tongue. or maybe it’s just that you’re enveloped in him, his scent across your skin, his warmth kissing every part of you.

“god, you feel amazing,” he babbles on, taking only a moment to let his tongue swipe out at your neck. “pussy’s taking me so well, like it was made for me. is that what you’ve been saving yourself for, huh? waited for me to take this pretty cunt all for myself?”

you can’t trust yourself to respond, so you let out a garbled hum that sounds suspiciously like his name. not that it phases him — if anything, it seems like it just adds fuel to the fire, his next thrust into you rattling you from head to toe.

“yeah, that’s right. you were made for me, angel. look at you — so fucking tight just for me. so. fucking. good,” he growls, the last three syllables a blueprint for his sharp thrusts.

your head’s fallen into a blurry haze, and you think it should be scary in any other instance, but with ajax here to ground you, it just feels right; you sink into it willingly, and you can’t even bring yourself to feel conscious about all the lewd noises you’re making. his voice is all you can hear, settling into your ears, into your bones.

“can’t pull out — your pussy’s gripping me so tight that i can’t. and i don’t fucking want to.” you whimper when you feel his teeth dig into your earlobe. “know what that means, baby? tell me. i wanna hear it from you.”

you really shouldn’t. it’d be reckless and risky, and you don’t have any countermeasures for it on hand. logic dictates that you muster up enough rationality to tell him you don’t want him to — except you kind of do, and with the way he’s practically rearranging your insides, you kind of want to give it to him too.

just this once, your irrational mind reasons with you. next time will be different.

and then you shiver with pleasure at the realization that you’re already planning a next time with ajax.

“cum inside me,” you whimper out. he swears softly before pressing a hot, open-mouthed kiss to the crook of your neck.

“one more, angel,” he pleads, sounding almost broken. “say it one more time.”

“want you to cum inside me,” you breathe out, tensing around him as you feel his hips grow rougher, more erratic, and your pleasure spikes suddenly. “fill me up — please, ajax?”

his pace stutters, freezes, then revives in a frenzy of quick, shallow thrusts, and warmth suddenly fills you. you know what it is, and you expect him to stop to ride out his high, but he continues to move, and you feel his cum slip deeper into you. it adds both a stickiness and a slipperiness to his movements that makes the friction exponentially more delicious, and you barely whine out something unintelligible before you’re coming undone for the second time tonight, your thighs closing in and pressing into his sides.

finally, he slows, tapering his strokes gradually, but though they become intermittent, they regain their thoroughness — like even in the wake of his climax, he’s still focused on pushing as much of his cum into you as he can before his exhaustion wins out.

and it does soon after, his hips stilling with one final thrust into you that has you keening softly. he doesn’t lift his head, seemingly content to just inhale your scent from against your shoulder. you stay like that for god knows how long, listening to each other’s breathing even out and soften. at one point, you squirm a little, just to check if everything’s still good below the waist, and you feel his cock kick weakly.

it’s the trill of your phone that breaks you out of your stupor. you mumble into ajax’s ear about giving you some room, but he makes a noise of dissent that has you rolling your eyes, so you just pat blindly around for your phone until your hand closes around it. it’s hard to manipulate your screen considering you’ve got a body lying on you that you have to work around, but you manage to open the tinder app to albedo’s messages — the one from earlier about the restaurant that you hadn’t replied to, and another one from just now, saying that he’d made a reservation.

“it’s albedo,” you say, growing amused when ajax grunts into your shirt. “he made a reservation.”

“yeah, well, i hope it’s for one.” he finally lifts his head, and you’re struck with the thought that he looks adorable with his hair flattened and falling into his eyes. “don’t tell me you’re still going?”

“oh, yeah, i totally still want to see him,” you say dryly, though the sarcasm doesn’t seem to sink into ajax; he frowns so deeply you have to smoothen out the lines on his forehead. “after i just let this other guy who confessed to me in the craziest way cum in me. can you be serious?”

“cancel the date,” he demands, and you want to laugh at how childish his tone is; a little bit of it slips out when he pouts. “i’m not kidding. tell him you have a boyfriend.”

you don’t go that far, but you do cancel on albedo, citing a sudden unavoidable event (not a total lie); ajax watches with hawk eyes as you draft the message and double checks that you sent it to him.

“do i though?” you ask after a thoughtful pause. ajax has already settled back down onto you, refusing to pull out and growing more and more like dead weight against your chest. “have a boyfriend, that is.”

he’s quiet for a while, and you might’ve thought he’d dozed off if not for the unevenness in his breathing.

“i mean, if you’ll have me.” you’ve never heard him sound unsure before, and it somehow softens you.

“you know, back when i was in pre-school, there was this kid i was friends with that didn’t want summer vacation to come. he said it was because he didn’t want to make any new friends, so i promised him we’d find a way to stay friends even after that. what was it that i said…?”

he chuckles softly. “i think you said we’d be together forever.”

“right,” you snap your fingers like you’ve had an epiphany. “i promised him we’d be together forever. so i guess i have to make good on that promise, right?”

“that’s a cute story and all, angel, but i still want to hear it in black and white.” you can feel the grin playing on his lips against your skin.

“why don’t you look me in the eye first?”

he lifts his head, and for a moment, you just drink in his features — the deep, blue eyes that have always watched you, the soft lips that waited years just to kiss you. your fingers trace the side of his face, and he leans into your touch, closing his eyes as you murmur your answer.

“i’m all yours, ajax.”

The first year you worked for him, you were constantly afraid of him. Well more so getting fired, than him. He’d order you to bring him coffee and you’d fear he’d fire you for getting his order wrong, he’d order you to print meeting notes and you’d fear he’d scream at you for failing to print them double-sided. Fortunately, he did neither of those things, but he would shoot you a glare or a jerk of a brow that would send you into a spiral. He didn’t seem to enjoy conversation, so you’d just scurry away, clutching your heart in your hands.

As time went on, you learned a lot about him. It’s inevitable when you’re essentially attached to his hip like a mute accessory, where it’s hard to do anything but focus on what he does.

He likes his coffee sweet. Two sugars and milk. Surprising, since he comes off as a black coffee connoisseur, but also kind of cute? The big scary colonel drinking a latte? He showers in the morning and at night. Cold in the morning, hot at night. He does his own laundry. You eventually figured out that he’s very particular with how he wants his laundry to smell and how he likes it folded—talk about being a control freak. He hates his bosses. Whenever he receives orders from them, it’s the only time you see him genuinely losing his cool–grumbling under his breath and angrily flipping through the paperwork on his desk. You try to avoid his office during these episodes. 

Over the years, his routine becomes your own. His coffee is ready for him when he sits at his desk, his calendar organized perfectly, and even his laundry is folded the way he wants it to be. The last took some trial and error, but you’re proud of mastering the art.

Still, words between the two of you are scarce. You only tend to see him when he’s working (and so are you), and it’s made wordless communication between the two of you easier. When you stand in front of his desk, he takes it as a signal to clear it for you to place down a new stack of paperwork. When you knock on his door and remain under the doorframe, he sighs, realizing his bosses have called for him. When you place down a fresh cup of coffee at his desk, he takes it as a sign to have lunch.

It’s seamless coordination, to put it short.

There’s a particularly stressful week for him one month. You watch him slave away at his work, the bags beneath his eyes growing heavier and his hair becoming more disheveled. He hasn’t left the office in two days–you counted. He’s going to snap, you think. No matter how talented he is—and you know he is, given he’s become a colonel at his young age—he can’t overcome human biology.

“Shit!” you hear from his office. You peek inside to see that he’s spilled coffee on his lap. He pats aggressively at the stain, hissing under his breath when you place a new cup in front of him. His eyes flicker up to you.

“You have a meeting in an hour,” you say.

He frowns. “I’ll have to change.”

“And shower,” you scrunch up your nose. “And shave, preferably.”

He blinks, and then his lips purse in a weird shape. Wait. Surely not. You think you’re going crazy. Is he trying not to laugh? The colonel who's always glowering menacingly?

The lack of sleep must really be getting to him.

In the end, you somehow end up in the single-stall bathroom. You’re shaving the sides of his face as he fixes his freshly washed hair, staring at himself in the mirror. It’s to save time, you remind yourself as you wonder how many minutes he has left till his meeting.  He crinkles his brows and then glances at you through the corner of his eyes. You pretend not to notice. 

“Are you usually so comfortable in front of shirtless men?”

“No, but you’re not a man,” you snort. “You’re my boss.”

“I’m your male boss.”

Why are you so comfortable with him, you wonder? Well, you’ve known him for a few years—you know his everyday routine, his likes, his dislikes, his habits—that you might dare to even say you know him well. Not him, but your boss. You chew on the inside of your cheek, and then shrug.

His skin is soft against your fingertips, you think.

“Thanks,” he says. “For all you do. I don’t say it enough, but you’re one of the few people I trust in this place.”

“It’s my job, sir.”

He chuckles, and it catches you off guard. You can count on one hand how many times you’ve heard him laugh these past few years. And for some reason, you can’t look him in the eye, choosing to narrow in on the shaving cream you’re pushing off with his razor. He doesn’t say anything else either, and the two of you exist in the comfortable silence, 

This is where it begins. The blurring between coworkers and friends, and maybe something more.

The two of you begin to exchange more conversation. When you drop off his coffee, he makes small talk. When you drop off his laundry, he praises you. When you bring him his paperwork, he complains to you about his bosses instead of shooing you away. You gradually spend more time in his office instead of your cubicle. At some point, he even treats you to dinner. Company dinner, but still.

You quickly realize the colonel is a mess. His usually composed and serious demeanor is a facade—or maybe he just has a switch? He talks a lot. He specifically likes vanilla lattes, you find. He despises seeing others with wrinkles in his uniform. And he calls home once a week to his sister and grandmother, in which you happen to eavesdrop once or twice and find that he can be a complete sap when he wants to be.

Of course, his mask is pulled back on the instant another person is in the room. Your coworkers ask how you managed to get so close to the terrifying Colonel Xia (though you don’t even know if you’re that close), but you have to bite your tongue before you spread to the world that the colonel is actually a family-obsessed crashout who likes vanilla lattes and cooking. Maybe you’ve gotten too close to him, you wonder, but too late to do anything about it now.

Especially when he hobbles into your cubicle one day, blood seeping from his arm despite his desperate clutch onto it. It’s late. Two in the morning at the earliest. You’re not sure why you decided to stay late today despite not having the work to warrant it. But when you noticed his office door remaining closed, lights shut off too early into the night, something felt off. So incredibly off. 

You suppose you stayed for him. Just in case he needed something else.

“What happened to you?” you’re onto your feet in an instant, shoving your chair back as your hands hover over his wound. Half of his outer uniform is shredded off, leaving a trail of bloody marks and what you hope isn’t too deep of a cut. His face is pale, breathing shallow. Beads of sweat form at his temples as he looks straight at you, hunched over to your line of sight in pain. You don’t wait for his response and quickly shuffle him towards his office, letting him use you as a crutch.

You fumble around his room until you come across a first aid kit. It looks incredibly outdated, but it’ll do the job. “Take off your shirt.”

He does without complaint. It seems like you see him shirtless more often than an assistant ought to be.

As you tend to him, you begin to ask questions. And you’re not sure if it’s because of the exhaustion, but he answers them truthfully—though you suppose he’s rarely lied to you in the first place. It’d been an assassination attempt. Another one. The third one this year. You honestly don’t know how he bears to deal with the stress of his job, and you’re not sure why he does either, but you’re sure something is tying him down. Your fingers work diligently to tend to him, and you’re suddenly incredibly grateful to the first aid class you were required to take when you first took the job.

“You should transfer bases,” you mutter.

“Why would I do that?”

You raise your brows in disbelief, and he laughs—or at least, tries to. Another tally in your head. Now you need more than two hands to count the times he’s laughed in front of you. “I’m serious, sir.”

“And what would that achieve?”

“You won’t have as many knives at your back, for starters.”

“They could never kill me with those puny attacks.”

“But they can definitely hurt you...” you pause. “...sir.”

“I’m ranked highly for my age. I’m not leaving.”

“You’d climb back up in no time even if you started,” you snap, and he looks away. “Am I wrong?”

Nope.

It goes quiet for a moment. His shoulders fall, and he rocks his head backward, staring at the ceiling. “I won’t have anyone to trust.”

I don’t say it enough, but you’re one of the few people I trust in this place.

Your throat feels dry. Your stomach sinks for some reason—-or is your heart just hammering? You realize that he’s staring at you now, inches away from you as you hold his arm with bandages. The AC whirrs softly, but the only other thing you can hear is his breathing and your own.

“You’ll get another assistant.”

“Nobody else is as good as you,” he responds immediately.

Your eyes narrow, and you turn away, dropping his arm. “You must’ve not had many assistants.”

“I don’t need to.”

He sounds too serious. Too genuine. The air feels suffocating. You rise from the armchair and pace towards his desk with the first aid kit in hand, chewing on the insides of your cheek. Whatever he means—whatever he’s implying—it’s dangerous. He’s your boss. Your boss, who kills for a living on missions that could kill him. Your boss, who spends his nights passed out at his desk. Your boss, who most of your coworkers call an asshole. 

His hands perch on either side of you onto his desk. He’s close. Close enough for you to feel his breath on the shell of your ear, and it sends shivers down your spine. Your fists clench as you will yourself to calm down, but to no avail. What the hell is even happening?

You whip your head to him. “Sir, I–”

“Caleb.”

“What?”

“Call me Caleb when we’re alone,” he mumbles. “Please.”

Your eyes go wide. “That’s not appropriate.”

“I don’t want to be appropriate.”

You nearly choke. He’s delirious. Perhaps from blood loss, surely. “You’re—you’re not acting yourself.”

“I’ve always been like this,” he sighs, and then you feel him drop his head onto your shoulder. It makes you jolt, your breath hitching as you register what he’s doing. “You just don’t care enough to notice.”

“What are you—”

“How much more obvious do I have to make myself?” he whispers against your neck. “Do you like humiliating me?” 

Either pigs are flying or hell must’ve froze over. You open your mouth to respond, unsure of what you’ll say until you feel him slump over your shoulder. You blink. Did he just?

You nudge his limp body.

He did. He did just pass out. You might kill him before anyone else does.

Colonel Xia, as you’ve known for some time now, is a mess.

But only to you.

He doesn’t make you nervous anymore. If anything, he’s annoying. Alarmingly so. You’ve become a kind of emotional support pet and assistant rolled into one, to the point that he deems it acceptable to message (spam) you at twelve in the morning. You roll your eyes when you see your screen light up in the darkness of your room, knowing there’s only one person who’d message you at this time.

[vanilla boss (DNI)]: where are the files i asked you for this morning? I can’t find them

[vanilla boss (DNI)]: hello?

[vanilla boss (DNI)]: hellooooooo

[vanilla boss (DNI)]: also do you have time tmr night :) we should go out

[vanilla boss (DNI)]: please (unsent)

[vanilla boss (DNI)]: oh the files

[vanilla boss (DNI)]: xie is on my ass about it

[vanilla boss (DNI)]: fucking asshole, im gonna kill him :3

[vanilla boss (DNI)]: hello??? Where is my pretty assistant that nobody can replace

[vanilla boss (DNI)]: that wasn’t sarcasm btw

When you tap away your answer, pressing send and tossing your phone across your bed, the response is immediate.

[vanilla boss (DNI)]: thanks hot stuff ><

[vanilla boss (DNI)]: the office misses you already

The office that only he occupies at this hour?

You’re not paid enough for this. You ignore the subtle burning in your cheeks.

His feelings for you become an unspoken truth between the two of you for the next few months. Oddly enough, he doesn’t seem embarrassed about it at all. Despite most of his attempts to egg you on being rejected, he doesn’t let most of it faze him. You remind him that he’d look bad to others if he started dating his assistant, but the thought doesn’t seem to even cross his mind, even if you tack on a dozen other reasons why the two of you shouldn’t mingle in anything romantic. He’s never really convinced, much to your dismay.

Which is unfortunate, especially when you realize how much this is affecting you.

When his eyes seem to always drift in your direction, even when he’s in a meeting, you can’t help but feel your heart race. When his name pops up onto your phone, you can’t help but check what he said immediately. You stay later into the night to bring him an extra cup of coffee.

But this is what any assistant would do, right?

“What’s that?” you ask a coworker as she paces towards the colonel’s office with a stack of papers. You eye it suspiciously, especially considering the giddy look she has on her face. 

“The colonel asked for these. He asked me, specifically,” she smiles, cheeks pink. “Y’know, up close, he isn’t so scary. He’s kind of nice, and also really cute…have you noticed that?”

Of fucking course you’ve noticed it. You’ve worked with the man for the past few years! Even when everyone else said he was terrifying. Even when everyone else avoided him! Before you know it, your fists are balled at your sides, and you don’t even know why. All you know is that you want to yell at him right now. What’s the point of having an assistant if you’re just going to use other girls? Is he taunting you? Does he have no use for you anymore? Is your work not good enough—even after you responded to him in the middle of the night to his stupid questions with his stupid cute emojis? Your annoyance burns, and you suddenly find yourself marching to his door after having snatched the stack of papers from the woman. She remains oblivious and completely confused as you leave her behind.

You don’t bother knocking as you slam the door open.

He looks up from his desk, eyes widening. Upon realizing it’s you, his lips etch into a lopsided grin. “Oh, hey, what—”

You stroll straight to him, dumping the entire stack just inches from his face. It lands onto the desk with a loud slam, and it surprises him as he jerks back. His gaze flickers back up to you, and he blinks. “Why are you bringing me this?”

“It’s what you requested, sir,” you snap, and his smile is gone. “From someone else, for some strange reason. But as your assistant, I felt it was appropriate for me to bring it, no?”

What the hell were you even saying? The words were tumbling out, fired by anger but uncontrollable. You were definitely going to die of embarrassment later on, but you don’t care in the moment. For someone who claims to like you so much, why is he asking other girls to get his things? What are you, some backup plan? As if you don’t bring him his coffee every day? His paperwork? His laundry—

He blinks. “It was a lot to carry, and I didn’t want to make you—”

“Yes, and let’s ask some bumbling woman who doesn’t even know how to make these double-sided. That’ll get the job done instead of asking the woman who’s been doing this for years,” you hiss. The more you speak, the more unreasonable it sounds. You know it’s ridiculous, but…

Gears turn in his head. And when it clicks, his eyes soften. His adam’s apple bobs as he slowly stands from his desk, seemingly beginning to understand your frustration. He’s always been quick to noticing how you feel, even before you could fully process it—and you don’t know if you hate or love it. 

“Are you jealous?”

You balk, appalled at the thought. “No! Of course not!”

“Then, why are you angry?”

“Because—” you sputter for an answer. “--I have a job, and—I want to do my job!”

He tilts his head. “Is that really it?”

“Yes!”

“You’re angry, because I didn’t let you bring me paperwork,” he confirms. "And I asked someone else to do it."

“Yes!”

His lips break out into a grin. “Sounds like jealousy to me.”

Your jaw slacks. Head spinning, you can’t ignore how your heart is going at an unreasonable speed, face heating in embarrassment as you entertain the thought. You can’t help but avoid his gaze, brows furrowing in an attempt appear more intimidating, but it does little for this purpose. So instead, you glare knives at him. His brown tousled hair. His purple eyes. His pink lips. The straight edge of his nose. His lashes that put most peoples' to shame. His grin. His laugh. That stupid fucking laugh that you count in tallies in your head, almost as if you’re always waiting for the next one. Looking forward to them. Yearning for them. His stupidly cute coffee order and his stupidly cute texts and his stupidly good-looking uniform and his stupid—

Fuck.

God, you want to kiss him.

“Hey,” he waves a hand in front of you, brow raising. “Sorry, I’ll stop teasing. I won’t do it next time so–”

Before he can finish his sentence, you yank him by the collar of his shirt and smash his lips against yours. The kiss is a mess. When he recognizes what’s happening after the immediate shock, he’s kissing back desperately, hands flying to either sides of your face to pull you closer. It’s awkward, given that you’re kissing over the desk, but neither of you could care any less. There’s a few grunts that escape your lips until you gently punch at his chest, pointing at your nose when his eyes flutter open. He pulls away to let you breathe, and he has the widest smile plastered on his mouth. You don’t know if you want to slap it off or kiss him again.

“Want to go again? On my lap this time.”

“Shut up, Caleb.”

You climb on top of him anyway.