nanami tried to be reasonable. he tried to tell you that you needed rest, that you were sick, that this could wait, but you'd just shaken your head and hooked your leg around his hip, and the sound you made when he'd accidentally pressed against you — half groan, half whimper, all desperate need — had shot straight to his dick like a live wire.

so now here he is.

here he is, kneeling between your thighs on the rumpled sheets of your shared bed, the soft glow of the bedside lamp painting everything in shades of gold and amber. here he is, watching you completely fall apart beneath him, your skin flushed an impossible pink, your lips parted and wet and whispering his name like a prayer.

and here he is, losing his goddamn mind.

because you're hot. not just in the way you always are — the way that made him fall in love with you in the first place, the way that still makes his breath catch when you smile at him across the dinner table — but actually, physically hot. like a furnace, like sin wrapped in skin and slick heat and the kind of wet that has him groaning before he's even all the way inside.

nanami sinks into you slow — he always does, because well… he's nanami kento and he believes in savoring things, in making them last — but the moment the head of his cock pushes past your entrance, he freezes.

"f-fuck," nanami breathes, and his voice cracks on the word, splinters right down the middle.

you're so warm.

you’re so impossibly, unbearably warm; it's like slipping into a bath that's just this side of too hot, the kind of heat that steals your breath and makes your muscles go liquid. your walls flutter around him, clenching and pulsing like you're trying to pull him deeper, and he has to brace one hand against the headboard just to keep from collapsing on top of you.

"kento?" your voice is soft, hazy, your eyes half-lidded and glassy in a way that has nothing to do with the fever and everything to do with him. "you okay?"

nanami laughs — it was a short, broken sound that's half sob, half something else entirely.

"am i okay?" he repeats, like you've asked him the most ridiculous question in the world. "sweetheart, you're—"

his hips twitch, an involuntary little thrust that sinks him another inch deeper, and the sound you make is so sweet, so wrecked, that he has to close his eyes.

"you're so hot. inside. it's—god, it's like—"

nanami can't even finish the sentence, he doesn't have the words for what it feels like. the heat is radiating through him, climbing up his spine, settling low in his belly like embers catching flame. every single nerve ending is on fire, every muscle pulled taut, and he hasn't even started moving yet.

you shift beneath him, trying to take more of him, and your hand comes up to cup nanami’s jaw, your thumb brushing over his cheekbone. your skin is warm too — not as searing as the rest of you, but warm enough to make him lean into your touch like the tide answering the moon.

"then move," you say, simple as anything else, like you haven't just turned nanami’s entire world inside out. "kento, please. i want you to move."

he's never been able to deny you anything, so he moves.

slow at first — because nanami is trying, he's really trying, to keep some semblance of control. he pulls out until only the tip of his cock remains, then pushes back in with a steady, rolling movement that has you arching off the bed, your nails digging into his shoulders. the wet sounds are obscene, amplified by the quiet of the room, and every single one of them makes his stomach clench with want.

but it's the heat that undoes nanami.

every single thrust feels like coming home and getting burned at the same damn time.

your body is so hot inside, so slick and welcoming and tight, and nanami can feel the fever radiating off you in hot waves; it's in the way your breath stutters against his neck, in the way your legs shake where they're wrapped around his waist, in the way your pulse flutters wildly against his lips when he leans down to kiss your throat.

"you feel—" he gasps, and his hips stutter, rhythm faltering. "you feel incredible. i can't—fuck, sweetheart, i can't think."

and nanami can't.

his brain has completely short-circuited, reduced to nothing but static and sensation. every logical thought has been burned away by the heat of you, replaced by something primal and desperate and almost frightening in its intensity. he wants to be gentle. he wants to take his time, to worship you the way you deserve, to show you just how much he loves you with every careful, deliberate movement.

but his body has other plans.

nanami’s hips are moving faster now, snapping against yours with a rhythm that's more urgent than he intended. the headboard knocks against the wall in a steady, rhythmic beat, and nanami knows he should care about that — nanami knows the neighbors will probably hear, nanami knows he'll be embarrassed about it tomorrow — but right now he can't bring himself to give a single shit.

not when you're making those sounds.

soft little gasps and moans that pitch higher every time he bottoms out, your head thrown back against the pillow, your throat bared and vulnerable and so beautiful it makes his chest hurt. your hands are everywhere — tangled in nanami’s hair, scraping down nanami’s back, gripping nanami’s hips like you're trying to fuse yourself to him.

"k-kento," you whimper, and it's broken, shattered, the kind of sound that goes straight to nanami’s dick and makes him see stars. "kento, don't stop. p-please don't stop."

"not stopping," he grits out, and his voice is ragged, wrecked, nothing like the composed, collected man he usually is. "never stopping. not when you feel—fuck, not when you're this—"

nanami loses his words again, and he buries his face in the curve of your neck instead, breathing you in. you smell like sweat and illness and something uniquely, achingly you, and he wants to live in this moment forever. he wants to drown in the heat of you, in the tight grip of your body, in the way you moan his name like it's the only word you remember.

you're clenching around him — tighter now, your orgasm building, and he can feel it in the way your thighs tremble, in the way your nails dig crescents into his back. but more than that, he can feel the fever; the heat that seems to intensify with every thrust, radiating from your core and soaking into his skin, making him sweat, making him need.

"sweetheart," nanami gasps, and his voice breaks on the word, splinters into something raw and desperate. "i'm—i'm not going to last. you're too hot. you're so hot, i can't—"

you turn your head, catch his mouth in a kiss that's all teeth and tongue and clumsy urgency. it's not graceful — nothing about this is graceful — but it's real, it's you, and he groans into your mouth like a man dying of thirst.

"then don't," you whisper against his lips, and your voice is thick with fever and want and something softer, something sweeter. "don't last. i want to feel you. want you to—ah—want you to cum inside me. please, kento. want to feel you."

nanami going to die.

he's actually going to die, right here, inside his wife, and he's going to die happy.

his hips snap forward harder, faster, every single ounce of control he had evaporating like water on hot pavement. he's gripping your thigh with one huge hand, holding you open for him, and the other is fisted in the sheets beside your head, knuckles white. nanami’s whole body is trembling — from the effort, from the pleasure, from the sheer overwhelming muchness of feeling you like this.

"you're everything," nanami hears himself say, and his voice sounds so strange, so distant, like it's coming from someone else. "you're everything to me. fuck, sweetheart, i love you. i love you so much. i love—"

he's rambling now, words spilling out of him unchecked, and he simple can't stop, he doesn't want to stop.

you're so hot, so wet, so perfect, and every time he pushes inside you, he swears he can feel your heartbeat, he can feel the fever thrumming through your veins, he can feel the way your body clings to him like it never wants to let go.

your orgasm hits you without warning — nanami feels it in the way you gasp loudly, in the way your back entirely bows off the bed, in the way your nails rake down his spine hard enough to sting. but mostly nanami feels it in the way you clench around him, a vise of slick, searing heat that pulses and flutters and tries to completely milk him dry.

"oh god," you sob, and there are tears on your cheeks — from the pleasure, from the fever, from the sheer overwhelming intensity of it all. "kento, oh god, oh god—"

nanami watches you fall apart beneath him, and it's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

your eyes are squeezed shut, your mouth open in a silent scream, your whole body shuddering through wave after wave of pleasure. and through it all, you're so hot, so impossibly, devastatingly hot, and nanami can feel your orgasm like it's his own, nanami can feel it in the way your walls massage his desperate cock, nanami can feel it in the way his name falls from your lips like a benediction.

he follows right after.

there's no warning, no buildup — just a sudden, violent crest of pleasure that crashes over him and drags him under. he buries himself as deep as he can go, hips flush against yours, and spills inside you with a groan that's almost a sob. the heat of you surrounds him, consumes him, and for one perfect, eternal moment, there's nothing else in the universe.

just you.

just him.

just the two of you, unreservedly tangled together in the sweaty sheets, trembling and gasping and so full of love it might actually kill him.

nanami collapses on top of you — careful, always careful, one arm bracing his weight so he doesn't crush you — and presses his forehead to yours. your skin is still warm, still flushed with fever, but there's a softness in your eyes now, a drowsy contentment that makes his heart stutter in his chest.

"that was—" you start, but your voice is hoarse, faded, and you have to clear your throat before trying again. "that was not how i expected tonight to go."

he laughs, breathless and a little unsteady, and presses a soft kiss to the corner of your mouth.

"you're sick," he says, like it's just now occurring to him. "you have a fever. i shouldn't have—we shouldn't have—"

"kento." you cut him off with a hand on his cheek, turning his face so he has to look at you fully. "i wanted to. i want to. always want to, with you."

he closes his eyes, lets out a shaky breath, and when he opens them again, there's something soft and wondering in his gaze.

"you're going to be the death of me," he murmurs, but it sounds like a declaration of love.

you smile — that bright, brilliant smile that made nanami fall in love with you in the first place — and pull him down for a kiss that's slow and sweet and tastes like forever.

"good," you whisper against his lips. "then you'll die happy."

nanami laughs again, real this time, and gathers you into his arms. you're still too warm, still sick, still in need of soup and water and cool cloths and rest, but right now, in this moment, none of that matters.

right now, you're both exactly where you're supposed to be.

sukuna’s tattoos shifted when he moved, those dark lines that crawled up his forearms and disappeared beneath his sleeves. you'd always liked that about sukuna; the way the boy never bothered to hide them even when professors gave him pointed looks on the first day of classes.

he was all sharp edges and hard lines, but then he'd show up at your apartment with a sprig of lavender tucked behind his ear like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"you're not listening," sukuna said, but there was no accusation in it, just a statement of fact, accompanied by the faintest quirk of his lips.

"i am," you lied, sitting up straighter. "you were talking about... flowers saying things."

his eyes narrowed, but the corners of his mouth twitched.

"i was talking about specific meanings. symbolic language. there's a difference."

sukuna set down the orchid and reached for another pot, something small with delicate white blooms that you didn't recognize. his fingers were careful, deliberate, the same way they were when he rolled a cigarette or tied his shoelaces or did anything that required even the slightest bit of precision.

it was hard to reconcile this version of sukuna with the one who'd shoved his way through a crowd last week just to get to the front of the coffee shop line, all elbows and impatience and barely concealed irritation.

"this one," sukuna said, holding the pot up so you could see. "is stephanotis. it means marital happiness, but also a willingness to be led. which is stupid, honestly, because why the hell would anyone want to be led anywhere? but the victorians were weird about a lot of things."

you laughed, and something in his expression softened just enough that you almost missed it.

sukuna had been leaving you flowers for months now.

not in a romantic way, or at least you'd assumed it wasn't romantic because this was sukuna, and sukuna didn't do romance. he did late-night study sessions that turned into ordering pizza at two in the morning. he did stealing your clothes and pretending he hadn't noticed they were yours. he did showing up at your door with a single yellow tulip tucked behind his ear and then plucking it out to hand to you like it was nothing, like he hadn't just walked across campus with a flower in his hair and dared anyone to say something about it.

you'd kept all of them, pressed between the pages of textbooks you never opened anymore, tucked into the frame of your bathroom mirror, dried and hanging from string tacked to your bedroom wall. there was something about the way he gave them to you; casual and offhand, like he'd just happened to find them and thought of you.

but sukuna never said why, he never explained the meaning behind any of them.

well, until now.

"so then you've got your roses, obviously," sukuna continued, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest.

the movement pulled his t-shirt taut across his shoulders, and you looked away before he could catch you staring.

"red for love, white for purity, yellow for friendship. but that's way too simple. anyone knows that. the real interesting stuff is the obscure ones."

the afternoon light filtered through the greenhouse glass, casting everything in a warm, golden, and beautiful haze. dust motes drifted between the two of you, slow and lazy, and a bee hummed somewhere in the corner, drunk on something sweet and pink that you couldn't name.

sukuna's voice washed over you like honey, and you found yourself sinking into it despite your best efforts to stay alert.

"like gardenias," he said, and your heart did something strange in your chest because he'd given you gardenias. three weeks ago, tucked into a mason jar on your desk after a particularly brutal exam week. you'd thought they were just pretty. "they mean secret love. the kind that can't be spoken aloud. which is dramatic as hell, but victorians loved drama almost as much as they loved repressed emotions."

he said it like a joke, like he was mocking the very concept, but his fingers had gone still on the table with no fidgeting, no gesturing; just stillness, and the way his gaze darted away from yours for a fraction of a second before snapping back.

you thought about the gardenias, pressed between pages 87 and 88 of your ancient history textbook, still faintly fragrant when you opened them.

"and peonies," sukuna went on, reaching for the plant he'd been touching earlier. "they've got a few meanings. shame, anger, but also romance and prosperity. it depends on the context, really. the victorians loved context, too."

a little pause.

"mostly, though, they symbolize a happy marriage. or a wish for one, anyway."

sukuna had given you peonies on your birthday. a whole bouquet of them, pink and lush and ridiculous, shoved into your arms with a gruff 'happy birthday, idiot' before he'd disappeared into the kitchen to make you dinner. you'd cried a little, though you'd blamed it on allergies.

your throat felt tight now, but you weren't sure why.

"basil is hatred," sukuna said, ticking off on his fingers now, counting down some internal list. "which is funny because it's also a cooking herb, so who knows what that says about italian grandmothers. ivy means fidelity. rosemary is remembrance. lavender is devotion, but also distrust, because again, context matters."

lavender. he'd left a sprig of lavender on your pillow last month after you'd fallen asleep on his couch.

you'd woken up to the smell of it, and to sukuna making coffee in the kitchen, humming something tuneless under his breath. you'd kept it tucked behind your ear for the rest of the day, and he'd looked at you differently after that; softer, maybe. or maybe you'd imagined it.

"what about camellias?" you asked, and sukuna’s hand paused mid-gesture.

your voice sounded strange to your own ears, thin in a way that had nothing to do with volume and everything to do with the way your heart was suddenly trying to escape your ribcage. because he'd given you camellias too. pink ones, tied with a bit of twine, left in your backpack after a study session two months ago. you'd found them while looking for a pen and spent the rest of the night trying not to overthink it.

sukuna's jaw tightened for just a fraction, just for a second, but you saw it because you were looking, because you were always looking, even when you told yourself not to.

"camellias," sukuna repeated, and the word came out rougher than the others. he cleared his throat. "they mean... longing. desire, mostly. but specifically the kind that's acknowledged and accepted. not secret like gardenias, not hopeful like peonies. just... wanted."

the silence that followed was heavy and thick with something unspoken. a bee buzzed, a leaf drifted down from one of the hanging plants, landing softly on the table between the two of you like a tiny green question mark.

you thought about all of it.

the tulips and the lavender, the gardenias and the peonies, the camellias and the stephanotis sukuna had given you just last week, white and fragile and tucked into your coat pocket. you thought about the way he looked at you when he thought you weren't paying attention, the way his voice softened when he said your name, the way he always, always made sure you ate even when you forgot, even when you were too tired or too stressed or too something to take care of yourself.

you thought about the yellow tulips he'd given you first, and what he'd just said about them meaning friendship, and how maybe that had been the beginning. maybe sukuna had started there on purpose, testing the waters, seeing if you'd accept something small and simple before moving on to gardenias and secrets and things left unsaid.

"why are you telling me this?" you asked, and your voice barely trembled at all.

sukuna's eyes met yours, and for once, there was nothing sharp in them. there was no challenge, no defense, no carefully constructed walls. there was just him, just ryomen sukuna, the biggest flower nerd you'd ever met with his flower meanings and his pressed specimens and his soft spot for things that grew from the dirt.

"because," sukuna said, and his ears were turning pink, actually pink, the color creeping down his neck and disappearing beneath his collar. "i've been leaving you flowers for six months, and you haven't said a single word about it. and i thought maybe you didn't know what they meant, and i couldn't decide if that was better or worse than you knowing and not saying anything anyway."

sukuna's hands were shaking slightly.

you'd never seen sukuna's hands shake before, not once in all the years you'd known him. he was always so steady, so sure, so infuriatingly composed, but now, his fingers were curled into loose fists on the table, and the faint tremor in them made something ache behind your sternum.

"so which is it?" sukuna asked, and his voice cracked on the last word. just a little. just enough. "did you know?"

you thought about the gardenias pressed in your textbook, the lavender behind your ear, the peonies on your birthday, the camellias in your backpack. you thought about the way you'd told yourself it didn't mean anything at all, that sukuna wasn't capable of meaning anything, that this was just something the boy did because he was strange like that and unpredictable and full of contradictions.

you thought about how badly you'd wanted to be wrong.

"i didn't know," you said, and something in sukuna's expression flickered, dimmed.

you reached across the table before he could pull away, before sukuna could retreat back behind whatever wall he was scrambling to rebuild. your fingers brushed his knuckles softly, and he went very, very still.

"i didn't know the meanings. but i kept all of them. every single one. they're in my apartment, sukuna. pressed into my textbooks and taped to my walls and stuffed into my jewelry box. i've been sleeping with lavender under my pillow for three weeks because i didn't want to lose the scent."

sukuna's breath caught; you heard it, the tiny hitch that he tried to disguise as a cough.

"that's—" sukuna started, but stopped, and then he swallowed. his throat worked around words that didn't seem to want to come out. "that's really fucking weird, actually. keeping flowers for months."

"you're one to talk," you said, and your lips curved into a smile that felt wobbly and fragile and too big for your face. "you're the one who gave them to me."

"yeah, well." his ears were still pink, spreading now to his cheekbones, and you'd never seen anything more beautiful in your entire life. "i'm in love with you, so it's different."

the words hung in the air between you, simple and devastating. there was no fanfare, and no dramatic pause, simply sukuna being sukuna, saying the thing he'd probably been trying to say for six months through petals and stems and carefully chosen blooms.

"you could have just told me," you said, and your voice was shaking now, but so were your hands, and so was he, so it didn't really matter.

"where's the fun in that?" he asked, but his voice was rough, and his eyes were bright, and when you squeezed his fingers, he squeezed back like he was afraid you'd disappear.

outside the greenhouse windows, the afternoon was fading into evening, gold bleeding into amber bleeding into the soft purple of early dusk. the bee had gone quiet, the leaves had stopped drifting, and the only sound was your breathing and his, mingling in the warm, humid air.

"i'm in love with you too," you said.

because it was true, because it had probably been true for longer than you wanted to admit, because sukuna was a nightmare and a softy and the biggest flower nerd you'd ever met, and you'd spent six months tucking his gifts between the pages of your life like pressed flowers of your own.

sukuna closed his eyes just for a moment, just long enough for you to see the way his shoulders dropped, the tension draining out of him like water from a cracked vase. when he opened them again, sukuna was smiling. a real smile, not the sharp-edged thing he showed the rest of the world, but something small and private and almost shy.

"good," sukuna said, and then, quieter; "i have more at my apartment. flowers, i mean. i was going to give them to you tomorrow, but—" he shrugged, one shoulder lifting and falling. "seems like a waste to wait."

your heart turned over in your chest, sweet like honey.

"show me," you said, and when he stood up and offered you his hand, you took it without hesitation.

sukuna’s palm was warm against yours, calloused from god knows what, steady now that the worst part was over.

he led you out of the greenhouse and into the cooling evening, and neither of you let go, not even when the campus paths grew busy with other students, not even when someone whistled and sukuna flipped them off with his free hand, not even when you reached sukuna’s apartment and he had to fumble for his keys because he simply didn't want to release you long enough to find them.

his apartment smelled like him, like cedar and something floral you couldn't name.

there were flowers everywhere — on the kitchen counter, on the windowsill, in a vase on the coffee table that was definitely too small for the arrangement it held. you spotted roses and tulips and something dark purple you didn't recognize, and sukuna followed your gaze and went pink again.

"i might have gone overboard," sukuma admitted, finally letting go of your hand so he could gesture vaguely at the chaos. "i wasn't sure which ones you'd like best, so i just kind of... got all of them."

you walked over to the windowsill, running your finger along the edge of a potted plant you didn't recognize. it was green and leafy, unassuming, nothing like the showy blooms scattered around the room.

"what's this one?" you asked, turning back to look at him.

sukuna was standing in the middle of his own living room like he'd never seen it before, like he was seeing it through your eyes and finding it lacking. he rubbed the back of his neck, a nervous gesture you'd never seen him make, and when he spoke, his voice was barely above a murmur.

"basil," he said. "it means hatred, remember? i got it as a joke. thought it would be funny to have something that meant the opposite of everything else."

you laughed, and the sound seemed to break something loose in sukuna. he crossed the room in three long strides and stopped in front of you, close enough that you could feel the warmth radiating off his skin, close enough that you had to tilt your head back to look at his face.

"i meant it, you know," sukuna said, and his hands hovered near your waist like he wasn't sure if he was allowed to touch. "every flower. every single one. i meant all of it."

"i know," you said, and you reached up to cup his face in your hands, feeling the slight roughness of his jaw beneath your palms. "i know now."

he kissed you then, soft and careful, like you were something precious he was afraid of breaking. his lips tasted like coffee and something sweet, and his hands finally settled on your hips, and the basil sat on the windowsill behind you, tiny and green and full of meaning.

when you pulled back, sukuna’s eyes were closed, his lashes dark against his flushed cheeks. he looked sweeter like this, softer, like all the sharp edges had been sanded away by the simple fact of being wanted back.

"i'm still mad you didn't look up the meanings," he said without opening his eyes. "six months. i could have just told you in the first week and saved myself a lot of anxiety."

"but then i wouldn't have gotten the flowers," you pointed out, and sukuna snorted, and you felt the vibration of it all the way down to your bones.

"i would have given you the flowers anyway," he said, finally opening his eyes. they were darker than usual, soft with something you were learning to recognize. "i probably would have given you flowers even if you'd laughed in my face. it's a problem, really. my therapist would have a field day."

you laughed again, and sukuna smiled again, and the evening stretched out before you both, full of possibility and pressed flowers and the quiet understanding that some things didn't need to be spoken aloud to be true.

but it didn't hurt, you thought, as sukuna pulled you toward his couch and wrapped his arms around you like he'd been waiting his whole life to do it.

it didn't hurt to say them anyway.

oh, and that was how the… taking started.

not that choso would admit that out loud, not that he'd ever let anyone know about the small collection hidden in the back of his closet, inside an old shoebox that used to hold boots he never wore. he has five pairs of panties now. five. each one more precious to him than anything he'd ever owned.

the first pair he found tangled in yuuji's bedsheets after you'd spent the night. he'd gone in to borrow a charger and there they were — small, pink, lacy, still carrying the faint warmth of your body. he'd told himself he was just going to move them, put them somewhere safe so yuuji wouldn't throw them out with the laundry, but his fingers had trembled when he picked them up, and before he knew what was happening, he had them pressed to his face, breathing in deep, and something inside him cracked open and refused to close.

now here he was again.

yuuji was working a late shift, and the apartment was dark except for the soft glow of the tv on mute, some documentary playing that choso wasn't watching.

choso had been sitting on the edge of his bed for twenty minutes now, staring at the closet door, telling himself no, telling himself he could just go to sleep, telling himself that you weren't his, that you would never be his, and that every single time he did this he was only digging himself deeper and deeper into something he couldn't climb out of.

but choso’s hands were already moving.

he stood up slowly, like if he moved too fast he'd spook himself into stopping, and choso crossed the room, before opening the closet. the boy reached up to the top shelf where the shoebox sat behind a stack of old textbooks. choso could feel his pulse in his throat, in his temples, in the base of his stomach where heat was already starting to coil.

the box was plain and unmarked.

he'd been careful with it — no one would ever think to look inside, and even if they did, they'd probably assume it was old receipts or something equally boring. but choso knew. choso knew exactly what waited for him when he lifted the lid.

he sat back down on the bed with the box in his lap. the mattress creaked under his weight, and for a second he just sat there, breathing slow and shallow, his long fingers resting on the cardboard. his hair was loose tonight, falling in dark curtains around his face, and he could feel strands sticking to his temples. he was already sweating, already shaking a little.

this was what you did to him, and you didn't even know.

choso opened the box.

inside, folded with almost religious care, were your panties.

five pairs, each one different, each one carrying a ghost of your scent that faded a little more every time he handled them. he'd developed favorites over time — the pale pink cotton ones from the first time, soft and worn in the places where your body had pressed against them. the dark green lace pair that made his mouth water just looking at them. the white ones with the tiny embroidered flowers along the waistband, so delicate he was almost afraid to touch them.

tonight, choso reached for the blue ones.

they were silk, or something close to it — slippery between his fingers, the fabric so thin it was almost translucent.

choso remembered the day he'd found these; you'd stayed over after a movie marathon, and in the morning you'd left in a hurry because you were late for class, and these had been kicked under the coffee table like an afterthought. he'd waited until yuuji went to take a shower, then he'd crawled on his hands and knees and snatched them up like a starving animal.

choso brought the blue silk to his face.

his eyes fluttered shut before the fabric even touched his nose, and the familiar ache in his chest swelled, pushing against his ribs like something alive and desperate.

choso inhaled slowly, deliberately, drawing your scent deep into his lungs. it was faint — he'd already handled these ones a few times, and the smell faded faster than cotton — but it was still there. that clean, soapy sweetness underneath something muskier, something that was just you.

"fuck," choso whispered, and his voice cracked in the middle of the word.

he pressed the panties harder against his face, rubbing them against his lips, his cheeks, the bridge of his nose. he wanted to climb inside this smell, he wanted to wrap himself in it and never come out. choso’s free hand moved to his lap without his permission, palm pressing down against the growing hardness in his sweatpants, and he shuddered at the contact.

this was always how it went; the slow burn, the denial that lasted exactly as long as it took him to open the box, and then all his good intentions crumbled to dust.

choso laid back on the bed, his hair fanning out across the pillow, the blue silk still held against his face. his other hand worked at the waistband of his sweatpants, pushing them down along with his boxers, and the cold air of the apartment hit his overheated skin and made him gasp.

his cock was already flushed, already leaking at the tip, and he hadn't even touched himself yet.

oh, he was so pathetic.

so desperately, hopelessly pathetic.

but choso couldn't stop. he didn't want to stop.

the panties moved from his nose to his mouth. choso didn't think about it — he just did it, parting his lips and pulling the fabric between them, letting the silk rest on his tongue.

it tasted like nothing, really.

maybe a little like the detergent you used, maybe a little like dust from being folded away in a box for too long, but in his mind, it tasted like you. in his mind, he was tasting the salt of your skin, the sweet cream of your cunt, everything he'd never have but wanted so badly he could barely breathe.

choso’s hips jerked upward, chasing the friction of his own hand as he finally wrapped his fingers around his cock. he wasn't gentle; there was no reason to be gentle with himself, not when he was already this far gone, not when his entire body was trembling with the effort of staying quiet.

choso's mouth was full of your panties, and he moaned around them — a muffled, broken sound that got swallowed by the fabric and the pillow and the dark. his hand moved faster, thumb swiping over the head of his cock, spreading the wetness there down his shaft. the slick sound of it was sooo obscene in the quiet room, but choso couldn't bring himself to care. he couldn't bring himself to care about anything except the image of you that played behind his eyelids.

you, walking through the apartment in nothing but an oversized t-shirt, your bare legs pale in the morning light. you, leaning over the kitchen counter to grab a glass, the hem of your shorts riding up just enough to show the curve of your ass. you, sitting on the couch with your feet tucked under you, looking over at choso with those soft eyes and asking him how his day was, and he had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from saying something unforgivable.

"god," choso gasped, pulling the panties out of his mouth just long enough to speak. "g-god, i'm sorry. i'm so sorry, i can't—i can't stop thinking about you—"

his voice was completely wrecked, and choso sounded like he'd been crying, and maybe he had been, just a little bit; there were tears leaking from the corners of his eyes, slipping down his temples and into his messy hair.

choso was disgusted with himself, and aroused beyond reason, and so full of love for you that it felt like a sickness.

he brought the panties back to his nose, inhaling deep as his hand worked his cock with increasing desperation. the smell was fainter now, overwritten by his own spit and the heat of his skin, but choso didn't give a single shit.

it had touched you. it had been against your cunt, pressed into the softest part of you, and that was enough. that would always be enough, even as it destroyed him.

choso’s hips bucked up into his fist, rhythm stuttering as he got closer. he tried to slow down a little, he tried to draw it out, but choso’s body wasn't listening to him; every single nerve was lit up, every single muscle coiled tight, and the only thing keeping him grounded was the silk crushed against his face and the sound of his own ragged breathing.

he was going to cum.

choso could feel it building at the base of his spine, hot and urgent, and he bit down on the panties again to muffle the sounds that tried to tear out of his throat. his hand twisted on the upstroke, the way he imagined you would do it, the way he'd dreamed about a thousand times already. you, on your knees for him. you, looking up through your lashes with that sweet smile. you, telling him it was okay, that you wanted this too, that you'd always wanted him.

the fantasy shattered as choso came.

it ripped through him without warning, his back arching off the bed, his thighs shaking.

cum spilled over his fingers, hot and thick, splashing onto his stomach and the ruined sweatpants bunched around his thighs. choso moaned pathetically and the sound bounced off the walls of his bedroom and probably carried into the hallway, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

choso kept stroking through it, oversensitive and trembling, because he simply couldn't stop. because the feeling of your panties against his face was still there, and the smell of you was still there, faint as a ghost, and choso needed more.

he always needed more.

when the aftershocks finally faded, choso lay still.

the ceiling swam above him, blurry through the tears he hadn't realized he was crying, and his chest heaved, each breath rattling in his throat, and the blue silk was wet now — wet with his spit and his tears and the sweat from his face. he'd ruined them. he'd ruined another pair of your pretty panties, and tomorrow he'd have to wash them in the sink and hope they dried before yuuji noticed anything strange.

but that was a problem for later.

for now, choso just lay there, your panties pressed to his heart, and tried to remember how to be a person instead of this hollow, aching thing that only knew how to want.

choso didn't hear the front door open.

choso didn't hear the soft footsteps in the hallway, or the way they slightly paused just outside his bedroom door. choso didn't hear the small, sharp intake of breath, or the sound of his door handle turning.

all he heard was his own pulse in his ears, and then—

"choso?"

it was your voice, confused, barely above a whisper.

and choso's blood turned to ice.