The older kids can be mean. Especially when twelve-year-old boys who still haven’t hit that growth spurt that most teenage boys seem to hit, like Phainon, are right there. Despite being quick on his feet, he’s especially small and scrawny for his age, shorter than you by a couple of inches—which is a little pathetic, you think. He’s supposed to be older. 

It happens on a Monday—the start of you and Phainon. Phainon and you. Something weird possesses you on a random Monday before you turn twelve, and you step between him and a taller, broader, acne-painted older boy after school, and before thinking, you glare as you hiss out, “Leave him alone, weirdo.”

The boy doesn’t look too happy—and if you had an ounce of common sense, you’d take that as your cue to leave. But you don’t. You stare him good and hard in the eye as he grits out, “Mind your business.”

Phainon is still on the concrete, flat on his ass in a pathetic sort of way as tears coat his pale, soft cheeks and glisten in his eyes. They’re blue. Very blue. You glance at them for a quick second and realize too late that looking into them was an awful mistake. He looks like a kicked puppy, and something stirs in you and makes you turn abruptly, drawing your hand back before it snaps, and a loud, hard clap rings through the air. 

You freeze, processing what you’ve done. Phainon’s breath hitches. The boy—some asshole whose name you never learn—turns his head, slow and stunned, the side of his cheek where your palm landed blooming red.

This is it, you think. This is how you die. This is where your body will be found face down in the dirt behind your new school that you didn’t even want to come to, and your parents will find you lifeless and limp. They’ll mourn you, like any parents would, and they’ll wonder why it has to be this way—why they have to bury their daughter and not the other way around. You’ll be dead in a few moments, and your poor, unsuspecting parents will have no choice but to blame stupid, annoying, crybaby Phainon for getting you killed in the first place. All because he’s too weak to fight his own fights and stick up for himself. 

Except…nothing happens.

The boy just glares, rubbing his cheek, and grits out, “Lucky you’re just a brat and not like that little punk. I don’t hit girls.”

And just like that, he storms off. Heavy, angry stomps trailing behind him as he leaves you to let out a shaky breath of relief and marvel at your luck—you don’t typically run into people with standards when it comes to who they pick on. But, all things considered, you survived, and your parents won’t have to pay for your tombstone. You count your blessings and thank whoever’s looking over you. 

And then you glance down at Phainon. He’s still sitting there, looking at you like you just parted the sea. 

“You’re pretty pathetic,” you mutter.

“You’re pretty cool,” he says in awe. 

“You should learn how to throw a punch or two.”

He grins, tears long forgotten as he stands up, brushes his hands on the front of his pants, and wipes his nose on his sleeve. You wrinkle your own nose at the snot stain he leaves behind. 

“That’s okay,” he beams, “you can always just slap the bullies across the face like that for me, right?”

“No,” you gape, “I’m not your baby sitter—”

“I’m Phainon!” he holds a hand out to you. You look at it with a raised eyebrow before curling your lips in disgust. 

“And I’m going home,” you say flatly. 

You turn on your heel and start walking home promptly. You don’t want to make friends with the other new kid—especially not since he seems so much more well-adjusted to his new environment than you. (It’s a sort of bitterness only someone so young would feel. Being eleven and just on the cusp of twelve isn’t the age where rationality and logic are factored in with most decisions. Maybe, if you were older, you’d realize your bitterness has nothing to do with Phainon and everything to do with your inability to let go of your homesickness from moving.)

But Phainon is hard to shake off. He jogs after you and falls into step beside you as he pipes up, “You live down the street. I saw your moving trucks. My mom said I should be friends with you because you’re new too!”

“I don’t want to make friends,” you grumble out.

“Why not?” he looks bewildered, “being new and friendless is no fun.”

“Because I’m not staying here for long,” you snap, “I’m gonna save up and move back as soon as I get the chance. I don’t need to make friends somewhere that I’m not staying for long.”

He looks skeptical. It only makes you angrier as you throw him a sharp glare for having the audacity to not take you seriously, and he at least has the sense to quickly put his hands up in surrender as he murmurs, “Okay, okay! I believe you. But we can still be friends until you leave, right?”

“Whatever,” you roll your eyes. He walks you home. You feel a little less lonely on the way back.

(In the end, you never move away like you said. He never stops being your friend. You can’t say you hate it even if you never admit it out loud.)

— — — — — — — — — — 

Phainon is sixteen when you first realize he is no longer that puny, bite-sized little runt that got bullied by the older kids for being new. He doesn’t need saving anymore. 

(He still cries as easily, though—it just happens with a little more dignity. He cries during movies and when he’s stressed from school and maybe after a bad day, but he doesn’t do it so easily in front of other people anymore. 

Still, he always does in front of you. 

Pathetic, you always call him. So mean, he always pouts. And then you hug him and he hugs you back and you remember the little boy you grew up alongside for the last four years. The one who’s two months, one week, and four days older than you, even though it doesn’t feel like it.)

It happens on a Friday night.

You go on a date. It’s your first one ever, in fact. Your father isn’t too happy, but your mother is ecstatic, and after a couple of convincing words from her, he reluctantly allows it to happen as long as you know your curfew and keep your location on at all times. You’re excited. 

Until you’re not. 

You think the date is going rather well. Really well. You like the boy, and he’s handsome and funny, and he listens to you when you ramble about the things you like. It’s a good date. Your mother bought you a new dress, and it’s your favorite color, and you even do your makeup a little nicer than you usually do. Everything feels right. Everything feels like it’s going how it should, and some naive part of you starts to dream about a high school romance that blossoms into something serious. Maybe at the wedding, you’ll speak about this date. How your father was against it, but your mother was thrilled. How you tried on seven dresses before this one, and had started to get antsy until you tried it on and knew it was the one. How you watched a YouTube video or two to learn how to do your eyeshadow properly, because you’re not used to doing it the fancy ways that older girls seem to do. 

It’s all going well. Until your date politely goes to the bathroom and you wait for five minutes, which turns to ten, which turns to fifteen, and then at twenty minutes, your waiter comes and holds an apologetic look on his face as he informs you that the bathroom is empty after you insist for the third time that your date is just taking a while in there. 

It guts you. 

You don’t even know how or when he managed to slip out and leave you alone and stupidly waiting, but he does. Long gone are your dreams of a sweet high school romance and a big, happy wedding where you smile and remember the silly old days when you’d get dropped off to your dates by your mother ten minutes early as you anxiously check your makeup in the mirror. (And yes, maybe later you’d look back and laugh at how naive you were to think one silly date would snowball into all of that, but you’re sixteen. And at sixteen, your world feels like it’s the only thing that exists, and your problems feel like they’re bigger than they are.)

In the end, the only thing you can think of doing is calling Phainon. He comes in ten minutes flat, waiting outside in his father’s car that he’s allowed to use on weekends only and nothing more. (He’s sixteen and you’re still fifteen, so he’s licensed and you’re not. He likes to brag. You don’t typically find it as amusing as he does. Right now, though, you’re grateful. )

You get in the passenger seat, and before he can even ask, you burst into tears. He makes a face that you can’t quite discern. But he’s not happy—you know that much as easily as you know Phainon. 

“What happened?” he asks softly, “It didn’t go well?”

“It was,” you sob, “I-I th-thought it was! We were talking, a-and laughing, and…and he asked me things and then…h-he went to the bathroom and he just disappeared for like…like half an hour! And the waiter checked the bathroom a-and he wasn’t there…and it was so embarrassing!”

He’s silent. For a long time, Phainon is quiet and he doesn’t say anything. It’s unlike him. He never lets the silence go on for long before he fills it with something. Whether it’s stupid or sweet or funny or annoying, Phainon always has something to say to you. He never runs out of things to talk about. It’s always been like that. He’s never had a problem talking your ear off and keeping you company and following you around and filling the silence with his voice. You never realized how deep it had gotten over the years until you watched some old videos back. The first time he was gone for a whole summer, you didn’t realize how quiet the world was until the only way you could talk to him was over text. 

But he’s quiet now, and he just lets you cry. Softly, he reaches out and brushes tears from your cheeks gently as he murmurs, “Your makeup is pretty tonight. You shouldn’t ruin it, you know.”

“There’s no point,” you sniffle, “it’s not like anyone is gonna see it now, anyway.”

“I’m seeing it,” he insists, “just because some weird asshole doesn’t appreciate a nice smokey eye doesn’t mean I can’t.”

“This isn’t a smokey eye look.”

“Whatever it is,” he shrugs, “it looks good. You’re pretty.”

He says it easily, like it’s not weird or awkward or makes him shy to point it out. He says it so plainly, it’s like some passing observation he makes and doesn’t have to think too hard on. You’re pretty. Even when you cry your makeup off, he thinks that. 

“I don’t want to go home,” you whisper, “my mom is gonna be sad and my dad will get angry when he knows what happened to me, and I just…don’t feel like dealing with that mess.”

“Then don’t,” he offers.

You raise a brow, sniffling as you reach into the compartment and grab the tissues that you know are there, and blow your nose. He stifles a smile at the way it’s loud. “What am I supposed to do then, just sit in here?” you ask blandly.

“Why not? We can drive for a while. In fact, we can get milkshakes.”

“Are you buying?” you perk up.

He snorts, looking at you in amusement as he mumbles, “Don’t I always have to?”

You beam at that. It’s true—he does always buy.

He takes you to a drive-thru and buys you a milkshake like he always does when he drives you somewhere. You add in a side of fries and he lets you, paying without a complaint and handing you your order as it comes through the window. It’s nice. It feels like it always does when it’s you and Phainon, and you forget the shallow asshole who broke your heart on your first date not even an hour ago. He parks in the parking lot and you sit and share your fries, and when he dips his in ketchup, you wrinkle your nose—and when you dip yours in your milkshake, he wrinkles his. 

“I’m never going on a date again,” you mumble.

“Don’t say that,” he says softly, “you might miss out on a super handsome and nice guy some day who’s waiting for you.”

“That sounds like something my mom would say,” you snort.

He cracks a grin, chuckling as he offers, “Well, that’s probably why I’m so smart. You should listen to me more.”

“I don’t know about that one,” you tease, “you’re still the same crybaby from middle school.”

“I’m not a crybaby!” He gasps, “Quit saying that! Being emotionally intelligent and being a crybaby are not the same thing, you jerk!”

“Is that what you like to call it?” You laugh, throwing your head back against your seat. He stares. For a good, long moment, he stares as you laugh, and you never catch it. (He wonders sometimes if you will. If some day he’ll stare and you’ll finally notice that he only ever looks at you.)

“Yes,” he grumbles, “I am, in fact, emotionally intelligent. And women are really into men who are smart about their feelings.”

“I’m sure they are,” you give him a sarcastic nod. “And I bet they—”

“Hang on,” he says, stopping you.

You pause as he interrupts your sentence, and before you can even blink, his door is opened and then closed, and Phainon is gone. He’s left the car and he’s walking over to some group of boys who leave the fast food place you’re parked outside of, and you can’t figure out what on Earth would make him leave so abruptly to go over and—oh. 

Your eyes widen as you realize. 

Oh.

Something in your heart sinks deep into the bottom of your stomach as you realize your date is standing there among the group of boys with a bag of food in his hands and a drink. Something else in you gets a lick of anger that starts to burn in the pit of your stomach as you think about how he left you to pay for his meal while he’s here buying himself a whole new one after ditching you. And then your eyes widen when in a quick second, Phainon has swug his arm and landed a solid punch right in the jaw and knocked the guy onto his ass as he towers over him. You blink once, then twice, and then you quickly take your seatbelt off and climb out of the car as you rush over. 

There’s a chorus of deep, angry voices back and forth and you can’t make out more than a few words at a time as everyone speaks over each other—Phainon, your asshole date, and his asshole (by association) friends.

“Yo, what the fuck—”

“He had that coming—” (Phainon.)

“Who the hell are you—”

“What’s your fucking problem man—”

“You get off on being an asshole, or something?” (Also Phainon.)

Maybe if you weren’t so worried, you would think about why Phainon’s voice is the only one you can make out so easily in a mess of all these other voices. Maybe if you weren’t worried about a group of boys outnumbering him as they approach him and try to beat him to a pulp, you might think more about the implications of that and what that means. 

But you don’t. You can’t. Not when you have to go and save him, just like the day you met him, from boys who are stronger than him and can knock him to the ground easily. 

Except he doesn’t need you to save him. Phainon…holds his own against three boys who come swinging at him, and…he does surprisingly well. He shrugs off each guy one by one and lands a punch when he needs to, and soon enough, when they realize that he’s a little too strong for any of them to properly take on, they call him a few names and leave a few empty threats before they leave. You stand a short distance away and watch, blinking as you process the whole exchange. 

Finally, with a shaky breath, he turns to face you with a guilty look on his face. 

“Sorry, I know I probably shouldn’t have done—”

“When did you get strong?” you interrupt, flabbergasted. “You can fight?”

He looks almost a little offended. “What do you mean? Why do you have to say that like I can’t be strong?”

“I used to save you from the older boys all the time,” you gape, “and all you ever did was cry! Since when do you know how to throw a punch?”

“I was twelve!” He sputters, looking at you in equal parts disbelief and equal parts embarrassment. “I’m way bigger now! I’m taller than you!” (He is.)

“You’re still a crybaby!”

“Am not!”

“You fought four guys and won,” you breathe out, like the concept is something you still can’t quite wrap your head around. (You can’t.)

He shoots you a glare and grumbles, “I am grown now, okay? You don’t have to keep acting like I’m the scrawny kid you saved in middle school.”

“You are the scrawny kid,” you argue.

“Am not! Look, I’ve been working out!” He flexes his arm, and sure enough, there’s a bulge of muscle forming at his bicep, and it makes you stare in disbelief as you take in the way Phainon has really changed. You never notice it because he’s with you every day, and every single day has started to leave its mark on him, but you’re too caught up in knowing him the way he is to think about knowing him the way he isn’t anymore. 

But he’s stronger now. His voice is deeper, and he’s taller, and he has some muscle to him. You look at him properly for a moment, and it occurs to you for the first time that the chubbiness of his round face and baby cheeks are gone and they’re replaced with a strong, sharp set of cheekbones that carve his face perfectly. His hair is longer, too—and you think it suits him better this way. He parts his hair in a way that looks less childlike and more mature. 

But his eyes are still the same. Same shade of blue. Same puppy look as he stares at you, mildly offended. Same soft, delicate orbs that look you in the eye, always, and never look away. 

“Oh my god,” you mutter, “what is happening to you? This is freaky.”

He cracks a smug grin before he teases, “I’m growing up. Try not to fall in love with me—pretty soon, I’ll be a heartthrob.”

You bite back a grin and give him a scoff. “I doubt that. You’re about as interesting as cardboard.”

(You lie. In the end, you go against your own words, and you do fall in love with him. It’s hard not to. It’s hard not to fall in love with him, the more time passes every day. You never admit it, but you notice every little thing about him that changes from then on.)

— — — — — — — — — — 

You’re eighteen when Phainon and you don’t just kiss, but share your first time. It’s on your birthday. There’s something there between the two of you that you both know is there. It’s impossible not to notice it. 

You leave for college in two months, and he might not be going to the same one as you, but it's close enough that you can see him whenever you want. (Whenever you want—it’s what he had said when he first told you he wasn’t picking the same college as you. The look on your face was enough to voice your devastation without actually using any words, but he only laughed and murmured, I’ll be close by. You can still see me whenever you want, yeah?)

It happens in his car. It’s no longer his dad’s old one that he had to ask for permission to use only when his father wasn’t using it. This one is his, and he can drive it whenever he wants and wherever he pleases. Because you’re both old enough for that now—driving around and going places without needing to worry about curfews and school nights and your parents’ angry texts about being home soon. 

“I’m officially an adult,” you tell him in his car, drinking the last of your milkshake that, as always, he’s paid for. (It’s your birthday, though, so you think it's especially fair that he pays because no one should expect the birthday person to pay for their milkshake.)

“Congrats,” he hums, “they grow up so fast,” he adds with a soft, dramatic sniffle.

“You’re not old enough to act like there’s a difference,” you roll your eyes, “I doubt in two months you’ve learned things like how mortgages and property taxes work.”

“Well, it’s actually two months, one week, and four days,” he corrects with a pointed look, as if it really makes all the difference, “and I’ll probably still learn all that shit before you do because I’m older.”

“Yeah, but you’ll also probably die first since you’re older,” you point out cheekily.

“I don’t think that’s how that works,” he huffs.

“You always decide how things work when it’s convenient for you, you prick,” you accuse, shoving him away as he chuckles and steals a french fry from your share. 

He’s stopped laughing when his eyes meet yours, and something about the way he looks at you feels a little out of the ordinary. The wrappers are crumpled, the milkshakes are almost gone, and you’re both sitting in the same parking lot you have for years in the middle of the night, nothing but just the light over your heads in his car illuminating him just enough that you can still make out that soft blue of his eyes. 

Everything is the same. The parking lot, the milkshakes, the way you drain his wallet, and he lets it happen, the way it’s you and him and no one else. Nothing has changed. Nothing but you and Phainon. You’re both different—something about you and him is different. 

“What?” you ask.

Phainon shrugs, smiling to himself. “Dunno,” he says. “Guess you just look old.”

You scowl as he throws you a lopsided grin. (You think, regretfully, that it’s quite handsome.) “And you look geriatric,” you hiss back.

His smile becomes a little softer, and something in it flickers—sad, maybe. You can’t tell exactly what it is, but you do know it makes something in your heart ache. Something like longing fills you up to the brim—it’s funny, you think. Even when Phainon is right next to you, all you can do is long for him anymore. You wonder when that started. Maybe it was the day you noticed he was bigger and taller. Maybe it was the day you noticed he paid with a credit card and not cash anymore, like a proper grown man. Maybe it was the day you realized his front teeth were no longer crooked and his smile was as bright as those perfectly blue eyes of his. 

“I’m gonna miss this,” he admits quietly.

You don’t ask what he means. You already know. 

It’s not the milkshakes, or the shared fries, or the way he always pays, no matter how much you can easily afford it on your own by now. It’s the way he’s home for you. The way you moved when you didn’t want to, and you didn’t get a say because you were only eleven and your parents made those kinds of decisions for you—when you left behind everything you loved, and Phainon took on the burden of becoming everything you’ll relearn to care about. When you promised to move away the first chance you got, he made you want to stay without trying. Now it’s not the same—now you move, and so does he, and you both make those decisions on your own because you're older now. 

You’ll miss it. The quiet nights in his car and the long, stupid, pointless, aimless conversations that always meant the most when you babbled about nothing. The easy, familiar way you’ve always fit together—ever since he was twelve and you were eleven, all the way until now, after you both grew and grew and the days added up until they totaled to you both being eighteen-year-old adults. You’ll miss the way you’ll open your door, and you’ll see him waving down the street as he opens his. You’ll miss the way he can crawl to your window and sneak in to play card games, and your mother isn’t surprised as she makes him breakfast when you both accidentally fall asleep before he can leave. You’ll miss the way the world felt small, and all you knew was this. Here. Phainon and you and the town that becomes home, even when you didn’t want it to be, all because of him. 

“You don’t have to miss it,” you say, trying to convince yourself it’s true. “We’re not going far.”

“Maybe not,” he murmurs. “But it won’t be like this. Not exactly.”

It won’t.

It won’t ever be like the way you guys are now, how you were over the years. When he sat on the ground and cried after being picked on and you saved him. When he came over and met your mother for the first time, and she looked relieved at the fact that you finally made some friends. When you let him borrow your favorite book, and he gave it back with the pages dog-eared and you had your first argument over your ruined book. When he rescued you after your awful first date and spent the night with you so you’d go home happy. When you rear-ended the car in front of you, and he was sitting passenger as he tried to warn you that you weren’t hitting the brakes soon enough.

“Is it a bad thing, do you think?” you murmur hesitantly, “if things change?”

“Maybe not,” he says, leaning closer as he looks at you better.

And then you kiss him. Or maybe he kisses you. What matters is that you’re kissing each other. It’s been a long time coming—your parents have teased you about him, and your friends have always been too nosy about just how close you really are, and your teachers have always meddled with seating arrangements to make sure you’re close by each other because they’re certain something is going on. 

He smiles into the kiss. It’s giddy and sweet and a touch clumsy as he presses into you closer, leaning over the center console of his car to get closer to you. You giggle. A soft, delicate little sound that makes his breath hitch before he moves again to swallow it up, drinking in the small, precious little sounds of joy you make against his mouth as his hand cups your cheek and your arms swing lazily over his shoulders. 

“I think things are already changing,” you breathe as soon as you pull away, “so it can’t be so bad.”

“Maybe not bad at all,” he chuckles.

“Are you still gonna miss it?” you ask softly. 

“Hm,” he pretends to think, “let me try this again and see what I like better just to be sure.”

You laugh against his mouth as he kisses you, pecking your lips once, twice, a third time before he’s back to pressing his against you with a lingering pressure. Some part of you knew this was going to happen. You didn’t know when or how, but you think this is a good way to let it happen. You knew that day he came to your defense in that parking lot—when he didn’t have to, but he did because he cared enough to. When he showed you he was bigger than you remember and growing more than you realized, and could take care of you just like you took care of him. (Maybe he’s been taking care of you all this time, and you just didn’t realize it. Maybe when you stopped being lonely and finally felt like you made a home on the street that he came at the same time as you, he was looking out for you all along.)

“I think change is an inevitable part of life,” he murmurs, “we shouldn’t avoid it.”

“Hm, that’s very grown-up of you to say,” you tease. 

“Thank you,” he grins—stupidly handsome, and annoyingly cheeky. And you love him for it. “I am older, you know. By two months, one—”

“—One week and four days, yes, I know,” you interrupt, rolling your eyes. “Shut up.”

He does. He shuts up only to press his lips against yours again and kiss you like he’s been waiting years to do it. (He has. He’s waited many, many years to do this. More than he thinks you might even realize—he doesn’t think you understand how much he’s changed until rather recently, but that’s okay. He could wait. He did. He waited and he waited and he’d always have waited if it was for you.)

“Do…” he pauses, nervously taking in a shaky breath as he mumbles, “do you…want to like…w-well, we don’t have to do anything…but if you want—”

“At least this much hasn’t changed,” you snort, interrupting him, “and maybe it won’t—you’re still lame.”

He scowls at that, and as if he has something to prove, he climbs (and fumbles a little) into the back seat before his hand grabs your wrist and tugs you to follow. And when you fumble your way onto his lap with a squeak, flustered as your chest is pressed right up against his own (rather sturdy one), he murmurs, “Yeah? Is that what you think?”

“Yeah,” you swallow, looking into his eyes for a short second before quickly looking away, “it is.”

“Guess I’ll just have to change that,” he hums.

Suddenly, your lips are once more coated with the heat of his, and you close your eyes and fall apart in his arms. You press more of your weight onto him, letting him slump back against the backseat of his car while your hands weave into his hair and tug. He groans deeply. It’s a sound you’ve never heard from him—ever. 

His hands bring you closer, and as your body is pressed against his with even less space, you feel it—something hard that pokes against your leg that you’re certain you know what it is. But, just to be sure, you pull away to look at him. 

“What’s that?” you hum, grinning smugly as you move your thighs to brush over the hardness once more, “is that—”

“You know exactly what it is,” he huffs, flushing a soft pink that you can just barely make out in the dark, “now quit talking so much.”

“You don’t like me when I’m chatty?” you pout.

“I like you always,” he says bluntly, lips forming a small pout as he adds, “but I like you a little less than other times right now for being rude.”

“I’m not being rude! I’m simply making an observation—mmph!”

He cuts you off with another hard, impatient kiss before he pulls away and lets his thumb brush over your lip, smearing your already messy lip gloss some more as he murmurs, “I always wondered how that tasted. Seen you apply it so many times.”

“It’s pretty sweet, isn’t it?” you wink cheekily, “strawberry flavored.”

With that, you wrap your lips around his thumb and slowly roll your tongue around the digit, swallowing around it as you suck. It’s probably the filthiest thing you’ve done—which is not a lot. The filthiest thing you’ve done prior was sitting on a boy’s lap and feeling his hard-on against your thigh as you kissed him. There are a lot of firsts it seems he’s hell bent on taking from you tonight. Luckily, there’s not a lot of firsts you’re unwilling to give. 

He groans at the warmth of your mouth, the wet glide of your tongue making him stare at you with hazy, lust-filled eyes before he pulls his hand away from your lips, hoisting you up enough so he can reach under your skirt and pull your panties down. They’re drenched. He takes a second to stare at them through the darkness of the backseat of his car while it’s your turn to feel heat spread across your cheeks and up to your ears. 

“Stop looking, you pervert!” you hiss.

He gives you a not very apologetic grin. “Sorry,” he lies through his perfect, pearly whites, “guess that’s not very chivalrous of me, huh?”

You snort as you murmur, “You had your finger in my mouth a second ago.”

“And who put that there?” he teases. You feel your cheeks burn again—but he spares you the embarrassment a second time as he pulls your underwear down your thighs enough to leave your aching cunt exposed before he murmurs, “Do it again one more time for me, baby.”

You open without thinking as he presses his middle and ring fingers into your mouth, letting your tongue roll around them, too. You coat them well, the wetness of your mouth covering his fingers as his thumb strokes your cheek. His cheeks are flushed pink from the sight alone. Your throat bobbing from every swallow around his digits has him imagining much more lewd fantasies, and you can tell that from just the way his pupils lose focus, dilating at the image of you. You moan around him, and his breath hitches as he feels the vibrations from the sound. 

It’s dirty, the way he’s thinking about you. Almost as dirty as the way you look as you suck on his fingers—and when he pulls them out and uses his fingers to press into your cunt, it feels dirty to be worked open with your own spit as the lubricant that helps him slip inside easily. Well…you suppose the way your core is dripping is also part of the reason why it’s so easy, but you don’t focus on that. 

Instead, the only thing you can focus on is the way he curls into you as he thrusts his fingers in and out, in and out like he knows exactly what you need. His fingers are longer than yours. The only thing that’s ever been inside of you are your own digits when it’s late and night and you force yourself to stay quiet in your room—but Phainon’s fingers reach deeper and there’s no one here you have to be quiet for, so you whimper loudly as he presses into your walls and finds some spot deep in there that you’ve never felt before.

“Well,” he chuckles, “that was easy. I found it,” he gives you a cheeky grin.

“Sh-shut up,” you hiss, the sound tapering off into a moan as the heel of his palm glides over your clit while he angles his hand in and out of you. 

He’s never done this before—it’s good, and it feels better than anything you’ve ever felt yourself, but he’s still never done this before, and it shows. He doesn’t get the rhythm quite right as he goes faster than you like, and when your hand gently grabs his wrist, he pauses and looks at you in alarm. 

“W-what’s wrong? You want to stop? I-I’m sorry, I…I got carried away, I didn’t think—here,” he goes to pull his fingers and you hiss, tightening your grip and keeping him in place as he pauses and looks at you, bewildered.

“Just…just go slower,” you breathe, panting softly, “that’s all.”

“O-oh…” he nods slowly at first, then again with more confidence. “Okay.”

It’s better this time. He paces it better and watches your face for your reactions as he slows the timing of his fingers pressing into you, applying pressure with every thrust against a sweet spot you didn’t even know you had. It makes your head feel light and your ears hear things all muffled. You can hear his labored breaths as he watches you, and you can hear your own (almost embarrassing) noises as he works you higher, higher, higher to some invisible height that you can feel yourself slowly become closer and closer to plummeting off of. 

“K-kiss,” you gasp, pleading as you lean closer, and he chuckles before he indulges you.

“Anything you want,” he murmurs, and then that familiar warm pressure of his soft, yet chapped lips is the final push you need to fall off the edge. You whine into his mouth, and he drinks in every sound like he’s parched, swallowing down your noises as your walls flutter around his fingers. 

He works you through it. It feels better when it’s someone else—he’s not distracted by the feeling of being overwhelmed to falter in rhythm or pace. In fact, he’s extra careful as he watches you, rolling his palm over your clit and pressing the tips of his fingers in and out of you as your walls erratically clamp around him. 

“Fuck,” you breathe out, gasping as a particularly harsh wave of your orgasm crashes over you, “Ph-phainon, fuck.”

“Feel good?” he murmurs, kissing your jaw as your mouth parts with a soft, delicate moan. It’s endearing. He’s not even smug anymore—all you do is fill him up with affection as he watches you. 

“Yes,” you gasp, “oh god, yes!”

“Good,” he hums. 

His forehead presses against yours as you finish, letting you calm down and take heaving breaths while he pulls his fingers out of your cunt and rubs the small of your back with his other hand. You clutch onto his shirt, fingers grasping onto the fabric to ground yourself while he admires the glow of your sweaty, damp skin.

“When did things change for you?” you whisper, not meeting his eyes. “Between…between us?”

“Hm…” he hums softly, “Don’t know. I think…I think they never really had to change. I always knew I wanted you.”

“Oh,” you mumble, still nervously toying with the fabric of his shirt. You don’t know what to say, so you say it again. “That…oh.”

He laughs softly, like the idea of things not being the same for you doesn’t bother him. (It doesn’t. He got you, he thinks. As long as it’s that outcome, he could have always waited longer.) 

“When did they change for you?”

“When we were sixteen,” you barely force out, “when you…when you took on those guys. In the parking lot.”

“On your first date that broke your heart?” He gasps, “I owe your heartbreak to swinging things in my favor? That feels a little wrong,” he says dramatically, “I almost feel like I’ve manipulated you!”

“Oh, fuck off,” you roll your eyes, breaking into a small grin. 

He laughs. It’s sweet. He’s always had that charm about him, even when it didn’t make you want him badly. “I think I told you not to fall in love with me, too. Seems like my words had the opposite effect,” he wiggles his brows.

You snort, shoving him lightly as you whisper, “It just felt nice to know you care. Like my feelings were yours, too.”

His eyes soften, and Phainon, you realize, has the bluest eyes you’ve ever seen. So blue, you could mistake them for the ocean and get called over like a siren luring you in, drowning you until your lungs are heavy and filled with something that makes it hard to breathe. 

“I always cared,” he hums, “still do. You know that, right?”

“Yeah,” you bite your lip as you fight back a wide, giddy grin. “Yeah, I do.”

And you kiss him. This time, you know it’s you who does it first because he stiffens for a moment with a hitch of his breath before he melts into it. You’ve kissed so many times tonight, you don’t know why the feeling keeps shocking you, but it does. It’s new every time, but never unfamiliar. You know him—you know him like the back of your hand, and you’d know him with your eyes closed. But you’re still learning him. The way he parts his lips and the pattern of how he nips yours. The way he tugs you closer when he’s overwhelmed, so he can squeeze your hips and ground himself. The way he lets out a soft, barely-there whine when you tug at his hair without realizing it. 

“I want you,” he breathes, “i-is that…is that okay?”

“Yes,” you practically beg, “yes—please.”

He clumsily undoes his belt and unzips his pants with shaky hands. You try not to watch and make it awkward. (It is, just a little. But it’s not bad. Nothing ever is with him.) You try to keep your expression neutral as his aching cock is finally freed from its confinements, springing up with a hard, leaky tip as pre cum collects in a small bead. It’s big—it curves a little to the side and the vein is thick along the bottom, and a part of you itches to wrap your hand around it and feel its weight in your grasp. 

He flushes as you stare and breathes heavily. 

“Can…can I…” You hesitate before gesturing at it. 

He nearly passes out from shame when he nods too quickly, forcing himself to slow down and throw on a faux sense of nonchalance as he stutters out, “Y-yeah, yeah that…that’s cool. With me. If you want, that is.”

You nod. Slowly, hesitantly, your thumb smears the leaking pre cum at the tip along the head of his cock before you wrap your hand around him and squeeze slightly. He chokes, gripping your hips tightly as his jaw clenches and his eyes shut tightly while he tries to keep his breathing steady. 

“Is this okay?” you whisper.

“More than okay,” he says, voice strained. 

“Okay,” you nod, and, a little more confidently, you stroke along his length, watching as he melts and the tension leaves his shoulders, his face slackening while he lets out a soft moan. It feels good—you can tell that much as his head falls back and he lets out a soft, throaty sound when you squeeze a little at the tip before stroking down again. 

It doesn’t last long, but you like it, you decide. You like making Phainon feel good. You like the way he looks when you touch him, and you like the feeling you get when you take care of him and give him something without taking anything back. But he stops you before long, and you pause as you raise a brow in confusion. 

“J-just…I don’t think I’ll last if we keep…” 

He’s red in the face when your eyes widen—you can tell even if it's dark. “Right,” you smile softly, “okay. Do you have…”

“Y-yeah,” he nods, “right…right, yeah.” He fishes out a condom from his pocket, and it takes everything in you not to ask the question in the back of your head of why he keeps one. 

(A spark of jealousy clouds your mind for a moment, of whether or not this is something he’s done before with someone other than you to need one, but then you realize that you know Phainon. Better than anyone else, you know him, and you know he’d at least tell you if he’d ever done something like this before. 

Because it’s you—you’ve known for a while now that there isn’t anyone else other than you. 

The jealousy dies down, and all that’s left is endearment—you’ll tease him later about carrying a condom around like he’s preparing. For now, though, you’re grateful.) 

It takes a tense moment of fumbling around with opening and rolling it over his length, trying not to let your hands visibly shake as he makes soft, breathy sound at your touch before gently, you raise your hips, hand still wrapped around his length while you guide him to your folds, the tip brushing along the slick, warm entrance of your cunt and making you both shiver. His hands find your hips, holding tightly as he guides you down, inch by slow inch taken one by one until he’s as deep as he’ll go and you’re sat on his cock, panting and quivering on his lap.

“T-tell me when it’s okay to m-move,” he grits.

“Okay,” you whisper shakily, trying to accommodate his size. It’s a stretch—it burns slightly, but you welcome it wholly. You’ve never taken anything as big as Phainon, and faintly, you hope you’ll never have to compare the size with anything else because you think this is it. This is perfect and what you were made to take. He’s perfect and what you were made to take. You fit like he was tailor-made to fit in you, and you don’t think anyone else will ever replace this. 

This feeling. Him. What he means to you. Everything about Phainon is perfect to you—perfect for you. You don’t think it’ll ever be anyone but him. 

“Okay,” you plead, “you…you can move now.”

With that, he guides your hips up, almost pulling you off of him completely before he brings you down, helping you slam down on him while thrusting his hips up and meeting you halfway. He’s thick, too, girth-wise—stretches you in a way that adds to the pleasure apart from just pressing against a spot your fingers used to never reach. You thought it was good before when he was just using his hand, but the real thing is even better. Everything around you stops. All you know is Phainon. All you ever want to know is Phainon. 

“F-fuck,” he pants, and you barely register his voice cracking as he shoves his face into your neck, “y-you…feel incredible. I’ve always wanted you. You have no idea how fucking bad.”

Something wet hits your neck. You suck in a sharp breath as his hand pulls you down, helping you rock your hips onto him and slam down harder on his cock, taking him deeper inside of you and practically cling to him while he maneuvers your body the way he needs. The way you need. 

“A-are you…seriously crying?” you gasp, “Now?”

“No,” he huffs. As if to distract you, he reaches between your bodies and finds your clit with his thumb and rolls harsh, fast circles while a strong, muscled arm wraps around your waist and guides you along a rhythm that has him nudging the tip of his cock hard and blunt against the back of your walls. 

“You are,” you accuse. “Do you ever quit being a cry—” you moan and cut yourself off when his tip practically bruises the spot it presses against hard and fast, angling to meet exactly where you fall apart.

“Not a crybaby,” he argues, and his pace gets sloppy as he ruts his hips up into you. You can feel it, too—the beginnings of your second high of the night approaching you as you try to snap your hips and bounce along his length to match his pace. 

It’s going to hit you harder this time. You can tell—you can practically feel it as it comes slowly but surely, creeping up on you in a way that makes you anticipate it blindly. 

“M’close,” you pant, “m’so so close, Phai…Phainon.”

“Yeah? You are? M-me too, baby,” he groans. You clench around him at the pet name, and he has the audacity to chuckle about it, murmuring a low, “like being called that, huh? You’re so fuckin’ tight, baby—y’know that?”

“Fuck,” you whine, and with one last roll of your hips that he meets with his own thrust upwards, you fall apart while his thumb rubs its circles along your clit. 

Your orgasm comes harder than you expect it to—it’s different when he’s that deep and stretches you out so well. It’s different when he rolls his hips to continue to fuck into you to work you through your high. It’s not like other times you’ve cum on your own, and it’s not like the time he made you cum on his fingers. This is entirely different. You can feel the twitching of his cock as the thickess bullies into you, splitting you open while you fall apart on him.

He follows not long after you, the tightening of your walls around him in spasms pulling him into his own release. It’s warm—you can make out the feeling of his release through the thin barrier of plastic as he fills it with thick ropes of cum. He pants your name through a soft, breathless voice, and you slump against his chest and lay your cheek on his shoulder as you ride through the final few waves of your peak. 

When he finishes, he slumps back against the seat, chest rising and falling beneath you as he tries to catch his breath. His arms are still wrapped around you, loose and warm, like he can’t quite bring himself to let go yet.

“How was it?” he asks, voice tentative, almost shy.

“Good,” you whisper, still a little breathless. “I-it was… really good.”

“Me too,” he says with a quiet smile. You can hear it in his words. “It was really good for me, too.”

You snort. “Is that why you cried?”

He groans, burying his face against your shoulder as his arms tighten around you in protest. “No,” he grumbles, muffled. “I just… got…”

“Emotional?” you tease, the corner of your mouth twitching up.

“Yes,” he huffs, clearly flustered. “The way I feel about you…” He trails off for a second, like he’s waiting for the right words to show up. “It’s just… a lot,” he says finally, soft and vulnerable. “You make me feel a lot.”

“I know,” you say, muffled by his shirt, “I…I feel it, too.”

“Yeah?” he beams.

“Yeah,” you grin. 

(You want to tell him that night—that you love him. That you have for a while. That you know you always will. You don’t have the courage to, though, but you never bring yourself to regret it. Maybe because it almost feels like he’s always known.)

— — — — — — — — — — 

You’re twenty-three when Phainon proposes. It…doesn’t go how he wants. 

He plans it out—it’s meticulous, and sweet, and it was going to be perfect and everything he’s ever wanted and everything he knows you wanted, too. He takes you on a nice, fancy trip, and you’re by the beach where you can feel the sun kiss your skin along with the warm breeze. On the last day, he can sit and admire you as you enjoy the beach one last time happily, and when the sun gets close to setting, he’ll drag you for a walk along the shore where the tides will come and wash away your footprints as they come. And when the sky is pink and purple and orange and every other color of the sunset that reflects in your eyes, he’ll get on one knee and ask you to be his wife.

And then it rains. 

It rains hard.

You both gather your things as quickly as you can and run for the car—a fancy rental that he spent quite a pretty penny on to get for this trip, because it’s the kind you’ve always wanted to have and you’re still just barely out of college to have enough saved for it. 

You climb into the car, drenched and panting from running, and still beautiful. And he feels his world crumble all at once as he sees that dazzling smile on your face while your hand brushes your forehead and wipes away droplets of water. 

He notices your finger. Ringless. His heart bleeds, and everything around him feels like it's caving in on him, and he can’t breathe.

“My goodness,” you giggle, “who’d have thought the rain had it out for us on our last day, huh?”

He swallows thickly at that. And he tries—he tries so hard to keep on that brave face and act like it’s okay. It’s fine. He can wait and plan something else. He has time to make it better, more perfect for you. That’s what you deserve, anyway. He’ll make you smile bigger, make you want to say yes even harder. 

This is okay. He still has you. He knows you. He knows you’ll say yes. It doesn’t matter if it’s now or a little later—he still has you. 

And yet, when his face crumples and the dryness of his throat is something he realizes he’s not able to control, he understands why you’ve always called him a crybaby. Because that’s exactly what he is. He’s going to cry, and you’re going to be worried, and he’s going to have to explain why he’s upset and ruin your surprise and the most perfect moment of your life. 

“Phainon?” You freeze, noticing the beginning of tears collecting in his eyes that he tries desperately to blink away. He swallows thickly, and your hand instantly moves to cup his wet face. “Baby, what’s happened? Did you leave something? We can go back and look—it’s just some rain, I don’t mind.”

“No,” he croaks, “no, it’s not that. It’s…it’s nothing,” he forces out. 

“It’s not nothing,” you frown, “c’mon, you know I know you better than that. Acting like I don’t is almost insulting,” you nudge his ribs gently. It’s supposed to be good-natured. It’s supposed to be light-hearted and sweet, so he feels safe enough to let down his walls and tell you what’s on his mind because you love him. You do. You love him more than anything, and you make everything better, so he should just tell you.

But the thought of the words coming out feels like he’s a failure. Like he’s taken every ounce of your careful love and not given you what you deserved, even a little. But, as he’s starting to realize after years of arguing with you on it, Phainon is indeed a crybaby. And the tears tell on him faster than the words can, and he knows there’s no hiding anything from you.

So shakily, he grabs something small from his pocket, making you frown as you try to figure out what it is. He brings it closer, and your eyes widen, breath hitching. 

You know what that is. You’d be a fool not to. You’re speechless as he sniffles and looks miserably down at the velvet box that’s tiny in his large hand. 

“I…it was going to be perfect—th-the sun was supposed to set, a-and we’d go on a walk, and then when the sky was pretty I’d ask, and…and…and…” he takes a shaky breath and closes his eyes in defeat. “It was going to be perfect. For you. I had everything planned,” he croaks. 

You soften. It’s quiet. For a moment, he thinks maybe this was all a mistake. Maybe you weren’t going to say yes, and all the marriage talks of the future lately were just talks and nothing more. Maybe it was too early for all this, and those were just talks of something for the distant future. Something he’d have to wait a bit longer for. And that’s fine—he would. He’d wait for you because he always has. He’s always loved you, and he’s always waited, and it’s always been okay. In the end, he’s always had you, and that’s all he’s ever needed. 

Somehow, no matter how many years pass, Phainon stays loving you. At first, he thought it was a crush and that it would be just a phase, but it never went away. It’s just how he is, ingrained into him since he was young—he loves you, and he can’t stop. Somehow, every year, he grows and grows, and all it does is make more room for his love in that stubborn heart of his. He’s twelve, he’s sixteen, he’s eighteen, and he’s twenty-three. Every year he’s older and he changes, yet somehow, every year, it’s still always you. Even when you’re not there, it’s always your laugh he hears in the wind as it grazes his cheeks and leaves him with the ghost of you. 

Loving you comes as easily as breathing. When the air finally settles in his lungs and lets him breathe, he starts to love you even more.

It’s that simple. It always was. 

He lets out a shuddering breath and mumbles, “I-it’s okay. It was probably a bad time anyway—I got carried away. J-just forget I said anything, please. I…we can just forget—”

“Oh Phainon,” you sigh, soft and breathless, “you never change, do you, you big crybaby?”

He pouts. There are still tears clinging to his cheeks, and it only proves your point further. Still, you have enough grace not to point it out as you reach and cup his cheek to wipe away a tear gently. 

“I am not a crybaby,” he denies half-heartedly, “I was just emotional, okay? Being emotionally intelligent is important!”

You smile. It’s warm and bright, and it’s the same smile he’s known for over a decade, but it’s different, too. Every year it changes a little. The days leave their small footprints along your features and carve their paths as you age, and sometimes, he sees it all at once. How much you’ve changed. How your features are a little sharper now that you’ve grown into them. How small, barely-there lines are etching into your skin where you smile the most and by your eyes where they crinkle. You’re older. You’re still you. 

You smile, and it’s like he’s twelve again and nothing has changed, even if he’s twenty-three. 

“Ask me,” you whisper, “I’ll say yes no matter where you ask me. So quit crying and ask, you big baby.”

“What?” he gapes, still sniffling a little. 

“Ask me,” you huff, giving him a soft, impatient shove. Something about you is giddy. It’s raining outside, he’s crying yet again like he always does, while you have to deal with it, your beach day has been cut short, your surprise is ruined, and you’re drenched in the rental car that he’ll have to return tomorrow before you board your flight and go home. But still, you’re giddy. 

And Phainon is in love. It’s nothing new, but it’s different. It’s better. It’s always you. 

“Will you marry me?” he murmurs, “I know you said you didn’t want to be my friend that day, and I was a tiny bit of a crybaby only that day,” he gives you a pointed look as you roll your eyes, “and I know you said you’d move away and never come back and you didn’t need me to be your friend but we were friends anyway. And I was always happy being friends, but changing and being more was probably the best thing ever, so maybe we should just change one more time and be husband and wife, right? We’re not on the beach or under the sun, and we’re soaking wet, but will you marry me, anyway? So I don’t live up to the crybaby allegations?”

You laugh. The sun isn’t there anymore, but light still finds a way to break over your face as you laugh, and you cry, too. You cry with him, tears collecting in your own eyes as you nod frantically and whisper, “Yes, you idiot. Yes, I’ll marry you, of course I will. Is that even a question?”

“You’re crying,” he blinks back his own tears, “who’s the crybaby now?”

“Still you,” you snort. 

He grabs your hand and just like he envisioned to leave this trip, there’s a pretty little ring on your pretty little finger that catches the light and makes you look a little more different than he remembers you, but a little better than before. He didn’t meet you with a ring on your finger, but he knows you that way now. And it’s different. It’s different and it’s good.

“I love you,” he murmurs, “even though you always lie and call me a crybaby.”

“I love you, too,” you sigh exasperatedly, “even though you lie about being the damn crybaby that you are.”

(He kisses you after. Kisses you hard over the center console of the car as your fiance just like the first time he kissed you over the center console of a car as your best friend. As Phainon. As that stupid, annoying, crybaby boy you came across when he was twelve and you were still eleven and younger by only two months, one week, and four days.)

His gruff hands closed around the crinkly packaging, second guessing if it was even a good idea, when the rustling sound seemed to get your attention.

You turned your gaze to him, blinking rapidly to try and shake away the pesky tears, eyes going wide like you had just noticed you hadn't been alone all this time.

Choso froze, completely caught, as his brain struggled to come up with a different thought apart from the one that kept repeating in his head.

Gods, he thought. You're beautiful.

You quickly averted your gaze, awkwardly tucking a strand behind your ear and swallowing thickly, fingertips tapping at the hardcover like this little interaction had made you just as nervous as him.

Choso had a choice then. He could turn his eyes downwards, continue reading this book like he meant to from the start and not mention anything.

Or he could actually build up the courage to walk over to you. Offer the tissues you so clearly needed, maybe ask what it was you were reading that got you this emotional – he was no stranger to welling up during a good read, after all.

And what was Yuuji always saying anyway? That he needed to 'get out there more'?

Choso sighed, hoping at least his younger brother would appreciate the effort, and placed his book back down with a gentle thud.

His hands gripped the edge of the table, the last chance he had to reconsider this, but Choso found himself pushing the chair away anyway, a loud scraping sound earning him annoyed looks from the other library visitors.

Choso walked over to you slowly, taking his time, noticing the way your eyes kept darting from him to your book and then back to him.

He would have found it cute were he not just as nervous.

"Sorry" Choso whispered when he got close, lowering his torso just a little so he was more eye level to you. "Do you need these?" he asked, opening his palm to pass you the tissues, as you watched between furrowed brows.

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.

He really wasn't sure what you were thinking, but you slowly extended your hand over, accepting his offering with a suspicious look. And then, to his complete surprise, you pressed a tissue to the skin under your eyes, and laughed.

It was only a little wet chuckle, more self deprecating than anything, but gods it was a beautiful sound.

"Thank you" you whispered back, watching him gratefully. "Sorry, I've been such a mess–" you laughed again, a warmer sound this time.

The blonde man sitting on the other table gave the two of you a judgmental look, but Choso didn't let it faze him.

No, right now he was too distracted to care much about library etiquette.

"It happens" he waved it off, taking a seat next to you. "Is it a sad one? You should have seen me when I read Brothers Karamazov, that one really–"

"No, no" you shook your head, turning the book around to reveal a textbook about maths.

Oh, he thought with furrowed his brows.

"Is it hard maths?" he asked, trying to make sense of the situation.

And then you laughed again, throwing your pretty head back in a laugh that wasn't at all strained this time.

That same man closed his book loudly, making a point to stare at the two of you as he walked to the front desk. You watched the man before turning your head to Choso, giving a little conspiratinal shrug between your giggles.

"I'm not crying because of the book" you explained, dabbing the tissue over your wet face again. "But I agree Brothers Karamazov is very emotional" you winked.

Choso wasn't sure why his heart suddenly beat so loud, but he hoped it wasn't disturbing the people at the other tables.

He definitely hoped you couldn't hear it.

Choso leaned a little closer to hear you better, clinging on to every word before opening his mouth again. "Why were you crying, then?" he asked, unable to quite hold himself back.

You had no reason to tell a complete stranger about your life, but he found himself so incredibly curious about you.

"It's a long story" you sighed. "And we might be getting kicked out" you raised an eyebrow, guiding his attention to the librarian walking in your direction.

Choso gulped, already picturing the shameful conversation with his brothers later in the day, when he had to explain he was banned from the one place he saught solace in.

He must have pulled a face, because suddenly you were laughing again, watching him with an amused expression. "Why don't we get out of here first?" you suggested.

Choso nodded, following you out the tall doors and offering the woman an apologetic look.

You didn't seem to mind though, strolling right past like the whole thing was a little adventure. You didn't even look like the same girl that had been crying loudly just a few minutes ago.

And he couldn't help but following in your heels, allowing himself to exchange a smile with this curious stranger once the doors were open and the cold air hit both your skins.

"I'm sorry about that" you said, rubbing your hands together for warmth.

Did you not bring gloves too? Choso thought you seemed very unprepared. His brotherly instincts already kicking in and thinking if he should offer you his.

But you hugged your hands across your body, warming them up with your own heat, and he noticed you were patiently waiting for a response.

"It was my fault" Choso said quickly, shifting his weight between his legs. "I offered you the tissue"

"You did" you laughed, raising one eyebrow. "Why did you?" you asked then.

"Because you looked like you needed it" Choso explained, realising now maybe it made more sense in his head than it did in yours.

He didn't know you, after all.

"That's really sweet" you muttered, voice a little smaller, a little surprised.

Choso gulped, having not expected that reaction. "Y-you think?" he stuttered, telling his stupid hands to stop sweating so much.

Thank god he didn't forget his gloves.

"Yeah" you cocked your head, assessing him. "Are you always that sweet?" you asked, the hint of a tease in your voice.

Choso didn't necessarily think himself sweet, just… attentive. Reliable.

And he opened his mouth to say just that, but a vision of Yuuji scowling at him later flashed through his mind, telling him to be more confident and direct.

"I guess" Choso responded instead, rolling his shoulders back a bit.

You watched him through long eyelashes, a faint blush creeping up your cheek at the matter of fact way he had said it.

"And what is your name, sweet stranger?" you asked.

Were you flirting with him?

You had to be, right?

"I'm Choso" he said, extending a hand while you muttered your own in reply. He could feel how cold your hands were even through his thick gloves, and he felt the urge to keep them there a little longer, make sure you were warm.

But the handshake didn't last that long, unfortunately.

"Thank you for the tissues, Choso" you smiled, giving him a silent nod before starting to turn away.

Don't go just yet, Choso's thoughts begged.

"Wait" he called, watching the way you turned your head around but not your full body, offering the tiniest smirk. "Why were you crying?"

You sighed, looking at the floor for a second. "I told you" you said. "It's a long story"

Choso felt himself take a step closer, second guessing what he was about to say already. "Why don't I give you my number" he suggested. "And you can decide if you ever want to tell me?"

He wasn't sure if that was the right thing to say at all.

But Choso couldn't bear to see you walk away and just live in the limbo of hoping to run into you again.

To his surprise, you smiled, reaching for the phone in your pocket before giving it to him. "What if I never do?" you asked with a raised eyebrow.

"It's your choice" Choso muttered, typing the last few digits before passing the device back to you. "But I'd like to listen"

You huffed out a little unbelieving chuckle, biting the inside of your cheek before you made up your mind to walk away again. "Nice to meet you, Choso" you waved at him, and he thought your eyes locked for more than just a few seconds this time around.

"Nice to meet you too" he muttered, standing glued to the same spot, watching you walk away.

"Wait what" Yuuji exclaimed loudly, banging the fork on the wooden table. Eso and Kechizu looked equally as shocked, but Choso kept his attention on the fresh pasta he had cooked for dinner, not wanting to make a big deal out of this. "You gave her your number?!"

"Yeah", Choso shrugged like it was obvious, eyes still down. "What if she didn't want me to message?" he asked, not able to think of anything worse than you rolling your eyes when you saw his name pop on a screen.

No, if you two were going to keep in touch, he wanted it to be your decision.

But Choso would be lying if he said he didn't check his phone every five minutes since this afternoon.

"I think that was a great idea, brother" Eso nodded, Kechizu quick to follow.

"I'm not saying it isn't!" Yuuji exclaimed, wild arms flying everywhere. "But what if she does message you?"

Choso felt his heart tug a little at the prospect, but he quickly shook his head. "I don't think she will" he muttered, trying to sound like it didn't matter as much as it did.

"Cho" Yuuji called. "Do you even know what day is next weekend?"

That caught his attention, finally making Choso lift his gaze. "Next weekend?" he echoed.

Yuuji let out an incredulous groan. "It's valentine's day you idiot!" his brother exclaimed.

"Language, Yuuji" Choso reprimanded.

"Big bro, this is great" Yuuji beamed excitedly, ignoring what he had just said. "You have to ask her out"

"Yuuji, I don't even think she'll–"

A loud pinging noise interrupted him.

And suddenly time had stopped.

Every pair of eyes widened at the table, before turning to the kitchen counter where Choso's phone was charging.

And then Yuuji was running.

"Yuuji–" Choso called back, running at his heel to snap the phone away before his nosy brother could reach for it.

"Don't tell me you're not curious" he grinned like a child, which then turned into a pout when his older brother snapped the device right out his hand.

Choso scowled, eyes darting to the screen while trying to remain calm, telling himself there was no reason to get this worked up over it.

It probably wasn't you anyway.

And then he saw the message.

y/n: It was really nice to meet you today

Choso froze, his wide eyed expression concerning enough to invite all his brothers around like moths to a flame.

"Well????" Yuuji called, clearly just as anxious as him. "Is it her?"

Choso took a deep breath in through his nose, reading the message over and over. "Yeah" he exhaled.

The room erupted into loud celebrations, a chorus of "what did she say? "what are you going to say?" and "are you ok??" echoing all over.

Choso didn't really know the answer to any of these questions.

It felt like his brain had blue screened.

He let out a long exhale, reading the message again. "She said it was nice to meet me"

"Oh my god!!!!" Yuuji exclaimed, practically jumping for joy. "She's in love with you! I knew it!"

Choso closed his eyes, ready to scold his brother again. "Yuuji–"

"No, listen" the pink haired boy cut him off. "She likes you, bro. You need to ask her out"

He hated feeling this vulnerable in front of his brothers, but he couldn't help the slight shaking in his hands. "She's just being polite" Choso shook his head, placing the phone down.

"What are you doing!" Yuuji grimaced, picking up his brothers phone and placing it back in his hands as he tskd. "She's didn't have to message you–she was clearly thinking about you!"

Choso's hands instinctively wrapped around the device, feeling himself tremble with the excitement but also the dread of hoping for something that might not come true.

And in that moment, he felt selfish.

His brothers couldn't be happier for him of course, but wants and desires were something Choso was not used to letting himself experience.

"Choso" Yuuji sighed, putting a palm on his brothers shoulders like he could read his mind. "Text her back. For me" he said, knowing exactly which invisible buttons to push to get his brother out of inercia.

"What if she doesn't–" he started to say, dealing with the second uncomfortable feeling this brought up in him: fear.

"Then we'll deal with it later" Yuuji brother winked. "Come on, we all just want to see you happy"

And they looked at him with such optimistic eyes, Choso had no doubt they told the truth.

Maybe he did deserve to live for himself for once.

So his fingers started typing.

"It was great to meet you too" said the screen as he turned it back to his brothers, all watching like it was a murder mystery investigation instead of a simple text.

"Too cold" Yuuji clicked his tongue, resting his chin on his knuckles. "Give it to me"

Choso reluctantly passed the phone to his younger brother, peering over his shoulder as he typed.

Choso: It was amazing to meet you, btw what are you doing for valentines day?

"Yuuji!" Choso snapped, taking the phone back. "I'm not opening with that"

"You have to open with something!" he argued. "Or she'll think you're not interested!"

Choso sighed, nodding his head in silent agreement. His fingers typed a new message as his brothers all watched with big approving smiles.

Choso: Likewise. Are you feeling any better?

"Gentleman-y, I like it" Yuuji winked, Eso and Kechizu exchanging excited glances.

Choso was about to put the phone away when the three little dots appeared on screen and made the room erupt once more.

"Oh god" Choso gulped.

"It's happening!!" Yuuji yelled.

The wait for your message to arrive felt like it took about ten years.

y/n: a little, thank you! would be up to tell you about it if the offer still stands

Choso didn't wait for anyone's input before he typed as fast as he could this time.

Choso: What are you doing tomorrow?

Tomorrow couldn't arrive fast enough, you thought as you nervously bit the inside of your cheek, already thinking of what to wear for the date with this handsome stranger who seemed sent by the gods above.

Had the universe finally started to be kind to you, or was this just another sick joke?

Sometimes you wondered if you were cursed, with the way life just didn't seem to ever go the way you expected it to.

But maybe that was a very egocentric way to look at it, you reprimanded yourself. Bad things happened to everyone after all – perhaps you were just a little too unlucky.

And if you were unlucky in every regard, when it came to dating that word didn't even begin to cover it.

How many times had you been let down by someone and, little by little felt the walls rising higher, the protective barrier you were forced to create around yourself just to keep your poor heart sane growing stronger and thicker and uglier.

It was easy to be charming, easy to be flirty. Far less to be vulnerable.

If only you were still happy staying single, like you had been for many years. No, you just had to go and believe a relationship was possible, just for the universe to show you over and over again that you were an idiot for ever believing.

This last time had been your fault, you chided yourself. You knew you shouldn't have trusted someone else again, so you shouldn't have been that disappointed when he proved to be a dickhead and ghosted you after finally sleeping together.

You didn't even think you were crying because of him today, more at the weight of reality proving itself to you once again.

The pain of giving part of yourself to someone who threw you away like furniture straight after.

Perhaps you were just unlovable.

Could have at least chosen a better place to cry than the damn library, but when the tears started, they didn't stop. Even focusing on your studies, the only real tangible thing you were good at, didn't seem to distract you from the hollow cave in your chest.

And then that man had shown up – Choso, he said, waltzing to you with big concerned eyes and an extended hand with just what you needed.

Who even was he?

Did he think you were as ridiculous as you felt, crying in public like that like some sort of loser?

That was definitely not the assumptions his dark eyes told, you remembered as your chest grew warmer.

Choso was kind. Sweet. And insanely handsome.

Weren't they all at the start, though?

Were you really about to put yourself through another disappointment?

Your hands had reached for his number before you could really stop yourself, typing the message you didn't expect a response to at all, let alone that quick.

The prospect of seeing him tomorrow filled you with excitement, and nerves, and dread. You weren't sure why you kept trying, or why you were even so excited to give this Choso a chance, but you thought at the very least maybe you wouldn't spend Valentines Day alone again.

You could will yourself to try.

Maybe this time it would be different.

And if it wasn't, well – you were here already anyway.

The next day eventually came, though it seemed to take a lifetime for the two of you.

Choso found himself already at the restaurant, tapping his fingers on the tabletop, impatiently waiting for your arrival despite knowing he was half an hour early.

What if you didn't show up at all? he thought, attempting to calm the panic brewing inside.

He was just not good at these things. Hadn't been on a date since college, and then again, nothing was ever serious.

When he had to take on the responsibility of caring for his younger brothers, Choso didn't even mind that dating was one of the things he had to give up.

But the thought of seeing you again had him unexplainably on edge.

The inside of his cheek raw with how much he bit into it, knees bobbing up and down under the table, that uncomfortable churning in his stomach some people referred to as butterflies.

Choso was nervous beyond belief, but the memory of his brothers so excited grounded him.

We just want to see you happy, Yuuji had said.

Choso wanted that too.

The door finally opened, revealing the person he had so been waiting to see. You had clearly taken the time to choose a nice outfit, making yourself look even more beautiful than you had been the day before – and that was a very hard bar to surpass, he thought.

Had you done this for him?

Choso stood up abruptly, almost knocking all the cutlery and plates from the table. He walked over to you, head scrambling on what he should do next – was a handshake too formal? A hug too personal? Definitely too soon for a kiss, right?

Why the fuck was he thinking of kissing you already?

"Hey" was all he said, standing right in front of you with his trembling hands deep in his pockets, adams apple bobbing up and down with every thick swallow.

"Hey" you echoed, cocking your head a little, a faint smirk tugging at your lips."It's nice to see you again"

"You're nice too–I mean–" not even two minutes in and Choso already felt like he was failing this.

You found his nerves nothing but endearing, however, stifling a laugh at his grimace.

Hearing that beautiful sound finally seemed to relax him a little too.

Your eyes darted to the table and Choso seemed to get the message, moving out of the way to pull a chair for you.

Clearly he was a gentleman, which was definitely rare nowadays. You had done this so many times already that you used to think you could accurately predict how a night would go, but something about this guy was different – like he was the one not quite used to this.

Choso sat opposite you, a faint redness around his cheeks making all your insides feel warm. "You look beautiful" he said, and his deep tone was less shaky, more certain.

It made the hairs on your arms prick up at the sound.

"Thank you, Choso" you muttered, distracting yourself with the menu to avoid those eyes that made your heart beat faster by the second.

So annoying how your body betrayed you like this.

"How are you feeling today?" Choso asked, tone all kind and gentle.

Part of you wanted to snap at him for pretending to care, but you couldn't bring yourself to when he sounded this genuine.

"Better than yesterday" you admitted with a little smile. Choso had two elbows on the table, leaning forward so he could hear you better, seeming actually interested. "Was a hard day, is all"

Choso hummed like he understood, watching you with dark expressive eyes. "I know what that's like" he muttered, and your question was interrupted by the waiter finally approaching the table.

He ordered for the two of you, double checking often to make sure you were happy with everything. It was kind of him, but you shouldn't let yourself get tricked, you kept thinking.

You took the opportunity to have a proper look at your date and his dark outfit that showcased surprisingly large muscles, where the shirt hugged him tight. You could see the faint outline of tattoos peeking from under his sleeve, matching the dark one he had across his face.

There was no way he wasn't used to dating.

Not when he looked like that.

The waiter finally left, and you found yourselves alone again.

"So" you asked, twirling the empty glass in your hands just to have something to do. "You ask strangers out often?" you tried to make a joke of your suspicion.

Choso coughed, completely caught by surprise. "No, actually" he replied, seeming a little shy. "I haven't actually been on a date in years"

"Wait, what?" you muttered, not liking how judgemental your voice sounded but not able to stop yourself. "Are you serious?"

"Yeah" he nodded. "Is that ok?"

Maybe this sweet boy act wasn't an act after all.

"Of course" you nodded. "Can I ask why?"

Choso swallowed, clearly some dark memory he didn't want to burden you with coming to the forefront. "My parents are not in the picture" he explained. "So I spend most of my time taking care of my little brothers"

You felt your heart drop, feeling awful about how judgemental you had been. "Oh god I'm so sorry" you muttered too quick, bringing your head to your hands in pure embarrassment.

"Don't be" Choso leaned forwards just a little like he wanted to reach for you, but stopped himself. "I love taking care of them"

You peeked at him from between your fingers, noticing how he had gone from gloom to a faint, proud smirk. The mention of his brothers alone had made your date brighten up visibly.

"How many brothers do you have?" you asked, leaning a bit back on your chair, intrigued by this man.

"Three. Yuuji, Eso and Kechizu" he responded, proud, smile growing at the mention of each name. "They're growing up too fast" he shook his head, dark hair flowing everywhere.

Fuck he was so cute.

"I'm assuming you guys are close?" you smiled, enjoying the lighter air he had about him when talking about them.

"Very" Choso nodded. "They're everything to me"

You pressed your lips together, feeling almost emotional hearing him talk like that. "Sounds like they're lucky to have you as their big brother"

Choso blinked, breath stopping half way. "That's kind of you to say" he rasped out, voice all strained and adorable.

He sure was bad at hiding his emotions, wasn't he?

Every little flicker was so plain in his face, from sadness to concern to happiness.

This date sure was unique.

"They, uh, actually hyped me up for this" he admitted with a shy little pout.

It wasn't like you to feel this nervous, you thought as you picked at your cuticles, glad the food was arriving to distract you from the drumming within.

When was the last time you wanted to kiss someone before the starters were even on the table?

Choso quickly changed the subject, clearly self conscious he had shared too much. And you let him, happy to go straight to your most obvious shared interest – books.

He really came alive when he spoke about the things he loved, telling you stories of reading to his brothers, of rare spaces of alone time where he wanted nothing more than hide in that same old library.

He was passionate, you thought.

And most surprising of all – Choso asked about you. Wanted to know about your favourite book growing up, the one you were currently reading, which genre you preferred.

Had anyone ever been this interested in you and not what you could offer them?

You could feel layers you tried so hard to hold on to falling away with every question, every little smile, every glance you exchanged.

It was terrifying.

He made you laugh so easily, it already made your heart hurt thinking of how hard the inevitable end would be.

You had really walked straight into another trap, hadn't you?

Typical.

Your eyes must have turned sorrowful, because suddenly Choso looked very concerned, one hand stretching across the table to touch yours, featherlight but grounding.

"Hey" he called, shoulders tense as he lowered his head to meet your gaze. "What's wrong?"

You blinked quickly, shaking away the dark thoughts and putting your mask back in place effortlessly, just like you had done a million times.

"Nothing" you smiled sweetly, a perfectly rehearsed performance. "Just thinking of something"

"What were you thinking about?" Choso asked, hand finally pressing just a little tighter over yours, waiting for you to respond by pulling away or opening your palm to him.

You turned your hand around, accepting his touch, feeling his thumb brush softly over your knuckles.

It was so warm. And soothing.

And fucking scary.

"I–" you started to say, unsure of what you even wanted to tell him. That you hadn't been used to being treated well?

That you thought you were disposable and was afraid he'd realise it too?

Way to kill the mood on the best date you've had in the past year, if not, ever.

"You're really sweet" you settled on these words instead, peaking from under your lashes to see his reaction. His thumb stopped moving for just a second before carrying on again, like steadying himself as much as you.

"Is that not…normal?" Choso asked gently, clearly upset at the idea alone.

"No" you shook your head, struggling to hold back the emotion in your voice. "It's not"

"Is that why you were crying yesterday?" he asked, far too good at connecting the dots.

Everything in you told you to run away.

But you didn't.

"Yeah" you admitted instead, biting your lower lip.

What the hell was it about this man that made you want to be so open?

When had that ever served you well?

But his touch was so damn soft, large hand swallowing yours whole but still being so incredibly gentle.

"I'm really sorry" he whispered, looking at you with those puppy dog eyes you so wanted to believe in.

Fuck.

"Not your fault" you waved it off, desperate to change the subject. "Can you go back to telling me about how excited your brothers are about this?" you laughed, trying to make a joke out of it.

And the way Choso had described their reactions to your text had brought a genuine smile to your face.

Choso flushed, that adorable surprised look showing up again. "I bet they'll wait for me up" he exhaled. "Even though its a school night" he added with a little scowl.

It made your head tip back in an honest laugh, all the sudden sadness replaced by warmth. "Are you going to ground them?" you teased.

Choso smiled again, watching you with relieved eyes, tightening his hold on your palm. "Probably not" he scrunched his nose. "I'm excited to tell them too"

You leaned forwards, lowering your voice just for him. "And what are you excited to tell them?" you asked.

Choso gulped, clearly second guessing what he wanted to say but still not breaking eye contact. "That I had a really great time" he said. "And that you're beautiful"

"You're really sweet" you blushed, holding his hand tighter just to steady yourself.

"Do you think I could…see you again?" Choso asked, a little shy. "Its Valentine's next weekend and I understand if its too soon–"

"You're asking me out for Valentine's?" you blinked hard, interrupting him, mouth hanging open just a little too long before you thought to close it.

"Um" Choso bit his lower lip, looking a bit unsure. "I am"

You almost couldn't believe he actually asked.

"I'd love to" you replied, surprised at how much you meant it.

Choso exhaled in relief, smiling sweetly like your reaction had surprised him just as much as the question had you.

He was so handsome it was unfair.

Torn between running as far away as you could and letting unshed tears of relief flow, you found yourself somewhere in the middle – allowing yourself to just be happy.

Yes, it would hurt when he inevitably left, but right now maybe you could… enjoy it.

Leave the regret to future you.

The conversation continued to flow, and Choso proved to be a gentleman every step of the way, even paying the bill in full as soon as the waiter returned – though you felt a little sad to let go of his hand after it had started to fit so comfortably on yours.

When it was time to leave, he insisted on walking you home. Walked on the side of the road, kept a watchful gaze around to make sure no trouble lurked in the dark streets, even pressed a hand to your upper back when you crossed the street.

There was no way he was real, you were convinced. This had to be an act.

…right?

Your footsteps stopped just in front of your door. Usually you'd have your keys around your fingers already, but not tonight.

Choso kept looking at you like he didn't want to let go either.

Shoulders tense, jaw tight like it was swallowing things he didn't know how to say, a little pout on his lips that made him look so ridiculously adorable.

You told yourself you wouldn't fuck anyone on a first date ever again, but when had you had a first date like this?

If it was going to crash and burn anyway, why not enjoy the high to the fullest?

Your eyes locked on his as Choso started to open his mouth, probably about to say he was excited for Valentine's, or thank you for your time, or whatever gentlemany thing he was surely about to come up with.

And it would all go through one ear and out the other because right now all you could focus on was the heat brewing between your legs. That, and the way his lips so beautiful parted like that.

So, naturally, you leaned forwards first.

Your hands snaked around his neck, pulling him in closer to you, and Choso didn't refuse. His own arms wrapped around your waist, pulling your chest flush against his, making you wish you were in the warmth of your house instead of the freezing cold of the outside, where there were far too many layers between you two.

You pushed yourself up to reach his height, lips chasing his as Choso met you halfway, digging his fingers deep into the skin of your hips, bringing them as close to his as possible.

You promised yourself you would take things slow, protect your heart. But my god – fucking look at him.

Choso moved one hand from your waist to tangle around your hair then, guiding your head to where he wanted it, his tongue dancing inside your mouth to taste every inch of you.

You could have sworn you heard him moan – a low delicious sound that reverbearted deep in your skull, making you pull him in so close until your bodies crashed against the wall, his frame caging you in fully.

Hopefully no neighbours were be around to see, you thought, but that thought vanished as quickly as it apprared.

You were completely focused on Choso.

Kind, handsome, sweet Choso, whose kiss was not gentle at all.

He kissed like he had to consume you whole, catching your lower lip between his teeth, biting sharply before sucking it in his to soothe the pain, tongue forcing its way into your mouth as all you could do was melt and pull him further in.

You so wanted to know what else that tongue could do.

"Ch-Cho" you whimpered into his lips, feeling the way he tugged at your hair just a little stronger, his hips rolling against yours where he pressed you against the wall.

"Yes, beautiful?" he asked, each syllable punctuated by a little peck, like he couldn't bear to leave your lips for too long.

"Do you want to come in?" you asked, digging your nails on his thick shoulders, laughing at the way he wouldn't let you speak.

But then Choso pulled away just slightly, close enough your noses still brushed, but his expressive eyes were locked on yours again, full of questions.

"Do you…want me to?" he asked, broad chest heaving up and down after all the excitement.

You swallowed, confused.

You didn't think you had ever been asked that before.

Conflicting feelings started brewing in your chest – from confusion, to relief, to…rejection.

The latter was the hardest to deal with.

"Do you not want to?" you asked, voice a little to snappy for your liking, but your ego had just taken a hit you hadn't expected.

And you must have clearly shown it, because Choso immediately leaned forwards again, kissing your lips so deep you both exhaled together. His hand reached to brush your cheek, tucking away loose strands of hair as he pulled back to look deep in your eyes once more.

"Of course I want to" he whispered, hot breath against your skin, making you ache for his lips again. "But I don't want you to think that's all I want"

Oh.

Well…that was new as well.

"It isn't?" you whispered, hating how whiny you sounded.

Choso looked genuinely hurt you had to ask, but he stayed unmoving. "It isn't" he confirmed.

He must have noticed the way you bit your lower lip awkwardly, clearly unsure what to do in such an…unfamiliar situation. Choso sighed audibly, lowering himself to place a warm kiss to your cheek this time.

"I'm looking forward to next weekend" he said, resting his forehead on yours.

You felt yourself swallow thickly, but nodded, leaning into the weight of him.

Maybe this wouldn't go like you predicted after all.

"You're home late" Yuuji hummed, wiggling his eyebrows at his brother – who damn nearly passsed out at the sound, after trying so hard to be as quiet as possible when walking in.

Yuuji sat on the armchair just opposite the front door, one lamp lit like he tried to recreate a scene out of a movie. Eso and Kechizu had clearly not lasten as long as their brother had, both bodies sprawled across the sofa, snoring faintly.

"You shouldn't still be up" Choso reprimanded, but try as he might he couldn't hide the joy in his voice.

"What happened to your mouth?" Yuuji squinted, a knowing smirk across his face.

"N-none of your business" Choso scowled, walking past his little brother as fast as he could.

"Bro" Yuuji called, and he had no choice but to stop moving. "Was it a good date?" he asked.

Choso turned his profile to him, letting out a surprised laugh. "It was a great date" he said, unlocking the door to his room.

Usually Choso would want nothing more than to chat to his brothers when he got home late, but he couldn't bear to let them see him like this.

Hair messy, clothes uneven, lips bitten and kiss bruised. And most important of all, his intoxicated face – despite not having had a drop of alcohol.

Choso pressed the back of his head against the door frame as soon as the door was locked, letting out a soft curse as his palm came to touch the obvious bulge in his trousers, too many years of pent up feelings coming to an explosion tonight.

Because of you.

The way you looked, the way you felt, the way you tasted.

Fuck.

His thick fingers stroked along his clothed length, head falling forwards as he bit already kiss bitten lip to stop the sounds of desire from leaving his lips.

What the hell had you done to him?

Your name echoed in his head, and most importantly, the way you had said his.

Choso stilled his hand, adding pressure to his bulge as he cursed at himself for being this weak. He wished it was your hand around his instead, could picture you so beautifully in front of him, stroking him with that playful smirk of yours.

He huffed out a deep breath, struggling with the sweat already forming on his brow.

Choso wanted you so fucking bad it was practically a need.

But he saw that look on your face earlier.

Who the hell had made you upset like that?

Yes, Choso wanted to touch you again, to feel your breath hot against his lips and make you moan all pretty for him.

But more than that – he wanted to see you smile. Hear the way you laughed when you were relaxed. Watch the way your eyes widened when he said something sweet.

It made him want to say it over and over again until you believed him.

Choso focused on his breathing, willing himself to calm down, feeling guilty and not wanting to lose himself in fantasy.

There was too much to do, anyway. Find out what the best restaurant to take you to was, buy you a valentines gift, figure out what the hell he was going to wear.

Choso didn't think he had ever felt this excited before. Definitely not for someone who wasn't even in his immediate family.

Definitely not for himself.

Definitely not for Valentine's.

How life could change so quick, he thought with a smile, unable to stop going over every little look and every little thing you had said tonight.

You shouldn't have been surprised Choso chose another gorgeous restaurant for your second date, but you were. The place was beautifully decorated – red candles flickering, roses scattered, a few heart shaped balloons you would have mocked as tacky a few days ago.

But today you thought they were perfect.

The day had actually come, hadn't it? February 14th, the date year after year you pretended didn't mean much.

Would laugh to your friends and lie about how you were totally fine with casual dates and even more casual sex.

You thought hardening your heart was the answer, but here you were – soft as freaking butter as soon as your eyes landed on him.

Choso looked so handsome again, hair down this time instead of the little twintails you had come to adore. It fell beautifully, framing the face that was already halfway into a bright smile just at the sight of you.

"You look gorgeous" were his first words, coming over to pull you into his arms, much more relaxed than your first date had been only a few days ago.

It did help that you spoke on the phone almost every night since, video calling in bed while you shared your day. You caught yourself writing thing down only to have more to tell him later, and he welcomed it with such softness every time.

You usually called around nine, and sometimes you'd stay on call until well past midnight, time just seeming to fly by.

Seeing his tired eyes threatening to close always made you laugh, but Choso made sure you were the one to fall asleep first.

His voice was the sweetest lullaby you could have asked for.

And hearing it in person was even better.

Surprisingly, Choso landed a kiss right to the top of your head instead of your lips, making you glad you could hide your undone expression in his chest.

No one ever kissed you there.

It felt so fucking nice.

"So do you" you smiled, looking up at him and his adorable red cheeks. "I like the hair" you winked.

Choso brought his hands to the place where the two buns usually would be. "It was Yuuji's idea" he murmured, seeming not completely convinced.

You could almost picture him standing there with that permanent pout while his younger brothers debated on his outfit.

Adorable.

"Tell Yuuji it was a good idea" you smiled.

"Maybe you could–um" Choso started to say, clearly catching himself halfway through. "I will" he said instead.

Always so bad at hiding what he was feeling.

You loved that about him.

Choso pulled the chair for you, settling on the one just opposite and extending a glass of wine. "Happy Valentine's day" he said.

"Happy Valentine's day" you echoed, clinking the glass that had been waiting for you on the table already.

"I got you something" Choso cleared his throat, looking for something on the spare chair next to him. "I hope it's not too much, but–"

He pulled a bouquet of red roses and a heart shaped box of chocolate bonbons.

Everything you made fun of your friends for wanting, but here you were staring at it like a lovesick fool.

"These are for me?" you reached for it, bottom lip bobbing pathetically.

"Yeah" Choso smiled, carefully handing them over. "It's Valentine's day, so…"

"This is so sweet, Choso" your voice came out all shaky. "Thank you"

"It's not too much, is it?" he checked, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Not at all" you shook your head sideways. "No one has ever…well, given me anything really"

"What?" Choso furrowed his brows, leaning forwards.

"Yeah" you nodded, too aware you didn't want to make a big deal out of this. "So thank you, Choso"

"Of course" he said, helping you put the gifts aside and reaching for your hand this time, that soft grounding touch you had missed all these days. "This is new for me too" he admited.

You gulped, pursing your lips to the side. "Why me?" you asked, hoping it wouldn't sound too desperate.

It's just that over the past few days, that was the question that kept popping over and over in your mind, making you second guess every kind word and nice gesture.

Why would anyone choose you?

And look, it's not that you were in some sort of self loathing pitying mindset. You knew you were smart, and kind, and beautiful.

But cursed.

Because you could accept that a few men out there were not very nice, but all of them?

The only common denominator there is you.

So it had to be you.

Right?

You were just cursed.

So why did Choso look at you like that?

And he looked like he was pondering it for a few seconds too, trying to find the right words.

And then he opened his mouth to speak.

"Have you seen yourself?" he asked, tone bewildered that you even had to ask that question.

And yes. You'd seen yourself. You were just surprised someone else had too.

"You really don't–" you stopped, taking a deep breath, interlacing your fingers together. "You really don't know what that means to me"

Choso dragged his chair to your side, bringing his free hand to the side of your face. He couldn't quite know what to say, so he settled on showing you instead.

With one hand cupping your cheek, he brought your face closer to his, lowering his body down for a kiss in the middle of the busy restaurant, not paying any mind to who might see or what they might think think.

And it made your heart skip a beat, the fact he was so open and honest about his affection. Choso's lips tasted just as sweet as they had before, a taste you so craved all through the last few days.

It settled something in you.

This was Choso making sure you understood how much it meant for him too.

"I really enjoyed tonight" Choso muttered hours later, holding both your hands in his, standing right on the spot where you had kissed good night a few nights ago.

Dinner had gone by too quick, every hour feeling like nothing but a second. You found yourself getting lost in him the longer you spent in his presence, the deep baritone in his voice pulling you in more than you ever thought possible.

Your first Valentine's day really was one to remember.

And you hoped all of it would be seered into your memory – from every stolen glance, every little chuckle you exchanged, every time you saw his cheeks flush when you teased a little too much.

It had been all you had ever asked for.

But now here you were. And it was about to end again.

Too soon.

It wasn't fair.

And what was especially not fair was the way his hands on yours made you feel, the way his face was so close you were practically begging him to kiss you already.

Was this the man you had been waiting for?

You so wanted to believe it.

If time showed you Choso was just like the rest of them, you'd probably just give up dating altogether.

"Me too" you muttered, swallowing to keep your composure, trying to not be too obvious.

The cold breeze signaled it was getting late as it encompassed the both of you, but it felt like your own little little pocket of heat when you were next to him like this. Choso looked so handsome up close, and you really took the time to pay attention to every little detail of that beautiful face as it smiled down at you.

Though your eyes struggled to leave his lips.

His plump, delicious lips that you knew tasted like heaven.

Why the hell were you still waiting, again?

"I'd love to see you again, if you–" Choso started to say.

But you couldn't take it any longer.

You practically jumped on the man, using the fact your hands were clasped together to pull his around your waist, finally leting go to cup his handsome face.

Fortunately Choso was as impatient as you were.

His hands gripped your back instictively, steadying you as he leaned forwards too, meeting you for the kiss you both so desperately craved. "Is that a yes?" he tried to ask, laughing as your teeth clanked and your tongues danced in a messy, desperate kiss.

"Yes, Choso" you confirmed, both of you breaking the kiss to laugh together. Your nails dug deep into his shoulders, bunching his shirt in your fists, so full of desire it made you a little self conscious.

But Choso's ragged breathing and flushed face suggested he felt the same.

Fucking on the second date wasn't too bad…right?

You couldn't quite decide when his mouth was on your neck like this, teeth grazing the sensitive tendon as you threw your head back to allow him in.

Had he been picturing this as much as you were?

You hoped so.

"Fuck, Cho" you whimpered, and Choso took it as a cue to effortlessly lift you off your feet. His hands were on your thighs, wrapping them around his waist and pressing your back right against the wall.

"I love when you say my name like that" Choso muttered, pressing his forehead to your collarbone, trying to catch his breath while holding you so impossibly close.

"You like that, Cho?" you teased, and his response was a guttural groan that had your thighs clenching around his waist.

Choso gripped your legs so hard they would probably bruise, rolling his hips against yours deliciously, making you feel every inch of the thick bulge in his trousers.

"Behave" he nipped at your earlobe, reminding you of the show you were putting on for the whole street.

You pulled back just a little, tucking his dark strands away from his eyes. "Do you want to come in?" you asked, biting your lower lip in a way he could barely resist.

Choso placed a gentle kiss to your cheek, breathing in your scent. "Are you sure?" he asked, brushing your noses together.

"I am" you smiled. You didn't think you had ever been so sure about anything. "Are you?"

Choso nodded, lowering you down gently. He let you turn around to open the door, but his hands never left your body – hugging your waist as his lips continued that enticing path across your neck.

At this rate, you weren't sure you'd even make it inside.

Once the door finally opened, you chucked your keys aside and pulled him in with a hand tightly wrapped around his thick forearm, giggling and smirking as you pulled your date towards your bedroom as fast as you could.

You flicked the lights on, already removing your jacket as Choso worked on his heavy boots. You two looked ridiculous – ripping layers off as fast as possible, unable to keep your lips from each other as your giddy, eager laughs filled the room.

You only stopped moving when Choso finally removed his shirt, revealing those tattoos you had been so curious about. His torso was defined and broad and perfectly sculped, veiny forearms working on removing his belt while you watched wide eyed, hypnotised.

His dark eyes turned to you, a curious glint gracing them. You were still fully clothed, having completely forgotten to finish the job once he was half naked in front of you.

Choso's smirk suggested he knew exactly what was happening inside your mind.

And then he slowly lowered down to his knees – eyes locked on yours while moving with intent, bringing his lips to your stomach as he started bunching up the fabric of your dress.

"Ch-choso?" you whimpered when his tongue found your bare skin, doing as he wished and finally pulling the dress fully over your head for him, leaving you only in your underwear.

"Yes?" Choso asked, thick hands stroking your bare skin, kissing your stomach open mouted and wet like it had been your mouth.

You weren't sure if you felt self conscious or not – no one had ever worshipped your body like that before. But your hands kept tangling around his hair, inviting him in, enjoying the motions of his head as it explored every inch of you.

And then he pulled away to look at you properly, staring at you from his spot on the floor below. "Fuck" Choso muttered, stroking his bulge with one hand as he used the other to continue his exploration of your body, feather light strokes like he wasn't sure if he was allowed to touch something so precious. "You're so beautiful" he muttered.

You really believed it when he said it.

Your hands pulled his hair slightly, shoving him back into your torso as he happily resumed the eager kissing. His mouth started trailing further south with each one, stopping right at the edge of your underwear as Choso inhaled your scent.

Two hands teased the bands around your waist, but his mouth was impatient, kissing your already dripping cunt over your clothes, tongue pushing the fabric aside to taste you properly.

He dragged it across your slit, humming in delight at your taste. And then he was dragging it upwards, exploring every inch, pressing firmly against your clit in a way that made you tremble.

"Oh fuck" you mumbled, losing balance, but Choso was right there to catch you.

He guided you to the edge of the bed, helping you sit down, your body already shaking with excitement. Choso guided your legs to open slowly, taking another good look at you and the wetness between your legs. His knees were still on the floor, trousers half undone.

You loved looking at him from above. At his pupils blown wide, some of your slick glistening on his kiss bitten lips.

So fucking hot.

Choso extended two hands, hovering unsure. "Can I?" he asked, reaching for your bra, waiting for your eager nod to unbutton it as fast as he could, finally sinking his head into your chest.

You closed your hands around him, like taking him in for a deep embrace. "You're so beautiful" Choso kept saying, closing both his large palms over your breasts, whimpering as his lips explored one nipple and then the other. "Fuck, thank you" he moaned, leaving little love bites all over you.

You couldn't help giggling at his eagerness, hands pulling his strands to force his face as deep into you as possible. Your hips rolled over the bed, desperate for stimulation.

Choso seemed to notice.

"Needy girl, huh?" he snickered, bringing one hand from your breast to in between your thighs, teasing over the fabric. "So wet baby –need to taste you again"

"Y-yeah?" you muttered pathetically, trying to fuck yourself back into his hand, as Choso let out a little laugh.

"Mmmh" he hummed, finally pushing the fabric aside, letting out a deep exhale when he fully touched your heat. "Want me to make you feel good?" Choso asked, finding your lips again.

"Please" you nodded, closing your lips over his, tasting the faint trace of you on his tongue.

Choso bit your bottom lip, drinking up your moans as he sunk a thick finger inside you finally. "So pretty when you beg like that, baby" he groaned.

His finger slowly pumped in and out of you, curling just right, as he pulled back from the kiss because he couldn't bear not admiring the way your face contorted in pleasure.

"Can you take one more?" Choso asked, practically drooling when you nodded yes and felt him stretch you further. "Fuck" he cooed, admiring how you adjusted for him. "Just like that, pretty"

His thumb reached over to rub at your clit, making your body jolt in surprise.

"Shh" Choso shushed, snaking his other arm around your back to keep you how he wanted you. "Let me take care of you"

His words were driving your insane, his touch even more so, head swimming in pleasure and drunk on the attention you so rarely got from past lovers.

If you knew he'd touch you like that, you'd have fucked him right there in that library on the day you met.

Your toes curled as his fingers did the same, touching you exactly where you needed him when your vision started turning blotchy and your moans louder. Your head fell on to his shoulder fully, as you tried to just relax into the unmeasurable pleasure.

"I'm gonna–" you tried to say, biting your bottom lip.

"Let go for me, beautiful" he hummed, enjoying the way you clenched around his fingers.

And then you did, body shaking with your release as Choso's fingers kept fucking you through it, little praises leaving his mouth as you came all over his hand.

You couldn't believe you had already had your first orgasm and he was still wearing clothes.

But Choso didn't mind it at all – if anything, he couldn't have been happier.

Once you finally came down, Choso softly lowered you fully onto the bed. "You ok?" he checked, kissing the side of your face, pampering you with caresses.

But "ok" didn't even begin to cut it.

You were in fucking heaven.

You wrapped a hand around his, bringing it to your lips as you smiled a lustful smile up at your date. Your tongue lolled out slowly, as Choso watched you wide eyed, waiting for what you were about to do. The tip finally came into contact with his fingers, licking the taste of you off him slowly, never breaking the eye contact.

Choso's mouth was open in a halfway oh as he watched you mesmerised. His fingers pressed against your mouth, asking for entrance as you gladly parted your lips for him, sucking on his thick digits fully.

"Fuck…" Choso exhaled, admiring such a lewd, gorgeous sight.

You quickly brought your hands to finish what he hadn't earlier, finally pushing his trousers and boxers out of the way in just one go, his cock practically jumping out.

Choso was long, overwhelmingly thick, and already leaking all over himself.

He let out a guttural groan when your hand wrapped around his length, stroking him up and down while your mouth still working on sucking his fingers clean. Choso lowered himself onto an elbow, hips moving with the motion of your hand, moaning at your touch.

"That–feels really good" he groaned, a hot sound against your ear.

You couldn't take it any longer.

With a quick movement, you pushed yourself over to stradle him. Choso brought both hands to your hips, watching as you hovered just over his tip, which was jerking and begging for attention.

He propped himself halfway up, kissing your mouth once more, thick veiny hands pressing you flush against him. A little ahh escaped your lip when he dragged your hips over his swollen tip, over and over again.

"You're ready?" he whispered, kissing along your jaw, breahting ragged in anticipation.

"Mmh" you nodded, tipping your head back and dragging yourself along his length once more, desperate for the friction.

"Yeah?" he bit his lip, the wait clearly driving him insane, but Choso was enjoying your need far too much. "Fuck, baby" he whimpered, coating himself with your slick.

Choso placed his hands back on your hips, slowly helping you sink down, taking his time for you to adjust to the stretch.

"Doing so well for me" he kept praising. "You feel so fucking good"

But you missed most of his words because you just felt so impossibly full.

You were only halfway in and the stretch was already maddening, your upper body falling against his chest as Choso caressed your hair, moving his hips in slow circles.

"That's it" he cooed, kissing the side of your head. "Take your time" he kept saying.

His words made you melt into him, and the more you relaxed, the deeper you felt him sink. Your hands were fisting against him, body struggling to fit all of him, but it just felt so fucking good.

"Cho" you mumbled, sounding drunk on him already – but his voice wasn't any better.

"Y-yeah, ngh, beautiful?" Choso whimpered, trying and failing to mantain his composure as the girl of his dreams was all slumped on top of him, stretching around him beautifully.

"I can take it" you whispered, unsure if it was even the truth but just needing to feel more of him. His response was two hands digging deeper into you, the back of his head falling back into the mattress as he took a deep breath in to get ready.

Choso started moving his hips then, pulling you up and down his length as he moved you effortlessy, using your body to pleasure you both as all you could do was moan out his name helplessly, begging him to go harder and faster and deeper all at once.

You were already a babbling mess and you had barely even started.

But Choso thought it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen – you trusting him like that, taking him like that.

So perfect for him.

It was such a tight fit you could feel every vein and ridge of his cock, body milking him with every thrust as you moaned out his name, his cock reaching impossibly deep inside you.

"Fuck" Choso groaned, turning the two of you around in a quick move so he was on top, rutting into you faster now that the angle allowed him to put all his strenght into it.

Your nails dug deep, drawing blood from his upper back, but neither of you noticed. Your moans were growing louder, more incoherent, begging him to let you come.

Choso's hands kneaded all over your flesh, needing to feel every inch of you, but as soon as those pretty words left your lips, he moved a hand to your neglected clit.

"You look so perfect like that, baby" he moaned. "Can you–fuck, come for me again?"

You kept nodding, feeling that knot deep inside begin to untie, not even caring about how loud you were being because Choso matched you in every way – breathing loudly, moaning out your name, whimpering with no abandon. His sounds drove you insane.

You were quickly coming undone on him, making a mess all over the sheets underneath as you reached your peak for the second time that night. Choso brought a hand to the back of your head as your body curved inwards, holding you against his bare chest.

The beating of his heart echoed in your ears, so loud and all encompassing as it carried you through your high.

Choso was quick to follow you, announcing he was about to come with a low groan, pulling out just in time to spill his seed all over your stomach. "Fuck, I-I'm sorry" he struggled to say, breathing hard.

"Don't be" you laughed, pulling him to come and lay next to you, not caring at all about the mess the two of you had made. If anything, you were glad for it.

Choso threw himself down and pulled you right onto him, cradling your body despite the mix of fluids and sweat. He kissed the top of your head repeatedly, rubbing your arms softly. "You did so well" he praised. "How are you feeling?"

Your response was a low hum as you further nuzzled into him, the most satisfied of smiles on your lips.

"Do you want to shower together?" he asked, softly stroking your hair. "If that's ok?" he added, like he had just remembered this was your house.

But his question almost made you laugh.

You had done that first part plenty of times, sure. With too many people who didn't deserve it.

No one had ever hugged you close after.

Le alone asked if you wanted to shower together.

You were almost not sure you weren't dreaming.

"Cho" you whispered, tightening your hold over him, needing to make sure he was real. "Can you promise me you won't leave?"

You hated how pathetic and small you sounded, but you couldn't help it.

You just needed to hear him say it.

Choso took a second to fully understand your words. And when he did, he immediately pulled you up towards his face, concerned eyes locked on yours. "Who made you believe I would?" he asked, tone stern, but not at you. Never at you.

It made your throat tighten, eyes welling up despite all your efforts to not ruin anything.

"Hey" Choso muttered gently, noticing the emotion in your face. "I'm not going anywhere" he whispered, dragging a thumb below your eyes to catch any tears that tried to fall. "Unless you want me to" he completed.

"I don't want you to" you shook your head, leaning into his hand as it cupped your cheek. "I want you to stay"

"Then I'm staying" he kissed your cheek, pulling you down again.

And maybe it would take you a while to believe it.

But you were glad to give it a shot anyway.

Something told you you wouldn't regret it.

"We should probably shower" you giggled, pulling a face at how messy you two were, the smell of sex filling the room.

"We should" he agreed, laughing with you. "Do you want to order some food too? I'm getting hungry again"

"Yeah" you said, voice strained at the thought alone. "We can do that"

Choso seemed very happy about it already, and you suspected he didn't even know how much something as simple as takeout and a shower meant to you.

Maybe one day it wouldn't be such an unusual thing.

Maybe one day this could be routine.

But one step at a time.

Right now, you were happy to just be here.

Celebrating your very first Valentine's day.

a/n thank you so much for reading! this story really took over my life for a bit, and i'm so excited to share it finally. wishing you all a wonderful valentine's day <3

permatags @septembermoonchild @plaguecxlt @nanamitiddiechomper @kekeanna266 @amazedfor @dogggggggblog-kaye @literallyadarling @dawnsoblivion @chewiebee @iquitfindingausername @vampyric-puppy

The following month was more than cold. Winter stole away Japan's long awaited spring in your heart. Shrouding it in frost and slowing it to a dull squeeze.

Whatever. You didn't need a heart anyway. Didn't have one. Your brain was all that mattered so it was what you put to work. Thrust it into overtime with your nose buried into books and your eyes drowning in equations.

This was your time to focus. Chase those dreams and leave the fantasies behind in the dirt. It wasn't easy, of course. Satoru was still your boss.

His eyes were still naturally drawn to you in meeting rooms. His tongue still remembered each endearment when he'd thank you for bringing him paperwork. You'd made it a mission to avoid him.

Because maybe then you could forget how the same hands that scribbled out theories on a glass whiteboard were the same hands that caressed you. Tender, rough and anything you wanted them to be. Maybe then you could pretend that the same voice giving announcements and directing orders was the same one that whispered to your ear. Lulled you to sleep or teased you to squirms.

Maybe. Just maybe. You could wrest all the memories into your palms and squash them with that same clinical coldness you've always known. But every time you tried— they bloomed. Like a flower through the cracks of snow. Warm. Taunting.

So you decided to uproot it. Force spring back since your heart was so insistent. Plant a new garden with new flowers. New memories. With someone new.

Hiroshi was right up your alley. Someone new. Loud, and boisterous and not chained by the academic curse. A little disorganised. A little everywhere. But he certainly was new. Younger.

Your age.

He was nice. Or at least, he tried to be. Probably just a little airheaded with a lust for life rather than the future. Live fast, die young. That's exactly what you needed, right? Someone to get your mind off of the ghost haunting it.

Sure, he was a little messy. But most guys were, weren't they?

Satoru wasn't.

Yeah, he made you split the bill every time you went out. But that's a fair expectation, isn't it?

Satoru wouldn't.

And sure, maybe he was a little inconsiderate when it came to your body. But you shouldn't expect him to put your pleasure first, right?

Satoru would.

Spring locked away in the depths of your heart and winter reigned supreme. No matter how hard you tried to wedge Hiroshi into the open wound left in that pesky organ, it was hopeless. He was but a peephole in the crater that Satoru's absence left within you.

Whatever. You were just making excuses. Of course being with someone your age after months in the bed of a man who was double it was going to be a whiplash.

You're overreacting. You just needed to adapt. Give Hiroshi a chance. You liked challenges after all, didn't you?

That's why you're here now. Florescent lights skittering like the thrilled bodies bouncing all around. Bumping and grinding. Drunkenly dancing to the beat blaring from vibrating speakers. The music crumbled with static at the corners. Too loud. Too bass heavy. Too everything.

Parties were hardly your scene. At the end of the semester most of your friends fled their homes for a night on the town— while you readied your markers and colour-coded the next semester's planner.

But instead of schedules and highlighters, your hand occupied a red solo cup. Still brimming. Barely touched. The very plastic itched your fingertips. You still reeled from the bitter taste of bear on the back of your tongue. Curled in when you remembered how much skin the shimmery mini dress exposed. Another thing Hiroshi insisted on.

Your eyes flitted through the sea of heated bodies and dazed dances. Feet glued to the floor and a weight strung on your tense shoulders. Relax, Hiroshi had told you. Let loose and enjoy the party life for once.

He had called you a hermit. Rolled his eyes and gave you the silent treatment when you first denied him. So here you were now, with your boyfriend one-too-many cheap drinks down and his arm heavily wrapped around you. Swaying to whatever beat of whatever song you couldn't even recognise as he chatted— or rather, shouted— to his equally as wasted friends.

Go with the flow. That's all you did nowadays.

Their laughter pierced your ears and jostled you back to the overstimulating reality as one of Hiroshi's friends pointed his almost-finished cup at you clumsily.

"She's a pretty one huh 'hiro?"

For the fourth, disgusting time that night, your boyfriend hauled you in and smashed his lips to yours haphazardly. Smearing the bitter taste on your mouth and sludgingly sucking on your tongue until you'd shove him off again.

"Mhhm, she sure is," he slurred. Carelessly squeezing your ass in spite of his tittering friends. You squeaked. Shot him a small glare, but still tried to smile.

Hiroshi only tugged you further. Grinning with glossed-out eyes to his friend. "Wanna try?"

You thought it was joke. Hiroshi always cracked terrible ones. But when he nudged your side and gestured to the guy's eyes who lit up— your hand braced his shoulder.

The protests died on your tongue. So you shook your head. Hoping the little gesture would usher them both off, or at the very least get one of the other guys to tell them to knock it off.

But Hiroshi only huffed. Wrung you closer and snatched your jaw. "C'mon babe don't be like that. 's jus' a kiss."

You shook your head again. This time with some violence. "Hiro I don't wann—"

"Don't be a bitch."

He wrest you forward. Squishing your face hard between his fingers. Your hip cramped under the hand of his friend who stumbled forward. Mouth opened. Heavy for yours.

The surge of panic took hold. Your foot slammed on his. Elbow jammed into Hiroshi's side. You utilised the nails you had to manicure with your own damn money after the bastard went back on his promise and clawed until you shoved them both off.

"What the— fuck!" You hissed at Hiroshi whose face went red.

Crack!

You stained it redder.

Smacked your hand straight across it and shoved one more time until you were stumbling on your heels. Ignoring his slurred hollers and the jackal laughter of his friends as you pushed through the crowd.

Ears ringing. Heart racing. You scampered into the thick sea of heat and pungent booze. Flashing lights blinding. Music deafening. But you managed to stumble out of the blasted place.

The crisp night air slapped you in the face. Was that spring's lingering chills or the winter inside of you that spilled out?

Heart hammering. Maybe your mind— nope. Scrambled too. Fuck. Not a good combo.

You're not sure which of the two made you snatch your phone despite shaky hands. Heart, mind— brain, soul— who fucking cared anymore. Your thumb jerked through your contacts and jammed the bottom of the list.

Against the curtly renamed Mister Gojo.

You barely heard the call's ringing with the cotton stuffed in your ears. Once. Twice. Thrice. He usually picked up on the second ring. Now you're on the forth.

You should hang up. What were you thinking? It's been months—

"Hey."

The night air had nothing on the way that voice rasped with tiredness froze you to the pavement. Drawled with ungodly hours in his lab, you're sure. He was probably on his way out. You could picture him. Still in his lab coat. Rimless glasses shoved in his tousled hair.

"Been awhile since you called me, sweeth—" his caught the slip of his tongue. Cleared his throat. Maybe rubbed the tiredness from those heavy blue eyes. "Need something?"

"Satoru."

Miles apart and still, you felt him go stiff over the line. His name was a tremble on your lips. No last name, no titles, no honorifics. Just a shaky, raw, Satoru.

"What's wrong?" He asked quick. Wide awake.

"Please come get me." You bit back tears. Sucked in a sob and locked eyes with the concrete. "I— I'm sorry. I just need you to come get me pl—"

"Sweetheart, where are you?"

The gentleness of his voice, the seriousness of his question and the tenderness of the nickname strummed a deep ache in your chest. A sob finally cracked into the line. "Sent you the location. Please come get me."

"Sshh, it's okay. Coming to get you right now okay? Stay where you are."

You yearned to stay on the line. You're sure he wanted you to as well. But your shame swiped the end call button and you stuffed the phone back into your purse. Hands clinging to your elbows as you slumped back into the bricks.

The minutes droned on in your spiralling mind. Replays of tonight's events and several other offences tallied. A miserable repeat of the last few months and all the bullshit you endured with Hiroshi. All for what? Your insecurities?

While your heart was put to some ease, shivers still crawled goosebumps up your arms. You shuddered. Hugged yourself closer as your dress shimmered in the moonlight. What the hell were you even doing in an outfit like this in the middle of spring?

Ah, right. Your boyfriend— soon to be ex— told you to ditch the jacket. And of course you fucking listened to him.

You attempted to rub the goosebumps away as you leaned against the bricks. Limbs pressed into each other as you contemplated the ridiculousness of it all. You're here, in a dress that barely covered your ass, with cheap booze on your tongue and your disgusting boyfriend's kisses on your lips. Haunted by the incessant replay of whatever happened back there with the cold biting into your—

Warmth chased the winter. Wrapped around your shivering body in leather and the scent of familiar cologne that eased your muscles. Your fingers instinctively clamped around the dark jacket as you huddled into its comfort and the strong, embracing arms that came with it.

"You okay?" A voice murmured against your temple.

Your gaze snapped up. Tears flooding the second you met those soft blues behind rimless glasses. Satoru stood before you. His height and shadow shielded you from the horrors inside. Brows knitted and mouth pulled in a frown. His jacket hugged around your quivering form and his arms as your refuge.

You choked on his name. Melted into his warmth. Knees ready to give out as you shook your head and tried to stifle a response.

"I just—"

"Hey! The hell you doin' with m'ah girlfriend?"

The drunken slur stiffened you in Satoru's embrace. Your hands gripped on his biceps as Hiroshi staggered over. Eyes glazed and hands balled. Sporting the nasty hand mark you left on his face.

Satoru didn't need any explanations.

Soft blues sharpened into ice. Cut over his glasses and struck Hiroshi where he stood. His arms tightened. Voice steeled.

"Get lost."

Your hands fell to his shoulders as he crouched down. Fingers unclasping your heels and slipping them off of your aching feet. He paid no mind to Hiroshi who wobbled forward with his finger pointing and face flared.

"The fuck are you?" His slurred voice raised. Satoru hardly flinched. Hooking an index into your heels while his forearm braced around your waist.

Hiroshi shouted.

"D'you have any idea who the fuck yer talking to?"

Not a wince. Not even a blink. Satoru scooped you up into a princess-carry and jerked his head to the drunkard. Staring down his anger with a cold warning and hard glare.

"Do you?"

Maybe it was the way in which he didn't have to raise his voice. Or the blizzard that brewed in his pale eyes. More than a threat. A dare. A dare for Hiroshi to put his money where his mouth was while Satoru's got your teary face tucked in his chest.

"I won't tell you again. Fuck off if you know what's good for you." Cold and crisp. Satoru held you closer and turned heel on the gobsmacked Hiroshi. Leaving him a statue in the winter while you were tucked into the warmth of a car you missed so dearly.

He set your shoes down and clicked in your seatbelt, before shutting the door and rounding into the driver's seat. Not a word. Not even a glance. As the engine stirred and for the first time in months— you actually felt safe.

The car ride stewed in silence. Street lights glinting through the window you fixed your stare to. Despite the warmth that both protected and caressed you, winter peskily crept on your forearms and tugged at your heart again as the adrenaline faded.

You were here again. In his car. In his jacket. Next to him. You called, and he came. Your mind tried to face it with logic. You were a young woman and Satoru, for all his theatrics, had morals. Of course he'd come for you.

But once more your whispering heart, damn her, told another tale. Repeating the reality that he was here. Not for obligation or ethics. Satoru was here. He came because you called.

Your mind scrambled while your heart sung. Some hopelessly romantic lyric about how she knew he'd never forget her.

After forever and half, he didn't shatter the silence, but nudged it.

"What did he do?"

You steeled it. Tucking further into the seat and hiding your stiff shoulders in the jacket. His jacket.

"It's fine."

No tongue clicks nor breath hitches. Just the small flex of his fingers on the steering wheel. A tiny crack in the cool display he held. Yet not a single followup.

Your shoulders eased again. Satoru left you be for the time being, but you knew that wouldn't last. Not with the way he stared unblinking at the windshield. You'd deal with it when it came. For now, you sunk into the familiar seats and let him drive you home.

For someone who would poke and prod as to why he needed such a lavish penthouse if he lived alone— you missed the marble floor and grand glass wall that overlooked Tokyo's neon city.

His home wrapped around you the second he carried you in. Lights turning on as he stepped into the living room and plopped you onto the large, comfy L-shaped couch. You almost reached back for him as he withdrew.

He rounded over to the open kitchen and filtered a glass of water before returning. Placing it in your shaky hands as his eyes scanned your curling form.

"Want something to eat?" He asked.

You shook your head. Not that it mattered as he still ventured back to the kitchen and opened his pantry. Pulling out ingredients for a ramen your slowly rumbling tummy remembered well.

Classic Satoru. Always so insistent that you take care of yourself or he'd do it for you.

The familiarity of it all ached your chest. Just a few months ago this would have been routine. Him taking you home after a busy day at the institution to cook you a warm meal. You, in his arms or his lap. Snuggled up on the couch or his bed. Comfortable. Safe. His.

Now? The walls felt like they were staring through your soul. Chastising you. Why did you ever leave?

Because you had no other choice.

That's what your mind said. Your heart promptly rolled her eyes. You ignored them both in favour of the water. Sipping on the rim and chasing the memories of his fingers brushing against yours when he'd handed you the glass.

You drank— more like gulped— the water down quicker than expected. Was that the adrenaline residuals or your rattling nerves? You weren't sure.

As the rich aroma of crushed garlic and simmering chicken broth caressed your senses, your tense shoulders sagged. Reminded you that you were safe. What were you doing? Hiding from a man who probably got three speeding tickets just to get to you?

Steeling your resolve and shoving the nerves deep within your gut, you stood to your feet. A tremble still in your knees as you cast a hesitant glance over your shoulder.

Satoru was focused on the rhythmic dicing of his knife. A few strands of his white hair dangling before glasses that slipped down the bridge of his nose. He didn't exchange looks. But his rigid shoulders told you that he was acutely aware of every move you made. Including your glance-turned-stare on him.

Drawing a breath and ushering your anxiety, you stepped into the kitchen. Just like old times. Walked right past him and set the glass in the dishwasher. Like it was normal. As if it hasn't been months since your bare feet felt the cold marble while he cooked for you.

As if it hasn't been since forever and a half that you felt his stare between your shoulder blades.

You thought you'd grown accustomed to being his eyes' favourite. Satoru was never one to curtain the windows to his soul. Now, they felt like a conviction rather than a comfort. Condemning you to this prison of tension you subjected the both of you to.

"So, are you gonna answer my question?"

His mouth was more of a prosecutor than his gaze was.

"I told you I'm fine."

And your tongue, ever the defendant. Sharp and quick from years of academic debates. Unfortunately for you, Satoru loved a challenge just as much. He wasn't Hiroshi. But he was your mirror. A part of you hated him for it.

Hated yourself for the way your heart stuttered as he set the knife down. Cleaned his hands and turned to you. Hated your knees for their wobbles as he observed the far cry of your usual demeanour.

Those convicting blues dragged their judgement down your body. Tracing every tremble, every jitter, every terrible attempt to assure that you were fine and not a quiver away from shattering like porcelain on his dark marble floors.

"You're shaking."

Damn scientists. Their very livelihood was to be observant. Look for patterns. Determine conclusions. And your physicist was expertly experienced in every formula of your body.

You couldn't meet his eyes. Frightened of the theories you might find swimming in the blue. So instead you cowered your stare to the counter. Clenched your shaky fingers and fell back on the only thing you had when your pride had been crushed.

Defence.

"You weren't supposed to bring me here. I have a home."

"Deflecting doesn't look good on you."

"I'm not deflecting."

"Could have fooled me."

His audacity willed your stare. You snapped your head back to him. Daggered your glare and so desperately tried to gulp down the venom. But it was a lost cause. Satoru and you were two sides of the same coin. Him the mirror and you the cracks. You the gasoline and him the match.

"What's your problem?" You hissed.

"You're asking me that?"

"I called you cause I needed help. Not a lecture."

"And I'm not trying to give you one." He closed space. Leaving just a gap, but towering over you all the same. He stared at you over his glasses. "So drop the attitude won't you?"

You taut. Festering a retort on your tongue. Burying your heart for the sake of your scrambling mind— only to stop once you saw his eyes. Really saw them.

There was no conviction. Only concern. Deep, drowning worry as they softened at the corners and he drew a long breath, then exhaled. His shoulders sunk.

"Just. . . tell me."

You shouldn't.

You really shouldn't.

But the soft warmth of his eyes unclenched your heart and eased your vocal chords. There was no helping it.

"He. . ." you started. Sighed. "I wasn't even supposed to be at that stupid party. He got drunk. Tried to get me to kiss his friends. I didn't wanna so he—"

You should have stopped. The second you saw frost creeping back into his stare.

"He. . . tried to force me. So I hit them. Ran off. And now we're here— completely fine. Absolutely fine."

You huffed out the last part and clung to his jacket. Fine. Sure. Fine didn't search for comfort in leather. Or quiver in the knees just from recounting the night. Fine didn't sound shaky like you. Nor did it look like damp lashes and pursed lips.

Fine. You were anything but fine.

The softness cracked into a blistering winter. Satoru's gaze frosted over. But then, he chuckled. Nothing warm. Nothing humoured. He shook his head and pushed his glasses into his hair.

"You really know how to pick 'em, huh?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

You retorted instinctively. Bristling as he turned back to the counter. Snatching the knife and taking his frustration out on the cutting board. Muttering a string of boys and your generation.

You weren't sure what it was. Probably the overwhelm. Probably your mind reeling and your heart squeezing. Probably the disapproval that flickered in his stare. But you spun to him. Irritation wrinkling your face and tongue sharp with accusation.

"Yeah, well. At least he's in my generation, huh?"

Satoru was always fast. For some unfair reason he was blessed with both brains and brawn.

The small of your back pressed to the counter's edge. His body trapped yours. Cornered, but not uncomfortable. Even as his brows narrowed and his jaw set tight as his face invaded yours. Frustration etched in the lines of his eyes and the strain on his mouth.

"He wouldn't know how to treat a good girl if she was standing right in front of him."

He grunted.

"I'm not a good girl."

You gritted.

"You were mine."

His achingly tender retort stopped your heart and mind. Focused on the sharp softness of his voice and the gentleness of his knuckle that brushed your cheek.

He was your mirror. It was only natural that your gaze mimicked his. Even if all logic urged you to stand firm. Logic. You didn't need logic right now. All you needed was. . .

"Gojo." You hesitated.

He hitched. "Don't."

As he pressed a thumb to your cheekbone. Not a demand. Not a scold. But a plea. A soft, breathless beg.

"Don't do that to me. Please."

"We can't."

"Because I'm holding you back?"

"Because I'm too young for you."

You spilled. He stiffened. Thumb stopped on your cheek as he stared into your eyes. Your mind reeled. Pulled and tried to lock away that pesky organ. But your heart burst at the seams. Heavy. Hurt.

"You need someone your age—" she wept. Clenching your chest and choking your words. "Someone you can settle down with. Someone that can understand you. Someone that's not—"

He cupped your face. Stifled your whimpers as his forehead pressed to yours. Firm. Tender.

"Don't you dare." He quaked.

You quivered. "It's true."

And so his kiss silenced you.

But surged you all the same.

Months of beer-riddled and lazy smooches steered you to kiss him back. Lips eager to feel the softness and sureness of his. That guiding force that left a sore in your heart. Now comforted by the tilt of his head. The cradle of his hand at the back of your neck.

You melted. Unravelled. Into his strong arms that always caught you. Drowning in the delicate kiss simmering into a passionate caress. Your arms looped around his neck. Dragged him closer. Begged him not to leave. One of his hooked on your waist. Drew you in. Promised you he wouldn't.

You cursed air. And every biological function that needed it. That resulted in both of you having to part from the suffocating need of your lips on his.

For a moment your eyes locked. Breaths bated. Hearts synched.

And then he yanked you back in. Just like you tugged at him. Air be damned. The mere atoms of space between your lips too. Your mouths crashed into that familiar, raw wreck. That collision of white, hot stars.

The shatter of galaxies. That's how he always described it. You'd laughed at him back then. But now you understood it. Deep in your fluttering heart as his fingers threaded into the milkyway that was silky hair.

The arm on your waist slipped down to scoop you up into it. Settle you on the counter as his hand dropped from the back of your head to switch off the stove. Muscle memory, much like the way he mouthed down your neck and smoothed his palms to your waist.

A tremble in his fingers. A fear in his touch. He breathed.

"Tell me what I can do."

And you bled. Oh, you bled.

"Everything."

He groaned into your pulse. Bundled you against his chest and stepped over to the couch. Splaying you out like his sweet treat and object of his worship. The jacket fell from your shoulders. His lips traced over them while certain hands hiked up your dress.

Spaghetti straps gave out to his sharp teeth. Dragging them down to reveal more of your skin to him. To appreciative eyes that awed like you were his idol. The entity of his every desire and very devotion. His mouth made sure to praise. Hot and heavy on your breasts. He savoured their warmth beneath his lips. Caressed the undersides. Stroked and kissed on your firming nipples.

The shudders rocked your hips up against his. Bare thighs kissing his pelvis and drawing another groan from the depths of his chest. A large hand found your hip. Cupping the bone and guiding you, as he always did. Steering your needy grinds into him.

"God, sweet girl." He panted in his pathway to your stomach. "You're shaking."

His hands slipped between your thighs. Spread them apart with shivering strokes. His lips joined them in mellowed kisses.

Your fingers delved back into his hair. Drawing him up against your pelvis with a shaky: "Please."

"Shouldn't have to beg for anything baby. Where'd you learn that from?" His kisses flared. Hot against your panties. Mouthing on your slit to indulge on the whines from the back of your throat. That's right. Satoru never let you beg. Pretty girls don't have to beg, they simply deserve, he'd tell you.

Deserved to have his face stuffed against your sweet cunt. Deserved his wrecked inhale on your scent and his deep groan rattling into the fabric. As he tongues on the damp spot in the cotton. Sucking on your slick through your panties as if not even a smear of your sweetness could be wasted.

He dragged the waistband down. Eyes dilating as your glistening cunt glimmered in the reflection of his pupils. Tender, yet eager thumbs brushed your folds back with a low, drawled:

"Hi there, sweetheart."

And then suffocating smooches down your slit. Spilling some of your wetness that he caught on his tongue. He licked his lips and groaned. Deep and throaty into your quivering cunt. "I know baby, I know."

He crooned. Like he was shushing your pussy and assuring her with strokes. His warm hands splayed on your thighs and squished them between his finger gaps. Heaving you into his hot, awaiting mouth.

His tongue flattened at the bottom of your slit. Dragging a long, filthy trail up to your clit. White lashes flitting with his fluttering eyes. Like he was high as he suckled on the trembling nub.

"So sensitive. Fuck. You been neglecting her?" He slurred.

"Not me." You whimpered.

Satoru huffed through his nose. Squeezing your thighs as he tucked his mouth closer. "Guys your age just don't know how to treat her right." He grunted as his tongue swished on your throbbing clit. Circling and laving while his chin ground into your slit.

You spilled for him, and he relented on the blushing bundle. Chasing kisses down your cunt and stuffing his face back into it. Hands clamping on your ass and squishing as you squeezed around his head with pitching moans. Grinding on his rabid mouth that worked on you wildly. Hungrily.

Filthy slurps and wet squelches be damned. He feasted on your sweet pussy with sucks, and suckles, licks and laves. Drunk on the sweetness you'd deprived him of. Addicted to the velvet.

He groaned. Loud and wrecked. "Fuuuckk. Missed this sweet pussy. Missed her s'much." He drooled. Parting to watch you quiver as his firm fingers tapped meanly on your clit. Buzzing the bud and shivering your slit into more spills. Probably soaking the couch in a puddle of your slick and his saliva.

You broke into whimpers. Bucking into the friction and choking on his name in the hot air riddled with the smell of sex.

"Mmm. And it looks like she missed me just as much." He husked a chuckle. Shooting you a wink as he tucked his head back between your thighs and lathered another long lick to your drenched pussy.

Once more, his face buried. Flushed into your gushing centre and working his tongue and mouth frantically. From sucking on you folds, to fucking you on the pink muscle. He shook his head. Nuzzled into your wetness. Slurped and suckled and spat all over. Wringing that knot tight and hot in your gut as he gulped on your musk.

You clung to his hair like a lifeline. Fingers tight on the white strands as you steered your hips into his face. Smearing your mess all over it. Not that he minded— not with the way he groaned pistoned his tongue into your dripping pussy.

"Cumming—" you gasped. You couldn't remember when last you'd said that. When last release had been in clear sight.

Your grip tightened. Fear trembling your fingers. Fear that he'd pull away. Leave you stranded. Fear that it was all just some yearning dream to begin with and you'd wake up in the brutal reality in which you were still not his.

"Cumming— S'toru. . . fuck," you whined. Praying to the stars and whatever divine being that science proved otherwise. For this to be real. For you to be here. Cumming on Satoru's face after months apart.

His thumbs dug into your thighs. Fingers latching you closer. His mouth smushed against your cunt as he drove you through the release. Evert messy tongue flick on your clit like a filthy declaration: I'm here. I'm here I'm here I'm here, just cum for me.

Your nerves flared. Tummy clenching with your cunt. Tight and trembling until the knot finally snapped— and you wept. Shaking in the flood of heat and toe-curling pleasure. Shivers surging up your spine and tossing your head back.

"Satoru," you moaned. Raw, weak, wrecked. Clutching his hair and riding his face that ground into your spasming cunt. Tongue working overtime to gulp down your sweetness and ensure not a trace of your cum was wasted.

Whining. He was whining. Nuzzling into the mess as your body flopped back on the couch. Tears pricked at your eyes, and still, you tried to watch him. As he rode out your high and eased the pleasure into a tender simmer.

"Atta girl," he groaned, throat bobbing. He lapped up the stickiness and traced its strings back up our thighs. To your tummy, chest, until he finally crashed back to your lips.

His tongue shoved in. Clumsy for someone as experienced as him. You weren't the only one brought to your knees in these few months, and it showed in the urgency of his kiss. In the mumbles and groans. One taste of your pussy was the only hit he needed to be addicted all over again.

Your mouths moulded. Tongues tangled. His glasses fell back over his face and fogged with your heated breaths as he kissed you into the couch. Hands groping and squeezing whatever he could while yours slipped down.

Despite your high and shaky thighs, your hips bucked up. Grinding your sopping, oversensitive cunt against his bulge. His cock hot against the fabric and throbbing into the way you smeared all over his crotch.

A groan caught on your lips together with his teeth. Hands clamped on your waist to guide you into a heated hump. A needy rhythm of his clothed cock against your little clit.

You had always been impatient. And he always urged that you took what you wanted. Your fingers fumbled with his belt. Haste in your hands as you ripped it open and shoved his pants down. Eager to pull his cock from his briefs without a second to waste.

It felt bigger as you palmed him. Heavier. Or maybe you had gotten too used to whatever Hiroshi was. He didn't have veins like Satoru. Didn't crook to the side from the sheer weight and size. Didn't blush all pretty on the tip as you rubbed your hand up and down its long length.

He kissed you harder. Sucking on your lower lip as he pressed your head back into the cushions.

"Greedy girl."

He groaned.

"Thought I was your good girl?"

You giggled.

"Always my good girl."

He braced your hips and effortlessly hauled you up. Flopped you into his chest while he fell back into the couch. Your thighs naturally straddled his lap. Like magnetic poles with an intense force buzzing between you both.

You flushed into him. Hopelessly rubbing your sticky slick all over his pulsing veins. He grunted. Grabbed your thighs and angled just right so that his cock could wedge between your folds. Dwarfing your little cunt and reminding her how she struggled and stretched whenever he was balls deep.

Shivers poured into your kisses as he glided between your soaked folds. Mouths meshing and teeth catching as you both familiarised your heats. Rubbing all over in some sort of lewd greeting as he caught your clit and you throbbed against that prominent underside vein.

"Still remember how to ride it?" He mumbled as he forced himself to part from your lips. Blue eyes shaped in hearts with the clear want to chase after the string of saliva strung between your panting mouths.

It snapped as you chewed your lips. Hands steadied on his broad shoulders and re-familiarising the toned muscle. You flushed into his tip. Pussy pulsing on his pre-cum.

You managed a nod. Locking eyes with him as your nails scratched on his skin. It was a moment of heat. Tension. A hundred words sparking in the gap, but only one action needed.

Satoru guided your hips. As he always did. Squeezed assurances into them as his tip prodded through the first ring of resistance. Then the second. Third—

You clenched. Cunt and jaw. Sucking air between your teeth and curling tight on his arms. He mirrored your hiss. Brows pinched as you pulsed around him hard. He groaned from the back of his throat.

"So fucking tight."

His thumb fell to your clit. Rubbing slow circles under callouses he developed from years in the lab. "My poor girl. Look what you did to her. She's so neglected."

His tongue clicked. Before his lips pursed and he spat. Aimed for your clit as his thumb swirled to the beat of its throbs.

You whined at the friction. Hooked your arms around his neck again and sunk your hips further. Focused on the deep thrum of his cock and the strain of your poor, spasming pussy. Eager, or rather impatient, to feel him in his entirety at last.

But it seemed Satoru had other plans.

He clasped your hips tight. Squeezing them in his big hands and locking them from dropping any further. The protest died on your tongue when his deep drawl caressed your ear.

"Eaasyyy baby." Another squeeze. Another breath.

He guided you down. Bit by bit. Inch by inch, with his hips slowly nudging into yours. Dragging you down gradually. Agonisingly. Until you were fully seated on him.

At last, you felt it. Every thrumming vein. Every twitch. Hitch. The bumps and curves of his cock that you woke up in cold sweat over. Now surging heat deep into the hum of your quivering pussy.

You hid into his shoulder. Muffling your whines and whimpers as your arms sagged down his back. Fuck. You felt so full. So terribly stuffed as you desperately tried to adjust to his size again.

Maybe rutting would help. That's what your impatient hips told you as they rocked against him. Needy and grating. A pitiful hump into his lap.

You knew better. So did he. So he steeled your hips again and pressed a comforting kiss to your temple as you whined. It simmered your patience. But not the heat. Deep and swirling in your tummy.

Your breaths became his for the moment. Pants and huffs exchanged. As if you both needed a second to check reality. Understand that this was real. Two scientists, frightened that your meshing atoms would melt away into a cruel dream.

Satoru made the first move to prove otherwise. Rocking your hips into strokes. Long and slow. As he pulled you up his cock and sunk you back down. Dragging the sticky strings and snapping them round his base with each drawl.

"Gotta teach this pussy how to take me all over again," he huffed. Leaning back into the couch so that his eyes could drown in yours. But the blue was indecisive. Flitting between your heated face and your spilling cunt.

He watched you. Adored you. The way he stuffed you to the brim until your pussy trickled round his girth. The way your thighs quivered in his hands. How your lips festered his name and breathed it into the thick air.

The sway became familiar. Your muscles moving in memory as your rocked with his hands. That gradually loosened as you fell back into step.

Even with the struggle, it was no use. Your body was hopelessly his as his was yours. The rhythm came naturally. Just like how your cunt thrummed on that underside vein and milked it perfectly each time you sank back down and swirled your hips on his balls.

His head fell back. Silky strands spread out on the backrest of the couch as he his deep groans spilled. "There's my girl." His touch roamed. Cupping your ass and squishing it as his hips finally joined yours in fervid rolls.

You found solace in his hair once more. Gripping the back of it as you both matched the rhythm. Pace desperate and moderate as the couch creaked beneath the consistency.

The fire returned. Hot and burning between your exchange of movements. Satoru's face limped into your chest. Burying into your bouncing breasts and sucked hickies around your nipples.

Your cunt poured. Slicking up your laps and slipping him easily in and out of you now. Diving him deep, deep, deeper— so that his cockhead smooched your cervix and his balls flushed your folds. Your clit caught on his pelvis each time. Grinding it into quivers. Into pitiful little moans as your mouth fell open.

"It's so deep," you whimpered. "So good."

"Yeah? Better than that loser?"

Abruptly, his hips snapped. Hands yanking you down and humping on the tight muscle. Frustration bleeding into every filthy grind as your nerves bristled.

Head tossed back. Spine thrown into an arch from the sudden intensity. Maybe it was the neglect. Or the sheer need for him. But white clouded your vision and your voice pitched in that slutty tone as you crumbled into yet another orgasm.

Quicker than the first. Messier too. You limped into his chest as you fell back onto your pathetic attempts of ruts into his lap. Whining and babbling his name incoherently as you spasmed in the flood of heat.

In your delirium you hadn't perceived the chord of Satoru's control. Wound tight and thin, until it— snapped! with your warm release drowning him.

"Fuck." He sneered.

It was quick. Brutal. He wrest you into the couch until your back hit the seats and your sweaty skin stuck to the leather. He shoved deep inside of you as strong hands seized your knees and yanked them with him. "Can't believe you let some fucking punk touch this."

A kiss seethed to your knee. Before he tossed both over his broad shoulders.

"Can't believe you let him neglect it."

His hiss merged with a feral, wet shmack! as his hips snapped into yours. Driving his cock in a precise, sharp fury. Skin smacking against skin as wetness strung and snapped in strings between your soaking thighs.

He fucked a pitched cry from your bobbing throat. Your hands shot out to tug at the tuffs of his white hair as he shoved you into the sofa and chased the spasms of your cunt in hasty, heavy thrusts.

Mouth hot and filthy, Satoru spilled a mixture of degradation and praise. Calling you his pretty slut and whorish good girl in husked pants and deep groans.

The couch joined the wrecked symphony. Creaking loud and pitched. Nothing compared to the whines caught at the back of your throat as his hips made it their mission to leave bruises on your thighs. Leave a dull, satisfied ache in every nook of your cunt so that you woke up feeling him. Remembering him. Him.

Haughty hands hot with hostility snatched your ass. Squeezing the fat between the gaps as he hauled you in and fucked you at just the right angle. Just the right crook. So that he ground and hit a devastatin bundle that sent your glossy eyes and damp lashes fluttering back.

"Sat—toru!" You croaked.

"That's it. Mngh. Don't you ever forget it again."

A feral fever rumbled in his voice. Deep and throaty as he dragged his teeth into your shoulder. Egged on by your choked whines and strangled gasps. Eager to remind you that you didn't need some young jerk when a guy twice your age could pummel your pretty pussy into his expensive couch.

His balls slapped on your puffy folds. Round and throbbing as he grunted into your pulse through the pitiful clenches of your cunt. He chased another orgasm. Yours. You were always first. He'd make you cum twice, even thrice, before he decided to stuff you full.

"You're gonna fuckin' cum again," he ragged, lungs burning as he spilled that fire into your ear. Trapping it between his teeth as his thrusts grew cruel. Drawn-out and deep. Hammering into gooey bundle until your toes curled and your cunt splashed around him.

"You're gonna cum again. Cum on this cock. Show me it's still yours." He huffed. Pistoning from the tip to the base so that you felt every inch of that same cock that was gonna have you creaming.

And then, in the haze of pleasure and the peak of highs— your ringtone cut through the musky air.

Satoru barely slowed. But he tossed his head to the side and stared at your phone vibrating on the coffee table.

The name Hiroshi with a little red heart nearly had the same effect on him as it would a bull. Swirling his mind hot with anger and throbbing the back of his eyes.

But through the glare and grunt, he grinned. "Well. Look who it is."

Voice still drawled even when it deepened. Cooed like the fucking devil as he easily snatched the device and swiped the answer button before your bugged eyes could so much as clear. He gripped your face. Squishing it into his knuckles as he pressed his panting mouth to your ear.

"Show him whose good girl you are, yeah?"

Your mind hazed. Heart hammering. You could barely process what Satoru was even talking about. Even after that grating voice crackled over the line.

"Babe? Where the hell did y—"

"Angh!"

Satoru slammed. All the way. Heavy and hot and oh so suffocatingly deep. Pounding your poor pussy into the soaked couch and pummeling you to weeps and whines. Shallow and hard as his thumb wretched to your clit. Shattering your conscious and throwing both your head and back into a filthy arch.

"There ya go baby," he grinned, feral. "Sing it for me. Whose pussy 's this?"

"Satoru— S-Satoru—! Toru, toru hngh, 's yours!"

He jerked back. Hands clambering on your waist. Steeling them with his strong fingers and yanking you down onto each thrust. Every brutal fuck into your squelching pussy. Loud and clear down the line, he's sure.

He didn't care. You didn't have the capacity to.

All you could was whine. Toss your head back and claw on the slippery leather as Satoru made sure the loud, wet claps battered down the line. Made sure your boyfriend—

No.

Made sure that your fucking ex knew that it was Satoru stuffing this sweet cunt. Him drowning in your cum. Him hammering on a spot Hiroshi couldn't even dream of. Until your eyes rolled back and you tongue drooled. Until your body cramped and your voice sobbed oh so prettily for him. Until—

Your walls squeezed and spasmed. Your mind numb and heart soaring as your body locked up. Higher— and higher— until your nerves burst into a blistering heat and your head swam with white, feverish pleasure.

A filthy squirt sprayed all over him. Cunt squelching and squealing as his balls slapped it messy and his pelvis ground your clit until it spasmed.

"Fuuckk, so my girl still remembers how to squirt for me?" He laughed. Loud, boisterous and breathy.

He threw a grin to the phone. Heard cyrstal clear like your sopping pussy over the line. "You hear that? Her pussy's finally gettin' it good. So just fuck off already."

Bink.

The line died. Not that Satoru was paying attention. Not that he cared. His blue eyes were blown out and focused on one thing and one thing only— his pretty sweetheart gone limp and whining beneath him.

His gaze glossed over. Jaw slack like some animal as his thrusts pounded on autopilot. Like it was simply engraved into every muscle to know how to fuck you into a trembling, teary mess.

Satoru knew your tells. Knew the shakes and the quivers. Knew that your poor little body was frazzled with overstimulation and still reeling from the nasty squirt you messed him with.

"Can't," you croaked. "I-I can't, I can't toru!"

"Of course you can," he grit. "You're my girl. Course you fuckin' can."

His hand tucked beneath your hair. Not to tug it. But to cradle. Holding the back of your head as his hips ached into your shaky ones. He nudged you to look up at him. Meet his panting huffs and whiney breaths as he fucked himself dumb on you too.

"So perfect—" he strained, eyes fluttering with yours as he pushed you both higher. Devastatingly. Agonisingly. "So perfect. So mine. Cum—" his throat bobbed.

"Cum for me. Cum with me. Hah."

All babbled and broken as he smashed his lips back into yours. Colliding those hot and heavy stars as you tugged on his hair and he tethered to your waist. Drowning and strangling on each other's moans until the collision cracked into a ruinous wreck and your orgasms crashed like nebula.

Your heats crushed. Merged. Your pussy gave out in pitiful, milky bubbles. His cock spurted and frothed. Spraying deep and hot as he lathered up your cervix the same way you did his balls.

Whining. Gasping. His bit on your lip and you gulped down his noises. Desperate and clumsy in fumbling rocks and grinds of your hips. Riding out your highs until the heat simmered into an aching warmth and all you could do was hump uselessly.

Hazed, Satoru sucked on your tongue. Panting hard as he spluttered whispers into smudged kisses.

"I missed you. Missed you. I missed you— I love you. Love you. I fuckin' love you."

His weight collapsed into yours. Trapping you into the sofa and melting into your warmth. His chest heaving with yours as the adrenaline sizzled off into a calm stir.

You were stiff. Mind still. Heart frozen. As you contemplated his babbles.

I love you.

Your breath thinned. Had you heard wrong? No. You didn't. He'd never said that before. Never spluttered it out no matter how hazy he fucked the both of you.

You stewed on his words. That familiar, aching fear climbing up your gut and wrapping around your heart as his hammered into your chest. It beat for you. It loved you. This was bad. So very bad.

But it was your mind that eased the storm. That steered your arms to wrap shakily around his neck. That urged your heart to bring your lips to his temple in a kiss.

In a tender whisper.

"I love you."

As your face buried into his shoulder. And your heart mirrored his.

As you allowed yourself to want. To dream. Of you and him— him and you. Even if just for the moment.

© 𝒔𝒘𝒆𝒆𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒊𝒔𝒎. no plagiarism or ai training authorised. divider: @/cursed-carmine. art cred: @/baobei-bu