saetiate

There's another chuckle above you and a myriad of flowers bloom between your ribs.

Karasu's touch is gentle enough that the movement feels almost entirely your own when he brings your head up to face him. Or maybe you'd already settled in that comfortable space where your entire being relinquished control to let him care for your wishes and desires.

"There's my sweet girl..."

His thumb tugs at your bottom lip for a moment before he leans down to press a tender kiss first to your lips and then your forehead. You still cling to one of his muscular legs, knowing now wasn't the time to be chasing his lips.

Karasu smiles in that gentle way reserved only for you where his lips barely quirk up but his eyes crinkle oh so fondly. One hand remains cupping your cheek, thumb moving back to rest atop your bottom lip while the other hand strokes your hair.

"Something ya want sweetheart?" The glint in his eyes spell trouble when he croons at your little hum but doesn't take action. Your sweetest pout does nothing to him today, nor does his resolve falter when your doe eyes gaze pleadingly at him. "Use your words and tell me."

There's no point arguing, and despite the frustration at having to verbalise it, the action of speaking it into existence somehow making your desire all the more vulnerable, you oblige.

"..can you help me relax?"

Relief spreads like rings in water when he doesn't make you specify how nor scold your lack of manners. Instead, Karasu pushes his thumb between your willing lips, the pad of his finger settling on your tongue while letting you adjust to the weight.

You, however, waste no time closing your lips and bashfully rubbing your tongue against the digit. Shortly after, Karasu starts moving slowly as well, dragging the pad of his finger back and forth along your tongue in controlled movements.

There's just enough pressure that swallowing becomes almost impossible, and little drops of drool begin to gather at the corners of your mouth. The moment they leave your lips to slide down your chin, Karasu's free hand moves from atop your head, swiping the moisture from your skin and bringing his fingers to his own mouth.

Heat pools in your stomach, but the main focus is how quiet your mind has gone, nothing but the sensation of his fingertips exploring your mouth to occupy your head. You faintly catch the sight of him adjusting the sizable bulge in his trousers, the dark spot staining the fabric indicating that more time has passed than you'd realised.

But Karasu doesn't stop you, doesn't rush you along or coax your willing lips towards where he clearly aches. Instead, he brings your cheek back down to rest atop his eye, stroking your chin while replacing his thumb with two fingers instead.

A soft moan escapes when he carefully brushes against the back of your throat, a soft shudder running through your body. His fingers become covered in saliva within a few thrusts and the glide against your lips become easy once more.

The movement is slow and repetitive, letting you suckle and lap at his fingers as you please, no longer caring to hold back when drool threatens to slip out or your hips try to rut against nothing.

It'd taken long to let yourself give up control at first, but by now it was second nature, knowing it pleased him at least as much as it did you. But letting yourself be unravelled by Karasu had been worth every shy conversation and nervous laughter, your shared space now a place of quiet trust, vulnerability, and safety for you both.

"Mm.. want more.."

Karasu smiled once more, leaning back to part his legs further, the hand on the back of your head constant but obsolete with how eagerly you moved forward to undo his belt.

“Tendou, you don’t need to. There is only one possible person you could be referring to and they like you. I have eyes and ears, and an uncanny ability to walk in during conversations I shouldn’t be a part of,” Ushijima says, voice drifting off in memory.

“You really think she likes me? You’re not just playing with me? Wait—conversations you shouldn’t be a part of… what does that mean?”

“One—yes. Two—no. Three—I’d rather not say.”

“Oh c’mon!! You can’t leave me hanging like this! Was she talking about me? Nah, no way. Not unless it was to complain about how weird I was the other day… fuck, I still remember her face when I said I wouldn’t mind licking the chocolate smear from her cheek. I meant it as a joke, I swear!”

“We both know you did not mean it as a joke.”

Satori winces, cheeks warming at being caught in the lie, and by Wakatoshi no less. “Not so loud!”

“I wasn’t being loud…”

“That wasn’t… never mind,” he says, knowing it was a losing battle to try and teach his old friend about modern terminology. “So, do you think I should ask her out?”

“If it means you stop talking my ear off and moping around the place like a lovesick puppy, yes. This is not my area of… what’s the word?”

“Expertise.”

“That.”

“… I should have called Semi.”

“On that we agree.”

“Just you wait, oh great and powerful Ushiwaka, your day will come where your heart does a funny little dance every time you lay eyes on someone and then you’ll know exactly how I’m feeling right now.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

you could have just sent him the address, but if he’s lucky, you’ll forget to turn it off in the morning. if he knows where you are, it’s almost as good as trusting you.

he’s a hypocrite, he knows, spinning the wheel with one hand and scrubbing the other over his jaw roughly. you make it okay, though.

you’re standing next to some guy with his shirt unbuttoned, smoking a cigarette, when suna pulls up.

“that’s him,” he can hear you say, shouting even though you don’t need to. the music isn’t too loud with the club closed for the night. “that’s my boyfriend. isn’t his car cool?”

a sour look on his face, the guy holding the cigarette nods. suna rolls down the window and says, “thanks for watching my girl, man.” his smirk is greasier than it needs to be.

“anytime,” says the guy. suna gets the impression that he’d slash his tires if he could.

you, uncaring of the havoc you’re leaving behind, climb into suna’s car with a big smile and plant a sloppy kiss on his cheek before settling into your seat. when the window’s up and he’s peeled away from the curb, it slips a little.

“sorry,” you say, not exactly looking sorry. “i didn’t want him to hit on me.”

“i get it,” he says. “it’s okay.”

it’s not. he wants to be your real boyfriend. you want it too. for reasons both incomprehensible and perfectly understandable to both of you, it can’t happen.

“i’m sorry,” you say again. “did i wake you up?”

“nah,” he shakes his head. “i was already up. the twins,” he doesn’t have to finish his sentence.

“oh,” you say, “how are they?”

you and the twins don’t get along. the last time you’d met, atsumu had said you’re probably going to marry that witch, and i’m boycotting your bridal party.

“fine,” he says. “they were wasted. osamu tried to make me sing karaoke.”

“i think you have a nice voice,” you protest a contention he’d never made. he doesn’t respond, just watches the night lights of the city blur past him, the white lines guide his wheels straight and true. “i like it when you sing to me.”

“i’ve never sung for you.”

“you did! you sing in my shower, every time you stay over. you don’t do it when you’re home.”

“that’s not singing to you.”

you give him a look like, sure. he turns up the aux. you hum, a little out of tune with the bass.

“there are things i want to tell you,” you say, and when he glances at you out of the corner of his eye you’re staring straight ahead, carefully avoiding looking at him. “especially like this. for plausible deniability. but then i don’t want it to come out messy.”

“you can be messy,” he says, and watches you not believe him.

“but i want to be clean. for you. i want,” you grind out. this happens, sometimes, too. you sound like you’re going to tell him that you love him and your tones says that you hate him for it. “i want you to not have to take care of me. i want you to be happy. so happy.”

“i’m happy.”

“but—” the words choke and die in your throat. “like. um. you know what i mean.”

“i really don’t.”

you flinch into looking at him. he has an eye on the road, he swears, but your hair is plastered to your forehead in places and your mouth is bitten red and you look pale with terror, the prettiest thing he’s ever seen every time he sees you.

“i’m your pistachio,” you burst out, like that makes any sense at all. “did you—have you seen that?”

“huh?” is all he can really articulate. he’s scared, too, he hopes you know, it’s why he can’t put his hand on your knee and reassure you, why he can’t say he knows what you’re saying because you turn his world upside down, you make it so he doesn’t know anything he should.

“it’s like—” you press your palms to your eyes, your mouth moving but not making words for a second. “flavors. you want something classic and familiar like chocolate, but you kind of want to try something new like pistachio, and it turns out you like pistachio too, but you still wish you’d stuck with chocolate.”

“uh.”

“fuck, never mind,” you say. “fuck.”

“okay,” he says.

it’s just a few turns left before he’ll be at your place. he knows it like a homing beacon is lit up at the top, can find it from anywhere in the city. you lived a lot further away when you first met; you had to text, hey, i’m in your city, if you wanted to do this. he’s not totally sure you didn’t move to be closer to him.

“i mean,” you make a low noise in your throat. he hopes it’s not sore tomorrow. he hopes you didn’t smoke with that guy, because then it definitely will be. “i know you weren’t single when you met me.”

his foot comes off the gas for a second.

“it was already over,” he says. “it wasn’t, like, because of you. fuck. who told you?”

“she told me by the second time we saw each other. or, well. it doesn’t matter. she hadn’t moved out, though,” you point out. “it wasn’t—that was why—rintarō.”

there’s only one turn left. suna thinks wildly of turning the other way, of taking you back to his, of driving into the sunrise so you’ll never get out of his car.

“i’m sorry,” he says honestly. for what, he doesn’t know. he couldn’t atone if he spent the rest of his life doing it, so he doesn’t even want to list his sins.

you make a frustrated noise. “that’s the thing. i don’t care. i was mad—when i found out, because you didn’t tell me, because of course you didn’t tell me. but i don’t care. i wouldn’t have even if—i can’t even say it, but it’s true. isn’t that fucked up? aren’t i fucked?”

he shakes his head, pulling up to the curb a little harder than he needs to. the car jolts. his back hurts a little, a sparking pain like a bushel of lit cigarettes pressed into it.

“that’s why,” you say. you’re talking faster now. both of you know you have to go, but you don’t. “it’s bad, but i don’t care. i—please. do you get it?”

“i do,” he says, and every confession made tonight hangs between you like stars about to implode. “i—yeah.”

“yeah,” you exhale. “sorry. fuck. bye. i promise.”

you wobble as you step out of the car and he remembers that you’re drunk, that the cards are all here, spilled all over his lap and into the footwell. he puts the car in park and rushes to steady you before you can fall.

“it was worth it,” he says steadily. “if you remember this—i want you to remember that. i really—you made my life better, every time you touched it.”

“i’ll remember,” you say quietly, putting your hand on his face. “don’t worry.”

he gives you a look like, sure.

“come up,” you say. “if it doesn’t matter to you. it doesn’t matter to me.”

you turn his world upside down; this means that it matters more than anything else ever could.

“you can kick me out in the morning,” he says, voice a dry rasp.