#kimiko fluff

The dim light of the safehouse filtered through cracked blinds, casting long shadows across the worn couch where you, Frenchie, and Kimiko had collapsed after another chaotic day dodging Vought's goons. Your body ached from the fight, but the warmth of their presence soothed the tension. Frenchie sprawled on one side, his arm draped lazily over your waist, while Kimiko curled against your other side, her head resting on your shoulder. The air smelled of gunpowder and Frenchie's cologne, a mix that had become oddly comforting.

Frenchie chuckled softly, his fingers tracing idle patterns on your hip. "Mon amour, you were fierce today. Like a wildcat with claws." His accent wrapped around the words, making your skin tingle. Kimiko lifted her head, her dark eyes sparkling with agreement. She signed quickly, her hands moving with graceful precision: You saved my ass. Again. Then she leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to your cheek, her lips lingering just long enough to send a spark through you.

You smiled, turning to kiss her back, your mouth brushing hers in a gentle exploration. "Team effort," you murmured against her lips. Frenchie watched with a grin, his hand sliding up to cup your breast through your shirt, thumb circling your nipple until it hardened. "Oui, but now… we celebrate, non? No more running tonight. Just us."

Kimiko nodded, her fingers tugging at the hem of your shirt, pulling it up to expose your skin. She nuzzled your neck, teeth grazing lightly as Frenchie shifted closer, his breath hot on your ear. "Let me taste you first," he whispered, his voice rough with want. You arched into their touches, the exhaustion melting away under the heat building between you three.

Frenchie captured your mouth in a deep kiss, his tongue sliding against yours, demanding and playful. Kimiko's hands roamed lower, unbuttoning your pants and slipping inside to cup your pussy through your underwear. She rubbed slow circles over your clit, drawing a moan from you that Frenchie swallowed hungrily. You reached for him, palming the growing bulge in his jeans, feeling his cock twitch under your touch.

They worked in sync, a rhythm honed from countless nights like this. Kimiko peeled your pants down your legs, tossing them aside, then hooked her fingers into your panties and yanked them off. She spread your thighs wide, settling between them, her breath ghosting over your exposed folds. Frenchie stripped off his shirt, revealing the scars and tattoos that told stories of his wild life, then helped you out of your top, his mouth latching onto your breast. He sucked hard on your nipple, teeth nipping just enough to make you gasp.

Kimiko dove in without hesitation, her tongue flattening against your pussy, licking from your entrance to your clit in one long stroke. She hummed in approval, the vibration sending jolts through you. You threaded your fingers into her hair, holding her close as she sucked your clit into her mouth, her fingers parting your lips to delve deeper. Two fingers pushed inside you, curling to hit that spot that made your hips buck.

Frenchie groaned, watching her eat you out. "Putain, she's so wet for you, chérie." He freed his cock from his jeans, stroking himself slowly, the thick length hard and leaking pre-cum at the tip. You reached for him again, wrapping your hand around his shaft, pumping in time with Kimiko's thrusts. He kissed you messily, then pulled back to guide your head down, pressing your lips to his cockhead.

You opened wide, taking him in, your tongue swirling around the underside as you bobbed. He tasted salty and musky, filling your mouth as you sucked. Kimiko's pace quickened, her fingers fucking you harder, her free hand pinching your thigh. The dual sensations overwhelmed you—her mouth devouring your pussy, Frenchie's cock sliding deeper into your throat.

You came first, your walls clenching around Kimiko's fingers as waves of pleasure crashed over you. She lapped up your release, not stopping until you trembled. Frenchie pulled out with a wet pop, his eyes dark with lust. "My turn to fuck you," he growled, flipping you onto your hands and knees.

Kimiko knelt in front of you, shedding her clothes quickly—her lithe body bare and inviting. She spread her legs, guiding your face to her pussy, already glistening. You licked her eagerly, tasting her sweetness as Frenchie positioned himself behind you. His hands gripped your hips, and he thrust in with one smooth motion, his cock stretching your pussy wide.

He pounded into you relentlessly, skin slapping against skin, each drive hitting deep. You moaned into Kimiko's folds, your tongue flicking her clit while she ground against your face. Her hands tangled in your hair, pulling you closer as she rode your mouth. Frenchie's pace faltered, his breaths ragged. "Gonna fill you up, amour," he grunted, slamming harder.

Kimiko shattered next, her thighs quaking around your head, juices coating your chin as she came with a silent cry. The sight pushed Frenchie over the edge; he buried himself deep, cock pulsing as he pumped hot cum into your pussy. You followed again, the fullness and friction tipping you into bliss.

He pulled out slowly, cum dripping down your thighs. Kimiko pulled you up, kissing you deeply, tasting herself on your lips. Frenchie wrapped around you both from behind, his arms encircling you in a warm embrace. "Perfect," he murmured, nuzzling your neck. Kimiko signed Love you both with a sleepy smile, her head on your chest.

Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.

misattributed to Plato.

Once Kimiko signed to him that she’d just shown him every word that she could remember on the spot, Frenchie sat there, signing hello, Kimiko; hello, Kimiko; hello, Kimiko over and over again, with the female woman just laughing silently, before she gestured, you can still speak! to him.

And of course he knew, he’d been doing it for months at that point—talking himself hoarse to a soundless, yet so earnest answering-machine—but Frenchie wanted, no, craved to see her smile for just a little while longer, and swatted his forehead, clumsily signing along his murmuring of, »ah, what an… idiot I am, non?« 

His smile widened a bit, »Or do you just enjoy my voice so much, mon cœur?«

She only needed to shake her head to tell him no, and though it was logical to say that the shaking of head had been the first sign they’d shared (long before she taught him gun, of course), it felt as if it was the first time Kimiko had told him something she didn’t mean. The first time she used sarcasm, the first time she joked. Deliberately, just for the fun of it.

It meant more to Frenchie than he could put to words, at that moment.

»Ah… you hurt me, mon cœur,« Frenchie teased, hand on his hammering heart, head dropping low to his shoulders, which Kimiko pushed back up immediately. Keep speaking, she signed. 

»And here I was, thinking that we would now commute in absolute silence. Like a secret, you know? Between us…« 

Frenchie pointed to Kimiko, »you, mon cœur,« and to himself »et moi.«

It’s better this way, Frenchie read from just Kimiko’s facial expressions alone this time, his eyes getting lost in the white tiny dots that the cheap, broken lamp bulb on the ceiling of the even cheaper motel room casted into her dark eyes. Little stars, Frenchie thought, and had to hold himself back from asking her what the signs for ›little‹ and ›star‹ were.  (He would ask her later, when they’d sit under the night sky again, Kimiko with her neck craned up, Frenchie comfortably smoking a cigarette with her smile as his view.)

»Oui, of course… I understand. I was just kidding,« he said instead, shifting on the edge of the bed, leaning back into his hand, really holding back on stroking that thin, black strand of hair tickling her nose behind her ear. It was a habit—he was still a rottingly romantic French man at fault—that he’d forced off from himself. Not only for Kimiko, but for every woman he encountered ever since getting out of custody. Maybe it was a form of self-punishment, to deny him the joy of flirting, but also, he didn’t want to know what kind of love-ridden chaos he could create for himself if he continued. 

Which wasn’t to say he didn’t feel like groaning like a disgusting man, when Kimiko tried and failed to pick up the hair from the middle of her eyes, her face straining into an expression, as she did so. He knew, by now, how strong she was, how perfectly capable she was to snap him in two like she could pull apart a thread of hair, but it was something so grossly human in Frenchie, the part of him that wanted to muse sweet nothings into her ear and find her wordlessly red, which wanted to believe that even Kimiko couldn’t withstand the touch of kitsch—a meaningful, gaggingly cheesy touch.

»You got it?«, Frenchie snickered, when Kimiko rolled her eyes in annoyance, huffing and nodding.  

»Mon coeur, sometimes,« Frenchie began to grin, unable to help himself. He lifted his hands from the mattress to start saying you… look, but both worlds of words suddenly failed him. She definitely wouldn’t like being called cute, if she didn’t even like his smitten stare earlier, so Frenchie had to find another word, but at the same time, the male also realized he had no idea how to sign it. They’d only come so far.

»Actually… how do I sign this?«, he asked, »Do you have a sign for adorableness with your brother, mon cœur?«  

Her eyelashes fluttered a little bit, trying to remember, but also trying to process that Frenchie had called her cute in the same sentence.

I, she said, and paused adorably, stammering in her movements, don’t remember.

But there was sadness in her eyes, which made his gaze soften with guilt to have asked to begin with. By forgetting a word in her signed vocabulary, she was forgetting a part of Kenji as well—damn you, Bansky!—and once Frenchie realized that, his heart pumped some more blood into his brain to make him think, and think fast.

»Well, in that case, we can create the sign ourselves, huh?«, Frenchie asked carefully. »We could, ah, expand your language a little bit. Or you teach me some more, and maybe you will remember; your choice, mon cœur. It has been a long day, I will understand either.« 

Kimiko thought for one, two, three seconds, her gaze lost on the green carpet floor. She was still in mourning, and Frenchie needed to respect that.

»Bon, actually, there is no need,« he murmured quietly, almost whispering to the Japanese woman, »to decide today. We take it…« His fingers went up, gesturing, one—by—one.  

»Non?«

She wasn’t convinced, or distracted yet. His thoughts continued to roll, and his shoulders went up, his eyebrows lifting to crinkle his forehead in an attempt to catch her attention. 

»I suppose, we will need to create signs for our friends too,« he said, his weight cautiously shifting towards her, their elbows grazing each other. »Monsieur charcuterier, Mother’s Milk, Hughie? Oui, for Petit Hughie and Madame Annie, too! And, uh… even for our enemies, huh? Homelander, Vought… All of those… rotten assholes.«

Frenchie looked over his shoulder, as he continued to sign asshole; asshole; asshole to Kimiko with both of his hands, shaking them to make a point. Middle finger up, hand around it. It was very easy to learn. Asshole; asshole; asshole; asshole, he signed, and it was like spamming her inbox, or at least it was Frenchie’s desired effect for Kimiko to grin and put his motioned rambling on hold by wrapping her fingers around his wrist. 

»I mean, maybe it will be enough,« he joked, »but very obvious if we start to show the middle finger everytime Butcher walks into the room, hein?«

She giggled noiselessly, nodded once. Frenchie’s eyes widened in hope.

»You agree? We… make our own signs, expand your and Kenji’s language?«

Another nod—a heavy weight being lifted off Frenchie’s chest. One of these days, he was going to have to think about replacing some of his drugs with the racing feeling of success every time he made progress with Kimiko. He was a man weak to addiction, craved being guided, chasing fulfillment of all forms. Even if it was by the simple desire to feel; right now, at the dawn of the moon outside the small window, Frenchie felt so many things.

(Too many things, for a relationship to stay platonic. It was a fool's errand to hide it, but in this business, keeping a secret was your first qualification, anyway.)

»Magnifique,« he sighed in fizzling excitement, nodding, before he shifted again, stretching to turn off the nightlight, ready to give poor Kimiko some good night’s rest. »But, the hour is very late. We should go to sleep. Good night, mon cœur.« He signed, sleep well.

But she tugged at his sleeve, before he could flip the switch, and started to sign again.

What does it mean, he deciphered.

»Sleep well?«, Frenchie answered in a question, praying that he got it right. It was the sign she’d taught him in the same run of teaching him I am hungry and I am tired, and he’d figured that those were sentences her brother and Kimiko used most often, even at a place such as Shining Light.

What does it mean, he deciphered again, what you said?

»I say a lot of things, mon cœur,« Frenchie chuckled self-deprecatingly, getting his legs up the bed again, watching with intent, as Kimiko moved her hands in no particular order, but just to allude to something like that! That!

»Do you mean… ›mon cœur‹, mon cœur?«, he smiled, tilting his head just the tiniest bit, and was met with an enthusiastic nod.

Phonetically, she signed, mong ko-aer, and now mimed how she seemingly searched for it on her phone, with no result.

»Have I really never explained it to you?«, Frenchie asked, his eyebrows knitting in. Kimiko shook her head—he’d started calling her that name right away, the first time the Boys had found her, in that basement. He must’ve been double the enigma, some funny-looking guy with a funny-sounding tongue, calling her funny, ridiculous things.

»Wow, I am truly appalled by my own impoliteness,« he huffed, making a gesture by shaking his head to scold himself, hand on the middle of his chest. »Pardon,« he nodded his head down in regret, and the female nodded as well, though rightfully expecting an answer to her question.

»I will tell you: ›Mon‹ means ›my‹,« Frenchie began to explain, »the French have a fetish for gendering, much like the Germans, but, uh… remember ›my‹, and…«

He blew out air from his lips, now coming face to face that he’d been a cheeky, cheesy little bastard (as he’d likely hear from a certain Brit) since the very beginning. But Kimiko was listening so attentively, Frenchie couldn’t possibly withhold this information any longer, even if it meant being a shameful sweet-talker. Her expression was unreadable to his love-blinded eyes, and he was afraid he was doing it again— expecting that she was this pure being— but it also wasn’t like he couldn’t think it, not at this moment, when she was watching him so diligently. 

»Forgive me, if it sounds so patronizing, but… ›cœur‹, ah… it means… heart.«

Kimiko drew a fist, and bumped it to her chest. 

Heart.  

»You’re okay with it?«

My, she signed, both hands, heart, thud, with one, her smile growing into her cheeks, as was Frenchie’s.

»My heart, oui. You’re mon cœur, Kimiko,« he whispered, not even noticing that his fingers were curling around his shoulder, his warm breath ghosting over her nose. If she leaned in closer, Kimiko would be able to hear his heartbeat knock out of his throat, out of his open lips. It was a body reflex, an imperative of his nature, but Frenchie fought against it by leaning back, and distracting his hands by signing my heart, with the bump on his chest hopefully calming down the indomitable storm inside. 

My heart; you; make; my heart; speak; words; I don’t remember.

Kimiko’s demeanor softened, started to sparkle again, making him lost, again, and Frenchie heard her gulp, saw her breath quickening. It was simply too much. She’d understood most of his vocalized entendres until now, but as her gaze flickered from his thick, clumsy fingers, to his yearning eyes, Frenchie couldn’t trust himself anymore. This went above simple flirting now, and he forbade himself to indulge.

My asshole, he signed, and the vulgarity of his sudden motion made the female snort. My asshole; gun. Kimiko swatted him, her broken breath catching at the back of her throat. Hands raised up to say something like— what the fuck?

»Not good?«, Frenchie grinned. »Why? Why not? It is true. I should not even be in the vicinity of pizza rolls anymore.«

The female rolled her eyes— another universal sign that Frenchie didn’t need to question, and finally reached over again, to rest his fingers on the light switch over the nightstand.

»Tomorrow, mon cœur,« he whispered, »you can teach me the words, oui?«

She tilted her head. Confusion.

»Any word,« Frenchie answered, »I want to know what words you say to yourself, when the world is most silent. I want to know of your dreams.«

And then, the selfish bastard turned off the lights. 

(You’re so 🧀, Kimiko informed him via SMS two seconds later.)

notes: hi! i wrote this immediately after binge-watching the boys, and though i am well-aware that tumblr is mostly a place for reader-insert fiction, i was curious about how this'd go here. :-)

anywho, an hour or two of coke-snorting content makes me realize i don't want to give this show and its associates any more support, but uhhhhh ignorance is bliss, right? ignoranceisblissignoranceisblissisignorance--ah, well. there's two parts to come after this, and i hope you can maybe enjoy this little series either way!

i hope you have a nice day. ♡

To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring; it was peace.

Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

Frenchie and Kimiko lay arm in arm, the female’s face cuddled up into his armpit. It's become a ›thing‹ between them a long while ago, most importantly in the hospital, where Kimiko dealt with the fear of breaking her bones for the first and last time. But the warm embrace does not act only as a sign of protection, it now also is a sign of love.

There are four, tight walls around the two which today they call home, with some cheap, but still as equally homely lamps they bought from the thrift store casting a comfortable orange hue on them, the blanket they stole from their former HQ keeping their intertwined bodies warm, and a cheap TV murmuring smart words to a scenery of green (since Frenchie still doesn’t do well with utmost silence—ironically enough). It is not much money that they paid to live in these conditions, but the crushing affection Frenchie feels for the woman breathing into his chest, it is priceless. 

The point of time for their small domesticity could frankly not be worse, they both know that, but when Kimiko starts to sign do you think Butcher, and Frenchie shuts her down by kissing her scalp with soundly pecks, he finally understands.

He tells Kimiko, with a kiss to the center of her forehead, don’t think about him. Don’t think about anything right now, mon cœur, and repeats the last two words, mon cœur; mon cœur; mon cœur continuously down her neck, until he hears her small sigh of defeat, the thud of her hands dropping down to the blanket. His arms tighten around her back, his forearms press into her flesh, and her fingers begin to caress his waist in idled patterns. No clear direction, no signs to be read, only the warmth of trust to be felt in the heart.

It is so little, Frenchie concludes, as he buries his nose behind her ear and closes his eyes, that is recipe for peace. 

In another circumstance, Frenchie might’ve called it ›putain de bêtise‹ (roughly translatable into motherfucking stupidity) but at this moment, he can’t think of anything other than the sweet, addicting notion of bliss. Happiness in its purest, most innocent, selfishly stupid form; the very contradiction of how the greatest thinkers of old, ancient times, or war-scarred writers would’ve defined it, but Frenchie can’t find himself caring. 

He could be ashamed of himself either way, for it is such a… boring scene he provides. It is not an ice-cold, herby glass of Pastis by the blue shore of Marseille’s most beautiful sites, with hot summer rays glowing down on their sun-screened skin, nor is it the highest skyline NYC can offer his moon-struck lover to gaze upon, while he tells her you are my little star with only his hands and his crescent smile.

No. Instead, it is a nameless place of two momentarily nameless people holding each other like they have so many nights before in a dingy apartment that only provides them the roof above their head and a crack of sky hiding between other buildings, only to fall asleep with a male voice narrating la nature in the background, and wake up in the morning with some white women sharing some tricks and other bits under forced laughter.

It is a pleasure so fragile. So incredibly fragile in fact, Frenchie’s heart could sink deep into his chest any second, if he lost a single thought about the days and deeds that inevitably follow the string of their future actions. Even now, sugar-rushed on Kimiko’s heavenly warmth, he can’t deny how his eyes lurk to their metal door every time he’s reminded, looking out for any potential danger. That is just their life, and it likely will be the end of it. A part of their daily that he has accepted, and Kimiko has accepted too. The fight is never won, and Frenchie can’t grow another limb. He can’t grow another pair of lungs, even if his last breath depended on it. Their time is limited, that is the truth of life.

And yet, they afford to bore each other. Above the passionate debates about men unable to change their minds, the endless musings of escaping from it all, of living a life that doesn’t take another’s, Frenchie and Kimiko treat themselves eternal, by simply taking a rest. Rest that goes beyond ›not giving a fuck‹ about supernatural disasters in form of blonde man-babies, killed presidents and betrayed friendships. It is rest in the form of dirty dishes in the sink, unwritten poems of hungry hearts, rest in the form of a hug that whispers, your existence in my arms is enough.

»C’est le paradis,« Frenchie murmurs into Kimiko’s ear, breaking the silence that both of them stopped counting the minutes for. It could’ve been hours of holding each other, a lifetime, and tomorrow, they’d do it again.

Pa-ra-di, Kimiko’s fingers echo, syllable for syllable from what she understood, and asks, what is that?

»Ah,« he chuckles, and it’s when he realizes the two of them have to freshen up their signed vocabulary. It’s been a while—they’ve gotten too used to SMS these days.

»Paradise,« he repeats, in English, and shuffles a little bit on the bed, to free his arms for movement. »You’ve heard of it, no, mon cœur?«

Kimiko nods—she has. Probably from Annie, on her boozed up, Christian ramblings, or… America. 

»What does it mean to you; paradise?«, he asks, slipping a bit higher on the pillows, resting his shoulder there, and Kimiko takes the cue to turn around, her back pressed to his chest, her curves against his curves like the petals of a blooming flower. Now, they can talk better. 

Nothing much. Sometimes it’s mentioned in music. Gun and rose, Frenchie reads, but quickly realizes, ah, no, Kimiko means to say, Guns N’ Roses. 

»Oui, I think I know. ›Paradise City‹, huh?«

Yes. But I don’t like the idea of green grass. I wouldn’t be able to relax. Too quiet. Suspicious. Kenji and I fantasized a lot about going to Hanayashiki.

»Ha-na-ya-shi-ki?«, Frenchie repeats, reading her fingers closely. »Qu'est-ce que c'est?«

An amusement park. Like VoughtLand. But better. It’s over 100 years old. 

»Ah, is that so? I didn’t even know they made parks that old,« Frenchie snickers. »What an exciting place to relax at… I figure the waiting queues at VoughtLand do take a lifetime, so might as well chill out, huh?«

It was shit.

»Indeed, it was. I will never get over the atrocities we have witnessed there; the donut-burgers? Mon Dieu, someone has to shut down that place, before it reaches Europe...«

Kimiko chuckles, and suddenly seeing a puppet Homelander blow up in blood is forgotten in a breeze.

»Eh bien,« Frenchie hushes quickly, before she can recall anything, »Paradis.« The male isn’t able to let go of the want to create the new word. It is not a requirement, not a need, but he wants the language he uses with Kimiko to include the truths of their relationship, even if most of them remain unspoken. 

»Let us say…« 

He grabs and guides her hands to knead them together, each finger intertwined with the other.

»This…«

Frenchie does it as well, arms caging her in circularly, and he feels like he’s praying now, but since he knows that Kimiko is not religious and also has bad experiences with churches, he figures that this sign is still free to use.

»This, we will call… paradise, oui?«

Kimiko continues keeping her hands folded, and Frenchie taps her left hand, as he unfolds his own.

»This,« he whispers, lips planted against her temple, his stubble slightly scratching her skin (but she never complains), »c’est moi…«

His lover smiles, nods, Frenchie isn’t sure whether she understands yet, but he continues nonetheless.

»And this, mon cœur,« he taps the right hand, »c’est toi. This is you, Kimiko.«

He lifts his right hand, and Kimiko immediately threads them together. One and one... making one.

Frenchie hums in satisfaction, peppering some more kisses to her cheek—never getting or giving enough—squeezing her hand.

»And together, we are paradise, you know? Forget about Adam and Eve, huh…?«, he grins, and the woman in his arms disagrees, cringes—makes a face, which Frenchie cups with his right, free hand. »You… are so adorable, Kimiko,« he sighs, the words finally slipping out naturally.

We are sinners, just like Adam and Eve, Kimiko signs in return, and even though there is nothing that should crush Frenchie more than the weight of the forever damned life he’s led in the years he’s lived, his conscience is floating on the promise of true love. She knows, and she still loves him. This knowledge, that kind of ignorance, it is dangerous, he knows that, but it’s not like he is refusing to know anymore by snorting cocaine or ketamine. He will forever carry the name of the drunken man who kills, Serge, Sergei, Frenchie, but in Kimiko’s arms, he becomes a lover. Pure, clear, sober.

»Mmm… a sinner, huh. You may be right, mon cœur,« he answers calmly, holding Kimiko’s chin with the palm of his hand, stroking her skin with his thumb, his arm resting across her chest. Her heart thumps against his elbow, and his eyes close to focus on the feeling.

»And we may never forgive ourselves for the things we have done,« he whispers, continuing on with his caress in a slow, comforting rhythm, »but I want to believe… that if there is a God who forgives… who shows mercy on those tortured by remorse...«

Kimiko shifts uncomfortably, wanting to argue back, but Frenchie holds her still, the other arm snaking around her waist from below, pulling her ever-so-possibly close.

»If such a God does exist, and if He is good, then Kimiko, He has given me… you. And to hell with me if I didn’t take this chance.«

It is not that easy, but, she signs, when he opens his eyes again—Frenchie is talking to someone who’s once been unwillingly injected with drugs, after all—yet adds to her own doubtful thoughts the hopeful wish that, I want you to be right too, you know?

He smiles and nods. »It’s just… a faithful fool’s rambling, mon cœur. I agree with you, of course. With Adam and Eve, the first sin, comes the burden of our choices… And with the ones we’ve made, ah… our lives were never meant to be easy.«

I mean, Kimiko gestures, this is easy, though. Being with you.

»Oui? Is that how you feel, Kimiko?«, he breathes out, and meets her gaze, as she turns her head over her shoulder. She nods.

»I find it easy too,« Frenchie admits, »I feel that we don’t… well, we, bien sûr, finish each other’s sentences, as the Americans say, but… that is not what I cherish the most about us. It is that we don’t need many sentences to begin with…«

He trails off, losing himself in Kimiko’s smile of affection, her eyebrows raised to her forehead, the white of her eyes vulnerable to the dry air of their apartment. It should be embarrassing, wearing his throbbing heart on his sleeve like this, but if it’s Kimiko seeing him with those gentle eyes, it feels nothing but good.

Did you drink?

»Moi? I didn’t, not to my knowledge, pourquoi?«

Just asking.

Frenchie chuckles and squints, before he whispers, »you are a good person, mon cœur,« and, before she can even inhale for an outraged gasp, adds, »someone like monsieur charcuterier… you don’t tell him about Marseille, swimming at the beach. I am not saying he can’t do good things, but, ah…« 

He chuckles, when Kimiko already agrees wholeheartedly. Don’t defend him. Butcher can go fuck himself. That asshole. Their shared rebellious distaste for the Briton has become quite comical over time, but Frenchie strokes over her wrists in a successful attempt to calm her down. She does.

»What I mean to say is, good people, they dream,« he says, »and for me, that is le paradis. To dream of tomorrow and still be content with today; what is that, if not heaven?«

Have you considered writing?

»Writing? Moi?«, the male smirks sheepishly but he knows better than to feed into that thought. He already falls into too many French stereotypes, but there’s also a bitter aftertaste, a voice taunting him for his wordy, gutful composings (don’t make me kill; it is like acid to my heart) wired in his brain like a thorn. However, it is Kimiko. And for once, Frenchie might actually consider it, when they do finally leave this place. The world looks like it is in dire need of a good dream right now, he thinks, but jokes, »we will become even broker than we already are,« instead.

I don’t care! You know what I’ve always wanted to learn?

»No, tell me, mon cœur.«

The piano.

The piano?, Frenchie repeats, his fingers dangling in the air, his smile widening in excitement, as he cuddles her closer. That idea alone, his Kimiko, making sound through the ebony and ivory tiles, is music to his ears.

»Mon cœur… that would be magnifique!«

I could play so many songs.

»Even Guns ‘N Roses, huh?«

Imagine all the movie soundtracks!

She’s so thrilled, and it moves Frenchie to absolute joy. Every time her eyes widen, her hands shake in small, giddy movements, it’s like she’s adding five exclamation marks to an SMS, or writing in all caps; Frenchie wants to capture these small expressions of excitement for eternity, but for now, he promises himself to make this simple sequence a good memory.

»You could play all your favorite musical numbers... The Sound of Music, Singing in the Rain…«

Yes! And you sing along!

»Me? Sing? Oh, mon cœur, you expect so much of me…«

You sing!

»Ah… you know what? For you… I am willing to try.«

It will sound so bad! 

Frenchie gasps, »Mon cœur!«, and grabs his cœur in question by her shoulders, looking into her eyes in feigned hurt, and Kimiko just laughs soundlessly, shrugging by saying, because of your smoking!

»Oui… but I quit it with the hard drugs, non? The therapy groups have helped— it’s what you said, too,« he retorts, pouting at her, but secretly just enjoying her having fun at teasing him.

Sure, because snorting cocaine was the problem. 

»What do you know about snorting coke, huh?«, Frenchie grins, and flips the female once, twice, so he’s now on his back, a flailing, giggly Kimiko clenched tightly in his arms. 

Do you not remember how I had to clean after your blood last—

»Non, non! Lies! I remember no such things!«

Frenchie cuddles her until he’s snuggled the breath out of his lungs, and grunts, when she shifts on top of him, stomach to stomach, Kimiko’s ear listening in on the heart that beats for her.

»You will learn to play the piano,« he muses under his breath (the likelihood of you going through with things is higher, when whispered to yourself, he learned somewhere), brushing through her locks, »et moi, I will sing for you, as best as I can. Like a duet… Judy Garland, Gene Kelly? With a very bad Gene Kelly, huh?«

I was joking about you not being able to sing.

»Ah, mon cœur, I was joking, too. Last time I checked, Louis Armstrong was a pothead, and the great Nat King Cole, he—«

Lung cancer?

»Ah, you already know, huh? Oui… smoked three packs every day, c’est incroyable,« Frenchie chuckles, kissing the top of Kimiko’s head, wrapping himself around her and her arms like a gift. It is the equivalent of silencing her, in a way, but it’s not like she wouldn't be strong enough to pull herself away. (She doesn’t, and that’s all Frenchie needs to know.)

»I will try,« Frenchie grumbles, »I will try to sing and I will try to live long.«

Kimiko kisses his neck. You better, she seems to say, and it tickles a chuckle out of him.

»Look, mon cœur. The penguins are cuddling in the cold.«

She raises her head, looks to the TV for a second, eyes heavy by the soporific that is Frenchie’s body and his voice. She smiles, nods, and leans back down, missing the words ›the ice is melting in Antartica‹ on the screen. Frenchie inhales deeply through the nose and sighs. Quelle chance.

With Frenchie kissing Kimiko’s forehead, interlacing his fingers into hers, they spell it again, paradise, and for a moment, the French man doesn’t feel lost in all what has become of him. He feels whole, content, and wishes for an eternity that shows nothing but the same scene.

What a blind, selfish, yet lucky journey it is, the road back to Garden Eden.

His stubble scratches the skin of her curled hand, and his lips wrap around each of her knuckles, when Frenchie begins to count the days in Kimiko’s eyes; not those that’s passed, but those to come. 

»Tu es mon paradis, Kimiko,« he whispers, and Kimiko kisses him silent.

hello there! :-) this had a lot of prose in it that i dedicate fully to the feelings and thoughts about my own love life and reading of the book the unbearable lightness of being. it is both a love letter to the humanity of this pair and lovers painted by milan kundera, and i feel full having written it.

(full, if it wasn't for the fact i could not find any better cuddly scenes of kimiko and frenchie.........v_v)

hope you could enjoy it! ♡