#timeline:casual

of course, his kind nature and his brash personality matched with his loyalty is quite the potent mix to make anyone fall in love with him, his sharp tongue aside. but there’s a certain delight in being in the center of his attention, one that remains unmatched in your experience.

so you get back at him by being a tease instead.

“i know we said friday,” chuuya says, from the other end of the line, on a dreary wednesday evening. you’ve just gotten home from work. “but something’s come up and i won’t make it. saturday?”

you tsk. “i don’t think saturday’s gonna be great…” you murmur, voice lowering into a dip. eyeing your black number hanging by your closet, you say: “i know this is a little rushed, but why not tonight? i’m even wearing something pretty.”

there’s a silence on the end of the line, for only a moment. if you listened close enough, you’d hear the deep breath chuuya takes before clearing his throat.

“better be pretty enough,” he jokes, and you flatter him with a laugh. “won’t be able to book it at where we planned, so—”

“yep, the usual,” you confirm, the restaurant downtown where he’s got himself a seat at the back reserved. “i’ll see you, chuuya.”

“i’ll see ya, pretty.”

-

“not trying to sound unappreciative,” chuuya says once he gets you to your doorstep after dinner, “but that was a little underwhelming.”

“what? the date?” you ask, raising an eyebrow. “did you not have fun?”

“no, you were great, splendid,” he says. “just wondering if you oversold me on your outfit.”

the smirk that’s been waiting to cross your face finally gets there. “oh, you think this is what i’m talking about?” you ask, running a hand lightly over your tight number, where it accentuates your curves. “i was talking about underneath.”

a red flush fills chuuya’s face in an instant. still, that doesn’t stop him from grinning, a cackle at your playful words. “you could have just asked me directly,” he says.

“that’s exactly what i’m doing,” you say. you lift his hand and press a kiss onto his knuckles over the glove, a mimicry of his own favorite gesture. “come with me?”

-

the red, lacy pair you’re wearing underneath is enough to send chuuya to his knees. you take off his coat and his hat, let him sit in his vest and gloves, the half-undressed, “nearly there” state so exquisite. you make him sit on the bed, make him watch as you undo the buttons and zippers and you unwrap yourself like a lovely little gift.

you give him a little spin so he sees the full effect of it, and he leans forward to give you a closer look (or maybe to hide something from view.)

“did ya get this for me, princess?” he asks, as you saunter toward him with a smirk on your face. “gotta say, you’ve figured out my style.”

you put your hand on his knee. “just a lucky guess, actually.”

“and looks like i’m about to get lucky too,” chuuya says, grinning. “just don’t know how i’d like to have it.”

his hands are hot on your body as he pulls you close to him and then wrestles you onto the bed, your hair fanning like a halo around your head on the pillows. you smile as he nuzzles his face in the valley between your breasts, inhaling the perfume you’d so purposefully sprayed in there.

he lifts his hands to his mouth and tears his gloves off his hands with his teeth so he can play with the lace with his bare hands. you let him, intent on just watching as he caresses over your flesh, enjoying the contrast of the red fabric against your skin. he tugs at the ribbons; snaps the straps; thumbs at the lace.

he slips his fingers into the band of your underwear, fingers grazing the soft hair there, when he looks up at you with red-hot desire in his eyes.

“made your mind up yet?” you ask—ever teasing, ever keeping him on the edge of his seat.

suddenly, chuuya realizes that there are “perfect timings.” not an exact moment, no, but a space in time where something is appropriate. where everything is just right—where everything falls into place. and then chuuya gets to do what his heart wants. like call you a nickname. sling an arm over your shoulder. give you a little kiss.

…except there’s an issue. the realization of the perfect timing always comes in hindsight.

so now, chuuya is sitting in the penthouse after a dinner out with you, the smell of your cologne still sticking to his clothes, his skin, wondering, how in the hell will he figure out the right time to say “i love you”?

he has to say it first, after all.

so he makes a series of elaborate plans. date plans that span the entire day, if possible. to set the mood. to get it right. he wants it perfect—you deserve it. especially now that he’s realized that his feelings for you are, truly, the romantic kind of love he wanted desperately for it to be. he goes through with his plans, walk you up to your door at the end of the day with your hands interlocked and then—

his heart stops and gets stuck in his throat.

“chuuya?” you ask, not missing a beat. you pull him closer by a step with your hands. “are you okay?”

“yeah,” he answers, even if his ears are deeply flushed red. how dare you make him feel like this? one day, he’ll get pay back. “just thinking. thanks for today.”

by this time the i love you sitting on his tongue feels too early; too forced; inadequate. the creeping worry that you do not return the feeling follows soon after.

so he doesn’t.

so, at the end of the day, you say it before he gets to.

he’d protected you from a creep on the street that was trying to feel you up, and while he had undeniably won the fistfight, the random man still got to land a surprise punch to his cheek—when chuuya had hesitated for a brief second to make sure you were okay. you are icing his bruise with a tiny tub of freezer-cold ice cream at a convenience store when it slips out of your mouth.

“you really are a handful sometimes, chuuya. you’re lucky i love you.”

chuuya drops the ice cream container, which unceremoniously lands flat onto the ground with a splat, ice cream dripping off its sides.

you instantly look up to him in concern, gripping the hand on his thigh tightly. “are you okay? does something else hurt?”

and how else is he supposed to answer that? when the butterflies in his stomach have exploded out of his chest cavity, making him breathless, leaving him feeling like flying even if gravity solidly keeps him next to you?

how is it that you make him feel like all he radiates is light?

“you’re bad for my heart,” he says, winded somehow. he takes your hand that is on his thigh and kisses your knuckles. “i love ya too.”

your laugh is a breath of fresh air rushing through him. “i was worried i’d never hear you say that, actually.”

“thought i’d never be able to say it ever, either,” he admits. urging you closer to him, something about you shines more beautifully than ever before, even in the extra bright white light of the convenience store. he brushes off a lock of hair into place, cupping your face with his hand. “and since ya beat me to it, guess i’ll have to always say it more than you do. love ya. love ya.” he sneaks a kiss on your nose, making you blush. “love ya with all my heart and soul.”

“no, just a regular one,” you say, wetting your lips again automatically. “but i guess i’ve licked it clean off.  it’s just… so dry.”

“licking your lips makes it worse, baby,” he answers. “and don’t think i haven’t caught ya peeling the bits off, too.”

chuuya pulls out a chapstick he’d brought specifically for you from his pocket and waves it at you, like a this is what you should be using.

you put your head down. “sorry.”

“s’long as ya promise to try and catch yourself when you’re doing it, we’re good,” chuuya notes, tilting your head back up with his finger to smile in your direction. “don’t look so sad.”

you frown. “it must bother you though… i’m sorry.”

“why the hell would it bother me?”

“no fun kissing chapped lips, right?” you say, self-deprecatingly, and look up at chuuya to see if he’s laughed at your joke. he hasn’t; instead, his expression is twisted into one of concern and sadness, and something in your heart twinges at having brought that on him. “oh, i’m sorry, i didn’t  mean to—”

“come here.”

before you can react, chuuya has reached out across the table to steal a kiss onto your lips, chapped or cracked be damned. the first kiss makes you jolt backward; and just when you think it’s over, he gives you another, and another, never minding that you’re in the middle of a crowded restaurant at dinner time.

when he catches you nervous, chuuya’s quick to part and speak against your mouth: “no one’s watching,” he stresses, before stealing another kiss.

you don’t know how long it’s taken by the time he backs away from you, satisfied smirk on his lips. you lift your hand to your lips, still tingling from the sensation of him on you. a flush rises to your face and lal you can do is stammer out—

“wh-what…!”

“hmm… moistening your lips before i put the lipbalm on,” chuuya says, entirely nonchalantly, despite the grin on his face. uncapping the chapstick, he says, “now come on, show me those kissers.”

you pout at him, licking your lips instinctively.

what?

you shrug on a jacket over your matching pajamas and shuffle to the door curiously.

you don’t know which to react to at first—the busted camera at the end of the hallway, the open hall window at the third floor, or—fuck? chuuya clutching his leg where a giant cut in his dress pants reveals the path of where something destructive had previously passed.

you gape, instead. “what the hell happened to—”

“i’ll be gone in ten,” he promises, like any of that matters to you. “just let me in.”

well, it wasn’t like you were going to turn him down.

“i’ll get that cleaned,” he says when he bleeds onto the couch you got at the secondhand shop down the road. “i’ll get you new ones,” when you offer him bandages from your first aid kit. “i’ll—”

“chuuya,” you laugh, somehow the one that is breathless and lightheaded, “focus on yourself for a bit, yeah?”

“…right.”

you kneel down next to him to see what you can do. it’s not deep enough a cut for you to need to worry about him bleeding out in your living room, but enough to cause a limp. you have to ask him to tear his dress pants so you can fix him up. running basic first aid instructions in your head, you disinfect the wound and wrap it in bandages.

the longer you spend treating him in silence, the more it becomes clear—

i’ll be gone in ten

—that it’s not about the wound, it’s about buying time.

you clap your hands one time once you’ve finished wrapping the bandage up. “well, that’s done. i suppose i’m getting no explanation and we’ll never talk about this again?”

you were ready for that, after all. when you befriended him fully knowing he was of port mafia origin, you knew what you were getting into. that you were basically shaking hands with danger.

but chuuya looks at you pensively. “you deserve an explanation,” he says, much to your surprise. he runs his hand nervously over his hair, before he settles with a sigh.

you prepare yourself for the worst until he says—

“this was… the closest safehouse.”

his closest safehouse.

somehow, you hear the “i didn’t have anywhere else to go” before he could even dare say it.

this man—so familiar now, in his love for dogs and taste for movies, in the little things you’ve picked up in the few months of meeting him over and over again—suddenly feels like a stranger sitting on your couch. you’ve never even considered the weight of the word “safehouse” ever in your life until now. how do you know so much about him and yet nothing else?

you sit on the floor next to his legs, looking up. somehow feeling like you should be the one feeling small under all his mystery, and instead feeling like you’re the one holding him up by string.

you don’t need to say another word to prod him for a clarification.

or anything, really. something you can hold on to when you have to make sense of what happened tonight at 3am, with a man you have this overwhelming feeling for, you’re just not sure what quite yet.

“i’m a port mafia executive,” he finally says after a long moment of silence.

“…‘executive’?”

he takes a deep breath. “one of the highest ranking leaders in the organization.” your heart stops. you’d known, and yet you’d known so little, apparently.

chuuya has told you too much, that much he knows. the moment he decided against hiding out in the alley and instead jumping three floors to the apartment he knew belonged to you, he knew he’d said too much. he hadn’t meant to be this open. he hadn’t meant for you to be let in so easily.

he hadn’t meant for you to get too close.

and yet here he is, bleeding on your couch, his enemies likely only a few blocks down, and yet—

“if after this you don’t wanna meet anymore, i get it, and—"

“wait, no, stop,” you say. as if on instinct, your hand flies to grasp his; a touch that surprises him so much he nearly flinches away from it. “what were you doing? tonight. nearby, apparently.”

chuuya purses his lips. if says too much it’ll be the end of both of you. and he’d like it to not be the end of both of you. “an operation. there were orders not to engage.”

“so you ran? with that leg wound.”

guilt courses through his veins stronger than any pain could. “i know i shouldn’t have gone to you—”

“no! chuuya, stop.” he’s about to get up onto his feet but you sit him back down on the couch; you settle next to him. “i’m glad you came to me. that i was an option at all—that i could help. as—someone you know. i didn’t… pursue this without knowing the danger i was in.”

a part of chuuya’s heart breaks at the thought. that you have to willingly surrender safety in order to continue to become anything with him—even friends. that you have made that choice, for him.

but a part of chuuya’s rejoices that you’ve done so anyway.

he smirks, sneaks a finger under your chin. “‘this’, huh?”

you flush. “a-anyway!” you get up on your feet. “you’ve scared the hell out of me already so the least you can do is stay the night.”

he frowns. “i can send my men to protect—”

“and scare my neighbors? hell no!” you squeeze his knee. “stay. your wound’s all dressed up anyway and they’re still after you, right? you stay so you’re safe here and so i’m safe here.” you wink. “you dragged me into this anyway.”

oh, gods, do you know how bad you are for his heart?

his confident, lion-hearted, just-friend. for now.

“and what about you? how have you been?” he asks, inevitably, and you swallow as you look down to your food, the pasta half-eaten, the drink untouched.

“um, good,” you answer, instinctually, but your voice kind of breaks. when you look up to chuuya to see if he’s convinced, you find that he is, in fact, not convinced. “w-well, i’m not good, but i’m surviving,” you say, correcting yourself, and chuuya only raises an eyebrow.

he takes a sip of his wine, buying time, before he asks: “has something been bothering you lately?”

“just, life,” you say, unable to elaborate. “you know how it is sometimes.”

“this isn’t our first date, silly,” he says, an expression you can’t pin down on his face. worry? fear? recognition? “if you have something to say, you should just say it.”

“okay…” you say, slowly. you take a sip of your drink for good measure—pretending it is liquid courage. “i’d like to preface this is not about you,” you say. “i think you’re a great person, chuuya, and i do enjoy your company. a lot. like, a little too much, maybe?”

he smiles. he smiles and your heart falls flat in your chest because how could a man who touches happiness like that, can make an expression like that, fall in love with someone like you?

“i enjoy your company too,” he says, and your heart shatters because you know he deserves someone better than you. an impulse grows inside of you—to take your drink, throw it at his face, and then walk out of his life entirely. “which is why i’d appreciate if you were a little more open with me every time we meet.”

you take a deep breath.

“i suffer from mental illness.” a pause. “…es. i’m not sure how many, really.”

as you feared, his smile contorts into a frown, and your heart begins to bang on your chest. run away! run away! he hates you now, so run away! “i’m… i’m sorry to hear that.”

“it’s fine!” you say, shaking your head and raising your hand. “it’s okay if you don’t want to, uhm, see me anymore, i get it, so just tell me if—”

he pulls your hand with his and your heart beats faster. “where the hell did that come from? easy. your brain’s running too fast.” he squeezes your hand gently, and you nearly physically feel yourself sinking back into your body. like gravity was pulling you down. “if you don’t mind, i’d like to ask questions?”

“…why?” is the first answer that comes out, and chuuya blinks.

“don’t make me say it.”

“say what?”

“say—” he lets go, and only then can you tell that his face is red. “that i care about ya, ya moron! geez, i wanna show concern and this is what i get, what the hell…”

“i’m sorry,” you say, but you are breathless with laughter. “have i made the nakahara chuuya embarrassed? on my behalf?”

“now you’re putting salt on the wound!” chuuya says, but he’s pouting. not that it lasts long, because when he catches you laughing, his smile returns. “there’s my pretty. been looking for you all night.”

“have i been frowning so much?”

“just a little.” chuuya says, before reaching out to pinch your cheek. “but seriously. thank you for telling me.”

you nod. “you needed to know… eventually.”

“i can’t make things magically better,” chuuya says—and he sounds genuinely remorseful about it—“but if there are things i can do to make it better for you, for your head, i’m here. yeah?”

“you make it easier,” you answer, without thinking. your cheeks soon turn red, and so does chuuya’s. “what i meant is—”

“i get it,” he says, a boyish grin filling his face. “then i’ll stay! i’ll stay as long as you’ll have me. how about that?”

“i know what that is, chuuya,” you say quietly, watching him. he’s, to some extent, intoxicated—that much you know. it doesn’t really take much for chuuya to get drunk, after all. and the bottle of pinot noir he’d brought up is basically empty. “what makes you want to do it now?”

after all, he’d had many chances. many picture-perfect ones, even, if you were asked.

like that time he came through bleeding at your apartment because “this was the closest safehouse”, and he stared at your face the entire time you were patching him up.

or like that time when you were cuddled on the couch after … activities, and he’d brushed a sweat-damp lock of your hair out of your face and said, “you’re beautiful.”

or—and perhaps your most favorite—that time you had pointed something to him through a shop’s windows, only for you to turn to face him and find him a little too close, your noses nearly brushing, both your cheeks flushed red—

it could have been any time but now, and yet…

“because i was afraid,” chuuya says, breaking the silence again. “what we’re doin’ is hard.”

“it shouldn’t be.”

“you were so scared of me when we met,” he says, sighing. your eyes widen in surprise—he remembers? “had to make sure… to not drive you away.”

you lean your weight against the sofa’s back, turning fully to chuuya now, yokohama skyline be damned. “i wouldn’t have broken with a kiss.”

chuuya snorts. he is quiet, for a moment, like contemplating if he should say it, until the words tumble out of him.

“i would have.”

and something about that makes your heart leap out of your chest.

if, before, there had been a 0.000001% possibility you would have been able to resist him, to say no, chuuya, i don’t want a kiss, no, i don’t think so—well, now it’s all gone.

you reach out to cross the space between the two of you, your hand resting on his—an invitation. chuuya finally, finally turns to look at you, and you find in his eyes only stone-cold sobriety. his vulnerability, his honesty, and the seriousness in his eyes all send a shudder down your spine.

god, you wanted him.

“but if it’ll break you,” you tease, twirling your fingers with his, “what would put you back together again, chuuya?”

“don’t know, haven’t tried,” he says, but grins anyway. “maybe another kiss?”

you smirk. “we can try.”

your first kiss is much like everything you’ve ever gotten from chuuya—a grand expression of love in its simplest form. you marvel at how chuuya smells like leather and wine and his lightly floral shampoo as he cups your face with his other tender, gloved hand. and he’s warm, so warm you feel the kiss all the way to the tips of your fingers, which are still intertwined with his.

he breathes your name lowly as you part from him and—as promised—you put him back together again.

the second kiss has more urgency; like the taste of the first has made it impossible to wait for the next. your lips crash against one another like desperate for each other’s air. you feel chuuya’s fingers curl at the back of your head, through the silken strands of hair. you grab onto his shoulder to steady yourself and you feel him smile against your mouth.

when the kiss ends, you feel like the room is glowing.

and by the look on chuuya’s face, he must feel the same.

“kind of want to keep these kisses for myself,” chuuya comments, and you know exactly what he means. you nod your head in agreement, tucking a stray lock of hair behind his ear. he holds your hand against his heart and you feel it beating fast—perhaps as fast as yours. “look how nervous i was. don’t make me ask for a kiss again.”

and sure, we’ll see, you looked rather cute doing it is at the tip of your tongue once he’s said that, but you want to indulge in this first—chuuya with his walls down, chuuya speaking with his mouth a direct loudspeaker for his heart. so instead, you hum quietly, resting your head on his warm chest, letting him press another kiss on your forehead.

when chuuya finally makes eye contact with you, his pupils are blown wide.

“oh?”

you turn around to take the few steps from the full-length mirror to the bed, crawling over him as he eyes you up and down in your half-dressed state. the white button down open enough to reveal the cleavage between your breasts, the red shorts you’d slept in riding up your ass.

he smirks. “what happened to ‘casually dating’?”

you sit yourself down on his lap, but he doesn’t flinch, budge, or push you away. you take that as a good sign. “this seems casual to me,” you answer, hand hesitating over his chest. he holds onto your wrist and presses your hand flush against his skin.

“gotta say, ya confuse me sometimes,” chuuya admits. “but this isn’t an unwelcome development.”

it’s chuuya who pulls you onto his crotch, the line of his half-hard cock so tangible and so real underneath you. he keeps his hands on your hips, but does not guide or direct you. you press both your hands over his chest and wiggle your hips experimentally.

the sound that comes out of chuuya is heavenly.

the kind of sound someone would make at the attainment of something they’d long wanted. spurred by his moans, you continue to work your hips. something about all this—the sound of chuuya’s voice, his hair fanned out like a halo on the pillow, your hands on his chest, the texture of your clothes where your bodies touch, the sunlight from the window casting a gentle glow over the both of you—fills you with heat, building everywhere.

“you’re so sexy,” chuuya breathes, his fingers sliding underneath your shirt to press fervently against your bare skin. the praise makes your mind blank for a moment, and all there is the pressure building in your belly as you grind roughly against him.

“you’re not so bad yourself, nakahara,” you tease, fingers drifting to toy with his nipple. “didn’t know you were hiding this in your pants.”

“there are way too many things you don’t know about me yet, sweet,” he says, that boyish smirk on his face again; but you catch the exact moment his patience runs thin, his hands beginning to urge you more intensely against him.

you don’t last long, that far you know. but the moment seems to last forever, just you and chuuya right there, a feeling erupting in your chest as something catches somewhere and everything goes electric, making you sigh and whimper and begin to beg. “chuuya, gods, please…”

chuuya’s hands trail higher under your shirt, making you shiver. “just a little longer—c’mon, i got you.”

you see his pretty pink lips just as the high is about to hit; but something in you stops you from reaching out and just kissing him until you’re dizzy. instead, you groan out his name before biting down on your own lower lip, the orgasm making you crumple forward onto his chest.

“satisfied?” chuuya asks once your breathing has evened, his voice a low drawl that nearly ignites the fire inside you again. you chuckle.

“yeah, actually,” you admit, the blush fierce on your face, but you make no move to hide it. he pinches your cheek, but your focus is elsewhere, something still poking and waiting against your thigh. you look up at chuuya, enjoy the pinkness in his cheeks, the glow of his gray eyes, and ask, work be damned—