Snow and Ash - Nine Part 2
Ryo:
I reach into my pocket and feel around for the familiar shape of the key I haven’t used since I packed up some of Shige’s clothes to send to him right after XMA. When I open the door, I remove my shoes and Shige calls to me from where he is standing in front of a sink full of dishes.
“When did you have time to dirty all of these? I’m sure Koyama didn’t let you leave with an empty stomach.”
“My idiot friends must have thought it was cool to have an empty apartment to hang out in. When Tako mentioned he’d help by cleaning out the food in my refrigerator, I didn’t think he meant by eating it. And leaving all the dishes here.”
Some friend. He’s given up all hope of being with Shige, it seems.
I step up behind him and slide my hands from his back to his stomach, pressing my face into his hair. “How was the party?”
He adjusts himself and continues to rinse the soap suds off of the dishes. “Fun. Towards the end I couldn’t stop worrying about Kei-chan though. He was really hurting a lot and a couple times he was about to just forgive Yamapi on the spot and hold him. At times I think that would be good, but Yamapi should make things right before they start again. Koyama told me their relationship wasn’t good for either of them.”
“Pi’s a mess. Something’s holding him back, whatever that may be. And he hates himself for it.”
He shuts off the water and places his wet hands over mine. “I wish he would get over it already.”
“He will,” I say and Shige reaches over for the dish towel that is hanging from the wall. “But what about us?”
He dries his hands and leans back into me. “What about us?”
I move my lips down to the back of his neck and begin to kiss softly. My fingers slip under his shirt and I trace them over the soft, warm skin. He sighs in contentment and that urges me to continue.
He turns around and kisses me on the lips, hard, and I can feel desire welling up inside of me. His fingertips brush against my arm and I smile against his lips. “They’re all wrinkled.”
“What’d you expect?” he says before laughing a little and drawing them away. I take them in my own and put his arms around me, continuing the kiss and not caring about much of anything anymore except for him. His soft lips, his tongue brushing against mine, how good it all feels.
I immediately realize what a mistake that was when I open my eyes for the slightest moment and see the dish towel fall to the floor across the room. My body stills and I pull away, wishing I didn’t do that, but Shige doesn’t seem upset or angry or anything related to that.
He’s smiling.
“What?”
“It didn’t hurt.”
At first I don’t believe him, thinking he might be covering it up so I don’t feel bad, but part of me knows that it’s impossible to fake that smile. I’ve seen his fake smiles. This isn’t one of them. “Seriously?”
He shakes his head with an even brighter smile and our lips meet again in another kiss.
I didn’t expect it to happen so easily; I was ready to devote months to practicing and trying and failing, trying and failing, until one day it gets easier.
“I was too,” he whispers against my lips and it catches me off guard. For a moment I forgot that he can see what I’m thinking. “I can still feel it, but it’s like…” He pauses to think of a way to describe it. “It’s like all my attention goes to you like before because it’s so strong, something I can’t control. Like an instinct to get away from you.”
I don’t necessarily like that last bit, but I understand.
“But it doesn’t really hurt.”
I run my hand over his hip. “Okay.”
For about a minute afterwards, he doesn’t look at me and instead seems to be struggling with something inside. “Need help finishing this?” I ask to distract him, figuring it was that instinct he mentioned.
He looks over his shoulder for a moment, and the look in his eyes tells me that doing the dishes has become the last thing on his mind.
“Or do you not care anymore?”
He eyes me for a moment, smirks and wriggles away from me to pick up the dish towel. He pushes it into my chest.
I use my power a few times to put the glasses on the higher shelf of the cabinet to see if it really doesn’t hurt him anymore. And for myself (though he is aware that I’m doing it) because I want to know how far that feeling will go. Would he get himself away from me because of it, or is it something he can ignore?
“I’m glad it doesn’t hurt anymore,” he says. “You were giving me an even bigger headache than you usually do.”
I guess that’s my answer.
“I’m happy for you, but I wonder when the one you give me will disappear.”
“If you’re lucky, maybe when we’re very old.”
“That doesn’t seem very fair.”
“Life’s not fair, Nishikido-san.” He hands me a white plate on its side and I watch as the water falls to the bottom and drips off. “You’ll have to be very tolerant, I suppose.”
“Oh I have been. You and your ridiculous decisions.”
“I’m still here, aren’t I?”
I lean over and place a kiss on his cheek. “And I’d like to keep it that way.”
After I put away the last dish into the cabinet, I look at the soaked towel in my wet hands.
I fist my dripping hands in his t-shirt instead and he glares at me. “Oi.”
“I was going to take it off of you anyway.”
After thinking it over for a moment, his expression softens and he lets out a quiet laugh. “Whatever. It’s just water.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
When he finishes crumpling up a used paper towel and missing the trash can when he attempts to throw it in, I pull him closer to me, kissing him once on the lips. “You suck.”
“Not all of us cheat.”
“I don’t cheat.”
“Bullshit. You can’t naturally be that good.”
“Such little confidence in me.”
We end up very close, one of his legs between mine, our arms tightly wrapped around each other and our lips brushing after every other word.
“Tell me you’re staying tonight,” he whispers, almost desperately.
“If you want me to.”
He nods and we’re kissing again, and I want it more with every passing second.
I take hold of the material of his t-shirt, and he pulls back just enough to allow me to slip it over his head. I trace my lips over his shoulders, his neck, his chest, pressing kisses on his soft skin.
He pulls me up by the shoulders to his lips and his hands trace down the length of my spine to the hem of my own shirt, which he wastes no time in pulling off and dropping to the floor.
After a few minutes, I take him in my arms and look into his bedroom. I teleport us there, and he groans into my neck. “You okay?” I ask, and he pulls us both onto the bed.
“Was just a little dizzying.”
“Mm,” I mumble against his lips and we shift a bit in order to get comfortable.
When I pull away he looks up at me, his eyes dark and wanting, but in them I can see that he’s happy with the way things are now. Very happy. And that means more to me than anything else.
“I never knew you thought things like that.”
I comb my fingers through his hair. “Well, I do. All the time.”
We continue the kiss and his arms are tight around my waist, before he turns us over. He sits up and quietly unbuttons and unzips my jeans before lying on top of me, the feeling of his warm skin against mine almost as overwhelming as the feeling when he slips his hand into my undone jeans and begins to rub at me through the material of my underwear.
He begins to suck and bite softly at my neck, and I don’t even try to muffle the sounds that escape my throat.
---
I sit back on the bed, the scent of Shige’s shampoo gentle on our skin after a shower.
Once again, I hear the buzzing of my phone vibrating in the pocket of my jeans that are still lying, discarded, on the floor.
“Why don’t you just pick it up?” Shige asks casually as he towel-dries his wet hair.
“It’s Mika.”
He shrugs. “So? What if she needs something?”
“Yeah. To see me.”
He eyes the clock next to me for a moment. “But it’s late.”
I shrug.
“Unless that’s normal for you two.”
“When you were gone,” I begin and a drop of water falls from my hair. “I couldn’t really sleep, so we hung out late at night.”
He seems a bit uneasy. “Go, if you want to.”
I reach over to my jeans and once again, I turn my phone off. I don’t want to talk to her. I don’t want to experience what she makes me feel. And Shige, I don’t mean what you think. I lie back on the bed, feeling the comfortable pillow behind my head. Shige climbs into bed shortly after, lying beside me and leaning his head on my chest.
I shut off the light, and with it, all sounds cease to exist.
“What are you thinking about?” I ask quietly.
I feel him move around a bit, and I hear the ruffling of the sheets. “Sometimes it feels like I can hear everything. But I can’t always hear this.”
I run my fingers through his hair. “Do you like the sound of my heartbeat?”
“It’s like it pounds in a pattern, but it has a certain mystery to it. Like at any moment it can drift away from that pattern and begin an entirely different one.”
I know what he means, and suddenly I feel very guilty. But I have done nothing wrong. “Do you think mine will?”
“I don’t want it to. I want to continue here, in this spot, listening to the same rhythm.”
“I can’t say what will happen in the future. But as long as you want to listen to that sound, it’ll be there.”
I won’t ever stop loving you.
He finds my lips, even in the darkness, and the feeling of them, soft and warm on mine, is magnified with the absence of light.
In the light, we always look to things we don’t need to see, but in the dark we see nothing, we only feel those that are close to us. Nothing else needs to be seen. Everything else fades away like a distant memory, melts away like a mirage or an illusion. And we are left with only these, the feel of fingertips brushing against skin, and the quiet sounds of words that blend with the sound of two beating hearts.
In the end, this is what matters most to me. The one who stays with me, loves me, no matter how dark it is.
I was told once that I’m the type who sticks with a decision until the end. No matter what feelings those phone calls stir up in me, no matter what mysteries they hold, it doesn’t matter.
Because that rhythm he wants to hear will always be the same.
End of Chapter Nine
A/N: It's the beginning of the end~ Still quite a bit more to go though. Comments are loved <3
I reach into my pocket and feel around for the familiar shape of the key I haven’t used since I packed up some of Shige’s clothes to send to him right after XMA. When I open the door, I remove my shoes and Shige calls to me from where he is standing in front of a sink full of dishes.
“When did you have time to dirty all of these? I’m sure Koyama didn’t let you leave with an empty stomach.”
“My idiot friends must have thought it was cool to have an empty apartment to hang out in. When Tako mentioned he’d help by cleaning out the food in my refrigerator, I didn’t think he meant by eating it. And leaving all the dishes here.”
Some friend. He’s given up all hope of being with Shige, it seems.
I step up behind him and slide my hands from his back to his stomach, pressing my face into his hair. “How was the party?”
He adjusts himself and continues to rinse the soap suds off of the dishes. “Fun. Towards the end I couldn’t stop worrying about Kei-chan though. He was really hurting a lot and a couple times he was about to just forgive Yamapi on the spot and hold him. At times I think that would be good, but Yamapi should make things right before they start again. Koyama told me their relationship wasn’t good for either of them.”
“Pi’s a mess. Something’s holding him back, whatever that may be. And he hates himself for it.”
He shuts off the water and places his wet hands over mine. “I wish he would get over it already.”
“He will,” I say and Shige reaches over for the dish towel that is hanging from the wall. “But what about us?”
He dries his hands and leans back into me. “What about us?”
I move my lips down to the back of his neck and begin to kiss softly. My fingers slip under his shirt and I trace them over the soft, warm skin. He sighs in contentment and that urges me to continue.
He turns around and kisses me on the lips, hard, and I can feel desire welling up inside of me. His fingertips brush against my arm and I smile against his lips. “They’re all wrinkled.”
“What’d you expect?” he says before laughing a little and drawing them away. I take them in my own and put his arms around me, continuing the kiss and not caring about much of anything anymore except for him. His soft lips, his tongue brushing against mine, how good it all feels.
I immediately realize what a mistake that was when I open my eyes for the slightest moment and see the dish towel fall to the floor across the room. My body stills and I pull away, wishing I didn’t do that, but Shige doesn’t seem upset or angry or anything related to that.
He’s smiling.
“What?”
“It didn’t hurt.”
At first I don’t believe him, thinking he might be covering it up so I don’t feel bad, but part of me knows that it’s impossible to fake that smile. I’ve seen his fake smiles. This isn’t one of them. “Seriously?”
He shakes his head with an even brighter smile and our lips meet again in another kiss.
I didn’t expect it to happen so easily; I was ready to devote months to practicing and trying and failing, trying and failing, until one day it gets easier.
“I was too,” he whispers against my lips and it catches me off guard. For a moment I forgot that he can see what I’m thinking. “I can still feel it, but it’s like…” He pauses to think of a way to describe it. “It’s like all my attention goes to you like before because it’s so strong, something I can’t control. Like an instinct to get away from you.”
I don’t necessarily like that last bit, but I understand.
“But it doesn’t really hurt.”
I run my hand over his hip. “Okay.”
For about a minute afterwards, he doesn’t look at me and instead seems to be struggling with something inside. “Need help finishing this?” I ask to distract him, figuring it was that instinct he mentioned.
He looks over his shoulder for a moment, and the look in his eyes tells me that doing the dishes has become the last thing on his mind.
“Or do you not care anymore?”
He eyes me for a moment, smirks and wriggles away from me to pick up the dish towel. He pushes it into my chest.
I use my power a few times to put the glasses on the higher shelf of the cabinet to see if it really doesn’t hurt him anymore. And for myself (though he is aware that I’m doing it) because I want to know how far that feeling will go. Would he get himself away from me because of it, or is it something he can ignore?
“I’m glad it doesn’t hurt anymore,” he says. “You were giving me an even bigger headache than you usually do.”
I guess that’s my answer.
“I’m happy for you, but I wonder when the one you give me will disappear.”
“If you’re lucky, maybe when we’re very old.”
“That doesn’t seem very fair.”
“Life’s not fair, Nishikido-san.” He hands me a white plate on its side and I watch as the water falls to the bottom and drips off. “You’ll have to be very tolerant, I suppose.”
“Oh I have been. You and your ridiculous decisions.”
“I’m still here, aren’t I?”
I lean over and place a kiss on his cheek. “And I’d like to keep it that way.”
After I put away the last dish into the cabinet, I look at the soaked towel in my wet hands.
I fist my dripping hands in his t-shirt instead and he glares at me. “Oi.”
“I was going to take it off of you anyway.”
After thinking it over for a moment, his expression softens and he lets out a quiet laugh. “Whatever. It’s just water.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
When he finishes crumpling up a used paper towel and missing the trash can when he attempts to throw it in, I pull him closer to me, kissing him once on the lips. “You suck.”
“Not all of us cheat.”
“I don’t cheat.”
“Bullshit. You can’t naturally be that good.”
“Such little confidence in me.”
We end up very close, one of his legs between mine, our arms tightly wrapped around each other and our lips brushing after every other word.
“Tell me you’re staying tonight,” he whispers, almost desperately.
“If you want me to.”
He nods and we’re kissing again, and I want it more with every passing second.
I take hold of the material of his t-shirt, and he pulls back just enough to allow me to slip it over his head. I trace my lips over his shoulders, his neck, his chest, pressing kisses on his soft skin.
He pulls me up by the shoulders to his lips and his hands trace down the length of my spine to the hem of my own shirt, which he wastes no time in pulling off and dropping to the floor.
After a few minutes, I take him in my arms and look into his bedroom. I teleport us there, and he groans into my neck. “You okay?” I ask, and he pulls us both onto the bed.
“Was just a little dizzying.”
“Mm,” I mumble against his lips and we shift a bit in order to get comfortable.
When I pull away he looks up at me, his eyes dark and wanting, but in them I can see that he’s happy with the way things are now. Very happy. And that means more to me than anything else.
“I never knew you thought things like that.”
I comb my fingers through his hair. “Well, I do. All the time.”
We continue the kiss and his arms are tight around my waist, before he turns us over. He sits up and quietly unbuttons and unzips my jeans before lying on top of me, the feeling of his warm skin against mine almost as overwhelming as the feeling when he slips his hand into my undone jeans and begins to rub at me through the material of my underwear.
He begins to suck and bite softly at my neck, and I don’t even try to muffle the sounds that escape my throat.
---
I sit back on the bed, the scent of Shige’s shampoo gentle on our skin after a shower.
Once again, I hear the buzzing of my phone vibrating in the pocket of my jeans that are still lying, discarded, on the floor.
“Why don’t you just pick it up?” Shige asks casually as he towel-dries his wet hair.
“It’s Mika.”
He shrugs. “So? What if she needs something?”
“Yeah. To see me.”
He eyes the clock next to me for a moment. “But it’s late.”
I shrug.
“Unless that’s normal for you two.”
“When you were gone,” I begin and a drop of water falls from my hair. “I couldn’t really sleep, so we hung out late at night.”
He seems a bit uneasy. “Go, if you want to.”
I reach over to my jeans and once again, I turn my phone off. I don’t want to talk to her. I don’t want to experience what she makes me feel. And Shige, I don’t mean what you think. I lie back on the bed, feeling the comfortable pillow behind my head. Shige climbs into bed shortly after, lying beside me and leaning his head on my chest.
I shut off the light, and with it, all sounds cease to exist.
“What are you thinking about?” I ask quietly.
I feel him move around a bit, and I hear the ruffling of the sheets. “Sometimes it feels like I can hear everything. But I can’t always hear this.”
I run my fingers through his hair. “Do you like the sound of my heartbeat?”
“It’s like it pounds in a pattern, but it has a certain mystery to it. Like at any moment it can drift away from that pattern and begin an entirely different one.”
I know what he means, and suddenly I feel very guilty. But I have done nothing wrong. “Do you think mine will?”
“I don’t want it to. I want to continue here, in this spot, listening to the same rhythm.”
“I can’t say what will happen in the future. But as long as you want to listen to that sound, it’ll be there.”
I won’t ever stop loving you.
He finds my lips, even in the darkness, and the feeling of them, soft and warm on mine, is magnified with the absence of light.
In the light, we always look to things we don’t need to see, but in the dark we see nothing, we only feel those that are close to us. Nothing else needs to be seen. Everything else fades away like a distant memory, melts away like a mirage or an illusion. And we are left with only these, the feel of fingertips brushing against skin, and the quiet sounds of words that blend with the sound of two beating hearts.
In the end, this is what matters most to me. The one who stays with me, loves me, no matter how dark it is.
I was told once that I’m the type who sticks with a decision until the end. No matter what feelings those phone calls stir up in me, no matter what mysteries they hold, it doesn’t matter.
Because that rhythm he wants to hear will always be the same.
End of Chapter Nine
A/N: It's the beginning of the end~ Still quite a bit more to go though. Comments are loved <3