interstellarfairy - Tumblr blog

interstellarfairy · 24 hours ago

Note

bnha please ! 🥺 - anon who sent in 16 or 19 for the touch prompts

Hi there anon! Thank you for the ask from this list; I went with #19, ‘hands kneading at sore muscles’, and I wanted to thank you, as it gave me a chance to step back into the LLG ‘verse for the first time in a while! Ghost!Tomura, human reader, set between Chapters 9 and 10 of LLG. Explicit.

ice and stretch

You overdo it on yard work. Luckily, your ghost is there to help.

Phantom sniffs your feet and Tomura hovers over your shoulder as you rummage through the freezer for an ice pack you know isn’t there. Your back is hurting worse from being hunched over, and you straighten up before you’ve finished searching. Now it’s either a plastic bag of ice from the ice maker or nothing, and all you want is to lay down. You shut the freezer door a little harder than necessary and head for the living room, your dog and your ghost in hot pursuit.

Phantom hops up on the couch with you, but Tomura keeps a greater distance. “What’s wrong with you?” he asks. “You only make that face when something hurts.”

“I overdid it with the yard stuff,” you mumble. “I should have quit while I was ahead. I just wanted all the dead stuff out of there.”

“There wasn’t that much dead stuff,” Tomura says, almost defensively.

You shut your eyes. “Yes there was.”

Even now that you and Tomura are talking — or more than talking — again, there are still plenty of points of contention. A major one is your garden. You’ve pointed out certain plants that are totally off-limits, and Tomura’s left them alone, but he’s decided that everything else is fair game and used it for life-force accordingly. He’s left your front yard alone, probably because he can tell you’re still mad about the fence, but the backyard is a war zone. Today you got sick of looking at it, and you decided it was all coming out at once.

And now you’re paying for it. You didn’t notice until you straightened up from your work, but your upper back is so sore you can barely turn your head, and you don’t even have an ice pack to help. You didn’t even think to take ibuprofen before you sat down. You have a bad feeling you’re going to be paying for this all weekend.

Something taps down on the coffee table, followed by something else. You open your eyes to find a cup of water and a bottle of ibuprofen sitting there, and Tomura dematerializing too slowly to avoid being spotted. “You take that when stuff hurts,” he says. “What else?”

Seeing it sitting there makes you feel weird. It always makes you feel weird when Tomura does stuff like this. “You don’t have to take care of me.”

“You’re my human. Don’t be stupid. What else?”

“A spine amputation,” you mumble. “An ice pack.”

It occurs to you that Tomura would make a pretty good ice pack if he materialized all the way, but you know he’s almost out of life-force. He can only materialize in pieces until the next jar of bugs arrives, and even if he could do it whole, he’d probably only do it to try to fool around. “What else?” Tomura asks.

“I don’t know. A massage? I hate those, but I’d try anything at this point.”

“What’s a massage?” Tomura asks as you force yourself to sit up and take the ibuprofen he brought. “Why do you hate them?”

“I don’t like people touching me. Usually.” You’re not a big fan of the whole massage format, either — the half-naked thing, the oil or lotion or whatever thing, the weird New Age music that gets piped in thing. The one time you went, you left wishing you’d spent your money on something else.

And you haven’t answered Tomura’s question. “A massage is somebody, like — rubbing your back to try to make you relax. It sounds about as weird as it is. Like —” You lift your hands, mimicking the motion, and Tomura makes a skeptical sound. “Yeah. I think it’s weird, too.”

“People pay money for that?”

“Sometimes,” you say. “Or else they get somebody to rub their back for them. My last roommates were always giving each other back rubs. I guess it helped with something.”

Your last roommates were also sleeping together, something you figured out by accident when they forgot to lock the bathroom door while hooking up on the sink late at night. It’s not a good memory. You’re trying to push it away, fighting a grimace, when a pair of ice-cold hands land on your back. You yelp, startle, scaring Phantom in the process. “I’m helping,” Tomura says, his grip tightening ever so slightly. “Hold still.”

“I don’t need a back rub,” you say. “Don’t spend the life-force.”

“This doesn’t take that much,” Tomura says. “I’m helping. Do you want me to help or not?”

His hands feel good. You wish you could get them on your bare skin, but taking off your shirt in front of him is a bad idea. This is probably a bad idea, too. “If you want to.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Tomura says. “I want to. I don’t know how.”

“Me either,” you admit. “Uh — just use your thumbs at first. Press down with them and make really small circles. Gently.”

“I know,” Tomura snaps halfheartedly. His thumbs press down on either side of your spine, working insistently at your pulled-tight muscles. “Like that?”

“Yeah.” The word exits your mouth on a faint sigh. “Thanks.”

You’re expecting to have to give directions, but Tomura broadens his circles on his own, pressing deep and moving deliberately. It’s a sharp contrast to the way he usually touches you, how grabby and almost frantic he is most of the time. If he touched you like this while the two of you were fooling around, the novelty alone would probably set you off, let alone the fact that this was his idea, not yours. Cold air puffs against the back of your neck, and it feels good, cooling down the heat coming up in your face. It’s a good thing he can’t see your face right now. You don’t want to know what your expression’s doing.

Phantom gets bored and abandons you, aiming for the back door. Tomura opens it for her without ever lifting his hands from your skin, but once she’s gone, he tugs at your shirt. “It’s in the way. Take it off.”

You wrestle your way out of it, wincing and grimacing. “Lay down,” Tomura says, and you do. “Now I can do more of it.”

“I could do this for you sometime,” you offer as Tomura’s hands find your shoulders again. “Do ghosts get sore?”

“Do I have to get sore?”

“No,” you say. “Would you want me to, though?”

“I always want you to touch me.” Tomura states it so plainly that your face goes up in flames. He goes to work around the outline of your shoulderblade, tracing over it with icy fingers before pressing down with his thumbs. His other hand slides up to the back of your neck, gentler there than before. “I’m not just killing your plants for fun.”

Technically he is killing them for fun, if he’s draining them so the two of you can hook up, but you decide not to mess with him about it. The ibuprofen must be kicking in a little, because your back hurts less, and you’re a little too focused on the movement of Tomura’s hands. He runs into an obstacle in the form of your bra, which he starts to take off without asking before he remembers your rule about taking off your clothes without permission. “Can I unhook it?”

“Yes.” You’re really glad you aren’t wearing a front-fastening bra.

He’s just giving you a back rub. This shouldn’t be hot. He’s just a pair of hands right now — not even a body or a face, nothing you could touch, and you don’t know how you feel about him messing around with you when you can’t respond. Tomura’s hands drift further down your back, tracing and pressing and kneading. “Like that?”

“Yes,” you say. “Your hands feel really good.”

You hear Tomura’s breath catch. Maybe he’s a little more materialized than you thought, and he must not be unaware of how you’re responding, because his hands slide upwards, past your waist, both slipping inside the cups of your unhooked bra. The coldness of his fingertips against your nipples startles you, makes you gasp. “Tomura —”

He’s not just a pair of hands now. He’s arms, caging you down while he circles your nipples and tugs at them. You can feel the shadow of his weight against your hips, and his breath huffs against the side of your neck. He’s surrounding you, and at the same time, he’s nowhere you can see. All you have to go on is the evidence on yourself, the way your nipples have stiffened and your face has started burning and the fact that you’re getting really wet. There’s no way you can come just from having your nipples played with. That’s not a thing that happens. Right?

You don’t want that to be a thing. You work one hand past your waistband to touch yourself and Tomura’s weight against you increases, pressing you down into the couch. You lift your hips slightly, making more room for your hand, and one of Tomura’s hands leaves your breast to follow yours, nudging your fingers out of the way and replacing them with his ice-cold ones. You catch your breath. “Were you planning this the whole time?”

“I wanted to help. You’re the one making all the sounds.” Tomura must be almost fully materialized. You can feel his cock pressing against your ass through his clothes and yours. “I didn’t do anything. Why are you like this?”

His voice catches as he grinds against you, as his fingertips slip past your entrance. “It’s just you,” you gasp, and Tomura moans in your ear like you’ve got your fingers wrapped around his cock. “Just you, Tomura. Don’t stop.”

His fingers are shaking, the way they do when he’s close. He’s barely touched you, you haven’t touched him, and even as he grinds against you, you roll your hips against his hand, looking for more. Tomura’s full weight settles against you at last, and you feel rather than hear the rapid, shallow pace of his breathing. “More,” Tomura pants, like he’s not the one who’s all over you, like he doesn’t have you pinned. “I need more. More —”

“Let me up. I can help.” You spread your legs to make more room for Tomura’s hand as his fingers press back into you. “It feels — weird — that I’m not doing anything.”

“You are.” Tomura’s voice is muffled by your skin, his face pressed down into your shoulder as his hips jerk unevenly. “Keep talking.”

You want to — you always want to, you like what to does to him — but he’s gotten too good with his hands. One still cups your breast, your nipples oversensitive beneath his touch, making you squirm; the other has two fingers buried inside you to the knuckles while his thumb circles and presses down on your clit. You can’t talk when he’s like this. When your mouth opens, it’s only to moan and gasp for air as you shudder, and to force out another plea. “Don’t stop, Tomura. Please —”

Tomura’s teeth scrape your shoulder blade at the same time as he curls his fingers inside of you. Your entire body seizes, and for a second, you picture what this must look like, your hips lifted and your legs spread and your back arched as you seek more of Tomura’s touch. He tugs at your nipple one more time, pinches lightly, and on the next stroke of his fingers, you fall apart.

Tomura’s hips jerk in unison with the way you clench down on his fingers. Filthy sounds spill out of his mouth as he comes, drawing an aftershock from you. Even once he’s still, fully materialized and slumped over you, his fingers stay inside you. You shift awkwardly. “You can take them out.”

“Don’t want to. You’re warm.”

“I’m not a handwarmer.” You catch Tomura’s wrist in warning and he pulls his hand away. The slick sound of his fingers sliding out of you makes you cringe, but as you try to pull your thoughts back together, it occurs to you that he could have just dematerialized. Should have just dematerialized. “Don’t you need to — go?”

Tomura doesn’t answer. “Turn over. I want to see.”

He shifts his weight off of you to let you move, and you study his face as he stares down at you. He looks pretty, like always, and although he’s cold as ever, there’s sweat gluing his shirt to his skin. The flush in his face never fades very fast, and his pupils are slow to shrink. You reach up to push his hair off his forehead and his eyelids flutter. Usually Tomura’s too pleased with himself to be tired after the two of you have hooked up, but every so often he’ll look sleepy like this. It always makes you feel weird. You don’t like wishing that he could stay with you long enough to fall asleep.

He really should have dematerialized by now. Something dawns on you. “Tomura, how many of my plants did you just kill?”

Tomura pulls away from your hand and goes facedown into your chest. “Not that many,” he says, and you groan. “I left the ones you told me to.”

“I just got done getting rid of the last ones you killed. Now I have to go out there and do it again.”

“Next time I’ll do it,” Tomura says. “Then you can give me a massage.”

You fight the urge to roll your eyes. “With a happy ending?” Tomura makes a confused sound and you elaborate. “One where we hook up at the end.”

“That was good,” Tomura says. He makes himself comfortable on top of you, like he really could stretch out for a nap. “This is good, too.”

It’s weird when he says that. Weird any time he reaches out to you for something that’s not a hookup, weird when he tries to take care of you, weird when he’s clingy like this, affectionate in his own awkward way. You decide not to think about that for a little bit, just like you’re not going to think about how many more of your plants Tomura killed to stay materialized this long. Your back feels a lot better than it did before. In spite of the rest of it, you can call at least one thing a win.

taglist: @shigarakislaughter @deadhands69 @cheeseonatower @lvtuss @issaortiz @f3r4lfr0gg3r @shiggy-my-babygirl @chimaerakirin @boogiemansbitch @babybehh @shikiblessed @handumb @agente707 @warxhammer @stardustdreamersisi @xeveryxstarfallx @evilcookie5 @atspiss @fiiveweeniies @sobaism @valentineshearts @aikakuro33 @hayesemmanuel @commercialbreakings @lacrimae-lotos @aslutforfictionalmen @absurdlogik @minniessskii @clemsoup @dance-with-me-in-hell @koohiii @baking-ghoul @sota-soka

for some reason it won’t let me tag some of you on mobile, so I’ll fix it when I’m home! my apologies

82 notes · View notes

interstellarfairy · 2 days ago

Text

This is for Challenge Friday @pixelcafe-network! The broader theme was Mail and Letters, with my specific prompt being “finding a long-lost love letter while helping your “best friend” move into their new place.” As always, I messed with it a little bit! Shigaraki Tomura/Shimura Tenko x reader, no quirks AU, college AU. A rare bit of fluff from me!

co-op mode

“Oh my God.” You freeze two steps into Tenko’s studio, staring around in horror. “How do you have so much stuff?”

“It’s not that much stuff,” Tenko protests from behind you. “Spinner’s was worse.”

The two of you helped Spinner move into the brand-new house Tenko and his friends are renting last week, and you can’t really argue. Still — “Just because you can see the floor doesn’t mean it’s clean.” You glance back over your shoulder and find Tenko scowling, or pouting. “What?”

“You said you were going to help me, not pick on me,” Tenko says. “You said it would be fun.”

“It’ll definitely be fun. We’re doing it together,” you say. “Anything’s fun when I’m doing it with my best friend.”

You mean it — you always mean it, even though it’s the most humid day of the year and Tenko’s apartment is almost boiling hot — but there’s extra pressure on it this time. It’s the end of your last year at university, and your student visa is about to run out. While your friends, Tenko included, have gotten jobs and found a place to stay, you have to go home, back to your home country for the first time in years. You couldn’t find a job to sponsor you in time, and now you have to reapply from home. It’s going to be awful. You’re scared you might not be able to come back.

You’ve been trying to spend as much time with all your friends as possible, and especially with Tenko. You got folded into his group of friends through him, and while you love them all, you’re going to miss him the most. The two of you bonded through the two intro classes you shared — intro to computer science, which you were flunking, and intro to English language and composition, where Tenko had just gotten back an essay splattered with red ink. You decided to tutor each other, and that was it. You’ve been borderline inseparable ever since.

But now you are separating, half a world between you with no idea when you’ll be able to see each other again. Flights to your country are expensive, and Tenko’s been broke ever since his jackass of a father cut him off. The friends you share with him aren’t happy you’re going home. Twice and Himiko both joked that somebody should marry you so you don’t have to leave. You laughed, but it pissed Tenko off. He got up and went outside, and you followed him. They were just joking.

It’s not funny. Tenko wouldn’t look at you. I hate this.

Me too. You remember how your eyes welled up, how your throat went tight. Let’s hang out every day until I leave, all right? I want to see you as much as possible in case —

Your voice caught. In case it’s a while until we see each other again, you finished, and forced a smile. Okay?

It took a long time for Tenko to answer, and when he did, his voice was dull. Okay.

In the doorway to his studio, Tenko’s quiet. You study him, anxiety curdling in the pit of your stomach. “I wasn’t making fun of you,” you say. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Tenko sets his box down, and you hug him.

The two of you don’t hug very often. Tenko’s not touchy-feely with anybody, let alone you, but there have been a few times when you’ve gotten close. This time he hugs you back right away, and you’re surprised by how strong he is, the cords of muscle in his back and forearms that weren’t there the last time you touched him. “When did you get shredded?”

“I’m not shredded,” Tenko scoffs. “I’ve just been climbing with Spinner. So have you.”

“Yeah, but I don’t have biceps.” You let your head fall against Tenko’s shoulder for a second and breathe in, catching the smell of his deodorant and shampoo and skin. It’s familiar, and one of these days, you’ll smell it for the last time. You pull away before your eyes can start to sting. “It’s a good thing we’re both buff now. We’re going to need it for carrying all this stuff down the stairs.”

You haven’t spent a ton of time in Tenko’s apartment. Usually he hangs out at yours — yours is bigger, and your roommate’s never home. You didn’t realize just how small Tenko’s studio was until now, when you’re prying stuff out of corners and laying it out so Tenko can decide what to keep. There’s a surprising amount of your stuff here — books you loaned him and never got back, a collection of hair ties he’s stolen from you to pull back his hair, which has only gotten longer since you met. A shirt he borrowed one time when he got drunk and slept on your couch, a pair of sweatpants you’ve been looking for since last Halloween. “When did you get those?”

“I got sick and you let me stay over. When I ran out of clothes that weren’t sweaty, you gave me some of yours.” Tenko takes the sweatpants away from you, then holds them back out. “You can have them back.”

“I’ve been getting along okay without them. Will you wear them if you keep them?” you ask. Tenko nods, avoiding your eyes. “Then keep them. I bet they look good on you.”

“You should take some of my stuff,” Tenko says, still looking away. “So it’s even.”

You can’t tell if you like that idea or not. Sure, your heart flutters a bit, but you also want to cry. “Only if you’re okay sharing.”

“You can have one of my hoodies. Wear it on the plane so you don’t get cold.”

Now you’re going to cry. You avert your eyes, blinking hard, and fight to steady your voice. “If you insist.” This is supposed to be fun. How can you make this fun instead of miserable? “Let’s get rid of all the garbage on this side of the room. Then I’ll let you beat me in Mario Kart.”

“That’s too easy. Two days in Stardew,” Tenko counters. “I want to watch you go fishing.”

You hate fishing in Stardew Valley, but it never fails to crack Tenko up, and you want to hear him laugh. “Okay. Fine. Two days. But you have to come find me if I get lost again.”

“Deal.”

There’s lots of garbage in Tenko’s room — mainly empty bags and rinsed-out cans of green tea or energy drinks. He wasn’t in the habit of rinsing stuff out until he got ants sophomore year, and now he’s religious about it. The two of you also find all his notebooks and homework assignments from freshman year, which are a throwback in the fun way. You find a bunch of notes the two of you passed in class, a style guide you made for Tenko that he labeled “the idiot’s guide to English grammar”, and a bunch of shitty Polaroids from a camera Touya rented that’s now lost to history. “I’m not getting rid of these,” Tenko says, cackling as he flips through them. “Look at Touya’s fucking haircut.”

“It’s his same haircut as always, but the dye —” You wipe your eyes. “I can’t believe how fast it went pink. He should have sued them.”

“I would have.”

“Your hair’s a good color on its own,” you say, and something clicks in your head. “Wait, this is your natural color, right?”

Tenko looks at you, eyes widened like they’d be if he had eyebrows to raise, as you flail for an answer. You always assumed the blue-grey he’s had since you met him was his, but you’ve seen photos of his family, and all of them have dark hair. “Um —”

“It’s mine,” Tenko says. “It changed when I was six or so. My dad made me dye it for a while, but I stopped in high school.”

“Why?”

“I was doing it to try to blend in, but that was never going to work,” Tenko says. He searches through the Polaroids almost mindlessly, picking up one after the other and setting them down without looking. “I was different from the rest of them and they all knew it. I didn’t want to waste my time.”

It’s quiet for a moment. “And the dye gave me a rash,” Tenko adds as an afterthought. He glances at you, half a smirk on his face. “You almost had a heart attack, didn’t you?”

“If I didn’t know my best friend’s natural hair color? I was going to jump out the window.” It occurs to you that Tenko could still be lying, just seconds before it occurs to you that there’s a way to check — and then you’re turning away before your entire face can go up in flames. “I stand by what I said. It looks good.”

“Thanks.”

You take a break for Stardew after you’ve dragged the first garbage bags down to the dumpster, and you spend the whole day fishing while Tenko watches and gives increasingly unhelpful advice. The only time he’s not there is when he runs off to give Emily a birthday present. It pisses you off a little bit. “Come on. I’m here embarrassing myself to keep our farm afloat and you’re off giving her our hard-earned gemstones?”

“You ditched me in the mines that one time to go give Sebastian a Frozen Tear.” Tenko drops off the present — an amethyst — and comes back to the dock. “I don’t get why you like him. He’s a jackass.”

You picked Sebastian because he reminds you of Tenko ever so slightly. “I think Emily’s kind of an airhead. Maybe they’ll leave us and marry each other.”

Tenko snorts. “Pay attention,” he says. “If you catch something I’ll buy dinner.”

You catch a grand total of one fish and spend the second day in the mines collecting materials to make up for the stuff Tenko keeps giving away, and then it’s back to cleaning up — or packing. You survey what’s left. “What do you want help with? Stuff or clothes?”

“You’re better at folding stuff than I am. Can you —” Tenko gestures towards the closet. “It’s all clean.”

“Sure. No problem.” You make your way over to Tenko’s closet and get to work.

Tenko has a lot of repeats in his closet — different versions of the same shirt and pants, with what Himiko calls “nerd stuff” thrown in every so often. You’ve gotten him nerd stuff for his birthday, or for Christmas, or whenever you could come up with a reason to give him a gift. Tenko’s not like Touya, whose asshole dad makes up for his assholery by throwing money at him. Tenko barely gets birthday cards. You always want him to have something for the holidays, or his birthday, or just because. He deserves to feel special, and you like being the one to make it happen.

You can send him all kinds of things once you’re home, but it won’t be the same. You keep folding and packing, folding and packing, trying to shut the thought out of your head.

Tenko does have some weird stuff in his closet. Halloween costumes, mainly, and then his graduation cap, and then the suit he wore to Touya’s dad’s wedding. He hadn’t been invited. Neither had you, technically, or Himiko or Spinner or Twice — but you all went anyway, and when Touya loudly introduced you as his polycule, you all got to watch his dad’s soul leave his body mid-ceremony at the altar. Tenko looked good in a suit. You remember being impressed — a lot more than you thought you’d be, a lot more than you could hide — and you were awkward with him that night. You never explained why. He never asked.

Suits are a pain to fold. You’re fussing with it on the hangar, trying to create the fewest number of wrinkles possible, when you spot something sticking out of the suit jacket’s pocket. A folded piece of paper — no, an envelope. And when you pull it partway out for a better look, you see your name written on it in Tenko’s chicken-scratch handwriting.

The envelope isn’t sealed. If it was sealed, maybe that would stop you. Instead you open it on autopilot, pull out the letter inside — it has your name on it, it’s for you — and start reading.

Tenko’s always been direct. You’ve appreciated that about him ever since you met him, but every so often it takes you out at the knees. Like now, when he’s explaining himself in short sentences, devoid of any of the cliches you’d expect to find in a love letter. That’s what it is, you realize, as you continue to read and your eyes start to blur. Tenko loves you. He wrote it down right here.

But he never gave it to you. If he had this in his pocket at Touya’s dad’s wedding, it’s been almost a year, and he never said a word. If he had — “What are you doing?” Tenko asks, and you turn around, letter in hand. Tenko’s expression shuts down fast enough to make your heart sink. “What?”

“Don’t do that,” you say. Your voice shakes. “What is this?”

“What does it look like?” Tenko turns away. “You read it. You tell me.”

“No. I want to know. You — how long —”

“It says in the letter,” Tenko says. “I’m pretty sure I counted.”

He did count. The exact number of days you’ve known each other — or you’d known each other, when he wrote the letter. It’s what he says next that breaks your heart. It looks like a lot, but it’s not enough. I want the rest of them, too.

“You had this at the wedding?” you ask, and Tenko nods. “Why didn’t you give it to me?”

“I meant to. But you were acting so weird that night. So awkward, and it wasn’t with anybody but me. I thought you’d guessed.” Tenko shrugs. “And you wanted me to — not. So I didn’t.”

“I didn’t know,” you say. “I was weird that night, and it wasn’t — I mean, it was because of you. But not because of you.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You looked really hot in your suit and I didn’t know how to handle it,” you say, and Tenko makes a sound too heavy to be a scoff. “I mean it. I always tried not to think about you like that. It kept getting harder. And that night I couldn’t do it at all. So I was weird.”

“You danced with everybody except me.”

“I’d have danced with you,” you say. “If you’d asked.”

It’s quiet after that, other than the ceiling fan in Tenko’s apartment slowly giving up its battle with the heat. You refold the love letter and tuck it back into its envelope, but you can’t bring yourself to set it down. “Aren’t you going to ask?” Tenko says finally. “If I still mean it?”

“It wouldn’t change anything,” you say. “I still have to leave. And I wouldn’t want to tie you down.”

Something occurs to you. “When Twice made that joke about me marrying him to stay in the country — is that why you got mad?”

“Of course it is.” Tenko won’t look at you. “If I thought you’d go for it, I’d marry you so you wouldn’t have to leave.”

You feel like you’ve been hit by lightning. “I’d marry you anyway,” Tenko says, his voice going softer. “If you wanted.”

This feels unreal. Something that happens in movies, or to other people, not to you. Maybe that’s why you can’t think of anything smart to say. “Shouldn’t we kiss first or something? Even in kids movies they kiss before the wedding.”

Tenko turns to face you, and for the first time since you told him you had to leave, you see something like excitement, something like hope behind his eyes. “I want to know,” he says, even as he steps closer, even as you let the suit jacket fall unfolded into a box. “Do you like me? Or do you just not want to leave?”

“I don’t want to leave,” you say. “And I like you. I never said anything because — I like us as friends, a lot. I didn’t want to lose that by asking you and hearing no.”

Tenko gives you a weird look. “Why would I say no?”

“I don’t really game,” you say. “Not like you do. And —”

And what? You can’t remember. Tenko’s standing in front of you, reaching out towards you, and nothing else matters quite as much as that. The two of you have never crossed that line, no matter how close you’ve been. It feels easier to step over when Tenko’s doing the same thing, and he kisses you before you can find the end of your sentence.

You know Tenko’s kissed someone before, or several someones, but he must not have kissed them like this, or they’d never have broken up with him. He holds onto you so much tighter than you thought he would, pressing you so close that it’s an effort to work your arms free and wrap them around his neck. Somewhere in the back of your mind it occurs to you that this is your first kiss with Tenko, that you shouldn’t overdo it. The rest of you ignores it and buries your hands in Tenko’s hair.

Tenko’s breath catches to the point where he pulls away slightly, but when he comes back, he’s almost frantic. Needy. Like you’ve felt every time you’ve thought about leaving, the drive to sink your teeth into every moment you can get with Tenko and hold on tight. You’ve had a lot of days together, you and Tenko. You want the rest of them, too.

It’s so hot in Tenko’s apartment. You’re both sweating when you separate, but you can’t bring yourself to go far. “Did you mean it?” you ask. “What you said in your letter?”

“Yeah. Wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t.” Tenko’s forehead tilts against yours, his eyelids fluttering shut. “You can’t kiss me like that any more in here. I’m gonna get heatstroke and pass out.”

“That good, huh?” you joke, and Tenko kisses you. “If I can’t kiss you here, where am I supposed to kiss you?”

“The new place. Air conditioning and a shower. And we need to go over there anyway,” Tenko says. You give him a puzzled look. “If we’re doing this, we need witnesses, right?”

“Right,” you say. “Tenko —”

“Yeah?”

“Do you really —”

“I wrote that letter last year. I don’t feel any different now.” In spite of his ban on kissing in his stiflingly hot apartment, Tenko doesn’t seem to have a problem kissing you. “Like I said. I’d marry you anyway.”

He kisses you again, then draws back. “Do you want me to ask or something?”

“No,” you say. You don’t want him to get down on one knee. Proximity to the floor is a bad idea for both of you right now. “You already said everything in your letter. If anybody’s going to ask, it should be me.”

You take a step back from him, catching his hand in the bargain, only for Tenko to pull you back in. “You don’t need to ask,” he says. “Just say yes.”

“I do need to ask,” you protest, your voice muffled in his shoulder. “You wrote me this letter. I’m not pulling my weight if I don’t at least ask.”

“Fine,” Tenko grumbles. “Just don’t be weird about it.”

“I won’t be weird,” you say. “Let’s get this done and get out of here.”

It doesn’t take long to pack up the rest of Tenko’s stuff, once you give up on organizing and just start shoving stuff into boxes. You leave his old set of keys under the doormat and carry everything down to your car. You keep Tenko’s love letter tucked inside your wallet. You want to keep looking at it, memorize every line, but somebody has to drive.

In the passenger seat, Tenko’s antsy. You know he’ll come out with it if you wait, and you don’t have to wait long. “Are you going to ask me?”

“Of course. Now that we’ve got AC I can use my brain again.” You think for a few seconds, cool air blasting in your face. “Ever since I found out I’d have to leave, I’ve felt sick. The only time I’ve felt better is when I’m with you. But that’s how it always is. You’re so smart, and you’re funny when I’m not expecting it, and you’re kind in the strangest ways — and you look really good in a suit. And in my clothes.”

Tenko snorts. His hand creeps over onto your leg, and once you hit a stoplight, you take one hand off the wheel to hold his. “I worry sometimes that you don’t see it. How special you are. How many people love you. I’m one of them. I have been for a while. I try to show you, as much as I can, but I’m not very good at it yet. I’m hoping you’ll give me some time to practice.”

Tenko’s grip on your hand tightens. “How long were you thinking?”

“A long time,” you say. “Maybe forever, if you’re up for it. So, Shimura Tenko —”

“Don’t be weird —”

“Can I be your Player Two?”

“Ugh.” Tenko slumps down in his seat, but he doesn’t let go of your hand. When you glance sideways at him, you see him smiling. It’s been so long since you first saw his smile, and it never gets old. “Fine.”

taglist: @cheeseonatower @shigarakislaughter @deadhands69 @xeveryxstarfallx @chimaerakirin @shikiblessed @atspiss @shiggy-my-babygirl @handumb @warxhammer @agente707 @aikakuro33 @hayesemmanuel @stardustdreamersisi @lvtuss @f3r4lfr0gg3r @evilcookie5 @boogiemansbitch @lacrimae-lotos @sobaism @commercialbreakings @babybehh @valentineshearts @fiiveweeniies @issaortiz

my taglist is still messed up on mobile, so I’ll add everybody else when I’m home!

183 notes · View notes