plotsignificanthaircut555 - Tumblr blog

plotsignificanthaircut555 · 19 days ago

Text

Bereavement V Widow!Reader x Nanami Kento

Part Five of Six: Clock Out, SMUT

Part one, Part two, Part three, Part four (starting from the beginning if you wanna know why any of this stuff is about to happen, or just read this, no sweat.)

EPILOGUE (to be read after, a little extra denouement treat for you)

Grief has been set aside for now, but the thought of losing someone who you just got a handle on, is too much to bare. You have to take action, but what will the subject of your newfound peace think about your change in attitude?

taglist: @nanamin-chan @edgyficuselastica @sunbrightheart

WC: 6.3k Masterlist ao3 Ko.fi

Nanami’s boss had been less than pleased with his “out of house” handling of the Kubota settlement. Two broken chairs in his office and nearly a hundred papers thrown and scattered about the floor to show just how much. According to him, the final meeting was the time to reel her back in. But even as a fairweather fisherman, Nanami knew when to throw one back. The events of the other night weren’t, of course, shared with the boss, but even the passive answer of:

“The forms are in her email, awaiting signature. Once I send them off to the bank, the contract is complete.”

Was enough for his boss to go ballistic. Nanami tuned out most of the admonishment, something about final chances and wasted potential and lost revenue. Kento didn’t care. His boss didn’t seem to remember that the actual inheritors of the Kubota company, the deceased’s brothers, were still active clients. He just wanted you. He wanted, what he perceived to be, your ignorance of the inner workings of business. It disgusted him that he would prey on you so openly. But he shouldn't be surprised, these people were predators, scavengers, really. Waiting for the weakest to pick apart.

These people. He thought, Were just like him.

What, really, was the difference between what they wanted and what he had done to you? Well, they hadn’t actually had the opportunity to take advantage, let alone taken it. He had. And then he had relished in it afterwards, licking his chops like a hyena.

Disgusting.

The boss dismissed Kento from his office, choosing to continue his mourning in private or simply having screamed his voice to exhaustion. As the door slammed behind him, Kento looked around the work floor, his colleagues all stared. Some sympathetic, or fearful that the rage may spill out onto them as well, some smug as though they had been waiting for this. Maybe they had been. It’s not like he had ever been a social component of any of their lives. You can refuse after work drinks seven times, give or take, before people take the hint and stop inviting you. His reclusiveness could be taken as rudeness, he wasn’t even sure if that wasn't what he intended.

As he swept the room with his eyes, he realized he didn’t have a single friend among the faces present. And for the first time since graduating Jujutsu Tech, he mourned the loss of that community. Sorcery was a prison, but your fellow inmates will always be the only ones who really understand you. Who knows where you’ve been, what you’ve done, and who you are underneath it all. For a brief moment, a matchstick’s burn’s worth of time, he had grown fond of the idea of having that again. Someone around him with whom he could be all of himself, the parts that he hated and the parts he feared. Someone with whom he could feel useful and needed, not feeling as though he just existed without purpose or drive, simply going through the motions of life without living. He had tasted purpose once again, and like a dehydrated man he lapped too indulgently and made himself sick. That life wouldn’t be his, and his foolishness to entertain that it could have been reopened long scabbed over wounds that he knew better than to pick at.

All he knew now was that he needed a change. He couldn’t live like this anymore. He checked his watch, snug on his left wrist. 11:51 am. He checked once more. 11:51 am. Again. 11:52 am. Nanami released a breath, having caught the motion of the minute hand. He could progress into the room and to his desk. Slotting in between his chair and desk, he stared blankly at the email inbox open before him, no news. No new email from you. It was still early, you likely were still reading through them.

He uncurled his spine and peeked around to the cubicles to either side of him, both currently unoccupied by their inhabitants. Opening his left desk drawer he pulled his phone free. Personal phone calls weren’t allowed on the office floor, although picking up work related calls outside of business hours was expected. But Nanami couldn’t bring himself to care about the expectations of this place anymore, he wouldn’t be here much longer anyway.

He opened his phone and scrolled through his contacts, looking for one name that he genuinely feared stood a substantial chance of being the last one he thought of before he died. It was easy to find, practically muscle memory,

Satoru Gojo DO NOT PICK UP.

He rolled his eyes at his former self, or maybe at the incoming reaction from the man he was about to call. Kento could already hear the smug pleasure Satoru would take in his return. The years worth of unanswered text messages had not gone unread, nor had the rambling voicemails talking about his old classmates and what they had gotten up to in his absence, despite Nanami giving up his informational clearance. It’s not like anyone was going to correct Gojo. But he knew the door had been opened for him, no matter how final he was each time he spoke to Satoru about his leaving. There had always been this…understanding between them…that Nanami would eventually come back. Even when he didn’t want it to be true, he knew it was his fate. It was where he belonged.

The coworker to the right of Nanami returned to her desk, Nanami decided this was a conversation better had outside. Phone in hand he made his way to the elevator, pushing the down button and waiting.

The doors parted and Nanami was so focused on not backing out of this call that he stepped right in before turning his gaze down to who had just come up.

You stood there. He blinked to be sure he hadn’t lost his mind to the point of hallucination. You were there, your hair down, clothing casual and bright, your makeup was just as beautifully applied but less mask-like, more accentuating your features than changing them. He stared at you, unable to speak for fear that you would disappear if he did. You stared at him, but not in fear or in surprise. He watched your lips curl into a smile.

“I have your forms.” You said, passing him a manila envelope.

He accepted it, the strachy, thick paper against his hand was real. This was real. You were real. The elevator sensor saw nothing and began to shut the doors, but his hand shot out to catch it before they closed you away from him.

“Kento.” Your voice was dripping like agave, smooth and fluid.

“You’re here.”

“I am. I hope I didn’t catch you trying to slip out of our meeting.” You tilted your head like a cat, pawing at a caught mouse.

His forehead furrowed in confusion, shaking his head slightly, “I sent the--You didn’t have to bring--”

“With those forms completed, our contract is finished, yes?” Your smile grew, unreadable and mischievous.

“Y-yes, once I get them to the--”

“Banks, yes I know. But my part is done, and what are a few final emails, huh? So our professional involvement is now concluded, officially.”

“What are you--”

“Kento.” You stepped forward out of the elevator, making him step back.

Despite your having to look up at him, he felt about two feet tall. He wanted to flagellate himself before you, apologize until the building crumbled around you both, he wanted to cry out in joy at seeing you, to grab you and kiss you again--proving he hadn’t yet actually learned his lesson. Not if you didn’t want him to. Did you want him to? He would do anything you asked of him. What did you want?

“...the other night.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me I--” Nanami silenced himself as you raised your hand to stop him.

“I’m sorry. I left you feeling as though you had done something wrong. You didn’t. I did.”

“You didn’t do anythi--”

“Yes I did. I scared myself out of doing something that I wanted so badly. I haven't wanted anything like that in years. Maybe ever. It’s not a familiar feeling for me and it scared me. And I think it scared you too, and I’m sorry. But I know what I want. And I’m ready now.”

Nanami’s breath shook, relife coursing through his veins still hadn’t reached his brain, but his heart became lighter with every pump.

“I know what I want, Kento.” You nodded, stepping closer to him, “Do you?”

Nanami couldn’t speak, your big, unglazed, unashamed eyes bore right into the language center of his brain. Burrowing yourself into his psyche, tying his tongue with every bat of your eyelashes. But he nodded.

“Kento, do you want to stay at your job?” You asked.

He shook his head.

“Do you like your apartment?”

His voice found him, “It’s…fine.”

“Will you open the envelope for me?” You pressed your hand to the orange-y file folder in his hands.

He twisted the brads open without looking. He couldn’t take his eyes off of you, he was sure that if he did you would vanish, and this would all have been a dream. He pulled out its contents and felt the 8 by 11 pages still warm from printing, but he also felt something else. Despite his fear, he tore his eyes away from you and looked down. In his hand, on top of the signed settlement agreement. Two plane tickets. Tokyo to Penang. He read the words three times over. Then seven more. Ten confirmations that he was not misreading.

Finally, no longer willing to wait for him to put all the pieces of your plan together, you spoke again.

“I love you. I really do, and it doesn’t make any sense and it couldn’t be a weirder time, but I love you. I think we have a real chance together, but I can’t stay here. Not in that house, not in this city. I need a change, and I think you do too. So come with me, please. If it doesn't work you can leave whenever you want and I can get you another job in any office you want. But if what you told me the other night was true, I think you love me too. Or you might. Or you might want to?”

You took in a sky breath, “I’ve never done anything like this in my life. Everything I’ve always done has been safe and easy and prescribed. And it was fine, and I was happy sometimes and miserable sometimes, but I know if I stay here I’ll be miserable forever. And I know that if I didn’t at least try to convince you that I could make you happy and you could make me happy and we could be happy together then I would always wonder what if I had? I’m so tired of thinking about what I should have done or what I shouldn’t have done. I don’t want to feel like this anymore. I want to feel the way I do when I’m around you…all the time. Please, Kento, please, if any part of you wants to at least try, please come with me to Malaysia. ”

Your hands were shaking, your ears felt hot, your voice was quivering embarrassingly. You thought of what you would say on the whole ride over, none of the words sounded right, no language could help you traverse the barrier of crazy that you were trying to overcome now.

And you knew it was crazy. Three weeks ago you didn’t even know about one another and just two nights ago he left your apartment with his tail between his legs. Nothing about what you were asking made sense, come with me to malaysia, let me appropriate your life long dream for my own selfish desires. But as insane as you knew you sounded, with every word you felt more sure that this was the right thing to do. You had to try. You had to fight for this. You needed him. And if he said no…well you could always just disappear completely and bury your shame for the rest of your life under booze and pills until you couldn’t remember. Be one of those ladies who sat at bars talking to anyone who would listen about when she almost had it all. There was a certain kind of glamour in that.

“Yes.”

You thought it was your own voice for a second, so used to hearing your own spiraling mind for hours on end. It took a second for you to absorb what he said.

“Yes?” You repeated.

“Yes. I’ll go with you.” He looked between you and the tickets, but stayed his gaze on you.

You thought you saw his skin grown fuller, buoyant and pink. His hair grew brighter, his eyes shimmered, even the dreary office grew saturated. You couldn’t catch your breath, you didn’t know what to say, you hadn’t anticipated this part of the conversation. You hadn’t prepared for a rejection, nor had you prepared for acceptance. Luckily you didn’t have to hesitate long, he cupped your face, one hand still clutching papers and kissed you. He kissed you and the world bloomed, the rain stopped, the clock on the wall stood still, even the nosiest of office gossips averted their gaze. Despite the public setting , this was the privatest of moments. Sacred and untouchable. By the outside, by fate, by your own minds. The absurd ocean that had drowned you last night, filled his own chest. A tide all your own. A tide you would call home in just a month of living at its shore.

Your move to Malaysia was not immediate. Kento quit his job on the spot, left the office with his hand in yours, his other hand holding the only things he needed from his desk after finalizing your paperwork. The only time you stepped foot in his apartment was that day, when you went together to pack his bag. He included a few shirts, finding his wardrobe was unprepared for his change of lifestyle, despite his constant wishing for it.

But it didn’t matter, you could buy him anything he wanted to wear, even if it would just be discarded and never worn again. He brought a photo album, a few books, personal mementos but no interrupting work computer, none of his perfectly cared for, carefully wound watches made the voyage. His dress shoes and suits would be collected by the building managers and disposed of or sold some months later. Anything he wanted to keep and move later would be moved into your apartment by movers a few weeks later, kept safe until you were settled enough and it was time to ship everything else.

But that first afternoon, the whirlwind of packing and kissing, of confirmations and double confirmations, as bizarre and chaotic as it must have looked, felt like perfect order. For once, he didn’t care how neatly things were folded, or if he had brought the safest numbers of each thing, if he was preparing enough. All he needed was his passport, the irreplaceables, and you.

The flight was for the next day, as advantageous a prospect as the whole of your plan. Meaning you had the night together. Your first night together. You sat on his bed, against his clean, fluffy pillows, enjoying the view as he packed his bag. He had shed his work clothes, already feeling too tight, and now just wore an undershirt and slacks. Short sleeves showing off the dimension of his upper arms that were even more delicious than you had imagined. You could see the movements of each muscle in his arms, the way that veins trailed from his hands to his forearms. You had been correct, the freckle clusters grew more gathered and more present further up his arms. His hair was coming loose, he seemed to be molting. Shedding this corporate protective shell, and letting you see the soft creature underneath. He hadn’t stopped smiling since you left the office.

“When I’m done should we go to your place? Or…” Nanami looked at you lounging on his bed and saw your cat-like smile, “You’ve already packed.”

“Mhm.” You nodded, giggling.

He leaned on the bed, over his bag, a dusty blush coloring his cheeks, “You’re a very confident person. What if I had said no?”

“You didn’t.” You cocked your head, all too pleased with yourself.

He shook his head, a toothy smile you never even thought to imagine shining at you, “No I didn’t.”

“I knew you wouldn’t” You moved onto your knees, mirroring his stance over his bag, leaning in to his nose.

“Liar, you were practically shaking.” He teased.

“Practically?” You laughed, “I was shaking. Are you kidding me, I was mortified. I never thought in a million years you would say yes.”

He laughed with you, the hiccups of joy merging together in a beautiful harmony. “And you still asked.”

He said it in awe, not even knowing himself if he was asking why or just stating it as fact. This time you kissed him, when he was so close to you it was so hard to look at him and not want to kiss him. He was so handsome, especially as he was shedding the layers and layers of fatigue. You felt like you were truly seeing him, and seeing him was making you dizzy. You would have to take time to get used to how gorgeous he was, like depressurizing coming back up to the surface. He kissed you back, moving his bag onto the floor to lay you down on his bed and move his body over yours.

The kiss brought you both slower together, deeper into one another. Barriers of clothes shed themselves, leaving you bare skin to bare skin. Under the covers your bodies joined again, your legs slotting between his own on instinct. You had never felt more and thought less while being intimate with someone. Every move, every turn, every kiss felt purely natural. Like bodies doing exactly what they were meant to do. Like humans throughout all of history, like animals throughout all of time.

Nanami was gentle with you, but not from fear of hurting or scaring you, his gentility came from his own desire to elongate the experience. To remember every inch of you. Your fingers, he had to kiss each one, each knuckle, each fingernail and print. Up to the back of your hands, so soft, the ripples of ligament and bones making perfect ridges and valleys for his tongue and lips to slot in and out of. Your wrists wore the residual stick of his wet lips like bangles. He kissed up your arms, squeezing the skin, watching it bend and move, wanting to learn every part of you. He slid his tongue around the ball of your shoulders, into your collar bones. His hand joined him here, holding the back of your neck to angle your head back and forth, allowing him to take his time with both sides independently.

Nanami learned then how much he loved your neck, soft skin over strong muscle, downy hair at the base of your skull, sensitive spots behind your ears that made you gasp. His fingers could brush past the spit whetted skin and your body would shiver. He marveled at the quake of your body, how your breasts jiggled softly, how your nipples hardened despite being neglected thus far, how your stomach tightened at the roll of nerves. He wanted to know every secret of your sensation, how to unlock every reaction. He would study pressure points for the rest of his life if it meant he could find every spot on your body that brought you pleasure.

The sight of your perfect, round breasts begging for him made him sympathetic, turning his selfish desire for discovery into soft, generous compliance. He moved his mouth lower, tongue trailing down your sternum, tasting the slight chemical tang of the perfume you had dripped there this morning.

If its poison let me die now, here.

In each hand he took a full, handful’s grasp of your chest. Pressing them into the sides of his face, he groaned, kneading them against his skin. If this is how soft you felt on the outside…what must you feel like inside? He worried he would cum right there against his sheets and miss out on finding out completely. But he didn’t have to worry about that now. He would have time.

There will be time.

Your hands found his hair, mussing the clean style, feeling each hair individually in between your fingers. He busied his mouth with placing soft, suckling kisses on every inch of each breast, muttering all the while about how soft and beautiful they were.

“So pretty….so soft….so perfect….mmm…baby…you’re so…so good.”

Your cheeks heated, but you let the embarrassment crest and fall away. You didn’t have to deny or shy away from his compliments. They didn’t feel like something you had to earn or maintain, they felt innate, constant. Like no matter what you did or didn’t do, the fact that you were there would be enough.

Once he had his fill, he moved lower again, kissing along your ribcage, the lines of muscle and fat that trailed down your torso. His hands moving down your flanks, making you shiver again, you had to take deep breaths to avoid giggling.

“Ticklish?” He mumbles against the skin next to your belly button.

“A bit.” You bit your bottom lip, trying not to tense away from his touch.

He moved his hands up and down your sides again, playing with the speed and pressure a few times, until you break a little squeal.

“I won't take advantage.” but the twinkle in his eye tells you he has crossed fingers behind that promise.

Still watching you from between your legs, he brought one hand down the length of your left leg, studying the folds of skin, the bend of your leg, the ball of your ankle. He rests his head on your right thigh, sighing happily. Marveling at the beauty that was now his own. He didn’t know if it was the loss, or the years of dissatisfaction, or the subsequent years of passive misery, but something, something he had done or endured, had earned him an angel. And here you were, patient and permissive to his every touch and study. Fingers ghosting back up, having felt every inch of you that they could reach from here, he moved onto his stomach at your center line. He looked up at you on the bed, pretty and perfect, perched on his pillows, watching and waiting to see what he did next.

“Say it again.” He surprised himself with the demand, voice soft, like a secret shared with flashlights under a blanket.

Brief confusion turned to adoration on your face.

oh how beautifully she morphs.

“I love you.” You whispered down to him, dyeing his face rose with just your words.

He hummed and kissed the joint between your leg and pelvis.

“Say it again, please.” he purred against your skin.

“I love you, Kento.” You reached down to brush your fingers against his cheek.

He let his eyes flutter closed, you touch, your skin against his face, your words of love in his ears, he wanted to live in this moment until the end of time. And then remembered the privileged task that waited for him. You made no moves to rush him, not wanting to truncate the way he had chosen to show his love for you.

“I dreamt of this, you know.” He confessed, kissing the other side in the same jointed crevice, “Of having you all to myself like this. Not rushing through things, taking my time with you, learning you.”

He moved his hand under your legs, moving them over his shoulders, having a hard time deciding whether to look at your face or study the way your lips parted, exposing the pretty, sticky fold of your pussy to him. But once he got a look, he couldn’t tear himself away. He licked a long stripe over the whole of your vulva, his eyes rolling back in his head at your taste. It was perfect, better than his imagination, better than his memories of others, so human, so perfectly salty-sweet, a taste entirely your own.

“I dreamt of you, too.” you moaned, settling back against the pillows, letting his tongue lull you into bliss.

The slow gentility began to fade, every taste made him more and more frenzied. Large, open mouthed, sloppy kisses to your pussy, sliding his tongue up and down, from the top of the seam, down to the skin before your ass. He held your legs tighter the more you moved, keeping you locked against his mouth. Moving his tongue inside of your hole, needing your sap from its source. Pulling it from you, letting it coat the inside of his mouth. He allowed himself one hand to assist him, trusting your knee locked over his shoulder and his other hand would be enough to keep you steady. He used this thumb to circle your clit ever so gently, not pressing down or pinching…yet.

You couldn’t believe the sensations he gave you. The hot waves of pleasure sought to drown you in him, and still he was your only buoy to cling to. You held his neck in one hand, your breast in the other. But you couldn’t sit still for long, you had to switch hands, fingers in your mouth, pushing at his shoulder, pulling at his hair, scratching at your own thighs. Anything to offset the overwhelming, all encompassing touch from Nanami. You had never been licked like this, never did you think something like this was even possible. It looked like he was barely moving. One sturdy arm over your pelvis to reach your clit, the only thing moving was the ball joint of his neck and his thumb. He wasn’t afraid to get wet either, his nose down to his chin were all saturated in you. Dripping wet, and he lamented his tongue not being long enough to lick himself clean.

“Kento, baby, please,” You whimpered, “Please use your fingers too, please, I-I need it.”

You felt him smile against your pussy, you could hear it too, the slimy spreading of his lips making your back arch. He moved his free hand bringing two fingers into his mouth, letting himself break his focus and look up at you. Fuck, he shouldn’t have done that. You were glowing, sweat and drool on your body finer than the most expensive body oils money could buy, finer than if you had been granted luminescence from some deep sea goddess to exist solely as a creature of nocturnal beauty. He had to avert his eyes lower, but when he saw the leaking mess he had made under you on the sheets, drool and cum pooling together, sinking into his mattress, he didn’t know which sight was worse for him--or better?

Fuck.

But you were asking him--no, begging him for his help. He could never deny you that. He moved his fingers up your seam, watching you sink further into the bed, your chest heaving, your eyes looking up at him, dreamy and desperate.

“I like how you sound when you’re asking for things.” Nanami smirked at you.

“I hope you’ll like how I sound when I’m telling you to do things.” You pouted down at him.

“Oh is that how it is?” He chuckled, sliding his fingers up and down once more.

“You like begging, instead? I can beg.” You widen your eyes into soft puppy eyes, “Please Kento, please, please, I need your fingers. Make me cum, please.”

That shouldn’t have worked on him so easily, it seemed that his fingers found your hole all on their own, pushing inside, letting him feel the velvet inside of your muscles. Your body’s most protected opening, against his fingertips. He dove back into, pairing his tongue along the fingers he fed you.

You whined and keened backwards,“Yes! Yes, fuck---”

His fingers were even better than you dreamed, longer than yours, the pair of them thick in your still yearning hole. He nodded with your cries of affirmation, bobbing his head, his tongue following up to your clit and down to his still exposed base knuckles. He bent his fingers upward, making you shudder. He angled his thrusting fingers upwards, pressing your button every time with a lifetime of perfect precision. It wasn’t exactly hard for him to locate such…weak points. His brief education in your body was all he needed to be able to locate the whereabouts of the more precise erogenous zones, and the epicenters therein. It had been quite a while since it had an excuse, or a reason to indulge in the more intimate applications of his innate technique. But hey, he didn’t keep all that training up for nothing.

“H-how, oh, fuck.” Your eyes rolled back, your head rolled into the pillow, and you pulled its edge toward your face, burying it.

It was so fast, so perfectly precise, so right on the spot everytime. You felt your orgasm building inhumanly fast. Maybe it was the desire, maybe it was the neglect, maybe it was him. It had to be him. But you felt the pressure behind your pelvis compounding on itself, his tongue on your clit, his olympic archer accurate fingers drumming against your g spot.

“Ken--I..” You couldn’t even get the rest out before your sentence was overwhelmed by your cry of pleasure.

And a true cry of pleasure it was, tears spilled from your eyes, your body shook, only for Nanami to hold you flush against the mattress and continue his ministrations on your body. You didn’t know if you had cum this hard in your life. You screamed into the pillow, letting the down feathers catch your sounds. Your thighs clamped over his ears, muffling the sound further for Nanami, which he would have detested if he didn't get a mouthful of your squirt just before the pressure became too much for you. He couldn't hear or see anything, all his other senses shut off completely in necessity to taste every milliliter of pleasure you released for him. He had earned it, he deserved it.

It was your hand pawing against his shoulder that made him finally relent, his sight and hearing returned to him the moment he detached his mouth from your spent, dribbly cunt. He could hear you panting, he could hear himself panting as he knelt up, standing on his knees watching your body below him. Yours were sweeter, soft gasping moans intercut with deep breaths, trying to fill your lungs. Your eyes were wide as you took him in, finally, bared before you, you took in his form, the shape of his body, its harsh lines of muscularity befitting of an anatomy class diagram’s cut perfection. Effort clenched abs, hard built chest, soft tan-rosy brown nipples, moles and freckles littering his torso. His chest flushed red in splotchy signs of effort, sweat and squirt and drool and cum slipping down his neck, onto his chest, a few stray drops rolling down his stomach, catching and splitting along the lateral lines of his abdomen, reaching for his reddened, erect, and leaking cock. You were right, he was thick, very thick in fact, curved upward all too tantalizingly. But the drip, the leaking precum spilling from him in a thick line down to the bed was…It was obscene. It was foul. It was too much.

You reached for him and pulled him down to meet your lips, his once tender kisses now mirrored the sloppy way he had eaten your cunt; all consuming, breath stealing, tongue replacing kisses that made your already expelled lungs burn for fullness. In pursuit of your own desire to be filled, you pulled him between your legs again. Hard, wide cock all too eager to push inside, already kissing your hole with his own. You both shuddered this time, breaking the kiss apart are just the slightest contact. He kept his hips steady, locking in their position apart from you so as to not miss his favorite part. He would learn, much later, that it was your favorite part too. The first press inward, the first splitting of yourself around you, his first introduction inside. Be it now, the very first time, or in the ensuing year that would follow, the first envelopment of his body into your own of each instance of sex would have you both shaking and grasping at each other.

Savoring this for himself, he pressed his forehead down to yours, feeling the dewy sweat of your face, mix with the drenched wetness of his own. Sweat moving down the slope of his nose down onto your own.

“I love you.” The words that permeated the room already came from him this time.

You swallowed them up in a kiss, tasting the language on your tongue, savoring the taste of his love as he pushed into you. Kento had to break the kiss, gasping at the tightness, the newness, the perfection of the feel of your inside. He could believe it, raw, uninhibited sliding of muscle against muscle, sex against sex.

“Oh, fuck.” His head slid to the side, to bury against your neck, that fucking intoxicating perfume making him even dizzier.

You dug your fingers into the grooves of his back, your legs hiking over his hips and pulling him in further. When he finally bottomed out, you both struggled to breathe. Gasping in each others’ air, the oxygen in the space between your faces barely enough to keep you both alive. You grasp at the back of his neck, feeling the muscles at the base of his skull twist as he moves up to look at you. You locked eyes, and the pain, the breathlessness, everything but the pleasure vacated both of you. He could finally bring his hips back to submerge himself again. And again. And again. A smooth, steady pace, bottoming out, before pulling out everything but the last inch. He could kiss you again, and he did. Kissing you hard and hungrily as his hips picked up the pace.

“Yes, yes, god yes.” you chanted as his lips would allow.

“So good, so tight, so…so perfect.” He echoed in return.

He fucked into you harder, trying to stave off the orgasm that had been building in him since he first kissed you at the office, at least until you were crafting one of your own. He pulled your hip along with him as he thrusted, and you moved as his hand instructed, rocking your body as he thrust. Deep reaching, thick cock spreading you open all the way to your cervix, pressing against the most sensitive spots, especially the one he found so perfectly before. No longer able to go without air, you let your head fall back and he busied himself with tending to your neck, kissing, sucking, biting, leaving little marks just small enough to be barely seen.

He felt it, the rock of your hips, the grind of your clit against the base of his pelvis, the scrunch of your face, the way your glossy lips parted and pursed. You could feel it too, his hips stuttered, his cock twitched against your cervix, your neck grew wet from his sloppy kissing, spit now overproducing. But it was your heart beats, pressed chest to chest, syncing in frantic, effort latent beats that truly gave it away. You caught his eyes, dark mahogany and black pupil inseparable from one another. His lashes fluttered, he pushed in hard, pressing against your g spot hard, a two handed push into bliss. But you were not alone this time, the hands that pushed you held you in your fall, falling himself.

Each line of cum painting you inside made him shiver. The sweat on his neck quickly turned cold, anything would be cold against the warmth of your body. He clutched you tighter, despite your whines of overstimulation, of sensitivity. Your orgasm slipped away and you slumped against the bed, he followed you, holding you tighter, as if you would vanish. It took a few minutes for you both to come back to yourselves, aftershocks and held breaths coming and going as the seconds ticked away. Nanami thanked you profusely, between kisses along your breasts, soft hands across your body, in the exchanges of words, in tongues, in your own minds. When he finally did pull out of you, nearly an hour had passed since the luggage was discarded. You laid together in the bed he once called his but soon would be no one’s, rolling on your sides looking at each other in disbelief.

“I really do love you.” Nanami brushed sticky hair off your forehead, “I don’t need to go to Malaysia to know that. I knew when you laid into me in the conference room.”

“When I called you a coward?” You raised your eyebrows, getting cozy next to him, “I certainly hope you don’t think that's what love looks like.”

You yawned and snuggled into his chest, he closed an arm over your shoulder. He looked down at you. The lashes on your cheeks, the curve of your nose, the sleepy pout of your lips. He remembered the stoic, barely held together woman he first met in that office. Tight hairstyle, hard gaze, tense shoulders. And now, here she was, undone, relaxed, at peace against him. Kento believed you took his breath away the first time he saw you, but he knew now he had never truly had breath at all before you.

“It’s not.” He kissed your forehead, closing his own eyes, and finally holding you to sleep.

Kento didn’t know what he thought love looked like, he hadn’t had anything even close to it in far too long for any familiarity to have lingered. But, now, feeling your body soften against his, feeling the waves of sleep weighing his eyes down, he felt, for the first time in years, that he could find it again. And he knew, truly knew, that he would.

RETIREMENT (Epilogue)

Wow, y'all, thank you so much. Writing this has been such a joy, spending four months diving into the minutia of grief, loneliness, love, and how to process and move on without feeling like you are totally healed. I have always taken issue with the idea that you need to wait until you are "fixed" to be loved and to love. We never feel fixed, we never feel completely healed sometimes, and you shouldn't have to wait until you are a "better person" to love. as long as you can show up and be vulnerable, and give yourself freely and acknowledge where your pitfalls may arrive, thats all anyone can ask. You deserve love, you don't have to be perfect. No one ever is, we never will be. Let yourself be loved imperfectly. -- Doodle, who loves you <3

27 notes · View notes

plotsignificanthaircut555 · 19 days ago

Text

Are we excited for the final chapter(s) tonight???

Because I am!!! I hope you guys enjoy how things wrap up. I loved writing this piece so much and I love the end even more.

Writing about grief, about lonliness, about isolation all helped me work through some lingering, latent feelings within myself that I didn’t yet have the chance to verbalize. And now I feel like I have a cleaner, clearer understanding of where they sit in the body, and how those build ups of feeling effect you and the way you move through life.

Part six and Epilogue. Both out tonight!!!!!!

Bereavement IV

Widow!reader x Nanami Kento

Part four of five: Mandatory Breaks

Part one, Part two, Part three (honestly this time i would say you really should read what happened before this, but once again you can literally do whatever you want.) ((also this one is sexy so like you can read this as a one off if you want))

What happens now that you have Nanami back in your apartment. and what happens afterwards.

taglist: @nanamin-chan @sunbrightheart @edgyficuselastica

WC: 9.9k Masterlist ao3 Ko.fi

SMUT UNDER THE CUT MDNI

You shut the door behind him and slid the deadbolt in place by routine, the loud thunk of it knocked between your ears. You hoped he hadn’t heard it and thought it was presumptuous. You turned to face him, it was uncanny to see him in the dim light of your apartment. These days it was uncanny to see anyone other than your own reflection. The dim city light that leaked in from the large windows gave your apartment a soft green-blue tint, he was still lingering near enough to your entryway, to you, that you could see the soft light tinting his skin as well, intensifying the shadows on his cheeks and eyes.

Nanami marveled at the cavernous apartment, he had read over the specifics of your property, square footage should certainly have tipped him off to how massive it would feel; but no number on the page could have done this place justice. HIgh ceilings, large, wide hallways extending to either side. But his heart stopped when he caught sight of the kitchen. Gorgeous countertops, a gas range, large window to one side, a sky light above, a pot rack adjacent that must catch the light beautifully, and space, so much space; he could make a banquet dinner every day here without needing to outsource a single tool or appliance. Dinners, desserts, breakfasts, occasions, birthdays, holidays; all beautiful and perfectly executed flashed before him, before he swallowed down the fantasy. He looked down to you, seeing you leaning against the wall removing one of your heels. Bent in such a way, in fact, that he could see right down the neckline of your shirt. He tried to pry his eyes away, to ignore the gap of skin between, not press his luck. But the heartbeat in his neck had begun to travel lower.

“Should I--take my shoes off as well?” He swallows, his eyes peeling themselves off of your skin.

You looked up at him, the stuck shoe dropping to the ground next to you. Your eyes were soft and full, pupils wide in the dim light, lips wet, skin smooth and dewy. Your makeup had softened, he now noticed, absorbed into your skin making you look like an oil painting, blended and misty. The soft lines of your face blurred and relaxed pulling into an easy smile.

“If you wouldn’t mind, thank you.” you nodded, returning your gaze to your other shoe, freeing him to breathe again.

You stepped forward into the living room, your legs growing more solid with every step.

“Can I get you a drink?” You moved toward the kitchen, not trying to sway your hips as much as you were.

Nanami stood up, his shoes off and tucked nicely next to yours, his coat hung alongside your own, his gaze lingering on them as pairs. He looked around the living room again, the open kitchen, the plush couch, the art along the walls that he felt he should be reporting and returning to local museums. Then back to you, standing in the kitchen, the soft light emanating from underneath the cabinets now turned on and highlighting you more.

“I---um, maybe I’ve had enough.” He hesitated, but stepped toward you still.

You nodded, it was probably for the best. The heat in your face was slowly coming down, you didn’t want to be too distracted. You didn’t want to be numb anymore, or drunk, or confused, you wanted to present. Right here. With him.

The sound of his feet against the hardwood filled the space. Clearly your apartment had gotten used to the silence, every step made a cacophonous thump. He filled the space between the kitchen island and the refrigerator, broad shoulders making a line between the two surfaces. You felt your breath growing heavy as he approached, sucking in a tight gasp when he moved his hand over the smooth, spotless countertop.

“This kitchen is beautiful.” Nanami spoke, looking directly at you, and not at all at the kitchen, “Really beautiful.”

“Thank you. We remodeled it a few years ago, I designed it myself.” You blushed at his praise of your work, despite him not knowing it was yours to praise.

Nanami felt his wonder increase as he took a seat in one of the barstools tucked into the counter. Just how many skills would he discover about you tonight? Law school education, however brief, an eye for design, charming and warm…you were different than he ever anticipated. But it dawned on him then, this information, the glimpses into your life, the sight of you in your own home, were all bytes of knowledge he was never supposed to be privy to. He was never supposed to join you at that bar. Never join you on your walk home, intimately holding hands as though you were lovers. He was never supposed to sit here with you now. And yet, here he sat. His neck grew tense, muscles clawing at his jaw to fall open and allow the words to fall out. To beg you for clarification, for an insight into your mind, how you felt, why you had allowed him here, why you were hosting him still, why you were looking at him like that.

You rounded the corner of the island, leaning against it, not even a foot from him now, he could see the dimension of color in your eyes, the way your lashes had been joined together with your mascara. He thought of you in the conference room that first day, barely a week between then and now, how stoic and cold you had seemed, tight pulled hair, clean mask of makeup, perfectly tailored clothes, a look as cultivated as the meticulous notes on the bank statements you had used to implicate him. But now, softer, human, unrefined and vulnerable before him.

Would he be just as guilty for acting now as he was for standing by then?

He swallowed seeing your tongue’s tip breach past and wet your lips. Surely unconsciously. No. He didn’t want his logician’s mind to rob him of something he coveted, even privately, he was so close to giving in, he could smell the gin on your breath, he could see the caution behind your pupils.

“I don’t--know what I’m doing here,” Finally he caved, to his logic, not to his desire, “Why am I here?”

You blinked a few times, lashes fluttering in focus rather than flirtation, “I don’t know, I…”

You wondered, wondered what your motives actually were, wondered if they were as simple as want, or if you were being exploitative of his kindness toward you. You, you didn’t know.

“I didn’t want you to go home yet.” You answered, it felt about as honest as any other reason you could have come up with.

“I don’t want to go home yet.” He affirmed, but his tone wasn’t confident anymore.

“Then don’t.” You moved closer, still pressed against the counter, where he sat, your arm now against his on its cool surface.

You were at a perfect eye level, nose to nose, stature and status eliminated behind the closed and dead bolted door. He thought he should maybe speak again, inquire further about your motives for inviting him in, and introspect as to his own for following. You knew the point of no return was here, there would be no veneer of distance that could withstand whatever choice was made. And still, you moved forward, pressing your lips against his.

Nanami’s mind vacated him. The hand on the counter cupped your face now instead, feeling the smooth skin of your cheek under his palm, smooth as the marble of your island. His lips were smooth against your own, you tasted like gin and toothpaste, he tasted like wine. Your own hands found his chest, moving across the expanse of muscle, feeling the heat seeping through the fabric of his shirt, the hard lines of his collarbone, of his shoulders, of his back. Your lips connected again and again in hot open mouthed kisses, tongues still afraid to meet. He pulled you into the stool with him, your legs dangling on either side of his lap, his hands mapped your frame from the back. Feeling your spine, your hips, up to your shoulder blades, feeling the scapula move as you, in turn, mapped his own torso from the front. Learning the feel of every inch that had previously existed only speculatively. Nanami’s hand found the back of your neck and pulled you closer to him, emboldened enough to move his tongue into your mouth, tasting you, feeling the points of your molars, the soft flesh of the insides of your cheeks.

You wished your lower lip hadn’t trembled when he did, and you lamented the breathy moan that his tongue’s entry pulled from you. But you couldn’t stop it. You couldn’t stop anything. You couldn’t stop your hands from finding the already loose knot of his tie and pulling it down further. You couldn’t stop yourself from unbuttoning the top of his shirt. You didn’t stop him when his own hand moved under the waistline of your own shirt, or when it moved up the skin of your back, leaving goose flesh underneath his searingly hot palm. Rounding your hand within his collar, you felt the skin of his shoulders, the soft hair along the way, leading to softer, trimmed undercut at the back of his neck. You felt the corn silk strands between your fingers, almost tickling the point of connection between your fingers and palm. You could have giggled at the sensation, if any of the breath in your lungs had been your own. His air was filling your lungs now, his tongue at home behind your lips, you offered up your own in exchange.

Nanami shuddered as your fingers pulled lightly at the hair on the back of his neck, separating your mouths for just a moment to gasp. But you found them again, wanting him as breathless as you were, not allowing him to come up for oxygen as you, wavelike, lapped at his mouth. He wished he could have drowned there with you.

It wasn’t long before the two of you had migrated to the couch, neither of you clear how, or by whose instruction. You were still straddled atop him, your wandering hands having undone the top half of his buttons, leaving his tanned, pleasure flushed chest completely open for your touch. You wanted to pull off, to take him in, to bask in the skin that you could feel to be beautiful, but you couldn’t bear to separate. Nor would he let you, he was less eager to undress you, but his pursuit of your lips was unrelenting. The mineral taste of your lipstick, the desperate breath of your nose against his philtrum, he couldn’t get enough. The couch supported him as he sat up, seeming to push him up to meet you. He was no longer satisfied to simply be kissed. He had to be the kisser.

Now sat up again, it seemed he remembered his hands, feeling bold enough to move up your body, squeezing the skin, the muscle, the fat, memorizing every sensation of his journey upward toward your chest. Keeping one hand at your back, over the band of your bra, he allowed the other to round forward. Feeling the soft mesh covering your breast he couldn’t help but moan, his eyes rolling back behind already closed lids as he felt you lean into his touch, your neck lolling back the opposite side. You moaned, a shaky, high moan full of hot breath against his ear. He felt his pants tighten, making him devastatingly aware of how exactly you were perched on his lap, right over his painfully growing erection.

You felt it too, under you, the hardening length that made all of this real. His hand on your breast, his taste in your mouth, the smell of him in your nose, his hot, desperate skin under your nails. Rolling your head on your neck back forward, lips parted now you let your eyes flutter open.

Nanami was not underneath you. In a flash of a second, a strike from storm cloud to the ground's worth of time made it clear as day he may never have been. Your husband sat under you, his dark hair tangled between your fingers, his cologne filling your nose, his breath inflated your lungs, the click of his jaw still rang in your ears as it would when you would kiss and his mouth would open wider than the bone’s hinge desired. He was there. You half gasped and half screamed, pulling yourself back on the couch, but the subsequent thunderclap arrived, and the truth reappeared. Nanami was there, amber eyes wide in concern, your lipstick smeared across his lips, his chin, his neck.

You panted across from him, desperate to catch the breath that the apparition had stolen from you. Your eyes scanned every vertex of his form, needing every ounce of concrete data that you could find that he was really here. Unfortunately with that came the knowledge that you had just screamed and pulled away from him less than ten seconds after you felt him hard underneath you. Fear and shame, perfect tormenting sisters, ravaged your brain at once.

“I…I don’t…I.” Your voice crackled.

“Are you okay?” Nanami reached for your face but the contact made you flinch, he brought it back, “what did I do?”

He moved back, no longer touching you at any points, horrified at what he must have done to scare you. He watched you sit up, resisting the urge to assist you, he was panting himself, the cool air of the apartment breezing past his kiss fevered face. Your eyes fluttered, taking in the room around you, as though you were searching for something.

When you finally allowed your gaze to still, you did so on Nanami sitting across from you, shirt haphazardly unbuttoned, tie hanging limp to either side, hair mussed by your hands, looking at you as terrified as you must be. It began to really dawn on you what you had just done, what you had been doing, and how you had gotten to this point. Drunk with one friend, melted into the arms of another. But could you even call Nanami a friend? He worked for you, even worse, he worked for him. This was wrong, you knew this was wrong, you should have stopped all of this. You shouldn’t have let him inside, or let him walk you home. What the fuck did you think was going to happen? Throwing yourself at him like you were, batting your eyelashes, using all the fucked up manipulative tactics in your arsenal to bring him here to…to what? Fuck to get back at a dead man? Fuck to make things even? To balance some kind of sick scale between yourself and your husband? As if he was a tool you could shove in a drawer once you got yours and forget about? How could you reduce him to such an inhuman status?

What the fuck was wrong with you?

You felt sick, your throat tightened, your head swam dizzyingly, you thought you might faint, or throw up. You longed for the cool tile of your bathroom floor, to be free from his furrowed, confused brows, the flush on his neck, the sight of his kind, empathetic eyes pitying you.

“I’m sorry, you didn’t do anything. I just…I can’t.” You moved your hair out of your face, at some point he must have pulled it free or it came undone…how symbolic of your current state.

Nanami stuttered out the beginning of a sentence, but you shook your head.

“I’m so sorry, Nanami.” You hid your face in your hands, unable to look at his falling face any longer, “This was a mistake, I’m so sorry.”

Tears burned your throat, you wanted the couch to consume you, to go back in time and scream at yourself in that bar to not be stupid and ruin this. But neither of those things happened, there was no easy way out. Not anymore. He said nothing next to you, you heard the rustle of his shirt fabric as he rebuttoned the shirt you had so hastily attempted to shed from him just moments ago.

He wanted you to at least look at him, but he could see your tear trembling shoulders. He didn’t know what happened, he had whiplash. He could feel your spit drying on his lips, he could still feel the heat of your body against him. At some point your perfume had transferred to his shirt collar, and as he buttoned it around his neck it wafted up to him, mocking him. He stood from the couch, tying up his tie quickly,

A mistake. This was a mistake.

He didn’t want to ask you again what happened, he feared your answer. He selfishly prayed for cold feet, the drink, the circumstance, or anything else. Anything but the screaming theory above all the noise was that you simply just…didn’t want him. He had allowed himself to believe you had desired him, wanted his touch, wanted him near you. That you had wanted more for him than his work. You had come to your senses and realized what he had been holding you apart from the beginning.

How could he have been so foolish? How could he have been so irresponsible?

Nanami straightened his tie, smoothing his hair back with one hand, trying to inconspicuously adjust himself in his slacks with the other. He looked down to you again, you had uncovered your face, he could see the softness of a face about to cry. He wanted nothing more than to stay, to sit back down and talk things through. He certainly doesn’t think himself a hero for having a visceral reaction to a woman in distress, particularly a woman he…cares for. He just wanted to help, but he wouldn’t force it. He had already done enough.

Nanami cleared his throat, “I should…be going.”

His words were weak, as much looking for an out as they were trying to convince himself this was the right thing to do. He looked down to you, praying you would invite him to stay, that you would want to discuss what he had done wrong, that you would give him a chance to make it right. But you just apologized again, weepy eyes finding refuge behind your hand.

He reached a tender, trepidatious hand to your shoulder, giving it a small squeeze, “I’m sorry.”

Then he left, slipping on his shoes at the door trying to make as little noise as possible as he undid your deadbolt and left the apartment.

The trains weren’t running anymore, he could have called a car, but something about the self punishment of walking all the way home felt like what he deserved. The air was still misting from the rain, cool droplets against pleasure and alcohol warmed skin parting the clouds of the multitudinous intoxication he had just immersed himself in. He was now sober. Bone sober. More sober than one should ever be when they realized how poorly the perfect happenstance fantasy scenario they had stumbled into had ended in reality. It took forty five grueling minutes to walk back to his apartment building. All the while the look on your horrified, regretful face haunted him in every shop window reflected beam of moonlight. Perhaps he had collected another ghost tonight. One that would follow him as a hallmark of his shame until it too, would be joined by another and another and another.

Arriving back to another deadbolted apartment door, this time his own, he found its interior, once comfortingly aligned and meticulously kept up, dull and grayscale into nothingness. But at least he was no longer outside. At least he could get off his work worn shoes, now scuffed at the sides from city sidewalks, and free his cramped, aching feet. Pushing further inside, to the bathroom, he found himself caught in the mirror. His shirt was buttoned improperly, buttons slotted into holes that did not align. His tie looked overly pristine on the haphazard column of lapels, he cringes at the sight. At himself in the mirror.

The bathroom was unkind to the shadows on his face. His cheeks look sunken and gaunt, the skin around them stretched tight over bone. Under his eyes looked worse than usual, heavy baggage not befitting of even the most permissive of airlines. He saw the soft rosy nude residuals of lipstick on his own lips, on his chin, down the side of his jaw and neck. Flashes of the evening played before him, your hands on his neck, in his hair, feeling your way through the back of his head and down his shoulders. Your lips, soft and supple, neglected and desperate for companionship. He imagined his likely felt the same, he hadn’t kissed anyone in quite a while, months maybe. He wondered when you had been kissed last, when had you kissed someone that wasn’t your husband?

He stepped under the shower’s steaming spray, the tingling, lingering sensations of your hands on his body being replaced by the dappling of the water. Ordinarily he would have hated the feeling of someone else’s touch still humming on his skin. Their sweat sinking into his pores, the fine hairs of his skin being dampened and distorted by the grimy handling of another. But your touch was welcome, more than welcome it was craved, or at least it had been. Your nimble, soft fingers , in phantom traces now persisting through the water. The soft, kind pressure you had used, curious and exploratory along his neck and shoulders. Kento felt his eyes close, a hand along the wall to keep himself from drifting too far forward. He remembered the way your voice fluttered in his ears, moans and gasps just barely audible, now filled his eardrums, the only thing he could hear. Whimpers and smacking lips. He let slip a moan of his own, it bounced from the shower tile and joined your memory making a lovely duet. The best he ever heard.

His lips still burned with the echo of your kiss. The water hadn't yet robbed him of the feeling of your tongue sliding along his. His lips swollen and kiss bitten against his finger, which he ran over his bottom lip carefully. The same fingers had been along your neck, in your hair, along the soft, supple skin of your cheek. He couldn’t help himself, his tongue darted out, praying for a lingering taste of you. Whether it was actually there didn’t matter, as far as he knew at that moment the creases of his finger tips held residuals lingers of your flavor. He swirled his tongue around his fingers. Finally he couldn’t deny the heavy weight that had reemerged between his legs. Rolling his forehead along the shower wall, he shifted so he could lean comfortably, indulge himself fully as he continued. The blood that had rushed from his head, the steam from the shower, the drinks tonight, were making him delirious. He pulled his fingers further into his mouth, longing for them to be replaced with your tongue, his other hand ran down his body. Imagining what it would be like for your hand to replace his, to feel you exploring his torso, his stomach, his hips. Where would they linger? Where would they scratch? He felt his way, guiding your phantom hand down toward his pelvis, taking his time on the v of his hips, the trail of soft fawn colored hair under his belly button.

This is wrong.

The thought came and went down the shower drain as he indulged himself further, remembering your kisses down his neck and jaw, hungry and desperate. He transposed them further down, along his chest down to his hips. He finally couldn’t resist anymore, taking his now fully hardened cock in his hand. Giving himself a few quick pumps, the precum already beginning to leak from his head. He couldn’t, or rather wouldn’t, stop the lewd thoughts of you in his place. Packed into the shower with him, your wet, soapy skin under his hands, moving onto your knees before him. He would get a bath pillow for your knees. He would hate for the grout lines to hurt your skin.

He pumped himself faster imagining the soft inside of your mouth, your pillow lips ringed around him. Your tongue had been so soft and silky against his own, it would be heaven around his cock. He moved fast, circling his own tip, superimposing your tongue in place of his thumb. His breath started to catch, the steam of the shower making his lungs humid, lips drooly, and muscles pliant. His back pressed further against the shower wall, his head following back. Nanami huffed his moans into the muffled air space, spattering water covering the peaks of his noisiness. He saw his hands on your body again, felt the soft fleshiness of your breast under his palm, the way the nipple had perked up so quickly against his touch. You were so reactive to him, probably so sensitive after not having been touched for so long. He longed to see just how reactive you were, on your back, his head between your legs.

Would you clamp your thighs to his ears, would you buck your hips against his nose, would he have to keep an arm over you so you wouldn’t ruin his work?

Drool slipped down the corner of his mouth toward his chin but he didn’t notice. The fantasy was too potent now. You above him on the bed, clutching one breast in one hand and keeping the fingers of the other at your mouth to stifle the whimpers he was pulling out of you. His cock jumped in his hand as he moved down your body, feeling his way to your cunt, wet and waiting to be touched. Pulling him in just as the hazy, wanton look in your eyes pulled him in to kiss you. And kiss you he would. He would kiss you for as long as you would allow him, everywhere you requested, every form of kiss he knew, and all the ones he would be compelled to learn for you. He felt himself tighten, abs clenching, stomach drawn up tight, neck and shoulders meeting before falling into elated, euphoric bliss. He spilled himself over his hand, what wasn’t caught slipped down the drain.

Nanami caught his breath, the dreams of you starting to break like clouds, realities harsh sunlight burning through them like holes in paper. The burning shame was illuminated in its emberous light, his hasty exit from your apartment, his dissociated walk home. What was wrong with him? He cut the shower water, unwashed but emptied. At what cost? His watch on the counter’s hour hand had met the 4, he would need to leave for work in just a few hours. The evening’s weight caught up with him, heat softened body moved to the bed purely by memory. The lonely cold of his sheets stung. The expensive thread count could have been sandpaper, it bit at him. Sinking shark’s teeth into his discomforted, anxious body.

The contracted work was nearly finished, at the end of this week there would be a final meeting, one last overview of the dissolution, the resignation of property, trusts, of your name. You would be satisfied with his work, he hoped. Satisfied enough to never need his work again. You would continue this next phase of your life as purely yourself, untied, uninhibited. The Shame in his chest found a sister, Envy, who used her claws on the inside of his throat. You would be able to start over completely, go anywhere you wanted in the world, never again be tied to a job, a husband, a wife, to children or responsibilities. A life of pure whim. All because you married a man who valued money more than his wife. He felt bad for your years of neglect, but he was so desperately jealous of the ease your life would have from now on. No one in the world he left nearly a decade ago would have been offered such a prize. Even those who came from famous or affluent families would have the chance to escape that he had so clearly outlined for you. Provided you had the good sense to take it.

Kento clapped both hands over each eye, pressing the heels of his hands into the strained, exhausted orbital bones, letting the fuzz overtake his darkened vision. His ability to envy you while desiring you astounded him. Almost as much as how easy it was for him to indulge himself in disgusting fantasies of you. He needed to sleep. He felt sick. He didn’t know what he had done to you tonight, but he felt the dread of seeing you again beginning to overshadow the excitement that had once surrounded your name in his day planner. He needed to sleep. He just needed some sleep. All of this would be different in the morning. It would make more sense. On the other side of sleep was an epiphany that his weary brain just couldn’t see yet. It had to be.

It was not. When he awoke, he was sore, still exhausted, and so deeply ashamed of himself. Only two hours had passed since he fell into a twilight state that could only by the most generous of estimates be called sleep. Peeling himself from his still dampened sheets, the night prior came back to him in a single moment. He groaned, holding his head in his hands, as though the pressure would help his headache. Why had he drank so much? Why had he let himself slip so easily? He looked at his phone, downturned on the nightstand, seeing that it was nearly seven o’clock, he needed to be in the office in just one hour. There was no message from you waiting for him. He realized that he may not have ever given you his actual cell phone number. There was no email in his inbox from you either, despite how much he wished there would be.

On the other side of town, you woke up similarly mortified but far more hungover. So hungover that it had taken you longer to even remember the exact play by play of just how badly you had messed up the night.

Oh god, what the fuck did you do? You crumpled up on your bathroom floor, trying to steady your poisoned stomach with the shower’s steam. Heavy tears ran down your face as you remembered exactly what you had done. The soft, empathetic squeeze on your shoulder he gave you as he left. The crack in his voice as he fussed over you, all while you had nothing to offer him as an explanation.

But what could you tell him? You saw a ghost? Your dead husband appeared to remind you that this was wrong? An apparition of your shame had presented itself just before you could progress into freedom? That you became so disgusted at the illusory sight of your late husband’s face that you couldn’t bear to be seen anymore?

But it wasn’t disgusting. It was incredible, it felt natural. It felt like dancing, but a perfected, practiced dance executed expertly. He had been tender and intense, soft lips, gentle, sturdy hands. You had driven every movement further, and he let you, waiting for your say so before progressing under your shirt, on to the couch, down the side of your neck.

You leaned against the bathroom wall, your spot on the floor beginning to make your back ache. You longed for a do-over, to leave the bar before ever tasting him. It would be better, right? Not knowing, never knowing how he felt between your legs, how he sounded when you had kissed behind his ear. You would give it up if it meant last night never happened. That you could face him again at least once. The thought of your final acquisition meeting approaching so closely made your stomach churn again and you heaved over the toilet.

He had been so open with you, and in your drunken stupor you had made a fool of him. Thrown him out of your house like it was nothing. What had he thought when he returned home? How dumb and selfish you must seem to him?

Poor little rich girl can’t help but make problems for herself. Has to ruin everything good in her life because nothing is ever enough for her. No wonder her husband would have rather died than stayed with her. Worst of all, she can’t even stand a good fuck, guess she wasn’t shocked when the mr. started sleeping elsewhere.

You heard a cruel laugh in your spiral. What would a self righteous, condescending laugh even sound like coming from him? The day you met him you made him a villain, treated him like an accomplice in your betrayal, and here you were doing the exact same thing. Treating him as though he was somehow a match for the disgusting mess you were becoming, maybe you had always been. Last night there had been a moment, maybe several moments, where you had deluded yourself into wondering if this was right, if you deserved someone as kind and patient as Nanami. Someone who would listen so selflessly, make you laugh so easily, who would meet you exactly where you are and be gentle with your heart.

Your husband hadn’t started out a bad one. There was one time where it felt like your life was a dream. He was kind and funny and sensual, he remembered important dates, made time for you, gave you lavish presents on holidays or your birthday. You had the privilege not to have to worry much about divisions of domestic labor, cleaners and chefs bustling in and out of your first house together. You found ways to celebrate your togetherness in everything you did, dates, rest time in the house, trips, whatever it was. But when you moved into the city, into this apartment, things…changed. He was promoted to vice president, he spent more time at work, he spent more on himself than you thought he would ever deem necessary. Watches that collected dust in the closet, cars that were never driven, that fucking plane that you were horrified of but his younger brother had insisted he buy. Taunted him into buying, was more like it. They were rivalrous in the way that brothers are, just with more means with which to diversify their ammunition. If his brother got a new suit, your husband needed two more, more expensive, if his brother got a new car, your husband needed the custom model. It was endless, and fruitless. No one wanted to have a “who could treat their wife better” competition. There was no dick measuring contest that included anticipated needs or execution of responsibility.

Maybe this awful place really was haunted. It seemed to have infected and killed your marriage. Kept you bound inside its newly renovated walls and garrish wallpapers. Scared you straight enough to kick out the only person you had felt anything for since you were fifteen years old. You slumped your arms against the porcelain seat.

This fucking place.

The shower’s spray grew to a monsoon in your ears; rhythmic, all-consuming patters drawing you further into your mind. This perfect facsimile of a dream life, had expired. Long before any true ending, and you had remained in its mausoleum, as much a part of it as the tomb itself. Staying here you would be consumed by the foundation, your bones would meld with the wood of the floor, once porus and natural, to only be sealed by sand and stain. To then be warped and eroded by steps, by water; decay and rot with the cashmere and velvet throws. The flatware would pick away at your body just as the worms and vultures do. The expensive soaps would slough off your skin that it once kissed, lathered, and illuminated. The curtains and sheets would mummify your living corpse until there was no air and no light. You were what haunted this house now. Maybe you always have been.

Your stomach was calmer, the distress in your mind having taken precedence. You could stand again, looking at the stomach that had been digesting you. You had thought this place to be a womb, a home, but found the acid was no longer something you could ignore. You stepped out into the hallway, toward the kitchen, disgusted by the entrails of your home. Emerging into the kitchen you found the barstool was still slid to the side, where he had sat. Where he had held you. Where he had kissed you. Where he had touched you.

You found yourself on your knees, pressing your cheek against the stool’s cushion. Craving just a bit of warmth, just a bit of pressure -- the hint of an indent, or fallen thread. You pressed further, your eyes fluttering closed; your mind finally generous once again, allowing your sense to remember the smell of his cologne, of his skin, the wine on his breath, the barely present lingering smell of his pomade. The woven wool of his suit jacket reemerged under your hands as you slid them up the legs of the barstool, the heat and muscle underneath. How easy it had been for him to move and manipulate your body, he could have had you right then and there. You would have let him, you should have let him. You were still in your nightgown, thin and flimsy, your hardening nipples poked painfully through the fabric. Their last peak was last night, under Nanami’s touch, his hand warm, strong. Smooth, well cared for skin, even through your bra you could feel how warm he was. Like a bath at a spa that scalds before soothing.

Your legs drew together, and you pressed your other cheek against the stool. Your heartbeat had found an echo between your legs, drumming against your clitoris causing your internal muscles to clench around absence. Your mouth opened, just as he had kissed it open last night, lips fuller and softer than they appeared, his tongue greedier than your heart. He had kissed you like he knew you would throw him out, like he knew better. Like he knew to indulge when he had you. He really was brilliant. You moved a hand over your breast, cupping it the way he had, trying to simulate the same gasping response. You squeezed, toying with the pressure, seeing what felt like what he would do. Would he pinch, twist and tease, or would he hold firm, seeing how long he had to wait before you squirmed. It wouldn’t take long, hell, it hadn’t taken you long to be a muttering, whimpering mess in his lap. It had been nearly six months since you had felt someone else touch your body.

You wished you could remember the last time having sex with your husband as a romantic, sweaty dream. Like a movie, perfectly lit and stylized. One where he kissed you like he knew he wouldn’t taste your heated pleasure again, where he spoiled you, where he had taken his time to carve out a memory for you to treasure of the first and only sexual partner you had ever had. One where time slowed and candles glowed, where your hair fell perfectly for him to smooth it off your neck, where your sweat and his mixed together in a perfect sheen on your bodies. One where you took turns to indulge in one another, please one another, before falling together over a final climax like a perfect pas de deaux.

But it had been quick and quiet.

He came home early from work, which he rarely did, especially in the summer. August was coming to a close, he knew you were suspicious about his trip to Macau the week prior, either by intuition or because his brother had told him you asked him if anything funny was going on. You were making dinner, simple, small portions for two, but he rarely joined you anyway so you didn’t often plan to feed both of you. A glass of red wine on the kitchen island. His shoes clicked on the hardwood as he approached.

May I?

He gestured to the bottle. You nodded.

Smells great in here.

Thank you, It’ll be ready in a bit.

He rounded the island, glass fuller than a dinner pour. His long arm wrapped around your outer hip, bringing you into his side. He pushed his nose into your hair.

You smell even better.

He kissed your neck, you let your eyes close still stirring the pot in front of you, his body heat and the steam making you start to sweat. One hand slithered up your body, open palmed, moving up to your neck. You inhaled sharply, moving your head to the side, signaling for him to back off. He did.

Dinner will be ready soon, why don’t you wash up.

He cleared his throat on his exit, moving into the bathroom to get the toiletries he still kept in there although he had already moved to the guest room. You got your bearings back and set the table. The meal passed bristlingly, little conversation, less eye contact. He complimented the food, you graciously accepted. Once the dishes were stowed back away and the night was dark, you were in your bedroom, it felt so big in there without his tall frame taking up the space. The windows were too big, the closet too deep. You were all alone in here. You padded your way to the guest room, knocking carefully.

You don’t have to knock.

I didn’t want to interrupt you.

And what is it you think you would be interrupting?

You couldn’t say anything after that. Seeing him sitting on the edge of the bed that wasn’t the one you had lovingly chosen together when you moved in, your marital bed, was already weighing on your heart. You pressed inside and sat next to him, feeling that adolescent awkwardness you could never quite shake around him. He had been the only boy you ever had a crush on growing up, at times when he looked at you, even across the altar, you still felt your cheeks heat up and your smile creep up without your influence. Looking at him was like looking at the sun. Just as beautiful, just as bright. You moved forward and kissed his cheek. His neck. The corner of his mouth.

I’m Sorry.

I’m sorry.

He kissed you, moving you onto your back, opening your robe.

I’m sorry.

I’m Sorry.

He pulled his shirt off, pulled your panties off your legs, still damp from the shower. He kissed you more, not pressing his tongue forward, but laying open mouthed kisses all over your lips, your mouth, your cheeks, your neck, a few along your forehead. You reached into his bottoms and found his cock, you knew every inch of him. You pumped him a few times, he brought your nipple to his mouth, not swirling his tongue around you, instead littering kisses along them both.

I’m so sorry.

I’m sorry.

I love you.

He moved you onto your stomach, penetrating you in the same motion. It had been a while since you had sex last, you wondered how long it had been for him. He filled you well, reached all the spots you needed him too, moved his fingers around your pelvis to circle your clit. You pushed your hips up to meet his thrusts, trying to match his pace, but he was too unpredictable. You settled to focus on keeping yourself arched for him, letting his movements over you bring you the mind numbing pleasure you needed so badly right now. You didn’t want to think about the affair that you knew was happening, about the divorce, about him not sleeping in your bed, about anything, you didn’t want to think anymore.

He came before your orgasm. But you weren’t surprised by that. He clearly wanted you more than you wanted him tonight. Or he at least wanted release more than you did. He kissed the back of your neck as he pulled out of you.

You know I love you?

I know.

You fell asleep in the guest bed with him. He left early for work the next day, you woke up alone in that room. And you hadn’t been back inside since.

The memory brought tears to your eyes, stinging like salt. But brought your fingers down below your skirt. You tested your waters, warm and surging. The leather of the seat below your cheek was heating from your skin, from your motion back and forth against it. You felt depraved, sickened and delighted in the same breath. You longed to press your face against Nanami’s lap instead of his seat. To feel the hardening bulge press into the soft flesh of your cheek. For him to keep you on your knees, waiting for you to be so desperate you begged him to expose himself to you, to grant you the privilege of finally seeing him. Would he curve, if so which way? How long would it be, as brief as your contact was, it felt long, and thick. Would he be cognisant of your inexperience, would he be put off by it, or enticed. Would his enticement be selfish? Overly covetous of having something so untouched? Your two favorite fingers made their way inside of you, you gasped against the cushion.

How would he feel inside of you? His fingers looked long and thin, how far would they reach? When they brushed yours they were cold, how far would he have to reach to feel warm inside you? Would the width of his palm aid him in touching your clit and within all at once. Would he move it in circles or in swipes? You toyed with both yourself, relishing in his unknowns. There was still so much you didn’t know about him, his past, his family, what movie he watched when he was sick, what books he enjoyed, what season he loved, what season he hated, what meals he cooked for himself, what meals he detested. But for now you wanted only to speculate on his style of pleasure. To wonder if his hard, trained body was as soft as his eyes, or if they betrayed their owner. If they gave you a security that his touch wouldn’t. Oh, but that you knew, you knew how sturdy he felt between your legs, how his hand felt on your back, keeping you steady on him. He would care for you, he would be gentle while taking, even more gentle while giving.

You pressed your fingers up to your g spot, just barely within a finger length, making you gasp out again. Fingers, now wet, could circle your clit so much smoother. You imagined the tongue that filled your mouth so well now in there place. Slurping and kissing at your center like he couldn’t live without it. Where had he allowed himself to be pleasured, which spots were his favorite? How would he want you? He seemed like a missionary man, eye to eye, lip to lip, chest to chest, all consuming, nothing to escape to. You craved that intimacy, you needed it. You needed him.

Efficient as only nearly thirty years of self practice could give you, you came at the wish of his mouth on your clit. Pushing the barstool back with your body, making a horrible scrape against the wood floor. But even the dissonant slide couldn't break you from your fantasy. Nanami would kiss you, with a mouth covered in your taste. You just knew he would.

Against the floor, holding your body up with one bent arm, the other taking down your climax, you panted. The humid bliss surrounded you, swaddled you. But only for a moment, the chill of your haunted house breezed past your sweaty neck. Instead of despair, you felt fury. Not anger, fury. How dare this place rob you again.

Standing up, using the counter for stability, you looked around the kitchen. Cold tile, polished glasses, no heart existed in this kitchen anymore. You turned, taking in the vast living room, there was no warmth of kinship or friendship in here anymore. That door stood before you, solid and menacing. You took in a deep breath, pushing yourself off the counter and forward, bumping the side table in your wake and not caring to set it back. You gripped the knob, letting the frostbite of unuse sink into your skin. You pulled it open, not caring if the chilled surface pulled your skin away. You would be raw all the same.

The room was exactly as you had left it, the white and red bedspread, the tan blanket folded at its foot, the two nightstands on either side, the alley style closet at one end, the ensuite bathroom at the other. You stepped in, it was the only room of the apartment with carpet, plush and soft under your feet. You had thought at one point it felt plasticy and cheap , but now its soft give and coil felt like grass or moss under your bare feet. On one nightstand you saw a book, sonnets by e.e. Cummings. The spine unmarred, pages unfolded or dogeared, it didn’t look opened. You had given it to him for Christmas some years ago. You peeled the cover, your own handwriting looked back up at you.

Takashi,

I have never loved you dear as now I love.

Merry Christmas. To many more together.

A wet spot appear on the page, having left your eye and slipped down the slope of your nose, long dried ink not smudged by the salt water. A Clown’s smirk in the skull of a baboon was the poem you referenced within your signage. A poem of love remembered, of love lost at the brink of death. The speaker of which is the fallen, his lost love, whether by the icy hands of death or by the circumstance of mistake or miscare, is only a memory. But a memory that brings bliss and solace in the dead speaker’s heart. Beyond the literal it is a poem about absurdity, about chance and chaos, whether blissful or fearful, Cummings chooses not to let it matter. You had written these words once, felt them, too. You were once a person who could love more and more each day than the day before. Choosing the absurdity of possibility and circumstance be a hopeful thing, something that could bring you joy and peace. You didn’t have control over who you loved, but you knew you loved fully. That was all you needed to know. And when that love faded and was taken, it too, was out of your hands. It was an absurd chance that killed him, latent medical malfeasance that robbed you of your foothold above the roaring waters of chaos and chance. The wave’s spray, you had mistaken for undertow, making you think you knew how absurdity felt. But you had been in freefall since, barrelling toward the choppy waves, the ones that would fill your lungs and drown you under.

The ocean’s waters spilled from you freely now. Any tears that you had allowed in the previous months were nothing, mere boilings over of the ire that you had built up carefully, gently, diligently, brick by brick since you got the call on that December night. You heaved, your knees buckled, you crumpled to the floor, pressing your hand into the bed, clutching the book to your chest. You sobbed. Sobbed until your head ached, and then more. Cries that made you drool, that made your back ache, that made your nose drip onto the floor.

It wasn’t fair. It had never been fair. It would never be fair. Fairness wasn’t ever in the discussion of the fates that had cut his red string and yours by extension. Fairness didn’t come into consideration when you entangled your strings together in front of your friends and your families.

Through gasping, heaving cries you expelled your heart into the silent room containing no one. No words, for no words could aid your relife more than exaltation of grief. You cried and called out until your throat grew hoarse and you could no longer. Hands on the floor, the book now discarded below you. You pushed yourself into the carpet, and you allowed yourself to only love him. To not be angry, to not be envious and spiteful of his wrongdoing, to see him for the person he was.

He had been just a boy. A son, a little brother, an older brother, a husband, your husband. You watched him grow from a lanky, spindly kid, into a spotty, sweaty teenager, into a cleaned up, refined, professional man right beside you the whole time. There had been so many times where you had woken up beside him in the slow, lazy weekend mornings and seen him for every bit the young man he once was, and the old man he would be.

Would have been.

He would never get the rest of the wrinkles that had sprouted by his eyes, and across his forehead. The grey hairs that he fussed over in the mirror, asking you to pluck them away, would never grow long, would never spread. He would never start to look like his father, with full cheeks as he had as a boy, but lower from gravity's harsh pull. You had pictured it so many times, when he began to smile and the skin didn’t spring back quite the way it once had, you could see where the cracks would form. It wasn’t fair that he never got to see himself like that. It wasn’t fair that you would never get to see him like that. It wasn’t fair.

But that was just it. It would never be fair. Fairness was never something the universe cared for. It was your own appetite for fairness that kept you believing in a Universe at all, some kind of laissez faire benevolence that kept watch over the goings on of mankind, not intervening despite your cries for help.

You would never know what exactly it was that brought Takashi into the arms of another. You would never know why he strayed from you. You would never know what brought you together in the first place. Maybe there was nothing to know.

You cried there on the floor of your late husband’s bedroom until the tears would no longer come, either from dehydration or because your eyes were so swollen that no tear could eek itself out. And you would stay on that floor even longer.

Eventually, you returned to the living room. Either because the catharsis had vacated itself, or because the floor began to hurt your hips. The windows were dark, you had no idea of what time it was. The sunsets were getting later as spring lengthened into the early summer. Your throat hurt, your body felt weak, the pressure in your head had grown and burst twice over by now and was on another build. You got a glass of water from the kitchen, drinking that in one gulp and filling another. You carried it with you back into your bedroom, the day was over as far as you cared. You found an excedrin that would help your headache and decided to roll the dice on pairing it with one of the sleeping pills the doctor gave you. Swallowing them both, you climbed into your bed, finding your phone tangled between the mattress, sheets, and duvet. You plugged it in beside you, only then seeing the messages you had missed in the day that had passed.

Hiromi-- 11:48 pm

You got home safe?

Hiromi-- 12:26 am

I’m going to say yes, but call me tomorrow?

Hiromi--11:41 am

Okay, its officially hangover wake up time, you feel as shitty as I do? We can’t drink like that anymore. You get home okay?

Hiromi-- 1:22 pm

Just send me something so I know you’re alive.

That last message was from just an hour ago. You typed out a quick:

All good. Super hungover, slept late to avoid the worst of it. We’re really not in college anymore, huh.

You set your phone back on the nightstand, only for it to vrrrbt to life. Higuruma had always been a worrier, and you had kind of left him hanging this morning. But when you turned your phone over, it wasn’t a text message. And it wasn’t from Hiromi. It was an email, from Nanami. Opening it quickly you found the attached files were the final documents that needed signatures. You had expected to do them in the office at the end of this week. You read the attached message.

Good Evening,

My apologies for the late message, but I know how truncated your desired timeline for acquisition was and I hope it will please you to know that upon retrieval of your signature in the attached documents, your assets will be finalized in your name. Your banking institution will only require one day to complete the final transfers once we can send off your signatures. Your real estate agent has already listed the pre approved properties, and anything else that was in your settlement folder will be awarded to you upon the first of the month.

E-signature is more than fine, there is no reason for you to have to return to the office, for your convenience. No response is expected until working hours.

It has been a pleasure to assist you through this process, and I hope you will keep us in mind if you are to need any financial management in the future.

Please know I am truly sorry for your loss. And for any missteps I may have taken.

Yours diligently,

Nanami Kento.

Your pounding heart sank. No final meeting meant you wouldn’t see him again. Residual panic set in. You were going to lose him. You were going to lose the only thing you wanted. Nanami. Kento Nanami. The man with the firm hands and gentle eyes. Whose voice never rose and wavered. Whose heart had been gifted to you, even if you winced at its gore. Last night, he had wanted you to keep him.

You realized everything you didn’t entertain consciously in a single moment. The only solace that you could have now. The only future you wanted. Him. You and him together, you had been pressing forward with him the whole time, the flirty glances over lunch, the electric brushes or fingers, the peace that encompassed you when he was around. You didn’t know if you could live without it. Or had you had survived this long without it.

You would not lose again. No proximity or ease would be the driving force of your life. Not when you were still living and standing.

You succumbed to the undertow and let it fill you wholly. Your lungs wet and bubbling grew gills.

Wow, we're really in it now folks. I had kept yall hungry for some good squish for so long. This chapter really means a lot to me, the previous felt like a lot more effort to finish but this one just felt like it all fell out of me already complete. Will my ocean metaphors ever cease? -- Doodle. xx <3

35 notes · View notes

plotsignificanthaircut555 · 26 days ago