Hajime: Fuyuhiko, you do remember when we agreed we were better off as friends, right?
Fuyuhiko, naked in Hajime's bed: No, I absolutely do not.
Hajime, already taking off their clothes: Fuck... Me neither.
Now THIS is a prompt I can sink my teeth into! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Hajime froze in his tracks, staring, bewildered, at the sight before him. The beautiful, lean figure sprawled naked across his bed was gazing back at him, one fierce golden eye dark with lust.
He furrowed his brow in confusion, questioning the reality of this situation. That certainly looked like Fuyuhiko laying in his bed, but that couldn't be true. Not after their agreement.
The two of them had been so close for so long, it was hardly surprising that feelings began to develop between them. But with things the way they were, with the world presumably in shambles and their friends in various states of mental and physical trauma, they had agreed that this wasn't the right time to explore those feelings. Once they established some type of normalcy, then they could try again.
For weeks after admitting that there was something between them, the two young men had managed to keep up appearances. They treated each other normally and didn't show any signs of romantic or sexual interest. The situation wasn't ideal, but it was fine.
Behind closed doors was another story entirely. Hajime couldn't deny the way his heart longed for Fuyuhiko. Spending time with him was sweet torture, and he frequently had to excuse himself to his cottage to calm his racing heart, or, in the very worst cases, to deal with his physical desire. But he was determined not to break their agreement.
Fuyuhiko always seemed to be handling the situation better than Hajime. That wasn't too surprising, really, since the yakuza heir had so much self-control. Still, Hajime always felt conflicted when it seemed like Fuyuhiko wasn't bothered by the distance between them at all. He was still dedicated to keeping up their agreement, of course, he just wished that Fuyuhiko was having as hard a time as he was.
And so Hajime had no idea how to feel about the scene in front of him. He had just walked into his cottage after a very long day, and here was the object of his affection, naked in his bed despite being supposedly off-limits.
He realized that he had been silent for far too long and cleared his throat. “What… What are you doing here?” he finally asked quietly.
Fuyuhiko was watching him carefully from where he lay, spread out on top of Hajime's sheets. “Waiting for you,” he replied, as though that explained anything.
Hajime allowed his eyes to trail down the other man's body, taking in every scar and freckle, determined to commit the image to memory regardless of how this ended. “Okay, but… why?”
The blonde stretched languidly, arching his back in a very deliberate way, clearly pleased with the way Hajime was looking at him. “That's a stupid question.”
Frowning, the taller man met his eye. “No, it's not. We had an agreement, didn't we?”
Fuyuhiko turned onto his side, propping his head on his hand. “Did we?”
Hajime was getting thoroughly frustrated now. “Yeah. We agreed not to do anything like this.” Fuyuhiko started to respond, but Hajime continued, cutting him off. “We agreed that we were better off as friends… right?”
The blonde scowled at him. “I don't remember agreeing to anything like that.”
Bewildered, Hajime crossed his arms over his chest. “What? We had a whole conversation-”
“I remember agreeing that that wasn't the right time for us to be together,” Fuyuhiko interrupted. “We agreed that we were going to figure our shit out later, when we were less stressed. Well, guess what? We're never going to be less stressed.” He sat up, still maintaining eye contact. “But you know what helps with stress? Having someone who loves and cares about you. Having someone to kiss and hold and fuck when it all gets to be too much. That's what I want. And I think it's what you want, too.”
Hajime stared back silently, not sure how to respond to that. Having someone there for him sounded wonderful, honestly. And if that someone was Fuyuhiko, well…
“So, no,” the yakuza heir continued, “I absolutely do not remember agreeing that we were better off as friends. Now get your fucking clothes off and get over here.”
It only took a moment for Hajime to make up his mind. He quickly began shedding his clothing as he made his way towards the bed. He leaned one knee on the mattress as he moved forward, crashing his mouth into Fuyuhiko's, swallowing the other man's pleased moan. He tossed the last of his clothes off and climbed fully onto the bed.
Fuyuhiko's legs folded around Hajime's waist, pulling their bodies flush together. Hands and mouths roamed freely, finally exploring each other's bodies the way they had wanted to for so long. When Hajime finally sank himself inside of Fuyuhiko, it felt like exactly what he had been missing.
Afterwards, when they were laying together, sweaty and tired and spent, Fuyuhiko smirked up at his lover. “Still think we're better off as ‘just friends?’”
Hajime laughed softly, nuzzling into the other man's hair. “No. No, I don't.”
(But I think the prompt was meant to be more lighthearted than that?? Let me try again.)
It was the first day back from summer break and Hajime already knew he was doomed.
He caught Fuyuhiko's eye across the courtyard and the blonde raised an eyebrow at him, and Hajime felt his resolve crumble.
The two of them had spent a very long time insisting that there was nothing between them, that they were just really good friends. No one bought it, of course, least of all the two of them, but they both stuck to their story.
Until summer break. Somehow, one of them had started up a very inappropriate text conversation while Fuyuhiko was on vacation with his family, and they had spent basically the whole break flirting and borderline sexting. Hajime had even received a couple of photos that he promptly saved for personal use.
But now that school was back in session and Hajime was faced with the reality of actually seeing the other boy, he was panicking. Obviously the two of them were attracted to each other, but he didn't want to risk ruining their friendship just for the sake of getting his rocks off.
He had no idea how to explain that to Fuyuhiko, though. So his dumb, panicked brain decided that the best course of action would be to avoid his friend altogether.
And that's exactly what he did. He stuck to the reserve course campus, ignored Fuyuhiko’s texts, and tried not to notice him glaring at him from across the courtyard. It wasn't the best plan, and he knew he was going to have to explain himself sooner or later, but for now it was all he could do.
He felt awful about ignoring his friend, though. He genuinely cared about Fuyuhiko and didn't want to hurt him, but he was terrified of actually facing his feelings.
After classes, Hajime left the campus before Fuyuhiko could corner him. He wandered around town for a bit, ignoring the way his phone was blowing up. Eventually, he headed back to the reserve course dormitory, feeling like garbage. He briefly considered calling Fuyuhiko to apologize as he unlocked the door.
All of his thoughts ground to a halt as he walked into his dorm room. Fuyuhiko was inside, waiting for him, sitting in Hajime's bed. Naked.
Hajime's brain completely short-circuited. He had definitely locked the door when he left that morning, so how exactly had the other boy gotten in? And why was he there? And why was he naked?!
“Close the door, dumbass,” the blonde snapped.
Hajime obediently shut the door behind him, staring dumbly at Fuyuhiko. “Uh… how did you get in here?”
Fuyuhiko snorted. “You think I don't know how to pick a stupid lock? More importantly, how ‘bout you tell me why the fuck you're avoiding me?”
Cringing, the taller boy looked away. “I'm not,” he lied.
“Don't try to bullshit me,” Fuyuhiko snapped, crossing his arms over his chest. His intimidating pose was severely undermined by his nudity. “We flirt for the entire break and suddenly you don't even want to look at me?”
That got Hajime's attention, and he turned slowly back to his friend. “...It's not like that.”
The blonde glared at him. “Then, please, explain.”
Hajime was silent for a long moment, trying to figure out how to put his feelings into words. Fuyuhiko's nakedness proved to be too distracting, however, and he found himself staring, mouth working soundlessly.
Fuyuhiko didn't seem to mind being ogled, and he uncrossed his arms, stretching languidly. “Or you can just fuck me to make it up to me.”
Hazel eyes snapped up to meet gold, and Hajime swallowed hard. “We can't,” he murmured, and part of his brain began screaming at him. Why would you say that?! Just go for it!
The yakuza heir clearly didn't agree with him, and he laid back against Hajime's pillows, allowing his legs to fall open enticingly. “And why is that?”
Hajime's mind went blank for a moment as his eyes traced over every inch of Fuyuhiko's body. He had to remind himself to keep breathing. “Because we…” He cut himself off as Fuyuhiko began trailing his fingers up his own thigh, completely derailing Hajime's train of thought again.
Fuyuhiko clearly knew exactly what he was doing, if the smug look on his face was any indication. He gave an encouraging hum, prompting Hajime to continue.
The brunette took another deep breath, trying to ignore the way his cock was straining against his pants. “We agreed we were better off as friends, didn't we?”
Arching an eyebrow, Fuyuhiko feigned innocence. “Did we? I don't remember that.” One of his hands was on his chest now, lightly tracing one finger around his nipple, while the other gently palmed his erection. His lips parted as a soft gasp escaped him.
“Fuck,” Hajime hissed, completely overwhelmed by the erotic sight before him. “Neither do I,” he agreed mindlessly, already scrambling out of his own clothes.
He all but dove into Fuyuhiko's arms, kissing him hungrily. The smaller boy gladly kissed back, pulling Hajime's full weight down on top of him. Their bodies quickly melded together, both of them moaning breathlessly, and suddenly Hajime couldn't remember why he had ever wanted to avoid this.
You get a 2-for-1, anon lol.
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fic: somewhere surely lived (7/14)
fandom: danganronpa
characters/pairings: fuyuhiko & peko as main POV characters + a "relationship of the day" character + some side characters. kuzupeko + 6 secondary ships.
rating: e (not all chapters have smut, but a fair number of them do)
summary: Hope's Peak is not just a dating program; it's a guarantee. With the right compatible partner, the benefits are endless: boosted life expectancy, improved self-esteem, increased productivity, new opportunities, better overall work and life satisfaction. For society's elite, Hope's Peak makes finding that partner straightforward, if not easy.
It provides an Ultimate Match-- provided the participants are willing to go through its paces.
(AU based on the Black Mirror episode, "Hang the DJ.")
read on AO3
He’s late. He knows that even before he gets dumped off at the central hub. His device had beeped at him in the middle of the afternoon and he ignored it, kept ignoring it, until a preset alarm kicked in half an hour before and wouldn’t shut off until he manually dismissed it.
He’s not going to stand someone up. He’s not that kind of guy. It’s just exhausting, the idea of it, having to go back to that same fucking booth and talk about the same fucking shit and go through the same fucking motions until it’s over. A day, a week, a month, a year— it ends the same, no matter what.
So, he’s late.
She’s already at the table waiting. She hasn’t ordered her food, or touched her wine glass. She’s sitting there at an empty table with her hands in her lap, and the twist of shame in his stomach speeds his feet up.
She looks up at him when he gets there, and it’s only then, that close and at that angle, that the recognition hits him. She has high cheekbones, pale hair, and bright, focused eyes. The dim lighting of the restaurant softens out the harshness of her face a little, or maybe that’s just because he knows better now.
The careful neutrality in her expression opens up into surprise.
“Oh,” she says. “Hello.”
“Hi.” He puts his hand on the back of the booth. “... I know you, don’t I?”
“Yes,” she answers. “We met at Ruruka and Sounosuke’s pairing day, a few months ago. You might not remember, but—”
“Oh, no,” he says, “I remember.” He slices the air with his index finger. Color rises in her cheeks. It brings out her eyes.
“I didn’t get your name, before,” she says. “I wanted to thank you. For…”
“Fuyuhiko,” he tells her. “And don’t mention it.”
She smiles, that little curve that’s almost not a smile. “Peko,” she answers.
His stomach is doing something stupid. He told himself he wouldn’t let himself get dragged down this early in the game.
She holds her hand out. “... Would you like to sit?”
Right. “Right.” He unbuttons the front of his jacket and slides into the booth. “Sorry. Made you wait this whole time and now I’m just standing around like an asshole.”
“It’s alright,” she says. She turns in her seat, opens up her purse, and then she has her device in her palm, held out over the table. She looks back at him expectantly.
Right.
He fishes in his jacket for his, and thumbs through the options: Main, Info, Expiration. It’s just a button. If they both tap their screens at the same time, the system will tell them how long they have.
He looks up at her. She must already be on the right screen, because she’s watching him, one finger poised over her device. She’s still smiling that little not-smile. He tries to put ‘thirty-six hours’ to her face, and his stomach sinks. He tries ‘eight months,’ and feels sick.
Technically, checking the date is a choice. The system doesn’t force it. It’s just that everyone does check. Why would you not want to know if you were about to waste your time?
Impulse grabs him. “What if we didn’t?” he asks.
She frowns. “Didn’t?”
“Didn’t check it. Didn’t know.”
She looks down at her screen. Her finger curls back around the edge of the device.
“Just— Listen, hear me out,” he says. “What’s the point of knowing, anyway? No matter how long it is, you still just end up waiting for it to be over. You’re setting yourself up, every single fucking time.”
“I suppose,” she says dubiously.
“How about this,” he says, “if either of us ever decides we do want to know, we look. No questions asked. But to start out…” He shakes his jacket back open, puts the device away, and shows her his empty hands. “You and me. That’s it.”
Something about that gets her attention. She looks up at him, contemplative.
“If you decide right now you want to know, we’ll look,” he tells her. “But… how about it?”
She sets the device aside on the table. “Yes,” she says, and her eyes are warm. “Alright.”
He finds himself smiling, too. “Great.”
*
The house has a full kitchen.
It’s a stupid thing to be relieved about, after he just got done trying to make an argument for not checking the expiration, but it at least means they made it past the thirty-six hour mark and the two week mark. He’s okay with that.
(She runs her hand over the wide granite island, and lingers there. Maybe she's relieved, too.)
“You can have the bed,” he calls back to her, when he goes for the extra blanket in the bedroom. It's in the same style, in the same place, like always. “I’ll sleep on the couch for now.”
She looks at him from across the kitchen. She says, “... Why?” like he’s just suggested the dumbest thing she's ever heard.
“Because,” he says. “I’m not gonna force you to share the bed with me on the first night.”
“You wouldn’t be,” she answers. “It’s fine. There’s no reason for you to be uncomfortable when there’s room enough for both of us.”
“It’s not about that!” His ears are hot. He glares at the wall. “It’s- It’s the principle of the thing.”
She stares at him. She steps around the counter, past him, up into the bedroom. He thinks maybe she’s decided to let it go, except then she tears the second, full blanket right off the mattress.
“Hey!” He twists in place, when she stalks past him again. “What the hell?”
The couch is sectional. She’s able to split it into two roughly-equal pieces; either one is technically long enough for him to sleep on without breaking his knees, but neither is even close to long enough for her, which is why it makes no fucking sense when she bundles herself down onto one.
“Are you serious right now?”
She stares back at him, resolute. She’s not the shrinking, unsure girl from the pairing day.
“You know what?” He flings his blanket on the opposite couch. “Fine. You’re on.”
1 DAY
When he wakes up, she’s still asleep. She barely fits on the couch, even with all the pillows thrown off, but she’s still perfectly peaceful. A loose lock of hair curls over her cheek, and flutters with each slow, even breath.
Meanwhile, his back hurts like hell. It’s somehow worse than the last time, like it got used to him sleeping in a real bed for eight months and is lashing out at him now for switching back to couches.
He keeps doing it. He’s not gonna be the one who cracks first.
3 WEEKS
They get invited to a pairing day.
He doesn’t want to go. It’s irrational and stupid, and he doesn’t care. He doesn’t want to go, and he’s fine with that— until he tells Peko he doesn’t want to go, and her expression briefly crumbles into something crestfallen.
“Of course,” she says, “I understand,” and just like that she’s bounced back up into neutrality, like the downswing never happened. It annoys him in a familiar, prickling way.
“Do you want to go?” he asks her. “I didn’t think you liked them, either.”
“They can be tiring,” she agrees. “Especially when they last the entire day. It’s alright. I understand.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” he says.
“I don’t want to go if it will make you uncomfortable.”
“Dammit, Peko, that’s not what I asked.”
For a second she looks so pained that he thinks he may have pushed too hard. She’s not Rantarou. Her walls aren’t the same.
“I... think they can be enjoyable,” she admits. “Under the right circumstances, and…” She looks down at her hands. “... with the right person.”
Shit.
She isn’t even wrong. The last pairing day hadn’t been all bad. The food had been good. For a few minutes, the company had been good.
“Alright,” he says. “Okay.”
“Please,” she says, “don’t feel like you need to—”
“But,” he says over her, “if it sucks, we’re leaving early. Deal?”
He sticks his hand out between them. She almost smiles, and clasps it back. “Yes.”
*
It’s not bad. The party itself is a classy affair. It’s held on the patio of some hollowed-out mansion down by the river, with colorful fairy lights strung up around the railings. They dress to match, both in black: him with a subtle gray pinstripe and her with sheer silk ruffles on her sleeves.
It starts in the early evening and goes on into the night. It’s warm, but not sticky; the river keeps tossing rolling breezes their way, enough to always keep things on the edge of comfortable. Summer stars spill out into the sky over the water. There’s drinks, food, music. It’s romantic. As far as fancy dates go, it’s solid.
The only problem is, he can’t seem to keep himself from spending the whole night neck-deep in his own ass.
She’s got more patience than he deserves. She puts up with him the whole time, all his comments and little scoffs and sour mood. She tries to bring him back up. She stays at his elbow, talks with him, keeps the two of them away from the cloying chatter of the main crowd.
She tries the whole night, and it falls apart anyway. Not because of her. Because of him: how he blows up over nothing, how he shouts loud enough for people to turn to look at them, and how he stalks off like a child, shoving his way through the crowd of guests.
She saw someone she recognized. She’d wanted to say hello. That’s it. That’s all.
He hops the railing of the patio to get closer to the riverbank. It’s the only part of the yard that’s mostly devoid of people, and it’s where all the fresh air is coming in. He needs the fucking air.
She finds him, even though she’d have every right to leave his sorry ass behind. She hops the railing, too, effortlessly, even in a little dress like that, and sits down on the bank. Not beside him, but close enough, a few feet away.
She doesn't say anything. She wraps her arms around her legs and watches the water.
The speakers dim. There’s a stretch of long minutes where there’s no music at all, just the gurgling of the river and a few buzzing crickets. There's no one else out here. Back at the house, someone has picked up a microphone, and the rest of the party has crowded together for the grand finale.
Peko is here, with him.
“I left early, the last time,” he says. He can’t look at her, but he sees her turn her head in his periphery. “Right after the ceremony, like you said. That’s why you couldn’t find me after.”
“I see,” she says, carefully. She’s confused. Who could fucking blame her?
“My last relationship got all fucked up at that pairing day,” he says. “I’m not- I’m not making an excuse. I’ve been an asshole tonight. I know that. I just— It’s not fair to you, when it’s my shit I’m all hung up on. So… I’m sorry.” He folds his arms over his knees. “That’s it.”
She’s quiet. She’s watching him. “It’s alright,” she decides, and that’s the only way he can think to describe it. A decision: hers, not his.
“Yeah?” he demands anyway, because apparently he can’t fucking stop even after he’s just gotten done apologizing. “How do you figure?”
“You need time,” she says. “The system doesn’t account for recovery. It can take a toll.” She stretches her legs out in the grass. “I understand.”
Whoever it is finishes giving their speech. The house erupts into cheers and applause.
“This could be over tomorrow,” he tells her.
“It could,” she agrees.
“And you’re okay with that? Letting me fuck around for however long trying to get my shit together, while you’re stuck wasting your time?”
“I don’t see it as a waste,” she answers, and it’s soft, but her eyes are steady.
There’s a commotion up on the patio. The crowd is starting to spill out toward the steps. “They’re leaving,” Peko says, rising to her feet. She dusts off the end of her skirt. “Would you like to see them off?”
“I don’t even know their fuckin’ names,” he says, “do you?”
“Chisa and Kyousuke,” she answers, without missing a beat. He looks up at her, and her smile is embarrassed. “... It’s written on most of the decorations.”
“I hate these fucking things.”
She holds her hand out to him. “If you prefer,” she says in that same careful, noncommittal way, “we could leave instead.”
He lets her pull him to his feet.
5 WEEKS
They keep sleeping on the separate couches. She rolls off of hers every morning like it’s nothing; she does a few stretches, laces up her shoes, and is on her way out the door, all before he’s even managed to get his spine in the right alignment.
“Fuck,” he groans into the pillow, “how do you do that?”
She twists her hair into a high ponytail at the top of her head. “There’s room in the bed, I believe,” she says, “if you’d be more comfortable there.”
He bows over the edge of the couch, and hangs his head down to stretch out the line of his vertebrae. “Fuck off,” he mutters into his knees.
She hovers. “I could show you a stretch,” she says. “It may help.”
He’s fine. He doesn’t need it.
But she offered, so he lets her.
*
They figure out how to get the system to let them order ingredients, instead of just more of the pre-made meals. He doesn’t think it’s possible, but she insists and keeps insisting until she manages to hit on the right voice command.
They go the full gambit: meat and fish and grains and vegetables. They fill up the kitchen. They order for weeks in advance, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It’s reckless, potentially pointless, and for once, in the moment, he doesn’t even think about it.
She orders a parade of different cheeses for a casserole recipe she loves, which is how she finds out he’s lactose intolerant. He orders a bottle of a sweet, fruity Merlot, which is how he finds out that she doesn’t like sweetness much.
She does try it, though. She manages three or four sips before her mouth puckers and her nose scrunches, a pinch of delicate disgust. It’s an expression he hasn’t seen on her before. She wears the negative ones even less often than the positive ones.
“Alright, alright,” he says. “Message heard loud and clear. I’ll get something drier next time.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, but she’s smiling when she leans over to put her glass down next to his on the countertop. They’re standing close enough that her sleeve brushes his elbow. The wine has left a faint red stain on her bottom lip.
She’d taste like the sweet plum of the Merlot, if he kissed her.
She doesn’t like sweetness, she said, but he does. He could sweep the flavor out of her mouth for her. All it would take is for him to shift his weight forward, part his lips, catch her open mouth, and—
“What is it?” she asks.
He clears his throat. He steps back from the counter. “You got ideas for dinner?” he says. “I’m gonna warn you right now, I’m a shitty fucking cook.”
2 MONTHS
He doesn’t need any more time.
If he knew they had a day left, or a week left, he wouldn’t waste it. He’d kiss her right now, tumble her down into their unused bed, and use every goddamn second to make up the difference for the mess he’s made her sit through.
He doesn’t want to do that, though.
He wants to take her somewhere special. He wants to have the date that pairing day was supposed to be, the two of them together under a smattering of summer starlight, maybe some dancing, maybe to a waltz on the piano. He wants to be able to wake up a month from now with his arm around her waist and take a few extra minutes of their morning, just because.
He decides on, “Let’s go somewhere,” over breakfast, when she’s still damp and shiny from her shower, pale hair turned dark over her shoulders.
She smiles at him. It still makes his stomach do something twisting and stupid.
*
It’s not fancy. There’s no starlight or piano waltz. They hike one of the shallow paths through the woods to see where the first licks of autumn are starting to turn the leaves orange and yellow. They have lunch on a couple of stumps. He asks to hold her hand on the way back, and she says yes.
When they get home, they sit together on the couch (his couch, he thinks, and it rings in his head the same way his bed might), and he opens a bottle of Bordeaux that she likes much better.
It’s an accident when it happens, maybe. They're sitting close enough that their knees are touching, talking about what other commands for the device Hope's Peak might be keeping on the down-low. She turns away to set her glass down on the coffee table.
Maybe he doesn’t need to have his head at that angle when he says her name. Maybe she doesn’t need to dip her chin like that when she turns back to him. But he does, and she does, and they catch there in the middle. It’s a brush, that’s all it is, but neither of them do anything to turn it into less than that.
He reaches for her with both hands. He frames her face, thumbs behind her ears and fingers tangled in her hair. She inhales just a little, sharply, and when he tugs, she sinks forward. She kisses him like that: no accidents, no pretense.
There’s not enough room for both of them on the couch, not like this; they slip and fumble trying to find a configuration that’s comfortable, and keep bumping hands and elbows. It’s fine. He doesn’t care. He loses traction once when his knee slides on the slippery fabric of her dress, and the smile that breaks against his mouth is more than worth it.
He pulls back enough to look down into her face. Her mouth is red. Her eyes are dark. His hand hovers at the high edge of her dress, where the skirt has slid up to the top of her thigh.
“Do you…” His whole mouth feels dry. He wets his lips, and it barely helps. “Tell me to fuck off if you want, but I was thinking… maybe…”
Behind him, his device chimes. It’s so loud it makes him jump, and she exhales a breathy laugh when he has to make a grab for the armrest behind her.
“No consent preference registered,” it chirps. “Fuyuhiko, do you consent to oral sex as the giving partner?”
Beyond the edge of the couch, he can see that her device has lit up, too, on the end table. They’re always tracking them, he realizes. Reading their intentions— and sharing that data, when it’s relevant.
Peko’s realized it, too. She’s gone scarlet— not just pink, fully red, right up to her hairline. She turns her face down against his shoulder, and the only benefit of that is that she can’t see his face, either.
“Shit,” he says into her hair, and it’s as much laughter as it is disbelief. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”
“The system requires that all participants submit their consent prior any sexual activity,” his device explains.
“Fuck, alright, yes, okay? Yes.”
It chimes again. “Thank you, Fuyuhiko.”
“I’m sorry,” she says in a small voice. “I didn’t realize—”
“Yeah,” he says. “Next time we gotta remember to do that part first.” She still won’t raise her head. He turns his lips against her temple so that she can feel him smiling. “What I was gonna say, was, uh… Y’know.” He slides his hands up her thighs, beneath her skirt, and hooks his thumbs into the elastic band of her underwear. “That. Basically.”
Her head snaps up from his shoulder. Her eyes are wide.
“I mean,” he hedges, “if that’s okay with you. It really only asked me, I guess, so—”
“Yes,” she whispers. “I- I… yes.”
He sinks to his knees in front of the couch. She lets him skim his hand back under her skirt to help her slide her panties down and off; they’re plain, black cotton, simple and practical. From this angle, he can see how every heavy breath rolls from her belly through her chest and out her throat.
She’s flushed and beautiful.
Her device chimes. “No consent preference registered. Peko, do you consent to oral sex as the receiving partner?”
She draws both hands up the inside of her thighs, and lets the hem of her dress catch on her fingers. She murmurs, “Yes,” with her eyes on him, lidded and intense, and it makes him feel like his hair is standing on end.
“Thank you, Peko.”
He leans in.
The angle’s bad, at first. The couch cushions are soft and deep; that’s fine for when he’s trying to sleep, but not so much when she keeps sinking back too far for him to keep pressure where she needs it. Her hand flutters on his shoulder, clenching and releasing. He’s getting a crick in his neck.
“Hey,” he murmurs, and then, “Hey,” again, until her eyes flutter open. “Try- Try scooting up a little.” He spreads his palms wide on the outsides of her thighs. “Closer to the edge, so I can…”
She bites her lip. She’s flushed down to her chest. “But...”
“It’s okay,” he tells her. He scoops his arms around the small of her back in a clumsy hug, the most he can think to do. “I got you, alright? Last thing either of us want is for you to fall on your ass, I swear.”
She nods, unsteady. She lets him draw her down to the edge, and lets him lift her knees over his shoulders. It leaves her sprawled on the couch cushions, dress hiked up around her waist, with her hips pressed close and spread open.
He brushes his lips against her, not even a kiss, and she inhales, sharp and quick.
“Oh.” She pulls his collar hard against the back of his neck. “That’s… That’s better.”
He laughs against her, so that the sound vibrates on her skin, and her breath stumbles back out. “Yeah?”
Her hands scrabble for purchase against the back of his head. She’s trying not to press down, and doing a bad job of it. “Yes,” she whispers. “Go- Go, please.”
She’s dead fucking silent, the entire time. She lies there with her head tipped back against the cushions, her throat bobbing with every swallowed sound, and he thinks he’s fucking it up, at first. He starts to pull back, means to ask her what he’s doing wrong and what he could do better, when her fingers twist around his ears to keep him in place, hard enough to hurt.
He switches gears. He turns off the part of his brain that focuses on sound, and focuses instead on the things that make her knees tremble around his ears, or her nails rake back across his scalp. He figures out where her line is, learns to feel when she’s right up on that edge but not letting herself past it.
“Come on,” he growls against her. He sits up on his knees, and smooths his thumbs into the grooves of her hips. “I got you. Come on.”
She shudders. She spills over. She gasps, “Fuyuhiko,” at the ceiling, and it hits him like a stone, right in the gut.
He carries her through it. He tries to. Maybe the best he does for her is make sure she actually doesn’t fall on her ass. He has to come up for air as much as she does when it’s done, when she’s looking at him like that, lips parted and eyes dark, with the fingers of one hand curled around his ear.
“Fuck, I wanna kiss you,” he manages. “Can I kiss you?”
She surges forward, and grabs him by the face with both hands. She kisses him, full-on and messy, even though his mouth must still taste bitter and slick. She wraps her arms around him and drags on his shoulders until he gets the memo to come up off his knees.
He holds himself over her, both hands on the back of the couch. He has to brace one knee on the cushion between her legs to keep himself upright. “Shit,” he whispers against her mouth. “You’re incredible.”
Her lips move against his, too, only he can’t concentrate on what she’s saying because his blood is roaring in his ears and she just thumbed through the button on the front of his slacks. She fumbles with his belt, finds his zipper, and then she stops.
He’s dizzy. It’s a struggle to find her face, until he realizes it’s because she’s bent her head forward, against his chest.
“Wh-What?” he pants. “What’s wrong?”
She tilts her chin. He can see the flat edge of her smile. She’s trying not to laugh. “It wants to know… if…”
“Fuck,” he rasps. “Goddammit.” He rearranges his grip on the backrest, and clenches his eyes shut. “I consent, you stupid piece of shit.”
“Thank you, Fuyuhiko,” his device chirps behind him.
The momentum is broken. Her thumb at the top of his zipper feels more awkward now than promising. “Sorry,” he whispers, “I- I should’ve thought this out better. You don’t have to— I mean—”
She turns her face back up to him. Her fingers curl around his cheek. She presses gently, until he tilts his head in the direction she wants, and then her lips are on his again, softer this time, slower.
Her hands settle on his hips. Her thumbs hook in his waistband, tug until it slides down enough to give her room to work, and his breath catches in his throat.
“Peko,” he gasps against her mouth.
It doesn’t take much, even after all that. The warm curl of her fingers, the touch of her tongue to the roof of his mouth, a few quick twists of her wrist, and that’s it: he’s done. He tries to garble out a warning, but she just presses her free hand against the back of his head to hold him in place while it shudders through him.
They’re a wreck, the both of them, when it’s over: her with her hair a mess and her makeup smudged, hanging off the edge of the couch, and him half-draped on top of her, barely able to keep his balance.
He touches his forehead to hers. She traces the curve of his jaw with her thumb.
“Bed?” she asks.
He breathes in her smile. “Yeah,” he answers, “fuck this.”
*
It’s the best goddamn sleep he’s had in months.
When he wakes up, it’s abrupt, and dark, and cold. He doesn’t know much with his brain operating on empty like that, but he does know that his half of the bed is wider than it’s supposed to be. He reaches for her, paws out into the space, and finds the edge of the blanket again. He drags it back around his shoulders.
He just barely remembers to grumble, “Peko.”
“Go back to sleep,” she murmurs, and there, she’s there, close to his ear. He can’t keep his eyes open long enough to look at her.
“What the fuck,” he slurs into the pillow. “It’s nighttime.”
“It’s morning,” she corrects. “I shouldn’t miss my run.”
He swings his arm blindly sideways, and finds the curve of her shoulder. He grabs, and only gets her sleeve. “Don’t go.”
She presses a kiss to the side of his neck, just behind his ear. She’s smiling. “Go back to sleep.”
Somewhere along the line, he does.
10 WEEKS
“What do you think about tiny dogs?” he asks her. They’re on the couch together, sharing a blanket, his legs tented over her lap. “The yappy, strung-out looking ones?”
She traces the line of his shin with her thumb. She doesn’t want him to see it, but the corner of her mouth tugs sideways. “I think they’re nice,” she answers.
“Seriously?”
“Yes.”
“That’s fuckin’ crazy,” he tells her. “They’d bite your fingers off as much as look at you.”
She doesn’t rise to his bait, and she doesn’t take back her answer. It’s her turn. “Are there any sports you like?”
“Baseball,” he answers. “Played it for a while. I’m better at watching it, though.”
“I see.”
“Right, so, if you—”
She squeezes his knee. “I get to ask again.”
“What?” he laughs. “No, you don’t. How come?”
“You asked two.”
“Bullshit I did! ‘Seriously?’ doesn’t count.”
She holds her ground. She lifts her chin at him, and she’s not smiling, but her eyes get narrower underneath like she is.
“Alright,” he says. He leans forward, his elbow on the back of the couch beside her head, and lets his knees fall flat into her lap. “Fine. What’s your second one?”
Her hand finds the side of his face. The tips of her fingers trace the edge of his ear, and it tickles, but he’s determined not to show her any weakness. He sighs, a long, slow exhale, and touches the tip of his tongue to his lips.
Her eyeline drops down.
“Peko,” he says, and it rises back up, painfully slow. He’s won, and she knows it. “What’s your second one?”
(He’s an idiot. He’s underestimated her, like he does every time.)
She curves her thumbnail along his hairline, dips her chin, and asks him in a murmur, “What would you like to do next?”
He loses, right then and there. No chance. He accepts the defeat gracefully, and rolls her over so that she's the one in his lap.
3 MONTHS
He wakes up with his arm around her waist.
They take a few extra minutes in their morning, just because.
15 WEEKS
“You’re not paired with her,” Natsumi tells him. “You know that, right?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that just because you dumbasses didn’t check the expiration, it doesn’t mean you don’t still have one.”
“Obviously,” he says. “I know that. We both know that.”
She stares at him over the lid of her smoothie. It gurgles as loudly as she can make it.
“Really?” she asks. “Because it kinda seems like you don’t.”
4 MONTHS
He counts the days up. Four months, almost exactly. They’ve overshot it by a few, and it turns out he likes that less than if they’d been a few days shy.
He’s done the math. His average is two months. Hers is five. They’re sitting pretty at almost exactly the point their expiration date should be creeping up on them.
He doesn’t say anything to her. It’d defeat the purpose. Just because he let Natsumi get under his skin again doesn’t mean that he should be making Peko anxious about it, too. What they have is working. Letting the system shove its nose between them adds nothing and takes away everything.
Still.
It’s too late for the summer stars, but the autumn ones are just as good. He takes her out by the river, down to the spot where the sprawling, rickety house they used for the pairing day is sitting empty. She lets her arm unwind from his and steps close to the water, her chin tipped up to the sky. Moonlight and starlight spill over her, and gleam silver in her hair.
He taps his device. The hidden speakers in the trees fade in: a slow piano waltz.
She looks up at the sound, and then down to him. He holds his hand out. “Dance with me?”
Her lips turn up into her not-quite smile. Color rises in her cheeks, and brings out her eyes. She reaches her hand out, too, and her fingers curl into his.
They spin lazily together, there on the riverbank, in the grass and soft soil. It isn’t even a real waltz; it’s way too slow and uncoordinated for that. But his arm fits around her waist, and she’s looking back at him with her eyes soft and open in a way they hardly ever are, and the rest of it doesn’t matter. None of it. The steps, the device, the system, the goddamn fucking wall.
The song slows down. So do they, swaying steps devolving into swaying shoulders.
He imagines that tomorrow is their last day. He imagines that this’ll be the last time he sees her like this, touched by silver moonlight like that, looking back at him with her eyes like that. He imagines her at a pairing day with someone else, beautiful in a light spring gown, with her name on all of the decorations, and he kisses her.
When he pulls back, her eyes are shining. She presses her knuckles into the corners of them. “Wait, wait.” He wraps his hands around the back of her neck, tugs her down until her forehead is pressed against his. “You— Don’t cry. Why are you crying?”
She blinks the tears away. She shakes her head, just a little, just enough for him to feel it. “I love you, too,” she murmurs against his lips. “That’s all.”
22 WEEKS
He keeps counting. He can’t help himself. Once he knows the number, each morning is another increment. Each new total carves itself into the inside of his skull like tic marks on a prison wall.
*
“Is something wrong?” she asks.
They’re having breakfast, toast and coffee and sliced fruit. She has one hand on his knee below the table. They don’t have anything planned for the afternoon; she’d wanted a quiet day in, just the two of them, and so had he. He wants as many of those as he can get, from however many days there are left.
There are soft frown lines between her eyes, and he needs to be honest. It’s too late now not to be. “We've been together five months,” he tells her. “More than that. Hundred and fifty-seven days, tomorrow.”
She doesn't understand, at first. Her gaze goes soft, at first, like he’s told her good news, because it is. It should be. It’s something they should be proud of. A mark of what they’ve done, and what they could do.
It isn’t, though. Not where the system is concerned.
She sees it in his face, maybe, or maybe she just knows him well enough now that she understands the implication of his counting. She gets there. Her hand lifts off his knee.
“You want to check the expiration date,” she realizes.
His stomach twists. “No!” He leans forward, and his elbow jostles the edge of his plate. It sends cutlery to the table with a clatter. “No. Peko, no, that’s not it.”
She’s not listening. Her device is on the table, by her elbow, and it lights up under her touch. She swipes through the menus with quick, deliberate precision: Main, Info, Expiration.
“Peko—”
“We agreed,” she says. “As soon as one of us changes their mind, we look.”
He has this sudden, irrational panic that she’s going to look at it without him. He doesn’t even know if that’s possible, and he grabs her wrist anyway. “Stop it,” he says. “I didn’t change my mind, alright?”
“Will it make you feel better?” she asks him.
He hesitates.
“Then we should look,” she says, and holds her finger over the screen.
“You're not listening to me.”
“Please,” she says through grit teeth. Emotion still manages to tremble its way through. “Whatever time is left, I…” It trembles out into her fingers. She clutches the device to keep hold of it. “I don't want it to go to waste. So if doing this helps you, then…”
“This isn’t gonna fucking help!”
It’s louder than he means, sharper than he means. He seizes her hands with both of his, and shoves the face of the device down into the table. It makes a sound like splitting plastic, but he knows it won’t break.
“Maybe it would make me feel better,” he tells her, and forces his volume down. “Maybe. For a second. That’s not what this is about, okay?” He swallows. Breathes. “I don't want to know when it ends.” He can feel her trembling. He drags his thumb over the ridges of her knuckles. “I don't want it to end at all.”
Peko is looking down at their hands. She’s not crying. She’s wearing the same sort of carefully neutral look she had when he was late for dinner the very first night, lonely and quiet, slightly strained at the edges.
“The system makes mistakes,” he says, and now he's trembling, too. “99.8. That’s .2 percent of people who get fucked over. You wanna look at me and tell me this doesn’t feel like a mistake to you?”
She looks at him. She doesn’t say anything.
“Everything happens for a reason,” the device chirps, muffled between their fingers.
*
She kisses him every morning, before her run, while he’s still half-asleep. She brushes her lips wherever she can reach him, between the tangle of blankets: his cheek, his temple, his chin, his wrist.
He teaches himself to count those, instead.
6 MONTHS
He’s in the bedroom, fixing his tie in the mirror. She’s in the kitchen, packing their boxed lunch for later. It’s too cold for a picnic now, but the central hub has a cozy little lounge area with some fireplaces and worn-comfortable loveseats. They’re going to the aquarium first, then lunch, then a concert in the evening.
“Yo, Peko,” he calls over his shoulder.
“Yes?”
“When is this thing tonight again? I was thinking if we have some extra time, maybe—”
His device chimes on the vanity in front of him.
It's programmed with maybe four or five distinct sounds. They all get used for different things: notifications and alerts and acknowledgements. They overlap in a lot of places, by categories. There’s only one that’s unique. There’s only one he can recognize without trying to, or needing to, or wanting to.
He looks at it through the mirror, and the letters are backwards, but he knows. He knew before he looked.
END
He thinks: they didn’t even make it to thirty. She’s given him twenty-six sleepy, early-morning kisses since he started counting.
He barely even remembers the one from this morning. He tries. He grips the sharp edge of the vanity until his palms hurt, and tries to remember. She kissed him on the shoulder, he thinks, the outside curve of it. It’d been lazy, a brush. She’d been tired, too. She’d wanted to stay in bed with him, but she hadn’t.
He grabs the device. He turns on his heel, and stops in his tracks.
She’s already in the doorway. Her device hangs from her limp left hand, but it’s still lit up. He can still read the face of it.
END
“Peko—”
She talks over him. “I would like to say something.” Her voice is steel bent to its maximum; her face is a sheet of ice about to shatter.
“The relationship has ended,” their devices say in echoing unison. “Both participants must vacate their living quarters.”
“I want you to know that I have treasured every moment we spent together,” she says, rushed and clumsy. She struggles. It’s not like her at all. “And that I- I will always treasure them. It has been… unlike anything I’ve experienced in my life.”
“The relationship has ended. Both participants must vacate their living quarters.”
“I know that it’s selfish of me to ask. I know that this will pale in comparison to the connection you will have with the person you are matched with, when you meet them. But I… I hope, if you can, that you’ll remember this, too.” There are tears in her eyes, and she lets them spill over. “I hope that you’ll remember me, too.”
“No,” he rasps.
“Fuyuhiko—”
“How can you still not get it?” Emotion bubbles up his throat, and then his eyes are stinging, too. “How can you stand there and say that kind of shit to me? Like- Like I was going to forget anything. Like I ever could, like I’d ever want to?” He can’t stand it. She talks about herself like she’s a ghost, like she doesn’t matter, and she’s so goddamn frustrating. “I don’t want their fucking match, Peko!”
Her device lights up: a red, flashing ring around the face. He can see the reflection of it on her skin. He looks down, and his is blinking, too.
“Failure to vacate is considered a breach of system rules. Failure to comply with the system may result in banishment.”
He drops it. It hits the floor flat on its face and goes spinning into the wall. He crosses the space between them in two long steps, and reaches for her with both hands.
“I want you,” he tells her. “Only you.”
She sways into him. She lets out a breath, shaking and damp. Her free hand comes up to curl loosely around his wrist, and the other presses her device into her stomach, where the pretty lace of her blouse swallows up the warning light.
He sees it in her eyes. He swears he does. A spark, like possibility.
“Failure to vacate is considered a breach of system rules. Participants have three minutes to vacate, or security will be called.”
He watches her let it wink out.
She whispers, “Please.”
He lets go.
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