"So, Jun-kun was causing a fuss today?" My father asked, a low chuckle rumbling in his chest as he poured himself more tea.
I didn't give Jun a chance to open his mouth. I leaned forward, my eyes practically sparkling—I couldn't help the familiar mischief that always rose when talking about him. "A fuss? Dad, he caused a Disaster," I declared dramatically. I saw Jun flash that small, knowing grin, which meant my playful accusation had landed perfectly.
Mom covered her mouth, stifling a soft laugh. "Oh dear. A stunt?"
"A full-blown, terrifying stunt! He walked into homeroom and saw his assigned spot was in the nosebleed section, miles away from mine. He simply looked at the poor, terrified kid who was already seated next to me—a boy too scared to even breathe—and the kid just... started physically lifting his own desk." I finished the story with a theatrical sigh. "Jun then calmly walked over and claimed the vacant spot right beside me, like a king staking a flag." Even though I tried to sound completely scandalized, a ridiculous proud warmth bloomed right in my chest. "The entire class was silent for the rest of homeroom. It was honestly the most embarrassing thing he could have done."
Dad threw his head back and laughed, a deep, satisfied sound that meant he completely approved. "Well, that certainly sounds like Jun. Efficiency and commitment, always."
Jun, the absolute menace, simply raised his glass of tea toward Dad in a silent salute. "The view from my new seat is vastly improved," he said, that smooth tone hitting me like a physical blow. Immediately, I felt my cheeks heat up. He was impossible.
The room was warm, filled with the comfortable clatter of dinner ending. Listening to Jun recount his first full day back in school, anyone would think it had been utterly mundane—a lighthearted comedy of errors about lunch lines and geometry teachers.
He's completely omitting the Aoi incident, I realized. The entire, explosive emotional breakdown is just gone.
He was protecting me, or perhaps, protecting the current peace of this dinner. He was so good at smoothing over the rough edges of our reality, presenting the world as a simple, happy place now that he was back. The weight of his consideration was a warm, heavy blanket in my chest.
When the last of the dishes were cleared, Jun stood up. "Thank you for dinner, Auntie. It was amazing."
He turned to me, and our eyes met across the dining table. The playful warmth from dinner was gone, replaced by a silent, charged understanding. He hadn't forgotten his declaration from earlier. His gaze held a question, and a promise.
My heart gave a violent lurch.
Without a word, we both headed for the stairs.
The bathroom felt impossibly small with both of us in it. We stood side-by-side in front of the mirror, the air thick with the minty scent of toothpaste and unspoken anticipation. It was a perfectly domestic scene, the kind I had dreamed of for 730 nights.
Jun finished first, rinsing with a swish of mouthwash. He leaned against the doorframe, watching me. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic, trapped bird. I couldn't stand the proximity, the anticipation.
"If you're done, then get out already!" I squeaked, my face flushing as I shoved him bodily out of the bathroom and clicked the lock shut. I heard a confused, muffled "Eh?" from the other side of the door as he stumbled away.
Alone, I leaned against the cool wood, my breath coming in short, sharp gasps. My reflection in the steamy mirror showed a girl with wide, panicked eyes and cheeks the color of a ripe strawberry. I was preparing for a battle tonight, a battle that might or might not come, and I was already inflicting mortal damage upon myself just by imagining it.
My mind, my greatest betrayer, conjured images of his hands, his lips, the scent of his skin…
I slapped my cheeks. Stop it, Yui! Get a grip!
I took a deep, steadying breath, ran a comb through my hair one last time, and spritzed the faintest hint of a floral perfume onto my neck. A final, critical look in the mirror. Then, I turned to face my destiny.
My bedroom door felt like the entrance to a stage. My heart was a frantic drumroll. I stood before it for a full ten seconds, my hand hovering over the knob, before finally forcing myself to turn it and step inside.
And there he was.
Lying on his futon, propped up on his elbows, nonchalantly reading a manga with his shirt on.
A wave of pure, unadulterated frustration washed over me. Ahh, why am I the only one who has to be a nervous wreck? It was as if he'd completely forgotten the bold, earth-shattering declaration he had made just an hour ago.
Defeated, I grabbed the pillow from my bed, hugged it tight against my face to muffle a small scream, and flopped down, staring up at the ceiling. I even wore perfume, you absolute idiot.
"Since when do you wear perfume to bed?"
As if he'd read my mind, his voice, calm and infuriatingly casual, drifted up from the floor.
The heat in my cheeks intensified. "I do not!" I snapped back, a little too quickly.
"It smells nice," he replied, completely ignoring my denial.
He turned a page. The soft rasp of the paper was the only sound in the room. He was back to his manga. He was actually, genuinely, ignoring me. I swung my feet back and forth on the bed, the motion a desperate release of my coiled-up energy. He's always toying with me. Always.
"You thought I forgot?"
I could hear the smile in his voice. The question, so simple, so direct, completely disrupted the frantic rhythm of my heart, replacing it with a slow, heavy thud.
I tried to play it cool. "What?" I asked, my voice a pitch higher than I intended.
"I wonder…"
Slap. The sound of his manga closing echoed in the quiet room. I heard the soft rustle of him getting to his feet. My breath caught in my throat. He moved toward the wall, and with a decisive
Click
The room was plunged into darkness, the only light now the pale, ethereal glow of the moon filtering through the blinds.
My eyes struggled to adjust. I saw his silhouette turn, a tall shadow against the faint light. He turned. And then he was moving, not back to his futon, but toward my bed. He crawled onto the mattress, the frame groaning softly under his weight. My entire body went rigid. He placed his hands on the mattress on either side of my head, caging me in. He leaned over me, his face inches from mine, and gazed down.
My breath hitched. I was utterly, completely defeated.
I couldn't meet his gaze. I averted my eyes, my voice a trembling, desperate whisper.
"…Futon"
The sound was so low, so lost in my own ragged breathing, that he had to lean closer, his hair brushing against my temple. "Hmm?"
"Tonight… the futon!" I managed, the word escaping as a trembling, barely composed squeak.
I couldn't form a coherent sentence. My traitorous mind supplied the reason I couldn't say aloud: This old wooden bed frame was a notorious gossip; it creaked and groaned with the slightest movement. The thought of it broadcasting our… activities… to my parents downstairs was a mortifying horror I couldn't bear.
He stayed there for a long second, his gaze searching my face. Then, a slow understanding dawned in his eyes. Without a word, he pushed himself off my bed and retreated to his own bedding on the floor.
I let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding. It's just sleeping together, I told myself, trying to calm the frantic hummingbird in my chest. Sleeping NEXT to each other. Like when we were kids.
It didn't work.
A few minutes passed in charged silence. I finally risked a glance over the side of the bed. Jun was already tucked into his blanket on the futon, his back to me.
This was my decision. My command. My turn.
I slipped out of my bed, the floorboards cool beneath my bare feet. I took the single step required and knelt at the edge of his futon. Then, I lifted the corner of his blanket and slid in beside him, pulling the fabric over us both. The space was immediately, overwhelmingly filled with his warmth.
I hovered over him, our roles completely reversed. The confidence I felt in this position was a fragile, borrowed thing, and my vocabulary had been reduced to its most basic components.
His eyes opened, dark and knowing in the moonlight.
"Your shirt," was all I could manage to say, my throat tight.
He tilted his head, a silent, infuriating tease. He wasn't going to make this easy for me.
"You said… no shirt," I whispered, the words a desperate plea.
Finally, he broke the quiet. "Take it off for me."
That cheeky idiot! He wants me to do the honors!
My hands trembled as I reached for the hem of his t-shirt. I had seen his uncovered chest more times than I could count—summers at the beach, changing for P.E.—but this was different. From this angle, under the moonlight, the familiar landscape of his collarbones and the lean muscle of his torso was both a memory and a new, breathtaking discovery. I pulled the shirt over his head, my knuckles brushing against his skin.
I pulled back, my hands braced on his shoulders. "We... we must not cross the line," I breathed, the words more a plea to myself than a command to him.
He lifted a hand, his fingers warm as he cupped my cheek, squeezing softly. His gaze was intense, unwavering, a physical touch in itself. "Is this the line?" he whispered.
I couldn't answer. I could only stare into his eyes, lost.
His hand slid from my cheek, down my neck, over my shoulder, and came to rest on the curve of my hip. He applied the slightest pressure, pulling me closer until our bodies were almost flush. "Is this the line?"
My breath hitched. The only sound was the frantic pounding of my own heart, a drumbeat for the ceremony he was conducting.
His other hand moved, slipping under the thin fabric of my sleepshirt. His palm was hot against my skin, a searing brand against the cool night air. His fingers curved around the side of my breast, his thumb brushing with excruciating slowness against the hardened, aching peak. He squeezed, a gentle, possessive claim. "Perhaps… this is the line?"
A small, involuntary gasp escaped my lips, a sound of pure, unadulterated pleasure that echoed in the silent room.
He moved both hands to my hips, his grip firm, anchoring me to him. Only the slightest pressure was needed for me to lose my balance and collapse onto him, my body settling over his.
My cheeks were resting on his chest, feeling the steady, powerful rhythm of his heartbeat as it moved up and down. It was so loud, but the only thing I could truly feel was the rigid, insistent warmth pressing against the juncture of my thighs, separated by only a thin, useless layer of cloth. He was hard, and he wanted me to know it.
"Or…" he whispered, his voice a deep, vibrating rumble against my ear that made my toes curl. He moved his hips, a subtle, deliberate shift upward, grinding against me just once. "…this is the line?"
A noise, a shameful, embarrassing, utterly wanton moan, tore from my throat. To hide from the sound I had just made, I glared up at him. He had the decency to look insincerely sorry, a wicked, triumphant glint in his eyes.
That was it. I lunged, crashing my lips against his.
It was a messy, desperate kiss. For the first time, our tongues were involved, an awkward, hungry tangle. It was a clumsy exploration, a battle of wills as we pushed and pulled, thrusted and took, each trying to devour the other. Each kiss lasted longer, growing deeper, than the last. We only broke apart when our lungs burned, gasping for air, before falling back together. My kisses left his mouth and trailed down his neck, leaving a wet, slick path over the frantic pulse in his throat, tasting the salt of his skin.
At the same time, his hips began to move in a steady, hypnotic rhythm, the friction of our bodies a sweet, maddening torture. Sounds I didn't know I was capable of making kept spilling from my lips, lost in the space between our bodies. It was a battle, a fierce struggle for dominance and a beautiful, shared victory, as we learned the rhythm of each other's desire.
The night was long, our limbs a wicked, tangled game of Twister. We explored and claimed, pushed and surrendered, my hands tracing the muscles of his back as his slid lower, pressing mouth onto mine until I thought I might break. We moved together, a frantic, desperate dance on the very edge of release, until we were both spent, lying exhausted and slick with sweat in each other's arms.
Finally, when the moon had slipped low beneath the window frame, bathing us in cool shadows, I drifted into a heavy, contented sleep. The last thought I held was the solid, secure weight of his arm across my waist, pinning me to his side. Even at the height of our shared madness, even in the moment I had completely surrendered, Jun had kept his promise. We had pushed every boundary, crossed every minor line, but the final, sacred boundary—the one we'd set for ourselves—remained unbroken.
…barely