All Right! Fine! I’ll Take You! – Zaimokuza Gaiden – Chapter 15

Rituals. I like rituals.

I mean, of course, there are the everyday kind of rituals that make it so there’s some kind of… order, I guess? No, it’s not that, more like certainty. That, you know, the day at school may have been shit, and somebody may have mouthed off a bit more than usual about the weird, fat guy who talks funny, but you get home, and you put the copper kettle on the stove, slice a bit of ginger, measure the right amount of dark green leaves, let it all brew together… And take a deep breath of the wafting steam. And it’s as good as every other time you did that before, so the world makes… It makes at least that much sense.

It’s comforting.

But I also like the other rituals, the ones with symbols, and meaning, and they may be about things I don’t believe in, but it’s soothing to see people perform them and have their world be that much more meaningful just for a while. I think it’s something that, while not quite magic, is human enough to count.

And then there are the other rituals. The ones that follow some arcane rules I don’t understand, rules everybody knows but me, and I just wish somebody would give me a damn copy of the liturgy or—

‘Calm down, dude.’

Calm down? Calm down?! Isn’t she supposed to take a shower?! To take her time in the bathroom while I… while I do whatever the Hell it is I’m supposed to do in this room as I wait for my—my girlfriend—

‘Look at her.’

What?

‘Just… Look at her. You can complain about the lack of a shower scene afterward.’

I take a deep breath and, slowly enough that I don’t think she’ll notice, turn my head to the Lady Minami.

She’s sitting by my side, on the very same bed we have spent about ten (very expensive) minutes on.

She’s as silent as I am, her eyes locked on her clasped hands on top of her school’s uniform skirt, her cheeks still carrying the same rosy tone they did as we selected our room from the touch screen menu that thankfully allowed us to dodge any kind of human contact as we entered this love hotel.

It’s… a nice room, I guess? The walls have a wooden skirt painted in soothing crème, while the walls are a far bolder maroon decorated with silver filigree. The bed is also… nice. Big. Really big. Enough to make me wonder just how many people it’s supposed to fit at once, but the red duvet is very soft, and…

And the least said about the mirror on the ceiling, the better.

I mean, I knowwhy it’s there, but that doesn’t mean I want to think about it while both the Lady Minami and I remain paralyzed by the mere prospect of what we are supposed to be—not that there’s any obligation! Implicit or otherwise! I wouldn’t dreamto push her when she’s not—

‘Dude, you have literallydreamed about doing precisely that.’

That doesn’t count! I had just… partaken of too many doujins with the ahegao tag after the Lady Minami left me as worked up as she tends to do when—aaahhhh! Not the point! The point is that, if she doesn’t want anything to happen, then it won’t happen!

‘Cute, but you’re really letting all those Fat Bastard genes go to waste.’

Sometimes, I truly despise you, Inner Hachiman.

‘Praise me more.’

“Aren’t you going to… do anything?” she asks, her voice quiet enough that I have to strain to listen.

My eyes and eyebrows do a complicated thing that ends up with my glasses slipping down my nose.

She looks at me from the side, without turning her face, and catches enough of it to giggle.

And then the giggle gets louder until it turns into something raucous, almost obnoxious.

Free.

And I breathe a sigh of relief.

“I want to,” I finally tell her once she quietens enough to hear my words.

She turns toward me, her cheeks almost as red as her hair, a wild smile on her lips.

“So what’s stopping you?”

Fear, mostly.

Of rejection, of doing the wrong thing, of all this slipping between my fingers just as I allow myself to believe it’s real, of…

Many things.

Hurting her, too.

‘Don’t flatter yourself.’

She’s tiny—I mean! Not that, Inner Hachiman! I mean her feelings!

‘Sure, let’s call that “feelings,” if you’re too prudish to call it—’

Her actual feelings! Her… I don’t know, her heart.

‘And how would that work?’

If… If she realizes she made a mistake, that she didn’t really want to give herself to—

‘Ask her.’

I—

‘Ask her. Trust me.’

… I swear, if this ends up with you laughing at me inside my head again—

‘Yeah, you may need to have a talk with Outer Hachiman at some point. That friendship also needs some fixing.’

I don’t know if you’re being genuinely helpful or mercilessly sadistic.

‘Praise me more.’

Right, I’m ignoring you from now on. I mean, the Lady Minami is starting to look at me in a way that indicates further fugues into my own inner dialogue won’t be appreciated.

“I… My Lady, I—there’s few things I desire with such burning intensity as finally tasting of you, as devouring you and sating everything you instill in me. I would be happy, no, elated, to show you how much I’ve come to long for you in such a short acquaintance, but… But this is supposed to be a momentous occasion. I’ve been given to understand that offering your maidenhood is—”

“Who told you I was a virgin?”

“… What?”

She looks straight at me, her eyes burning as intense as ever, but her lips narrowed.

“Who told you this would be my first time?”

“I… I thought I was your first kiss?”

She pauses, her eyes dipping lower for just a moment.

“You were. Are. But sex and kissing are not the same thing.”

My heart is thundering.

“Who?” I ask through a very uncooperative throat.

“Does it matter?”

Images flash through my head. A tanned, blond, muscular guy? A pretty, stylish boy? An older man, maybe bald and—agh!

“It does! It matters if somebody made you—if you were—if you’re hurt or—”

“I’m not. I’m not hurt at all, Yoshiteru. Everything I’ve ever… My body’s mine. Nobody has ever done anything with it I haven’t wanted. So, does it matter? To you? That I’m not a virgin?”

I look at her. At the girl I—

…

Damn it all.

“I confess to some slight disappointment at not being able to explore together—” she’s looking at me like... Ah. Right. Brevity is the soul of wit and all that.

How editorial.

“Let me restate things: I wish we could share our first time together, but I can only lament my own misfortune at not being there for you before the lucky man you gave that to.”

I… Right, it’s a slightly bitter feeling, but not…

“Hmmm, not a perfect answer, but I’ll say it’s at least a passing grade.”

“What?”

Her warm hand softly cups my cheek and turns my face to the side so I see her near me, almost close enough to feel the heat from her lips.

“I am a virgin, Yoshiteru. And if you were the kind of gross man to be repulsed by me not being such, I would leave this room as maidenly as I came in.”

“… And I guess you would have Miss Saotome do something complicated and painful to my joints?”

“Fuck, no. I can take you.”

I raise an eyebrow.

She blushes once more.

“Not like that. Uh, well, I guess also like that, because that’s kinda what we’re here for, but I certainly wasn’t… damn it, are you really going to let me ramble like this for much longer?”

“I find it suitable payment for your cruel test.”

“It was just—! Ah, damn it, I was… kinda… bitchy, I guess?”

“Your intuition is as accurate as ever.”

“How come you only let the snark out in these situations?”

“I think it’s because our entire relationship has… mostly consisted of these situations?”

She looks at me, searching for something I don’t know about, something hidden behind my glasses—ah, right, I should push them up with the two-fingers cool guy pose…

And now she’s laughing.

“My Lady, some men may take it the wrong way to have their lover laugh while sharing a bed.”

The laughter gets louder. She’s… clutching her sides.

“Really, as much as I hoped to leave you breathless, I intended alternative means of reaching said goal.”

And now she’s raising an imploring palm. And I have to make an effort to hold back my own grin and just sigh in disappointment.

“Truly, what else could I expect but to be taken in jest at such a momentous occasion? At least it’s not after the priest asked if you would take me—”

“Fucking stop already! You’re killing me here!” she manages between peals of almost hysterical laughter.

Uh, hysteria comes from the Greek word for uterus; I wonder if I could spin that into—

‘She willhurt you.”

Right, I guess jokes about her reproductive system may not be appreciated.

‘Not if you intend to get inside said system.’

Inner Hachiman!

“You bastard…” she wheezes out, signaling the window for me to keep abusing the juggling mechanics has sadly closed.

… Damn it. This is all your fault, Inner Hachiman.

‘Praise me—’

Shut up.

“I was merely making some innocent remarks about how utterly bereft of—”

“Oh, no, you aren’t starting that whole thing again,” she says as she makes quite sure I won’t be able to.

By blocking my mouth with her dainty hands.

… How nostalgic.

“Now…” The Lady Minami looks down, her face still flushed after her raucous bout of laughter. And then, with a quiet voice, almost mumbles: “There’s nothing stopping you anymore, is there?”

She doesn’t meet my eyes, and I don’t know what I would do if she did.

So I gently take her wrist, turn her hand around and lay a soft (and I hope gentlemanly) kiss on its back.

“My Lady, I… I once asked you if you would do me the honor of… of sharing my first time. And you said that was the last thing a girl wanted to hear in those circumstances, so I…”

My mouth is dry enough it takes me some effort to swallow the lump in my throat. When I manage, I kneel in front of her, still grasping her hand, and manage to look into wide eyes that freeze before she manages to flee from my own.

“I apologize. Because I understand. I understand that’s the furthest thing from your mind, that we should be thinking about romance, and lust, and the play between them, but… But it is an honor, my Lady. It can’t be anything other than that. And I can’t ever tell you, no matter how many thesauruses I wreck in the attempt, how much it means to me that you would bestow it upon this unworthy self.”

She pauses, something frightened in her eyes, until she sees something that makes her calm down. Smile gently. Lean down toward me and open wet, glimmering lips to say…

“Yoshiteru… You are a dork.”

…

“I feel I’ve been done a great injustice.”

“Let me finish.”

“So that you can destroy what remains of my poor self-confidence? Haven’t you already done enough?”

“Seeing as you’re still rambling? Not at all.”

“You’re as unreasonable as ever,” I complain.

“And I love you as much as ever,” she answers.

We freeze.

Our eyes are locked in a gaze from which there seems to be no escape, and our breathing has stopped altogether. Then, after what feels like hours (and I hope they aren’t because my budget for illicit liaisons only stretches so far), she slowly closes her eyes and dips her head a tiny bit.

“I… When I said I didn’t want to hear it was an honor? That no girl wanted that? It was a lie, Yoshiteru. Of course we like it. Of course we feel flattered. It isn’t the best thing to hear, but still far from the worst one. But… But that’s not what I want from you. It never was. I… I like you. I like that you’re smart, that you have a wicked sense of humor you rarely show, that you are a hopeless dreamer who pushes enough that he regains his hopes. I like that you’re kind and gentle. I like that you don’t play games, just live your life how you think it should be lived. I like that you didn’t suck up to me, that you were willing to act on what you thought was right at the start of it all. I… You. I like you.”

She takes a deep breath, eyes still closed, and my…

I close mine.

Because it would be just too unmanly to allow tears to spill.

“But… that’s not everything. Because I’ve been thinking about you night and day, and you’ve set camp in my head and just won’t let me flee from your chuuni ramblings. Because you’ve made me think about myself, about my past, about where I was heading, and let me see I wouldn’t like the end of that particular journey. Because you…

“You’ve changed me, Yoshiteru. You’ve carried on with your dumb rants, and I’ve listened, and now I’m not the same Minami I was when all this started. And I’m young, and stupid, and I learn every day just how much more stupid than I thought I was I really am. And it’s mortifying, and it hurts, but… but there’s that spark of pride I hadn’t felt in so long, and it’s a spark I owe you, something inside me that has your name etched in fire.

“So I am dumb, and inexperienced, and wrong about too many things I don’t yet know about, but… But I think this is love. The real kind, not just a crush.

“And so, as a woman in love, I don’t want to hear you say it would be an honor to… to have sex with me.

“I… I want you to… I want you to say…”

She swallows loudly enough that I hear it, that her troubled face flashes through my mind, that I can feel the moment her lips ease open once more to breathe that final secret she wants to bestow upon me.

The one thing she wishes to hear from me.

“That you want me.”

Her voice trails off at the end of her declaration, the words not so much ending as flickering in a cold breeze.

And I feel fire inside my chest.

So I let go of her hand and surround her waist with mine, her body so thin my fingers almost touch.

She lets out a startled gasp, and I stand.

It’s… I am strong. I’ve always been, my bulk not just fat and self-loathing, but also far more muscle than most ever realize. I started training to get maybe a bit thinner, a bit more like a cool, intellectual character with square glasses, but that didn’t work out.

What did work out is that I can almost effortlessly lift the Lady Minami off the bed, my legs barely feeling any strain as I pull her to me, mashing our chests together as I raise her so I can lower my mouth to her ear.

“I want you,” I whisper, letting a small bit of the fire come out with the words.

She shivers, and her eyes open.

Then she starts to say something, but I interrupt her.

Not with a palm upon her mouth, not by ranting something stupidly enthusiastic and completely inappropriate, but by kissing her.

I push my tongue past her lips, my own mashing against hers as I taste her, as I find the small pool of sweet saliva and drink from her, raising her body above mine as if I was drinking from a chalice.

She moans, her breasts trembling between my neck and my chest, then I open the kiss and dive down to nibble on her neck.

It takes me actual effort not to bite down, not to growl.

“Yo—Yoshiteru! Ah!”

I strain, and my canines graze her skin as she digs her fingers on my hair, my ponytail coming undone as she tugs at it.

“I want you. I want you so much it’s maddening. So much I could just tear off your clothes. And every single time you lose control and kiss me, or touch me, or straddle me is engraved in my memory, a bit of fire dancing in the characters of your name. And it’s been burning. Every time I close my eyes, every time I’m not thinking about some half-baked story or thinking about what I feel for you and how to be worthy of it, it’s been there, smoldering, waiting for me to get distracted so it can burn down everything else,” I murmur against her neck, just below her ear, my position just right to see the small hairs on her neck standing up at my words.

“I… I didn’t know, I thought you—”

“I’ve been holding back, Minami. I’ve been pushing myself to be good, to let you take things as you would. And it’s driven me crazy.”

“I also… I just…Yesterday, when I got home, I touched myself and I—” I finish her line with my own experience. Because it matches far too well:

“And I came so much I’m surprised I can do anything at all today.”

Her body goes rigid, and she uses every bit of strength in her thin arms to push my head away from her wet neck so she can look at my eyes directly.

“Yoshiteru, if you tell me you can’t get it up—”

I lower her body, her skirt getting caught against my shirt on the way down so her bare panties push against the front of my pants.

My noticeably tented pants.

“Oh,” she says almost silently, just shaping the sound with her lips as she tries to (futilely) look past her breasts. “I…” she clears her throat before looking back up at me with a very noticeable and enticing blush. “You’re forbidden from masturbating the day before we do something, all right?”

I blink at her, my brain crashing at the utterly insane request.

“Unreasonable woman,” I growl.

“Pretentious chuuni,” she answers.

And I throw her on the bed.

She lets out a startled yelp as she bounces once on top of the red duvet that crinkles around her shape.

And then I’m on top of her, and the mattress stops moving.

“I wasn’t planning to have our first time today. I couldn’t have known,” I try to explain as I hold myself up above her intense eyes.

“I can do whatever I want. I can touch myself and be ready for more if the situation calls for it. You? Tough luck, Yoshiteru. This,” she growls as she possessively grasps me over my clothes, “belongs to me. And I don’t want any excuses from you if we ever have a chance to do something.”

I allow myself to fall, just enough that I feel her body pressing further into the bed below as her chest pushes up into mine.

Then I kiss her.

My hands are on her hair, the short strands just long enough to tangle, to part at my touch, and my lips are once more on hers as I feel her hips below my stomach, her legs spreading before going around me.

“We will discuss this at a later time,” I finally manage to rasp out.

“Why not now?” she asks, her chest noticeably rising and falling, and I could swear I see small puffs of vapor coming off her lips.

“Because you just asked me to act on the lust I’ve been bottling up since this whole thing started, and I don’t know how much of my brain even knows what I’m saying.”

“Fair. I care far more about this brain, at the moment,” she taunts me with a grin, once more cupping the front of my pants.

I growl and bite down on her neck.

She… moans.

…

She’s making it very hard to remain capable of speech.

“Yoshiteru…” she lets out in a way I never thought anybody without years working as a voice actress for erogames could say my name. “I… That feels really nice…”

I… It is veryhard not to tear off her clothes.

‘So why don’t—’

School uniform. Questions. Parents pissed.

‘Dude, calm down. Those are barely sentences.’

Must. Hold. Back—

“Let me… Let me take these off you,” she almost asks, her tone wavering as my lips, tongue, and teeth keep working at her neck.

Then small hands undo my uniform’s jacket, pulling the lapels open before taking each button of my shirt off in a line that travels from my collar to far below.

I close my eyes, my body slightly turned aside so I still lean on her while letting her hands roam free, and I try not to growl like a feral animal.

“Ah! That’s—keep doing that!”

Apparently, I don’t succeed.

Then her hands press on my chest, and she pushes me back and up until I’m no longer resting atop her body, and she looks at me, steel eyes becoming slightly glassy.

And she pulls my shirt aside.

“Take it off,” she growls out.

Ah. Apparently, Hachiman was right: I’m contagious.

But…

Suppressing a burst of embarrassment and using my own lust to try and repress the memory of the Lady Minami staring at me wearing my sports gear, her mouth agape at the unexpected sight, I first take off my jacket.

And she stares.

Then… I pull my tie undone, the long piece of green fabric gliding to the red bedcovers before I allow my shirt’s sleeves to slide down my arms until it hangs off the waist of my pants where it’s still tucked.

And I’m just wearing my undershirt, and it’s a bit tight given this stupid body keeps growing past the time where it definitely shouldn’t, and…

And two small hands tug it out of my pants’ waistline.

I stare at her, and she pretends not to notice as she focuses far too much on slowly pulling on the stretchy fabric until it snaps out, then she follows the movement of her hands as they drag it up, past my belly, past the line of my chest, and…

And she stops when she reaches my neck and finally looks up at me.

Her lips are slightly parted, her eyes wide, her cheeks rosy.

I reach up to take the stretched fabric from my hands and give her a questioning glance.

And she bites her lower lip.

My breathing gets rougher as I finally take off my undershirt, and my upper body is completely exposed to the Lady Minami’s… lustful glance.

And then her hands carefully glide down my body until they reach the point where I’m sitting astride her.

And she undoes the lower button of her jacket.

The thick, black fabric with white piping parts, still held closed—

She undoes the next one.

She keeps staring right into my eyes, as silent as I am, and she completely undoes the jacket, allowing it to fall open.

Then she tugs her shirt out of her skirt and goes to the lowest button on it.

I can’t resist the lure: my eyes part from hers as I look down at her hands, at the agile, slender fingers undoing button after button, allowing me a glimpse to the pale, smooth skin beneath it through an ever-widening gap. And then she reaches her bra, powder blue barely peeking below her hands, and she stops.

I look back into her eyes, almost alarmed, and she sees something in me that makes her smirk as her hands resume their movement.

And then only her red ribbon holds the blouse’s collar closed.

And I, for the first time in my life, behold the bra-clad breasts of the Lady Minami.

They are everything I could’ve ever dreamed. The size has always been apparent, though it’s still an entirely different matter to witness rather than to infer. The curve overflowing from the filled cups looks as smooth and soft as I imagined that time I—

She’s giggling.

“I always knew you liked them,” she says, warmth and a smile in her voice.

“I mean… I am a man, my Lady Minami.”

“And straight.”

I look down at where my pants keep trying to restrain the Blade of the—damn it! At my erection. At my definitely not-named erection.

“The evidence seems to point toward that conclusion,” I ruefully comment.

“Really? I thought it was pointing to—”

My eyebrows shoot up, and she interrupts her line by laughing once again.

It seems I should consign myself to the very real possibility that laughter will be a constant throughout my first time.

“Sorry, sorry, it’s just, the way you looked… Here. Let me make it up to you,” she says, that joyful smile still in her voice.

And then she pulls her bra over her breasts, the limp piece of blue clothing—

Wait.

…

Wow.

“My eyes are up here, you know?” a dry tone pulls me out of the contemplation of hopes and dreams made manifest.

“Wha—ah! My apologies! I didn’t mean to so rudely stare—”

There’s a palm on the middle of my chest.

Its heat almost burns my skin, the splayed fingers capturing my attention and holding it as their shape is branded into my memory.

And then a soft voice layers another brand on top of it with words that make me reel.

“Yoshiteru… I want you to look.”

And so I do.

My eyes are on gorgeous, round breasts that have attractively spilled to the sides, and then she slides an arm below them, supporting them in that way she always has of reminding me of an anime pose, and the inside of her elbow and her hand cooperate in gathering the soft flesh and raising it up for me to contemplate.

Her nipples are pale, almost a slight tan that fades into the surrounding skin except for where the very tips darken as they harden.

Off-center, above where my eyes will be fixated forever and ever, I see her smile broaden.

“Yoshiteru…” she continues, with almost the very same intonation she used the last time, “I want you to touch me…”

She breathes out the last word, and I find myself once again swallowing my saliva.

I manage to look into her eyes, to look for any hint of—

Grey steel is nowhere to be found. No, they are silver, gentle as moonlight gliding over a calm sea.

I lean down, my face in front of hers, my chest feeling the heat radiating off hers.

“Are you… sure?” I don’t want to ask. Don’t want to give her the chance to take away what she’s offered, but this isn’t one of the times where we both get carried away by the moment and overflowing feelings. This is deliberate, intended.

Meaningful.

And so, I ask.

And then there’s a small hand cupping my cheek, her skin so soft it slides with barely any friction over cheeks I’m kinda ashamed I don’t need to shave.

And she leans up, her lips brushing my own in a tender, fleeting moment that seems to last a lifetime.

“Now I am,” she answers. And the smile she gives me makes my heart beat even harder than it already was.

So I don’t grope her. I don’t lean down and kiss the marvelous orbs that have so often captured both my attention and imagination. I don’t do any of the things I thought I would do when finally given the chance.

No. Instead, I wrap my left arm behind the Lady Minami’s back and turn us over on the bed until she’s laying on top of me, her chest flattened against my own, her wide eyes in front of me.

And I kiss her.

Gentle, almost as much as she was, I don’t push my tongue past her lips, or bite her lower one and pull it to me. No, I just brush them, maintain the barest hint of contact as my hands ghost over her back until she arches it far enough that I have to chase after her to keep our kiss going.

And I can feel slender legs laying between mine, the heat trapped between our bodies, the hardened peaks of her breasts.

But, mostly? I feel her. Minami.

My girlfriend.

Between my arms.

“I love you,” we say as our lips part.

And we giggle.

Then she wiggles down my body until she can rest the side of her face on my chest.

“We could stop. Right here, right now. We could do nothing but lie like this until the morning came, and it would be the happiest night of my life,” I tell her.

“You… wouldn’t be disappointed?” she asks, voice the barest hint of unsteady.

I lazily brush a few fingers up her spine until they thread through her red hair, and then just hold her against my chest.

“Yes. And no. I would… I think tomorrow I would need to spend quite a while on my own before I would be able to think straight, but… but months from now? Years? I would look back at this and remember the beautiful girl who said she loved me. And my heart would fill as much as it has today.

“So, no, I wouldn’t regret it. I would treasure it.”

She lies still for a bit and then lies a gentle kiss on my skin, barely moving from her resting spot.

“Yoshiteru… Only you could make not having sex sound so romantic.”

“Thanks…?”

“Of course, it would be far more convincing if you hadn’t been poking me this entire time.”

“I—I can’t help that! You don’t know how damn attractive you are! It’s a perfectly natural phenomenon!”

“You keep twitching your pelvis up.”

“A reflex! Not even—wait, I’m doing what?”

Huh. It looks like I am. Weird.

Also, she’s giggling.

“Maybe I could help you settle down?” she says, her tone one I don’t recognize.

And before I can answer, she slides down my body, and her hands find my belt.

She’s looking up at me, almost cheekily, and she undoes it first before lowering my zipper, then snapping my button open, and… And directing a raised eyebrow at me?

Ah, right. Logistics.

I raise my hips, and she starts pulling my pants down before she has to stop and… well, push me out the way until she gets them down to my knees, and then…

She’s looking at my boxers.

And looking.

And looking.

“My—”

“If you try to hurry me, I’ll hurt you. Likely without meaning to.”

“Ah. I was just going to say that I could, if you wanted me to—”

“I can do this, Yoshiteru. It’s just… Let me get used to—why are you so big?!”

And now she’s looking at my eyes. And on the verge of a panic attack, if my expert opinion can recognize the symptoms in others.

“I mean… I’m tall? I guess it’s just… well. Natural?”

“There’s absolutely nothing natural about that.”

“I don’t know whether to feel flattered or offended.”

“How would that even fit?! It’s just… What are you, a centaur who got into a traffic accident? Do you miss having four legs?”

“I’m leaning toward ‘offended,’ at the moment.”

“I’m pretty sure this counts as a concealed weapon. No, really, I could get you arrested just by—”

“My Lady Minami, if you don’t feel like you can—”

“Is that a fucking challenge?!”

My first instinct is to tell her that no, it isn’t.

Actually, that’s a lie: my first instinct is to slowly back away and protect my sensitive areas from the clearly hostile and unstable woman. But, once the brief burst of self-preservation passes, I lean toward reassuring her that there’s absolutely no need for us to progress to something that she may not be comfortable with—

‘Don’t you even know her at this point?’

Oh, right. How silly of me.

“And if it was?” I finally say.

Her eyes narrow, and she pulls my boxers down.

And then… Well, she stares.

At my dick.

The Blade proudly stands—damn it!

The Lady Minami looks almost intimidated, though I personally think that’s mostly nerves on her part rather than me truly being exceptional in any manner. As has already been established, she’s a tiny woman, and so, the contrast is accentuated.

Yes, I’m currently trying to convince myself I don’t have an exceptionally huge member. No, I’m sure this has nothing to do with any issues with my self-esteem.

I’m about to comment on something I’m a bit unclear about, if only to break the tense silence, but as soon as I open my mouth, the Lady Minami shoots me a glare and grasps my cock.

Which, going by the way she freezes, shocks her about as much as it does me.

“It’s… really warm,” she comments, almost dreamily.

I would love to answer in a reassuring, comforting manner, though I fear my capacity for elaborated discourse has been sadly impeded at the moment.

Going by the way she looks up at me when I grunt, though, I may have managed to stumble on precisely the right thing to say.

“Oh? So, you like it when I do this?” she says with a slowly widening grin.

And then she cruelly slowly drags her hand up my member.

She… takes her time.

And delights at my desperate attempts not to struggle.

“You know, this may be more fun than I realized.”

“My Lady, I…”

“Still, it didn’t look that big that time on the… you know. When I did this, on the roof…”

“That… was with my pants still on. Only part showed.”

“I… really?”

“That, and I may be slightly more… motivated, given the present circumstances.”

She takes a moment to process my words and then, contrary to everyone who has ever done that very same thing, shoots me a bright smile.

“I guess these also look different without so much clothing, don’t they?” she says, almost conversationally, before a naughty thing that can barely be called a grin flits across her lips, and she finally takes off her blouse before reaching behind her back, sharply twisting something, and letting her bra fall down.

…

She’s left the red ribbon on.

Why?!

“Yeah, I think you like them… uncovered,” she teases me as she lifts them once again with her arm, her other hand steadily speeding up along my member.

And then she lets go.

“Though, now that I think about it… well, you are pretty big, but so am I, you know?” she says, faking at nonchalance, her pointer finger idly tapping her lips.

That is, before her face melts into something positively wicked, and she grabs her breasts, lifts them, and pushes them around my member.

I bite my own lip at both the image and sensation, and Minami’s grin turns into something softer for just a moment.

“Tell me you like it, Yoshiteru,” she whispers, her breath heating my exposed tip.

“I love it,” I answer without being able to stop myself.

Her fingers sink into her breasts, and she lifts them with a small moan, her skin not quite gliding along mine, the motion just slightly intermittent.

“Again,” she breathes out, her eyes going from the purple head of my member to my eyes.

“Your breasts are everything I dreamed about and more. Your flesh is as soft as a dream fading in the morning, your skin makes me want to melt, and just it being you, just the idea of you trying to give me pleasure, would be enough to bring me to my knees in ecstasy.”

She stops.

…

Whyyyyyyyy?!

“I was going to enjoy this, you know?” she says.

“I… I’m sure that’s still an option?” I tell her, maybe even managing not to tear up at the prospect of her stopping.

“I was going to tease you with my breasts, to see you wiggle as you tried to stand it. Maybe I would’ve tried to taste you…” she continues as if I haven’t even spoken.

“I… My Lady…”

“But then you had to go and… I just asked you to tell me you liked it. And you had to say that, and now I…”

“Minami…” I whisper, not quite understanding what is happening.

“And now I just want you inside me! For Heaven’s sake, Yoshiteru, can’t you ever not go beyond what I expect of you? Do you have to always make me feel like I’m on a goddamn rollercoaster?”

I blink at her.

“Are you… sure?”

“Yes! Yes, I want to have you inside me! And it intimidates me, and scares me, because you’re stupidly huge, and I didn’t realize that when… you know! But, but you keep saying all the right things, all the things I never knew were right, and I… I…”

She stands up on the bed, and takes off her skirt.

Her panties are the very same powder blue as her bra, but there’s a clearly darkened patch in—oh.

I burn the sight in my mind before the Lady  Minami, apparently in a hurry, slides them down her legs, leaving her knee socks on, the white contrasting with the red of her ribbon. And then she straddles me, as she has done so often in the past, but this time there’s nothing separating our bodies, no clothing to disguise what we are feeling, no…

Nothing, really.

So, for the first time in our lives, our sexes touch.

And we both moan at the sensation.

She’s wet, and hot, and I can feel her lips opening against the very root of my member, promising far more than she’s giving me with this indecent kiss, and—

No.

No, it’s not indecent at all.

Because we may be—areexcited, eager, and many other things, but… But the one thing that’s pushing us further, the one thing that’s making us keep going, is not anything indecent. It’s precisely the opposite.

So she looks at me questioningly, and lies her hands on my chest, her weight half-resting on them.

And I nod, and smile, and look at her in a way that shows something far more naked than my body.

And she answers me in kind before her hips rise just a bit, just enough that her sex slides forward, a trail of liquid heat along my length.

And then my head is at her entrance, and…

“We… no, I don’t think we can stop. Not anymore,” I tell her.

She looks into my eyes as she bites her lip.

“Yoshiteru, before we… you know, can you do something for me?”

“Anything.”

“Can you… grab my butt?”

I stare at her.

And blink.

And try to stifle my laughter.

“Don’t laugh! I’m serious; every time I’ve straddled you, you’ve ended up doing—”

I grab her butt.

The naked flesh is cooler than I expected, but the familiar curve feels even more welcoming now that there finally isn’t anything stopping me from feeling it directly. It’s a very different sensation from her breasts, the toned muscle shifting as the Lady Minami wiggles atop me, and I…

“It’s not an onerous request, my Lady,” I tell her, once again softly and, I hope, reassuringly.

“Of course it isn’t. You’ve been dying to do this without any panties In the way.”

“I wouldn’t say dying—”

“No, you would say something utterly convoluted with precisely the same meaning, because you speak as if somebody is paying you by the word.”

“Your cruel jests wound me like the darts of an editor.”

“It’s only fair, seeing how you’re about to… wound me.”

And I don’t have an answer for that.

Because I can feel her wet heat, can feel the muscle beneath my hands straining with the prolonged posture. And I can, even more so, feel her uncertainty.

But then she closes her eyes and speaks.

“I think I’m ready.”

And she sinks.

I close my eyes at the explosion of sensation, at the tight flesh coiling around me, even if it’s only the very tip, but she feels so good, so warm, so raw—

Wait a—

“Lady Minami! The condom!”

“What?” she asks as she keeps pushing down, as her flesh keeps swallowing more and more of me, and her tone sounds so far away…

She looks beautiful.

Her eyes are closed, and they go from dreamlike ease to furrowed concentration as her hips shift down, as she pushes me inside her, and her flesh engulfs my naked—fuck!

Not giving myself another chance to falter, my hands go straight to her waist, and I struggle to keep her in place.

“Yo… Yoshiteru? Why are you stopping me?” she asks in an almost pitiful tone.

“I… I mean… Condom?” I finally manage to get out.

And her eyes shoot open.

She looks down at me, at where we are joined, and then up into my eyes.

“I take the pill,” she finally says.

“Are you sure? I thought—”

“Yes! I’m sure I’m taking the pill! What kind of question is that?!”

“Ah, sorry, I… That means we can… proceed?”

She looks down at where we’re joined.

“No,” she finally says.

“What.”

“I don’t feel like it.”

“What.”

“Really, it’s too much of a struggle. Trying to put you in is a bit… you know. It’s hard.”

“I would hope so—”

“Not like that.Anyway, I’m stopping.”

I look at her, and I’m pretty sure there are puppies who could benefit from taking notes of me at this very moment.

“None of that. It’s final: I’m not putting any more of your stupidly thick dick inside me,” I deflate, the power of the puppies abandoning me. “So it’s your turn.”

…

“What.”

“Your turn,” she explains as if to a slow child. “Your turn to fuck your cock into me.”

And she gives me a look, her eyes lidded, her lower lip between her teeth.

“You’re a cruel, cruel woman.”

“And you love it.”

I abstain from answering and just tighten my grasp on her hips.

Then lift her body as I raise from the bed.

“Wha—” she manages to get out.

“My turn,” I answer as I kick off the pants and boxers gathered at my ankles.

And then I grasp her… well, her butt, because what else? Then I push her against the wall, her legs instinctively closing around me as I maneuver to get my member once again at her entrance.

She’s looking at me, eyes wide, mouth once again forming a silent ‘o.’

And then I push forward.

It goes in much deeper than the first time, almost half of my member rapidly sinking into her flesh, and Minami throws her head back with almost a scream.

Then I take it almost completely out, and I push again.

And it goes deeper, and she moans.

Again.

She throws her head forward, nuzzling my chest, kissing it, mumbling something unintelligible.

Again.

Her arms go to my neck, finger lacing behind my nape, and she squirms in my grasp in a way that makes me take notice of her breasts once again.

And then I do it one last time, and I feel myself reaching the end of her sex as my pelvis grinds against hers.

And she howls.

I struggle to remain upright, to hold her against me, but Minami just tightens her arms and legs around my body as hers goes completely rigid, and…

It takes her a moment. A long moment in which the only tenderness I can offer her is to keep kissing the crown of her head as I struggle not to move her at all.

“Did you just…?” I finally ask when she relaxes against me, her body slumping in a way that’s far more enticing than I ever suspected a relaxed woman could be.

“You’re… Fuck, my fingers will never again do the job, will they?” she mutters against my chest, seemingly in anger.

My mind goes blank, and I turn around, back to the bed.

“Yoshiteru?” she asks.

I lie her down, her body bared before me. The bed is high, enough that I don’t have to strain too much to keep her hips up, angled in just the right way as to—

“Ah! Ah, fuck! Yoshiteru!”

I dive into her, her flesh finally allowing me to move with the ease I yearn for.

“Wha—I’m still sensitive—oh gods! Don’t just—”

I’m not going that fast. Not even half as much as I yearn to, but certainly much faster than when I was pushing her open. And her words are half protest, half yearning, but her hips swing up and down to meet each of my thrusts.

“Why—fuck, fuck, fuck! Yoshiteru, talk to me!”

“I want you,” I let out, almost growling.

“What?!” Her eyes widen, and I feel her heels digging into my lower back, almost against my kidneys.

“I want you! I desire you! I dream about you and jerk off to you! I want to have sex with you like I’ve never wanted anything in my life!”

“Ah! Yes! Yes, tell me what you—”

“And I want to hold you, and kiss you, and spend every day learning all the ways you can smile, or get embarrassed, or yell at me!”

“Wha—”

“And I love you! I love you enough that I don’t want to be—I don’t want to be alone anymore!”

Two hands grab the back of my head, and she pulls me down into a searing kiss as our bodies keep moving faster and faster.

“You… You aren’t,” she manages to say despite her breathing being interrupted by our frantic lovemaking.

“Promise me,” I ask, as I plunge myself inside her, careful enough not to hurt her, but hard enough she closes her eyes as her back arches atop the red duvet.

“I promise! I promise you won’t be alone, that we’ll be together! I promise I’ll be yours and—”

I lean down, my body dwarfing her as I keep holding her hips, as I thrust inside her that much harder. Hard enough she stops talking, stops breathing.

And then I come.

Her legs twitch around me, and with every spurt I grind harder against her as she writhes atop the bed, her eyes closed and her mouth open.

And I could stay like this, watching how utterly beautiful she is, how the red from her neck has gone up her cheeks and down to the very top of her round, heaving breasts.

I could. If I wasn’t exhausted.

So I fall down on top of her, slightly to the side so I don’t crush her, and my member slips almost entirely out of her.

Her hands are tangled on my hair, the shoulder-length mane it turns into when not in a ponytail matted with sweat, and she keeps breathing harshly against my chest.

Then, with what seems to me to be a Herculean effort, yet without any special characters used for my lacking dialog, I completely slide out of her and crawl down until my face lies next to her even as half my body is out of the bed.

“Thank you,” I manage to mutter.

Her fingers tighten around my hair.

“Promise me,” she whispers.

“What—”

“That I won’t be alone,” she says, her eyes still closed, her grip on me that much tighter.

I take a deep breath and fight through my exhaustion, through the call of her soothing, warm body. And then I gather her up in my arms.

“Yo… Yoshiteru?” her voice is frail, her hands still grasping my hair.

I strain for a moment, standing up once again as I pull her into a bridal carry. She lets out a startled yelp, and I struggle to…

Well, to open the bed.

Then I lie her inside it and tuck her in, smoothing the soft red duvet and inadvertently throwing my tie to the floor with the motion before I slide beneath the covers, turn to my side, and hug the Lady Minami to me.

“For as long as you want me, remember?” I tell her, repeating the vow I offered not even two hours ago.

She stiffens for just a moment, the words maybe not as dramatic as the moment requires, but… but ours.

And then she burrows her face in my chest and hugs me tightly enough that I fear this short break won’t be restful at all.

A heavy burden that I shall gallantly carry.

‘Riajuu, go explode.’

Thanks, Inner Hachiman, but I think I shall ask the Lady Minami beforehand. The last time she didn’t appreciate me covering her face—

‘Right. If you pull that off with Outer Hachiman, I’ll forgive you for the traumatic mental image.’

I shall endeavor to do so.