After Aika left, the room felt strangely quiet.
Too quiet.
A few minutes ago, I was angry.
Now I just felt tired.
Every time I accused Takumi of cheating, I felt that same sharp pang in my chest.
Like there was a voice inside me telling me to shut up.
Hypocrite.
It was horrible.
Because what was I supposed to say?
How dare you betray me?
When I had already done something I could never forgive him for doing to me?
I swallowed hard.
If it hurt me this much just thinking about him being with someone else, then how would he feel if he ever found out what I'd done?
I didn't even want to imagine it.
Because underneath all the anger, all the jealousy, all the stupid arguments...
My heart still beat heavily for this idiot.
I still loved him.
That was the worst part.
I didn't come here to fight.
I came here because I wanted to fix things.
I even put on the white thong he liked so much, stupidly hoping that maybe tonight would be different.
Maybe we'd remember why we fell for each other in the first place.
Maybe I could get close to him again without another stupid argument getting in the way.
For once, I wanted to believe things could still be simple.
Then Aika showed up.
And suddenly, everything felt fucking stupid.
Even worse, I found out they were neighbors.
Classmates.
Close enough that they could run into each other whenever they wanted.
Takumi lied to me.
Just like I had lied to him.
He told me they met at one of her shows because little Kaede-chan was a fan.
Cute story.
Except apparently the truth was that Suzuki Aika lived right next door to my boyfriend.
My annoying groupmate.
My stupid boyfriend.
They could've been eating lunch together on the rooftop. Talking after school. Walking home together.
And I wouldn't have known a fucking thing.
I felt my stomach twist.
Was I supposed to believe that nothing happened?
That they were just neighbors?
That he hadn't told me because it was irrelevant?
Maybe.
Maybe he really thought it was irrelevant.
But after everything that happened between us, how the hell was I supposed to just take his word for it?
The worst part was that I couldn't even properly accuse him.
Not without remembering my own secrets.
Because if Takumi was hiding things from me...
What did that make me?
I hated that thought.
I hated that I understood exactly why he might have lied.
And I hated myself even more for knowing that I had no right to demand complete honesty from him while keeping my own shit buried.
Just like that, everything I built up in my head came crashing down.
I hated how quickly my mind had jumped to the worst conclusion.
I hated that I couldn't trust him.
But more than anything...
I hated knowing that I was asking him for something I haven't given him myself.
I looked at Takumi.
He wasn't saying anything.
Neither was I.
For once, I didn't know what to accuse him of.
Maybe because, deep down, I was afraid that if I stopped being angry, I'd have to admit what I was actually feeling.
I don't want to lose him.
I don't want him to leave me.
And I didn't know if loving him was enough anymore.
Especially when I was the one carrying a secret that could destroy everything.
Okay, Kurumi. You got this.
"So glad she left. Now we're all alone," I said with a sigh.
Takumi just sighed back.
"That's what I was afraid of," he remarked dryly.
Ouch.
Fuck you.
Since when did being alone with me become such a burden to you?
I felt a sharp pang of frustration knowing he had every reason to feel that way.
But I didn't back away.
Instead, I wrapped my arms around him and planted a quick kiss on the top of his head.
"Yeah," I chuckled. "That was scary, rapper boy. You almost died."
Takumi's ears turned red, but he just shook his head, looking like he couldn't quite process what was happening.
"What? I thought you wanted to keep fighting and—" he started.
I didn't let him finish.
I reached up and gently cupped his cheek, forcing him to look at me.
"Takumi…" I said, my voice softer this time.
I hesitated for just a second.
"I'm just a girl who wants her boy back."
The words came out more vulnerable than I intended.
And the worst part?
I wasn't even faking it.
The idiot grabbed my hand, completely unaware of the emotional storm raging inside me.
"Really? I thought you wanted to give up."
…Oh my god.
Did he really think that?
Was I really that bad?
The words hit me like a knife to the chest.
"Takumi. Don't be ridiculous. I l-l-lo—"
I froze.
"...I mean, you know. That word. I feel… you know."
I ALMOST SAID IT!
I'M NOT EVEN SURE IF IT'S TRUE, AND I ALMOST SAID IT!
Holy shit.
I'm so glad I didn't finish that…
Because what the hell was I even going to say?!
Takumi just blinked.
"I love you too," he said, like it was the most normal thing in the world.
OH. MY. GOD.
I—
Wait.
Did he just—
My entire brain stopped working.
"You… what?"
He looked at me like I was the weird one.
"I said I love you."
Just like that.
No hesitation.
No awkward pause.
No trying to figure out what the hell he was supposed to say.
He just said it.
And somehow that was worse.
Because now I was the one who didn't know what to do.
"Takumi…"
My voice came out so small that I barely recognized it.
He squeezed my hand.
"I know we're fucked up right now," he said quietly. "But that doesn't mean I stopped caring about you."
...
Fuck.
Why did he have to say it like that?
I stared at him, feeling that stupid pressure building behind my eyes.
I came here wanting to fix things.
I came here angry.
I came here prepared to fight.
And somehow, this idiot had completely disarmed me with four words.
I swallowed.
"I…"
Come on, Kurumi.
Say it.
Just say it.
But my mouth wouldn't cooperate.
So instead, I squeezed his hand back.
And that was all I could manage.
And still I could feel the desperation building inside me, getting harder and harder to keep contained.
I couldn't keep swallowing it down.
I grabbed his sleeve.
"I want you so much that I think I might actually be in love with you."
My voice shook.
"I'm obsessed with you. You're always in my head. Everything reminds me of you. I keep thinking about you even when I don't want to."
I tightened my grip on his sleeve.
"Please... I just want this. I want us. I want you to stop feeling so far away from me."
The words kept coming before I could stop them.
"I don't know what the hell you've done to me, Takumi, but I can't get you out of my head."
I took a shaky breath.
"I'm sorry... about the ghosting. And ignoring you. I know I've been doing a shitty job of making time for you."
I swallowed.
"I'll do better. I swear. I'll make more time for you. You matter to me, Takumi. You really fucking matter to me."
My voice started trembling.
"I just... I don't want you thinking that I don't care about you because I do. I care so fucking much that—"
Takumi wasted no time. He pressed a finger to my lips.
"I know."
His breath ghosted against mine, warm and close. I closed my eyes, waiting, my heart hammering against my ribs.
Our lips met—soft at first, tentative—before our tongues found each other, tangling in a slow, hungry wrestling match that made my knees weak.
His hand dropped to my ass, cupping me through the fabric, and I gasped into his mouth. My fingers found the hem of his shirt, desperate for skin.
In one swift movement, my pants hit the floor, leaving me in nothing but my panties.
His shirt followed a second later, dropped somewhere behind him, and then we were reconnecting, bare chest to bare chest, the heat between us electric and inevitable.
I pushed him down on the bed, then my hand found the waistband of his pants, pulling them down and freeing his little soldier.
It was big enough to kill me.
I open my mouth and take it all in.
The taste of him flooded my senses—salt and skin and something uniquely *his*. I worked my tongue along the underside, tracing the vein that pulsed there, feeling him twitch against my palate as a low groan rumbled from his chest.
His fingers tangled in my hair, not pulling, just holding on like he needed something to ground him. Like I was the only real thing in his world right now.
Good, I thought, hollow and hungry. Let me be the only thing you think about.
I pulled back slowly, dragging my lips along his length until just the tip remained between them, my tongue swirling around the sensitive ridge.
Takumi's hips bucked slightly, involuntarily, and I felt a dark, satisfied smile curve my lips around him.
I liked this—liked reducing him to shaky breaths and cursed whispers.
Liked that for once, I had complete control over what he was feeling.
"Kurumi," he breathed, my name sounding like a prayer and a warning.
I answered by taking him deeper, hollowing my cheeks, letting my tongue press flat against him as I bobbed my head in a slow, torturous rhythm.
And—because the idiot had zero patience—he started pushing my head around, thrusting that soldier into my mouth faster each time, like he thought he could break me.
As if.
The white thong I wore for him—stupid, hopeful thing that I was—felt suddenly too tight, too present, a reminder of how desperately I'd wanted this moment to go differently.
To be softer.
To be fixed.
But there was something brutal and honest about this too. About using my body to say what my mouth couldn't.
I pulled off with a wet sound that should have embarrassed me but didn't, not with the way he was looking at me—eyes blown wide, chest heaving, that stupidly beautiful face flushed pink.
I crawled up his body, my red hair falling like a curtain around us, my lips still shiny and swollen.
"You don't get to come yet," I whispered, my voice rough, stripped of its usual defenses. "Not until I say so."
Takumi laughed breathlessly, but there was no humor in it—just need, raw and reciprocal. "When did you get so bossy?"
"Always," I lied, grinding down against him through the thin fabric of my underwear, making us both gasp at the friction. "You just weren't paying attention."
I sat up, straddling his thighs, and reached behind me to unhook my bra.
The white lace—matching the thong, because some part of me had genuinely believed tonight might end like this—fell away, leaving my breasts exposed to the dim light of his bedroom.
Takumi's eyes darkened as they roamed over me, taking in the pale skin, the dark nipples already tight with arousal, the ink I'd hidden beneath clothes for everyone else but showed only to him.
"You're so fucking beautiful," he said, and the sincerity in his voice hurt worse than any argument we'd ever had.
I leaned down, crushing my chest against his, needing to feel skin on skin, heartbeat against heartbeat.
"Shut up," I muttered against his mouth, but there was no bite in it.
Just desperation.
He kissed me then—really kissed me—his tongue sliding past my lips to tangle with mine, tasting himself on me and not pulling away.
His hands roamed my back, my sides, finally settling on my hips with a grip that would probably bruise.
I hoped they would.
I wanted to carry his marks tomorrow.
Wanted proof that this was real, that I hadn't imagined it during whatever fight came next.
I broke the kiss only to drag my lips along his jaw, his throat, scraping my teeth against the tendon there just hard enough to make him groan.
His hands slid down to cup my ass, fingers dipping beneath the white thong's edges, and I felt my stomach flip at the intimacy of it—that he knew, that he'd noticed, that he'd *remembered*.
"You wore it," he murmured, almost reverent.
"Don't get used to it," I shot back, but my voice cracked on the last word as his fingers found me through the thin fabric, pressing against the wet heat there with devastating precision.
"Liar," he whispered, and I couldn't even argue because his thumb was circling my clit through the soaked material, and my brain had officially stopped functioning.
I ground down against his hand, shameless and needy, my forehead dropping to rest against his shoulder.
"Takumi..."
"I've got you," he said, and god, I wanted to believe that.
Wanted to believe that he could hold all my broken pieces together even as I kept cutting him with the edges.
I reached between us, shoving the thong aside, guiding him to my entrance with a hand that trembled only slightly.
Our eyes locked as I sank down onto him, inch by agonizing inch, my breath hitching at the stretch, at the fullness, at the overwhelming rightness of him inside me after everything that had tried to pull us apart.
"Fuck," I breathed, stilling once I'd taken him completely, my nails digging crescents into his shoulders.
Takumi's jaw was clenched tight, his whole body strung like a bow beneath me, holding back when I could feel how badly he wanted to move.
"You okay?" he managed, voice strained.
I laughed—a wet, broken sound—and rolled my hips experimentally, making us both moan.
"Just shut up and fuck me, rapper boy."
He didn't need to be told twice.
He sat up, wrapping one arm around my waist while the other hand cupped the back of my neck, pulling me into a kiss that felt like drowning in the best way.
Then he thrust up into me, hard and deep, and I saw stars.
We found a rhythm that was part anger, part apology, part desperate attempt to crawl inside each other's skin. The bed creaked beneath us, the sound mixing with our ragged breaths and the wet slap of our bodies coming together.
I rode him with abandon, my breasts bouncing between us, my hair sticking to my sweat-slicked skin in dark red strands.
Every thrust drove him against that spot inside me that made my vision blur at the edges, and I chased the sensation mindlessly, grinding down to meet his upward snaps.
His mouth found my neck, sucking dark marks into my pale skin that my stage makeup wouldn't quite cover tomorrow, and I let him, arching into the sting of it.
"Kurumi," he groaned against my throat, his thrusts becoming erratic, losing their rhythm as he got close. "I'm gonna—"
"Not yet," I gasped, though I was right there with him, my inner walls fluttering around him in warning.
"Not yet, I want—"
I didn't know what I wanted. Just *more*. More of this. More of him. More time before reality came crashing back in.
I pushed him back down onto the mattress and rode him harder, my hands braced on his chest, my head thrown back as the pleasure built to a breaking point.
The white thong, still technically on, had been shoved aside and was probably ruined, and some distant part of me found that fitting—I kept trying to be soft and pretty for him, and I kept ending up messy and desperate instead.
But when I looked down at him—his eyes were fixed on my face with an expression that wasn't just lust. It was the same look he'd given me when he said Iloveyou. Like I was worth something. Like I was worth everything.
That did it.
I came with a cry that was half his name, half a sob, my body tightening around him in waves that seemed to go on forever.
Takumi followed me over the edge, his hips stuttering upward as he spilled inside me, his fingers gripping my hips hard enough to leave fingerprints I'd find tomorrow and press my own against in the mirror, remembering.
I collapsed forward, boneless and shaking, my face buried in the crook of his neck. For long moments, the only sound in the room was our breathing, slowly returning to normal, and the distant hum of the city outside his window.
"Kurumi," he said eventually, his voice soft against my hair.
I tensed, waiting for it—the questions, the accusations, the inevitable conversation about Aika that we still needed to have.
But instead, he just pressed a kiss to my forehead and said, "Stay tonight."
I closed my eyes, feeling the weight of my secrets settle back onto my chest like a physical thing. But underneath that weight, my heart beat steady and sure.
"Idiot," I whispered, giggling. "Where would I even go right now?"
"That's fair."
He sank in to the pillow, ragged and breathless.
And I thought...
For tonight, at least, I would let myself have this.
The boy I loved.
The warmth of his skin against mine. The illusion that we were enough to save each other.
Tomorrow, I could go back to being scared.
But tonight, I was just a girl who got her boy back.