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Sou Hiyori was no stranger to seduction. In her line of work it would have been unthinkable not to use all of your assets to further the organization’s goals. ASU-NARO needed funds, partners, accomplices. And unsurprisingly the smile and fluttering eyelashes of a charming young lady, as she led negotiations, could help seal the deal. It could range from simple flirting to some dancing in the sheets.
Sou’s “potential” had been capitalized on by the organization quite early on. Her exact age at that time would shock any honest citizen but Japanese law was lax about the matter. How very convenient. ASU-NARO knew that, didn’t care either way and neither did Sou.
Well, or so she thought until the first time it became sexual.
For how terrifyingly emotionally detached she had been even back then, she didn’t … fully realize how it would feel. She had very few moments of weakness in her short life and the way she threw up and shook like a leaf afterwards was her worst one so far. Her greatest shame. She never let herself be this pathetic again.
Soon enough she got the hang of it. For as long as she could remember reading and analyzing people had been her greatest strength. She knew she wasn’t like everyone. She knew she didn’t, couldn’t, experience emotions the same way the entire world seemed to. So she learned. She learned to read between the lines, to see behind people’s masks, she learned to mimic them at the appropriate time for the appropriate context.
Seducing her targets worked the exact same way. The right word, the right gesture, the right tone and so many would let themselves be tempted. Businessmen and politicians were the easiest. They were so used to control, especially with women, that most never realized they were being used too. After all they were the ones doing the using with impunity the rest of the time. Some did figure it out but as long as the arrangement was beneficial to them they had no reason to care.
Some were her age, some were old enough to be her grandfather. Some were attractive, some clearly not. Some were talented and managed to make the whole thing quite enjoyable, some only chased their own pleasure and bored her to death.
Oh, but Sou didn’t discriminate either. Some were women too. Either the few women in high positions or even the wives of powerful men. The latter could create some entertaining situations.
In any case, getting physical with anyone was business and Sou had always treated it as such. Until Shin Tsukimi happened.
Shin, Shin, Shin. The name kept repeating itself in her head, like a mantra or a melody. It followed the other girl’s breathing, sleeping soundly next to Sou who couldn’t take her eyes off her.
Now her head was reeling and her chest tightening in a way it never had before. How troublesome.
Sou had never been expected to romantically seduce this target. There was no prerogative against it - “the end justifies the means” - but she simply wasn’t this kind of mission. She was a gullible, immature high school girl, close in age to Sou herself. All she had to do was becoming her friend, ideally her best friend and confidant. As simple as that. It hadn’t even been a challenge. Maybe that’s why she found herself in this situation, maybe Shin being such a silly pathetic girl had led her to let her guards down.
A silly pathetic girl. She would regularly and oh so casually remind her of it, with more or less subtlety, as a way to strengthen her grip on her.
“You sure are weak, Shin-chan, be careful not be carried away by the wind!”
She was thin and frail. Physical activities weren’t her forte and there was no class she hated more than PE. She would always end up sat on a bench, her brows twisted in annoyance and shame. Her face reddened fast, the colors spreading in a lovely way to the tips of her ears and down her neck. It suited her. Her body, and by extension her too, reacted so much more strongly to things than others. Sou had caught herself wondering how far the blushes could go.
“What a crybaby you make sometimes. No need to be this sensitive, you know?”
For a shy nerd, she was unexpectedly expressive. Perhaps it was her eyes, wide and a remarkable shade of turquoise, genuine and honest. Sou wouldn’t be able to fake such a sincere spontaneity if she tried to, even with all her acting skills. She simply had to stare at her to see all she needed to know about how Shin felt. There was a variety of human emotions in them she hadn’t expected to find. Few people, no matter what they said or thought, were as open as her with their emotions.
A few of them stood out. There was always excitement when she got passionate about some coding she was working on. Her eyes shone brighter and, in those moments, Sou generally decided to humour her. Of course, the not-so-concealed pain and frustration when other girls made fun of her were equally visible and notable. And, even more puzzling, she occasionally had a strange unfocused look on her face as if she was lost in thoughts even Sou couldn’t reach. Late at night, Shin would at times confide in things Sou had never bothered to ask probably because she just wanted someone to listen.
For all her naïveté, her views on life and the world were much more complex than those of the vast majority of people Souna had dealt with. Shinju’s depth was one of the many surprising things about her.
And then there was the way she looked at her. A mix of fear and fascination, even when Sou tried to test her limits and see how far she could get away with it. Both feelings surely alimented one another. Yet Sou had observed it slowly morph into something else. The irony is that with her entire focus being on the teal-haired girl she had overlooked how her own perception of her had changed.
Both had been chatting on her balcony in the dead of the night. Shin had first insisted she needed to do some homework but Sou had pressured her into coming anyway. She was so eager not to annoy her, it made it even easier for Sou to play with her favourite puppet.
A Saturday night like any other, two girls pretending to be normal high schoolers and enjoying each other’s company according to their own twisted view of affection.
Sou can’t really tell what started it all. The fresh night air or maybe the shiny full moon high above them. A silly bad joke about “moon-viewing” and she got Shin laughing her clear and pure laugh, unrestrained and true. An innocent girl, sitting cross-legged under the moon and laughing so freely. Her happiness in this single moment was so palpable.
A moment of happiness so fragile and easy to break. A few mocking words aimed at the right place, and this face would fall into the disheartened expression she made so well, looking to the side in shame and stumbling over her own words.
Sou held power over the other girl’s emotions like no one else and this knowledge made her dizzy. It made any moment with Shin, whether she was cheerful or heartbroken, even more enjoyable. She wanted to see it all: the entire panoply of emotions, good or bad, Shin could experience.
Tonight, as they sat side by side, their shoulders brushing, she felt a craving for more.
“Sou? Is everything alright?” Shin asked, worry in her eyes and her head tilted to the side in interrogation.
Ah, she did it again. She knew her silent stares were too “creepy” for normal people. She could generally control them with ease but she tended to let herself go around Shin.
“Oh, I was just lost in thoughts.”
And indeed, some thoughts were slowly making their way into her mind. It was getting harder and harder to keep them at bay.
“Say, Shin …”
At the moment, she would tell herself she was simply pursuing her studies through more unorthodox ways. If ASU-NARO ever found out, as even she could only hide very little from them, that’s also what she planned to say.
“… you’ve never kissed anyone, have you?”
In reality, she just wanted her so badly.
Shin blushed the most beautiful crimson she’d ever seen as she struggled to say any word.
“I-I-I … wh-where is this coming from anyway?!”
It was Sou’s turn to laugh. “I’ll take that as a no, then.”
She was now resting her cheek in the palm of her hand, her elbow nonchalantly settled on one knee. She couldn’t see it, but her own pupils were getting dilated in anticipation.
“It’s just …” She was doing it once more, looking to the side in embarrassment, “… for the longest time there was no one I actually wanted to kiss, or who wanted to kiss me at all, I bet.”
Whether it was a conscious move or not, her gaze had been fixed on her friend for the last part. As if she wanted to verify something. As if she was waiting for some sort of confirmation.
The singing of the garden’s cicadas filled the temporary silence. After a few seconds, Sou calmly put her hand on Shin’s hand, above her thigh.
“Silly Shin,” she murmured, her face slowly getting closer, “you’re not very perceptive, you know that, don’t you? How would you be able to tell if someone wanted to kiss you?”
She reveled in the way the other girl’s eyes were transfixed by her lips, yearning and intense.
Shin’s answer came out as a whisper, her minty breath caressing Sou’s growing smile.
“I guess I would … wait for the other person to show signs of interest.”
So careful, so prudent. Let’s see if she could remedy to that.
“But the world isn’t going to give you what you desire on a silver platter,” Sou answered, slowly moving to whisper in the shell of her prey’s ear, “If you want something, then take it.”
A sharp inhale was Shin’s first reaction. The second one was taking Sou’s face between her two hands, staring intently at her. There was a new-found determination in them that left Sou speechless for the first time in her life.
And then, a pair of lips collided with hers as she felt something break within her.
Shin’s inexperience was extremely obvious. Before Sou could regain her composure, she made their teeth clack and noses bump quite uncomfortably. She didn’t seem to mind though. She could feel her eagerness in the way she cupped her face with adoration and struggled to still her breathing.
Sou put her hands on her shoulders and lightly pushed her so that they could look at each other, even with their foreheads meeting. This way she had a perfect view of the other’s face, panting with her lips deliciously parted and eyes blacker than they were their usual turquoise.
Without a word, she put her hands on Shin’s hips and slowly guided her to sit on her lap. Now in a more comfortable position, Sou slightly tilted her head to the side, teasingly lifting one eyebrow as an invitation. After a few seconds of hesitation, hands found her cheeks again, and a mouth joined hers with a slow tenderness.
For a while, their lips simply moved against the other’s, testing the waters as their hands explored their shoulders, arms, sides and back. Sou went slowly but applied a steady pressure, enjoying how simple touches like these made the teal-haired girl gasp. Shin on the other hand went faster, as if she feared any caress might be the last, but her fingers, slightly trembling, only ghosted over Sou’s body in a way that sent little shivers down her spine.
Then, Shin got bolder. She tentatively passed a tongue over the other’s bottom lip, half-excited and half-anxious of what might follow. She could feel Sou smirk against her, as she quickly opened her mouth and found her tongue with hers. It was a signal for every part of their bodies to press even further against each other.
With a force she didn’t know Shin could even muster, Sou got pressed against the wall behind her, the cold stone offering such a striking contrast with the heat of Shin’s body. The other’s girl hands were now tugging her hair, as she clumsily but passionately explored her mouth, her tongue dancing with hers.
Just like for everything she did, Shin was raw and honest, so earnest end emotional. A wave of warmth spread through all of Sou’s body, the kind she had never experienced before, despite all those who had touched her.
It wasn’t her first kiss, but it felt like one.
And Shin voiced her enjoyment so well. From her heavy breathing and panting to her little whimpers when Sou squeezed her thighs. She thought she could never get tired of her sounds. Curious, she kissed her bottom lip before biting it, taking her sweet time playing with it.
Shin very loudly, erotically, moaned. It went straight to Sou’s core. She had never desired someone as much as she desired this girl. For a second, she wondered if they were actually going to do it. But as soon as the moan escaped her, Shin moved back, out of Sou’s lap and against the balcony’s railing. Her hands were clasped on her mouth, her eyes wide-open in surprise.
Shin herself clearly hadn’t known she had it in her. Panting, Sou laughed tiredly. Maybe not tonight. Well, a good sake needed time to mature after all.
“I’m-I’m sorry if I messed it up …. I quickly get overwhelmed it seems…” she tentatively explained, her voice hoarse from their recent activities.
“It’s alright,” so was Sou’s apparently, “and you didn’t do so badly, for a first kiss.”
“Th-thanks, I … liked it a lot too,” she added with a little smile, putting a strand of tousled hair behind one ear. How she could go from shy to passionate lover was truly fascinating. Sou couldn’t wait to see how far this unexpected side of her could go. But all things in due time.
After their emotional night, it was time to get some rest. They both silently decided to leave whatever conversation they needed to have for morning. Just like they both agreed there was no point anymore in letting Shin sleep on a mattress next to Sou’s bed. When Shin, now in her nightwear, hesitantly stepped towards the bed, Sou simply lifted the covers to let her in.
The other girl fell asleep fast, but Sou couldn’t. There were too many thoughts she needed to sort out. First, she couldn’t pretend things were one-sided here, like it had been with everyone else before. She had yet to figure out if it was problem or not. Secondly, she wouldn’t be allowed to keep Shin. That much was certain. Because they had plans for her, just like they did for Sou, and because there was only one very small window of opportunity for the two of them to make it out alive.
Finally, Shin wasn’t hers to have. She was ASU-NARO’s. This enraged her more than she thought it would. She huddled closer to the sleeping girl next to her. She had managed to make Shin lose all of the few friendships she had; she had become the center of her life; Shin followed her every move and word, wanted nothing but to please her. She did all that, not ASU-NARO. She was already hers. And if it turned out they couldn’t stay together until the very end, well, she’d simply have to kill her herself. Watch the life disappear from her beautiful eyes as Sou was again the only person she needed to focus on.
She smiled her cold and wicked smile. Yes, that would be the perfect end for the two of them.