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“Hey.”
Maki looks up from her notebook—the call’s source is Nobara swinging the door open, a grin on her face, her hair pinned up in two buns.
She notes with some amusement that her girlfriend has entered less enthusiastically this time around (previously, she half expected her wall to go crumbling down from the force the door banged against it) and smiles, when Nobara lets her arms hang loosely around her neck and peers over her shoulder.
It’s not surprising for Nobara to enter like she owns the place: at this point it might be as much hers as it is mine, Maki thinks while eyeing a yellow hoodie discarded on the chair, a shirt sticking out from the closet and a bag with its contents spilling onto the floor in one of the corners.
“What are you working on?” Nobara questions, pressing a couple kisses to Maki’s temple before staring down at the paper. “Isn’t that Slaughter Demon?”
“Used to be, yeah, until I lent it to Itadori. It was a good tool and since it got destroyed… well, I’m just wondering if there’s something I would change about it if I ever decide to get it remade.”
“Well,” Nobara walks around and nudges Maki’s leg down to place herself in her lap, her feet barely reaching the floor on either side. “I’m just gonna wait here till you’re done.”
She struggles a little with pulling down her phone from her pocket and Maki stifles a giggle, which resounds in her chest anyway—she knows Nobara felt it from the inquiry that comes next.
“What’s so funny?”
“You do realise there’s a whole bed you could have for yourself, instead of cramming into a chair with me, right?
Maki thinks it’s cute how Nobara pulls back to look at her with a pout and an expression so betrayed that she almost wants to laugh again. And kiss the jutted out lip. Maybe both.
“It doesn’t have you, though.” Nobara’s face gains a hopeful tint and any will Maki had to tease her further melts away as she puts down the pencil and cups Nobara’s cheeks, her thumbs wiping the specks of mascara that have fallen down from her lashes as she promises.
“Later, just give me a little while longer.”
She doesn’t know what makes her pull Nobara in to peck her lips, so softly that her eyelids flutter under the touch, but the content smile that brightens up her features is worth making the break off work a few moments longer.
***
“Nobara.”
Silence.
“Nobara.”
Maki tries again. They haven’t been in her bed even for an hour, she has only gotten through reading three chapters and Nobara has already started falling asleep: not that anyone could blame her for it. They’re covered with the softest blanket they could find and Nobara has draped herself over her like someone could be trying to take Maki away from her.
This time the attempt is a success; Nobara moves and lifts her head slightly to look at Maki—it’s kind of adorable, how she’s trying to blink away the sleep she was torn out of.
“Why’d you stop? You’re falling asleep on me.”
Nobara groans and places her head back on Maki’s shoulder where it was, but nevertheless, resumes tracing a scar that stretches across her girlfriend’s collarbone.
“Not my fault you’re warm. Makes me sleepy. And,” she shifts, adjusting the way her legs intertwine with Maki’s before continuing “weren’t you complaining like twenty minutes ago that it’s distracting?”
“Uh huh.” Maki pauses to press a kiss to Nobara’s forehead. “You know how it works, I want to read a while longer.”
Nobara doesn’t answer with anything other than a hum, her eyes already closed again—she does find the edge of Maki’s t-shirt and the hole that’s in it, knowing well if it were any other day, Maki would scold her for playing with it too much and making it even bigger.
Either way, she stops tugging and twisting the shirt, instead finding the scar after a shallow cut that swirls below Maki’s navel only to go across her stomach and towards her ribs on the side.
At this point, it's no secret to Nobara that her girlfriend is quite ticklish in a few spots, if one knows where to look. And she does, having memorised where to guide her finger so even the lightest of touches cause Maki to tense and squirm under her until a quiet giggle escapes her.
It’s a game of sorts, with unspoken rules: Nobara probes and tests how much she can do before Maki can’t keep quiet, holding off her laughter until she can’t and pushes Nobara’s hand away.
It’s amusing (and kind of cute, Nobara thinks when Maki shifts a bit more abruptly when she traces a line along her spine). It makes her smile into the crook of Maki’s neck, how a thing as simple as tickles can make one of the most talented fighters go rigid under her—it only makes her happier when Maki questions what she’s doing and when she gets to answer so very innocently with a nothing much and a shit-eating grin Maki can only feel.
Today, ten minutes is the limit: Maki throws her book to the side, having marked her embarrassingly small progress carefully, and before Nobara realises, Maki flips them and she’s resting on her back, green hair almost falling into her face and a pair of hazel eyes looking down at her.
“You.” Maki leans in, placing a kiss on Nobara’s jaw. “Are.” Another, in the corner of her lips, the touch gone as soon as she tries to catch Maki’s mouth with her own. “Impossible.”
Nobara has little to no time to reply because Maki doesn’t make her wait too long (mercifully, if she’s to be honest she expected a longer torture—kind of welcome, even if she won’t ever admit that) and does what Nobara wanted a few seconds ago.
Maki tastes a little bit like the chocolate they’ve shared earlier that day, so her lips are warm and sweet; her hold on Nobara’s wrists loosens, as she moves to hold herself up with one arm, her knee between Nobara’s resting on the mattress.
“A nonsense, even.” she mumbles when they part for a few seconds.
Nobara can feel their hands intertwining beside her head and has only half a mind to push a few strands of Maki’s hair behind her ear to see her better when she pulls away to get air, faintly flushed and breathless.
(It’s a beautiful view, when Maki’s a little winded like this, her face brightening up and her cheeks a little pink.)
“You like my nonsense, though.” Nobara states, looking up daringly without letting go, her tone slightly teasing but tender, and watches a thousand emotions passing through Maki’s eyes.
“That so?” She asks, cocking her head to the side a bit, an eyebrow lifted, her forehead creasing. Nobara reaches up to smooth it out with her finger and the gesture is all Maki needs to settle against her, her body relaxing.
It’s a familiar change that Nobara has gotten used to—Maki likes to be held sometimes, splaying over her as much as she can, searching out the contact.
She likes it when Nobara traces the lines of her palm, lifting it up to her mouth to kiss a badly healed cut at the base of her thumb; she likes to feel Nobara’s fingers working through the knots in her hair, slowly and methodically; she likes receiving her lazy kisses, a little clumsy but sweet just the same, heads tilting for better access when both of them are almost asleep.
It’s a luxury, to be known so well by someone that they don’t even need to look to find every single so-called imperfection covering her skin; Nobara doesn’t have to.
Maki supposes that’s what vulnerability means—Nobara knows where she likes to be kissed, how to hold her when she’s searching for comfort, awakened in the middle of the night, how to be strong and stable as a rock when Maki can’t on bad days, as rare as they are.
“You’re zoning out.” Nobara points out, her brows furrowing as she reaches out for Maki’s hand to run her thumb over her knuckles. “Penny for your thoughts?”
“Oh, um... “ Maki pulls back a little to rest on her heels, her face flushing quite unlike her and Nobara tilts her head, a bit more concerned and now wide awake.
It’s not that she gets shy, no, Zenin Maki does not get shy, or maybe just a little (she won’t ever admit it in front of anyone) but primarily, how is she supposed to put everything Nobara makes her feel in words and say it to her face without looking like a messed up, lovestruck fool?
“I’m just… glad to have you?” She tries, and Nobara looks slightly taken aback and repeats her words, as if tasting them on her tongue.
“Glad to have me.” She suddenly looks puzzled before her face smoothes out again. “You alright, then?”
Maki nods and lets Nobara pull her into her arms again; she notes that her legs are a little too short to fully wrap around her as she curls up, pressed against Nobara’s stomach—she slides them under her bent knee and whispers, a little braver while tucked under her girlfriend’s chin.
“I just like knowing there’s someone for me to rely on, someone I can come to. Someone that won’t turn her back on me.”
Nobara adjusts herself between the pillows, reclining to lay down and feels she needs Maki’s full attention for this so she asks.
“Look at me?”
Maki lifts her head slowly, shifting to face her; Nobara studies the seriousness of her features, the glasses still resting almost on the tip of her nose even though she doesn’t need them here—she also doesn’t need protection but oh, Nobara so wants to be capable of protecting her.
“You’re important to me.” That’s all she says, and she’s not sure why out of all days today Maki needs the reassurance, but her face softens in relief and she holds onto Nobara’s waist a little bit tighter.
Silence falls for a few minutes until Maki speaks again, a thank you mumbled into Nobara’s shirt (which isn’t hers, really, because she fished it out of Maki’s closet a few days earlier) and Nobara kind of wishes Maki didn’t think it was something that she needed gratitude for in the first place.
“Hey.” She says none of those things, and instead tries to get Maki’s attention, smiling, her eyes gentle when they meet the hazel ones.
Maki bites back a laugh at her expression, and Nobara really wants to know what’s so funny, admiring the way her eyes end up surrounded by crinkles, and she repeats her question from earlier that day.
“Nothing much. Just that you look like a lovestruck fool.”
Nobara smacks her arm, playful, knowing damn well she’s right.
“Well, as it turns out,” she’s beaming, pulling Maki in again by her hips to cover them both with the blanket “luckily for you I am, in fact, a lovestruck fool. And I’d like to get some sleep now, which was promised to me by my beautiful girlfriend.”
She’s relieved to see that Maki’s face looks like she wants to tease her again, falling easily into their usual dynamic.
“Who would have thought, Kugisaki Nobara going sappy. Wait till Fushiguro hears about this.”
She smiles as if to contrast her words, her skin warm and soft under Nobara’s fingers, her body fitting into hers like it was always supposed to end like this, with Maki not nearly as rough around the edges she seems to be sometimes, and Nobara wrapped around her like the warmest of blankets.