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Ryuki would be lying if he said that he pretended not to see Tama at times, which is probably for the betterment of his sanity… At least that’s what he tells himself.
But that’s not the case this time. This time, he doesn’t notice when Tama slips into his field of vision, seating herself, legs crisscrossed with her elbows propped up on her knees, her hands cupping her cheeks, on the couch. She’s directly next to Ryuki, facing him, but he's so exhausted that he doesn’t notice. And he ponders, settled in the corner of the sofa, eyes half-lidded as his head rests on the cushion behind him.
He also doesn’t notice how Tama observes him, eyeing how he almost looks at peace, relaxing in a way that he usually doesn’t. She takes in the way he breathes calmly, teetering between the realm of sleep and wake. It’s a rare thing— to see Ryuki relax, but it’s not as rare when it’s just the two of them.
It’s times like these that really show how bonded the two of them are. The moments of quiet and basking in each other's company, relishing in their hushed words and gentle conversation; something that they don’t often show to others around them.
Tama watches as Ryuki fights sleep a bit more before he finally gives up, opening his eyes to see her there. His eyes open blearily, and after a beat of a moment, he nearly jumps, once he processes that Tama is right in front of him.
He could hear the way she huffs a laugh, but decides not to comment, and instead raises a brow as if to ask ‘why are you sitting here?’. Tama scoffs lightly, but not any less fond. “Am I not allowed to be here? Says who? You?” She chides, but there’s no traces of malice in her voice. Rather, she almost whispers it in a more playful way.
He sighs, rolling his eyes, feigning indifference as if this isn’t their usual playful banner that makes his heart dance with warmth.
“Can’t a guy sleep in peace? ….Without having someone staring the entire time?” Ryuki finally speaks, and questions. His voice has a slight rasp due to lack of sleep, but also comes out with slight hesitance, almost as if he’s taking longer to think.
“What if I want to stare? You looked pretty cute just chilling there. Staring is fun, you should try it sometime— Oh wait! You do. All. The. Time. Ryuki. At me. Specifically. Do you not?” She looks at him pointedly, a grin slowly making its way to her face as she watches his, expecting the heat to come. It does.
Heat rises slightly, Ryuki huffs out a breath, averting his eyes and closing his eyes. “No, not at all. Why would I?”
She doesn’t answer and instead leans closer, eyebrow raised as she waits.
When no answer came, Ryuki opened his eyes to see Tama mere inches away from his face. All he can do is blink and study her, still trying to rid of his tiredness by giving him something else to focus on— Tama.
“I thought you didn’t stare, hm?” She inches closer, slightly, slowly.
“…I Don’t..” He whispers, voice suddenly lost. He blames it on his exhaustion.
He thinks of the way she pushes and prods, pushing him to his limit damn near every time they’re together. She’d do something new every time, watching as she unravels Ryuki to filth. She gets a kick out of it. They both do.
Ryuki watches as Tama inches closer, eyes widening slightly, before closing… definitely out of embarrassment, and not out of expectation. And when that not expectation didn’t come, he peeked an eye open to see Tama backed up, still close, but not close enough.
Her grin was devilish, almost a smirk. It was definitely a smirk. She was smirking. Why was she smirking?
Ryuki puffs out a breath and holds back a groan of embarrassment. He can’t let Tama know that she won… Again.
“Ohh, Ryuki. My dear Ryuki. You are waaay too predictable.” Tama drawls out her words, exaggerating them to sell her point further. This time, she moves closer again.
Ryuki’s head finds its way to his knees, totally not embarrassed whatsoever. Definitely not.
She gently peels Ryuki out of his shell, and scoots closer, cupping Ryuki’s cheeks as gently as ever, and leans forward. Ryuki mumbles something illegible, but when Tama places a kiss to his nose and then his lips, she effectively stops it. “You just can’t go a single second without attention from me, can’t you?” Her voice is fond, fond, fond and all he can do is melt, especially under her touch, her soft gaze.
“No... That’s not. True. Well. No, not entirely at least.” Ryuki sighs, softly, leaning his cheek into her hand, relishing the warmth it radiated— though that was more than likely from his own face than her hand, but that's beside the point.
“Thought so.” Tama hummed, adjusting herself so that she was laying on top of Ryuki. She retracted her hands, much to his dismay, and draped an arm over his midsection, while she rested her cheek against his shoulder.
Trailing her hand up, she grabbed his chin gently, thumb ghosting against his lip.
When she didn’t feel Ryuki protest, she looked up at him, only to see him staring down at her, meeting her eyes. She quirked an eyebrow and almost said nothing. “What is it that you want, hm? You can’t expect me to know what you want just from your eyes.”
Ryuki thought for a moment, sleep slowly ebbing away as he gave a small smile, gaining a lick of confidence. “What if you try and guess what I want just from my eyes?”
It was mostly a joke. Mostly.
Even still, the random bout of confidence makes her grin, eyes flashing with an idea of her own. “Or, you could just initiate it yourself. Don’t be a pussy, Ryuki. Kiss me if you want a kiss.”
How did you know that’s what I wanted? He so desperately wanted to ask. Instead, he decides to act on that little bit of confidence that he had left, before it so much as dissipated.
Humming, he leaned down, tentatively capturing Tama’s lips with his. It takes everything in him not to smile when he feels Tama jolt in surprise, knowing he caught her off guard. It was only slight, but to him it was everything; he always took pride in any reaction he got from her. He failed, huffing a laugh against her lips.
She recovers quickly, however, and pinches his side, snickering as Ryuki breaks the kiss to yelp in surprise.
She finds it hilarious. He sighs.
“I thought you wanted me to take initiative, no? What was that for?” He practically whines, furrowing his eyebrows. Tama just sticks out her tongue in response, gently rubbing her thumb against the spot that she just pinched.
“Gosh, you’re such a big baby, you know?” Tama moves the hand that was comforting his side over to one of Ryuki’s free hands, grabbing it, and interlocking their fingers.
“Why don’t you kiss the spot better as an apology to me, or something?” Ryuki questions, again only half joking.
“Go to hell.”
Ryuki chuckles lightly, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head.
He remembers when intimacy between the two of them wasn’t that easy. Back when they first met and had cases assigned to each other for the first time. Things had been new, and Ryuki had been awkward, trying to get used to Tama’s personality.
She always found it funny when she’d say things, or get too close, and Ryuki stared at her with wide eyes, unsure of what to do. It was cute.
He remembers when they had first established their relationship as just friends. Tama, who’d try to get close to him, and Ryuki, who’d jump back immediately just like after a cat touches water. He’d been pathetic then too, but he thinks that he just might be worse now that they’re dating.
Well, at least he’s self-aware.
Now, he can’t help but laugh and smile fondly, those of which are reserved solely for Tama. Though, he would prefer not to do it around her. It’s just not something he can help. After all, he was never really good at hiding anything, especially when it came down to how he felt. It’s always, always written all over his face.
Tama never lets it go whenever she notices it, but Ryuki would be lying if he said that he minded.
He loves it when she dotes on him, indulges in it, and sometimes would do it more just to spur her on.
And right now, he’s content, hugging Tama close. Every fiber of his body feels alight with warmth, warmth that radiates from his chest. He’s sure Tama can hear the way his heart is beating; steady, but fast.
He figures that he is right, seeing the way that Tama slightly shifts her head to lay on his chest, and his heart, it stutters. It stutters and pauses, for a moment, leaving his breath to catch in his throat. Momentarily, as if both he and his heart were waiting for something else to happen.
She seemed to notice, just as suspected, and Ryuki could see what looked like a twitch of the corner of her mouth.
In a way, it’s something so intimate that he can’t even describe— a fleeting feeling. But when he peers down at Tama and sees her quirk a smile and huff out a laugh that she tries to hide, the feeling grows tenfold, sprouting like a flower under warm rays of sunlight. It’s then, he realizes, that his heart beats for Tama— from the sound of her laughter to the way his heart swells with absolute fondness when she screams her words; an act of affection that only the two of them have come to learn.
His heart stutters once more, flutters even, and he can feel the heat rising from his neck to his ears. To love is such a thing, an interesting thing. Something of which, Ryuki will probably never come to fully understand, especially when it comes down to his own responses.
His body tends to react before he can even think, and although his thoughts seem to align well with the reactions, they usually don’t come until after. Right now, he’s thinking about how astoundingly adorably pretty Tama looks, but the thought doesn’t make him feel any less embarrassed.
“What are you laughing at?” He whispers, seemingly unable to find his voice. He lost it again, which appears to happen a lot when around Tama— but, that’s besides the point.
Tama hums sweetly in response, a grin tugging at the edge of her lips. “You.”
“That’s not a valid response, though.” Ryuki breathes, finding it hard to not be flustered at that very moment.
“Is it not? Why? Can’t handle such a pretty woman laying on top of you, now? Wow, you’re insane.” Tama snickers, using her elbows to prop herself up, placing them on either side of his head. Her hair creates a curtain, effectively trapping the two of them. “I guess I don’t pamper you enough, hm?” She whispered, lips ghosting over his.
Ryuki squeezes his eyes shut, feeling as if his heart were leaping out of his throat. He hears a soft chuckle, before feeling a gentle kiss to his forehead. At that, he slowly opens his eyes and looks up, trying to steady his racing heartbeat.
The kiss lingers, as does his gaze. He’s staring again, but he doesn’t really care. To him, this is perfect…. Even if it almost felt like he was going to die.
He closes his eyes once more, this time slower and calmer, feeling his heart rate calm itself as the seconds pass, and he sighs, content.
Tama shifts once more, replacing her lips with her forehead, connecting it with Ryuki’s.
Suddenly feeling giddy, a quiet laugh bubbles from inside of him. He doesn’t know where it came from, but he lets it happen.
Willing his eyes open, he’s met with pink iris’ staring back.
And he smiles fondly, watching her eyes and searching them, for every little gorgeous detail. To him, her eyes are the prettiest and will forever be the prettiest. He knows himself that he could stare into them for a lifetime and more.
Ryuki would be lying if he said that he pretended not to see Tama at times. But this time, this time, he sees Tama. He sees Tama more than ever and relishes it, recording the view in the back of his mind for safekeeping.
This time, when Tama comes into view, she stays, and he lets her. He holds her there, drinking in every single detail that he could possibly find. And he tells her.
“I love your eyes. You should let me see them more often.” Ryuki says softly, more leveled than he’s ever had, a mixture between sickeningly sweet and serious.
“Where is this coming from all of a sudden?” Tama matches his tone, almost unable to hide the subtle surprise that she feels.
“Nowhere specific. I was just thinking…”
“That’s never good—“
Ryuki’s finger comes up to press against her lips, shushing her.
“I was just thinking how beautiful your eyes are, is all. That’s all I wanted to say.” Ryuki muses, sighing softly as he continues to meet her gaze.
Tama nips at his finger, but rather than retreating, he brings it up to tap her nose. She’s still evidently caught off guard, but he only smiles more.
“Maybe you should be the one shutting up this time ‘round.” She mumbles, gently redirecting his finger away from her face, a light pink color painting her cheeks, a canvas only he has the privilege of seeing.
And when she rolled her eyes and leaned forward to capture his lips once more, he didn’t at all complain. Rather, he knew that they were probably going to be there for a little while longer.