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He’s barely been home for a minute before Mahiru’s arms are around his waist and her body is pressed against his from behind. Fuuta had to stay behind for a little while after his afternoon class today, and he typically expects his girlfriend to be clingy when he gets home late, but he lets out a surprised laugh anyway.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he says, grinning despite himself. “Miss me that much?”
The noise Mahiru makes is halfway between a grumble and a sulky whine, muffled by his hoodie. “You know I did,” she mumbles, pressing a quick kiss to the sensitive spot at the back of his neck just to watch him shiver. “I always miss you…”
“And I always come back, don’t I?” He manages to wriggle around in her grasp to wrap his arms around her in turn and kiss her forehead. He’s still adjusting to intimacy, and vulnerability in general, but being by Mahiru’s side for so long has made a softie out of him. Horrifyingly, he finds he doesn’t quite resent that. Being loved is kinda nice actually, sue him. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting, okay? Will you stop pouting now?”
She huffs petulantly. “No promises.”
Mahiru relinquishes her hold on Fuuta’s waist, but only to snatch his hand in hers and drag him off to their bedroom. “Wh— Hey, hey, what’s going on?” He laughs nervously as he stumbles along behind her. He barely even had time to take his shoes off once he got through the door…
She merely shushes him and pulls the door closed behind them both, promptly and insistently guiding him towards the bed with both hands on his hips. The room is illuminated warmly by a bedside lamp, and the faint smell of jasmine lingers in the air. Those scented candles of hers, probably.
“I missed you,” Mahiru murmurs. “Maybe I just wanna be with the boy I love, hm? And I know he wants to be with me too, so what’s the holdup?”
Fuuta lets out an embarrassing yelp as he’s promptly tugged onto the bed alongside her, and she’s wrapped around him like ivy in seconds.
“Is, uh— is everything okay?” he asks hesitantly. It’s not unlike Mahiru to be spontaneously demanding, and he’s more than happy to accommodate, but something feels a little different today.
“Yes,” she mumbles, her face already nestled in the crook of his neck. “Just missed you…”
“You mentioned.”
“Missed you so much, lovely boy…” Her lips brush his neck, soft as the silky purr of her voice. He shudders. Mahiru notices, of course she does, and makes it worse by trailing a fingertip down the other side of his neck. “My precious, handsome boy.”
Fuuta struggles to bite back a little squeak at the sensual affection, already a flustered mess, and he hasn’t even been home for five minutes. “Are you sure there’s nothing going on? There’s, ah— nothing you’re not t-telling me?”
He’s well aware of the irony of him asking that. Usually, he’s the one insisting he has everything ever under control at all times when he obviously doesn’t.
“Well, I just think…” She pauses, her hand trailing lower to drift idly up and down his side. “I think you’ve been really, I dunno, stressed lately…” Her lips meet the underside of his jaw, delicately, like he’s something fragile and priceless. “Wanted to make sure you knew how loved you are. How much I love you.”
“But I do know that,” he blurts out. He knows better than to put up a fight when she’s like this; Mahiru is nothing if not persistent. He’s grateful for that though– lord knows no one else would fight to get through his thick skull like she would. He probably wouldn’t believe it from anyone else. “I can handle a little academic pressure, babe. Is that what you’re worried about?”
She doesn’t answer, just slides her fingers up beneath his clothes, fingers curling around his waist. That shuts him up pretty quick.
“You say you can handle everything,” she mumbles. “And I’ll always believe you, but then sometimes you’re wrong…”
Fuuta is about to stutter out some awkward apology when her mouth over his takes away that chance. Instead, he surrenders.
Mahiru sighs longingly into the kiss, hands creeping further up Fuuta’s torso while he shakily drapes his arms around her neck and parts his lips tentatively when prompted by the brush of her tongue against them.
Unsurprisingly, Fuuta is shy when it comes to intimacy. His kisses are eager yet hesitant, craving validation yet insecure about his fucked up teeth and general lack of skill. He kisses as an offering. Mahiru kisses as a consecration.
She adores every part of himself that he’s ashamed of, wholeheartedly and passionately. Her tongue learns the shape of his misaligned teeth without a trace of reservation, her fingers sink into the soft flesh near his hips like he’s the most desirable thing alive. She calls him sweet things like ‘handsome’ and ‘precious’ that he’s never even considered could apply to a guy like him. He’s awkward and annoying and cocky right up until it matters, but as soon as the mask of confidence breaks, she takes everything that lies beneath and makes it beautiful. She takes his ugliest parts and makes them holy.
“My darling,” she whispers the second they part for air, like saying it was more important than breathing. “My precious boy, my angel. I love you.” Her mouth is on his neck now, hot and insistent while he feebly clutches the back of her shirt. “I cherish you.”
He whines, high and breathless. Cherish. She cherishes him.
Mahiru’s hands are covetous as they roam his upper body, fingers splayed wide so her palms contact every inch of skin. “Perfect…”
“I-I’m… fuck, babe…” Any feeble attempt he could’ve made to disagree dissolves into a yearning sigh when her hands travel back down, and when her thumbs dip beneath the waistband of his trackpants, he knows he’s done for. She curls both hands around his hips and he mewls.
“K-Keep going,” he breathes. His voice is quiet and so, so shaky, but he knows she will.
“Anything for you.” She kisses his collarbone reverently. “Can I take the hoodie off…?”
Fuuta is quiet for a moment, leaving only the sound of their asynchronous breathing in their room. “... T-Turn the light off,” he whispers. “Please.” Without another word, Mahiru reaches for the nightstand and turns off the lamp, leaving only the silvery moonlight filtering in through drawn blinds.
He’s not the most confident guy in his appearance, and they both know it, but god, she always makes him feel like a work of art by the end. The cover of darkness has always felt safer to him. Anonymity is an old ally; he doesn’t like himself very much, so naturally, he feels more comfortable when as little of it is known as possible. But with Mahiru… with Mahiru, it’s less scary. Actually, he wants to be known by her. He doesn’t think anyone else would even be up to the task.
He tugs his hoodie off and tosses it aside by the time she’s leaning over him again, though he hesitates with the t-shirt beneath. The chilly night air hits his arms, and just that is enough to make him painfully aware of how exposed he is. He’s such a disappointment to her. He has to be.
“What’s wrong, angel?” Mahiru mumbles, noticing the way his hands fidget with the hem of his shirt.
“Nothing,” he answers, far too quickly. Her disappointed little sigh makes part of him want to punch himself from five seconds prior in the face.He stutters to correct himself.
“I-I mean– sorry, sorry…” He takes a deep breath in, cheeks burning for a number of reasons.
Mahiru just smiles gracefully and lays next to him. “It’s okay, precious boy. Take your time.”
He mumbles a flustered little thank you and turns on his side to face her. When she pulls him close and guides his head beneath her chin, he lets out a whimper of relief. “I love you,” he murmurs, happily letting her manhandle him into an ideal cuddling position. “Sorry, I just… y-you– what do you even see in me?”
An impulsive question, and he probably sounds like an idiot, but… it is something that’s been on his mind more than usual lately.
“I don’t get it… I always feel like some nobody punkass loser, but you– you talk to me like I’m– I dunno, special or some shit, a-and you touch me, and…” He swallows thickly. “And for a minute, I believe it too.”
Mahiru is quiet for a moment, and unable to see her face, Fuuta is already overthinking about the dumb shit that just came out of his mouth. He already feels like a loser for changing his mind after taking off a single item of clothing, now he’s rambling about his insecurities like some dweeb. God, how awkward. Way to kill the mood, idiot. But then…
“I could ask you the same thing,” she whispers. “But… I think I just see a lot of things no one else does. Not even you.” She trails one fingertip up and down his arm while she talks, idly drawing nonsense patterns on his skin. “And… maybe I just like a lot of the things you don’t.”
She moves from his arm to his cheek, then holds her finger in front of his lips. “For example, I don’t think anyone else sees how you look when you laugh as much as I do. Your big, goofy grin when you’re not wearing a mask… I love it.”
Of course she had to start with one of his biggest physical insecurities: his teeth. Fuck Mahiru and her superhuman ability to lower his defenses.
“I love it because when I see it, I know you’re laughing because you're happy, not just acting tough. Makes me feel special,” she murmurs, with a little giggle at the end. “You’re sweeter than you let people think. You’re sensitive, and…”
“Hey, do not go there,” he grumbles, muffled by her finger still over his lips. She just loves to tease him for how vocal he gets, or how easily she can get him worked up, or how he squirms or how even the smallest things she does can make him–
“Not what I meant,” she giggles again, hushed yet bright and warm like afternoon sunlight. “I mean in the sense that you care about other people’s opinion, even when you want them to think you don’t.”
The fact that she believes that as a good thing sends a fierce pang of guilt through him. Fuuta was a much colder person in the past, but only because he had to act out and talk big to matter. Who knew all it took was a pretty girl making him turn off his phone every once in a while to get him to realize how isolated he actually was, and how much he hated it.
In a way, she really did turn his world on its head. He probably did the same for her, too– he’s pretty sure nobody before him pushed her to be her own person. He encouraged her with her fashion blog for example, since that’s something only she is passionate about. He doesn’t know shit about fashion and does not care for it in the slightest; his girl could wear any garbage in the world, and his heart would still race the second she smiles at him. They both had pretty distorted views of themselves, but at least Fuuta was merely putting up a front of confidence online instead of ripping himself up and stitching himself back together over and over to be some perfect, submissive, obedient little housewife with no desires and no free will and no purpose other than to be dumb and pretty for the rest of his life for some awful man. It sounds like hell. Yeah, he might’ve been passively suicidal and so isolated that at times the lines of fantasy and reality blurred, but she must’ve had it so much worse than him. And here she is, so patient with him…
He really doesn’t deserve her.
“... Hey, Mahiru?” Fuuta mumbles.
“Hmm?”
“Can we just… cuddle tonight…?” He requests meekly, like he still thinks he’s disappointing her. But the response he gets suggests anything but.
Mahiru only lets out a delighted, melodic laugh and hugs him tighter, legs tangled with his, their heartbeats aligned. “I thought you’d never ask, my love.”