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As you walk up to the door to Rudo’s room, you can distinctly hear the sound of wrappers crinkling as he shoves sweet after sweet into his mouth. You gently knock on the door to disturb his peace as little as possible.
Your relationship with Rudo had never branched out as much as you had hoped, mostly due to your intense social anxieties preventing you from reaching out to him, no matter how much you might have wanted to.
Today, though, seeing him so saddened by someone else’s words made you feel especially keen to knock on his door, to check on him, nothing more.
“It’s unlocked,” Rudo says bluntly. You walk through the doorway and see him staring at the ceiling, his eyes clouded. He barely registers that you came into his room, too spaced out to care who enters.
He glances at you and flinches slightly, out of surprise that it is you who came to check on him instead of another member of Team Akuta who seemed more eager to help the newbie.
“Can you throw these out?” He asks, lightly gesturing to the mountain of candy wrappers and crumbs that started on his bedside table and made their way to the floor..
Your eyes widen in shock, “Rudo, how much candy have you eaten?” He shrugs his shoulders and fishes through the pile, somehow finding another hard candy to suck on.
You begin by grabbing his already full trash can from the corner of his room, it’s the least you can do since you’re trying to reduce his burden. You take out the trash and haul it outside to the dumpster.
Once you come back, Rudo is upright on his bed with his gloved hands resting on his thighs.
“Shit,” Rudo says, moving his right hand to rub the back of his neck bashfully, “I knew I had eaten a lot, but this is, like, a lot.” His crimson eyes look over the pile, astonished at how many wrappers there are, while mindlessly swirling the candy from one side of his mouth to the other.
“Yeah, I didn’t really want to say anything, but you're going to die of diabetes or something,” You say while lining the garbage can with a new trash bag. Rudo gets up and begins snagging wrappers from the floor to help you clean up,
“Maybe,” He says, dropping the wrappers into the trash can, “But I’d die happy.” You laugh while he looks at you with a slight grin. This grin curves into a full ear-to-ear beam. You keep laughing, making sure he realizes you’re laughing with and not at him by complementing his smile a few times between giggles. Rudo is chuckling lightly at how funny you find him while he helps out in cleaning his room.
With every other handful of wrappers that he grabs, he finds another hard candy and pops it into his pocket. When he seems to be done sucking on one, he fishes into his pocket and pops another into his mouth.
You stand up, still slightly shaky from laughing so much. The backs of your knees are just in front of his bed. Rudo slides what little bit of wrappers are left out of the trash can underneath the bed with his feet. You smile and let it happen, if there is one thing you don’t want to do right now, it’s clean any more. Frankly, the only reason you ended up in Rudo’s room was because of how down he seemed after training.
˚⋆｡Flashback｡⋆˚
Rudo had just finished turning an old, broken mirror into some kind of vanity. The only thing that the mirror was good for was sewing whatever the person standing in front of it needed. Almost everyone on Team Akuta needed some kind of mend to their clothes that they just haven’t found the time to ask August for yet.
You went first and mended part of your sleeves that had gotten ripped during a spar with Zanka when one of the spikes of his Assistaff had caught and ripped a slightly noticeable but not inconvenient hole at the seam. Rudo looked to his trainer, humiliated. Zanka looked back at him and slowly walked over to him, arms crossed, with his jinki deactivated.
“Rudo,” Zanka said with a deadpan expression, “How the hell is that supposed to help us in an actual fighting scenario?” He made sure to put an extra emphasis on the word ‘hell’ to get his point across. Rudo didn’t answer; instead, he looked at the ground in shame.
“If the raiders were to attack, how are you supposed to defend us or attack them? Are ya gonna sew their clothes for them? Huh?” Zanka’s voice had begun to rise, his slight southern accent slipping as his anger grew.
“Zanka, lay off,” Riyo said, coming to Rudo’s rescue, “He’s still new to everything, and you yelling at him is just going to make training that much more difficult for him.” Riyo’s eyes were hard, staring at Zanka with a slight distaste. He looked back at her, eyes just as cold.
You looked at all of them, unsure what to do to diffuse the situation. Riyo seemed to have it handled, so you said nothing. You did, however, make a mental note to stop by Rudo’s room to check up on him. This would be the perfect time to try to get him to trust you as more than just a colleague.
Zanka took a breath and closed his eyes to try to calm himself.
“Yeah, you’re right,” He looked back at Rudo, “I shouldn’t have raised my voice, but was my point made clear?” Rudo twisted his gloves between his fingers, looking very disappointed in himself.
“Yeah, sorry.” He turned and sulked back to his room where he lay down and ate sweets for the next few hours.
˚⋆｡Present｡⋆˚
“Hey Rudo,” You say, watching him put the garbage can back into the corner of his room and pop another candy into his mouth.
“Yeah, what’s up?” He asks casually while playing with the candy in his mouth. You look down before continuing your question.
“What happened today during training? You got, like, super sad or something after Zanka was rude to you.” You ask, silently praying you sound more impromptu than you feel. You look up and see him physically tense up.
“Oh, well, I dunno,” He shifts uncomfortably, eyes facing the wall now. “I just felt kinda hurt when Zanka sort of indirectly called 3R useless.” He says, his ears gaining a very light, almost imperceptible tint of pink.
“Yeah, that really sucks,” You walk over to where his eyes had drifted to, blocking his sight of the wall and forcing his claret colored eyes to you, “Zanka has some of his own stuff going on, which is not an excuse for his actions, but an explanation as to why, and besides, I thought your mirror was pretty useful, to me at least.” Rudo’s ears are getting redder and redder as you begin to close the gap between you and him.
“I, uh, yeah, that's true, um, thanks,” He stammers, flustered by your sudden boldness. You’re about to make another move when, abruptly, your confidence tanks, and you realise what you’re doing. You are inches away from the face that you have wanted to touch and hold for months now. You can feel his breath pause as he reassesses the situation.
Rudo notices this shift in your attitude and adjusts accordingly, seeming to gain all of the confidence that you lost. Now that you’re really up close to him, you realise the blue hue of the candy he was sucking on had reached his lips, giving them a slight ombre of blue raspberry.
You begin to wonder what those blue lips would taste like on yours or how his tongue would feel tracing all of the grooves of your teeth.
Your eyes must have lingered too long, because you can see clarity flash on Rudo’s face. You slowly notice how locked his rose-like eyes are on yours. They slowly examine your face, almost searching for permission to make contact with you.
“Can I kiss you?” Rudo whispers, this intimate moment keeping his voice from going any louder. You nod slightly, not taking your eyes off of him. His eyes are getting closer and then flutter shut as his head dips lower to meet your lips.
Your world implodes in a blue raspberry haze. You slowly close your eyes with him, your hands slowly find their way to the back of his neck at the base of his hairline.
He sighs into your mouth as you start lightly raking your fingers through his hair. You continue to kiss him for what could have been years for all you cared for, until you realized that something felt wrong.
You rest both of your hands at the base of his neck and break the kiss. His face is slightly flushed, and he’s panting. His arms are planted firmly at his sides, so as not to make you uncomfortable.
“You can touch me, you know?” You say, regaining some of your lost confidence from before it evaporated. Rudo’s face immediately flushed a deep shade of crimson, and he looked down in embarrassment.
“Er, yeah, but I don’t know what you want, and I don't want you to be uncomfortable-” Instead of allowing him to finish his sentence, you gently take his gloved hands from his sides and put them against your waist, allowing him to feel your curve. His eyes widen slightly, with a mix of excitement and sheepishness at your daring actions.
You take your hands off of his and bring one to his face and the other to his shirt to pull him back in for another kiss. This time it was different, hungrier.
With permission given to Rudo to touch you, he wasted no time bringing your bodies closer. He began tracing lines with his fingers under your shirt, up and down your spine, making you shiver against his touch.
You can feel him smile at your reaction to his bold move against your lips, and you decide to push the kiss further. You trace your tongue between his lips, asking permission to slip inside his mouth. Rudo obliges and meets you halfway.
Air through your nose is becoming more scarce as you both match each other’s intensity of want for the other. As if Rudo had read your mind earlier, he began exploring your mouth, almost like he was trying to preserve every groove in his memory.
The candy that he had been sucking on earlier shifted to your mouth from his and was currently radiating sweetness from the left side of your mouth.
Rudo breaks the kiss to catch his breath, a lewd line of blue spit connecting your mouths stretches between the two of you until it snaps.
You glance over at his open bathroom door and see your reflection in the mirror that hangs behind the sink. Rudo follows your gaze, and you both stare at the reflection, giggling at how silly you both look.
Both his and your lips, tongue, and teeth are all stained blue from the candy. You maneuver the candy that was left in your mouth so that it is positioned on top of your tongue and stick it out at Rudo playfully.
Rudo slides his hands out from under your shirt and reaches into his pocket to grab another one of the candies and pops it into his mouth.
You bring him over to his bed, and he sits down in front of you. His eyes flick down to his lap and stay there. You trace your fingers starting from his adam’s apple up to his chin and lift his head to face you. You bend down, and your lips collide again, messier.
He breaks the kiss and brings his legs onto the bed, stretching them towards the end of the bed, still sitting straight up. You bring your hands to the front of his chest and slowly push him further onto the bed. While your hands rest on his chest, you can feel his heart. It’s beating so fast that you’re surprised it hasn’t fallen out.
“Relax,” You breathe, his blush that had been previously reduced to a light dusting of pink, deepened to scarlet. He’s propped up on his elbows as you put your knees to both sides of his hips. You slowly lean back in, feeling his soft lips against your own. Your hands move to his jaw, and you use your right index finger to trace a line from where the bone connects to his ear and his chin.
Rudo breaks the kiss to sit back up on the bed, with surprisingly good posture. His legs are straightened underneath your thighs and your knees are bent on either side of him. He slowly brings his hands to rest on your hips.
You shorten the distance between the two of you so that you can feel his breath on your face. It smells sweet, you want to taste it again. You lean in, but he leans away from you. He studies your face, you look puzzled from his hesitation.
“You look beautiful, [Name]” He sighs earnestly. Immediately, his hands leave your hips and cover his face in embarrassment. You blush, suddenly bashful and realising the gravity of the situation. You take his hands off of his face and bring the middle of the branding on the glove to your lips. You kiss both gloves once, they smell of chocolate and the tropical soap that he borrowed from Riyo to wash them with.
“Thank you, Rudo” You say looking up at him with your face still pointed at 3R, examining them with utmost care. Your eyes are soft as you examine every scuff on 3R, you make sure to be gentle as this is what you’d expect anyone to do with your vital instrument. Rudo takes notice of the respect that you give his vital instrument.
The look in Rudo’s eyes as you examined his jinki was a mix of awe and slight suspicion, after all, you guys had practically never spoken to one another other than regarding cleaner duties. Your feelings for one another had grown over this time to astronomical masses, like Rudo when he ate sweets. Your hands carefully traced the ragged fabric and metal rings on the gloves.
Rudo could feel your fingers on his scarred hands. Your touch was cold against his charred skin, a refreshing feeling from the constant pain even with the gloves.
Rudo was forcing his eyes to stay on his gloves instead of taking in the beautiful sight of your face. He allowed himself a quick glance every other second, but soon allowed his eyes to drift over your blue-stained face.
You could feel every glance of his in your stomach. Every time his eyes dawdled on you for a second too long, it felt like you were going to explode. Butterfly after butterfly made their way into your stomach, refusing to leave. Instead, it felt as if they made a nest in your intestines, fluttering around every time his sharp eyes, softened by your sweetness to 3R, met your face.
As if Rudo could feel your nerves, he placed his hands under yours and soothingly traced circles around your knuckles while looking into your eyes.
He leans in and plants several soft kisses on your lips. His gentle pecks move to your jawline and neck. He swirls his tongue against your pulse, making you tense up. You can feel his teeth on your neck, nipping at your sensitive skin.
You look past Rudo’s soft waves to the doorway, mostly out of instinct. Thank god you did, because Enjin and Riyo were lined up one on top of the other peeking their heads in the door. You quickly shoved Rudo off of you. He tumbled to the floor.
The humiliation that you were about to endure from Enjin will never be lost on you. The spot where Rudo was latched onto your neck was bruising, practically announcing the fact that the two of you were ‘experimenting’ as Enjin would later call it.
From Rudo’s spot on the floor he looked at you, hurt and confused. He followed your gaze to the door and saw the two of them. Zanka was heard in the hallway questioning what was going on with them.
“Why are you guys peeking in Rudo’s room like some creeps?” Zanka said, clearly trying to make things right after being so sharp with him during training.
Riyo and Enjin both burst out laughing. Rudo began yelling. Zanka practically flew away after seeing the marks on your neck, not wanting to embarrass you further (he does end up pacing in his room and finally asking Riyo what happened, to which she exaggerated the story to no end).
“What the hell?!” Rudo yelled, “How long were you guys there?! Whatever, get out!!” Rudo was bright red. He shoved the door closed in their faces and walked towards you.
“You know,” You say, abashed by the incident, “Before I go lock myself in my room and eat ice cream until I can’t remember that they found us like this,” You look down at your slippers, suddenly shy again. “Uh, what are we..?”
Rudo stands up and shrugs, “Dating?” his spark of confidence went out almost as soon as it was lit, while he began babbling. “Uh, like only if you want that, and if you aren't comfortable, me neither. But like if you want to, I'd like it a lot, I guess.”
You pull him into a hug. He’s frozen against your form. You speak, your head resting comfortably on his shoulder.
“I’d love that, Rudo” You squeeze him tighter, as if he would disappear if you let go. He wrapped his arms around you tightly, hugging you back with the same vigor.