Author's Note: Just a little something I had to get out of my system, it's short. I'm sorry if you were looking for more in the way of plot, but feel free to tell me how you feel about this.


Small No More

Taiga smiles, wide yet sad.

Hands clenched into fists, Ryuuji stares at her face. It feels heavy, the tick of the clock marking each painful second that passes.

Crimson red colors his face, love was something that never got easier for both of them. It's wrong in his mind, but he fights a battle between his innocent love and his dirty body.

He struggles to find the words to fill the empty apartment.

Tick, tick, tick.

"I love you Taiga," he whispers with hesitation. He knows her pain, her fear, for she was always alone. She didn't have a ready-made life where she made friends and came home to her parents with stories of love and happiness. Instead, she struggled to raise herself in a room where the walls were so far apart that she realized her insignificance in a big world.

She was small but now was different.

Violet red eyes locked with deep blues. Taiga was silent, her heart drumming to the beat of her emotions.

"How many times do you have to tell me, idiot?" She smiles for real this time, looking out her window into black night. It was hard to feel something that you're not used to. She was determined to try though, for him.

Ryuuji closed the distance and wrapped his arms around her, wanting to feel her small body against his. He wanted to keep her safe, from people who could never see past her mask. From those who've made her small.

Taiga feels his warmth where it was once cold. She's set alight as she stares at his lips, reminding her of a night where it was as cold as this one. Where her dream became a reality.

"Kiss me," she mumbles into his chest. She gets tired of everything always breaking when she looks for happiness, but she knows it's not true. In her, is the knowledge that Ryuuji was unbreakable.

Ryuuji lifts his head from the nook of her neck. "You're so predictable," he whispers into her face.

She gets the urge to punch him in the gut, but it's already outweighed by something else. Taiga feels the blood in her face while she realizes her strong need. For contact anywhere and now. She was confused and she didn't need to understand something that she needed to do.

She places her hand behind Ryuuji's head and pulls hard to stop her aching pain.

Lips crash and crash endlessly, the desire still building and building.

Ryuuji pulls away for a breath moments later, shocked. But he knows better than to stop now, where it's too late to go back.

"T-Taiga?"

There's no response. He opens his mouth to say her name again when he feels hands on his stomach knocking him off balance. He falls onto soft sheets and white pillows, with no time to recover before he feels Taiga's lips crashing on his again.

Ryuuji's hands are a jumble as he takes off shirts and any fabric he could get a grasp on, leaving only skin between them.

They melt into the sheets as their desires get the better of them, touching every spot where they can because it's just them and only them and no one else can mess with them now.

Their eyes speak love and their lips whisper sweet honeyed words muffled into flesh.

The clock still ticks, but the air now feels heavy and hot.

Somewhere in the moans, touches, and kisses, Taiga found herself on her back staring up at Ryuuji. She found her eyes trailing down his bare chest and stomach, following his treasure of hair to her deepest desire.

"What're you looking at?" Ryuuji smirked as his hands found their way onto more skin, his fingers leaving tingles that never faded.

She takes one look.

She didn't feel small anymore.