A Note: This fic may be rated M, but it's still quite a bit tamer than some of the more mature material I've read on this site. There's nothing terribly graphic in here, but there is still some questionable content, so I thought it was probably better to play it safe.
The title comes from the song by My Bloody Valentine. Loveless is one of the most beautiful albums ever created.
A Warning: I have a bit of an unusual writing style. You may find stream of consciousness, deliberate run-on sentences, fragments, repetition of words/phrases, and a sprinkling of disregard for grammatical conventions. It may not be to your taste; if that's the case, I apologize.
A Hint: And after writing this, I'm utterly convinced that this pairing gets nowhere near the love it deserves.
I.
The end of another week found her staring at the cracked, faded brown paint on Kariya's door again.
Uzuki had never meant for this to become a habit, but she never took the time to realize it had until long after the fact. After she couldn't remember how many times this made or when it had started or who had even made the first move (him or her or both), after it didn't really matter anymore. (If it ever even did, to begin with. If she had ever even cared, at all.)
It became too easy to let the weeks blur together, to lose track of all the time she spent waiting at his door and the days left in between. Cyclic. She had never bothered trying to pick up where she left off, but she still couldn't understand why. Why she couldn't make herself care, why she kept doing this at all (waiting and waiting and waiting for him to open the door). Why she could always feel his eyes on her (I take it you'll be --), strange and expectant and full of something, at the end of the slow, slow Seventh Day.
It had been early, when she first began to feel the dull thrill of anticipation, feel it intensify every hour. When she felt the twinge of something strange that seemed to be happening all at once. And she had started to wonder, sometimes, if he noticed. Started to wonder if he felt it, too.
Maybe that should have been the first sign. Maybe she should have stopped it, then.
They had always liked each other, but this was different. This had taken hold of her with no warning. She didn't even have time to worry about it. But she thought she could handle it, with her careful control, with her unflinching determination. Erase it just like everything else. (It should have been easy.)
When she couldn't do it, when she didn't even actually try, she should have been disgusted with herself (and him too, his easy smiles and his hand glued to her hip), she should have forced them both to stop. But she didn't. She wasn't. She never could have known it would be so easy, to let this thing pull her along until she forgot herself. This thing she couldn't even put a name to (or maybe she could and she was just --). Never could have imagined that whatever this was could possibly feel good. (Something that twists her stomach into knots and makes her blood rush through her veins and her chest almost aches with something and --)
Strange, that it should feel like this.
She can hear his faint footsteps coming across the coarse colorless carpet. Slow and soft and just like him.
"You're here early." His smile -- pleased -- as his eyes search her face, resting on her lips.
She steps through the door, past him (don't look, don't let him see --), and puts her bag on the sofa. His eyes are on her again and his lips are starting to twitch further upward at the corners and it's too, too hard not to smile (-- even though he probably already knows, probably knew it even before last week and a few months ago and his doorstep and just now).
"There isn't anything better to do. I might as well be here."
Here feels like home. Static and soothing and so, so familiar. With the black sofa and the big windows and the coffee table littered with newspapers and old books. With his solid presence next to her.
Feels like home, why does it feel like I'm home?
"Sure." Kariya (smirking now, barely holding it in) locks the door and the sound reverberates, almost tangible against the beige walls and her own body. (He knows he knows he knows and she even thinks she wants him to.)
And she wants to say something, but she hesitates and it doesn't come out and then it's gone. A moment later she can't even remember what she wanted him to hear, though it might be for the best, after all. And maybe he already knows it, maybe.
"Everything is how you left it. Like always, obviously." And he kisses the corner of her mouth, like always.
She wonders if he can hear her heartbeat as he walks toward the kitchen.
II.
His kitchen is the perfect size for two people. Small and cramped, one table, two chairs, a tiny counter next to the stove, and ample opportunity to brush their fingertips and shoulders together as they prepare dinner.
She had learned to make the bowls of ramen he liked so much, cooked them as he stood too close and took orders, chopped green onion and searched for ingredients while she stirred. She always knew where to look, knew the exact place where he would find something they needed. It hadn't taken long. She knew his kitchen better than she ever knew her own.
"You're going to get burnt if you keep standing right over the thing." He's leaning down closer and his hand is slipping up and under her shirt, lightlightlight on her bare hip.
"That so?" Talking into her temple with lips barely grazing over the skin. Overwhelming.
She can't stop herself from shivering, but she probably could have kept from leaning into him. (If she had ever been trying in the first place. If the thought had even formed in her mind.)
Says through her sigh, "Don't blame me when you burn yourself."
She can feel the grin on his lips, hears it in his voice as she stirs the pot again. Doesn't even need to look to know it. It's become so easy, to perceive every little insignificant thing about each other. Glances and touches and some sort of bizarre, nameless intuition, electricity running between them.
"You're looking out for me, huh? That's sweet."
"Someone's got to keep an eye on you. Who else would if I didn't?" Even though that's not what it is. Even though Uzuki knows he understands what she hasn't said, just as she's sure he catches the small smile tugging at the edges of her mouth.
"Guess I'm pretty lucky that way," as he places a fleeting kiss at the smooth skin between her earlobe and jaw. And she can't stop herself from thinking I love this any more than she can keep from lacing her fingers through his and forgetting everything but their closeness and the familiar sensation their lips pressed together. Warm and tranquil and simple as anything she's ever done.
Briefly (unnervingly), she imagines what it would be like to do this every evening.
It isn't the first time.
III.
It's not like we can't keep doing this –
The Shibuya sunset is dull through Kariya's apartment windows, marred by skyscrapers and the neon haze of the city just before dark. No stars, no moon. She found long ago that she didn't even care, really. The last remnants of the fading daylight were never quite as interesting as her partner watching it.
"Hope next week's this slow, too." His fingers tangled in her hair and his eyes a little brighter than usual, fixated on something other than the building reflected on his corneas. She can see the windows and bricks in his eyes. Tiny, distorted shapes.
"Tch. You just don't want to work." She makes sure the smirk in her words and lightness in her tone are enough to tear his gaze away from the window and back to her, momentarily. (For as much as she's tried to refuse it, she wants those eyes on her.)
He sighs and combs his hand through her hair, slowslowslow, and she fights the urge to close her eyes.
"It's no fun to go at full speed all the time. It takes everything out of you. Besides, I think you've finally learned to take it easy once in a while." (That strange familiarity that sits behind his smile is there now, and she feels like she can almost, almost decipher it this time, and she's sure her breathing is just slightly quicker, eyes a little wider, and she can almost --)
"Are you calling me lazy?" Swallows and tries not to let it show.
"Of course not. Just saying you've changed. You don't push yourself quite so hard anymore. And you aren't as worn out at the end of the week either. It's a good thing, you know."
She stares up at him from his lap as he takes a long drink of coffee. As he gently pulls his fingers through her hair again.
As he says, softly, "I'm glad."
And she knows it, then. Knows what's been written in the lines of his soft smile and his heavy-lidded eyes, what she's felt with each whisper and caress and glimpse and every time she thinks of him, knows what it is that makes her keep coming to his door (unfailingly and happily and longingly, and she knows it now), what makes her count the days until the end of the week, what made her lose count, lose all regard in the first place.
She knows it all in a moment. Beautiful.
We could stay this way forever. Even if I never said anything, even if he pretended not to know and we just carried this in the air between us, breathe in unheard unseen unspoken understanding with the oxygen and let it fill us up until we overflow.
If he can feel the faint flush of her face or hear her heart pounding against her chest (how could he not hear it, how), he pretends not to.
She tries to put it from her mind, for the moment. Tries to (has to) keep the words from spilling out of her mouth and into him. As if in silent agreement, they say nothing, for now. She turns her head in his lap to look out the window. The sky is completely dark, as are the windows of the office building across the quiet street. She thinks of what this room -- still and immaculate and dim, holding a multitude of hushed feelings along with the coffee mugs and the clutter -- must look like from below.
"Your coffee's going cold." He hands her the chipped white mug as she sits up, her breathing even and slow again.
"Thanks. I probably don't need it, this late." She lifts it to her lips and drinks anyway, lets the lukewarm, bitter taste slide over her tongue and smiles. She had forgotten everything again, so easily.
His arm finds its way around her shoulders, pulling her closer, and she lets her head fall onto his shoulder.
"We haven't had time off in a while, have we?"
It isn't a question, not really. He says it with finality, the same way he sometimes sighs and smiles when he already knows the answer to something. (When she humors him and answers anyway.
"If you take a few days off, you know they'll just give me a bunch of paperwork to do. That's so boring." Some semblance of normalcy again.
"Mmm, but you're so good at it." He smirks into her hair and inhales, arm tightening and pulling her closerclosercloser. "I wasn't just talking about me, either. I said 'we,' you know. We should take some time off. Be lazy if we want to. We could hang around WildKat all day, or sleep late and go shopping and see a show at A-East. Maybe spend a day working on new ramen recipes."
"You're just trying to get me to cook for you." Maybe she should have expected it, but it doesn't stop her from grinning. That slight flush is coming back and she shouldn't feel so happy, really, but she can't bring herself to care now, even as she tries to contain it. (He probably knows, already.)
"That too. But it'll be fun, come on. I know you want to." And then he's mumbling low into her ear and his fingers get lost in her hair and his other hand is moving up her thigh and she's turning her head, lips trying to find his neck --
"Sounds good."
She didn't need the coffee that much, anyway.
IV.
She had no recollection of how this had become so routine. None at all. It just seemed to happen with an unquestionable certainty. Like making tea in the mornings. Like his slightly crooked smile when he found her at work every day. (Early, as usual.)
All she cares to remember now is how tonight, her hands found his hips first and her lips sought his jaw and she thought of how easy this was, to have his arms around her, their bodies connecting almost seamlessly and her hands up his shirt and his tongue between her teeth.
Ragged, ragged inhales.
His palms are warm against the skin of her waist as he drags them up to her ribs, lets the backs of his fingers fall hard and slow down the bone and her breath comes in tiny broken gasps, shuddering and squirming on the sheets beneath her. His lips pull into a tight smile against her collarbone and she can feel something like need collecting low, low –
Uzuki's fingers have memorized the smooth, even skin of his back, the curve of his spine as he leans over her (teeth on her shoulder and she can't help gasping hardhardhard), nails gently scraping each small bump of vertebrae. She lifts her head, neck arching as her lips and tongue and sharp teeth move across his neck, along his jaw and chin and ear and hands gliding over his back shoulders arms face chest (can't touch enough at once, toomuchtoomuchtoomuch) as he moans hisses trembles, quiet and short.
And she doesn't stop, not even as rough hot calloused palms sweep up her stomach and ribcage and find her breasts, squeeze softly as he lowers his mouth too, as she pants and shivers and groans and shifts, as he hisses at her nails on his bones, as they both choke on the air and their soft whimpers and words and sensations (toomuchtoomuchtoomuch), overpowering and lingering and immense against the darkness and the walls and their own skin.
His weight is hot. Constant and solid and everywhere. Kariya's same coarse hands on her hips and her legs tighttighttight around his waist, fingertips making indents in his shoulders and she's moaning into his mouth as they move. Faster and faster and her hips lifting to his, teeth on her collarbone again as a hitched groan escapes his lips, as they cling to each other, as everything begins to unravel and the world comes apart. And there is nothing but the shadows and their heavy breath and mouths and this feeling and Kariya as her back arches upupup –
This is ecstasy. She can make out his face as she says it – Koki, Koki, Koki – eyes wide, mouth open and his chest heaving with hers as nails move painlessly down his back. Hears her own name -- Uzuki -- in her ear, coming on the end of a sigh and a heavy shudder.
I love this, I love this, I love this.
They don't bother to untangle themselves as they fall asleep. Knees stuck between thighs, fingers in sweaty hair, arms weaving their bodies together and Kariya's head resting in the valley between her breasts. Breathing long and even. Muscles like liquid. Sedated.
This is all I could need.
V.
She's up early, before he's half-awake to make sleepy protests when she goes to shower. Standing under the warm water and tracing the marks he left on her shoulder. The vague discoloration of a bruise on her hip, a small reminder as she dried herself with an uncomfortably coarse towel. It would fade, but she wouldn't forget.
If he'd been awake when she left the bed, she would have murmured something about how much she hated his faded navy towels. It had become something of a tradition.
And for some reason, she can't help but let her lips twitch upward into a smile. Content.
Uzuki wonders if she should tell him. How she should tell him, but it's not like he doesn't already know it all. His face and her words, the vivid sharp crisp memory of their fingers strung together, seamless and invincible, lungs struggling to pull in the same air and their eyelids falling. The kitchen and the living room, all fingertips and soft, soft looks, untouched coffee, Shibuya sunsets and everything is as you left it and feels like home, why does it feel like I'm home, his crooked smile and that damn sensation in her stomach --
Beautiful.
Sitting at the table, she can see the city spring to life in the early morning light. She could spend forever here. This town, this pale stillness, her cup of tea and a lifetime of his eyes and voice and lips.
"How do you manage to get up so early? You don't even have to work." Kariya yawns, and his eyes are brightbrightbright in the lowlowlow yellow rays of sunlight invading the room, bent and shattered by the windowpanes.
"Not everyone's as lazy as you." She can't help feeling slightly breathless as he crosses the few feet of white tiles between them and kisses her, soft and light and radiant. As she thinks, she doesn't know how to say it. Doesn't know how to say it, at all.
How am I even supposed to do it?
"Well, you're sitting this week out whether you like it or not. We have plans." She swallows and clenches her fingers on her knee tightly when he turns his back to pour his tea. I don't know how, I don't know --
"Why don't you stay here?"
Her mouth goes dry and she hopeshopeshopes he doesn't notice her eyes fly open, wide, and she can't say anything, not now. He doesn't even -- why would he --
She can keep her composure, but she can't will her heartbeat to slow down. Not this time. She can't think and she doesn't know and what is he even saying and dammitdammitdammit.
"Well, of course. I might as well stay this week, since we're going to -- "
"That's not what I meant, and you know it."
That same smirk, reaching the eyes that stayed fixed on her over his tea. She stays silent for an odd, lethargic moment. Listens to the cars on the street below and feels the warmth against the side of her face. And then sucks in her breath --
"Are you asking me what I think you're asking?"
"Depends. What do you think I'm asking?" Teeth flashing briefly before he takes another drink, deliberately slow, and she knows he's smothering his laughter. Knows he's trying to drag it out of her, knows he wants to see it out, open, in the broken rays of the Shibuya sunrise making his kitchen almost unbearably light, and she knows he knows --
"Damn it Kariya, just spit it out." Said with more wavering nervousness than any kind of false impatience or malice. She feels light-headed.
"I love you, you know."
Only quiet resignation in his words and the space between them. So that's it, then. Like it was there all along, like it was as plain and easy as the way he got up every morning and drank his tea. (And maybe it was.) And the long slow inhale that passes through her lips and into her lungs is something like comprehension and finality and relief as opposed to her uneasiness, her baseless anxiety. This is it, then.
"I know." And she does, really. She's calm, and she knows. And what she's only let herself realize last night is bubbling to the surface, finally, finally overwhelming her senses and almost threatening to blur her vision --
"And I… I love you too. Kariya." It's over, it's over, it's over and the sun is so hot on her face, and she hopes it's the sun and not a blush she feels creeping over her cheekbones as she turns away from him and back to her tea and the city overflowing below, so alive and God, I love this I love this I love this.
And then his fingers are pushing her hair back and his lips are brushing her forehead and she's sighing and he's saying, "Took you long enough."
"Shut up. You weren't exactly dying to get it out, either." No bite to her words, none at all. Some sort of liquid warmth washing over her, spilling from the veins in her forehead and flowing down, circulating with her blood to the rest of her body. Appeased and almost too warm.
"But it doesn't hurt to say it once in a while, now, does it? Even if you already know it, it's good to hear. See, you're even smiling now." That lopsided grin and his hair sticking up down sideways.
"It is." Quiet agreement as she reaches out to fix a piece of hair falling over his eye, and he catches her hand.
"You never did answer me."
"You really shouldn't ask questions when you already know the answers. It's annoying." He lets her fingers twist and capture his own.
"Then I guess we should start moving your stuff in here this morning." Squeezing her hand just enough.
"Under one condition: we buy new towels. Mine are kind of old anyway, but yours are just too hideous." Her eyes glinting and the familiar anticipation growing below her stomach but it's different this time, and his slow smile pulling her towards him, coming closer, determined.
"Deal. Maybe we can get started on that tomorrow." And her lips find his. It's long and stubborn and absolutely flawless.
"Anything to get me to stay here, huh?" Eyes still shut, her cheek against his and refusing to let this fleeting bliss escape them. Holding it, keeping it in their clasped hands.
"Oh, I suppose." Those eyes on her, still.
His soft laughter and their closeness at the kitchen table, two cups of tea and malleable sunlight, unspoken promises and that smile she only saved for him. This is it. This was all she wanted. These moments and Kariya and Shibuya and their fingers locked into knots. This easiness. This aimless, muted perfection as he leans in to find her lips, delicate and airy, one more time.
This is it, then.