Volume 1

Chapter 25

Contest

Part 1


M:+9 D:+7

It was a rare occasion that Lee didn't open his eyes immediately upon waking, but this morning was one of those exceptions, given how unusually comfortable he was feeling. He felt like he was sunken a little further into his mattress than usual, and the pillow his arms were wrapped around felt much firmer and warmer than usual, but unusually smooth and cream-like.

"Ah..." Lee sighed, content to simply bask in the warm comfort, at least for the moment. He knew he'd have to get up sooner rather than later, but

Wait a minute. Pillows aren't supposed to feel like that?

Refusing to open his eyes just yet, Lee willed one of his hands to trace over the suspect object, quickly confirming that, no, it was not a pillow that he was currently cuddling. It was a person.

That wasn't the problem. The problem was that it was the wrong person. He didn't need to open his eyes to see that, either; he was pretty used to waking up next to Emerald by this point, but the body sprawled atop him was both far too small and too fully clothed to be his not-girlfriend, which left only one possible option: Neo. Even if he hadn't just deduced that, and even if he hadn't opened his eyes and been confronted with three different colors of hair, he would have recognized her voice when she let out a distressed, dissatisfied little groan.

Lee was caught off guard by the cuteness of it, causing him to once again wrap his arms, which he had allowed to fall to the sides amidst his confusion, back around Neo's lower back and waist, causing her to let out a more contented sigh.

Lee gave an exasperated huff in return. "I just can't seem to say no to you, can I?"

And oh how he needed to; despite the ongoing ease with which Lee and Neo could relax completely around one another, that didn't change the fact that ever since the incident a couple months back, he'd been having... Thoughts of an inappropriate nature concerning his fun-sized companion, thanks to the time she'd ended up pinned between him and the wall. With guilty pleasure, he could still remember the way her pale skin had tinged pink, looking up at him with a breathless expression... Her current proximity made it impossible to neglect the way she felt and smelled, the strawberry scent of her shampoo mixing with her own natural, feminine scent. But of course, with all of that going through his mind, and no opportunity to conceal the resulting reaction?

Considering that Neo was currently straddling him, Lee was about 1000% sure she knew where his thoughts had just trailed.

"And don't you forget it..." Neo replied with a verbal giggle, making absolutely no move at all. "How'd you sleep?"

Lee smiled, grateful that the girl was willing to ignore it and proceed as normal for the two, even if the definition of normal between them was currently difficult to define. Truthfully, he answered: "Great, actually. Probably because you're here."

Of course, the subtext wasn't helping their case; Lee could feel Neo's face heating up against his chest... But to her credit, she didn't fluster, and simply snuggled tighter. He was, however, just the teensiest bit surprised and froze when she let out a pleasured moan.

What the chup?

"Nooo! Please don't stop! That felt so good..."

It took him a moment, but Lee couldn't help but chuckle when he figured it out; perhaps it had been a subconscious reflex, but, apparently, he had been kneading the flesh of her back, and Neo hadn't appreciated him stopping. Now that he was aware of what he'd been doing, the rational part of his brain screamed that he needed to stop...

Maybe it was his aforementioned inability to tell Neo no, or perhaps it was just his hormones currently overpowering the more rational parts of his brain. Either way, the result was the same; Lee decided to continue the massage, instantly being met with a happy hum. Except this time, rather than just letting his hands wander, he shifted his grip so that his right hand was on her upper back, while his opposite hand was on her waist.

"What are you mmm..."

Lee smirked at Neo's moan, even as the part of his brain that contained his survival instincts begged him to stop. Ignoring it, he continued to knead his fingers into Neo's flesh, smoothing out the, admittedly, small knots in her muscles. But for someone like Neo, who was highly flexible and was almost religious about stretching properly before any sort of physical activity, and thus never had enough of them to warrant a massage?

Neo's moaning couldn't be called anything other than erotic.

"How're you doing, Short Stack? Enjoying cloud nine?"

Don't call me that. Was the automatic response deadpanned directly into Lee's thoughts. Aloud, however, the only sound she was capable of producing was another moan.

"Yeah, that's what I thought... Short Stack."

Of course, Lee's smug tone caused Neo to slightly raise herself off of him so she could level him with a flat gaze... Of course, the effect was ruined by the way her lips were slightly parted, eyes hooded, and skin flushed.

The rational part of Lee was panicking silently; the devil within was gleeful upon seeing that Neo was in a similar mood. His own expression was playful, and made no secret of the underlying desire...

Sudden pressure at his ribs had him laughing for all of two seconds before a loud clap filled the room, followed up by a yelp from Neo. "Bad girl."

Of course, Neo wouldn't be Neo if she'd left it at that, so it wasn't too much of a surprise when she glared at him, nor when her features contorted into her own signature, playful smirk... Lee may not have been the most experienced in his previous life, but he'd been in this position enough to realize what was probably about to happen. As Neo's face plunged towards his chest, the rational part of him finally drew the line, and reclaimed control; Lee's hands gripped her waist and squeezed. In hindsight, however, Lee's rational side decided it probably would have been better to just let her bite him; Neo, at least, didn't bite as hard as Emerald did (yes, Lee had been bitten by Neo on a few different occasions... don't ask), and he most certainly wouldn't have thrown his head back and screamed loud enough to wake the whole damn neighborhood!

Still, despite knowing that the inevitable explanation to Emerald was going to be anything but fun, the rational part of himself had once again lost control, overpowered in a team effort by the part that was equal parts smug and amused by the apparent intensity of the the orgasm that Neo had just experienced. But when Neo shifted to stare at him, eyes wide in wonder, he could not deny that a similar expression had come over his own features, able to focus on only one word:

Want...

It must have shown, as Neo's expression suddenly seemed to become nervous, if the way she was chewing at her lip was any indication; Lee, worried that he had frightened her, did his best to take some of the edge off his own visage, and mentally cheered when she seemed to become contemplative instead. Lee watched as her eyes roamed over his features, and then glanced sideways towards the door. Lee, for his part, did the same, before looking back to meet his partner's questioning gaze.

Lee's own turned contemplative, for on the one hand, the one word Lee's mind associated the most with Neo, was 'partner.' And as far as Lee was concerned, partners were meant to share in one another's work, and thus contribute to one another's success. And success meant happiness, which was certainly something that he experienced on a regular basis in her company. On the other hand, Lee was very afraid of ruining said partnership, especially when the moment they were now sharing seemed to be fueled mainly by lust. The last thing he wanted to do was alienate the best friend he'd ever had by giving in to something they might later come to regret; he loved her far too much to do that to her.

Holy shtak... I really mean that, don't I?

Lee closed his eyes, smiling as his mind supplied a montage of memories based around himself and Neo, from moonlit conversations in the wee hours of the morning, to silly quarrels over things such as petty ice cream theft, and, as Lee opened his eyes to glance at a photo on his nightstand, all the way to laughter shared over cold clocked mooks.

Green/blue locked onto brown/pink, and his hand rose to gently caress her cheek, causing her to smile and nuzzle into it. It went unsaid, but after nine months, they could read each other well enough that he may as well have been telepathic as well:

Yeah, I really do. I love Neo.

It really was too bad that he was about to end the moment... But when he considered the situation, he knew it was the right move; in addition to worrying about the context of the situation, there was also a third party to consider: Emerald.

Now, I feel like I need to reiterate: Emerald and I were not romantically involved. We may have been going through most of the motions, but we had discussed our relationship in depth about a week after the last incident with Neo, and come to the honest conclusion that, while we were definitely better friends than we had been before beginning our relationship, there simply wasn't anything resembling love in the equation. And it wasn't like neither of us had ever experienced it before; Emerald had much stronger feelings towards Cinder than she did towards myself (or any of our other companions, for that matter), and I was twenty-three years old; I'd experienced love a couple of times. It had been a hard conversation, fraught with acerbity and bitterness, but by the end of it, we'd agreed to keep going as we had been; after all, we were still young adults with needs. We weren't about to let a lack of romance stand in the way of fulfilling those needs. All of those needs, moving forward... In light of that, I wasn't about to start something with Neo, not without officially ending things with Emerald.

But, that wasn't the only item on the day's docket. As I mentioned during our last session, I was participating in the Mistral Regional Tournament. Or at least, I aimed to; it wouldn't be until the end of the day that I would find out whether or not I would actually be allowed to, after I fought my quarterfinal bout in the Kuchinashi qualifier. And one should already know that the top four competitors in each of the qualifier tournaments were granted a slot in the Regional. Thus, it could be reasoned that the quarterfinal round was actually more important than the final; I certainly intended to treat it as such. My bout wouldn't be fought until late in the afternoon, but I wasn't about to let that stop me from spending the day preparing...


So... That happened. I originally started writing this scene with the intent of ship teasing... But then I sort of realized that I already introduced some sexual tension between Lee and Neo last 'episode,' and neither of them are the type to let that go unresolved for another 2 years and change... No way was that going to wait until Beacon, and I was stupid to try. Oh well.

One detail that I'm retconning: I had Pyrrha imply that the Regional Tournament is held during the winter. That was a mistake. I meant to say it occurs during the summer, but made the mistake of posting that chapter before editing; I was sleep deprived at the time. My bad. I'll go back and clean that chapter up before I post the next one.

Also, I decided not to do a second (er... fourth) interlude, primarily because I realized that the one I planned on writing needs to happen a little later in the story for... Reasons. Hehe.

Anyway, that's all from me for now. Remember, reviews are love, reviews are life!

-CeruleanSorbeltz