Lips met again, and again still, their owners of each seeking succor from the other. The only air they needed to survive was passed between them and they drank deeply from it, pulling in long breaths through their noses before diving in again with tangled tongues and teeth. They were a collection of muffled grunts and muted moans, a choir composed of only two people in their own personal house of worship. And worship they did.

Hands didn't wander, they moved with purpose. Up and down, stopping here and there with fingers caressing, petting, pulling. Clothing presented a veritably inebriating variety of texture; sliding and slipping and scratching and scrunching. But, clothing also presented a barrier.

A white skirt, now long-forgotten over the back of the sofa.

A designer suit jacket, now the latest throw rug ornamenting the floor.

It was a trail of large, fabric breadcrumbs that led down, down the hallway and into a room lit only by a modest bedside lamp. It glowed an understated orange and shone only on the few things within its immediate vicinity while the rest of the room was swallowed up by the night's omnipotent darkness. A silent sentinel that watched over the room while the room's inhabitants watched only each other.

"Tell me again why you're doing this?"

She let out a flat hum. "Because I'm not you."

"...?"

It was more a string of querying sounds than it was actual words. Perhaps he was merely distracted by the fact that his apartment felt unseasonably cold. His companion didn't seem to notice and he wondered if the sensation of imminent shivers he battled against was all in his imagination.

He smoothly transitioned a quiver into an understated stretch. She breathed. He waited.

"I'm a commodity," she explained, smoothing her fingers along the hem of pencil skirt that was only just shy of riding up her thighs. "I'm a female actor in her mid-twenties who hasn't been in a serious relationship and is best friends with the most desirable male actor in the country. I can't remain desirable myself in this industry unless I appear as if I am someone to be desired."

"And you can't do that on your own," he said, understanding her train of thought immediately.

"Exactly. Because you know as well as I do that we work in a male-dominated industry that can be unapologetically misogynistic at times."

There was nothing playful in her eyes as she said it, which wouldn't have mattered anyway as he knew she was being completely serious. She willingly chose this life, where her sex and sex appeal were constantly under scrutiny and appraisal. This wasn't the first time she'd made a comment on it, but this was the first time she'd admitted to being so keenly aware of it to the point that it affected her.

"I'm really just doing what I need to survive," she said, her tone was light and she picked an invisible piece of lint from her blouse.

"Why him?"

She shrugged. "He made me an attractive offer."

The eyebrow he raised was punctuated by an unseen question mark. She laughed and held up two delicate fingers. Delicate fingers that, when curled in with its counterparts could blacken someone's eye. Delicate fingers that, when applied with the right amount of pressure in the right place could bring someone to their knees in an instant. She was dangerously delicate, trained in the smattering of martial arts as she was.

And he found that unbearably intoxicating.

"Two years," she said. "We announce that we married in secret and stay together for two years, making whatever public appearances necessary to maintain the image and avoiding any scandals. Then we amicably 'divorce' without pointing the finger at either one of us and we go our separate ways."

"And you're okay with that?"

She laughed again. "I've played far more complicated roles for far longer than two years."

"Do you love him?"

She eyed him carefully.

"Are you asking that just to hear yourself talk, Kuon, or are you serious?"

"I…" his words failed him at a crucial moment and he cursed himself. "This is marriage, Kyoko."

"So?"

"So, what happened to your… ideals?" he asked, at a loss for the proper wording.

A queer expression crossed her face and her lips turned downward by a fraction. It was strangely impressive how the way her eyes narrowed slightly would reflexively caused him to feel nervous. Maybe it wasn't the temperature in his apartment that was making him feel cold.

"I suppose those were severely altered the day I let someone kiss me while lying to me about their identity."

The desire to find a place to hide was overwhelming, but he'd set himself up for that one. He was carelessly frolicking through a field of landmines that had his name inscribed on each one of them and he knew it.

"Which one?"

"Which kiss or which identity?"

"Either? Both?"

"Does it really matter?"

He shrugged his shoulders, knowing he was grasping at straws to no avail. The question he really wanted to ask hung silently in the air. It twisted and turned about like paper on a string in the midst of a breeze. It went unspoken, but they could both hear it clearly as if broadcast over a loudspeaker.

Why not me?

Well, they both knew the answer to that. The 'why' of it was a very complicated problem they were equally responsible for creating. So, he took the quickest exit off of that conversational highway.

It was a never-ending battle between them. She wanted to speed up. He wanted to slow down. Pushing and pulling, each on the other as they fought to have their way.

His size and stature, compared to hers, was useless in this instance. She was all fire and intensity and he longed to burn from the inside out. So he begged her, with his hands and his mouth. Begged her to let him draw this out for as long as they possibly could. Were this to never occur again, they could both be satisfied with knowing they took their time.

She exhaled her acquiescence in a long, slow breath that retracted with a hiss when his nose brushed softly against the inside of her thigh. Inching closer and closer, he ran it along the velvet softness of her skin, moving in small spirals while lazily approaching his goal.

He was on his knees, whispering prayers between her legs like the most devout saint and her joyful cries filled the room until it nearly stifled with overlapping echoes. Her hands were tangled in his hair, tugging it this way and that while she writhed under his attentions.

Was he panting from exhaustion or from the fact that the sounds coming from her left him breathless?

Did it matter?

Did he care?

"So, how's it going to work being married in name only?"

"You know damn well why it can't be you."

She'd jerked the steering wheel hard to one side and brought them right back on course. He sighed. Of course he knew.

They'd jokingly termed their dilemma as their 'incompatibility of wants' late one evening. He wanted to forgive himself long enough to feel worthy of loving anyone; especially her. She wanted to love herself long enough so she could love and accept love from others; especially him. They were aware of it and could unabashedly talk about it with each other, but that didn't seem to make much of a difference when it came down to actually solving their problems.

So close, yet so far.

"You're okay with not having a real marriage, a real spouse or even… a real wedding night?"

She rolled her eyes and pressed her back further into the cushions of his couch.

"The whole arrangement is entirely fabricated, so of course that wouldn't be included. Not that I'd want it to, anyway. Not from him."

She'd said the last part so quietly, he almost missed it. What a blessing it was that he did catch the tiny words as they fell from her lips. They were heavy with yet another subliminal message. He could feel the shape of it; sharp and deadly, threatening to cut him if he dared mishandle them. Cradling them, he carefully chose his own words.

"Another incompatibility of wants?"

"No, just the same one as before."

Who was the one frolilcking through landmines now? His mouth went bone dry and he swallowed in a vain attempt to correct it.

"What if..." he attempted before tripping over his own tongue and having to start again. "What if the incompatibility was gone?"

Her laugh was as arid as his mouth and equally as unwelcoming. "We've been like this for years. We both know it's not happening overnight."

"But what if it did happen? Just once?"

She narrowed her eyes at him.

"What are you saying?"

Buried inside her, words of awe and disbelief clumsily left his lips in every language he knew. He changed between them in time to the rhythm they kept up as they moved together. Every point where her body touched his felt as if he were being branded. She scorched tracks up and down his back with her fingers and he wished they spelled out her name, marking him as hers forever.

He'd switched to a language he knew she wouldn't recognize and began a chant with every thrust.

Do you love me?

Because I love you.

I'm yours.

I'm yours.

I will always be yours.

If she understood him then, she never made any indication. Instead, she tightened the grip of her legs around him and threw her head back in bliss.

The view from the ionosphere was spectacular when they'd eventually reached it. She cried out every name she ever knew him by, her voice gravelly and hoarse. He let it wash over him, his face cradled against her neck while he planted short kisses there just to keep from sobbing. One hand was cupped along the side of her face, holding her gently against him

"Don't go through with it," he begged, his lips searing the words into her skin.

Her fingers combed a soothing trail through his scalp, the sensation causing a weightiness in his eyelids.

"And what would you have me do instead?"

"I… I don't know," he faltered, the heat behind his impassioned plea suddenly vanishing.

"Precisely," she hummed. "You're not ready and neither am I."

He turned his head to the side and shifted his weight to lie beside her, gathering her against him in a firm embrace. Her head was tucked up under his chin and his heart felt hollow and ached with knowing how well she fit alongside him. He breathed. She waited.

"Will we ever be?"

She buried her face against his chest. "Perhaps. Someday... somehow we might be."

"Until then, I guess we have tonight."

She nodded her head into him and sighed. "Though I'm afraid that this memory will haunt me for the next two years."

"In a good way?" he asked, resigned but hopeful.

Her laugh was as tired and sated as she was.

"In the best way," she sighed, "and also the worst."

The next morning he awoke to an empty bed. The space she'd previously occupied by his side was now empty. He splayed his hand out against the rumpled sheets, trying to feel any residual warmth she left behind while his mind desperately clung to every detail he could remember from the night before. Every breath, every touch, every sigh, shudder and scream. He buried his nose where her head once lay on his pillow and breathed in the lingering tendrils of her scent.

She was right, of course. He'd be suffering withdrawals for the next two years.

"And also the worst," he mumbled into the pillow.

fin.