Greetings, it's the often elusive Naintarlow here.
I know technically I am late by a whole week with the prompt for the second day, Kargo week is already over. My counterpoint is that I told you it will be like this well in advance.
I found I cannot write on demand or fast. I write what I like, though I still try to mainly work on my active stories, I just can't force myself to write any faster. Because of that Kargo week might be a month or more for me. So sorry in advance.
But rejoice because at last, it's time for the second prompt, this time with the theme food in mind. And other things. You know what? Read and find out. And a review or two might be greatly appreciated so I can improve and know if I am doing something right or not.
Enjoy.
Day 2 Prompt: Food
"So, what's your story?" Kazuto asked without any of the usual amusement on his face as he handed her a towel, while also taking away her dripping jacket try.
He was standing in the living room of his rather small but cozy apartment, wearing simple faded jeans and a somewhat ragged-looking t-shirt that had the old Sword Art Online logo on its front with the large words BETA under it and looked like he just woke up. To be fair, he just woke up around 4 am, due to insistent knocking on his door. Added to the storm going on outside, he convinced himself to part with his precious sleep and see just who is that couldn't sleep and decided to bother him
Sitting on his sofa, wet and shaking from the cold, was a young woman with short, messy blonde hair that was dripping water everywhere, not that Kazuto cared about it. Since he started living alone, he did make sure that his apartment was relatively clean but he was no clean freak by any means.
She was wearing an oversized black t-shirt that reached down to her thighs, basically acting as a sort of small dress. It was once his shirt before it was claimed by the woman in question and was told to always have it available for her. In this case, with all her other clothes soaking wet, it came kind of handy.
She was Hosaka Carina Tomo, a soon-to-be first-year Uni student but to a lot more people she was still known by her previous moniker and name. Argo, the Rat, Aincrad's most infamous information broker. Who huffed like a wronged animal when he continued to look at her silently, waiting for that explanation.
"It's a long story." was all she said with a pout, even turning her head away and refusing to look in his eyes.
Kirito only rolled his eyes before walking over the kitchen counter and starting to prepare tea. His apartment was rather small, with the kitchen and living room basically being one room with only the counter as a sort of divide. While he was not hurting for money, thanks to his parents' support and the various odd jobs he did for Kikouka over the years, he also wasn't feeling the need to have a larger home, living alone.
"Well considering my girlfriend who tends to fall off of the grid and disappear for days on account of work, is suddenly knocking on my door at 4 am, during the worst storm we had around here for years, without even an umbrella and on the verge of freezing, I ought to be concerned," he told her, a hint of steel in his voice as he thought of anyone trying to harm his friends.
He might be sort of retired from the VR scene, after all, he was only playing casually with friends in a few select games nowadays and no longer running around from game to game, solving problems instead of the police or the virtual division, like some kind of virtual messiah. But that did not mean that the Hero of Aincrad, Kirito disappeared forever.
Be it in a game or even in the virtual world, if those he loved were threatened, it might just be time to take up his swords again.
Tomo might have heard something in his voice, before she huffed, with a hint of red on her face as she hastily looked away, dripping drops of rain everywhere. At the moment she was rather unlike her usual, mysterious, teasing, and sassy self. With how wet she was, she looked more like a cat that almost drowned, than her moniker as the rat.
Fitting, considering in ALO she was playing as a cait sith, which were catgirls, plain and simple. The number of people confused when she introduced herself as the Rat in-game was staggering. It was also hilarious, especially those private moments where the infamous info broker voiced her discontent with the situation.
"It's stupid." she hissed in a low voice, making it clear she wanted the matter closed and never bring it up again.
Unfortunately for her, while he usually simply just folded in and gave to her demands, this was not one of those times. You can say that despite her best efforts Kazuto wasn't quite housebroken yet. Or as Klein crudely had said, she wasn't able to fuck the personality out of him.
"Most things are stupid, doesn't mean they don't exist," he said sagely as he walked over her, holding two warm mugs of tea in his hands. "Like that time a certain rat ignored a key character of a quest because it was a dog and because of that she was trapped in a tornado of all things?" he asked with a raised eyebrow, enjoying the small twitch of irritation from his girlfriend at the mention of the incident.
He nimbly dodged the half-hearted swipe sent at him and sat down next to her, handing her one of the steaming mugs. Cradling it in her hands, Tomo made a point to ignore him as she took small sips of her drink, and definitely not making small moans as the hot liquid slowly warmed her up from the inside.
He similarly raised his mug to his face, calmly sipping his own as he laid back on the rather comfy couch. his eyes already half-lidden.
It was not a secret to anyone that knew him, either from his days at SAO, ALO, or even just real life but Kirigaya Kazuto loved his naps. He was the man who could sleep for 48 hours straight, wake up, and go back to sleep if he could. He didn't even need a soft surface, he only needed to lie down and he could nap almost everywhere. It was especially true for when he was around Tomo, there were quite a few times he dozed off next to her comfortably, while she was writing an article for MMO today or working on one of her other papers.
His favorite ones were always when she gave him a lap pillow, with that adorable little blush on her face, that he was sure that no one but him could ever witness. After all, the Rat had a reputation to maintain.
Considering it was well before dawn, he was woken up not that long ago by Tomo and now he was drinking warm tea, next to her comfortable, if slightly wet presence, it was no surprise that he was getting a little bit sleepy. His eyes almost closed on their own when he felt a slight weight settle on his side, the head laying on his shoulder abruptly waking him up.
Blearily opening his eyes, he looked to the side, looking over Tomo's head as she tried her best to burrow into his side. She always said he made for the best pillow, which was always rebuked by Suguha who told everyone that he was too bony to make a comfortable pillow, much to his embarrassment. Despite Suguha's stories from their younger years, Tomo continued to use him as a pillow.
Privately he thought he was just a convenient excuse to let herself be a little lazy from time to time.
"Do you really want to know?" she asked from his side, from the sound of it, she was fighting against falling asleep as well.
"Not really. Not if you don't want to tell," he said after a moment of consideration. Even back in Aincrad, Tomo, or Argo as she was more known at that time, preferred to have her privacy, her little secrets as she called them, even after they got together. He respected that and respected her enough to always stop whenever they ran into a topic where the info broker was unwilling to talk anymore.
It was annoying at times, he is not gonna lie but he made his peace with that. For the most part.
The two of them fell into a comfortable silence, and soon even their mugs were resting on the nearby table, empty and cold. He was about to fall asleep once again when her soft words reached his ears and he twitched slightly as her breath tickled his neck and reawakened certain functions in him.
"Promise not to laugh," she said in a coy voice, breathing into his ear softly, which made him tremble slightly.
He would have thought she was unaware of the effect she had on him, but then the small laughter in her voice betrayed her. She knew precisely what she was doing to him, and she was going to milk it all she could, even though their situation should be reversed, with her acting all embarrassed by whatever caused her to end up knocking on his door at 4 am.
That damnable minx of a woman, no matter what, she always had to end up top, no matter what. And damn for having that little self-control when it came to the blonde next to him.
"I promise," he said equally softly, using his willpower to stop the blush that was slowly spreading over his face and knowing it would only serve to amuse her further and even more teasing to be shoved on him.
"I burned down my kitchen. Again," she admitted with a put-out sigh, seemingly not caring that she was almost literally sitting in his lap as she draped herself over his form.
Kazuto forced himself not to twitch in reaction to those words but it was hard to suppress the instinct. It was known to all their friends that Tomo was not a great cook. It was a fact that she herself admitted even before she first tried to make food for him, but nothing could have prepared him for what awaited him.
He heard of someone able to burn water. He even heard of people who could cook something that could be identified as poison at best. But he never heard of someone burning down their kitchen, while also making a dish that from the looks of it looked completely inedible, was also slightly radioactive, and worst of all, it moved.
Safe to say he completely got rid of it, making sure to dump a lot of fuel on it before lighting it on fire, while the ashes were buried in 3 different prefectures so that unholy caricature of a living thing would never be able to return to the land of the living.
On that same note, Tomo was banned from being alone in the kitchen when she spent her nights with him. She wasn't even allowed to enter it to get some snacks by herself.
He felt a poke between his ribs, causing him to let out a small yelp as he raised his hands in surrender and looked at the half-lidded eyes that glared at him.
"You just almost laughed, didn't you?" Tomo asked and despite being half-asleep, he knew better to egg her on.
There were very few things that could genuinely ruin her mood, one was someone belittling her talents as an information broker and soon-to-be professional journalist, the other was the reminder of her abysmal skill in the kitchen.
Even if it was her who was doing the reminder. Or rather especially then.
"I swear I didn't," he said stubbornly, even if he knew there would be no convincing the infamous Rat once she got an idea into her head, she was stubborn like that. His only hope was trying to change the subject."It still doesn't explain how you ended up out in the rain and then at my apartment."
"I went to restock my lost ingredients, then the rain started falling. I didn't have an umbrella so I ran for the nearest place I knew I could crash. Before I even realized I was standing in front of your door." she murmured in a soft voice before planting a kiss just under his jaw, forcing Kirito to pay attention to something else than her words.
He was painfully aware of the rather small woman burrowing herself to him, her hands somehow managing to get under my shirt, and started to roam to their heart's content. Not to mention he was reminded that despite being shorter and looking a bit younger than him, she was very much a developed woman, whose breasts were smashed against his chest.
He let out a slow moan as she started nibbling his neck and he put his hand on her waist, planning to push her back a little and continue talking but his body betrayed him. His girlfriend, who he was very much attracted to was straddling him and was very much willing to go for the real thing if the way she was slowly, sensually ground herself on him had any relation to it.
He knew what she was doing exactly. She was well aware that he was putty in her hands, and wasn't afraid to use her body so to speak, to always have her way. In both meanings.
Not like Kazuto was one for protesting much. He was a man after all, with a healthy libido. What else was he supposed to do with a very willing and aroused girlfriend in his lap?
His hands wrapped around her waist, the intent of pushing her back quickly turning into the action of pulling her even closer as he slowly caressed her sides and back, feeling her lithe form tremble under his fingers. Some might have mistaken it for her still feeling cold from the rain but he knew better.
Because just like she knew him like the back of her hand and knew how to play him, the reverse was also true. Between them, it was many times just a battle of teasing, seeing who would be the first to admit defeat to the pleasures of the flesh.
Most of the time it was him who 'lost', yet it never really felt like a loss. And the few times when he reigned victorious over the infamous Rat? They were treasured memories to him.
Though it looked like it might be another loss on his tally if he didn't do something soon.
With a low moan, he raised his head, unwittingly giving access to his neck and lower jaw to Tomo who immediately began to leave small hickeys on him, while he could do nothing but close his eyes and enjoy it. With the rate she was going, there would be no untouched skin left on him by the time morning came.
Meanwhile, her hands continued their journey, exploring his chest, abdomen thoroughly, until they ended up at his belt where they began to busy themselves with trying to loosen his belt, while she also softly ground their lower halves together in an agonizing slow way that was pure torture.
As he felt his belt slowly giving away, Kazuto felt a moment of clarity. While he would have very enjoyed all the activities that would come after that, that would also mean that he would lose their little game too. After all, his pants were literally his last line of defense when it came to the personification of lust and arousal that Tomo could turn into if she got into the mood.
He knew if he wanted to be the one dictating the terms between them, if he wanted to get back the control, it was time to launch his counterattack.
His own hands did a little wandering of their own, getting under the borrowed shirt easily. His left hand very slowly began to make its way up toward her chest. He felt her stiffening slightly for a moment before relaxing under his touch, her body almost coiled around his fingers as they briefly stopped at her abdomen.
There was one little-known fact about his girlfriend that had a lot of importance at that very moment.
Tomo had a small and lean body and usually wore baggy clothes saying that they were comfortable. All of those were true but people didn't realize one thing. Under those baggy, large clothes, she was toned as heck.
You could say that was an aftereffect of SAO. Lying two years on a hospital bed, their bodies were in dire need of rehabilitation after they woke up and while some like him, did it where they returned to a normal, fit level, the former number one information broker found herself immersed in working out and continued after that.
The result?
He got an awesome girlfriend who was attractive as hell normally and became a walking goddess of sex whenever she shed her clothes, arousal and lust left in her wake. And while that forced him to look into himself and admit that he had a fetish for muscled girls, he couldn't say he was disappointed.
Under his hands, firm muscles pushed against him, his deft fingers tracing the edges of her toned six-pack, enjoying the slight shudder that went through his girlfriend and her renewed vehemence of getting him out of his clothes as she pushed him against the back of the sofa, stuck between two kinds of pillows, one belonging to the sofa at his back and two rather modest ones pressing from the front.
As if in response to his advances, Tomo's hands that stopped for a moment, started battling his belt with a renewed force, and if that went on, she would tear them apart soon. And that would make that one the fifth belt that would be left victim to her tender mercies, this month alone.
And then it would be over for him, so to speak. It was no exaggeration that if she wanted Tomo could simply overpower him and have her way with him, while he, in a certain red-haired samurai's words, would be so much of a masochistic simp that he would let her and even thank her.
Considering that his girlfriend could bench even him if she got in the mood for it and he, in the gentlest way, is nothing more than a twink, resistance was futile.
Of course, that didn't mean that Klein would ever let him live it down when he interrupted them just when Kazuto moved into his apartment, the black-haired former beta tester handcuffed to the table and a very enthusiastic Tomo riding him.
"Aaaah!" Tomo let out a low moan that was a lot louder in the silence of the room, arching her back as her eyes closed in pleasure. So engrossed she was, that even her hands stopped for a moment.
While she was distracted. he used his left hand to reach that small sensitive spot on her back and began to trace small circles on it. The effect was instant as she shuddered in pleasure and had to use her hands to simply grab onto him.
"What's wrong? Cat got your tongue?" he asked cheekily, while in response Tomo could only glare at him, even as the blush on her cheeks turned even redder and she inadvertently let out another moan.
There was something inexplicably intoxicating about having someone much stronger than him, become nothing more than a shivering puddle of pleasure in his arms. The cute noises she made as she clung to him were just icing on the cake. Especially since the roles usually were reserved.
"You are not fair, Ki-bou," she told him with half-lidded eyes, even forgetting that they were not in Aincrad anymore and using her old nickname for him. In response, Kazuto only smiled. She grabbed onto his shoulders to steady herself as she continued to grind herself, the both of them feeling less and less self-restraint in themselves.
Instead of giving in, he only smiled at her, speeding up the movements of fingers, finding a particularly sensitive bundle of nerves.
"Should I stop?" he asked even as he felt her gently bite into his ear, her movements becoming more frantic as she was slowly overcome with pleasure.
"Ahh… N-Nya… Please d-don't stop, Kii-bou..." she spoke haltingly, sounding as if she was out of breath.
Smirking victoriously, Kazuto saw his chance to strike. His right hand that teased her breasts to further the sensations his girlfriend received, suddenly stopped its work and wound up around her waist, pulling her even closer to him at that.
Tomo stilled for a single moment, surprised by the development but he gave her no time to contemplate what must be happening. With his arms around her waist, he suddenly turned to the side, intending on pulling her down to the sofa, with him on top of her. With that, his victory in this little game of theirs would be complete.
Of course, that was the point when as usual the tables flipped so to speak. He didn't even realize what happened. One moment he had Tomo in his arms as he gently tipped them to the side, with him about to land above her, then he felt a slight pressure around his waist. Then the next moment he was blinking stupidly on the sofa, looking up at his girlfriend who had a devious smirk on her face as she leaned over him, her legs wrapped around his waist and holding him there without the slightest hint of strain while her arms rested on his chest.
He let out a silent huff, admitting his defeat as he gazed up at his girlfriend and tried to ignore how pent-up he was feeling at the moment. He knew from experience once she tasted victory, Tomo was sure to stretch things out to a painstakingly long time.
"What's the matter, Ki-bou?" she asked in a purring voice as her head lowered to his own, giving him a brief peck, before pulling away with that damnable smirk still on her face."Did you expect something else perhaps?"
Honestly, she was enjoying his torment a bit too much.
"You are cruel," he told her with his best imitation of a serious voice. Considering that his face was flushed from her earlier ministrations as well still grinding on the top of him, as well as slightly labored breath, he wasn't quite successful in that regard.
"You are one to talk. If we are talking about cheating, you started it," she said with a grin, her lips almost touching his and he barely stopped himself trying to raise his head futilely. It would only give her even more ammo against him.
"There were no rules against using erogenous zones," he replied back after he managed to gather his wits. Sad to admit but it was way too long and the way Tomo's smirk widened, he knew he just answered the way she wanted.
"There were no rules, to begin with," she told him with a brilliant laugh and he couldn't help but give a small one himself. He walked right into that one.
Suddenly he had to suck in a breath as Tomo moved above him. Leaving the rather pointy perch between his legs, she settled down on his stomach, her legs dangling at his side as she leaned back into the sofa's back. She was basically using him as a simple pillow to sit on. A rather horny pillow at that but that was beside the point.
"Really?" he couldn't help but ask and only got a mischievous grin at this point.
Kazuto groaned but didn't say anything else. He knew his girlfriend well enough that he would get no sexy time before she was finished tormenting him. That utter minx, she was lucky he was head and heels over her.
So instead of imagining to get the clothes out of her, he had to try and find something to divert his attention before he went insane. At least the perfect distraction was already there, waiting for him.
"So, why did you try to make food?" he asked, opening one eye as he gazed at her. Judging from the way she stiffened momentarily, he caught her off-guard. "Usually you would have ordered some take-out or just come over here, even if it was the middle of the night."
It got to the point he even organized an emergency girlfriend stash of sweets and other imperishable foods, in case she ever got hungry and he had nothing else at his apartment. After all, according to Klein's infinite wisdom that he did not ask for or need it, rule 27 of being a successful boyfriend, was not leaving the girlfriend hungry.
"I thought you might have forgotten about it," she mumbled with the barest hint of a pout in her face as she looked away.
A small part of his brain, a part that was evidence he might have spent a bit too much time with Tomo, immediately wanted to tease her about her embarrassment and milk it over as much as he could. The mature part of his brain argued they should handle it like proper adults and just talk it out.
And while those two parts argued, the remaining part of his brain, the sarcastic one, simply took the reins and put words into his mouth.
"Well, you've made me all hot and bothered now, and left me with this aching erection... I need something to take my mind off it, if you don't want me to one, deal with it, or two, go back to sleep," he told her with the straightest possible face he could manage.
Tomo continued to pout in response though he could see the small giggle she tried to hide at his words, plain as day. At least it helped to divert his attention from the pair of firm cheeks comfortably resting on his stomach, instead of a little bit lower as nature intended.
Her mumbled words snapped him back from the realm of horny and he raised his head to look at her, noticing the rather uncharacteristic blush on her face.
"What was that?" he asked back, with the barest hint of a smirk on his face, enjoying her feeling embarrassed for once. Even if he really didn't hear her for the first time.
"I said I tried to make a cake," she admitted with difficulty, avoiding his eyes.
"What for?" he asked, a little perplexed, even as he absentmindedly began to play with the soft hand nearest to him, caressing and holding it with his own.
After all, while her sweet tooth was known, usually she would have a large stash at her home, and at worst could have come straight to him. It wasn't like her to force herself to do something she knew she was bad at, and without any help to boot.
"For your birthday, you dummy. Which is today," she added, a little exasperated when he sent her a clueless look.
"Ah. Guess I forgot." was his answer to that, after a rather sleepy blink. To be fair, after a while birthdays stopped being special days for him, an excuse to get together with friends and family at best and barely worth mentioning at worst.
According to Nurse Aki who not only oversaw his physical therapy but the more mental one, it might be a carryover from his years in SAO, where days like birthdays, anniversaries, or even holidays lost their meaning. The only thing that mattered was exploring dungeons and beating the current floor.
"Well, we could always order some food. Looking at the weather, it would suit me just fine, spending a day in a warm room with you," he said in the end, trying to change the subject, to not dwell on SAO's effect still on him after almost ten years.
Somewhat surprisingly, his girlfriend pouted at him and he felt as if he unknowingly failed some sort of test.
"Way to destroy a girl's expectations. The romantic thing would have been to offer to help me make it, not eating take out," she complained a bit childishly and he couldn't help but laugh slightly at how cute she looked and sounded in his oversized t-shirt.
"Right. Ask the guy who is only a step above you in culinary talents to help you cook a cake." he said, using the most deadpan voice he could muster before a smirk forced his way into his way."Well if you are against take-out, I could always just eat you out..."
For his comment, Tomo suddenly elbowed him in the gut, it was not that hard but still strong enough to have him wheezing for air as she got up from her perch and looked down at him, her expression unreadable. That is before she burst out laughing.
"That was way too cringe and corny to boot. You need better pick-up lines if you wish to score with me," she commented, though, despite her words, there was a tender shine in her eyes that even after all these years, hasn't failed to amaze him."How did I get together with you in the first place with lines like that?"
"I've been asking that for years. One day that information broker I was friends with, ambushed me and the next thing I know I am lying naked next to her in some inn. She decided to keep me around following that." he added a bit cheekily when he finally got his breath back, sitting up properly. to allow her to sit down and lean into him, just like their earlier position.
They stayed in comfortable silence, before a loud grumble echoed in the room, coming straight from his girlfriend's stomach.
"So...food?" Tomo asked with a bit of red coloring her face and looking at him imploringly.
"Food." he agreed with a laugh, grabbing his phone."You want Chinese or Italian this time?"