It is the morning after his birthday. Light filtered in through the gap in the curtain, illuminating the two lovers entangled in each other. Her room was as messy as he had never seen it before and there was a faint smell of booze in the air.
Riku had been awake for a short while, but not for very long, which was a first for him. He is very lazy and could not be tore away from the bed without much insistence, so it is a rare opportunity to be had, watching his usually industrious fiancée so very out of it. One he intends to seize.
His fingers caress her cheek as Chiyuki slept through the early daylight, her soft breathing and relaxed features causing him to smile at her mere existence.
It had been perfect.
From the candles flickering around the bed, the white lacy lingerie she had picked out just for him, to the kisses trailed all over her body throughout the night.
What surprised him, though, were the comforting words exchanged between the two of them in the heat of the moment. He had made sure she was enjoying herself with sporadic phrases, such as 'are you okay?', 'so beautiful' and 'do you like that?', met with breathless replies, shy giggles, and hazy kisses of loving affirmation.
Riku had taken care of her afterwards, too, making sure Chiyuki knew how much he cared about her and loved the intimacy this brought. Though she was sensitive, she melted into his balmy touch as he ran a cloth along her skin, and peppered kisses where he still had not the chance. They were not sure whether there was a single inch of her body that he had not kissed that night.
Everything about last night was perfect, and it did not stop being perfect in the morning either.
Even though he was not new at sex, he was new to this sort of sex. Intimate, loving, between committed partners. His previous experience, plentiful as it was, had been with the sort of model and actress that his father had him dating for publicity or connections. He made sure that he was every bit as rotten as he truly is with them, taking what he wanted and refusing to acknowledge them beyond it. They let him, nurturing hopes and illusions about him and their relationship.
He loathed that. It only ever served to further feed his dismissal, his aversion, to the point he could not be bothered to look at these women after he was done.
Riku had previously been quietly smug about it, something he did not share even with her. He knows he is much more virile and experienced than the pests that seemed to hang around his fiancée. Harumi would faint at the mere mention of sex, and Kazuma would likely know it only through low-brow hentai manga. Yukito, for all his talking, is a blushing virgin when it comes to the real deal.
No, only he could give Chiyuki this, and he felt secure in his superiority when it came to that matter. Alas, he finds himself wholly unprepared to manage the situation when it finally came, and God, he is beyond happy to be without his footing.
He was still in a trance, admiring this beautiful creature he called his fiancée, when she awoke. Her eyes fluttered open, her sleep disturbed by a faint breeze floating in through the open window.
As soon as she met his gaze, she felt home.
"Hi, Riku." She said in a tiny voice, smiling up at him dazedly as she came to her senses.
"Morning, angel." He greeted, his melodious morning voice sounding raspy and honeyed.
At the sound of that voice, the memories of the night before immediately flooded into her mind. The way they had explored each other's bodies for the first time, the amorous words they had said, the lustful looks that they had exchanged as pleasure washed over them both again and again...
All of a sudden, a shy smile found its way to her lips as Chiyuki evaded his gaze, instead opting to stare at his chest upon which her hands were resting. She wonders what could possibly had taken over her to be so bold!
She felt Riku chuckle as one hand came to caress her cheek, lifting her head slightly to look back into his eyes.
"Are you alright?" He asked sincerely.
The simple reminder that he cared about she was enough to snap she out of her momentary bashfulness.
She hummed her affirmative, snuggling into him further. He turned on his back, allowing her to rest her head on his chest as he traced circles into her shoulder and held her close.
"Last night was incredible." He whispered, a faint trace of a smile on his lips as his gaze wandered the ceiling.
He could not help but feel all the more intimate with her after that night, all the more in love with her, if that was even possible. He could not believe that someone like her had walked into his life. With all his bitterness, misanthropy and laziness, he found himself completely uninterested in anything and anyone beyond his sets, and even those were slowly losing their sheen.
With Chiyuki, all that changed, melting away into nothing. Every touch, every kiss, every moment, he cherished it all, wanting to stretch the seconds together into infinity. A night after and the sounds of her soft moans played over and over in his mind like a broken record he had no intent on fixing.
When it comes to her, all Riku wants is to be as sweet to her as she is to him.
"Really?" She asked softly, her fingers absentmindedly wandering his chest.
He had a sex life before her, and Chiyuki knew that painfully well even if he tries to hide it. Though, of course, it did not matter, it did contribute to the reason why she was somewhat hesitant to do it with him in the first place.
What if she were not good enough for him? What if he did not enjoy it as much as he did with previous lovers? What if she simply... Had no redeeming talents on this front?
All those doubts were immediately dispelled with the uncontrollable grin on his face.
"Really." He assured her, shifting slightly to hover over her, meeting her eyes again. "You were perfect. You are perfect."
He softly nudges his nose with hers, breathing in deeply, but she is very impatient for him. She could not help it, she needed his lips on hers. With the slightest lean forwards, he was doing the same, just like magnets.
Their lips connected, sending waves of warmth through her body once again at the simplest of touches. He set her on fire and yet it calmed her, all at the same time. The feeling was utterly perplexing, but that was just love, she supposed.
The both of them were smiling into the kiss when they pull away, small giggles escaping her as his fingers began to dance on her waist.
"Riku, you know I'm ticklish. Stop it." She murmured through quiet laughter, trying to pull his relentless hand from her lower abdomen.
This only spurred the young man on, his tickling attack growing more merciless by the second.
"R-Riku! Please!" She spluttered amongst her giggles, trying to swat him off her.
Upon his dogged refusal, Chiyuki gives up on her wriggling and instead takes a different approach, reaching up and enlacing her hands in his dark hair to pull him down for another kiss. His assault stopped almost immediately as he melted into her, this position of him hovering over her incredibly familiar from the night before.
When Riku pulled back, he looked at her again, but he did not just look.
He saw her. He had seen her in her most vulnerable state and in her strongest, and everything in between. Yet, the pure adoration in his eyes when their eyes locked never faded.
The man watched as her features softened, her brows almost furrowing as he noticed what looked like to be tears in her eyes as she looked up at him.
"What is it?" He asked, sitting the both of them up and plopping her onto his lap, his arms securely around her as he looked up into her eyes. "Are you okay, my love?"
Chiyuki gave him a watery smile as she ran her thumb along his features. His cheekbones, his temples, his jaw, his lower lip, his chin, his Adam's apple, she loved every detail about him. While it did not scare her, it was still quite intense a feeling for anyone to have.
She did not know that thinking like this, being in this position was even possible before she met him. She wonders whether her parents felt so intensely towards each other as them, but she hopes that they did, because then she would be secure in the thought that she was born out of love.
"I'm... It's just..." She trailed off, getting lost in those grey irises that were fixated on her. "Nobody has ever looked at me the way you do."
Riku sighed softly in great relief, reaching a hand up to tuck her hair behind her ear and leaning over to rest their foreheads together. If it depended on him, no-one would ever look at her the way he does, and no-one would ever see what he does.
She is his.
"I love you so much, Chiyuki."
"I love you too."