It'd been fun at the beginning, making a game out of it.
Ate snacks in bed for the crumbs, uncapped toothpaste squeezed in the wrong place. Left half drunk glasses of water on every tabletop, untidying as he went around their flat. All the small things that bother her.
At first Mimi'd followed in close step, pacing animatedly with lips pressed firmly closed. "You'll have to speak up, sweetheart, I can't hear you," he'd say, and her arms would fly into the air, silent tantrum, punching at nothing as she rushed to clear the mess in his wake.
This gets old after a while, or at least Taichi gets bored sooner than most. So he crowdsources new ideas until even Takeru draws the line, throwing in the white flag after Taichi had Koushiro set everything wired in the house to voice control only. Koushiro's guilt is so pronounced he caves within the hour and records all the necessary commands onto voice notes he tries to sneak Mimi by text, but one of the rules is she can't use her phone to dictate instruction.
"That's cruel," Sora'd protested on the third night of the weeklong bet that was Mimi's vow of silence, having needed precisely three full days for her scandalized horror over the entire premise to simmer down from wordless blind fury to very vocal irritation.
"You don't live with her," Taichi'd replied.
An odd justification of some kind, and one that had Hikari washing her hands of the imminent disaster while Yamato just rolled his eyes, "You won't for much longer, if you keep this shit up."
This possibility seemed an improbability, his having pulled off a good bit of successively more creative plots in their relationship thus far, and even before then, without extreme repercussions. She gave back as good as she got, too, historically, which he's quite proud about, how they mutually inspired one another to new heights of insufferable juvenilia. Everyone thought her the definition of innocence, nary a hair out of place, lovely, polite, and sweet spirited. Elegant, ethereal, immaculate. True enough a lot of times, but he knew better. Wouldn't have fallen so hard if he hadn't, their first dare in fact their first kiss against the shoe lockers they were meant to be cleaning out on the last day of term. A deserving punishment for having been separately and habitually late too often the whole year, her for oversleeping every one of her five morning alarms, him for loitering too long at the intersection of their streets, waiting to walk her to school, pretend he'd only just gotten to the corner.
That's also when he first began learning all about what that pretty mouth of hers could do. Soft bow, curved lips, small tongue. Knew each pucker and pout and both dimples, had a taste for every kind of gloss and stain she'd ever tried on. His skin color-marked to test the shape her lips made wherever his clothes could hide them, carrying her on him all day. The tantalizing boldness of her choices in their private games maybe what he likes most, but it goes deeper than that, for him, if he's forced to be honest.
And he was honest about it precisely one time. Before they'd gotten serious, though close enough he couldn't avoid it. It was halfway through a long holiday with her parents when the wine red kiss-shaped mark she'd bit into his collarbone the morning she'd left finally flaked over, and he'd gotten so upset he didn't answer her messages for the rest of the week. Couldn't tell her why, after a teary phone confrontation when she came home, shamed as he listened to her shift from anger to worry to fear to pain to doubt to sorrow, himself the cause for all of it, and no good excuse. I can't not have you not quite right, so he didn't try. Even Jou mad at him for that one, out of all of them the least able to tolerate Mimi crying.
It had been months before Taichi'd told her why, and badly, words all mangled, after she'd showed up on his doorstep to tell him to end it or start over. Still couldn't think of anything better than I can't not have you with me , but tried that time, the least she deserved. A core part of himself permanently outside his body in her, open to two whole worlds' worth of things he can't stop or fix or shield. This in itself not the problem, because he doesn't need to belong to her, or her to him. Wouldn't dream of trying to ground her, hold her to the earth, the brightest comet. Just don't fade from me.
For once, left her speechless. Fucked him in her four-inch redbottom heels in his entranceway, then moved into his apartment the same weekend, made things official. Abandoned him to ridicule when their friends teased him for taking so long, lips curled into the most knowing smile anytime he'd look over at her, the naughty sort that disappeared in front of anyone else. That knowledge alone worth however long this might last, which, if the warnings are to be believed, wouldn't be very long now, testing the limits of her forgiving affection.
She's wearing only gloss today (the last day, so he's being particularly giddy), a rosy pink that glitters in the kitchen lights. Glaring at him after the fourth time he asks her to tell him when while spooning sugar into her coffee, inevitably drowning out the ratio to such tooth-rotting degree even she can't tolerate it, pours it out. Taichi shrugs, puts out a fifth mug, using a fresh cup each time just to piss her off more with the accumulated clutter. "You know, I'm really going to miss these morning chats."
Mimi leans against the edge of the counter. Crosses her arms under her chest, stretching out an already snug sweater, and he's eighteen again waiting on the corner of her street, forcing himself to look away, still chuckling. Not that she's ever made such a thing easy. He'd spent most of eighteen looking at her.
Shakes the sugar canister, exaggerates the sympathetic frown he tosses her. "Guess we're all out. Just cream, then?" Knowing what she'll say, how she has never been able to drink anything without that touch of sweetness.
She exhales through her nose, perfect lips pressed tight together. Watching him with an unblinking focus that has him pause the joke. Altogether rather impressed she's made it this far, every condition of the bet neatly preserved right until the end, good girl. Still, Taichi wouldn't be himself if he didn't drag this out right down to the second. Glances at the wall clock, then back at her, full grin. Five minutes and he gets to hear her voice at last, first time in a whole week. Prepared for the torrential downpour, but mature enough to admit he misses her smart mouth. He'll make smarter bets next time, ones that don't cost so much.
"Well?" and leans forward from the other side of the kitchen island. Turns his face, presents her with his right ear. "Can't hear you, Mimi."
Another slow exhale, and then a resolution. Pulls herself upright, back straight. Walks around to the fridge he'd opened, pushes the door closed. Looking up at him with such a serenely calm expression, the hairs on the back of his neck stand to attention. She's a whole head and then some shorter in bare feet, but nothing demure about her.
Taichi blinks, twice, slow on the uptake more times than he cares to admit, about certain things. Trying to pinpoint precisely when the game changed. "No cream?"
She smiles, and he's a goner.
Has him breathless and out of his briefs, joggers pulled down just enough, with a speedy if practiced familiarity, his lower back pressed into the edge of the counter. Makes a thoroughly surrendered sort of sound, drawn from the very bottom of his chest, when she starts with soft kisses teasing the insides of his thighs, alternating between slow licks and bites. More little marks, just between them.
Braces himself with both elbows on the countertop when she wraps her small hand around him, lashes fanning over high apple round cheeks, heady and focused. The only one she looks at like this, a fact he likes so much he has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from saying so when she begins to take him into her mouth. Hips canting forward just barely at the deep slide down her throat, but knows not to move until she allows it, their private games. Sets the pace she likes the most, because it undoes him the best, a groaning, blushing mess above her. Feels the first spasms on her tongue before he does, headfirst, pursed lips pulling off of him in a satisfied smile.
For once, leaves him speechless. Looks right up at him. A single word, her first to him in seven days, right down to the second.
"Come."