Author's Note:

Otonablue = A coined term describing the inconsolable feeling you get when no matter how much you act like an adult, you're seen as just a young girl. You try and try to act grown up, making yourself blue in the process.

A banger by Atarashii Gakko!

Note:

Flashbacks and thoughts in italics

I do not condone or encourage any behaviours in this story. It is simply a fictional story.

"The Art Of Water"

CHAPTER 16

Otonablue

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This is her confession.

What do people do when they're lost? Would they be lying on their side, wondering why they were born? The world is spinning, and all around her is a blur she can't escape from. It's like looking in an old mirror that is too damaged to give you a clear reflection of yourself. She felt bad. She felt guilty. He was just her type. She knew she wasn't the only one who had admired him from afar. She's just another fan girl, a thought that is as bitter as ever. Just a woman like many others. He was a grown-ass playboy. He is even proud of it, not that she thinks it's anything to be proud of. He is cockiness personified, and God, she, Miwa Kasumi, had a hate-love relationship with overconfidence. Unfortunately, humans can both love and hate the same person. Kasumi hated him for putting her in her place and reminding her that she was still the girl who called herself "Useless Miwa" in the sports festival, that she might be scandalously, emotionally, and physically a masochist, and she hadn't recovered from it. It's not good. His confidence turned her on immensely to the point she got embarrassed about it. She felt so small, so pathetic near him, and she got a kick out of it. She wished she could be as proud of herself as he is about himself. She wished she wasn't so jealous but could no longer deny the truth. But somehow, she knew she didn't want to be him. The dawning that she, who isn't him, would feel empty trying to be him kept her from trying too hard. She wanted to be herself for once, not a copycat like Kasumi Miwa.

"I think I've already made up my mind about trusting you. You telling me not to do that is futile." She told him. She caught his upper arm and pulled him to her eye level, her hands traveling up. The nape of his neck was wet and smooth. She kissed him softly as he put his hands on her waist, more to ground himself than to steady her on her tiptoes. It's like his lips were made for her, and hers, for him. His tongue met her dry mouth like drizzles against parched earth and melded with her all-consuming passion, her infatuation that hadn't really left and had haunted her to this place. She's scared of love because she loved too much, forgetting herself in that love. She tried not to be like that, but one wrong step and she would fall into this deep well of love. "Teach me."

After a drawn-out silence, he said, "What?" but she could only focus on the movement of those delicious lips that left her mouth red and glazed in her saliva. What part of this man wasn't sensual?

"I want to love you. I've liked you for a long time." She didn't know what she expected him to give her. Instructions? Yes, please.

"Dah. You teach me." Satoru turned his back to her like he didn't want her to see that he thought she was crazy. He scratched the back of his head and talked to himself. "I hate my guts. I hate myself." She looked at him skeptically. He must've learned what it means to hate himself after his friend betrayed him. Maybe, even before that. Or he could be lying. Unlike her, Satoru seemed like a good liar. His laughing caught her attention, one of those laughs that rumbled from the pit of your belly and came out in breathless pants. "I wonder how it is to feel like a saint when you're being honest because when I do it, I end up feeling like a bad guy."

She almost laughed with him. "That's not true." His honesty made her heart flutter, but his lies might too, like how she liked him when he smiled and didn't smile. "I think you're a good guy." How can you know? She doubted inside. Being the strongest sorcerer doesn't necessarily make someone good or bad. But then, she said what she said. Let him think she's an idiot. Kasumi didn't notice the breeze that turned colder, making her shiver or anything else outside of him and her. "Gojo-Sensei..." The look on his face made her want to hide her face in shame, the kind of shame that leaves you feeling pure and Real. One corner of his lips had twitched up. She could tell he was struggling to not smirk, the darkening gaze that told her he was stripping her with his eyes, stripping her of the invisible masquerade of decorum that prevented him from reading her mind, stripping her bare.

She didn't move an inch as he stepped into the radius of her personal space. "You say it like you're a nun, and I'm a goddamn priest." She liked how dirty that sounded, but she disagreed.

"Am I a slut if I tell you that I've gotten off imagining you bending me over your desk, flipping my skirt up for the whole world to see, and spanking me till my ass turned red?" She didn't mean to say it. It just slipped out like any other truth. Is it her, or is it Akira, who is flawlessly transparent, who desires to be stripped naked under the pressure of six eyes?

"I'm not sure, but honesty suits you, Kasumi Miwa." He took her jaw between his thumb and index finger and whispered, a soft frown settling on his brows. His grip was firm. It felt like a dream come true. "Do you want me to call you a slut?"

Kasumi Miwa was always a hard worker with a good heart. But she was also an idiot.

"I'm Kasumi Ashiya." She wanted to say, but that's not what she wanted. She wanted the impossible: for Gojo Satoru to accept the woman who called herself useless and humiliated herself. Kasumi Miwa was ready to throw her pride away if it meant she would get to be near Gojo Satoru. That realization disgusted her and made her want to indulge more in this. Whatever this is. Kasumi believed everyone was exceptional in their own ways. So, if she's just another woman, it doesn't benefit her to think she's below anyone. Also, if being an entitled Ashiya will help her out of this endless misery of low self-esteem, Kasumi will give it a shot, even if it's until she can stop using these crutches and place her feet firmly on the ground. "I take that back." She said, pausing just to let him know that she was thinking. "I don't think that'll make me a slut." I'd choose to attempt to test you with strange questions over being an utter fool. Maybe, him calling her a slut might turn her on, but that's not alright. "I want you to call me Kasumi. Just Kasumi." Who knows, she might trust him more in the future. Having said that, today and the next six months are not future enough. Kasumi will need as many as three sessions of fantastical enlightenment on life, logic, and sexuality to make that happen.

Unlike what she expected, there was no awkward silence. Satoru hoisted her by the waist, gaze drifting up to lock with hers. "I can do that." He didn't laugh at her. Hah, so it's possible to get people to take you seriously. Kasumi restrained herself from grinning. She nodded with a faint smile, satisfied. Her lips stung at the contact when he pecked her lips. They had been bruised and swollen after the previous night's trysts. She might be a freak with those fantasies, but she had humanity in her. If she believed in karma, she must also be convinced she deserves respect. Gojo Satoru wasn't the problem, and it's not Gojo Satoru's problem. If she didn't respect herself, no one else would. If she asked people to insult her, they sure would. She placed her forehead on his broad shoulders and unraveled herself in dreamy imaginings, his strange allure and the hands that made her blood sing.

She sighed, barely holding it together after he put her down and moseyed past the shoji to stand in the shadows at the far end of the room.

"I'm giving you space. To think when you can." The darkness spoke to her.

"I may be younger than you, but I'm an adult." She looked at him disapprovingly. "I know what I want." She was so in love with Gojo Satoru. She thinks it's love. It's not an easy crush anymore, the ones you could swat off like beautiful insects that fascinate and terrify you. Kasumi prayed to dear heavens that she would be alright as she registered inside her the burn that never left after becoming what she was. Now, it's clear to her what it is. It's infatuation. She can't get over this man. She hated him so much for being the object of her affection. She closed her eyes, arms akimbo, and entertained her intrusive thoughts with a shriek, "Gojo Satoru, you're a stupid idiot!"

He came out of the shadows, closing the distance between them, an arm encircling her hips and cheek brushing hers. "How dare you..!" He hissed slowly, teeth scraping the nape of her neck once he said, "Turn around... I'm going to teach you a lesson." And after last night, her dying feelings had come alive like they hadn't been dying to begin with. It wasn't just because he was handsome. She liked him for the entirety of who he was. She was naturally attracted to him.

His every touch made her made her water, every squeeze and press keeping her afloat. Satoru gripped her hands tight when she pretended to squirm away with a coy smirk.

SMACK!

Her rubbed his hand over her butt where his handprint fell hard and rosy. She tried to raise her ass to feel more of him, but the hand pushing her down on her back didn't let her.

Everything about her tasted like honey. "God, I like you. Uhh.. mhm." He moaned, tongue in her mouth and cock half-deep in her cunt, huffing before he thrusted all the way to the hilt. "So wet for me already... How can I ever punish you when you're such a good girl?" His lips caught one of her nipples as he lifted her leg to adjust their position.

The dance of their hips made his mind go numb as she clenched around his raw, sturdy length, moaning as their bodies teased each other, kisses both careless and wanton. He couldn't look away as Kasumi put her hand inside her mouth and bit her fingers to muffle a moan. Her other hand worked on the knot of tension on his back, legs straddling him as he buried himself deeper into her pulsing cunt. His tongue curled around her nipple, suckling, the kneading hand on her behind, and the fingers keeping her ass cheeks apart, making her sweat. His fingers were brutal, pinching her breasts and clit, eliciting sweet sounds nobody knew she could produce.

Satoru never thought he would call her body voluptuous. But it seems like it is. He liked how easily her tits pebbled after a bruising, metallic kiss and wanted to kiss every inch of the birthmark splayed over her skin like psychedelic shadows, primal images, and feathery pride. It brought him immense pleasure to touch the beautiful lips beneath her clit, to feel them throbbing as she made a mess coming undone in his arms. He enjoyed the fullness of her breasts and the slight swelling of her belly, her cunt swollen and overflowing after he released himself inside her irresponsibly. Okay, Satoru is going to take responsibility. Even if they weren't bound by curses, customs, and formalities, his dignity wouldn't allow him to not provide for the woman he got pregnant while trying to meet his sexual needs. He only hopes that Kasumi won't have any qualms about his involvement. But he doubts she'll have much of a say in this after being deceived like this, violated before she could so much as blink or utter a single word other than asking for something she wouldn't have asked him in her right mind, which is, putting it plainly, to fuck a baby into her.

She threw her head back as he slid in and out of her, their friction like matchsticks catching flames, burning polaroids upon polaroids of identity and reason. If Satoru could think at these moments, he would've written down those thoughts because he thought he felt poetry. Or maybe he was being presented with a fragment of blinding love, transcendental romance.

He cannot ignore it. How could he not anticipate the loveliness of those thighs around his waist and the pleasing caress of Kasumi's skin over his? He wasn't a sex-crazed animal, but he isn't so sure as of now. This charade was made to make him feel different, and even if it isn't permanent, he cannot travel back in time to prevent himself from making the grave mistake of walking into the den of this perverted curse. He felt corrupted, and as someone with a penchant for discoveries and explorations, he recognized this as yet another—one whose physics mirrored the pull of addiction. Or, in other words, how can someone like Gojo Satoru, who was born with a crazy streak, deny a happening that is appallingly, phenomenally crazy. Satoru was disappointed in himself for having fallen prey to his carnal instincts like a depraved man, but Kasumi and Satoru were ingredients in alchemy. Each contact seared them into stardust, fusing them together until their heartbeats were in sync.

.

Kasumi counted the cutesy bubbles, drowsy from Satoru's hands working on her hair, eyelids made heavy by the unhurried strokes upon her scalp. Satoru's gaze settled on the softness of her face as they lay in the bathtub. The dopey expression on her face hitched up a corner of his lip. He massaged her earlobes, calling forth the languid roll of her eyes, and patted her cheeks to keep her awake. Her eyes didn't stay open even after his long-drawn-out sigh. "Ouch!" She jolted and hissed, holding her face, rubbing the spot on her cheeks where he pinched. "You're always pinching me." She mouthed with a sharp inhale, looking up at him with a flushed face.

He took her hand, placed it on his pectorals, and dipped his head to quip, "You can pinch me too."

His peace treaty went ignored as Kasumi observed him with the same curious energy of sightseeing tourists like this would be the last time she could see his striking irises up close. "What kind of woman do you like, Satoru?"

Gojo lathered more soap into her skin, running his hands all over her sides adorned with marks of their shared recklessness. "Are you following in Yuki's footsteps? Shall I say tall women with big asses?" He said, splashing water over her and blowing a puff of foam onto her nose. Utahime it is. She thought.

It was one of those days where you'd feel like you've grown an extra ten years inside your body. "Oh..." Kasumi sniffed, nuzzling his neck in retaliation. She couldn't get over the joy of touching him. Without his Limitless, he wasn't untouchable.

"I'm kidding. I like women who have an air of mystery around them. I also like good girls with bangs." Utahime. Utahime. Utahime. "What about you? What is your type? Nerds or golden retrievers like me?" She imagined a bulb full of liquid light, the rays of which submerge you in an eerie sense of weightlessness.

"You're not a golden retriever. You're a hybrid." She commented. "There is a dream I like to revisit because of how pleasant and surreal it is: a steamy romance in a beautiful place—like somewhere in romantic Sicily or rural Vietnam. But in that dream, I know such a place doesn't exist." Kasumi bit her bottom lip, eyeing Satoru briefly, unwittingly seeking assurance to continue. Indeed, he was listening intently. "It's like inception..." Just for the record, goofy is not a mood Kasumi was well acquainted with.

He folded his arms and fixed her with a dispassionate frown. "Really. If you're gonna randomly make up a story, the least you could do is surprise me."

Kasumi sputtered and blushed, flailing her arms up like a fish out of water after her display of short-lived cheekiness. "Okay, I exaggerated a bit. But I was not lying about the dream."

He blew a lock of hair out of his face, catching her restless wrists and pinning them against his chest. Strong legs moved under her and dragged her to his lap, startling her. "I want you to describe. How steamy was it? Did someone pop your cherry in a dream before I did it in real life?"

It was appeasing to think that someone, perhaps someone more capable than her, might've done what they could and won over the situation she was in. It gives her hope, thinking what happened to her could've happened to anybody else. "Many times."

Satoru drew back with a gasp. "Many times." He bit her ear playfully, digits walking over her belly, light steps like a thief's. At the first pinch, she wheezed. "Many times, you say? ?"

The second poke had her jumping out of his arms or trying to do so, but she needed to be quicker. Satoru's offhand grin didn't help. "Don't you dare, Satoru..." Her warnings fell flat. He was deft, a man on a mission. The third one came, and she lost it. The counterattack was obliterating. She lurched and screamed, guffaws erupting out of her chest.

However, if it's something that can only happen to her, that must mean she's special. Kasumi took a few moments to gloat over her invented delusion, the feeling felt by flowers sprouting between cracks in the tiles before they get crunched beneath the filthy soles of someone's boot. "Wah..! Whahaah—Hahahahha!" Her tummy hurt, and her eyes watered from laughing. She tried to catch her breath and attack him back, only to buckle down from the onslaught of tickles. "Ssahh—SATOROO! !"

.

He considered himself a respectable person, which is why he didn't lose his composure when his friends annoyed him, which again is why Inumaki loathed it when he began to slip into hysterics at Yasha's insistence. He has to marry Kasumi? What was that? He needs to clean his ears because he can't hear a thing.

"You're kidding me. You're telling me Gojo-Sensei disappeared, and you want me to believe it." He shook his head in disbelief, giggling again. "And I don't want to marry her. I've met her before, but I don't know her as a person."

He blinked mockingly at Yasha, who gave him a once-over from his position on the stone bench. "You think, as the heir of the Inumaki clan, you're going to marry someone of your choice? Keep dreaming!" Yasha said. "You know what would happen if we let this continue. Someone else would marry her, and the hierarchy would be disrupted. They're planning to release her without him. Can you imagine a Zenin marrying her? Gojo is the only right option, but he's not here. What we need right now is a safe replacement."

Inumaki clicked his tongue, slightly ruffled by what he heard. "Yasha-san, where is Miwa. I have to talk to her."

"Were you even listening? I just said she was confined along with him."

"You said kidnapped. Not confined. You're not even telling me the whole story. What if Gojo Sensei is actually on vacation for a few days? It's not unusual for him to do that."

Yasha glanced to the side to hide a twitching eyebrow. It wasn't in his plans to go ballistic, but this brat was starting to try his patience. "For fuck's sake, Inumaki," He stood up, making Inumaki swallow as he towered over him and poked a pointer finger into his chest. "I know the other reason why you don't want to marry. And why you don't want to marry at all." He stared Inumaki down and poked his chest again, this time with a withering scoff. "But I swear to god, if you don't participate in The Hunt AND win it, I'll tell your parents about that secret Grindr profile of yours: that you're gayer beyond their imagination!"

Face paling, Inumaki fumed silently, "Stalker!"

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