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He’s a blur of movement, gradually taking shape in your peripheral vision; a hooded figure, barefoot, cloaked-and-daggered.
At first, your interest is piqued by little more than a sparsity of colour: where the bustling throng he is attempting to push his way through is bright and gaudy, he is conspicuously dull and tempered. Next, as your curiosity — and your caution, as well — rises, you can’t help but wonder at his bare feet on the vibrant, sun-warmed mosaic (they’re the only discernible parts of him that don’t look inordinately out of place in the early morning rabble, after all).
A flash of an ankle.
Far too pale.
Almost delicate, but not quite.
Not a thief, then, you ultimately conclude, as he narrowly manages to avoid collision with a wayward camel and a cart full of dried figs. Although he is pretty light on his feet.
Just as you decide to lower your guard, his gaze suddenly meets yours across the teeming marketplace. As if startled by your intent regard, he immediately halts in his tracks. Underneath his otherwise remarkably unremarkable hood, it then turns out, he is wearing a wine-coloured veil with intricately embroidered little details. Its beaded edge sits fairly high on the bridge of his nose, as decorative as it is decorous and demure, and it matches the colour of his kohl-rimmed eyes — and what little you can see of his meticulously styled hair — perfectly.
A dancer, you amend. And one of high standing, at that. Just like Nagisa, back home.
In motion once more, he — equally intently — approaches your stall. His piercing stare soon rakes over your wares, while your own study of him inevitably anchors itself to the leather drawstring bag clutched tightly in the palm of one of his hands (and his neatly painted fingernails, as well). He is clearly wealthy. Fastidious. Pampered. And, in spite of the veil covering the majority of his face, he doesn’t appear to mind your scrutiny at all.
“This is impressive work,” he comments, eventually, as he’s running the pad of a finger across the polished surface of one of your most recent creations: a light brown comb sitting on its matching base, fashioned out of a single piece of Mulberry wood and finished with a layer of paraffin wax. The entirety of the comb itself resembles a black kite taking flight; the feathers of its long falcon-like wings morph into fine teeth, while the rest of its body makes up the shaft. The base has been sculpted into the shape of a tall wave crashing to shore. It’s one of your best pieces yet, according to Makoto. “Is it your own?”
You nod. “It’s Mulberry,” you feel obliged to tell him (with a considerably thicker, far less fragmented-sounding coastal accent), after a beat. “Nice and solid. Durable.”
For a moment, he merely hums in response. He’s no longer clasping the collar of his cloak quite as rigidly as he was before, though, which allows you to make out a little more of the elaborate choker-style necklace — with an array of tiny little diamonds, a row of dangling pearls, and a single red gemstone at the heart of it all — he's hiding underneath. And if he takes notice of the sudden widening of your eyes, he is careful not to let that show.
“You’re very talented,” he insists, instead. “I’ve never seen anyone offer this level of detail around here before. Even the finest work of our local woodcarvers pales in comparison. Significantly, I dare say.”
You don’t particularly care for his honeyed words, but the warmth in his voice — and the openly solicitous smile he is now offering you through his veil — reduces the sting of your own quite a bit. “Is this an attempt to wrangle a better price out of me...?”
Eyes positively sparkling with mirth, he easily returns, “Surely I don’t look like a haggler to you.”
No, he doesn’t.
Not even by a long shot, in fact.
Like a moth to a flame, your gaze swiftly finds its way back to the neat little row of pearls curtaining his collarbones and the equally compelling promise of bare skin below; long enough for the latter to noticeably colour underneath your — all but baited — consideration, even.
He’s beautiful, underneath all of those trimmings and trappings. He knows it, too. And whatever else he may be, he evidently isn’t a haggler. Nor, it seems, is he anything like a mere dancer.
Well.
Not primarily, at least.
“No,” you begrudgingly grant him, then, out loud, as you finally manage to pry your eyes away from his chest. He no longer seems to be smiling at you quite as freely as he was before, though. As a result, your next words to him come out sounding rather rueful (and undeniably forward, to boot). “You don’t look like any customer I’ve ever served before.”
The veil may go a long way to conceal his deepening flush, but his own perusal of your exposed midriff is a far less covert matter; and so is his apparent approval, at that. “Well,” he half-counters, half-concedes, as the smouldering heat in the pit of your belly races to match the burn in his cheeks. “You’re still dragging your feet, aren’t you?” And then, in the very same breath, he mischievously adds, “Go on. I’ll have that Mulberry comb, if you please.”
“You haven’t even asked me for a price yet,” you somehow manage to retort, right over the racket of a nearby pack-mule’s disgruntled braying and its owner's altercation with another passer-by, without budging a single centimetre. As an afterthought, you tack on: “Sir.”
His smile only widens in response, of course. “Keep the change,” he tells you, just about as drily as your mouth is beginning to feel, as he tosses you the little pouch your eyes had so habitually been drawn to before. Its — expertly sanded and buffed — leather is smooth to the touch. And its contents are clearly substantial, as well. “Talent of your calibre more than warrants a tip.”
Just like that, the steady din of the marketplace appears to have vanished within an instant. In its place, there is only the deafening roar of your heartbeat; quickly gaining momentum. And Makoto’s frantic voice, somewhere amidst the clamour, desperately trying to convince you to think this through. That you might’ve made a mistake. And that you could soon find yourself wishing you’d simply crossed paths with a petty thief, after all.
A swindler.
Or a clever streetwalker, even.
Rather than the proverbial black swan — positively preening, really — before you.
“You’ve never been fooled by a pretty face before, though. And Chappie will see you home long before any of this even has a chance to catch up with you, won’t she?” the surrogate Makoto lingering somewhere at the back of your mind promptly sees fit to remind you, then, as if he hadn't just been encouraging your alarm a moment before, “Just keep your wits about you, Haru-chan. And your sigil, too. Maybe.”
At last, the familiar cacophony of the marketplace returns.
You inhale.
Exhale.
And as you do so, you consider your would-be patron’s unusually pale skin (and the sudden bloom of colour a simple, utterly backhanded compliment had so easily managed to invoke upon it). His bare feet, oddly devoid of obvious calluses. His perplexing attire. The necklace. Those neatly polished fingernails. The way he hadn’t hesitated to address you in a dialect that he shouldn’t have any reason to be familiar with at all, no matter how rusty and out-dated some of it may have sounded. The fact that he has clearly been educated. Lettered, like you. And how he’s still smiling at you now: a little lopsided, far too keen, but full of warmth and something — a little fragile, maybe, but very real — you aren’t entirely sure you even have a name for.
Alright.
Fine.
It’s surprisingly easy, then, to accept the outrageous offer you’ve just been made.
For now, at least.
Except, after wordlessly wrapping up his purchase in a layer or two of Makoto’s discarded scraps of undyed cotton and tying the ends together in a tidy little loop, you can no longer resist asking him a question of your own. “How do I address you, though...?”
His smile instantly falters, at that. It makes him look like a completely different person, and not at all like the errant riff-raff you originally suspected him of being. “Have I given you enough to secure your silence?” he demands to know, first. “You see, I’d really rather not have to involve — ”
“I’m hardly in the business of peddling dirt,” you stiffly inform him; in favour of letting him finish that — idle, surely — threat, if nothing else. “And I wasn’t planning on sticking around here for long, either. A week, at most.” Lastly, something in his disconcertingly expectant stare compels you to add, “To replenish supplies for the trek home.”
Once again, he hesitates.
Even so, curiosity — or something like it, at least — quickly gets the better of him: “You’re heading back to Sano?”
Since he doesn’t seem inclined to accept the little bundle you’ve prepared for him any time soon (or answer your question, for that matter), you opt to slide it across the narrow table of your stall instead. Very purposefully. Towards his neatly folded hands, all the way at its very edge. “Iwatobi, actually,” you eventually correct him, because it’s the done thing. And because you don’t need to ask him how he’d known. Not anymore, at least. Your undiluted vernacular — in combination with the string of colourful little cowries decorating the handle of your waterskin, perhaps — had obviously given your roots away. “It’s a little ways east off Sano.”
He nods. It’s a jerky, involuntary-looking kind of thing. And as soon as he catches himself at it, a whole array of fleeting expressions suddenly passes across his face.
Self-reproach.
Agitation.
Longing.
“‘Haruka’,” you find yourself offering him, then, on little more than an impulse. Along with an outstretched hand, and an unexpectedly effortless curl of your lips. “My name. It’s Haruka. Nanase Haruka.”
This time, he doesn’t hesitate. Nor, it seems, does he suspect. “It’s a pleasure, Haruka,” he says, consistently formal and informal, as he traces one of the lines in the palm of your proffered hand with the very same finger he'd used to stroke the Mulberry comb. “You can call me ‘Rin’.”
And so — right in the face of propriety, a twinge of conscience, and Ryuugazaki-sensei’s numerous attempts at instilling some sense of decorum into you — you do.
“‘Rin’,” you echo, just as plainly, as he finally presses your palms together in something akin a little more to a proper handshake. Not unlike his grip, his skin is even softer — and warmer — than you’d expected it to be. That lopsided little smile of his is slowly finding its way back onto his face, too. And when he tentatively places his free hand down over the back of your own, making it abundantly clear that he has yet to find you wanting, you can’t quite keep yourself from asking him, “Are you free to escape the crowds with us for a while?” With a jerky nod in Chappie’s direction, you hastily clarify: “My partner might be persuaded to give you a ride in exchange for a couple of scritches. That’ll keep those bare feet of yours off the ground, at least.”
“Where to…?”
“Anywhere,” you decide, on another whim, as you reluctantly extract your hand from his increasingly intimate hold. “You’re the local, aren’t you? It’s your call.”
Understandably torn, he — by mere rote, it seems — glances over his shoulder. To the dour-faced glazier touting his wares across the promenade. The startled, gangly youth hastily feigning interest in a set of aquamarine goblets and plates. And beyond. Where Samezuka’s rather garish trade centre ends, and the imposing walls of its equally ostentatious palace begin.
Oh.
Oh, no.
No. Surely not. There’s no way —
And then, completely oblivious to your inner turmoil, he says: “D’you feel like going for a dip, Haruka?”
🐪
You quickly pack up the rest of your goods, get Chappie fully saddled up again, and help your unexpected passenger — Rin, if that truly is his name — clamber on to the front seat. The lack of a second set of stirrups doesn’t exactly make that last part an easy feat to accomplish, though, but Chappie tolerantly stays in place without needing to be hobbled either way.
“That’s it, girl,” you soothingly murmur into the lighter fur of her muzzle, then, all the while attempting to avert your eyes from Rin’s perfectly toned legs (until he has successfully managed to rearrange the swathes of his lengthy cloak over them once more, at the very least). “Let’s show this smooth-talker just how charming you can be, hmm...?”
“She does seem to have better manners than you do, I’ll grant you that,” Rin teases, just as lowly, as he leans forward to give Chappie’s neck a couple of grateful strokes of his own. “What’s her name?”
Feathers barely ruffled, you waste no further time in settling into the empty seat behind him and taking the reins. “It’s ‘Chappie’,” you tell the back of his hood, a little belatedly, as you — on yet another whim, really — hook your arms around his shoulders and drag them tailwards (until he’s safely leaning back into your mock-embrace, without so much as a hint of reluctance or hesitation). “And she’s about to launch you right over her head, if you aren’t careful.”
As if to prove your point, Chappie promptly unfolds her hind legs.
Scrabbling for your wrists, Rin gasps, “Woah, I wasn’t expecting her to be this eager to get up!”
And then, while Chappie does actually take her sweet time getting the rest of her feet under her (and gravity steadily draws the two of you even more snugly together, besides), he’s laughing. A genuine, full-bodied type of thing. Filled with pure joy, and exhilaration.
“That’s it, girl,” you repeat, albeit a whole lot more breathily than before, as Chappie finally rights herself completely. “It’s been a while since we’ve had someone along for the ride, hasn’t it?”
Hearing that, Rin abruptly lets his head loll back onto your left shoulder. And, then, he lets his lips — overlaid with the silky, gossamer-thin fabric of his veil — lightly graze the underside of your jaw, as he asks, “Has it, really...?”
It’s not a kiss.
You know it isn’t.
And yet, you can’t help but respond as if it were: with an involuntary tightening of your grip around Chappie’s reins (as well as Rin’s rather bony shoulders), and an equally telling, “Long enough.”
This time, he doesn’t laugh. Nor does he tease. Instead, he simply says, “Sounds like it’s about time you took a plunge, then.”
And so — with a swift, compact little command to Chappie — you do.
🐪
Rin’s directions expertly see the three — four, if the beanstalk of a boy you’d last spotted by a watering hole hasn’t fallen too far behind yet — of you through the fertile plains surrounding Samezuka’s main settlement, into the steadily shrinking shade at the foot of the Samezukan Summits, and right up to the narrow intersection of two opposing cliffsides.
There, underneath a large banner bearing the crest of the House of Mikoshiba, a lone sentry appears to be guarding a wrought iron gate. He’s roughly of a height with you and your passenger, fairly well-built, with short-cropped hair and an awfully bushy set of eyebrows. “What’s with the humpy ride today, Shirin-sama? Has that terrible steed of yours taken a chunk out of one of the stable boys again?” he wants to know, apparently, as he’s scrabbling down from his post atop the remains of a truly ancient-looking wall. A surprisingly short-lived glance in your direction later, he bluntly adds, “And who’s this, anyway?”
Determined to pay the sentry even less heed than he is paying you, you decide to try and seek some answers — directly from Rin’s treacherous lips — of your own: “‘Shirin-sama’...?”
Rin, of course, simply pretends not to have heard your question. “I fail to see how that is any of your business, Nakagawa,” he replies, in an accent that perfectly matches the sentry’s, instead. “Just open up the gate already, will you? It’s nearing high noon, and this wretched cloak is hardly doing me any favours.”
Without further delay, the sentry readily sets about clearing your path. He does, however, give the curved dagger at your hip an extremely dubious look once he’s done. And then he asks Rin, “Couldn’t you at least wait until Uozumi’s shift to get yourself maimed, though?”
This time, you cannot maintain your indifference. “If I wanted to — ”
“I’ll be fine, you idiot,” Rin smoothly cuts in, there, with a thoroughly disarming little touch to your right knee. “Get back to your post, before you really tick Chappie’s owner off. Apparently she’s got a mean right hook, and she will spit cud at you.”
With an amused snort, the sentry once again does as he’s told. Albeit not without an equally clear warning (and a sweeping, beady-eyed survey of the surrounding terrain), though. “At least try to show a little more compassion, Shirin-sama! It’ll be my funeral if you ever get caught unawares, y’know? Or caught, period.”
And then Rin is suddenly urging Chappie onward, using the commands you — unwisely, it seems — taught him along the way, and gaily getting in a parting shot of his own: “Then you’d better continue to make sure I don’t, hadn’t you?”
🐪
Beyond the gate (and the foreboding words of its guard), the distinctive rumble of a waterfall beckons you further — and further, still — down an erratically meandering path. What begins as little more than the faintest of whispers soon grows loud enough to drown out the staccato of your heartbeat entirely, reverberating through the gorge and echoing off of the elaborate tilework beneath Chappie’s feet.
With the hood of Rin’s cloak now cradling his shoulders in your stead, practically everything around you seems to have turned red: Rin’s neatly braided hair tickling the bridge of your nose as you dare to lay a hungry kiss — or two, three, four — down upon the irresistible skin at his nape, the towering cliffs on either side of you, and the fire you have undoubtedly been playing with all morning.
Rin lets you do it, though.
Again, and again.
Until he’s reclining against your chest once more, his long fingers securely fastened around your wrists all over, and — with a rough, gradually thickening coastal accent — he’s panting, “Starting to feel a bit peckish, are you...? We’re almost there, I promise.”
Since he clearly isn’t bothered by the idea of sating this kind of appetite with you, there’s no point in feigning impassivity. “Yes,” you find yourself breathing into one of his collarbones, then, right underneath the rows of dazzling little diamonds of his necklace. The skin there, too, is steadily reddening again now. “You wanted me to quit dragging my feet, didn’t you?”
He shivers.
Says, just loudly enough to be heard over the noise of the water, “I still do.”
And then he’s suddenly twisting around in his seat to face you directly, pressing his chest up against yours so firmly that you can easily make out the drag of his hardened nipples through the layers of fabric separating his bare skin from your own, and bringing your unresisting hands up to hover — barely a hair’s breadth away from the beaded edge of his veil, if that — over the worst of his blush.
A single question seems to fill the remaining space between you, then, as his kohl-rimmed eyes make their way to your mouth. ‘Do you want a taste of this, too…?’
You do.
You can’t — and simply won’t, even — deny it.
And yet.
“You’re not just wearing this for show,” you half-protest, half-presume, even as you allow the backs of your fingers to lightly brush the unshrouded parts of his cheekbones. “It isn’t my place to remove it, then. Not in your stead. Not here, out in the open. And certainly not with the intentions I have.”
Rin doesn’t attempt to deny anything, either. Instead, he allows the motion of Chappie’s gait to bring him even closer. Until his warm breath is caressing your face, and he’s softly pressing his lips against yours in the most contradictory of kisses you’ve ever been given: as passionate as it is restrained, and as openly wanton as it is chaste.
“How very noble of you,” he’s whispering, then, right through the — slightly moistened, by now — fabric of his veil and into your slackening mouth. Like it’s both a compliment and a curse, all neatly rolled into one, somehow. His accent, too, is a near-perfect blend at this point; an oddly appealing chorus of overlong, lilting vowels and distinctly more clipped little ones. “A man of such refined conduct won’t have any trouble averting his hungry eyes until it is — marginally — less improper for him to look upon me, will he...?” Another maddeningly light kiss later, he presses on, “I’m not about to keep this stuffy thing on for a second longer than I absolutely have to, d’you hear me?”
🐪
“Careful, now,” Rin tells you, a little later, as he’s guiding you — by the elbow, mostly, along with every other part of your body that happens to strike his fancy — away from the relative safety of Chappie’s saddle and up a series of rather creaky steps. “Take ‘em one by one, alright? There’s only a couple left.”
“Your conduct sure could use some work,” you complain, blindly slipping a hand into the now wide-open space at the front of his cloak in search of retribution for a particularly bold pinch to your inner thigh. Inside, you find the dangling ends of his necklace grazing the sweat-slickened skin of his — firm — abdomen. Along with an utterly defenceless little navel. And just below that, yet another set of pearl-lined chains. “I can practically hear you grinning from ear to ear.”
As expected, Rin merely kisses the burgeoning scowl right off of your lips. Skin on skin, this time. Wet, and slippery. And so good, your foot nearly misses the next step altogether.
You gasp.
Open your eyes, instinctively.
And manage to catch a glimpse — just that, and nothing more — of the perfectly round little ‘O’ of Rin’s mouth, shiny and slick with saliva, just a split-second before he hastily tugs your headdress down over your eyes.
“Ah-ah,” he scolds you, then, on the tail end of an alarmingly infectious giggle. “No peeping, Haruka.” And, much like an afterthought, he belatedly adds, “No cracking your skull on these stairs, either! How would I even begin to explain that to Ai when he finally catches up? And Chappie would probably tear me to shreds, as well.”
You don’t need to ask who — or what, better yet — Ai is. Instead, you press, “‘Haru’.”
“Huh...?”
“Since you’re letting me call you ‘Rin’, I thought — ”
“You think that’s just a nickname?” he sharply cuts in, there, in a tone of voice you haven’t heard him use before: a little offended, agitated, and very clearly hurt. “Look, I do appreciate the — ”
An unannounced kiss seemed to work out pretty well for him a moment ago, and it works the exact same way for you now (even if your aim is a little ways off, and it ends up landing on the tip of his nose rather than the centre of his mouth). Rin instantly falls silent. Helpfully meets you in the middle, even. And then he is suddenly kissing you.
Properly.
Over and over. And over, again.
Until your roving hand has successfully managed to deliver a retaliatory pinch to one of his — pierced, it turns out — nipples. Or a twist, rather. And your voice comes out sounding embarrassingly hoarse, when you finally find the respite to ask him, “It’s not, then...?”
“It isn’t,” Rin confirms, equally huskily, as he — a little sheepishly, perhaps — nudges your headdress back into place. And when you obediently keep your eyes shut for him, the pad of your thumb now thoroughly probing the bejewelled ends of the metal rod passing straight through his skin, he rewards you with a quick kiss to the centre of your forehead. “My parents named me after the bitterly cold night I was born at the end of. Just ‘Rin’, you know? Frigid, dignified. Fifteen strokes. With the ‘small’ radical. A little girly, maybe. Like yours.”
You don’t take the bait. “And ‘Shirin’?”
He sighs, another warm gust of air fanning out across your face. And then, almost too quietly to be heard over the gushing water, he divulges, “The one that’s written with the characters for aspiration and companion. Not grove and poetry, I’m afraid.”
“Longed-for companion.”
Again, he doesn’t bother to deny it.
Nor does he tell you how he ended up being called something like that, by a boorish sentry in Samezuka, an entire fortnight’s worth of travel from the rocky shores he — clearly, despite his apparent disinclination to reveal anything else about his background to you — still longs for himself.
Instead, he simply says, “I was going to tell you.”
And it doesn’t even sound like a lie, either.
🐪
“Alright, I think I’m about as ready as I’ll ever be,” Rin decides, at last, as he gives your elbow a parting little squeeze. “Go ahead and open your eyes.”
Just like that, you suddenly find yourself standing at the threshold of an extremely lavishly decorated tent; a truly massive, extremely lavishly decorated tent.
There’s an oaken table, for starters, that could easily seat a dozen guests. Multiple bookcases, all in birchwood, housing an extensive collection of leather-bound tomes. A liquor cabinet, made out of rosewood and stained glass. Paraffin lamps in various styles and sizes, casting the richly dyed fabric of the walls and ceiling — which is nearly thick enough to block out the light of the sun, its scorching heat, and the noise of the waterfall entirely — in a suitably intimate glow. Rug, after rug, after rug; strewn across the floor, seemingly at random, and littered with stools and incredibly comfortable looking cushions.
There is a bed, too. Mahogany, with a latticed headboard. Topped with an elaborately embroidered duvet, surrounded by gold-trimmed curtains, and flanked by a large pair of porcelain vases.
And — warily, of course — watching you take all of it in, with his discarded cloak pooled haphazardly around his feet and his sullied veil nowhere to be seen, there is Rin.
“Just ‘Rin’, you know?’” somehow, despite it all.
Far too pale.
Almost delicate, but not quite.
Beautiful, still, underneath all of the trimmings and trappings of another name. Another life, deep within the confines of the palace walls. Another man.
“Rin — ”
“You know who all of this belongs to, don't you?” Rin asks you, then, as plainly as the dread — and the defiance, as well — writ large across his bare face. His accent no longer sounds any different from your own, now. It should be a triumph, but it isn't. “It’s pretty difficult to miss the banner at the gate.”
You swallow.
Nod.
And, because you’re already well past the point of no return by now, remind him, “I’m taking that plunge.”
🐪
Once Rin lowers himself down — on his knees, right at your feet — amidst the ripples of his cloak, an errant ray of sunlight streaming in through a gap at the entrance catching on a studded section of his necklace and setting the skin around it all aglow, another question suddenly surfaces:
“Can I...?”
With those striking eyes of his trained solely on your groin (and his pupils dilated so widely they’re almost overtaking the colour of his irises completely, too), you couldn’t possibly deny him anything.
So, you don’t even try.
Instead, you wordlessly remove the fine-spun silk Makoto had given you for your twentieth from around your hips and allow it — along with the dagger it had unfailingly kept anchored there, ever since — to fall to the carpet beneath your feet with a dull little thud.
Next, your belt meets the same fate.
Your waterskin.
The shawl covering your shoulders (and the short, ink-black top you’d been wearing underneath).
And, lastly, your headdress.
Permission well and truly granted, Rin quickly takes over from you there: he untucks the pleated ends of the fabric meeting at your navel with a heartfelt tug, repeats the process at the small of your back, and promptly leans back to feast his eyes on the clear outline of your rapidly hardening cock through the single remaining layer of cotton shielding it from view.
He eventually pulls that down, as well. And then, without pause, he undoes the twin little knots at the centre of your waist, to leave you all adrift — wearing nothing but your armbands and a simple, beaded necklace — in a pool of fabric of your own.
Suddenly, his hands are everywhere.
Caressing every last centimetre of your thighs, hips, and stomach.
Exploring an old scar on the inside of your left knee.
Tracing all of your tan lines.
Playing with the coarse, dark hair at the base of your — fully erect, by now — cock.
Stroking you firmly enough to drag your foreskin back over the ridge of your glans.
Fondling your scrotum.
And, occasionally, applying just the right amount of pressure to your taint to steal your breath and make you — to no effect, whatsoever — shift your weight from foot to foot.
Meanwhile, their owner keeps sneaking furtive little glances up at you through his eyelashes. Coyly, at times. Genuinely self-conscious, at others.
Approval-seeking, still.
Unsure.
Nervous.
And then, all of a sudden, you finally understand. He's all — false — bravado, isn’t he...? An odd dichotomy between confidence and insecurity, impulse and restraint, wanton and ‘companion’.
A loyal consort.
Until now.
Until you.
It’s pretty obvious, actually. In hindsight.
That deep flush of his, spreading all the way down to his collarbones. His fragile, lopsided little smile. The clear hesitation he’d shown to leave the palace’s shadow with you, initially. The — genuine, above all — request to keep your eyes averted from his freshly unveiled face (and the perfectly round little ‘O’ of his mouth, of course, when you’d momentarily failed to do so). The hot, and the cold. The humming and hawing. Dread, and defiance.
“I think I’m about as ready as I’ll ever be.”
This is all still glaringly new to him, isn’t it?
You, on the other hand, are no stranger to fervid trysts like this. You’ve brought plenty of others to your bed before. You’ve even followed a couple into theirs, as well. Servants coveting your favour (or a chip of your old block, perhaps), mostly, but also quite a few peers. Lecturers and counsellors, too. Fellow travellers, both named and unnamed. Chambermaids. Stablehands. Friends. And, sometimes, even —
Well.
You know lust.
You know love, even. More or less.
And yet, once again, you aren’t sure what to name the way Rin keeps looking up at you: far too keen, just like before, but full of warmth — heat, actually — and something — fragile, still — you can’t help but feel irrepressibly drawn to.
“Rin,” you suddenly find yourself trying again, then, even as you’re already running appreciative fingertips back and forth along the sharp jut of his jaw in a dichotomy of your own. You do want this. Him, and everything he’s so freely offering you. All of it. “What would your — ”
You falter, there, though.
Again.
What do you call the man who openly declared Rin his ‘longed-for companion’, after all...?
Acquiring such companionship solely for the sake of pleasure itself is by no means a rare indulgence amongst the well-to-do (as a red-eared Makoto, in particular, frequently likes to remind you), especially in areas with far too many mouths to feed already, but it is practically unheard of for a hereditary ruler to — publicly, at least — partake in it.
Mikoshiba Seijuurou must be a bold, strong-willed man.
However.
Is he a good one, as well? A tolerant one? A forgiving one?
You’ve never been taught all that much about him, really. Iwatobi’s shoreline and tiny little fishing port are nowhere near notable enough to attract the attention of a predominantly peaceful, self-subsistent Samezuka. It has never been an ally, certainly, but neither has it been an enemy. As such, any insights into its current head’s personality — or his various proclivities, for that matter — had largely been deemed irrelevant by your instructors.
You do know that his younger sister is still unwed, though.
Of course.
And you also know that he’d ascended at an extremely tender age, following his predecessor’s untimely demise, sometime near the end of a gruelling campaign to free Sano — yes, Sano — from Bandou’s increasingly greedy clutches.
“Nothing more than a figurehead, that one. Pity, it’d have broken his father’s heart to see it. It nearly broke mine, too. I can’t even recall attending a more funereal wedding than this poor brat’s. Not even my own, y’hear...?”
That’s what Ryuuji had confided in you, once, at least.
A little wild-eyed.
Breath rank with liquor.
Clutching one of your shoulders for balance with a large, rough-skinned hand. And poorly hiding a — recurrent — tremor in the other.
However.
Samezuka’s infamous child-ruler had clearly managed to come into his own at some point: his territory is vast and well-protected, his people’s pockets are accordingly deep, and you have yet to hear anyone speak ill of him. Anyone, at all. Including his — his, in every possible respect — Rin.
What would he do to his so-called ‘Shirin’, for providing company to another like this? For dishonouring him like this...?
His ‘Shirin’, whose already kiss-stained lips are mere seconds away from getting smeared by the pre-cum steadily gathering at the tip of your cock.
His ‘Shirin’, whose unoccupied hand is now obscenely distending the tasselled shawl — barely — covering his loins.
His ‘Shirin’, whose heaving chest is once again turning a very fetching shade of pink underneath your gaze.
His ‘Shirin’, whose own rapt expression is slowly beginning to morph into something much easier to fathom: oddly gleeful, just a little bit sly, and disconcertingly knowing.
His ‘Shirin’, whose wit and wile you should never have allowed yourself to underestimate.
His ‘Shirin’.
Lettered, like you.
Drawling, in the very same manner — and accent, as well — he’d used to heckle the sentry before, “Does that exasperatingly noble conduct of yours truly know no bounds, then, Nanase-san...? Aren’t you going to show any concern for your own skin, at all? Ever?”
“Rin — ”
Another hitch.
A raised eyebrow, in response.
Silence.
Until — just like before, back at the marketplace — Rin goads you, “Go on. It’s about time, don’t you think? I ‘fessed up, already.”
He has been honest with you, so far. Mostly. In turn, you owe him nothing short of the truth now. “I’m confident your — ” ‘Go on.’, say it. Except. You still can’t, can you...? “ — Mikoshiba-heika would be lenient, if I were to be granted an audience with him. To take responsibility, ask for pardon, and speak in your defence.”
Rin’s lips twitch, a great deal, where he’s begun ghosting them along the fine trail of hair connecting your navel to your straining cock. “And why should a simple woodcarver be granted such an honour after having debauched one of Heika’s beloved consorts, hmm...? Thoroughly. Right on Heika’s brand new duvet. On Heika’s very bed. And even in the shallows of Heika’s private oasis, as well. Afterwards.” Slipping back into what simply must be his native dialect, from one word to the next, he adds, “Maybe. If you let me have my fill of you first, without spilling a single drop on any of Heika’s vintage rugs.”
You cup his chin.
Swipe your thumb across the plumpest part of his lower lip, just to let him know how very amenable you still are to making all of that happen.
Swallow, again.
And admit, “I’m not a simple woodcarver.”
🐪
With his knees gone just as red as his mouth, Rin leads you — by way of a crooked index finger, and a rather unexpected, “I’ve been dying to break that duvet in, ever since it finally arrived! I had it commissioned for Heika during a state visit to Kazami, y’know? Let’s find out if it was worth the wait.” — to the bed.
Once there, he presses a tiny glass phial into the palm of your hand.
Lays down on his stomach, perfectly parallel to the towering row of cushions at the headboard, with his long legs — deliberately, no doubt — sealed.
Sighs, contentedly.
Hitches his shawl up to expose himself.
Repeats, “Go on.”
And lets you — completely at your own pace, for once — work knuckle after knuckle into him. Finger after finger. Slow, and steady. Twisting or bending them, every once in a while. Until, after a half-hearted attempt at wiping the excess oil off on the perfectly shaped globes of his ass, you’re more than recovered enough to ease yourself into him properly: all the way to the very hilt, in one single thrust.
He lets you do that, too.
Calm and composed, like.
Trusting.
Eager, if only to please.
Soon enough, following a gratifyingly hoarse-sounding “Finally...”, your hands are already scrabbling for purchase on his slippery skin as you pause — right there, on yet another irrepressible impulse, with your thighs closely bracketing his hips and his pretty little hole stretched just as tight around the base of your cock — to spread his cheeks apart and take it all in.
He does buck (as much as your weight bearing down on him will allow), then. Self-conscious, again. And completely at your mercy, too.
You could forgo all of your ‘exasperatingly noble conduct’, part his cheeks even further, and shift just slightly enough to make him buck like that again. You could do it over and over, again, in fact. Tracing tacky little half-circles around his rim throughout, until the length and girth of you — you, only — is all he knows.
You could grab hold of the shimmering chains encircling his waist, pull them nice and taut, and make him do quite a bit more than that.
You could lean forward to run your teeth up and down the side of his neck, as well, and lay a series of marks on him there. For all to see.
You could even ask him, “It hasn’t been very long for you, has it?”
“What else have you heard about me, lately?”
“Is he something ‘beloved’ to you, too?”
“Will I ever get to see you again?”
Or simply, “Won’t you turn around for me yet, Rin?”
You could.
Easily.
And yet.
You’re afraid of the answers he might give you. Of knowing, for certain, instead of merely suspecting. Of letting him see the longing — longing, of all things — in your eyes, right now. Of having him weed out yet another one of your secrets, and being utterly unable to keep him from yanking it out by the roots.
So, of course, you don’t. Instead, as you finally give in to the persistent urge to pry his oil-smeared cheeks apart as far as they’ll go, you ask him, “Ready for some of that debauchment, then...?”
He doesn’t buck, though.
This time.
He only says, “I’m hardly one of your swooning peeresses, Azuma-denka. Go on, then. Take another plunge already, would you? Or fifty, if you’ve got ‘em in you. Few men have what it takes to keep an absolute nightmare of a wife and four mind-numbingly idle consorts satisfied, I suppose. You did only just come of age, after all.”
You snort, despite everything.
Give his — right — cheek a good, solid smack.
Rake your fingernails over the faint, rapidly fading handprint you’d left behind.
Savour the low, keening moan that follows.
Reply, “The younger, the faster the recovery. You’ll be begging me for mercy, long before we even hit the water. ‘Shirin’.”
And, then, you give him — exactly — what he’d asked for. Thrust after thrust. One by one, testing various speeds and angles (and the limits of your self-restraint, while you’re at it). Counting each and every last one of them, out loud, as you go.
“One.”
“Two.”
“Three.”
“Four.”
“Five.”
And so on. And on. And on, some more.
By the time you’re done, he’s breathing — harshly — through his mouth. Clutching fistfuls of the reddish-yellow, velveteen fabric of the duvet. Undulating his hips to a beat only he can hear. Clenching and unclenching. Twitching, all over. And, ultimately, asking, “Fifty-one...?”
You withdraw, first.
Slowly.
Slow enough to ensure that he’s fully aware of the way his body tries in vain to draw you back in, for the ridge of your glans to catch on his — temptingly tight, still — rim, and for your absence to leave him all atremble.
Slow enough for him to startle (and stiffen, too), just the tiniest bit, when you take the opportunity to dribble a fresh coating of oil onto the little dip of his tail-bone and in between his cleft.
Slow enough for you to — accidentally, as you’re lining yourself back up and applying just enough pressure for the very tip of your throbbing head to breach him again — coax a breathless, utterly devastating noise from his lips.
“Haru...”
He has called you many things, by now. In just as many ways.
But.
Never that. And certainly never like that, either.
It’s far too much.
It’s not nearly enough.
It’s both of those things, worse still. All in one fell swoop.
And then it’s knocking you right off your feet, dragging you deeper and deeper into its undertow, and ruthlessly refusing to let you come up for air until you’re crashing down over him to link your — sticky, and mortifyingly clammy — hands with his.
The only thrusts you can give him, this way, aren’t even worth counting.
They’re short-and-sweet, at best.
Sedate.
Sloppy.
All the same, he gasps — bits and pieces of your name, more often than not — along with every single one of them. Eyes closed, and jaw slackened. Hair in total disarray. Kohl, hopelessly smudged. Beautiful, still, even in the tremors and throes of his pleasure.
He’s not feigning this. Not any of it. He likely isn’t even embellishing it, either. He’s close, rather.
Already.
Somehow.
You can tell from the way his legs are beginning to quiver (and budge, just a little), the painfully tight grip he now has on your hands, and the telltale darkening of the bridge of his already brilliantly red nose and the very tips of his ears.
Nobody could feign that. Not all of it, at least. Not even ‘Shirin’.
So, you temper your thrusts even further. Just to keep him there — teetering, right on the very edge — for as long as you can. And when he inevitably takes a fall all of his own, abruptly pitching forward with enough force to well-nigh unseat you, you simply continue to work him through every last drop of it.
He’s outright whimpering, in the end.
Craning his neck, too.
And imploring, in shuddery stops and starts, “Kiss me...?”
You do.
Of course you do.
It’s a messy, open-mouthed thing, though. Little more than a slide of your lips along the jut of a ruddy cheekbone and the corner of his mouth, hampered by his current position — listing dangerously to the left, at this point — and the weight of your body firmly pinning the rest of him to the mattress below.
His skin tastes salty.
Beads of your own sweat are beginning to escape your brow to land a little ways off the edge of his jaw, too.
You lap them up, as well as you can manage.
One by one.
And, at last, you find the fortitude — and the courage, too — to ask him, “Won’t you turn around for me yet, Rin?”
🐪
He’s understandably reluctant. Opposed, even. Nevertheless, after a dilatory request to draw the curtains first, he gingerly resettles himself at the head of the bed: half-reclined against the headboard, a little off-centre, with his legs loosely crossed and the soiled section of his shawl sticking fast to his — clean-shaven, as expected — skin.
It’s a flimsy little thing, that shawl of his.
Wine-red, of course.
Intricately embroidered to match his veil.
And just as sheer, in places, right now.
“You’ve known all along, haven’t you?”
“I had a hunch,” you — truthfully, to offset his openly mistrustful eyes tracking your every move — tell him, as you join him amidst the cushions. “I’m second in line, Rin. You’ve known that from the very start, too.” There, you give him a chance to protest. To his credit, though, he readily lets it pass. “As much as I wish I weren’t, I am well aware of the established ways. The methods. It was either this, or — ”
“‘Gelding’.”
It’s not a question. Still, after placing an assuaging hand down atop his nearest knee, you answer, “I didn’t think it likely.”
“Because of ‘Shirin’...?”
You shake your head. Slide your hand down — slowly, centimetre by centimetre — along the inside of his thigh, as far as it can go before hitting the barrier of his shawl. And answer, “Because you must’ve only been a child when you were given that name. The impact would’ve been plain to see by now. And hear, too.” Just like it undoubtedly is, in your poor servant’s case.
Rin doesn’t attempt to deny that, either. Nor does he bat your hand away. Instead, he simply confirms, “I was ten.”
Ten.
Ten.
It isn’t even a surprise, really. You’d only just turned twelve when your parents — gladly, and with very few questions asked — granted Ryuuji wardship over you, after all. And, as a result, sweet little Ran had swiftly been promised to a wealthy locksmith from the outskirts of Bandou instead.
At the right price, everything is for sale. Including children. To much, much older men.
“I’m sorry.”
What Rin says next, though, does surprise you. “I’m not. Heika — Sei — insisted on waiting for my sixteenth birthday to touch me, no matter what his court had to say about it. Or I, by the end. That’s what ‘Shirin’ means to him, you see...? Longed-for companion. Literally, for all those years I warmed my own bed across the hall. He’s a good man. The very best I know, in fact.”
You aren’t sure what to say to that, so you say nothing at all.
Unbothered, Rin merely fills the silence with, “You understand better than most, don’t you? How a name can keep you safe and sound, just as surely as it rends you apart inside.” There, with no inflection — or blame, for that matter — whatsoever, he adds, “‘Nanase Haruka.’”
It’s true.
It cuts, deeper than you’d like to admit.
It always has, even long before you — officially — ceased to bear that name.
“It’s — ” It’s all I have left, you want to say, of my grandmother’s legacy, and everything she gave me in my parents’ stead. I could never cast something as precious as that aside, even if it’d rid me of all the rest.
But, again, you just can’t seem to get the words out. So, instead, you’re forced to settle on, “It’s complicated.”
“Is it, now...?”
You know what he’s really asking.
You know it’s little more than a formality, at this point. You’ve already said too much, after all. And, at the very same time, far— far — too little.
You know.
And yet.
All that — ever — seems to want to come out of your mouth, regarding the true nature of your relationship with Ryuuji, is, “I asked for it. Begged, even. As soon as I saw my chance.”
Rin smiles a broad, terrible smile. It’s the only warning he deigns to give you, before he asks, “And just what makes you think I didn’t, Haru?”
🐪
Later, you will untie the knot of his shawl.
Later, you will make yourself comfortable in between his spread thighs.
Later, you will press your mouth to the smooth skin just above the base of his cock.
Later, you will ask him, “Can I return the favour, somehow...?”
Later, you will —
Later.
But, for now, there is only the sensuous slide of his lips and tongue along yours. The taste of him (and the taste of you, still lingering on him). The barely audible, broken little noise he makes when your hand — finally — finds its way to the blood-warm metal encaging him. And the equally compelling, “Lower, please. Right behind my balls, yeah...? Just try not to jostle them too much. The ring chafes, sometimes.”
You give him everything he wants, and more. In return, he swings a shaky leg over your lap and lets you take everything you want.
He’s still slick and loose from before. Ready, for you. And every bit as pliant, too.
A guiding hand on his hip — and the occasional, spurring little pinch to one of his pebbled nipples — sets the pace; faster and faster, this time, and angled just right to keep his mouth slackened and his head thrown back.
He looks incredible, like that.
He feels it, too.
You tell him so, over and over again, until the steady movement of his hips begins to falter and the shell-pink tinge of his cheeks extends all the way down to his collarbones once more.
There are other things you could tell him, then.
“It’s never felt anything like this before. I’ve never felt anything like this before.”
“Even as a simple woodcarver, I’d still have followed you here.”
“I can’t stay.”
“Come home with me.”
Or simply, “My — new — name could keep you just as safe and sound, Rin. Without ever exacting your own, in exchange.”
You could.
Should, even.
And yet.
You’re still afraid of the answers he might give you. Of pushing, too far, instead of merely allowing yourself to be towed along. Of being told — regretfully, should you be so lucky — that there is no future in this. Of taking just a little too much from him, and having him take even more in return.
So, as always, you don’t.
Instead, you tell him, “Don’t spill any of this, either.”
🐪
Once you get your tongue — and a finger or two, for good measure — into Rin, wetly lapping and mouthing at him until you can scarcely taste anything other than your own saliva and the occasional bead of sweat gathering in between your knuckles, he does beg for mercy.
Continuously.
In between deep, desperate gulps for air.
Turning a deaf ear, you keep at it. Licking, slurping, and — occasionally, just to remind him that you can — nipping. Until he’s as good as sobbing, “Just, please, lay off already! Are you even listening to me, Haru...?! Oi, I really can’t! I’ve never — ”
And beyond.
And when he suddenly pitches forward again — just like you knew he could (and would, in due time), all along — you simply pull him all the way back onto your tongue to smugly work him through the aftershocks.
He goes completely limp, after that.
Spent.
Shattered.
Satisfied.
And, still, wanting, “Won’t you lap up the mess I just made, too...?”
🐪
Rin’s cage is a curious, fanciful-looking thing.
It’s made up out of three separate, interlocking pieces: a shaft with a latticelike pattern (and several narrow little vents, on either side), a matching headcap, and a contrastingly simple ring.
It has — clearly, seeing as it fits his flaccid length like nothing short of a glove — been customised, if not entirely purpose-built.
It isn’t engraved, though.
Except.
There’s a thin, rounded pin peeking out of an already discomfitingly bare —
“Stretching that up to size can’t have been pleasant,” you can’t help but voice, then, as your own tapped-out length shrinks even further in sympathy. You’d fully expected him to be cut (for his own sake, only), of course, but you hadn’t thought to expect this. It’s far from the norm, actually; even for the — tantalising, still — cock in the henhouse. “Are you sure I won’t — ”
“Yes.”
“You’ll tell me if I — ”
“Yes,” Rin interrupts, again, with a pointed little tug to one of his — equally tantalising, honestly — nipples. He wants this. Needs it, maybe. It’s as plain to see as the smooth, rosy skin of his glans. “Go on, Haru. It hasn’t bothered me in years, alright...? This was all done as soon as everything was signed and sealed, in one blessedly impersonal go.” There, lips quirking, he adds, “‘The younger, the faster the recovery.’, right? Besides, I was high as a kite by the time the scalpel came out. All I remember is Sei wiping my brow, afterwards, and congratulating me on my first period. That, and Aya-nee launching some of the leftover ice at him for me.”
You can’t, though.
‘Go on’, that is.
Not after — “‘Signed and sealed’...?”
“Yes,” Rin says, for the third time, after a measured pause. A corner of his mouth is still slightly upturned, but the other is quavering with the effort it must be taking to keep anything else from spilling out.
“You have a contract.”
“Yes.”
“I thought — ”
“I know what you thought.” Lest you confuse his reservation with flat-out resentment, though, he quickly adds, “I let you, Haru. The less said of my nobility, the better. What difference does it make, anyway? Even if I had been born into this, Sei’d eventually see me manumitted. That’s just the kind of man he is.” Another pause, much longer than the last. “Either way, what’s done is done. I’m done. There’s no way I’ll ever be deemed fit to rule Sano, after this. And that’s fine, honestly. The settlement called for my little sister, y’know?” And another. “I’d have given up everything, if I had to.” And another. “She was only nine.”
His nobility.
His succession.
His sacrifice.
All for —
“‘Gou’...?” you finally hazard a guess, there, because it’s all starting to fall into place now: you do know quite a bit about the steep price of Sano’s continued freedom, Bandou’s vested interest in its total annexation, and the gut-wrenching fate that tends to befall eligible women — girls, even — in the wake of such conflicts; enough, at least, that you should’ve known whose lips you’ve been hanging on from the moment they first met yours. “Matsuoka Gou.”
Again, Rin simply says, “Yes.”
“You took her place during the instalment.”
“Yes.”
“She’s of an age with — ” Go on, go on, go on. “ — Mikoshiba-heika’s own sister.”
“Yes.”
“He’s a good man.” And just as good of a brother, apparently.
“Yes.”
“Well played, Matsuoka-denka,” you can’t help but — sincerely — applaud him, then, even as your stomach continues to churn with unease and doubt. Pulling off an opening gambit like that is no easy feat for a mere ten-year-old, after all. What couldn’t a sharp mind like Rin’s achieve, today...? “No wonder you aren’t kept on a tighter leash.”
Unsurprisingly, though, Rin says nothing more. After that.
Not a single, measly thing.
And — because it’s a whole lot easier than outright asking him how much longer it’ll be until he’s completely cut loose (or, just as tellingly, “Is this another confession, then?”) — neither do you. Instead, you try to draw the rest of the story out of him with soft little licks and kisses through the bars of his cage; caressing the impossibly smooth skin of his inner thighs and lower abdomen with contrastingly overt affection, all the while.
It doesn’t work, of course.
Any of it.
Still.
Once you take him all the way into your mouth (cage and all, from stem to stern), the bitter tang of him hitting the back of your tongue almost tastes of victory in its own right.
🐪
The silence follows you into an equally uneasy, fitful little post-coital doze.
And yet.
When you wake, properly, you wake to a distinct creaking of wooden floorboards; a gentle breeze filtering in through a crack between the curtains; and a sight you hadn’t — ever — expected to see: Matsuoka Rin, completely devoid of the trimmings and trappings of his current rein (all except for one, that is), peering down at you over the edge of a well-thumbed book.
“It’s just Ai, puttering about on the sundeck,” he tells you, then, as he — reluctantly, it seems — retrieves his fingers from your hair. “I had him clean my favourite water pipe and pop us an old bottle of red, while he’s at it. You can take a hit, can’t you? The wine’ll give it a nice, fruity kick. Samezukan tradition calls for mugicha, but Mio-nee is severely allergic to barley. The stuff’s been banned from the palace grounds ever since her arrival.” Turning a page, he blithely concludes, “On pain of death.”
Rin’s own hair is down, now.
The kohl is gone from around his eyes, as well.
And —
“You haven’t covered back up yet.”
Rin doesn’t take offence, thankfully. “We’re taking a dip afterwards, aren’t we...?” he counters, instead; voice lower and softer than you've ever heard it. “Trust me, Ai has seen it all before. Many times over. Besides, I never need much! Just a few lungfuls, and I’ll be — way — too far gone to sweat the details. For a good while, yeah? A really, really good while.”
🐪
The sundeck is refreshingly austere (in comparison to the tent’s overly extravagant interior, at least), and the view its shaded seating area offers of the oasis is simply breathtaking. Rin’s unrestrained laughter — as the first proper rip you take promptly triggers an undignified coughing fit — is possibly even better, though. And the hazy, open-mouthed kisses that follow have you seeing stars long before the high even has a chance to kick in.
Just like he’d said, Rin doesn’t need much. One more round, and he’s already passing the mouthpiece back to you with a dismissive little wave of his free hand, making himself comfortable in your lap (bare chest to bare chest, with one arm slung loosely around your shoulders), and letting you exhale your next rip into his waiting mouth: drawing as much of the smoke into his own lungs as possible, savouring it for a while, and eventually blowing it back out in wispy little rings.
He’s clearly done that before. Right here, most likely. With a — good, if not even better — man he is contractually bound to —
“Last one, before we ‘hit the water’...?”
You nod.
Share it with him, just to see that mesmeric mouth of his cut the smoke into perfectly shaped little slivers again.
And, then, you let the overdue effects of the hash tell him, “I couldn’t deny you anything, even if I wanted to. And I don’t, Rin. Whatever it is you want, it’s yours.”
🐪
He wants you.
He wants more, too.
He never says it out loud, of course, but he doesn’t need to: it’s right there; in the dwindling of his laughter as the sun inevitably begins to sink behind the jagged peaks above, the tightening of his jaw whenever Ai — a palace eunuch, just as you’d expected, with silvery hair and a distinctive little beauty mark underneath his right eye — brings out another piece of jewellery for him to redon, and the sudden return of that lopsided little smile of his.
You could ask him, now.
You could.
With the lingering high loosening your tongue, and the lion’s share of the bottle of wine you’d finished off together steadily coursing through your veins, it wouldn’t even be all that hard to do. It’d be easy, rather. Quick. Just, “How much longer? Just tell me, Rin.”
And yet.
You’re — still — afraid. Of the answer, yes, but also of the soberising finality it’ll doubtlessly bring along with it. Of all of the other truths you have yet to speak. Of having to tell him, in no uncertain terms, “If it’s my ear you want, you already have it. No matter what happens next, I’ll do whatever I can to negotiate a treaty with Bandou for you. Anything else, you need only ask.”
Because.
That is what he’d been hoping to find at the marketplace, isn’t it...?
You.
He must’ve heard the whispers, about the hand you’d had in securing Iwatobi’s own treaty with Bandou (and, perhaps even more damningly, the ensuing annulment of Ikuya’s betrothal). Almost everybody has, these days. Only, mainly due to Ryuuji’s swift interference, few ever truly listen.
Rin, however, had every reason to listen; he had — and has, still — every reason to seek you out at the marketplace, brazenly address you in the rusty remains of his native dialect, and just as calculatingly flash you a little sliver of skin.
He’s beautiful.
He plays a mean, mean game.
He would give up absolutely everything, just to keep what little is still left of his family safe. He did, once. Already.
And you —
You’d seen his pupils, nearly crowding out the colour of his irises completely. You’d heard him breathe your name like a prayer, over and over again. You’d tasted that lopsided little smile of his. Felt his fingers, carding through your hair. Felt them find your own, shyly, underneath the cover of the water.
You know he’s not playing, anymore.
You do.
And yet.
When the time comes for you to help him clamber back on to Chappie’s saddle again, the — oppressive, for sure — noise of the waterfall drowning out the staccato of your heartbeat once more, all you can manage to tell him is, “If I’m going to be accompanying you all the way ‘home’, I’d better stay down here.” And keep my feet planted firmly on the ground, while I’m at it.
🐪
By the time you reach the courtyard, its marble tilework tinted vivid shades of orange and red by the setting sun, you’re no longer all that certain of your welcome. Even so, after ordering a bewildered steward to arrange suitable accommodations and staff for you, Rin — civilly, if entirely in his Samezukan drawl — proposes, “You must be eager to settle in and unwind after such an arduous journey, Azuma-denka. Shall I make your excuses to Heika, for now...?”
Wholly unprepared to take that plunge, just yet, you quickly incline your head. “I’d appreciate that.”
Rin — ‘Shirin’, here, right down to the subtle cant of his hips and the equally deliberate little moue pursing his lips — mimics your gesture.
Bows, much deeper than is strictly required of him.
Turns to leave.
And, without looking back, says, “Duty awaits, I’m afraid. Have a pleasant and restful evening, Denka. I trust you’ll want for nothing, once you’ve filled your belly with the finest fare Samezuka has to offer.”
🐪
He meant it, you realise, when he shows up at your door — alone, looking fresh from the palace baths, and wearing scarcely anything underneath his cloak — that very same evening.
“Can I stay here, tonight?”
You swallow.
Incline your head, again.
And, open palms already cupping his — unveiled — face all of their own volition, remind him, “I told you, didn’t I? Anything you want, it’s yours. You need only ask, Rin.”
“‘Anything’, at all...?”
“Anything,” you agree, as the still-damp tips of his hair tickle the backs of your hands (and the reality of him being here with you, toe-to-toe, finally begins to sink in). “It’s all yours for the taking.”
It’s Rin’s turn to swallow, then, it seems. You wait him out, mouth dry and chest tight. Until, at last, he asks you, “Including your heart?”
Well.
Well.
“That’s already yours, I'm afraid.”
🐪
You don’t ask him for anything in return. Not out loud, at least. Instead, you trade increasingly daring kisses with him until he’s visibly tenting the — midnight blue, this time — shawl around his hips and groaning, “What’re the chances of you agreeing to pretend you didn’t see that?”
Already running the pad of a curious finger along the underside of his erect length, starting from the bottom and — unintentionally, mostly — dragging some of the fabric up with you as you go, you can’t help but chuckle, “Abysmally low.”
He groans a very different kind of groan, then, right into your ready mouth. “It does kind of ruin the surprise, doesn’t it...?”
It does.
Still, you — eventually, once your fingertip reaches the ridge of his glans — take pity on him. “What are the chances of you agreeing to let me take a closer look, some other time? I’d make it worth your time. With my mouth.”
“That’s oddly specific.”
“You did seem to enjoy my tongue on you, earlier. And in you, too.”
Rin tries and fails to stifle a laugh of his own, flushes beet-red, and — finally — manages, “Pretty good, I’d say.”
“‘Pretty good’?”
“Your chances.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
You smile, then, and tell him, “I’ll take them, then.”
“Those chances?”
“Mhm.”
🐪
There are even more kisses, after that.
Sloppy, slow and maddeningly sweet.
And — once Rin lights up another water pipe, and the liquor really starts to flow — there are more confessions, too. Mainly from him, this time. Things that are almost certainly unspeakable for him under other circumstances. Like, “Honestly, he didn’t even blink when I asked to be excused tonight. It does sting a little bit, y’know...? It just does, somehow.” And, perhaps even worse, “He’s spent every other night with me for the past three years, Haru. And in all that time, he’s never once looked at me the way you do. Nobody has. How was I supposed to defend myself against it, then? I didn’t even stand a chance.”
You don’t need to ask him, “What way is that, then?”
Instead, as you’re watching him — awe-struck and all agog — blow perfectly round little smoke rings down around your cock, you ask him, “And just what makes you think I did, Rin?”
🐪
You hold him — close — all throughout the rest of the night. Like he’s yours, already. And when the morning comes, all too soon, you can scarcely believe he’s still sound asleep besides you: neatly curled up at your side, with his warm breath occasionally tickling your armpit and some of his hair sticking fast to your upper arm.
The kohl dusting his eyelids is a little smudged, again, now. His eyelashes are impossibly long. He’s beautiful. And in this stolen moment, he really is yours.
Yours to carefully draw a little closer.
Yours to rouse, one featherlight kiss at a time.
Yours to love, for just a little longer.
So, naturally, you do. All of those things. Until — without warning, as usual — he’s surging up to chase your retreating lips, one hand braced on the flat of your stomach for balance, and plainly declaring, “If you don’t stop looking at me like that real soon, Azuma-denka, you’re going to end up missing the audience I requested on your behalf.”
“'Audience'?” you echo, voice a little croaky with disuse. "What for...?"
“To initiate an alliance, of course. Between Iwatobi and Samezuka.”
“Rin — ”
“Don't fret, Haru," he tells you, then, as if you hadn't even spoken. "It’ll be overwhelmingly in Iwatobi’s favour. There's no way Azuma-heika'd object."
“I'm not — ”
“You will be visiting as often as you can, won’t you...?”
“Rin — ”
“Won’t you, Haru?”
Just like that, you find yourself — finally, finally, finally — taking another plunge. “For how long, exactly?”
At that, Rin instantly goes very still. Fails to hold your gaze. Examines his fingernails with poorly feigned composure, instead. For a moment. And, very flatly, says, “Six more months, give or take a couple of days. Sei fought hard to ensure I’ll be free to go, as soon as I come of age.”
Six more months. It’s nowhere near as long as you’d feared, to be honest.
And yet.
“Where’s the catch?”
Another — long, and searching — pause later, shaky exhale ghosting your mouth and chin, Rin replies, “I can’t go home, Haru. I'm done, remember...? It’s an open secret, at best. A scandal, at worst. How could I possibly face — ”
“I’ll visit.”
Again, Rin stills. “You will?”
“As often as I can.”
It's his turn, then, to ask, “For how long, exactly...?”
This time, you don’t hesitate. Nor do you mince words. Instead, emboldened by the look in his eyes and the proximity of his lips, you simply take a final plunge: “Until I can take you home, of course. With me, Rin.”