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PROLOGUE — LIKE A BAT OUT OF HELL.
Euijoo is an evil rat bastard who hates Nicholas’ guts and wants him to die, which is why he lets the first call ring to voicemail and straight up declines the second one. However, Nicholas has to award him some friendship points. Mere seconds after he sends the message, CODE FUCKING RED YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKER PICK UP THE DAMN PHONE, Euijoo’s contact flashes on Nicholas’ screen with an incoming call.
“Are you dead?” Euijoo asks the moment that Nicholas brings his phone to his ear. His voice is rough and groggy.
“N-No,” Nicholas wheezes, combing back his wet hair and checking the oven clock. Just past noon here in LA, add a sixteen hour time difference—shit, he probably rocked Euijoo out of the middle of REM.
“Actively dying?”
“No.”
There’s a beat, and then Euijoo sighs. Nicholas can’t help but flinch, even though there are several thousand miles between them, and Euijoo doesn’t have a violent bone in his body. Nicholas just seems to have a special talent for putting new and unfamiliar bones in people’s bodies– no, bad phrasing, why would he say it like that, stupid, stupid, stupid–
“Uh.” Euijoo’s voice crackles, suddenly much less tired and much more concerned than it was a moment ago. “Are you sure you’re not dying? You’re kind of, like… gurgling right now.”
Nicholas crumples to the kitchen floor, knocked down by another wave of hysteria. The soles of his feet are damn near black with dirt and his clothes are sticking uncomfortably to his still wet skin and these shorts are not suited for going commando because oh my god this zipper is too cold to be right on his dick–
Sobbing dryly, Nicholas babbles, “Juju, I fucked up, I fucked up so fucking bad–”
Euijoo sighs again, this time distinctly relieved. “Ah. Well, that’s nothing new.” Jesus fucking Christ, Nicholas hates him so much. He tries to say as much, but all that comes out is a pathetic little whimper. “Oh, quit it you drama queen, it can’t be that bad.”
“You don’t understand,” Nicholas whimpers pathetically, like the sack of shit he is. “It’s so over man. I have to die. I have to die.”
“Jesus Christ Nicho,” Euijoo laughs. “What the hell did you do? Fuck Taki’s hot mom?”
He says it goadingly, teasingly, like he’s trying to annoy Nicholas into laughing. Nicholas does not laugh. Nicholas closes his eyes and wishes with all his heart for a sinkhole to swallow the entire block.
“Nicholas.” Euijoo’s voice is deathly calm. “Nicholas, please laugh. That was a joke, which means you’re supposed to laugh at it. Nicholas fucking Wang, if you don’t start laughing, right now–!”
“It was an accident!” Nicholas wails.
“HOW DID YOU FUCK SOMEONE ON ACCIDENT!?” Euijoo roars explosively, damn near blowing out Nicholas’ speaker. “DID YOU TRIP AND FALL IN HER VAGINA!?”
That’s what makes Nicholas crumble into laughter. Hysterical, delirious, half-mad laughter.
PART ONE — PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS.
First, let the record show that Nicholas never intended to fuck Taki’s hot mom. Hell, he didn’t even know that Taki’s mom was hot before his first day of work.
Setting the scene: Nicholas Yixiang Wang is in his fourth year of studying fashion merchandising at UCLA. He’s no Elle Woods, but he’s got a 3.6 GPA while being heavily involved with a dance club and having a pretty decent social life. In his free time, Nicholas enjoys shopping, exploring the local food scene, and annoying the hell out of his best friend and housemate. All to say, he is not a bad person, and he does not deserve bad things.
Someone even less deserving of bad things is Riki “Taki” Takayama, a second-year in Nicholas' dance club. Taki isn’t his middle name the way that Yixiang is Nicholas’. Their dance club has a whopping total of three Rikis. None of the Rikis wanted to yield their name, so the club started mashing their first and last names together.
Nicholas’ personal opinion is that of the three nicknames that this strategy produced, Taki’s is the most fitting. Like the snack, Taki is spicy and fun and always good to see. He’s even prone to making Nicholas’ stomach hurt, although Taki does that by being gut-bustingly funny. Thankfully, he does not possess the power to give Nicholas genuine indigestion.
(“He’s earned the right,” Euijoo insists, absolutely indignant. “You fucked his mom. That kid deserves the right to psychically activate your IBS whenever he fucking wants.”)
Taki is also filthy fucking rich, but you'd never know from looking at him or talking to him. Taki’s sweet, sincere, and humble. He’s got the energy of someone who grew up just down the road, not someone set for life thanks to a trust fund and an inheritance from a mostly shitty and very dead dad.
What Nicholas did is a one-way ticket to hell. There’s no denying that. But, the fact that Nicholas did it to Taki means that he’s not just going to hell, he’s going to be picked up, crushed into a little ball of a man, and slam dunked to hell. God, just thinking of Taki’s sad, round eyes makes him want to throw up. He never should’ve taken that summer job.
But he did, and even worse, he did so with genuinely pure intentions.
Taki’s house has a pool. Normally, Taki’s in charge of cleaning it when he goes home for the summer, but he was spending most of his summer on a trip with his step-dad: a month of (step-)father-son bonding in the woods. Not a simple campsite, but the depths of the forest, literal Blair Witch type shit, because Taki’s step-dad is a total camping nut.
“It’s just a month,” Taki had pleaded, clutching at the hem of Nicholas’ shirt. “And potentially the rest of your life, maybe, if I freeze to death. Or fall into a ravine. Or get eaten by a raccoon, or Big Foot, or Fuma. Oh my God, Nicholas, what if that’s why Fuma married my mom? What if this was his plan all along?”
“Taki,” Nicholas had laughed—so stupid, so naive, so oblivious of what awaited him. “Weren’t you the one to ask him to take you camping?”
“I didn’t think we’d be abandoning civilization!” Taki had cried. He’d gone on the trip anyway, and Nicholas had agreed to take on the mantle of pool boy while he was away.
Again, entirely pure intentions. And it’s a job that he’s qualified for! Nicholas spent half of high school working at an underfunded YMCA where he was forced to learn the basics of pool maintenance or risk getting fired. From Taki’s perspective, Nicholas had been the perfect candidate for the role.
(“Because you tricked him,” Euijoo spits with disdain.
Nicholas stops spiralling. “By getting a job at the YMCA when I was fifteen?” he asks, confused.
“There’s always been evil in your heart.”)
Before starting his job as the temporary pool boy of the Takayama-Murata household, Nicholas had known only a few things about Taki’s mother. He had known that she didn’t have to work, but chose to anyway, teaching toddlers ballet at a nearby dance academy. He had known that the reason Taki never mourned his biological father was because she’d become so much happier after his passing, and Taki was happy if his mom was. He had known that she could be a little overbearing and was probably empty-nesting, prone to flooding Taki’s phone with texts during their dance practices to remind him to call her the moment that they wrapped up because she had something ‘important’ to talk about.
“It’s never important,” Taki would grumble, but the set of his eyes was always exasperatedly fond.
He had known that she absolutely adored her son and all his friends. Despite having never met her, Nicholas has received personalized Christmas gifts from her for two years in a row, each one accompanied with a heartfelt message about how much she appreciated what he had done for her son. Both messages left him feeling a little fuzzy inside. She was a very nice lady, that was for sure.
He had also known, although only anecdotally, that she was a devastatingly gorgeous woman. Some of the other dance club members had met her and had never been normal since. Just mentioning her name would make Jo, Taki’s roommate and friend, turn bright red and stop breathing, and would make Yuma, Taki’s self-proclaimed arch nemesis, go full cartoon horndog, panting and drooling and awooga- ing and all.
Nicholas still isn’t sure how or why he never managed to catch a glimpse of her before that fateful day. She came to all their shows. She visited campus on several occasions. And it’s not like Taki is a secretive person. He has a family photo on his desk. Nicholas had been in Taki’s room multiple times .
Honestly, even if he had managed to see a proper photo of her, or seriously paid attention to Jo and Yuma’s depravity, or even met her in person before, nothing could’ve possibly prepared him for the way she greeted him when he showed up for that first day of work: in nothing but a too-sheer pink babydoll nightgown, one strap falling down her shoulder, yawning and rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
(“Wait,” Euijoo blurts. “What the fuck.”)
“Guh.” Nicholas gaped at her. He was supposed to say, Hi Mrs. Takayama, I’m Nicholas, Riki’s friend from the dance team. He told me to come by first thing in the morning to clean the pool. He’d spent a lot of time practicing it. He hadn’t wanted to call the woman’s son a goddamn chip, after all.
He said absolutely fucking none of that. But the goddess of a woman blinked down at him—yes, down at him, because she was a good head taller than him even when barefoot—and then her beautiful features blossomed open into a bright, welcoming smile.
“Oh, you must be Nicholas!” she gushed, a word that Nicholas would really rather not use, but that was the only way to describe the champagne-like way that she spoke, bright and bubbly and sweet in a way that immediately made Nicholas’ whole body go hot. “It’s so nice to meet you!”
She then proceeded to pull Nicholas into a tight embrace, so tight that Nicholas’ face wound up buried in the valley between her gigantic breasts.
(“WHAT THE FUCK!?”)
All in all, cleaning the pool was easy. It wasn’t that big of a pool, nothing compared to the length of one at a YMCA. Taki’s other chores, which Nicholas was getting paid extra to do, weren’t that hard either. Even though their yard was bigger than Nicholas’ childhood home, mowing it was child’s play thanks to their rideable lawnmower. He had never tended to flower beds before, but it wasn’t that hard.
Nicholas’ first day of work promised a nice, well-paying temporary gig that would keep him busy without running him ragged. Really, it could have been the best job he ever had, if it wasn’t for the torturously tempting presence of Takayama Kei.
PART TWO — ALL THE DEVILS ARE HERE.
Once again, Nicholas never intended to fuck Taki’s mom. Prior to actually meeting the woman, the thought had never crossed his mind. Then, he actually saw her. He got to lay eyes on her perfect visage: innocent eyes with faint but kind smile lines, a perfect cupid’s bow, features framed perfectly by her charmingly short brown hair. Worse, their first encounter gave him a full view of her whole body: model-long legs with big, plush thighs, a soft stomach with a perfectly cinched waist that her ample curves only accentuated, breasts that seemed to be, honest to God, F-cups at the very least–
From the moment that Nicholas laid eyes on her, through literally every waking moment after, all that Nicholas has been able to think about is burying himself in Mrs. Takayama’s pussy.
(“Her MILF-y pussy,” Euijoo interjects, like a correction. Like the word MILF-y was integral to Nicholas’ otherwise totally fine sentence. “Because, you know. You described the perfect MILF. And she’s a mother. The mother of your close friend and junior club member.”
“I’ll write your name in my suicide note,” Nicholas promises. It’s not a threat, given that he’s been actively drafting one while relaying his harrowing tale. “And your address.”
“We live together.” )
He didn’t want to think about having sex with Mrs. Takayama. Unfortunately, it was kind of like trying not to think about a pink elephant. A very sexy pink elephant. The moment he tried to sternly scold himself, tried to scruff his stupid horny brain and shake it back to sanity, his imagination would kick into overdrive and conjure fantasy after depraved fantasy: the way her brows would knit together as he pushed in to the hilt, the taste of her tits in his mouth as she stroked his cock, the tug of her fists in his hair as he sucked her clit and brought her over the edge, the tremble in her soothing voice as she ground down on his dick and milked him for all he was worth–
(“MILF-y pussy!” Euijoo repeats triumphantly. Nicholas considers going to Euijoo’s room and pissing in his bed.)
Nicholas went out of his way to not think about Mrs. Takayama at all. From the second day onwards, he would hop the fence into their backyard to avoid seeing her in a nightgown. He would put his earbuds in a full block away and blare the loudest rap music he could all day as he worked to avoid hearing his name in her velvety soft voice. His goal was to keep his head down and his sanity intact, and to not fuck Taki’s mom.
That was the joke that everyone had kept making in the weeks leading up to the job. Ooh, pool boy for a sexy MILF? Try not to fuck her, hahaha.
Always out of Taki’s earshot, of course, because he didn’t deserve the torment, but Nicholas sure did. Euijoo was probably his biggest bully.
“I won’t be around to slap some sense into you,” he kept teasing in the weeks leading up to his trip back to Korea for the summer. “Don’t do something stupid, like cut all the sleeves off of your shirts. Or fuck Taki’s mom.”
(“At least tell me that your shirtsleeves are intact.”
“...my shirtsleeves are intact,” Nicholas dutifully replies, not quite able to hide the guilty wobble of his voice. There’s a beat, followed by Euijoo’s longest and most disappointed sigh yet.)
Mrs. Takayama seemed both oblivious to and completely undeterred by Nicholas’ lines of defence. When Nicholas avoided the front door, she started waking up earlier to catch him in the backyard, still in that fucking nightie, and waving a sleepy good morning before shuffling back to bed. Later, when she was properly awake and ready for the day, her outfits were hardly any better than the nightgown. Sure, they were less sheer and covered more skin, but Mrs. Takayama seemed to love clothes that clung.
Skinny jeans that accentuated the curves of her hips and yoga pants that hugged the swell of her plush, shapely ass. Tank tops with dangerously low necklines and blouses with buttons that seemed ready to burst at a moment’s notice. And those were her safer outfits. One morning, she walked out onto the back deck in the tiniest tennis skirt that Nicholas had ever seen in his entire life, and he just about drove the lawnmower through the flowerbed.
Regardless of the day’s outfit, she would come out and do literally everything in her power to get his attention. It didn’t matter how loud Nicholas played his music, she’d somehow yell even louder. When he didn’t turn to look at her, she’d put both of her hands above her head and wave like a maniac, showing off two pristine armpits that made Nicholas want to slam his head into the nearest hard surface.
(“Lusting after a MILF’s armpits might be the most bisexual thing you’ve ever done,” Euijoo remarks, followed by the loud crumpling of a chip bag and then an even louder crunch.
“Can you go back to threatening to kill me?” Nicholas pleads. Euijoo starts crunching his chips at a near deafening volume.)
The few times that Nicholas tried ignoring her at the arm waving stage, she would move on to the jumping up and down stage, which he quickly learned was very bad for his health. It had to be killer for her back, hopping up and down with her tits bouncing the way that they did. But, Mrs. Takayama didn’t show any signs of pain. When Nicholas would stumble his way to the back deck, mumbling a greeting and avoiding eye contact at any cost, all she did was beam down at him.
After successfully capturing his attention, Mrs. Takayama seemed hellbent on keeping it for as long as possible with endless questions about his degree and his hobbies, countless offers for cold drinks or fruit or ice cream, and the occasional request for help inside, which almost always wound up being an excuse to get him on the couch to chatter away some more. It was supposed to be his summer job, but Nicholas spent at least half of his time making conversation.
“Mrs. Takayama, you’re paying me by the hour, y’know,” Nicholas tried to protest at one point, after Mrs. Takayama offered him a glass of hand-squeezed orange juice. His reluctance to accept was, admittedly, not because of politeness or courtesy. It was because he had just watched Mrs. Takayama hand squeeze those oranges herself to make said juice, which made Nicholas all too aware of how juiced up his own oranges were.
Mrs. Takayama simply laughed, a soft and sheepish sound, ducking her head and tucking her hair behind her ears. That was the other thing that kept driving Nicholas crazy. Her hair, soft and brown and short, barely past her ears. Her bangs always seemed to frame her face perfectly, with one stray strand brushing over her forehead in a way that made her seem even more angelic.
Mrs. Takayama was a fucking smokeshow, yes. More than that, she was beautiful.
“You’ll have to excuse this old woman and her pointless demands, Nicholas,” she joked apologetically. If Nicholas had the working brain cells, he would’ve been incensed at her claim. After all, Mrs. Takayama was only in her forties, and she looked much younger.
He hadn’t been able to find the words, because Mrs. Takayama was looking up at Nicholas through her long lashes as she took a seat across the table. “I hope I haven’t been making you uncomfortable. It’s been… a very long time since this house has felt so empty.”
Nicholas’ eyes darted down to the gold band on her finger before she started to play with it. Between the slivers of stories offered by both Taki and Mrs. Takayama herself, Nicholas had sort of pieced together at least part of the story.
Taki’s biological father hadn’t seemed to care about settling down or building a family. He’d married a much younger woman, but took almost a decade to have his first and only son. And the second that Taki had been old enough, he’d been shipped off to boarding school, leaving his wife completely alone in a giant mansion while he’d done his work around the globe.
Nicholas still isn’t sure how long Mrs. Takayama spent in that house by herself, but he knows that she brought Taki home from boarding school within days of her late husband’s passing. He also knows that Taki was the one to introduce Mrs. Takayama to her current husband: a charming young engineer, fresh out of college, who coached little league on the side. He was Taki’s coach specifically.
Taki likes to joke that he’s the greatest wingman of all time.
“I hated baseball, and I was bad, and I only played in one game before I begged to quit,” he boasts, chest puffed out. “But also, I kept playing so that my mom could meet my super awesome coach and fall in love with him, and my coach could meet my super awesome mom and fall in love with her. And it worked! So really, I might be the greatest baseball player who’s ever lived.”
The Murata-Takayama household doesn’t have a single photo of Taki’s late father. But above the fireplace, they have a framed photo from that game: a young Taki beaming proudly at the camera, holding the hands of his mother and his future step-father. In it, Mrs. Takayama is blushing, tucking her hair behind her ear, and looking to the side in embarrassment, entirely unaware of the way that Mr. Murata is looking at her.
When Nicholas tore his eyes away from Mrs. Takayama’s wedding band and forced himself out of his thoughts, he found her smiling at him. Soft, yet slightly sad.
“To be honest, I almost lost my mind when Riki moved out for university,” she confessed with an embarrassed laugh. “If it wasn’t for Fuma– my husband, I mean,” she added, as if Nicholas could have forgotten. He had been having recurring nightmares of Taki’s ridiculously buff step-dad beating the everloving shit out of him. “I would’ve gone into absolute hysterics before Thanksgiving break.”
Nicholas hummed a reply, hoping that he came across as sympathetic and not, like, lustful. He was genuinely sympathetic. He couldn’t imagine what it was like to watch your son move out again after he had been forcibly kept from you.
(“Of course you couldn’t imagine it,” Euijoo bluntly interjects. “The closest you’ve come to experiencing maternal instinct was that one time Maki spilled sauce on your Chrome Hearts pants, and you screamed like your child died in front of you.”
Nicholas closes his eyes against the fresh wave of grief that overcomes him. “Please don’t bring that up,” he begs, voice cracking. Euijoo doesn’t reply, but his eye roll is audible.)
In an effort to show sympathy, he said, “Ta– Riki was worried about that. He almost cancelled the camping trip because he didn’t want to leave you alone for that long– he also convinced himself that a bear was going to eat him, so–”
Jesus fucking Christ, he thought to himself, shutting his mouth with a click. Don’t tell the traumatized mother that her son might get eaten by a bear, you fucking moron.
But Mrs. Takayama just laughed.
“Please, like Fuma would let that happen,” she giggled, waving her hand. The certainty in her voice kind of left Nicholas gawking. Sure, it was a joke, but it was also incredibly confident. Like, as if Mrs. Takayama had actually worried about it and then ultimately realized, nah, my husband could kick a bear’s ass.
Then again, based on the shirtless vacation photos that Nicholas had seen around the house and the few times that he’d met Mr. Murata after their dance club’s showcases and Nicholas’d had his hands crushed in a powerful handshake, it was entirely possible that Mr. Murata could give a bear a run for his money.
(“He’s going to curbstomp you, y’know,” Euijoo remarks. He’s evil and hates Nicholas’ guts, which is why he just snickers when Nicholas whimpers, distressed.)
“But, you know, that’s why you’re here, Nicholas.” The sound of his name leaving Mrs. Takayama’s lips made Nicholas jerk in place. She smiled gently at him, eyes crinkled with amusement, but it didn’t feel teasing at all. “You didn’t know?”
“D-Didn’t know what?” Nicholas babbled.
“I was planning to just hire a pool boy and a groundskeeper for the month. It’s well within our budget.” She started to play with her ring again. “But Fuma takes good care of me. He knows me too well. He knew that professional services wouldn’t solve the…” She hesitated, biting her lip and clearing her throat as she tried to find the words. “The loneliness. Y-You seemed to make a, ah, very strong impression on my husband during your showcases.”
(“Huh?” Euijoo blurts. “A strong impression on Taki’s step-dad? Taki’s incredibly hot, incredibly buff, incredibly charming step-dad!?”
Nicholas frowns at his phone. “Okay, calm down.”)
Nicholas was floored. Sure, he had talked with Mr. Murata more than he had with any other parent at the showcases. Mr. Murata had a background in dance as well, and had seemed genuinely very interested in asking Nicholas about the choreography that he’d come up with, the formations he’d decided on, the intention he’d had behind each and every move.
Frankly, Nicholas always looked forward to seeing Mr. Murata after their showcases, and not just because he’d heap on twice as many compliments to make up for his wife’s absence. Mrs. Takayama would attend, of course, but she preferred to avoid the sweaty, smelly chaos of the changerooms post-show and chose to wait outside. Mr. Murata just said things in a way that was totally honest and deeply warm, exuding a kind of earnestness that made Nicholas want to squirm and preen at the exact same time.
At their last showcase, Mr. Murata put a broad hand on his shoulder and squeezed when he said, “Nicholas, you really are an incredible performer. My wife and I were utterly captivated whenever you stepped on stage. Now, don’t tell Taki,” he interrupted himself with a playful wink, to which Nicholas’ full-body blush became a full-body bonfire, “but Kei couldn’t keep her eyes off you—I swear, it’s like those body waves of yours hypnotized her!”
(“...Hey Nicho,” Euijoo says after a moment. “Have you ever considered that you might be, like, stupid?”
“Obviously!” Nicholas explodes back.
“...never mind.”)
Nicholas hadn’t been able to muster any coherency in his response, stammering over the same few words until Mr. Murata took pity on him and pulled him into a one-armed hug with a chuckle.
Months later, in the wake of Mrs. Takayama’s statement, he didn’t fare much better.
“R-Really?” was all he managed to squeak out.
Mrs. Takayama hummed an affirmative. “So, when Riki said that you had pool cleaning experience, Fuma thought you were the perfect candidate. Two birds, one Nicholas-shaped stone.” At the end of her explanation, her smile turned apologetic. “But I’m sorry if I’ve overstepped by asking you to keep me company like this. That wasn’t what you agreed to when you took this job.”
She leaned forwards as she spoke, taking one of his hands between her own. Nicholas chose not to stare into the valley of her cleavage and was instead forced to stare into her hazel eyes framed with long, soft lashes. “I shouldn’t have taken advantage of your presence in this way.”
The words ‘taken advantage of’ being spoken in her dulcet tones made Nicholas break out into a cold sweat. With his free hand, he picked up his glass of orange juice and chugged the entire thing in one go. He didn’t even like orange juice.
By the time he finished the glass, he had gathered up the courage to say, “I, uh, I don’t think I’ve been as good of a conversationalist as Mr. Murata’s hyped me up to be. But you don’t make me uncomfortable, Mrs. Takayama.” His face burned as he admitted it, truthfully, of course, because she wasn’t the source of his discomfort. Nicholas only had himself to blame for that. “You haven’t taken advantage of me at all. I’m happy to talk to you. I… I e-enjoy it.”
(“Nicholas Wang, you fucking dog.” Euijoo whistles, sounding oddly proud. Nicholas isn’t sure when he became the hero of this story in Euijoo’s eyes, but frankly, he’s too afraid to ask.)
He mumbled out the last few words, hopeful that they’d go unheard. When he looked up, any hope was wiped out of his head, replaced entirely with dumbstruck awe at the vision before him: red cheeks, parted lips, and sparkling eyes.
Quickly, Mrs. Takayama shook her head. “W-Well I should hope so! I’m paying you after all!” she tittered, standing and reaching to take the glass from his hands. When she leaned over, Nicholas barely managed to lean back in time and avoid getting a faceful of cleavage yet again. He almost missed what she said next.
“And for heaven’s sake, Nicholas, please just call me Kei.”
“Y-Yes, Mrs. Ta– uh, K-Kei,” Nicholas stammered back, and Mrs. Takayama laughed so hard she had to brace herself against the white marble countertop. Nicholas is proud to say that as enraptured as he had been in the moment, there had still been a part of his brain that was sane enough to think, Taki, my sweet boy, I am so fucking sorry.
(There’s a beat.
“Okay, but that was all yesterday,” Euijoo says with great trepidation. “So, what happened to that part of your brain today?”
Nicholas sighs. “It drowned.”)
PART THREE — THE ROAD TO HELL.
Nicholas would once again like to remind the court that he never had the intention of fucking Taki’s mom. The court might think it redundant, but Nicholas is really, really insistent on making that abundantly clear.
Next, Nicholas would like to submit to the court the timeline of the past two weeks of his life. The sheer torment that he has faced since Mrs. Takayama opened that door. It has been a nonstop test of not only psychological endurance, but also physical endurance. The yard work was easy, sure, but their property was also huge, and there were a fuckton of chores every single day. He also wasn’t sleeping well due to those aforementioned nightmares where Taki’s stepdad beats the shit out of him, and he was also pent up because he refused to be the guy who beat off to thoughts about his friend’s mom.
So, by the time that the clock struck ten in the morning, he was kind of a walking zombie. A shambling body of squishy, rotting meat. Just begging to be pummelled to a nasty little pulp. He had finished trimming the rose bushes and was coming around the pool house to start fishing the leaves out of the pool, a task that he had to repeat multiple times in a day.
“Oh, there you are Nicholas!” Mrs. Takayama greeted when he rounded the corner, kneeling on her gray yoga mat and reaching up to adjust her white headband. It matched really well with her white string-tie triangle bikini. They were the exact same shade, as if they’d come in a set. “I hope I’m not in your way!”
(Euijoo chokes on his chips. Nicholas can’t even feel that smug about it.)
The bikini top didn’t seem like a great fit. The fabric of the bikini moreso sat on top of her breasts than supported them, revealing a distressing amount of underboob, and the strings seemed like they were pulled tight with barely an inch to spare. Mrs. Takayama didn’t seem to mind though, extending one long leg in front of her and the other behind to settle into a split. Every inch of her body seemed to glow, her soft skin undoubtedly bathed in the fragrant coconut oil she was so fond of using. Even as far away as he was, all the way on the other side of the pool, Nicholas thought he could smell it. It made his mouth water.
Mrs. Takayama held that pose for a moment before transitioning to the next, bending her back leg up and bringing her foot towards her head. She leaned back, arching her back and tipping her neck so that the tips of her toes touched the crown of her head. It was a warm morning, but not that warm. The points of her nipples poked against the fabric of her bikini, and Nicholas saw a shiver race across her skin as she let out a gentle “mmn…” at the stretch.
It was at that point that Nicholas walked directly into the pool.
Like Wile E. fucking Coyote, he missed where the ledge stopped and stepped straight into thin air. In a way, he was grateful for it. The sudden shock of cold water knocked him out of whatever dazed stupor had overtaken him and right back into reality. Honestly, Nicholas was almost tempted to allow himself to sink to the bottom of the pool and drown there. Alas, his survival instincts took over, and he swam back up to the surface, reemerging with spluttering coughs.
“Oh my God, Nicholas, are you okay!?” Mrs. Takayama was shouting, but Nicholas found it hard to hear her with the water in his ears. He grunted something back, paddling to the side of the pool and clambering out on unsteady legs. “A-Are you hurt at all, that was so sudden–”
“Fine,” Nicholas mumbled, numbly reaching behind him to pull his shirt over his head. He shook his head, slapped his cheek once, and then took a shaky breath into his burning lungs to brace himself. Then, he turned to look at Mrs. Takayama, a polite smile plastered on his face. “No pay attention. Slipped. Go shower in pool house, if okay.”
Mentally, he slapped himself. Of course he was grunting like a caveman in front of a bikini-clad babe after already thoroughly humiliating himself in front of her. Why wouldn’t he? He was convinced that she was going to think that he gave himself brain damage during his fall.
Surprisingly, she didn’t even seem to notice the way he flubbed his words. Nicholas made sure to keep his eyes directed at a point behind Mrs. Takayama’s head so that he would only be able to look at her in his periphery, and therefore wouldn’t be able to see anything below her shoulders. Truly a foolproof plan, but it made his sense of perception less reliable. For some reason, it seemed like Mrs. Takayama wasn’t even paying attention to what he was saying. In Nicholas’ periphery, it looked like she was staring at a point lower than his face—maybe his bare chest, the lines of his abs, the pink scar that wrapped around his bicep.
(The smack of Euijoo’s palm meeting his forehead is crisp. “W-What?” Nicholas snaps back, defensive.
“Nothing,” Euijoo grinds out. Nicholas can hear the clenching of his jaw. “You’re just fucking stupid. That’s all.”)
“...Mrs. Takayama?” he asked when she didn’t respond. For a second, her eyes seemed to dart… lower, before coming back up to his face.
Suddenly, pink bloomed across her cheeks. “Y-Yes?” she squeaked, and it was at that point that Nicholas realized, with sudden and incredible horror, that he was very hard.
So, he shut his big, fat mouth, turned on his heel, and walked directly into the pool house without another word.
Thankfully, he had gotten used to bringing another set of clothes with him to the Takayama-Murata home to change into after sweating through the work day. Sure, he always wound up sweating through his second change of clothes by the time he commuted home, but it was better than doing that commute while caked in day-old sweat. His stuff was already in the pool house. It would only take a few minutes for him to wash off the chlorine, get dressed, and then walk back out to prostrate himself on the floor and beg for forgiveness.
His dick, however, was proving to be something of a problem.
(“Do you really have to give me all of these details too?” Euijoo complains. “I don’t want to know so much about your dick.”
Nicholas stares at his phone incredulously. “You have held my dick in your mouth on multiple occasions,” he splutters, flabbergasted. “You don’t just know a lot about my dick, you basically majored in my dick, bro.”
Euijoo grumbles something unintelligible back, but doesn’t protest any further.)
Nicholas tried turning the water to freezing, but that just made his teeth chatter. He tried pinching his thigh to make his erection flag, but that just made his dick kick. He even tried thinking of Taki’s big sad eyes to shame it away, but not even that trick would work anymore. He’d relied on it too much over the past few weeks. And with weeks of arousal clogging up his veins, his blood refused to flow away from his dick.
There was only one other way to deal with the problem. A method most tried and true.
This is not a betrayal of Taki’s trust, Nicholas tried to tell himself as he gingerly wrapped his fingers around his length, hissing at his own touch. God, he was so sensitive. If anything, this is me respecting Taki so hard right now. I am guaranteeing that I do not bring my erection anywhere near his mother. I’m the best goddamn friend anyone could ask for.
Still, his shiver was guilty as he tipped his head forward to rest it against the tile. He wasn’t fooling anyone, least of all himself. A good friend wouldn’t be thinking about the soft curve of Mrs. Takayama’s underboob and the tantalizing way that her nipples poked through the fabric of her bikini. A good friend wouldn’t be thinking about the noise she made when she settled into her front split and letting the sound echo through his head as he thought about all the ways he could make her even louder. A good friend wouldn’t tip his head back with a grunt, hand moving quicker and grip getting tighter, imagining plush lips and a wet tongue and a heated voice whimpering his name.
And a good friend definitely wouldn’t be so lost in the image, the idea, the sensation, that he was totally oblivious of his surroundings, unable to hear the door to the pool house creak open and the approaching slap of bare feet against the tiles.
(“No,” Euijoo breathes, distraught.)
“Nicholas,” Mrs. Takayama called, her voice too close for Nicholas to do anything except freeze. “I have some of Riki’s clothes if you-”
Her voice died in her throat as she rounded the corner, walking past the frosted glass partition that separated the shower stall from the rest of the pool house. Fortunately, Nicholas was in a position that hid most of his shame, hunched in front of the wall, only slightly turned around so he could track her movements like some kind of cornered animal. He hopes to God that it wasn’t enough for her to have seen his erection.
Unfortunately, his bare ass must have been horrific. Mrs. Takayama jerked back, heels skidding in the puddles of water that Nicholas had tracked in, and started to fall.
("No.")
Nicholas lunged to catch her before she hit the ground. He still thinks he was justified in doing that. There was a bench that her head could’ve hit, or the tile could’ve cracked her wrist, or none of that could’ve happened at all but still, still, Nicholas wasn’t going to let her get hurt. His own shame aside, he would’ve never forgiven himself if something went wrong when he could’ve stopped it.
Thankfully, Nicholas managed to prevent the worst of it by getting one hand under her head, making sure that she didn’t split her skull open on the pool house floor. He tried to break her fall even further by wrapping his other arm around her middle and bringing her closer to his body.
What he didn’t expect—and could’ve never expected, not in a million years—was the strings of her bikini bottoms coming undone.
(“No!” Euijoo gasps, horrified. “You mean you actually–”)
When they landed, it was at just the right angle and with just the right amount of force for Nicholas’ dick to fuck into her pussy, right to the hilt.
(“Yup,” Nicholas croaks back, grim and strained and more ashamed than he’s ever been in his entire life. “Slipped and fell. I swear. Euijoo, this sounds like a fucking joke but that’s just because my entire life is a joke. I didn’t mean to, it was an accident, I swear.”
Euijoo’s silence is absolutely deafening.)
The first thing that Nicholas did was moan, a sound that he belatedly tried and failed to stop. He let go of Mrs. Takayama’s waist to slam his palm on the floor beside her head, bracing himself as the sensation made his eyes roll back.
“Fuh–” he groaned, his whole body shuddering, his eyes squeezed shut in mortification. She was tight, so goddamn tight. His mouth was so full of drool that he was worried he might’ve dribbled on her when stuttering, “S-sorry– A-are you okay– ‘m sorry–”
He lowered her head gently to the ground and tried to pull out, even though every instinct in his body screamed to bury himself even deeper.
Nicholas had always been thankful for being, ah, gifted in terms of manhood, for having hands that were proportional to his length. Not overwhelmingly big, not large to the point of pain for his partners. But bigger than most, big enough to scratch an itch. At the time, Nicholas wished he didn’t have a dick at all.
He managed to escape about an inch before his progress was halted, pressure settling at the base of his spine. “Wh-” he managed dumbly, opening his eyes even more dumbly.
What he saw was an angel– no, a goddess. A halo of short brown hair, heavenly features warmed with a pink hue of blush, her dark brown eyes so kind and benevolent and forgiving.
“It’s okay,” Mrs. Takayama soothed, reaching up to push Nicholas’ wet hair out of his face. The droplets of water that fell from his hair darkened the fabric of her bikini and turned it sheer. “It’s okay, Nicholas, just–”
Nicholas could feel the muscles tensing in her legs as she dug her heels into the small of his back with surprising strength, enough to pull Nicholas in deeper, enough to make Nicholas gasp as she clenched around him.
He dropped down to his elbows, too overwhelmed by pleasure to keep the distance between them. Once again, the difference in their heights made it so that he was eye-level with her breasts.
“Poor thing,” Mrs. Takayama breathed through trembling lips. Her pink cheeks had turned even rosier with a flush that extended down her beautiful, slender neck. “You’ve been working s-so hard, haven’t you?”
Too confused and too overwhelmed to get his wits about him, Nicholas just whimpered.
“P-Please,” he slurred, not sure what he was asking for: forgiveness or mercy or permission. He was so pent up and so close to breaking, and she was so hot and wet around him. “Mrs. T-Takayama– oh God–”
With a gentle hand on the back of his head, Mrs. Takayama pulled Nicholas’ head down to rest on her soft, pillowy breasts. “Y-You’ve been so good for me,” she whispered, every word shaking. The cold metal of her wedding band pressed against his nape.
“Let…” her voice quivered away. Nicholas looked up at her face to catch her blush bloom even brighter, to see her screw her eyes tightly shut before she whimpered, “L-Let… ngh- let M-Mommy take care of you, okay?”
(Euijoo makes a rough sound in the back of his throat.)
And just like that, the fraying thread of Nicholas’ sanity just… snapped.
PART FOUR — IF YOU’RE GOING TO HELL, GO ALL THE WAY.
The courts have been made abundantly aware that Nicholas never had the intention of fucking Taki’s mom. However, Nicholas will admit that once he got there—meaning, inside Mrs. Takayama’s pussy—he was all too eager to, well, go through with it.
Nicholas’ first thrust was more of a pathetic twitch of his hips, a reaction to the word that seemed to light his senses on fire. He might have still had plausible deniability at this point, might have still had it if he hadn’t heard Mrs. Takayama’s squeak and lost all common sense. His next thrust was more intentional, his hips pulling away a little to fuck back in as far as he could, trying to press as deep inside her as possible.
Her tits bounced when he did, soft flesh jiggling around his face. She was warm there too, so warm, and maybe Nicholas was the one who cracked his head against the tile, because he swore that when he pressed his nose to her skin, she smelled milky and sweet.
“Mrs. Takayama,” he grunted, dumb and animalistic, movements growing more intentional. “Y-You feel– so, ah, good–”
“Kei,” she gasped back, a correction that didn’t even seem to be conscious. It was clear she was preoccupied with a task that demanded more and more of her attention as Nicholas’ thrusts got quicker and sharper, his thighs slapping audibly against the softness of her ass.
Mrs. Takayama was trying to appear unaffected, or at least less affected than she actually was. It was very obvious, which Nicholas found to be mind-meltingly cute.
He could tell that she was trying to control her voice, was trying to speak at a steady, even murmur that couldn’t help but be a bit too breathy. He could tell that she wanted to twist her fingers in his hair and pull, but forced herself to stroke through his damp locks in soothing motions, even as her fingers trembled.
He could tell that she was turned on. Her stomach flexed as her back arched off the floor; her breath quivered and caught on her glistening lips; her pussy clenched and dripped around his raw length– Nicholas’ raw length. Not her husband’s. Her college-aged son’s friend.
Nicholas might’ve been able to call himself a good person if that thought was a reminder at how fucking wrong the situation was.
But Nicholas’ mind was totally empty. Nicholas was balls deep in the hottest, wettest pussy he’d ever fucked in his whole life. Nicholas’ head was pillowed on top of the biggest, softest tits he’d ever seen, tits better than anything he’d even seen in porn. Nicholas had an angel shivering beneath him, a beautiful woman he’d wanted to worship from the moment he’d met her, a goddess who seemed to be doing everything in her power to deny herself her own pleasure, an angel thinking about everyone except herself.
Nicholas was also kind of pussy-dumb at that point. He didn’t have a single goddamn thought in his head, save for one, singular goal: make Mrs. Takayama feel good.
Heart pounding in his ears, Nicholas turned his face, lips parted so his breath would ghost over the stiff peaks of Mrs. Takayama’s dark nipples. His head spun at the way her head tipped back as she keened.
“I-Is that what you like, M-Mrs. Ta– Kei?” Emboldened, he pressed the flat of his tongue to the underside of her nipple, his rhythm stuttering when her grip tightened in his hair as she let out a breathless cry. “D-Do you like when your tits are played with?”
She bit her lip, hesitating as her ears turned pink, before she jerked her head in a small nod. “F-Feels good,” she whimpered, and Nicholas reeled like he had been hit over the head.
Cute, cute, cute, cute. He never imagined that Mrs. Takayama—a woman who had been so brazen as to greet him in a sheer nightgown, who wore more revealing clothes than women ten years younger, who laughed loudly and spoke brightly and seemed to be bold in every single way—could be so shy. She seemed almost… girlish, hesitant and unsure, trying to lead but still desperately seeking reassurance.
Nicholas couldn’t help but wonder if Mr. Murata fucked her the same way. Mr. Murata with his unflinchingly earnest compliments and encouragement. Nicholas groaned low in his throat, thrusts slowing as his entire body shivered with sudden arousal. With the sound, he took Mrs. Takayama’s nipple into his mouth and sucked.
“Mmnn–!” she squealed, legs wrapping tighter around Nicholas’ waist and pushing Nicholas’ face even closer to her chest. Nicholas felt like he was being smothered in her tits, which was kind of fucking awesome. He couldn’t imagine a better way to die. “H-Har– ngh–!”
Her attempt at stifling her own plea was unsuccessful. Nicholas heard it and locked onto it with single-minded intensity. It was hard to find leverage on the wet floor, the shower still running in the background, but he found the best footing he could to pull out, leaving only the tip inside.
Then, when he thrust back in, sharp and rough and with enough force to give him momentum to make the next one even more brutal, he managed to get even deeper.
Mrs. Takayama wailed, her voice echoing off of the tiled walls.
“O-Oh God,” she sobbed, digging her nails into Nicholas’ back, the burn making him moan. The vibrations of his voice against her tits seemed to be torturously good for her. She wrapped her legs around his waist even tighter, angled her hips even higher, all while pleading, “T-Too much, too much, m-my tits– ah, hah–”
Nicholas’ thrusts had displaced the obscenely small triangle of her bikini top, leaving her other breast completely bare. Her dark areola was framed with jagged and slightly faded stretch marks. It was on pure instinct that he shifted to suckle on it next. He took his other hand off the floor to pinch and pull at the tit he was leaving. Nicholas wanted nothing more than to have two mouths, one to suck at each breast, enough to make sure her entire body was electrified with pleasure, but his deft fingers were the next best thing.
“N-Nicho–” she cried. Nicholas’ eyes darted up to her face, satisfaction rippling through his entire body at what he saw: glassy, faraway eyes and drool leaking out of her slack mouth. “I– I can’t–”
If Nicholas had been able to focus on anything other than Mrs. Takayama’s pleasure, he might have recognized how close to climax he was. His balls had drawn tight as they slapped against Mrs. Takayama’s ass, his nipples were stiff as they dragged across Mrs. Takayama’s soft stomach, he was drooling all over Mrs. Takayama’s tits, and there was something tingling in the tips of his fingers and toes.
But he only became aware of it once he had toppled over the edge and into his orgasm, his ragged cry muffled by Mrs. Takayama’s breast, hips stuttering as he fucked in as deep as he could and stayed there, trapped in place by the vice grip of Mrs. Takayama’s iron thighs around his waist. Nicholas’ balls ached as he spilled his load, his release milked out of him by Mrs. Takayama’s rhythmic clenches, each one extending it just a little longer and making his eyes cross just a little more. Mrs. Takayama rubbed soothing circles over the nail marks she left in his skin.
“T-That’s it,” she encouraged, breathy and wanting but not overcome with pleasure. Nicholas whined, distraught, but Mrs. Takayama didn’t seem to understand. She just shivered, biting her lip as her eyelashes fluttered. “Mm, so much…”
She didn’t appear concerned that he hadn’t pulled out—hell, if anything, it was like she was trying to avoid Nicholas pulling out at all costs. Distantly, Nicholas wondered if it would take. If there was a chance, however slim, that he could fill her tits with milk and get her gravid and swollen with his baby, that he could make a woman in her forties the mother of his child. If Mr. Murata would come back from the camping trip to take care of his pregnant wife and raise the baby that she would birth as his own. A baby fathered by his step-son’s friend. A college kid hired by Mr. Murata himself to keep his wife company.
(“What the fuck, Nicholas?” Euijoo asks. “You’re actually going to hell.”
He’s clearly trying to sound disgusted, but they’ve fooled around enough for Nicholas to detect his post-orgasm voice. The past few minutes of suspicious shuffling and stuttered breathing and badly stifled moans were also a pretty good clue.
“Yes,” Nicholas sighs back. He would be aroused himself if not for his overwhelming sense of shame. And not the horny kind either. “This has been established.”)
The thought made Mrs. Takayama’s words echo in Nicholas’ ears: Fuma takes good care of me. That’s why you’re here, Nicholas. Didn’t you know? Out of order and perhaps entirely misinterpreted, sure. But still, they filled Nicholas with a solemn, if not slightly delirious sense of duty.
So, when Mrs. Takayama unhooked her ankles from Nicholas’ back, he didn’t pull out. He was too-sensitive and quickly getting soft, but Nicholas gritted his teeth and stayed in the sticky heat of Mrs. Takayama’s cunt. He took a moment to adjust his position, shifting his weight and straightening so that he was kneeling. Then, he moved his hands from Mrs. Takayama’s tits to her waist, the position unfortunately removing his face from her pillowy tits.
“N-Nicholas?” Mrs. Takayama asked breathily, blinking up at him with doe-like eyes. It was clear how desperate she still was. Her tits wobbled with each jumping breath, her lips trembled with desire, her eyes were filled with want, with need. Yet, she made no move to ask for relief.
So, Nicholas moved one hand to the patch of tummy right above her neatly trimmed bush and ground his cock in as deep as he could while pressing his hand down.
Mrs. Takayama gasped, plush thighs trembling on either side of Nicholas’ body, back arching up and off the floor.
“N-Nicholas–!” she yelped. She brought her trembling hands up to push at his hips, at his shoulders. “Y-You don’t– I– oh, oh, oh–!”
Nicholas’ eyes watered with each agonizing grind in. She was so close, he could feel it in her pussy, the way she clenched, tight and quick and desperate. It was a maddening sensation on his sensitive cock. But he didn’t stop. He couldn’t.
“T-Takin’ care of you, Mrs. K-Kei,” he gasped out. At the sound of her name, Mrs. Takayama’s hands fell limply from his body to claw at the ground. “Tha’s my job.”
He took the other hand off of her waist and groped her bare tit, massaging the tender flesh. And as Mrs. Takayama’s body began to pull taut, as her voice pitched higher and higher, he adjusted the hand he had over her stomach. He was glad to have such big hands, such long fingers. They allowed him to keep the same, purposeful pressure on her womb, while also reaching her fat, swollen clit. It was a bit of a stretch, but Nicholas was able to rub his thumb along the seam of the hood as his pelvis pressed against her mound, rolling his hips to grind and grind and grind–
Mrs. Takayama screamed as she came, the sound echoing off of the walls as her hands belatedly flew up to cover her mouth. Nicholas could feel her cunt flutter and gush, wetness spilling around his length and dripping between them. Her tits and thighs and stomach shook as her body jerked helplessly. But his eyes were focused on her face as her eyes rolled back, tears ran down her cheeks, her ears turned scarlet.
Mr. Murata’s voice rattled around Nicholas’ skull. You really are an excellent performer.
Eventually, her body went limp against the floor, as if deflating. Her cunt released its vice-like grip on Nicholas’ cock, which slid free. Nicholas couldn’t help but stare at the cum that leaked out after. He felt like he was hypnotized, his head fuzzy and empty, not hearing anything except for the shower running in the back and their panting breaths.
“Mmnn…” Mrs. Takayama whimpered. Nicholas’ eyes snapped up to her face in concern. Thankfully, she seemed to be shuddering through an aftershock, eyebrows knitted as she twitched. Her wedding band glinted in the light that streamed through one of the high, slitted windows. “Ngh…”
Her wedding band. Her wedding band.
Nicholas’ blood went cold.
(“So, you thought about her husband raising your baby,” Euijoo starts, disbelieving, “and her husband’s voice coached you through her orgasm, but you only remembered that she was a married woman when you saw the wedding ring on her finger—which she had been wearing the whole time?”
Nicholas didn’t have a response to that.)
His legs were shaky, but he still shot to his feet. He moved with single-minded, robotic intent. Mrs. Takayama might’ve called his name, but he couldn’t hear anything except the sound of a crashing train between his ears. He only stopped long enough to swipe the change of clothes that he’d left on the bench before his shower. He didn’t even grab his bag or put those clothes on.
When Nicholas escaped the pool house, he was totally naked. He sprinted across the lawn and up the steps of the back deck. Inside the house, he made sure to stay on the doormat as he changed, only then realizing that he didn’t have his underwear or his shoes. But he didn’t care about that at the time. He dressed himself in what he had, shoved his phone in his pocket, and sprinted out the door with his heart in his throat.
He made sure to keep a breakneck pace the entire way home, terrified that if he stopped for even a moment, everything would catch up to him.
PART FIVE — HELL IS EMPTY.
Nicholas would love to remind the court of the facts once again, just for good measure, but Euijoo interrupts him.
“What the fuck?” his best friend blurts, understandably. Nicholas braces himself for the shame, but Euijoo’s voice is concerned. “You ran home barefoot?”
Nicholas blinks, somewhat thrown. “Uh, yes? I left my shoes in the pool house. I wasn’t going back there.”
“You ran through the streets of Los Angeles, barefoot!?” Euijoo asks again, voice pitching up to a squeaky yell.
“I didn’t run all the way home!” Nicholas snaps back, mostly out of reflex. Euijoo yelling makes him start yelling no matter what Euijoo’s actually yelling about. There’s just something inherently wrong with Euijoo being the loudest person in the room. “I didn’t want to get on public transit without my shoes so I called an uber! It cost, like, a hundred bucks.”
“Oh my God, stop talking to me and call a fucking doctor!?” Euijoo’s rapid pacing is audible. “You need a tetanus shot at least. And possibly a foot amputation. Nicholas, that’s fucking insane.”
Nicholas huffs, sinking back to the floor. “Honestly, I deserve tetanus. Out of everyone in the world, no one deserves tetanus more than I do right now. And no one deserves feet less than me.”
Another wave of shame rocks through him, and Nicholas has to bury his face in his palm to brace against it. “Fuck, Euijoo, I think I’m going to have to resign from the dance club. How can anyone trust me to be captain if they can’t trust me to not fuck their mom?”
There’s a moment of silence.
“Oh my God,” Euijoo breathes, right when Nicholas is certain that his best friend has hung up on him in disgust. “Nicholas. Wait. You… you still haven’t realized it?”
“Realized what?” Nicholas frowns. “That I’m terrible? Euijoo, you don’t have to be the one to tell me. For once, I’m perfectly aware.”
“No, that’s not–” Euijoo’s voice breaks off in a frustrated groan. “Nicho, don’t you think that, like, Taki’s parents were… weirdly interested in you? Like yeah, you’re the captain of their son’s dance team, but considering that you barely knew them– that you hadn’t even met Mrs. Takayama before–”
“They’re nice people,” Nicholas sighs miserably, stomach twisting with guilt.
“Is niceness correlated with how much cleavage they flash at you?” Euijoo bluntly returns. “Because man, Mrs. Takayama was basically shoving her tits in your face whenever she could.”
Nicholas’ entire face gets hot. “That– she’s just friendly!” he splutters. “It’s not her fault that I’m right at tit height!”
“She answered the door in sheer lingerie on your first day of work! When she knew that you would be at the door and when her husband wasn’t even home!”
“A babydoll is a nightgown you uncultured–” Nicholas’ voice breaks in a moment of pure frustration and torment. “What’re you trying to get at, huh? That Taki’s parents pushed him to ask me to help out for the summer so I could be their boytoy? That Taki’s step-dad wanted me to fuck his wife? Do you understand how insane that sounds? If this is your way of making fun of me then–”
He laughs, a harsh bark of a sound, softened slightly by the wobbly tears that he barely manages to hold back. “I didn’t think you had it in you to be that cruel, Euijoo.”
Again, Euijoo is silent for a moment. This time, when he speaks, his voice is surprisingly gentle. “I’m not making fun of you,” he says, soft in a way he seldom is with Nicholas. Something about it puts a lump in Nicholas’ throat. “I just think that you should at least go back tomorrow to get your shoes, and to formally quit if you feel like you have to. It’d be rude to just… walk out on her like that.”
Nicholas’ breath catches. He thinks about Mrs. Takayama in that big house, all by herself. “Y-Yeah,” he hears himself agree. “Yeah, I’ll do that. Thanks, Juju. Sorry.”
“Hey, no problem.” Euijoo smiles—Nicholas can hear it. “But Nicho?”
Nicholas hums. “Yeah?”
“You gotta get your head out of your ass.”
Euijoo hangs up before Nicholas can even splutter. It’s to the dial tone that Nicholas manages to squawk, offended, “Well fuck you too!”
EPILOGUE — HELL AND BACK (AND BACK AGAIN).
Nicholas doesn’t have a second pair of work shoes, so he shows up at the Takayama-Murata household in a pair of timbs. Euijoo would say that timbs are, by definition, work boots, but that’s not why Nicholas owns them.
He gets there twenty minutes early. That’s enough time to pace around the block three times, muster up enough courage to walk up the steps and to the front door, and then spend the next five minutes psyching himself out over ringing the doorbell. He brings his finger to the button over and over, and he probably looks fucking insane on the ring camera’s footage, but he feels insane right now. He feels halfway to genuine Victorian madness.
In the end, he doesn’t have to ring the bell at all. His finger brushes the button, not even pressing it, when the door flies open. Nicholas stumbles back with a yelp, arms pinwheeling as his heels teeter on the steps. A hand fists in the front of his shirt and yanks him forward, and Nicholas goes toppling the other way.
Right into a pair of soft, but clothed, breasts.
The fabric smells like sunshine and detergent. It’s warm, like it was pulled straight from the dryer. Nicholas forces himself to step back.
“S-Sorry–” he blurts immediately, and he means it in every single way.
He doesn’t mean to just say that single word. He had a whole spiel planned, actually. He feverishly practiced it on the commute over, probably freaking out every single person on his bus. All the words fly out of his head when he sees the image before him: Kei Takayama in a loose white t-shirt and a rumpled pair of sweatpants. Underneath the shirt, there’s the lacy blue hem of a babydoll, the same hem as the one she wore on the first day that they met.
Nicholas can picture it clearly: Mrs. Takayama coming to the door in her nightgown, flirty and cute and sexy in the way that she just inherently is, only to look and see Nicholas at the door. Maybe moving to open it regardless, but faltering, rushing to the still-warm dryer to throw on something more modest. These clothes don’t fit her well. She couldn’t quite pull the sweats over her ample hips, and the fabric of the shirt strains over her chest. The shirt is stretched so thin that it does nothing to hide the way that her nipples poke through the fabric. They’re men’s clothes, clothes that Nicholas are certain that Mrs. Takayama would never wear, not unless absolutely necessary.
As frumpy and ill-fitting as the ensemble is, she still looks absolutely divine.
“N-Nicholas?” Mrs. Takayama asks, voice wavering. Her face is entirely pink. She’s biting her lip, nervously playing with the hem of her shirt. “I– I didn’t expect to see you here.”
She sounds… hopeful. Maybe Nicholas is delusional for thinking so. But then again, he’s already going to hell. What’re they going to do, send him to super hell?
“Mrs. Kei,” Nicholas says, voice still sleep-rough, deeper and more gravelly than it usually is. Mrs. Takayama’s eyes widen, pupils dilating in the pale morning light. “Where do you want me to start work today?”
As crimson seeps into her cheeks, she stammers, “U-Upstairs. In the… the bedrooms, if you don’t mind.”
…okay, so Nicholas might be going to super hell. Whatever. That’s fine. Mrs. Takayama has made a request, and it’s Nicholas' job to make sure that it is fulfilled, however she wants it fulfilled.
So, he nods, not trusting his voice to respond. Mrs. Takayama’s eyes sparkle as she opens the door wider to let him inside. With a rough swallow, Nicholas follows her orders. He steps over the threshold of her family home and lets her close the door behind him.
The click of the lock makes his body go hot all over. Idly, he wonders if Mrs. Takayama would agree to a dip in the pool after. Just to cool off.