[Sasaki's Apartment — Bedroom | — 10:47 PM]
The crocodile tears had done their job beautifully.
Sayuri suppressed the flutter of triumph behind her ribs and dabbed at eyes that had never actually been wet, the pad of her index finger brushing dry lashes. She tilted her chin just enough to study Sasaki through the veil of her bangs, her gaze threaded with suspicion she didn't entirely have to fake.
The overhead light had been switched off earlier—only the warm amber glow of his desk lamp remained, painting half of everything in honey and leaving the rest to shadow. His small bedroom smelled of fresh tatami reed and the faint, soapy remnants of body wash clinging to his skin from his earlier shower.
"Really?" Her voice came out smaller than she intended. "You're not lying to me?"
Sasaki shook his head with the earnest vigor of a golden retriever that had just been told good boy. "Really. I don't want you to suffer, Sayuri-san."
He means it. He actually means it. A thread of genuine warmth pulled through her chest, followed immediately by a cold knot of guilt that settled somewhere behind her sternum. She had weaponized his kindness—pressed on his sympathy like a button she already knew the shape of. The boy was too decent for this.
"Sasaki-kun… you really are sweet." She managed a soft smile, her fingers curling against the hem of the oversized t-shirt she'd borrowed. The cotton still held a trace of his laundry detergent—something clean and faintly cedar—and every time she moved, it reminded her she was standing in a college boy's bedroom wearing nothing underneath but her own skin and a pair of track pants.
Then he tilted his head, brows knitting with an innocence so convincing it could have won an Academy Award.
"But… how do you actually make a hickey? I've never done one before." He rubbed the back of his neck, the picture of bashful inexperience. "Could you teach me, Sayuri-nee?"
Sayuri's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
He's asking me to explain how to give a hickey. Out loud. With words.
The blood rushed to her face so fast she felt lightheaded. Every instinct screamed at her to deflect, to laugh it off, but she had started this. She was the adult. She had to see it through. Her throat worked around a dry swallow, and she forced her voice into something approximating calm authority—the same tone she used when explaining a recipe, she told herself, nothing more.
"You… press your lips against my neck." She kept her eyes fixed on a point somewhere past his left shoulder. "Then you suck. Hard. Like—" She grasped for an analogy that wouldn't make her want to crawl under the floorboards. "—like drinking the last of a milkshake through a straw. The pressure breaks tiny blood vessels under the skin, and that's what leaves the mark."
I want to die. I want the earth to swallow me whole right now.
The explanation hung in the air between them, obscene in its clinical simplicity. Sayuri's ears burned hot enough to fry an egg on.
Sasaki's gaze drifted—slowly, deliberately—to the pale column of her throat. Her skin looked porcelain-smooth under the lamplight, interrupted only by the faint blue trace of a vein running just beneath her jaw. He swallowed audibly, his Adam's apple bobbing.
"So… should we start now?"
Sayuri drew a breath deep enough to fill her entire chest, held it for three heartbeats, and released it through her nose. She nodded once, a short, decisive dip of her chin.
"Mm. Let's get it over with."
She closed her eyes.
---
The shift in Sasaki's expression was instantaneous—a curtain dropping, or perhaps rising. The soft, earnest warmth evaporated from his features like morning dew off hot asphalt. What replaced it was something quieter. Sharper. His dark eyes traced the landscape of her face with the leisured interest of someone studying a painting they'd already decided to buy.
Cute.
He watched the way her eyelids pressed together just a fraction too tight, the way her jaw clenched at the hinge. She was trying so hard to appear relaxed, and failing at it spectacularly—her shoulders rigid beneath the oversized shirt, her bare feet pressed together on the floor, toes curled against the wood.
He stepped forward. The distance between them shrank to less than half a meter. Close enough to count her eyelashes if he wanted to. Close enough to feel the warmth radiating off her body through the thin cotton.
"I'm starting, okay?" he murmured, his breath ghosting across her collarbone.
Her lashes trembled—a rapid, butterfly-wing flutter she couldn't control. Her small hands balled into fists at her sides, knuckles going white.
"S-start."
She's shaking.
He didn't close the distance. Not yet. Instead, Sasaki bent at the waist, bringing his face level with the curve where her neck met her shoulder, and simply breathed her in. The scent hit him in layers—sakura-blossom body wash first, sweet and slightly powdery, then something warmer underneath. Skin-heat. The faintest trace of nervous sweat along her hairline, sharp and human.
His eyes, half-lidded now, traveled downward through the gaping collar of the borrowed shirt. Without a bra, everything was visible from this angle. The full, heavy curve of her breasts, round as ripe fruit, the soft weight of them shifting with each shallow breath she took. The pale pink of her nipples, drawn tight in the cool air, pressing against the inside of the cotton like they were trying to announce themselves. He catalogued every detail with the quiet greed of someone memorizing a view they might not see again.
"Sasaki-kun?"
Sayuri's voice broke the silence, small and confused. She'd been standing there with her eyes closed, braced for contact, and nothing had come. Disappointment flickered through her before she could name it, chased by bewilderment.
"Sorry." He straightened up, rubbing the back of his neck again with practiced sheepishness. "I got a little nervous."
God, this is embarrassing. Sayuri's pulse hammered against her throat—the very throat she was about to offer him. She wanted to scream, but she swallowed the urge and softened her voice into the patient, maternal register she'd unconsciously adopted with him.
"Don't be nervous. It's just acting, remember?" She kept her eyes closed, because opening them right now would mean confronting the reality of a twenty-year-old's face inches from her bare skin. "Just close your eyes and press your lips to my neck. That's all. I won't be upset."
A beat of silence.
"…Okay."
He gave her no runway this time.
His mouth found the tender curve of her neck in one fluid motion—warm, firm, slightly open—and sealed against her skin with the kind of pressure that left no room for ambiguity. His lips were softer than she'd expected, fuller, the bottom one catching against her pulse point as he adjusted his angle. Then he sucked.
"Aa—hh—!"
The sound ripped out of her before she could catch it—a sharp, startled cry that melted halfway through into something breathier, something that curled at the edges like smoke. Her whole body went rigid, spine arching involuntarily, the back of her head tipping to give him better access even as her mouth formed protests.
"W-wait, Sasaki-kun, not so hard— nnnh—"
He didn't ease up. His lips worked against the spot just below her jaw with a deliberate, rhythmic suction—drawing the blood to the surface in steady pulses. The wet sound of his mouth on her skin was obscene in the quiet room, a slick chuu… chuu… that seemed to bounce off every wall.
Reina's knees buckled. She caught herself on his shoulders, her fingers digging into the hard muscle there through his t-shirt, and the contact sent a fresh jolt through her nervous system. Her thighs pressed together instinctively, squeezing tight, the friction of skin against skin beneath her pants doing nothing to help the liquid heat pooling low in her belly.
It feels like he's pulling my soul out through my neck—
The thought was absurd and dramatic and entirely accurate. Every nerve ending from her jaw to her collarbone had lit up like a switchboard, signals firing in directions they had no business going. Her toes curled against the hardwood. Her breathing came in shallow, stuttered gasps—each exhale carrying a soft, involuntary moan she couldn't smother no matter how hard she bit the inside of her cheek.
"Mmn… hahh… S-Sasaki…"
His name, stripped of the honorific, fell from her lips like something private.
He held the kiss for another three seconds—long enough to feel her pulse jackrabbit against his tongue, long enough to taste the clean salt of her skin—and then released her with a soft, wet pop.
He stepped back.
---
The air between them felt thick enough to chew.
Sayuri stood motionless, chest heaving beneath the borrowed shirt, her eyes still closed. A damp, glistening oval marked the spot on her neck where his mouth had been—flushed an angry pink that was already deepening toward burgundy at the center. A thin thread of saliva connected her skin to nothing, catching the lamplight before it broke.
She's not opening her eyes.
Sasaki studied her from arm's length, his own pulse elevated but controlled. The flush had spread from her cheeks down to her chest, visible where the collar gaped. Her thighs were still pressed together, the muscles in her calves taut. She was breathing through parted lips, and the sound was doing things to his composure that a cold shower might not fix.
Is she always this sensitive? When I caught her earlier—when my hands were on her breasts—she reacted the same way. That's not normal responsiveness. That's someone who hasn't been touched properly in a long time.
He filed the observation away.
Slowly, Sayuri's body unclenched. Her shoulders dropped. Her fingers released his shirt—she hadn't realized she was still holding on—and she blinked her eyes open. The look in them was hazy, unfocused, her pupils blown wide and dark enough to swallow the warm brown of her irises. She looked, Sasaki thought, like someone surfacing from a very vivid dream.
She couldn't meet his gaze.
Without a word, she turned toward the bedside table and plucked a tissue from the box there, pressing it to her neck with trembling fingers. The paper darkened immediately—soaked through with saliva in seconds. She glanced at the ruined tissue, her face cycling through three shades of crimson, and dropped it into the small wastebasket beside the bed before reaching for another.
"Sorry." Sasaki's voice was appropriately mortified. He rubbed his jaw, looking anywhere but at her. "I'm really sorry, Sayuri-san. I got you all… dirty."
The word landed between them with more weight than two syllables should carry.
Sayuri pressed her palm flat against her sternum—she could feel her heart slamming against her ribs like it was trying to escape—and managed a smile that was more wobble than curve. "You were just nervous. It's fine." She dabbed at her neck again, the second tissue already damp. "But, um… a word of advice? When you kiss a girl for real someday, maybe… less saliva. Most girls won't appreciate feeling like they went through a car wash."
She'd meant it as a joke. Her voice betrayed her—too breathy, too soft, the teasing edge dulled by something warmer.
Sasaki dropped his chin, letting his bangs curtain his expression. "It was… my first time," he mumbled. "Doing anything like that. So I didn't really know how to control it."
His first time.
The words detonated quietly inside Reina's chest. It wasn't a kiss on the mouth—she knew that—but the idea that she was the first woman his lips had ever touched in any intimate capacity sent a strange, sweet vertigo spiraling through her. She felt pleased in a way she absolutely should not have felt, and the recognition of that pleasure made her want to slap herself.
Stop it. He's a kid. You're married. This was an act.
"L-let's not talk about this anymore," she stammered, pivoting hard. "Come look—did the mark actually show up?"
Sasaki closed the distance between them again—half a step, then another—and leaned in. His eyes fixed on the spot below her jaw. A vivid raspberry bloom, roughly the size of a five-hundred-yen coin, stood out against her pale skin like a brand. The edges were diffuse, organic, unmistakably the work of a mouth.
"It's there," he confirmed, and his voice held something too close to satisfaction before he corrected it back to bashfulness. "Red. Pretty visible."
Sayuri's hand flew to her neck, fingers pressing over the mark as though she could hide it by touch alone. The skin there was still tender, still tingling, still damp. Her cheeks burned.
"Thank you, Sasaki-kun." She was already backing toward the door, her bare feet whispering against the floorboards. "I should go. It's late."
"I'll walk you—"
"No." The refusal came too fast, too sharp. Her eyes darted sideways, panicked. She softened it with a hasty smile that didn't reach her eyes. "I mean—it's just next door. I'll be fine. You should sleep."
She didn't wait for his reply. She turned and slipped through the door, and the soft click of it closing behind her sounded, in the silence of the apartment, like the period at the end of a sentence neither of them had been ready to finish.
---
[Sasaki's Apartment — Bedroom | 11:02 PM]
Alone.
The mask dissolved like sugar in hot water.
Sasaki stood in the middle of his bedroom, the ghost of her body wash still hanging in the air, and the expression on his face bore no resemblance to the shy, bumbling boy who'd been stammering apologies thirty seconds ago. His eyes were half-lidded. Calm. Calculating.
"That sensitive, huh." He said it to no one—to the ceiling, to the lamplight, to the damp spot on his collar where her fingers had gripped. "She doesn't react like a married woman. Interesting."
Her thighs were shaking. She moaned my name without the honorific.
No. There's no way.
He exhaled through his teeth, long and slow, and became acutely aware of the rigid ache straining against his shorts. The memory of her skin under his lips—hot, salt-sweet, pulse fluttering like a trapped bird—was not helping.
He walked to the bathroom and yanked the door open.
The overhead fluorescent buzzed to life. And there, draped over the edge of the laundry hamper where Sayuri had changed out of her wet clothes earlier, sat a pair of black lace panties and a matching bra—delicate, expensive-looking, the kind with scalloped edges and a tiny satin bow at the center gore. She'd forgotten them.
Sasaki stared.
The bra cups were generous—sized to hold the full, heavy weight he'd glimpsed through the shirt collar—and the panties were the kind that would ride high on the hip, barely covering anything at all. A faint scent clung to them—her body wash layered over something muskier, headier, unmistakably her.
His jaw clenched. The ache below his waist throbbed harder.
He pinched the inside of his thigh—hard, vindictive—and twisted the shower knob to cold. The water hit him like a slap, and he stood under it with his teeth gritted and his hands braced against the tile, letting the icy needles do battle with a fire they were not equipped to put out.
It was a short shower.
---
[Tanaka & Sayuri's Apartment — Living Room | 11:09 PM]
The apartment smelled like stale cigarette smoke and convenience-store bento.
Tanaka was on the couch when she came through the door—slouched against the armrest with his phone balanced on his stomach, one leg thrown over the cushion. He was still wearing the wrinkled dress shirt from work, the top three buttons undone, exposing the soft, doughy spread of his chest.
His face was average in the way that suggested it had once been handsome, ten kilos and several bad habits ago—a weak jaw starting to blur into his neck, eyes that were a little too close together, a mouth that always seemed to be smiling at something only he found funny.
He looked up as the door opened, and his eyes lit with the eagerness of a dog hearing a can opener.
Then he saw what she was wearing—the oversized men's t-shirt hanging to mid-thigh, the pants that clearly weren't hers, the bare feet—and he stood up, the phone tumbling forgotten onto the cushion.
"Sayuri." His voice was almost reverent. "Did you get through to the kid?"
Look at her. She's wearing his clothes. This is actually happening.
Sayuri felt the familiar wave of revulsion roll through her stomach. She kept her face neutral—she'd had years of practice—and gave a small nod.
"Mm. But Sasaki-kun is shy. He already has someone he likes. He wasn't exactly eager to cooperate."
Tanaka waved a dismissive hand, grinning. "He's a teenager. At that age, a guy's body makes the decisions for him. There's no way he keeps saying no—not to you." His eyes raked over her with a possessive appreciation that had nothing to do with her comfort. "You're gorgeous. He'll cave."
His gaze sharpened, focusing on her neck.
The hickey sat there, dark and undeniable, just below the hinge of her jaw. Tanaka's pupils dilated. A flush crept up from beneath his collar, and the grin on his face stretched wider—hungry, delighted, aroused.
There it is. Proof. She actually let him put his mouth on her.
"So? How far did you two go tonight?" He took a step closer, practically vibrating with anticipation. "Tell me everything—what did he do, what did you do—"
"Tanaka." Reina's voice was flat. Tired. "We just kissed for a bit. That's all."
"Kissed where? On the mouth? How long—"
"I'm exhausted." She sidestepped him, already moving toward the hallway. Her bedroom—her bedroom, the one she'd been sleeping in alone for the past eight months—was twelve steps away. "I'm going to bed."
Tanaka swallowed his questions with visible effort, the muscles in his jaw working. He settled back onto the couch, folding his hands behind his head, and the smile that spread across his face was beatific.
"Sure. Get some rest." His voice followed her down the hall like something sticky. "I just… God, Sayuri. The thought of him touching you—I can't even sleep. It's incredible."
She's disgusted. He couldn't see it, or wouldn't—the way her lip curled, the way her shoulders drew up toward her ears as though his words were something physical she needed to shield against.
Sayuri closed her bedroom door behind her without responding, pressed her back against the wood, and exhaled through her mouth until her lungs were empty. The room was dark. Quiet. The sheets smelled like her own detergent—lavender and clean cotton—and the absence of him was the only comfort this apartment had ever offered her.
She pressed her fingertips to the mark on her neck.
The skin was still warm.
Her other hand found the hem of Sasaki's borrowed shirt and gripped it, pulling the collar up to her nose. Cedar-scented detergent. Something underneath—soap and boy and the faintest trace of something she couldn't name but wanted to breathe in again.
She let the fabric fall and crossed to the bed, pulling the covers up to her chin without changing, Sasaki's shirt still wrapped around her like a second skin, and stared at the ceiling until the phantom pressure of his mouth faded into something almost bearable.
Out in the living room, Tanaka sat alone on the couch, bathed in the blue light of his phone screen, scrolling through nothing. The grin hadn't left his face. He scratched absently at his soft belly, shifted to get comfortable, and settled deeper into the cushions with the contented sigh of a man who believed the world was arranging itself exactly according to plan.
---