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[Sasaki's Apartment — Kitchen → Bedroom]
The overhead vent hummed on its lowest setting, cycling warm air heavy with sesame oil and the faintly sweet residue of mirin glaze that had caramelized on the stovetop twenty minutes ago. Outside the small kitchen window, the Tōkyō skyline blushed in amber and tangerine, autumn light stretching long across the tile floor and catching on the chrome faucet in a thin, liquid line.
None of it registered for Ruri.
Sasaki's mouth covered hers completely, his lips dragging slow across her lower lip before pressing in again, tasting, parting her just enough to sweep his tongue along the soft inside of her mouth. His left arm coiled around her waist, fingers spread wide across the small of her back, holding her upright the way someone might hold a marionette whose strings had been cut. She could smell sandalwood and clean cotton on his collar, layered underneath with something warmer — the faint salt-and-heat scent of his skin after an afternoon in a stuffy classroom.
Her brain had stopped producing coherent sentences roughly forty seconds ago.
I need to push him away. I need to push him — what is his hand doing.
His right hand kneaded the soft flesh of her inner thigh through the gap in her jeans — the very gap he'd carved into the denim himself the week before, the ragged edge of the cut sitting dangerously high, barely four centimeters below the crease where thigh met hip. Every squeeze sent a bright, electric jolt racing up through her abdomen, and her knees buckled a little more each time, the soles of her sneakers sliding on the tile.
Sasaki pressed deeper into the kiss, tilting her chin up with the angle of his jaw. Ruri's hands hung limp at her sides, fingers twitching. She wasn't kissing him back — not really — her lips just parted and accepted whatever he gave, soft and slack and tasting faintly of the strawberry milk she'd been drinking earlier. For a boy who'd only done this once before, the imprecision didn't matter. The small, involuntary sounds she made against his mouth — tiny, wet clicks of breath catching in her throat — were enough to make his pulse slam against his ribs.
She's shaking this hard and I've barely started. God, she's going to kill me.
His fingers traced the frayed edge of the denim tear, feeling the rough thread give way to smooth, warm skin. He pressed inward, past the ripped border, the pad of his index finger sliding against something softer — thin cotton, body-warm, stretched taut across the innermost swell of her thigh. The texture was unmistakable. Ruri's entire body seized, her spine going rigid against his chest, a choked little gasp vanishing into his mouth.
Her hand flew up — halfway to swatting his wrist — then froze, fingers curling uselessly in the air above his forearm.
She couldn't bring herself to stop him.
The hesitation lasted exactly one and a half seconds. More than enough.
Sasaki's fingertip traced a slow, deliberate line along the cotton, pressing just hard enough to feel the heat radiating through the fabric. He dragged the pad of his finger upward, the friction pulling the thin material against her most sensitive skin, and Ruri's mouth broke away from his in a soundless gasp, her forehead dropping against his collarbone.
"Hahh — nn —"
A tingling, liquid warmth flooded outward from the point of contact, cascading up through her stomach and spreading across her chest until even her earlobes burned. Her thighs clamped together involuntarily, trapping his hand, but the pressure only ground his finger harder against her, and the feedback loop spiraled — tighter, hotter, a coil winding somewhere deep behind her navel that she had absolutely no framework for understanding.
What — what is — I can't — something's —
Sasaki felt the exact moment it happened. The girl in his arms convulsed once — hard — her whole body locking rigid, every muscle from her calves to her jaw clenching simultaneously. A strangled, breathy "nnhh—!" vibrated against his throat. Then she went completely limp, dead weight collapsing into him, her head lolling sideways against his shoulder.
He opened his eyes.
Ruri's lashes rested against her flushed cheeks, lips slightly parted, a thin thread of saliva catching the kitchen light where their mouths had separated. Out cold. Her chest rose and fell in shallow, rapid cycles, and a faint sheen of sweat glistened along her hairline — fine baby hairs darkened with moisture, clinging to her temple. The smell of her shampoo — something green and herbal, like matcha mixed with aloe — wafted up from the crown of her head, mingling with the sharper, sweeter scent of arousal that clung to his trapped hand.
She actually fainted. From that.
His body screamed at him. Every nerve below his waist had consolidated into a singular, throbbing demand, and the heat of her unconscious weight pressed against his chest made it exponentially worse. His jaw tightened. His breathing came through his nose in controlled, deliberate pulls.
He extracted his hand carefully from between her thighs, flexed his fingers once, and bent down to hook his other arm beneath her knees.
Sasaki carried her out of the kitchen.
---
His bedroom sat at the end of the short hallway — ten-tatami room, reasonably clean by the standards of a male high-schooler living alone. A low platform bed with navy sheets occupied the far wall beneath a window half-covered by blackout curtains. A slim bookshelf held volumes of Vagabond and Vinland Saga alongside a few programming textbooks, their spines cracked from actual use.
A half-empty bottle of Acqua di Giò sat on the desk next to a closed laptop and a mechanical pencil missing its cap. The room smelled like that cologne, faintly — cedar and white musk — layered over the clean, slightly dusty scent of cotton sheets that had been aired out two days ago but not since.
He laid her down on her back, her dark hair fanning across his pillow like spilled ink. Even unconscious, her face held that absurd, infuriating prettiness — the kind that looked illustrated, like a character designer had spent extra frames on her. Flushed cheeks the color of crushed peonies. Lips still wet. The oversized tee she wore had ridden up during the carry, exposing a sliver of her stomach — flat, pale, the skin so smooth it almost looked airbrushed, rising and falling with each slow breath.
I could.
His hand hovered six inches above her waist.
I could, and she wouldn't know until after.
The thought sat in his chest like a hot coal, and for three full seconds, Sasaki didn't move. The room was silent except for the muffled city noise filtering through the curtains and the faint, rhythmic sound of her breathing.
Then he pulled his hand back, shoved it into his pocket, and walked out of the room.
He closed the door behind him with a soft click and leaned his back against it, staring at the ceiling.
If I stay in there one more second, I'm not leaving.
---
Fourteen minutes later, Ruri's eyelids fluttered.
Unfamiliar ceiling. Navy fabric. The scent of cedar and something sharp-clean — men's cologne, not overpowering but close, embedded in the pillow beneath her head. She blinked twice, her pupils adjusting to the low amber light filtering through half-drawn curtains, and the memories returned in a nauseating rush: the kitchen, his mouth, his hand between her —
Her eyes flew wide.
She bolted upright, hands frantically patting down her body — tee still on, bra still clasped, jeans still buttoned, zipper up. She ran her palms along her thighs, her hips, her stomach, searching for any sign that clothing had been removed and replaced. Nothing. Everything sat exactly as it had been.
The breath she released came out in a full-body shudder, her shoulders dropping three inches.
He didn't. He actually didn't.
Relief pooled warm in her chest — and then, trailing behind it like a shadow she didn't want to examine too closely, something that felt uncomfortably like surprise. Maybe even a fraction of something warmer.
She pressed her palm against the ripped section of her jeans, fingers tracing the frayed edge where his hand had been. The skin beneath was still faintly tingling. Her cheeks ignited.
Nope. Not thinking about that. Absolutely not.
Ruri shook her head hard enough to send her hair whipping against her cheeks and forced her attention outward, scanning the room with the precise, cataloguing gaze of someone who'd once spent an entire lunch period memorizing the contents of a classmate's pencil case just because she could.
Snooping through other people's private spaces was, objectively, one of her worst habits. She knew this. She also knew she was absolutely going to do it anyway — and with Sasaki specifically, the motivation went beyond idle curiosity. This boy had held the upper hand in every single encounter between them. If she could find something — anything — embarrassing enough to serve as leverage, the power imbalance might finally shift.
Everyone has secrets. Even him. Especially him.
She swung her legs off the bed and padded to the small wastebasket beside the desk first, tilting it toward the light. Crumpled receipts. An empty chip bag. A dead mechanical pencil lead container. No suspicious tissues clumped together, no incriminating wrappers.
Ruri lowered the bin with a theatrical pout, pulling out her phone to take a photo of the room's layout — old habit — before tucking it back into her hoodie pocket.
Nothing. Disappointing. Either he's abnormally clean or he's smarter about disposal than most boys.
Her gaze drifted to the bed.
Wait. Don't guys supposedly hide things under their beds? Like — dolls? Those life-sized pillow things? Surely someone like Sasaki would have at least one questionable dakimakura stuffed under there.
The mental image of Sasaki sleeping next to an anime body pillow was absurd enough to make her snort. She dropped to her knees at the bedside and lowered herself onto all fours, pressing her cheek close to the floor to peer into the dark gap beneath the bed frame.
Dust. A single stray sock. The corner of what looked like a shoebox, disappointingly ordinary.
She didn't hear the door open.
---
Sasaki had gone to the kitchen to splash cold water on his face and neck, spending the better part of ten minutes leaning over the sink with his eyes closed, willing his blood to redistribute itself to regions more appropriate for polite company. It mostly worked. He dried his face with a dish towel, grabbed two cans of iced coffee from the fridge, and walked back down the hallway.
He opened his bedroom door to a sight that very nearly undid all ten minutes of effort.
Ruri was on all fours at the foot of his bed — knees on the floor, chest low, head ducked beneath the frame. Her tee had ridden up past the curve of her lower back, exposing a strip of bare skin from her waist to the dimples just above her tailbone — pale, smooth, catching the light with a faint sheen that made it look almost luminous.
The position forced her hips upward and back, and the loose jeans that normally hung shapeless on her frame were now pulled taut across her backside, the denim stretched tight enough to define every curve — the round, high swell of each cheek, the deep crease where they met her thighs, the subtle shift of muscle as she wriggled forward another inch to reach deeper under the bed.
She's literally — right there — just — presenting — on my floor — in my room —
The cans of iced coffee clinked softly in his grip. He swallowed. The sound was audible.
Ruri's body stiffened. She'd spotted his feet.
She scrambled backward, knees scraping carpet, and lurched upright so fast she nearly headbutted the mattress edge. When she turned to face him, her expression cycled through alarm, embarrassment, and a guilty deer-in-headlights panic in the span of about one second.
Sasaki leaned against the doorframe, one can of coffee dangling loosely from his fingers, the other hand braced against the wood. His gaze dropped from her flushed face to her exposed midriff, then lower — leisurely, deliberately — before returning to her eyes.
"Pretty eager to stick your ass in the air like that," he said, the corner of his mouth pulling into a lazy smirk. "Were you waiting for me?"
Low blow. But the way she scrambled up just now was the funniest thing I've seen all week.
Ruri's face burned scarlet. Under normal circumstances, a comment that crude would've earned him a verbal evisceration — or at minimum a thrown shoe. But something about the lingering memory of what had happened in the kitchen, the fact that he'd carried her here and left her untouched, the confusing tangle of fear and gratitude and something else knotted in her chest — all of it diluted her anger into something softer, more uncertain.
She straightened her hoodie with a sharp tug, pulling it down past her hips. "Sasaki," she said, her voice quieter than she intended. "When I was unconscious — you didn't do anything to me."
"Observant."
"I'm being serious." She met his eyes, and the vulnerability there was genuine — rare enough to make him pause. "You could have. And you didn't. That means you're not — completely awful." She swallowed. "So please. Can you just stop? We're classmates. I don't want to end up visiting you in prison someday."
The silence lasted two beats.
"You'd visit me in prison?" Sasaki tilted his head, his expression shifting to one of theatrical warmth. "Ruri. That's the most romantic thing you've ever said to me."
"Can you not turn everything into —"
"You literally just confessed you'd make the trip to a correctional facility on my behalf. That implies emotional investment. I'm touched."
She'd visit. She actually said she'd visit. Filing that one away permanently.
"That is NOT what I —" Ruri pressed her palms against her temples. "I am trying to have a normal conversation with you. Is that physically impossible for you? Is there a medical condition involved?"
"Normal?" He set the coffee cans on his desk without looking, his full attention fixed on her. "Sure. I can do normal." He took a step closer. Then another. His voice dropped half an octave, the playfulness bleeding out, replaced by something lower and more direct. "You said I didn't do anything while you were out. That's true. Want to know why?"
Ruri's stomach clenched. Every instinct told her not to ask. Her mouth opened anyway. "Why?"
"Because I like you awake."
The words landed like a physical weight against her sternum. Before she could process them, Sasaki closed the remaining distance in two quick strides, his hand catching her upper arm just above the elbow, grip firm but not bruising. She stumbled backward — one step, two — the backs of her knees hit the mattress edge, and her balance vanished. She sat down hard, then scrambled backward on her elbows, but the bed wasn't infinite, and within seconds her shoulder blades met the headboard.
Cornered.
"What are you — let go of me —"
"Thirty seconds ago you were crawling around my floor with your ass up, rifling through my things." Sasaki didn't release her arm. He leaned over her, one knee pressing into the mattress, the bed dipping under his weight. The cologne was stronger here, concentrated in the sheets and pillow she'd been lying on minutes ago, mixing with the warm, clean-sweat scent radiating from his neck. "And now you're scared?"
That's right. Keep looking at me like that. Angry and flushed and trying so hard to pretend you're not shaking.
Ruri's teeth sank into her lower lip hard enough to leave an indent. Her eyes blazed — furious, humiliated, darting left and right for an escape route that didn't exist.
Sasaki's free hand descended to her thigh.
His palm landed flat against the denim, fingers curving around the outer swell of her leg, and he squeezed — slow, measured, his thumb tracing the edge of the ripped hole where bare skin met frayed thread. The contact was warm and unhurried, each finger pressing independently, kneading muscle through fabric with a confidence that made her breath stutter.
Ruri's brows knitted together, anger building — she drew breath to yell at him — and then his thumb slipped through the tear and pressed directly against the ink on her inner thigh. His signature. The characters he'd written on her skin earlier, sat right beneath the pad of his thumb, and when he rubbed slow circles over that exact spot, the nerve endings there fired like crossed wires.
"Mmnh — !"
The sound escaped before she could clamp her mouth shut — high, breathy, unmistakably a moan. Her hands flew to her face, pressing over her mouth and nose, eyes wide with horror above her fingers.
Sasaki's grin sharpened. "You really do like having your thighs touched." His thumb pressed harder, dragging against the sensitive inner skin in a slow, circular grind. "Your face is completely red. Don't tell me you're actually getting turned on from just this."
"I'm NOT —" Her voice cracked, pitching upward. "I am not — nnh — I'm not aroused, you — you're delusional —"
Her chest heaved with each word, the fabric of her hoodie rising and falling in rapid, visible swells. Her thighs pressed together around his hand, but the compression only intensified the friction, his thumb still working that maddening circle against her skin.
"Liar." Sasaki released her arm and caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger, turning her head sideways toward the full-length mirror mounted on the closet door.
"Look."
Ruri looked.
The girl in the mirror was a stranger — or should have been. Cheeks stained deep rose from jaw to cheekbone. Lips parted and glistening, bitten pink and slightly swollen. Eyes half-lidded, the dark irises liquid and unfocused, glazed over with a wet sheen that caught the light like pooling water about to spill over. Hair mussed from the pillow, dark strands clinging to her neck and temple. And below all of it, Sasaki's hand between her clenched thighs, his thumb visible through the torn denim, pressing rhythmically against skin that flushed pink around the point of contact.
She looked wrecked. She looked like someone mid-scene from one of those late-night anime episodes that only aired uncensored on streaming platforms.
She looked — and this was the part that made her stomach flip — like she was enjoying it.
That's not me. That can't be me. I don't look like — I don't make faces like —
Sasaki pinched the signed patch of inner thigh between his thumb and forefinger and squeezed.
"A-ahhn — mmf —!"
The moan came out split in two — the first half open and unguarded, the second half muffled as she bit down on her own knuckle. Her hips twitched involuntarily, rolling upward against his hand for a fraction of a second before she caught herself and went rigid. In the mirror, the girl's thighs trembled visibly, and the dark center of her eyes had swallowed nearly all the brown.
"So?" Sasaki murmured against the shell of her ear, close enough that his breath ghosted warm across her earlobe. The scent of him filled her nose — cedar, musk, the faint metallic tang of arousal underneath. "Ready to admit you're a pervert?"
"That's — that's not me —" Ruri's voice had shrunk to a whisper, thin and fractured. "That's not — I'm not —"
She shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut against the mirror. Her knuckle remained clamped between her teeth, and a thin line of saliva traced down the back of her hand.
Sasaki watched her denial the way a cat watches a cornered mouse — patient, amused, in absolutely no rush. Then he moved.
His hands caught her shoulders and tipped her backward, pressing her down flat against the mattress. The navy sheets puffed cool air around her body as she sank into them, hair splaying outward in dark ribbons. Before she could curl up or roll away, he climbed onto the bed beside her, kneeling close, one leg positioned between hers to prevent her from closing them. The mattress creaked softly under the redistributed weight.
His hand returned to her thigh — same spot, same ripped opening — his fingers resuming their slow, circular torture on the sensitized skin. Ruri's back arched off the sheets, the tee riding up again to expose the pale plane of her stomach, the shallow dip of her navel, the fine, invisible hairs along her midriff standing on end.
"Hahh — hnn — Sasaki, s-stop — mmn —"
He leaned down over her, close enough to count the individual lashes framing her squeezed-shut eyes, close enough to smell the strawberry milk still faintly on her breath mixed with something headier and muskier now — the unmistakable warm-salt scent of a body running hot with involuntary need.
She's soaked. She's absolutely soaked and she still won't admit it. Incredible.
His free hand caught her chin again — gently this time, fingertips pressing into the soft underside of her jaw, tilting her face up toward his. Her eyes opened, glossy and unfocused, pupils blown wide in the low light.
"Open your mouth," Sasaki said. Quiet. Not a request. "Stick out your tongue."
Ruri stared up at him, lips trembling, chest heaving, every line of her body taut between resistance and surrender — and her jaw slackened by a centimeter, her lips parting just enough to show the wet pink edge of her tongue pressing forward against her lower teeth.
Sasaki's thumb pressed harder against the signature on her thigh, and her mouth opened the rest of the way, a thin, shaking breath escaping as her tongue slid out past her lips, glistening and obedient, the taste of surrender sitting bitter and sweet on its surface while her fingers twisted white-knuckled into the navy sheets beneath her.