Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

If she has to pinpoint a particular time or a trigger that starts it all, she will definitely put her finger on the spring of second year.

It’s a time when, despite starting to mean it and actually attending practice (almost) diligently for a change, Daiki not only barely avoids losing to Seirin in a practice match, but then actually loses to Kaijou.

The third match he plays against another Generation of Miracles member is against Akashi and he gets soundly beaten again. 

This, Satsuki believes, flips a switch somewhere deep in her childhood friend.

First year was quite the roller coaster of events in his basketball career, but now, barely a year later, so many losses one after another when he actually (kind of) means it is just unprecedented.

It makes Daiki want to try harder, work harder, practice more, so that when the real games come around he won't actually have to retire with his team too quickly from the Inter High.

That's what ignites the spark of his drive once again. 

It's like they're 10 once more, and he is playing harder than ever, exerting himself more than she’s seen him do in years. He’s pushing the limits of his body to exhaustion just to make sure that he makes up for that slight difference that can be the width between win or loss.

Unexpectedly, Sakurai is the first person on the team who says anything about it.

"Aomine-san, I had no idea you were such a hard worker," the brunette tells his ace in a rather serious tone. They're at club practice and taking a break from drills together. 

Daiki pauses on drinking water in huge gulps to throw a confused look at his teammate. 

"Wassat now?" he queries while wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

"You've been coming to practice almost every day lately and you're even doing everything we're supposed to be doing properly. It's just a bit surprising because I thought you'd never subject yourself to practice with the team of your own choice."

Sakurai's admittance is met with Daiki blinking at him without a comment for a second too long. 

In the span of that second, the brunette realizes just how rude his statement probably sounded towards the other boy.

"Oh, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry for saying something insensitive like that! I wouldn't possibly presume to know Aomine-san's motivations behind skipping practice all the time!" 

He starts bowing to the power forward compulsively, bending at an impressive 90 degree angle at the waist.

His antics are enough to bring the ace out of his stupor and make him laugh.

"Haha, you're quite the funny guy, Ryou! You say some really cold things so matter-of-fact like and then you act all apologetic to pour salt into a wound. No wonder you have trouble finding friends in class!" Daiki comments in exactly the same spirit he accuses his teammate of having employed.

"I-I'm sorry. You're absolutely right! Someone like me shouldn't be going around on his high horse judging others!"

Daiki chortles some more, watching his apologetic teammate make excuses that he doesn't listen to. He finishes drinking his water and sets his practice jersey on straight.

"Besides, you're totally off the mark."

"Huh?" Sakurai responds smartly, not following. 

Perhaps it’s the result from all the rattling his head does when he’s in full blown apologetic mode. The power forward chuckles to himself at the thought.

"It was never about hating practice or hating anyone on this team," Daiki admits with a wistful expression that confuses his classmate. His azure eyes fix on the pair of hazelnut colored ones. "In fact, if I had to pick between liking or hating anyone on this team, I'd definitely say I like you folks quite easily. You're all decent players and you're pretty understanding about where you stand when we play together, and most of you agree with going along with whatever I say and wanna do on court. Most of the time, at least."

Sakurai has never been confessed to by a member of the opposite sex. He’s also never had any friends or acquaintances outside of his immediate family who are straightforward enough to make such honest admissions about their feelings and standpoint about him (and things he considers himself part of).

So as he listens to Daiki's confession of sorts, he feels confused about how to react. His body goes with nervousness. The result is that his heart begins to race and his palms start to sweat.

"Then, why wouldn't you play with us more? You're so good, having you at practice would definitely benefit the team a lot! It already does and it’s only been a few weeks."

The navy haired ace throws him an unreadable look out of the corner of his eye while setting his water flask inside his duffel bag.

"I thought I couldn't afford to be making anyone's play better - least of all my own. Practice was absolutely out of the question. It was never about “being subjected to it” or anything silly like that."

Sakurai watches Aomine who stands up straight and stretches his limbs this way and that.

"But things seem to have changed without me noticing. And if I keep up the act I had last year, we'll end up missing all the super fun games we could be part of in this year's official matches. And that would just suck so hard, you know?"

The smirk he aims at Sakurai when he half turns his head over his shoulder makes the smaller statured boy's heart skip a beat. A childlike trepidation overcomes him.

"So you'll be seeing a lot more of me at practice from here on. And while I'm here, might as well teach all you guys a thing or two about how to play better." The power forward has already picked up a ball and started dribbling it slowly towards the inside of the court’s confines. “I did say you guys are decent, but you all can definitely learn more.”

Daiki has already started shooting some hoops when Sakurai finally comes out of his trance to put away his water bottle as well. He jogs to fall in stride with his teammate.

"Thanks, Aomine-san! Looking forward to your patronage!" the brunette chirps out good-naturedly next to the ace who throws him a skewed grimace.

"What the hell is that? Am I some kind of host or something?"

The shot he makes from the three point line as he asks that question without even looking at the ball’s trajectory after releasing it is so effortless and natural. The ball makes a clean entry into the basket and it makes Sakurai realize there's still a long way he needs to go indeed.

"Definitely something!" The shooting guard says with a sparkle in his eye as he looks upon his ace with newfound admiration.

Daiki laughs at his classmate, shooting another easy three from the line.

Unbeknownst to both boys, their exchange has a quiet spectator who watched on from the side with a demure, secretive smile. 

Satsuki grins, unable to stop herself, pretending to be busy with what she's jotting down on her clipboard.

Coach notices her good mood—the man's keen eye is second only to hers, really—and feels compelled to say something about it.

"You seem to be in a good mood, Momoi-san. Did something nice happen?" 

Satsuki half turns to the teacher, her beaming grin uncontained.

"Just really excited for the upcoming games in the Inter High, coach! It's going to be a great year!"

Looking on at their ace putting up a defense against the shooting guard and explaining some kind of gimmick about shooting good three pointers, the coach can't help but fully agree.

Wakamatsu feels terribly inexperienced and out of his element in his new role as a captain. 

When things start spiraling out of control the moment the season begins, he can’t help but feel his lack of leadership skills might be part of the reason why.

Of course, he’ll always be the first to shift the blame to their willful ace for any and all failures the team may be facing. His petulance and truancy when it comes to practicing with the team are always a recipe for disaster in the making. 

After all, having a powerful weapon that doesn’t quite work as well as it could is a sound reason to attribute any potential losses they might be racking up.

But then the damn bastard actually starts showing up to practice every day. He’s doing his drills, shooting his hoops with that mind-numbing accuracy of his and just all around falling in line with the rest of the team. And that just takes all rights away from Wakamatsu to complain about him.

Naturally, it takes the arrogant ass one almost loss and two actual beatings to get his act together. 

If he’d known in advance that would be the price for getting their headstrong ace to finally cooperate with the team— properly cooperate and play with them—Wakamatsu would be more agreeable about it.

(Maybe.)

But the fact is these encounters are also alarms for the blond that maybe his leadership is not up to par. He starts feeling that he can’t fill Imayoshi-san’s shoes.

So, if he’s being honest, despite how hard it had been to arrange all those practice matches with teams like Kaijou and especially Rakuzan when they were in Tokyo, somehow Wakamatsu can take no confidence in those small victories when they end up losing both games.

It’s with a sinking feeling that he starts to think that maybe Imayoshi-san made a mistake when he chose him to pass the captaincy to. 

This ragtag team of theirs, made up of strong players from all over the country that they’ve gathered—with all their quirks and arrogance and willfulness—might be just a tad too much for the center to deal with.

For this reason, after their resounding failure against Rakuzan, when he sees Aomine , Arrogance Incarnate itself, at practice the next day (he hasn’t seen him in a week before that), Wakamatsu has a start. 

Despite himself, he thinks that it might very well start hailing the next day, even if late May is not that kind of season anymore.

Yet when he sees the ace at practice the next day, and the next, and the one after that, Wakamatsu realizes that the calamity that might be approaching them is much bigger than a simple hail.

Nevertheless, he knows better than to question his good luck. Teasing the childish asshole about it might end up changing his mind about attending practices. 

And with the loss count they’ve been racking up even before the Inter High qualifiers, Wakamatsu honestly does not need to push his luck.

At all.

So when that ignorant shooting guard of theirs opens his mouth to Aomine and actually confronts him about his sudden diligence, Wakamatsu is about ready to wring the little guy’s neck. 

For someone supposedly so soft-spoken, Sakurai sure knows how to always push people’s buttons all wrong.

The exchange that follows is one that Wakamatsu cannot have foreseen. 

Aomine’s admission that he actually quite likes his team is much more surprising and unexpected. 

In spite of his personal feelings (of hate and scorn) towards their ace, Wakamatsu would be lying if he says Aomine putting his back into practice and actually showing up is not reassuring to hear. 

No matter how much he dislikes the high and mighty bastard, he will never be able to deny that he’s the most amazing player he’s known. Having him sharing his prowess with the team is heartening. The prospect of him including the other players on his side of the court into his intricate plays will be a force to be reckoned with. 

The underlying promise of things to come in Aomine’s admission makes Wakamatsu believe that despite his inexperience as a captain, maybe they can still pull off a decent season in summer.

Although at first he’s ready to wring Sakurai’s neck for raising the matter with the ace, he thanks the brunette in his mind before continuing practice normally that day. 

Wakamatsu will need to get his act together as well, if he is to make use of his unexpected good fortune.

She’s been beside herself with glee over the idea that Dai-chan will actually be playing like he means it again. 

She’s been looking forward to seeing him that way on the court - the way he used to be, before he blossomed unexpectedly in Teikou. 

It turns out that Satsuki is not prepared for what that entails.

Before, they were kids, and the hard-working and driven Dai-chan was a heart-warming sight. It was like watching a small but gutsy animal you’ve cared for and nourished through its infancy actually start making it on its own in the wild. 

But now that they’re in their later teens, having Dai-chan working hard and thirsting for a win that might elude him has a different kind of pull to it. 

Although the smile is returning to his face while he plays in practice with his team (and during the practice matches against others), it’s quite different from the reassuring, soothing sight it used to be before.

Now he’s almost 2 meters tall, all perfect build and impressive body lined with powerful, sinewy muscle. He’s fast and agile, quick on his feet like a panther, with the finesse of one to boot. 

He plays with his team, bypassing them with his perfected tricky movements, with fervor they are not used to receiving from him. The sight of him in those moments, his muscle groups contracting and jumping with the strain he puts on them, is much more distracting than she ever remembers it being before.

As the team’s manager—especially in lieu of their recent losses—it’s her role to watch them all carefully. She has to foresee what small, potential things can be honed into new weapons of theirs and used against their opponents. Opponents whom she’s also carefully analyzed.

For this reason, she’s not supposed to be focusing on a single person more than on others, regardless of his position or importance within the team.

And yet, her traitorous eyes seem to always be straying to the form of her childhood friend playing when they’re on the field. 

This is especially true when something his opponents at the time try against him makes him laugh out loud in the gym.

Which brings her to the other point. 

Not only has Dai-chan started attending practice diligently, but his impassive expression is, more often than not, gone while he plays now. 

The chip that’s been on his shoulder for a good two years has almost completely disappeared and she can hear his laughter much more frequently than she has for a long time.

This is another thing that she is privately rejoicing about. It’s a trait of her closest friend that was a defining one of his character all throughout their childhood and early adolescence. 

She has missed it terribly. She was heartbroken over how he was creating the wrong impression in the eyes of everyone in their new high school about the kind of person he is. 

With that perpetual scowl he has been wearing and his incessant snarky remarks regardless who he’s talking to.

For a year, he’s been making his new teammates believe that his holier-than-thou attitude is his default mode. That he’s incapable of being anything other than a self-centered asshole on the court. 

It’s been crushing to look at, because Satsuki knows—truly knows —that this is not who Dai-chan used to be. It’s not who he is. 

It’s what he’s twisted himself into being after not finding a single soul that can light his spark.

But now Seirin has done just that, and the rest of the teams that have taken hold of the Generation of Miracles have fanned the flames of his drive. Satsuki can’t help but hope that this will be enough to make him shake off the vestiges of disappointment and bitterness. Feelings that turned him into this ugly, distorted version of himself that she hates with a passion unrivaled. 

His laughter echoes through the gym more often now, as Wakamatsu manages to steal the ball from him or their new small forward manages to drive past him. 

When she hears it reverberating through the premise, Satsuki can’t help but feel her eyes straying immediately to Dai-chan. 

Even if she’s been fully focused on something else in that moment.

It’s a force that’s stronger than her own will. It's a pull she can't resist.

Her eyes glue themselves to him and the becoming curve of his lips when he laughs at something his practice match opponents do.

Then he leaps off his nimble feet and lands a perfect dunk above the heads of all the onlookers at the gym, earning himself and his superb performance an ovation. 

Everything is going so well for Touou that she doesn’t see it coming when he makes some kind of weird, strangled sound in the middle of a match. 

He jumps for a rebound he fails to get, but upon landing, something goes wrong.

Her eyes snap up and look for his familiar form on the court. 

She finds him under the enemy’s basket, surrounded by his teammates who look equally as worried and alarmed as she feels. 

She calls for a technical timeout and jogs up to him. The coach is at their side in a heartbeat.

Daiki is barely standing up. His left leg is shaking while his right is bent in an awkward way at his knee. He’s biting his lip and his face is scrunched up in a grimace.

“Aomine-kun, what’s wrong?” she asks when she’s next to him. She inspects him visually for any outward injury. 

There's a small relief to be had from the fact she finds nothing worth noting in her quick once-over.

“I’m fine,” he barks out defensively. 

However, the bite is completely missing from his retort. Probably because there are beads of cold sweat rolling down the sides of his face, diluting his ire. His brows are tightly knit in pain. 

“My muscle just cramped. It’s no big deal. Don’t try turning it into one.”

His attempt at nonchalance is thwarted when he tries to step on his right leg but his knee gives out from under him. 

His teammates dive in to catch him before he can land in a sprawled heap on the linoleum floor and possibly injure himself for real.

“Calf muscle cramped, I see,” she evaluates astutely while gesturing to the coach. “He’ll have to sit out on the game for a while until this passes. Sakurai-kun, Ootani-kun, bring him over to the bench, please.”

She can tell that he must be in more pain than he lets on because he doesn’t resist when the two boys, flanking his sides and supportinging him, bring him over to the bench. 

He looks so miserable while he’s hopping on his single good leg in that moment, held upright on both sides by two boys considerably shorter than him.

Satsuki feels something unpleasant give an uncomfortable lurch in her chest. Her childhood friend is set upon the bench without any ado. 

Another player from their reserves is called into the Inter High qualifier match. 

Once she can rest assured that the game is resuming normally (despite the worry in the faces of all their regulars at having their ace suddenly subbed out), she’s at his side in a heartbeat.

He’s swallowing with difficulty and his eye is twitching. He’s trying to extend his right leg as far as it can go. The cramp keeps him from being able to do so on his own. 

The sharp pain is sneaking up from his calf muscle and binding him in a vice-like grip from moving as he wants to.

“Here, let me help,” she tells him softly. She crouches in front of him and takes hold of his limb. He sucks hard on a breath through his clenched teeth when she starts to massage his cramped muscle. “I’m sorry, I know it’s painful now, but doing this will help it get better faster.”

She’s completely focused on the massage she gives him with practiced ease until the lower leg muscle relaxes from its strained state under her ministrations. She’s used to doing this for the other boys but she hasn’t had to help Daiki with something like this for years.

She looks up from her handiwork after she’s ensured that his leg’s cramp is gone. The manager feels an overwhelming sense of relief to see that the look of agony is wiped from her childhood friend's face now. 

His features are relaxed into an expression that’s more tired than hurt.

“Thanks, Satsuki. You’re a lifesaver.” 

His honest smile when he says that makes her pulse skip for some reason. 

Her body’s odd reaction compels her to look away from him again. She focuses her attention on his right leg instead, and nods in response.

“You can count on me for these things, Dai-chan,” she says quietly. She helps him extend and bend his leg for a few more repetitions to work out the remaining kink in it. “You just focus on getting better and getting back out there.” 

She then allows herself to fix him with a mischievous look in her eyes through her pink eyelashes. 

“You wouldn’t want to miss out on the super fun games ahead now, would you?”

Daiki grins down at her. His expression is a bit slanted from the remains of the previous waves of pain that the endorphins haven’t quite cleared from his system.

“Of course not. Taken out of a match by a muscle cramp at this point, what a disgrace,” he comments self-deprecatingly. He flexes his leg this way and that in a way of testing it. “If Kagami hears about this, he’ll never let it go. Guess I’ll have to work on my basics a bit more after this game.”

At the mention of Seirin’s ace, Satsuki titters to herself and sits down next to her childhood friend on the bench. She passes him a clean towel from her bag and his water bottle to refresh himself. 

“That’s the spirit!” She commends him while he downs the water in several large gulps. 

For some reason, she can’t look away from the way he greedily consumes the beverage. There’s a lull for her in the way his Adam’s apple bobs up and down while he swallows. The contented sigh on his lips makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

He sets the empty flask down at his side on the bench, rubbing the towel she’s given him to his drenched forehead and temples. 

She remembers she should be paying attention to the game they’re playing—not to Dai-chan who is no longer in need of her help while he recovers. 

She clues herself in on this obvious truth and shifts her gaze away just before he can catch her staring at him.

The referee’s whistle sounds a few minutes later, once the ace is back on his feet properly without any wobbling and residual pain.

“Go get ‘em, tiger!” she tells him with an impish grin which he mirrors.

He jogs up to the sidelines, practically jumping on his heels in restlessness to be put back into the game. His piercing azure gaze has a childlike gleam of excitement in it that the previous onslaught of pain has failed to steal from him.

All the while, as she looks on, there’s a rampant hammering inside her ribcage that she pretends she can ignore.

What follows after that match—Dai-chan’s definition of “basics”, apparently—is good, old-fashioned power training.

Even after practice and during weekends, when she comes to visit him, she frequently finds him doing push ups in his room, sit ups in front of the TV, or pull ups on the bar his family grudgingly installed in the narrow hallway between the first and second floor of their house.

(The bar is above the stairway where there’s enough space for him to pull himself up and, despite his impressive height, not hit his head in the ceiling where it’s higher due to the winding of the stairs. 

His mother didn’t want such a misplaced contraption there but yielded after realizing back in junior high that it was either this, or him going out in the winter to exercise and risking catching a cold.)

Satsuki commends him openly every time she stumbles upon him doing his training because she thinks this is the best thing he can do. 

Out of all the Generation of Miracles members, Dai-chan is definitely the one who needs to work on his body’s ability to keep up with his flourishing talents the most. 

His overall monstrous agility and bursts of power cannot be sustained by his muscle strength and current stamina. 

If he is to expand on his potential, he will need to build up his durability and his body’s capability of keeping up with what he wants to make it do.

As his team’s manager and close friend, she is applauding his efforts and his diligence in training even during his time off. It’s the right thing to do and it will be good for him. It will help avoid any other situations like that time his leg cramped in a match.

However, as a person who’s been having difficulty keeping her eyes off him lately, she finds that what he’s doing has really dangerous side effects on her.

Whenever she comes into his room to find him reading the monthly basketball magazine while lifting a dumbbell with his arm to the side, it gives her a slight pause. 

She greets him as usual and sits across from him at his small coffee table in the middle of his room. He grunts in response, eyes never leaving his magazine again after her entry. He keeps at it until he’s done skimming the article that interested him.

And the entire time, his arm never stops the rhythmical movements of lifting the weight in his hand. The bulging of his bicep calls for her attention and she’s endlessly grateful for the way he’s completely immersed in his read to notice her staring at his flexing arm.

It’s easier in the times when she finds him doing push ups, because he’s facing the floor and entirely oblivious to her scrutiny. 

The hot June weather is making him choose his sleeveless shirts when he’s exercising at home and this gives her the perfect view she can ask for. She drinks in the sight of his rippling deltoids as he does his push ups in perfect tempo like he is some kind of metronome impersonated. 

In the beginning, Satsuki tries to resist the urge to stare. 

She really does! 

Not that it does her a lot of good from trying to resist though. 

She always ends up sneaking glances at him out of the corner of her eyes. 

Eventually she resigns herself to the fact there must be some underlying reason why she has her gaze constantly straying to him when he’s working out or playing. 

She just makes sure to be as nonchalant about it as she can when he sees her watching. 

God forbid that Dai-chan should notice and actually question her about it when she can’t very well understand it herself.

So when he’s doing something that keeps his focus away from her, she relishes in the opportunity to openly watch him exerting himself.

There’s just something alluring in the way his perfectly sculpted body moves under the strain he puts on it. 

She finds mesmerizing the perfectly paced rises and falls of his back that’s aligned impeccably in parallel with the floor. 

She relishes the sight he makes as he pulls himself up to a sitting position. She appreciates disproportionately how his tank top accentuates the contractions of his pectoral muscles in a way that should be outlawed. 

She marvels at how his various muscle groups swell and jerk when he pulls himself up on the vertical bar in the hallway.

Whenever she catches herself staring like that, she swallows with difficulty and has to force herself to focus on the reason that brought her to him to begin with. 

Finding her pace again in those moments is excruciatingly hard and it makes her want to slap herself.

He grunts in response to her when he’s still busy working out. The sound makes a spreading heat spill from her chest and seep into the pit of her belly. 

His voice, laden with exhaustion from his work out, after he stops the movements that mesmerize her has a weird effect on her that she refuses to acknowledge.

But the more often she gives into her guilty pleasure of watching Dai-chan exercise, the more impossible it starts to become to hide her staring from him.

“What?” he scoffs and sets down the dumbbell. 

He’s just finished his second series of 100 repetitions of lifting it with his other arm.

All done in exactly 100 seconds each.

His question brings out Satsuki from her entranced reverie, giving her a start.

“What what?” she parries innocently while sitting back across from him on the floor.

“What is it? You’re looking at me, grinning all ear to ear like as if you’re some cat about to eat a bird or something.” He scowls at her, taking a swig out of the juice she brought up when she entered his room fifteen minutes prior. “It’s creepy. Stop it.”

“Hmmm, creepy now, is it?” 

She grins widely although her pulse is racing from being caught indulging in her guilty little pleasure. 

“Don’t worry though, it’s nothing you need to worry about. I was just thinking how reassuring it is that Dai-chan is working out so hard. It’s a bit unnerving seeing you so earnest about things but at least this way I won’t have to be giving you foot rubs and massages in the middle of our coming matches.”

She lies about her underlying motivation with such ease that it makes her lie quite believable. Coupled with the perfect mask of normalcy she dons on, Daiki is none the wiser.

“Yeah, yeah, come off about it already.”

She knows he feels embarrassed at letting himself show any weakness to his opponents and teammates. Whenever he’s about to corner her in some way, she never hesitates to bring up that time when his muscle cramped. 

It never fails to make him relent from whatever he’s doing that’s inconvenient for her.

Dai-chan has always been an easy person to get a rise out from, and it’s reassuring that time has not changed that between them in the least.

Even if he notices the glint in her eye when he catches her watching him, Satsuki has the perfect arsenal at her disposal to make sure he doesn’t pursue a matter she’d rather not address.

Having her childhood friend in various states of undress around her person is by no means a novel thing for Satsuki.

After all, it comes naturally with the facts that: he’s an athlete; she’s been the manager of every team he’s been part of; they spend a disproportionate amount of time in one another’s company even outside of school and club activities. 

Being a basketball ace and infallibly part of powerhouse teams in school means that as his manager, she’s around topless boys much more often than an average girl her age. 

Their strenuous practices are geared towards honing their skills to push them closer to the top on the national level. This more often than not results in their jerseys being drenched with sweat and therefore becoming obsolete. 

She’s used to them divesting themselves of their top garments and she doesn’t even bat an eyelash at it during games and practice.

Dai-chan being half-naked (or more) around her is another brand of usual that she’s grown completely unimpressed with over the years. 

One of the reasons for her being used to it is that Daiki seems to not care at all whether he’s just in his underwear around her when she comes to wake him up in the summer mornings, or if she’s walking in on him changing out of his school uniform after practice. 

Since he doesn’t think much of it, he doesn’t really care to look decent around her when she barges in on him in his various states of undress.

However, ever since she starts catching herself unconsciously staring at him, she finds these occasions when he’s less dressed than decency would compel him to be another predicament for her. 

It’s dangerous because the smell of him fresh out of the bathroom or having his hair slicked back while it’s drying along the long lines of his neck makes him a different kind of Dai-chan whom she’s not used to having around.

She knows she shouldn’t venture along this line of thought whenever she bursts through his door to find him bent over while putting a fresh pair of slacks on. Or when he’s hunched over, shrugging on a new t-shirt. 

She has to almost physically force herself to look away in these times. 

She can tell there’s something wrong in how her eyes get pinned to his midriff flexing while he’s putting his clothes on. 

She has to make herself be a more decent person and turn her face the other way because he certainly doesn’t seem to care about his state of undress. They’re almost seventeen (she already is) and it’s already happened a million times. 

She should be used to being around him when he’s changing but for some reason, it feels completely different lately.

It’s not at all the sight she’s grown so used to over the years.

Satsuki becomes painfully aware of how things must’ve changed without her notice when she visits the Aomines one normal summer Saturday after the qualifiers of the Inter High are behind them. 

She greets Mrs Aomine who returns the greeting just as easily. 

The woman invites her to have some light afternoon snack while she waits for Dai-chan to get out of the bathroom.

Satsuki has been eagerly looking forward to this weekend. She’s found the perfect treat to celebrate their triumph over the other teams in their block and their official qualifying for the Inter High championship bracket.

The previous week she’s heard her classmates recommend this crepe wagon that looks unimpressive and inconspicuous at the neighbourhood park. 

Despite its lacklustre appearance, the girls in her class discussed over lunch, the chef there makes the absolute best crepes in town. 

Supposedly, the quality is to die for. 

Now that they all earned the right to celebrate, Satsuki knows that this is the best way to do it.

Despite the mean grimace his face grew used to carrying in the past couple of years, it belied the sweet tooth that he actually has. Which is rivalled only by her own.

And Satsuki is a firm believer in giving credit where it’s due and being rewarded when it’s earned. Which is why she is going to share her new bounty with the person most deserving of it.

She’s starting to crave the sweet goodness by the time Mrs Aomine informs her that she’s told her son to come downstairs after finishing in the bathroom. 

Satsuki chirps out her thanks from the couch while the woman takes her husband in tow. They leave the girl that is much like their own daughter to her own devices while they go downtown to run some errands they’ve been putting off.

Being left alone, and focused entirely on her reason for dropping by, brings Satsuki’s guard down to the way Dai-chan makes his entry to the living room. 

When she shifts her eyes from the TV to greet him, her words die in her throat when she sees him walking in with just a pair of black boxers on and a much too small towel draped over his head and shoulders. 

He’s bare-chested and his long toned legs are in her full, unencumbered view as he strolls in nonchalantly into the premise.

He’s rubbing the terry cloth to his damp hair while his bare feet paddle quietly against the wooden floorboards. He notices her sitting on the couch with her legs folded up in front of her despite her lack of indication that she’s there.

“Oh, Satsuki. So you’re why my mother poked me to bring my ass down after the bath.”

It’s not much in the way of greeting but it’s not something unusual between them. He’s always been rather straight to the point kind of guy so she doesn’t begrudge him that now.

What is surprising is the way she can’t look away from the thin sheen of moisture rolling down in beads over his broad chest and the small valley outlining his pectoral muscles. The wide plane of his back glistens in the light from the water he hasn’t fully dried off yet from his shower. 

The residual perspiration from his bath only amplifies the effect of seeing his sculpted form almost in the nude.

A coiled knot clenches tight in her gut as she observes him mutely. The wind’s knocked out of her lungs and she can’t speak even if she wants to. 

Watching him waltzing over to the fridge, completely oblivious to the way he’s affecting her makes her swallow with great difficulty.

“So? What’s up?” He asks from around the fridge door. He digs inside the confines of the kitchen appliance for what he’s on the prowl for.

He procures a can of cold soda from inside. He downs it in several large gulps and relishes the refreshment it brings him. 

He does so while Satsuki’s keen gaze is drinking him in the entire time. Especially the way his chiseled forearm and bicep muscles jump and relax with his movement of bringing the beverage to his mouth.

He gives her an expectant look over the can in his hold from across the room and she realizes that she’s staring again. She has a question to answer that hasn’t really registered with her properly.

“Uhh, yeah, I thought it might be nice to go check out that crepe place our classmates have been buzzing about the whole week.”

Her explanation makes Daiki award her with a thoughtful hum, finishing his soda in one last gulp. 

In lifting his head up to ease the last drops of his drink from the confines of the can, he exposes the column of his throat to her observing gaze. The movement of his Adam’s apple when he swallows causes her mouth to dry.

He rights himself and throws the can into the respective trash bag. He pushes the towel down around his neck and drapes it around his collar, going back to rummaging in the fridge for something else.

His offhand movement and repositioning of the towel has successfully distracted her once again. Because now she can focus on nothing else but the way his navy locks, still damp from his bath, are sticking to the base of his neck. 

“Is it any good?” he asks her from behind the appliance’s door. 

His voice brings her out of her staring into the present moment anew.

“What is?” she echoes dumbly, completely lost for a moment.

Daiki throws her a disbelieving look full of exasperation as he slams the fridge shut.

Despite his obvious displeasure written across his face, it’s not his expression that has her full attention. 

Her eyes keep traitorously straying to the way his body moves. The situation is compounded for her by the fact she rarely gets to see his chest muscles in such a raw form as she can now. Focusing on anything else is a very tall order.

Her heart is blocking her throat’s airway and the weird knot is tightening in her tummy at his approach towards her. He stops in front of her and his hand extends to give her something.

She gulps around the lump that she can swear is her heart, and notices belatedly he’s handed her the kind of pudding she adores. 

The most difficult part is that she’s not sure if her mouth fills with saliva because of the food offering she’s received or because of him. 

He plops down next to her on the couch with a pudding in his own hold. He crosses his legs over one another, the rippling muscles along them bulging with the movement.

His proximity, coupled with his state of undress and the still glistening planes of his bare chest and abs are vastly distracting. The masculine, fresh scent of his aftershave wafts to her nose and tickles her suddenly sensitized nostrils.

Definitely not helping her already floundering attention at all. 

His mounting annoyance with her notwithstanding.

“The crepe place you want to go to, dumbass, what else would I be talking about? Pay attention to your own damn conversation, Satsuki! Geez.”

This brings the pink-haired girl better into the present moment when she realizes she’s been ogling him like some kind of moron. 

Her cheeks flush with color but she refuses to let her embarrassment show too evidently.

“Do you even know me at all? I would never recommend something if it isn’t worth giving a try! Idiot-mine !”

She tries to play it off as if his name calling has been what gets a rise out of her. She believes she succeeds because Daiki gives her a smug look from the side while digging into his pudding.

“Is that so?” he mutters around his spoonful of dessert. She hums in agreement next to him, digging into her own treat greedily. “So when are we going?”

He asks and sets down the empty package of his pudding that he’s devoured in quick succession. She wonders how he manages to do that when she’s not even halfway through her own. 

She peers at him sardonically while gesturing in his general direction with her plastic spoon.

“Maybe after a certain someone decides to put some clothes on.” 

Daiki rolls his eyes away from her and rubs the towel to his still dripping hair. 

“Yeah, yeah, fine, I’ll hurry it up.”

“You’re treating me to crepes, right, Dai-chan?” she asks while she licks her lips clean of the pudding. 

Her childhood friend throws her an incredulous look before giving her nose a playful pinch.

“Don’t push your luck. Sharing my pudding stash with you is the most you’re getting from me today, missy.”

“Aww,” she pretends to be disappointed. 

He lets her captive nose go with a disgruntled huff. 

“I’ll be right back,” he tells her while he gets up from the couch and walks off towards the stairs leading to his room.

“Sure!” she calls after him merrily.

She chooses to ignore, to the best of her conscious ability, the way her whole being seems to clench on itself when presented with the wide, bare expanse of his back and the flawless rippling of his rear end muscles when he ascends the stairs one at a time at a leisurely pace.

The sight of it burns into her mind’s eye and no amount of pretending it isn’t there seems to make that any less of a truth.

However, what it all means is still something she is not ready (or willing) to confront.

The next match against a Generation of Miracles team comes sooner than Satsuki believes optimal. 

It comes in the form of the Touou versus Shuutoku showdown in the first stages of the Inter High bracket. 

They’re in the same block so facing each other at some point is inevitable. 

But the pink-haired manager would’ve preferred if her teammates had a bit more time to grow into their new basketball style before being confronted with Shuutoku’s light and shadow duo.

She knows that Touou is strong - they’re even stronger now that Dai-chan is actually physically exercising and practicing with them. 

She’s just not sure the depth of his contribution will be enough to make up for all the time and effort the orange jerseys have certainly put into their past several months as well.

Shuutoku is a team they’ve won against previously. For this reason, a less observant or lax person might believe there is nothing to be worried about, facing an opponent that they’ve triumphed against before.

Satsuki is not that person. 

Her projections have shown her in all variations and permutations she’s played them out in her mind that this team is one they cannot put their guard down against.

There is plenty of ambivalence to the data though. Things can go in one direction or the other, because Touou has also been evolving and progressing at a rapid pace for the past month or so.

She stands on the sidelines, clipboard held in her hands until her knuckles are turning white, and she hopes. She hopes it’s all enough to bring them the victory.

It’s difficult to call it a surprise when she’s expected that Dai-chan and the team will perform splendidly. 

However, it certainly is beyond her projections how well the ace is able to incorporate his teammates into his plays now that he’s deeming them worthy of that. 

It’s also unexpected how just a few choice words from him (“Don’t act so shocked when you get the ball. Just try to shake off your guards and get in a good position somewhere. Leave the rest to me.”) are enough to make the boys stop fumbling every time he gives them a hidden pass whilst bewildering his marks. 

The game starts off with him seamlessly scoring basket after basket, and managing to fool his opponents into thinking he’s running his usual one man show on the court. 

Just as they start acting as if he’s the only player on the team, he bypasses Takao’s hawk eye to throw the ball to Sakurai who scores three after three. 

Of course, Shuutoku isn’t a team to take this lying down. As soon as they’re onto his ploy, Dai-chan has to start getting craftier still. 

His scuffles with Midorima and Takao for the possession of the ball are a sight to behold even before Wakamatsu inserts himself into the fray as well. 

It’s only after the second quarter that Satsuki can see that Dai-chan isn’t only looping in Sakurai-kun to his play. 

After all, including Sakurai is understandable. The shooting guard is a guy for whom Daiki’s already had something of a soft spot during the entire previous year. 

Not just because of his cooking prowess and for being an easy victim for him to push around, but also because Sakurai seemed to be on the same wavelength as him. Albeit paradoxical, it’s evident in the way the shooting guard can understand Daiki with just a single offhand gesture or motion. 

(Like that time during the Seirin match when he was in the Zone, and motioned to Sakurai to throw the ball in the direction of the enemy basket when the latter caught it from Kagami’s rebound.)

The ace of the black jerseys demonstrates his standpoint on what teamplay is for him to all of the players and their audience in the hall a few minutes before the end of the second quarter.

He’s speeding past Wakamatsu, snapping his fingers at the blond’s eye level in the direction of the opponent’s basket. He succeeds at drawing his captain’s attention to himself and what he says in the next split second.

“Rebound, Wakamatsu-san!” he tells the older boy before dashing towards the ball that’s about to go out of bounds.

He saves it by throwing it—in a seemingly random way—toward the general direction of the basket’s board front. 

It causes the basketball to bounce off of the rim and the realization catches up to Wakamatsu quicker than it does for their opponents’ defense. 

The blond captain jumps up before anyone else and brings the points home for his team. 

The smug smirk his ace throws at him from beyond the court’s outlines is very infuriating and makes Wakmatsu wish he can slug him one to the face to wipe the expression off him. 

However, the new captain of Touou is a big enough man to admit to himself that this quick team play with a player as extraordinary as Aomine brings something extremely gratifying for him. 

The fact it’s a match against a worthy opponent making the experience that much more exhilarating.

It’s the first of many breathtaking and beautiful plays to behold as a spectator the boys on court show for all to see. 

And in the center of the most riveting of them is Aomine Daiki - a power forward bursting with talent even those who dislike him cannot deny. 

It doesn’t matter if he’s carrying out his own play or just setting up the positioning of the players on court in a way that will allow one of his teammates to score. All his movements are fluid, flawless and their formlessness brings a sense of awe to all who watch him play.

There isn’t room for question who the most valuable player of that match is, regardless of the fact he scores fewer points than he used to last year. 

But the added value of him bringing the team together is immeasurable. 

It’s something even Satsuki’s flawless projections have not foreseen.

A few weeks later, the Inter High is already behind them. 

Although just barely, Touou ends up winning their second year Inter High tournament. 

Anyone with functioning eyes would be able to tell that it’s all largely owing to Dai-chan and the way he rallied the team’s playstyle around his immense basketball prowess. 

While the other teams also have some great players with great abilities, few of them are mature enough to handle the matches as a well-functioning machine in the same manner that Aomine Daiki does it with his team.

If she were to liken it to anything, he is like a control tower that handles expertly the flow of the game with a keen eye for detail in every situation. 

His ability to handle the flow of the game is somewhat akin to Takao-kun’s hawk eye or Izuki-kun’s eagle eye. 

However, it differs from both vastly in the sense that he does it all on gut feeling. 

He has the crude base of animal instinct as foundation for all of his speedy reactions that expand on opportunities others might miss in their haste and quick plays. 

What to anyone else would come as a belated realization of “Oh, snap, I should’ve done that then instead of this! Why didn’t I think of it then?!” after the fact, Daiki notices in the moment. He then digs his heels into it the second it presents itself to him.

He’s always had this for his own style of basketball, of course, but seeing it expand to include his team into it turns Touou’s games into a sight for sore eyes. 

It results in bringing his team a roaring victory over even such teams as Seirin and Rakuzan to whom they’d been losing earlier in the year.

It’s a couple of days after the final that she goes over to Dai-chan’s, humming a merry tune to herself. 

She plans on whipping him in shape until he starts working on his summer homework assignments. 

She’s unsurprised to find him lazing around in his room, the air conditioner blasting on twenty one degrees in stark contrast to the thirty plus degrees Celsius outside. She reprimands him but her heart isn’t in it, because she’s boiling in her skin as well. 

He gives her some noncommittal noises while rolling around in his bed, his face burying into his fluffy pillow. 

She shakes her head at his dramatic antics and sits herself down next to his bed. She deposits her cargo of notes and textbooks on his coffee table to her front.

“Dai-chan, you have to at least look at the assignments. They won’t do themselves, you know?” she tries to reason with him in a cajoling tone. 

“I know they won’t,” Daiki gripes with his voice muffled through the bedding. “You’ll do them for me.”

She makes an incredulous squawk that should tell him all about how this dumb plan of his is going to work out.

“Come on,” he whines as he picks his head up from the pillow. He aims a pleading look in her general direction. “I worked hard and we won the Inter High, right? Help me out here!”

She deigns him with her wryest expression, the disdain on full display in her steely gaze.

“I also worked hard for the Inter High but you don’t see me trying to shirk my homework to someone else, do you?” she deadpans. 

Her retort makes him give another pitiful whine unbefitting of someone his size and age.

She opens her books and starts on the assignments on her own. She gives him the chance (and time) to resign himself to his fate. She expects the next time he speaks, it will be after he’s done just that.

“Fine then!” Dai-chan grumbles irately from the bed behind her. “I’ll do my own damn school work! But in return, you have to give me a massage!”

It comes so far out from the left field that she has to blink a few times while processing.

“What’s that now? How’s that making sense in your mind?”

Her reasonable question makes Daiki heave a deep sigh and bury his head into his pillow once again.

“My back’s been hurting like a bitch since the finals, Satsuki. You know, probably from carrying the team on it?”

She rolls her eyes at his arrogant little comment, acting unconvinced but knowing full well the truth of the statement all the same.

“I’m serious, Satsuki. I need your help here. Help a guy out, will ya?”

She turns to him then, and he has the most imploring look in his azure eyes. The expression tugs on her heartstrings torturously. 

She gives him a skewed half smile, lounging back and resting her head on her elbow that’s propped up on the table behind her.

“So you’ve been in pain for the past two days since the Rakuzan match?”

“Yeah.”

“And you want me to massage your back to make it better?”

“Uh huh.”

His second affirmation is met with a resigned sigh from his friend soon after. 

“Fine. I guess this is preferable to leaving you on your own until you keel over like last time.” She gives him a knowing smirk as she gets up from her seated position in front of his coffee table to sit on the edge of his bed next to him. “After all, we wouldn’t want the back that’s carrying the team to drop off midgame or anything.”

“Atta girl!” he says with a wolfish grin.

She leans over him to put her hands on his t-shirt clad back. She pushes into the space between his shoulder blades.

“I haven’t done this for anyone in a while,” she admits as she pushes harder into the muscle that resists against her onslaught. “You’ll have to let me know what to do to be helpful.” 

She rubs his greater rhomboid muscles in circles for half a minute before checking in with him again. 

“How’s that?”

“Terrible,” he sneers from under her. “I barely feel a thing you’re doing. Put your back into it, Satsuki.”

She glares down at him even though from the angle of his head she knows he can’t see. Righteous anger starts to bubble up in her. 

“Hey, this is a pretty uncomfortable position to be doing this in, you lazy bastard!” she admonishes. Her own muscles give a screeching protest as she twists them a bit to “put her back into it”, as he put it.

“Then sit on my back and get more comfortable, but put your weight into it. Otherwise, there’s no point to this,” he deadpans.

And suddenly she has no more clever comebacks. 

She’s overwhelmed with the mental imagery of straddling him and her hands being allowed free reign over him. Better yet, being asked to do it to her heart’s content. 

She swallows thickly while imagining the feeling of having his conditioned bulk under her fingers, pliant and yielding to her touch.

“Err… You want me to sit on you?” Her eyes slide down to the exposed small of his back and the rise of his well-rounded buttocks. She shifts her gaze away when she realizes where and how she’s staring is uncouth. “Is that a good idea? I thought you said your back hurts.”

“It does. Just sit on my waist and use your whole weight when you massage my back. That should do the trick.”

“If I do this, you’ll keep all your smart ass comments to yourself?” She double-checks before signing herself up for something she may end up regretting.

“I promise, my lips are sealed,” Daiki retorts dutifully.

It makes her realize that he’s probably not lying at all and his back probably does hurt quite a bit. As his manager, there’s no way she will say no to his plea now, knowing what she does. 

But she still knows also that she has to make full use of the opportunity when it shows itself.

“And you’ll start working on your homework assignments after we’re done?”

He groans and his head lolls into the pillow again in dejection.

“If I have to - fine! I’ll do whatever you say! Just… fix it. I’m dying here.”

She allows herself a little triumphant smile before rising to her full height next to his bed. She looks down at herself briefly and thanks her lucky stars for deciding to go with the homely shorts instead of the skirt she was considering before coming over today.

She rests her knees on both sides of Daiki’s hips, easing herself down slowly until she’s securely sitting on the small of his back. 

He says nothing while she gets herself comfortable and then leans forward to place her weight on her palms that are resting on top of his back. 

She starts kneading into the muscles of his torso tentatively at first, until she feels the tension wired into the sinews. She hears his discontented sigh beneath her and she digs her palms more firmly into the protesting muscle mass under her ministrations.

“How’s this?” she checks in with him in a couple of minutes, feeling a bit more confident about what she’s doing.

“So-so,” he grumbles out. “I still barely feel what you’re doing back there.”

She growls angrily to herself, wondering if he’s just saying this crap to piss her off. Regardless of why he does it, it achieves the purpose of making her put more force into her kneading.

“How about now?” 

“Mmm, better,” he mumbles slightly out of breath. “Try putting your weight into your elbows and doing with them what you’re doing with your hands now.”

This makes her sit up straight and give the back of his head her most incredulous look. (Not that he can appreciate it in the position they’re in.)

“Dai-chan, that’s definitely a bad idea…”

“Just do what I ask, will you? I’d do it myself if I could but obviously there’s no way for that.” His tone is waspish and it grates on her nerves but before she can bite him back for it, he gives another dejected sigh. “Look, just try it until my muscles start relaxing a bit. It will be fine, I promise.”

She’s unconvinced but if he really insists… 

She shrugs her shoulders and does as he’s directed her.

When her elbow connects with his trapezius muscle and she rests on it with her full weight, she’s sure she’ll end up doing some damage. Instead, she’s rewarded with a deeply relieved groan from the recipient of her ministrations. 

She lifts a brow in surprise but starts rubbing the point of her elbow in a circular motion until she feels the tension start leaving the muscle tissue underneath. 

She proceeds to do the same to the latissimus dorsi below it. This time it earns her a guttural growl of satisfaction from Dai-chan.

“I guess this means it’s better?” she asks him with laughter bubbling in her tone.

“You’ve got no idea.” 

Although he speaks with some difficulty from the added fifty or so kilos on his ribcage, the wonderful sensation spreading from the point of contact from her elbow into his aching back is priceless. 

“Keep going.”

And she does. 

She continues working out the strain in each and every muscle in his back with her elbow and then with the heels of her palms. Getting to give him this massage proves to be everything she was hoping for and more. 

Although at first all the powerful muscles lining his back are taut with tension and pulled like cords, under the careful cajoling of her expert fingers they start relaxing. 

This in turn makes for a very peculiar kind of heavenly sensation for her, with the way his bulk is both firm and pliant to her touch.

However, what Satsuki ends up relishing even more than the feel of him under her is the gratified sounds he awards her with for her efforts. 

Each whispered sigh and animalistic growl that tears from him makes something warm and teasing twist and turn in her gut. 

She’s grateful once again for her choice of wear because if the only piece of clothing between them was her underwear, this mere situation would’ve spelled disaster.

That’s not to say that his appreciative sounds aren’t affecting her on a primordial level despite the added layers between them.

If Daiki notices the increasing heat on the small of his back where she’s sitting with her legs spread on either side of him, true to his promise, he makes no comment about it.

When her arms start feeling a little faint over half an hour later, she realizes that she’s become so engrossed in her work atop him that she hasn’t heard him make any noise for a bit. 

Finding this rather peculiar with how their session has been going so far, Satsuki leans sideways to peer into her childhood friend’s face.

“Dai-chan?” she prompts and gets no response.

That’s when she notices that he’s fallen asleep under her at some point throughout her massage. 

His expression is so slack and defenseless that she can’t help giggling a little.

“You’re so silly, Dai-chan,” she tells her sleeping best friend while she gets off of him. 

She makes sure to pull the covers over him up to his waist where she’d been keeping him warm just a few seconds ago. 

She pats the comforter in place and sits herself down next to his bed in front of her books. 

He really should’ve just told her earlier if he needed her help in relieving his pain. There’s no need to leave it festering until he’s forced to bring it up. She can tell how uncomfortable he must’ve been by how he went out like a light the moment the tension in his back was gone.

She sighs to herself while brushing his fringe over his brow. He’s sound asleep and his mouth is slightly ajar and he makes for the most ridiculous picture. 

She titters again and lets him sleep it off for the time being. 

They have some time before they absolutely need to start working on the summer assignments, so she is willing to let him catch a little break still.

She pretends not to notice (or mind) the dull throb in her lower body, timed perfectly with the intermittent beating of her pulse that’s been ever present since she first climbed on top of him.

It’s not like it’s something that she can continue to ignore much longer with all the encounters and situations that have been nagging at the corner of Satsuki’s consciousness for the past few months now. 

It’s something that she knows is right there yet she pretends not to see it. 

Because it’s easier. 

Because it’s more familiar this way. 

Because if she acknowledges it, things will change.

And this change is scaring her a bit. 

So she turns a blind eye and pretends everything is how it used to be. 

She is herself, Dai-chan is Dai-chan and high school is all fun and games, and comfortable familiarity. 

Until it isn’t because of the sweeping realization that comes in like a damn train wreck.

It’s the Thursday before they have to get back to school and her mother tells her to go summon Dai-chan for dinner since his folks are out of town. 

Her mom has always been a huge softie for the brand of idiot that Dai-chan is, so whenever left to his own devices for some reason or another, her matron always makes sure to extend a cordial invitation to her almost-son to their dinner table.

Then again, Satsuki really isn’t one to begrudge him that because whenever she’s in that position herself, Auntie does the same for her.

It’s not like either she or Dai-chan are some overgrown rabbits that will die of loneliness if they don’t have anyone to share dinner with for a day or a few. But neither of them has the heart to tell that to the other’s mother so they always gratefully accept the invitations.

When she lets herself into the Aomine household, the entrance door to which isn’t locked, Satsuki is only slightly surprised that she hears absolutely no noise from the first floor area. 

Without his mom to push him around and make him do stuff, Dai-chan is probably loafing around in his room doing absolutely nothing of importance. 

Probably still ignoring those summer assignments she’s been nagging him to finish for the past week.

(If he thinks that leaving them until the very last moment will be his in with her to copy hers, he’s grossly mistaken.)

She climbs the stairs with catlike grace, noticing that all the other doors on the second floor living area are open, except Dai-chan’s room. 

She makes a thoughtful hum when she still hears no sign of her childhood friend and she ponders whether he’s out and if so, why he didn’t lock up after himself, the irresponsible dumbass.

She opens the door to his room while still stuck on those thoughts, which is why realization dawns on her a bit belatedly.

It takes a few seconds too long to recognize that the silence that reigns supreme in the rest of the house does not permeate the premise she’s encroached on.

It takes her another to wrap her mind around the fact that the noises she can hear are coming from his cell phone that he’s holding in his left hand.

It takes another still to comprehend what exactly he’s watching on that phone with the high pitched moans and breathy gasps she can hear all the way across the otherwise quiet room.

There’s one more thing she grasps right around the time when he notices her standing there.

“Shit, Satsuki! Learn how to knock, will ya?”

She notices that his right hand that’s in his lap and under the covers was languidly moving in a stroking motion before he saw her standing there.

Now, granted, she doesn’t actually see anything, per se. 

But that doesn’t mean much when her imagination can fill in the gaps well enough for her from the context of what’s going on.

She gives an embarrassed squeak before turning around and slamming the door shut behind her. 

Her face is burning in embarrassment and she hides it behind her hands. 

She rests her back on the side of the door, wishing she can just bury herself into a hole somewhere and never emerge from it ever again.

An important thing worth noting is that this is not her first time walking in on him doing something like that. 

Of course, it was some time since it happened last (probably around third year of junior high?) but the novelty of the situation isn’t really what gets to her.

She’s also very much aware of the fact (painfully so, at times) what his motivations are when he buys all those gravure idol magazines and what thoughts are probably in his head while he’s eyeing the large middle spreads of Horikita Mai’s busty figure bent this way and that.

Satsuki has not been living under a rock so she has been exposed to knowledge of what porn is and what its uses are - especially to teenagers around her age. Make no mistake, she’s not some sheltered little flower who is completely clueless of the ways in which the world works.

No. The whole situation itself, who exactly it is that she’s caught with his pants down, doing what exactly, is not at all the point that gets to her.

What does get to her is that the previous times when she unwittingly walked in on Dai-chan getting busy with himself she hadn’t really cared to spare a second thought to it, one way or the other. 

He’s someone she’s known her whole life, a boy and, with his avid interest in gravure idols, an obvious lecher. 

Of course she knows he probably plays with himself when no one’s looking. 

She just found it rather unfortunate (for herself and him) all those previous times that she ended up walking in on his private fun. Neither of them needs these things to happen in their lives. Therefore, the encounters were tightly sealed, repressed and completely disregarded for the sake of their friendship - never to be revisited ever again. 

(Until they misfortunately repeat for some reason or another. Adding yet another tightly sealed box next to the previous in the shelf of their lives in the other’s company.)

What makes now different from all those times is that not only does this embarrassing situation come at the worst time possible, but it also forces Satsuki to realize a very painful and inconvenient truth. 

Whereas before it doesn’t matter to her one bit when she stumbles on him pleasuring himself, now she very much minds it.

She minds because, where before she was looking at him and seeing her best friend who happens to be a boy, now she sees Dai-chan, her best friend of seventeen years who is most certainly a boy.

A boy she happens to have a very uncomfortable infatuation with in the recent months.

So walking in on him in a compromising situation like this is the absolute worst.

It’s the worst because it cuts loose all the thoughts she’s managed to bind up previously and realize with a sinking clarity all the reasons why she hasn’t been able to keep her eyes off him lately.

Not only is his brilliance on the court blinding and compelling but the grown up Dai-chan who enjoys playing the sport he loves is a sight to behold.

Better yet, the grown up Dai-chan who exerts himself to exhaustion while doing what he does best is something that supplies her overactive imagination with ideas and pictures she'd rather remain blind to.

While her eyes drink him in as he works out, not only is it because he makes for a mesmerizing view with his perfectly timed movements, swelling muscles and chiseled features. 

It also makes her able to imagine vividly how it would look should he be holding her and exerting himself while they move together. 

The sight of his broad back exposed makes a shiver run down her spine because it makes it so very easy to imagine how her hands are running down that same back, nails digging into the jerking mass of it. 

Even worse still, she wants to kick herself for her disappointed curiosity that would’ve preferred for the comforter not to be in the way now when she entered the room.

She lets out another strangled embarrassed wail as she chases away the thoughts she doesn’t need to have. 

No! She does not want to think of Dai-chan like a guy, who is perfectly fine to feature in her less than innocent daydreams and fantasies. 

No. Just no! That is so far away from being okay it’s not even funny.

She can’t be starting to see him like a member of the opposite sex whom it’s okay to feel attracted to physically after all these years they’ve spent together. Not when just several months ago she didn’t feel this way at all. 

It’s weird to see someone like a troublesome sibling one day and then to do a complete one eighty and eye him like a piece of meat it’s okay to sink her teeth into the next. 

It’s weird and wrong and so not her that she wants to slap herself senseless.

Why did she have to show up now? Why did she have to walk in on him now? She really, really wishes she’d shown up an hour later and not have to confront these thoughts. She’d done so great putting them away for so long now.

Before she can lament her poor timing any further, the door to Dai-chan’s room creaks open and he clears his throat uncomfortably in the hallway. 

“I really hope this teaches you to knock before you barge into my room next time.”

His statement rubs her the wrong way for many reasons. 

However, her instinctive reaction to lift her head out of her hands to throw him a dirty glare backfires. 

Seeing his equally embarrassed expression standing at the door just causes a myriad more images to stream through her mind’s eye that she honestly does not need.

“It’s still light out, you pervert!” she protests weakly, burying her face back into her palms.

“It’s a physical need that doesn’t ask what time it is.”

“Shut up, I don’t want to hear it,” she wails into her hands, which muffle her mortification with the whole thing.

“Hey, in my defense, I wasn’t expecting any company, and I’m the one left hanging when you barged in when things were just getting good—”

She shrieks so suddenly and loudly that it halts his tirade. 

He blinks his confusion a few times when she picks her head up from her palms and shoves a rigid index finger in his face.

Her expression is terribly serious despite the dark red blush marring her face. 

“We do not speak of this anymore. Ever. Never. It didn’t happen. There is nothing further to discuss about it. Understood?”

He peers into her countenance with an unreadable expression before nodding. 

“Yes.”

She swallows with difficulty and nods as well. 

“Good.” 

She shifts her magenta gaze away from him in an attempt to recall why she even is there in the first place. 

Goddamn it all… 

Oh, right! 

“Now clean up and get dressed. My parents are expecting you for dinner.”

“Clean up? What are you talking about? There’s nothing to clean up since you interrupted with the worst possible timing—”

The look she sends him is positively murderous even before she cuts across him verbally.

“What part of “we do not speak of this ever again” was confusing to you?” she grinds out from between her clenched teeth. 

Daiki’s expression freezes in a plastered half-smile of obedience.

“Nothing. Everything was crystal clear, ma’am.”

She nods curly and lets his azure gaze go when she turns the other way. 

“Good.” She crosses her arms under her chest, hoping that the motion will help dispel the numbing sensation crawling through her limbs and tickling at her rampaging heart. “Now - dressed and out with you. I don’t want my mother asking more questions than absolutely necessary about today.”

Silently, Daiki can’t help but agree. 

He swiftly gets on with changing into his comfy clothes that are less house-wear and more something he might put on while going outside as well.

On habit, the door to his room is slightly ajar while he changes but Satsuki adamantly refuses to listen to the traitorous little devil on her shoulder. 

She stays statuesque, with her back turned to his room the entire time while she waits for him in the hallway to make himself presentable for her folks.

Dinner with her family is a pleasant affair for the Touou ace as usual. 

Being in the company of the Momois is always something that feels like home to him beyond the confines of his actual house. 

And it would be perfectly wonderful and idyllic if not for the way that Satsuki is acting weird and avoiding looking at his face when she talks to him over the dining table. 

Gratefully, with their rich history together, if either of her parents notices her acting up, they attribute it to ‘the kids having some kind of non-apparent or non-violent fight,’ or something to that effect. 

He can tell by the fact no one brings up Satsuki’s shifty eyes whenever she has something to say to him. Or the way she looks away immediately if he catches her gaze over his plate. 

If Daiki is being honest, her awkwardness pisses him off. And it does so for all the reasons that he pointed out to her earlier.

Not only had he not been expecting any company at that particular time, but she also should’ve freaking knocked before bursting in unannounced. 

He was allowed to some fucking privacy in his own damn room in his own damned house! For fuck’s sake!

As if that isn’t bad enough, she’d interrupted him at the worst possible time, just as he was getting into the swing of things, effectively cockblocking him (in the most literal sense of the word). 

To add insult to injury, she proceeded to act as if she’s the victim of the situation and basically threatened him into silence before they could straighten out the misunderstanding she created.

Well, not exactly a misunderstanding if all parties are perfectly aware of what’s going on, but that’s just besides the point, ok?!

All of that notwithstanding, having her act all dodgy and awkward during dinner at her place is just downright infuriating for Daiki after the stunt she pulls earlier.

So when she goes to grab something from her room after they’re done with dinner, and her parents are cleaning up dishes and putting away the food, Daiki slinks away after her. 

He’s doing it under the pretense of going to the toilet, if anyone cares to ask.

She’s just shut the door behind her while coming out from her bedroom when his long arm comes flying into her field of vision. The thump of his hand planting on the side of her face feels deafening in the quiet of the hallway. 

The sight of his shapely forearm so close to her face makes butterflies burst out in flight in her stomach.

She stumbles on her step and ends up with her back pressing against the closed door while he traps her between it and himself. 

When her magenta gaze gets fixed upon his cold expression, a chill that has nothing to do with the hallway’s temperature runs down the length of her spine. 

“Oi, that event that we’re not talking about.” 

His annoyance is palpable and she’s sure the way his tongue darts out to lick the corner of his mouth is a tic to help him control his temper. 

She understands it in her mind, but it still makes a teasing tug pull at her gut.

“Can you move past it and let go already?”

His tone is so steely and unyielding that it makes her heart skip in her chest from the sudden nervousness that seizes her. 

“If we’re being honest here, I’m the one who has all the rights to be upset because you’re the one blueballing me.”

His face is so close, close, close. 

He’s speaking in a hushed tone so neither of her parents can hear what they’re talking about even if they stumble out into the hallway. 

It’s unusually thoughtful of him and she would appreciate that fact so much more if not for how distracting his breath fanning against her cheek is.

“So if I’m here, acting perfectly normal and usual, have the decency to do the same, eh? All that nervous drama queen act is really getting on my nerves.”

Somewhere in her mind—the still sensible part of it that hasn’t been turned to mush yet—she realizes that he’s right. 

She gets it, but what she gets better is that having him so close to her makes the urge to grab him and kiss him a bit too overwhelming. 

Before the urge can get any further out of hand—or, God forbid, turn into action—she needs to put some space between them. 

So she nods in agreement. 

“You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ll move past it.”

Her response seems to satisfy his self-righteous anger because he eases up on the pressure he’s been applying on her. 

He lifts himself away from sandwiching her between his powerful build and the door. He nods back at her, too.

“Good. You fucking better.”

She thinks he’ll walk away and let her pick herself together. 

But before he does, his brows furrow again over his stormy gaze. He grabs her chin between his index finger and thumb in a tight hold.

“And do something about this blushing maiden look on your face, too. It’s not your first time catching me with my hand down my pants. If you don’t fix that bad habit of dashing in unannounced, it won’t be the last either. So do me a favor and wipe that look from your face because it doesn’t suit you.”

She bites her lip while he holds her face in his hand and peers into her with that penetrating azure gaze of his. 

“Okay,” she agrees readily.

When he finally lets her go and walks away, she waits until he’s well out of sight and earshot before she lets herself sink to her knees. 

With her back resting against the closed door, she takes deep steadying breaths until the hammering of her heart against her chest starts to subside a bit.

She gets back to the living room where everyone is only after she’s composed herself properly. 

It takes her a couple of false-starts to get the hang of how “normal” is between them once more. It’s a bit awkward because everything feels out of whack. 

But when she finds her right pace and she’s back to her usual self around him, the grateful smirk he throws at her over the edge of the couch on his way home is worth her trouble.

At this point, there’s really no more denying it.

She wants him something fierce. 

It’s beyond the time when she can turn her head the other way and pretend it’s not there.

The desire, the burning need, is scorching her. There’s something inside her that’s clawing to be let loose. 

The worst part is that she feels if she lets it, it will end up with her clawing at Daiki in the same way that it’s now tearing her apart from the inside.

Their little episode a couple of weeks ago ends up opening her eyes to the true nature of her thirst for him that has her following his every move with her eyes. 

There’s a base physicality in her instinct to throw herself at him and smother him in her embrace. She wishes for nothing more than to lose herself in his hold until she’s panting and falling apart at the seams around him. 

The trouble with having realized all of these things is this: knowing them doesn’t make it okay for her to act upon them. 

First of all, she’s herself and he’s Dai-chan. 

His face is more familiar than her own, and it’s exactly the same for him. She can only imagine how weird it would be for him to suddenly get jumped by her. Just imagining it makes her shake her head in disbelief at herself and wave the thought away.

No. Just because she knows that she’s lusting after him for some insane reason doesn’t mean that she can get an outlet to these feelings. 

And there’s most certainly no way she’s going to direct them at the person who instilled them in her.

Once or twice, in the darkness and privacy of her room, she gets tempted by the idea of following in his brilliant example and considering in all seriousness making herself feel better. 

But by the time her slightly shaking hands reach the waistband of her underwear, she always reconsiders and refuses to go through with it.

No, she thinks to herself. There is no way she’s doing that while thinking of him, of all people!

And, let’s be real here: there’s absolutely zero possibility she will not be coming to thoughts of him if she gives in to the weakness now. Not with the unhealthy levels her infatuation is reaching.

Her attraction to him that stands against neither rhyme nor reason is melting her brain and frying her every waking thought. 

It’s bad when she’s away from him but it’s so much worse when she’s close.

Because he’s right there, obliviously playing ball, or talking to people, or laughing and grinning and just… 

He’s being this unbearably charming version of himself that she’s seeing through these rose-colored glasses that seem to have perched themselves permanently on her nose whenever she’s looking at him nowadays. 

It’s unbearable because it’s utter torture when she watches him score basket after basket and her mind isn’t in the game but in what he’s doing. 

It’s unbearable because when it’s just the two of them in his room or hers, and he stretches his long limbs out like some humanoid cat, the mundane action makes her think of unspeakable things. 

Like how she wants to pounce on him that very instant and have her way with him despite what he may think about it. Consequences be damned.

And that’s a dangerous, dangerous line of thought.

It’s nearing the end of September and her obsession is already reaching a precarious peak. 

The other day she ends up having a rather lewd dream featuring him and her in her bed. 

When she wakes from it, she’s drenched in sweat and the taste of bitter, bitter frustration. 

She’s starting to become painfully aware that she needs to do something about it all or she might very well go mad. 

She’s next to useless on the court in the recent month—what with her being able to focus only on him and no one else in the last few games—and that’s something that’s an even more definitive “no” in her books. Much more so than all the indecency her thoughts are steeped in lately.

Satsuki is visiting for a study session that day, but instead of focusing on the tasks at hand, her mind is feverishly pondering the ways in which she can flush him out of her system. 

She needs to shake this fixation off.

She can come up with no new ideas that she hasn’t already tried—and failed with, mind you—which is why it’s all starting to get terribly vexing.

She’s running in circles, chasing empty thoughts in her head when he does something (unimpressive, usual, unimportant) that pulls her from her reverie.

The low chuckle that comes rumbling from his chest makes her eyes lift to fix upon him. 

There’s a tiny smile curling the corner of his lips while he’s looking at the screen of his phone. 

If he’s being honest, Daiki kind of expects to get some backlash from her. 

After all, she’s there to make him study and finish their homework assignment together (instead of getting punished tomorrow by the teacher should he show up empty-handed). 

And there he is, browsing memes on his phone and cackling like some kid at a particularly funny one he sees.

What he doesn’t expect is the smouldering intensity she directs at him while she looks at him from across the table. 

One that, curiously, seems to have nothing in common with her usual anger with his shenanigans.

Never one to be galled, Daiki returns her fervent look with a level one of his own. The mirth is still dancing on his face all the while.

“What?” he asks her evenly, the small smile not yet entirely disappeared.

She really believes she cannot be blamed for her subsequent lapse of sanity. 

It’s most certainly not her fault that he looks so boyishly handsome with that damn smirk and the mischievous glint in his eyes.

And she honestly needs this all to stop.  

The furtive looks she keeps stealing from him. The flutter of butterflies in her tummy when he does something silly or just laughs. The coiling in the pit of her gut when she’s watching him play. The hot throb between her legs when he’s within arms reach and his muscles swell and contract in that delicious way.

It all needs to stop and go away, and she’s at the end of her rope without a clue how to do that without resorting to doing something excessively stupid.

So, without any better ideas, she goes with “excessively stupid”.

When her arm darts out across the table to grab a fistful of his collar, Daiki’s eyes widen in surprise at the suddenness of the movement and her unexpected speed more than the action itself. 

Whatever he’s expecting to follow is most definitely not what she actually does after that.

Satsuki yanks him forward forcefully with strength he has no clue she has in her. But all of these don’t even matter because in the next moment her mouth crashes against his. 

Her lips cover his in a painful on impact, clumsy kiss.

It takes him a good second, then two, to wrap his mind around what exactly is going on. The fiery hooded look she gives him that he focuses on with some difficulty due to their proximity helps the cogs in his head match up, and start to turn.

Her lips are soft to the touch of his—softer than he would’ve believed—and after the initial pang of her crashing into him, the feeling is nice. Very nice.

He sighs softly against her mouth, his eyes slide shut. He returns her kiss tentatively, equally clueless as she is about what exactly they’re doing.

Their mouths meld together for a few minutes in the perfect silence of the room. 

She can swear there’s electricity in the air. 

It licks at the nerve endings of her fingers that are fisted in his collar; it’s in the lungfuls she breathes in intermittently along with his earthy scent; it’s most certainly in the caress of his lips against hers.

Her hand that is holding him captive is just as much serving as a way for her to hold herself upright. She knows this is a terrible idea despite the fact he kisses her back just as eagerly as she’s kissing him, because she can feel the blood rushing in her veins and pumping in her ears. 

The sound is as loud as a beating drum to her heightened senses. She feels it throbbing along with every quick beat of her heart that sends the adrenaline and the sparks along her blood stream.

She lets him go and pries herself away from him with staggering difficulty. 

She shouldn’t be having such a hard time removing herself when she knows how bad an idea this has been, but it is what it is.

Instead of helping, this is doing more damage. She establishes it immediately.

Her racing pulse makes her feel like her heart might burst out of her any second now.

She can tell it’s a bad idea also because the temperature of her whole body has skyrocketed and the blush that’s on her cheeks belies the searing heat pooling in her gut. 

She opens her eyes again and gets a good look at his winded expression, his dark complexion lightly dusted with color the same way her sides are flushed. 

Her teeth sink into her bottom lip and she knows that good or bad, she’s doing it again.

“What… the hell…?” he manages to mumble. 

He’s struggling to catch his breath and his words are coming out in short pants.

But his effort at composing himself is completely forgotten when she hovers closer and into his direct field of vision once more.

“Shut up,” she commands as she leans in again. 

Her supporting arm is now propping her up upon the low table below. Her other hand that was holding him by the t-shirt collar is now taking firm hold of the side of his bare neck for more stability. 

She’s half standing, half leaning over the coffee table where their school books are lying forgotten, strewn across it. 

There’s a peculiar gleam in her eyes that stirs something in him and binds him. Whatever she says, he’s ready to do without a thought under the intensity of that look.

“Open your mouth this time.”

She closes the distance between them right after, swallowing his breathless “Okay” greedily.

Kissing Daiki is so much better than any of her lewd dreams have led her to believe. 

The soft press of his lips against hers makes the breath hitch in her throat. He resists against her attack only enough to push back against her mouth with his own.

It’s already too much for her even before she gives in to the temptation of her curiosity and chances a tentative lick against his fuller bottom lip. 

Obediently, just like he promises, his mouth opens. He angles it against hers to accommodate the press of his tongue against hers.

Her fingers dig into his flesh where she holds onto him and a moan tears itself from her lungs at the pleasurable sensations his kiss instills in her. It was her (bad) idea that starts it but it’s his unreserved response to her ministrations that ends up throwing her reeling head for a loop.

Their first open-mouthed kiss starts a bit demurely, uncertainly, with both of them not really sure how to make up for their inexperience. 

Once the warmth of the other starts taking over conscious thought and the seeking of pleasure trumps rationality, things escalate fast and exponentially.

His warm tongue slips into her mouth and the feeling of it molding against hers in a tantalizing dance of sorts makes her knees buckle. She pushes against his hot moist muscle invading with her own, her eyes clenching shut tighter when he deepens the kiss again. 

One of his hands rises to cradle the side of her face, to stabilize her against him. 

His thumb runs ever so gently along the burning skin of her cheek in a motion so tender it makes her heart leap in her throat and hammer at a thousand beats per second.

Daiki’s soft breath is tickling her cheek, and coupled with the touch of his tongue against hers is causing charged shivers to rake her spine. Satsuki exhales heavily against him, eyelashes fluttering with barely contained emotion.

He pulls her closer by the right hand he has upon her, because he wants her—needs her—close, closer, closer still. 

He wants to envelop her, embrace her until she sinks into him. His mouth devours hers voraciously, the passion between them growing with the pliant push and pull of their lips against the other.

Her fingers that claw into the crook of his neck ease their hold. Her palm caresses his shoulder and up the column of his throat in its trek upwards. Her fingers lace into the soft hairs at the base of his neck and twirl in the locks there. 

There’s something sensual and teasing about the movement that makes Daiki’s skin crawl. Goosebumps erupt from the point where she holds him and pulls him closer during their kiss.

Captured by his innate gravity and its overbearing force over her, her body leans forward of its own accord. One of her knees rests atop the coffee table, supporting her weight shakily. 

She tries not to break their contact because his kisses feel so good, but she wants, needs, to be closer to enjoy them better. 

Her other knee joins the first as she crawls across the table clumsily. 

He growls roughly at the feel of more of her weight pressing against him, and his hand that isn’t cradling her cheek takes firm hold of her hip. 

His wrist slides to the small of her back and before she can realize what’s going on, he pulls her with a swift movement to land in his lap.

The sudden brush of his hard build against her soft curves as she lands spread-legged, straddling his hips, makes her break their kiss. 

She lifts her head and peers into him from the tiny distance between them. 

His lids open at half-mast and he returns her scrutiny with the same searing intensity she directs at him. 

The look on his face with lips swollen from their kissing is the most seductive sight she’s ever known. The desire she can see burning in his eyes makes Satsuki bite the inside of her cheek hard.

She gasps at the sensations her movement against his lap brings her. She tries to settle herself in a more comfortable position upon him after he sent her tumbling into his embrace. 

She hears his breath hitch too while she maneuvers. One of her hands is resting on his broad chest and she can feel his pulse racing under her quivering fingers.

Once properly seated, knees on either side of him, thighs holding his hips close, Satsuki dives in for another kiss. She battles his tongue for dominance with fierce competitiveness as he slips it into her mouth again. 

Her light nips against his lip when he moves it out make him groan against her with a sound that reverberates between their chests. 

The vibration makes him aware of the fact that her soft breasts are now pressing firmly against his torso in the intimate embrace they’re in. 

His pulse starts fluttering in his veins at the dawned realization. The liquid heat in his gut starts to spread to lower body parts. 

His grunt against her is muffled by their proximity when she angles her neck. Her movement causes her chest to rub against his in a way that makes him start to harden. 

He tears his mouth away from her briefly, panting at the throb he feels in his crotch. Unfortunately for his slipping self-control, Satsuki doesn’t let him escape for long. 

Her hand at the base of his neck pulls him into her embrace anew. Her other hand glides up his front in a sensual way that elicits a deep groan from him. 

Her fingers then follow the muscular line of his deltoid along the crook of his neck to his shoulder, kneading his burning flesh beneath her trek. 

She kisses him with mounting fervor, her other hand sliding up to bury into the short spikes of his hair at the back of his head. 

Her delicious mouth and her intoxicating taste only magnify the arousal he feels from the way her breasts brush against him through their clothing. 

His boob fetish is rearing its head in his lustful haze. It’s possible that he’s just imagining it, but he can almost swear he can feel her nipples perk up and rub against him through the clothes.

His hand trembles a bit from the raw emotion coursing through his whole being but he needs to know. 

His fingers snake up from her hip to her side, smoothly transitioning to cupping her breast through the layers of fabric. 

His azure eyes open just a crack to gauge her reaction when he cops a feel of her. 

She gasps into their kiss but doesn’t pull away and doesn’t resist his exploring hand. Needing no further invitation for the time being, Daiki’s fingers squeeze a bit harder at the soft mound. 

He relishes the heavenly feeling of holding her boob in hand, and his hips grind up into her instinctively. 

The movement causes white hot pleasure to shoot out from the point of contact of his hardening shaft to every nerve ending of his body. His hand that’s on the side of her face slips into her hair, holding her close.

His hand that is positioned in a more adventurous spot kneads and massages her soft flesh beneath it. He feels rewarded by how her moans are rising in pitch while he tries to feel out her nipple through the clothing. 

When he finds it, he presses and teases it as best he can despite the barriers between his exploring digits and his prize. The way her hips buckle into him unrestrained tells him just how she feels about his exploration.  

He growls loudly and breaks their lips’ contact briefly when she grinds down on him again. 

The spot between her spread thighs where she’s pressing against his lap is soft and getting hotter the longer they’re tangled together. The feeling of her pliant softness against the bulge in his pants is sweet torture. It makes Daiki drown in a pleasantly painful sensation.

Before her reason can recover and she can realize that he’s starting to take even greater frivolities with her, his mouth is back upon hers. His kisses confound her to the fact his hand is now under her t-shirt, squeezing her through the thin fabric of her bra. 

His touch on her body causes hot palpitations to spread out from the point of their contact. The pleasant pulse sinks into her being and sizzles into the pooling heat in her tummy. The fire lapping at her senses overflows slightly and starts to seep into the cotton of her panties.

She tears herself away from his kiss with difficulty for a second, gasping for breath. Her back arches into his hand’s hold on her breast while he scouts the feeling of her lingerie’s lace. She swoops in for another searing kiss, pausing only to give his lip a playful bite before she does so. 

Daiki groans into her embrace, his body starting to tremble a bit from the overflow of sensation that he’s being bombarded with. His hand helps her breast out of her bra’s hold by pushing the fabric of the garment up. 

The ample mound of her soft flesh falls readily into his waiting hand. In that moment, he knows that everything he’s stood for is proven right, because holding her bare breast in hand, he knows what heaven must feel like. 

She’s soft and pliant and oh so amazing to his touch. It’s also the absolutely perfect size, the way it overflows from his large hand, fills in his hold completely. 

He’s grateful that she breaks their kiss to throw her head back, because his excitement is starting to suffocate him. He feels like no oxygen is making it to his head. It doesn’t help that probably no blood is heading up either, as all of it is circulating towards nether regions. 

He feels woozy, drifting in the lustful haze. 

The only things he can focus on at all is how divine it feels twisting the perky nub atop her boob in the nude, and how amazing it is when she grinds down on his lap in response to it.

His breathing is labored, but his attention is much too focused on the ministrations of his hand upon her to mind his state. He watches almost transfixed—as if it’s someone else’s limb there—how his fingers knead, massage and play with her shapely breast. 

His gaze shifts when a long groan leaves her throat in the most sensual way he’s heard her make since they started this. 

He swallows with difficulty and helps her other breast out of its confines in the same way. Her bra is effectively moved up entirely, freeing her for his exploring hands and wild-eyed curiosity.

He angles her body slightly further up by a powerful thrust against her. One of his hands has moved to her back and the other to her hip to stabilize her during the repositioning. 

It feels like little bonfires ignite along her skin at every point where his calloused fingers rest upon her.

Once satisfied with the new set up, Daiki lets his right hand slide back to Satsuki’s front, grabbing a handful of her ample breast. She sucks on a breath at the contact of his long digits groping her. 

With her eyes slid shut in bliss, she doesn’t see but only feels when his mouth closes around her other breast’s nipple.

An odd, strangled noise makes it out of her as his tongue flicks along the sensitive bundle of nerves. 

Encouraged by her reaction (and already giving in completely to his fetish), Daiki eagerly licks and sucks at her left breast. His right hand makes sure to continue playing with her other breast, insatiable for the sensation of her softness against his fingers. 

His breath is already coming in short pants, but having her soft boob against his lips is tantalizing him. He laps and suckles on her, spurred further by her mewls and moans in response. 

The bulge in his pants where he’s straining against the confines of his clothing is starting to become unbearable. The need to get some freedom is overwhelming, but he dares not indulge himself.

He doesn’t know if doing something like that would be too much, too soon for her. Truth be told, he just doesn’t want whatever temporary insanity seized her to let go of her yet. 

Doing anything that might risk that is out of the question for him, because he hasn’t had quite enough of her feel against him yet. 

Or the sweet, sexy little noises she makes while he ravishes her.

He unlatches from her left breast, his mouth making an obscene wet pop. She writhes in his embrace. He swiftly proceeds to take a mouthful of her other boob between his hot lips, making sure to switch to kneading the abandoned one with his other hand. 

Fire is seeping into Satsuki’s every fiber from where her erect nipples are toyed with. She is reduced to a moaning mess, heat coiling in her gut and permeating her being with a heady sensation. Her fingers grab tight hold of fistfuls of Daiki’s hair, holding him close against her while he continues to lavish her chest with his attention.

She isn’t even vaguely aware of the fact that this must be what every wet dream he’s ever had must culminate into—head between a busty woman’s bare breasts, hands all over them, given full freedom to do as he pleases with them. 

However, the fact she’s giving him practically everything he’s ever wanted matters little when his deft fingers and nimble mouth elicit such gratifying feelings in her body. She surprises herself with the way her being is reacting to his every movement, in a manner she’s never known herself capable of.

She can’t be aware of anything other than how electrifying the feel of his hot, warm mouth against her is—especially over her hypersensitized nipples that he mercilessly continues attacking. 

The teasing tingle that spreads out from her chest to her core becomes a powerful tug that twists her insides. It makes her writhe against him, keeping her upper half immobile while her hips rock against him unsteadily. 

Her movements against his crotch are starting to make Daiki lose whatever little reason he still has. The shocks of pleasure where the hot softness between her legs brushes against his rock hard erection are blinding, sending shivers down his spine. 

He growls animalistically against her sensitive breast, teeth nipping at her. 

She yelps and pulls on his hair in warning. 

Although the message is sent clearly to Daiki, instead of acting as a deterrent, her reaction is only egging on his excitement further. 

His tongue sweeps over the spot he bit, silently asking her forgiveness. He receives it in the form of the sultry moan that she rewards him with. 

His fingers bury themselves greedily into the softness of her ample breast which isn’t assaulted by his searing lips. 

It’s all starting to drive Satsuki up a wall she is unfamiliar with. 

The only outlet she can find for the unrelenting tension building up at the base of her spine and her sex is when she presses herself against him. 

When her hips and crotch compress against him, there’s a sweet kind of heat and satisfaction (albeit momentary) that fills her whole body.

But it’s too evanescent, not nearly enough. It makes her push herself more harshly into him, seeking a reprieve she can’t seem to find.

In the way she rubs herself over him, though, it’s giving Daiki a very hard time focusing on anything but the arousal that’s boggling his senses. When she grinds down on him, he meets her halfway with a jerk of his hips up into her molten softness. 

It feels so very good, yet so fucking painful with his clothes in the way. 

What’s worse, all he can think about is how he wants to just free himself from the excruciating hold of his pants and bury himself balls deep into her. He’s more than ready to watch her ride him, delicious boobs glistening with his saliva bouncing wildly until she’s screaming her release. 

But no matter how he yearns for release of the sexual tension torching him alive, what Daiki wants so much more is to push the limits of whatever she is willing to allow him in this moment. 

He didn’t start the day thinking he would be wrapped up in a passionate tangle of limbs and searching kisses with his closest friend. 

But now that he’s here, painfully aroused and undeterred in his lewd advances on her luscious body, he needs to know how much further he can take this with her.

Yet with the way her hips move against his and her breasts pressing into him, there’s only one direction in which he can see this devolving in his mind’s eye. 

His breathing is very ragged when he glances at his lap. He smirks to himself, grateful for his luck that she’s wearing a skirt today. 

His head angles into the crook of her neck, placing open-mouthed kisses along the column of her throat and her collarbone. 

She hums in response, holding onto his shoulder and back of his head to keep him closer. He pushes himself up a bit despite her firm embrace, his breath fanning against the side of her face and ghosting over the shell of her ear.

She gasps and wiggles into him, suddenly overwhelmed by the sensation of his breath against her earlobe. His tongue darts out to lick at her, and the soft exhale of his hot sigh against her ear makes her whimper.

Daiki’s deft assault on her neck and earlobe is his clever plot to distract her temporarily from what he’s really up to. 

His hand has nonchalantly moved south from holding her chest to skating along her side, down further along the expanse of her outer thigh straddling him. He presses his palm into her pliant form, savoring the silky feel of her skin against his. All the while he continues lavishing her neck with open-mouthed kisses.

She’s moaning wantonly to his ministrations when his hand finally glides to the inside of her thigh. He presses firmly against the moist spot between her spread legs on top of him. The low whine that this earns him makes something deliciously teasing twist in his stomach. 

He nips at her exposed neck and rubs his finger more insistently against her. He groans in titillation that seizes him at the realization of how wet her underwear is, and that it’s all because of him. 

He massages her folds through the sticky fabric of her panties, his fingers getting coated in her thick essence through the thin cloth. She mewls and whimpers against his chest. She writhes in the pleasurable palpitations his movements are sending throughout her being from where his fingers are touching her.

It’s only when his nimble fingers push aside her underwear to allow his index finger into her that Satsuki realizes what’s actually happening.

The sense of alarm lasts only about a millisecond, amplified by the unexpected intrusion of his digit within her tight folds. 

There’s no resistance at all and he slides in with incredible ease due to the copious lubrication their earlier foreplay has provided. She hears him growl against her neck while his finger buries itself into her as far in as it can go. Satsuki writhes as he sets up a slow pace of moving it in and out of her.

Soon, his middle finger of his probing hand joins the index, stretching her. She whimpers at the added girth, finding it uncomfortable at first. 

The discomfort passes quickly, and he buries his fingers knuckle-deep into her, curling them just so. He touches upon a part of herself she’s unfamiliar with, and moves his hand against her in a steady rhythm.

Unbeknownst to Satsuki, who is lost in passion, Daiki is carefully drinking in her reactions and the slackening of her expression while he works her up. 

He’s savoring every moan, every pleased twist of her brow. His fingers ram into her unrelentingly, and the way her inner walls clamp down on his intruding digits is making the curled spring in his gut wind tighter.

It doesn’t take her long to come undone around his hand. She’s clenching hard around his fingers, her body trying to pull him in further. 

He hisses through his teeth at the sensation and his hips buckle into her uncontrollably at the thought of having a different part of him inside her, and bringing her over the edge in the same manner.

She holds onto his shoulders for dear life when she climaxes, nails digging into the skin of his arms. It scalds him where she touches, burning with the desire to hold her closer and get more of the intoxicating feeling of her softness around him.

He groans into her neck, overwhelmed by arousal and outright pain. He needs to free his straining cock because it’s getting really dangerous. But she flutters still in the aftershocks of her orgasm and it’s too good for him to part with so soon.

He scissors his fingers that are still inside her once, then twice, as far apart as her tightness allows. A sultry moan comes, muffled, from where she has buried her face into the crook of his neck. 

He chuckles and moves his fingers again, before sliding them out of her with a lewd sound.

She clings to him adorably through the aftermath of her climax. He can feel her shaking against him a bit still, and he peppers her temple and her shoulder with light kisses through it. 

His hand reaches down between their almost joined bodies to inconspicuously free his raging erection from his pants.

The coolness of the air against his burning oversensitized skin is a balm for the soul, Daiki reckons. He relishes the feeling of it with a drawn out sigh that seems to tear from the very core of his being. He’s never in his life been so very turned on and done absolutely nothing to relieve himself. 

Satsuki is panting, forehead sweaty and resting against Daiki’s t-shirt clad shoulder. Her nose is all but buried into him and it helps none for the state of her ragged breathing that she’s chosen to collect herself in this position. 

It helps even less that with every generous gulp of air she tries to force in she is also taking lungfuls of his musky scent from their intimate embrace.

Her skin is still tingling from her orgasm. The beads of sweat rolling down her neck tickle her in an irksome way in her oversensitized state. 

Worse yet, his fingers moving away from her allow her obscenely moist panties to move back into place. The feeling of them against her scorching skin, her groin still pulsing with the waves of pleasure, is cold and uncomfortable. It stands in stark contrast with the sensations he’s begotten in her, making her want to wriggle out of her underwear immediately.

What permeates the forefront of her attention once the afterglow starts to ebb away though is just how much her back is starting to kill her. She’s had it bowed this way or that in her ecstasy while he was fingering her. Now it makes her painfully aware of just how unnatural the bend of it is as she sits in his lap and is trying to maximize the friction between them.

“Can you…” she starts quietly, and doesn’t recognize her voice.

It’s laden with something she doesn’t recognize. And it’s laced thick with it. 

The cool feeling of her wet panties rubbing against her pulsing heat reminds her of discomfort much more physical, yet entirely related to the lustful lilt of her vocal chords. 

“Can you help me up? To the bed?” 

She manages to say what she wants before starting to feel embarrassed at the sound of her voice again.

In having asked something of him, her mind once again opens itself to the fact he’s still there—more than just the enveloping warmth around her, the intoxicating scent permeating her nostrils and reason, the reassuring firm hold, keeping her in place.

It helps her gauge that his breathing is also very erratic, chest rising and falling in haphazard rhythm. He feels warm, hot, to her touch where her fingers are holding on to his shoulders. He has his cheek pressing against her head, and his grunt in response to her request she more feels through her bones than hears with her ears.

Despite having been the one to ask, she’s unprepared for his large hands cupping the globes of her ass in a steadfast hold. She squeals in surprise at the forceful movement, but the sound gets cut off when in the next moment he pushes both of them upright. 

Her legs instinctively wrap around his waist when her previously seated position upon his lap ends up with her suspended in mid-air. He stands up to his full height with her still in his firm hold. He sways slightly forward from the sudden spatial change and her added weight that his body tries to balance.

He maneuvers them around with some difficulty until her back all but crashes against the soft comforter of his bed. None of his usual basketball playing grace is in the movement while he complies with her request to help her up, but she doesn’t hold it against him.

Not when she can’t even stand herself up—to speak nothing of helping someone else do so.

Her legs stay wound around his hips even after she feels the nice and cool softness of his bed enveloping her. The relaxation of her strained back muscles brings with it a sense of relief that is only amplified by their previous arduous activities. 

She releases a long sigh through her nose as she revels in the way her whole being seems to unwind from the new position.

Satsuki becomes aware of the fact they’re still intimately close when Daiki’s forehead presses into the crook of her neck. She turns her head lazily to the side a bit, trying to angle herself in a way that will allow her to glimpse into his expression. She fails because he’s burying himself into her, his hands laced in the long pink tresses of her hair that are sprawled out across his bed.

She wonders if he’s doing it on purpose, but the tips of his fingers are slightly contorting against her scalp to massage her in a sensual, tantalizing manner. 

It aids the pleasant feeling of fulfillment that is encompassing her being. It makes her let out a drawn out moan, which in turn seems to affect him strongly as well. 

His breath hitches and his hips jerk against her, pushing against the uncomfortably moist underwear between her legs. She whimpers against the feeling in protest. Despite her dislike for the sensation brought on by the piece of clothing still clinging to her, she snakes her arms around his shoulders and pulls him in closer. 

There’s something bewitching in the heat that’s coming off him in waves as she holds him. She’s felt so satisfied, yet she now finds herself yearning for his intimacy once again. She hugs him tighter to her bare bosom and exhales into the spikes of his hair.

Satsuki’s sigh tickles him but Daiki has no mind to pay to that fact. Not when she’s clinging to him while his engorged shaft is rubbing in a sweetly torturous way against her slickened with sweat and post-coital juices inner thigh. Her warmth is making a painful tug pull at him, and he complies with it by buckling his hips into her spread legs. 

The friction his lower body can get from their missionary position with clothing layers in the way is both amazing and not nearly sufficient in a mind-numbing mix. He pushes into her again, growling as he rubs against her warm thigh and how it affects his straining cock.

He wants nothing more than to fuck her senseless, right then and there, on top of his very own bed in a way that he’s fantasized countless times doing with some faceless gravure idol. The delectable way she has her legs spread for him and wrapped around him to keep him close is driving him crazy with need.

Yet at the same time he knows instinctively that taking her like that—taking her, like that—isn’t something he should do without a word. 

Yes, he wants her badly, and if her reactions to all she’s allowed him so far are anything to go by, she wants him, too. 

Hell, she came so hard just a few minutes ago to him fingerfucking her—she must be fine with going all the way, right?

He wants to feel those velvety, deliciously tight walls of hers enveloping his throbbing erection more than he’s wanted anything else in his entire life. He yearns to learn whether the feeling is as good as he imagines it will be. 

But at the same time he knows that taking her virginity nonchalantly is not something he should ever do. He needs to ask her—to know she wants it too, that she wants him too—but he can’t find his voice. He’s been reduced to this groaning, grunting mess that is softly rutting against her seductive heat and he can’t form any sentences or even a single coherent thought.

She pulls him up by cradling the sides of his face with her dainty fingers and she’s kissing him again. Her tongue finds its way lazily into his mouth and a bolt of lightning shoots down Daiki’s back all the way down to the tips of his toes. His cock twitches against her and he grinds into her in search of more gratifying friction, pushing his tongue insistently against hers all the while.

She starts the kiss languidly, but the unbridled desire he returns it with starts fanning strongly at the sparks of her passion, too. It’s taking her some time to switch from orgasmic bliss to yes, more, but he’s helping her along greatly with the press of his hips between her legs and his tongue’s caress against hers.

The more she hugs him to herself on the bed, the more she realizes how cumbersome her undergarments are becoming though. 

Her lacy bra is certainly not meant to be worn the way she currently has it, straining on top of her chest. The clasp at the back is digging into her unpleasantly, and the edges of the cups are biting into her sensitive flesh. 

It makes for a set up that acts as a turn off right when she’s starting to get into what they have going on.

She tries to pry him away from her as gently as she can, but he’s so much stronger than her and he refuses to budge from the way he’s entangled himself into her. She pushes harder against him and it takes some effort for his lust-driven mind to realize what she’s trying to do.

He eases up on her tentatively—not really wanting to let go or pull away from her delicious warmth but knowing better than to press on if she wants to stop.

Much to his relief—and bewildered scrutiny—she only pushes him off far enough to work some kind of magic with her bra. It ends up with the undergarment shrugged off by both straps off her shoulders with a few quick movements after she unclasps the back with a single motion. 

Daiki watches in utter amazement at how quickly she’s divested herself of a contraption that had boggled his passion-addled mind so greatly. He chose to bypass the difficulty of dealing with it completely earlier but now she makes it seem like the easiest thing in the world, removing a bra without looking. 

A newfound awe fills him at this, before it gets painted with the color of his lust when he gets to see her bare breasts now fully free.

A satisfied sigh exits her lungs before she takes hold of him by his shoulders and pulls him in for another searing kiss. Her hands start running over his chest and caressing him through his t-shirt and he growls appreciatively at her advances through their liplock. 

He rests his weight on his legs that are between hers and on his left arm that’s on her side to give freedom for his right to fondle her breasts. She arches into him and whines into his mouth. Her fingertips dig into his sides where she has been exploring his upper body through their kiss.

Things start to escalate quickly once again when she wrestles with him to take his t-shirt off. He complies readily with her desire to undress him, and sits up briefly to make it easier to shrug off his top.

Daiki fully intends to get back to hold her as close as physically possible as soon as he can. But once he looks down at her from his vantage point on top after the t-shirt’s off, he finds himself bound in place. 

The molten craving in her eyes when her gaze drinks in his half naked form atop her is laden with raw emotion. Her expression makes a pang snake down from the center of his chest right down to his swollen shaft between her legs. Then she bites her lip and her hand reaches out to touch his bare chest. 

Daiki’s eyes slide shut. He gives himself completely into the sensation of her running her dainty fingers over his pectorals and then down to his clenching abdominals. Her hand traverses the expanse of his torso a few times before she lets out a little shuddering sigh. 

Her hand accidentally brushes against the hypersensitive head of his erection in her explorative ministrations, and he snarls. His hips buckle violently into her, pushing his pulsing cock between her spread legs. The action makes her choke on a breath. There’s a small gasp on her lips when she realizes that the heat she’s felt has been from his raging hard on for her.

He’s looking at her carefully, trying to read into her reaction as she reaches out with trembling fingers to wrap her hand around him. 

It’s his turn to bite his lip—hard enough to almost draw blood—when she gives him a few experimental pumps along the full length of his shaft. He rocks his hips into her hold with a stifled groan. The friction her lovely fingers are bringing him is not at all sufficient for his amorous haze, but having any friction at all focused where he needs it the most is better still than nothing.

His thigh muscles twitch and contract against hers from the pleasant jolts that her ministrations set off along every fiber of his body. His back straightens a bit further, his hips pushing into her hand while she continues stroking him. Her other hand is stretched out and toying with one of his nipples that is hardening under her teasing touch. 

She’s so immersed in playing with him and trying to bring him pleasure, it’s a big turn on for Daiki. He’s already more aroused than he’s ever been and it drives him crazy, the cute look of concentration on her face. She rubs his length from base to weeping tip with her tiny hand fisted around him. The attention she puts into the movement is so profound it sends pleasant shivers down his spine.

He has no doubt if she keeps doing this, he’ll be able to come. It feels good—great even—and having her do to him what he’s used to doing only on his own is very tempting.

What he wants—craves—from her is something else though. The hungry gleam in her gaze gives him the nudge he needs to find his voice and speak up.

“Satsuki?”

His abs flutter with exertion, his body reacting when her eyes move to fix upon his face. In her magenta gaze he sees the same burning intensity that is driving him mad with lust. Her fervent focus on him tells him that she’s paying rapt attention to what he’s saying, despite the fact her hand never stops moving along his length.

He swallows hard and leans forward. He eases his weight on his outstretched arms on either side of her head as he looms above her. He doesn’t quite get it but she seems to get some kind of kick of getting to see him shirtless. 

He doesn’t really understand but he will use whatever leverage he can to help him with what he’s about to say next.

“I wanna put it in,” he confesses, his voice cracking. 

He gulps down the saliva that’s pooled in his mouth and peers into her with trepidation in his veins. His body thrums with excitement from verbalizing his desire.

“Can I?”

It feels to Daiki as though he’s expecting some kind of verdict that would decide whether he will live or die as he waits for her response with apprehension.

For all he knows, he really might combust in flame if she says no.

His gut twists uncomfortably when an anxious look replaces the predatory expression that was on her before he asked. Her hand’s stroking stills.

“I… don’t know…” She murmurs quietly, her gaze slipping from his face to her hand still on his chest. “I’m kinda scared…” she admits in an even lower tone.

Daiki blinks in confusion at her.

“Of what?”

He knows Satsuki is a smart girl, but he wonders if she realizes that what he’s asking her for is one of the main intended purposes of those respective body parts.

“That it will hurt a lot…”

Her fingers flex against his body, kneading into his pectoral and the top part of his abdominal muscle. What she adds gives him pause, and he recalls how incredibly tight she was around the two fingers he had in her. 

He bites the inside of his cheek at the memory and tries to banish the selfish, lustful reverie and focus on her perspective of it instead.

Judging by their earlier experience, she’s probably right that it will be very uncomfortable for her at the start. He hates the thought of being the one hurting her—he always has, and their newfound type of physicality will not change that for him. 

He hates it but he wants to believe he might be able to mitigate it if he tries hard enough.

His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat when he swallows heavily again.

“We can go as slow as you need. And I’ll stop if you say so.” His hand is trembling a bit when he moves it to cradle her cheek as he inclines above her. His thumb caresses her cheekbone, and her eyelashes flutter in response. “I just… really want to try it. But if you don’t want to, then—”

He doesn’t even get to finish what he’s trying to say—despite the difficulty it presents him with as it makes its way out his throat—when she interrupts him.

“No, I… do want to, too…” Her lovely face flushes at her statement. She dodges his gaze cutely despite their proximity and his hand holding her captive. “It’s just a bit scary but… I guess it’s okay if we can stop after giving it a try…”

Daiki’s heart leaps in his chest at the meaning behind her last soft-spoken words. His pulse speeds up, adrenaline coursing through his blood stream. He licks his lips to wet them because they suddenly have dried. 

His thumb caresses her cheek until she shyly moves her gaze to lock with his. She still looks worried but he can see the spark in her eyes as well. 

He can’t breathe so he can form no more words in the moment. Instead, he nods down at her and she nods back at him in affirmation.

He gulps down his nervous excitement and sets about on relieving her of her underwear that will be in his way. Once the panties are off, he hikes up her skirt and nestles himself comfortably between her widely spread legs. 

He guides the tip of his shaft to her entrance that’s dripping with her thick essence. Her earlier orgasm has provided ample lubrication already, and her renewed vigor in their activities has only further added fuel to the fire.

He groans at the hot wetness wrapping around his length as he rubs himself against her moist folds. He grinds his hips against her a few times while pressing his erection without entering her at first, teasing her and himself a bit.

The promiscuous moan she gives him while he teases her makes goosebumps erupt along the length of his arms. He pulls her up by the hips until her buttocks are essentially resting on the base of his thigh, her ass jutting up just slightly off the bed. He feels this position would give him a better angle to explore once he’s dived in.

His head is buried into her molten sweetness and the tight embrace of her inner walls is so much better than he imagined around his engorged cock. His jaw drops slack against him as he slowly, very slowly and gradually continues pushing into her beyond just the head. 

Even if not for his promise to her to be as gentle as he can and they take things as slow as she needs, the way she’s clenching so tightly around his invading length is indicative enough he shouldn’t use any force.

Although she’s so wet, her body fiercely resists against his soft push into her. He bites his lip and groans hard at the sensation of her clamping down on him so violently. His advance is torturously slow for his heady desire.

It feels like it takes him forever until he’s all the way in and he’s already gasping for breath. 

But when he hears her choked sob he realizes she hasn’t made a peep until then. 

The pained grimace twisting her features and the tears prickling at the corners of her eyes feel like he’s been doused in icy water. The chill runs through his veins and guilt racks him from having broken his promise of not hurting her without meaning to.

Satsuki bites at her lip to keep it from trembling and to stop herself from tearing up. No matter how carefully he tries to go about it, the indisputable fact is that having him entering her is like being split apart. 

She did feel a more benign version of the same thing earlier when it was his fingers invading her. But even Daiki’s long, big digits are poor preparation for the girth of his fully erect member when it pushes into her.

It’s impossible for her to focus on anything other than the crippling thought of how agonizing the feeling of being stretched so far is. She can only think about how she wants to push him off—maybe even kick him for good measure—and run away to the opposite corner of the room and curl up in a fetal position. 

At least then she would be away from the excruciating pain that’s seized hold of her.

“Satsuki, you need to relax a bit,” he gasps out with difficulty. He rests both elbows on either side of her as he peers into her face contorted in pain. “You’re so super tight it feels like you’ll break it in half. You’re all clenched up, and it hurts you more.” 

He showers the crown on her head with featherlight kisses, and caresses gently the side of her face in soothing motions.

“Just relax for a while. Don’t think about it and just… try to unclench and relax inside, okay?”

In her state of distress, it takes her a few moments longer for the words to sink into her mind. Once they do, she feels like slamming her fist into his face. 

She believes the urge is completely justified because he has no clue how it hurts to feel herself split apart the way she does right then. Having him snap in two for doing this to her sounds like the just desserts he should get for his troubles.

But before her anger with his somewhat condescending statement can reach a boiling point, she sees the genuine concern in his wrinkled brow while he pets her head and tries to comfort her. 

It gives her a pause, and so she does what she does best—reflects on herself, and her body’s reaction. 

She finds with a bit of a surprise that he’s probably right—the fact that the intrusion is new, unwelcome and painful only makes her inner muscles clench tighter around his cock and make the whole experience triply more unpleasant. In the strain, she’s barely breathing at all and when she is, it’s in short, insufficient gasps that make the muscles along her whole being burn with the lack of oxygen.

She closes her eyes shut, and makes herself breathe in deeply. Her lungs expand to their limit, filling her body with the air she needs. She exhales slowly through her nose, letting her ribcage deflate with the movement. She repeats this several times until she gets things under control and her being starts to relax.

He lets her do her own brand of meditation while he peppers her brow and temple with small pecks. He hopes his lips convey to her how sorry he really feels for how hard this is on her when he’s the one that is enveloped in heavenly velvet in that very moment.

When her eyes open again, the troubled look is gone from her expression. It makes Daiki’s heart do a little loop in his chest in hopefulness. She pulls him forward by his neck into a languid kiss while he’s still buried hilt-deep into her, keeping his lower half perfectly motionless against her.

They make out, tangled together like this, for a while longer, with time ceasing to be of any importance. Their kisses start to deepen, becoming increasingly more impassioned, and this draws Satsuki’s awareness anew to the position they are actually in.

It helps her to realize this when he makes a minute movement against her groin in his attempt to angle himself better against her. It’s small, and barely noticeable—but she does lock on to it.

More precisely, she locks onto the fact that not only does it not hurt, but it actually feels quite nice.

A moan escapes her, and it’s one that has nothing to do with any pain whatsoever.

Daiki seems to be more alert than she’s ever known him to be, because he pays heed to her reaction very closely. He thrusts against her experimentally with a slightly broader move this time, trying to get a good handle on the sensation for himself and for her. 

He pulls away from their kiss and groans deeply, peering into her face before pushing his hips forward again.

“Are you okay?” he asks her in a gruff tone, strained by self-control.

“Yeah,” she responds urgently, eyes screwed shut. 

His Adam apple bobs as he swallows, studying her features all the while.

“Can I move now?”

“Yes,” she hisses, fingers clawing into his shoulder. “Please.”

That’s all the invitation Daiki will ever need from her. 

He starts moving slowly at first, at a carefully measured pace. With how it’s been initially for her, he doesn’t want to push her but at the same time needs to get his bearings about how it feels to be tightly enveloped by her warmth, too.

Once he builds more confidence—aided greatly by her moans rising in volume and frequency—he starts to pick up his pace.

There’s something really kinky in the wet sound created between their bodies when his cock plunges into her between her widely spread legs. It works up something inside Daiki which makes him drive into her with sharper thrusts of his hips. 

The delicious embrace of her warm insides around his pulsing shaft is also absolutely out of this world for him. And the fact that her face is screwed up in mirroring wanton passion makes the whole experience that much more gratifying for him. 

He holds onto her hip for leverage while he pistons in and out of her with a stringent frequency. Her gasps and keening moans get more curt from the slam of his body against hers. There’s a tight string coiling at the base of his spine while she squeezes him hard with her velvety hot softness, and he snarls wildly while speeding up his thrusts some more.

Her head is turning this way and that as she starts to feel overwhelmed by an even greater pleasure than with the previous orgasm he gave her. 

He’s big and hot inside her, stretching her in a way that had been excruciating earlier, but is now the most pleasurable sensation she’s experienced in her life. His girth and size as he grinds into her sex makes her feel filled to the brim with him. It’s like her insides move and contort in time with his thrusts to pull more of him in, take him in deeper into her being until she molds him into her entirely. 

She can tell that her body is getting closer to a peak that is leaving her lungs empty and her mind blank. She can taste it just on the tip of her tongue, along with the saltiness of her sweat, as he holds onto her while ramming in and out of her at a frenzied pace.

Feeling himself tethering on the edge, Daiki subconsciously remembers what made her react the strongest earlier. He angles himself in a way that will allow him to snake one hand between their joined bodies, never once pausing his urgent thrusts into her.

Satsuki feels his fingers rubbing her clit, moistened generously from her essence, while he continues driving into her mercilessly. The sensation of the combined friction at her entrance and the bundle of nerves atop it is overwhelming. It doesn’t take her long to come apart around him with a stringent half-scream on her mouth.

Daiki knows he won’t last any longer but he manages to hold on long enough to ride through the initial delicious squeeze of her inner walls before he passes the point of no return himself. He wants to relish the feeling of her release around him, the welcoming pull of her body that wants him further in, because he knows he shouldn’t let himself come into her warmth.

He pulls out just before his shaft twitches and throbs with the liquid that spills forth from his tip and onto the sheets below. 

He comes with a violent jerk of his hips once he takes himself out of her and a heavy, guttural groan that turns into a drawn out, long moan. His cock throbs a few more times, and he lets himself fall to her side as the aftermath of his orgasm numbs all his senses in a wonderful, white noise.

Satsuki climaxes so hard the second time around that her whole body starts quivering with the sensation. Even after the initial wave passes, her limbs tremor ever so slightly as the aftershocks pass through her. 

It takes them both a good several minutes of heavy breathing with their eyes shut and just relishing the feeling of sweet release before they finally get their bearings about themselves.

And for Satsuki, this comes with the sinking realization that she has given into her biggest weakness and lost her virginity to her closest friend.

Whose virginity she also happened to take in the process.

She swallows with difficulty when her throat suddenly dries up and she musters the strength to open her eyes and look at him. 

He looks so delectable with his brow glistening with sweat and the serene expression plastered on his face. He radiates his bliss in copious waves where he lays still next to her. He’s an alluring sight even while he’s still collecting himself and she knows she will be revisiting this moment in the future for sure (in less than innocent daydreams and nightly visions).

But for the time being, what registers with Satsuki is that she was so far gone in her lust that she not only relinquished herself fully to passion, but she did it recklessly. 

Riding the wave of her mind-numbing craving for him, she jumped him without even thinking of getting any protection first. 

But the worst part still is that the only one with enough wits about themselves in that moment was Daiki, who at least knew better than to come inside her.

She feels the shame burning on her face and she has to look away from him. She believes this must be her lowest point ever - giving into something primordial so entirely that she stops thinking. 

What a disgrace. 

She feels sticky and in dire need of a shower.

More than that, though, she feels like throwing herself into his arms and burying her face in his chest. She wants to cuddle into his side and feel his arm around her still hot in an orgasmic bliss body. 

Which is the most dangerous course of action. 

In her thoughtlessness, she didn’t consider the fact that if his parents were home, she has been so loud that they probably heard them—loud and clear—during the heights of the act.

She admonishes herself for a million things but before she can start getting crushed under the weight of all of them, she shakily picks herself together and sits up.

The action makes the burning flesh of her thigh brush against the cold wet spot where Daiki’s essence is smeared over the sheets. A shiver runs down her spine but she shakes her head to clear it of any wayward thoughts.

She swings her legs over the edge of his bed—which is much too small for the both of them to lay in anyway—and she finds her panties on the floor right next to where her foot lands. 

She thinks to put them back on herself but reconsiders quickly upon remembering how unbearably uncomfortable they felt against her burning skin last. Now, with her folds pulsing from the feel of his length inside of her earlier, she decides on putting her panties in her skirt’s pocket instead of donning them back on.

Satsuki picks up her bra and sets about awkwardly putting it back on and straightening her clothes. She does so with her back turned to him. 

This is why she doesn’t notice when he opens his eyes to fix her with his piercing azure gaze.

“What is it?” he asks her. 

His voice pulls her out of her self-deprecating reverie, and when she peers into his expression, she doesn’t know what to read into his impassive mask. 

She swallows hard, looking away from him. 

Unable to hold his gaze.

“I need to go home. I have something I promised my mother to do today that I had forgotten about.”

Daiki makes a thoughtful hum that vibrates in the back of his throat and chest. He settles more comfortably in his bed. His back straightens into the covers, arms folding behind his head. 

He must’ve covered his lower half with the comforter when her back was turned to him, because she can see it pulled up to his waist now.

“Really? I see.”

Her lie is unconvincing at best, and to someone like Dai-chan who knows her better than she probably knows herself, she’s aware she isn’t fooling anyone in that room. 

But when she’s already made a terrible spectacle of herself already, this is the smallest dignity she can allow herself as a saving grace. 

To give an excuse and make a hasty exit.

She has to go through with it despite the pull his nonchalant, handsome profile makes for in the way he’s settled into his bed.

Just as she’s ready to leave—clothes set back into their proper place, albeit considerably more rumpled than before she entered the premise—a nasty thought about something she didn’t think to double-check crosses her mind.

She cringes and looks over her shoulder guiltily at her best friend.

Whom she just slept with.

A realization that will take a bit more time than this to properly sink in.

But in the meanwhile…

“Daiki?”

If the use of his full name surprises him, he doesn’t let it show on his face. 

Or, at least, not the part of it that she can see.

“Hmm?”

It takes her some time to be able to put into use her vocal cords for what she intends and needs to say. 

“If there’s blood on your covers… I’m sorry.”

He opens his eyes to throw her an unguarded, surprised look. Her words catch him unawares, apparently. In the next moment, his expression morphs into a reassuring small smile.

“There wasn’t any. Don’t worry.”

Whether he means that he checked when he was taking her wantonly in his bed or that he checked his sheets while she was getting dressed, she doesn’t know. She doesn’t have the mental fortitude in that moment to find out either.

She just nods dumbly and excuses herself as she walks out of his room with her back to him.

As Satsuki makes her quick descent down the stairs, she notices that no one else is home and she’s flooded with a deep sense of relief.

It’s humiliating how quickly that gets replaced by a reminder of the pleasurable earlier encounter when there’s a dull throb between her legs when she walks. It’s so stupid that she feels completely hollowed out now after having been filled to the brim by him just a few minutes ago.

She wonders just how successful her excessively stupid plan to flush him out of her system will turn out to be.

Especially with the foreboding suspicion she’s getting that by sleeping with him, she’s only made her hopeless, unreasonable infatuation with him that much worse.