Agrippa
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All Right! Fine! I Will Take You! – Chapter 48
🕑 Added 2022-08-12 03:40:02 +0000 UTCThe Demon Lord is a lonely existence, a being that exists merely to be defeated, to have all that they’ve worked for stripped away before they fall before the hero’s might.
But games have True Endings.
That’s an artifice that dates back to the very dawn of gaming, a way to challenge players to not just go through the obvious path, defeating challenges as they appear, but to look for the hidden keys to the underlying mystery, to, maybe, after time and again of futilely despairing, find the one thing that unlocks something else, something new, something beyond the obvious.
Such as, maybe, a path where the Demon Lord… isn’t.
“You’re getting too melancholy for this environment.” Haruno’s breath warms my left ear from behind me as her arms wrap around my waist, and she, once again, leans against my back, making me feel the soft curves of her body on mine.
As for our ‘environment?’ That’s… A darkly lit room, the walls painted in maroon, except for the one that’s a mirror in which I can see lavender eyes staring into the transfixed eyes of the me on the other side of the glass.
There’s a bed behind us. Round. Impractical. Big.
Maybe big enough for four people. Because she’s Haruno, and she may as well use this, our first time together, as a way to plan for the future.
But that’s unfair, isn’t it? Because, yes, I know that’s part of what made her choose this one room, part of the mental process of someone who has never stayed in the moment as her mind was too restless to ever be leashed. I know that’s something utterly, unmistakably Haruno.
But I also know that’s not the real reason. Not even the main one.
“Did you ever read Naruto, Haruno?” I ask her as I gently lay my right hand on top of her left one, right above my navel, in a way that she has perfectly calculated to be intimate yet not sexual. Just… sensual. Tender.
Because she’s studied two videos sent to her by two women who, smart and empathic as they are, didn’t fully realize what they were doing.
“Not really. It doesn’t sound like the kind of thing you would bring up in this situation, though, so I guess there’s some piece of trivia tangentially related to us in there?”
I laugh. It’s not that I can’t help it, but that I don’t care to hide it. Not with her.
And the Haruno in the mirror in front of me smiles more fully.
“There’s a character in the series, a ninja teacher, who has a motto: ‘to look underneath the underneath.’”
And she laughs. And doesn’t care to hide it.
“Ever so delightful, my dear Hachiman.”
Her arms tighten around me, and I relax back against her. Maybe someday I’ll be tall enough not to be able to do this, and it will be me holding her from behind as she lets herself fall against my chest. But that day is not today.
She kisses the side of my neck. Still gentle, still on the right side of sensual.
Still deliberate.
“You know what I told Yukino today? What maybe was the most meaningful thing I told her before I left her behind to meet you?”
“No. Maybe you should realize, though, that bringing up your romantic past with my little sister is not quite what I would consider foreplay—”
“I told her that I always loved the way she pretended not to laugh.”
Haruno stops, and her face is behind my hair, so I can only guess what it is that the mirror isn’t showing me.
“That doesn’t sound… genuine,” she finally says.
And I smile.
Because the tone of her voice is deliberately neutral, because she’s still hiding her face.
Because, if she’s doing all that, she can’t be wearing her mask.
“It is, though. It was a language of implicit meaning, of coded affection. It was something… ours.”
“Was?”
I take one of the hands resting against my body and bring it up to my lips, to kiss the back of it, the flesh between thumb and index, the tips of the slender fingers I’ve admired more often than I once would’ve cared to admit.
“I love the way you laugh,” I breathe out.
She stiffens. And doesn’t answer.
“When it is free? Because that’s a glimpse into what makes you tick, what makes your beautiful mind sparkle in joy. When it’s fake? Because that’s sheer insight into what you want to show yourself as, the effect you want to have on the world,” I keep telling her between kisses on her palm and inner wrist.
“And you can tell the difference?” she says, tone still neutral.
“Now? Yes. Now I can.”
And I pull on her arm as I slip my other hand around her waist so that Haruno stops facing the mirror and stands in front of me.
She’s wearing a green sweater, something that an excited part of me can’t help but think of as a boob bag (and that I know she’s only wearing because it’s too cold to wear an actual virgin-killer), and jeans that make her lithe legs stand out even more. Something that, at first blush, may seem casual.
Something perfectly calculated to entice me yet not pressure me, to make it seem as if this very situation isn’t that important, just another step in whatever label our relationship carries.
Except neither of us cares for labels.
And so, Haruno’s wearing a lie.
… Which may be the most Haruno thing she could ever wear, now that I think about it.
“I’m pretty sure you’re being rude right now,” she says, cracking half a smile at me.
So I let go of her left hand and hug her to me, staring up into those maddening eyes of hers, the ones that never show me anything but what she wants me to see. Or so she believes.
“I love you. And, before you can ask me what that means, I’ll tell you: I admire you, even the parts of you I once thought I should despise. I care for your feelings and well-being. I want you to be happy. I am even willing to risk Shizu leaving me for you, if that’s what it takes for you to smile without having to think about what kind of smile you want to show the world.
“Even though you’ll never stop doing it. Because it’s you.
“And I want you and Yukino to be happy together. I want you to help each other overcome your shared past. I want you to be there when she visits me years from now, somehow carrying Yuigahama’s spawn in her belly—”
“I find your faith in Yui disturbing.”
“I find your constant references to Western pop culture indicative of your disdain for Japan and all that your traditional upbringing has inflicted on you.”
She stops. She isn’t wearing a mask.
And I cup her cheeks with my palms, feeling the faint heat beneath my touch as her eyes never falter from mine.
“I love you, Haruno. And that means I love the beautiful, remarkable, extraordinary parts. But it also means that I won’t ever shy away from the others. From the cynic, sarcastic, even cruel woman. And from the caring heart beneath.”
“You give me too much credit, Hachiman,” she says, never blinking, her lips barely opening when she lets out the flippant, flat, pained words.
“You watched your one true love suck my cock on video just so you could get another hint at how to make today work. At how to make this be as perfect for me as possible.”
She nods.
“And that’s manipulative, Hachiman, not caring. That’s me twisting things around so you won’t decide to cast me out of your little group—”
“You’re about to piss me off.”
“See? All that effort, and I still make a mess of things—”
“No. All that effort, and you still think you can fool me? You still think you can say precisely the right line to make me mad at your insinuation that I would care so little for you? Now that is what’s making me angry. The idea that I would get angry at that.”
There’s a brief pause before she closes her eyes.
And laughs.
“You’re far too convoluted in you anger,” she says as I hug her tighter, my left hand on the small of her back, my right on her nape.
“You’re a minefield of trauma, hidden depths, and genuine mischief,” I answer, her hands on top of my shoulder blades, her lips almost brushing mine.
“And you wouldn’t want me any other way,” she says. But actually asks.
“That’s a lie,” I say straight into lavender eyes that make me forget about everything else that surrounds us. “I would prefer you whole and healed. But we’ve got plenty of years to see that happen.”
She stares at me, and I hold still, just looking back, just hoping I can show her everything she needs to see.
“Iroha was right,” she whispers.
And then kisses me.
It’s soft, tender, just this right side of sensual.
Yet, somehow, I can tell… it’s also genuine.
And so I can’t help but be the same in turn.
I loosen my hold on my desire, my need for her touch, and push her back against the cold glass as her lips part to allow me entrance. Our tongues entwine around one another, none of us leading, just… reacting. Just… together.
I don’t know when or how it happened, but I love her.
And yes, there are parts of that word I still have to learn, to uncover, but… but I know enough. Enough to realize my life’s better just because she’s in it. Despite all the hardships, despite just how difficult everything becomes because she exists.
It’s worth it.
She sucks on my tongue, surrounding it with her lips as she plays just with what’s left inside her mouth, and I open my eyes to find hers closed in concentration.
Because she’s Haruno.
Because…
I lean away, the wet sound of our flesh parting just the prelude to my heavy panting.
“Say it,” I tell her, my voice as rough as can be.
And her eyes open in mild surprise that soon turns into a soft smile. One that’s so warm it makes my heart clench.
“I love you,” she whispers, the tone of her voice making the hairs on my nape stand up.
“And what does that mean?” I ask her with my own attempt at a warm smile, returning her question from the day I chased her down rather than allow her the space she had demanded of me.
Her right hand travels up my spine, entangled in the hair at the back of my head, and she pulls me back just so she can lean forward and look down on me, taking up my whole world.
“It means… That I see who you are. I see the man behind the wit, and the irony, and the pain. I see the desperate need to care, not even to be cared for, but just to soothe whatever pain you may see in others that reminds you of your own. I see beautiful wounds and scars. I see somebody so utterly broken and twisted… that has become what those who never go through pain should have always been.
“I see somebody I could twist and turn into another me… Except I am too late. Because you’re broken, and wounded, but also strong. And so you will bend me before I can do it to you.
“I see… I see somebody who…”
She trails off, her speech wavering between sinister tones and almost euphoric ones until that very last line. The one she can’t turn into a spectacle. The one she really means.
And the one that follows it as lavender once again blooms in front of me, and her pink lips mutter in a thready voice…
“I see somebody who understands… and won’t push me away.”
And her eyes close again as her hold on me relaxes, and her forehead comes to rest on mine.
“Never,” I answer her.
She smiles, eyes still closed.
“Shouldn’t a love confession end with ‘forever?’” she says, almost tenderly mocking.
“We both know that forever is far shorter than never.”
She laughs. And I kiss her.
Her fingers undo my jacket, then my shirt as I slide her sweater up until it forces our lips to part. I barely have time to take in her bra, the lacy, lavender cups that rigidly contain her overflowing breasts, and then she’s kissing me again even as she pulls on my own undershirt. We have to part yet again seconds later so she can throw it away, so her hands can run across my bare chest as I unhook her bra.
I know this isn’t what she planned. I know she wanted to give me a striptease, one that would remind me of what Shizu does when she can take the time to entice me. Except Shizu does it to display her desire for me and to bask in mine for hers, but Haruno would’ve done it to keep my attention on her, to stoke my lust, to have me focus on nothing but what would happen after she was done.
But… plans. Iroha has long since established what tends to happen to them around me.
… Aaaaand now I’m blushing.
Thankfully, Haruno’s too busy undoing my pants to capitalize on my moment of weakness, and I am too busy fighting her jeans to—I’m being an idiot.
“Take them off; I’ll handle mine,” I growl at her.
And her bare breasts shiver against my chest before I step back to look at Haruno, her back leaning against the mirror, her hands on the waist of her jeans, already rolling them down as she notices my stare, and a grin filled with satisfaction goes across her lips.
I match her pace, and so I see the wet patch of lavender cotton darkening at the front right as she looks down to see me tenting my boxers, and we exchange a small, complicit grin before her thighs are bared, and she smoothly bends down to roll the pants the rest of the way down.
Which is, of course, when I notice that, under her quite mundane sweater and jeans, Haruno was wearing silk stockings and a garter belt.
Because Haruno, I suppose.
“Stop. My penis can only get so erect,” I tell her.
She snorts, almost losing her balance as she takes one slender foot out of her jeans, and I step forward, already free of pants, boxers, and socks.
So… Let’s say it’s a natural accident that, when Haruno looks forward, she almost bumps into something that, as far as I know, can only get so erect.
She blinks at it.
“Well, hello there. It’s nice to finally meet you in person,” she says, cocking her head, still bent forward at her waist, her panties resting against the mirror behind her.
“He’s heard great things about you,” I tell her, trying not to laugh at myself and failing a tiny smidge.
“Oh? Has he thought about me? Maybe on some lonely nights—”
“I won’t tell you how many times I jacked off thinking about your lack of physical boundaries with me, and you won’t tell me how many times you used the video of that phone call with me eating Shizu out. Deal?”
Haruno slowly looks up from my tip and into my eyes, her grin growing wider with every minute of an angle.
“You’re getting better, Hachiman. But you still need to learn a few things,” she says, a familiar yet brighter quirk on her lips.
So I grab her cheeks and pull her up into a searing kiss that only grows more intense as I step forward, my cock pressing against her soft belly, her breasts flattening against my chest, and her purring swallowed by me.
“I’m willing to study as much as it takes,” I tell her, my breath on her skin scalding her if the burning in my lungs is any indicator.
She writhes against the mirror, her whole body undulating as she closes her eyes and bites her lip, as she rubs herself against me and tests my control.
What a laughable idea: I don’t have any.
I’m not assaulting Haruno, yes, but not because I’m keeping my lust in check, but because my desire for her demands this. It craves this… this connection. This exchange.
I could grab her hips, turn her around, and fuck her against her reflection, forcing her to see her face changing with every single of my thrusts. And I want that.
But I don’t need it. Not like I need this.
And, when she opens her eyes and looks into mine, when she softly runs her agile fingers through my hair… There’s that soft smile yet again. That heartbreaking warmth.
That understanding.
“I want you. I want you inside of me,” she says.
And there’s no blowjob, no titfuck, no spectacular display of bedroom prowess.
Nothing that she planned for.
There’s just a girl I love wanting me.
And that’s, of course, what makes my blood roar.
So I push aside her panties, hooking the elastic line at the side of her sex before I carefully trace her labia—
And she grabs my wrist in a grip I know perfectly well I can’t break away from.
“Not… like that. I’m… I’m ready, Hachiman. Really ready,” she says, something cracking at the last word.
So I nod and hook one hand beneath her left knee, raising her leg and opening her for me as I lower my legs and hold my cock, pointing it at her, at glistening lips, at the source of a heat I can feel reaching out to me.
And I push forward.
She’s carefully still, trying not to react in any way as I part her, spread her. As the very tip of me goes past her tight opening.
Then I look up, just… just watching her face as I push deeper, as my whole head finally goes inside her, forcefully gliding through wetness and heat.
And there’s no grin, no smile, no… no mask.
But there’s quite a bit of surprise.
So I kiss her open mouth, tenderly tracing her lips with my tongue, the hand holding my cock letting go to travel up her side, to delicately trace her silhouette, as if trying to paint her in my mind with fingers that will never be as graceful as hers.
She holds still, the thigh over my right hand quivering with the only motion she allows herself, and I push farther inside her.
Halfway in. Half my cock inside of Haruno, and she’s squeezing me, pulsing around me in a way I know isn’t deliberate. She isn’t teasing me, isn’t trying to make this better for me. She’s just…
“Is… Is this your first time? I mean, with a man, because obviously Shizu and you—” I tell her, almost panicking before two slender fingers touch my lips to silence me.
“The second one. It’s the second time I have had sex with a man,” she says, eyes yet again on me as her chest rises and falls more noticeably than before, her reddish nipples dragging across my feverish skin. And then, miraculously, Haruno blushes. “It’s… It’s the first time I’ve been with a man I loved, though.”
She’s meekly looking aside and down, the tint on her cheeks spreading down her neck.
And I curse my fate that Iroha isn’t here to document this.
“You shouldn’t have said that,” I tell her as calmly as I can.
“Wha—” she starts asking, confusion genuinely showing in her eyes (and making Iroha’s absence even more evident) as she turns to face me.
And then I interrupt her by biting down on the side of her neck, digging my fingers on both her silk-covered thigh and her hip, and pushing.
She hisses beside my ear, her nails clawing at my back, and we hold still with me almost entirely inside of her.
“You’re… You’re rougher than I expected,” she comments.
“That’s a lie. You expected to seduce me until I was a lust-addled mess who couldn’t think of anything but burying my cock inside your body,” I tell her, letting go of her neck to kiss and lick it.
“Well, yes, of course, but I didn’t think you’d be rough when… you know,” she says, her fingers yet again on my hair and pulling me harder against her.
“I’m not. I just… I want you. You.”
She stops, almost shivering.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
“No. No, Haruno. Thank you.”
And I slowly, nearly torturing myself with the pace, pull out almost entirely before I lean back from her (tender, toned, long, sensitive) neck to look back into lavender.
“If you were Yukino…” her eyes sharpen, and I have to physically restrain myself from saying something purposefully sarcastic that would make both of us laugh at the risk of violence being inflicted on me. “If you were Yukino, I would be thinking about the frail ice in your eyes. I would be thinking about it melting, or cracking as something beneath finally surfaced.”
“I’m not Yukino,” she says, nails digging on my scalp.
I smile.
“You aren’t. And so I just see lavender. I see the color of a flower, but… but I don’t have metaphors for it. I haven’t spent a year thinking about petals covered with glittering dewdrops, or about buds tightly closed before winter fades away. I don’t know how to describe your eyes to myself in any way other than ‘beautiful.’”
She looks at me. Just looks at me.
“You’re about to say something terribly sappy that, rather than make me gag, will make me desperately want you inside of me,” she comments, almost exasperated.
“Ah, I see you’re familiar with this game,” I tell her, my own grin possibly infuriating to witness.
“Two videos. I’ve watched two videos today in the breaks between classes. I can recognize a pattern,” she answers, rolling her eyes.
“Of course you can. Because that’s who you are. Who I fell in love with. And I want to spend a lifetime coming up with ways to describe how your eyes change with every single one of your mercurial and sometimes genuine moods.”
She blinks at me.
And then the leg I was holding is wrapped around my waist, the fingers on my hair are on my ass, and my cock is completely hilted inside Haruno’s wonderful body.
“I hate that you can make me feel like this so easily,” she grunts, her eyes fluttering as her chest heaves.
“You love it,” I tell her, finally allowing my hands to explore her with lust, to grab her right breast and her ass.
“Both. Can it be both? Both is good,” she grins at me.
And I laugh.
And then I fuck her.
Her skin is dewed with sweat and it screeches against the glass behind her as I follow the urgent rhythm her curled leg demands of my hips, and I’m enveloped by her heat again and again, my mind barely able to keep up with the assault on my senses that’s only compounded by her lips on my collarbone and my fingers digging into the soft, bouncing flesh of both her breast and her ass.
I feel it, the way the muscles flexes as she rises and falls, a single leg sustaining her weight as she tries to contribute to the strength of my thrusts, as she refuses to let herself be as overwhelmed as I am, even if I don’t stop moving, even if I keep burying myself in her flesh even as she seems to draw me in.
Not because I can think through my lust, my yearning for Haruno.
But because part of what I desperately crave is… to make her feel good. To make her feel wanted.
To make her feel loved.
And so, rough thrusts are mingled with tender kisses, desperate grasping with worshipful caress, and lust with love.
And she accepts all of it, and gives it back to me.
Because her pussy is wet, and warm, and pulsing and coiling around me.
But her lips are soft on my own, on my cheeks, my forehead, and neck.
And… And I feel loved. Wanted. Desired.
And I can only hope she feels it too.
“Hachiman! I—”
“Hachi,” I tell her with a deep voice I should’ve used from the start. “Call me Hachi.”
Her eyes widen even as her fingers grasp my neck, her body thrown back against the mirror so I can watch her breasts bounce up and down as my movements grow more forceful.
“Thank you,” she says, the warm smile coming back, but… But without the frailty.
And, just for that, I could… I don’t even know. I just know I’m grinning like a loon, triumphant beyond my hopes and expectations.
So I indulge myself. I allow myself to do something I kept thinking about.
Haruno’s flexible, far more than she should be without being a gymnast, so I can take the leg wrapped around me and pass it over my shoulders and height, pausing in my thrusts for the moment it takes for Haruno to realize what I’m doing and pivot her whole body without taking my cock out of it.
And now she’s bent over in front of me, my hands on her hips, hers on the mirror in front of her.
“Look at you,” I whisper in her ear, my body on top of her sinuous back.
She does. She raises her head and looks into the lavender of the other Haruno’s eyes.
“I want you to…” I hesitate for a moment, the magnitude of what I’m about to ask holding me back until I tighten my hold on her body and take strength from who I am doing this for. “I want you to look into her eyes. I want you to think all the pejorative things you think about her, all the terrible things you think she deserves… and then I want you to look into my eyes, and see what it is that I really feel for her.”
“I… I already know, Hachi...” Haruno says. Meekly.
My heart almost bursts at that.
“Still… do it. Please.”
So Haruno silently looks into Haruno, her face shifting in ways too quick for me to decipher.
And I thrust inside her.
Looking straight into the eyes of her mirror self, only vaguely aware of her breasts swinging beneath her as she bites her lips, a throaty moan still escaping from her.
“Tell her she is beautiful,” I whisper as I straighten my back so her writhing body is beneath me.
“Wha—”
I thrust again, grinding myself against her entrance as her eyes narrow into fluttering slits.
“Tell her she’s beautiful. And smart. And perceptive.”
She hesitates, looking at me through the mirror before I nod encouragingly, my cock slowly gliding in and out of her.
“You…” she starts addressing the other Haruno before looking back at me. “This is ridiculous,” she tells me, her hips grinding back against me as I bottom out inside of her.
“Please,” I tell her with a smile that I hope is encouraging rather than just reflective of just how much it takes me not to accelerate, not to fuck her against the glass as I keep whispering everything I adore about her.
But… well. Haruno. I’m pretty sure she’s aware.
So she blushes yet again as she looks back at her reflection.
“You… You are beautiful. And smart. And perceptive.”
“Yes. Yes, you are, Haruno. But that’s something you don’t need others to tell you. That’s something you know,” I say, stroking up her sides as I catch my breath, as I delight in watching her cheeks redden further.
“Then—”
“Then tell her more. Tell her what you know I want you to tell her.”
“I’m starting to get tired of you cutting me off.”
“No, you still aren’t.”
“What does that—ah!”
That little, adorable, cute exclamation? That’s when I suddenly thrust into her, hard enough to make her hands slip on the mirror.
And now she’s looking back at me over her shoulder, a raised eyebrow signaling her lack of amusement.
Totally worth it.
“Come on,” I tell her encouragingly as I resume my slow, torturous pace inside her.
“I swear you have the weirdest fetishes…” she grumbles before facing herself yet again.
And stopping.
She still lets out small gasps and moans as I keep going in and out of her, as I keep pushing her just hard enough that her short hair sways beneath her when she looks down, her whole back arched with the tension of the pleasure running though her.
And then, before I can encourage her yet again, she raises her head and looks at herself.
“You… You tried. Even when you thought you couldn’t, you tried. Even when you thought nobody cared, you tried. And you held on long enough for her to… find you,” she says, almost breaking down before she can finish.
“Good. You’re doing good, Haruno. I’m proud of you,” I tell her, risking an acerbic comeback that… that will never come.
Because she’s looking at herself, directing all those powers of deduction to a worthy target at last.
“You… You love. You are still able of it. And… And you want them to be happy, to be better off after meeting you.”
I run a careful finger down her spine as her eyes close, seeking a momentary reprieve from her own gaze.
“And you… You still care. You’ll always care. You’ll never be as cruel as you pretend to be,” she admits, briefly looking up at me with eyes that are more lost than at any time I’ve seen her outside of a windswept roof after defeating Shizu in the way that would hurt them both the most.
And the way that finally allowed them to heal.
“Haruno… you want to be loved,” she whispers.
And that’s when I finally lose it.
Something else snaps inside of me, some last restrain I didn’t even know was holding me back as I lean forward once again to bite her shoulder, to grasp her hips and push forward until her arms bend and her face and breasts are flattened against the mirror, against her reflection, against the Haruno looking back at me in shock.
“I love you,” I growl out.
And then I fuck her, my arms pulling back on her hips whenever I drive forward, her round ass losing its shape as I pound her, as I really give my everything to her.
“Ha—Hachi!” she yells. But she doesn’t tell me to stop.
So I push my right hand between glass and flesh to savor the shape of her breast one more time, to feel the soft skin, the entrancing weight, the malleable form.
“Ah! Yes! Keep—keep fucking me!”
I pull her back to me, to have her back against my chest so I can lick her neck as I thrust up into her, her free breast bouncing against the mirror.
“No,” I growl. “I’m not fucking you.”
Her eyes shoot wide open to meet mine on my reflection, the one looking at her with burning intensity as my body strains with the quickening pace I’m subjecting her to.
“You mushy piece of—” she starts, smiling loosely and warmly.
“I’m making love to you,” I continue the line.
And Haruno falls forward, yet again pressed against her mirror self as she gasps, as she contracts around me, as she—
“Stop! Cutting me! Off!” she yells, her teeth clenching in something that’s very much not anger.
And I can’t help my smile at seeing her about to come, about to let herself be that free and vulnerable in front of me.
“Never,” I whisper.
“That…” she looks at me, eyes widening in comprehension. Just as expected. “That lasts more than forever,” she finally says, completing the line before I can.
I nod, kiss her nape.
And come.
She shudders as she feels me driving as far inside her as I can reach, as I grind on her, as I pull her to me.
And she tenses, her back arching far enough that she’s once again pressing against my chest, like she maybe one day will relaxedly do if I grow to be taller than her.
Then she slumps forward, falling against her reflected self, and the Haruno in the mirror languidly opens her eyes and drowsily smiles at her.
***
We are finally lying on the bed, completely naked now that Haruno has decided to take off the stockings and garter belt I’ve only briefly appreciated (and I shall never forgive myself this oversight, because damn).
It’s a soft bed, one that yet again reminds me that every single mattress I’ve tried is better than the one in my room. The sheets are what Haruno tells me is Egyptian cotton, which she assures me has nothing to do with mummies, pharaohs, or children’s card games.
The fact I don’t even have to explain the reference is enough to send another smile through my lips. Though I’m a bit regretful about that, seeing as I just sent it into a terribly competitive environment filled with postcoital shows of joy and delight. Sorry, Smile-chan, I’m afraid the job market was never prepared to deal with an excess of expressions of happiness.
“Castlevania,” Haruno mutters against my chest as I lazily pet her short hair.
“What?” I ask, dreading I already know the answer.
“Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. It had the Reverse Castle, a mirror dimension that unlocked the true ending. Or so my noisy classmates claimed.”
“And, of course, being the genius character that you are, you remember that piece of trivia despite never having played a single metroidvania game in your life.”
“Of course,” she happily mutters before she kisses my chest and purrs as I scratch her behind her ear.
“Obviously, that also ties into what you thought I was thinking while staring at the mirror while you hugged me from behind.”
“Obviously,” she says with a slowly growing grin as she alternatively nuzzles my chest and the hand that’s petting her.
I keep watching her, keep staring at the latest woman to claim she loves me.
She opens her eyes, surprising me when they aren’t slit and glowing.
And I bend down to kiss her hair, smiling all the way.
Comments
Agrippa
Thank you very much for taking the time to write this, I was kinda anxious about the chapter due to it being both pivotal and needing to showcase both Haruno's and Hachiman's actions and reactions (and they being so far from what a regular human being would be). About the vigor of youth, it should be noted that this is Hachiman's third sexual encounter, but you make a great point about leaving implicit details working in the background, as that's something I often forget to play with (Saika and Kawasaki's thing may be the most recent try at that I've managaed), and I really should improve on that. Regarding this chapter feeling like the start of the end... It's sad to consider, because a part of me feels like I could be writing these characters for years, but I have an ending in mind that I think is fitting to them, and they deserve some closure. Still, I think even after I finish the fic, I'll likely keep dropping snippets that let us peek into their future from time to time. I've grown to love my version of them far too much not to.
Pope Yoda I
Given the obvious magnitude of effort you put into this chapter, I feel like I had to take a bit of time in order to give it a properly thought-out review. This chapter is, plainly, excellent. This feels like the kind of chapter you'd have written near the beginning of the story and had to make only minor adjustments to as you slowly progressed towards it. There are very few, if any, technical imperfections. My one possible criticism, if I have to dig way deep, would be to remind you that the caste consists of young individuals in the sexual prime of their lives. Definitely don't start delving into porn-universe tropes, but more than one or two sessions of intimacy at a time would not be outside the realm of possibility. Don't even need to write anything extra. Just have one of the caste end with 'Again?' before closing the chapter. Have fun with it's consequences! Make Iroha pretend to have taken up yoga to explain away why she showed up to school with a limp. Have Shizuka start wearing a "fashionable" scarf. Have Haruno pre-purchase ice packs. A chapter is not just the words written, but the implications of seemingly minor actions that breathe life into the world. The chapter feels bittersweet. It feels like a beautiful and sad way to begin saying goodbye to the caste. Hopefully I'm imaging it, but it feels like the chapter I'd write as an author on my way down from a fic, given that most challenges appear conquered and most dragons slain. It feels like the beginning of when I'd eventually bring the story to an end with Haruno telling her dragon mom, "I'm pregnant," after she convinces Hachiman to bang her in her mom's office.
