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lockefanfic · 20 days ago

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Last Chance - Part 2

Part 1.

---

Even in the lineup at an airport Starbucks, Chou Tzuyu made your heart skip a beat.

Her hair is pulled into a messy bun that lives up to the name, although the loose strands that refused to fall in with the rest of her hair do well to frame her small face in wavy strands of chocolate. She is wearing an oversized sweatshirt and a matching loose pair of sweatpants, a large tote bag slung casually over one shoulder as she scrolls blankly on her phone, waiting for her turn to exchange money for caffeine. Even in casual clothing and little makeup, she made everyone else in the lineup look like movie extras, non-player characters in a virtual world meant to fill out a crowd.

She shuffles forward as the line advances. The girl behind her, a tall girl in a blue baseball cap pulled down almost over her eyes and similarly engrossed into whatever was on her phone, follows. She bumps into Tzuyu and apologizes profusely; Tzuyu smiles sweetly at her and gives her a small bow. As she turns forward again, her eyes find yours.

At the sight of you, her eyes, though rimmed with exhaustion and a lack of sleep, regain their brightness. Her lips curl into a warm smile as she brushes back a stray lock of hair, tucking it behind her ear. She looks at you like you’re the only other person that exists amidst the hustle and bustle of the busy airport, and in that moment you feel a warmth blossom in your chest. The rest of the world seems to fade away into black and white, monotone dullness.

Her left hand re-adjusts the strap of her tote bag over her shoulder. The diamond wedding ring on her ring finger glimmers.

---

“Fuck, it’s so cold in here,” your friend Joey says, stating what had become painfully obvious in the ten minutes you’d spent in his apartment since your return to the party from Tzuyu’s place. “Of all the times for the heater to give out…”

“Yeah,” you agree, although truth be told you could have been in Antarctica at the moment and you wouldn’t have noticed. You take another sip out of the mystery concoction within the plastic red cup in your hands, but the slight burn of the alcohol is temporary and fleeting, and does little to lighten your mood.

“Bro, you good?” he asks, some indeterminate amount of time later. You weren’t sure how long you’d spent staring blankly at your cup. From the moment you’d left Tzuyu’s apartment, the entire evening had started to feel like a blur. You felt blank, numb. Even the journey back to the apartment seemed to happen in a flash, as though it didn’t really happen. You remember leaving Tzuyu’s bedroom, and the next thing you knew you were being greeted with the booming baseline of the music pumping out of your friend’s apartment.

“I’m good,” you answer, managing to flash him a smile. There’s genuine concern on his face. Joey was one of the real ones, and you were glad you dragged yourself out to his party, even despite the heartache that was putting a damper on how much you were able to enjoy it.

“Listen bud, I’m not sure what you were up to while you were away, but we’re going to get you over it. Starting with another drink. And maybe setting you up with that girl I introduced you to earlier. She’s around here somewhere.”

Joey stands, peering out into the couple dozen people who still filled his apartment, apparently unable to find the person he was looking for amidst the crowd. Even at this late hour and with a busted heater, his fifth annual Inbetween-Christmas-and-New-Years party showed no signs of ending. He pats you on the shoulder, shoots you a crooked smile, and heads off toward the kitchen to fix you a drink.

You smile weakly at him as he disappears into the crowd. Your attention returns to your cup, and the dark amber liquid it contained. Your fingers trace the rim. A sigh escapes your lips. The music goes on, the heavy beat and chatter of the partygoers a dull thump and mumble that barely registers in your ears. Your head is elsewhere.

You think about her. You remember the last moments in her apartment in flashes, in a blur, despite it happening less than an hour ago. You remember standing from the bed, pulling on your boxers and pants with an urgency that you knew now was actually hurt and heartache. The hurt and heartache that came with knowing she would be someone else’s soon, that she’d never be yours again. Tonight was the night that you’d lost her - a thought made even more bitter by the knowledge that she was never yours to begin with, that despite the years of knowing her, knowing her secrets, knowing everything there was to know about her… it was someone else she’d chosen to fall for.

You remember the feel of her on your lips, her slickness on your cock, even as you zipped up your pants and pulled your shirt on with a speed and desperation that must have surprised her. But you had to get out of there. Had to leave the stifling, oppressive heat of her apartment and the heaviness of the unspoken words that pervaded the air, making it difficult to breathe.

She said something, then.

You remember the look on her face when you turned to face her. You’d never forget what you saw there - that broken, shattered look on her face, as though she were in a pain she’d never experienced before, her palm cradling her cheek, eyes shut. It was only there for a second or two. It may as well have been forever. It certainly felt like forever, judging from the way that moment seared itself into your memory and your heart, a burden for you to carry for the rest of your life.

What did she say? You wrack your brain, doing your best to remember, to reach back into time and grasp that moment, those words, as though you could wrap your hands around them and make them real, cradle them in your palms and bring them to your ear where they could fill you with their meaning.

She told you it was nothing, that she hadn’t said anything. But even as the words left her mouth you knew she was lying.

The moment was gone now. Lost. And even if you’d asked her again she’d just lie and tell you she said nothing at all.

You take another drink, wanting to taste something, feel anything. The drink tastes like dirt in your mouth. The party continues around you, a blur of movement and bodies and sound and it all feels so far away and distant, like it was happening on a completely different plane of existence.

When your phone vibrates in your pocket you almost don’t bother fishing it out and looking at it. You sigh, pick it out of your pants, and curse whoever deemed that the right time to send you a notification.

Two messages, both from her.

Hey, reads the first message.

I’m outside. Come see me, reads the second.

---

The path from your friend’s apartment, past the press of partygoers and out into the hallway, down the elevator, and outside onto the street, is quick - quicker than it really should have been. But before you knew it, you were leaving the party, passing through the crowd, down the elevator and through the lobby, in what seemed like an instant. The world passes by you in a quick blur, as though you were viewing it through a smudged lens.

But then you reach her, standing there on the sidewalk waiting for you, and everything snaps back into clear, razor-sharp focus.

“Hey,” she says, softly, the single syllable striking you with surprising clarity, given the dull beat of the party music and the rumble of nearby passing vehicles.

“Hey,” you answer, not knowing what else to say. You notice she’s wearing the same thing she was wearing earlier that night - that same short black and white baseball shirt, and the tiny pair of green shorts that left most of her midriff and her long, slim legs bare. Despite her scant attire, she doesn’t seem to mind the cold, which seemed even worse out here than it did in the apartment. Semi-shovelled snow lines the sidewalk and pedestrians pass by bundled up in thick wool coats and scarves; and there she was, in clothes that seemed more fit for a summer night on the beach.

“Can we… talk?” she says, softly.

“Yeah,” you answer. “My place is right around the corner.”

She smiles. It’s happy and sad at the same time, somehow. Her eyes glisten, as though on the verge of tears she wasn’t quite willing to shed. There’s a small quiver in her lip. There are words there, you think, right there on her lips, and she’s doing her best to hold on to them until the time is right.

“I’d like that,” she says, eventually. She reaches out her hand. You take it, and lead her home.

---

“I never noticed these before,” she says, gesturing toward the framed pictures sitting on a wall-mounted shelf. They’re pictures of you with friends and family. A road trip. Graduation. A photo of your beer league hockey team, having just won your championship trophy. A shot of you and your friend Joey, eyes red after a long night of drinking and related shenanigans - although the photo is blurry and out of focus, and you weren’t sure what the hell was on his head.

“You’re never here long,” you answer with a smile, handing her a cup of warm water. “We don’t usually spend much time here outside of the bedroom. And the shower, I guess.”

Tzuyu smiles to herself as she takes a sip of the water. “I’m sorry,” she says, eventually, eyes still gazing at the faces in the photos and the frozen memories they captured. “I should know more about you than I do,” she admits, although she is silent afterward, as though she had just said something out loud that she shouldn’t have.

The two of you stand there in silence, staring at the framed memories. It was only a moment, but it felt longer than it did. You wonder if there was a world where she was there in those photos with you, sharing smiles, sharing memories, a moment of your lives together captured in film and paper to adorn your shelf. You wonder if she was your girlfriend in those photos, or your fiance, or your wife. You wonder if that world was still in your reach.

No, you remind yourself. It wasn’t, given what she’d told you about her co-worker the night before. That world was closed off to you now, the door to it slammed shut. You wonder if it was ever open to begin with.

“Tzuyu,” you begin. Even as you say her name you weren’t quite sure what to say next.

She doesn’t look away from the photos. She cradles the cup of water in both hands, next to her lips.

“...why are you here?” you ask.

She frowns for a moment, gathering her thoughts. When she speaks, she is still facing the photos, as though afraid of what she’d find in your eyes.

“I told you I was going to call him tomorrow,” she says, softly. “That guy… that I… that I have feelings for. The guy I want to be with.” Her hand pulls her phone out of her back pocket. The screen seems ridiculously bright in the relative dimness of your living room. On its lock screen you see the time - 11:58pm.

Her eyes lift, finally finding yours. That smile again - happy and sad at the same time. There’s a small movement in her lips, as though she wants to say something, but decides against it. The unspoken words fill the space between you - heavy, oppressive. You want to pluck them out of the air and either make them real or tear them apart into nothingness; anything to get rid of the overbearing weight of them in the space between you.

You want to ask her what she could possibly want from you, given what she’d told you not even an hour ago. Another quick fuck, advice on what she should say to this guy tomorrow? Was she just bored? Lonely? Or…

Did she come here for you?

Your heart pounds in your chest as you realize what might be. Perhaps that world wasn’t so out of reach after all, the door not quite shut.

Perhaps there was room on that shelf for more pictures.

The clock on her phone strikes midnight. She looks down at it for a moment, her thumb making a couple of presses on its screen. She presses the phone to her ear.

In your back pocket, your phone vibrates.

You answer her call.

“Hey,” she says.

---

It hits you all at once - the realization, the truth, the emotions. You’re moving toward her, your phones dropping from your respective hands - if they made a sound when they thumped on the floor you didn’t hear it. Her glass of water disappears too, gone from her hands and left on the shelf, or dropped and spilled on the floor - it didn’t matter. All that exists is her, and the need to touch her, kiss her.

Your lips find each other, and her arms wrap around your neck, pulling you close. The kiss is hurried, passionate. You’d kissed her more times than you could possibly count and yet this still feels unlike all the others.

“You,” she gasps, between kisses. “You. It’s you.”

You curse yourself for not picking up on the signs, for not realizing that every moment you’d spent at her apartment earlier in the night was a moment she was trying to tell you how she really felt. You curse yourself for not understanding her. For not hearing what she had to say.

But it didn’t matter anymore. None of it did. All that mattered was the here and now.

You’re so fervent, so needy with your kisses that she eventually backs up against the floor-to-ceiling windows that make up one side of your apartment. Your tongues duel. Your hands wander.

“Tzuyu,” you manage to gasp, breathlessly. “I’m sorry,” you add, not quite sure why - but it felt like the right thing to say, somehow. “I didn’t know. I should’ve…”

You trail off, but she understands what you mean, if the small, soft nod she gives you is any indication. She looks up at you with those large, deep brown eyes of hers and in that moment you realize she understands you, all of you. She knows what you mean to say, even if you don’t actually say it. You curse yourself for the millionth time that you didn’t understand her nearly as much as she understood you.

“It’s okay,” she says, softly, so softly you could barely hear the words as they leave her lips. “It’s okay. As long as you know now. I want you. I’ve only ever wanted you.”

“And that co-worker of yours-”

“Doesn’t fucking exist,” she says, with a smile and a scoff as she smacks you playfully on the shoulder. “I was trying to get you to finally confess your undying love for me, you big dummy,” she adds. Just as she finishes her sentence her lip quivers, as though she realizes she said something she shouldn’t have. Her eyes are glassy, tears forming at their corners.

“You could’ve just asked me to say it,” you answer. The words leave your mouth before you knew you were saying them.

She looks up at you, eyes searching yours for something.

“Say it, then,” she says, the request seeming loud and booming in the sudden silence of the room. “Say it for me.”

The moment stretches - out into infinity - as your eyes look deep into Chou Tzuyu’s.

“I love you, Tzuyu.”

Her face suddenly becomes fragile, soft, as though your words shattered a part of her. Her lips curl into a broken, sad smile. She kisses you, and brings her lips to your ear.

“I love you too. I always have.”

You’re kissing again, your bodies finding each other in the way they had on many a lonely night, over the few years that you’d known each other. But it’s different this time, because somewhere amidst the dueling tongues and wandering hands, there is genuine affection. It mixes with the lust, turns it into something more powerful, more intoxicating and irresistible.

Your need for more of her causes you to step forward involuntarily, and you break the kiss to look into her half-lidded eyes and pull her toward the bedroom, but she has other ideas. Her eyes never leaving yours, she takes your hand in hers and takes steps back toward the floor-to-ceiling windows that line one end of your living room.

Eventually, her back touches the window. Your arms slide around her small waist, and hers find themselves around your neck.

“Here,” she says, “where everyone can see who I want to be with. Who I chose.”

There was nowhere else in the world where you wanted to be with her more. Chou Tzuyu was yours, finally yours, and you wanted everyone to see it. Everyone to know.

Something like a sigh leaves your lips - a sigh of powerlessness, perhaps - an involuntary, wordless sound that was your only reaction to hearing words you’d never thought you would. Your lips find hers - hungry, needy for her - and your arms pull her lower body close. Her hands wind through your hair. They dig into your scalp.

Your hands pull at her shirt, and then she’s raising her hands and she’s topless and she’s yours, finally, fucking finally, for real this time.

You hear her gasp as her naked back presses against the cold glass of the window. You see the glint of need in her lidded eyes, the quiver in her lower lip as she tucks it beneath a tooth and bites down. You see it all, feel it all, and she’s there, she’s yours. Chou Tzuyu is finally yours.

Your lips find hers again before they trace a path down her jawline to her long neck - a path you’d traced many a time before. But it’s different this time, as though she were a different girl suddenly, one you’d never been with. Every touch of your lips on hers is electric, each one sending a little jolt of pleasure up both of your spines.

Her mouth is next to your ear and every kiss you leave on her neck and upper chest earns you a small, wordless gasp that sounds like music. You knew her voice well, had heard it sigh and moan and say all manner of filth in the throes of lust and passion; but tonight it sounds new, novel, like a song you knew well from the radio being heard live for the first time.

Your kisses reach the tops of her breasts and you’re bending your neck now, finding one of her nipples in your mouth and suckling. The gasps filling your ears turn into moans and the pinpricks her nails leave in your scalp deepen, turn into furrows as the pleasure courses through her body in greater and greater waves. Your hands find a full thigh as she wraps it around your hip and you’re half-lifting her up with your palm on your ass cheek, bringing her breast closer to your needy mouth. She arches her back, gives more of herself to you, and you take everything she has to give.

You want to devour her - suck deeply from her other breast, drop to your knees and part her thighs and drink from her - but she has other ideas, other needs, and they compete with and beat yours. She cups your face in her hands, pulls it from her breast and to her lips, where she kisses you deeply. Her hands work at your pants with practiced fingers while your lips duel and suddenly your cock is in her warm palms and it’s your turn to gasp breathlessly into her mouth.

She breaks the kiss, eyes finding yours. There’s nothing but need there, in those dark brown pools, and while you’ve seen that look before it never failed to take your breath away. Her eyes remain locked on yours even as she drops slowly, torturously to her knees, even as she bends her neck and her tongue darts out to touch the base of your cock as she swipes a long, languid lick up your length to your tip.

Only when she slides the length of your cock into her mouth do her eyes leave yours, her eyelids fluttering closed as she takes you between her wet, slick lips. Your eyes follow suit, shutting involuntarily, as though the sight of her on her knees might be too much for your brain to handle. You reach out with a hand to steady yourself against the cold glass of the window as Tzuyu begins to take you in and out of her mouth in a slow, steady pace, her lips wrapped tight against your length, her hand pumping what she can’t take between her lips.

She knew just how to pleasure you, knew from experience in your bedrooms and movie theatres and the backseats of cars how to bring you to your peak in a matter of minutes. But this was not one of those nights, not one of those hurried, emotionless expressions of lust and need that were fleeting, temporary, empty. She takes her time, working you in and out of her wet, slick mouth, relishing every entry and exit, relishing the salty, musky taste of you on her tongue.

You stare out past your window, out at the bright lights of the city and the snow piling atop balconies and stairs and rooftops. You glance at the party across the street, the same one you’d just left, and the thought of someone there seeing you here, now, with Tzuyu - it sends a thrill up your spine, one that is only heightened when Tzuyu closes her lips around the head of your cock and swirls her tongue around your tip. All the while she is pumping your length with her fist, the slickness of her spit on it creating a delicious friction.

You sigh deeply, and it fogs the window in front of you, blurring the image of the city. You wipe at it with your hand. You want them to see. You want everyone to see.

Tzuyu pumps her hand faster, her tongue continuing its merciless swirling around your tip. You shut your eyes involuntarily.

Your free hand finds her scalp, fingers sliding between the chocolate strands of her hair and guiding her as she continues to pleasure you. You tear your eyes open, watching her, as though somehow by doing so you could convince yourself this was all real, was really happening.

She opens her eyes, as if sensing you watching her, and she lets your cock slip from between her lips. Her tongue darts out and she places your tip on the flat of it. Her hand continues to pump the length of your cock. You watch as her free hand finds her own naked breasts, and begins to tease and pinch her own nipple. She wants you to cum, now, on her tongue and on her face. She wants to taste you, feel you on her skin.

It was almost too much, then and there. And as pleasurable and sublime as it would have been to let go, to fill her wanting, waiting mouth with your cum you knew you never would have forgiven yourself if you’d left it at that.

Your hand reaches down, your fingers finding her hand wrapped around your cock, and she knows what it means, knows what you’re telling her. She stops pumping, her fingers leaving your length almost reluctantly. She places one last kiss on your tip before rising to her feet.

Her eyes are locked on yours as she undoes the button of those ridiculous, tiny cotton shorts she is wearing. The zipper sounds almost too loud in the silence of your apartment as she tugs it down, loosening the flimsy garment and letting it fall first to her thighs, then down her legs until it’s on the floor. She kicks it away from her.

She turns around, faces the window. The lights of the city beyond gleam around her, surrounding her like a golden, glimmering halo of white, red, and green. She places her palms flat on the cold glass and looks over her shoulder at you. She spreads her feet on the floor slightly. Her back arches, the light casting a stark relief on the curve of her spine. She reaches back with one hand, pulls a cheek of her ass to the side, presenting herself to you. The light catches on the glistening lips of her cunt.

“Like this,” she says, softly. “Fuck me like this.”

You step close. Your cock presses impatiently onto the small of her back and she gasps at the feel of it on her skin. You reach around to cup a breast, relishing the weight of it in your hand, the stiffness of her nipple against your palm.

“They’ll see,” you whisper into her ear. “Everyone will see.”

“Good,” she answers, quickly, breathlessly. “I want them to. I want them all to see who I’m with, who I chose.”

That was it, all you needed to hear. You bring the tip of your cock to her dripping opening and slide inside her, filling her to the hilt.

“It’s you, Tzuyu. You. You’re all I want,” you say, desperately, into her ear.

“I know, I know,” she responds, always knowing, always understanding you, even as you begin to slide out of her before thrusting slowly, firmly back in. “I know.”

It was the second time that night you’d been inside her and somehow it felt like the first time you’d ever been with her. Things were different now; and while you weren’t quite sure what your relationship was or where it would go from here you knew at least that much - that it was different. This was not like the other needy, lonely fucks. This was so much more.

Tzuyu is a slick, silken vice around you and your eyes shut again, your brow furrowing as you fuck her against the glass. Your hands find her hips, trace a path up her spine to her shoulder, squeeze a full, round cheek of her ass - anything to hold her in place, fix her, as you slide in and out of her warm, wet little cunt. She’s wet, so wet - her arousal and perhaps the remains of the previous load you’d left inside her earlier that evening making her so very slick around your cock. Her cunt makes wet, creamy sounds as you slide in and out and the very sound of it is enough to make your head swim.

The soft, mewling gasps that leave her lips imprint themselves in mist on the glass as every thrust into her body sends another burst of pleasure up her spine. The gasps turn into moans as you increase your pace steadily, the way she liked.

“Fuck,” she says, “Fuck. Yes, fuck me.”

You want to respond, want to tell her with words just how tight and wet she is, how wonderful she feels wrapped around your cock - but the feel of her is too much, robbing you of the ability to form coherent thoughts, much less words. Instead you tell her with your actions, ones you knew she would understand - the tightening of your grip on her shoulder and on her hip, and the deepening of each thrust into her cunt as you give her every inch of you from tip to hilt.

Her fingers scramble on the glass, nails seeking fruitlessly for something to dig into, to ground herself amidst the steadily growing pleasure. She rocks her hips back against you, meeting you thrust for thrust. Your hand finds its way into her hair, grasping a handful of it, even as she presses her head against the glass.

“Harder,” she spits, her breath fogging the smooth pane. “Harder, please. Use me. Take me, baby.”

It means something now, that word. That name for you - that name for lovers. Because now, finally, she’s yours.

Beyond her, the lights of the city twinkle - street lamps, Christmas lights, room lights from living rooms across the street. It paints her arched back and the globes of her ass in a multitude of swirling colors and she seems surreal, a painting, a work of art, right here in your hands. You try to focus on the way the lights move on her skin, a living canvas with moving paint - anything to distract yourself from the pleasure that was building a little too fast. You try anything to make this last just one moment longer, even as you know that control is already slipping from your fingers.

Tzuyu doesn’t share your need to prolong the moment, not when the allure of the pleasure coursing through her veins and the imminent climax it promised was too strong. For a few long, wonderful seconds she throws her hips back at you, eager for more of you, more of the stretch, the stiffness, the feeling of fullness you give her with each stroke. You know you’re hitting that spot inside her, just the way she loved. Her moans reach a new pitch. Her cunt tightens, drips more of her juices onto the base of your cock and down your balls.

“Cumming,” she hisses, just a moment before the pulsating of her cunt and the trembling of her limbs tells you that she does.

You continue to thrust into her, harder, even as the silken vice of her pussy pulsates and squeezes around you. You fuck her through her orgasm, which was something you rarely did, because usually you wanted to stay there hilt-deep inside her and just relish the sight and feel of Chou Tzuyu mid-orgasm; but a part of you tonight wanted to stake your claim on her, wanted to make her yours in a way she hadn’t been before.

“Fuck,” she hisses, mid-orgasm, as you continue to fuck her against the unyielding glass. Her upper chest pressed is against it now, breasts surely pressed flat against its cold surface. She, too, wasn’t used to being fucked through an orgasm - but she couldn’t deny the way it prolonged the aftershocks of her orgasm, the way every thrust of your stiff cock lengthened the shocks of pleasure still winding their way through her body. “Fuck, don’t stop,” she spits, brain still addled with the sensations radiating from her core, still seeking any way to prolong them, get more of them.

And so you don’t. How could you? How could anyone, deep inside the most beautiful woman on earth, and with the knowledge that she was finally yours lending each movement, each feeling, each sensation a weight that simply wasn’t there before?

You feel your orgasm building in the pit of your belly, know that despite your best efforts that this moment had to end. You never wanted it to. This was a much shorter session than even any of the many quickies you’d shared together and yet somehow it meant much more than any of them.

“Cum in me please,” she hisses, turning her head to look over her shoulder at you, as though she could sense by the erratic nature of your thrusts and the quivering of your grip on her shoulder that you were nearing your peak. She knew you so well. She knew everything about you, whether you wanted her to or not. She understood you in ways you didn’t even understand yourself.

“Tzuyu,” you say, because her name is all you can say. Her name is all you know, because she is all you know.

“Cum in me,” she repeats, a solemn request that on any other night - or even earlier in this one - would have taken the form of a lustful, wanton plea. But now she whispers it, quiet and reverent, almost hopeful, less a demand and more like a solemn request. “Please, baby. Please, make me yours.”

You never wanted anything more than that.

You press yourself as deep as you can inside Chou Tzuyu’s body and suddenly you’re cumming, filling her with you. She sighs and moans softly with each pulse of your cock, knowing that each one signalled another part of you that you were leaving inside her.

Your hand slides around her quivering upper body, finding her jaw, then her chin. You gently turn her head to meet yours, and you’re kissing, passionately, softly. You give her a few small, short thrusts into her cum-filled cunt, and you relish the sighs of pleasure that leave her mouth and fill yours. After a while you stop, still hilt-deep inside her. You feel the slick wetness between your bodies, slick and sticky, binding you together.

Your lips part. For a few long moments you watch each other, eyes finding something in each other that wasn’t there even a few minutes before; something that had always been there, perhaps, in the corners of your minds. For a few years it was kept hidden by a fear of rejection. But now, here it was, out in the open.

“Baby,” she says, softly. That name, again.

“Yes?” you answer, breathless, knowing you could answer to it freely, openly, without hiding any pain behind what it meant. Her lips curl into a smile as you answer to it.

“I could use some water.”

---

You return with a glass of water - her second. You suppose she never really got the chance to finish the first one.

“Tzuyu,” you say, softly, barely at a whisper, still somehow unable to say anything more than her name, so consumed by the thought of her, the idea of her. You hand her the glass. She takes it into her hands, giving you a smile as she takes a sip.

She’s standing in front of the shelf with the pictures again, fully dressed, which was a little odd, given you were only away for a few seconds at most. You find yourself appreciating those shorts again, and the way they hugged the curves they just barely hid behind green cotton.

“You’re wondering why I’m wearing what I’m wearing,” she says, evidently having felt your eyes on her. She knew you. “Kind of silly to be wearing a t-shirt and the world’s tiniest pair of shorts out here in the middle of winter, isn’t it?”

“A little,” you admit. “It is pretty chilly out. But-”

“You know why,” she says, with a hint of something heavy in her tone.

You ponder her words in silence. Something in the air changes - small, almost imperceptible, but undeniable nonetheless. A slight, tiny little shift.

The moments stretch out. Something between seconds and centuries pass, but you aren’t quite sure. At the end of it, you come to a realization. You knew why. Perhaps a small part of you, from the second you returned to the party, knew why.

Nonetheless, you ask. You had to know. You had to hear it from her.

“...why, Tzuyu?”

She takes another small sip of water. She looks up at you with a sad smile. Almost nothing else in the world could have broken your heart the way that smile did. Only the words that left her mouth next could have hurt more.

“...It’s because this isn’t really happening.”

---

“...What?” you say, even as you know, in your heart of hearts, that she’s right. Perhaps a small part of you had always known. Nothing this night seemed quite right, no matter how much you wanted it to be so.

“These clothes - I’m wearing them because they’re what I wore that night. The last time we were… together. They’re the clothes you remember me wearing the most.”

“...what? Tzuyu, I don’t understand-”

There is a sharp cracking sound, like someone snapping a thick twig or branch in two. You turn to find a sharp fault line appearing in your apartment wall. You watch as it deepens and spreads, and as others appear in the corners of your room. The floor is suddenly uneven, unstable. It wobbles. Your balance is thrown off, your feet unsure. You turn your attention back to Tzuyu, as though the sight of her could ground you in a reality you were no longer sure was real.

The glass of water in her hands is gone. Her eyes are sad, crestfallen, as though she were delivering news to someone who knew already what it was but was fearing its arrival all the same.

“...It’s kind of silly that I somehow knew where your party was, isn’t it?” she continues. “Think about it: you never told me where it was or who was throwing it, but I still found you.”

Every word that left her lips is heavy, hits you hard, as though it were a physical force. The truth hurt.

Your brow furrows as your brain scrambles to make sense of it all, but your mind is foggy. You try to find excuses or explanations for the night’s events, but answers elude you.

“I know where you live, and it’s definitely not in this neighborhood,” she continues, taking a short glance out the window that you were both pressed against just moments before. The window is open now, and you can see clearly through it, as though there was no glass there at all. Beyond the window frame you can see the neighborhood around the building - and it seems foreign, completely different from the one you lived in. “You live on the other side of town, and yet at the party, you said you live right around the corner.”

“Tzuyu, please,” you begin, as though you were about to beg her to stop. You didn’t want her to continue. You wanted to stay here, false reality or not. You wanted to stay here, in this pretend world, where she was yours-

“That’s because this never happened,” she adds, turning back to you. “None of this happened. You just happened to see me in line at the airport, and-”

“That… no,” you say, unwilling to believe her, even if you knew she was right. The walls of your apartment begin to flake, like dried paint from an old wall, except behind it there is nothing but black emptiness. After a while, the emptiness begins to take shape, but it looks blurry and distant - dull colors, a pale green carpet. Kiosks and baggage. Rows of seats filled with the shapes of weary travellers waiting for flights. An airport.

“You’re not… you’re crazy, Tzuyu. This is real, this is happening. You said- you said I was the one, the one you wanted to be with!” you say, suddenly angry, suddenly upset at having this sweet, perfect world torn away from you, right when it was finally yours. Right when she was finally yours. Your hands ball into fists. Your brow furrows, and your teeth clench. Something like rage courses through your veins. Behind your eyes, tears form, although whether from sadness or anger, you weren’t quite sure.

The shelf with your framed pictures falls off the wall, down into the darkness, and along with it any chance of her ever having a place amongst them.

“She’s waiting for you,” she says, looking upward at the wide cracks in the ceiling, at the hazy airport terminal taking shape just outside the walls. She sees something or someone only she can see, and the corners of her lips curl into a sad smile. “You can hear her calling, can’t you?”

“Who?”

“Her,” she answers. You can hear it now - a female voice, one that sounded both familiar and strange. It’s repeating a single word, two syllables. It’s a name, but not yours. A pet name for lovers. One that Tzuyu used for you, even if it hurt you to hear it.

The floor has begun to shake, back and forth, as though some giant was shaking the building gently. The woman’s voice continues to call for you.

“I hear it,” you admit. The shaking intensifies slightly. The walls tighten, as though the giant’s grip was tightening on your apartment. “Who is she?”

“The girl you met at the party. This same night. The one that you’ll-”

“Tzuyu,” you say, again, desperate now that you knew what this was, what was happening, even if you wished with every part of your heart that it weren’t so. Time was running out. This world, this vision, this dream, whatever it was - it was falling apart. “Please. Tell me. I need to know.”

“What?” she asks. The floor has begun to fall away, leaving only small patches of unconnected carpet. You’re standing on separate islands now.

“That night. I need to know what you said. What you said before I left. Please.”

She smiles. You would call it sad, her smile, but you knew that no words could possibly capture the depth of the emotion that you saw there. It’s the same one she had that night, when you left her apartment, when she said those words. That face was etched in your memory, engraved on your heart, and here it was again, a painful wound reopened.

“Tzuyu!” you shout, “-please. If… if I’d stayed that night, would we still be together? Would we… please, what did you say?”

Her lips part.

The world shatters. The last of the apartment falls away into nothingness. You’re suddenly falling.

---

You hear a voice, initially dull and far away, but rapidly increasing in volume, as though its source was coming closer and closer to you.

“Baby,” the voice says - female, sweet, but concerned. “Baby, are you okay?”

The words are loud, almost intrusive, and for a moment you want whoever is speaking them to stop, to leave, to let you fall further into the abyss, into a pit of loneliness and regret.

But then you remember who the voice belongs to. The memory brings you back.

“Hey,” she says, and you feel her hand on your forearm. Her grip is firm, but familiar, as though she were someone you knew.

Your eyes open. The artificial, fluorescent light of the airport is almost painful to your tired, weary eyes. It’s not a dream. It’s reality, and for a few moments, reality hurts, in more ways than just the physical.

“Hey,” she repeats, and you turn to look at her. She seems blurry, her features indistinct.

“Baby,” she says, that word, that name that only she called you. It meant more in that moment than she would ever know, because in that moment it is all you needed to hear - a lifeline that you hold on to and grasp, one that brings you back to the real world. You hold on to it. Her voice is a talisman. A candle in the window, guiding you home.

Her face becomes clear, the blur disappearing and revealing a face you’d come to know, come to love. Her name forms on your lips, and you whisper it like a prayer.

“Kazuha.”

“I’m right here, baby,” she says, worried. “What’s wrong? You looked like you were having a nightmare.”

Nightmare was one way to put it. You close your eyes, bring your hand to your forehead in an attempt to rub away the small sparks of pain and discomfort lingering behind your eyes as they re-adjust to reality. Beside you, Nakamura Kazuha reaches to stroke the back of your head, worry clear in her soft features.

“I’m okay, Zuha,” you say, even if you didn’t fully believe it yet. You return to using her nickname - you only ever used her full name in serious situations, which likely contributed to her concern. Your eyes find hers and you find comfort there, and strength, and more than a little relief. “I was just… I just had a dream.”

“About what?” she says, genuine concern in her eyes. She turns the blue baseball cap she wore around on her head, allowing you a deeper look at the worry on her delicate features. She looks tired and exhausted from the previous night, but even without an ounce of makeup and with a worried look on her face she’s still beautiful, still radiant amidst the dull grayness of the airport and the travellers within it.

“Nothing,” you say, with a weak smile. “I was… dreaming about the night we met.”

Satisfied that you were okay, Kazuha lets a small scoff escape her lips before they curl into a nostalgic smile. “It was a pretty crazy night,” she responds. “I mean, as far as Inbetween-Christmas-and-New-Years parties go.”

“It really was,” you agree, more than she would ever know.

“Who throws a party between Christmas and New Years, anyway?” she continues. “Everyone’s too fat on Christmas food and running on empty social batteries. Those days are for staying at home and living off of chocolate and cheese until the New Year.”

You chuckle. She squeezes your hand in hers. A thoughtful look finds its way onto her face. She hands you one of the two drinks she’d bought from the nearby Starbucks that she’d spent far too long in the lineup for. You take a sip, suddenly realizing how thirsty you were. You would’ve killed for a large bottle of cold water, but you supposed the coffee was good too. All of the drinks from the night before had left you dehydrated - people just wouldn’t stop pushing shots into your hands the whole night. Poor Joey ended up taking a lot of them for you, but such was the duty of the best man, and he took them all like a champ - even if he was likely paying for it now.

“I’m not sure if I ever told you this, but I almost didn’t go to that party,” she continues. “My friend needed someone to go with her, and she dragged me along.”

“Thank god you did,” you say, genuinely.

“Thank god I did,” she repeats, warm smile on her lips. “I wasn’t planning to stay for long. Maybe a drink or two before an Irish goodbye. I was just about to head out when I saw you come back to the party.”

“So you were into me from the start, huh?”

“Maybe,” she admits with a shy smile. “I was going to find you to talk to you more after your friend introduced us, but you disappeared for a bit. Good thing you came back, or who knows where you’d be right now?”

You smile. Behind your eyes, in a place she can’t see, tears form.

“We were meant to be,” you say, voice shakier than you’d anticipated.

“Meant to be,” she repeats, softly.

The smile on her lips warms your heart, chases away the cold. Your hand finds hers. Your fingers intertwine.

Your thumb brushes over the wedding band on her ring finger.

An announcement goes out over the airport’s PA system. Kazuha gives your hand another squeeze before rising to her feet, pulling you along with her.

“That’s us,” she says, suddenly joyful. There is a happiness in her eyes and in the smile on her lips that you want to keep forever, want to make into a patch to place over the scars the past has left on your heart. “Come on, baby. Let’s go rock this honeymoon. Maybe we can discuss consummating this marriage while we’re on the plane, because I’m not sure if I can wait until we get to the hotel room,” she adds, with a playful wink.

You smile - she always knew how to make you smile. In that moment you appreciate her, love her more than she will ever know. Your lip quivers with emotion as you look at her. She pulls you to your feet and toward the growing lineup by the airport gate.

You glance one last time at the coffee lineup - the last place you would ever see her. You learned later from a mutual friend that she’d married someone she worked with, and moved overseas. You’d never see her again.

Kazuha follows your gaze. “What’s wrong?” she asks. “See someone you know?”

You take a moment to think, to feel. You feel it all - the past, heavy and difficult with emotion about a path never taken, words never heard. It hits all at once, the events of a night years in the past, a night you’d thought you’d moved beyond and left behind. You see the dream now for what it is - that small part of your soul that asks, might always ask, what might have been.

You take a deep breath, letting the thoughts and emotions of that night swirl one last time around you.

And then you leave it there, in the past, where it belongs.

“No,” you answer, the word filled with a conviction that you didn’t know you possessed until that moment. You look down at your new wife, and find the future in her eyes. “Only you, Kazuha.”

She smiles at you, and it burns away the last of the lingering pain and sadness. It melts from your heart like winter snow before a new spring morning, leaving only the warmth of your love for her. She’s all that matters now, all that ever will.

Some hours later, you join her on a beach, her hand in yours, the sand between your toes and the sea breeze light in your hair.

The day is warm.

---

Author’s Note: Love lost was still love.

#twice #kpop smut #tzuyu

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