#i could also talk about how at least 5/6 people announced to be in ls being male and my feelings about that are ermmm...........

[parrotx1]

If I'm gonna be fr, I'm worried about ls choosing to add more v strong pvpers since I feel like lore may not be as prevalent bc of it and ik pvp is cool and all but I care more about the lore than anything

[sabraeal]

Rarely Pure & Never Simple, Chapter 6

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5

The last entry in the 600 Followers Gift-a-thon! I meant for this to be out the last weekend in December, but dude to both illness, kiss-a-thon, and this fic turning out well over 7.5K...it just didn’t work out. Thank all of you guys for following and voting; hopefully this year I’ll actually get to finish all the 500 follower raffle fics too...

Despite the glut of graduation media Shirayuki’s been binging, trying to brace herself for-- for all this, nothing quite prepares her for what it will be like to wear her cap and gown.

“It’s plastic,” she says dully, rubbing the waffle-weave between the tips of her fingers. “It feels like a tablecloth.”

“You look great,” Nanna assures her, eyes shining, giving her arm a good squeeze.

“Besides,” Grandad adds, fiddling with his camera. They got him that two years ago, for Christmas, and even still he doesn’t know quite how it works. “At least you and all your friends will be wearing tablecloths together.”

That fact that doesn’t seem to assuage Kihal in the least.

“This is a disaster,” she wails as Shirayuki approaches, waving her hand to encompass both their gowns. “They’re practically see-through!”

Shirayuki blinks, and-- yes. At a glance, she knows that Kihal’s dress is blue beneath her robe, and Kiki’s is purple. She stares down at her own, and through the cheap plastic, the hazy pink splotches of the roses dotting her dress give the vague impression of period stains.

“Oh,” she murmurs, dropping the fabric. “Oh.”

“We’ve agreed, as whole, to aggressively ignore it,” Kiki says rationally, though by the round of her shoulders and the tense line of her jaw, it still rankles. “I’m going to warn the Junior Student Council that they need to ask for blue robes for all genders.”

“Or black,” Kihal suggests, “ditch the whole school pride thing altogether.”

Kiki nods. “Classic. I like it.” Her gaze hooks on to Shirayuki. “You’re doing a speech today, aren’t you?”

Butterflies races sickeningly in Shirayuki’s stomach. “Um, yeah.”

“Feeling prepared?”

Not at all. “As much as I can be,” she settles on. It earns her one of Kiki’s rare smiles, which at least gets the micro-fauna in her gut doing a more pleasant set of maneuvers.

“Good.” She reaches out, giving Shirayuki’s shoulder a solid squeeze. “I’m excited to hear it. Obi said it was, and I quote, ‘killer.’“

“Oh.” She knows they’re friends, of course; she met him through Kiki and Zen, and she hangs out with both of them on the regular, it’s just--

They talk about her. He talks about her, in a way that is, well, boyfriend-like. And she’s never...

Shirayuki has never been someone people talk about. At least, not without some rumor to go along with it.

“Um.” Her eyes sting, even as her mouth curves into a smile. “Cool.”

Kiki’s gaze flicks over her shoulder. “I better go check on Zen. It looks as if he might have some sort of apoplexy if he doesn’t get more help than Obi getting everyone into line.”

Shirayuki’s head whips over her shoulder, gaze fixing to where Zen stands in the gym, cheeks so red he might as well have been slapped. Right beside him is Obi, mouth hooking into his customary smirk, and something that’s been knotted in her breast since this morning loosens.

“That boy needs to get laid,” Kihal decides with a snort. “Or pick up yoga, or meditation, or something.”

A guilt heat sweeps over Shirayuki, head to toe. “W-what?”

“Wisteria.” Kihal jerks her head at him. “He’s going to pass out if he keeps walking around like a pot with its lid on, you know?”

“O-oh,” she says, now more mortified. “R-right.”

“Obviously not Obi. You’re already--” her eyes narrow-- “aren’t you already doing something about that?”

“Um!” Shirayuki casts about for anything that will keep her from having this conversation. “Looks like...we better go line up. I’m with the Ls so...I’ll see you after the ceremony!”

“What?” Kihal squawks, hands fisting on her hips as Shirayuki hurries away. “This conversation is not over!”

Tragically, Kihal is correct.

“I can’t believe you haven’t blow him.” Shirayuki glares down at where Kihal rests her elbows on the back of her chair, staring down the opposite row to where the ‘N’ section sits. “Like not even a little?”

The rehearsal was hardly three days ago, but somehow Shirayuki had forgotten the crucial fact that the ‘T’ section sat just behind the ‘L’ one after they file in.

“I don’t think this is really the time to be talking about this,” she hisses, glancing at the girl next to her, buried in her phone. To her other side is the aisle, thankfully, though when Mitsuhide throws her a small wave she can’t help but think if he was here, on this side, his staid presence might discourage this particular conversation.

“Just look at him.” Kihal gestures with the flat of her hand, right to where Obi sits, grinning, in front of Zen. “His dick is probably gorgeous. Like if I had to say who had the best dick out of everyone we know, I’d say--”

“Kihal.”

“--Probably Mitsuhide,” she admits, “but Obi would be a close second.”

Shirayuki sighs, and, well, maybe if she indulges this line of questioning, it will be over sooner. “We just...haven’t gotten there yet.”

Kihal gives her a dubious look. “It’s been what? Three months? And you expect me to believe he hasn’t mentioned it at all?”

She blinks. “No, actually.”

It hadn’t seemed odd to her-- after all, the only person thus far in her life that had mentioned her getting on her knees was Raj, and that had gone...not well, for either of them-- but now that Kihal has mentioned it...

Obi is nineteen, twenty in a month, and from every movie she’s ever avoided watching on the subject, he should be, well, more actively campaigning for an end to her dickphobia. Or at least, mentioning how he’d like her to be touching him, often and well.

“Maybe he doesn’t like it,” she suggests, at a loss. After all, she knows there’s, um, a reciprocal position, and as nice as it sounds when he suggests it, it doesn’t excite her in a, ah, intellectual sense. It’s not anything she cares about doing any time soon.

“Fake news,” Kihal grunts, “all boys like having their penises touched. If you asked him what he’d like to do to celebrate--” Shirayuki grimaces at the suggestive nudge-- “tonight, he’d say, hands down, that he wants you to blow him.”

Her menagerie of intestinal insects takes flight at the thought. “I don’t know...”

“Scientific fact,” Kihal insists, “given the choice, a dude will always want to be blown.”

“Well--” Obi meets her gaze, giving her a wink that is somehow both saucy and supportive-- “good thing there’s going to be no time for any of that tonight.”

Kihal’s gaze darts between the two of them, her mouth curling slyly. “Oh, I’m sure you’ll both find a way.”

If there’s one thing to be said for Kihal’s dogged determination on the subject of Obi’s penis and what Shirayuki should be doing with it, it’s that while she’s worrying about just how glacially slow she’s moving in her single serious relationship of her lifetime (and whether the local access cameras are near enough to pick up this entire conversation), she had absolutely no time to worry about her speech.

Which is why she nearly faceplants into the aisle when Zen announces, “Shirayuki Leon,” from the podium.

With a recovery that is as removed from smooth as she is from cool, Shirayuki shuffles up to the stage, trying not to stumble on the kitten heels Nanna insisted she wear. Distantly, she’s aware that there had to have been more lead up, that by Zen’s cheerful smile and the interested applause of the crowd, he must have said something complimentary enough to get her into heaven. But she can’t find it in herself to worry about that; instead she thanks him woodenly as he steps back, taking his seat on the stage as the Student Council President, and lets the cold breath of fear wash over her.

“Hi,” she begins eloquently, eyes scanning over the crowd. Goodness, this is a lot of people. “I’m Shirayuki, and I’m new.”

To her surprise, the crowd chuckles, fond smiles spreading across a few faces, and--

She can do this. She really can.

“I think I said that a million times my first week here.” It’s not anywhere near an exaggeration; she’d been searching for friends, anyone to make a senior year transfer seem like less of a punishment, and she’d been what she liked to term aggressively friendly. “I’d thought nothing could be worse than having to leave my old school right when I was going to graduate. How could I replace eleven years of friendship in less than nine months? How could I even become part of this school, when even your colors are weird?”

They laugh at that too, and it’s strange-- she’d thought she’d feel naked saying these things in front of a crowd, in front of classmates who had whispered behind her back, or even asked her bald questions in the hall about blowing Raj Shenezard. But it’s all so far away now, another lifetime, one that existed before Honor Society, before Mathletes, before--

Well, before Drama Club, certainly.

“But I didn’t feel that way long.” Zen and Kiki are on the stage behind her, but Mitsuhide and Kihal are were she left them in the crowd, smiling as she meets their eyes. “I made friends, good friends. The kind of friendships that last beyond homework. The kind of relationships--” her knees quiver under the podium as she glances at Obi, as she says the words she wrestled over last night, trying to make perfect-- “that last beyond a play, beyond high school, into whatever comes after. Together.”

He holds her gaze, and oh, she is-- she is not going to make it through this if she keeps looking at him>.

“I’m changed because I came here. We’re all changed because we came here,” she says, lifting her gaze to the crowd. “My Nanna likes to say that we’re not stone, but clay, constantly being shaped by what’s around us. Being here has shaped us, but it’s also shown me that we can shape ourselves if we choose to. When we leave here we’ll change again, and again, and for some of us, we’ll lose this shape entirely and becomes something new. And for others, we’ll carry pieces of what we became here our whole lives.”

With a single, steeling breath, she continues, “A few months ago, I couldn’t imagine fitting in here. And now I can’t imagine ever having been anywhere else. So as much as this speech is a celebration of all we’ve achieved together, it’s also a thank you.” She smiles, letting her gaze scan over the whole of her class, realizing she knows a name for every face. “Thank you for my senior year.”

“I cried,” Kihal informs her, fanning herself with a program as they wait for their families to find them on the field. “So I hope you’re happy about that.”

Shirayuki frowns. “That wasn’t really the point--”

“Hey!” Zen holds out his arms, wrapping her in a hug that’s only slightly stilted. “Great speech!”

“Thanks,” she says, gripping his arms as she steps back. “I was nervous. I don’t really know how much that would, um, resonate for people.”

“It’s a small school,” Kiki drawls, cutting between them to wrap her arms around her. A thrill shoots up her spine, all the way from her toes. “And you’re one of us now.”

“Oh.” Her eyes sting, like she worried they might on the podium, but this-- this-- “Thank you.”

It’s fine.

“You did an amazing job, Shirayuki!” Mitsuhide tells her, bounding up with a grin and a hug strong enough to break a moose’s back. “The best speech today!”

“Thanks,” Zen deadpans.

“Oh, I--” he grimaces, rubbing at the back of his head-- “I forgot you gave one. But It was good too!”

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Zen laughs, shaking his head. “You’re right, Shirayuki’s was much better than mine.”

“I thought that, um...” If only she could remember any bit of the ceremony that wasn’t her speech or Kihal’s opinion on oral sex, this would be a much easier compliment. “It was very good!”

“Doesn’t hold a candle to yours, though.” Obi’s arm slings around her shoulder, drawing her tight against his side. “Though maybe I’m biased.”

Zen grins at that. “You are kissing the competition.”

Obi waggles his eyebrows. “You’re always welcome to come over here and bias me yourself, Chief.”

He flushes, bright pink against the platinum of his hair, and coughs, “I’m-- I’m good.”

“Do have to say, kid,” Obi continues, dropping his chin to tangle the amber of his gaze with hers, “there was a part in the middle there I don’t remember practicing.”

“Mm.” It’s good he didn’t look at her like this when she was talking; she’d never have gotten a word out around the tangle of her tongue. “I found out I had more to say about all the, um, future stuff.”

“Future stuff?” he asks, breathless.

It would be inappropriate to kiss him here, at least the way his eyes are promising. Her grandparents are talking to Kihal’s parents just a few feet away, and all their friends are watching them, and a peck might be in order but--

But his chest rumbles under her hands as he leans in, half a purr, and as much as she knows this is more fit for a dark corner instead of right next to the bleachers, she pushes up on her toes--

“Hey, Obi, are you coming tonight?”

He steps away, hazy-eyed. Her lips still tingle with thwarted anticipation. “Hm?”

Zen darts a glance between the two of them. “My graduation party. I know you have, uh, a competing engagement.”

“Oh right.” He nods, tucking her into his side. “Yeah, I’m gonna come for about an hour, and then ditch out for Shirayuki’s. As long as that’s okay with you, Kid?”

She blinks. “Yeah, of course. I’m sorry I can’t make it, Zen, but--”

“Don’t worry,” he waves her off. “I know how it is. I might try to pop by after Kiki’s dad opens the liquor cabinet though.”

Kiki grimaces. “Me too.”

“Glad that’s settled.” Obi presses a kiss to her forehead. “I’ll stuff myself on canapes for an hour, and then I’ll come just in time to eat Grandad’s cooking.”

Shirayuki feigns a pout of disapproval. “Well, now I know where your real priorities lie.”

Kiki barks out a laugh. “You can’t be surprised that it’s his stomach.”

Obi grins at that, but his eyes grow serious. “Aw, c’mon kid,” he says, softer, pressing another kiss between her eyebrows. “You know you’re what matters to me.”

She wraps an arm around his waist, enjoying the way his breath skips as she squeezes him. “I know.”

In all her anxiety-watching of graduation movies, not one of them had managed to show a graduation party, opting instead for moonlit moments on picnic blankets beneath the floodlights of the school’s football field. Thus, Shirayuki is thoroughly unprepared for how chaotic it is.

“Shirayuki!” Nanna calls out, waving at her from across the room, “do you remember Mrs Kino?”

She doesn’t have many relatives; her mom was an only child, and her whole paternal side is shrouded in a mystery she’s only even half-interested in solving, but the party is filled to the brim with her grandparents’ friends and business associates from the pub, as well as a handful of old teachers Nanna managed to track down as a surprise. Her own friends have been filtering in and out all night: the Mathletes started here and left after the first round of chafing dishes were finished, leaving to go to another party across town; at least a handful of drama club members here since before even she managed to arrive, ever-changing, though always clustered around the refreshment tables; Kihal has been aggressively greeting everyone that walked in the door as if it were her own party, making sure that Shirayuki gives everyone at least a cursory hello and an outline of her post-graduation plans. Even Ryuu puts in an appearance around dinner, looking as if he’d like to melt into the floor as his mother gushes about what an excellent influence Shirayuki has been, how she’ll be sorely missed next year.

Still, she hasn’t seen Obi.

“He’ll be here,” Kihal promises as they take a breather in the den, scarfing down a entire plate of chicken marsala with an intensity that makes Shirayuki concerned about her future gastric health. “You know he will. And if he doesn’t I’ll kill him.”

There’s a half dozen thing she could say to that, but she settles for, “Thanks.”

“Do you mind checking to see if there’s anymore chicken?” Kihal holds out her plate with wide, pleading eyes. “It’s so good. And I know you want to see if the desserts have come out.”

More like Kihal wants to know if the desserts are out. “Can you not make it there yourself?”

“Nope.” Kihal lounges against the couch’s arm. “I’m like a California condor. I’ve eaten so much I won’t be able to fly for another hour.”

She lifts a brow. “And you still want more?”

Kihal scoffs. “Your grandpa made it. Of course.”

Technically, the staff of the pub made it, and it’s just Grandad’s recipe but-- Shirayuki takes her point and her plate. For a minute, she contemplates cutting through the party, which fills up the living room and spills out onto the back deck, but then elects for the longer, quieter route around the stairs.

“Hey, kid, there you are.” Obi’s smile lights up the kitchen, plates in both his hands stacked high with appetizers. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

“Me too,” she admits, breathless, frozen in the doorway. He’s still in his dress shirt and slacks, sleeves rolled up to the elbow, and haah, she has never been more tempted to tell him that if they’re quiet, no one will know they’ve snuck up to her room.

Obi grimaces. “Sorry about that. I meant to only go for an hour, and then Zen wanted to play a quick pick up game, and it turned to two, and then I got here and...” He shrugs, shaking his head.

“It’s packed,” she agrees, “but I should have known to check the kitchen.”

His lips tick up into a grin, and he turns, leaning his hip against the counter in a way that only heightens the length of his limbs, that reminds her how good they feel around her--

“You did great, by the way,” he says, suddenly earnest. “If I didn’t say already.”

“You did.” She flinches at how awkward and hostile the words sound, but there’s no easy way to say, Kihal has reminded me you have a dick, and even though it abjectly terrifies me, I really want to make out. “I mean, thank you. Again. I’m glad you liked it.”

His mouth quirks at the corner. “Not a dry eye in the place.”

Shirayuki almost says, that wasn’t the point, but what falls out of her mouth is, “Not even yours?”

Obi lights up. “Definitely not.” His cheeks flush as he continues, “I got you a graduation gift.”

It’s on the counter just behind him, conspicuously placed away from the food: a small bag with crumpled up tissue paper, done so artlessly that she knows it couldn’t have been gift wrapped in-store, that he had done it himself. He had picked out that tiny bag, had crushed that paper in his huge hands-- his face distressed, like he’s afraid he’s doing it wrong, like he might break it just by trying-- and there’s something about it that is so sweet, so heartbreaking that she-- she--

Gosh, she really wants to kiss him.

“Me too,” she says, setting her plates down. Kihal may be waiting on the chicken marsala, but she’ll understand the delay. Probably all too well. “I left it upstairs. Should we--?“

“Oh, yeah!” Obi recoils with a grimace. “I mean, yes. Mine’s probably better given in private anyway.”

She blinks, wondering what he could give her that he wouldn’t want other people to see--

I was thinking of one of those little egg ones, the kind that just sit here–

“Obi!” she gasps, scandalized. “You didn’t...”

“What?” He catches her wary glance at the present, and his eyes pulse wide. “No! I mean, I didn’t--”

“Obi!” Nanna bustles in behind her. “You’ve finally made it! I was getting worried I’d miss you.”

With an ease that clearly comes from sixty years of practicing shamelessness, her grandmother closes the space she hasn’t managed to, enfolding Obi in a hug so tight he squeaks. It would warm her heart, normally, but all Shirayuki can think of is that bag, not two feet from them, that may or may not contain a gift that will definitely see her grounded until she’s thirty.

Shirayuki could live with that though-- after all, no one is more eager to not repeat history than her-- but-- but--

The very thought of Nanna standing here, in this room, sharing air with something at least vaguely phallic shaped that Obi would have every intention of putting inside her for the purpose of like, sex stuff and orgasms is just-- wrong. Super wrong. She tastes bile at the back of her throat just contemplating it.

“Have you had the meatballs yet?” Nanna asks, pulling away with a smile. “Colin put them on the menu for you especially.”

Pink flares high on Obi’s impossible cheeks. “Oh! I--” he blinks, gaze fixing over her shoulder-- “Lata?”

“Obi!” Shirayuki presses to the jamb to let him pass, and there’s something about the wildness of his eyes and the mussed mass of his hair that reminds her that the professor is a narrow man, but a tall one, looming over even Obi as he stumbles into the kitchen. “There you are. This place is a zoo.”

“It’s a party,” Nanna offers, wry.

He stares at her, uncomprehending. “Did I not just say that?”

“Lata.” Obi’s voice is strained, every line of his face etched with worry. “Is something wrong?”

Professor Forenzo doesn’t answer, not with words, but instead he reaches into his coat, thrusting out his hand, and--

And he’s holding an envelope. A large envelope. A golden lantern glitters under the kitchen light. “This came for you.”

Obi only stares, gaping, hands dead at his side.

“Oh!” Nanna gasps, eyes wide. “Oh, why don’t you-- you should--” her eyes meet Shirayuki’s around the professor’s shoulder-- “I’ll make your excuses, honey.”

She blinks. “But...”

Obi still hasn’t moved, and neither has Forenzo. Even from where she stands, she sees the professor’s hand shakes.

“Right.” She sets down her plates, taking the envelope from his hands as she slips her fingers through Obi’s limp ones. “We should go open this, don’t you think?”

Obi swallows thickly. “Yeah. Yes. Open it.”

She tugs on him, yanking him a single staggering step. “Come on, I know just the place.”

“Okay.” He stares at the envelope in her hand, following her woodenly. “Okay.”

Shirayuki glances at the plates on the counter. “Nanna, could you do a favor for me?”

She eyes Obi worriedly. “Anything you need.”

“Do you think you could bring a plate of chicken marsala to Kihal?” She grimaces sheepishly. “That was sort of why I came it here.”

Nanna's mouth twitches at the corner. “Sure thing. Have fun, you two.”

“Right,” Obi murmurs, every line of him tense. “Fun.”

The bleachers haven’t been broken down.

Somehow that’s the detail she hangs onto as they pull up to the field in Obi’s sedan, dew staining the satin of her flats. They’d been here only hours earlier, the afternoon sun burning bright and endless, but now fog hangs heavy over the grass with only the floodlights to break through it.

It’s strange how it only strikes her as she lays out a blanket with shaking hands, dew wetting her fingertips, that it’s all done now. Her whole life has been focused on graduating, on going to college, on not letting history repeat itself, and now it’s over, the work of a single afternoon. The moment she’s bent her whole life towards has passed.

Now she needs a new one.

“All right,” she says, settling onto her knees, feet crossed under her. “Is it time?”

Obi’s wide-eyed in the glow of the floodlights, mouth slack, his hands clenched around the edge of the envelope like he’s drowning and it’s the only thing holding him afloat. “Is it?”

“Obi.” She folds her hand over his, feeling how he shakes right down to his bones. “Whatever happens, we’ll be okay.” She gives him a confident smile she only half feels. “There’s skype, remember?”

He nods, absent. “Right. Right. I know. It’s just...”

Shirayuki knows what it’s just. She’d had plenty of time to think of every single worst-case scenario on the way over in triplicate, and now she’s just-- she’s just--

She’s tired of being afraid that something good will happen. “What’s the worst thing that could be in there? They won’t accept you? We’ve already been planning for that.” Her thumb rubs over the bone of his, soothing. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I know, I know. I just...” He sniffs, rubbing his face on his shoulder. “Sometimes hope is worse, you know?”

She doesn’t, not really, but she knows that deep down inside, he’s still that little boy hoping his mom would fight for him, hoping that he’ll get passed to someone that will finally love him. She may not get it, but she understands.

“Okay, this is-- it’s getting dumb.” he laughs wetly, turning the envelope in his hand. “Let’s do this.”

Despite the bravado, his fingers shake as he opens it, muttering curses to himself when the flap won’t come off with one clean pull. Every time he tries to do another tear, the paper feathers out of his grip, until the edge is thousand little finicky rips that flutter off to the blanket. Shirayuki bites back a giggle as he tips the whole thing over, trying to use the weight of the packet to break through the last of it, sitting up on his knees and just shaking--

A thousand flyers flutter out, covering the blanket between them, the grass beside them, everything. Student Dining she sees on one, Greek letters on a dozen more, financial aid-- but still the bulk stays stuck inside, its squared-off corners stuck where the envelope didn’t fully tear.

“You know,” he grunts, tearing the edges off wholesale, “they don’t show you this shit in movies.”

A laugh bursts out of her, scattering the glossy papers she’d already straightened. “I think that’s because most people know how to open mail.”

“I know how to open mail,” he protests, shaking harder, “this is just unnaturally--”

The packet slips out in a slump, hitting the blanket with a weighty thwap, like the calves they show being birthed in biology class, only without all the, uh, extra gunk, or cows, or anything being actually birthed at all. They both stare at it, wide-eyed, neither of them making a move, not for the large, spiral-bound book or the crisp letter on top of it.

When Obi does, it’s for that, picking it up between his fingers as if it’s made of tissue, like all he has to do is breathe and it’ll break. Her eyes fall to the thick manual beneath it, squinting to make out the words Prospective Student Guide. Just like hers. “Obi...”

“I did it,” he chokes out. “I got in. I got in.”

In the glow of the floodlights she sees the shine on his face, and she knows, right then, that whatever her new moment is, she doesn’t want it unless its with him.

She fists his shirt in her hand, dragging him down until she can press her lips to his, until she can taste the salt under his lips and the hitch of his breath.

“I knew you could do it,” she murmurs as she pulls away, sitting back on her heels. “I’m so proud of you.”

His breath rasps out of his throat, eyes wide and gold like dollar coins, and-- and maybe this is too fast, too much. Maybe she’s too much like her mom, thinking that her high school boyfriend is forever when he’s really just right now, just what’s easy, and she--

She stops thinking when his mouth covers hers.

He whimpers into her mouth, hands digging through her hair like he can’t get close enough, like nothing less than consuming her whole will be. Her hands fly to his wrists, holding him where he is, leaning into his touch, and oh, maybe she is like her mom, falling too hard and too fast, but Obi’s right there to catch her.

With a groan, he pulls back, resting his forehead against hers. “Well, I gotta say...this sort of fucks up the gift I got you.”

“What do you--?”

He springs for the bag, set at the edge of the blanket, and thrusts it at her. “Go ahead.”

Her brows furrow as she rifles through the tissue, plucking out wads of crumpled paper. There’s two layers at least, packed tight, and even if she hadn’t heard the broad strokes of his life before he came to Clarines, she’d be worried about just what sort of childhood he had if he can’t pack a gift bag.

She unearths a blister pack, pulling it out with a twist of her fingers. There’s a headset nestled inside, blue and white, clip-on instead of buds, with the packaging boasting microphone included!

“Oh,” she breathes, running her fingers over the bubble. The bulge of the mic is innocuous, a small thing, and it’s so easy to see the way it would have slipped subtly it under a hoodie, or how she could have just slung it around her neck as she moved from class to class, never bothered by the weight. She’d believed him when he said he was serious about her, that nothing about his feelings were casual, but still, still--

He wanted to fit into her life, as unobtrusively as he could. Hours away, he wanted her to know that he was there for her, only a quick phone call away.

“I didn’t want to get the earbuds since you always say they hurt your ears.” His grin goes wide, wicked. “You know, because you’re tiny.”

“I’m not tiny,” she says, wrinkling her nose, “my ears are tiny.”

“Sure, kid.” He coughs, mouth twitching, “it’s your ears.”

“It is!” she insists, swatting at his arm. “Anyway, thank you. These are wonderful.”

Obi shrugs, just a twitch of his shoulders, cheek flushing the pales pink. “You won’t really be needing them now, I guess.”

“I guess not.” She sets them aside, right next to his student guide, and-- and it’s all so much. Too much. “It was thoughtful, though. And I’m sure I’ll use them anyway, even if it’s not for, you know, three hour long skype calls.”

“Yeah, keep ‘em.” His grin pulls even wider. “I’ll just have to make sure to get you that other gift too, to make up for it.”

She surges forward with a yelp, clapping a hand over his mouth. “Stop.”

His lips shiver beneath her palm, and despite the burn on her cheeks, she can’t stop smiling either, can’t stop thinking about this is it, he is it. “Just sayin’...”

“Yes, yes, I think you’ve said plenty, thank you,” she laughs, dropping her hand. She’s so close to him now, half on his lap, her hand pressed to where his chest still shakes with laughter, and-- “We should celebrate.”

“Oh, are you going to take me out?” His arm cinches around her, yanking her close, and she gives out a shriek, hands bracing on his shoulders. “Going to drive me out to Olive Garden and treat me right?”

“I mean...if you want,” she blurts out, wishing that she was better at conveying...stuff. Sexy stuff. “I just meant that we could, um, celebrate here, too. Now.”

“Oh.” His eyes pulse wide. “Oh. You mean...here. Just the two of us. Like...” He swallows hard. “What were you, ah, thinking?”

“I thought I might, ah--” this should be easier than it is, especially when she can feel him twitch against her thigh, excited-- “leave that up to you?”

His eyes go impossibly wider. “You mean...anything?”

“Yeah.” It’s what’s fair; she asked him to touch her, to make her come, and he should-- he should also get the choice. It’s his achievement, not hers.

Scientific fact. The words still ring in her ears, reminding her what a terrible idea this is. Given the choice, a dude will always want to be blown.

He ducks his head, fixing his gaze on hers. “Are you sure, kid?”

Shirayuki braces herself. It’s fine. She can do anything for him, even if it involves penises. “Yes. Anything.”

“Okay,” he breathes, “okay.”

That’s all the warning she has before she spills back, air huffing out of her as she hits a particularly hard clump of earth. Obi’s there in a second, wrapping her legs around him, and oh, she’d thought maybe this would be a-- a blowjob, but-- but Obi has had sex before, after all, even told her he missed it--

So it’s a real surprise when he just kisses her, open-mouthed and wanting, and doesn’t do anything.

Not that she’s complaining. He’s got one hand snug against her scalp and the other keeping her hips firmly against his in a way that is...very exciting, especially when she can feel, um, him grind into her, right where she’s starting to ache. It’s just--

“You just want to make out?” she asks, incredulous, as he slips the strap of her dress down and cups the breast he bares. “That’s it?”

He pulls back, blinking. “Is there a problem with that?”

It’s hard to locate one when he rolls her nipple like that, right between two long fingers before his mouth closes over it wholesale. But still, still-- “I thought you’d want to-- to--” she takes a gasping breath as his hand snakes up her thigh-- “do something, um, new.”

“I do,” he rumbles, mouth grinning against her breast. “I just can’t really, ah, go for it.”

“Why not?” She squirms, lifting her hips as he hooks a finger into her panties and pulls. “I said any-- ohhh--thing.”

His fingers slip against her in just the way she likes, and oh, it’s getting really hard to protest any of this. His mouth is back on her neck, kissing down to her sternum, and her arguments turn mushy and indistinct as she tries to voice them, slurring into groans and sighs as he touches her, tracing her clit and teasing her folds.

“I know,” he murmurs against her skin as she arches into a particularly good thrust. “And I appreciate it, but...it’ll feel weird if you aren’t ready.”

That gets her thinking, as much as she can in this state, but all high function stop the minute he purrs, “Good thing you are now.”

His mouth leaves her skin, the hand in her hair skipping straight down to ruck up her skirt, and still she has no idea what he could possibly mean until he puts his mouth right on her clit.

“Oh!” she yelps, hips bucking so hard she nearly knocks his chin. “Woah!”

He blinks up at her, concerned. “Is this okay?”

Oh, it’s...it’s really hard to think when she can feel every puff of breath out of his mouth like a caress, deliciously warm against her. “Yes. I mean, yes, but I thought you would want, ah, something for you?”

“For me?” His pupils blow wide as he looks down at her, bare and wet beneath him, leaving only a thinnest ring of gold. “Kid, you don’t know how much I’ve thought about this.”

“O-oh?” The worst part about him being down there, touching her, is that she knows he can feel her get wetter, get hotter. “Just...recently? Or...?”

He laughs, tongue tracing along her slit in a way that makes her sure she’s about to come right there, if only he’d keep going. “Always.”

“Always?” she breathes, curious.

She can’t really see his cheeks, but his neck definitely flushes. “You were just always perching on things with, you know, skirts on and being cute. I’m only human.”

(”--and I think we may have to move this flat,” she hums, tucking a leg beneath her, pulling her skirt back down over her knee. “Raj keeps running into it when he exits through the door, and-- Obi, are you listening?”

“Huh?” he slurs, gaze jerking up. “Were you saying something?”

She rolls her eyes. “Yes. The flats.”)

“Oh,” she pants, “oh.”

Her fingers curl through his hair, and with a single shuddering breath, she urges him down. His laugh huffs against her, so warm, and then he’s on her again, only this time better, more.

What he’s doing is just-- beyond her. His fingers thrust between her legs, so good and yet not nearly enough, hitting the rhythm she knows will bring her to the edge, but it’s his mouth that has her full attention. She’d imagined this before, sure, but she’d always though it would be his tongue where his fingers were, poking in and out, and she just assumed that would feel...good? Goofy, but probably nice, if people were always talking about doing it.

It had certainly appealed when Obi mentioned it, I could put my mouth on you, though she’d often wonder why afterward. Something that would make sense in the moment, she assumed, but not when someone was thinking with their actual brain, after.

She could not have been more wrong.

His mouth latches onto her clit, the jolt of pleasure almost too much, too intense when he give it one, strong suck. The noise she makes isn’t anything sexy, half a yelp and half a grunt, but he readjusts, tongue flicking over the tiny bud instead and-- oh, that’s...that’s much better.

Maybe a little bit too much. She wants this to last, to enjoy the feeling of him down there, between her legs, stubble tickling her thighs and mouth so warm against her, but-- she can feel it building already, too quickly, his fingers moving with his tongue in just the right way, sending her right to the edge--

She comes with a strangled cry, head tilted back toward the stars, and for a long moment she’s one with the sky above her, weightless, before she plummets back down to earth.

“Oh,” she gasps, blinking away tears, “wow.”

Obi flops beside her, mouth stretches in a grin, and pants, “Good celebration.”

She stares at him. “Is that it?”

He jolts up onto his elbow, serious. “Di you not--?”

“N-no! I did. I definitely did. It’s just...” She braces herself, determined. “It’s your celebration! You should come.”

His mouth rounds into a surprised O as he stares at her. He shakes himself a moment later, laughing, “No, no, trust me, Kid. I’m fine.”

“Obi.” She rolls up onto her elbow, fixing him with her most stubborn look. “I’m not going to make you drive back with a hard on, and then sit through more of my graduation party.”

She presses her thigh against it, just to underscore her point, and he groans, eyes fluttering shut. It should be so hot, but, ohh, it is.

“See?” she murmurs thickly. “The celebration isn’t over.”

His breath pants out of him, harsh. “Kid...”

“I-I could...”

“Kid,” he laughs, “don’t put yourself out. I can handle it. I mean, if you don’t, uh...”

“Yes!" She winces at the relief in her voice. “I mean...yes. You should-- do it now. I just won’t look.”

“Right,” he laughs as she turns over, putting her back to him. “I wouldn’t want you to feel oppressed by my massive--”

“If I’m going to see it one day, you probably don’t want to give me unrealistic expectations,” she snips waspishly, folding her hands to make a pillow.

“Oh.” The word bursts out of him, like he’s been punched. “Yeah. I mean...right.”

She can hear each tooth of his fly as he unzips, so slow she squirms in anticipation even though she’s not doing a thing, just laying here for, uh, moral support. It’s strange to think it’s right there, that if she turned over she’d see his-- his--

Well, a lot more of Obi than she’s seen before. More than she’s prepared to see, no matter how much she’s thought about it.

He gasps when he takes himself in hand, and even though she knows the mechanics of this, of boys doing that, she’s surprised at how quiet it is, how it sounds less like comical wet slapping and more like... skin on skin. It’s soft, rhythmic, lacking the weird, almost violent jerking in the five seconds of every old teen comedy she’s seen before she covered her eyes. And the sounds Obi makes...

Ah, those are...nice. Really nice.

Her thighs clench at each soft sigh, at the way his breath hitches with every stroke. Obi always said that just watching her come did it for him, and she believed him, she had, but-- now she knows how true it is. She only came minutes ago, but the sounds of him alone is making her wet, slicking the inside of her thighs and reminding her how he’d sounded in the car, months ago--

--ah, yes, like that, god – fuck, Shirayuki, I–

He moans, long and pained, and she-- she’s curious. Enough to get her into trouble, Grandad says, and sometimes out again. So she can’t help it, she-- she peeks.

Not at his-- down there, of course, but just at his face, at the safe parts. Or at least, it would have been safe, if his head wasn’t thrown back like that, if his eyes weren’t wrenched shut, mouth slack--

Yes, god, the way you sound – god, fuck, that’s so good, please –

Shirayuki rolls back, fitting tight against his side, stomach thrilling as she feels the pace of his arm rubbing against her, as she watches the way his whimpers eke out of his mouth, unbidden. He must feel it, feel the difference, because he stops, a whine wringing from his throat as his eyes slit open to look at her, so dark--

“Don’t stop,” she tells him, breathless. “Keep going.”

His eyes widen, seeking hers, and as he starts moving again, breath rasping out of his chest, all Shirayuki can see is gold. It’s too much, too much, and she leans in, covering her lips with his.

Obi gasps into her mouth, whimpering as her tongue licks against his teeth. He arches into her, hand wrapping around her neck and dragging her closer, fingers tangling roughly in her hair until he cups the back of her skull, holding her to him.

“God,” he murmurs against her lips, pulling back with each press to suck down a drowning man’s breath. “Fuck.”

His elbow works against her stomach, and she’s too curious still, letting her hand trail down his arm to feel the corded muscle there, standing out in stark relief as he strains to meet his pleasure. Her fingers trail down further, further, following those lines to his wrist, to where she can already feel the heat from his--

He whines, writhing beside her, hips bucking into her thigh, and she realizes: he’s coming.

Shirayuki jumps back from him with a pop, eyes searching his face, but it’s too late, it’s over, his head dropping back onto the grass with a laugh. In the burn of the floodlights, his face is flushed, dewy.

“You don’t, um, have a tissue or something in that bag of yours, do you?” he asks shyly, looking like he’d appreciate if the field experienced a sudden, localized sinkhole.

“Oh!” She pops up, grasping blindly for where she dropped her purse. “Yes! Here. I, um, also have hand sanitizer.”

Obi lets out a weak laugh as he takes the packet from her. “It’s not that much of a--” he hisses-- “mess, god damn.”

She dares a glance over her shoulder, mouth dry as she watches his back work. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just-- sensitive.” He casts a shy glance over his shoulder, before letting it skitter away. “It was just...really good.”

“Oh.” That is really not helping with her whole...situation. Especially now that she can see where her panties are, an arm’s length away on the grass, and she’s reminded that there’s nothing beneath her dress, that she could easily lay back and-- “Oh.”

“Yeah.” His zipper is loud in the silence, enough that she feels her own blush bloom on her cheeks. He lets out a sigh, scrubbing a hand down his face. “You know, I think it’s good you have your dickphobia, kid.”

That’s...definitely not what she’d though he’d say after all...this. “Oh?”

“Yeah.” He lays down next to her, hands raising up to grasp her by the shoulders and guide her down beside him, ear pressed firmly to his chest. His heart is beating loud, strong, and triple time. “If that’s what it’s like with you just being here, I don’t know if...” He coughs, squirming. “I’m not sure I’m ready to have sex either. With you.”

She shrinks. Of course, of course. “Oh...”

“No, no! That’s not--” he pulls back to look at her, so serious-- “I want to. I want to so bad. But, I just mean...”

He lets out a sigh, head hitting the ground with a thunk. “I’ve never done any of this with, you know, feelings too. It’s just been...stuff. That I did. To feel good. But now...”

He bites his lip, and it’s terrible how it only makes her want to kiss it, to take it into her mouth and sooth away the sting. “Like, my dick wants to have sex, all the way, all the time. Everything about you does it for me, and I just...” He lets out a frustrated groan. “I think that my...my heart...”

He presses a hand there, brows furrowed, like he’s not used to thinking about it. “Never mind.”

“No, I...” She lays a hand over his, squeezing it. “I get it.”

“It’s just that...” He takes a breath, clears his throat, and looks at her with eyes as warm as honey. “You’re not casual for me, Shirayuki.”

She can feel the smile on her face, almost too big to contain, and she leans down, pressing a kiss to his lips. “Good,” she breathes, curling fingers into his hair. “You’re not casual for me either.”