Fruits Basket Fan Fiction ❯ The Whereabouts of Happiness ❯ The Whereabouts of Happiness (1/1) ( One-Shot )

Title: The Whereabouts of Happiness

Author: Flamika

E-mail: flamika27 @ yahoo.com

Genre: Romance, Fluff, Hentai

Disclaimer: They belong to Takaya Natsuki, that ingenious sadist of shoujo manga. I'm just borrowing them for the holidays.

Pairings: Kureno x Akito

Warnings: sex, fluff, possibly inaccurate representation of the Christmas holiday in Japan.

Rating: NC-17

Notes: Written for the holiday fanfiction contest at the akito_sohma ML. Fic title comes from a Gundam Wing episode title, I believe.

Archiving: http://www.geocities.com/flamika27/fb.html

Summary: As the cliché goes, "There are some things money cannot buy."

*

It wasn't that Kureno hated shopping, or even remotely disliked it. Sure, some people could get nasty when they thought that, for some obscure reason, he was after the last remaining pink tank top or was going to snatch up a pair of perfectly hideous shoes, but he just met their glares with a patient smile and kept right on minding his own business. Even the hustle and bustle of the day prior to Christmas Eve at the mall didn't bother him. He wasn't given the opportunity to touch people very often, so he rather enjoyed every brush across his shoulder and every unconscious hand placed on his back to hurry him along when he was walking at a slower pace than the masses.

Everyone around him was either warm and happy with the gift-giving spirit, or frustrated and stressed-out from rushing madly from store to store to find a perfect gift for their lover, but sitting alone on a bench against the wall, watching young couples scurry past with bags and gifts, Kureno was simply miserable, and it was all because he didn't have a list.

Without his list of errands to run, he was fumbling blindly in the dark for a sense of purpose. Oh wait, he did have a purpose. Akito had given him 4500 yen and told him to buy something that made him happy.

"And don't come back until you spend it all," she had said flatly, her breaths creating white clouds in the air as she leaned against the open windowsill, thick winter robes bundled around her thin body.

Hopelessly befuddled by the sudden order, Kureno had left his former goddess staring out of her lonely round window at the snow-covered garden. On his way to the mall, he had wondered if all this wasn't just an elaborate ploy to get rid of him for the day. However, if she wanted to do that, all she had to do was order him to go to his room and stay there, or send him on a day-long trip to various shops around the city with a list of oddities to purchase.

But no. Here he was at the mall the day before Christmas Eve with no list and a wallet full of yen he needed to get rid of. He'd already bought himself an expensive lunch from a nearby restaurant and several riceballs from the vending machine, which he gave to a couple of kids who were hungrily eyeballing them. But unfortunately, he couldn't just stuff his face and give riceballs to children all day, which left him with no other alternative than to use the money for its intended purpose: his happiness.

Kureno sighed and slouched in his bench, the end of his coat almost touching the floor, strands of auburn hair flopping into his russet-colored eyes as his chin drooped towards his chest. He wracked his brain for something that would ease his dismal mood. He could think of several things, really, but they were priceless, and forever beyond his reach.

All the money in the world couldn't buy the one girl who truly liked him, who had chased after him until her soft blonde hair was damp with sweat and she was panting from exertion, all just to see him again. He couldn't buy her fiery personality or her beautiful smile. She was probably at work now. He could go see her. That would make him so, so happy, but it also wouldn't last. No matter how much he longed to see Uotani Arisa, there would always be another face in his mind, burned onto the backs of his eyelids and seared into his heart.

No amount of money could buy happiness in the form of Akito's love. She liked him, true, but since the moment of her conception, she had belonged to another man. He knew she sometimes envisioned Shigure's face when they made love. That was fine with him. He was sure other lovers occasionally imagined they were having sex with someone other than the person beneath them, a brief, clandestine escape from a relationship growing dead and cold. He had tried to think of Arisa while he was with Akito, but found that he couldn't. For him, Akito was Akito, but to her, Kureno was a pale shadow of the man she truly wanted at her side, in her arms.

How was he supposed to buy something that made him happy when he was feeling so miserable? At this rate, he would purchase several jugs of sake, drink himself into a stupor, and get run over by a car.

"Well, look who it is!" a familiar voice suddenly exclaimed, nearly making Kureno jump out of his skin.

Ayame emerged from the bustling crowd, arms laden with so many shopping bags that Kureno could just barely make out his pale, graceful hands lost amongst the brightly-colored cardboard straps and packages.

"It's my lost-lost cousin Kureno!" the silver-haired man exclaimed, striking a dramatic pose that somehow managed to be elegant even with the bags dangling off his arms. "I saw you from across the mall, but told myself that it couldn't be true! Kureno, out in the open like a free man, sitting on a lonely bench outside the GAP, looking painfully miserable for such a happy season!"

Kureno patiently waited until Ayame was done before smiling. "Hello, Ayame-niisan, it's good to see you again."

The man smiled back, golden eyes as vibrant as ever. As a child, Kureno wished he had eyes like Ayame, despite the nasty comments the other boys at school made about the peculiar color. Gold reminded Kureno of sunlight and clear blue skies. There was nothing happy or sparkly about Kureno's reddish-brown hair and eyes.

"How very fortunate of you to run into me today! Ha ha ha! Here, hold these!" Ayame dumped an armful of bags into Kureno's lap, the other man scrambling to make sure none of the contents spilled onto the floor. He caught a strong whiff of a fruity aroma from one of the bags and sneezed, whacking himself in the face with a smaller bag when he instinctively tried to cover his mouth.

Ayame plopped next to him on the bench with a relieved sigh, the trailing end of his black, fur-lined coat falling over Kureno's knee. "It's so hard being popular!" he lamented. "So many people to buy gifts for! Oh, you have to see what I got for 'Tori-san!" He started rifling through one of the bags. "I really should have designed him something special and personal, but I saw this and just couldn't resist! He needs some spice in his wardrobe because in case you haven't noticed, he's been dressing like an old fogy lately!"

Personally, Kureno hadn't noticed any old-fogyness in Hatori (well, no more than usual), but he still smiled approvingly when Ayame showed him the brocade vest he had purchased, the ornate dark gray design very subtle against the black fabric. His cousin then treated him to a dizzyingly vast display of every single item he had bought since the mall had opened that morning. Caught between keeping up with the snake's super-fast speech and the array of books, shirts, ribbons, and perfume bottles that seemed to appear in his hands like magic, Kureno soon lost track of what present was for whom.

"Well, wasn't that fun!" Ayame exclaimed after the gift exhibition was over. "Say, you're obviously not doing anything! You can carry my bags for me! Come along, Kureno, we're going to bond! Ha ha ha!"

Within two seconds, Kureno went from sitting awkwardly on a bench covered in shopping bags to being dragged along by an overly enthusiastic Ayame, who was making a beeline for the nearest department store.

So began what Ayame later dubbed "Aya and Kuren's Unexpected Day of Fun." The silver-haired man still possessed the same whirlwind of a personality Kureno recalled from their youth, waxing poetic about every new purchase and haggling with the salespeople when he thought an item was overpriced. Kureno followed in his wake like an obedient servant, holding whatever bag Ayame dumped on him and simply admiring the massive surge of *life* Ayame seemed to breathe into his surroundings.

Of course, Ayame also made some passerby a bit suspicious when he insisted on holding Kureno's hand as they tore through the mall, but Kureno didn't mind the touch at all, suggestive implications notwithstanding. He had been a Juunishi once. He knew how important the feeling of another's skin was, the warmth and texture of it, how the contours of their bodies felt when you wrapped your arms around them. For a moment, he grieved that he had the ability to embrace any person in the entire mall, and Ayame, a tactile person by nature, did not. If he could have given the man a gift right then, it would have been the power to touch anyone he wanted, even if it was just a single embrace with Mine, the nice, energetic woman he worked with, the one Akito severely disliked.

Akito didn't like very many people anymore. Kureno wondered if one day, she would begin to hate him as well.

"You seem so glum, Kureno," Ayame commented during a pause in their shopping frenzy while they were resting on a bench in the food court. "Do you need help carrying the bags?"

Kureno blinked down at himself. The plethora of straps biting into his flesh and cutting off his circulation had caused him to forget that he even *had* arms. "No, I'm fine. I can't even feel them anymore."

The snake brought two fingers to his chin in a contemplative motion that was vaguely reminiscent of Shigure. "So, if it isn't the bags that have you looking like a kicked puppy, then what could it be... Stomache? Diarrhea? Acid reflux? Sore feet?"

"Akito gave me money and told me to buy something that makes me happy," Kureno suddenly blurted, pent-up frustration at his ineptitude boiling over. "But all the things that make me happy, I can't buy."

Ayame nodded as if Kureno had said something profound. "Hmmm...well, that is quite the dilemma you have there, dear cousin." He was quiet for a bit, hand slowly dropping to his lap, expression growing uncharacteristically calm and still, like a lull in thrashing ocean waters.

"So...Akito told you that?" Ayame mused quietly, more to himself than Kureno. "My dear Akito-san."

Before Kureno could decide if there was more bitterness or affection in Ayame's voice, his cousin was turning back to him, a slender arm sliding around his shoulders. "Kureno, you know Akito better than anyone else in the world, right?"

"Well..." he fumbled, wondering how to express in words just what it was like to truly know Akito, and how bittersweet his life had become because of her.

"Of course you do!" Ayame cut in firmly, fingers ruffling Kureno's russet hair. "You are always at her side, more so than any of us. When she's sad, she wants *you* to be there for her. When she cries, she wants *you* to hold her. You're the one who makes her feel safe, day in and day out. Now, what would our lovely Akito say to a wonderfully devoted person such as you?"

"I don't know," Kureno said helplessly.

Slender fingers squeezed his shoulder. "She would say 'thank you.'"

He smiled wanly, the expression tinged by the barest hint of sadness. "Akito wouldn't say that."

"Not in words, of course not. You know how she is. That girl has more trouble expressing herself than anyone I've ever met before. Half the time, I doubt *she* even knows what she's thinking." A veil of deep sadness settled over his eyes, golden irises growing blank and misted as his arm slid off Kureno's shoulder.

"Niisan?" Kureno prodded, concerned with his suddenly resigned countenance.

The man lifted a graceful hand to cover his eyes, casting them into shadow. "I know I'm not around much," he said quietly. "'Tori-san and 'Gure-san don't tell me much about what goes on at the Main House, and I know they have my best interests in heart. But I still know. I have eyes and ears. And I can feel what she's become." His hand dropped to his chest, fingers splayed over his heart. "Right here. It always hurts, and I know it's because she's in pain. She's become a grieving, twisted thing."

The bond. Oh, if only Akito were here right now. She would be overjoyed to hear one of her Juunishi, especially one she held secretly considered very, very dear, validating the belief that the God and her chosen shared an intimate link, a deep connection that Ren always scorned and debased Akito for clinging so desperately to.

Ayame sighed, hand falling back to his lap. "Sometimes I wonder, 'How did it come to this?' How could we let it happen? How could we lose that little girl to rage and madness?" He shook his head, a wan smile curving his mouth as he turned back to Kureno. "Enough about that. My point is that Akito never learned the proper way to love someone. She never learned to say 'please' or 'thank you.' And she knows how ugly she can be. Telling you to buy something that makes you happy is her own clumsy way of trying to give you something she can't. After all, if she herself has no capacity for happiness, how can she make you happy?"

"She can't," Kureno said simply. He had accepted that fact a long time ago, when he had given up his life and his newfound freedom for the distraught, crying girl who had begged him never to leave her. That day, he made a heartfelt promise to her and over the following decade, he had never once gone astray.

Ayame smiled. "But isn't the fact that she wants you to be happy merit a bit of happiness all on its own? For a selfish girl like her to desire the happiness of another...she must really care about you."

Ayame's words sank in like raindrops slowing seeping through his clothes during a downpour, and Kureno wondered why he'd been unable to see what Akito had been trying to do. Did he really think she was such a horrible person that there wasn't a shred of kindness left in her? Ayame was right. Kureno knew her better than anyone. Even if she herself didn't realize it, he should have known this was her way of trying to give him the barest trace of contentment. Like all things with Akito, the effort was warped with unkind words and cold shoulders, but that was simply a part of the woman she had become.

Sometimes he thought the only things between them were painful nostalgia and obligatory affection, but this was the life he had chosen. Even now, after years of dedicating every moment of his existence to her contentment, his one true desire still remained the same.

"All I wish for is her happiness," he said aloud. It felt so good to speak the words and truly mean them. Often he was gripped with the fear that he would become cursed again, not by the vindictive spirit of the Bird, but by the poisoned love that consumed Shigure when he was banished from the Main House, by the desperate, self-preserving aloofness Hatori sometimes employed when around Akito, or by the desire for escape that Ayame had succumbed to in order to avoid dying softly in his goddess' deadly embrace.

He didn't realize he was crying until Ayame silently dabbed at his tearstained cheeks with a handkerchief, the soft white material cool against his flushed skin. Kureno shook the burdensome bags off his numb arms, glad for the rush of blood that slowly began to revitalize the lifeless flesh, and when his cousin, his beautiful, cursed cousin, moved to embrace him, Kureno sank into his comforting warmth and cried into his shoulder, tears flowing like rain, just like they had the day of Akito's conception.

*

Night had already spread its star-ridden cloak over the sky when Kureno finally returned to Akito, 4500 yen and a thousand worries lighter. One of the maids had placed a small heater in the room, a bit of thoughtfulness that Kureno was grateful for, since it seemed Akito had left the window open all day, letting gust after gust of icy wind intrude on the sanctity of her bedroom.

One of the sliding doors leading out to the garden hung open just enough to allow a slender girl to pass through, and Kureno grabbed a thick blanket from the closet before quietly making his way over to the door. He slid it open the rest of the way, heedless of the frigid drafts swirling around his legs.

Akito sat bundled in her layers of robes just to the side of the door, glaring at the night-darkened garden as if the snow-laden trees had slighted her in some fashion. "It took you long enough," she snapped.

Usually Kureno immediately apologized for his tardiness, but tonight he just smiled tolerantly and sat next to her, wrapping the blanket around his shoulders, welcoming the warmth of the fleecy material.

"I have a blanket, Akito," he said, patting the floor between his sprawled legs. "You should come over here before you catch a cold."

She huffed and turned her face away from him, still put off by the time he had spent away from her, even though she had ordered it. Kureno just settled the blanket more securely around his body and waited patiently, watching his exhalations cloud the air. The snow glistened in the straining fingers of light cast by the old-fashioned lamps hanging from the roof at measured intervals. A strong gust of wind blew by, ruffling Kureno's hair and making a set of wind chimes dance harmoniously somewhere in the distance. Akito shuddered violently and suddenly scrambled artlessly into Kureno's lap, forcing his legs further apart so she could huddle between them, her back against his chest as she shivered in the freezing air.

Kureno bit his lip to keep from releasing some sound of mirth and wrapped the blanket around her diminutive body, making sure every centimeter of her slender frailty was covered before he encircled her with his arms, offering her his warmth. She accepted greedily, the top of her soft black hair brushing the underside of his chin as she arranged herself more securely against him, her backside pressed against his groin.

He had once wrapped her in his coat like this, far in the distant past after his father had gifted him with an overly large winter coat for his birthday. "For you to grow into, boy, and don't expect a gift next year," the man had said.

At the time, Akito had been a delicate slip of a creature that barely stood as tall as his waist, her small frame making it possible for him to gather her in his arms and button her up in his coat with him still in it, laughing as she giggled against his neck, childishly amused beyond all reservations at the fun but awkward position that left the top of her dark head poking out the collar of his jacket. He had carefully held onto her through the coat's thick fabric as they shuffled through the garden until Shigure had spotted them and joked that Kureno looked like a pregnant teenager.

Though she was now considerably larger than her five-year-old past self, Kureno wondered idly if he still had a coat large enough to fit them both.

"What did you buy?" she suddenly demanded, and he realized the curiosity must have been killing her.

He rested his chin on the wealth of silken hair beneath him. "Something that made me happy."

*

"Here, Ayame," Kureno said, holding out the neatly folded bundle of yen Akito had given him that morning. "I want you to have this."

"Oh, but I couldn't-" the silver-haired man started to launch into a long, flowery explanation as to why he shouldn't take the money, but Kureno gently interrupted by tucking the yen into the front pocket of his cousin's coat.

"Seeing you today made me so happy," Kureno said with a smile. "If I hadn't spent the day with you, I would still be miserable."

Ayame shook his head melodramatically, long hair dancing on the shoulders of his coat. "Oh, what am I supposed to say in the face of such utter sincerity? I'm so touched that I think I may cry! Words have failed me, something that doesn't happen often at all, but if you're going to insist on this, I'll have no choice but to comply! There was a bolt of lovely imported fabric that I've been eyeballing for-"

*

"What was it?" Akito insisted, voice rising.

He kissed the top of her head, trying to prevent her temper from flaring even more. "Don't worry. I'm happy now, Akito. Thank you for letting me go 'outside' today."

"Well, consider that your Christmas present," she snapped angrily, not at all pleased with his dodgy responses. "Merry fucking Christmas, Kureno."

He laughed out loud before he could stop himself, tightening his grip on her when she stiffened at the unexpected sound, her anger spiking as she undoubtedly believed he was laughing at her, rather than at his sudden realization that she wasn't entirely comfortable with her deep affection for him. In an attempt to assuage her rising ire, he kissed her ear gently, letting the warmth of his lips soothe the wind-chilled flesh.

Agitated, she squirmed a little - her ears were one of her hot spots - before sighing resentfully and settling against him again, anger slowly diminishing one rigid muscle at a time. "You're weird when you're happy," she commented blandly.

He smiled. "I know." He suddenly remembered something. "Oh, I nearly forgot. I saw Ayame-niisan at the mall today, and he wanted me to give you a present."

He felt the intensity of her frown as he dug around in his slacks' pocket. "Tomorrow is the Christmas Eve party. Is Ayame not coming?"

"No, he's coming," Kureno said, pulling from his pocket a smooth glass container that had grown warm with his body heat. "But he wanted you to have this because he couldn't give it to you in front of everyone else."

He held the small bottle of platinum gold nail polish in front of her, warily watching as one of her small, graceful hands slowly emerged from the blanket to accept it, touching it cautiously as if afraid the glass would scald her fingers. She held it up to the light, turning it this way and that, making the decorative liquid inside the bottle shimmer and dance in what Kureno thought was a rather festive way. The sleeve of her coat fell away to expose her tiny wrist, bones delicate and beautiful as they shifted almost imperceptibly under her pale skin.

"I can't wear this," she said quietly. "People will see it."

"You can wear it on your toes," he suggested. "I think it would look nice on you."

She made a noncommittal noise and tucked her arm back into the safe covering of the blanket, where their combined body heat had created a warm haven for her chilled skin. For a long while, they sat in silence, the kind of peaceful quietude that Kureno enjoyed almost more than anything. Akito was a passionate woman by nature, and it saddened him that so much of that high emotion was channeled in negative, violent ways. But nevertheless, he knew Akito cherished the moments of tranquility where motion and sound ceased almost all together, and it warmed his heart to know that she could share those moments with him, that she didn't mind sharing them with him.

Kureno had never felt happier to be a part of her life. Even if all he could do was ease her loneliness just a little, that was more than enough for him, and he knew that hidden underneath all his conflicting emotions for her, there was love, not just for the crying girl who had moved him to pity with her wanton tears, but for the woman he believed still had the capacity for kindness.

Akito sighed, and Kureno thought he heard a strange contentment in the sound. The snow-covered garden seemed to echo the soft exhalation, a thousand tiny whispers filling the air like the crackling of a fire.

He put his nose into her hair, inhaling a wonderfully sharp yet delicately sweet scent that was the mixture of shampoo and her own personal aroma. Underneath the blanket, his hands trailed down the length of her arms, burrowing through the folds of the robes swathing her body until they found the curve of her petite waist, his palms coming to rest on her hipbones, fingers close to her inner core of heat.

Her breath hitched as he took her earlobe between his lips and tugged on it gently, her thighs tensing with sudden desire. He knew her body in a way only a lover could, and her ache for him made itself shamelessly known in the space of one breath.

"Let me make love to you," he whispered in her ear.

A tiny shudder coursed the length of her body, and he felt its entire path all the way from her shoulders, which shifted restlessly against his chest, down to her legs, calves sliding against the fabric of his slacks. He could imagine the blood heating her skin, her body growing tight and moist with anticipation.

"Yes," she replied breathlessly, twisting in his embrace so she could wrap her arms around his neck, dislodging the blanket from his shoulders, their warmth escaping into the cold nighttime air.

It seemed she weighed nearly nothing as he lifted her into his arms, carrying her inside and using his foot to slide the door shut behind him. She buried her face in his neck, nose chilled from the winter zephyrs, but her lips were so, so warm as they kissed the sensitive skin right above the collar of his sweater, the hot dampness of her tongue pressing against it as she sucked gently.

The ministration was interrupted as he laid her down on the futon, her ink-dark eyes already warm and eager as he pulled away. Her hands absently stroked his arms, hurrying him along as he pulled his sweater over his head and discarded it on the tatami mats. Breezes from the open window teased his heated skin with a wash of gooseflesh, his nipples growing taut and peaked with a mixture of cold and arousal.

She sighed at the sight of him and ran her hands along his bare stomach, from the waistband of his slacks up to his chest, hands curving behind him to knead the flesh of his shoulders, urging him closer.

"Do you have...?" he asked softly, yielding to her insistent hands and going onto all fours above her. He looked down into her beautiful face as her eyebrows puckered briefly in confusion. Reluctantly, she paused her absent caressing to dip one hand into the opposite sleeve of her robe, emerging with a small square foil package in her fingers, the circular shape of the latex sheathe inside evident even in the meager lighting.

The muscles of his abdomen tightened in eagerness as he eased himself on top of her, careful not to bruise her smaller body with his weight. His fingers laced themselves with hers, gently pushing the condom package out of her hand, the foil square landing on the tatami mat by his sweater, patiently awaiting its moment.

She sighed with escalating pleasure as he shifted on top of her, wanting to feel all of her body even through the layers of robes between them. He kissed her softly, and it seemed forever since he had last tasted her mouth, the moist warmth, the hot caress of her tongue as she parted her lips for him. Her fingers had found their way into the soft strands of auburn hair at the back of his head, nails lightly scratching at his scalp as the fervor of their kissing grew hotter, wetter, and Kureno was consumed with a raw hunger for her that he hadn't felt in a long time.

He knew she returned the feeling a hundredfold because when he pulled back for air, she frantically licked at his lips, tasting his panting breaths until he crushed his mouth to hers again, kissing ardently until her lips were damp and swollen from his affections and his hips were grinding into the heat between her legs.

She moaned plaintively as he abandoned her mouth and untangled his hand from hers, her nails clawing lightly at his shoulder as he rose to his knees. The fly of his pants rubbed against his swollen erection, but he allowed the fabric's sharp, unkind caress, the spikes of painful friction only making his need burn hotter.

Slowly, he began to divest her of the many layers of robes; necessary garments to keep her frail body warm during the cold months were only obstructions now, when he wanted to see her bare skin flushed and slick with sweat. Full of her desire for him, and only him.

She remained still as he opened the last robe, at last baring all of her, and though he had seen her many times before, known the secrets every part of her body had to offer, he couldn't help but groan at the visage of delicate beauty laid before him. The riot of light and dark silks framed her slender waist and narrow hips, her black hair a wreath of darkness on the pillow beneath her head. Her soft stomach jerked with her panting breaths, the tender skin of her small breasts moving as she shifted restlessly underneath the loving intensity of his gaze. The aureoles of her nipples looked painfully tight, and the face he saw beyond them spoke of the silent, building agony that painted her cheeks with a wash of bright crimson. His hands stroked the insides of her spread thighs, but his eyes were on hers, on the naked desire he saw in those sloe-dark irises. He wondered if she didn't love him a little, or as much as she was able to.

"You're so beautiful," he whispered, lowering his face to kiss the area directly below her navel, lips trailing down until his chin brushed crisp, dark curls. He could smell her already, the distinctly feminine fragrance of her lust so close that the air was thick with it. So wet and heated. Just the thought of tasting her made him harder.

He started to spread her legs wider, and she resisted a little, making small noises of obligatory protest. "Not down there, Kureno. Not down there," she murmured thickly.

"It's okay," he said soothingly, dizzy with the growing perfume of her yearning. He gently licked the creases where her legs joined the rest of her body, and the muscles of her tense thighs relaxed slightly. Akito believed her female nature was vile and disgusting, and she always objected to him putting his mouth or tongue on places she personally found dirty and foul, even if the sensations from his attentions made her scream with pleasure. Maybe that was why Kureno loved it so much, the place where she was purely raw heat and copious wetness, the secret of her gender doubly hidden from the rest of the world. A secret within a secret. And he was the one who knew her utterly and entirely when he had his head between her legs, tongue inside her and savoring the nectar of her woman's body, accepting the parts of her that she was forced to deny, making her feel beautiful.

When he urged her thighs further apart this time, she didn't resist, only let herself be spread, allowing the gentle kiss he placed on her mons, directly above her entrance, deliberately teasing himself despite the insistent ache between his legs. He moved one hand from her thigh, and she caught her breath, anticipating the action even before he slid two fingers into her, drawing a long, keening moan from her mouth as her hips surged off the futon, taking him deeper into her.

Her inner body was so thoroughly drenched with passion that he found no resistance other than the usual constricting tightness that made him moan against her sweet flesh as he imagined how she would feel when he was moving inside her, her body slick with passion and throbbing all around him. He buried his fingers up to the knuckle before pulling them out, only to plunge them back in, harsher this time, her hips rising with the motion as her hands fell to his head, trying to push him lower.

"Kureno," she gasped. "Please, with your mouth, please."

He almost didn't hear her, so lost he was in the sounds his fingers made as he pushed them in and out of the wet heat, but the half-heard entreaty was all he needed. He paused only briefly to lick fragrant fluid on his fingers before using them to gently spread her labia, groaning as he glimpsed the hidden flesh of her body, flushed and glistening her juices. Then his tongue was on her, and he was drinking her in, all the sweetness, all the heat, her hands fisted in his hair as she moaned his name over and over again. He felt her thighs on the sides of his face, keeping him trapped against her frantically moving hips, and he didn't even care if he suffocated, so desperately he needed to slake his desire for her, for this hot, pulsing essence of the womanhood she scorned and he loved.

Surprisingly, it was her who dragged him away from her nether lips, her hands on the sides of her face as he caught his breath, the air blasphemously cool on his face after being immersed in such delicious heat. She pulled him up to her, barely giving him a chance to glimpse her cheeks flushed nearly as red as the sweet flesh of her lower regions before she was raining kisses on his face, over his heated cheeks, over the bridge of his nose, her tongue darting out to taste the tart fluid clinging to his mouth and chin.

"I want you," she paused long enough to plead, voice beautifully distorted. "Kureno, I need you so bad."

He wanted to tell her that he loved when she said things like that, when he heard his name whispered in passion from her soft lips, but all he could do was capture her mouth in a deep, thorough kiss before going back to his knees. She rose up on her elbows to watch as he carefully unbuttoned his slacks, the heat in his groin at last given relief from its unrelenting cage of fabric, the air almost cold on his hard, flushed skin as he struggled to get his trembling hands to push his pants the rest of the way down his legs. The sensation of Akito's thigh quivering against his hip didn't help his concentration, nor did the sight of her heaving breasts and lustful eyes.

He flung his slacks off to the side, blood thundering through his body with renewed urgency when he beheld his own skin as naked as hers. "Akito," he groaned, reaching for her with one hand while the other groped blindly on the floor for the condom they had dropped.

Akito wrapped her arms around his neck, trying to forcibly pull him down on top her, a sudden surge in raw need that left him wanting to forget the contraceptive and ram himself harshly into her, at last indulging in what they both craved so intensely.

Fortunately, at that moment, his fingers brushed cool foil. "Wait, wait," he whispered even as her hardened nipples brushed his bare chest.

"What?" she demanded in frustration, her protests subsiding when she saw him fumbling with the condom package, tearing it open and withdrawing the latex sheathe, rolling it over the tip of him, which was already slick with a steady stream of liquid leaking from the slit.

As soon as his fingers released the condom, he wrapped his arms around her, pushing her back down onto futon, hungrily eating at her mouth as if a minute away from her had been an eternity. He reached between them and guided himself to her throbbing heat, plunging into her in one liquid thrust that made her gasp in ecstatic shock. Her back arced upwards as he brought his groin tight against hers, dipping his head to lick her puckered nipples until her chest dropped back to the futon, eyes clinched shut and hair clinging to the sweat on her brow.

"Look at me, Akito," he whispered fiercely, punctuating the order with a sharp thrust that made her body jerk against his.

She did, and when he saw the tears dusting her eyelashes like diamonds and the look of implicit trust in her normally guarded eyes, he knew that he was all she was seeing. The tears streaming from the corners of her eyes were only for him, and at that moment, he couldn't have loved her more. A sob escaped his chest as he began to move inside her, watching her face for any indication that his motions were too rough, too brutish. He didn't want to hurt her. He'd rather die than hurt her.

But the only emotion he saw on her face was sublime rapture; the helpless noises she made every time he slammed his hips against her were a raw expression of abandonment to the ecstasy of a lovers' union. Her body was hotter than he ever remembered, tight with desire and throbbing with life, her naked skin damp with sweat as their stomachs rubbed against one another's.

She started calling his name like a mantra long before she climaxed, nails raking across the flesh of his shoulders and leaving long red welts that he neither felt nor cared about. The urgent pressure of her interlaced ankles suddenly pressed against his backside as she began to lift her hips up to meet his, and he gasped as the deepened thrusts made him feel as if he would die from sheer sensory overload.

Her body suddenly contracted massively around him, spine bowing and his name tearing free of her lips as her passion crested, and he took everything her body gave, pounding into the wildly jerking heat with relentless vigor until he exploded inside her. She came down from her zenith, her body falling back onto the futon as she panted shallowly, and he descended with her, his hips still pumping, milking his orgasm until the very last eruption of fluid left him feeling weak and spent.

He half-collapsed on top of her, planting an elbow into the futon to avoid putting his entire weight on her. He panted into her soft hair long enough to catch his breath before easing out of her body with great reluctance. She moaned quietly at the sensation of emptiness, and he gently brushed her hair away from her forehead, kissing the sweat-dampened flesh.

"Are you okay?" he whispered, lips on her smooth cheek, salt from her skin finding its way onto his tongue.

She tilted her head and kissed him clumsily, too languid for speech, but her half-lidded eyes spoke volumes of her contentment, and as he lightly returned her lazy kisses, he was the happiest he'd been in a long, long time.

*

"It looks better on me than it does on you," Akito announced.

Kureno made a drowsy, contented noise and continued rubbing her back through the fabric of her yukata, which she'd thrown on to ward off the chill of the room. He was quite chilly, since he still hadn't put his clothes on, and the window had yet to be closed.

"I don't know why though," she continued, thinking idly aloud. "The skin of your feet is the same color as mine." She wiggled her toes, the silvery-gold polish on her toenails winking in the dim lighting. Kureno hadn't been brave enough to look in the direction of his feet, but he knew his toes had to look the same. Sex tended to make him even more compliant than usual, and who was he to deny Akito when she wanted to use his toes for a nail polish trial run?

Akito glanced over her shoulder at him, the customary sharpness of her gaze dulled by the vestiges of the afterglow. "Don't you want to see your feet, Kureno? I went through all the trouble of painting your toenails for you, after all."

Kureno tried to bring his foot into view, but he felt far too languid to lift it more than a few centimeters off the futon. He laughed softly as Akito made an exasperated noise and grabbed his foot, forcing his entire leg up in the air for him to see the shimmering polish on his toenails. It really was a festive color. Ayame certainly would have been proud. On the rare instances that Kureno saw his cousin, the snake always managed to bring up how it was such a crime that a lovely man like Kureno only painted his nails once every twelve years, for the Dance of the Bird at New Year's.

"Pretty," Kureno said with an easy smile, ignoring the icy drafts teasing his general groin area.

Akito let his leg drop. "I got out of the lines a little bit."

"Still looks nice," he countered, making a note not to take his socks off at the gift-exchanging party tomorrow. Maybe he'd show Ayame, though. He'd be overjoyed to know that his early Christmas present was put to good use.

Akito contemplated her toes for a bit more, and Kureno knew she liked the way the polish looked. In the back of his mind, he also knew that her pleasure at the gift would soon turn to bitterness that she couldn't flaunt it to the world. But that was for later. Now, he could feel her peaceful resolve as he absently trailed his fingers up and down her spine, and that was more than enough to make him happy.

After a few moments, she sighed and hid the bottle underneath his discarded sweater before lying back onto the pillow. She hadn't tied her yukata as securely as usual, and he glimpsed the curve of her left breast as the wayward material slid off to the side.

"Kureno, go close the window," she ordered.

Ever obedient and still without a stitch on his body, Kureno pulled back the covers and walked over to the window, bidding a silent goodnight to the garden that patiently awaited for spring to arrive and melt the snowy veil that had sent the green fertility into hiding. He shut the window and locked it, crossing the room to turn off the light while he was still up, aware of and perfectly comfortable with Akito's eyes tracking his every move. She continued to watch him even after he'd settled back underneath the covers, and after a moment, he smiled at her a bit uncertainly.

"What are you thinking?" he asked.

She blinked, as if coming out of a trace. "You have a beautiful body."

The candid statement surprised him. Akito's compliments were rare in general, and even rarer to be directed at him. He felt his face warming slightly. "Thank you."

She made a noncommittal noise and rolled onto her side, lying closer to him than she usually did, her forehead nearly pressed against his chest. Kureno wrapped his arm around her, as much for her warmth as his own. Akito drew the blanket tighter around them, her toes nudging Kureno's in what might have been a playful fashion.

"Akito?" he asked quietly. "Were you happy tonight?"

Warm breath fanned across his chest as she sighed. "Am I ever happy, Kureno? Besides, you had enough happiness for the both of us." She paused a moment before grumbling, "I still want to know what it is you bought."

"I didn't buy anything," he admitted softly. "But I went out and saw happy people and sad people interacting with one another. I saw Ayame-niisan for the first time since New Year's." He rubbed her arm gently. "You let me make love to you, and just now, you complimented me. That's what made me so happy." He gathered his courage before saying, "I just want you to be happy, too."

Silence. He waited for her anger to rise, for her harsh condemnation of his moronic wishes, for her tirade about the unrelenting bleakness of her life. He'd heard it all before, and he knew that she had every right to feel the way she did. Though he was no longer bound to her through the curse of the Bird, he could still feel her pain, how real it was, and how deeply it divided her soul between hope and despair.

She shifted in his arms, rising off the futon, and he feared she would cast him out of her bed, but all she did was kiss him on the cheek before resettling herself, head tucked underneath his chin. It was a shy, maidenly gesture, a silent expression of either affection or gratitude, and it warmed him to the bottoms of his feet.

"Good night, Akito," he whispered, holding her close to him as he shut his eyes.

She didn't say anything, but then again, she never did. She'd ceased telling him goodnight years ago, ever since Shigure had left the Main House. Akito hated goodbyes of any kind, be they casual or forced.

He was nearly asleep when she suddenly spoke. "Kureno?"

"Mm?" he murmured, blinking himself awake.

Silence stretched for so long he thought he'd simply imagined the sound of her voice, but just as he was preparing to shut his eyes again, she finally said the words she'd been trying to say for ten years.

"Thank you."

~fin

5 December 2004