Fic: Halcyon Lunchtime
Title: Halcyon Lunchtime
Fandom: DOLLS
Relationships: Suzuki Kiriko & Kashiwabara Kenshin
Genre: F/M, Other
Word count: ~2600
Summary: In a foul mood after a vexing workplace interaction, Suzuki meets Kashiwabara by chance in the Tokkei cafeteria. In a few minutes stolen from the workday, they share a brief moment of peculiar intimacy to find respite and simple comfort in each other.
Timeline: just before the final arc begins.
Additional tags:[see]queerplatonic relationships, asexual relationship, asexual character, aromantic character, ace/aro spectrum, cuddling & snuggling, non-sexual intimacy, sensuality, belly kink, belly rubs, fluff and hurt/comfort, some tenderness for my fatigued heart, inspired by doujinshi
Disclaimer: DOLLS and its characters belong to naked ape.
Author's Note: Yet another dearly cherished rarepair headcanon of mine. Please read all the tags and proceed with caution. It's written tenderly, but still, you know, kinky.[+]
Suzuki's gender nonconformity is verbalized in Chapter 29 of the original manga, her aromanticism and/or asexuality heavily implied on there and in the 'Intelligence Agent' doujinshi. The idea of possible relationship between the two intel honchos also takes roots in said doujinshi.
It was the time in the afternoon when the operative units of the Special Force were off, departed for field missions or training grounds, and the white-collar employees were burying themselves into paperwork with renewed efforts. Suzuki was walking slowly along the quiet hallway, hunching forward, curled fists deep in her pants pockets. She had just chain-smoked her last few cigarettes. Although it helped her to get her head straight to a certain extent, her hands were still trembling a bit.
She felt reluctant to return to the office yet.
Deciding that she needed to replenish her tobacco supply first, Suzuki ignored the elevator and headed for the cafeteria.
It didn’t take much time. With a couple of packs retrieved from a cigarette vending machine and stuffed inside her jacket, Suzuki stayed by the entrance, brute-forcing through any remotely reasonable excuse to further delay her return.
Nothing clicked. She had to go.
Her glance swept aimlessly over the tables. All vacant... except for one in the remote corner of the room. Suzuki squinted, taking a good look, and stood upright unwittingly as her heartbeat quickened with recognition.
The work had had to wait a little longer.
“Well, well, well, who do we have in here? I hardly believe my eyes!”
Light metal chairs collided with a clack as Suzuki dragged one from a nearby table and flopped down on it, uninvited. Leaning on her elbow, she grinned at the sole occupant of the table. It was none other than Kenshin Kashiwabara all by himself. The young man had been watching her approach and intrusion into his personal space, sipping his drink calmly all the while with an unreadable feline expression.
“Hey, nice to see you too!” Kashiwabara returned her greeting amiably. “What's up?”
“Oh, the usual stuff — except, I didn’t expect to spot you of all people in this location. This is a genuine stroke of luck!”
“You said it!” Kashiwabara laughed. “I honestly can’t remember a time when the job was so unburdensome.”
“Not much to do without your valiant Captain around, eh? Then it’s no wonder you're feasting out here.” Suzuki nodded at a pile of empty plates and bowls accumulated on the tray.
“Haha. Unbelievable, right? Sounds strange, but it occurred to me… Having some actual spare time on my hands, it would be a shame not to take advantage of such an opportunity.”
“I see. Incidentally, how’s he doing?”
Kashiwabara shrugged, averting his eyes. Something about this question seemed a bit odd: as a fellow intelligence squad leader, Suzuki was well aware of the official story regarding Supreme Commander Mikoshiba’s leave of absence, while as a person, she had never appeared as being curious about other people’s private affairs.
“Well… As of late, I often wonder about that, too,” he said after a moment’s hesitation and took a longer gulp that justified the subsequent pause.
“Aww, man! Shunning gossip as ever?”
“Um, not really… But why the sudden interest? Ha, wait! Let me guess,” he perked up. “Asking on behalf of your lady boss?”
“Pfff! For one thing, she’s not my boss, and for another, hell no! That woman will have to deal with her longings all by herself!” Suzuki shook her head violently. “Actually, forget it. That was the wrong topic to pick for a nice lunchtime chitchat.”
Kashiwabara put down his empty cup and sat back with a sigh, watching her intently. “I'm already finished though. Been kind of dawdling over here, so—”
“So what. Do not pretend like you are suddenly in a hurry now, OK?”
“Do you, er — you gonna get something for yourself?”
“Nope. Not hungry. I'd rather look at what you’ve been busy with here. No junk food; just the regular dishes, huh?” Suzuki raised an eyebrow. “That’s so not like you. Now then, why don’t you tell me — how did you like it? Enjoyed yourself?”
“Why, yes… I suppose I did?”
Kashiwabara shifted in his seat, giving heed to himself. While snacks and fast food takeouts, which he habitually consumed on the spot during the ever busy work hours, were hunger-quenching and energy-boosting, it would still be incorrect to deny the fact that this kind of diet lacked something fundamental. He sighed again. A big meal that consisted of proper nutritious foods was settling down differently on him, strangely comforting and sedatively relaxing…
Suzuki watched the thoughtful man slyly, a little smirk lurked in the corner of her mouth. She didn't rush him to respond. But before Kashiwabara could make up his mind on the degree of particularity appropriate for the situation and speak up, his body decided to give out a very explicit declaration of its own.
“Urrp. Uh, ‘scuse me.”
Suzuki felt a quiver creeping up her spine.
“Haha, I got it. There, say no more,” she said, reaching out to give him a head pat. Kashiwabara smiled at her and closed his eyes, leaning into her caressing hand.
If they were ever seen together like this…
Still ruffling his soft curls, Suzuki moved closer and snuck another hand under his half-unbuttoned cardigan.
The swell of his stomach fit nicely against her cupped palm.
“What?” Suzuki grinned with mischief, amused by Kashiwabara’s wide-eyed startled expression. She stroked him slightly, showing no intention to retreat.
“Why, s-stop it!” His hand raised up but wavered halfway through, hovering just an inch away from returning the touch. “Someone might see—”
“Come on, don’t be so edgy. No one's around.” Rubbing her thumb back and forth the distinct prominence in his upper abdomen, Suzuki studied Kashiwabara’s flushed face closely through her square-rimmed glasses. “And I can tell that you really - need - this,” she crooned into his ear, accentuating every word with a light pat.
“Hmph! E-even so... Here’s not the place to get handsy.”
“Oh, indeed. Yet you sound neither convincing nor convinced, you know?”
And the stroking intensified.
The fabric of his shirt felt nice and smooth to touch. Careful to skirt round the buttons, Suzuki explored the altered contours of his bodily terrain: filled and stretched, pushing out into a cute cuddly roundness. She worked every curve of his belly with an attentive affection, enjoying the lovely feel of its squeezable tautness; Kashiwabara made small unintelligible noises of pleasure and arched in for more. When her massaging impact stimulated him into a sequence of not quite stifled burps, Suzuki tingled with furtive delight. Every contented sigh that punctuated his breathing, every gentle motion of rising and falling that she could feel beneath her palm made her heart flutter with ineffable tenderness, and something pinching in her chest unwind.
Normally, Kashiwabara would’ve been cautious and wary of any sort of activity that hadn’t been explicitly planned out beforehand. But the cozy heaviness in his stomach had already lulled him into a lenient, contented placidity, and the warmth spreading from Suzuki’s skillful manipulations was fast enveloping his agile mind in a secure blanket of serenity; and all in all, the rapidly developing consequences of their casual encounter were all too gratifying to resist. So he sank deeper into his seat and yielded to the simplest joy of being petted. Having Suzuki snuggled up to his side — with cigarette smoke still strong on her, with her arm resting on his shoulders, fingers buried in his hair raking his head absentmindedly, — and her hand circling over his stomach with a delicate confidence, rubbing the soothing pressure into the solid lump of his substantial lunch… It was so bold. It felt so good.
For a little while they just sat there and relished each other’s company in a comfortable silence.
Suzuki observed his reactions with an indulgent fondness. Who was fretting about possible witnesses just a minute ago? and look at him now. There was something desperately endearing in the way Kashiwabara so readily surrendered to her touch, something empowering in the way it turned him into a kitten vibrating with pure bliss.
She was so lucky to have him. Open-minded and never judgmental, unlike some others out there. Never overstepping. So generously permissive with Suzuki and her little guilty pleasure.
After all, the relationship the two of them maintained was of a very special kind.
Suzuki had never quite comprehended the intricacies of gender relations, conventional displays of affection, that sort of stuff. She only knew that she got a kick out of holding this precious man. Fondling his tummy full of food. Touching him like this. And he… he kept embracing it willingly, this tender sensuality of togetherness without lewd advances and impossible expectations.
The closeness free of possessiveness. The intimacy devoid of passion and desire.
Suzuki cherished it greatly.
They rarely had to interact with each other at work. Their working hours, packed equally with versatile manhunt activities and more mundane office routines, offered little opportunity for idle distractions. Smoldering quietly in concealment, flaring up only so often, this undefined mutuality, the long-lasting awareness of a pleasant possibility was their very special, very private thing.
How crazy it was to come and pounce at Kashiwabara out of the blue, in broad daylight? About as reckless and erratic as, say, infesting a P2P network with a fresh-coded malware, the sole purpose of which was to replace certain video files with drawn images of an aardvark — something Suzuki had perpetrated as a brash schoolgirl still paving her way into the hacking career.
But those kinds of exploits belonged to days long gone. Suzuki heaved a sigh and wondered distantly if such an impudent manifestation of irrational impulsivity on her part should be qualified as a slip, or rather an urge, and would she get away with it or…
Kashiwabara stirred, and she felt his hand slide in to catch and gently trap down her wandering one.
“Suzuki-kun. Is everything alright?”
“Mmm? Wha’d’you mean?”
“You seem upset.”
“Do I? How so?”
“The nervousness, I can feel it in you. Here,” he squeezed her fingers lightly for emphasis. “And it’s kind of, heh, transmitting.”
Suzuki bit her lip from inside. Their usual custom didn’t include much of the heart-to-heart talking stuff, and that was fine by her. That was enough. The cause of her current ‘nervousness’ was the last thing she wanted to think about, let alone openly discuss. Why try to get under her skin now, dammit, why spoil this tiny moment of belonging!
“A gut feeling? Wow. Much perceptive. Such to expect from the top-rank intel agent of Tokkei.”
Even before the ending syllables slipped her tongue, Suzuki knew that her attempt to cover abashment with a quip fell flat.
She squirmed her hand free and pulled away, annoyed with herself. What was she thinking! Acting on a selfish whim, so presumptuous to assume that he wouldn’t sense her mood, would fail to grasp that something’s off…
Something fiendish had come over her, no less.
Straightened up from his slack pose, Kashiwabara gazed at Suzuki expectantly, a mixture of disturbed complacency and subdued reproach and concern.
Suzuki fixed her glasses, avoiding eye contact. Then, she forced herself to make an effort to explain.
“It's noth- it’s fine, really,” she grumbled reluctantly. “The standard operative bullshit. Those gals… Urgh. Sometimes they just drive me up the friggin wall!”
Kashiwabara smiled at her sympathetically. “Mmm, that sounds familiar. You feel like talking about it?”
Suzuki snorted and rolled her eyes.
“Shhh… If you don’t wanna, it’s okay. I understand.” A tentative hand brushed over her back and lingered on her tense shoulder. “May I…?” Seeing that no rebuff ensued, Kashiwabara wrapped his arm around Suzuki and drew her gingerly into a one-armed embrace. “Sorry I asked.”
Suzuki did not reply, and Kashiwabara did not pursue the subject any further.
The weight of his body rested warmly against her side. His steady breaths grazed against her ear. No lightweight words disrupted the stillness which she found so comforting. The moment stretched. Suzuki’s stance sagged gradually at ease, fists clenched in her lap unclasped.
Her change of mood didn’t go unnoticed. Suzuki felt Kashiwabara’s fingers sneak in between hers, wriggling their way into her loosened grip. She turned to face him.
The first thing that stuck out to her was that Kashiwabara had somehow made his cardigan fully unbuttoned, so that his shirt was fully revealed. A nice fitted shirt that seemed just a bit too adorably snug. Suzui didn’t think that she had seen it before. Its fanciful pattern looked slightly distorted as the lines of tension on the strained cloth highlighted the puffed up shape of Kashiwabara’s stomach, not heavily protruding but prominent just enough to keep a keen eye glued.
Suzuki couldn’t stop staring.
Meanwhile, Kashiwabara took over the initiative. With an enigmatic half-smile he took hold of Suzuki’s limp hand, placed it back, and set to guide it round his middle, slowly and deliberately, gliding over all the right places, applying pressure here and there until, finally, he settled on a sensitive spot where the touch felt nicest. An audible gurgle bubbled up underneath the combined pressure of their palms, a wordless approval of the tangible contact renewed.
“Ho-ho. Not all that skittish anymore, are we?” Suzuki taunted, in a slightly hoarse voice.
Their eyes locked. A funny stray notion popped up in Suzuki’s mind, that the girls of Unit II would’ve killed to have natural eyelashes just as long and thick as his without an ounce of make-up.
“I’m— Oof.”
Kashiwabara cut off with a sharp exhale, flinching and hunching a tad: he clearly did not expect Suzuki to claw her fingertips into his flesh and shake his belly in a rather unceremonious manner. Yet this time, he expressed no displeasure, no protest. His face was burning with vaguely exhilarating thoughts about how much he, in fact, was enjoying it: Suzuki’s daring hands, the sensations of a weighty mass being shifted around inside him, Suzuki’s gleefully glittering eyes, the thrilling risk of exposure — and what the combination of all above was evoking in him…
And just as abruptly, it stopped.
Suzuki released her clutch. With one last admiring slap, her hand rendered still — cradling over that beautifully filled tummy, holding it comfortingly. She could feel Kashiwabara’s pulse there, pumping fast. Much like her own heart.
“That actually feels, ah, quite nice,” Kashiwabara informed her, a little breathless. “What you just did… Mmm.” Suzuki’s hands got back to motion — slow, soothing, gentle — and he moaned softly with delight. “Feels good.”
A faint external vibration buzzed through from somewhere, the reality of another dimension. From her pocket. A text message notification? Without so much as a thought Suzuki ignored it.
“But you’re well aware of that, right? Kiriko… You know exactly— I like it a lot when you do it… mhmm… like this—”
“Oh, will you shut up! Quit babbling all that crap out loud, you moron!”
If Suzuki had any earnest intention to sound dismissive, her voice had failed her completely.
Kashiwabara chuckled. “Why? Enough transgressions for one day?”
There was some different sentiment seeping through his purring tease. There definitely was. A tint of reassurance… A glint of hope?
As a matter of fact, Kashiwabara made no attempt to draw back from her caress — quite the contrary.
“I just thought,” he said, soft and serious and kindly overlooking Suzuki’s awkward rudeness, “that you might’ve been waiting for — that I would say it… directly. For once.”
“Another brilliant insight, huh. And the reasoning behind it is…?”
“Ah…” Kashiwabara nuzzled at her neck, inhaling her smoky scent. Then came a reply. A considerate, almost conspiratorial whisper in her ear. “It’s ‘cause you were right, Suzuki-kun. There is little chance that anyone will walk in on us here and now… nor in the next few minutes, I believe.”
Fandom: DOLLS
Relationships: Suzuki Kiriko & Kashiwabara Kenshin
Genre: F/M, Other
Word count: ~2600
Summary: In a foul mood after a vexing workplace interaction, Suzuki meets Kashiwabara by chance in the Tokkei cafeteria. In a few minutes stolen from the workday, they share a brief moment of peculiar intimacy to find respite and simple comfort in each other.
Timeline: just before the final arc begins.
Additional tags:[see]queerplatonic relationships, asexual relationship, asexual character, aromantic character, ace/aro spectrum, cuddling & snuggling, non-sexual intimacy, sensuality, belly kink, belly rubs, fluff and hurt/comfort, some tenderness for my fatigued heart, inspired by doujinshi
Disclaimer: DOLLS and its characters belong to naked ape.
Author's Note: Yet another dearly cherished rarepair headcanon of mine. Please read all the tags and proceed with caution. It's written tenderly, but still, you know, kinky.[+]
Suzuki's gender nonconformity is verbalized in Chapter 29 of the original manga, her aromanticism and/or asexuality heavily implied on there and in the 'Intelligence Agent' doujinshi. The idea of possible relationship between the two intel honchos also takes roots in said doujinshi.
It was the time in the afternoon when the operative units of the Special Force were off, departed for field missions or training grounds, and the white-collar employees were burying themselves into paperwork with renewed efforts. Suzuki was walking slowly along the quiet hallway, hunching forward, curled fists deep in her pants pockets. She had just chain-smoked her last few cigarettes. Although it helped her to get her head straight to a certain extent, her hands were still trembling a bit.
She felt reluctant to return to the office yet.
Deciding that she needed to replenish her tobacco supply first, Suzuki ignored the elevator and headed for the cafeteria.
It didn’t take much time. With a couple of packs retrieved from a cigarette vending machine and stuffed inside her jacket, Suzuki stayed by the entrance, brute-forcing through any remotely reasonable excuse to further delay her return.
Nothing clicked. She had to go.
Her glance swept aimlessly over the tables. All vacant... except for one in the remote corner of the room. Suzuki squinted, taking a good look, and stood upright unwittingly as her heartbeat quickened with recognition.
The work had had to wait a little longer.
“Well, well, well, who do we have in here? I hardly believe my eyes!”
Light metal chairs collided with a clack as Suzuki dragged one from a nearby table and flopped down on it, uninvited. Leaning on her elbow, she grinned at the sole occupant of the table. It was none other than Kenshin Kashiwabara all by himself. The young man had been watching her approach and intrusion into his personal space, sipping his drink calmly all the while with an unreadable feline expression.
“Hey, nice to see you too!” Kashiwabara returned her greeting amiably. “What's up?”
“Oh, the usual stuff — except, I didn’t expect to spot you of all people in this location. This is a genuine stroke of luck!”
“You said it!” Kashiwabara laughed. “I honestly can’t remember a time when the job was so unburdensome.”
“Not much to do without your valiant Captain around, eh? Then it’s no wonder you're feasting out here.” Suzuki nodded at a pile of empty plates and bowls accumulated on the tray.
“Haha. Unbelievable, right? Sounds strange, but it occurred to me… Having some actual spare time on my hands, it would be a shame not to take advantage of such an opportunity.”
“I see. Incidentally, how’s he doing?”
Kashiwabara shrugged, averting his eyes. Something about this question seemed a bit odd: as a fellow intelligence squad leader, Suzuki was well aware of the official story regarding Supreme Commander Mikoshiba’s leave of absence, while as a person, she had never appeared as being curious about other people’s private affairs.
“Well… As of late, I often wonder about that, too,” he said after a moment’s hesitation and took a longer gulp that justified the subsequent pause.
“Aww, man! Shunning gossip as ever?”
“Um, not really… But why the sudden interest? Ha, wait! Let me guess,” he perked up. “Asking on behalf of your lady boss?”
“Pfff! For one thing, she’s not my boss, and for another, hell no! That woman will have to deal with her longings all by herself!” Suzuki shook her head violently. “Actually, forget it. That was the wrong topic to pick for a nice lunchtime chitchat.”
Kashiwabara put down his empty cup and sat back with a sigh, watching her intently. “I'm already finished though. Been kind of dawdling over here, so—”
“So what. Do not pretend like you are suddenly in a hurry now, OK?”
“Do you, er — you gonna get something for yourself?”
“Nope. Not hungry. I'd rather look at what you’ve been busy with here. No junk food; just the regular dishes, huh?” Suzuki raised an eyebrow. “That’s so not like you. Now then, why don’t you tell me — how did you like it? Enjoyed yourself?”
“Why, yes… I suppose I did?”
Kashiwabara shifted in his seat, giving heed to himself. While snacks and fast food takeouts, which he habitually consumed on the spot during the ever busy work hours, were hunger-quenching and energy-boosting, it would still be incorrect to deny the fact that this kind of diet lacked something fundamental. He sighed again. A big meal that consisted of proper nutritious foods was settling down differently on him, strangely comforting and sedatively relaxing…
Suzuki watched the thoughtful man slyly, a little smirk lurked in the corner of her mouth. She didn't rush him to respond. But before Kashiwabara could make up his mind on the degree of particularity appropriate for the situation and speak up, his body decided to give out a very explicit declaration of its own.
“Urrp. Uh, ‘scuse me.”
Suzuki felt a quiver creeping up her spine.
“Haha, I got it. There, say no more,” she said, reaching out to give him a head pat. Kashiwabara smiled at her and closed his eyes, leaning into her caressing hand.
If they were ever seen together like this…
Still ruffling his soft curls, Suzuki moved closer and snuck another hand under his half-unbuttoned cardigan.
The swell of his stomach fit nicely against her cupped palm.
“What?” Suzuki grinned with mischief, amused by Kashiwabara’s wide-eyed startled expression. She stroked him slightly, showing no intention to retreat.
“Why, s-stop it!” His hand raised up but wavered halfway through, hovering just an inch away from returning the touch. “Someone might see—”
“Come on, don’t be so edgy. No one's around.” Rubbing her thumb back and forth the distinct prominence in his upper abdomen, Suzuki studied Kashiwabara’s flushed face closely through her square-rimmed glasses. “And I can tell that you really - need - this,” she crooned into his ear, accentuating every word with a light pat.
“Hmph! E-even so... Here’s not the place to get handsy.”
“Oh, indeed. Yet you sound neither convincing nor convinced, you know?”
And the stroking intensified.
The fabric of his shirt felt nice and smooth to touch. Careful to skirt round the buttons, Suzuki explored the altered contours of his bodily terrain: filled and stretched, pushing out into a cute cuddly roundness. She worked every curve of his belly with an attentive affection, enjoying the lovely feel of its squeezable tautness; Kashiwabara made small unintelligible noises of pleasure and arched in for more. When her massaging impact stimulated him into a sequence of not quite stifled burps, Suzuki tingled with furtive delight. Every contented sigh that punctuated his breathing, every gentle motion of rising and falling that she could feel beneath her palm made her heart flutter with ineffable tenderness, and something pinching in her chest unwind.
Normally, Kashiwabara would’ve been cautious and wary of any sort of activity that hadn’t been explicitly planned out beforehand. But the cozy heaviness in his stomach had already lulled him into a lenient, contented placidity, and the warmth spreading from Suzuki’s skillful manipulations was fast enveloping his agile mind in a secure blanket of serenity; and all in all, the rapidly developing consequences of their casual encounter were all too gratifying to resist. So he sank deeper into his seat and yielded to the simplest joy of being petted. Having Suzuki snuggled up to his side — with cigarette smoke still strong on her, with her arm resting on his shoulders, fingers buried in his hair raking his head absentmindedly, — and her hand circling over his stomach with a delicate confidence, rubbing the soothing pressure into the solid lump of his substantial lunch… It was so bold. It felt so good.
For a little while they just sat there and relished each other’s company in a comfortable silence.
Suzuki observed his reactions with an indulgent fondness. Who was fretting about possible witnesses just a minute ago? and look at him now. There was something desperately endearing in the way Kashiwabara so readily surrendered to her touch, something empowering in the way it turned him into a kitten vibrating with pure bliss.
She was so lucky to have him. Open-minded and never judgmental, unlike some others out there. Never overstepping. So generously permissive with Suzuki and her little guilty pleasure.
After all, the relationship the two of them maintained was of a very special kind.
Suzuki had never quite comprehended the intricacies of gender relations, conventional displays of affection, that sort of stuff. She only knew that she got a kick out of holding this precious man. Fondling his tummy full of food. Touching him like this. And he… he kept embracing it willingly, this tender sensuality of togetherness without lewd advances and impossible expectations.
The closeness free of possessiveness. The intimacy devoid of passion and desire.
Suzuki cherished it greatly.
They rarely had to interact with each other at work. Their working hours, packed equally with versatile manhunt activities and more mundane office routines, offered little opportunity for idle distractions. Smoldering quietly in concealment, flaring up only so often, this undefined mutuality, the long-lasting awareness of a pleasant possibility was their very special, very private thing.
How crazy it was to come and pounce at Kashiwabara out of the blue, in broad daylight? About as reckless and erratic as, say, infesting a P2P network with a fresh-coded malware, the sole purpose of which was to replace certain video files with drawn images of an aardvark — something Suzuki had perpetrated as a brash schoolgirl still paving her way into the hacking career.
But those kinds of exploits belonged to days long gone. Suzuki heaved a sigh and wondered distantly if such an impudent manifestation of irrational impulsivity on her part should be qualified as a slip, or rather an urge, and would she get away with it or…
Kashiwabara stirred, and she felt his hand slide in to catch and gently trap down her wandering one.
“Suzuki-kun. Is everything alright?”
“Mmm? Wha’d’you mean?”
“You seem upset.”
“Do I? How so?”
“The nervousness, I can feel it in you. Here,” he squeezed her fingers lightly for emphasis. “And it’s kind of, heh, transmitting.”
Suzuki bit her lip from inside. Their usual custom didn’t include much of the heart-to-heart talking stuff, and that was fine by her. That was enough. The cause of her current ‘nervousness’ was the last thing she wanted to think about, let alone openly discuss. Why try to get under her skin now, dammit, why spoil this tiny moment of belonging!
“A gut feeling? Wow. Much perceptive. Such to expect from the top-rank intel agent of Tokkei.”
Even before the ending syllables slipped her tongue, Suzuki knew that her attempt to cover abashment with a quip fell flat.
She squirmed her hand free and pulled away, annoyed with herself. What was she thinking! Acting on a selfish whim, so presumptuous to assume that he wouldn’t sense her mood, would fail to grasp that something’s off…
Something fiendish had come over her, no less.
Straightened up from his slack pose, Kashiwabara gazed at Suzuki expectantly, a mixture of disturbed complacency and subdued reproach and concern.
Suzuki fixed her glasses, avoiding eye contact. Then, she forced herself to make an effort to explain.
“It's noth- it’s fine, really,” she grumbled reluctantly. “The standard operative bullshit. Those gals… Urgh. Sometimes they just drive me up the friggin wall!”
Kashiwabara smiled at her sympathetically. “Mmm, that sounds familiar. You feel like talking about it?”
Suzuki snorted and rolled her eyes.
“Shhh… If you don’t wanna, it’s okay. I understand.” A tentative hand brushed over her back and lingered on her tense shoulder. “May I…?” Seeing that no rebuff ensued, Kashiwabara wrapped his arm around Suzuki and drew her gingerly into a one-armed embrace. “Sorry I asked.”
Suzuki did not reply, and Kashiwabara did not pursue the subject any further.
The weight of his body rested warmly against her side. His steady breaths grazed against her ear. No lightweight words disrupted the stillness which she found so comforting. The moment stretched. Suzuki’s stance sagged gradually at ease, fists clenched in her lap unclasped.
Her change of mood didn’t go unnoticed. Suzuki felt Kashiwabara’s fingers sneak in between hers, wriggling their way into her loosened grip. She turned to face him.
The first thing that stuck out to her was that Kashiwabara had somehow made his cardigan fully unbuttoned, so that his shirt was fully revealed. A nice fitted shirt that seemed just a bit too adorably snug. Suzui didn’t think that she had seen it before. Its fanciful pattern looked slightly distorted as the lines of tension on the strained cloth highlighted the puffed up shape of Kashiwabara’s stomach, not heavily protruding but prominent just enough to keep a keen eye glued.
Suzuki couldn’t stop staring.
Meanwhile, Kashiwabara took over the initiative. With an enigmatic half-smile he took hold of Suzuki’s limp hand, placed it back, and set to guide it round his middle, slowly and deliberately, gliding over all the right places, applying pressure here and there until, finally, he settled on a sensitive spot where the touch felt nicest. An audible gurgle bubbled up underneath the combined pressure of their palms, a wordless approval of the tangible contact renewed.
“Ho-ho. Not all that skittish anymore, are we?” Suzuki taunted, in a slightly hoarse voice.
Their eyes locked. A funny stray notion popped up in Suzuki’s mind, that the girls of Unit II would’ve killed to have natural eyelashes just as long and thick as his without an ounce of make-up.
“I’m— Oof.”
Kashiwabara cut off with a sharp exhale, flinching and hunching a tad: he clearly did not expect Suzuki to claw her fingertips into his flesh and shake his belly in a rather unceremonious manner. Yet this time, he expressed no displeasure, no protest. His face was burning with vaguely exhilarating thoughts about how much he, in fact, was enjoying it: Suzuki’s daring hands, the sensations of a weighty mass being shifted around inside him, Suzuki’s gleefully glittering eyes, the thrilling risk of exposure — and what the combination of all above was evoking in him…
And just as abruptly, it stopped.
Suzuki released her clutch. With one last admiring slap, her hand rendered still — cradling over that beautifully filled tummy, holding it comfortingly. She could feel Kashiwabara’s pulse there, pumping fast. Much like her own heart.
“That actually feels, ah, quite nice,” Kashiwabara informed her, a little breathless. “What you just did… Mmm.” Suzuki’s hands got back to motion — slow, soothing, gentle — and he moaned softly with delight. “Feels good.”
A faint external vibration buzzed through from somewhere, the reality of another dimension. From her pocket. A text message notification? Without so much as a thought Suzuki ignored it.
“But you’re well aware of that, right? Kiriko… You know exactly— I like it a lot when you do it… mhmm… like this—”
“Oh, will you shut up! Quit babbling all that crap out loud, you moron!”
If Suzuki had any earnest intention to sound dismissive, her voice had failed her completely.
Kashiwabara chuckled. “Why? Enough transgressions for one day?”
There was some different sentiment seeping through his purring tease. There definitely was. A tint of reassurance… A glint of hope?
As a matter of fact, Kashiwabara made no attempt to draw back from her caress — quite the contrary.
“I just thought,” he said, soft and serious and kindly overlooking Suzuki’s awkward rudeness, “that you might’ve been waiting for — that I would say it… directly. For once.”
“Another brilliant insight, huh. And the reasoning behind it is…?”
“Ah…” Kashiwabara nuzzled at her neck, inhaling her smoky scent. Then came a reply. A considerate, almost conspiratorial whisper in her ear. “It’s ‘cause you were right, Suzuki-kun. There is little chance that anyone will walk in on us here and now… nor in the next few minutes, I believe.”