For the first time in a rather long while, actually, Naya was quite pleased. While she herself had not had a direct hand in it, her brother and cousin had finally found each other; while Naya took no end of pleasure at teasing her little brother about the Mark, she was also inexplicably happy for him as well. She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen Haru actually smile for truth so often.
Perhaps it was because she was so happy that she could be heard clear across campus; she was singing, something she did not do in public very often. While she was not singing loudly, the wind carried her voice down from the tree in which she sat.
She wasn't bothered at all by the sun that shone down on her, and if anything, it only made her disposition brighter. Mako was sitting on the branch next to her, his tail twitching as his eyes slowly slipped closed. He always did like Nana-chan's singing.
Tora was pleased as well, of course, though naturally much of his satisfaction was from theârather brilliant, if he did say so himselfâpart heâd played in the whole thing. Of course it was good to have his Henchmen back and not annoyingly mopey, and heâd happily admit to the fact that he preferred things when all was right with them, but he wasnât entirely sure he had much of a capacity to empathize. He tended to leave the touchy-feely shit to Tatsu, who was much better at it, what with that sensitive guilty brooding thing he could do. Tora hadnât ever really been sensitive or felt guilty for anything, and when he wasnât feeling all that great, he tended to choose coping mechanisms other than brooding. Like breaking shit and fucking. Those were great for relieving tension.
Plus, the look on Tatsuâs face whenever he suggested his brother try his methods was probably hands down the funniest thing heâd ever see. Most people probably assumed his brother had one facial expressionâmaybe one and a half, if he was feeling particularly bad about somethingâbut Tora knew he had then all. He could even make the guy do any of them except the smiling one. Heâd lost that one somewhere along the way⊠in fact, Tora knew exactly when.
But now he was feeling down, and he didnât really like it. Time to find a solution, then, and as it so happened, his keen ears picked up on a decidedly-familiar sound. Heâd essentially forced it out of her last time, but she appeared to have decided to sing on her own this time. Well. Wasnât that convenient? Here heâd just been having this problem, and then a solution fell right into his lap. Metaphorically speakingâthe more literal version would take a little more work. Not too much, though, because he was very good at what he did.
âHm⊠beautiful as always, kitten,â he said as soon as the song fell silent. The compliment slid over his tongue smoothly, easily, and he left it opaque whether he referred to the song, her rendition of it, or just her in general. She was in the lower branches of the tree, and so he could see her quite easily, especially considering his height. âGotta say, the view from down here is quite something.â He grinned lasciviouslyâreally, the uniform skirts here were delightfully short, unless one elected to wear the long one on purpose. Naya, however, had not.
Tora wasnât complaining.
How he always managed to sneak up on her, Naya would never know. She blushed lightly, realizing that he'd heard her singing. Honestly, it had been out in the open, so it was her own fault. But she blushed even harder at his comment, and at that...well. Sometimes she really, really hated this man.
She leaned backwards just enough to let gravity bring her down, her fist connecting with the top of his head as she did so, crossing her arms and stepping away from him with a scowl. "So tell me, do many women tell you you're an ass? Because you really are, Torahiko." Her scowl only deepened when Mako jumped from the tree, landing on Tora's head. "Kishi-san!"
He, unfortunately, did not so much as flinch from the hit. Instead, he tilted his head sideways and grinned down at her. âOh, quite a lot,â he said truthfully. âThough not as many as confess to being fond of my ass, suspect me of being an ass man, or beg me to putââ his sentence, still truthful but perhaps too much so, was cut mercifully short by the fact that Mako landed on his head. âHello, Little Mayhem,â he said, reverting from the rather dangerously-low tone heâd just been using to something bright and almost chipper in less time than it took to blink an eye. He reached up and laid a large hand on the cubâs head, rubbing behind both ears at once.
He allowed Naya a moment to think that the presence of children would dissuade him from anything worse, then his eyes fell back to her and the grin inched wider. âGreenâs a very good color on you, kitten.â
No part of the Cross Academy uniform was any shade of green.
Naya made an indecent noise and crossed her arms. "Actually, it is not, it clashes with my hair." She chose to retort back rather than to take the compliment. Or whatever it was he'd verbally slung her way. She never could tell, honestly. She sighed delicately through her nose, arching a blue eyebrow. "Just what exactly are you doing here, Tora?"
Some part of her couldn't help but be inherently suspicious. She'd learned that Tora never did anything without some sort of ulterior motive; it made her wonder just why she liked him, loved him, even. But she could not deny that there was something that she felt for him. On Tora's head, Mako giggled. "I think Nana-chan's p-m-essing." Naya glared at her familiar. "Shut up you little furball, or I'll turn you into an actual hat."
Mako only giggled again, his tail flickering back and forth. "I'm already a hat!"
âAnd a most excellent hat you are, Little Mayhem,â Tora said with a grin, dropping his hand from the tiger cubâs back with a smirk for his joke about what might be causing his mistressâs irritation. Perhaps some men would have been uncomfortable with the mention of such things, but he wasnât. He honestly found it kind of stupid when other people were. It was just biology; what was there to be uncomfortable about?
Tora tilted his head to the side, his grin dimming into a subtler smile, full of mischief. Reaching out, he caught Nayaâs chin and brought his face down close to hers, careful not to unwittingly dislodge his living headwear. âAnd what would you say, Kitten, if I told you that the only reason Iâm here is because I wanted to see you, and this happens to be where you are, hm?He was dangerously close to her mouth with his own, still tilted into that maddening smile that bespoke of things he would not admit to. He was trouble and danger and mischief and a little bit of nonsense, but he was unapologetically, unabashedly, shamelessly, and always himself.
Heâd never seen a good reason to be anyone else, anyway.
Naya's eyes widened slightly; being this close to him, she could feel his breath mixing with hers. Her head clouded and she fought to clear it, jerking backwards when it hit her just how close they were. She scowled only further as she felt her cheeks turning red. "I'd say that I don't believe you. You don't just want to see me, do you?"
The trouble was, she was actually hoping that his answer to that would be that he did want something more; her reaction had been instinctual, even as much as she'd wanted to close that gap between them. That infuriated her more than anything, the fact that she wanted to touch him, to feel him. She sighed through her nose. "So I'll ask again, maybe a little more clearly: what do you want?"
Tora huffed through his nose when she pulled away from him, but he let her go. The blush really was quite becoming, he decided. So wonderfully frank, this girlâit was a trait after his own heart. Well, Tora wasnât really sure he had a heart, but that was probably beside the point here. She was rather poor at hiding the evidence of her desire, also, and it would have been obvious what she wanted even if he hadnât touched her and therefore been able to read her psychometrically.
âAre you so sure you want to know the answer to that question, kitten?â he asked slowly, his voice dropping to a sensual purr. Tora took another step forward, closing the gap sheâd created by moving backwards, the differences in their physicalities obvious in their close proximity. Of course, he fully intended on giving her said answer, whether she confirmed her inclination to hear it or not. âIâll say it again, perhaps a little more clearly: I.â One of his hands reached out, trailing a thumb along her cheekbone and down the side of her throat, to rest over the point of her pulse. âWant.â The hand slid to her shoulder, but his nose followed, insinuating into the crook of her neck and inhaling deeply, before pulling back so that he was a fraction of an inch from her face, the last word breathed almost into her very own lungs, so close were they.
âYou.â With no more warning than that, Tora closed the gap between them, capturing her lips with his own, sliding the hand along its former path to cup the back of her neck and thread his fingers through the cornflower-blue silk of her hair. The other arm found a home around her waist, banding there like steel. She wasnât getting away nowâthough of course he suspected she wouldnât really want to.
Well. She had expected something, but perhaps not something so forceful. But then, this was Torahiko. Forceful was his very nature, in certain respects. That aside, she wasn't wholly prepared for her own body's reaction. Heat pooled in her stomach like liquid fire as her arms looped around his neck. He may have been holding her to him, but it was she that pressed herself closer to him, her hands languidly trailing down the front of his chest as her teeth caught his lower lip.
Tora smiled against her mouth, the hand around her waist finding the hem of her shirt and sliding under, ghosting over her side before his fingers rested, splayed, over the warm skin of her back. She was quite instinctive, but still clearly very new to the whole idea, and he found this of some novel fascination all its own. With no effort at all, he picked her up off the ground, encouraging her to wrap her legs around his waist, but in the end whether or not she chose to was of little relevance, because he moved them until her upper back pressed against the tree, parting her lips with his tongue and sliding it against hers, teasing and coaxing with surprising patience until she caught on to the game, and then, like the fickle creature he was, parting their mouths to instead trail kisses down her jaw and throat, nipping playfully with sharpened fangs at the delicate skin where neck met shoulder.
He pulled away just a fraction of an inch, such that they were still maddeningly close, but not touching. Tora tilted his head to the side, as though studying her, and licked his lips in a decidedly sensual fashion. âWe both know what I want, kitten,â he said simply, his smile positively predatory. Taking one of the locks of her hair that had fallen over her shoulder, he twined it almost absently around a finger. âThe question is, what do you want? And are you going to take it?â
With her legs wrapped around his waist like that or not, she knew very well what he wanted, and the way her own body was reacting, it was decidedly certain that she wanted it, too. It was stupid and dangerous and she simply did not care. She shivered when he licked his lips, the predatory gleam in his eyes only drawing her further towards him rather than sending her away.
Perhaps she should have run, because now she was falling, with no sense of direction or time or awareness of what would happen. All she knew, all she cared about, was him. Though she wasn't overly sure about taking. He had a much vaster knowledge of this respective art than she, hell, her little brother had more experience in this realm than she, so if this was going anywhere, it was he who would have to lead them. That didn't mean she wouldn't answer his question, however breathless she sounded.
"I want you, Kishi-Tora."
Tora chuckled darkly, but it was not a sound of amusement, exactly. That was all heâd really needed. The rest, he would happily teach. He was somewhat considerate in this arena, however; one made a poor lover if one was only interested in oneself, and Tora didnât like being unskilled at anything. Sociopath he may be, but he was also capable of some understanding, at least to a degree. Which was perhaps why he proceeded to gather her up in his arms and run them both to her room, not simply grant her request right there. He had no problem with exhibitionism, but he understood that people, women especially, often considered oneâs first foray into the delightful world of sexuality to be rather important.
Kicking the door shut behind him, he laid her gently atop her covers, backing up for a moment to appreciate the aesthetics of the moment. Theyâd be back to the heat in very little time at all, but some things should be done slowly. He hummed a note in his chest as he traced a callused thumb over one of her cheekbones. âYouâre beautiful, kitten,â he told her matter-of-factly, tracing his fingertips down her throat and past her collarbone and sternum, âbut itâs your spirit that makes you shine.â Leaning down, he kissed her slowly, deeply, and resolved to take his time.
He wouldnât be much of a knight if he rushed it, now would he?
Perhaps it was because she was so happy that she could be heard clear across campus; she was singing, something she did not do in public very often. While she was not singing loudly, the wind carried her voice down from the tree in which she sat.
She wasn't bothered at all by the sun that shone down on her, and if anything, it only made her disposition brighter. Mako was sitting on the branch next to her, his tail twitching as his eyes slowly slipped closed. He always did like Nana-chan's singing.
Tora was pleased as well, of course, though naturally much of his satisfaction was from theârather brilliant, if he did say so himselfâpart heâd played in the whole thing. Of course it was good to have his Henchmen back and not annoyingly mopey, and heâd happily admit to the fact that he preferred things when all was right with them, but he wasnât entirely sure he had much of a capacity to empathize. He tended to leave the touchy-feely shit to Tatsu, who was much better at it, what with that sensitive guilty brooding thing he could do. Tora hadnât ever really been sensitive or felt guilty for anything, and when he wasnât feeling all that great, he tended to choose coping mechanisms other than brooding. Like breaking shit and fucking. Those were great for relieving tension.
Plus, the look on Tatsuâs face whenever he suggested his brother try his methods was probably hands down the funniest thing heâd ever see. Most people probably assumed his brother had one facial expressionâmaybe one and a half, if he was feeling particularly bad about somethingâbut Tora knew he had then all. He could even make the guy do any of them except the smiling one. Heâd lost that one somewhere along the way⊠in fact, Tora knew exactly when.
But now he was feeling down, and he didnât really like it. Time to find a solution, then, and as it so happened, his keen ears picked up on a decidedly-familiar sound. Heâd essentially forced it out of her last time, but she appeared to have decided to sing on her own this time. Well. Wasnât that convenient? Here heâd just been having this problem, and then a solution fell right into his lap. Metaphorically speakingâthe more literal version would take a little more work. Not too much, though, because he was very good at what he did.
âHm⊠beautiful as always, kitten,â he said as soon as the song fell silent. The compliment slid over his tongue smoothly, easily, and he left it opaque whether he referred to the song, her rendition of it, or just her in general. She was in the lower branches of the tree, and so he could see her quite easily, especially considering his height. âGotta say, the view from down here is quite something.â He grinned lasciviouslyâreally, the uniform skirts here were delightfully short, unless one elected to wear the long one on purpose. Naya, however, had not.
Tora wasnât complaining.
How he always managed to sneak up on her, Naya would never know. She blushed lightly, realizing that he'd heard her singing. Honestly, it had been out in the open, so it was her own fault. But she blushed even harder at his comment, and at that...well. Sometimes she really, really hated this man.
She leaned backwards just enough to let gravity bring her down, her fist connecting with the top of his head as she did so, crossing her arms and stepping away from him with a scowl. "So tell me, do many women tell you you're an ass? Because you really are, Torahiko." Her scowl only deepened when Mako jumped from the tree, landing on Tora's head. "Kishi-san!"
He, unfortunately, did not so much as flinch from the hit. Instead, he tilted his head sideways and grinned down at her. âOh, quite a lot,â he said truthfully. âThough not as many as confess to being fond of my ass, suspect me of being an ass man, or beg me to putââ his sentence, still truthful but perhaps too much so, was cut mercifully short by the fact that Mako landed on his head. âHello, Little Mayhem,â he said, reverting from the rather dangerously-low tone heâd just been using to something bright and almost chipper in less time than it took to blink an eye. He reached up and laid a large hand on the cubâs head, rubbing behind both ears at once.
He allowed Naya a moment to think that the presence of children would dissuade him from anything worse, then his eyes fell back to her and the grin inched wider. âGreenâs a very good color on you, kitten.â
No part of the Cross Academy uniform was any shade of green.
Naya made an indecent noise and crossed her arms. "Actually, it is not, it clashes with my hair." She chose to retort back rather than to take the compliment. Or whatever it was he'd verbally slung her way. She never could tell, honestly. She sighed delicately through her nose, arching a blue eyebrow. "Just what exactly are you doing here, Tora?"
Some part of her couldn't help but be inherently suspicious. She'd learned that Tora never did anything without some sort of ulterior motive; it made her wonder just why she liked him, loved him, even. But she could not deny that there was something that she felt for him. On Tora's head, Mako giggled. "I think Nana-chan's p-m-essing." Naya glared at her familiar. "Shut up you little furball, or I'll turn you into an actual hat."
Mako only giggled again, his tail flickering back and forth. "I'm already a hat!"
âAnd a most excellent hat you are, Little Mayhem,â Tora said with a grin, dropping his hand from the tiger cubâs back with a smirk for his joke about what might be causing his mistressâs irritation. Perhaps some men would have been uncomfortable with the mention of such things, but he wasnât. He honestly found it kind of stupid when other people were. It was just biology; what was there to be uncomfortable about?
Tora tilted his head to the side, his grin dimming into a subtler smile, full of mischief. Reaching out, he caught Nayaâs chin and brought his face down close to hers, careful not to unwittingly dislodge his living headwear. âAnd what would you say, Kitten, if I told you that the only reason Iâm here is because I wanted to see you, and this happens to be where you are, hm?He was dangerously close to her mouth with his own, still tilted into that maddening smile that bespoke of things he would not admit to. He was trouble and danger and mischief and a little bit of nonsense, but he was unapologetically, unabashedly, shamelessly, and always himself.
Heâd never seen a good reason to be anyone else, anyway.
Naya's eyes widened slightly; being this close to him, she could feel his breath mixing with hers. Her head clouded and she fought to clear it, jerking backwards when it hit her just how close they were. She scowled only further as she felt her cheeks turning red. "I'd say that I don't believe you. You don't just want to see me, do you?"
The trouble was, she was actually hoping that his answer to that would be that he did want something more; her reaction had been instinctual, even as much as she'd wanted to close that gap between them. That infuriated her more than anything, the fact that she wanted to touch him, to feel him. She sighed through her nose. "So I'll ask again, maybe a little more clearly: what do you want?"
Tora huffed through his nose when she pulled away from him, but he let her go. The blush really was quite becoming, he decided. So wonderfully frank, this girlâit was a trait after his own heart. Well, Tora wasnât really sure he had a heart, but that was probably beside the point here. She was rather poor at hiding the evidence of her desire, also, and it would have been obvious what she wanted even if he hadnât touched her and therefore been able to read her psychometrically.
âAre you so sure you want to know the answer to that question, kitten?â he asked slowly, his voice dropping to a sensual purr. Tora took another step forward, closing the gap sheâd created by moving backwards, the differences in their physicalities obvious in their close proximity. Of course, he fully intended on giving her said answer, whether she confirmed her inclination to hear it or not. âIâll say it again, perhaps a little more clearly: I.â One of his hands reached out, trailing a thumb along her cheekbone and down the side of her throat, to rest over the point of her pulse. âWant.â The hand slid to her shoulder, but his nose followed, insinuating into the crook of her neck and inhaling deeply, before pulling back so that he was a fraction of an inch from her face, the last word breathed almost into her very own lungs, so close were they.
âYou.â With no more warning than that, Tora closed the gap between them, capturing her lips with his own, sliding the hand along its former path to cup the back of her neck and thread his fingers through the cornflower-blue silk of her hair. The other arm found a home around her waist, banding there like steel. She wasnât getting away nowâthough of course he suspected she wouldnât really want to.
Well. She had expected something, but perhaps not something so forceful. But then, this was Torahiko. Forceful was his very nature, in certain respects. That aside, she wasn't wholly prepared for her own body's reaction. Heat pooled in her stomach like liquid fire as her arms looped around his neck. He may have been holding her to him, but it was she that pressed herself closer to him, her hands languidly trailing down the front of his chest as her teeth caught his lower lip.
Tora smiled against her mouth, the hand around her waist finding the hem of her shirt and sliding under, ghosting over her side before his fingers rested, splayed, over the warm skin of her back. She was quite instinctive, but still clearly very new to the whole idea, and he found this of some novel fascination all its own. With no effort at all, he picked her up off the ground, encouraging her to wrap her legs around his waist, but in the end whether or not she chose to was of little relevance, because he moved them until her upper back pressed against the tree, parting her lips with his tongue and sliding it against hers, teasing and coaxing with surprising patience until she caught on to the game, and then, like the fickle creature he was, parting their mouths to instead trail kisses down her jaw and throat, nipping playfully with sharpened fangs at the delicate skin where neck met shoulder.
He pulled away just a fraction of an inch, such that they were still maddeningly close, but not touching. Tora tilted his head to the side, as though studying her, and licked his lips in a decidedly sensual fashion. âWe both know what I want, kitten,â he said simply, his smile positively predatory. Taking one of the locks of her hair that had fallen over her shoulder, he twined it almost absently around a finger. âThe question is, what do you want? And are you going to take it?â
With her legs wrapped around his waist like that or not, she knew very well what he wanted, and the way her own body was reacting, it was decidedly certain that she wanted it, too. It was stupid and dangerous and she simply did not care. She shivered when he licked his lips, the predatory gleam in his eyes only drawing her further towards him rather than sending her away.
Perhaps she should have run, because now she was falling, with no sense of direction or time or awareness of what would happen. All she knew, all she cared about, was him. Though she wasn't overly sure about taking. He had a much vaster knowledge of this respective art than she, hell, her little brother had more experience in this realm than she, so if this was going anywhere, it was he who would have to lead them. That didn't mean she wouldn't answer his question, however breathless she sounded.
"I want you, Kishi-Tora."
Tora chuckled darkly, but it was not a sound of amusement, exactly. That was all heâd really needed. The rest, he would happily teach. He was somewhat considerate in this arena, however; one made a poor lover if one was only interested in oneself, and Tora didnât like being unskilled at anything. Sociopath he may be, but he was also capable of some understanding, at least to a degree. Which was perhaps why he proceeded to gather her up in his arms and run them both to her room, not simply grant her request right there. He had no problem with exhibitionism, but he understood that people, women especially, often considered oneâs first foray into the delightful world of sexuality to be rather important.
Kicking the door shut behind him, he laid her gently atop her covers, backing up for a moment to appreciate the aesthetics of the moment. Theyâd be back to the heat in very little time at all, but some things should be done slowly. He hummed a note in his chest as he traced a callused thumb over one of her cheekbones. âYouâre beautiful, kitten,â he told her matter-of-factly, tracing his fingertips down her throat and past her collarbone and sternum, âbut itâs your spirit that makes you shine.â Leaning down, he kissed her slowly, deeply, and resolved to take his time.
He wouldnât be much of a knight if he rushed it, now would he?