Archive of Our Own

As per usual, the train Hakuno took to get back home from campus was packed and insalubrious, crowded beyond belief and leaving people with little to no room to move or even breathe.

In fact, she was currently pinned against the cabin’s doors because there was no other free spot that she could move to, which meant that whenever the train stopped and the doors opened, Hakuno was only relieved momentarily from her little prison of sweat and disgusting bodily smells, because then more people would board on the train than people would leave, and the wave of incoming new passengers would nearly crush her in the process since she was quite literally in the middle of the crowd.

If Hakuno had to hazard a guess, she’d say the thermic sensation within the subway car had to be at least 5 degrees higher than outdoor temperature, and of course, and in keeping with tradition, assholes just couldn’t keep themselves still, no; they had to push forward into the crammed space of their subway car, even though it was obvious there was no room for anyone else to get inside and that they should better wait for the next—and really now, Hakuno was sure there should be some kind of law prohibiting this kind of shit from happening when maximum seating capacity had already been met and anything exceeding that would put people’s health in danger, but who cared? It wasn’t as if someone losing consciousness because of the overbearing heat and the oppressive crammed space was that odd of an occurrence by now, so clearly no one cared.

Hakuno hates the city.

She hates the city with all her being.

To top it off, there were also the people who tried to elbow their way through, trying to get from one subway car to the next as if by some miracle they would find a less crammed car, as if that would help them gain some much-needed personal space (again, futile, the subway cars, all of them, were so overcrowded everyone had to stand shoulder to shoulder with each other), which inevitably caused waves of people to knock into each other in an almost visually hypnotic and perhaps even comedic effect not unlike domino pieces tumbling down onto one another.

There was a moment in which the train halts at once, maybe due to the sheer weight of people inside or maybe because the city’s public transport was really that shitty, Hakuno’s not sure which one it is this time around—what she knows, however, is that she just happened to be right in the way for someone to crash into her back, which of course caused her to stumble forward and almost lose her ground. It was a good thing she managed to grab onto the rail at the very last moment before she could fall and make an ass of herself.

Hakuno grumbled as she tried to keep her balance, gripping the rail that much tighter as the train started moving again. Why were city people such pieces of shit? Why couldn’t they be nice to one another? Or more careful? Sure, that wasn’t probably their fault, but a whispered ‘sorry’ would hurt nobody.

Tired of being elbowed or pushed for no good fucking reason by subway assholes who had probably never heard about the meaning of the word 'sorry', Hakuno was about to turn around and give the bastard who had nearly knocked her over a piece of her mind. Who knows, maybe she could give them something else if it was someone she could possibly have a winning chance against if she were to start shit with them.

However, all those promises of violence died short the moment she felt it.

Hard not to, really.

Because said bastard had their hand on her ass.

T-The nerve!

Her first reaction was a sudden rush of anger than then quickly melted into paralyzing shock the moment she put this into proper context; she was riding an overcrowded train back to her sad excuse of a shoebox of an apartment, and there was someone grabbing her ass and could easily get away with it in this crammed, unbreathable space.

She waited for a moment to see if they moved—accidents could happen, she and a bunch of other people had nearly fallen because the train halted abruptly and that one asshole just couldn’t stay put, she had sometimes seen herself forced to grab onto people so as not to fall. Perhaps Hakuno was someone else’s only lifeline preventing them from falling face first onto the floor—however, when the hand moved not to leave but to come rest at her hip, Hakuno started to panic.

What… what was she supposed to do in a situation like this? Punch the guy and start shit with him and hope for the best? Call him out and hope people would support her cause in case things got a little too violent? Move away?—wait, no, no, that last one was out of the question; with how crammed the car was, she couldn’t possibly move from where she stood even if she had honestly wanted to.

She was stuck, forced into this position, and she had to think of something else.

She could also pretend it didn’t happen. She was definitely overthinking this. Surely it was a mistake, the guy just needed to grab onto something and she just happens to be on the way. There are not many rails left to grab onto, anyway. She just needs to calm down.

She breathes in heavily.

It’s fine. She’s fine. Hakuno was already very adept to the subtle but very intricate art of not giving a fuck, so this was nothing. Maybe she could just wait for the next stop and hope it won’t happen again, sending away whatever perverse thoughts that clung to the experience as a whole and use whatever new wave of incoming passengers to move somewhere safer—not less overcrowded but definitely safer.

Still breathing harshly, she noticed she could see the reflection of whoever was behind her on the window of the car’s door, if she were to look.

With her heart hammering in her chest, she glances up, hoping she’d be as discreet as possible, following the hand up to the arm of the person it belonged to in hopes she could get a glimpse at his face through the reflection in the door’s mirror. Perhaps if she gets a glimpse of wherever is behind her, she can better weight her options between starting shit with him or try call him out.

What she sees in the window’s reflection is actually a sight that has her holding her breath, for she recognizes it: sun kissed skin below black leather and simple-white cotton, entrancing red eyes, blonde hair.

Oh.

Oh, no.

Out of all the subway assholes she could have started shit with, the man who was groping her had to be none other than him, the one foreign bastard whose infamous reputation preceded him to such a ridiculous extent even Hakuno, with whom he’s only ever shared one class in this whole semester and who’s not exchanged many words with him (she kind of remembers Gilgamesh giving her grief one day about something about an aquatic park project, but the rest of that conversation is blissful white static), recognized him and even knew him by name.

Gilgamesh, one such bastard who incidentally also looked as though he came out of one of those guilty wet dreams she wholeheartedly blamed Kiara for implanting into her mind—ones Hakuno would never admit to having, no matter how terrible a torture she was subjected to, where someone coincidentally looking exactly just like him would come and fuck her stupid.

Okay, fine—Hakuno won’t lie; she may try to, but she knew there was no way she could fool herself. Not with how terrible a liar she was, anyway, and the truth was… that even though she’s always gone into endless tirades about how she would never let him lay a finger on her, she’s sometimes wondered what it’d be like to tumble into bed with him and catch something more than just opportunistic glances at him.

But that was all it was; a mere, passing fantasy, because Hakuno knows pursuing him is not worth it; she’s seen too many people cry over their poor choices concerning this man, she’s seen how shitty a human being he is with them, how he takes, takes and takes from them and then he leaves them aching, and she’d rather die than join his trail of broken, sentimental corpses.

Hakuno wishes it was an exaggeration, but it’s not like he’s ever tried to hide how much of an asshole he is, or like he’s ever tried to tone it down at all, even; that Gilgamesh is as much of a whore as he is also an ungrateful bastard is a well-known fact in campus, a universal truth if you will. Hakuno should know, she recognizes them as she sees them. This is why she knows she’s not doing herself any favors by acting like an interested woman in front of him, even when she keeps at a safe distance, content with just watching him from afar, in the comfort of her own irrelevance and safe in the knowledge that he will never perceive her.

Besides, Gilgamesh was overrated and way too overhyped for a guy who was about as plain and cliché as an anime villain character. Hakuno wasn’t being petty just for the sake of being petty with him, for it was the plain, obvious truth and anyone with two eyes could attest to that fact. She can’t really understand the appeal to a guy like him when there’s literally thousands of other guys out there on Insta doing the exact same fuckboy cosplay that he does, biker clothes, shit-eating grin and everything. She can only explain his bullshitingly big reputation to the fact that he’s blonde, has a tan and is foreign—in other words, exotic; that’s all there is to him.

…Although probably none of those other thousands of guys have the same seductive glint his eyes have, nor the sly smirk, or the sun-kissed skin, or the taut ripples of muscles over their chests like he does, and surely they don’t have nearly as many people attesting to the fact that they can make legs go weak and panties get soaked with just the sound of their voices—about just what they can do with their tongues and their fingers.

And this was as far as Hakuno was going to allow her thoughts to wander.

This is either the strangest, most twisted coincidence in Hakuno’s long-suffering life or some absurd miracle plotted by fate, if such a thing actually existed, because certainly Gilgamesh couldn't have really meant to grope her like that, right?

Hakuno bites her lip, clears her throat and looks back and around.

Nobody is looking their way. Everybody is engrossed on their phones, chatting away or simply minding their own business, and even some of the lucky people who got to take a seat had dozed off, most of them out like a light and probably going to miss their stop.

…She really shouldn’t.

She knows she shouldn’t.

Hell, she knows this is the worst idea she’s ever had out of her very long list of bad decisions and terrible fuckups she’s made over the years. Hakuno also knows that she doesn’t have the guts to do something as bold, anyway, so she shouldn’t be trying things this dangerous when she’s not even conquered the more mild stuff—because she was what Kiara liked to call ‘too vanilla’, too much a straight arrow, too much a miss-goody-two-shoes to do something like that, but the thrill was too electric, almost overpowering—and so, red as a brick, hands trembling, legs shaking and breath shallow, Hakuno shifted slightly to press herself into the man's hand experimentally.

Just slightly. It’s barely worth anything, but he notices eventually; the way her back was arched, the way she hadn’t tried to swat his hand away, how she was very deliberately trying to keep it there. It’s not like she was being very subtle about it by any means, and though she knows this very  well, the way he laughs under his breath at her wanton display still makes her flush with shame.

However, he does nothing else than that.

A long, agonizing second passed as Hakuno just waited for something to happen, not daring to go any further than that—however, perhaps tired of waiting for her to make an even bolder move, make or break, the man behind her decided to make that decision for her and his hand moved to grope her more firmly.

Hakuno, who was not really expecting her stunt would actually elicit a reaction this bold -or a reaction at all-, lost control of all of her higher thought processes.

The train makes a sharp turn that forces his body to press up to hers while inertia keeps her own body pressed against the door, the siderail digging uncomfortably against her chest as she tries not to fall under his weight as well as that of everyone who’s behind them.

The sound she makes — a broken, wanton thing, choked in her efforts to be discreet, is blessedly swallowed by the cacophony of chatter around them.

Okay.

Okay.

Shit, this was a bad idea.

This was very, very bad, she reminds herself again—but she still had time to go back on that, right? She could still turn around and show him who she really was: his classmate, the one to whom he once said was too plain for his tastes. The longer she waited, the weirder it’ll be to just tell him. Hakuno wasn’t sure if he would remember her at all, considering just how easy it was for her to blend in with the crowd of faceless students at their college, but it was still worth a shot.

Only there’s a problem with that—and it’s the fact that Hakuno’s limbs weren’t even making an effort to obey what her better judgment was telling them to do. It’s like her brain just short-circuited and now she’s going on autopilot, and even if she wanted to, no matter how much she regretted her decisions, Hakuno could no longer go back on them.

To add insult to injury, at the back of her mind, there was a tiny little voice sounding way too similar to that of one certain philosophy major to whom she should have never listened to in the first place, whispering into her mind ‘slutty beggars can’t be slutty choosers, Hakuno honey’. There’s also another voice; which sounds suspiciously like Rin’s, that reminds her to ‘stop crushing on assholes, Hakuno – you’ve never done it before and you shouldn’t start now that you’re twenty. It’s a complete and total fourteen-year-old move. Okay?’

Gods, Hakuno wishes she could just shut them all up -too much noise, way  too much noise-, but she can’t—and even worse, Kiara’s syrupy croon was getting far too ingrained into her by now, the woman never ever shutting up even in the deep crevices of her mind, so listening to her imaginary Rin’s well-intended advice was that much more difficult.

Well, what was Hakuno even supposed to do now that the damage was done? Keep it going and see where this terrible idea led her to? Try to stop before it could go into more dangerous waters?

She could feel that telltale dampness between her legs, and it served to remind her that this was a mistake; a huge, colossal mistake that Hakuno was sinking deeper and deeper into the more she allowed this to progress further.

She should take a step back now that she still could, push against the people who were pushing her back, and regain some of her space —but just as the thought crosses her mind, the blond takes her by the hips and pushes himself forward to grind his crotch into her, up and down to let her feel the swell of his half-hard cock against her ass and fill her thoughts with the intoxicating implications of what’s about to happen; almost as if he was privy to her internal conflict and was providing her with reasons not to put an end to this.

He even leans in to drag his lips against her hairline, subtle enough a contact that one could think of it as a result of their forced proximity rather than a deliberate kiss. Whatever the real reason for it, it had her filled with nervous excitement.

Hakuno gasps, knees starting to quake and struggling not to make any more noises that could give her away as the man’s other hand had travelled from her hip to toy with the hem of her skirt before sneaking beneath, more experienced hands knowing exactly what to do to her.

The thrill was electric as the man started rubbing his finger lightly back and forth over her folds and over the cotton of her underwear. It’s so much, and yet not nearly enough. She throws her head back despite herself, resting it against his shoulder.

“So you really intend to let me touch you like this…” The man murmured in her ear, a hint of fondness in his voice as his finger rubbed circles over her, coating her undies with more of her slick.

Hakuno doesn’t need to see her own expression in the door’s window to know what she might look like with her lips slightly ajar and her eyes closed, unable to hide what those words did to her arousal as her stomach pooled more and more hotness.

Shit. Did he recognize her, the nondescript college girl who spent more time at the library devouring books and papers, worrying about midterms rather than getting plastered every Friday and twice on Saturdays, in the same way she has recognized him as the asshole on campus who fucks everything that moves or wears a skirt and who just can’t shut up?

She knows she shouldn’t be aroused by this base, disgusting thing, this had to be like the fifth or sixth guilty reminder by now. Granted, she was no nun by  any means, but she wasn’t a wanton seductress either; she didn’t go around parties taking numbers and leaving a trail of broken hearts as she goes along, and judging by what she’s heard from her friends -Kiara’s words return to her, too vanilla- she didn’t think any of them saw her that way, so Hakuno can be certain she wasn’t misjudging herself.

She always gets too invested in the end, no matter how hard she tries not to, she’s too soft to be this careless, but…

…but just the mere idea of getting fingered in public by him, a man who was no more than a stranger, no matter how many opportunistic glances she’s stolen of him, made her wet all over, almost gushing in her underwear at this point.

Hakuno wishes this wasn’t arousing her at all, but she feels so light-headed and so alight with desire it's like she's in someone else's body, one that doesn't even have the decency to make any of this feel wrong.

“You are gushing…” He croons his approval. Over the loud sea of chatter on the train, with how close to one another they were, Hakuno could only hope she was the only one who heard that. “Even if you won’t beg for me verbally, your body will tell me everything.”

Hakuno sneaks a peek at the door’s mirror, only to regret it as soon as her eyes meet with his—staring right back at her, bright even in the shitty artificial light of the cabin as he looks at her with molten desire, a niggling feeling at the back of her mind telling her that he’s looked at her like this before…

“What’s wrong?” The hand around her hip draws her even closer to the warm, hard body at her. Goosebumps erupt all over her skin when he leans in to press his lips to her ear and murmurs, “Why so nervous now? Is it that you are unable to handle it? Can you not even take what you asked for?”

The frustrated, needy gasp that was torn from her mouth didn't add much to the idea that she didn't want this.

Shit. She was down bad.

Her heart beats so loudly she could even hear it above the roar of the train and the chatter of the people in the cabin. She idly wondered if he could hear it too.

She tries to look around, worried someone might have noticed the way her face had gone slack for a second and had been clever enough to put two and two together. She feared what would happen, she fears that the train passengers will hear or see their indiscretions, but this had her too intrigued, way too involved and way too worked up to even consider stopping.

Pressed as she was against the door, there weren’t many other people she was pressed back against, and the angle was good enough that the man at her back covered most of the pace that not many people could hope to get an eyeful. If the dude with the headphones to her left noticed them getting handsy, he probably didn’t care, still scrolling idly through his phone.

Gilgamesh must have noticed her fidgeting, for Hakuno could definitely hear the smile in his voice as he whispered, “You want it so terribly, but you don't want anyone to know. Is that it?”

Dizzying though it is being on the receiving end of so much of his attention, Hakuno still manages to drag what little is left of her composure back together and glare at him through the door’s mirror. He doesn’t say anything else—he only chuckles under his breath as his grin gets a little bigger, and when he crooks his fingers to push the line of her underwear to a side, Hakuno’s glare melts away with a gasp of repressed anticipation, her mouth falling open to pant into the air, humid-hot.

She could feel the fabric starting to cling, but she hadn't realized she was that wet until he started to glide his fingers directly into her folds, without the barrier of cotton. By the look of things, if the hitch in his breath was anything to go by, he was just as surprised as she was—he hadn’t expected to find her that wet already, either, but he recovered quickly from his stupor.

Before she can realize it, a finger is spreading her open. When the first slow thrust of that finger was joined by another, she had to bite her lips to quell a sigh. When they start to play with her lazily, slowly rubbing her inner walls with the pad of his fingers, fucking his fingers in and out, she nearly moaned out loud. In fact, with how loud her heartbeat roared, she wasn’t sure if the sound that came out from her lips was a moan or a much quieter gasp.

“Not so loud,” The man whispered, voice a mockingly sweet croon, lips still pressed against her ear. “You wouldn't want the other passengers to hear you, would you?” She shook her head quickly, biting her lower lip. “Good.”

She forgets herself, forgets everything as she rides the high, letting him play with her pussy some more, letting him do things with his fingers that leave her lightheaded and wishing they could be replaced with something more fulfilling, until she’s certain he’s feeling this just as keenly as she was feeling it, until they were both breathless with want and pent-up frustration.

She rocked her hips in a gentle motion, riding his fingers as they slipped deeper and fucked away the painful emptiness inside her. It can’t compare to the real thing, but it’s close enough and fulfilling in its own merit. She trembles and trembles as she tries her very best to stay still and not get loud, the pits of her stomach pulsing with the electric thrill of adrenaline and an impending orgasm.

However, in spite of her best efforts to remain quiet and keep an unaffectedly neutral exterior, Hakuno knew they were still making too much noise. The thrusting of his fingers was staring to be too loud; it sounded far too wet, and the flexing of his wrist beneath her skirt was far too quick not to be something else. She must be sweating and flushed red as a brick as well. What they were doing was too obviously sex, and as she tries to quell her moans she can’t help but wonder now if no one’s yet said anything to them not because they have done an amazing job at being subtle, but because they were too skittish and afraid to do something about it.

“Shh!” He whispers harshly against the crown of her head. His wrist stops flexing, and she has to control herself not to whine with loss, “Or I’ll stop.”

“Fuck.” Hakuno shuts her eyes close, the knuckles of her hands going white as her grip on the rail tightens, holding onto dear life. “Just finish what you started!” she whispers in return, just as harshly, disregarding for a second that technically he didn’t start anything at all, that this was all her fault, that she fell into this mistake all on her own.

He chuckles, kisses the top of her hair. “You will find obedience will get you more rewards than attitude will. Be good and I’ll grant you reprieve. I'll make sure to reward you well every time you follow my instructions.”

“But I’m good,” she retorts, promises, “Fuck, I’m good.”

There was just too much happening here. Too much noise, too much stimulation, too much of everything, and she felt so guilty about it and yet so close as she bit her lip and struggled to keep quiet that she couldn’t compute it all. The pleasure was enough to make her delirious, and it was hard to keep a coherent thought process with what he was doing behind her.

…And then, there was a moment right as her peak was about to hit, when she was about to be louder than she should for certain, but it was roughly about the same time that he slid his fingers out of her, wiping his hands on his sweats, and what would have otherwise been a loud moan of fulfillment turned into a pained whine that took her more than she was willing to accept to recognize as of her own make.

Hakuno was too far away from reality to really understand why he did what he did, until the doors started to open on their side again.

She didn’t even hear the announcement, so it takes her a belated moment to realize; her reaction was slower than it should have been.

In a blink of a moment, a strong, sure hand wraps tightly around her wrist, and then he pushes her—pushes her through the multitude of people and right outside as the doors start closing in on them and he fits between them in the nick of time, barely evading getting stuck himself.

They also barely evade the people who were already piling into the cabin, shuffling rather forcefully past them. Hakuno was sure she heard someone from within the cabin grumble rather loudly and angrily ‘this is why I fucking hate teenagers’, and though she was tempted to remind the asshole neither one of them were teenagers at all, something got in the way of her need to vent her frustrations.

Light-headed as she was, she only realized she was actually outside the cabin now and being spun around when it was over.

Instead of facing the doors of a subway cabin as she’s been all this time, she was now met instead with the man who’s been behind her all this time, only now face to face.

His eyes seem to glow red beneath the artificial lights, and he lost no time to take her by the chin, fingers digging into her cheeks to allow her no room to leave until he seemed inescapable, absolute.

Hakuno makes a choked sound. Two golden eyebrows quizzically rise at that.

“Why do you look so surprised? Did you really think I didn’t know it was you all this time? I could see you in the window the entire time.”

Hakuno swallows, not sure what to do with this revelation, trapped in this peculiar situation where she did not know precisely how she had ended up there or if she actually wanted out of it.

“Why didn’t—" Hakuno inhales and holds her breath for a moment, trying to figure out how she’s supposed to answer that, “why didn’t you fucking say anything if you knew?!” Hakuno manages to ask, sounding as baffled as the moment deserved, slightly disoriented. Her legs still feel like jelly.

“Why did you not?” He counters with a question of his own, sounding far less accusing and much more amused. Hakuno wouldn’t put it past this asshole that this has somehow made him feel proud -at himself? At her?- in some way.

Again, Hakuno finds herself at a loss of words, because he’s fucking right, and there was no way she’d tell him half the allure of this was thinking he didn’t know it was her. She didn’t want to give him unneeded ammunition.

…Shit, she should be embarrassed, shouldn’t she?

“…Well, let it be; that little test of courage of yours ended up playing in my favor, anyway, so I shall keep my admonishments to myself. Not that I have many to give you—I am quite fond of those who shall stop at nothing to get what they most desire, and I must admit your conflicted face back there, with your eyes so clouded with lust, was well worth my silence.”

Worth his silence?

He’s such a little shit, acting like he's done her a favor!

“In any case—”

“In any case?”

“—In any case,” he continues, watching her with half-lidded eyes and a lazy smile on his lips, looking so smug it was a miracle he could physically stand it, “…For such a happy little misunderstanding, you certainly looked like you were enjoying yourself back then,” he crooned. “Were you merely satisfying an itch? Or were you trying to find excuses to get me to touch you, specifically?”

Hakuno’s—

“W-What?”

—Hakuno’s whole brain short circuited at that moment. His words hit like a lightning strike.

If Hakuno thought he looked smug before, now his smug levels were so off the charts it was impossible for a human being to contain it.

“In truth, it's just as I said. It was but an accident,” he continued, sounding no contrite whatsoever as he grinned like a cat that caught the canary. “I was bumped by another passenger and I touched you by mistake. You were the only thing keeping me up at the moment, so you have no right to act so conceited.”

Hakuno blinks dumbly at him.

He'd… done this on a whim because of a misunderstanding…?

“But—you didn't move your hand!” Hakuno protested, placing a hand against his chest to push herself away from him and properly glare him up, looking as aghast as the situation deserved. If she didn’t feel mortified before, now she did.

The man seemed surprised by her strength, but beyond unintimidated. Again, he just looks—amused. The kind of amused that made his eyes shine, wide and alert, with an emotion Hakuno was learning to dread to see on his face.

“Such impudence!” The man chuckled. “But you pushed yourself to me, Hakuno; or don’t you remember?” He said, as if that should be reason enough for him to be like this. “There is nothing you should feel contrite about, mongrel; You are very compelling when you think you have nothing to lose. To what end would I want to interrupt something so rare? And especially when something amusing lands on my lap as willingly as you have?”

Hakuno gave him a bemused, deadpan stare. “You’re really not trying to trick me into believing this was some kind of ‘social experiment’ bullshit, are you?”

For a moment she was sure the blonde’s eyes flashed bright red as he answered, “Hardly. It was but a whim, if you will.” He flashed her a shit-eating grin. “I wanted to see how low you’d go for it, Hakuno, since you were so desperate, and what you’ve shown me far exceeds whatever expectations I had for you. I am regretful nonetheless, that I had to pull away so soon--but you could have gotten us caught with all those beautiful sounds you were making, so I had to improvise.”

Hakuno chokes in her own words again.

He fingerfucked her in a subway cabin on a so-called whim because he… what? Wanted to outsmart her? Unbelievable.

Now that her mind is that much clearer, she really cannot believe they are there, in the middle of an overcrowded metro station, having this kind of conversation—they sure as hell shouldn’t be having this kind of talk with so many people being witness to it.

This is the moment Hakuno snapped out of her glitching session and outright bristled at him, jabbing a finger in his chest. “Don’t look at me with that look on your face; you’ve done way worse than me!”

It’s a fact, a statement of a reality, not a compliment. Hakuno doesn’t mean this like a compliment at all, she doesn’t want it to sound like one, and she’s sure the blond knows this is not supposed to be a compliment—so why the fuck is he grinning from ear to ear?

He doesn’t look the slightest bit remorseful. Amused would be more accurate; he doesn’t budge when she jabs that finger into his chest, or when she tries to wriggle free from his embrace when Gilgamesh just reins her in place by wrapping his arms around her waist, pushing her back to him like she’s just a rowdy dog pulling at his leash.

He even laughs at her as he says, “I have never claimed not to. I have no need to indulge in delusions of self-righteousness, Hakuno. I am what I am, and I do and take as I please. Rather, I should think you are the one who’s trying to keep the moral high ground, not me. It’s endearing a sight, even if fake coyness doesn’t suit you.”

She levels him with a flat look, crossing her arms -it’s a little hard, considering that she’s still being encased in the cloyingness of his embrace, but Hakuno manages to free her arms. Gilgamesh merely smirks at her in return. “Now, don’t look at me with such resentful eyes. It’s already too late for you now to pretend you initiated this without knowledge.” His voice is low, and it’s hard trying to think of anything else when he’s looking at her and licking his lips like that. “That really is the only difference between us,” Gilgamesh murmured, gaze heated and knowing. "I pursue what I desire. I don't waste precious time playing games and then pretend I don't.”

Hakuno furrows her brows.

Has he…

Has he thought about this before? Has he thought about her before?

As she runs her tongue over her dry lips, she spares a moment of her lucid thinking in wondering if he thinks she’s oblivious to the fact that he’s not very subtly eating up the space between the two of them. “It's not—” Hakuno starts, sounding quieter than she knows she should have, a wretched undercurrent of uncertainty seeping through her voice. “Where are you even getting at.”

“I merely wish for my curiosity to be indulged,” He replied, shrugging. “Especially when you’ve taken such great lengths to get me to touch you. Was it only a mere itch? Or was there something more sordid to that?” The man continued as a hand caressed up and down her cheek, a gesture far too fond coming from someone she barely knows, as well as considering what trespassed between them, “Why did you do it? Was it how you imagined it? Would you prefer I put you over a desk instead? Take you on a bed, maybe? I am intrigued.” He asked, voice muffled by her hair as he leaned in to bury his face in it.

“Huh?” Hakuno asked, still aroused but also very confused by the sudden and seemingly unrelated change of subject.

Gilgamesh was full of bullshit and the good, honest truth isn’t nearly as sordid as he’s suggesting it is, but at the same time admitting that she might have tried to get advantage of a precarious situation only so that she could get to vicariously fulfill a fantasy she’s been nursing for who knows how long was far too embarrassing to admit out loud. She wasn't ready to do that, and least of all to him.

“Playing coy with me won't help you hide the fact that I know you're lying to me." His smile gets a little wider. She can’t see it, but she can feel it against her ear as he leans into it to whisper. “You almost got me fooled, I must confess. With how quiet and subdued you’ve always been around me when we are in such close quarters, I would have never guessed your reserved exterior was mere pretense. But then you looked at me in that mirror, and pushed yourself to me. You could have focused on any other passenger just then, could have moved away, even, but instead, your eyes were only on me.”

He’s not being serious; Hakuno knows he's just being a facetious prick, that this is more an exercise in taunting and embarrass her further than it can be anything else, and he knows this as well, which is why the seriousness that crosses Gilgamesh’s face all of a sudden, eyes unreadable and dark with intent, doesn’t make sense considering the context.

His tone was oddly conversational as well, as if they were discussing mundane things that didn’t really matter much. However, his hand rubbing gentle circles on her hip reminded her that this was far from being the case.

“You were well aware of who I was, Hakuno. I could feel your desire like a brand on my skin as your eyes focused on me alone on that mirror, so if you wanted to be subtle about it, you failed miserably. You knew it was me from the very start just as much as I knew it was you, so I must ask: how am I to believe you don’t want me, that you’re anything but willing, when everything you’ve done tells me otherwise?” The man rephrased his question at her lack of understanding, his hot breath now ghosting over her face. “Out of every safer option you could have chosen, to what end did you go for something so bold if you intended to close yourself to me and play at ignorance?”

Hakuno, whose face had just started to cool down, freezes like a deer in headlights as she feels it go right back to full blush.

For a moment, as Gilgamesh regarded her almost curiously, she worries she might have given herself up by mistake, that he’s going to read her like a book if she doesn’t say something, anything, and fast.

Hakuno was practically running on autopilot as she says, “I was just curious.”

She cringes internally. That wasn’t the wise thing to say.

“Oh? Curious how?”

"I was only…" Hakuno fidgeted, unable to come up with a believable lie. "I was going to, maybe… learn from experience?"

“In an overcrowded subway where anyone could have seen you being indecent?”

“…Yes?”

Shit, she’s lying and she’s almost compelled to feel ashamed on her own behalf because it’s the worst lie she’s ever said in her life. It doesn’t make sense, and it sounds even worse than the truth really is.

She herself knows she’s lying, and with how much of a shit liar she is, he must know she’s lying too, because his grin gets a little bigger, a little smugger the more he studies her face and takes her words for the shit excuse that they are, but Hakuno doesn’t yet know if she’s ready to open this can of worms.

“People don’t act as bold and indecent as you have when they are just chasing after garden variety curiosity, Hakuno. Tell me, are you shivering because you’re nervous for being caught in a lie, or is this your body's way of telling me you are feeling neglected? I had to put such an abrupt end to our amusement, after all. It must be bordering on painful now.”

Yes. “No. I’m not—” Hakuno pointedly ignored the way he chuckled at her when her voice cracked at the end to keep herself from snapping at him. She’s not sure where she’s supposed to be looking anymore, or what she’s supposed to say to that. “I’m not nervous.”

She couldn’t possibly tell him that she’d saw this as this golden opportunity for her to act upon every filthy, lust-filled thought she’s ever had about him because he had inadvertently opened something much larger inside her than she would ever have intended to; it was a risk to admit feelings even she wasn't quite able to come to terms with, not without feeling she was setting herself up by being too conceited -far too honest- about them.

“Look at me, Hakuno,” he prompts, lips grazing her own as he leans in just barely.

Hakuno did as asked, coming face to face again with his face as she wrestles with her answer for a moment, sucking in a quick little breath until finally coming to terms with the fact that she probably might as well just be honest, since this was already a terrible overstep in boundaries to begin with and it just couldn’t get worse than this.

As honest as the moment allows her to be, that is.

With her heart in her throat, she whispers—because that’s all she can manage right now with how close they are, “I… always wanted to know what it would be like,” Hakuno felt her face go even hotter as the words came out from her mouth, and was sure she'd look embarrassingly crimson if she dared to check a mirror.

“Hm?” Gilgamesh hums curiously, urging her for more.

“To be with…” You “…a man.” Hakuno forced out, embarrassed. “So when you touched me, I—”

Something tells her she should have seen this coming, despite getting absolutely no warning whatsoever for what he was about to do—which was to take her chin firmly with one hand to pull her back to him again with another on the small of her back, crushing their mouths together.

Her mind was too befuddled and she’s too high on the thrill of adrenaline to pretend she was anything other than willing anymore—so she melts almost instantly.

It’s a bit sloppy and lazy at first, but only for the amount of time it takes them to snap out of whatever haze they currently found themselves trapped into and turn it into a longer, deeper kiss that sends her reeling and has her sighing despite herself, one that lasts until they both break apart panting to catch their breath.

“…So I am onto something, or not?” The man asked, smirk playing at his lips, looking at her a way that said he already knew the answer to his own question, and he was only testing her own resolve. “Was this what you were imagining when I was behind you?”

Had they been somewhere else, Hakuno was sure there would have been a long, weighty silence hanging between the two, one of the uncomfortable kind. However, what with them being in the literal middle of an overcrowded subway station, this moment of 'silence', so to speak, between the two wasn’t nearly as solemn, just—awkward.

“You’re terrible,” she whispers, the most insightful sentence she could come up with in the span of only a few seconds, praying to whatever god almighty was listening to her that he wouldn’t be able to tell from here how much she clenched at that.

However, she wasn’t able to keep the embarrassment from reaching the planes of her face, she wasn’t nearly as fast to revert her expression back into something more resembling nonchalance, for Gilgamesh caught the lie just by glancing at her conflicted countenance. His voice was practically a pleased purr as he says, “You were the one dripping all over my hand, remember? Who’s the terrible one of us now?”

The flush comes back to her cheeks instantly, and she had to turn her head in embarrassment. If anything, it seems as though he’s taken her silence as an admission of some sort, because he only seemed more elated by her lack of words, more amused, even though he didn’t get an answer from her at all.

Hakuno knows she’s not making herself any favors with how honest she’s being with her reactions, but she couldn't help them.

Her legs are trembling. All that building up from before has made her feel so frustratingly empty it now borders on painful, and burying her face in the crook of his neck now seems like an excellent course of action as she contemplates everything that’s lead her to this huge, colossal, metric fuckton of a mistake.

He chuckles. “No more bite? What happened to all that attitude of yours from before?” he murmurs. His voice is sultry as always but no less pleased, with that familiar smug undercurrent to it betraying his questioning squint as he raises her chin up to face him and then traces a thumb over her lips. The deep red of his eyes is far too knowing, like he’s privy to a secret. “You wouldn’t be getting cold feet on me, would you?”

Hakuno blinks—one, two times, hazy and dizzy from both the experience just then and the proximity between them both. “You—” Hakuno bites her tongue and closes her eyes instead, choosing to push him off her in favor of punching him in the face or say something she'd come to regret. “This is it. I’m leaving. I’m—”

For the second time, Gilgamesh’s hand reaches out for her, his fingers circling firmly around her wrist so that she can’t leave, and tugs her back to him.

“Oh, no, nothing of that.” He purred, lips skimming the corner of her mouth as her hands, traitorous and weak, take a fistful of his shirt—she meant to push him away, but instead she only ends up lingering there. “We’re hardly done here. You’re not allowed to tease me with a taste and then run away.”

Hakuno takes a deep breath, trying to bring every single thing about him that pisses her off to the forefront of her mind so that she may use it as her last nexus between herself and her dignity. “Why’re you doing this? You already had a blast embarrassing me just now, leave me alone to die in peace.”

“Must I remind you once again that you came to me first?” He insisted, asking this like he’s genuinely confused, even as a smug smile tilts his lips up. “Am I breaking any rules by attempting to finish what you made me start?”

It’s with great sorrow that Hakuno realizes that all of her hard work trying to keep what little dignity she had left intact was going to be for fucking naught, because all those instances of him being a piece of shit that she’s been oh-so-carefully trying to bring to the forefront of her mind are conveniently getting swept away, crumbling away at his touch.

And as soon as his hand falls to rest against the small of her back and pulls her closer, she can’t help but think that if her legs already feel like jelly to such a cheap tactic, what was to say she would keep her composure intact if he chose to do something much bolder than that?

“Is this—is this actually how you get people?”

The blond arches an eyebrow.

“Is this how you get men, Kishinami?”

Hakuno purses her lips, making a disgruntled face as she runs hot all over again. Point taken, that was a moronic move, but still—

He smiles back at her. He doesn’t look like he’s expecting an answer in the form of words from her anymore, because he’s still just a hair’s breadth away from actually kissing her again right now and he’s leaving her with little room to make any sort of comeback.

There’s that familiar glint of cunning in his eyes again, though the slight quirk of his smile tells her he’s not going to push her any further than that. Actually, he's just watching her with muted anticipation, as if waiting for her to make the final move, waiting for the moment that all of her worn-out resistance will crumble upon the realization that all this dancing around the subject was nothing more than just a sorry attempt to try and deny the real reason behind why she even tried to trip him into touching her like that, shielded and emboldened by the anonymity of being just another unrecognizable face in a crowded train.

Hakuno realizes that, all of a sudden, she’s inside one of those JRPG games she’s seen Gudako play until late midnight—this was the final boss, a point of no return that will change the course of her main quest, and she has a choice to make right now; her value as an independent, empowered woman was at stake here.

In her hands, she has the possibility to make an imaginary, unseen crowd of women feel proud of her across the ages by rejecting him, or she could just cave in to her filthier desires—considering what she’s done already, this wouldn’t be the worst of her indiscretions.

Worded like that it almost sounded like some kind of epic showdown, the final clash between good and evil which would be preceded by some epic orchestral soundtrack—though in reality the situation Hakuno was facing right now wasn’t nearly as apotheotic: they were in the middle of a fucking subway station, and Hakuno was just some idiot NPC who had to choose between her pride or her pussy, between keeping her dignity as a woman or getting good dick.

As if sensing her inner distress, the blond slips his hand a little lower and takes her hand in his own, subtly guides it to the front of his neatly pressed trousers, reminding her of the bulge in his pants still needing attention, in case she ever stopped thinking about it, as if he expected to interfere with her decision with something so simplistically cliché and basic as that.

But he did. It worked.

—ah, fuck it. So dick it is.

When she brings both her hands up not to push him away but to fist into his shirt and she tips forward to kiss him again, he’s already waiting for her—she can feel the smirk on his lips against her own, his mouth giving way as his lips glide against hers with the confidence of someone who’s done this many times before and knows where to press and where to touch to make people melt into his embrace and heed his every word.

Their lips parted only when they were both breathless, but their arms clung tightly to the other.

“…Well, I did promise you I would reward you well when you followed my instructions; and you’ve been ever so generous in your offerings, I can hardly leave you feeling neglected, now can I?” His smile grows bigger. Hakuno wants nothing more than to wipe it off his face, but— “…Come away and with me, you fool. You know what I want. Give it to me, and I shall show you the many joys of pleasure and overabundance, Hakuno.”

Hakuno bit her lip as she watched him reach up to take her hand in his once more—only this time he chose to interlace his fingers with hers, slowly, one by one.

When her hand squeezes a little tighter around his hand to show him her assent, his smile gets a little wider in return.