Chapter Text
Even as Eunie storms through Michiba Canteen, not really caring where she’s going, her mind is racing a mile a minute.
There’s anger in her chest, certainly. Bloody Lanz, always needling her, taunting her with words that he somehow knows to aim for the chinks in her armor.
(Somewhere deep down, she knows he does it out of love, knows that Lanz is a gentle, shining soul beneath it all, is genuinely happy to see him and Sena together, twin suns beating in time-but right now, Eunie is riding anger with practiced ease, and letting muttered curses sweep away all other sentiment.)
He’d called her shy.
Shy? Her? Of all the bloody insults.
“He’s got a point,” something in her whispers before she can snuff it out. “Isn’t there a chance that you and Taion could be like that?”
She snorts to herself. Not bloody likely. She doesn’t want that, with Taion or anybody. Her, being that disgustingly affectionate? Absolutely not.
She doesn’t want it. Surely not. Then…why is this feeling in her chest so suspiciously like jealousy?
Eunie is suddenly jarred from her spiraling thoughts when a hand lands ever-so-lightly on her shoulder. She nearly whirls and socks the hand’s owner in the jaw purely on principle, but then she recognizes the touch-it’s Taion.
How can she recognize the touch? Has she really become that attuned to him-to the way he carries himself, proper and upright and reserved, yet still so warm she could curl up to him like a campfire? What is happening to her?
Taion, fresh from washing up, smiles a little when he sees her turn. “You alright?” he asks.
Eunie scoffs. “Course I am,” she says with a confidence she doesn’t quite feel.
There’s a look in Taion’s eyes, as if he doesn’t quite believe her; he’s always been so perceptive, Eunie feels stripped bare around him. Only…in a good way, so unlike how she expects to feel when she can’t hide.
That makes her nervous. Why does she feel like this? What is it about Taion that makes her instinctively relax around him?
Then he smiles, soft and warm in the dimness, and her heart skips a beat.
Oh. That’s why.
“Want to go back and find the others?” he offers, and Eunie somehow forgets that she’s angry at the others right now, for having something she doesn’t know if she can have.
“Fine,” she sighs. “Sorry again for spitting all over you.”
Taion chuckles. “It’s alright,” he assures her. “I’m used to it by now.”
Eunie halts, no longer following him through the Canteen.
“What the bloody hell is that supposed to mean?” she demands, hands on her hips.
Taion blushes, cheeks turning red under her gaze. “Don’t worry about it!” he stammers. “I didn’t mean anything by it-”
“See, now I’m worried about it,” Eunie interrupts, eyebrows raised.
Taion lives up to his reputation for wisdom, then-he doesn’t respond. Instead, he simply makes his way back to the others with Eunie in tow.
They don’t stay too much longer, thankfully, but every second they do spend with their friends leaves Eunie stewing in a cocktail of emotions she doesn’t recognize, and doesn’t know how to handle.
As she watches the others head back to the dorms- together, too, clearly intending to share rooms and making no secret of it-Eunie finds herself wondering whether she really is the only one in the world who doesn’t know what she and Taion could be.
That night, Eunie finds herself sneaking through the dorm hall, headed for Taion’s room.
Okay, when she puts it that way, it sounds a lot worse than it is. She isn’t going there because…she wants to have sex with him, or something! No, this is far simpler, and much less fraught with emotion…she thinks.
Actually, she’s done this before, many times. In fact, Eunie’s…not really sure when it started.
Logically, it has to have been after Old Kama Battlefield, after she discovered her name on a corpse, after she discovered for the first time the bone-chillingly horrific sensation of staring down at her own body and knowing somehow, some way, that she had already died a thousand times.
Ever since then, she’s been having…nightmares. The same ones, over and over again. Fire and screams and pain, the jagged teeth and monstrous eyes of…of D, staring down at her, taunting, mocking, relishing her fear.
She hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in weeks-or she would have, if not for Taion.
At some point in their travels, Eunie kept finding herself waking up cuddled with him, her body wrapped around his, as if clutching him like a lifeline. It took her weeks to stop panicking every time it happened, and weeks more to accept that, somehow, he was making the nightmares go away.
Was it the tea that did it? His words, so gentle and kind and true that she felt them sinking into her soul? She had no idea.
All she did know was that, at some point, her brain had learned that “Taion” meant “safe,” and all Eunie had ever truly craved was being safe.
Taion, bless him, certainly knew-Eunie wasn’t stupid enough to assume otherwise-and he was a surprisingly good sport about being her security blanket. He was a late riser, so Eunie was able to slip into his room after he went to sleep, and slip back out before he woke. The arrangement had worked wonders for her sleep-but what would happen now?
What if he says no, and Eunie loses the one thing keeping the horror of what she had found on that battlefield at bay?
She is utterly bloody terrified of that.
She forces the fear from her mind and lays down, burrowing into Taion’s side, as if by burying her face in his chest, all the monsters in the world will disappear.
Only once Eunie is asleep does Taion’s arm slip down her back and wrap tightly around her, hugging her to him, a ward against the terrors of the night. Taion opens his eyes, then, looking down at Eunie’s peaceful face with a sad smile on his lips. He draws her tighter, and closes his eyes once more.
Perhaps he understands Eunie more than she thinks, after all.
The next morning, Eunie almost can’t bear to tear herself out of Taion’s arms.
She knows she should-as smooth as their unspoken, unacknowledged agreement is, intentionally staying and waking up beside him would be crossing a line she’s scared to cross-but something in her wants to sob as she slips out of bed, grieving for what she’s giving up.
She moves to leave, to put the armor around her soul back into place…but hesitates when she sees Taion’s face. He seems peaceful, almost content-an expression she’s totally unfamiliar with, having met him in battle and fled with him through months and months of constant danger. Here and now, in this temporary calm in the storm, though…his peace drags at something in her, something that wants nothing more than to be able to make that same expression.
Fire and sparks, what is wrong with her? She never used to act like this, all mopey and shy. What’s she so bloody nervous about, anyway? This is Taion. He’s a sparking nerd, constantly second-guessing himself, hesitating, a voice of caution and restraint even though he’s the smartest person Eunie’s ever met.
Only…he isn’t, anymore. Not since Colony Lambda. There, facing the false Isurd, hammered with his own failures and his grief, Taion had become…something more. His old anxiety had been burned out of him, leaving a steely core of determination as only coming face-to-face with death and walking away can create.
For Eunie, who’s seen her own corpse and feels as if it might still shatter her to pieces, that sort of calm, steady strength is awe-inspiring. She’s drawn to it, to how Taion shares it so freely.
Okay, something is clearly wrong with her. She can’t take this anymore, this odd in-between she and Taion have ended up in, close enough to share a bed, but still unable to have a proper conversation. She slips out of the room at last, sure she’s going to go insane.
Walking down the hall, Eunie finally makes a decision; no more hiding, no more denying. She feels something for Taion-she doesn’t know what, but she’s determined to find out. One way or another, whatever it costs her…she’ll look him in the eye and ask.
Only…she has no idea how to do that, and isn’t that some sparking irony? Her, the mouthiest of all of them, a veritable fountain of insults and quips, lost for words.
Well, luckily for her, all her friends have somehow managed to navigate the tangled webs of emotions that comes with trying to understand love when the entire concept has been foreign to you all your life.
Time to do something stupid.
At breakfast (steadfastly refusing to look Taion in the eye), Eunie manages to tear the couples apart for just long enough to corner her targets.
“You two,” she snaps, “We need to talk.”
Noah and Lanz turn to her, confusion plain on their faces.
“Excuse me?” Lanz says. “What’s gotten into you?”
Noah blinks. “Is something wrong, Eunie?” he asks, all gentle concern and warmth.
Queen bless Noah’s kindness. Eunie and Lanz have always been at odds, glancing off each other like flint and steel, sending sparks flying. The only reason they don’t combust is Noah; he is the centerpiece, the mediator, the even-keeled counterweight to their fire. Mature enough to know when Lanz needs to be reassured and when he needs to be called out, thick-skinned enough to take Eunie’s shit without flinching, he is the reason they were Colony 9’s most capable Special Forces team. Even now, he is the center of it all; he and Mio are like twin suns, drawing the rest of them into their orbits. Hell, Eunie’s only about to take this leap, risk everything, because she already knows what’s waiting on the other side-a relationship so bright it shines, like how Noah and Mio brighten every room they’re in together.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Eunie tells them, something between a smirk and a worried frown on her face. “Or at least, nothing will be wrong if we go talk for a minute.”
“About what?” Lanz demands. “Sena and I were gonna go-”
“I don’t want to know what you two were about to do,” Eunie snaps. “We’re talking. Now.”
Lanz splutters, trying to insist that he was just talking about a workout, but Eunie ignores him; knowing him and Sena, that’s probably just a euphemism, and even if it isn’t, she doesn’t care. Noah-and yes, Lanz too-are the only people in the world she trusts enough to ask for advice on something like this.
(Taion would be on that list too if this conversation wasn’t about him…and that sure says something about her feelings for him, that he’s shot up to the top of her list of men she actually trusts in two months, while her bond with Noah and Lanz has been forged over years and years of battle, but Eunie doesn’t have time to think about that shit right now.)
Noah and Lanz share a glance, and nod. That’s the other reason they’ve always made such a great team-when the chips are down and one of them needs the others, nothing else matters. They’ll be there.
“Alright,” Noah says. “Lead on.”
The three of them end up in a little-used corner of the City, a room that was probably a warehouse or something years ago, but is little more than a dusty hole, now.
Still, it’s quiet and private, which is all Eunie really wants. As soon as the door closes behind them, she turns to her friends, and says, “So. I could use some advice.”
“On what?” Noah asks kindly.
Eunie takes a deep breath. “Hypothetically,” she asks, “if I wanted to…tell someone how I feel about him, how would I do that?”
There is a momentary pause, as Noah and Lanz stare at each other. Then, Lanz bursts out laughing.
“You gotta be kidding me!” he howls, clutching at his sides. “You, of all people, can’t tell someone you like them?”
Eunie scowls. “Oi!” she snaps. “Don’t act like you know any better! All of us only learned this was possible a few days ago!”
Lanz keeps chuckling, but a glare from Noah quiets him down again. Noah turns to her, and asks, “How long have you known you liked Taion?”
Eunie blinks. “How do you know it’s Taion?” she shoots back.
Noah and Lanz exchange a glance, then give her identical dry looks. “Who else would it be?” their faces seem to say.
Eunie sighs. “Okay, yeah, it’s the nerd,” she admits. “Now. Advice, please?”
Noah can’t help but snort at that. “Answer my question first, Eunie,” he says, with more force than she expects from him.
Blinking, she decides to play along-even if she doesn’t really know what to say. After a moment’s hesitation, she answers, “Bloody…I don’t know. Since…since Old Kama Battlefield, I guess?”
“What happened there?” Lanz asks, confused.
Eunie thinks for a moment, wondering whether she should explain-if she can possibly share all the fear and horror that had flowed through her that day, and the way Taion had so gently and kindly built her back up, with nothing more than tea and a few soft words. How could she?
She meets Lanz’s eyes, and says, “That’s between me and him.”
Lanz raises an eyebrow, but against all appearances, he’s not quite as stupid as he looks; he drops it without another word.
“Is there a reason you haven’t told him?” Noah presses.
Eunie raises an eyebrow. “None of us even understood the concept before, what, a week ago?” she snaps. “I haven’t told him because I didn’t know what I was feeling. We can’t all be like you, Mr. Dramatic Love Story.”
Noah blinks, while Lanz chuckles despite himself. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Noah says, confused.
Lanz and Eunie make eye contact, identical expressions on their faces. They know, even if Noah doesn’t.
Moving on, Eunie says, “Look, it doesn’t matter how I ended up here, alright? I need your help trying to figure out what I’m going to do.”
Lanz snorts. “What, you’re not just gonna march up to Taion and drag him off for once?” he asks. “You seem plenty happy to do that already.”
Eunie opens her mouth to make a quippy reply, but pauses. “Should I do that?” she eventually asks, cautious hope entering her voice.
Noah shakes his head. “I…don’t think that’s a good idea,” he says finally. “You actually need to, you know, talk to Taion about this.”
Eunie sighs. “I was afraid you’d say that,” she grumbles. “I’m not exactly good at this whole talking thing, you know.”
Noah and Lanz don’t laugh like she’d half-hoped; instead, Lanz gives her a look that might have been pity, and chuckles, “Hey, don’t worry, Eunie. Whatever you do, you probably can’t bungle it as badly as I almost did with Sena.”
Noah and Eunie blink; neither of them know what Lanz is talking about. Eunie asks, “What’re you on about?”
“She tried to talk about it during our workout,” Lanz explains. “It, uh…caught me by surprise. I would’ve tried to run away to escape it, but she pinned me to the wall.”
Eunie laughs at that, mostly because the mental image of Sena pinning the much larger Lanz to a wall with effortless ease is both hilarious and completely plausible.
When she’s caught her breath, she says, “So…what you’re saying is I should just pin Taion to the wall so he can’t run away?”
Lanz shrugs. “I don’t think it could hurt,” he says reasonably. Noah just groans.
“Please don’t do that, Eunie,” he says. “There’s better ways to talk to him.”
“Like what?” she asks. “I’m all ears.”
Noah sighs. “Just…
actually talk
to him,” he suggests. “Eunie, you’re better at it than you think you are. Or at the very least, you’re good enough to just say
“I like you”
and then figure it out from there.”
Eunie scowls. “You make it sound so easy,” she says darkly. Do they not understand what’s at stake here for her? Do they not realize what she’s risking?
“It…kinda is,” Noah admits. Eunie opens her mouth to snap at him, but he raises a hand to stop her. “I know it feels more complicated than that, Eunie. I know you’re probably feeling like a mess right now, full of emotions you don’t understand. I know you’re probably terrified that he’ll take it badly. Am I right?”
Eunie freezes. It never feels nice, having someone read you so easily and accurately. She nods weakly, cursing herself even as she knows it doesn’t matter; Noah and Lanz have stood by her through hell itself. She can let her guard down around them.
It’s Lanz’s time to smile, then; Sena must really be good for him, because when he speaks, he seems more mature and wiser than Eunie’s ever heard from him before. “I felt the same way, y’know,” he says softly. “I was so convinced I wasn’t good enough for Sena, so bloody terrified of her not feeling the same…I got all wound up in my head about it.”
Noah nods. “You have to cut through all of it, Eunie,” he tells her. “You have to recognize that the way you feel right now is just nerves. You like him, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” Eunie replies, before hesitating. “I…I don’t know if it’s love, though. I don’t think I know what that is.”
Noah smiles sadly, the same way Monica had smiled when she saw their awe at the sight of a newborn baby. It’s a smile that is angry, somehow, at the things that have been stolen, and simultaneously bright with joy for those trying to take them back.
“We didn’t, either,” he replies, gesturing at himself and Lanz. “When Mio came to me…we didn’t know what we were getting into. How could we have?”
Eunie finds herself nodding at that. Noah…has a point. How else is she going to learn what love is if she doesn’t take this chance?
Then, a thought strikes her, one that makes her blood run cold.
“You’re treating it like Taion will definitely feel the same,” she points out. “How do you know he doesn’t like me back?”
Noah and Lanz exchange a look, and Eunie feels them about to burst out laughing; she watches them suppress it with immense effort, presumably to keep from unnerving her.
“Have you seen the guy?” Lanz asks her at last. “He’s practically hovering around you all day long!”
Noah nods in agreement. “We can never know for sure until he tells you, of course,” he says. “But, Eunie…we’ve both been in the position you and Taion are in now. Trust me, he does.”
That…actually does make Eunie feel better. Not perfect, of course, but then, if she wanted to wait for everything to be perfect, she’d never get anything done at all.
Maybe she actually does have a shot at this. Maybe she won’t lose everything.
“Okay,” she decides, standing up with her characteristic forcefulness. “Guess I’m off to go find him, then. And probably get a shot from that doctor.”
Lanz chokes on air. “Excuse me?” he asks. “You’re really just gonna go-do it like that?”
Eunie raises an eyebrow. “Yes,” she says dryly. “And don’t act all shocked, Lanz. Isn’t that what you and Sena did?”
Lanz splutters even more, but eventually falls quiet.
Noah used to Eunie’s behavior, don’t even miss a beat. “Good luck,” he says. “Oh, and if he ever hurts you, call us, will you?”
Eunie turns, already halfway out the door. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she demands. “You think I can’t handle him by myself?”
Noah hesitates, then stops, knowing that tone of voice damn well. It means that there’s no answer that won’t get him punched, other than no answer at all.
Lanz, as of this moment, has slightly more leeway with her; he responds, “We just have your back, Eunie. That’s all.”
Eunie raises an eyebrow. That wasn’t a denial. Well, she does owe them for helping her.
“Fine. Whatever,” she decides. “Oh…and thank you, guys. For everything.”
With that, she leaves Lanz and Noah behind. She has a boy to find.
Even with a stop by the clinic, it takes less than an hour for Eunie to find Taion.
He’s not exactly hiding from her; instead, he’s standing quietly by a railing in the city, looking down through a gap in the Great Sword at a sight that Monica had shown them when they’d arrived.
Eunie slips up beside him, and looks down at the ancient, frozen remnants of another pointless slaughter. The sight of the corpses piled high, never seen off, never recovered, forces her into silence for a moment. Words can’t describe the grief of it, the horror.
Eunie’s seen plenty of corpses. Spark, she’s seen her own corpse. But even so…she and Taion are silent for a long moment as they look down.
Eunie wonders, then; how long will this cycle keep going? Will she and Taion end up just another revolution in it, another go-round of the same war for the same souls? Is everything they do doomed to end up being pointless?
She rejects the thought; it can’t be pointless. One way or another, she will break this bloody cycle. She and Taion will have a future.
At last, Taion turns to her, away from the terrible sight below. She sees a little smile play across his lips when he sees her; it feels familiar, like a reflection of her own heart.
“Hello, Eunie,” he says, warm and kind as always.
Eunie smiles back, even as she wonders what to say. She knows where she wants to end-her lips on Taion’s, that stupid bloody scarf of his chucked somewhere where it can’t offend her eyes-preferably with the
rest
of his clothes, too. But how is she supposed to
get
there? Her own bloody lack of conversational skills, coming back to bite her. She’d be laughing if the stakes weren’t so high.
Finally, she settles on saying, “What’re you up to, Taion?”
Taion shrugs. “I’m…not really sure,” he admits. “Just…felt the need to come back here.”
The Eunie of old would’ve brushed off the dark feelings in her chest and buried them with some sarcastic comment; the Eunie of old hadn’t seen
her own bloody husk
kneeling in a heart-stopping final moment. She doesn’t know how deep the horror of that moment has sunk into her; she suspects she never will.
She simply nods. “Yeah,” she murmurs. “I get it.”
Taion smiles somberly. “Let’s talk about something else, yeah?” he suggests. Queens bless him. This is why Eunie loves him so damn much (and there she goes, using that word again): he is a master at reading her, at understanding how she feels without ever needing to be told. He cares, so obviously and freely that Eunie can’t help but feel safer around him, knowing that he will always seek to reassure her.
“Alright,” she agrees, racking her brain trying to find some topic she can use to lead into what she actually wants to talk about. “Actually, I do have a question I want to ask you.”
Taion nods. “Fire away,” he says.
Eunie leans on the railing, her eyes on him rather than looking down. “What do you think of the others?” she asks. “Them being…together, I mean?”
Taion blinks, as if surprised by the question. He, too, leans back onto the railing, visibly gathering his words.
Finally, he says, “I’ll admit, I struggled to understand it at first…but now, I’m honestly a little jealous.”
Eunie’s eyes widen in surprise, mostly because she’s felt the same. “Really?” she asks. “Why’s that?”
Taion shrugs. “Honestly, I’m not quite sure,” he admits. “I think…seeing them like that, so happy and wrapped up in each other…it’s like they’ve discovered something we never knew existed. And I don’t know if I’ll ever have something like it.”
Eunie’s surprise deepens, as does her hope. Maybe…maybe she has a chance, after all. But even now, with her mind screaming at her to just say the damn words, she’s still too nervous to take the leap.
“What’s it like, you think?” she wonders. “Having someone…like that?”
Taion still isn’t looking at her; he’s staring off into space, lost in thought. “Who knows?” he replies. “When you watch them…there’s times where it seems like nobody else exists for them but their partner. They can talk to others, spend time with friends, all of that…but they’re still part of the whole, not all of it.”
“A bit like Ouroboros, then,” Eunie cracks, half joke and half insight. Taion nods.
“I suppose,” he agrees. “I wonder…there’s a lot of couples in the city, but Noah and Mio, and Lanz and Sena, act…much more intimately. Maybe being able to see each other’s memories is why?”
Eunie shrugs; it’s an interesting theory, but it’s not what she cares about. Maybe she can just…hint at what she really wants?
“Do you think we could ever be like that?” she asks.
Taion finally turns to look at her. “Like what?” he asks. “Noah and Mio are pretty different in how they act from Lanz and Sena…not to say that either one is better, of course. I think they’re equally in love, just…they’re different people, and they express it differently.”
Eunie nods, waiting for Taion to get the hint, and understand what she’s really asking. He’s smart, he’ll figure it out. Right?
Taion is still looking at her. “I…suppose it depends on what you want,” he says, and there’s definitely an undertone to his voice now, something that Eunie can almost sense in how it’s reaching out for her. “If you want to remain friends, we can, of course, but-”
Eunie isn’t sure what he’s about to say, and she doesn’t bloody care. She’s had enough of beating around the bush, enough of being scared, enough of their endless awkward dance around the truth. Spark these stupid hints and double meanings. She’s going to bloody look him in the eye and ask him.
“Oh, for spark’s sake,” she snarls. Then, she lunges for Taion, cutting him off mid-sentence.
Taion yelps as he finds himself grabbed by his scarf-she knew that bloody thing was good for something-and hauled in close, Eunie’s forehead pressed against his.
“We’re not doing this anymore, you hear me?” she snaps.
Taion stares at her, wide-eyed and shocked. “N-not doing what?” he stammers.
“Not pretending anymore!” Eunie hisses. “Like we don’t know how we both feel! Like we’re just friends, or some shite!”
Taion blinks. “Are you saying-” he begins, clearly hopeful; his reserved air has broken, revealing a desperate desire beneath that Eunie is already relishing.
“I’m saying,” she interrupts, “That I’m in sparking love with you, Taion, and I’m done hiding it.”
Taion freezes; there’s an anticipation in the air that they can both feel. Eunie wonders if Taion knows what power he has, in that moment; he holds her heart in his hands, able to crush it forever if he wants.
But this is Taion. Ever so softly, he says, “I feel the same, Eunie.”
He draws a breath to say something else, but Eunie has better ideas. She mashes her lips against his, making him squeak before all sounds are cut off by the passionate, furious kiss.
When she finally has to concede to her need to breathe, Eunie pulls back, leaving Taion stunned and dazed where he stands, back against a corrugated metal wall.
“You,” she orders, “Stop bloody talking.”
Still a bit out of it, Taion murmurs, “Yes, ma’am.”
Eunie grins, even as her body shivers with enjoyment of the tone of Taion’s voice. Something in her approves of his words, even if she doesn’t know why.
She kisses him again, and this time, Taion is far less passive. He meets her as passionately as she does him, and she relishes every second of it; this is what she’s wanted.
Well. Part of what she’s wanted. Time to see if he’s up for giving her the rest of it.
Eunie yanks him fully upright again, letting Taion stumble on his feet. He seems mystified by the speed of events-and to be fair, part of Eunie is, too. It’s just that the rest of her has had too much time to build up her desire, to stew in her need for him until she was a volcano, ready to blow.
“Two questions,” she says, once again clutching him tight to her by his stupid scarf. “One: was anyone expecting you or me to be somewhere for the rest of the day?”
Taion shakes his head. Eunie grins.
“Two,” she continues, mouth against Taion’s neck, half-kissing and half-whispering. “Would you like to go back to my room and try out this sex thing we’ve heard so much about?”
Taion nods, furiously and without hesitation. “Please, Eunie,” he pleads.
Eunie doesn’t bother responding. It’s perhaps a fifteen-minute walk back to her dorm room. She thinks she can make it in ten if she runs.
It actually takes eight minutes to reach Eunie’s room and slam the door behind them. Once Taion gets his legs under him, things go quite quickly-it seems he’s just as eager as Eunie is to finally get in on this whole “sex” thing.
It’s honestly a miracle they make it behind the closed, locked door before Eunie has leaped onto Taion.
“Hurry up and take your damn clothes off,” Eunie snaps, impatiently fumbling with straps and buttons as she tries to undress both of them at once.
His scarf tossed aside, his shirt already mostly off, Taion looks at her with concern in his eyes "Eunie...do you actually know what you're doing?" he asks her, even as his face flushes deeply at seeing her breasts bounce free.
Eunie smirks at his interest, relishing the way he looks at her. She shrugs, knowing the motion will make her breasts bounce in a way that will hopefully make him look more. “Vaguely,” she replies cheerfully. In reality, of course, she doesn’t know what she’s doing…but she’s going to deal with that the way she usually deals with things: by ignoring them and charging ahead anyway.
Taion, ever the cautious strategist, seems rather put out by that. "Vaguely?" he repeats, incredulous.
Eunie nods, wiggling her hips as she pulls off her pants; Taion’s almost fully stripped as well, his eyes drinking in every inch of skin she bares. "Eh, it’s more fun to figure it out on the fly, don't you think?" she replies. “It’s a real adventure!”
Taion raises an eyebrow. “That doesn't fill me with confidence,” he tells her.
Eunie snorts as she strides over to them, both of them nude, now. "Well, don't you worry,” she informs him, grinning. “You're not the one who's gonna be gettin’ filled in a minute."
Taion starts spluttering at that, so Eunie saves them both the trouble and kisses him deeply, one hand on the back of his head pulling him into it, forcing their bodies flush together. Something in her pulses at the closeness, and she knows she doesn’t want to wait any longer.
When she pulls back from the breathless kiss, Taion looks as if he’s still a little shell-shocked. It takes a moment for his eyes to focus back on her.
“We gonna do this or not?” Eunie demands.
Taion nods. “Yes,” he murmurs. “It’s just… spark, you’re beautiful, Eunie.”
Eunie blinks. She’d…never really thought of herself that way before. It wasn’t like she’d known the concept back in Keves, or had time to learn it until the City. And after that…well, she had noticed how many gazes in the city, particularly men’s, tended to linger on her…but she’d chalked it up to novelty at seeing an Ouroboros and little more. But now…now, she wonders.
It’s not like it matters, anyway. The only person Eunie cares about looking good for is standing in front of her-and if he says that she’s beautiful, then she’s the happiest woman in the whole damn world.
She grins. “You don’t look half bad yourself,” she replies. “Now. The bed.”
Taion, of course, moves too slow, so Eunie grabs him by the scruff of the neck and tosses him onto the aforementioned bed with a thump and the squeal of overworked mattress springs. Before he can recover, she pounces on him like a Feris, straddling him in an easy, natural motion.
Spark, the rush that goes through Eunie’s veins when she looks down and sees Taion’s stunned, desperate face as he admires her, the worship in his eyes as she pins his wrists to the bed and feels his already-hard length rubbing against her is addictive. There’s a power in it that’s electric, fueling her almost like ether. In that moment, Eunie’s mind fills with all manner of filthy thoughts, ideas for things she wants to do to Taion driving out all her fears and concerns.
“Now that’s more like it,” she growls, low and heated. Her hands trace patterns up his well-formed arms, and the sound Taion makes in response is more like a whimper than a word, a frantic nod accompanying it. His lips move soundlessly, until he finally finds the words.
“Eunie,” he murmurs, barely holding it together, “there’s, ah, something I’d like to try.”
Eunie raises an eyebrow. She can feel his shaft rubbing against her, and every newly-awakened instinct in her body is howling for her to cut to the chase and slam herself down onto it…but she’s intrigued by the look in Taion’s eye. He seems…eager, and a little bit shy.
“What is it?” she asks, marveling to herself how even in such a heart-pounding, unfamiliar situation, their naked bodies pressing together, their conversations are still as kind and balanced as ever-they are still good to each other, even here, where every word and every feeing is magnified tenfold, every sensation setting off a firestorm.
Taion smiles a little. “It’s…easier to show you than to explain,” he says. “Do you trust me?”
Eunie snorts, though her eyes are shining. “Do you even need to ask?” she shoots back. “Of course I bloody trust you.”
Taion beams. “In that case…” he replies, “here, scoot up a bit.”
Curious, Eunie starts to do so, guided by Taion’s hands on her hips; she groans with satisfaction as his long fingers sink into the flesh of her rear, the feeling of him holding her absolutely perfect. He was made to hold her like this, just as she was made to be held.
Then he yanks her forward, and Eunie yelps as she suddenly finds her thighs around Taion’s head.
She stares down at him with wide eyes as he parts her wider, making her lower down her moistening center until it’s just above his face.
“What the bloody-“ she begins, only for her words to dissolve into a high, tight whine as Taion’s tongue flickers out and laps up along her slit.
Eunie’s body shivers, thighs trembling and squeezing on either side of Taion’s head as he uses his mouth on her, in ways she’d never even imagined. His fingers dig into her flesh, trying to keep her still as Eunie sees white, body bucking as electric shocks shoot up her spine.
What the spark is this?
She grabs for Taion, her fingers rooting themselves into his hair as his tongue flickers and dances, so quick and nimble her whole body is spasming just from the touch.
She wasn’t ready for this. She couldn’t have possibly prepared for this. What is Taion doing to her? She glances down at him, down her sweat-streaked, trembling body, and sees a raw love in his eyes as he pleasures her. There’s almost a worship in his eyes as he lets her draw him in deeper, until she’s practically thrusting herself onto his face, riding his tongue as he sends her into ecstasy with just his mouth.
Her whines become moans, become shrieks. Eunie is a seething hot sea of pleasure, her body being toyed with like an instrument, and then-
And then it ends, just short of any satisfying conclusion, so close that Eunie feels her body begging for release.
As Eunie whimpers with unrestrained bliss, Taion pulls away again, gentle concern on his face. “How does it feel?” he asks, clearly nervous-and clueless about what he’s just done to her.
Eunie’s response is to grab him, panting as her still-overwhelmed muscles protest the abrupt lunge for her lover’s face.
Taion gulps as she demands, “Where the spark did you learn that?”
Taion blushes, deep and red. “I, uh…may have done some reading in the City library,” he admits.
Eunie blinks, not sure if she should laugh or scream. Something like that had been hiding in plain sight? “What kind of bloody book teaches you how to do something like that?” she wonders.
Taion’s blush gets even deeper. “Uh, not the kind I would have wanted to be caught reading,” he mutters.
Eunie finally snorts, her sanity starting to return-and with it, a deep hunger for more. She was denied her satisfaction-so she’s bloody well going to have it. “Nerd,” she tells him.
Taion raises an eyebrow. “I don’t see you complaining,” he replies.
Eunie laughs, even as she shifts back, slipping back down Taion’s body so that his length is rubbing against her entrance once more.
“Oh, that’s because I wasn’t,” she replies, even as Taion groans needily. “I happen to quite like nerds.”
Taion doesn’t answer, probably because Eunie has just wrapped her fingers around his erection and positioned herself over top of it, mere inches from entering her.
“I’m tired of waiting,” she announces. “Let’s get to the main event already, yeah?”
Taion smiles weakly. “Always so impatient,” he chuckles.
Eunie grins. “Guilty as charged,” she replies as she lowers herself down.
It’s a slow, steady descent, a hiss forcing its way through her gritted teeth at the stretching sensation that fills her up; it’s not quite pleasure yet, but there’s a dull thrum in her belly that’s already starting to grow. By the time Eunie feels her skin rub against Taion’s thighs, she has no such reservations-this is ecstasy, pure and simple.
The moan that fills the room then comes from two throats, as Taion reaches out for her and Eunie takes his hands in her own, their fingers interlacing almost without thinking.
If Taion’s mouth had felt good, this feels great; Eunie is instantly in need of more. Something about how connected she feels to Taion in this moment, her skin against his, her body stretching so easily for him…it’s more than she ever dreamed she could have.
Slowly, surely, she starts to move, and moans fly from her open lips.
The pace she sets is slow and languid, a jarring contrast from the forcefulness Eunie had used to get them to this point; she rolls her hips slowly, gently, basking in the pleasure of it, in every little motion, every thrill that shoots up her spine. She lets herself relish it all, lowers her walls and, finally, lets herself trust.
Taion, bless him, does what he always does; he accepts her as she is, hard edges and soft core, clingy and crude and desperate for love; no judgment, no jokes. Only trust, and love so warm it feels like the sun on her skin.
Eunie picks up the pace, then, hungry for
more,
determined to throw herself into the pleasure until she’s soaked it all up. Taion stares up at her worshipfully, eyes wide and body tense as she rides him, their moans mixing with the sounds of flesh against flesh, soft and tender and intense.
So overcome by pleasure she isn’t sure she can stay upright anymore, Eunie lowers herself down until her chest is pressed against Taion’s, mashing her lips against his with a frenzied growl; her hands grab at him, her mouth on his as if she’s trying to literally kiss the life from him. Taion’s hands aren’t idle either; Eunie feels them roam across her back, down to her hips, squeezing and grabbing and
claiming.
She loves that feeling, that sense that Taion is looking at her and saying, “I want you.” Eunie finally has someone to claim, and be claimed by.
That’s what sends her over the edge, in the end; her and Taion’s first time was always going to end like this, hard and quick and passionate as their timidness burned away, and they grabbed for each other desperately.
Eunie shrieks as something snaps taut inside her, something she instinctively recognizes as an orgasm. Her hips shake and shudder to a stop as Taion, too, climaxes, jerking beneath her as he fills her up. Even then, she keeps moving, in a mad rush to squeeze every last drop of pleasure out of this, making Taion whine as they ride out the waves of their climaxes in a slow, extended descent, gasping and panting as their bodies finally catch up.
Eunie feels the warmth inside her, and Taion’s hands on her hips, and the stunned, wiped-out look in his eyes. She suddenly realizes how tired she feels, how weak her arms are. She falls in slow motion, curling and stretching out onto Taion’s chest. He is warm, and his arms around her make her feel safe.
She could definitely get used to this.
The long, golden afterglow, curled up beneath the covers with Taion, does quite a bit to mellow Eunie out after the highs of losing her virginity. She’s content to nap there for a while, head on Taion’s shoulder, her arm thrown across his chest as they catch their breath.
It was moments like this one that Eunie wished could last forever, all bliss and pleasure and warmth.
Inevitably, of course, because life is not-and should not be-all rainbows and sunshine, it ends; Taion rises with a groan, and as Eunie raises her head in confusion, he gets to his feet, as if looking for his clothes.
“Oi,” she snaps, “where do you think you’re going?”
Taion whirls around, surprised; apparently he hadn’t realized she was still awake.
“To bed?” he replies, confused.
Eunie scoffs. Patting the mattress beside her, in the warm spot he’d just vacated, she replied, “There’s a bed right here, ain’t there?”
Taion blinks. “I meant my bed,” he says slowly.
Eunie looks him dead in the eye. “And why would you sleep there?” she asks dryly.
Taion hesitates, before replying, “I…didn’t wish to presume anything…“
Eunie has had enough of this. Taion is so busy trying to be nice, he’s forgotten that she doesn’t need him to treat her like glass. It’s more endearing than anything, thankfully, especially because she can tell how easy it will be to get him back where he belongs: in her bed.
“As sweet as you’re trying to be,” she interrupts, “Consider this a formal invitation: you, Taion, are going to sleep with me. Whenever I want, wherever I want.”
Taion raises an eyebrow. He’s stopped trying to dress, at least; that just gives Eunie a better view of the goods, so she isn’t complaining.
“In what sense of the word?” he asks dryly.
Eunie grins, sharp-toothed and hungry. “In every sense of the word,” she tells him. “Which includes the one where you get back in this bloody bed and cuddle me like your life depends on it.”
Taion holds her eyes for a moment; then a smile creeps over his lips, and he slowly returns to her bed.
“Good boy,” she says approvingly, pressing a kiss to his lips as she drags him back with her. She pretends to ignore the shudder down Taion’s spine as she says it.
“You really are something else, Eunie,” he sighs fondly as he slips back under the covers, allowing Eunie to reclaim her new favorite pillow and tuck her wings back to avoid tickling him.
“I know,” she chuckles. “I’m impressed you managed to handle me.”
Taion snorts. “I’m sure I’ll be getting plenty of practice,” he replies dryly.
Eunie nods, even as she yawns: she can feel herself slipping back towards sleep.
“What do you know,” she mutters. “Maybe there’s something to these claims of you being smart, after all.”
Then, just as she falls asleep, because something in her feels it’s important, she adds, “I love you, you bloody nerd.”
Taion’s arm wraps tight around her shoulders, and he murmurs, “I love you too, Eunie.”
And then they are both asleep, and Eunie finally has her safe harbor in the storm.
Waking up the next morning would probably have been awkward, if Eunie hadn’t managed to kiss the awkwardness out of Taion half a dozen times over before he’d properly realized where he was.
What? She’s still alive with the feeling of being complete, of having someone to hold her, someone she trusts so utterly with her very soul. So what if she’s being so affectionate Taion has to finally ask her to stop because “it’s scaring him?”
Still, she does eventually let him go, if only because she isn’t keen on being subjected to the embarrassment Noah and Mio were just after they got together.
On that note, Eunie and Taion seem to be in perfect agreement; without even having to discuss it, they say nothing of their relationship to their friends. That’s not to say they lie, they merely…don’t bring it up. They see no reason to. Once or twice, Eunie catches Noah and Lanz looking at her curiously, but they never ask her if she acted on their advice, and she doesn’t tell them.
Quite frankly, she’d be lying if she said it wasn’t partially to punish them for being such disgustingly lovey-dovey idiots with their new lovers. Eunie wants to vomit every time she so much as looks at Mio and Noah together now; the fact that she understands their feelings perfectly, since she’s in the same position as them, doesn’t change a damn thing.
But anyway, because the two of them aren’t complete idiots-except when it comes to each other, apparently-they manage to stay restrained enough in their actions towards each other to avoid detection for a week.
They would’ve gone longer, but that week is all the time they have; Monica finally comes to them, saying that they can’t afford to wait any longer. Li Garte prison awaits, and Ghondor, and their path forwards. Or their deaths.
They leave the briefing room with grim purpose; all of them, every one, knows that this blissful handful of days are over. They can no longer pretend that they are safe, that they can live happy, quiet lives. That is not their lot. They are Ouroboros-and as all of them know when they look at Mio, their time is running out.
That night’s meal feels like a last supper; they huddle around the fire, each couple clinging tightly to each other; Lanz and Sena hold hands, Noah and Mio rest their heads atop one another as they eat quietly.
Eunie, for her part, feels the weight of the moment getting to her; in a moment of weakness, she pulls Taion to her, glaring at him when he smiles softly and wraps an arm around her shoulders. She’d be more irritated if she wasn’t currently nursing a cup of his herbal tea; not even for nightmares this time-she hasn’t had those since that first night she and Taion had had sex, oddly enough-but simply because it’s become her go-to in moments like this, when the world presses in on all sides, dark and heavy.
Hours pass like that, all of them holding their partners tight, trying to prepare for the end of their little bubble of peace; by tomorrow, they will be at war again. But here, now, they cling to the last embers of the light.
Eventually, Taion excuses himself for a moment, leaving Eunie alone on the bench around the fire. She tries to ignore how cold she is, how lonely her life feels without Taion’s steady confidence in it. She’s fallen deep and fast for him, and she already knows she can’t live without him.
Is this how Noah feels? If it is…how will he go on, in a month’s time? Will he be able to?
A sound from Lanz and Sena’s bench makes Eunie look up. Lanz clears his throat, looking at her meaningfully.
“Eunie,” he says gently, his voice so genuinely soft it leaves her feeling off-balance and confused, “If you’re gonna do it, you need to do it now.”
Eunie blinks; she has no bloody idea what he’s talking about for a moment. “Do what?” she asks suspiciously.
It isn’t Lanz that answers, but Sena. “This is our last night in the City, Eunie,” she says. “If you want to talk to Taion…you’re almost out of time.”
Eunie’s eyes widen in surprise. Oh, yeah. That.
For a moment, she wants to burst out laughing, and explain everything. But then, a much more evil thought pops into her head. She could have some fun with this.
Nobody’s ever accused Eunie of being nice, so of course she chooses Option Two.
She smiles sweetly, and takes a sip of her tea. “What are you talking about?” she asks innocently. “I talk to Taion all the time.”
Lanz and Sena share a confused look, leaving Noah to pick up the slack. “Eunie,” he tells her, “You might not get another chance, you know that, right? If you want to…you know…”
Honestly, for a guy who makes Mio scream so loudly half the bloody City can hear every night, Noah is incredibly awkward when trying to bring up the topic of sex. Eunie would feel bad for him…if she hadn’t lost quite a bit of sleep to said screaming. As it is, she just seizes the opportunity.
“Why, Noah,” she gasps, “Are you suggesting that I should have sex with Taion tonight? Why should I do that?”
Eunie’s friends trade awkward glances, seemingly caught off guard. Eventually, Mio says, “Uh…it’s totally okay if you don’t want to, Eunie, it’s just that…well, we all know how you feel about him…”
Eunie raises an eyebrow at that, but before she can think of a witty reply to keep the ruse going, Taion comes back. With a simple tilt of her head, Eunie gets him to come back to her side-he’s learned quickly exactly how to read her movements, to the point where it honestly scares her a little how wordlessly they communicate.
“What did I miss?” he asks evenly, apparently not noticing the way their friends struggle to meet his eyes. Or perhaps he does notice, and Eunie’s mischievous streak has simply rubbed off on him.
Eunie shrugs, then decides to go for it. “Well, apparently, these four,” she says, gesturing with her mug, “Think we should have sex.”
Various sounds fill the air, from Lanz’s choked wheezing to Sena’s gasp to Mio’s muttered curse.
Taion blinks, but something in Eunie’s eyes is seemingly very good at telling him what to say, because he simply coughs awkwardly and asks, “Now why would they think that?”
Queens bless do-gooder boyfriends with deeply hidden appetites for pranking. Eunie grins easily and widely, puts a hand on Taion’s lap, and says, “I know, right? You’re probably still sore from this morning!”
That makes Sena topple sideways into Lanz as she jolts, and Noah and Mio make bizarre noises that would probably be gasps if they had any air in their lungs. Eunie, never one for mercy, ignores their shocked expressions.
Taion winces. “A little,” he admits, the only sign of his own amusement a deep glimmer in his eyes. “Though I think the one after lunch is the one I’m feeling more right now.”
Eunie howls at the look on Lanz’s face, then; he looks like he isn’t sure if he wants to laugh or vomit.
Beside him, Sena stares at her in disbelief, stammering, “W-wait, but how-when… what? When did you-”
A moment later, Mio puts it more succinctly; she asks, “Wait, so you two are already… together? How long has it been?”
Eunie grins smugly; the jig is up, and she knows it, but that just means it’s time for the knockout blow. She raises her mug to her lips, and drains it swiftly.
Setting the mug down, she replies, “Oh, it’s been a week. You all just never noticed.”
Mio’s eyes go wide at that. “A week?” she says in disbelief. “How?”
Eunie chuckles. “How” what?” she shoots back. “How did we hide it? That one’s simple; unlike all of you, Taion and I have this little thing called subtlety.”
Noah winces at that, probably because Eunie was staring pointedly at him and Mio as she spoke; Lanz and Sena aren’t spared, either, since they’ve proven themselves plenty loud in their own right over the past week.
“How did we get over ourselves?” Eunie continues more pleasantly, a grin slowly spreading over her features, “That one’s a bit more messy; it took me getting some good advice-and Taion getting the stupid knocked out of him a bit. Or are you asking how we had sex? Because I’d be happy to go into more detail if you really want.”
The loud gagging sound from Lanz is really all the evidence anyone needs to drop that question very quickly. Eunie grins smugly as another thought came to her.
“That being said,” she adds, “Lanz, Noah? We need to talk. I know how I’m gonna pay you back for your wonderful advice.”
Taion’s eyes widen in sudden understanding, but any protest dies quickly once Eunie gives him a meaningful look-one that promises many, many things to come.
Her friends, despite their better judgment, look intrigued. “What are you talking about?” Lanz asks.
Eunie’s smirk grows sharper as she lays a hand on Taion’s shoulder. “Well,” she drawls, “Let’s just say that this clever boy did some research, and the results totally blew me away. I’d love to share the knowledge, you know?”
Sena narrows her eyes suspiciously. “What is that supposed to mean?” she demands.
Eunie snorts. “Trust me, love,” she replies, “it’ll be more fun if I keep it a surprise. I was seeing stars the first time-“
“Can we please talk about something else?” Lanz begs.
In response, Eunie just laughs.
The conversation does drift towards other topics, after that. Even as she sits there, Eunie can feel that something has shifted; the weight on all their shoulders has lightened, just a bit, just for now. The lapses of silence feel warm rather than cold, now; their little bubble of peace in a world of war, their eye in the storm, has been restored.
Eunie rests her head on Taion’s shoulder, and lets him pull her close. Around the fire, her friends do the same; they cling to their lovers not out of fear, like before, but with love.
They all know what’s coming. When the sun rises again, they might not all be there to see it-but here, now, they are alive. They have lived. They have loved. They were here. And they had a chance to fight for a better world.
And here, now, there is a warm fire, good food, and more love than a heart can hold.
That’s enough. That will have to be enough.
Perhaps it will see them through what is to come.