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Kissing Youngwoo.
It is a novelty Junho still cannot get used to. He remembers the very first time he had gone in for a kiss and she’d bolted right at the last moment… he still half-expects that to happen, despite the fact that they have been dating for two months, because it almost feels too good to be true. She’s brilliant, she’s beautiful, she’s everything, and the fact that she lets him get close to her like this now, has opened up to him so many times about what goes on in that extraordinary brain of hers, feels like a miracle.
The first time they’d kissed, Youngwoo had actually been the one to instigate it. It was right after their first date, when he had driven her home and stopped his car outside. He said goodnight, and she’d leaned right over and kissed him on the lips. It had been quick, and a little clumsy, and she’d ducked her head, mumbled a “goodnight,” and scampered from the car afterwards.
Junho had grinned all the way home.
He’d kissed her often since then, but each time very carefully, always asking for permission first so as not to alarm her, until she’d told him plainly one afternoon that they were dating now, which produced the assumption that kisses were acceptable, and therefore he did not need to pre-warn her every time.
He’d grinned for a while after that, too.
Then there was the time she had clung to him when he went to pull away, her tiny hands curling in his shirt, keeping her pulled against him as she made a small sound against his mouth, and somehow the kiss had deepened, and Junho had found them pressed up against her desk, his tongue in her mouth and those beautiful, whimpering noises escaping her. Her cheeks had been flushed when he’d finally forced himself to pull away from her, and her dark eyes had glittered in the low light of the nightime office.
“Are - was that okay?” He’d checked, panting a little, running a hand through his hair that trembled a bit.
Youngwoo nodded once. “Yes,” she’d replied quite firmly, then turned and left.
Their kisses were more heated since then, and one evening after dinner finds them pressed together on his couch, Junho leaning over her a little as she licks at his tongue in that maddening way she was inclined to do, his hands roaming up and down her sides, feeling the dip of her tiny waist and spanning her ribs and hips. She makes a pleased sound into his mouth, and her hands curl in his shirt where they rest on his back. She was still getting used to touching - she liked it when he touched her, she had told him that much, but her hands often flailed, fingers flexing, hovering over his arms and his back when he kissed or embraced her. She had taken to clutching little handfuls of his clothes rather than him directly, and Junho had become quite fond of the way she clung to him. It made his mind wander and race - wonder how tightly those hands of his might grip his hair - or his skin, one day, wonder what noises she would make if his mouth was elsewhere…
Gasping a bit, Junho pulls back, extracting himself from her panting form, and pulling himself to sit upright on the sofa next to her. Looking a little dishevelled, and equally as breathless, Youngwoo pats at her hair, taking the hand he offers her to pull her up. She frowns.
“Are you okay?” He asks.
Still frowning, she ‘hmms’, like she’s thinking, and Junho’s eyes widen.
“Did I hurt you? Was that too much?”
“No,” she answers firmly, and he stares at her, waiting for her to elaborate. He can see that there’s something she needs to say, and knows she is thinking of the best way to say it. Youngwoo could be blunt at times, but Junho also knew that she often chose her words very carefully - especially when it was a subject or area she was unfamiliar in.
“Junho,” She finally says. “Do you not find me sexually attractive?”
Apparently this was not one of those times.
He nearly chokes. “What!?” He manages to rasp.
There’s a small crinkle in her forehead, right between her eyebrows, and her eyes search below his eyeline the way they do when he knows she is thinking hard.
“We’ve been dating for two months now. You certainly seem to be interested in me as a person, and you kiss me hello and goodbye, and you always seem to like it when I kiss you as well. But you always stop it quickly, and sometimes when I feel like my heart is going so fast it might burst, and when your hands are on my waist or my hips, you pull away. Even though… even though I would like you to continue.”
He stares at her, heart beating quick. “You’d… like me to continue?” He echos.
“Yes.”
“Con-continue kissing you?” He stammers to confirm.
“Hmm… yes. But also, if there was more you wanted to do, I would like that too.”
Junho thinks he may choke again. He thinks his heart might beat his way out of his chest, thinks his stomach will turn itself inside out because she … was she suggesting… what he thought she was!?
“I… you…”
“So. Is the issue that you don’t find me sexually attractive?”
“No! Youngwoo… no. No. You are…” He puts his hands on her face, and she looks at him. It’s a rare and beautiful moment that she looks him in the eye, and when she does, Junho feels so seen . Determined not to waste it, he licks his lips and plunges on. “You’re everything to me. I like everything about you, and… you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever met. Inside and out.”
Her lips part, and her eyes widen.
“I just didn’t want to push you too far,” he admits. “But I am definitely… very, very attracted to you.”
“Oh,” she finally answers. She swallows, breaks the gaze, and nods her head once. “Good. Me too. To you, I mean. When male whales want to mate with a female, often they’ll perform tricks like lunging out of the water or slapping their fins or singing, and they also give the female gifts. You’ve given me lots of gifts, but the other things, I think, are whale-specific. Also, once they’ve chosen their mate, they can often -”
“Youngwoo.” He hates to cut her off mid whale-talk, he really does, but there was a time and a place, and when he has her on his sofa, kiss-plumped lips and glittering eyes, right after she’s just informed him that she would like to do more than kissing is really not a time or place he can focus on whales. She stops herself, eyes flickering back to his.
“Perhaps you can tell me about the mating habits of whales later?” He smiles.
“Later?” She echoes.
“Yes, later. For I think there’s a more pressing matter that needs attending to right now.”
“There is?” She asks, before realisation dawns. “ Oh. ” She smiles, ducks her head. It’s rare enough to make his heart leap, and dammit he is completely gone on her - Junho had known he was a goner from the second they’d waltzed through those damned revolving doors.
She looks up at him, nods. “Okay. We can talk about it later.”
“Later,” he repeats again, leaning in with a smile, and kissing her again.
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