NOBARA PICKS A meat-heavy slab of sushi from your bento. You watch as your last soldier is devoured by the hungry she-beast. There is pain in your eyes. Nobara ends up laughing with a mouth full of rice at the teary-eyed sorrow in your eyes.
"Why are you laughing?" you question sharply. "You killed Jimmy!"
She sets her chopsticks down on the picnic table, chewing with obvious satisfaction.
"Well at least you won't be arrested anymore. If you'd continued with eating him you would be in jail." She wipes at her mouth in delicate motions. You roll your eyes at the genteel facade. "I saved you. So now I'll be put in jail. Lord knows you could never deal with the suckers there."
"Uh huh. Why is that so?"
"'Cause your ass is too big for the pervs in county jail. They'd never be able to keep their hands off you," she says nonchalantly. Your features contort in horror.
My precious ass, you think worriedly. Until a larger problem presents itself to you.
"But... your chest is also huge." You squeeze at the air with wiggling fingers. Now it is her turn to look at you in horror. "How would they be able to resist you?"
"You could just go together then," Yuji suggests innocently with a golden brown pole of tempura to his lips. "Then you could beat all of them up."
Megumi snorts into a glass of iced tea. "Yeah. Remember that one time Kugisaki kicked someone in the balls just because they asked for your number, (Y/N)?"
"You did?!" you gasp at Nobara. "I even told you to leave the poor boy alone! Did you sneak into his house or something?!"
"Fushiguro, you son of a bitch!" Nobara wags a minatory fist in his amused face then turns to you with an ingratiating smile plastered on her face. "Oh no, honey. No, of course I didn't hurt him. Fushiguro..." She glowers at him. "Was only trying to get to me. You know how he is."
She laughs nervously. You only respond with satire in your raised eyebrows.
"Really now?"
She continues to wheeze in forced laughter. You can only sigh.
"Well... whatever, honey, if you say so. But if I find out you kicked Eren in the balls..."
"I didn't! I swear I didn't!" she insists. On other occasions she would have been more open to admitting her protective exploits, but she is immensely aware of how much you care for this guy.
Just because he has nice green eyes and a stupidly good body and a cute face, she thinks to herself.
It's a good thing I'm gay, she then reflects. Never taking her eyes from you.
"Even if you didn't kick him in the balls, Nobara, you would still owe me sushi. Which you do." You smirk at her. So infuriatingly smug. Oh, the many things she wants to do to that mouth.
"Will a kiss do?" she offers without thinking twice. Then she shuts her mouth so quickly she feels her teeth click together in her jaw.
You freeze, your features closing up. Turn away from her. Face a mask of quiet.
Her words... open and sincere as they are to her, they are a mistake to you.
You say nothing, and that is what hurts Nobara the most.
"Um, hey... are you guys okay?" Yuji asks gently. He tilts his head at your silence.
"Hey dumbass, I remember Gojo-sensei told us about a stray cat he picked up yesterday. He found it on the street." Megumi grabs a hold of Yuji's arm and pulls him up and out of his seat. "We should go and help him take care of it. If he treats that cat as poorly as he treats us, then that thing is so dead."
"Um... wait, he did? But I don't really wanna go. I'm not a fan of cats, and—ow!" Yuji clutches his shin in pain, face contorting from the ache of a low blow from Megumi. Nobara hopes this will get some sort of reaction from you but your face is still so vacant.
"Well, you're a fan of them now dumbass." Megumi looks back at you, concerned. He reassures Nobara with the calmness in his gaze. Cinches his fingers around the hoodie on Yuji's uniform and drags him away from your table with a note of finality.
"Nobara," you finally say. She snaps her head back to you, keen to listen to your every word. "Nobara, what would they say?"
"About what?" she can hear the unease in your tone. It makes her shift closer to you, her shoulder now next to yours. If she angled her head just right she could kiss you.
"About... us," you say quietly. She flinches. You're still going on about that?
"Why do you think that should be important to us, (Y/N)?" she snaps. She doesn't want to sound like this, and she detests the poisonous spread of wrath thrumming through her. But it slips into her words all the same. "Why should I care about what they might say?"
You force fake calm into your voice, "Well I do, and I think we both should."
"But why? What's the point in doing that?"
"They're our family, Nobara." Whenever you look at her, Nobara somehow always feels as if she is directing her gaze to the wide, immense face of the world.
When you look at her now, all she sees is rage.
"And? What does that mean for us?"
You throw your hands up into the air, almost yelling, "We have nobody else!"
"Even if they left us, you would have me," she says, lashing out at you when all she wants to do is have you lay her down on this table and kiss her until the crickets play their song. "And I have no fucking idea why that has never been enough for you."
All the fight leaves you. You look at her for real now. She does not realize it but her world has become whole again.
"Nobara, god, you know that's not what I meant—"
"No. No, you shut up," she says forcefully. Silencing you completely. You let the excuses die in your throat as something else inside you begins to claw its way to life. So fast. So quickly.
This girl has so much power over you.
Her body finds its way to your lap. She rests her smooth hands on your shoulders. You wish you were bare so they could warm your skin fully.
Your own hands are greedy little things that live beyond your control. Every part of you is terrified. Out in the open, where anyone could see you... it was not the same as the refuge of her perfume-stained sheets.
But the fear in you has morphed to take on the form of another emotion of screaming strength. There now cries in you a desperation for her.
So you let your fingers trace the outline of her hip as she settles into your lap. The other clasps the back of her neck with cold fingers. She shivers into you, her eyes falling shut in silent rhapsody. The nerves on her nape have always been her favorite, most sensitive spots. You know this well.
She is a temptress you want with every part of you.
"Kiss me," she says. Her eyes never open.
And you do. It is chaste. Simple. No tongue, no teeth, nothing beyond your need to love her.
"You can be so stupid sometimes," she sighs into your mouth.
"I wonder who it is who makes me so stupid," you retort. Now your tongue meets hers.
"Hah. I'm too hot, aren't I?" She smirks into your parted lips. She twines the fingers of one of her hands into your hair. Ensures your nose brushes hers and that she can feel your teeth on her.
"You know I could shut you up right now, yeah?"
"Then do it."
"But baby," you say. "We have to talk about this. I really am sorry, you know?"
You say these words with your mouth still connected to hers. When she decides she's had her fill, she parts from you with a hand raised to swipe at the wetness just on the edge of her lips.
"I'm just... scared," you explain as she arches an eyebrow at you, awaiting your explanation. "I don't want them to leave us."
"(Y/N) fucking (L/N), the love of my goddamn life." She grips your chin between her thumb and forefinger. Staring into you with unwavering intensity. "Our love is not a fucking crime."
She lets her hands cup your face. You look down in guilt. Close to tearing up.
"Hey, hey. Look at me. Our love is not a crime. I never thought it was wrong of me to fall for you. To fall for such a glorious queen was and will always be an honor.
"And of course, you should feel honored that I love you, my big baby," she coos, and you snort at her. Hold her hands in yours and lead them behind you so they can clasp together at the back of your neck.
And there, in broad daylight where you would have once been so afraid of showing the world how you love her, you kiss her until all she can say is your name.