*This is sort of a 'filler' chapter, it doesn't do much to progress the story itself, though it does have a little bit of progression within it, it's mostly just for more moments between Sakusa and Shinobu because I need to reevaluate the story a bit on my part and I don't want to take a week to do another chapter*
Her back slammed down against the cool white sheets beneath her, and no time was wasted on subtlety, or easing her into his rhythm.
"Ah~, S-Saku~!"
The feeling of his lips on her neck in conjunction with his adventurous hands roaming and exploring every inch of her from beneath her clothes was ecstatic, captivating, indescribably euphoric.
The orange glow of the sun peaking through the shutters while the sounds of commotion just on the other side of the thin walls made the sinful emotions boiling inside of her burn that much more intensely.
Even in daylight, with the other girls still within listening distance, he was still so firm and stubborn when it came to what he desired.
For better or for worse, she liked the boldness and risqué of the situation he put her in.
She let a shocked gasp escape her lips as her uniform shirt was ripped open, exposing her cleavage to the cool air of the breezy afternoon of that heated summer altercation, tingling her skin as the buttons flew in every direction.
His voice, dripping with lust, growled in her ear as he slipped his hand back down behind the fabric hiding her.
"Come on, Shinobu, you can admit that you like this now, can't you~? Show me how you're really feeling like a good girl, alright~?"
"I-.....mmm~, Saku~" She could barely formulate a coherent sentence as his fingers pulled and toyed with her most sensitive areas, and his lips only provided more difficulties as they clashed with the pale skin of her neck again.
He pulled away, only for a moment, to gaze down at her panting, flustered visage, smirking with a shimmer in his ruby eye that gave her the most delectable of shivers up her spine.
"God, it's so rewarding to see you drop that good girl attitude you always put on, darling~"
Her muffled moans, dulled by the back of her hand as she bit into it, rang in the air as the man overloading her senses slipped his fingertips into the hem of her pants, flashing the smile that gave her goosebumps.
"W-Wait!" She weakly protested through her panting, holding her other hand up to his chest to hold him back.
"Should....should we really be doing this, S-Saku?"
"Oh? Are you saying you don't want to?"
Detecting the playfulness in his voice as he pulled away from her again, all she could do was helplessly watch as he pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it away, exposing his scarred, battle-worn figure to her violet eyes.
She couldn't help but stare, not after the merciless assault on her senses he inflicted upon her.
Shaking her head to wake her from her daze, she stammered bashfully, "I-I.....I didn't say that.....I just-,"
"don't you think we're making a mistake here?"
He replied in the most conflicting and heart-racing of ways.
Smirking, he pulled her hands above her head, and in one swift movement, closed the distance between their lips and slid his free hand down beneath the hem of her pants, forcing a moan into the kiss.
"M-Mmph~!"
She could taste every faint note on his kiss, savouring the sweetness as their lips collided and his hand worked its magic between her legs.
God, he could make her go insane so effortlessly, it was maddening.
He pulled away another time, this time only breaking the distance by mere centimetres, gazing down on her with a predatory shine in his piercing ruby eye.
They walked down the road he set them on that night, filling the room with the sounds of their cravings for one another, but not before the man with crimson stains on his midnight black hair said one last thing to her.
"Ah, a mistake, huh~?" Sakusa chuckled breathily,
"Then, let's make some mistakes, Shinobu. You, and me, just for tonight~."
She woke up in the middle of the night, and instantly jolted up out of her bed.
....eh?
Was I.....
Darting her head around at her surroundings, Shinobu cupped her hand over her mouth when her dream set in, breaking out into another deep blush.
Wh-...w-what the hell?!
W-W-W-Why was I dreaming about something like that?!
Despite some...exceptions, Shinobu was not someone who actively dreamt, imagined or thought of things like that.
Aside from a descriptive dream she had of Tomioka once before, things like this were never on her mind. She managed to keep her teenage hormones from going ballistic when it came to anything.... 'distracting' before, even if Kanae wasn't so conservative (she still didn't know who the mystery man doing things with her big sister was, but she did have some suspicions about Sanemi).
Even if some girls around her age were being paired up in arranged marriages, occasions of courtship, and the like, she was never into that.
For lack of a better term, she was essentially celibate.
So just what the hell was she doing dreaming of something like that, with a guy so utterly maddening?
As she turned to her right, however, she instantly remembered why.
Oh. Right. I remember now.
Sleeping in the other bed a few metres away from her, Sakusa in all of his disgustingly attractive glory was passed out like a baby, coiled up in his sheets like a fish in a net.
She and Sakusa were still healing by now, with only ten days or so having passed since their fights. The redhead was covered in bandages on his arms and legs, while another white bandage covered most of his abdomen from view.
Shinobu was also bandaged up quite well, but by the looks of it, Sakusa had taken more damage during his fight.
Rather than force his way into his master bedroom to be healed there, however, he seemed content with being cooped up in the miniature hospital ward in his home with her instead.
The ward was nothing special, very similar to her own at the Butterfly Mansion, save for the windows.
The butterfly girl clicked her tongue, looking at the boy beside her.
Screw you. Screw you and your abs, you dick.
She shoved herself back into bed, trying to sleep off her embarrassment.
"Eh? Swimming?"
Sakusa nodded his head, shovelling more rice into his mouth in bed.
He nodded and spat rice everywhere when he replied. "Yeah, we can walk to down to the water and go for a swim."
Shinobu froze.
Despite all the amazing and innovational things she could do, despite the superhuman abilities she possessed,
Shinobu Kocho was a horrible swimmer.
Sure, you could chuck her into a lake and she would be able to tread water for a little while, but make her do anything but doggy paddle and she sinks like a stone.
Kanae tried to teach her, but when she died, self-teaching was mostly dedicated to killing demons and making poisons, not trying to perfect her breast stroke.
Just the thought of embarrassing herself in front of Sakusa and getting bullied about it for the rest of the day was sickening.
"Ah~, or, we could just not do that, haha~" Shinobu replied, trying to sound as casual as possible.
Sakusa furrowed his eyebrows. "Huh? Why not? The water is amazing."
She couldn't argue with that. Even if she wasn't a swimmer, she could go for a dip in the hot springs or a cold bath right about now.
"Ah~, if you want to go, then by all means, have fun on your own, Saku-san~" Shinobu sighed, bringing her cup of tea to her mouth.
The butterfly girl was hoping the boy would take her hint and drop the subject, but, of course, the exact opposite happened.
Sakusa's eyes widened slightly, and he bluntly said,
"Oh? Do you not want to because you can't swim, Kocho?"
She spat out her tea in shock.
"PFFFT-
"Huh?" Sakusa suddenly furrowed his eyebrows again in surprise. "Seriously? You can't swim?"
Shinobu's lips moved towards a scowl, but she curved them back up at the last minute.
Oi. Don't make fun of me for it, you ass.
"Ahaha~, I guess you could say I'm a little bit of a novice~" she sheepishly replied, chuckling a little.
"Oh. Then let me teach you how."
".....eh?"
Shinobu felt her heart sink into her stomach.
....heh?
You....want to teach...me?
Having the crimson-stained boy see her helplessly doggy paddle around in the ocean was the single worst thing that could happen to her. Her stomach was spinning in cartwheels just imagining the abuse she would get from Sakusa when she saw her in the water.
She could already see the coy, mocking smirk on the boy's face and the teasing look in his eye when he watched her pathetically flail around.
"Pft, wow, you're so cute, flapping your arms like a little bird in the water~"
"Is that the best you can do, Kocho~? Wow, Kanae was so much better at your age, it's amazing how much you're lagging behind~"
"Aw, poor thing, do you need me to get your floaters for you~?"
.....no.
I would rather die.
Shinobu shook her head and flashed a smile, saying, "Ah, you don't need to do that~"
"....yes I do." Sakusa replied with a deadpan expression. "If you suck tits at swimming, I need to teach you how so I don't have to worry about you drowning the second I take my eyes off of you."
....I'm not a child, you ass. I don't need you to baby me!
Tick marks popped up on the butterfly girl's forehead as she spoke. "Ara~, you seem to think I'm a child, huh, Saku-san~?" She said, "Did you forget I'm only two years younger than you~?"
"Pft, so? That's still a pretty big age gap." Sakusa shrugged, keeping his eyes on his food as he spoke, rather than look at the girl on his left.
His casual response somehow irked her.
What did he mean by that?
"Ah, so, what, do you see me as a little sister, or something~?" Shinobu protested.
The boy turned away from his food, and tilted his head towards her with furrowed eyebrows. "Huh? A sister? Why the fuck would I see you as a sister?" He questioned.
Shinobu dodged the question and persisted. "Just answer, Saku-san." She said, her tone being a little more firm.
For some reason, the butterfly girl was unsettled by the thought of being a sister figure to him. It didn't feel right to her.
She didn't like being seen that way by him.
"Erm- well," Sakusa shrugged and scratched his cheek with his finger in thought, "Hmmm....no, seeing you as a sister would be weird,"
Shinobu's heart perked up a bit when she heard that.
"so....I guess that would mean you're basically just a little shit I'm contractually obligated to protect."
And then, it went right back down and tick marks sparked up again.
BITCH-
She punched him.
Ignoring his angry barking, Shinobu ate somewhere else for the rest of the morning.
At the end of breakfast, however, she did end up looking for a swimsuit in the bathhouses.
She first thought of going to the market, but then she remembered that a good chunk of Nagasaki was nothing but ash, and the Corps was already trying to work its ass off to make up a cover story for it, so that wasn't an option.
She then thought of Yae.
Something like this, a group of them with maybe a few Kakushi sprinkled around with them, was a perfect setup for someone like her.
It still hurt to think about, but just like with Kanae, with her Tsuguko, and with her parents, she only took her sorrows and grief, and converted it into anger.
In the end, Yae was another life Shinobu would one day avenge.
The butterfly girl found a swimsuit, and in all honesty, there was absolutely nothing to get excited over.
It was a black sleeveless one-piece that left her arms and legs exposed, but compared to the things she had seen Mitsuri put on, shoving the fact that her tits were huge in everybody's face with her skimpy uniform, this was nothing.
Yes, she almost hand-delivered the Kakushi that gave her the female uniform to her to the gates of hell, but she could handle something like this.
No cleavage, no revealing skirt, it was acceptable.
Shinobu tried it on, and was satisfied with the fit, humming to herself as she changed back into her Corps uniform.
As she left the bathhouse, however, a thought slipped into her mind.
Hmm.....so, I have my suit, my towel, my haori,
She took one last look at the swimsuit, and thought,
Ah, wonder what he'd think of me in this anywa-
She froze up, and instantly wished she hadn't even met the guy.
God, Sakusa was such a problem.
Sakusa himself, of course, had the easy route.
He entered his master bedroom, opened a drawer, and snagged the first pair of black shorts he could find.
His wounds were far from healed, but a swim was a leisurely activity he could do that would not only keep him from losing so much muscle so quickly like before (it was a medical mystery how it even happened the first time), but he just enjoyed swimming in the first place.
He loved the water, even as a child.
He smiled internally at the thought of being able to teach Shinobu how as well, but don't tell her that.
He bid the old man Kakushi adieu when he took his bag, filled with snacks, a towel, his blades (just in case), and a large umbrella for the sun, and headed down the pathway of the mountain.
He reasoned that it'd be better to wait down at the foot for Shinobu than to wait at the door, but he really just wanted to see the last few days of summer light on his face.
Summer was going to end soon, inching closer and closer to the worst season of all; winter.
He hated winter with a violent passion. The snow, the cold, the sneezing, everything about the bitter winters were vile to him.
There was another reason he hated winter, however.
Two of his most loved ones died in that season.
One of them, as he found out less than two weeks ago, was killed by the Second Upper Moon.
The other....Sakusa didn't like to remember.
Clicking his tongue, he tossed his memories aside.
Forget about them for now. Don't let yourself get angry again.
He popped another violet pill into his mouth, it seemed like the right time to do so.
After a while, she stepped out of the mountain pass, and into the light.
Sakusa only glanced in her direction out of the corner of his eye, but that was all that was needed to completely blow his mind into pieces.
....huh?
Wha-?
e-eh?
His jaw practically made a crater in the ground with how hard it dropped.
"Sorry I took so long, Saku-san~!!"
Shinobu jogged over to him with a gentle smile on her face, wearing a pair of sandals and her butterfly haori draped over her shoulders, but the real kicker, was, of course,
the swimsuit.
Sakusa couldn't take his eye off of her.
.....woah.....legs....
Now that he thought about it, he had almost never seen Shinobu's legs.
Her uniform covered absolutely everything, and even if the heat beat down on her during their two months of summer training, the only thing he had ever seen her do was roll up her sleeves.
It wasn't as if he really looked at her in such a perverse manner, to be fair. He liked to joke about her being a flat washboard, but in reality, he rarely even so much as glanced in the direction of her chest.
Sakusa was no pervert. Masochist, who knows? But no pervert.
But now, seeing the butterfly girl he had been together with for months now, wearing nothing more than a one-piece and a butterfly haori over her slim frame, something inside his teenage mind seemed to click.
Her legs....and thighs.....and waist....and chest......were okay. Just okay. Nothing more, of course. Sakusa wasn't a pervert, after all.
Shinobu, on the other hand, was feeling more and more conflicted as she stepped up to him.
She could tell his ruby gaze held just as many conflicted emotions as she felt, however, which did relieve some of the awkwardness inside.
She didn't know what she expected from him, to be honest. Part of her wanted a look of awe from him, to go wide-eyed at her and stammer over himself like an idiot, if only to give her a little confidence boost, so she knew she looked at least somewhat appealing. Another part wanted him to order her to put a skirt or covering that hid her thighs and waist, just so she knew that her appearance got to him that much and she could tease him about it.
Or maybe, he would tell her to cover up so other people couldn't see her. An over-protective Sakusa wasn't such a bad thought either.
But then she remembered that this man was singlehandedly the most impossible to decipher on the planet (Tomioka was a close second), so she didn't get ahead of herself.
However, when she realized she had rendered him utterly speechless, and his eye was practically magnetically pulled towards her legs, she felt a little sliver of delight in her heart.
Shinobu walked up to the awestruck boy and greeted him with an innocent smile. "I didn't know you had come down the mountain so early Saku-san, I thought you had left without me~!"
That part was true, and she flipped a table in her room when she couldn't find him. But then, she looked out of a window and saw him down on the ground, and cooled off.
All that effort put into finding a swimsuit and steeling her resolve enough to want to swim with him, only for it to be thrown out the window, was not a fun thought for her to stomach.
Sakusa remained silent, only uttering a few sparse syllables every second or so.
"I-....uh-.....you-...."
Shinobu's grin grew even wider. She put her hands behind her back and stepped forward, continuing her torment. "Ara~, what's the matter, Saku-san~?" She teased, "Something bite your tongue~?"
The butterfly Hashira relished the stammering and flustered look on Sakusa's face, even passing her limits a little and pressing her shoulders a little bit closer to each other, pushing out her breasts.
That definitely got Sakusa's attention, and even if he glanced down for the briefest of moments and realized that maybe Shinobu wasn't flat, he managed to dart his head away and turn his back to her.
"E-Enough, l-let's just get going!" He stormed off down the dirt path to Nagasaki, a blush going up to his ears as clear as day.
Shinobu was satisfied with his reaction, quickly catching up to him with a smug smile on her face.
Sakusa was fun to tease.
Despite all of the horrors that had occurred just days prior, the beach was still packed.
The long sandy coastline a little ways off from the hustle and bustle of the city itself, the saltwater beach was filled with at least a hundred goers that sunny day.
Shinobu immediately did not want to be there.
If she was actually going to be taught how to swim, she would have preferred Sakusa had taken her somewhere where a hundred people wouldn't watch her splash and flail around like a dying animal in the water.
She took a quick scan across the area, looking at the groups of families, couples and other people all around her. Her eyes did eventually turn back to her partner, and the girl watched as he threw his bag down on the ground after he pulled his towel out and threw that on the ground as well.
Sakusa pointed out to the water and turned back towards her. "I'm gonna go out to swim later, for now I just wanna lay down for a bit."
Perfect. The longer I don't swim and make a fool of myself, the better.
"Ah~, alright, Saku-san~!" Shinobu replied.
The butterfly girl slipped out of her sister's haori and tossed it over her shoulder, humming a little as she pulled her towel out of her bag and did the same thing Sakusa did, laying it down on the ground.
She took a careless glance over in the boy's direction, though, and caught him darting his head in the opposite direction with a redness in his ears.
She couldn't help but let her lips curve up by just the slightest amount when she saw that.
It was ironic, how she would have been considered the pervert between them not even a day ago.
Heh....you little shit, staring at me~....
Then, realization set in, and Shinobu flushed red herself.
....YOU WERE STARING AT ME!
She never had any way to react when to came to this boy, it was insane. First, he calls her a flat washboard, making her believe that he viewed her in the same class as an old hag in terms of attractiveness, like he was looking at the polar opposite of what his type actually was.
Then, what does he do? Ogle at her the second she shows some skin.
The sick pervert was so conflicting. Sure, it wasn't as if she didn't hate it, after all, she had been caught gazing at him that way before, but even so, how was she supposed to feel about something like that?
Shinobu let out a huff.
Too much thinking, not enough relaxing.
Shaking her head slightly to rid herself of her thoughts, the butterfly girl pitched the umbrella just above her towel to keep her from burning up, and lay down with her bag tucked behind her head.
It was so peaceful that day. Despite the destruction of the city occurring only a week and a half ago, with her wounds having just barely healed, life was a little less infuriating for Shinobu at that time.
The sound of the waves combined with the cheerful shouts of the people around her was relaxing, and the mixture of gentle shade and humid warmth felt oh so pleasant on her face.
She rarely ever let her legs get this much exposure, so she enjoyed the new feeling of the humid air on her silky smooth skin.
Shinobu Kocho was enjoying herself.
Until, as always, Sakusa had to ruin everything.
Though this time, it wasn't exactly his fault.
"Go on, go on, Miyuki! Go talk to him!"
"Oh, my gosh, don't push me, Kei, I'm going to!"
"If neither one of you go, I'll just talk to that hunk myself~."
Her eyes shot open in shock.
....eh?
Shinobu jolted upright the second she heard the hushed whispers of a trio of teenage girls to her left, and jerked her head in their direction.
Surely enough, there they were.
Three girls, all brunettes wearing swimsuits similar to her own, were whispering and giggling to each other as they all had their eyes on the boy a couple feet away from her, albeit soaking up the sunlight away from the umbrella.
The lead girl in the centre, only around an inch or so taller than Shinobu herself, had her brown hair cut in a bob with a much, much more endowed figure than her own.
She looked like Mitsuri, if Mitsuri didn't have pink hair, a beauty spot beneath her eye and everlasting blush on her cheeks. Basically, she was every boy's fantasy.
Another girl with a more athletic body was to her left with her hair in long waist-length pigtails while the one to the girl's right had her hair cut to her shoulders with thicker hips but a smaller bust than the ringleader.
Despite their contrasting appearances, they all had one thing in common; they were thirsting for Sakusa.
Shinobu couldn't let that stand.
The ravenette, still maintaining her bright and cheerful smile, got onto her hands and knees and crawled her way over to the crimson-haired boy.
Sneaking a glance back at the girls and relishing the questioning looks on their faces as she inched closer to him, Shinobu promptly smacked Sakusa across the face, alerting both the trio of girls fawning over her partner, along with her partner himself.
Sakusa jolted upright and instantly reached for his cheek with a confused and enraged look on his face. "OI! WHAT THE FUCK?!"
"Let's go."
Shinobu suddenly reached for the hand holding his cheek and gave it a tug, repeating herself. "I wanna go swim, Saku-san. Let's go."
For now, all cheerfulness had vanished from her tone. Sakusa himself still seemed to be a little shocked about getting smacked so easily and awkwardly followed Shinobu's lead, sitting up and letting the butterfly girl lead him by the hand out to the water.
"E-Erm," Sakusa finally managed to speak up after a moment, "Just what the hell are you doing, Kocho?"
The butterfly girl suddenly paused her brisk pace ahead of him, and a chill ran up his spine.
...oh shit.
Shinobu turned around, and with a smile that could kill, she said in a venomous tone, "Oh, I just want to swim, that's all."
Sakusa knew better than to drive Shinobu off the deep end, and oh boy, she was inching closer and closer to that drop.
"U-Uh....fine, whatever."
Shinobu grinned to herself, especially when she overheard the disappointed murmurs of a trio of girls watching her pull Sakusa behind her into the water.
When she waded knee-deep into the water, however, she only then realized what she had gotten herself into.
The butterfly girl froze up in shock like a possum playing dead.
.....oh, shit.
"Oi, what are you doing?"
A poke to the cheek shook Shinobu out of her daze, and she looked back up to see Sakusa raising a questioning eyebrow at her.
"Are we not going deeper? I get you're a shrimp, but this water's too shallow even for you to swim in." The boy asked her, pointing off into the distance.
Pretending like she didn't hear her was not an option, running away would be foolish since Sakusa could jump across a lake with the stride of his legs, and playing dead would lead to actual death if she collapsed face-first into the water.
Shinobu was out of options, so she just giggled awkwardly. "Ahahaha~, I-I mean, we don't really have to go in now, do we~?" She nervously stammered, "I-It's fine if we just tested the waters and got accustomed to the-
"Shut it, flatty, you're going in the water."
"Eh?"
In one swift movement Shinobu felt an arm buckle her knees and swing her into the air, and she let out a gasp when Sakusa held her up bridal style and started walking deeper into the water, until they were at his chest-level, or more importantly, where Shinobu could barely touch the bottom.
The butterfly girl froze up when realization set it.
"......don't you dare, Sakusa." Her voice was void of any cheerfulness once again, but all Shinobu got in return was a quick glance down at her and a smirk on his lips.
".....no. No, no, no, no, NO-
The butterfly girl squealed when Sakusa, bearing a mischievous grin on his face, tossed her into the water without hesitation.
The water swallowed her whole jolting her body with a vicious ice-cold wake-up call. Her breath burst out from between her lips and Shinobu almost inhaled a gallon's worth of seawater into her mouth, but she managed to flap her arms to safety.
The second she peaked out of the water, she fired as many daggers as her violet eyes could muster, tick marks galore sparking up on her forehead.
Sakusa, though, still kept that shit-eating grin on his face.
God, he was such a prick.
"Now just what the actual fuck was that for, you big gorilla~?" She spat in her contrasting kind tone.
He raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Didn't you want to learn how to swim~?"
BITCH-
"Aha~, but how am I supposed to learn when all you did was toss me into the water, huh~?"
"I dunno." Sakusa shrugged, "My father just kept chucking me into the water until I managed to swim instead of drown."
....oh yeah. I forgot you're a total idiot.
Shinobu probably should have expected that Sakusa would have no idea how to teach her anything besides how to fight. A family that revolves around combat would naturally have no idea how to do much else.
Of course, since he has no idea how to teach, the best course of action in his situation would be to do things the same way he was taught.
As Sakusa stood there with his hands on his hips, looking like a confident dad looking down at his daughter treading in the waves, Shinobu realized,
that he was an idiot. A total idiot.
She let out a sigh. Ah, fantastic.
This is going to be a long day, isn't it......
21 times.
In a row.
That is how many times Shinobu Kocho was catapulted into the depths of the ocean by him.
That is how many times she was subjected to the utter embarrassment of being seen by the public as Sakusa picked her up by her arms and tossed her as far as he could, even using breaths at one stage to chuck her a solid 10 feet into the air.
Even so,
She loved every minute of it.
She had the time of her life with this boy, somehow. Splashing in the waves, getting on his shoulders and being flung through the air, trying to race him, only to have to cling to his back in a vain effort to achieve victory, it was amazing.
Sakusa was like a shark in the water, swirling and thrashing through the waves like a streamlined animal and rising out of the water like something out of a cliché romance film, in the sense that he essentially did everything possible to be as attractive to the women on the beach.
Brushing his wet, crimson-stained locks out of his face and shaking his hair back and forth, flicking and brushing the water off of his glistening abs, maintaining a stoic and firm look on his already-stoic-and-firm face like some sort of model, every single woman (and some men) were ogling him as he stepped out of the water.
It wasn't as if Shinobu wasn't either, I mean, come on. There was only so much a teenager could take, after all.
But, Sakusa also said that as long as he didn't see her, she could 'be a little perv' as much as she wanted, right?
And taking a couple of glances over at her partner when he's doing a stretch or unintentionally flaunting his muscles like a male bird during mating season wasn't exactly a crime, was it?
This was fine. Yes, yes, completely fine.
But Shinobu felt a pit in her stomach when she began to see all the other girls fawning over him. For some reason, catching girls of literally any age (Sakusa had a knack for getting even the seniors to go all heart-eyes at the sight of him and his chesticles) sneaking looks at him made her feel not only annoyed, but a little uncomfortable.
She just couldn't stomach it.
Every time someone seemed like they would approach him, she took him by the arm and dragged him somewhere else along the beach.
They seemed to get the message once that happened, but it was annoying to have to come up with an excuse to Sakusa about why she spontaneously yanked him away.
But at the end of the day, it was oh so worth it.
Every moment, from splashing him in the shallows and getting shoved back into the water, to eating his ice cream and getting into food fights when their tempers flared up, was utter bliss. She couldn't remember the last time she had so much fun with one man before. Even when Sakusa found a pier to jump from late in the afternoon and he shoved her in with a shit-eating smirk on his face, she managed to laugh there too.
For that brief period of time, when a smile never left her face and she got to witness the rarest of things that was Sakusa's own heart-stopping grin again and again, Shinobu forgot all about her anger.
Now, as she sat on his shoulders as they walked back home, she realized something.
Looking up at the glistening orange shade of the sky, Shinobu spoke her thoughts aloud in a soft tone,
"you....are really fun to be around, Saku-san."
She smiled, admiring the way the trees lining the rocky path they walked on seemed to lean over the thin walkway, almost like a cage hanging over top of them.
The view was astonishingly different when she sat on his shoulders. She was a good metre higher in the air than normal, seeing everything from a giant's point of view.
Oh, the things she would do to be able to see the world from this perspective forever. Being this tall, having the strength her partner possessed, to be able to be so daunting and feared that her very shadow struck terror in the hearts of her enemies.
Maybe then, she would have been able to right the wrongs done to her, she would have been able to save her sister, her Tsuguko, the people she watched die from the demons wreaking havoc on her life and thousands more.
If only she was like him just a little more.
But, at the same time,
"You're fun too, Kocho."
Shinobu's eyes widened and she instinctively looked down, and saw him looking right back at her, tilting his head up to meet her violet gaze.
He held her calves to ensure her stability, but he gave her legs a slight squeeze as his lips curved up into a smile to her, forcing another shade of pink to her cheeks.
Fuck, that smile was so perfect.
Sakusa stopped, standing still as the two peered into each other. As Shinobu lost herself in the swirling eddy of ruby red, soft, spotless skin and countless stunning specks of handsome on this boy's face, Sakusa himself could only stare blankly at the teenage girl sitting atop his shoulders, admiring every sliver, every sculpted feature, every little bit of Shinobu that was so utterly captivating.
Slowly, her hands began to move on their own, reaching up to his visage as she studied his features, gauging his reaction as they found a home on his cheeks, cupping his face. He showed no reaction whatsoever, actually, let alone resistance. He seemed alright.
Maybe he didn't care, maybe he didn't notice.
Maybe he was just too far gone, sucked into the drop-dead gorgeous girl on his shoulders.
They remained there, silent, unmoving.
As she looked down, looking down at him, seeing the glow in the ruby peering back at her, feeling the prickly stubble underneath her fingertips, taking in the smoky, unmistakable scent that was Sakusa Kari's musk, basking in his presence,
"You're.....really fun too, Kocho." He mumbled again.
Shinobu realized, that,
If.....if I wasn't so small....so weak......if I was so much more like you....
.....would I get to have moments like this....with you.....
Would Shinobu be able to rest on his shoulders like this?
Would she be able to be held so close in his arms like a bride, slowly drifting off into slumber as she followed the sway of his body with every step he took?
Would she be able to train so hard with him, morphing into a stronger version of herself every passing day, all thanks to his help?
Would she be able to open up to him so easily, finding comfort in the thought of this red-stained idiot protecting her, keeping her safe?
If she was so strong.....where would he be?
Would they even have crossed paths?
Would this mission they're on right now, killing the Seven Archangels and stopping the revolt of a demon more terrifying and ambitious than Kibutsuji ever was, be done so quickly?
Would they be done, just like that? Never to acknowledge each other again?
For some reason, some inexplicable reason she just could not put her finger on,
Shinobu didn't really like the thought of being so strong anymore.
Strong enough to avenge her sister, yes, but,
getting so strong that Sakusa had no reason to stick around in her life anymore, maybe not.
She could give up a little bit of power for him, just a little.
After all, he taught her how to swim.