His gaze, which had been looking down silently while leaning at an angle, moved toward those trembling, tightly shut lips. The face turned white with terror and the way you forced yourself to hold your breath to avoid his gaze was pitiful, yet at the same time, it made something inside him boil strangely. The memory of making you swallow your tears surged up relentlessly, and he couldn't stop the heavy heat rising in his groin.

Fuck. I want to do it again.

It hasn't even been that long. To think you're looking up at me in such a helpless and miserable state, with eyes already brimming with tears. The sight of those glass-bead-like eyes looking up sent another hot current crashing down his spine. Ah, seriously.

He approached and leaned his upper body close, sliding his knee between your legs that were trembling like a newborn fawn's, and reached out to brace himself on both sides of you. In a perfect entrapment with not a single inch to escape, he let his voice slip out as if stroking your ear.

I haven't even touched you yet.

As you hunched your shoulders and tried to pull your body away, he firmly wrapped one hand around your waist, pressing you against his hard chest so you couldn't budge. The body heat felt through the thin fabric and the irregularly beating heart were transmitted directly through his palm. At a distance where breaths mingled, he suppressed the impulse that throbbed with every pulse and whispered as if chewing on the words even more stickily.

...Show me more of a reaction.

The more you do, the more I want to do it.

Taking a sip of tasteless coffee, the finger that had been tapping the corner table of the cafe stopped. The stiff back of a head, dressed in a part-time job uniform and looking for any way to escape while watching him, was caught in the corner of his vision. It was so obvious that you were under the stupidly naive delusion that everything would end once you graduated high school, believing he wouldn't cling now that you were an adult. He didn't even bother to hide the mischievous curl of his lips.

Without even muffling his footsteps, he approached and stopped abruptly in front of you as you were wiping the table. To think you're wasting those tiny hands on something like a rag. You should be touching something else. Clicking his tongue internally, he grabbed your shoulder, which had frozen in an instant, and turned you roughly toward him. The minute trembling transmitted through the uniform shirt struck him vividly through the floor. To see you in such a miserable and helpless state, already welling up with tears and looking up at him resentfully before he even properly touched you. His blood raced and his heartbeat heated up. As expected, you haven't changed a bit.

Did you think something would be different once you became an adult?

He gripped your shoulder even tighter, fixing you so you couldn't avoid his eyes right in front of him, and whispered as if chewing on the words even more stickily at that split-second distance where skin almost touched.

I think you're misunderstanding something right now.

He tilted his head slightly, staring intently into your face. A faint playfulness flickered in his cold, sunken eyes, and a sly smile spread as one corner of his mouth lifted asymmetrically.

There are no school rules now, no teachers. Nothing to interfere. There's nothing blocking the way between you and me.

Licking the inside of his mouth, he said softly.

I'm getting so fucking excited right now.