Chapter 9

By December, the apartment was too big.

That was a ridiculous problem to have. I knew it was ridiculous. People in New Avalon spent half their lives trying to gain more space. Space was expensive. Space was a luxury. Space was what nobles bought upward into towers and what adventurers bought sideways into reinforced compounds after their third dungeon bonus. A studio with room enough for a bed, a sitting area, a kitchen that was more than two burners and a sink, a real bathroom, a fireplace, and a window large enough to make the city feel like part of the room should have been a miracle.

It was a miracle.

It was also too big.

I stood near the middle of it with a mug of cinnamon tea in both hands, staring across the dark wooden floor toward the enormous windows while snow fell heavy outside. The glass rose nearly from floor to ceiling in black iron frames, arched at the top like old cathedral windows and divided into square panes that caught the city lights in little trembling pieces. Frost feathered the edges of the glass, delicate white patterns spreading inward where the heat runes were weakest. Beyond them, New Avalon glowed through the storm: tower windows, suspended tram lines, gargoyles hunched under snow, living bridges braided between old skyscrapers, and castle roofs jutting from the crowns of ruined Art Deco giants like the city had once been a normal place and then decided normal was embarrassing.

Our building fit that perfectly.

It had been an old brick warehouse once, or maybe an art studio, or maybe several things stacked on top of each other over five hundred years of apocalypse and renovation. The lower floors were red brick and iron beams, with old freight doors converted into arched entries framed by stone carved to look like castle gates. Higher up, the walls changed into dark gray masonry, narrow balconies, and little turret like corners where residents kept winter plants under glass bells. The hallway outside our apartment had exposed pipes, old paintings, brass sconces shaped like dragon claws. The landlord called the style “heritage industrial castellated revival.”

Riko called it “sexy villain loft.”

I called it home, though I still said it carefully, like the apartment might overhear and decide I was not using the word confidently enough.

I had no idea how Riko found it.

Every time I asked, she gave a different answer. Once, she said she won it in a card game against a minor Pendragon cousin. Another time, she said the previous tenant owed her a favor and also possibly a kidney. A third time, she simply said, “Don’t worry about it, peach boy,”

Still, the lease was real.

Probably.

The building recognized our key charms. The heat worked. The water ran clear. The fireplace did not contain a cursed noble skull, despite Riko’s disappointment. The rent was technically possible if I kept my bakery job, Riko kept whatever irregular income she refused to explain too clearly, and neither of us did anything expensive like sleep, eat, or purchase legal furniture too often.

We had furniture now.

Not much.

More than before.

The bed sat against the brick wall, wider than my old one by enough that waking up did not automatically mean discovering one of Riko’s elbows in my ribs. Two red chairs slouched near the fireplace, both secondhand and too soft. A low table made from reclaimed blackwood stood between them, currently covered in pastry crumbs, loose cards, Riko’s tools, and one pair of panties she had left there deliberately because she enjoyed making me suffer during breakfast. The kitchenette had open shelves, real counter space, hanging copper pans, and a little tiled backsplash painted with blue roses and yellow lemons.

Charlie had the best spot.

Of course he did.

He lived by the window now, not on the sill because he was too large for that. He had entered what the plant guide called his “young tree stage,” though I personally felt young tree sounded far too casual for someone who had survived murder, defenestration, repotting, emotional neglect, overwatering, and Riko. He grew from a wide blue ceramic pot big enough that moving him required both of us. His trunk had thickened into pale silver brown wood that twisted elegantly upward like a tiny ancient thing pretending to be a bonsai. Long vines drooped from his branches in willow curtains, each one lined with small moon pale leaves that glowed faintly at night. When the wind pressed against the windows, the vines trembled as if he were listening.

I set my mug on the table and walked over to him.

“Good morning, Charlie.”

Charlie did not answer.

He had become more dramatic since the move, but not more talkative.

Snow slid down the glass behind him in soft white sheets. A tram passed beyond the next tower, its lights blurred by the storm into gold smears. Somewhere far above the city, hidden by clouds, the bells of Camelot Spire rang the hour. They had been playing winter hymns all week, slow and warm and old, the sort of music that made people look up even when they were late.

Christmas was coming.

Or Red Hearth’s Long Night, depending on who was being official, religious, corporate, nostalgic, or annoying.

At Hearthbell, the holiday rush had swallowed us whole. Children came in clutching letters to Saanthaklaas the Red Hearth, asking if cookies shipped better in wax paper or charm boxes. Parents bought spiced loaves, gingerbread dragons, cookies colored like little auroras, and the expensive fruitcake that the head baker insisted was traditional even though everyone agreed it had the weight and tactical value of a brick. Mara handled most of the seasonal display now. She was still better at arranging things than I was, though I had made the little Red Hearth buns extra round and cheerful.

Mara.

The warmth in my chest thinned.

I looked down at Charlie’s pot.

“We’re not thinking sad things before breakfast,” I told him.

Charlie’s vines moved slightly.

“Do not disagree with me in leaf.”

He kept being leafy.

Traitor.

Things with Mara had not broken all at once.

Instead, they had loosened. Thread by thread. A little more distance each week. A little more politeness. A few less jokes. She still cared. I knew that. She still checked whether I had eaten on double shifts. She still smacked my hand away from hot trays when I reached too fast.

But she did not stand as close anymore.

She did not touch my shoulder without thinking.

She did not corner me in the alley with advice unless it was strictly about work.

Sometimes I caught her looking at me when she thought I was not watching, and I could see the old question still there.

Who are you?

I had tried to answer it.

A little.

Carefully.

I told her about some of my adventuring history. Not all. Some. The parts that sounded less like a child feral in a dungeon and more like a troubled boy who had survived badly. She listened. She cried once, which made me panic so badly I tried to make her tea in the bakery sink and spilled water on three order forms. She hugged me after that.

Only once.

It had been stiff at first.

Then real.

Then over too quickly.

Since then, things were better.

Maybe.

I thought they were better.

Or I wanted them to be better so much that every tiny improvement became a holy sign. A longer conversation. A smile that reached her eyes. The day she called me “bun gremlin” again and then looked startled at herself afterward, like the old nickname had escaped captivity.

Maybe one day it would be normal.

Maybe not.

Some things did not go back.

The bedroom door slid open behind me.

Riko emerged wearing one of my oversized shirts despite owning clothing of her own and despite the fact that the shirt hung strangely on her synthetic body, slipping off one shoulder and exposing the glowing cyan seam at her collarbone. Her red orange hair was a catastrophe of bed mess, white streaks sticking out at impossible angles. Her eyes glowed a sleepy amber until they found me, then warmed toward gold.

“You left bed,” she accused.

“I was seven feet away.”

“Too far.”

“I was greeting Charlie.”

“He gets too much attention.”

“He is a tree now. He has responsibilities.”

Riko shuffled over, wrapped both arms around my waist from behind, and pressed her face into my shoulder. Her body was warm against mine. The first months of us living together had been like trying to sleep beside lightning in a bottle. She woke at every sound. Checked my panel while pretending not to. Asked if I loved her too often. Got angry when I answered too slowly. Cried when she realized she was doing it. Apologized with too much intensity. Broke things. Fixed them. Held me like she was afraid someone might repossess me if her grip loosened.

She still did some of that.

Not as much.

Enough.

But she stayed now.

That mattered so much I could not always look straight at it.

The first week she stayed three nights in a row, I had woken each morning terrified that the bed would be cold. The fourth morning, when she was still there, sprawled sideways with one leg over mine and a hand twisted in my shirt, I had cried so quietly I thought I got away with it. Riko had opened one eye, called me a stupid peach, and then cried too.

Now she stayed every night.

Some mornings she even woke first and made tea so strong it could legally threaten someone.

Progress.

Messy progress.

“Snow’s heavy,” she murmured.

“Mm hm.”

“Good.”

“You like snow?”

“I like excuses to keep you inside.”

“That is a worrying sentence.”

“It’s romantic.”

“It is romantically concerning.”

She smiled against my shoulder. “Good.”

Outside, New Avalon blurred behind the snowfall. The city looked softer in winter. Less sharp. The castle towers wore white along their battlements. The living bridges had been strung with red and gold lanterns for the Red Hearth season, each one enchanted to glow brighter when people laughed beneath them. Hearthspire charities had donation stations on every major corner, staffed by cheerful Aevithal snow elves in red coats and fur lined boots, taking letters, food offerings, blankets, toy requests, and corporate sponsorships with the same warm professionalism.

Everyone knew Saanthaklaas was real.

That still felt strange when I thought about it too hard.

A real dragon at the North Pole. Level ninety two, according to every child’s system encyclopedia and at least three unauthorized celebrity documentaries. Red, white, and gold scales. A mane like snowfire. A laugh that shook auroras loose. Every winter, he and the Aevithal opened the Gift Network, stretching the Long Night with system approved time magic so he could reach every registered settlement before dawn. Lights left burning became destinations. Hearths became anchors. Kindness became some kind of measurable multiplier because Dice thought making generosity a statistic was funny.

I loved it.

I really did.

The whole thing was ridiculous and commercial and magical and sincere in a way that made cynics angry. Dragons did not need to become Santa. Aevithal elves did not need to turn survival into craft and charity. New Avalon did not need to hang lanterns and decorate subway stations with carved sleighs pulled by miniature wyrms.

But they did.

People kept making warmth on purpose.

Riko’s arms tightened around me.

“You’re thinking too much.”

“I was thinking about Christmas.”

“Dangerous.”

“Very.”

“Are you going to write a letter?”

I blinked. “To Saanthaklaas?”

“No, to the landlord. Yes, to Saanthaklaas.”

“I am twenty two.”

“So?”

“I don’t think adults are supposed to.”

“That is fake law.”

“It might be emotionally real law.”

Riko released me, circled around, and leaned back against Charlie’s pot like she was forming an alliance with him against me. “You should write one.”

“What would I ask for?”

She opened her mouth.

Then closed it.

That happened sometimes now. Riko stopping herself. Catching the first impulsive, sharp, possessive answer before it escaped. It did not always work. But sometimes it did, and those moments mattered more than she thought.

She looked toward the window. “Something you want.”

“I have things I want.”

“Then write them.”

“I don’t want to be greedy.”

“Greedy is asking for a castle.”

“We sort of live in one.”

“A bigger castle.”

I laughed.

Riko’s expression softened so fast it hurt.

I went to the kitchen and started breakfast because standing still inside too many feelings made me nervous. The counter was cool under my palms. I sliced two pieces of sweet winter bread from Hearthbell, toasted them on the rune plate, and spread one with peach jam for me and one with cherry blackcurrant for Riko. The fireplace crackled across the room, red gold flames licking quietly behind the iron grate. It was not a real wood fire. New Avalon had regulations about that in old buildings. But the heat was real, and the little hearth rune had a seasonal charm installed that made it smell faintly of pine, sugar, and smoke.

Riko climbed onto one of the counters and watched me.

She lived here.

We had never properly said it.

Riko looked down at her hands. “I mean.”

I set the knife down.

“Yeah,” I said softly.

She did not look up. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

The fireplace popped.

Snow pressed softly against the glass.

Riko’s face crumpled for one dangerous second, then she hid it by grabbing the cherry toast from the plate and taking a bite too large for dignity.

“This is mine,” she said thickly.

“The toast or the apartment?”

“Yes.”

I smiled.

Then she started crying.

Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just sudden glowing tears slipping down her cheeks while she chewed, like her emotions had failed to consult her mouth before arriving.

“Oh no,” she said, annoyed at herself.

I moved to her immediately.

She tried to wave me off with one hand while holding toast in the other. “I’m fine.”

“You are crying into jam.”

“It’s a garnish.”

“Riko.”

She made a frustrated sound and leaned into me.

I stood between her knees at the counter and wrapped my arms around her carefully. She pressed her forehead to my neck, still holding the toast away from my shirt because despite everything, she had learned some manners.

“I live here,” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“You’re not taking it back?”

“No.”

She bit my shoulder lightly. Not hard enough to hurt. Hard enough to make a point.

“I love you,” she said.

“I love you too.”

“Say it better.”

I kissed her hair. “I love you, Riko, who lives here.”

She shook once in my arms.

Then breathed.

Then breathed again.

“Good,” she whispered.

Later, after breakfast, I pulled out the little box of holiday decorations we had bought from a street stall run by an Aevithal woman with frost blue skin and furred ears. She had promised every ornament was handcrafted and only “mildly enchanted,” which meant nothing in New Avalon, but the price was good and Riko liked the tiny glass knives shaped like icicles. We did not have room for a full tree because Charlie had apparently taken that role spiritually, so we decorated him instead.

Carefully.

Respectfully.

With negotiation.

Charlie received red ribbon, three tiny gold bells, two glass lemon slices, a blue star, and one little Saanthaklaas dragon ornament curled around a gift box. Riko tried to hang a tiny pair of panties from one of his branches and I confiscated them.

“Censorship,” she said.

“Charlie is a respected elder.”

“He’s younger than us.”

“Emotionally older.”

Charlie glowed faintly under the ornaments, his willow vines shimmering silver against the snowy window. He looked beautiful. Strange, but beautiful. Like a tiny moonlit tree that had decided to celebrate because everyone else was trying.

I touched one of his leaves.

“You look very handsome.”

Riko leaned against me. “He’s going to get arrogant.”

“He deserves to.”

Outside, the snow fell harder.

Inside, the apartment stayed warm.

The room was still too big, but less than before. Riko’s jacket on the chair helped. My apron hanging by the door helped. Charlie glowing in the window helped. The fireplace helped. The smell of toast, pine, and jam helped. The way Riko kept brushing her hand against mine every few minutes helped most of all, even when she pretended it was an accident.

My system panel chimed near noon.

For one old anxious heartbeat, I thought it was Riko even though she was right beside me.

It was Mara.

Mara: Holiday schedule changed. You’re off Red Hearth Eve if you still want it.

I stared at the message.

Riko noticed immediately. “What?”

“Mara.”

Riko’s expression tightened by habit.

Then softened by effort.

“What did she say?”

I showed her.

Riko read it once. Then again.

“She gave you the night off.”

“Maybe the head baker did.”

“Mara messaged.”

“Yes.”

“That’s good.”

I nodded slowly.

It was good.

Small good.

Careful good.

A little bridge made from one message and too much hope.

Yuzu: Thank you. Really. I can cover extra prep the day before.

The answer came after a minute.

Mara: I know. Don’t overdo it. Also Sel says if you don’t write a Red Hearth letter she’s telling the dragon you’re emotionally constipated.

I made a sound.

Riko leaned over my shoulder. “Sel is smart.”

“She is terrifying.”

“Also smart.”

I typed back with my face warm.

Yuzu: Please do not let Sel report my emotional digestion to Santa.

Mara: Too late. She’s drafting a formal complaint.

I smiled.

Not fully.

But enough.

Riko watched the smile like it was weather clearing.

“Better?” she asked.

I nodded. “Maybe.”

“Maybe is good.”

“Maybe is very good.”

That evening, once the sky had gone dark and the snow turned the windows into a soft white blur, I sat at the low table with paper in front of me.

Actual paper.

The Aevithal vendor had said letters to Saanthaklaas worked best when handwritten, even though the System could absolutely transmit them digitally. She said handwriting gave the wind something to hold. Riko called that marketing. Then bought the nicest paper anyway.

The sheet was cream colored and thick, with a red border of tiny hearth flames that moved when I breathed on them. I held the pen and stared at the blank space.

Riko lay upside down on the bed, legs against the wall, watching me.

“Write,” she said.

“I am thinking.”

“You are stalling.”

“Thinking with fear.”

“Stalling.”

Charlie glowed quietly by the window.

The fireplace crackled.

I wrote:

Dear Saanthaklaas the Red Hearth,

Then I stopped.

The pen hovered over the paper, and suddenly every word in my head became too large to fit through my hand. Riko was still upside down on the bed, legs against the wall, shirt sliding up enough that I could see the pale glow of her stomach seams pulsing lazily beneath synthetic skin. She looked casual. Bored, almost. But I knew her better than that now. Her eyes were on me in the reflection of the window, watching every tiny movement of my shoulder, every pause of the pen, every breath I took too deeply.

“What are you writing?” she asked.

“Letter things.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It is a very letter shaped answer.”

“Yuzu.”

I curled my free arm over the paper before she could try to read it from the bed. “Private.”

She rolled halfway upright at once, red orange hair falling messily around her face. “Private from me?”

“Yes.”

Her expression sharpened.

Not much.

Enough that my stomach tightened by habit.

Then she stopped herself. I saw it happen. Saw the first wounded thought rush up behind her eyes, saw the old panic begin to form around the idea that private meant hidden, hidden meant leaving, leaving meant betrayal. Her fingers dug into the blanket for half a second.

Then she breathed.

Just once.

Hard.

“Okay,” she said.

It was not an easy okay.

It was not a calm okay.

But it was an okay, and that made my chest ache.

I smiled at her, soft and grateful. “Thank you.”

She made a face like my gratitude was personally embarrassing. “Don’t thank me for not being insane.”

“I am thanking you for trying.”

Her eyes flickered.

Then she looked away toward the fire. “Write your stupid dragon letter.”

“It is a sacred holiday tradition.”

“It is a stupid holiday tradition.”

“Both things can be true.”

She kicked one foot lightly against the wall. “You say that too much.”

“Because it keeps being useful.”

Riko huffed, but she did not get up. She did not steal the letter. She did not crawl over my shoulder or bite my ear or threaten to tell Charlie I was keeping secrets. She stayed there on the bed, pretending not to care while caring so loudly the room could almost hear it.

I looked back down at the paper.

Dear Saanthaklaas the Red Hearth,

My name is Yuzu. I am twenty two years old, so I know I am probably too old to write this.

That part was easy. My hand moved, and the hearth flame border around the paper flickered faintly as if approving.

This year has been very strange. I met someone I love. She is difficult and beautiful and mean to furniture. She repotted my plant after throwing him out a window. She lives with me now. We did not say that properly for a long time, but today we did, and I think it made both of us cry a little. She would deny this.

I glanced up.

Riko was watching me again.

I covered the paper more firmly.

She narrowed her eyes. “You smiled.”

“I often smile.”

“You smiled in a suspicious way.”

“Holiday cheer.”

“Suspicious holiday cheer.”

I dipped the pen in the little inkpot and kept writing before she decided suspicion required investigation.

I have a warm home. I have work. I have Charlie, who is a tree now and very handsome. I have Mara a little bit again, maybe. I have more than I thought I would ever have, and I am trying not to be greedy.

That was where the lie tried to sneak in.

Not a bad lie. A polite lie. The kind of lie people wrote in letters to gods and dragons and anyone else who might be listening. I am not asking for anything. I am grateful. I am content. I will be good and small and happy with what fits in my hands.

But I did want something.

I wanted it so badly it scared me.

My fingers tightened on the pen.

Riko shifted on the bed, but she did not speak.

I wrote slower.

But there is one thing I want.

I want Riko to marry me.

The words sat there.

Black ink on cream paper.

Small enough to fit on one line.

Large enough to make the apartment vanish around me.

My heart started beating so hard I worried Riko would hear it from the bed. Maybe she did. Maybe Charlie heard it too. Maybe Saanthaklaas himself heard it all the way at the North Pole, one massive dragon eye opening beneath a mountain of gifts because some small oni in New Avalon had written the most terrifying sentence in the world.

I want Riko to marry me.

I stared at it until the letters blurred.

It was romantic.

Maybe.

It was also stupid.

Maybe very stupid.

We had been together almost ten months. That was not nothing. That was also not forever. Our relationship had begun with lies, cheating, crying, stolen underwear, broken trust, too many apologies, not enough apologies, and both of us saying I love you like people clinging to the last warm thing before winter took the room.

A sensible person might wait.

A sensible person might talk about it first.

A sensible person might not put a ring in a letter and mail it back to his own apartment through a magical Christmas dragon network because he liked the idea of Riko receiving a present from Saanthaklaas and opening it to find a proposal.

I was not always a sensible person.

I was trying to be, but apparently trying had limits.

I reached under the low table.

There was a small box taped beneath it.

I had put it there three days ago. Then moved it to the kitchen shelf because what if Riko looked under the table. Then moved it back because what if Riko looked in the kitchen shelf. Then hid it inside an empty tea tin, panicked because Riko drank tea, and put it back under the table again. The tape pulled free with a tiny sound that felt louder than thunder.

Riko’s head lifted.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

“That was a sound.”

“Many things are sounds.”

“Yuzu.”

I hunched over the letter. “Private.”

She stared at me for a very long second.

Then buried her face in the pillow and screamed softly into it.

Not a real scream.

A frustrated blanket scream.

“Fine,” she said, muffled. “I am being respectful and I hate it.”

“You are doing wonderfully.”

“I know.”

The box was tiny, dark blue velvet, and much too dramatic for my hands. I opened it under the shelter of my arm.

The ring inside caught the firelight.

I had chosen it alone, which had been terrible. The jeweler had been very kind and only asked once why I looked like I was about to pass out. It was not a traditional diamond. Riko would have hated something too normal, and I did not want a ring that looked like an apology for being strange. The band was black metal, smooth and narrow, with a thin line of gold running through it like warmth inside shadow. The stone was small but bright, a blue white moon crystal set low so it would not catch on her gloves or tools. When turned toward the light, a tiny red spark moved inside it, not quite visible unless you knew to look.

The jeweler had called it a hearthstar inclusion.

I had almost cried in the shop.

Very embarrassing.

I slipped the ring from the box and held it in my palm.

It looked impossible there.

Too small for the size of what it meant.

I placed it carefully in the center of the paper beneath the last line, then folded the letter around it. Once. Twice. The paper was thick enough that the shape of the ring made a little raised circle under the fold. My hands trembled as I slid the folded letter into the cream envelope.

Riko rolled onto her stomach, chin on her hands. “You’re being very quiet.”

“I am concentrating.”

“On letter crime?”

“Possibly.”

Her eyes lit faintly. “I like letter crime.”

“You do not know that it is crime.”

“Is it?”

“No.”

“Disappointing.”

I sealed the envelope with red wax. The little stick of wax smelled like cinnamon and smoke when melted over the candle flame. I pressed the seal stamp down into it, leaving the mark of a tiny hearth dragon curled around a gift. My thumb brushed the front of the envelope after the wax cooled.

Then I wrote the address.

To: Riko

Our Apartment

New Avalon

Red Hearth Delivery

I stared at her name.

Riko.

Not Mira.

Not the name from before.

Not the name she had chosen because she thought I would like it and then somehow grew into because I kept saying it with love. Riko. My Riko. Terrible Riko. Brave Riko. Crying into jam Riko. The girl who had lied to me and stayed. The girl who had hurt me and tried. The girl who lived here now.

My chest felt too full.

The mailbox waited beside the window.

It was a little brass Red Hearth box we had bought mostly as decoration, shaped like a tiny chimney with a slot in the top and four clawed feet. The Aevithal vendor said if we placed letters in before midnight, the holiday route charm would catch them and carry them to the Saanthaklaas sorting network. Riko had said that sounded like a scam. Then she bought two because one had a dragon face on it.

I stood.

Riko sat up immediately. “Where are you going?”

“To mail it.”

“In the room?”

“Yes.”

“That is not going anywhere.”

“Magic mail.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You are enjoying this.”

“A little.”

“Suspicious.”

I walked to the brass mailbox with the envelope held in both hands. Snow battered gently against the window behind Charlie, who looked very dignified in his ornaments. The fire crackled. Riko watched from the bed with all the patience of a knife trying to pretend it was a spoon.

I hesitated.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

But it was not nothing.

The envelope suddenly felt heavier than it should. Once I dropped it in, the plan became real. It would go wherever Red Hearth letters went. It would be sorted, blessed, stamped, routed, maybe laughed at by Aevithal clerks who saw dramatic proposals all the time. Then, if the vendor had not lied and the charm worked the way she promised, it would come back on Red Hearth Eve addressed to Riko.

She would open it.

She would read it.

She would see the ring.

And then the world would either become warmer than it had ever been, or....

Riko’s voice softened. “Yuzu?”

I pushed the envelope through the slot before fear could convince my hand to stop.

The brass mailbox chimed.

Not loudly.

Just a little golden note, sweet and bright, like a bell heard through snow.

A line of red light traveled around the dragon face carving. Smoke curled from the tiny chimney, shaped itself briefly into a wing, and vanished. The envelope was gone.

My hand stayed on the mailbox.

Done.

Romantic or stupid, it was done.

Riko slipped off the bed and came toward me. Her bare feet made almost no sound across the dark floor. She stopped behind me, close enough that I felt the warmth of her body before she touched me.

“Was it sad?” she asked.

“No.”

“Was it about me?”

I swallowed.

“It is private.”

“That means yes.”

“Not necessarily.”

“You get pink when you lie.”

“I am not pink.”

“You are extremely pink peach boy.”

I turned around, and she was right there, amber gold eyes searching my face with sharp, hungry worry.

“It wasn’t bad,” I said.

She studied me. “Promise?”

I almost said promise immediately.

Then stopped.

Riko noticed that too.

Her expression flickered.

I took her hands.

That helped. Maybe both of us.

“I wrote something I wanted,” I said carefully. “Something good. Something scary because it’s good.”

Riko’s fingers tightened around mine.

“Are you leaving?” she asked.

The words were small.

Too small.

I leaned forward and pressed my forehead to hers. “No.”

“Are you asking for something that takes you away?”

“No.”

“Are you asking Saanthaklaas for a better girlfriend?”

I laughed before I could stop myself.

Riko bit my wrist lightly.

“Don’t laugh.”

“I am not asking for a better girlfriend.”

“Good. There isn’t one.”

“No,” I said softly. “There isn’t.”

Her face changed.

That answer reached her properly. I felt it in the way her hands unclenched, in the way her shoulders lowered, in the way the light beneath her porcelain skin pulsed once, bright and blue and tender.

She kissed me.

Not hard at first.

Just her mouth on mine, warm and careful, like a question she already knew the answer to but wanted to ask anyway. I kissed her back. The fire warmed one side of my face. Snow pressed white against the windows. Charlie’s silver leaves glowed beside us like a little moonlit witness pretending not to watch.

Riko pulled back just enough to whisper, “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Say it better.”

I smiled against her mouth. “I love you, Riko, who lives here, who is not replaceable, who is not being traded for anyone better, who is very bad at respecting private letters but tried anyway.”

Her eyes filled.

“Oh, that was unfair.”

“It was true.”

“You can’t just say true things like weapons.”

“You do.”

“I’m allowed.”

“Fake law.”

She laughed wetly, then kissed me again.

This time it was not careful.

Her hands slid into my shirt, cool at first and then warm. Mine found her waist. She backed me away from the window, or maybe I pulled her toward the bed, or maybe both things happened because we were very bad at moving separately when feelings got too large. The room narrowed around us. Fireplace. Snow. Bed. Her hands. My heartbeat. Her laugh breaking against my mouth.

At the edge of the bed, she paused.

"What?" I asked.

"You have a look."

"I don't have a look."

"You have a look, peach boy. I know all your looks. This one is new."

She was right. I did have a look. Something had been building in my chest all evening through the letter, through the kiss, through her wet laugh against my mouth and it had settled somewhere low and warm and determined.

I put my hands on her shoulders.

And pushed.

Riko went down onto the bed with a startled little sound, flame bright hair fanning out across the blanket, amber gold eyes wide and delighted.

"Oh," she said.

"Lie back."

"Yuzu "

"Lie back, Riko."

Her seams pulsed. Bright blue, once, all down her sternum where her shirt had ridden up.

"Yes sir," she breathed, and there was laughter in it, but underneath the laughter there was something else. Something hungry.

I climbed onto the bed after her. I kissed her mouth once, slow, and then her jaw, and then the place on her throat where a cyan seam ran like a vein of light beneath her porcelain skin. She shivered. I kissed lower. The hollow of her collarbone. The warm space between her breasts as I pushed her shirt up and off and she lifted her arms to help me.

"Yuzu "

"Shh."

"Are you "

"Shh."

I kissed her sternum. Her ribs. The soft skin of her belly, which twitched under my mouth. Her hands found my horns and gripped them not pulling, just holding, like reins she hadn't decided whether to use and the pressure at the base of them sent sparks all the way down my spine.

I hooked my fingers in the waistband of her shorts.

Pulled.

She lifted her hips for me. The shorts went, and the underwear with them, and then she was bare from the waist down in the firelight, pale thighs and that small neat patch of red and the soft pink heat of her, already glistening.

I settled between her legs.

"Oh gods," she whispered, propping up on her elbows to look down at me. "Oh gods, you're really you've never "

"I know."

"Do you even know what you're "

I licked her.

One long, slow drag of my tongue from her pussy up to her clit.

Riko's elbows gave out.

She hit the pillows with a thump and a sound I had never heard her make before high and broken and surprised and her thighs clamped around my head, and her hands flew back down to my horns and gripped hard.

"Oh oh fuck your tongue "

I had, in fact, been somewhat aware that oni tongues were longer than most. It had never seemed like relevant information before. It seemed extremely relevant now.

I licked her again. Slower. I let my tongue curl, tracing the soft folds of her, learning her shape, and her hips bucked up against my mouth like they had stopped asking her permission for anything.

"Yuzu Yuzu, baby "

I found her clit and closed my lips around it and sucked, gently, and her whole body arched off the bed. Her seams flared so bright they lit the ceiling. I held her hips down with both hands I was stronger than her, I sometimes forgot that, suppressants or not and I worked her with my mouth the way she had taught me to do everything else: patiently, thoroughly, paying attention.

She came in under two minutes.

Shaking, gasping, her thighs trembling around my ears, her hands wrenching at my horns, a long broken moan tearing out of her that the snow outside mercifully muffled.

I did not stop.

"Wait wait, baby, I just oh "

I slid my tongue inside her.

Deep. Deeper than fingers. Curling. Her body clenched around it and she made a sound like a sob and her heels drummed once against my back.

"That's not fair that's not oh gods, oh gods, what is that "

I hummed against her, pleased, and the vibration made her wail.

The second one took longer. I made it take longer. I learned her tells now the way her belly tightened, the way her moans climbed in pitch, the way her seams strobed faster and faster as she got close and every time she got to the edge I slowed down, gentled my mouth, dragged my tongue in long lazy strokes until she was cursing at me in two languages and pulling my hair.

"Yuzu Yuzu, please "

"Mm?"

"Don't you dare mm me please, baby, please, I need let me "

I let her.

The second one was bigger. She screamed into her own forearm and her thighs locked around my head so hard I genuinely could not hear anything for several seconds, and when she finally went limp she was glowing all over, every seam pulsing, her chest heaving.

I kissed the inside of her thigh.

And started again.

"No I mean yes I mean " Her voice had gone ragged and wrecked. "Baby. Baby. Listen to me. I love your mouth. I love your stupid perfect long tongue. But if you do not get up here and put your cock in me right now I am going to die."

"You won't die."

"I will die and Charlie will witness it and you'll have to explain to my mother that you killed me with your tongue "

I licked her again, slow, just to feel her whole body jolt.

"Please," she gasped. "Please, please, Yuzu, I'm begging, I am actually begging, I want your cock, I want it so bad, please fuck me "

Something mischievous and entirely unfamiliar uncurled in my chest.

She had teased me for months. She had made me beg. She had made me wait, made me squirm, made me say things out loud that still made my ears burn to remember.

Turnabout, I decided, was fair.

I climbed up her body, kissing as I went belly, ribs, breast, throat and I settled my weight over her and let her feel my cock, hard and heavy and slick at the tip, drag along the wet heat of her.

"Yes," she breathed. "Yes, baby, come on, give it to me "

I lined up.

And slid lower.

The head of my cock, slick with her and with me, pressed against the tight pucker of her ass instead and I pushed, slow and steady, and the head popped past the ring of muscle.

Riko made a sound I will treasure until the day I die.

It started as a moan, swerved violently into a laugh, crashed back into a moan, and came out as something like "hhhAH you absolute ohh you sneaky little ooohh gods "

"Hm?" I said innocently, sinking in another inch. She was tight, impossibly tight, hot and gripping, and her body was already relaxing to take me, her hips tilting up. "Is something wrong?"

"You put it ah in the wrong hahh hole "

"Did I?" Another inch. Her laugh dissolved into a shudder. "I'm a virgin, remember. I don't know what I'm doing."

"You are not oh fuck you are not a virgin anymore and you know oohh "

"You said you wanted my cock."

"In my pussy, you "

"You didn't specify."

"YUZU."

I bottomed out. All ten inches, buried in her ass, her body trembling around me, her laughter and her moaning so tangled together that they had become a single helpless sound. Her seams were strobing chaotically. Her eyes were wet with laughing or with pleasure or both.

I started to move. Slow, deep strokes, drawing nearly all the way out and sliding back in, and her laughter trailed off into something lower and hungrier as her body caught the rhythm.

"Oh," she breathed. "Oh, that's okay, that's that's actually oh "

Then I reached down between us.

And slid two fingers into her pussy.

Riko's eyes flew open.

"OH "

I curled my fingers. Found the spot inside her, the soft swollen place along her front wall that she had once guided my hand to with infinite patience, and I rubbed it in time with my thrusts cock filling her ass, fingers stroking her g spot, both rhythms locked together.

Riko stopped making coherent sounds entirely.

She clawed at my shoulders. Her legs wrapped around me. Her whole body was shaking, full in both places, lit up like a festival from the inside, and every thrust pushed her up the bed and every curl of my fingers dragged a fresh broken noise out of her throat.

"Yuzu Yuzu oh gods oh gods, I can't it's too it's everywhere "

"Good?"

"Unfair it's unfair who taught you ah "

"You did."

She came apart.

Her third orgasm hit her like a wave breaking her ass clenching around my cock, her pussy spasming around my fingers, her back bowing off the bed, her seams flashing white bright and I held the rhythm steady all the way through it, working her down the other side, until she was a trembling, glowing, gasping wreck beneath me.

And then her hands found my face.

She pulled me down and kissed me desperate, messy, all teeth and breath and need and her lips moved to my ear, and her voice came out small and raw and stripped of every game she had ever played.

"Baby," she whispered. "Baby, please. I really, really want you to fuck my pussy now."

No teasing left in me survived that.

I pulled out of her ass, slow, and she whimpered at the loss. I withdrew my fingers. I rose up over her, and she looked up at me with her flame hair wrecked across the pillow and her amber gold eyes huge and shining and her whole body open and waiting, and she reached down between us and wrapped her hand around my cock and guided me home herself.

I slid into her pussy in one long stroke.

We both groaned. Her head fell back. My forehead dropped to her shoulder. After everything her mouth, my mouth, the teasing, the laughing the fit of us was so familiar and so perfect that for a moment neither of us could do anything but hold still and feel it.

"There," she whispered into my hair. "There you are."

"Here I am."

"Don't ever put it anywhere else again without warning me."

"No promises."

"Yuzu "

I started to move.

Long, deep strokes that made her sigh and curl her fingers into my hair, her body still trembling with aftershocks from everything that had come before. The fire painted her in gold and shadow. Her seams pulsed in lazy waves now, calm and bright, the rhythm of her synced to the rhythm of us.

Then I noticed them again.

The piercings.

Two small silver barbells, one through each nipple, still new enough that she'd warned me to be gentle the week she got them. They caught the firelight every time she breathed.

She was not breathing gently right now.

I lowered my head and closed my mouth over the left one.

"Ah " Her whole body jumped. "Careful careful, they're "

"Sensitive?" I murmured against her skin.

"You know they're "

I flicked the barbell with my tongue.

The sound she made was not a word. Her pussy clenched around me so hard I had to stop thrusting for a second just to keep my composure. Her hands flew to my horns again they always found my horns and gripped.

"Oh," I said, deeply interested. "Oh, that's much more sensitive than before."

"Yuzu "

"They said it would take six weeks to adjust. It's been seven."

"Yuzu, don't you dare do science to me right now "

I rolled the barbell gently between my lips and tugged.

Riko wailed.

Her hips bucked up against mine, grinding herself on my cock, and I started moving again deeper now, harder, finding the angle that made her toes curl while my mouth worked at her nipple. I sucked. I flicked the little silver bar back and forth with the tip of my tongue. I caught it between my teeth, so carefully, and pulled just enough for her to feel it, and she dissolved underneath me into a string of curses and pleas and my name, my name, my name.

I switched sides. Gave the right one the same treatment. My fingers came up to the left, slick with my own spit, and toyed with the barbell there rolling it, pressing it, twisting it the smallest possible amount while I fucked her in steady, relentless strokes and the bed creaked its complaints into the firelit dark.

"They're ah they're connected," she gasped. "I swear they're wired straight to my oh gods everything you do up there I feel down there "

"Good," I said, and bit down softly.

She came again. Just from that my teeth on her piercing, my cock buried deep, my fingers tugging the other barbell in time. She came with her heels digging into the backs of my thighs and her seams flashing and her voice cracking on the high note.

I fucked her through it. And when she went soft and shivery beneath me, I sat back on my heels, still inside her, and looked down at her wrecked, glowing, beautiful face.

"More?" I asked.

She laughed, breathless and disbelieving. "Who are you tonight?"

"Yours."

"Oh, that's that's cheating okay. Okay, yes. More. Obviously more. Always more "

I grabbed her ankles.

And lifted.

Her legs went up and over my shoulders, calves hooking around my neck, and then I got my arms under her and stood, lifting her clean off the bed, her whole weight settling onto my cock as gravity drove me deeper into her than I'd ever been.

Riko's eyes went enormous.

"OH "

"Okay?" I grunted.

"You're you're holding me you're just holding me, oh gods, oh gods, I forgot how strong AH "

I started to move her.

Up and down, my hands gripping her hips, her legs locked around my neck, her body folded nearly in half between us. Every drop drove me to the hilt. Every bounce punched a sound out of her. She clung to my shoulders, to my horns, to my hair, and her head fell back and the firelight rolled across her throat, and I fucked her standing in the middle of our room with the snow piling silent against the windows.

"Yuzu Yuzu, I'm this is so deep I can feel you in my everywhere "

The pressure built in me too. Fast, with her weight working me like that, her body gripping me with every bounce.

"Riko "

"Yes inside, inside, come inside me "

I buried myself deep and came, my knees nearly buckling, ropes of heat pumping up into her while she ground herself down against me and shook through another peak of her own, the two of us locked together upright in the firelight, gasping into each other's necks.

I did not put her down.

I did not go soft.

Oni stamina, she'd called it once, hopefully. Tonight it was a promise.

"Turn around," I said.

"What "

I lifted her off my cock she whined at the emptiness and set her feet on the floor, and spun her, and bent her forward, and caught her thighs and lifted her legs up off the ground so that she had to catch herself on her hands.

Wheelbarrow.

"Oh, you have got to be where did you even learn " she started.

I slid back into her from behind.

Whatever she'd been about to say became a long, descending moan. Her arms trembled. Her hair hung down in a flame bright curtain, brushing the floor. I held her thighs against my hips and fucked her like that, deep grinding strokes, her body helpless and suspended between my grip and her own shaking arms, my cum from the last round easing every thrust, the wet sounds of it absolutely obscene in the quiet room.

"This is undignified " she gasped.

"You love it."

"I love it oh gods harder harder "

I gave her harder. I fucked her until her arms gave out and I had to hold her entire weight, until she came again with her face buried in the rug and her fists balled in its fibers, until I spilled into her a second time with a groan that came up from somewhere ancient.

We did not stop.

The kitchen table was next. I cleared it with one arm a mug, a cookbook, three of her hairpins scattering and laid her out across it and hooked her knees over my elbows and fucked her on the cold wood until it stopped being cold, until she'd left scratch marks down my back and the table had walked four inches across the floor from the force of it. I came in her there too, deep, holding her hips flush against me while she trembled.

Then the counter by the fireplace. Her perched on the edge, legs wrapped around me, the firelight close enough to warm both our skins, her arms around my neck and her mouth on my mouth, slower this time, deeper, the kind of fucking that was almost dancing. The mantle clock watched. Charlie's silver leaves glowed beside us, dignified, pretending very hard not to witness anything. She came with her face pressed into my throat and her piercings dragging against my chest, and I came moments after, and she laughed weakly and said Charlie saw everything and I said Charlie has seen worse and she laughed harder and clenched around me and we started again.

The floor in front of the fire. The wall by the window with the snow swirling inches from her shoulder blades through the glass. The bed again, finally, both of us wrecked and glowing and slick and stupid with it, her riding me one last lazy time with her hands flat on my chest and her hair a disaster and her seams pulsing the soft slow blue of deep contentment, milking one final orgasm out of each of us as the fire burned down to embers.

I lost count of how many times I came in her. Four. Five. Each one thick and hot and pumped deep, until she was full and dripping and pleased with herself in a way that radiated off her like heat.

Finally finally she slid off me and collapsed against my side, boneless.

"I'm dead," she announced to the ceiling. "You killed me. Tell my mother."

"You said the tongue would kill you. You survived the tongue."

"The tongue was the first attempt. The kitchen table finished the job." She turned her head and looked at me, eyes half lidded, soft. "Where did all that come from, peach boy?"

"I wrote a letter," I said, "about something good. Something scary because it's good."

Her face went gentle. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

She kissed my shoulder. Then she stretched, winced, laughed at herself, and slid down the bed.

"What are you "

"Shh." She settled between my legs, propped on her elbows, and looked up at me with absolute mischief through her wrecked flame hair. "Last thing. I'm finishing the night properly."

"Riko, you don't have to "

"I am cleaning up my mess."

And she did slow and unhurried, no urgency left in either of us. Long soft passes of her tongue up the length of my over sensitive, softening cock, cleaning away the evidence of the whole night, both of us mingled together on my skin. Her eyes stayed on mine while she did it, warm and amused and tender, lapping me clean from base to tip with the thoroughness of a woman who took pride in her work. When she finished, she pressed one small kiss to the very tip.

"There," she murmured. "Good as new."

"Come here."

She crawled up the bed and into my arms, and I pulled the blanket over both of us, and the embers ticked softly in the grate, and the snow kept falling, and Charlie glowed his quiet silver glow.

"Hey, Yuzu?" Her voice was already half asleep against my chest.

"Mm?"

"Whatever you wrote in that letter."

"Mm."

"I hope you get it."

I looked down at her porcelain and firelight and faded blue pulses, mine, here, not replaceable, not being traded for anyone better and I tightened my arms around her.

"I think I hope so too," I said.

But she was already asleep.

The last day before holiday leave smelled like cinnamon, pine sugar, and exhaustion.

Hearthbell had been busy since opening. Not ordinary busy. Red Hearth busy. The kind of busy where the bell over the door stopped being a bell and became a constant bright little argument with silence. Customers came in layered in scarves and snow dusted coats, arms full of shopping bags, children pressed against the glass cases, adventurers buying travel loaves before catching portal routes, clerks ordering boxes of ginger buns for offices where nobody admitted they wanted them until the last tray was gone. The windows had fogged at the edges from all the bodies coming in out of the cold, and the display cases glowed warm under brass lamps, full of spiced rolls, sugar stars, red berry tarts, little iced dragon cookies, and dark fruit loaves heavy enough to use in self defense.

I loved it.

I was also very ready to not be standing.

My feet hurt in that deep bakery way, where the pain started in the heels and somehow climbed into the soul. My tail had smacked the storage shelf twice because the back room was full of seasonal crates, and I had apologized to a sack of flour when I bumped into it because apparently manners did not know when to rest. My patch itched under my sleeve, amber and steady, doing its job. My hands smelled like yeast no matter how many times I washed them.

Mara found me near the cooling rack while I was arranging Red Hearth buns into neat little rows.

“Yuzu.”

I looked up too quickly. “Yes? Did I put too much glaze? I can fix glaze. Glaze is very negotiable.”

She stared at me for a second.

Then she smiled, but it was the small careful kind. The kind that meant she had come over for something that was not about buns.

“Can we talk?”

My stomach tightened before I told it not to.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No.”

“Oh.” I set the last bun down gently. “That is a suspicious no.”

“It’s not suspicious.”

“That is what suspicious no would say.”

Mara huffed, then looked toward the front counter. The head baker was there today, speaking to a customer with the grim dignity of an old elf explaining that no, he would not sell an undecorated fruitcake because “undecorated” was “a failure of spirit.” Mara gestured toward the side alcove near the donation crates.

“Two minutes,” she said.

I followed her.

The alcove was narrow and warm, half hidden behind stacked holiday boxes and sacks of flour tied with red ribbons because Mara said even flour deserved seasonal morale. For a moment neither of us spoke. The bakery noise softened around us. Doorbell. Customers. Oven timers. The low steady heartbeat of work.

Mara rubbed her hands together once.

Then she looked at me.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

I blinked. “For what?”

“For being cold.”

My throat tightened immediately, which was unfair because I had been very prepared for maybe a work lecture and not at all prepared for feelings beside the flour.

“Mara ”

“No, let me say it.” She leaned back against the wall, arms folded like she needed something to do with them. “After the train station, after seeing your title, after learning more about what you used to be, I got scared. I told myself I was being careful. Responsible. Protective of the shop. Protective of everyone. And maybe some of that was true, but it was not all of it.”

I looked down at my hands.

There was a streak of flour along my thumb.

“I scared you,” I said.

“Yes,” she said.

It hurt.

Even though I knew.

Even though I had seen it.

It still hurt to hear her say it plainly.

Mara’s voice softened. “But you were scared too, and I should have remembered that better.”

I swallowed.

The bakery blurred a little.

“Mara, I ripped a man’s arm off.”

“You also put it back on.”

She sighed. “You are sweet and strange and you make buns look like they were blessed by tiny pastry angels. You are also stronger and more dangerous than I understood. Both things are true.”

I gave a tiny watery laugh despite myself. “That sounds like something I would say.”

“I learned from an annoying boy.”

“That boy sounds wise.”

“He is a disaster.”

“Also true.”

Mara reached into the pocket of her apron and pulled out a small wrapped parcel. It was covered in red paper with little gold hearths stamped across it, tied with green string. She held it out.

“Happy Red Hearth, Yuzu.”

I stared at it.

Then at her.

Then at it again.

“Oh.”

“Take it before I feel awkward.”

I took it carefully with both hands. It was soft, light, and warm from being in her pocket. “I got you something too.”

Mara blinked.

“You did?”

“Of course I did.” I clutched her present to my chest with one hand and fumbled in my work bag with the other. “I mean, it is not very fancy. Or maybe it is fancy emotionally. Not materially. Unless you really value good stitching, which you should, because Sel deserves good stitching and you deserve things that do not fall apart after two washes, and also I panicked in the market.”

Mara’s smile trembled.

I pulled out a flat package wrapped in blue paper with a crooked silver ribbon. “It’s for you and Sel. Mostly you. Also Sel. Shared present. Marriage present? Not like wedding. You are already married. Just married people present.”

She took it.

“What is it?”

“Open later.”

“You open yours later too.”

“Okay.”

We both stood there holding presents like people who had forgotten how arms worked.

Then Mara stepped forward and hugged me.

It was small at first.

Careful.

I froze for half a second before hugging her back.

Then she squeezed harder.

My throat closed up.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, quieter this time.

“I’m sorry too.”

“You don’t need to apologize for having a past.”

“I might apologize for parts of it.”

“Fair.” Her hand rubbed once between my shoulders. “But not for all of you.”

I nodded against her shoulder because words had become impossible.

When she pulled back, her eyes were wet.

Mine were definitely fine and not doing anything suspicious.

Mara wiped under one eye with the heel of her palm and immediately pretended she had not. “Also, I am sorry for giving bad advice at the beginning.”

I sniffed. “About Riko?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

“I thought I was encouraging you to be brave.” Her mouth twisted. “I think I encouraged you to mistake intensity for safety.”

I held the present tighter.

“She’s trying,” I said.

“I know.”

“She’s better.”

“I know.”

“She lives with me.”

“I know.”

Mara looked at me for a long moment. Her face was gentle, but not soft enough to be careless.

“Do not let that girl hurt you,” she said.

My chest tightened.

“She doesn’t mean to.”

“That does not mean she cannot.”

I looked away first.

Mara did not push.

She only touched my shoulder once, warm and brief. “I’m not telling you not to love her. I know better than that. Just don’t disappear inside loving her.”

I wanted to say I would not.

I wanted to say I knew how not to.

I wanted to say Riko and I were better now, that the apartment was warm, that Charlie was decorated, that Riko stayed, that she had cried into toast because she realized she lived there and I did not take it back.

Instead I whispered, “I’ll try.”

Mara nodded. “Good.”

The head baker’s voice boomed from the front. “Mara.”

Mara sighed. “If someone is asking for gluten free fruitcake again, I’m quitting.”

The head baker appeared in the doorway before she could leave. His face had a grim, offended expression.

“Ovens are on the fritz,” he said.

Mara straightened. “How bad?”

“Main rune array keeps slipping cold on the left side. I will not sell uneven Red Hearth loaves like some kind of criminal.”

“That bad,” Mara muttered.

He looked past her to me. “We’re shutting early. Finish boxing what is already baked. No new trays. Everyone goes home.”

My whole body lifted.

“Early?”

“Do not make me repeat kindness,” he said.

“Yes, sir. No, sir. Thank you, sir.”

He grunted and vanished back toward the ovens, already muttering curses at the rune array.

Mara looked at me. “Looks like you get a head start on holiday.”

The thought landed warm and bright.

Home early.

Riko would not expect me.

The apartment would be warm. The snow would be falling. Charlie would be standing there in his ridiculous little ornaments. Maybe Riko would be curled in one of the red chairs, pretending she had not been waiting. Maybe I could surprise her with the cinnamon roll I had saved. Maybe we could open Mara’s present together, and I could show Riko that Mara had hugged me, that things were maybe healing, that small bridges did not always collapse.

“I should message her,” I said automatically.

My panel hovered at the edge of my thoughts.

Then I stopped.

Mara noticed. “What?”

I smiled, suddenly and helplessly. “Actually… maybe I won’t.”

Her eyebrow rose.

“I can surprise her.”

Mara’s expression changed in a way I did not understand quickly enough. Something passed behind her eyes. Concern, maybe. Habit, maybe. But then she forced it into a smile.

“That sounds nice,” she said.

“It does.”

“Take the long way if the stairs are icy.”

“I will.”

“Do not run in the station.”

“I might briskly walk.”

“Yuzu.”

“I will responsibly brisk walk.”

She sighed, but she was smiling again.

The closing work went fast because everyone wanted to leave. We boxed cooled pastries, marked donations, cleaned counters, covered dough for the morning crew, and shut down the front display lamps one by one until Hearthbell looked sleepy and golden. The head baker handed each of us a wrapped loaf without ceremony, then told us to get out before he changed his mind and found more work.

I tucked Mara’s present carefully into my bag beside the loaf and the cinnamon roll for Riko.

Outside, snow had begun falling again.

Big soft flakes drifted down through the evening, catching on awnings, tram rails, gargoyle wings, and the shoulders of people hurrying home with holiday parcels. The city looked like it had been frosted by a baker with too much ambition. New Avalon’s castle towers rose into the white blur above, windows glowing warm through the storm. Red Hearth lanterns swung from living bridges, each one a tiny golden flame in a paper shell. Somewhere nearby, a group of children was singing a hymn about Saanthaklaas getting stuck in a chimney.

I walked fast.

Not running.

Responsibly brisk.

My heart felt light in a way it had not for weeks. Mara had hugged me. The shop had closed early. I had a present in my bag. I had time. Extra time. Found time. A little miracle tucked between oven failure and snowfall.

I almost opened my panel three times.

Riko, I’m coming home early.

No.

Surprise.

Riko, the shop closed early.

No.

Surprise.

Riko, are you home?

Definitely no.

Surprise.

I laughed to myself on the train, and an elf woman sitting across from me looked up from her knitting. I smiled at her. She smiled back. Another good thing. I tucked it away.

The train slid through snow bright tunnels and over a raised track where the whole city opened below in glittering white. My reflection in the window looked happy. Nervous, yes, because happy always came with a little nervous now, like my heart expected to pay tax on it later. But happy. Cream white skin. Yellow horns. Work coat. Flour still on one sleeve. A small boy shaped bundle of bread and hope going home early to the girl he loved.

The walk from the station was cold enough to make my breath fog.

By the time I reached our building, snow had gathered along the old brick ledges and turret balconies. The stone arch over the cunt wore icicles like teeth. Inside, the hallway smelled of wet wool, old pipes, and winter heat. I climbed the stairs instead of taking the lift because I had too much feeling in me and stairs gave it somewhere to go.

First floor.

Second.

Third.

My bag bumped against my hip.

Fourth.

Fifth.

Sixth.

By the time I reached our hall, I was breathing hard and smiling.

Then I stopped.

There was sound coming from inside the apartment.

Not loud at first.

Muffled.

A heavy rhythm. A low voice. Something struck wood, then scraped. Riko made a sound I knew, but wrong in this shape. Not a laugh. Not a cry exactly. My body recognized it before my mind accepted it.

My hand tightened on the bag strap.

The cinnamon roll crumpled inside the paper.

For one second, I stood very still in the hallway while snow melted in my hair and the warm shape of the day began to crack down the middle.

Maybe she was watching something.

Maybe she had dropped something.

Maybe

The smell reached me.

Strong.

Musky.

Overwhelming even through the door.

Not mine.

Not Riko’s cherry perfume.

Not hearth smoke or bread or Charlie’s moon leaves.

Troll.

The thought came with the same terrible clarity as a train door opening.

My fingers hovered near the key charm.

I should knock.

I should leave.

I should message.

I should do anything except open the door.

My hand moved anyway.

The lock recognized me.

The door opened a finger width.

Warm air spilled out.

Sound came with it.

I looked through the gap.

And the world stopped.

Riko was on the bed.

Not alone.

The troll with her was enormous. Not just tall. Huge in the way buildings were huge, in the way old dungeon doors were huge, in the way something could take up a room and make the room feel like it had been built wrong. Blue gray skin. White hair. Heavy horns sweeping wide from her skull. A body built from muscle, fat, fur, and brutal physical certainty. Strong enough that the bed looked fragile beneath her. Strong enough that Riko looked small.

Riko.

My Riko.

Porcelain skin bright against the dark sheets. Flame hair tangled. Cyan seams pulsing too fast. Her mouth open around a sound I could not put anywhere in my head without breaking something.

The troll moved with her like she owned the space.

Like she owned the bed.

Like she owned the apartment.

Like she owned Riko.

And suddenly I understood something awful.

This was the building owner.

I had seen her once from a distance in the lobby, laughing with the landlord’s clerk while signing repair papers with a hand large enough to cover the whole slate. The owner who never answered maintenance calls directly. The owner Riko said not to worry about. The owner who had somehow approved our lease too quickly, too cheaply, too easily for a studio this large with a window this beautiful and a fireplace that worked.

I knew why now.

I knew why the apartment had been affordable.

I knew why Riko had found it.

I knew why she never wanted to explain.

The understanding entered me slowly.

Then all at once.

The troll lifted Riko like she weighed nothing.

That was the first thing my brain could actually process. Not the betrayal. Not the smell. Not the wrongness of someone else in our bed. Just the simple, physical, impossible fact of it: one massive blue gray hand wrapped around Riko's waist nearly all the way around, fingers almost meeting at her spine and lifted her entire body up off the troll's lap like she was a toy.

And then brought her back down.

Riko made a sound that wasn't a word.

The troll was sitting against the headboard, which groaned under her weight, and her cock

Gods.

Her cock.

It was not supposed to be a real thing, glistening and enormous, spearing up into my girlfriend in our bed in our apartment with our fireplace crackling warmly beside it like a traitor.

It was bigger than my forearm. Riko was stretched around it so wide that I could see the shape of it through her belly, a visible bulge that rose and fell as the troll moved her, up and down, up and down, with that one casual hand.

She wasn't even thrusting.

That was the part that broke something in me.

The troll wasn't working for this. She was lounging. Reclined against my headboard with one tree trunk arm draped lazily along the top of it, the other hand pumping Riko up and down her cock the way someone might idly squeeze a stress toy. Her expression was relaxed. Almost bored. The muscles in her forearm flexed and that was all, and Riko's whole world moved.

And Riko

Riko, who teased, who laughed, who narrated everything, who never once in all our nights together had run out of words

Riko was making animal noises.

Grunts. Punched out of her with each impact. Her seams were strobing so fast they'd stopped looking like patterns and become a flickering smear of cyan. Her eyes were rolled half back. Her hands weren't even gripping anything. They hung loose at her sides, twitching with each drop, like her body had given up allocating resources to anything except surviving what was happening to it.

This is how normal people feel, I thought, with horrible clarity. This is how everyone feels around oni. This is what we are to them.

Big. Inevitable. Too much.

I had spent my whole life apologizing for my body, taking suppressants, being careful, being small and here was a creature who had never apologized for anything, using my girlfriend like a

Like a

I didn't have the word. My mind supplied it anyway, vulgar and exact: like a fleshlight. Like a thing you held in one hand and used.

The troll's hips finally moved. One single upward thrust to meet the downstroke, and Riko wailed, and the troll grunted a deep, satisfied, bone rattling sound and came.

I could see it happen.

I could see Riko's belly swell.

Not a little. Not symbolically. Her stomach rounded out in real time, distending under the volume being pumped into her, gallons of it, an amount that no body Riko's size had any business holding. It went on for ten, fifteen, twenty seconds, the troll sighing contentedly through it like she was finishing a drink, and Riko shook and glowed and made sounds that belonged to no language.

Then the troll lifted her off.

Cum poured out of her in a flood, splattering across the troll's thighs and the dark sheets our sheets and the troll, casual as anything, pressed one enormous palm flat against Riko's swollen belly and pushed, and Riko cried out as the rest of it gushed out of her in a thick rush.

"There," the troll rumbled. Her voice was like furniture being moved in a room below you. "Empty. Good."

And then she lined Riko back up.

And shoved her back down.

And started over.

I made a sound.

I don't know what sound. Something small. The bag with the crumpled cinnamon roll hit the floor.

Riko's head turned.

Her eyes found me through the gap in the door those amber gold eyes, half gone, blown wide and I watched awareness crash back into her face like cold water. Her mouth opened. Her hand lifted toward me.

"Yu "

The troll's hand closed over the back of her head.

And pulled her off the cock, and turned her around, and fed it into her mouth instead, all in one fluid practiced motion, like she'd done it a hundred times, like this was a known route, like Riko's throat was a place she had a key to.

Riko's protest vanished into a wet, gagging swallow. And then I watched it, I hated that I watched it her body simply adjusted. Her throat opened. Her shoulders dropped. She went down on it like her body remembered the way even when her eyes, rolling sideways toward me, did not want to.

I could see the cock in her throat.

That was not a figure of speech. The troll was so big and Riko was so slender that the shape of it was visible, a thick bulge traveling down her neck past her collarbone, distorting the soft glow of her seams, appearing and disappearing as the troll guided her head up and down with that one massive hand.

The troll looked at me.

She did not stop.

She did not slow down.

She looked at me, standing frozen in the doorway with snow melting in my hair, and she smiled. Heavy tusks. Easy eyes. The expression of someone meeting a neighbor while watering plants.

"Oh," she said. "You must be the boyfriend."

Her hand kept moving. Riko's throat kept bulging. The wet sounds were obscene and rhythmic and did not pause for the introduction.

"Vashka." She said it like I'd asked. "I own the building. Riko's mentioned you. The little oni who bakes." She glanced down at Riko, working in her lap, and back up at me. "She talks about you a lot, actually. It's sweet."

"I " My voice didn't work. "You she "

"The rent," Vashka said simply.

The word landed in me like a stone down a well.

"Twice a month," she continued, conversational, her hips beginning to roll up into Riko's mouth now, deep lazy thrusts that made Riko grunt and gag and glow. "Sometimes three, if I've had a long week. It's a good arrangement. You think a studio with a working fireplace and that window goes for what you two pay? In this district?" She chuckled, and the headboard creaked. "Nothing's free, little baker."

"She didn't " I swallowed. "She didn't tell me."

"No," Vashka agreed. "She wouldn't. She's protective of you. It's one of her better qualities."

Her rhythm was picking up. Her breath had gone deeper. Riko's hands were braced on the troll's massive thighs now not pushing away, I noticed, with a sick lurch, just bracing and her eyes had squeezed shut, and the bulge in her throat moved faster and faster.

"You might want to look away for this part," Vashka said.

I didn't look away.

I don't know why I didn't look away.

The troll groaned long and deep, a sound I felt in the floorboards and pulled Riko's head all the way down, her nose buried against blue gray skin, and came.

I saw it travel.

That is the thing I will never be able to unsee. The cum was so thick, and her cock so large, that I watched each rope move through the shaft itself a visible pulse, a swelling wave running up the length of it and into Riko's throat, then another, then another. Riko's neck worked frantically around it. Her seams flashed white. Her belly, only just emptied, began to round out again, swelling before my eyes, filling from the other direction now, until she looked

Until she looked pregnant.

Vashka held her there through all of it, sighing in slow satisfaction, one thumb stroking almost gently across Riko's flushed cheek, and when she finally lifted her off, Riko came up gasping, coughing, glowing, cum spilling from the corners of her mouth, her distended belly heaving.

"Yuzu," Riko rasped. Her voice was destroyed. "Yuzu, wait "

Vashka set her down on the ruined sheets with surprising care, the way you'd set down something you intended to pick back up.

"You should talk to her," the troll said to me, not unkindly. "I'll give you two the room in a minute. I'm not quite finished, but " she rolled one mountainous shoulder, " I can be patient. I'm a reasonable landlord."

She smiled again.

The fire crackled.

Charlie's silver leaves glowed on the windowsill, witnessing everything.

And Riko my Riko, wrecked and swollen and dripping, her flame hair plastered to her face, her seams stuttering looked at me across the wreckage of our bed and our apartment and our entire life, and whispered:

"I did it for us."

The cinnamon roll lay crumpled in its bag at my feet.

I stood in the doorway, snow melting cold down the back of my neck, and I could not for the life of me remember what I had been smiling about in the hallway.

"I did it for us," Riko whispered again.

I opened my mouth. I didn't know what was going to come out of it. An accusation. A question. A sob. Something.

I never found out.

Because Vashka sighed.

It was a big sigh. A weather event of a sigh. The kind of sigh a mountain might make if mountains had had long weeks.

"You know what," she rumbled, "I'm sorry. I really am. I meant to give you two your moment. But it's been a rough day, and I'm only halfway done, and watching you both stand there having feelings is doing nothing for me."

And she picked Riko up.

One hand. Around her waist. and she flipped her over onto her back in the middle of the ruined bed, and folded her.

Knees to shoulders. Calves over the troll's massive forearms. Riko's swollen belly pressed up between her own thighs, her glowing seams stuttering, her whole body bent in half beneath a creature three times her size.

A mating press.

"Vashka " Riko gasped. "Wait, he's right "

"He's fine. Look at him. He's standing right there." Vashka lined herself up, the enormous head of her cock pressing against Riko's cunt, and glanced over at me with an expression that was, horrifyingly, apologetic. "Sorry about this, little baker. Truly. Bad timing. But honestly?" Her tusked mouth pulled into something almost like relief. "I'm a little glad you know. Sneaking around your own building is undignified."

And she thrust.

The whole bed moved. The frame shrieked against the floor. Riko's scream cracked in the middle and turned into something rawer, and the visible bulge of the troll's cock reappeared through her belly, deeper now at this angle, deeper than should have been possible, and Vashka did not give her one second to adjust.

She fucked her.

There is no gentler word and I am not going to look for one. The lazy bored rhythm from before was gone. This was a troll who had had a rough day using the one thing in her life that was uncomplicated, and she used it brutally full length strokes, her enormous hips pistoning, her weight crashing down into the press with each thrust so hard that everything on every shelf in the apartment rattled. The bird kettle chimed. The cookbooks shuffled. Charlie's pot scooted a half inch.

Riko had stopped making language entirely.

Each thrust punched a sound out of her "AH AH AH " rhythmic, mindless, her eyes rolled back, her fingers clawing at the sheets, her seams now one continuous blinding strobe. Her belly, still swollen with the last load, sloshed visibly with every impact.

"Is she " My voice came out very small. "You're going to break her "

"I'm not going to break her." Vashka didn't even sound winded. Her hips kept their devastating rhythm as she talked, casual as anything, the way other people talk while chopping vegetables. "This isn't the first time, little baker. It is not going to be the last. She's tougher than she looks. Construct frame chassis under all that pretty skin. She can take more than you'd believe." A particularly vicious thrust; Riko wailed cracked something in the wall. "She likes taking more than you'd believe. Don't you, firefly?"

Riko's answer was not a word. But it was not a no, either, and the way her ankles had crossed behind the troll's massive back pulling her in, I realized, with a feeling like falling was its own answer.

"Oh " Vashka grunted, her rhythm hitching, going deeper, harder. "Oh, and fair warning I should mention " Thrust. Crash. Wail. "Suppressants don't dose right for troll seed. Never have. So if this takes " Thrust. " sorry in advance if I get your girlfriend pregnant."

I made a strangled noise.

"I know, I know." She waved one huge hand vaguely in my direction, the other still pinning Riko folded beneath her. "It's a lot. Tell you what " and here she looked at me again, and her easy expression turned into something slyer, something that had been waiting, " you can come lick my balls, if that'd make you feel better. Consolation prize. They're very nice. Riko thinks so."

"Vashka " Riko managed, half a syllable.

"What? He's standing there. He's not leaving. Look at him."

And that was the moment I noticed the smell.

It had been there since the hallway the musk, the troll thick warmth of it but somewhere in the last few minutes it had stopped being something I smelled and started being something I was swimming in. The whole apartment was saturated with it. Rough day, she'd said. A troll's rough day, broadcast in pheromones, filling a sealed apartment with the windows shut against the snow.

My head was warm. My thoughts had gone slow and syrupy at the edges. My body, which should have been cold with shock, was flushed, and aching, and interested in a way that made no sense, that I didn't want, that I couldn't stop.

Is this what I do to people, I thought, dizzily. Is this what they've all been protecting themselves from. Is this what it feels like from the other side.

I didn't know if I was being drugged or being honest. I genuinely did not know. That was the worst part. The fog and the want felt identical from the inside.

"There he goes," Vashka murmured, watching my face. "There it is. Come on, little baker. Decide."

And she leaned down over Riko's folded body never breaking rhythm and kissed her.

It was obscene. A troll's kiss is too big for a person Riko's size; it covered half her face, slimy and wet and deep, Vashka's tongue clearly filling her mouth, and Riko moaned into it and kissed back, her hands coming up to grip the troll's heavy horns, and the two of them moved together with the terrible fluency of people who had done this many, many times.

In our bed.

In our apartment.

While I stood in the doorway in my snow wet coat with my crumpled cinnamon roll, watching my whole understanding of my life get fucked into a new shape.

I walked forward.

I want to say the pheromones did it. I want to say I had no choice, that my legs moved on their own, that I was a passenger. It would be kinder to me. Some of it might even be true.

But some of it was just me. Lonely, foggy, heartbroken, curious, aching me, who had spent his whole life being too much for everyone and had just discovered what it felt like to be in a room with someone who was too much for him.

I knelt at the edge of the bed.

Up close, Vashka's balls were absurd. Each one genuinely nearly the size of my head, heavy and swaying with the violence of her rhythm, the skin soft blue gray and radiating heat. The musk this close was a physical force. My eyes watered.

"Good boy," Vashka rumbled, without looking down, her mouth still half occupied with Riko's. "Go on."

I leaned in.

And licked.

The taste was salt and musk and skin, overwhelming, and the sound Vashka made a deep groan that I felt in my teeth did something to me I'd have to be ashamed of later. I licked again. Longer. I pressed my mouth against the heavy curve of one enormous ball and kissed it, sucked at the soft skin, and above me the troll's rhythm stuttered for the first time all night.

"Oh," she said. "Oh, he's sweet. Firefly, you didn't tell me he was sweet."

Riko's reply was a moan that might have contained my name.

I worshipped. There's no other word for what I did. I licked and sucked and nuzzled at those massive balls while the troll who owned my building bred my girlfriend into the mattress eight inches above my head, the bed frame screaming, the wall cracking, Riko's animal grunts and Vashka's deepening groans tangling together in the firelit air. Every impact of their bodies swung that heavy weight against my face and I just kept going, drunk on musk, drunk on shame, drunk on the unbearable relief of being, for once in my life, The addicted one.

"Close," Vashka growled. Her whole enormous body had begun to tense, muscles shifting like landmasses. "Both of you hold on "

She broke the kiss, reared up, slammed Riko down into the press so deep that Riko's scream went silent, and came.

I felt it from below. Her balls drew up tight against my lips, pulsing, pumping, and above me Riko's belly swelled and swelled, and the troll's roar rattled the window glass, and Charlie's silver leaves trembled in their pot, and somewhere under all of it I heard Riko come too a shattered, glowing, sobbing sound that I had thought, until tonight, belonged only to me.

Silence, afterward. Or what passed for it. Three sets of ragged breathing. The fire popping. Snow ticking against the window.

Vashka exhaled, long and satisfied, and reached down and patted my head with one enormous hand, ruffling my white hair around my horns like I was a dog who'd done a trick.

"There's the rough day handled," she said warmly. "You two are my favorite tenants."

Riko, folded and full and glowing beneath her, turned her head against the ruined sheets.

Her amber gold eyes found mine.

Neither of us said anything.

Neither of us knew, anymore, what there was to say.

The troll's hand stayed on my head.

Heavy. Warm. The weight of it pressed my horns sideways, tilted my skull at an angle that felt like ownership. Her palm covered most of my scalp. Her fingers could have wrapped around my entire face if she'd wanted them to.

"Well," Vashka rumbled, still catching her breath, "that was unexpected."

She pulled out of Riko slowly. Obscenely slowly. I watched from below I couldn't not watch, I was right there as inch after inch of glistening blue gray cock emerged from my girlfriend's ruined pussy, dragging thick ropes of cum with it, the shaft so long that it seemed to keep coming forever. Riko whimpered with each inch, her seams flickering weakly, her swollen belly sloshing.

Finally the massive head popped free with a wet, sucking sound that I felt in my molars.

Cum poured out of her. A flood of it, thick and pearlescent, pooling on the dark sheets, soaking into the mattress. Riko's legs fell open, trembling, too weak to close. Her pussy gaped visibly gaped, stretched so wide I could see the pink inside, still twitching, still leaking.

And the cock swung down.

Right into my face.

It slapped against my cheek with a heavy, meaty thwack. Hot. Slick. Absolutely coated in cum and Riko's juices and the thick natural lubricant of troll arousal. The smell hit me like a wall musk and sex and salt and something deeper, something animal and ancient and wrong in a way that made my hindbrain light up like a warning flare.

I should have recoiled.

I didn't.

"Look at you," Vashka murmured. Her voice was lazy, satisfied, the rumble of a predator who'd just eaten well and was considering dessert. "Kneeling there like you belong. Like you've always been waiting for permission."

The cock pulsed against my face. A lazy throb. It was softening slightly no longer iron hard but still enormous, still heavy enough to push my head sideways just by existing. The tip left a smear of something thick and white across my cheekbone.

"You want to clean it for me, little baker?"

The question hung in the air.

I could taste my girlfriend's pussy. That was the thing my brain kept circling back to, stupid and fixated and wrong. The slick coating the shaft had her flavor in it I knew that flavor, I'd spent hours learning it, mapping it with my tongue but it was buried under something else now, something so overwhelming that Riko's taste was just a ghost beneath it.

Troll.

The taste of troll cock was

I don't have words. I don't have adequate words. It was musk made liquid. Salt made thick. Something alkaline and animal and so intensely present that every taste bud I had stood at attention and screamed. It wasn't good, exactly. It wasn't bad. It was too much, the same way the smell was too much, the same way everything about tonight was too much.

The pheromones had been filling my head since the hallway. That warm, syrupy fog. That chemical leash.

But

Something clarified.

I breathed in. Deep. Let the musk roll through my sinuses, fill my lungs, saturate every receptor I had.

"He's thinking very hard about something," Vashka observed. She still had one hand on my head. The other had found Riko's breast, kneading it lazily, rolling a cyan traced nipple between massive fingers. "I can see the wheels turning. What's going on in there, little baker?"

I looked up at her.

Past the massive, slick cock lying against my face. Past the heavy curve of her belly. Up into those easy, knowing eyes.

A slow smile spread across the troll's face. Wide. Delighted. Full of teeth.

She shifted her hips, dragged the wet length of her cock across my cheek, painting me with the evidence of what she'd done to my girlfriend,

"Firefly." Vashka looked down at Riko, who was blinking dazedly up at her, still leaking, still glowing, still ruined. "Firefly, did you know your boyfriend was a little slut this whole time?"

"Vashka " Riko's voice was wrecked. A rasp. A ghost of itself. "Don't he's not he's sweet, he's "

"He's sweet and a slut. They're not mutually exclusive." The troll's hand tightened slightly on my head. "He got on his knees and tongued my balls like his life depended on it."

The word landed in my chest like a brand.

Character.

Was that what this was?

Vashka's thumb stroked across my scalp, almost gentle. "So," she said. "I'll ask again. You want to clean it for me, little baker? Your choice. I'm not making you do anything." Another slow stroke of the cock against my face. "But it's dirty. And you're right there. And something tells me you're not going to say no."

I looked at the cock.

At the slick coating of cum and pussy juice and pre cum. At the veins tracing along the shaft like rivers on a map. At the massive head, still flushed darker blue gray than the rest, still glistening.

I could taste my Riko on it.

I could taste the troll more.

And I wanted

I wanted

I nodded.

Small. Shameful. Unmistakable.

Vashka's smile widened.

"Good boy," she rumbled. "Clean me up. Take your time. I want it spotless."

She shifted position slightly, adjusting her weight on the ruined bed, and her hand guided my head forward until my lips touched the shaft.

I opened my mouth.

The first lick was a commitment.

I ran my tongue along the underside of her cock starting near the base, where it met those heavy balls and dragged it upward through the mess coating the shaft. The taste flooded my mouth instantly. Salt. Musk. That overwhelming alkaline presence that made everything else disappear. Riko's flavor was there, underneath, familiar and sweet, but the troll taste devoured it, colonized it, made it into something new.

"Mmm." Vashka's hand pressed slightly against the back of my head. Not forcing. Just... encouraging. "That's it. Good tongue. You've done this before?"

I shook my head without stopping. My tongue kept moving, tracing along a thick vein, gathering the slick coating the skin.

"Natural talent, then." I could hear the smile in her voice. "Riko, you watching? Your little oni boyfriend's cleaning my cock like he was born for it."

"Yu zu " Riko's voice cracked. I heard sheets shifting. When I glanced sideways, I could see her trying to push herself up on her elbows, could see her amber gold eyes fixed on me, wide and complicated. "You don't you don't have to "

"He wants to," Vashka said simply. She leaned down the motion pressed her cock harder against my face and kissed Riko.

I heard them above me while I worked. The wet sounds of a troll's tongue filling my girlfriend's mouth. Riko's muffled whimper. The creak of the bed as Vashka's weight shifted.

I kept licking.

The cock was so big that cleaning it was a project. I worked my way up the shaft methodically, section by section, gathering the cooling fluids with my tongue and swallowing them down. The taste stopped being overwhelming after the first few swallows. It just became... everything. The only thing in my mouth. The only thing in my head.

When I reached the tip, I found a thick smear of something pearlescent clinging to the slit.

Cum. Her cum. The same stuff that was currently filling my girlfriend's womb.

I closed my lips around the head and sucked it clean.

"Fuck," Vashka grunted, breaking the kiss. "Okay. Okay, he's good at that."

The cock pulsed in my mouth. It was hardening again, I realized. Slowly. Filling out against my tongue. The head alone was almost too big to fit past my teeth, stretching my jaw wide, and it was growing.

"Don't stop," Vashka said. Her voice had dropped. Gotten rougher. "Keep going. Get under the foreskin."

I had to pull back to breathe, gasping, strings of saliva connecting my lips to her shaft. Then I dove back in, tonguing around the ridge of the head, finding the sensitive skin there, cleaning every fold and crease with desperate thoroughness.

"Riko." Vashka's voice was a rumble I felt in my teeth. "Riko, look at me."

I couldn't see Riko's face from this angle. Just her legs, pale and trembling, seams flickering weakly. I heard her make a sound that might have been a response.

"You're going to train his ass for me," Vashka said.

I froze.

My lips were still wrapped around her cock. Her hand was still on my head. The words hit me on a delay, processing through the fog of musk and salt and want that had replaced my higher brain functions.

"What?" Riko's voice was small.

"His ass." Vashka's hips rolled slightly, pushing another inch into my mouth, making me gag. "I want to fuck it eventually. But look at him " another roll, another gag, " he's tiny. Delicate. I'd rip the poor boy in half if I tried right now."

Riko made a strangled noise.

"So you're going to help," Vashka continued, conversational and obscene, fucking my mouth with shallow strokes while she talked. "Couple weeks. Toys. Fingers. Whatever you use. Get him ready for me. Stretch him out nice and slow." Her rhythm picked up slightly. I struggled to breathe around the massive intrusion. "Consider it part of your rent."

"I " Riko sounded dazed. Overwhelmed. "Vashka, he's my boyfriend, I can't just "

"You've been letting me fuck you twice a month while he's at work. I think we're past 'can't just.'" The hand on my head gripped tighter, controlled my movement, set the pace. "Besides. Look at him, firefly. Look at him."

There was a pause.

I felt Riko's eyes on me.

On my stretched lips. On the tears leaking from the corners of my eyes. On my white hair, disheveled around my horns, and my flushed face, and the way I wasn't pulling back, wasn't fighting, wasn't doing anything except taking it.

On my cock.

Which was, I realized with distant horror, rock hard in my pants. Visibly tenting the fabric. Straining.

"He wants it," Vashka said softly. "Don't you, little baker? You want me to fuck that tight little ass eventually?"

She pulled my head back. Her cock slid out of my mouth with a wet pop. I gasped for air, strings of saliva and pre cum connecting us, my jaw aching, my body burning.

"Answer me."

I looked up at her.

Past the massive cock, still glistening, now mostly clean of everything except my spit. Past her heavy belly and heaving chest. Into those easy, knowing, patient eyes.

And I nodded.

"Good boy." She sounded genuinely pleased. Genuinely warm. "See, firefly? He wants it. You're just helping him get ready. It's practically romantic."

She pushed back into my mouth.

Deeper this time. Hitting the back of my throat, making me gag and choke and take it, and above me I heard her kiss Riko again, heard their mouths meet with wet enthusiasm while she fucked my face with steady, measured strokes.

I stopped thinking.

I stopped trying to understand what this night had become, what I had become, what any of this meant. I just... worked. Sucked and licked and cleaned, running my tongue along every inch I could reach, making sure the shaft was spotless, breathing through my nose when I could and choking when I couldn't.

The taste had become home.

The musk had become air.

The sound of Vashka kissing my girlfriend while using my mouth had become the only music in the world.

"Almost there," Vashka murmured against Riko's lips. "Your boyfriend's got a talented mouth, firefly. I might have to borrow him for cleaning duty after every visit."

Riko whimpered something I couldn't hear.

I kept sucking. My jaw ached. My knees ached. My cock ached, trapped in my pants, desperate for contact it wasn't going to get.

I didn't stop.

I didn't want to stop.

"That's it " Vashka's hips stuttered. Her grip on my head turned crushing. "That's it, that's fuck "

She slammed forward.

The cock hit the back of my throat, breached it, kept going, and I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't do anything except feel my throat bulge around her shaft as she buried herself in me and came.

The first pulse was a punch.

Hot and thick and so much, shooting directly down my throat, filling my stomach before I even tasted it. I felt my belly start to round out, felt the impossible volume of troll cum being pumped into me, felt myself become what Riko had been, what I'd watched happen, what I'd never imagined experiencing from this side.

Vashka held me there.

One massive hand on my head, pinning me to her crotch. Her cock pulsing in my throat, pulse after pulse after pulse. Her groans filling the room. The bed creaking. The fire crackling. Charlie's silver leaves trembling .

My vision went gray at the edges.

When she finally pulled out, I collapsed.

I hit the floor on my hands and knees, gasping, retching, cum spilling from my mouth in thick gouts. My stomach sloshed. My jaw hung loose. My whole body felt used in a way I had no framework for.

Above me, Vashka sighed contentedly.

"Spotless," she said. "Good boy. You pass."

Then her hand found my head again.

Gentle now. Petting.

"Two fuck toys," she mused. "I used to have one. Now I have two. This building just keeps getting better and better."

I looked up, bleary and wrecked.

Vashka was still kissing Riko. Lazy, post orgasmic kisses, her massive hand cupping my girlfriend's face. Riko's eyes were closed. Her seams glowed soft and steady. She looked, in this moment, almost peaceful.

Like she was home.

Like this was home.

And I, kneeling on the floor with cum leaking from my mouth and my swollen belly pressing against my shirt and my cock still hard and aching, looked at them together

And felt something I had no name for.

"Two weeks," Vashka said, breaking the kiss just long enough to look down at me. "Start stretching him tomorrow. I want that ass ready by month end."

Riko opened her eyes.

She looked at Vashka. Then at me.

Then she nodded.

"Okay," she whispered.