The Lives We Didn't Choose (AJS Roleplaying x Kita-san)

[AJS Roleplaying]

The Lives We Didn't Choose A Roleplay Brought to You By: ​

Adrian 'AJ' Carlson Jr. written by AJS Roleplaying ​

Verena "Rena" Bristol written by Kita-san ​

​

 

[Kita-san]

Verena wrapped both hands around her coffee mug, letting the warmth of it seep into her palms like it could ground her—settle the tangle of thoughts that AJ's words had stirred loose inside her. Her eyes had stayed on him through most of it, even when he wasn't looking—especially then. He had this way of offering ideas like they were pieces of his heart, casual and unassuming, but layered in quiet intention. And when he said "I just want you to be somewhere that feels like breathing," something in her chest caught and tightened in that soft, achy way.

She didn't speak right away. She needed a second. The art gallery—that pulled her first. God, yes, the idea of that. She could already imagine the space: raw and unpolished, maybe a little too warm from body heat and bad ventilation, but full of soul. Of noise without sound. Paintings that didn't explain themselves. Installations you had to feel before you understood. Her fingers twitched slightly on the mug, already craving the act of sketching something she saw there—not the art, but the people looking at it. Their posture, their hesitation. The exact moment a painting made them forget themselves.

But then there was the art shop. She bit her bottom lip, smiling to herself as AJ described it. Brushes more expensive than his car payment. Pigments that looked like candy. She knew that kind of store—the smell of it, the quiet reverence of it. Like walking through a chapel built for creation. She'd lose her whole afternoon in a place like that if she wasn't careful. And she'd love every damn second of it. Still… when he said rooftop, her breath had stilled in her chest. Because it wasn't just the idea of it—the cheap wine, the sketchbook, the lavender sky. It was them. It was what they always became on rooftops.

She remembered the last time. Somewhere halfway between midnight and morning, high above a city that didn't care whether they stayed or left. AJ's arm beneath her head, his voice soft and unguarded for once. No one trying to fix anything. No one performing. Just the two of them, a bottle between them, her pencil tracing lines on the back of a receipt. He'd watched her like she was the sky. She hadn't told him that. Maybe she never would. Verena turned slightly in her chair, her knee brushing against his under the table. Her expression softened, thoughtful.

"I… want to do it all," she said finally, her voice low but certain, like the words had spent time forming somewhere deep. "I think I should take advantage of everything while we're here. The gallery—definitely. That kind of raw work? That's the stuff that stays with you. I want to feel something like that again."
She lifted her cup, took a sip, then lowered it slowly, her gaze drifting toward the window before she looked back at him.

"But the rooftop…" A small smile tugged at her lips, quieter than her usual grin, more real. "That sounds like peace. And fun. Like exactly what I want without having to explain why.” She shrugged lightly, a soft, graceful roll of her shoulders, the corner of her mouth still curled. "I'll never say no to cheap wine. And I'm always down for a charcuterie board. You know that." She paused, letting that thought sink in before adding, "And drawing next to you? That's already one of my favorite versions of us."

Her words hung there for a moment, and then she tilted her head, her hair sliding forward over one shoulder. "So," she said, voice warmer now, touched by something like mischief. "How about this—gallery first. I'll soak up all the art until I feel properly overwhelmed. Then you rescue me with a rooftop and food that probably comes wrapped in too much plastic but still tastes like something we'll talk about a year from now." Her fingers reached for his under the table again. Not tight, not desperate this time—just certain.

"And then," she added, "we watch the sky give up."

 

[AJS Roleplaying]

"Sounds perfect," AJ said with a smile that wasn't forced, but genuine in the way a late morning can make possible - when the day stretches out ahead with no urgency, and the company at the table feels easy, familiar, maybe even a little sacred.

Their breakfast arrived not long after, the plates carrying the promise of indulgence rather than necessity. Everything felt unhurried. Even though a plan for the day had been settled - loose, light, and deliberately undefined - it didn't impose itself on the moment. Time had softened at the edges. It bent around them, took its cues from their bodies and not the clock. There was no checklist looming in AJ's mind, no internal script of productivity gnawing at his calm. This day belonged entirely to them. The choices they made could unfold without pressure, and the slow rhythm of their morning would set the tone.

AJ felt a quiet kind of gratitude, not the dramatic kind that announces itself in waves of euphoria, but the subtler sensation of noticing that things were good. The sunlight through the window caught the edge of Verena's glass, casting a warped halo onto the table between them. There was something oddly spiritual in it, though AJ wouldn't have called it that. He just felt it, in his chest, and let it stay unnamed.

Breakfast took its time, as did they. There was no conversation that needed filling. No performance between them. Just the pleasant clatter of utensils, the hum of other diners, and the occasional shared glance across the table that lingered just long enough to matter. When the plates were empty and the coffee cups had cooled past drinkable, AJ motioned for the check. He didn't hesitate. There was no pretense, no ritual dance of insisting or deferring. He simply paid, because he wanted to, because it felt good to do something quietly generous. He tucked the receipt away and led the way out, the morning air brushing against his face with a whisper of promise.

Outside, the city greeted them with a certain restrained warmth. It was the kind of sun that San Francisco rarely offered without caveats - without fog lurking in the wings or wind cutting through your sleeves. But today, at least for now, it was gentle. They stepped into it, unshielded, unbothered.

"The gallery is a short walk," AJ said, turning to her, his voice light, shaded with contentment. "Let's enjoy this sunshine."

He meant it more than it sounded. There was an almost sensual pleasure in the idea of walking with nowhere to be too soon, nowhere to arrive that couldn't wait for them to linger along the way. The streets sprawled out ahead, a tapestry of muted motion and colour. Cable car bells rang from some distance; the echo bounced off buildings with the softness of memory. Pigeons flurried near the curb. A bike courier wove through traffic like a needle through silk. The city felt alive in its usual chaotic grace, but somehow, in AJ's periphery, it seemed to move slower - like the universe was adjusting its pace to match his.

He didn't look at Verena directly, though he felt her presence as clearly as heat on skin. She walked beside him, close enough that he could sense the subtle shifts of her body as they moved in sync. They had walked together before - on colder nights, on busier sidewalks - but this was different. This wasn't just going somewhere. This was choosing to arrive slowly.

The gallery would be waiting, quietly humming with the hush of polished floors and curated brushstrokes, with pieces meant to be observed and interpreted, but for now, there was art in the street itself. In the shadow of trees bending against the wind's suggestion. In the reflections rippling off car windows and shopfronts. In the scent of roasted coffee trailing from open café doors, mingled with something faintly floral from a nearby planter in bloom.

AJ breathed in deep, not consciously, but reflexively - like his lungs were trying to match the ease of his thoughts. This was the kind of day he didn't often allow himself. One without achievement or ambition tethering it. No inboxes, no looming deadlines, no treadmill disguised as routine. Just sunlight. Just sidewalks. Just her beside him.​

 

[Kita-san]

Verena let her fingers drift around the rim of her empty mug, her eyes down but not unseeing. There was something sacred about the quiet between her and AJ—something whole, wordless, and real. No one was performing. There was no need to fill the space with chatter or mask the silence with jokes. The space just was. And she found herself… settling into it. Into him.

The soft scrape of cutlery, the faint jazz leaking from a speaker near the counter, the murmur of conversations happening at other tables—it all fell to the background, like a muted film reel. Her eyes met AJ's across the table only once or twice, but when they did, it was enough. There was no forced smile, no over-thought expression. Just the small, honest flicker of something steady. Present. Comforting.

It wasn't that she forgot James—but for the first time in what felt like years, she didn't compare. She didn't analyze. She didn't drift into old, hollow moments wondering what she could've done differently. James had never taken her to breakfast just to be with her. Not without some tension bubbling under the surface. But with AJ? There was nothing she had to brace for. Her body didn't tense. Her smile didn't feel like armor. This wasn't just a meal—it was reprieve. One she hadn't realized she needed until now.

The walk to the gallery was a slow unfolding. They moved in an easy, unspoken rhythm, their shoulders occasionally brushing as they navigated cracked sidewalks and sleepy intersections. The city buzzed around them but none of it reached her. Not really. Her world had narrowed to the warmth of the sun on her forearms, the sound of AJ's quiet breath beside her, and the way his presence filled the space between them without ever feeling like pressure.

As they approached the gallery, Verena felt her chest lift, light and expectant. The sign outside was small brass plate with the name etched in hand-script. She loved it already. She was expecting to be quite surprised, she just had a feeling that she was going to lost in a world of inspiring, beautiful art. Inside, the gallery swallowed them into a cocoon of quiet. Cool air, faintly scented with paper and aged wood, met her skin like a balm. The space wasn't vast, but it felt expansive—open white walls and clean lines, with bursts of color where the work lived. The pieces weren't orderly. They weren't here to be polite. They disrupted the white space in waves—textiles exploding with threads of gold and ochre, bold brushstrokes that refused to explain themselves, sculptures that felt both ancient and futuristic.

Verena exhaled as she stepped deeper inside, her eyes hungry. "Oh, my god," she whispered, though no one had asked her anything. She reached for AJ's arm without thinking, her fingers curling loosely around his wrist. "Look at this," she said, stopping in front of a mixed media piece layered with thread, ash, and what looked like torn scripture in a forgotten language. "It's like it's breathing."

Her voice was hushed, reverent. This was her kind of church. The kind where silence wasn't absence—it was respect. She walked slowly, letting the work speak to her, tug at something visceral. She didn't ask AJ for interpretation. Didn't over-explain her reactions. He didn't need her to. They spoke in subtler ways—the way his hand rested briefly on the small of her back when she lingered too long in front of a piece. The way he waited until she was ready before moving on. The way he looked at her like she was art.

Verena wasn't trying to be impressive. And for once, she was being with someone who saw her exactly as she was, and stayed anyway. As they reached the second room—smaller, more intimate, the pieces more raw—she glanced over at him, a slow smile curving the edge of her mouth. "This day is starting off so well. Good sex, delicious food and now this!” It was clear she was enjoying herself.

 

[AJS Roleplaying]

AJ moved through the gallery with Verena at his side, but his attention was anything but focused on the canvases or sculptures adorning the pristine white walls. The art, no matter how masterfully composed, was rendered secondary in her presence. It was not that he didn't appreciate the works, but they paled beside the living, breathing artistry of Verena. She moved with a quiet ease that made the curated space come alive in a different light. There was something magnetic in the way she seemed to absorb the atmosphere, drink it in through her pores, and transform it into something brighter, more vivid. This gallery was her domain. Not because she owned it, or even because she'd curated any of it, but because she belonged to this world of ideas, of colour and silence and considered beauty. It loved her back. That much was clear.

He observed her with the awe of a man who could not quite believe his own fortune, caught in the strange alchemy of loving someone in their element. AJ had known many sides of Verena - some sharp, others soft - but this version of her, the one who walked slowly past each frame with that half-smile of quiet communion, stirred something in him that went deeper than lust or affection. He felt reverent. Humbled, even. To be permitted so close to something this vivid. And yet, it wasn't all awe. There was hunger, too. A kind of slow, smouldering desire that had nothing to do with the explicit heat of the morning they'd already shared and everything to do with the intangible electricity she seemed to carry into any room. Her presence was an atmosphere. A weather system. AJ didn't so much follow her as drift in her current, drawn in without resistance.

"The day is still young. Imagine how we will fill it," he had said with a crooked grin, eyes lingering on the smudge of jam at the corner of her mouth, the kind of detail that would be forgotten by anyone else but committed to memory by him.

Now, inside the gallery, the world had narrowed into something hushed and slow, like a film reel running underwater. They moved together, loosely tethered - his hand brushing hers from time to time, fingertips grazing the small of her back in quiet acknowledgment. He didn't need to speak. He didn't want to. Words would only interrupt whatever spell she had woven around them. His touch was just enough to say: I'm here. I see you. I'm yours.

The gallery offered no windows, only artificial light and the silence felt sacred rather than cold. AJ let it press against him, let it fill his lungs. This was her pace, and so it became his, too. He felt himself recalibrating to the hush between her footsteps, the pause in her breath when a particular piece caught her attention. He found he loved those pauses - those tiny, secret moments when the rest of the world fell away and she was completely elsewhere. Present in a way that made his chest ache. She wasn't smiling constantly, but when she did - when some detail in a painting pulled her mouth into that sly, knowing curve - AJ felt it like a physical thing. Not because it was directed at him, but because it came from something deeper. He wanted to chase those smiles. Catalogue them like rare treasures. Frame them.

He didn't know how long they'd been walking. Time, like everything else, had bent under the weight of her presence. At one point, they'd passed a room hung with enormous abstract canvases - violent slashes of red and black that seemed to shiver in the light - and he had watched her looking at them, her head tilted ever so slightly. He didn't ask what she thought. He didn't need to. He was content simply to watch her watching, to witness whatever storm or serenity passed behind her eyes.

In this environment, her environment, Verena seemed to expand. Not in volume, but in intensity. As if she became more fully herself with every step, every glance at the art. And AJ, ever the willing satellite, simply orbited her. Not mindlessly, not without his own gravity, but drawn to her centre all the same. There were times, especially like this, when he thought about what it meant to love someone without needing to contain them. To worship, but not possess. Verena was a constellation of selves - artist and siren, philosopher and wild thing - and he had long since stopped trying to capture all her forms. It was enough to be allowed close. To witness her unfold.

There would be more to the day. More touches. More words. Perhaps another drink on a sun-drenched terrace, or another collision of bodies back in their hotel room. But right now, in this quiet sanctuary of stillness and shadow, AJ had everything he needed. Just her presence. Just the way she breathed among the art.

That was the masterpiece.​

 

[Kita-san]

Verena was gone—utterly, blissfully gone.
The moment she stepped past the threshold of the gallery, the noise of the outside world, the bustle of the city, even the subtle awareness of AJ at her side, all faded into a gentle hush. Her world narrowed to color, to line, to the weight of a brushstroke and the negative space between forms. The walls, white and humming with quiet energy, held more than paintings. They held language. Emotion. Truth.

Her fingers brushed lightly against the thin air in front of each canvas, never touching, only tracing, as if the energy might leap across the space and into her skin. She didn't read the plaques, didn't need to. The work spoke to her directly, bypassing words, weaving straight into the part of her soul that only art ever reached. Verena breathed this. It lived in her marrow. She didn't just look—she entered. With each new piece, she vanished a little deeper into that invisible current that only she could follow. Her eyes lingered over the details others might skip: the fragile tension of a shadow, the uneven stroke in a corner, the way two tones bled into each other like a whispered secret. She tilted her head slowly, caught in a wordless conversation. Sometimes her lips parted slightly, the barest sign of awe. Other times, her eyes narrowed, curious, skeptical. Always engaged.

She didn't speak. She didn't need to. AJ's presence hovered at the edge of her awareness, warm and grounding, like sunlight bleeding through closed curtains. She didn't look at him, but she felt him—there, constant, quietly orbiting. His nearness didn't intrude. In fact, it gave her more space to be. That was what she'd come to love about AJ. By now, she wasn't afraid to be herself with him—fully, unfiltered. Not the poised gallery girl or the seductive muse or the elusive mind behind sharp opinions. Just Verena, the woman who got lost in oil and pigment, who felt more real in front of a canvas than in most conversations.

And he let her. He saw her, and then stepped aside to let her expand. As they entered a new room filled with stark, minimalist sketches—just pencil on paper, bare lines trembling with restraint—Verena slowed even more. These were her favorite. Not because they were showy. Because they weren't. There was something raw about them, something naked. She stood still, barely breathing, as if the paper itself might shatter if she moved too suddenly.

Behind her, AJ moved like a shadow, his footsteps soft, respectful. She felt the air shift as he passed close enough for her skin to tingle, and then drifted just out of reach again. It was intimate in a way no touch could match. She smiled—not for him, not even for the art, but for herself. For this moment. For the simple joy of being seen and left untouched, trusted to exist in her wholeness.

She didn't notice how his eyes tracked her, how he watched her with the reverence of someone looking at something sacred. She only knew he was near. And that was enough.

One piece—a charcoal sketch of a figure bent over a table, mid-motion, their face half-lost in shadow—held her still for longer than the others. There was grief in the line. Or maybe tenderness. It was hard to tell, and that was why she loved it. She inhaled slowly, deeply, like she was taking it into her lungs, letting the art etch itself inside her. This is it, she thought. This is who I am. Not just what I love, but the place I live.

Eventually, her hand rose, unconsciously seeking the weight of AJ's, but she didn't turn around. She just stood there, still, anchored in the piece, letting herself be felt without needing to speak. She knew he wouldn't interrupt. They would move on. Eventually. Maybe share a laugh at something abstract and absurd. Maybe end up wrapped around each other before the sun dipped beneath the horizon. But for now—here, in this hush, with her breath slowed and her heart stretched across a gallery wall—Verena was content.

After some time she looked at AJ with a light smile on her face. “Ok, this was just amazing. We have been here for some time so we can head to the rooftop now.” She knew she could stay here all day but she didn’t need to do that. Besides she wanted to spend some fun, intimate time with AJ. “Let’s go get some wine and charcuterie.” She kissed his cheek before leading him towards the door to exit.

 

[AJS Roleplaying]

"I know this great rooftop nearby."

He said it with the offhand confidence of someone who knew the city by muscle memory, who had once lost entire nights to its pulse, and now carried its secrets with a casual familiarity. Verena didn't answer - didn't need to - and AJ took her hand again. It was a simple gesture, but it held the weight of quiet certainties, of something unspoken but growing bolder with each shared breath.

The city lay before them like an unfinished sentence. San Francisco, with its bruised lavender sky and breath of salt and fog, wrapped itself around them as they walked. The streets were slick from an earlier drizzle, shining like old mirrors, and the air smelled faintly of eucalyptus, exhaust, and something floral carried in on the sea wind. They moved at a pace that wasn't hurried. Time had unspooled a little, turned elastic. With her fingers in his, AJ felt the edges of the world soften, blur.

The rooftop wasn't marked by signs or lit in neon. It was the kind of place that lived between lines on a map, accessible only through the right doorway, up the right set of stairs, through a fire escape disguised as nothing much at all. And then, suddenly, it opened up. Space. Air. An unobstructed sweep of skyline. It was the kind of view that didn't shout, but whispered, coaxed. Lights twinkled below like spilled glass. The hum of the city softened into a lull, and the wind curled lazily around them, warm despite the hour.

AJ led her to a table tucked into the far corner, half-hidden by a wall of ivy that moved like velvet under the ambient string lights. They sat beneath the golden glow of Edison bulbs strung in lazy zigzags overhead, the bulbs swinging gently with the wind. The rooftop was neither crowded nor empty - enough people to feel alive, not enough to feel watched. Jazz hummed softly from speakers nestled into the foliage, the notes thick and honeyed, curling like smoke through the air.

A server appeared, ghostlike in their efficiency, and AJ gestured to the charcuterie menu, ordering without looking. He knew exactly what would come: thin slices of prosciutto folded like ribbon, creamy brie and sharp manchego, dark olives glinting with oil, sun-dried tomatoes marinated in herbs, glistening figs sliced in half to reveal their rich pink hearts. A bottle of red - Syrah, earthy and full-bodied - followed, poured generously into wide glasses that caught the candlelight in their curves.

They sat without urgency, their bodies turned inward, angled into each other. AJ could feel the electricity between them settling into something heavier, denser, like gravity. It wasn't that she was touching him - though she was, barely, the side of her knee against his beneath the table - but that she could, at any moment, and the space between that potential and reality was unbearably erotic. The air between them shimmered with it. Every breath, every glance, every movement of her fingers to her glass carried the intimacy of a promise.

He watched her in profile as she lifted her wine, the stem of the glass delicate in her long fingers. The red caught on her lower lip, staining it like a secret. Her hair caught the breeze and tumbled around her shoulders, and he felt the ache of wanting rise in him again—slow, deliberate, not just hunger, but reverence.

Here, in this small citadel above the world, she was unknowable and wholly his. Not his in any possessive sense, but his in the way a poem might briefly belong to the reader who understands it completely. AJ didn't speak. He didn't need to. The silence between them had become a language of its own, fluent and precise. He shifted slightly in his chair, letting his knee press more fully against hers, and when she didn't move away, didn't blink, didn't change anything at all—he knew.

They lingered over the food, though neither was hungry. It was ceremony, not sustenance. He tore pieces of bread from the warm loaf in the centre of the board, dipping them in oil, in cheese, in nothing at all. The wine darkened his blood, made him slow, thoughtful. The city stretched out around them, luminous and indifferent. But here, in the hush between clinks of glasses and the slow melting of cheese on a warm plate, AJ felt time fold into something intimate, and strange, and a little bit holy.

And for now, that was enough.​

 

[Kita-san]

The rooftop stretched wide and low-lit before them, wrapped in ivy and edged by brick, as if the city had forgotten it existed. Wind tugged playfully at her sleeves, carrying music from somewhere — soft jazz, dusky and smooth, like it had drifted out of another era. Golden bulbs hung overhead in an imperfect tangle, their light pooling in soft halos across the floor, dappling the mismatched tables and the scattered potted herbs that perfumed the breeze. And it hit her — this was one of those places. The kind that never shows up on a map, the kind you only get to see if someone wants to show you.

Verena felt herself relax, the atmosphere drew her in instantly. No matter where she was as long as AJ was around she felt relaxed. This place was perfect to Verena, this is where she could truly just exist with AJ by just being present. Sitting there, she let AJ order. She was always impressed with his wine and food choices, he seemed to know what she liked anyway.

The charcuterie came out like something from a half-forgotten dream: figs so ripe they nearly burst, brie gone soft from the night's warmth, the deep red stain of wine already bleeding into the linen napkin folded beneath her glass.
And there was AJ — lounging with an elegance that felt unstudied, a kind of effortless attentiveness. He wasn't on. He was just with her, fully, openly, as if time outside this rooftop had simply stopped mattering. And god, did it feel good. They didn't need to speak. Their silences had shape and texture. Laughter bubbled up when it wanted, easy and brief. She caught herself watching his hands — how they broke the bread, how they held the stem of his glass.

She let her foot rest against his now, more deliberate. Felt him lean into it just slightly, and something about the quiet yes in that gesture made her heart lurch. Not because it was dramatic — but because it wasn't. It was natural. Casual. Like they'd always had this closeness waiting for them to arrive. Her gaze drifted out toward the skyline — all those buildings cut out of night, windows blinking like stars fallen into geometry. She exhaled slowly, a curl of breath caught in the sea breeze. The wine had settled into her bones now, slow and warm, making her feel like everything inside her had gone a little more liquid, a little more true.

And sitting there — elbow on the table, chin resting in her palm, one hand wrapped around her glass — she felt herself unspool in the most delicious way. Not unraveling. Unfolding. Like a woman returning to herself, and finding someone else already waiting. She glanced sideways at him, and for just a second, there was no city. No lights. No hum of strangers or clink of glass. Just AJ — the soft line of his jaw in the half-shadow, the storm of something deep and still in his eyes. It wasn't love. Not yet. But it was something. Something slow and certain. Something that didn't ask for definition. And up there, in that quiet pocket of sky and music and wine, that was all that was needed.

Verena poured herself some more wine before looking back at AJ. “What are you thinking about?” She asked. She always liked to hear his thoughts. Talking with AJ was easy for Verena and it felt natural to. “Are you thinking about how much it’s going to suck for this trip to end?” She chuckled softly knowing she didn’t want it to end.

 

[AJS Roleplaying]

Her question landed like a soft blow - unexpected in its gentleness, devastating in its accuracy. It cut through the cultivated calm he had wrapped around himself, that thin veneer of composure he wore like a tailored suit, convincing only from a distance. He knew she hadn't meant to strike him down with it, hadn't asked with the intention of unravelling anything. And yet it brought him face to face with the truth, the real and heavy thing that had been trailing behind them like a silent companion all week: what waited at home.

The spectres of their other lives had never quite vanished, only dimmed against the golden haze of afternoons spent wandering the Mission, the endless cafes and galleries, the echo of footfalls through old theatres turned art houses. There was Serena waiting for him in a home that no longer felt like his own, and James hovering just outside the edges of every room they entered, a name that neither of them needed to say to acknowledge. Two lives, two relationships that had outlived their meaning, gone hollow in their rituals, their predictable exchanges, their quietly desperate gestures at permanence.

Adrian had known long before this trip that his marriage had ended. It hadn't ended loudly or with rage - it had simply slipped away, unnoticed at first, until one day he realized he was sharing a bed with a stranger who still wore his ring. The week with Verena hadn't caused the rupture. It had only exposed it, cast light into the corners and revealed the absence of anything real. This journey hadn't broken anything that wasn't already broken; it had simply confirmed it. Serena was no longer his wife in any way that mattered. He knew this now without doubt or self-deception.

They had meandered through a version of the city that wasn't just romantic - it was surreal, dreamlike in its permission to forget the real world for a while. Each gallery they explored, every late dinner and too-early morning had unfolded like pages in a book he didn't want to end. They had talked about everything and nothing, made love with a kind of abandon that only comes when there is something else waiting to be destroyed by it. And in all that time, he had felt the subtle but growing pull of a new possibility. Not just with her, but with himself - who he could be, who he might become if he didn't lie to himself anymore.

"I wish we could stay here forever - just browsing San Francisco's art and architecture scene, indulging in far too much food... and never enough sex," he had murmured, not as a joke but as a quiet, unguarded truth, something tender and raw laid gently between them. It wasn't the sort of thing meant for the world; it was meant for the space just between them, for the heat shared beneath blankets, for the way her gaze held his long after the rest of the world had gone quiet. And yet even as he said it, he knew the fantasy couldn't hold. There was a reckoning waiting, an accounting of the lives they had stepped out of so easily for these few days. The real world did not simply disappear because it was inconvenient. It waited, patient and unwavering, ready to reclaim them.

"But... we must face what is at home." The words tasted bitter, even as he believed in their necessity. "I will be telling Serena I want a divorce."

There was a pause in him then - not hesitation, but clarity. "But that is not to put pressure on you," he added, not because he feared her reaction, but because he needed her to understand what this was and what it wasn't. "I want you to make the decision that is best for you. I would like to have you in my life. To build something with you."

The truth was, she had altered something fundamental in him. Not just by being there, not just through the aching beauty of her body or the restless intelligence of her conversation, but by showing him, through contrast, how little was left in the life he'd tried so hard to maintain. She had not seduced him away from Serena; she had simply reminded him of what it felt like to be seen. To be touched not out of duty or routine, but out of want. The raw, almost desperate kind of want that made him feel twenty years younger and far more awake than he had in a decade.

"But this week has also told me - " he continued, quieter now, the final edge of truth still forming, " - that if it is not you, it is also not Serena."

It was not a love declaration, not quite. It was something more honest than that - an admission that whatever future waited for him, it no longer existed in the past. And if Verena walked away, as she had every right to do, he would still have to walk forward. Alone, perhaps. But never again pretending that things were fine when they were not. She had been the match to the dry paper of his marriage, but the fire had long been waiting. And now that it had burned, there was no going back to the ashes.

He looked out at the slow pulse of the city around them - so alive, so vast - and knew the moment had turned. Not an end, but a beginning. Of something. Of everything.​

 

[Kita-san]

Verena kept her body angled slightly toward Adrian. She had this natural pull to be close to him. The clink of glasses and distant murmur of the city filled the silence between his words, but she wasn't hearing any of it—only him. She listened with that rare kind of focus that made a person feel wholly seen, as if there was no one else in the world she'd rather be hearing from. Her eyes didn't drift. Not once.

She didn't interrupt him, didn't even blink too often, afraid she might miss something if she did. Adrian's voice, low and steady, carried truths that didn't need embellishment—they held their own weight. Each confession was measured, but not guarded. There was no performance in what he was saying. No attempt to make himself sound noble, or tragic, or blameless. It was the rawness that caught her breath in her chest. That gentle ache beneath his words, not loud or pleading, but lived-in. Honest.

When he said, "I want you to make the decision that is best for you," she looked down for a heartbeat, lips pressed together in something like sorrow—but also respect. Then, without speaking, she reached across the short distance between them and placed her hand firmly on his thigh. Not tentative. Not shy. Just… grounding. A quiet declaration of presence. A wordless, I hear you. I see you. I'm here. She gave it a gentle squeeze, her fingers curling in just slightly. He was warm beneath the fabric of his jeans, and somehow that made it real—the man, the moment, the magnitude of what they were both stepping into.

Then, softly, she spoke. "I've known for a while that I needed to end things with James. I think I've known even longer than I wanted to admit." Her voice carried the rough edge of truth—low and quiet, not hesitant, but deliberate. Each word chosen like a stone placed carefully into water, knowing it would ripple. "It's not broken in some big dramatic way. It's… tired. Stretched too thin over years of avoiding hard conversations. We got used to each other, but that's not the same as loving each other. Not really. Not in the way that matters."

She looked down at her hands now, at the way one still rested on Adrian's leg. She didn't pull away. "I don't know how well it'll go when I tell him. I don't think he'll fight me on it—not loudly, at least. He is going to make it seem like I’m the bad guy and make it seem like he didn't do anything wrong." She paused with a soft sigh before looking at AJ. "But I want to be with you, Adrian. If you're open to that. I want to work on what we are building.” The weight of the moment didn't scare her. She leaned into it. Into him. "I don't want to go back to sleepwalking through my life. You woke something up in me this week—something I didn't even know I'd buried. I feel… alive again. Not just because of the sex, though—god, yes, that too—but the way you look at me. The way you listen. Her voice softened, dipped into something almost reverent.

She exhaled slowly, the confession settling in the space between them like warm rain after a long drought. Then she added, half-smiling now, a little more herself again. "But I need to do this the right way. Clean. Honest. For both of us. I don't want us to start in the middle of someone else's ending." Her fingers finally slid from his thigh, only to reach for his hand instead, interlacing them with the kind of care that said, This is not a fling. This is not just a beautiful accident. This was something real. And real things take courage. She looked out over the city then—alive and electric and pulsing with possibility—and whispered, more to herself than to him. "Maybe we don't get to stay in San Francisco forever… but I want what this place made me feel to last. I want you to last." And in the soft hush that followed, she wasn't afraid of what waited at home. Not anymore.

 

[AJS Roleplaying]

When Verena stopped speaking, AJ didn't respond - not immediately. He simply looked at her. Not with the casual, distracted glances that filled the space between people in conversation. Not with the studied detachment he had spent years perfecting in boardrooms and brief encounters. But with a gaze stripped bare of artifice, hollow of pretence. Deep. Intent. Honest in the way few things in his life had ever dared to be. It was the kind of look that reached past surface attraction and polite understanding and touched something beneath, something rooted and irrational and incandescent. A look that acknowledged what had been quietly rising between them in the spaces where words had failed. It said I see you. It said I've known you longer than I can explain, and not long enough at all. It said Stay.

He had spent much of his life mastering the choreography of emotional distance. AJ had learned to navigate intimacy like a maze - stepping only where he must, avoiding dead ends, always planning an exit. But with her, there was no distance to preserve. She was the exception to every pattern he'd set in stone. She unspooled him, gently, with the sheer force of her presence. She was still. Watching him. Letting silence hang between them like a suspended breath. He didn't need her to speak. Her stillness was eloquent.

And then he leaned in - not the kind of lean people practice when they want to impress or seduce or feign closeness. This was something else entirely. A surrender of sorts. A letting go. His lips found hers with a quiet, unapologetic urgency. There was no flourish to it, no dramatics. Just clarity. Just need. The kind that was lived-in and raw and undeniable. The kind that felt like truth. It was not a kiss of mere want, though he wanted her. Not a kiss of lust alone, though his body ached for her with a hunger he hadn't remembered was possible. It was something more primal than desire and more tender than longing. A kiss that said I want you in my mornings and my silences and my years. That said You fit into my future like you've been written into it since the beginning. It said I want you too—in my life, in my mess, in my time left.

Thirty-seven years. That's what it had taken to find her. He thought of that as his mouth left hers and he lingered close, eyes still searching hers for something he wasn't sure could be named. Thirty-seven years of nearlys and not-quites, of relationships that crumbled under their own weight or drifted off without ever having mattered. Thirty-seven years of pretending that love - real love, the kind that staked its claim on your soul and changed the weather of your life - was something he'd outgrown, or missed, or simply wasn't made for.

And then she'd come into his world without ceremony. No grand entrance. No thunderclap. Just a conversation, a glance, a gravity he couldn't ignore. And now he couldn't remember what life had felt like before the shape of her had taken hold in his days. He inhaled, slow and deliberate, like he was pulling her scent into the deepest parts of himself. He hadn't expected this. Hadn't dared. But he wasn't about to let it slip away. He let the moment settle, let it stretch out just a little longer, just long enough to brand it into memory. Then, gently, he offered her something quiet and simple. A thread of intimacy that would continue the night without demanding anything more than her presence.

"What do you say to a nice walk by the waterfront on our way back to the hotel?"

His voice was soft, almost reverent. Like he wasn't asking for a stroll so much as an extension of the sacred thing that had just passed between them.

"Tomorrow is still hours away," he added, the trace of a smile ghosting over his lips. "I want all of you until then."

It wasn't flirtation. Not anymore. It was an invitation to time - shared, unbroken, and without the noise of the world to intrude. The hours ahead would belong only to them, and he wanted them fully. Not in fragments. Not in half-light.

There would still be complications, of course. Things to unravel. Obstacles to move aside. The world didn't pause just because hearts aligned. But none of that mattered in this moment. Not now. Now there was only this - this breath between one life and the next. This quiet, astonishing clarity. This knowing. He didn't know how the future would unfold. But he knew who he wanted in it. And that, for the first time in all his restless, searching years, was enough.​

 

[Kita-san]

Verena hadn't expected silence to feel like this. It was the answers she needed. Not awkward. Not heavy. Not like the tense waiting she'd known in past relationships, where silence became the pause before unraveling—before judgment, before cold indifference. This silence was thick with something different. Not absence, but presence. She felt AJ's gaze settle on her, and when it did, it wasn't the usual glance of a man trying to read her, assess her, or place her in some pre-written narrative. No, this was something far more dangerous—far more sacred. His eyes stayed, unwavering, as if they had finally found something worth holding on to.

She didn't move at first. Didn't breathe. She held still not out of fear but reverence—because she knew what this was. She felt it in the stretch of her skin, in the quiet between heartbeats, in the sudden ache in her chest that had nothing to do with pain and everything to do with being seen. How long had it been since someone really saw her? Not for her sharp tongue or curated strength. Not for her accomplishments or the armor she wore so damn well it had practically become skin. But for her—the raw, trembling, beating center of her.

When he kissed her, Verena didn't melt. She aligned. Their mouths met not like fire and gasoline, but like two stars remembering their original orbit. It was deep, slow, sure. A claiming, yes—but more than that, a recognition. His kiss wasn't about ownership. It was about arrival. She wasn't being conquered—she was being chosen. She didn't rush. Didn't clutch. She simply gave in, her hands lifting to cradle his face, her thumbs brushing just beneath his cheekbones where the tension still lingered. Her lips moved with his like they'd done this a hundred lifetimes before, and maybe they had. Maybe that's why this didn't feel like the start of something new but the continuation of something old. Something always meant.

Her mind—usually a flurry of counterarguments, rationalizations, plans—was quiet. There was no voice telling her to be careful. No instinct to push away before she could be left. She only felt him. And that feeling of finally. When he pulled back, her eyes stayed closed a moment longer. Letting the warmth of him linger on her lips. Letting the truth of it all settle. Then came his voice, soft and reverent, asking for something as simple and profound as time. A walk. More moments. More her.

Her eyes opened slowly, the gold in them catching the dim light. There was no smirk now, no tease, no mask. Just Verena—raw and sure and still somehow surprised. She studied him again, this man who had the nerve to look at her like she mattered beyond the moment. Like he wasn't afraid of what that might mean. And maybe… maybe she wasn't either. "A walk by the water sounds perfect," she said, voice low, threaded with something fragile but firm. Her lips tilted into the ghost of a smile—real, untouched by polish. "I could use a few more hours of this."
This, meaning him. This, meaning the way her pulse had finally stopped trying to outrun itself. This, meaning the quiet miracle of being held in someone's eyes and not flinching.

As they began to walk, her hand slipped into his—not hesitant, not searching, but home. She didn't speak at first. She just let the night wrap around them, the hush of the waterfront curling close like a secret they shared. Her thumb brushed idly against his as they moved, slow and aimless, not needing a destination. And somewhere, deep inside where her fears once lived, something shifted. Not erased. But eased. Maybe this wouldn't be forever. Maybe it wouldn't be easy. But it was real. And that was more than enough.

 

[AJS Roleplaying]

The boardwalk stretched before them in sun-warmed planks and scattered shadows, the late afternoon light diffused to a molten gold that softened every edge. San Francisco, in all its layered brilliance and contradiction, unfolded around them - tourists clutching cones of melting ice cream, tech bros speaking too loudly into their phones, queer couples in matching tank tops, a child holding a rainbow kite aloft against the salty breeze. The pulse of the city was alive and democratic, pulsing through the narrow alleys of Chinatown and into the open sprawl of the Embarcadero. AJ took it all in, but distantly, as though he were watching it through water.

His real focus, his gravity, was Verena. Her fingers were laced with his in that quiet, unconcerned way that lovers sometimes manage when nothing more needs to be said - not out of boredom, but out of intimacy so deep it ceases to demand attention. Still, AJ's free hand moved instinctively around her waist, anchoring her to his side, pulling her close until their bodies brushed with every other step. The act wasn't casual, not anymore. Not with tomorrow looming.

Their flight home were in the morning. AJ hated how conscious he was of time. The ticking of it beneath every breath. They had fucked each other senseless numerous times on this trip - but it hadn't dulled his hunger. If anything, it had made it worse. As if the body, in knowing what it would soon be deprived of, only craved more. Needed more. She smelled faintly of sandalwood and something soft and citrus, the kind of perfume that lingered only when you leaned close, that made strangers turn their heads on elevators without knowing why. The wind pushed in from the bay, brisk and curling like an afterthought, catching at the edge of her dress. He leaned in, turning his head until his lips were just beneath her ear. He wanted to say something filthy. He wanted to say something sweet. He wanted to say something that would make her look at him like she had last night, eyes half-lidded and mouth open, whispering his name like it hurt. Instead, he let his breath land there first, warm and deliberate. His voice came low, velvet and gravel.

"You know what I keep thinking about?" he murmured. "That moment last night… right before you came… when your legs were shaking around my shoulders, and you grabbed my hair like you needed something to anchor yourself to this fucking planet. I can't get that out of my head."

He could feel her inhale, the small intake that always gave her away. But she said nothing, just kept walking beside him.

"And the way you looked at me afterward, like you didn't know whether to thank me or curse me… fuck, Verena, I wanted to do it again just to see which you'd choose."

He swallowed, his mouth dry with the memory.

"You're so quiet after. Like you need to come back into your own skin, one piece at a time. And all I can think about is how long I'd have to stay inside you before you'd stop needing to reassemble yourself at all."

There were too many people around to say what he really wanted to say, to tell her how he'd spent the whole damn walk imagining her bent over the sink in their hotel bathroom, staring at herself in the mirror while he fucked her from behind. Not rough, not angry - just thorough. Intentional. A kind of worship that was too raw to call romantic and too tender to call obscene. He didn't say that part out loud. Not yet.

"Tomorrow's going to suck," he added, almost as an afterthought, "but tonight, I want to see what you look like when you come with my name in your mouth again. No hotel distractions. No TV in the background. Just us. Just that sound."

He drew in a breath and exhaled slowly.

"I want to ruin the silence you carry after with my voice. I want to make you forget what it felt like not to be touched."

A boat's horn sounded out on the water, low and mournful, pulling them both back into the moment. AJ stared ahead, jaw tight, eyes distant. Tomorrow was already creeping up on them, clawing through the hours like a tide he didn't know how to stop. But tonight - tonight was still theirs. Still ripe.

And he wasn't finished with her yet. Not even close.​

 

[Kita-san]

Verena didn't say anything—not at first. She just kept walking, step in step with AJ, the sound of her sandals soft against the wooden boards of the pier, the wind tugging gently at the hem of her dress. But inside her, everything was in motion. His words had landed like lit matches on dry skin—slow, searing, and impossible to ignore. She felt every one of them.

Her breath caught in that quiet, involuntary way it always did when he spoke like that. When his voice dropped low and he leaned in just enough for her to feel the weight of his need without him ever having to raise it above a whisper. He didn't try. He didn't have to try. That was the thing about AJ—he didn't seduce. He unveiled. And every time he did, it left her unraveling a little more.

Her hand tightened around his.

She could feel her pulse thudding low, hot, somewhere between her ribs and her thighs. Her body already remembering the way he touched her last night, already answering him in small, involuntary ways—tightening her stomach, curling her toes in her shoes, drawing her thighs just slightly closer together as they walked. She hated how easily he did this to her. And she loved it even more.

Verena didn't look at him. She didn't have to look at him. She felt him—his presence, his heat, the tether of his arm around her waist grounding her to the moment like gravity made flesh. But her thoughts were spinning.
They had today. Tonight. And then that was it—for now. The knowledge of it sat sharp behind her ribs, pressing into every breath. They had built this beautiful, reckless, impossible thing in the span of a few weeks, and now they were flying back to the real world. To James. To Serena. To other lives. Other lies. The ache of that was already blooming.

Verena didn't feel guilty—not really. That ship had sailed the moment she'd kissed AJ the first time. But she felt the weight of what came next. She had to go back and unravel her life, thread by thread, without knowing if she and AJ would be able to weave something new out of what remained. She didn't know how long it would take. She didn't know if it would even be possible.

But God, she wanted it to be.

That was the terrifying part. She'd never felt like this with James. Not even close. Not this depth, this hunger. This tether that pulled her toward AJ no matter how far she might try to drift. He saw her. Not just the version she showed to the world—but her. The sharpness. The softness. The shadow. And he wanted all of it.

Her body burned with the want of him, yes—but it was more than that. It was the need of him. The need to feel his breath against her skin and his voice wrecking her name and his mouth rewriting the map of her body again and again until there was nowhere left that didn't belong to him. He made her feel known in ways that scared her. She bit her bottom lip, kept her eyes forward, her hand still tucked in his. He'd said he wanted to ruin the silence she carried. And the worst part was—she wanted him to. She wanted him to destroy it. To speak so deeply into the ache of her that nothing untouched remained. To claim her, not with promises, but with presence. With the way he said her name in the dark. With the way he stayed.

Verena's jaw tightened. Tomorrow would hurt. She already knew that. But tonight—tonight she would give him everything. Because whatever came next, whatever mess they had to go home and clean up, this night was real. And maybe it was fleeting, maybe it would take weeks or longer before they could see each other again—if they even could—but it didn't change what they were in this moment. Undeniable. Inevitable. She finally looked at him. Just a glance.

“And how are you going to do that?” She asked, a small smirk on her face. “I want you to. Tomorrow is really going to suck but I’m glad we still have tonight.” She kissed his cheek. “You should keep talking. Keep telling me what you want to do to me.” Her deep hazel eyes focused on his for a moment. There was playfulness in her voice but she also meant what she said. She loved hearing AJ talk like this, she loved hearing what was on his mind especially when it was her.

 

[AJS Roleplaying]

AJ's grin was slow, deliberate - half amusement, half provocation. Her question lingered in the air between them like the first notes of a forbidden song, coaxing something from deep inside him. It was more than permission - it was an invitation, and it thrilled him. The very idea of putting what he wanted into words was bold, almost audacious, but it was a challenge he welcomed. Because there was something about Verena - something unruly and magnetic - that made him want to be known by her in every raw, unfiltered way.

What he felt for her had already grown roots far beyond the shallow soil of lust. It wasn't just about want; it was about the slow ache of something permanent forming, the kind of connection that refused to be casual. There was tenderness under his hunger, a reverence that had begun to scare him with its intensity. But in this moment, walking beside her, her presence burning like heat just beneath his skin, he allowed himself to revel in the lust. He leaned into it, let it take shape in his thoughts. Let it rise.

"I want to see you on your knees before me," he imagined saying, voice low and steady, his breath ghosting hot against her skin. "Me standing - hard, full, and ready - watching you take my cock into your mouth like it was made for no one else. Like it was carved out of flesh and hunger just for you."

The words in his mind didn't shock him, but they curled around something primal. He felt himself hardening even as they moved through the space around them, the normal world still humming on in blissful ignorance. If anyone nearby happened to hear the things running through his mind, they might freeze in surprise - or envy. There was no shame in what he wanted. Not with her.

It wasn't just the mechanics of desire, the angles and friction. It was in the image of her kneeling not in submission, but in power - his power, shared and returned, as if by worship. Not obedience, but a choice to let him in like that. To let him unravel in her mouth, to coax from him the kind of moan he never made for anyone else. To bring him to the edge, slowly, reverently, before she would let him fall.

"And then," he continued in the sanctuary of his own thoughts, "when you've got me right on the brink, I want to kneel behind you. I want to press myself into you and feel your pussy wrapped around me like it belongs to me. Like it's the only place I've ever belonged."

There was an edge of desperation there, but also truth. He didn't just want to fuck her - he wanted to claim her in the way that had nothing to do with ownership and everything to do with intimacy. With knowing her in ways other men wouldn't even think to. He wanted to move inside her like someone who understood how she breathed, how she pulsed, how she unravelled. It was more than penetration; it was communion.

The idea of her hips tilted up, the sound she would make when he pushed inside, the way she would open to him - he carried it all in his head like a sacred thing. He imagined gripping her waist, anchoring himself to the curve of her body as he moved into her with rhythm and hunger and purpose. Not just to satisfy the animal in him, though that was very much awake now - but to express something unspoken, urgent, and real. He wanted to mark the moment as one of mutual surrender, of shared heat and shared control.

Because that was the core of it - this wasn't about him dominating her. It wasn't about her yielding. It was about both of them knowing exactly what they wanted and choosing to give it. To take it. With eyes wide open. With mouths and hands and hearts willing.

The tension in his body had become a steady thrum by now, and yet it was grounding in a strange way. Desire didn't pull him away from himself - it settled him, rooted him. And with her, he never had to pretend. He could want deeply, speak boldly, love openly - even in the filthiest of words. Especially in them.

There was no performance here, only honesty.

He cast a glance her way again, a quiet pulse of want flickering behind his eyes. She had no idea what she did to him just by being near. Or maybe she did - and that was the most intoxicating part of all.​

 

[Kita-san]

Verena kept her eyes forward, jaw tight, shoulders squared like she always did—like she was in control. Like the words he had just spoken hadn't scorched her from the inside out.

But they had.

God, they had.

Her skin was a live wire. The breeze brushing against her thighs, the shift of her t shirt against her back, even the simple weight of her own hair along her collarbone felt unbearable now—too much and not enough all at once. She could still hear him. Every low, deliberate word. Every unapologetic detail of what he wanted to do to her, how he wanted to touch her, hold her, take her. It echoed in her head, deeper than sound—something primal, something carved into her bones. And still, she didn't look at him.

Because if she did, she might give it away. She might let him see the way her lips had parted slightly, just enough to draw more breath than necessary. The way her throat was tight, the air caught somewhere between a sigh and a sound she didn't want to name. She might let him see the tremble in her fingers. He spoke to her like a man who had already touched her soul and now wanted the rest.

And what terrified her most—what thrilled her most—was that she wanted to give it. Not out of weakness, not because she was lost in the lust of it, but because it was true. Because when he spoke like that, it wasn't filth. It wasn't a game. It was a language only the two of them knew how to speak. One built on trust, and fire, and the unbearable tension between what they had already tasted and what still waited to be claimed.

She bit the inside of her cheek. The heat between her thighs had become something she could feel, something that made her stomach flutter and her spine tighten. She hated how much control she was pretending to have. How much she wanted to tilt her hips toward him, let her eyes drift shut and say, yes, like that, just like that, take me like you mean it. But that wasn't who she was.

Not yet.

And yet, she wondered if he knew anyway. If he could sense it in the way her body was leaning ever so slightly in his direction. If he caught the way her tongue pressed briefly against the roof of her mouth, chasing the last trace of composure like it was wine spilled too fast.

She swallowed. And finally, turned her head just enough to look at him. She removed her sunglasses. Her eyes, dark and sharp and endlessly alive, locked onto his. Not shy. Not coy. But burning. She didn't speak. Didn't need to. The message in her gaze was loud enough. But still—she gave nothing else. No blush. No smirk. Just that long, quiet stare that said it all.

The walk started off peaceful but the slow burn of excitement that filled the area began to turn that calm peace into something else. Verena let out a soft chuckle. “On my knees huh?” She smirked softly. “Do you see yourself taking control and fucking mouth before you reach the edge?” She asked wondering if he had thought of it like that. She had heard him very clear before but she knew he could always change what he wanted to do to her. “You say things like that and then expect me to just… walk beside you like nothing's shifted. You are something else AJ.” She smiled softly and kept walking, it was taking everything in her not to drag him back to the hotel room.

 

[AJS Roleplaying]

AJ had never thought of himself as the kind of man who made women falter. Not in any conscious way. He was used to attention, of course - the kind that came from presence, from walking into a room and commanding it without speaking. He'd grown into that. Earned it. But this… this quiet unravelling he was witnessing now in Verena - it felt different. And it shook something loose in him, something primal and territorial, yet curiously tender. He wasn't oblivious to the way she shifted when he spoke, not anymore. There was a flicker behind her eyes, subtle but telling, like a film reel skipping frames as it played out all the scenarios he'd described in the soft tones reserved only for her. She was picturing it. Reconstructing it in her mind - his mouth, his hands, the heat of him folding her into shadowed hotel room walls and sheets twisted with intent. It stirred something low in his gut to know that she was listening like that.

He hadn't spoken to manipulate, hadn't thrown out a line just to reel her in. No, what he'd offered her was honest. And if it had a kind of edge to it - one sharpened by desire, dominance, and something dangerously close to longing - then that was her gift to him. She made him want more. Not just more of her body, though he craved that with an ache that pulsed at the base of his spine. But more of her honesty, more of her surrender - not the weak kind, not the easy kind, but the fierce, equal surrender that only came from trust built in silence and trial. So when he spoke again, it was not a performance. It was a vow, framed not with ceremony but clarity.

"I have no expectations of you. Only that you meet me in the middle with the same energy that I bring. As you always do."

There was no pleading in it. No sweetened coercion. Just truth, spoken in the same way he might make a promise to himself. He had long since grown weary of half-measures and guesswork. Of people who demanded softness without offering substance in return. But Verena moved like a woman who knew how to carry fire without flinching, and he wanted to meet her in that blaze. He watched her as she removed her sunglasses, and for a heartbeat, he allowed himself to look deeper than perhaps he should have. Not just at her, but through her. Not as if she were glass - fragile and transparent - but something far denser, like obsidian: reflective only if the light hit just right, hiding heat beneath its glossy blackness. And he knew what she was looking for in him too. Not just want, not just lust. That would've been easy. She'd had men fall to their knees for less than what he offered. What made this moment different was that she was searching for the same question he was quietly asking himself: Can I trust this? Not the words, but the man behind them.

His expression didn't shift. It didn't need to. His eyes were steady, his posture relaxed but charged, like a current ran just beneath the skin waiting to leap. And then, because it felt necessary to give voice to what already hung in the air between them - thick and waiting - he said what he knew needed to be said.

"I'll say this, when we go back to the room is your choice. But once we do, I will again claim you as mine."

There was no mistaking what he meant by that. It wasn't about possession for its own sake, and it sure as hell wasn't about control. It was about intention. About the promise that if she chose him, again, then he would not take her lightly. Not tonight, not ever. He would not fuck her like someone trying to fill time. He would fuck her like someone trying to rewrite it. A man hungry enough to touch her like every second mattered, yet patient enough to draw it out until her name broke on his tongue like a hymn.

To claim, for him, was not to own. It was to remember. To remind. That her body wasn't just a playground, it was sacred ground. And if she let him back in, he would explore her again like scripture - carefully, reverently, yet with the kind of fervour that left teeth-marks on prayer. He meant every word. She had to know that. She deserved to know that.

And so he gave her the only thing he truly could in that moment: time. Time to think, time to feel. To consider whether she wanted to match that energy again—flame for flame, ache for ache. And if she did, when they crossed that threshold and the door clicked shut behind them, he wouldn't waste a breath. He would take her. Slowly, fully, like he was reintroducing himself to a language only the two of them spoke. Because if she gave him that green light - just that one simple thing - then claiming her wouldn't be just about desire.

It would be about devotion. Even if the world outside their hotel room never understood it. Even if the morning made liars of them both. Inside that room, she would be his again. And he would make damn sure she felt every second of it.​

 

[Kita-san]

Verena didn't look away when he said it. She could have. She could've smirked, shrugged, made a quip to soften the heat that had settled low in her belly. She could've turned her head and watched something—anything—else, let the moment pass like smoke through a cracked window. But instead, she held his gaze like a dare, like she needed to absorb the full weight of his words before they dissolved into the air around them.

Her sunglasses were pushed on top of her head and settled nearly there and in her hair. The world felt too blurry at the moment with them. AJ had a way of making everything around him quieter, so that the only thing she could really hear was him. His voice didn't rise. It didn't seduce in the performative, over-rehearsed way men often tried. No. His tone was controlled, measured. Like it came from deep within his chest, where truth lived, coiled and ready. And she listened. Every word tightened something in her. Not in fear—but in recognition.

He wasn't bluffing. There was no push-and-pull in his delivery, no testing her limits for the sake of control. It wasn't about dominance in the way lesser men wielded it—crude and loud, like they had something to prove. AJ's power was quieter, but it cracked through her like thunder in the distance—felt more than heard, impossible to ignore.

Verena's breath slowed. Not out of calm, but calculation. Every syllable he gave her was a seed planted, and her mind raced ahead to the moment they'd inevitably meet behind the closed door of their hotel room. The claiming he spoke of was not some possessive leash; it was something else entirely. Something that made the tips of her fingers ache and her thighs press a little tighter. She could see it already. The heat of his body crowding hers in the threshold, his hands sure and slow, like he already knew where her skin would burn the hottest. There would be no fumbling, no second-guessing. He would touch her like a man with history—not just with her body, but with her soul. As though he was mapping memories and carving new ones with every graze of his fingers. She could almost feel his mouth at her neck, not asking for access, but reminding her she had already given it. And the bed. God, she already knew what he'd do with that bed.

She wouldn't just be laid out. She'd be unfolded, piece by piece, reverently and completely. And when he took her—because she would let him—he'd do it like someone trying to make sense of the chaos they both carried, like someone trying to burn a language into her skin. Every stroke, every breath, a kind of worship. Verena exhaled slowly, fingers lightly brushing strands of hair from her face as they walked but her eyes still lingered on him. She was too focused. On him. On the way his jaw flexed just slightly as he watched her. The way he didn't push, didn't fill the silence with empty assurances. He gave her room. Time. And that was the most dangerous thing of all.

Because AJ wasn't like the others. He didn't ask her to be small to fit into his world. He invited her to be fierce within his arms, to burn as bright as she wanted. And that kind of permission? That kind of mutual fire? It was rare. And addictive. Her voice, when she finally spoke, was low. Steady. Almost too calm for what buzzed beneath her skin.
"Then you'd better be ready to do it properly.” Her words held the faintest edge of challenge, but not because she doubted him. No, it was because she believed him. And because that belief came with a cost. Trust, vulnerability, maybe something deeper she wasn't ready to name.

She kept up the same pace the entire time they walked. Verena finally looked head. She didn't need to look at home anymore to know his eyes were on her, sharp and unwavering still. The same way they would be later, when his mouth was pressed to her thigh and his hands held her like a question answered.
And still, under all that anticipation, there was something quiet rising inside her. Not fear. Not even anxiety. Just certainty. Her heart, for all its carefully constructed armor, had twitched at his words like a muscle remembering movement.

Verena didn't need to be told what was going to come next. She could already feel it. She was already picturing the click of the hotel door behind them. The soft hush of the room waiting to be filled. The sound of her own name, spoken low and sure, right before the world fell away.

 

[AJS Roleplaying]

They had wandered far enough from the heart of the crowd that the press of bodies had thinned, leaving only the occasional couple or quiet onlooker to occupy the boardwalk's edge. The late summer air carried with it the scent of brine and wood warmed by the day's heat. They came to a viewing point that jutted slightly out over the bay, framed by an iron railing that had weathered too many winters, yet held strong - a boundary between what was solid and what would pull you under.

AJ slowed behind her, letting her take the lead until they stood at the edge. The sun, low on the horizon, fractured gold across the water. He closed the small distance between them, not suddenly, not dramatically - just enough to make his presence known in a way that would make her feel it. She was between him and the railing now. He didn't cage her, didn't press, but placed himself deliberately so she knew she was no longer alone at the edge. She could move if she wanted. But she didn't. That was the point.

AJ's hand settled low on her hip. The placement wasn't casual - it was both a promise and a question. His fingers curved into the shape of her, fitting there like something learned rather than guessed. The contact was light, but undeniably intimate, with just enough pressure to speak of intent. He let the silence stretch between them for a beat, feeling the heat where their bodies nearly touched. There was tension in it, charged and volatile, like static before lightning. She didn't lean back, didn't retreat - and that, more than anything, urged him forward. He dropped his voice to a low murmur, speaking just behind her ear, his breath brushing skin.

"You know," he said, "I keep thinking about what I told you. About what I'd do to you if we were alone. I meant every word."

He paused, watching the subtle shift in her shoulders, the almost imperceptible way her body attuned to him, to the edge of his voice.

"But I don't want to just make you come," he continued. "I want to learn every reaction your body has. Every sound, every breath that changes when I put my mouth somewhere new. I want to ruin the memory of anyone who touched you before me."

His fingers shifted slightly on her hip, a slow, deliberate motion that could be mistaken for absentminded if not for the intensity in his tone.

"I want you to feel what it's like to be taken apart piece by piece. To have someone so focused on you, you forget your own name."

There was something raw in his voice now, not performative but precise. Controlled. Honest.

"And I want to hear it," he went on. "The way you moan when I push you just a little past what's comfortable. The way you plead when you're close but I won't let you finish yet. I want to memorize that. Make it mine."

His lips curved into something between a smirk and something darker - need, maybe. Or longing, twisted into lust.

"Let me show you what it means to trust someone like that," he said, quieter now. "To give in, not because you're weak, but because you know I'd never hurt you."

The air between them was different now. Heavy. Charged. The kind of atmosphere that didn't just spark - it threatened to ignite.

Behind them, the hum of the boardwalk continued. Laughter, footsteps, the occasional gull - all muffled by the rising tide of heat between them. AJ didn't speak again right away. He let his words linger, felt the subtle shift in her breath. He wasn't touching her anywhere inappropriate. Not technically. But the way his hand rested on her hip, fingers spreading slightly, the warmth of his chest a hair's breadth from her back - it all pointed to the same gravitational pull.

"I know what you taste like," he added after a moment, lower than before. "The way you open for me. The way your thighs tighten around my shoulders when I make you fall apart."

He closed his eyes briefly. Not to steady himself, but to commit the moment to memory. The way she stood there. Still. Silent. But charged like a storm that hadn't broken yet. AJ didn't need her words. Not now. Her silence was its own kind of invitation - one he didn't take lightly.

"I wouldn't rush it," he said. "I'd take my fucking time. Stretch you open with my tongue and fingers until you're shaking. Until you don't know if you want more or need me to stop."

His hand shifted once more, his palm now flattening, thumb brushing against the curve of her waist, grounding them both. His voice was a whisper now, just for her, and for whatever storm she held inside.

"You could run, if you wanted. But you haven't."

And that told him everything he needed to know.​