— two minutes. itoshi sae x reader. slight nsfw. implied long distance relationship. you visit him in spain. sae speaks some spanish. wc: 1729.
it’s been two years since you last saw sae.
your feet carry you to the ocean, bright sparkling atlantic water that kisses the coastline of spain, suitcase clattering behind you on uneven brick paved walkways as you take in the unfamiliar scenery.
your flight was delayed. twice. so for a busy and regimented man like sae, you were instructed to ‘just come find him’ when you eventually landed. easier said that done when you’re in a country you’ve never been to before, but you’d manage. because you want to be self-sufficient enough for a self-sufficient man like itoshi sae.
so you follow his location from your phone.
sae has always been transparent about letting you see where he is at all times, even after he left to come halfway across the world permanently and chase the one skill he’s definitively excellent at. you’ve gotten to see his little blinking blue circle bounce from country to country over the years you’ve been apart, wondering what exciting sights he’s probably not that excited about.
but most of his time is undoubtedly spent here in spain.
you’ve always wondered what it is he does here in his new home. what his place looks like, where he goes to eat, what he eats, who his friends are, if he’s made any (knowing sae, it’s unlikely)… and you could always ask over text but he’s also not the best conversationalist and he rarely posts anything personal on his socials. some would say he’s frighteningly unplugged in a digital world, but you know that it’s just an inconsequential part of sae’s life.
still… it’s been nice feeling some sort of lingering connection with him in the form of a simple round dot on your phone screen all these aching months apart.
his location leads you to a beautiful beach — breathtaking you’d say — and it only takes you a few minutes to find him, his currant hair contrasting the hue of the ocean, surprisingly casual unbuttoned shirt catching the breeze as he dribbles a soccer ball between his bare feet on the hot sand.
“you’re practicing in the sand?”
sae does little to tear his concentration away from his drill, but you know he knows it’s your voice. “yeah.”
“isn’t that… hard?”
“that’s the point.” sae moves the ball about the uneven peaks and valleys that his feet leave behind in the sand, the blunt cut of his bangs wisping in the gentle breeze. he controls the ball with less difficulty than you’d expect from having such soft shifting terrain below their feet, but then you remember that itoshi sae is a true prodigy of his time.
he eventually concedes, picking the ball up and finally — finally —looking your way, those mirrors of jade that you haven’t seen in two whole years meeting your gaze and once again stopping your heart. with a welcomed pause of admiration.
breathtaking.
a man of few words, sae approaches you and places a simple kiss to your forehead, using his free hand to pry your fingers away from your suitcase handle before you can object.
“c’mon.”
──
spain has changed sae.
not completely, and not even drastically either; he’s still the same dry-mannered guy that left tokyo-haneda airport and never looked back. he still wears the same unimpressed expression, stoic and stern and all things that make him the relatively intimidating guy that he is.
but it’s changed him in rather minute ways.
he feels warmer — physically, that is — his body having absorbed much of the bright shining european sun. and as you walk with him, arm hooked around his own as your luggage trails behind him, you notice he’s not as pale either. it hasn’t sunken in enough to affect his personality, sure, but he looks good regardless. he, without a doubt, fits in with the climate and the tones of his surroundings.
a bittersweet thought, perhaps, because there’s a chance that with every passing year that sae stays here, the chance of him returning home diminishes that much more. being away from him has been hard, but you waste little time dwelling on it as you run your fingers over the his sunkissed arm.
──
sae’s palette has also changed. as long as you’ve known him he’s been attached to simple meals, a strict diet and those healthy kombucha drinks you never developed a taste for. but as you sit at dinner — in a restaurant with a thrum of laughter and a boisterous atmosphere that you never would have guess sae would put up with — he halfheartedly meanders over the tapas spread as he answers your myriad of simple but curious questions about his new life. he even helps himself to a spoonful of your paella, all while maintaining that hardened look of boredom that you’ve missed in the oddest of ways.
“there’s a band playing outside!”
sae hums in acknowledgement, resting his chin on his knuckles. “happens a lot here.”
“do you like it?”
“do i like what?”
“the music, silly.”
“oh.” he pauses, as if to remind himself of the sound, letting it dance it’s way into his ears. “yeah.”
you smile so big it makes your eyes crinkle. “do you wanna dance with me?”
“i don’t like it that much.”
and then you laugh. conversations like this affirm to you that sae is still sae, no matter where he goes.
──
sex with sae is different now too. there’s something more intense, connected about the way he fucks you. not that he was a careless lover in any way before taking the deal to play for re al, but perhaps he’s subconsciously learned a thing or two during his time spent in a culture that thrives on passion.
sae’s eyes are just as fervent as ever, though. rich jade irises hold a steady gaze to your own, taking in every expression you make as he thrusts with precision. like he’s studying you, observing your pleasure in real time, digesting it into his soul.
not only is there a obvious improvement in his physical features, but sae now has a heightened, more forward body language that he didn’t really have before. he moves like a languid rolling wave, doing well to press his weight into you in just the right way. his fingers trail delicately over your skin, a palm groping the globe of your ass to angle your hips in a way that has you seeing stars.
it’s been two years, but it feels like sae hasn’t ever let a single detail about your body slip from his memory. you’re like a book he’s read a thousand times, and never tires of.
“mi amor.” it’s a hush of a whisper against your mouth, and you know enough spanish to decipher the two small words. my love. a quiet declaration, spoken in a different tongue but in the same voice that’s sent shivers down your spine for as long as you can remember.
after all this time, sae still knows how to make you feel part of him, like the sea meets the shore, the dependent trust that you still fit in a space meant only for you.
you rest your hand against his face, as if to convince yourself he’s no apparition and this isn’t a sick fantasy you’ve concocted in your head from the weight of missing him, stroking the high point of his cheek as he delivers waves of pleasure that make it hard to focus. if you blink, he might disappear.
but sae engulfs your hand with his own, pressing his forehead to yours, the soft brush of his hair against your cheeks that keep you right here in this bed with him. where you belong.
“eres solo mía.”
──
it all feels like a dream, even as you sit high on the stool at the island counter draped in one of sae’s shirts, the bifold doors in the adjacent room opened to fill the space with the morning melody of birds and a calming breeze. a serenity unlike any other.
you don’t want to go back.
“you’re different.”
sae shifts his gemstone eyes in your direction only briefly, quietly and diligently peeling the fresh orange in his hand in just a pair of relaxed shorts. “am i?”
“yeah. in a good way.”
“hm.” sae breaks into the flesh of the fruit, the citric aroma filling your nostrils as he holds out a broken piece to you. “if you say so.”
you bite into the orange, bright and tangy on your tongue, like a revival of familiarity between you and the one person you’ve never been more happy to be in the same room with again.
“going home is gonna suck.”
you say it with a humorous tone, but even as sae washes his hands with his back turned to you, you know he sees right through it. you’ve never been able to slip anything past him. not once.
“so stay as long as you’d like.”
you’ve always admired how simply everything comes to sae, like the answer is always right in front of everyone’s noses and they don’t have the sense to just look down.
“sae…”
“i’m going for a run,” he switches before you can unpack what he just said, pushing the plate of remaining orange in front of you. “i won’t be long.”
he leans in, pressing his lips to your forehead, like a habitual thing. there’s few things sae has patience for, and kissing you feels like he could do it every day for the rest of his life and never once complain about doing it.
he heads to the door to put his running shoes on, sticking close to his typical daily routine despite you being here. and that’s okay, because sae doesn’t make you feel like you’re in the way of that, but rather… he’s already made room for you to be part of it.
leave it to a prodigy like itoshi sae to make two years only feel like two minutes.
