Synopsis: A Kn8 series in which you convince your lover that holding their desire for you at bay is entirely unnecessary. You want all they have to give. [Kn8 x Reader]
Contents: Romance, humour, fluff, explicit sexual content, developing relationship, smut with feelings.
Dividers by: @uzmacchiato
1: Narumi Gen.
Part 2 (Part 1, Part 3)
WC: 4233
It really wouldn't do to take notice of such things, but under the circumstances, it couldn't be helped.
How could you not be more conscious of him, of the way his shoulder would press into yours on the occasions he watched you practice, of the collision of his knee with yours when you'd been assigned to the same chopper?
How could you not sense the linger of his gaze on your hair when you'd given it a trim, or the way he skidded one of those over-sweetened coffee cans across the table at you when you'd performed well in combat?
Each time you visited Hasegawa's office, there was a hissed instruction echoing down the hall as you left.
Either he'd run out of gacha pulls and would call you in just to witness him sulk, or he'd sit cross legged, focused on a figurine he was painting while he made you deliver oral reports on what new modifications you could foresee to improve your performance in future.
Once, sneering, he'd asked if you were seeing anyone on base, because you'd made the fatal error of having one of the other officers paint your nails.
When you'd replied in the negative, his sneer had dropped immediately, replaced by something unreadable.
You'd picked up the way his gaze would seek you out in a crowded briefing room, alighting like kindling on the set of your shoulders, or the way your eyes sought him out in return.
You knew, without a doubt, that he wasn't even conscious of the way he would run his fingers back through his hair when you stopped to speak to him in the halls, the dyed strands spilling through his fingers like an unspoken, uncontrollable wave of the unknown, that seemed intent on crashing across the shore of your composure.
How, or why this was happening was far beyond your pay grade to figure out. Neither was it something you stopped to analyze.
Narumi was binding you to him, a hapless satellite under the crushing pull of his inner gravity, and no rules, propriety or standards ever interfered in half-hearted protest.
What terrified you, if you could be honest with yourself, was how natural it felt.
Easy as breathing, even when he leaned closer to you when you spoke, drinking in each tiny alteration of your expression.
So simple, when he rested his forearms across his knees, fingers tapping out points in rapid rhythm on your wrist as he reprimanded you for not even trying to find his favourite soda flavour from the vending machine.
Uncomplicated in the extreme, when you fell asleep from sheer exhaustion in the research lab after a mission, and woke to the soft feel of his Gundom-printed blanket across your shoulders.
You went to return it to him, as late as it was.
The red, flashing numbers of his digital clock showed that it was eleven fifteen at night when he slid the blanket wordlessly from your arm.
Barely a minute ticked by in the eternity it took for him to lean his elbow on the doorframe as his eyes traveled from the lock of hair tucked untidily behind your ear, to the slight part of your lips, to the way your uniform dipped in at the waist.
"You can keep it if you want."
"I have blankets in my room, Captain."
"Not a limited edition Gundom one."
His voice was pitched lower than usual, husky from sleep, his nose rubbed red from where it must have been tucked into his pillow.
"I thought you liked that blanket. A lot."
"What, you think I'm a kid? I'm your goddamn Captain, and you follow my orders."
The bite behind the words was not quite there, instead, the kind of longing that tugged at something sweet and sharp inside you. You couldn't help the way your glance softened, just for him, and judging from the step he took towards you, he could see it all too clearly.
"Gonna take it?"
"No."
"You got something against Gundoms?"
"No."
"Just being insubordinate then?"
You had no idea when he'd managed to get this close to you. There was a fine layer of white along the line of his jaw, dried over, from where he'd probably shaved at an odd hour. He had the cool, masculine scent of shower gel, each shift of his body unleashing a new wave against the thin barrier of propriety.
You could hear him inhale sharply as you smiled up at him.
"You can't punish me for not taking it."
"Punish you?"
Somewhere along the way, the phrase turned from a question to a breath of soft, intimate intent.
You were vaguely aware of the deserted corridor that stretched away from you both, the hum of the overhead lights, the rapidly decreasing space between your body and his as he repeated himself.
"Punish you, huh."
When he kissed you, the floor fled from beneath your feet, the death shrieks of every kaiju he'd slaughtered muffled as if underwater, as those same hands that had drenched the city in their blood slid with a different kind of strength up along the length of your waist.
His lips were slightly inexperienced, chapped and cool, rapidly slicked with wet warmth as he leaned into you eagerly.
His breath puffed out against you, once, twice, hot and humid, as if he were trying to gather some equilibrium, before his open mouth settled on yours once again, angled and hungry.
Your hands had anchored themselves on the broad, solid line of his shoulders, fingers threading tightly through his hair, as he turned his head this way, then that.
He was now tracing the shape of your hips almost helplessly, a soft groan exiting him as you came up briefly for air.
You were both panting, and his grip dug briefly, hard, into the flesh of your sides, almost as if he'd considered tugging you into his room right there.
Lashes fluttering, you took another steadying breath as he watched you regain control of yourself. The soft line of his brow creased, the way he watched your lips far more earnest as he let you go, reluctantly.
He opened his mouth, stalled.
Uttered a gruff "Good night."
You stared back and he shoved his hands into his pockets defensively.
"What? Can't speak now? Was it that good?"
There he was, the Narumi Gen who showed himself all too readily to a world that didn't comprehend the fragility of the strong.
"It was."
"Oh."
He sniffed, turned away to look into the shadowed interior of his room, and then back at you.
You were smiling again and he rolled his eyes, but there was a glimmer of humour there.
"Can't you just let me be the hot shot for once?"
"You're Captain Narumi. You're already something of a hot shot, if I'm not mistaken."
"So then - "
You shrugged, light, swaying slightly in place.
"It's just me. You don't have to be anything."
"Says the woman who calls herself an elven archer."
"I know what I am. And I know what you are."
You hadn't meant to sober the atmosphere quite so quickly, but the silence that followed felt heavy all the same.
Narumi's bottom lip protruded, as it seemed to do when he was thinking deeply about something.
After a moment, he reached for you.
You hesitated, but he continued to hold his arm out, gaze steady and unflinching.
Stepping into his space again was as worryingly addictive as you'd come to fear.
Warmth enveloped you, your nose on level with his shoulder, dipping down beneath the heat of his arm looping around you.
Closing your eyes, you inhaled deeply, the shift of muscle beneath your fingers sinuous as the movement of a kaiju beneath waves on the bay.
He held you against him for as long as it took for your breathing to even, for your chest to rise in tandem with the rhythm of his, for the slow shift of his head until his nose was buried in your hair.
Narumi Gen was, indeed, different with you.
His battlefield instinct carried him one step further, into this gentle unfolding, that simplest of rushing realizations, that here, with you, in this golden moment, it was somehow safe for him too.
Strangely, being with him was effortless.
On some level, you wondered if you were simply fooling yourself, a hapless herbivore ambling along in its own treasured universe before the meteor of pain, suffering, endless worry and public scrutiny struck you both into oblivion.
It didn't happen that way, probably because of who you both were.
You'd never needed grandiose gestures of affection, and Gen wasn't the kind who provided those anyway.
What he did like were evenings in, after he'd been dragged to the day's quota of meetings, with you propped between his legs as you reached up to feed him honey flavored snacks, pointing out the flaws in his newest Player Character skill set.
He liked slinging an arm around your shoulders when you'd completed your morning jog, wiping the sweat off his upper lip along your sleeve.
After training with his Numbers weapon, he loved to fling himself dramatically into your lap in the privacy of his quarters, swatting at your nose until you cursed and started to massage his sore shoulders.
He liked the drag of your fingers through his hair when his lips aligned with yours, in that soft, silent stretch of time before a kiss began, the brush of your nose against his, once, twice, thrice, before he leaned in and claimed you.
When it came to intimacy, however, Gen seemed slightly hampered by some kind of awareness.
It wasn't the fact that you were essentially a soldier under his command. Neither of you shied away from the hard facts of the matter, or expected the other to adjust their current operation to fit better with whatever there was between you.
You couldn't identify it at first, no matter how hard you tried.
Gen loved being near you, in those private moments, and you'd never hidden how intoxicating you found him.
There had been more than one occasion when your kisses had transformed to something more heated, more vital, his breathing labored as your hands wandered down along the broad planes of his chest, tracing the edge of what delineated passion and eroticism.
You'd felt the explosive release of his breath against the hollow of your throat, the way his hands gripped your thighs, the breathless hush before the only sound in the room was the wet press of his lips against your skin.
And yet, he never took it further, never acted on the hardened press of his flesh into your upper thigh, always reeling himself in before the urgency of both of your desire won some unspoken battle.
You realised, at some point, that you'd just have to ask him about it.
There was no other way with Gen.
You did ask, on one evening as he lay with his chin propped on your stomach, watching you as you watched the flickering transience of a series on the TV screen in his room.
"Why don't we ever go further than this?"
He stiffened and your fingers found the hardened edge of his shoulder blade, stroking soothingly downward.
"Why? Do you want to?"
He sounded sharp, almost defensive.
"I want you."
"What's the difference?"
You frowned and sat up slightly.
"You mean ... you don't know?"
Following your movement, he balanced himself on an elbow, braced at your side.
"People always want things, but they don't even know what it means when you give it."
"Explain."
"I ... why are you asking now?"
Your hand found its way to his hair, carding through softly, anchoring him to you even as he wavered.
"I just want to know. I want you to explain it to me."
Sighing, he glanced away, towards the screen. The blue light washed the warmth from his skin, casting his features in sharp relief, a distant hero drawn with bold lines on the pages of a comic strip.
"Look. People want me to win. I win. People want me to be strong. I don't have to try. I've got fans, and people who think I'm some kind of pretentious poser. People who look down on me."
He waved a hand, sullen.
"What people want. Always what they want."
"What about what you want?"
"I - "
He paused, squinting sideways at you, as if you'd shot him a trick question. You flicked at his nose, earning a small sound of protest.
"So ... when you win ... you don't think anyone knows the cost?"
He shrugged, and the ease of his admission temporarily stole your breath.
"'Course they don't. I'm not whining about it or something- "
At your incredulous look, he grinned, some of the tension leaving his frame.
"Okay, maybe I do whine - "
"Oh, I'm so glad I didn't have to correct you."
" - but, the thing is, when I give something, I don't know ... how much it gets seen."
Ah, so that's what it was.
You fell silent for a while, his head dropping back to your thigh, one hand sliding up to grip your hip.
"Why don't you think I'll understand your feelings?"
"Fuck if I know."
"That's not answer."
"But I really don't know."
"Fine. Then I'll prove that I can."
His head snapped towards you.
"How're you gonna do that?"
Your smile was the only answer he received.
And you did prove it, in the way you continued afterwards, as if nothing at all had happened.
You never tried to engage him in conversation about it again.
Truth be told, you were already content. He made you happy. Your only desire for intimacy stemmed from your need to be closer to him, but you could bide your time until he was ready.
Maybe this was what Gen didn't understand at first, because you'd spy him looking at you at odd times, as if he thought he'd pick up the threads of your stray thoughts if he caught you off guard.
He never did.
Weeks turned into months.
Your division was thrown into turmoil with the reveal of Kaiju number 9's plans, the hum of the force's smoothly oiled engine growing in volume to a full-throated roar of preparation for battle.
Most of Gen's time was taken by his own training, and his close observation of Shinomiya's development with her suit.
Somewhere along the way, he'd finally come to terms with the loss of Isao.
You knew he had when he came to you, at night, where you waited for him in his room, and laid his head with heavy finality on your lap.
You took the weight of his feelings, silently, fingers passing along his shoulders until the quiver in the ropes of muscle cording through came to an end.
Neither of you ever spoke about that night again.
There was no need to.
Something shifted, however, in how he saw you, how he turned to you, how the fire stoked within him kindled to something softer when you were with him.
You held on to your hope that maybe he'd begun to understand.
Aim. Maim. Reload. Retreat.
The neon pink line of the barrel arced through smoke, flaring bright against your gloved fingers.
There was no time to think, no time to plan or strategise, not with the overwhelming number of ant-type kaiju swarming from the earth.
The last attack by Number 9 had left pockets of them scattered in subterranean ambush throughout the city, waiting to emerge in a staggered formation.
There were numerous honju in their midst, the giant sized creatures lured in by some chemical released by their smaller counterparts.
The hardened chitin of their legs left cracks and dents in the tarmac of the large carpark outside the mall where your team was currently situated, each of the segmented bodies streaming forward with menacing intent.
Here was where you could make the most significant impact, each of your reinforced shots tearing through legs, cores, heads, thoraxes.
As each wave of new enemies appeared, you'd dart back to safety, gas mask in place as smoke grenades burst behind you, leaving space for your comrades to surge forward and win back a line, inch by hard fought inch.
Over the general comms, confirmation came through that Gen had engaged three of the honju.
Your breathing remained even.
Reload.
The spent magazine clattered over the pavement as you inserted another, the motion smooth with years of practice.
There was a larger wave incoming, so a switch to freeze round would probably be in -
The ominous rumble of concrete reached your ears, the screech of steel and glass, grinding together in protest.
Eyes widening, you took in the collapse of one wall of the mall, carrying with it more kaiju. They'd flanked your platoon, moving in pincer formation.
You could only guess at how they'd managed to maneuver within the confines of the shopping center in order to launch this surprise attack.
There was no time to waste.
Commands were barked across the comms, almost drowned out by the frenetic rush of soldiers flocking closer to your position, some of them screaming for assistance as the rubble came tumbling down towards them.
Frontline.
Yes.
That's where you needed to be, but how to use the terrain to your advantage?
Glancing up, you noted the glass dome forming the central atrium of the mall.
If you could -
The moment the idea sparked, your legs were carrying you forward.
There was no if. You could pull this off.
Was this not the reason for all of your training? Your endless drills? The new mods Gen had been generous enough to see you fitted with?
He was out there, fighting the strongest of your enemies, and you wouldn't let him down.
Not when he gave so much of himself to keep you all safe.
Snatching a flash grenade from your belt, you flung it forward, opening a path for yourself as the ant kaiju reeled and staggered out of the way.
The rubble had settled somewhat, nowhere near safe, but the swift stride leant by your suit would make footing a non-issue.
All you had to do was gain access to the mall interior.
Someone shouted behind you.
Cursing, you opened up your comms to Hasegawa.
"I'm bringing down the ceiling on them. Nobody follows me."
His voice came through your earpiece, gruff and steady.
"How are your shields?"
"Functional. Haven't had to use them much yet."
"There's a reinforced guard post inside, near the fountain, right under the dome."
"Got it, sir."
Dust rose in a choking cloud from the shattered supports, glass crunching under your feet as you slipped into the dim first floor, harsh flickering briefly illuminating the once-pristine space.
Behind you, the swarm of kaiju roused, regaining their footing.
It would be a matter of minutes before they were on you again. You had to make those minutes count, and take down as many of them as you could.
The small holographic display at your wrist indicated your fastest clear route to the fountain, and the atrium.
It was the only guide you had. Comms were buzzing in and out of clarity here.
Somehow, you had to make more of the ant kaiju follow you, freeing up your platoon to make further headway in order to support Gen.
Lighting up a flare, you paused for several vital seconds, listening as the scuttle and clatter of many legs rose over the faint voices in your earpiece.
They were coming.
The ruined storefronts flew past as you turned left, then left again, skirting the sparking, empty shafts where the elevators had once stood.
Your rifle bobbed on your shoulder, its weight comfortingly familiar as you headed further into the echoing dark.
Gen was fielding energy blasts from one of the honju, as a moment of clear transmission revealed.
The atrium finally came into view, the glare of daylight causing you to duck your head immediately. A few moments of blindness would cost you.
You slung the rifle from your shoulders, vaulting the balustrade to reach the floor below. The last few feet blurred by as you slid to the shelter of the reinforced booth, breathing hard.
Above you, the massive panes of glass let in the mid-morning sun, still murky with clouds of settling dust. You tracked their shape carefully, your targeting instinct allowing you to trace where they were weakest, where your shots should land.
In your mad rush to execute your plan, you hadn't anticipated how you'd feel.
Was this what Gen had meant, when he said that people didn't know what you gave?
You were alone, facing down a horde of kaiju with a strategy hatched on the fly. Right now, the risk was so much more clear.
None of this may even work. You'd meet your end here, as every soldier tells themselves they could, another name etched on a monument.
You thought of him, and how he gave and gave and came out each time, with a show of dominating force.
There was no such blessing, or gift of that kind of strength in you, but you did have -
Ahead, the first of the kaiju swarm made its appearance. Head raised, compound eyes gleaming with reflected light, its pincers clacked loudly before it surged forward.
More followed.
You held your position.
Not yet. Not yet.
They were attracted by the dying flare in your hand, sputtering lightly as you flung it a short distance from the booth.
There. Come and get it.
When the crash of a nearby stand, overturned by one of them, gave away their current position, you swung out from cover, rifle raised against your shoulder, breathing even, no quarter for hesitation.
As of now, you were probably the soldier who stood the best chance of pulling this off with your enhanced rate of fire.
Your first round struck true, five large sections of glass breaking free, keeping their shape from the accuracy of your bullets. The trick was not to let them shatter on the way down.
Spearing floorward, they sliced through the bodies of the kaiju, sprays of dark fluid arcing out across the floor as they hissed, screeched and scattered.
More. Faster.
The ceiling of the atrium was your private store of ammunition, each shot taking more of the glass with it.
You ducked as two of the kaiju rushed your position, rolling out of the way.
The booth was taking damage.
Firing two freeze rounds, you froze their turning bodies in place, finishing them with explosives.
Now, onto the next section of ceiling as the kaiju rallied once more.
They were approaching faster, as if they could sense that there was only one of you, that if they came all at once, you'd be overwhelmed.
Aim.
Maim.
Reload.
No retreat.
There was nowhere to retreat to.
You fired, again, and again, and again, dodging, weaving, flinging yourself out of the path of scything limbs and pincers.
The booth was reduced to a crushed mass of metal. So much for a reinforced barrier.
These kaiju were stronger than anticipated.
Each detached pane of glass came hurtling down through the atmosphere stirred by this primal struggle, tearing through the swarm's ranks.
You'd managed to kill a fair number of them, but still they came.
Keep firing.
Your breathing hitched, sides protesting. Probably some fractured ribs.
A warning suddenly buzzed through from your earpiece.
You had managed to access a position that allowed the control room's signal to reach you once more.
The voice of some nameless operator, tight with worry, was urging you to take the stairs behind you, to get out of there, to get away from the atrium.
Your last few rounds remained, boots slick with kaiiju blood, breathing pained and heavy, muscles locking with exhaustion.
Even with your mods, your firepower had a limit that you knew all too well, and it was approaching.
The final few rounds.
You had to make them count.
The neon pink line along the barrel was a glaring constant, flashing across your arm, reminding you of him.
Vaguely aware that some sound was exiting your lips, maybe a whisper, maybe a scream, you raised your rifle and pushed forth energy until the largest piece of the atrium gave way under your onslaught.
Now, the glass was flying down towards you too.
The kaiju around you fled sideways, seeing that there was no escape.
But this was what your plan had hinged upon, gathering as many of them here as possible, while you fired your own way to freedom.
You were fast enough, probably, to shatter more of the glass before it hit you.
One last push.
Overheating was close, so close.
You activated your shield.
The velocity you'd reached was definitely a new record, as kaiju death screams and shattering glass rained down around your crouching form.
In your mind's eye, he was right here beside you, one hand steady on the barrel, guiding you. His eyes, gleaming through the dark at your shoulder, that grin of triumph at each new shower of glass across your shield, each swing of your arm for a new magazine, each click of the heel of your palm against the chamber.
This was your answer. This was what you gave.
