High School DxD: Fox of Ill Omen

Yuki

I hesitated before I answered.

“I want to understand something first.”

Rias straightened up and waited for me to continue.

“If we do this, we both agree that it is only for you to practice, so that you can better go after Issei-san. It is completely platonic between us, and it won't change anything between us. Is that all correct?” 

Rias flushed slightly at the mention of why she wanted to do this, but otherwise her face was serious.

“Yes. It will just be between two friends and it won't change anything.”

I looked into her eyes for a moment before making up my mind.

Rias was my [King] and more importantly my friend.

If she really wanted to she could order me to comply, but she wasn’t that kind of person.

This was something that clearly was bothering her and I was in a position to help her.

And I could be useful to someone important to me. 

I tried to tell myself that the other reasons I had thought of weighed in as much as that one did in my head.

“Alright, we can practice,” I said, and Rias immediately looked relieved.

“Thank you, Yuki!” She said, looking relieved. “I really appreciate that you would do this for me.”

I nodded.

The silence between us grew awkward as we stood still waiting for the other to say something more.

Rias stood in the middle of my room, still slightly pink in the face, but now looking anxious for a different reason.

Her arms were folded too tightly at first.

Then she realized that made her look defensive, so she let them fall.

Then she seemed not to know what to do with her hands and ended up smoothing her skirt instead.

I watched her for a moment.

She had changed into a more casual set of clothes than her normal school uniform.

Her hair had been brushed out after the bath and fell over her shoulders in a softer, looser way than it did during the day.

All of it made her seem slightly younger than normal.

But as a [King] and an heir to a noble house, she normally seemed older than she was.

It made it easy to forget that she was only a year older than me.

Rias cleared her throat.

“So,” she said, and then paused as if the word had run out of places to go.

I waited.

This was her idea, and I was going to let her set the pace.

Eventually, her eyes shifted to the bed and then back to me. “If we are doing this, then…”

The sentence trailed off again.

I considered our options

There were not many places to do this properly if she wanted to actually practice.

So we would have to use the bed.

I nodded once toward the bed. “Sit.”

Rias stared at me for half a second, then obeyed.

At least she wasn't going to question and second guess everything moving forward.

It would be one less thing to worry about

Rias sat near the center of the mattress, back a little too straight, hands resting on her thighs with obvious deliberate care.

Her expression had settled into that look people got when they were embarrassed enough that they forced themselves to become very serious.

I moved closer across the bed

She looked up at me.

Then settled over her lap.

Rias inhaled sharply.

I paused there for a moment, knees on either side of her hips, my weight balanced carefully so I was more over her than on her.

Even so, the position was more intimate than I had expected it to feel.

Her hands twitched at her sides and then froze there.

“It’s easier like this, but I can move if you're uncomfortable” I said.

Rias swallowed.

“...No, it's fine.”

Her voice was quieter than usual.

“It’s alright if we need to stop, Rias.”

“I’m… I’m just nervous about this now that we are starting.” She paused for a moment. “Also, we should agree not to tell anyone about this.”

I gave her a quizzical look.

“Akeno.” was all she said.

I understood immediately.

“You’re right. We would never hear the end of it from her.”

I shifted closer and put one hand lightly on her shoulder to steady myself.

My tails draped over the bed behind me and partly around us, more from habit than intention.

Rias’s eyes flicked toward them, then back to my face.

“You look too calm,” she muttered.

“I’m going to need to explain things properly.”

“I think it would help if you seemed more nervous about this too.”

I ignored that.

“If you’re trying to kiss someone and you’re nervous,” I said, “the first thing you should stop doing is thinking of it as something difficult.”

Rias frowned faintly. “That sounds unhelpful.”

“It isn’t. Most things become clumsy because people think too hard about them."

That made her huff a quiet, skeptical breath. “Easy for you to say.”

I tilted my head. “Yes.”

Rias looked at me in disbelief.

Then, against her own will, smiled.

Only a little.

It made something loosen in me too.

“Watch,” I said.

I leaned down and pressed my mouth to hers.

Only once.

Briefly.

A chaste, soft touch.

Enough to show the shape of it without being too much for her to start with.

I was going to start slow and go from there.

When I pulled back, Rias blinked at me.

Her face had warmed visibly.

“That was barely a kiss.”

“That,” I said, “is enough if all you want is affection. It doesn’t need to linger. It just needs to be certain. It was still a kiss.”

“A small one.”

“That was the point.”

Rias made a dissatisfied sound in the back of her throat.

I almost smiled.

“Again,” I said.

I kissed her the same way.

Soft and brief.

When I pulled away the second time, she started to look unconvinced.

“I don’t know if this is helping,” she said.

“We’ve only just started.” I replied.

“I understand that, but it's not like I haven't kissed someone before.”

“Rias, we need to-”

“This might be a waste of time,” she said, cutting me off

I stared at her.

Then I frowned.

“A waste of time.”

Rias seemed to realize too late that this might not have been the correct thing to say.

“I only meant—”

I cut her off by kissing her again.

Not the same way.

I held the back of her head this time and tilted her mouth up, towards me, where I wanted it.

The kiss was deeper immediately, firm enough that the startled breath she tried to take went nowhere useful.

I pressed in without giving her room to lead, or think, or comment again until I was done proving the point I wanted made.

When I finally pulled back, her eyes were wide.

Her lips were parted as she took in a few shaky breaths.

“This,” I said evenly, though my own voice had lowered a little more than I intended, “is not a waste of time.”

Rias stared up at me.

I could almost see the thought trying to reassemble itself behind her eyes.

I let her be for a moment.

Then I went on, because if I stopped speaking now this could become something less manageable.

“If you kiss someone like that,” I said, “you have to mean it while you’re doing it. If you hesitate halfway through, it will feel awkward and unsure. If you commit, your partner will usually follow.”

Rias’s face had gone very red.

“That…”

“Yes?”

She swallowed.

“That was different.”

“Yes, that was the point," I said again.

That seemed to irritate her a little.

I preferred that to uncertainty.

“So?” I asked. “Do you want to stop now, if this is wasting time?”

The small challenge in it landed exactly where I intended.

Rias shook her head at once.

“No.”

There was more force in it than there had been in anything she had said since entering the room.

It was more like her.

I nodded once.

“Then pay attention.”

The next kiss began somewhere between the first two and the last one.

Not quite chaste.

Not fully devouring either.

I guided her more deliberately this time.

I showed her how to angle her head, how much pressure to use, how to start softly before deepening rather than beginning too forcefully and ruining the feel of it.

Rias followed.

Clumsily at first.

Then less so.

When I pulled back, I said, “Good. You’re doing better,”

Her eyes had started to lose some of their defensive embarrassment.

That hopefully meant she was learning.

So I kissed her again.

She reciprocated and tried to copy the way I moved my lips against hers.

Then she tilted her mouth into mine in a way that made the kiss warmer, more mutual, and less obviously instructional from the first heartbeat of it.

When I drew back, I found myself looking at her mouth for a moment longer than I should have.

That was troublesome.

I spoke before that could become visible.

“Better.”

Rias exhaled, looking slightly dazed and a little annoyed by it.

“You make it sound very easy.”

“It is easy.”

“That’s a ridiculous thing to say while sitting on top of me.”

I considered that.

“Perhaps.” I said with a small chuckle. 

That made her blush deepen again.

My tails shifted behind me of their own accord, tightening slightly around the bedspread.

“Again,” I said.

This time, I kissed her and she met me halfway.

It was still practice.

Still supposed to be practice.

I was starting to have to remind myself that.

I wasn’t going to let myself get caught up in this like I did with Akeno.

It was much more than what had happened with her, but this was about helping Rias.

I reminded myself that as she made a small sound as our lips met again.

When I leaned into the kiss farther she followed with a lack of hesitation that made my pulse stir in a way I forced myself to ignore.

We repeated this for a while.

We would kiss and when we would separate I would give her a small comment and tell her what to change or what she was doing well. 

She would listen and reply back sometimes and make adjustments according to my advice as we went.

Then, on one of the times I pulled away, I opened my mouth to comment  Rias moved a hand to the back of my head.

She pulled me back down before I could speak.

The kiss she gave me was clumsier than the ones before had been.

Less controlled.

I let out a muffled sound of surprise into her mouth. 

This one felt like we were moving away from it being for practice.

I felt that in the way she leaned up toward me, one hand moving uncertainly before finding my waist and staying there, the other shifting to my nape.

There was an impatience to it, in the fact that she was no longer waiting to be told what to do next.

When I pulled back again, my breath had gone less steady than I preferred.

Rias looked at me with flushed cheeks and a small, stubborn triumph in her expression.

“There,” she said softly. “You were talking too much.”

I stared at her for a second.

“R-Rias I do—”

I was cut off as she kissed me again. 

And this time I let myself go as she kissed me.

My hands slid to the back of her head.

Her hair was soft under my fingers, warm from the room and faintly scented from whatever she had used after the bath.

I tilted her where I wanted her and she let me, but only for a moment before trying to stubbornly take the lead again. 

When the kiss broke, she was breathing faster.

So was I.

I made myself speak.

“W-When you’re taking control of a kiss, you should remember to pace yourself. You don’t want to overwhelm your partner. They’ll usually give you reactions you can use to set the pace.”

If we went back to treating this as practice, we could ignore the last few moments that felt like they weren’t.

Rias’s lips parted.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Her voice was lower than before.

It was warmer, softer and a little too affected by the last kiss.

“Good. You seem much more comfortable with this now.”

She only made a small noise of agreement.

I tried to recover the distance between us.

We could slow things down and keep this as practice. 

“Alright, you should—”

Rias kissed me again before I could finish.

This one was more confident.

Still unpolished, but she had learned quickly, exactly as I said she would.

Her hand at my waist shifted lower and she held me more tightly to keep me where she wanted me.

That should have been all I needed to recognize that the lesson had already crossed out of anything sensible.

Instead, my resolve crumbled and I leaned into the kiss harder.

I was quickly letting myself get caught in the flow of it as Rias pushed things further.

I should have ended it there.

My tails had stopped lying lazily across the bed at some point and now wrapped around her back, drawing us closer.

I didn’t realize I had done it until  Rias made a soft sound against my mouth when they tightened.

That sound did something immediate and unpleasantly effective to me.

When the kiss broke this time, I heard myself murmur, “You really are learning quickly.”

My own voice sounded off to me.

It was lower and thicker.

Rias’s eyes widened a fraction at the sound of it.

That should have warned me enough to stop.

It didn’t.

Because when she looked up at me like that, flushed, half-breathless, I felt something in me sharpen and lean in rather than step back.

I kissed her again.

Deeper.

It felt like the room seemed to disappear around us.

When I parted my mouth against hers and let my tongue tease at the seam of her lips, she answered on instinct rather than by decision.

When Rias gasped into my mouth, I moved my tongue past her lips.

I slid my other hand more securely around the back of her head and pulled her closer.

She started to move her tongue against mine, testing at first, and then more enthusiastically.

This was not practice anymore.

I realized that.

I knew it and did not stop.

She tasted warm and sweet and faintly of the tea she must have  had earlier.

Her breathing kept catching, but instead of pulling away she leaned in harder, following the pressure I gave and then pushing back against it with growing urgency.

The kiss broke only because she needed air.

So did I.

I stayed close enough that our foreheads nearly touched, my hand still buried in her hair, my tails firm around her back.

Rias breathed in sharply once.

Twice.

Then I leaned in for another kiss. 

_________________________________________

Rias

This was going too far.

That was the first clear thought I had after the next kiss finally broke and I got enough air back into my lungs to think anything at all.

And I didn’t think I wanted to stop

Because Yuki was still over me, still straddling my lap, still holding the back of my head like she was about to give me another kiss to steal my breath away, and because I could still feel her tongue in my mouth despite the kiss ending moments ago.

We had agreed that this was only platonic and to help me with Issei.

That it wouldn’t change anything between us.

And I had come here because I was worried about things between Ise and I.

Most of the girls in my peerage were interested in him and it was only a matter of time before those outside of my peerage started to look at him too.

And he wouldn’t even call me by my name.

To him Akeno was Akeno-san, Asia was Asia, and I was Buchou.

I didn’t know why he didn’t see me for me and instead only saw me as Buchou, his master.

I wanted him to see me as Rias.

And I thought that coming to Yuki and asking for help practicing might let me get closer to him.

Maybe if I was more confident like Akeno when I was alone with him, then it could help him see me.

But now with Yuki, this had stopped being practice.

I knew it now and there was no room left to deny it.

At some point during the last several kisses, I had stopped trying to learn.

I had only wanted the next one.

And the next one after that.

I looked up at her.

And that made everything worse.

Her cheeks were flushed.

Her silver-white hair had come loose around her face in soft strands from the movement.

Her mouth was slightly parted, and there was a thin string of saliva still stretching between us in the brief space where we had broken apart.

Her eyes were half-lidded, and there was a look in them that I hadn’t seen before.

They looked hungry, like a predictor staring down prey.

Hungry in a way I had not expected from her and could not pretend not to understand now that it was aimed directly at me.

Her fox ears were angled toward me.

Her tails were wrapped around my back tightly enough that I could feel the pressure of them through the fabric of my clothes.

And when she spoke before, her voice was low and roughened in a way that made my whole body go hot all over again.

“You really are learning quickly.” She had said

Something in my chest stumbled.

This was not what I came here for.

I had come because I was embarrassed and jealous and annoyed with Akeno and wanted an advantage with Issei.

That had been the truth.

Hadn’t it?

Then why was Issei nowhere in my thoughts now?

Why was I only looking at Yuki?

Why had I just kissed her until I forgot every reason I had for asking in the first place?

Her hand at the back of my head tightened the tiniest amount, like she was going to kiss me again.

Her body pressed down just a little more firmly against mine, and the heat of it jolted through me so hard that my mind finally caught up to what the rest of me had been doing.

No.

No, this had gone too far.

Too far too quickly.

And the most frightening part was not that Yuki was kissing me like this.

It was that if I stayed here one second longer, I wasn’t sure I would stop her.

Or that I wanted to.

That realization hit hard enough to clear my head.

I shoved her away from me.

Just enough to get her off of me.

Yuki lost balance and dropped sideways onto the bed with a startled sound, her tails loosening around me at once.

The sudden release of their pressure made my whole body feel colder and emptier than it should have.

I got off the bed and to my feet so quickly that I almost stumbled.

Yuki pushed herself up on one elbow at once, silver hair spilling over one shoulder, expression openly confused.

“Rias?”

Her voice sounded almost normal again.

Now she looked less like a Kitsune temptress and more like the quiet girl from my peerage.

She looked at me from the bed like she was trying to understand why I had suddenly panicked.

And I didn’t know how to answer her right now. 

I took a step backward.

Then another.

My heart was beating so hard I could feel it in my throat.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

Her voice only sounded confused and worried.

It was a simple question, but I didn’t know how to answer it. 

I shook my head too quickly.

“I have to go.”

Yuki stared at me.

Still confused.

Still flushed.

Beautiful in a way that had become much harder to ignore.

I reached the door and grabbed the handle.

“Rias…”

Her voice sounded thick with worry.

I couldn’t stay and hear her say my name like that again.

“I have to go,” I repeated, and this time it came out strained enough that even I could hear how little control I had left.

Then I opened the door, stepped out, and shut it behind me.

The click of it closing sounded far too loud in the hall.

For one second I stood there, hand still on the handle, breathing like I’d run much farther than the few steps it had taken to leave the room.

Then I turned and hurried away before I could do something to make this worse.

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