She liked it better in the dark.

It hurt Midori too much to ask why, but he thought he knew. The shadows lent a sort of anonymity, a freedom to the act; you were undbound from your physcial self, and that was a sort of relief. For him, it was a deeper, more spiritual motive: to become one with her on a higher level, not just a joining of bodies but of souls. It was that for Ai, too, but not that alone.

There were things about her body that she wanted to hide.

Their first time – really doing it, not just fooling around – he had started to tug her sweatshirt over her head, but she grabbed his hands gently and said, 'wait.' He could have ordered her not to hide things from him, but instead he just let her go to the lightswitch.

Neither of them saw that well in the dark, so they fumbled around trying to get each other's clothing off and eventually had to settle for stripping themselves. Even then, sitting naked in the muted, dull contrast of their eyes adjusting to the darkness, there was something awkward about it. Aiad taken his hand in both of hers and stroked his fingers, tenderly. Timidly. It was such a strangely chaste gesture, considering what they were about to do. That Thing. Losing Their Ears. Becoming Adults. He had been terrified, in the pit of his stomach, and he didn't know of what. But her cool, tiny hands on his had anchored him to a sense of calm, slowed his racing heart.

Like she had known he was thinking about it, her hand came to rest on his chest.

"Don't be nervous, Midori." Ai's voice had been trembling. "We share one name, one soul. We are the same."

Swallowing back the lump in his throat, he finished, "Breathless, so intense it takes your breath away."

"There's no one but you," she told him, sliding her hands up around his neck.

He knew it. And he could never want anyone but her. So he tried to think about that, hold onto that thought as she crawled into his lap, leaning into him, her slight weight slowly pushing him downward, tiny round breasts and thin, smooth thighs pressing against him. They lined up perfectly. One name. One soul.

Two bodies.

But he held onto his thought, his tiny scrap of normal sanity, as she squirmed against him, easing him into herself; he held onto it when the soft, minute little whimpers of half-pain squeaked out of her throat. He remembered vaguely something from sexual education about the 'first time' being painful for girls. He felt her pain as acutely as his own, and the idea that he might be hurting her almost made him stop, except that she kept nudging him on, pushing against him, sliding slowly back and forth. Surprisingly, he found himself making noises of his own, little gasps for air as they moved faster, more smoothly, almost almost almost together in that one final way…

They lay there at the end of it, after the white-hot stars had faded from under their eyelids, just him holding her and her kissing him softly, tired little motions of bliss and gratitude and love, real love. It struck him then that while he had been too busy feeling new things and worrying about Ai, they had done something transcending. They had taken from each other the innocence of childhood, and given back a new way to be: they were adults now. It didn't feel that different, but something had changed.

And when he felt his chest expanding in time with her sighs of contentment, he realized it. They were really, truly whole.

One name. One soul. One body.

And if she couldn't show him every detail of her half of that body, he respected that. He knew that sentouki were treated far worse than their partners. If she had scars with painful stories, things she had to hide, then he would find them all some day, and soothe them away into the darkness of forgotten things.

-

Wow. I so don't write the secks. O.O I wrote this for a challenge on LJ, but I am apparently sucky at lemons; however, there is not enough Midori/Ai love, and so I wrote this.