Shiho had always been easy to rile up. Too easy, really.
That was one of her fun parts.
I'd known her since we were fresh in the Academy, her perpetually bright cheerfulness making her about as subtle as a kunai to the eye. Back then, I hadn't been able to resist testing how quickly her good humor could spiral into stammered excuses, flushed cheeks, or wide-eyed disbelief whenever I pushed too far.
It'd never been mean-spirited, just... instinctive.
She flustered easily, and I liked to press buttons. It was a natural fit.
Funny how red her ears could get even after everything we'd done together. Or maybe that was just me being territorial, finding pride in knowing I was the only guy who'd ever gotten close enough to see her like this—up close, vulnerable, too stunned by her emotions to catch her breath. First man, only man. I liked the sound of it. I liked owning it.
My hand had come to rest over the soft swell beneath her coat, so light, so casual that anyone watching might've thought it accidental. Modest as she was in build, there was a softness under the rough fabric of her dress that I couldn't help lingering over. Not fondling, not overtly crude—just a lazy caress as my thumb swept over the rise and fall of steady nerves and quieted space. Like I had all the time in the world to remind her who she belonged to.
Two months apart hadn't dulled her reactions to me. If anything, she was even more off-balance now, like being away had sharpened the edges of her feelings, leaving her too overwhelmed to put up the usual shy protests.
Usually, she avoided anything too close or too intimate while we were out in public—afraid of what people might see or whisper. But now her body leaned into my touch, pliant under my palm, and she didn't even glance over her shoulder to check who might notice.
"Still shy, huh?" I muttered, thumb lazily shifting over the cotton covering her chest.
All she did was squeeze the scroll tighter against her chest, as if the words inside might ground her. Her glasses slid slightly down the bridge of her nose. She didn't fix them.
I leaned a bit closer, just enough for her breath to shiver into mine. "Missed me?"
She nodded—barely—but she nodded.
Delight curled through me, sharp and sweet.
My smile widened, my hand shifted from hers, dragging slow patterns down her stomach, over her maroon dress.
She tried so hard to pretend nothing was happening. Ever the consummate scholar, thought talking was going to save her. It was adorable. Tragic, maybe. But still adorable.
"So," she said too abruptly, eyes focused too hard on a point somewhere. "The—the civilian sealing project! What kind of parameters are we looking at?"
Her voice pitched, cracked slightly at the end as my palm flattened over her belly, fingers lightly brushing the edge of that knot at her waist, where the sash cinched around her hips like a pretty bow hiding something fragile and rare.
She was trying to hold a conversation, as if the words kept coming, she could disguise the trembling, the pink rising in her cheeks, or the way her breath kept catching when I shifted closer.
I didn't say anything at first. I was too busy watching her squirm in place, earnest little librarian trying to survive a storm with grammar and half-finished questions.
"Mhm," I hummed low, just to play along. "Test batch. Non-lethal. Needs to arm on fluctuations in localized pressure or heat. Dummy-proof, remember?"
She nodded like she was taking mental notes. But then she hesitated.
"I'm not sure how much help I can be," she murmured, fingers curling in the fabric where the scroll pressed against her chest. "I'm... I'm a cryptographer. My focus is—um—more on interpretive matrices and encryption patterns, not... not application design for practical use."
And yet she sounded like she wanted me to ask her anyway. Beg her to be useful.
I found her navel through the fabric—just the faintest dip under layers of cotton—and let my index finger trace it in a slow, circular stroke. She gasped, soft and helpless, her legs shifting slightly like she couldn't decide whether to run or grind her thighs closer together.
"Don't sell yourself short," I cut in, half-smirking, half-distracted by the twitch under my hand, lips brushing the fine strands of hair near her temple. Her skin smelled clean. "You're smarter than half the field-rated idiots out there."
She stammered something. Probably another disclaimer. I didn't catch it.
My fingers circled lazily on her belly button, once, then twice, watching the way her spine shivered straight like someone had doused her in cold water.
She let out a soft whimper, eyes wide behind her terrible glasses. Her face was flushed now, pink blooming high on her cheeks, edging toward her hairline, because she was too polite to stop me and too overwhelmed to pretend anymore.
Cute.
Most people didn't look at her twice.
They saw the oversized glasses, the perpetually wrinkled coat, the dresses that screamed "function over form." To them, she was a background character—someone you asked for data, not desire.
Even Shiho herself didn't realize. She didn't see how her shyness made her unknowingly alluring, how that reserved demeanor made everything feel earned. There were no fake smiles, no painted faces. Just raw, intelligent sincerity folded up in a body no one had taken the time to unwrap.
Shiho was a hidden gem, the kind of thing nobody knew the worth of until it was in their hands—warm, yielding, perfect. And when you find something that rare, something that valuable, you don't let people gawk at it. You don't lend it out.
You keep it and hide it.
Even now, I could picture every detail of her beneath the fabric.
That soft curve of her thighs. Her skin, pristine and untouched by sun or blade. Fragile, almost. Her lips—too full for someone so thin—trembling with words she couldn't form.
I felt my shaft stir awake, hardening slowly and steadily just from the memory. Touch was only part of it. The rest was in the image behind my eyes, in the memory.
"…right, yes…" she said trying to brush off the compliment, "i-if the seals are using chakra-inscribed redundancy, that means they'd have to be… um, accessible, not just to ninja but to the average—uh, average citizen, so I would have to rework the—" She coughed into the back of her wrist, clearing her throat with forced formality. Glasses slipped further. "—symbol variants to account for… for literacy gaps, probably."
Cute. She was trying hard to redirect—to get serious, focused, like a good little researcher again.
I let her talk.
Let her fumble through her notes and string together half-formed thoughts, pretending I couldn't see the way her thighs pressed tighter together with each slow beat of silence between us.
Then I cut in, deadpan.
"What color are they today?" I asked, like I was requesting a file from a drawer, nothing more. "Your panties."
That short-circuit blink hit her first. She made a strangled noise somewhere between a hiccup and a gasp, then clutched the scroll tighter to her chest like that might hide the way her whole torso had gone rigid.
"W-wha—?!" Her voice cracked so violently it may have drawn stares from the next aisle if it wasn't so early. She immediately shrank into herself, ducking behind a curtain of pale hair. "That's—th-that's not… y-you can't just—!"
"I'm pretty sure I just did," I murmured, stepping slightly closer. I watched the way her knees buckled inward, the instinct to flee colliding with that stupid, doomed need to stay. Her breath came sharp, chest rising and falling under that too-thick dress. "Color."
Shiho shot a frantic look around, like someone might suddenly materialize and drag her to safety. But no one did. There were only the two of us.
I grinned and dragged my hand that last slow inch down from her belly, over the fabric between her legs. Her breath hitched like I'd knocked the wind out of her. The scroll nearly slipped from her hands.
"I'm curious," I murmured into the silence between us. "You don't answer, I might just lift this dress and check for myself. Right here. Right now."
And, as a punctuation, I tapped my fingers against her clothed core.
It made her squeak, legs instinctively squeezing together. Her back arched subtly, and her breath caught so hard it clicked in her throat. I didn't move after that. Just that steady, patient pressure—letting the threat hang there, quiet and private, like a secret passed between two people who already knew how far they'd go.
Shiho squirmed, cheeks bright red. And then, in a barely-there voice that cracked halfway through the word: "... white."
I let the silence stretch, just a little too long. Watched her squirm under it like she wanted the floor to open under her. Her whole face couldn't get any redder—not without bursting into flames.
"Good girl," I said finally, pleased.
Because I liked seeing her that way. All nervous and pink and desperate not to admit how much this turned her on. How much she liked it when I took all that intellect and bent it into submission with three words and a hand on her body.
And she'd never admit it, not out loud—but that only made it better.
"And good girls," I said, letting the words roll slowly off my tongue, "get rewards."
Shiho's lashes fluttered like she wasn't sure whether to look at me or the floor, or crawl inside the scroll she was holding and disappear entirely. But her body betrayed her. She always gave herself away in the little things—the tremble in her knees, the way her hips tilted without her meaning to, the way her thighs, tucked together so tightly a moment ago, began to edge apart with the slow permission of someone trying not to seem too eager.
I haven't moved yet. Just kept my palm warm against the warmth between her legs, not pressing down, just there. Letting her imagine the rest.
I leaned in closer, speaking against the side of her throat. "Tell me something," I murmured. "Are you feeling obedient today?"
Deer-in-the-trap silence.
"Mm," I exhaled, almost a chuckle. My hand remained right where it was, working slow pressure into the pitiful barrier of her clothes. "Then maybe you don't like this. Maybe I should leave you alone."
The second I said it, her whole body jolted like I'd slapped her. She turned so fast it dislodged her glasses slightly—one temple slipping against her ear. Her mouth opened, panic rising—not because of what I'd done, but because of the threat of absence.
I waited.
She didn't tell me to stay. She couldn't. Shiho wasn't built for that kind of direct... anything. But she did what she always did when cornered—she gave in.
"I…. I'm," she said, "I'm feeling.... o-obedient."
"Meaning…." I pressed.
"I-I'm a good girl," she whispered. Rushed. "I am."
I smiled, slowly and satisfied. "That's more like it."
Her eyes wouldn't meet mine. She bit her lip hard enough for it to whiten, and her voice dropped again as if admitting more might make her vanish.
But I simply couldn't get enough of this.
"How many times do you touch yourself when you think about me?"
Her silence lasted two beats too long.
"Don't lie."
She swallowed so hard I heard it. "...Every night."
"Every," I repeated, smile sharpening, "night."
"Sometimes in the mornings," she added, even quieter. Same look as someone walking into a confession booth, but with none of the sanctity. She looked like she might die from it, standing there awkwardly, breath heaving, skirts clinging to her thighs because she couldn't keep still.
I let the shame hit her before I nudged the next question forward.
"Then why didn't you come see me? You know where I live."
Shiho flinched. "I didn't... I didn't want to bother you," she murmured.
This wasn't just teasing anymore. This was breaking her open, peeling her out of that prim, book-buried shell of hers. Shoving her into the reality of what she wanted and making her say it.
And Shiho was taking it.
She always did.
Because she is a good girl.