Gee doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t have any idea.

There is no special reason for tonight. They have dinner, they laugh at some old photos that Jin sends while cleaning up his attic, then they settle in for the night with the laptop on their stomachs and a detective show they’ve recently taken an interest in. Min pauses the video for a second, looking like she is about to sneeze. Gee watches her with a growing smile, as her long fingers grip the blanket and her breath stutters uncertainly. When the sneeze never arrives, they both look at each other and giggle, muttering what the hell was that through their amusement. And it’s through their amusement that Min suddenly moves in and presses their lips together.

It is slow, it is soft. It has a sweetness to it, and Gee is shocked at the suddenness of the taste more than the action.

They’ve been together for months: for almost a year, in fact, but Gee has settled for holding hands, or pecking cheeks, or leaning foreheads and rubbing noses in affection. She has settled for a civil distance because she is afraid of what might happen if she were to give in to her instinct; give in as it pulls her by the navel and ties her legs around Min’s waist. She isn’t brave enough to go beyond any of that safe shit, and it frustrates her to no end. It frustrates her, because there is a lot of courage to be mustered just so a woman can resist the offer, and over the months Min has made a lot of offers: when she walked out of the shower in nothing but a towel, when she wore a tight dress that showed off her curves, when she lay inches from Gee’s face with their legs intertwined, when she danced in the kitchen while cooking for them.

The kiss is returned tentatively, but Gee returns it just the same. She finds the ball of boldness in her to do it.

But that was then. Now she is lost.

Now Min straddles her where they sit, mouth moving upwards from a shoulder, to the curve of a neck, to a jaw, to lips that go along with it at first but then ask her to wait. “What’s wrong?” comes the soft, concerned question. But Gee’s ears hear it as a challenge. She almost flares up, almost slaps away the hands holding her face, almost pushes the other off and whips herself away with a chewed curse. It’s not as if she is incapable of doing this. It’s not like she can’t press them closer together, kiss harder, pin their fronts against each other, reach her hands around and squeeze the other’s ass until she moans loud and heavy. It’s not like she can’t do it.

“Hey… breathe,” Min tilts her head with some visible disquiet, her self-consciousness showing through the tightly wound practice of her brown eyes. It pains Gee because she doesn’t want the other to feel bad about any of this at all. She nods, obeys, sucks in a large inhale, and then pushes it out slowly.

“You know, we don’t have to—”

“No,” Gee latches onto Min’s elbows. “I want this. I want you.” It’s the truth. She has wanted this for a while. She has wanted this ever since Min woke up one morning with her hair hanging loose, and an old overly large shirt slipping off her shoulder. No, Gee wants this. She wants this a lot. She wants to run her hands up into the other’s clothes. She wants to cup the pair of small breasts she’ll find under them and feel Min’s voice vibrate behind her ribcage. She wants to dig her nose into the slope of Min’s neck, run her tongue over the stretch of skin that begins at her collarbones and ends in the valley of her chest. She wants to stamp her love on Min’s stomach, on the sides of her waist, on the rise of her thighs, on the smoothness of her calves. She wants to drag herself down Min’s body to where her legs meet, wants to taste more than her chaste kiss and her soft mouth. She wants to find what makes Min frantic, what makes her buck her hips, what makes her grind against Gee’s humming lips. She wants to find out if Min clamps her knees shut or if she shudders and convulses, if she leaks or squirts after hours of incessant, unbroken attention. She wants to look for Min’s buttons and push them all in one go, watch her widen her deep eyes, watch her open her pretty cherry mouth and let the thunderbolts hit her.

She wants Min a lot. She wants the other’s nails slipping down her back, wants her teeth biting down on her ear, wants that sweet tongue to fill her mouth, wants those feathery lashes to flutter against her cheeks. She wants those long fingers to snap her bra open and pull their clothes off, a little urgent, a little fumbling. She wants Min to let herself go after all this time restraining herself, pronouncing Gee’s name with her breath like she lives off of it.

But there is something that must be said, something that must be heard. Her mind can’t go through the logic of that thought when Min is sitting on her, when her body is nearly steaming, like tendrils of lust rising off her. She doesn’t really understand her brain, but she heeds it anyway and waits.

She wants to do a lot, but she waits. She lets Min tell her what to do.

“Show me,” the whisper comes. “Show me what I am to you.” The permission is enough to make Gee moan. She bites her lip in anticipation, feels her lungs fill with pride, with validation because of how easily Min asks her. It’s a heady sentiment, and she leans against the other for a moment with her eyes closed, just savouring the sound of the words in her mind. Then she nods to indicate her acknowledgement.

“OK,” she whispers between them, carefully pushing Min onto her back.