Chapter Text
Each time his eyes flick down to her lips and his freckles glow a bit brighter, Tsireya feels like she’s won a prize. She’s waiting for him to finish cleaning up his part of the Sully marui before they can go to the clan’s dinner together.
He is currently not cleaning.
He is, however, running his hand through her hair and trying not to laugh at how intently she’s watching him. His other hand comes up to her cheek and she smiles, which makes him tap her dimple gently with his thumb. She’s almost forgotten about dinner. Almost. Until her stomach grumbles loudly and the pair burst out laughing.
“We should eat,” Lo’ak says.
“You haven’t cleaned up,”
“Later, Reya. You’re hungry,”
She rolls her eyes but steps back. “Okay, okay,”
He takes her hand and leads her out of the marui and they sit to eat. Tsireya is clearly rushing though, and she knows Lo’ak has noticed. With all the tsahik training she’s been doing recently she hasn’t had much time to spend a single moment with him and it’s making her restless.
“I’m done, thank you, parents,” she says in a single breath after shovelling the last of her food into her mouth. Ronal and Tonowari shoot each other a glance, Lo’ak tries to hold back a laugh but Tsireya is striding out of the eating area faster than Lo’ak can keep up.
“Damn, someone’s in a rush,” he says, laughing.
“I missed you,”
“You see me every day,”
She smiles as his arms wrap around her waist and he pulls her closer. “Not for long enough though!” she rests her head on his chest and loves how warm he feels even with the soft evening breeze that blows through their clearing.
“Kiss?” she asks, because she still feels weird not asking.
“No,” Lo’ak responds jokingly, but he’s already leaning in with a smile. He doesn’t stop grinning and she can feel it against her lips and she loves that even though they’ve done this a thousand times he still gets a little giddy with her.
“I hate you,”
“You’re a bad liar,” he says between kisses.
“You’re bad at cleaning up,” she pulls back to slip her hand into his. She adores how his extra finger wraps around her hand. She feels all-encompassed by him and wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I like your hair today,” he mutters.
The small talk makes her giggle, but she takes the bait. “Thanks, Ao just redid it for me,”
“The braids are nice,”
She has it done up in a ponytail with it braided away from her face like normal, but he still traces her hairline with his finger like he’s never seen her before. “Should I do a metkayina hair thing?” he asks absentmindedly. Even though she’s been begging him to do his hair for ages.
“Lo’ak! Lo’ak!! Oh! I can put little shells in it and stuff!”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes, yes, yes,” she says and goes on her tiptoes to give him a kiss without him leaning down. She loves their height difference. She loves a lot of things about them. Mostly she loves how Lo’ak traces the bioluminescence on her shoulder and arm and back and anywhere he can reach. Her hand finds its way to the nape of his neck and she’s hyperaware of the lack of space between them. She’s obsessed with the way Lo’ak hums low in the back of his throat.
He pulls back, “Reya,”
“Yes,”
“You’re so pretty,”
She laughs at that, at how genuinely he means it, at how his eyes are lidded and how he rests his forehead against her own to catch his breath. She’s still a little hungry, but she’ll stay here for as long as she can.