Chapter Text
Bonus Chapter: Full Moon
On the night of the full moon, you know to be ready.
It is always hard on these days. Each sound at work hits your nerves like a live wire. When the intern drops a stapler, you bolt upright, chills exploding up your spine. You flee to the bathroom, trembling, and when you catch your reflection, your flushed cheeks make your stomach lurch. The anticipation eats at you.
The anticipation is unbearable. He likes that, of course. It’s part of the fox in him. You know he enjoys leaving you in this state—waiting. Watching. He hasn’t messaged all day. He doesn’t do so on these days. You figured it out by the third month. No “Good morning,” no “On my way home.” He makes sure you feel the absence.
No mercy on the day of the full moon.
He wants you waiting. He likes surprises.
Sometimes, it’s hard to believe it’s your boyfriend. It’s like he was in the beginning... before you knew all his secrets.
“Are you leaving?” your coworker asks with a polite smile when she spots you on the elevator. She studies your features. “You look pale.”
“Allergies,” you wheeze without an ounce of elegance. The stupidest excuses leave your mouth on these days. Last month, you suffered from hay fever. The month before, your period made you anaemic. Pay no attention to the woman hyped up on hormones and excitement and fear.
You stumble out of your office building and tell yourself to get a grip. These are the days when it’s enough to forget that you beat a powerful demon on your own. That you woke up without a heart once and lived to tell the tale.
Shiny, glittery material catches your eye. You blush hard as you pass a dizzying display of lace in a lingerie store.
Will he be upset if you’re late?
Sometimes, he’s waiting... Sometimes, he makes you wait.
A saleswoman angles for you at the entrance of the store. Shit. Her glossy hair and nails have you in her clutches. You can escape demons, but damn if you can escape a pretty woman wanting to sell you something. She’s already pulling you. There’s a sale. Don’t you want to see their new collection?
“Are you headed home?” the woman purrs. She bats her eyelashes three times. It’s as if she knows what will be waiting for you...
“Yes,” you manage, trying not to stare too hard at the lacy bits hanging from the walls. “I’m not sure if this is my style,” you say when shown the outfit.
“Does your boyfriend like lingerie?”
You haven’t asked. He seemed to find your attire quite appealing, at least enough to nearly rip it off at times. She spots your hesitance and smoothly guides you to a section of pretty red lace.
“How about something romantic?”
Red reminds you of blood. It reminds you of your chest being open, of having no heart. You lick your lips quickly.
“Let’s try pink.”
Pink is a good middle ground, she tells you. It professes a base-level innocence. You think back to the time you literally murdered his inner child and feel your skin itch as she rings you up. How did this happen? You never shop. Part of you wonders if you secretly want an excuse to be late. Perhaps you will be the one to make him wait today.
You check your watch. Early evening. 6 o’clock. Normally, you’d swing by the supermarket to grab a few things for dinner. You doubt that you’ll find time to eat tonight. You clutch the bag tightly as you leave, the delicate lace inside heavier than it has any right to be. The climb up to your shared apartment feels like a lamb walking to the slaughter.
When you open the door, your heart lifts in relief and drops in disappointment. His shoes aren’t here yet. You slip into your house shoes and pad down the hallway to your room. To wear the underwear or not? You’ve never been one to resist fanning fires, but... when Kurama is like this, you tend to let him guide things. You are learning how to test the limits of his strength, just as you learned to navigate the shadowy parts of his life with care.
The apartment is calm. He is perfectly clean. An ideal boyfriend. You are the one who sometimes leaves a sweater on the ground instead of the hamper. You step out of your clothes guiltily and jump in the shower to wash off the heat from today. It’s nice when you get home before him so you can clean yourself. Not that your sweat-tinged work blouses have ever stopped him before. You flush as you slip out of the shower and towel off. His key is missing from the hooks by the front door still.
Will it hurt to wear something sexy?
You slip on the underwear you bought. It is nice. You aren’t sure you’ve ever worn special underwear for him before. Goosebumps dance up your arms as the lace brushes your skin. It’s true. When you spend money on yourself, you feel good. You let your hair down and spritz some perfume on it. There’s no time to wash it. One of the younger interns mentioned she washes her hair every day. You mentally add up the minutes of your life you may waste if you did that.
Forty-five minutes past six and you’re in the clear at the moment. Usually, you don’t entertain the idea of eating, but he’s later than usual.
Maybe the last few months have been a fluke. Maybe your time together officially as a couple has merely been a rollercoaster of hormones. To be fair, you hadn’t asked about the full moon nights. You merely melted against him. He was good at what he did, even if he never felt quite like Kurama in those moments.
Repression, you hypothesize. He didn’t have girlfriends in high school. That whole demonic soul merger is another thing.
You slip on a simple black dress like armor. It’s satisfying to have another layer of fabric for protection, even if your dress rubs against your new lace in a way that makes your stomach grip with desire. The saleswoman was right about this set. It feels like you’re wearing nothing at all.
Dinner it is. You retrieve a can of beer from the refrigerator and a bunch of vegetables needing to be cooked before they go bad. Udon tonight. You place the pot on the stove. You try to keep your hands from shaking, but it’s hard. Part of you wants to be calm and cool, like you haven’t noticed how he acts on these nights. The beer is cold against your lips. The idea is ridiculous in your head. He can sniff out anything on you.
The minutes pass. You glance at the door, annoyed. You look at your phone. No messages.
So much for being ravished.
He may have been delayed at work. You eat your dinner, save the leftovers for him. The sun dips below the horizon. You sigh, disappointed more than anything. All that hype for nothing. You let yourself out to the balcony. This apartment you found together is nice, perfectly situated so that you have a great view of the city without being too close to the next apartment. It was a willing compromise you made to go further from the city. Kurama was good at planning things out.
You sip your beer and kick off your shoes. If he isn’t coming home, you will relax. He hasn’t kept you waiting for this long before. You doze off in your chair, waking to discover the night air is nipping at you.
“Shit.”
No sign of Kurama as you slip inside. The kitchen’s nightlight provides enough illumination for you to see. You tip your beer into the sink, watch the last few remnants drip out into the sink. A tiny itch forms in your nose. You hope you didn’t catch a cold out there. Oops.
“Misaki.”
Behind you. A hot breath hits your neck when your back arches in a jerk. You stifle a gasp when the bottle breaks in the sink just near your finger. The bottle shatters into pieces. “Fuck.” You paw for the overhead light in the kitchen. When you whirl around, Kurama stands innocently behind you. He grabs your hand. A tiny cut has formed on your finger from the bottle. Your heart slams against your chest.
“Are you okay?” His head tilts with the appropriate amount of cuteness for you to release an exhausted sigh of relief.
“You scared the shit out of me.” You shiver. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
He smiles. “I’m sorry. I forgot to call to say I would be late. You’re bleeding.” He grabs the kitchen towel and carefully wraps it around your finger. “Did you eat?”
“Yes, I saved you some. Are you hungry?”
The way he holds your hand makes your knees weak. He drags his gaze up from the towel, pure white stained with the red from your cut.
“Yes,” he replies, but he doesn’t move toward the fridge. “Were you waiting for me?” The question is a shade darker, but perhaps it’s your imagination.
“No,” you lie.
He tilts his head ever so slightly to the side, his gaze steady and unyielding. For a moment, you wonder if you’ve imagined his strange behavior on nights like this. It almost feels absurd how much effort you put into finding a calendar with an ornate lunar chart tucked into the corner of each page. You tell yourself it’s practical—a tool, not an obsession. But here you are.
His other hand drifts to the kitchen counter, resting just on the edge of your periphery, effectively boxing you in. The movement feels unintentional, casual, yet the space between you seems to shrink. He exerts a pull stronger than gravity itself, an iron grip without ever touching you, the perfect balance of threat and allure. Your back arches involuntarily, an alley cat instinctively bristling at the fox in her path.
“So you weren’t waiting?” he asks, the question laced with a quiet danger. His smile is sweet, disarming—eerily reminiscent of Shuichi’s warmth, of Kurama’s gentle charm—but the sharp press of his knee against the cabinet behind you feels like a warning. He’s too close, an angelic face masking something far more devilish.
Heat flushes through you, an unwelcome rush of awareness. Surely, it should be a sin to look so angelic and predatory all at once? A thought, ridiculous and fleeting, flits through your mind. You consider calling one of his friends, asking if other demons behave this way beneath the full moon. What would they say if you described his beastly presence, his unsettling proximity, his refusal to admit anything has changed?
The sarcastic one, Yusuke: Werewolf, werefox? HA. Now, I’ve heard everything. Okay, let me kick his ass.
The one dedicated to honorable manliness, Kuwabara: He does?! Never let him around Yukina during the full moon. He’d lean in and whisper, Call me and Urameshi. We’ll set him straight.
The short, dark flame of a man, Hiei: Do not involve me in your petty domestic disputes, woman. Fend for yourself.
“I was expecting you,” you say finally when his eyebrow arches upward from your lack of response. He’ll see the lingerie you put on eventually. Won’t it be obvious that you were expecting him? “But you’re not usually this late.”
He hums with satisfaction from your honesty and closes the distance between you. At first, you think he’ll kiss you, but he skips past your lips and nuzzles your neck instead, a pleasant sensation that makes your cells vibrate with anticipation.
“So, you lied,” he whispers and laughs, low and wicked.
On full moons, he is Kurama, he is not Kurama.
He is a mix. Of the man who tends toward raw and primal, who gets headaches in the rainy season.
And no amount of his touches will burn away the tendency to blush like a fair maiden beneath him. Something in him simply summons it every time in you.
He pulls back with a soft smile. “That’s okay. I didn’t intend to be so late.” And he steps away from you, taking his body warmth with his proximity. You may riot by the injustice of it all. “Have a drink with me. I want to hear about your day. I’ll grab the first aid kit for your cut.”
Whoosh. He exits the kitchen, two fresh beers in hand, leaving you bewildered, like a deer caught in headlights.
Was he not going to attack you like an animal tonight?
Annoying, handsome bastard. Well, maybe you had been imagining his rakish behavior on these nights.
As if your gut says and howls with laughter. He’s just toying with you before the kill!
You kneel across the low table from him, careful not to let your dress catch awkwardly. Rude. Tonight wasn’t supposed to unfold this way. You’d planned to show off the lingerie you’d bought just for him, but here he is, already prepared with the first aid kit. Always ready. Always annoyingly perfect.
“Hand,” he says, cheerfully authoritative. The glint of his eyes is almost too golden, and a voice within you questions whether it’s a wise choice to give him your hand.
But he waits, expectant and patient. You relent, placing the blood-stained towel on the table before extending your arm. The cut isn’t serious, but it bleeds excessively. Hands are delicate things, you muse as his long, elegant fingers sweep an alcohol swab over the wound. The sting makes you flinch. His lips twitch upward, a corner smile that almost feels teasing, but he remains dutiful, wrapping your injured pinky with precision.
“To your fine health,” he declares, as if in a toast, before opening two bottles of beer with a practiced flourish. You watch the effortless charm in his movements, a display so seamless it’s maddening. What kind of man is this charming all the time? Frankly, you’re half-tempted to call the authorities.
He leans forward slightly, resting his chin against his hand as his sharp green eyes study you. “How was your day?”
“Fine,” you reply, though your dry lips betray your unease. You sip the beer, welcoming the numbing sensation that dulls the throbbing in your bandaged finger. The room feels hotter than it should be, the air too thick. “I had another typical day.”
The mischievous tilt of his head—a gesture so subtle it barely registers—makes his next words feel sharper. “Was it merely typical?”
You realize, in that moment, you are staring at the wolf in sheep’s clothing. And yet, you’ve faced worse things than him. Squaring your shoulders, you cross your arms and let your eyes sweep over him as a deliberate show of defiance. “If you’re implying I’m lying, I’m debating calling in reinforcements.”
He hides a grin behind a sip of beer. Oh, so he’s enjoying this game, is he?
“You distracted me today,” he says smoothly.
“Oh?”
“I had to run back to the apartment before my last meeting,” he says casually, setting the beer bottle down with a soft clink. His voice has that too-easy lilt, the one that invariably puts you on edge. “I spotted you on my way back. You seemed... busy.”
His knowing smirk sends a flutter through your stomach, unwelcome and yet undeniable. Your pulse stumbles. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you say, but the words come out too quickly, betraying you. You take a deliberate sip of your beer, hoping it will steady the nerves that are twisting in your chest.
He hums softly, relaxing slightly to give an impression of comfort. His stare, calm but deliberate, trails over you like a touch. “No? Perhaps I imagined you slipping into that little shop on the corner. You know, the one with the tasteful displays in the windows.”
You nearly choke on your drink. The shop. The lingerie. He knows.
Your fingers tighten on the neck of the bottle as you set it down carefully, focusing on the condensation slipping down its sides. “It’s a nice place,” you say lightly, forcing your voice to sound steady. “I had some errands to run.”
His smile doesn’t falter, but there’s a flicker in his eyes—a glimmer that says he’s already unraveled the excuse. “Is that so?” he asks, his tone soft as velvet, carrying enough weight to unsettle. “A few practical things?”
You glance away, feigning nonchalance. “Yes. Some new essentials. Nothing worth mentioning.” Mechanically, you shrug, an awkward, overly rehearsed gesture that feels like your body is on autopilot.
He exhales an amused sound through his nose. “I had to sit through three hours of a meeting,” he says, his innocent expression growing darker, “while imagining what you might’ve bought.”
The idea that you occupied his thoughts through his meeting sends a thrill through you—electric and utterly unwelcome. Your hands buzz faintly, as if charged. “Oh,” you manage, trying desperately for an even tone.
From beneath the table, he lifts a familiar black bag and places it in front of you. Luxe, sleek, unmistakable. The bag from the lingerie shop. The tissue paper you’d hastily stuffed back inside is still crumpled at the top.
“Do I get to see what you bought?” he asks, his voice so casual it’s maddening, as if he’s commenting on the weather.
Your face burns. Several months with this man—trips through his labyrinthine psyche, endless conversations full of layered meanings—and yet, here you are, blushing like a schoolgirl caught passing notes. “You can,” you say slowly.
He raises an eyebrow as he peeks into the bag, only to find it empty. Of course, it’s empty—you’re wearing the set right now, pretending you hadn’t been obviously waiting up for him to come home and ravish you under the full moon.
His pout, paired with the playful glare he sends across the table, is almost unbearable. Someone should make it illegal for someone so handsome to pout.
“Is it in our room?” he asks.
You tip your bottle back, finishing the last sip of your beer. “No.”
He’s clever, this fox of yours. His gaze sweeps over you, deliberate and calculating, before the light bulb goes off.
“Oh,” he murmurs, stealing the sound from your lips and returning it, laced with amused satisfaction. His smirk is unrelenting—knowing and entirely too smug. “So, you were waiting for me.”
You glance up at the ceiling, feigning innocence. “Maybe.”
“Tell me,” he says, his voice dipping, darker than usual.
“What?”
“Tell me you were waiting for me.” There’s a subtle gloat in his tone, a demand that makes your stomach flip. “I want to hear you say it.”
You know this side of him. He enjoys these nights, but surely he knows you well enough by now. You have to hold your ground.
“I can just show you.”
You stand and head toward the bedroom, unzipping your dress halfway down the hall. He doesn’t follow immediately, but the quiet hum of anticipation in the air tells you everything.
His pursuit is silent, so quiet that you don’t register his presence until the moment your zipper slides the rest of the way down. He’s right behind you.
“Don’t tear this one,” you warn. Two perfectly good dresses have already been sacrificed to his animalistic tendencies on nights like this.
“I’ll buy you a thousand dresses,” he whispers against your ear, his voice low and heated, “but don’t make me wait. I sat through a dull meeting that could have been an email imagining you underneath me.”
Before you can respond, he spins you around to face him, pressing you firmly against the door of your shared bedroom.
You wiggle out of the sleeveless dress, letting the fabric fall in a soft pool at your feet. His gaze drops, starting at your neck and moving slowly downward, as though he’s inspecting you for hidden weapons.
“Pink,” he says, his fingers brushing the delicate strap on your shoulder, playing with it like a predator toying with its prey.
“I may have been waiting for you,” you say, your tone as innocent as you can muster.
His response isn’t verbal. His victory is in the way he kisses you—hard, consuming, and entirely triumphant. Your knees weaken, but you’re grateful for the unyielding press of his body against the door, holding you in place as the world falls away.
Your hands go up, one to press against his back and the other to tangle your fingers in that ridiculously soft hair, pushing him harder into the kiss.
“I will try not to rip these,” he mutters, fingers playing with the edgy lace of your bra and then the matching panty. “No promises.”
“The hell you will, I just bought these—"
“I’ll buy you more,” he mutters against your lips and bites your bottom one, making you moan like a pitiful, delirious thing until you open your mouth and his tongue can slip in. His hand grabs for the knob and you don’t have a chance to stumble backward into the room because he’s already whisked you into the air.
“You are a beast,” you mutter in between his hot kisses as he sets you on the edge of the bed.
He stands, surveying you like a hard-won prize. Your skin feels hot underneath his hungry gaze.
Well, he clearly likes the lingerie.
“Call off work tomorrow,” he says when he leans down to kiss you again.
“Kurama!”
“Our story is we got sick from a friend who had a cold,” he mutters against your lips in between kisses and tilts you back until you fall against the soft bedspread. He hovers over you, a sharp wicked smile spreading across his face.
“I have a presentation tomorrow,” you protest, thinking of the meetings and responsibilities the next day will bring.
His hand slips down your side and squeezes, making you inhale sharply and arch toward him.
“You can’t go to work, Misaki. You’re sick,” he insists and smirks when his hand comes up to palm the soft lace cup of your bra. “I’ll have to tell them myself if you won’t. They won’t want you getting anyone sick.”
“You have work too.”
“I already called out,” he says.
You mean to tell him that he planned this, and you were right all along about him being a sneaky demon lurking in your class, but his lips find yours again and those protests seem to fade. The gold flecks shine brighter in his eyes. Such a pretty combination, this odd clash of green and gold. The unexpected beauty of odd color combinations dance in your head as he kisses you senseless. His hands slide down your sides.
On nights like this, he will claim you over and over. It’s the only time he doesn’t seem completely intent on just your pleasure. He’s too selfless the other nights. You can only get him to cut loose on the full moon nights, so you suppose it works that you find these nights frighteningly sexy.
The lingerie is shed fast and you have to fight for him to remember he, too, has clothing that you want gone. He rips his shirt off as you unbuckle his pants. His hiss of pleasure is everything as he reaches for you, shimmying out of his clothes in the same movement. He moves fast, this fox of yours.
He scoops you up so your back is against him. His tongue finds your neck as he pushes into you. He lets you feel how bad he needs you as his hard cock throbs, pressing up against your ass. It’s a sensation that sends an electric shock through the entire length of your spine.
The excitement and adrenaline are enough to have you wet already for him. A fact he enjoys immensely as he dips his hand to your entrance to ensure you’re good and ready.
“Always eager,” he says with a smirk against your throat. His finger slips inside for the tiniest taste of what’s coming before he pulls back out.
You mean to tell him that you are strong! You have pride! You’ve fought his demon self and lived to tell the tale!
But he nibbles on the sensitive pulse point of your neck and your thoughts are gone.
He thrusts into you hard and fast. He won’t stop. His endurance is impressive. You can tell from the way he groans in your ear that he won’t let you sleep tonight.
First he has you from behind and then he has you underneath him. He eases a finger inside your mouth to let you suck and make primitive sounds of pleasure that he chuckles at while he fills you up.
He gives you a break after two hours. You collapse on the bed, flushed with pleasure and sure that your neighbors hate you.
“We’re too loud,” you tell him, but only half your heart is in the scolding.
He grabs a silky tie from his drawer and allows you the soft mercy of biting down on it to keep you quiet.
Such a resourceful beast on these nights. Smirking, wanting, ravishing. He takes everything he wants and you let him because the pleasure is undeniable, a rollercoaster of treacherous delight that has you thanking every star up there that you never trusted the handsome redhead from your class for a singular second. What wonderful outcomes it had for you once you died and came back.
“Mine,” he says in the throes of early morning light, biting your neck with a delicious pressure. He has told you before how demons mark their mates. On full moon nights, you let him have his fun because you can’t walk around with a permanent mark on your neck without some looks, but you can manage hiding the healing bite for a few days out of the month with high-neck shirts.
“Mine.”
His prayer, over and over, as he touches you in the best places. In places you never knew that you needed to be touched. He’s a greedy conqueror.
“Mine.”
Your heart thuds hard as he coaxes you into a hard rush of pleasure.
“Please, give me a break,” you murmur against him, limp and sweating. He smiles down at you.
“You seem tired.” The audacity of his mock innocence.
“Screw you,” you whisper with a sigh. “It’s four in the morning and you haven’t let me sleep.”
He runs a thumb across your furrowed brow. “You can sleep if I can still keep going.”
“You’re a beast,” you mutter in disbelief. The full moon will be cackling to herself tonight alongside a river witch. You’re sure of it.
He leans his forehead against yours. “Your beast.” The delightfully bright way he says it melts your heart for an instant. Your eyes soften as your lips open and that’s your mistake, because your lover is clever. He knows all the buttons to press, all the levers to pull.
His wicked smile is against your lips as he pushes you back into the pillows.
No sleep tonight.
In the deliriousness of fatigue as the hours pass, you swear he brushes his mouth against your ear and whispers, “I will be yours forever.”
He will be yours forever, as you are his—an unshakable truth. Not that you would ever want to escape.
You’re both beautifully, irreversibly ruined for anyone else but each other.