How to Survive Your 19th Life [BL]

Chapter 72: Burning Love

"I love you," I told Emiel when I looped back to that fated wintry night again. This time I decided to add, "So much Em. I love you so much."

Emiel blinked as though caught off-guard by the strength of my words. In the beginning of our courtship, I often startled him with my blatant honesty. 

I decided this time, I would go all in. I would not live out my life like the first or second life where I was still too much of myself. No, this time I would try throwing myself at him all in, pride be damned.

I had rejected him and tried to break things off with him for several lives now and that got me nowhere. If I became the person he wanted me to be, the kind of person he was, then maybe that was the key to ending these cycles. Maybe this entire process was grooming me into Emiel's ideal type.

At some point he fell desperately in love with me, and in many lives, he didn't understand why I was hurting him so much. That hurt led to the crack in his sanity. I had to navigate around these items if I wanted him to keep his sanity. 

I couldn't break things off.

I couldn't make him jealous.

I couldn't be boring or depressed.

I couldn't get him to leave me.

I had to be a perfect boyfriend. I had to triumph in places where I previously failed. I took Emiel's face in my hands and kissed him deeply. He let out a small sound and I smiled against his mouth. 

"Do you love me?" I asked him, gazing into his bright hazel eyes. Emiel smiled too, but didn't say anything, so I said, "I know you do. And from now on, we are going to be together. Forever, Emiel, okay?"

Right before he turned away from me, I thought I saw the glisten of a tear in his waterline. Holding hands, we walked back to his apartment. I pulled him into me along the way, shielding him from the cold. 

At his apartment, I sat and watched as Emiel prepared tonkatsu with white rice and julienned vegetables. When I took my first bite of the perfectly crispy pork cutlet, my eyes rolled back and I moaned gutturally.

"I hope you fuck as good as you cook," I told him after our late supper.  Of course I knew he could.

"This doesn't feel like real life," Emiel said when I bent him over the kitchen counter and slid myself inside him. 

His ass swallowed me up in a tight vice, warm and endless. I was able to perform as well as I ever did. I fucked him until my muscles screamed for a break. I didn't stop when Emiel came in my hand while I stroked him, nor when he came a second time in the shower after we fuck-walked across the studio.

I grabbed a handful of his hair as my hips smacked against his ass, not caring how loud we were being. This felt incredible. I knew Emiel liked being choked so I pulled his head back with one hand and grabbed his throat with the other, never losing a moment of rhythm. 

Pleasure built. It tingled in my thighs. My balls were beyond ready to pop. When I felt I was close, I slowed down just enough to ride the rush without crashing out. 

"We're always going to be together, okay?" I said with a thrust between each word. I knew that if I kept choking him, he would tear my hand away. He would overpower me. So I released his neck to give him the chance to speak.

"I know, always," Emiel said back in between gasps. 

I let myself orgasm when Emiel had his third climax. It felt like a spray of warm sun on a cold winter night. The relief was unimaginable and the pleasure was astounding. I could barely breathe my way through it. I emptied myself in hard pulses that immediately made me jump from the raw sensitivity.

I collapsed beside Emiel, who pulled my sweaty body into his arms. He showered my face with playful kisses.

"I have a surprise for you," Emiel told me.

A cold pain shot through my heart. This didn't happen before. He never had any surprises for me in the other lives, at least nothing this early. 

"Don't make that face," Emiel said, tugging me closer until his breath coated my cheek. I hadn't even realized I was making a face. "I honestly was going to wait until our first year anniversary, but you have been so... I don't know. It's like a dream."

So he's been planning on us being together long before I told him I loved him. But I knew this by now. Still, it felt strange to be surprised by another new thing.

"Tell me," I said. I pushed against him until he was on his back and I was above him. 

"Are you a top, Sol?"

I laughed. "Sometimes. Come on, tell me."

He pushed me off him and fetched his computer. He sat back down on the bed and opened it between us. I rarely saw Emiel fiddling with his computer. He only used it for studying and homework, never gaming or social media. I peeped a folder titled "S.E." but he opened up another folder and brought an image on the screen.

It was a drawing of a metallic butterfly with switchblade for wings. It was an intricate drawing with heavy outline and very fine detail in the wing patterns. I knew immediately what this was.

"I told you once that my feelings for you was like butterflies in my stomach..."

"With razorblades for wings," I finished.

"This is a tattoo I plan to get, Solomon. I've been working with this incredible tattoo artist from Belgium."

Emiel went on and on about his plans, but I was too dazzled to listen.

I could see it almost as though it were happening before my very eyes. I could see Emiel working on this design, sending emails and scribblings back and forth with this international tattoo artist until this product was reached. I could tell he worked on this for hours, possibly days.  The idea must have consumed him—to pay homage to those words he said to me.

I kissed him then. My lips pressed deeply into his until my mouth hurt. I pulled him to me hard enough for our skin to meld together. I kissed him because I needed to. Because it felt like I would simply die if I did not.