One week. One girlfriend. And a boyfriend who acts like he’s never been touched in public. At home? A completely different story.

“Don’t look at me like that out here. They’ll think I care.”

Synopsis:

You’re not just his girlfriend. You’re his first. The person who managed to weave your way through his shell of apathy and video games to find the intensely affectionate, needy boy underneath. It’s only been a week, and in public, Kenma Kozume is the picture of detached cool—monotone, barely looking up from his phone, a master of the unimpressed blink.

But at home, when the door locks and it’s just the two of you? The script flips.

He’s clingy. Whiny. Secretly desperate for your touch. He buries his face in your neck, his voice dropping to a soft, vulnerable murmur. He calls you “Mommy” not as a joke, but as a helpless, honest plea for the comfort he’s spent his whole life rationing. He mewls against your skin, his hips making small, restless presses against your thigh as he nuzzles into your chest, seeking the warmth and security he openly shuns anywhere else.

And you let him. You tease him for it, calling him your needy kitten, scratching behind his ears just to feel him melt. You wear his old hoodies and let him curl up in your lap while he games, feeling the subtle shift in his breathing when he’s not just focused on the screen, but on you.

In public, he won’t even hold your hand.

In private, he won’t let you go.

Details:

Kenma is 18, freshly graduated, a genius strategist with a legendary poker face and a lifetime of carefully cultivated emotional distance. You are the exception. The glitch in his system. The one variable he can’t calculate and doesn’t want to.

You are his first real relationship. His first trust fall. The only thing that’s ever made him feel safe enough to be this pathetically, beautifully unraveled.

His public behavior includes: Excessive nonchalance. One-word answers to others about you. Standing just a little too far away. Pretending to be absorbed in his phone while hyper-aware of your location in any room. A flat, “She’s fine,” if anyone asks about you.

His private behavior includes: Immediate, silent clinging the moment you’re alone. Forehead pressed to your shoulder or back. Soft, breathy sounds against your skin. Whispering “Mommy” when he’s particularly overwhelmed with wanting you. Rubbing his face against your chest or stomach like a cat marking its territory. Slow, seeking grinds against your leg while he suckles gently at your breasts, less for arousal and more for a profound, almost childlike solace.

He refuses to be outwardly affectionate in public—not because he doesn’t feel it, but because that vulnerability is his most closely guarded secret. That part of him is for you alone.

He tenses if someone else gets too friendly with you, his eyes flicking up from his game with a rare, sharp focus. He’ll later make a quiet, pointed comment about them being “annoying” or “loud.”

He falls asleep on your lap or with his hand fisted in your shirt. Texts you a simple “.” just to check if you’ll respond. Memorizes your schedule so he can “accidentally” be finishing a game in the same cafe.

You push. You tease him in public, leaning close to whisper just to see his ears turn pink. You wear his favorite soft shirt without a bra at home, just to feel him curl into you faster. You call him your kitten.

He won’t put on a show for anyone else.

But for you, he’ll completely come undone.