Time After Time

Rose Lette stood upon the wooden floor, wearing an excessively too big white T-shirt who completely hid the plaid skirt she wore. She had tied her long, red hair into a simple bun, leaving only her fringe and a couple of hair strands loose. Standing next to her, Gustav was shoving his hands into an upper part of cupboard where he kept all his cleaning tools. He was in T-shirt and shorts (“Aren’t you cold?” Rose commented when she saw him in his knee-length clothes, but Gustav just smirked, “London’s temperature might be cold for you, but inside the house, it’s warm enough for me to dress like this.”). The tall man was currently explaining to Rose about what kind of cleaning he usually did around his flat and what needed to be changed for this flat’s current situation.

“…We’re not going to need to remove any common spills because nobody have lived here for the past a year, but dusting is obviously needed- oh, and disinfection too. I have checked some sprayer I have for window cleaning and they still works, so…”

Gustav stopped his avalanche of words when he realised that Rose was staring at him, beaming the half-Norwegian man a smile that slightly showed her teeth.

“…So…yeah. What?” Gustav started to think that there was something on his face.

“Nothing,” Rose shook her head but she was still grinning.

“Seriously, Rose, what is it?” he yanked her closer to him while Rose somehow giggled.

“You look handsome when you’re talking about housekeeping.”

“What?” Gustav snickered, his left arm was around her waist and he was about to shower her face with kisses before his sight fell at the clock. “Oops, if we make out now, we’re going to be late for dinner. Come on.”


There was something so beautiful in watching someone you love doing something mundane with you. Gustav Wood had the equal amount of enthusiasm towards cleaning his own place with the majority of human being on the face of earth; he didn’t hate it, but it wasn’t something that he’d do with admirable passion as well. But today- today was special. He found himself smiling and laughing while he scrubbed, wiped, and cleaned every inch of his flat he could get his hands into. And Rose was with him the whole time, smiling and laughing with him, letting him to thoroughly admire the way she turned her body under the dim light of winter sun.

He didn’t know how every single thing about a person could be this perfect.

It was fifteen past four when they finally finished cleaning the window on the living room. Sampson had joined them there, sniffing at Rose curiously while stroking his body to his master. Gustav was so relieved to see that his cat didn’t seem to forget him or like him less simply because he was gone for sometime. Maybe Sampson simply didn’t understand why he went this time; whether it was tour or a plan of running away to Australia, it probably seemed the same for the orange-furred canine.

Rose offered to bring all the cleaning tools back to the cupboard while Gustav sat down on the floor, cross-legged, with Sampson sitting on his lap. He could hear her struggle trying to put the stuffs back on the cupboard and the brown-haired man smiled. Gustav couldn’t help but thinking to renovate this flat of his if Rose moved here. This place was his and everything was set to his height, which was obviously a little too tall for the Australian girl. Or maybe he could simply place things that they would need daily on the place she could reach…

The sound of water running on the sink at the kitchen, across the room he was currently sitting, broke his train of thought. Gustav looked up to see Rose, who was already untie her hair, washed her hand on the sink. He gently put Sampson next to him before the blue-eyed man stood up, walking towards the woman who had finished washing her hand.

He hugged her on the hips from behind, resting his chin on her head. Rose squirmed against him, her voice sounded like a moan. “Gustav?” He closed his eyes, wondering how someone this small could emit such great warmth.

“Hey Rose…?”

“Mm?”

“Do you know about uraemia?”

“Isn’t that some kind of organ failure?”

Gustav chuckled; his chin was now on the top of her head. “I expect nothing less from a lady with a surgeon as her ex-lover.”

Rose giggled too. “What do you want to tell me, Gustav?”

He took a deep, long breath. “Before I decided to disappear in Australia and after I’ve been diagnosed with my throat condition, I read this little news about nine people from Xi’an City in China. These nine people made news because they were asking for euthanasia or mercy killings. All nine of them had uraemia, a disease that occurred because of kidney failure. All of them expressed this exact sentence…” he closed his eyes. “’Unbearable suffering and an unwillingness to burden their families any more’.” His arms around her hips were tightening. “And that was exactly how I felt about myself once I became useless.”


Rose knew that it took a lot of courage for Gustav to open up to her, little by little. That was why she treasured moment like this greatly. Her hands slid down to his arms around her hips, stroking them gently to let him know that he had her support.

“I was in a dark, dark place. Every day was so cold and frightening that I don’t even know how I accomplished to keep on living upon new day. Everything was despondent. I felt like I had died and only waited for whatever awaits me on the end of the tunnel.” He planted kisses on her shoulder and neck, and then nuzzled his face to the warmth of the skin behind her ear. “But I wasn’t dead- and what awaited me on the end of the darkness wasn’t heaven or hell. It was you.”

Rose whimpered when the heat of his breath grazed her ear.

“Do you remember when you cried the first time for me, Rose?” she could hear him smiling. “I was enthralled. ‘Who is this person, crying her heart out for some wretched soul like me?’ I remembered I ask myself that. But you cried an honest, raw cry and somehow…I felt like I was saved. I couldn’t cry like that myself. I would never admit that I was that sad.” He buried his face on her neck, tightening his arms around her altogether. “Later, I understood that my feelings, somehow, I don’t know how, had reached you. That’s why you can cry like that for me, in my account. Because you were crying my cry- because I couldn’t.”

Rose let a out a little moan when he brushed his lips across his nape, from one shoulder to another, the dampness and warmth left her shuddered. She shyly admitted to herself that she wanted more, but then he quickly turned her around and lifted her hips until she rest her buttocks on the edge of the sink in the counter.

“G-Gustav?” the red hair with already short breath stammered.

He grinned before he captured her lips, almost harshly, with his left hand squeezing the back of her neck, holding her in place, making Rose’s moan muffled while she tried to desperately grab his neck and shoulders so she wouldn’t fall behind to the sink. She kept tried to say something, but then he entered her mouth and Rose was left squirming while she stared at him through her half-lidded eyes, whimpering and mewling like a mess. He kept pushing her that Rose instinctively hold on to his hips with her legs, grabbing the front of his shirt while her face turned redder and redder.

When Gustav finally stopped forcing his face into her, Rose felt like her legs were so weak she wasn’t sure she could walk. She panted, staring at his bright blue eyes that was only inches from hers, shuddering as the effect from the kiss. He felt so close to her now- maybe because their faces were on the same level and she didn’t really need to look up to see him like when her feet were on the ground. He was panting as well, with his dark brown locks tousled to his forehead.

“I’d like to continue,” he purred, only stopped to lick his low lip. “But then you wouldn’t get the chance to go with a dinner date tonight with me.”

Rose was still a bit light-headed but she achieved to smile, nestled her forehead to his. “That would be breathtaking.” She snickered. “A dinner date with Gustav Wood, huh?”

He answered with a smirk and lingered a little longer with Rose’s hips on his arms and her legs around his hips. “I hate to leave this condition, but we can continue this after dinner if you’re still in the mood.”

Rose pecked his lips. “Perfect.”