Page 22 of The Jorogumo

"Are you okay with heights? I won't let you fall."

"I know," he said with a confident smile, then shrugged. "And I'm fine with it."

Nodding, I stepped closer to him, then said, "I'm going to pick you up, okay?"

He gave me a surprised look, but didn't protest, and I leaned down, wrapped my arms around his waist, then stood up straight.

"Whoa, you're strong," he said, and a hint of his arousal teased at my senses, once again, making me hungry instead of uncomfortable. Huh. So Liam liked displays of strength, hmm? Good to know.

Tightening my grip, I made my way up the webs to the platform I'd woven in front of the shelves just for Liam. Not that I'd tell him that.

Carefully, I placed Liam's feet on the platform, keeping an arm around his back in case he lost his balance.

"This feels so cool," he murmured, eyes sliding to mine. "I'm your MJ."

I chuckled at the comparison, then waved at the comics. "I've been collecting these for a while now."

Following the prompt, Liam turned to scan the shelves, pulling a few issues out to examine them.

He whistled softly as he eyed one of my oldest comics, an issue of theCaptain America in USAseries from the mid-1940s,his fingers careful as they brushed over the cover. "Wow, I don't think I've ever seen one of these."

"It was the first comic I bought when I came to the US."

Liam blinked, then gazed up at me. "The first comic you bought was this old thing?"

"Well, it was new when I bought it," I clarified, even though I was deliberately beating around the bush. I wanted to see if he'd figure out what I meant.

"Wait," he said, and I could almost see the gears turning in his mind. "Wait. Are you saying you bought this when it first came out?"

Liam

He couldn't possibly mean that, right? Haruto looked younger than me, for fuck's sake. How could he have possibly been around in 1947 to buy this issue?

"Yes," he said, then shrugged, though he watched me cautiously. "Most supes here are older than they look. We age slowly, and it varies between species, but all supes age slower than humans, while some don't age at all."

"Oh."

My first thought was that Haruto would have to watch me grow old and die, and that seemed so very unfair. Not that I'd thought we'd spend our whole lives together. I'd hoped, though.

"Does that make you uncomfortable?" Haruto asked, brows furrowed as he stared at me. I couldn't very well tell him I was imagining our future, not when this was our second date, so I shook my head quickly, and tried to hide whatever look I was sporting.

"No, not at all. I wasjust surprised."

He stared at me for another long moment, then shrugged. "I'm not that old compared to some of the other supes here. I was just twenty when I moved to the States."

He was twenty in 1947, which meant he was almost a century old. Wow.

"You know, I always thought that if I was ever in an age-gap relationship, I'd be the older partner," I mused with a smile, wanting Haruto to know his age wasn't a problem for me. It was my own mortality that had me feeling depressed.

"To other humans, you will be," he reminded, making me smile. Yeah, that would be just another secret no one else would know. I liked it.

We spent quite a bit of time talking about comics—as we tended to do—and I was in love with Haruto's collection. It had to be worth millions, not that he'd ever sell them. He'd been collecting them since the '40s, and I was surprised he didn't have more. Of course, I couldn't help myself from asking about it.

"Oh, I do. I have a storage unit in the human world where I keep my, hmm, less-favorite issues," he said, which I translated to mean the ones he didn't have space for here. "I'll show it to you someday, if you want."

"That would be great."

The sound of a bell clanging interrupted whatever Haruto was about to say, and I glanced around curiously.

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