Paul has seen people kiss, but never this close, and never as some as-yet undefined part of this once more closed circle of current. He's never had anyone brush his hair back like that before last night, tenderly electric, his pulse caught hot and throbbing in his neck, around his piercings, and deep in his belly as he watches Kaworu and Midoriya come together in a new kind of intimacy.

He hadn't been able to see what Kaworu looks like when he kisses someone, not really. He'd never even pictured it with Midoriya. It's fascinating, magnetic; he watches Kaworu's pale hand cup Midoriya's face, his freckles like stars between clouds, and he knows what that feels like, even if the words to describe it evade him.

The words for many things are evading him, dissolved in the newness and reconfiguration of this way of relating to other people. He doesn't know what it means that he wants to kiss those fingertips and the warm spans between them, or why the hitch of his breathing and the dryness of his mouth are the same and not the same as they were yesterday, lost in shimmering heat waves of other wants stretching out beyond them.

He doesn't speak, the moment too delicate to risk, but he breathes deep, a swell of movement that presses against them both, and he bites his lip in a gesture he doesn't even notice below his wide eyes.