Button panted as he stepped away from the wall, his vision filled with white spots as he tried to clear it. It was about the third time he’d stopped time since he’d dropped off Marina and… it wasn’t pretty. In one hand he held his head, a crack in the middle having formed at this point and oozing down the front of his face. In his other hand, the silver watch as it smoked and shook.

His mind wasn’t much better. Marina had been necessary? Was it? It felt so good. It hurt so deep. It meant so little. It devastated him.

He leaned back, letting time continue again as he panted, his hands now covering his face. He’d managed not to cry for the past twenty or so minutes that had punctuated his time since he’d left the gym. Was it only twenty? His phone’s clock stopped when he was in stasis and bringing it into the world didn’t help either. Maybe if he had an analog watch outside of the magical one in his hand he could figure it out, but he’d need to remember to activate it each time, just like if he wanted to play a game on his phone on the way to somewhere else, something he’d done on his way to the gym.

It was a distraction though. Button knew it. Something to take his mind off of what he’d just done. It wasn’t even that he’d had his way with a woman. It was almost impossible for the boy to repress that side of him, and Faust must have known that would happen. It might have been a part of the deal even. He had still gone too far in pursuit of his own desires. The way Marina had entirely lost it was… terrifying. The fact that she seemed to have had her head warped by the pleasure badly enough to say she loved him made it all the worse.

It had been amazing though. Unlike with Switchboard or Gilda he hadn’t held back. Hadn’t restricted himself to trying to be careful or anything like that. Not after she spread herself open for him. Letting go like that felt so good.

And yet, he still felt off, especially as he lifted his phone up. No messages. That was fine.

He rubbed his face again, shaking it to try to refocus. He couldn’t just mope around for eternity after all. Well, okay, he could, at least so long as he didn’t age during the time stop, but that wasn’t the point. After all, he didn’t have to be home for another few hours, so why shouldn’t he stay away?

Because you have something to do.

Button blinked a few times, his breathing growing shallow for a second as the same smoke from the watch came from his eyes. His irises were slowly becoming rings of flame as he gripped the watch, his teeth gritting as his free hand curled into a fist.

Smack!

Button blinked as he barely stopped himself from falling over, the smoke disappearing almost instantly as he turned to whoever it might have been that just left his cheek a stinging mess. The assailant in question was shaking her hand out, her long, white pigtails swaying with the movement. If she was doing it because she hurt herself, she didn’t look like she cared too much. It fit with the rest of her though, from her large bust that was contained by a right, white, button up shirt, brown, business slacks, and narrow glasses that had about the only amount of frill to her outfit by having a pink frame.

He rubbed his cheek, sighing in frustration as he said, “Sugarcoat, right? From Crystal Prep?”

Sugarcoat let out a small harumph as she turned her head away from him. “Graduated, thank you. Two years before you left that mind rotting place that you call a school that left you a zombie right now. You're welcome for the wake up.”

Button frowned more, opening his mouth for a moment before looking at the watch. He didn’t see the smoke that still came off of it, but he could feel the tension in his chest. The tears that stung behind his eyes.

Click.

Button smirked a little as he let time resume, having been careful to be in the same place. Others might not catch him if he was off mark a little, but Sugarcoat was kind of a meticulous bitch. It was part of why she didn’t censor herself. If she wanted to say something, she did. Now he could do the same back, but with actions.

That was much why when she moved to look back at him, she had to ask, “Why are you smiling? I just insulted you.” She didn’t notice how the quickly lowering sun shot straight through her shirt, making the skin beneath quite visible. Normally, this wasn’t a problem for her seeing as she wore both an undershirt and bra that matched the color of her over shirt.

Now though? Well, there was a reason she had fidgeted slightly. Button had taken his time undoing her bra after all, still more than happy to take an opportunity to enjoy a nice, large set of breasts. Or, was he? Button took a sharp breath in, trying to distract him by just enjoying how her chest was outlined. She wore the shirt tight, something he even helped by tucking her shirt in tighter. It meant every crease and fold gripped her chest as best as it could, all while hiding nothing.

“Well?”

Button was very, very thankful for having an easier target right now. It was what he kind of needed right now to take the edge off, but in a whole different way as he sneered. “Sorry. I don’t like listening to anything as weak as a crystal. All flash and no strength.”

Sugarcoat’s eyes turned to murder as she narrowed them and brought her face closer. “At least I’m not as dumb as a horse, and twice as horny. Now stop staring at my chest.”

“I don’t know. Button would make for a good Link if you let him get close.”

Button’s veins turned to ice. After all, the two major high schools in town had been trying to bury the hatchet for a while. That meant more events together in an attempt to get the students to become friends. He never liked the events himself, usually having brought a Switch or the like with him in order to distract him.

That was how he met Sunny Flare. She wasn’t too different from her friends, which included Sour Sweet. Competitive to a fault, critical of others, uncaring of what others thought… but also a gamer and a cosplayer. Her hair color changed on about a monthly basis, either because she got bored or because she needed a different look for a costume. She liked having people’s attention after all, which was also why her cosplays usually got Button a little hot under the collar.

Today she had a mix of different shades of purple striped through her short hair. It was mostly tucked behind her, ending a little haphazardly from her likely deciding not to try very hard today, but she almost always kept two strands in front of her ears, letting them form two lines that ran along her sharp face. It also reminded Button of a frame to a powersuit’s helmet, but that got him punched last time he mentioned it. It was pretty distracting though when she was one of the more beautiful girls he knew, the grace of Crystal Prep not being wasted on her when she wanted to show off.

It might have helped that she wasn’t as… gifted as most of the girls he knew. Her hips were tighter, a thigh gap noticeable just below her dark blue mini-skirt. Just below that were long legs that were defined very well by black stockings, which he was amazed she bothered to put up with if she wasn’t trying to look her best. Then again, that was another thing that got him more than a share of angry glares from her if he commented about it. The final piece was a far more modest chest that rose as small bumps under her t-shirt that had the name to a metal band that Button didn’t know run across her chest.

She was one of his most consistent gaming friends too. None of her other friends really touched the things, so she was starved for good opponents and, even worse, good co-op partners. Anyone she brought in before Button couldn’t keep up with her or bored her. Once she hit him at the pep rally they met, people started spreading rumors about them dating whenever she’d come to the school to drag him away to play.

Just another thing that had slowed since he graduated. Since things changed so much. It also made it a pretty big problem to have just made one of her friends topless, at least in a practical sense.

As Button recovered from the small heart attack that was being caught by surprise from her, he slammed the button on the watch again. He ran over to the alley he’d thrown Sugarcoat’s under shirt and bra in, patting them down as best as he could to get anything from the dumpster that might have clung to them off.

He was a lot less calm as he undressed her than before, his mind somewhat forgetting the fact that he had literally all the time in the world. That meant being a lot rougher with her, reaching deeper into her pants as he tucked in her shirt, and about a dozen failed attempts to get her bra snapped into place.

Button rushed back to his mark, not trying as hard to hit it before he clicked the watch again. Everything should be fine now though. Just fine.

Sugarcoat turned to Sunny, scoffing as she said, “Don’t gi-” Her word got cut off by a high pitched squeal as her eyes widened and she stood on the balls of her feet. It wasn’t quite as visceral as the girls that had come before her, but Button had been careful to avoid this the first time he’d touched her.

Having to put a bra you drop back onto a girl over and over again in a panic made that a near impossibility. Sugarcoat was never one to let too much show, so she was surprisingly quick to recover, even as her nipples managed to become pronounced through her layers of clothes. She still didn’t immediately speak, her face bright red as she glanced between the two of them.

Sunny blinked a few times, staring at her before bluntly asking. “What the fuck was that?”

Sugarcoat turned away, fuming as she fumbled with her words for the first time Button had ever even heard of. “N-Nothing! I just, um, felt a chill run up my spine. Yes. That was it.”

Sunny glanced over at Button and then down, though Button didn’t catch the second look. She then turned back to her friend. “Sounds like you got hit by the truth.”

Button glanced over at his friend, pausing before he noticed the twitches at the edges of her lips. She was trying to hide her smirk, if not full blown grin, while torturing her friend with the same sort of matter-of-factness that she usually gave.

It made watching Sugarcoat squirm all the more satisfying as she shouted, “No! He is nothing but a worthless gamer without even good looks to make up for it like you!”

Button and Sunny blinked at that. For Sunny, it wasn’t by any means she’d heard something like that from her friend. She was much more into books than games. That didn’t mean she could resist murder entering her voice as she hissed out, “You can barely talk to me like that. Not him.”

Sugarcoat smirked as she turned her nose up at them. “Oh please. If you two were half as brave as you were in your ga-”

Button brought up the watch, tossing it up a little as he stepped over to Sugarcoat. He caught it nonchalantly as he bent down to her waist. She had a bag next to her legs, but he would rifle in there in a bit. First there was getting her ready to let out a real big yell.

The button on her pants came undone surprisingly easily, but her pants were also the loosest part of her entire outfit. That made slipping them off of her a piece of cake and Button snickered as he shoved them down with both of his hands. He could just imagine the scolding she’d do at even suggesting someone from Crystal Prep being pantsed, let alone her.

What did catch him off guard was the fact that, in stark contrast to her chaste bra, she wore a pair of lacy, thin, black panties. There was even a bit of dampness on them, though he’d been given plenty of proof for how effective even the smallest of teasing could be while time was stopped.

Button tapped his lips for a few moments as he tried to figure out what to do. His original plan had been to take her panties away and the fact that these looked kind of expensive made that idea all the more appetizing. He could make it even harder for her to get out of his bit of entrapment though if he left them.

That did mean leaving her alone for the moment though as he moved over to her bag. Opening up revealed a whole mess of items, kept in organized pockets. In one was a planner, in another was a collection of pens and pencils that even a college professor would call excessive, but neither of those would work. He considered her phone for a moment, but he didn’t want to possibly damage, or worse destroy, something of hers while he was already going so far.

Then he found her wallet. She didn’t carry any cash, had only a few cards in it, and it was a fairly neat, but deep, faux leather affair. He checked and saw it was a bit wider than one of his fingers, and about five or six inches long. Nothing impressive, but more than suitable for his purposes.

Click.

Sugarcoat didn’t even finish her word as her body simply froze. She blinked once, shifted her hips, and then let out a strangled gasp as her face turned beet red. Not that she stopped moving her hips, even as she obviously tried to look like nothing was wrong. That everything was just as it was supposed to be.

And not at all like her wallet had been pushed at least halfway up her pussy, kept trapped there now by her panties and pressed even tighter by her pants.

Sunny glanced at Button, who was now standing next to her when a second ago he’d been at least a foot away, before a wide smile spread across her face. “Oh, lost your words? Maybe if you were half as smart as us gamers, you’d be able to come up with a proper comeback.”

Sugarcoat sucked in her lips, obviously fuming as she spat out, “How dare-” Before bending over slightly, one of her hands gripping her thigh firmly as she panted. “You don’t get to-” She bit her lip, glancing away before she slowly got back to standing. Her breathing was still shallow, and her body was shaking, but she had figured out that moving wasn’t exactly going to help her.

Button didn’t even give her a chance to say anything more, not with how much Sunny seemed to be enjoying this. Instead, he stopped time one more time and stepped over to the prim and proper shirt of hers. Off came her shirt and bra again, but he wasn’t stopping there this time. That could be missed after all, just as Sugarcoat had before. Instead, he decided to try something new. Objects reacted differently to him here than they would out there.

So, he tried to pull a little at one of the buttons on her shirt. It gave him the same sort of resistance that he would expect. In fact, all of the clothes he’d had to deal with so far had given him issues. He’d had to carefully use a pair of scissors on Marina’s yoga pants for that reason. It was actually a good thing though, as snapping the buttons wouldn’t have the effect he wanted. Now it was time to see if his hypothesis would work as he began giving each button about a half dozen tugs. His final bit of prep was to move Sunny from being directly in front of Sugarcoat as a just in case.

Button was rewarded for his effort almost instantly when he started time again. Just as a person would feel all of what he did to them all at once, so could objects. As such, since he hadn’t snapped them off, or countered his first force like when he redressed the girl, they felt every tug in fast forward, the force compounding on them before they simply snapped off and shot off to who knows where.

The effect of it all had Sugarcoat’s shirt busting wide open, almost as if her breasts had somehow done it, with nothing to hide her now. She stepped forward, attempting to catch herself from the sudden pull, but it only made sure she looked down and caught how her breasts bounced in the open. It was something that seemed perhaps a little much for the girl as she stayed bent over, letting her breasts sway in the air as she let out a long whine as the last of her breath escaped her.

Sunny blinked a few times before her cheeks turned bright red. She kept her eyes on Button’s watch though while she leaned forward, whispering to her snobby friend, “You might want to run on home.”

Sugarcoat didn’t pause to give a response or the like. Instead she pulled her shirt closed with one hand while grabbing her phone with the other, all the while she ran off to find some privacy. Button, for his part seemed to be trying to look anywhere other than Sunny or Sugarcoat, his own cheeks bright red as he tried to hide his own stupid grin.

Something that obviously didn’t work as Sunny’s voice slipped into his ear. “Hey, I don’t know how you did it, but I want you to do something to me too.”

Button’s smile faded instantly before he turned to her, barely getting out, “What?” as his heart hammered in his chest. It wasn’t for any feeling of excitement though. Not when getting caught couldn’t mean anything good.

Or, could it? Sunny simply continued to smile, even if her confidence was betrayed by how she twirled one of her hangs with a finger and her face continued to be bright red. “I may like competitive games, but I’m still good at puzzles. You didn’t have that watch yesterday, you seemed able to warp around, and well…” She glanced to where Sugarcoat had been before whispering, “That.”

Button brought the watch up, putting it to his chest as it felt like his lungs were getting crushed. He pretty much forgot about her request, simply expecting her to freak out. Get mad. He had just molested her friend right in front of her.

Sunny instead just cocked her hips to the side, her eyes not able to meet his as she got out, “W-well? I want a t-taste of what you gave her. I thought we played games together after all.”

Button looked up at her, his breathing slowing as he took it in. She was being serious. Somehow she was being serious. Or, close to it. He looked into her eyes for anything that might tell him she was lying, but her confidence was still there. Not as strong as he was used to, but the intensity had remained. It made him shiver like every other time he lost himself in her purple eyes.

He clicked the watch, but he had no intention of giving her what he had given Sugarcoat. Not even close. Instead, he looked down to her face, breathing slowly still as he looked at it. At her her small lips, long lashes, and sparkling gaze. The same things that made his heart stop at that pep rally before, and now filled him with confidence now.

He leaned in, slowly, gently kissing her. It wasn’t the quick-ish peck as he had with Marina. He didn’t have to rush this one. So slowly he parted her lips, sinking deeper into her as he held her close. His tongue intertwined with hers clumsily as he desperately tried to figure out what to do. Today hadn’t had his first kisses, that went to a childhood friend who he’d agreed to stick as childhood friends with. Within the first half dozen? That sounded closer to right.

He couldn’t stay for too long, his awkwardness and worries making him want to make sure he didn’t genuinely screw it up badly enough to hurt her. If this worked anything like everything else though, it should be more than enough to make her feel good. With a nervous click, he awaited his failure.

It was indeed one. Kind of. She didn’t moan or anything like that. No, instead Sunny giggled until she laughed, gasping out “Why did you lick my teeth so much?” before having to steady herself against a street light. Button looked down, grinding his foot into the ground. He wasn’t surprised, but that didn’t mean it hurt any less.

He was just about to turn away when she suddenly crashed into him. Her arms wrapped tightly around him as the last of her giggles wracked their way through her body. When she looked up, there were tears in her eyes, but they didn’t fade as she got her breathing back under control. Neither did her smile. “You’re really something, you know that, right?”

Button’s face became flushed with color at that, his arms flailing as he tried to figure out what the world to do with them. In fact, that was only part of the larger question of what in the world was going on. “I-I-I’m not that special!”

Sunny smiled, nuzzling her face into Button’s neck with a sigh. She whispered, “Others wouldn’t have kissed me idiot,” before pressing tighter against his neck.

And then she bit him. Button’s eyes widened to the size of dinner plates before he yelped, trying to jump away from her, something that brought them both crashing to the ground. Sunny merely continued to laugh on top of him as she sat on his chest. She didn’t explain herself until she was back on her feet and turned away from him. Button tried to speak first, but her eyes, the most serious and certain he’d ever seen them, cut him off. She then said, “Your first hickey. It says you’re mine, so don’t let others grab you, got it? I’m not giving up my Link to anyone.”

Button blinked, laying on the ground as he watched her go before yelling, “Does that make you Zelda than?”

Sunny shouted back, “If you ever call me princess, you’ll next need to call me vampire because I’m not stopping with a hickey!”

Button smiled a little before collapsing. That… He believed that one. It even made him want to believe Marina. He could see the three of them together even. A small house in the quiet suburbs with them. Sunny yelling at idiots online who cost her matches. Marina snapping Button’s spine back into place to fix his bad posture. Button coming home with groceries before he ended up burning the food and they had to order take out.

The last one especially made him smile. It was something that had happened to his mom and him a lot.

He screamed the first time.

Button barely listened to the rogue thought as the watch began to smoke again. Instead he chuckled at how often they’d agree to one match, only for three hours to pass and whatever soup they’d made having evaporated entirely, leaving only the harder ingredients in the pot. Well, at least until they were burned.

He threw those at you.

Button shut his eyes tight, gripping the watch harder as the smoke turned into flames that licked at his fingers. Everything was trying to come out. He knew better than that though. Knew better than to think too hard on this stuff. He wanted to just enjoy the fantasy that he could make a family of his own. Be there with those he loved and cared about. Couldn’t he have that? Dream about getting it back?

Ring, ring.

His eyes shot open, his arm beginning to burn as he picked up his phone. It was home. That could mean so many things. It also meant that there’d be consequences if he didn’t answer it. “Hello?”

“Hey, brat, I’m out of whiskey. Make sure to pick up some on the way home, or else.”

Button grit his teeth before saying, “You know I can’t do tha-”

Click.

The watch went out as the flames transferred to Button’s eyes. He stood up, having clicked the watch the moment the man had hung up. He looked at the watch tossing it up again as he said, “You want this done?”

He caught it, his knuckles white from how hard he gripped it, his words coming out as a seething whisper now. “Then let’s get this done.”

Author's Note

The last two chapters will be coming in a week and then a week after that.