Slight Naughty CW: it's just some spicy flirting so not worth a mature tag imo, but just to be 100% safe!

Drew this awhile back for fun. I have a larger one-shot story for it that I'll write some day. Maybe. But here's a small fun chunk for now to accompany the image! Akemi and my alt sona, Tilly!

The elevator was a tight fit for Akemi, but that was not exactly new to him. Even those designed for larger dragons as himself were often still too small. He sighed deep and low, his heavy lungs extruding warm air across his whiskers. As much as he hoped the lift would take him straight up, it unfortunately stopped just two floors up. It was a convention, after all, and everyone was going up and down, back and forth between their rooms and the bustling con center. He was used to it—it was not his first rodeo—but it still turned that ball of anxiety within him.

When the door opened, his eye instinctively shifted away, and his head lowered to cover his face with the brim of his large hat. Normally, once people saw the occupancy they did not bother hopping on, but desperate times called for desperate measures at events such as this. He tucked his tail in tight around his feet to open up any remaining space.

The gentle tapping of hooves on the metal floor paused just short of entry. It was almost as if the person was reconsidering their decision. After a moment, the tapping resumed as the person ultimately did enter, and the door closed behind them. Akemi did not look at them.

He tried not to, anyway.

The person stepped forward: a bit too forward. Their small form pressed up against the larger dragon’s stomach. When his green eye nervously shifted to see who it was, he recognized a familiar face: a lithe mammalian dragoness. He remembered her from the Artist Alley; he had gotten a print from her the day before. Her name was Tilly, if he recalled.

                “Hi, again,” she said to him kindly. She did not even seem to notice—or care—that her small breasts were resting against him. Oh, no. He thought. Don’t think about that.

After an awkward pause, he replied. “…Hi.”

                “I liked talking to you yesterday,” she said. He was becoming increasingly aware of how she was looking at him, even despite his attempts to keep his own eye turned away.  

                “Oh… I’m glad to hear that,” he replied. As the elevator kept going up, she pushed in closer to him. She had to have been doing it on purpose, right? Should he say something? He did not mind it, but that was not exactly a gentlemanly thing to consider. It was not as if he had much room to move away, though.

Then she just made it worse. “Did I tell you how cute you are?”

Oh. Oh, no. Another pause. He had to think about how to respond. No one had ever said something like that to him before. She did not seem to mind the awkward silence—perhaps she was used to it after their previous conversations. At last, he just replied with a simple: “N-No?”

                “Well, you are. Thought you should know. And I’m not just saying that cause you bought something, I thought about telling you before you ever did that.”

Akemi was starting to feel… things. His cheeks were growing warm with embarrassment. His claws were nervously fidgeting. The elevator stopped once again at a higher floor, which only made him more flustered as he imagined the person or people seeing them standing there awkwardly as the door opened. No one else entered. The door closed back. He did not know if it would have been better or worse if someone had joined them.

                “Y-You never picked your floor…” he said to break the topic. He turned his head towards the panel to his right and lifted his hand towards it, hovering a large knuckle over the silver buttons. “…Which one?”