"I hate you," she whispered, not even sure which part of him she meant.
The part that pulled her away from the fireworks like she was a problem to fix? The part that saw through her like glass and still didn't look away? The part that said the exact thing she tried not to believe about herself?
Or maybe the part she kept orbiting like a moth on fire.
He looked at her straight in the eye.
"No," Katsuki said, voice low and terrifyingly sure. "You don't."
And then he kissed her.
It wasn't hesitant.
It wasn't gentle.
It was like every second they'd spent not doing this had built up behind his teeth, waiting to detonate.
His mouth crashed against hers like an argument, like punishment, like proof. Hands anchoring her waist, dragging her into him like proximity was oxygen. Her back hit the wall, hard enough to jolt a gasp from her throat—but he swallowed that too.
And she kissed him back.
Without thinking. Without planning. Without restraint.
Her fingers tangled in the front of his shirt, yanking, gripping, needing something to hold onto because the ground didn't feel solid anymore. He was heat and tension and restraint snapping under pressure, and she—
She wanted to drown in it.
She didn't think. She couldn't. Her mind was static, her pulse screaming, and her whole body felt like it had been rewired to recognize this as home.
-----
Katsuki didn't know when it happened.
When her mouth started tasting like addiction. When her hands clutched at his shirt like she was afraid he'd vanish. When the sound she made—the one against his lips, low and involuntary—turned his blood into something unmanageable.
But the kiss—god, the kiss—was too much.
Too real. Too deep. Too honest.
Her fingers fisted near his shirt. She tilted her head, opened for him like it wasn't their first kiss but their fiftieth, like her body already knew his.
It short-circuited something in him.
This wasn't how it was supposed to go. He wasn't supposed to lose control. Not with her. Not like this.
So he tore himself back. Abruptly. Breathing hard.
She stared at him, lips parted, cheeks flushed, looking exactly like a woman who'd just been kissed like a secret being let out.
"What the fuck—" she snapped, eyes blazing.
He didn't answer.
Couldn't.
His chest was tight, jaw clenched. Every cell in his body wanted to drag her back in—but his mind was already calculating escape routes. Damage control. Internal security protocols for emotional compromise.
He was furious. At her. At himself. At the fact that she was looking at him like he'd just taken something when she'd kissed him back with just as much heat.
This wasn't part of the plan.
And yet—her lipstick was smudged, and his hands still remembered the shape of her waist like it had been made for his grip.
And he didn't know what the hell to do with that.
-----
Hana stared at him.
At his mouth. Still swollen. Still parted. At the way his chest moved, fast and uneven, like he'd just sprinted through something he didn't mean to start.
She could still taste him. Still feel the press of his body, the imprint of his hands. Her skin buzzed, her lips tingled, and her brain was on fire.
He looked like he regretted it.
And for some reason, that broke her.
Not because she didn't understand—of course she did. It was Katsuki. Of course he'd think too much, pull back, try to rebuild the walls after slamming her against them.
But right now?
No. Absolutely not.
She narrowed her eyes, stepped forward.
"Screw it."
She grabbed his shirt and pulled him down hard.
Katsuki froze for a split second—caught between instinct and discipline.
Then instinct won.
Her mouth met his with a hunger that made every thought short-circuit. Tongue, teeth, breath—chaos. There was nothing careful about it now. Nothing rational. Just open mouths, crushed bodies, the sound of gasps breaking between them.
Her hands were in his hair, gripping, tugging, anchoring.
She kissed like she was done waiting.
And he kissed back like he was done pretending.
He pressed her to the wall harder this time, one arm braced beside her head, the other low around her waist. Her tongue tangled with his, slick and warm and seeking, and when she moaned—high, soft, involuntary—it nearly unmade him.
Then her thighs shifted.
Curled around his hips.
And he lost it.
What the hell am I doing, his brain said faintly, somewhere in the back.
But everything else in him—his hands, his mouth, his pulse—didn't care.
He lifted her without thinking, gripping her under her thighs as her legs locked around him. Her weight, her heat, the way her body molded into his—it was maddening.
Her arms wrapped around his neck. Her breath hitched as he kissed her again, deeper now, slower and hungrier, his tongue stroking into her mouth until she gasped into him.
"Fuck," he whispered against her lips.
Because this wasn't just a kiss anymore.
This was surrender.
He trailed his mouth down her jawline, licking the curve with maddening precision before grazing it with his teeth. Her head tilted back, exposing her throat. He nipped it gently, then soothed the skin with a warm press of his tongue.
She whimpered. Actually whimpered.
He kissed the hollow beneath her ear, her cheekbone, the corner of her mouth—anything he could reach. Every soft gasp she gave him drove him deeper into the spiral.
Her hands tugged at his hair, nails scraping lightly at his scalp. Every breath she took stoked the heat between them.
His hand slid up the front of her yukata, past the loose fold, past the cotton—until he felt the soft swell of her breast beneath his palm. Warm, alive, perfect. She arched into his touch, a sound escaping her throat that nearly undid him.
She was burning under him. She felt like a furnace. A live wire. His name whispered in moans against his jaw.
He kissed her again, open-mouthed, slow and messy, their tongues meeting in that molten press of everything they'd been holding back.
It was too much. It was nowhere near enough.
Their breathing turned ragged. Desperate.
Her yukata had slipped off one shoulder. His fingers trembled slightly as they brushed her collarbone.
Then—
Voices.
Laughter.
A group of kids tore through the edge of the alley, their sandals slapping against stone, their giggles trailing behind them like sparks.
The sound hit like a bucket of ice water.
Katsuki froze.
Then immediately let go.
Too fast.
Hana gasped—her back hit the wall as her legs dropped, and she nearly stumbled, catching herself just in time. Her feet scraped against the uneven ground, yukata half-askew, shoulder bare.
He stepped back like he'd been burned.
She didn't look at him.
Didn't dare.
Her hands moved quickly, almost mechanically—fixing the tie at her waist, pulling the fabric back into place, smoothing the wrinkles with too much force.
Her heart was still slamming against her ribs.
And then—without a word, without so much as a glance—she turned.
And ran.
------
He didn't follow her.
Not right away.
Couldn't.
His hands were still shaking.
Not visibly—he wasn't that far gone—but enough that he knew. Enough that he didn't trust himself to go after her without making it worse.
So he reached into his pocket. Lit a cigarette with the precision of a man reassembling his dignity one step at a time.
Inhale. Hold. Exhale.
Smoke curled toward the sky, dissipating into the warm night air like something trying to escape.
"The fuck did I just do?"
His voice was quiet. Just a breath. Not even a question, really. More like a reckoning.
He stared at the spot where she'd disappeared. Still couldn't look away.
Her yukata. Her legs around him. Her breath in his ear. The sound she made when he bit her throat. The way she kissed him like she was furious and starving at the same time.
And then the look on her face when he dropped her.
He could still hear the echo of her footsteps when she ran.
Then the sky lit up.
The first bloom of color burst above the trees—loud, bright, too cheerful for the state of his nervous system. Gold, red, a flicker of green. A dozen festivalgoers cheered in the distance.
He didn't move.
She'd been waiting for this.
She said she wanted to watch them from the town center.
And instead of standing beside her with his usual emotional detachment and forced civility, he'd pressed her against a wall and—
Fuck.
The cigarette burned too fast between his fingers. He flicked the ash away and took another drag, as if it would steady something that had already cracked.
And then, beneath the fireworks and smoke and self-loathing, a thought surfaced.
A possibility.
What if she didn't come back?
To Nagoya. To the firm. To him.
He didn't let himself answer it.
Didn't want to think about how quiet the office would be without her typing like a gremlin on six cups of coffee. Or how meetings would stretch on without her dumb little interjections that made Kai laugh. Or how his apartment would feel when he opened the door and realized he wasn't secretly waiting to hear her voice again.
He didn't do emotional spirals.
He did projections. Strategy. Control.
But this—this mess? This ache in his chest that felt like something valuable slipping through his fingers?
There wasn't a playbook for that.
And the worst part was, he knew—
If she didn't come back, it wouldn't be because she couldn't.
It would be because he gave her a reason not to.
------
Hana didn't care about the fireworks anymore.
Screw the fireworks.
She ran the entire way home in her sandals, which was both emotionally dramatic and physically questionable, because by the time she reached the house her chest was on fire and her left heel felt like it had been personally targeted by karma.
She didn't even go inside. Just slumped down onto the engawa like a tragic heroine from a Meiji-era melodrama, yukata rumpled, lips still tingling, and brain in full-blown shutdown mode.
What. The actual. Hell.
She pressed her hands over her face and exhaled like it might release the demon of horny decision-making that had clearly possessed her in the last fifteen minutes.
Okay. Recap. Review. Emotional autopsy.
She kissed him.
No—wait. He kissed her first.
And then she kissed him back like it was her full-time job with overtime benefits and zero HR oversight.
And then—oh god.
Her legs were around him. His hands. His mouth. His—
She slapped her cheeks lightly, like that would reboot the system.
He was good. So good. Too good, actually. Suspiciously good. Like someone who knew exactly how to kiss a woman until her spine forgot how to function.
And all she could think about now was—
Did I taste like yakitori?
Because she definitely had two skewers. Maybe three. One was garlic. Shit.
She groaned and rolled onto her side like a croissant.
"It's just a kiss," she muttered aloud, glaring up at the stars like they were judging her. "A very hot, very illegal, very emotionally compromising kiss."
She stared out at the night sky, fireworks still bursting faintly in the distance, half-hidden by the roof tiles.
A breeze drifted by. Her yukata shifted.
She didn't move.
"I hope I was good," she whispered.
Then promptly buried her face in her sleeve.
Because if she wasn't, she was never showing her face at the firm again.
Ever.