Katsuki walked back to the house with the precision of someone manually reassembling his self-control. His steps were steady. Controlled. Deceptively casual.
Internally? He was spiraling.
Because he could still feel her.
Her weight, her heat, the imprint of her breath against his skin. Her voice, all high and wrecked and whispering his name like it meant something.
He opened the front door. It slid with a soft click.
She was at the chabudai. Legs folded underneath her, angrily slurping from a styrofoam cup of instant ramen. She froze when she saw him, mid-noodle. Then resumed slurping with determination.
"We should talk about it," he said.
She didn't look up. "Do you want some?"
"No."
"'Kay."
Another aggressive slurp.
Right. Good. This was going well.
He could feel the tension in his jaw, the way his molars were slowly grinding themselves into chalk dust.
She didn't even look like someone who'd just had her legs around his waist ten minutes ago. She looked like someone who was winning.
Hana stirred her noodles half-heartedly, watching the soy-slicked strands swirl like they might form some sort of prophetic message, or maybe a blackout spiral. Her face was unreadable, which, frankly, was dangerous. Because her brain was anything but.
Why was he standing there like an accusation in shorts? Why did her face feel hot and why were her fingers still slightly trembling and why, why, did her stupid mouth have to remember everything about the way he tasted?
She wasn't going to ask. She wasn't.
But—goddammit.
"Did I smell like yakitori?"
Katsuki's browns furrowed. "Is that… your concern right now?"
"Yeah," she muttered, stabbing a fishcake. "God forbid I smelled like a chicken."
He paused. Genuinely considering it.
"…Garlic."
She groaned and buried her face in her hands. "Oh my god, kill me."
And then he said it.
"Look, it was a mistake."
There it was.
Hana didn't move. Not at first.
Because if she moved, something would crack. She could feel it—right there, on the edge of her ribs, where her lungs had gone still.
A mistake.
Right.
Okay.
Her body stayed very still, but her mind? Chaos. Her mind was already tearing through a hundred files of stored memories and spitting them all out at once.
Because he was the one who told her not to shrink herself. Who said she wasn't the problem, that the men she dated just couldn't keep up. He said not to act demure, not to make herself small for people who didn't deserve her.
And now?
Apparently kissing her was a misstep. A clerical error. Something to delete from the record.
She inhaled sharply and stood, still not looking at him. "That's fine, Katsuki."
His name came out clean. Polished. Unbothered.
It made his stomach twist.
"Let's just forget it happened," she said. "We've got an early drive tomorrow."
Then she disappeared into the other room.
Katsuki stared at the spot where she'd just been.
Goddamn idiot. What the hell was he thinking? Why did his mouth always short-circuit the second he had to talk about anything remotely emotional? Why couldn't he just say what he meant, which was—what? That he didn't regret it? That he wanted more?
No. No, that would be worse.
He cursed under his breath.
He hadn't just stepped on a landmine—he'd built one, gift-wrapped it, and jumped on it with both feet.
-----
The door slid shut with a soft thud.
Hana stood in the middle of the room for a second like she'd forgotten how to human. Her body didn't feel like hers. Her brain was going about 300 kilometers an hour, firing off every worst-case scenario with the precision of a mental war crime.
It was a mistake.
Mistake. Mistake. Mistake.
She changed into her oversized t-shirt—her comfort armor. The one with a faded "No Thoughts, Head Empty" print that, frankly, hit a little too close to home tonight.
Then she sat down.
Slumped, really. Knees to her chest, hair sticking to her face.
Why did it sting?
She knew better. She knew what this was. He wasn't built for soft things. Or messy things. Or chaos in the shape of a girl with yakitori breath and abandonment issues.
Still.
He didn't ghost her.
Not yet.
Her chest ached at that thought. Because the last time she felt this—the burn, the mortification, the shame that maybe she had misread everything—it ended with a text that never came. A silence that never broke.
And Katsuki?
He was already starting to sound like an echo of that same silence.
It's fine, Hana. Let's just forget it happened.
Yeah.
Sure.
She pushed herself up and caught sight of herself in the mirror.
Eyes wide. Mouth flushed. Face still pink.
And there—faint, unmistakable, blooming at her jawline—
A hickey.
Her jaw dropped.
"What the fuck?!"
She leaned in, yanked the neckline of her shirt aside like it had betrayed her. Nope. Still there. Stark against her skin like a war trophy.
God. Great. Amazing.
He called it a mistake and marked her like property.
Fucking incredible.
She pressed her forehead to the mirror. Exhaled hard.
Maybe if she stood still long enough, the universe would delete her.
Or at the very least, give her a damn reset button.
-----
She didn't sleep. Not even a little.
Which was honestly impressive, considering how bone-deep exhausted she was. But apparently, her body had decided that sleep was a luxury and shame-induced insomnia was her new personality trait.
Because it was a mistake was still playing on a loop in her head. Like an unskippable ad. With surround sound. And subtitles. In bold.
It was a mistake. It was a mistake. It was a mis— okay, brain, we get it.
She sat up with a groan and peeled herself off the tatami like a sad rice cracker. Her mouth tasted like regret and artificial chicken flavor, and her eyes were definitely swollen—but whatever. She had twelve more hours of pretending to be emotionally functional before she could scream into a pillow in her bedroom in Nagoya. Just twelve hours.
Easy.
She could do twelve hours.
Of course, those twelve hours involved being in close proximity to him—the man who made out with her like his life depended on it, then immediately called it a clerical error.
Cool. Totally fine. Not emotionally unhinged about it at all.
She padded over to her travel pouch, rifled through the organized chaos of hair ties, receipts, and forgotten lip tints, and pulled out a pink Hello Kitty bandaid.
One press over the hickey on her jaw—cute, unhinged, plausible deniability. Crisis managed.
She slid the door open and stepped onto the engawa.
The air was cool, still heavy with morning dew. The sky had that quiet, pale gold tint like it wasn't sure what kind of day it wanted to be. Typical small-town indecision.
Rei was already out there, nursing a cup of black coffee and a cigarette, shirt sleeves rolled up, hair tousled like he'd just fought off a bear and won. Or, more likely, fixed something mechanical before dawn. Sukehiro men didn't sleep; they brooded.
She sat beside him without a word. Leaned into his shoulder like muscle memory.
He didn't move.
Just exhaled a long stream of smoke and said, "Whose leg do I get to break today?"
She barked a laugh before she could stop it. Her legs swung idly off the engawa, like she wasn't emotionally imploding inside.
"I'm fine," she said, breezy and bright, because that's what you do when you're falling apart. You accessorize it with denial.
Rei grunted. That was his way of saying bullshit.
Then, "You don't have to accept that job if it makes you miserable."
Her smile faltered, just for a second. She tucked her hands into her sleeves.
"It doesn't."
"You look miserable."
"I look awesome," she said, chipper, even as her voice cracked on the tail end.
And then—because silence was dangerous and she couldn't let the moment stretch long enough for him to see through her—she started talking. Fast. Too fast.
"We can replace the old press with my next salary," she said. "Hire someone to handle the seasonal marketing. Maybe get a local influencer to do a collab. I'll buy a new truck. Send money back for the roof repairs. And the plumbing. And—"
"We're okay here," Rei said.
His voice was gentle. Final.
She stared out at the yard, jaw tight. "I know."
And she did know.
The Sukehiros had survived war, earthquakes, debt, and three generations of being wildly, stupidly stubborn. They didn't need her money.
But that wasn't the point.
She needed to give it.
Because otherwise—what was the point of all of this? Of going back to Nagoya, of being constantly underestimated by clients and micromanaged by a man who kissed her like she was a necessity and then labeled her a mistake? What was the point of trying so hard, if all it did was leave her raw and replaceable?
She wanted to be useful. Indispensable. Needed.
She wanted to matter somewhere. To someone.
Rei didn't say anything for a long time. Just sipped his coffee like he was letting her be a disaster in peace.
Then he said, "If Nagoya gets too much again, let us know. I'll pick you up."
She swallowed hard.
"Yeah," she said. Just that.
Because anything more and she would've cried.
She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. The slope of his nose. The line of his jaw. His calm, steady presence that never once demanded an explanation.
Rei had always been her anchor. Eight years older. Protective in a quiet way that never made her feel small. When she was twelve and sobbing over being called "weird" at school, he taught her how to throw a proper right hook and made her laugh so hard she forgot why she was sad. When she failed the bar the first time, he didn't say anything—just made her yakisoba and sat beside her until the shame passed.
And when her ex ghosted her and she disappeared into her room for three straight days, he didn't ask questions.
He just waited.
And now—he didn't say her name, didn't push, didn't ask why she was wearing a pink bandaid at six a.m. like she was covering emotional war wounds.
He just offered to pick her up. No questions. No conditions.
Because he knew.
He always knew.
And if she fell apart again—if Nagoya cracked her open and Katsuki stomped on what was left—Rei would come get her.
No judgment. No shame.
Just home.