After about ten minutes of slow, deep thrusts, Yuji began to pull out more often, then slide back in. He started varying the rhythm, drawing back just a little before coming close to her again. He could feel the tension building and to keep from being overwhelmed, he tried to slow down, think of something else and breathe more deeply.
Then Aiko bit her lip, her hand slowly moving up to her breasts, squeezing them firmly. She lifted her gaze toward him and her blue eyes sparkled with a desire Yuji knew well—and to which he couldn't resist.
His self-control snapped in an instant. He moved closer again, his hands gripping her thighs to draw her toward him as the rhythm grew more intense. The air in the room filled with the sound of their movements, so loud that if someone had walked down the hallway, they might have heard them. But in that moment, neither of them seemed to care.
Aiko let the manga go and clung to him, her fingers tightening on the fabric of his T-shirt, searching for something to hold on to as the pace quickened. Her breathing grew irregular, at times broken by little moans that seemed to become more frequent.
Yuji never took his eyes off her face, watching every slightest expression: the faint furrow of her brows, the way her lips parted, the light that flared in her eyes. Every sign was an invitation to go on.
He leaned toward her, his warm breath against her cheek and whispered something that stayed between them—a brief phrase, but enough to make her clutch him even tighter.
The air in the room grew heavier, the outside world reduced to a distant silence. In that moment, there was only their bodies in motion, the shared rhythm, and that mounting sensation that was about to overwhelm them both.
"Oh... Aiko... I have to..."
"Yes, Yuji... you have to cum inside me, I already told you that..."
The pace didn't slow; on the contrary, it continued steadily for a few more minutes, until she lost all control. Aiko raised a hand to her mouth to stifle a loud sound, but her body spoke for her: her back arching, the manga slipping from her hand and falling to the floor, her legs trembling uncontrollably.
Yuji paused for just a moment—long enough to grip her hips and draw her even closer. He held his breath, his face tense and stayed like that for a few seconds, completely focused on the sensation that bound them together.
"Yuji… you are…" Aiko's voice was an uncertain whisper, interrupted by her breathing, "…filling me...so much..."
There was a brief pause, their eyes locking onto each other. Then he answered, his tone lower and more resolute:
"Of course… you're mine."
***
Soon after, still half-dressed, they drank tea from thick cups, still too hot despite everything. They talked about nothing and everything: the funny customers, Megumi pretending to hate cats, the tanuki that would change address the next day. Now and then silence fell—not as a void, but like a blanket.
Yuji unwrapped the bandages from his wrists. The pale trace of the line Aiko had drawn the day before was still visible.
"The boundary is still here," he said, touching his chest. "It helped me choose better."
"Boundaries aren't meant to keep us apart," Aiko said. "They're meant to decide what we let into our lives. "
They smiled at the same time, like a reflection.
Then came a sweet little kiss, tasting of tea and rain, of weariness giving in and of a hunger different from that of a long shift. Later, with the window fogged by a thin veil of water and the kettle long gone cold, Aiko looked up at the ceiling.
"Your poster's crooked."
"I'll straighten it in the morning."
"If I wake up here."
"Wake up here," he said.
She looked at him sideways, a smile that didn't need to convince anyone. "Okay."
Outside, the world went on slamming its doors. Inside, for a few hours, there were only sounds in the steam: water settling back in the teapot, two breaths seeking each other in the dark, a room small enough to keep everything close. Tomorrow the tanuki would have its turn. But not now.
Now, there was only them.
***
The light came through the curtain in slanted stripes, settling on the parquet floor and the rumpled blanket. The air in the room was thick with warmth and familiar scents: the tea now gone cold, the rain that had tapped for hours against the windows, the faint trace of their bodies still lingering close.
Yuji's room was small, tidy in its own way: that stubborn cactus on the windowsill, leaning slightly to the right, the poster still crooked in its usual spot, a chair pretending to be a coat rack.
Aiko opened her eyes when she felt the mattress shift. Yuji's back was to her, dressed in a black T-shirt, the bandages half-unwound on his left wrist. He was doing push-ups slowly, almost on his fingertips, as if not to wake the room. She watched him move up and down, arms taut, his body strong and statuesque. But at the fifth push he turned his head, caught her awake, and blushed as if he'd been caught stealing cookies.
"Uh—good morning!" he blurted, with that smile of his that starts before his eyes. "I was… well… warming up the floor. For you." He rubbed the back of his head.
"What a gentleman." Aiko sat up, pushing her hair behind her back and pulling the blanket around her. "The floor thanks you."
Yuji jumped to his feet, both embarrassed and proud. "I made breakfast! I mean… I tried."
He set down a brave little tray on the bed: two still-steaming cups, a bowl of "travel" miso soup, three suspiciously shaped onigiri (one looked like a heart, or maybe a triangle seen through a fish's eyes) and half an apple cut into not-so-regular cubes.
"They're… beautiful," Aiko said, raising an affectionate eyebrow with a smile. "And what's this?"
"Heart-shaped onigiri. Cooked with love. And a bit of anxiety." He scratched his neck, laughing.
"Maybe eat the normal one, first."
"I'm taking the heart." She said it like a promise. Then, before biting into it, she leaned over and kissed his shoulder, right where the T-shirt gave way. "Thank you."
Yuji sat down on the edge of the bed, his face reddening. He was careful, as though handling something precious—and that was exactly what it was. His large hands moved slowly, gently: a cup offered to her, a folded napkin, a piece of apple rescued from falling.
They drank the first sip in silence. Steam rose to their faces. Aiko wrote inside it with an invisible finger.
"Password?" she asked, as if it were a party game.
Yuji nodded, both serious and tender.
"Steam. If I disappear and can't write, you write 'steam' and send it to me. I'll call back right away. Steam means you're in danger, okay?"
"All right." She leaned closer, smoothing out his T-shirt with two fingers. "Steam, then."
He looked at her the way you look at something you never grow tired of seeing. It was simple, direct, unmistakably his: the gaze of someone hungry, yes—but above all, hungry for her.
"You're beautiful in the morning," he said, with no pretense. "I mean, also at night, also when you're running between tables, also when you laugh at the tanuki pictures… but in the morning, you win."
Aiko laughed softly. "Tough competition—the tanuki is charismatic." She bit into the heart-shaped onigiri. "Mmm. Tastes like rice and… Yuji."
"I'll take that as good news."
His fingers brushed her wrist—gentle, calibrated, the way he could stop a strike in training by holding back the strength at the very last second.
"May I?" he asked, almost a whisper.
"Of course you may." Aiko set her hand on the back of his neck, guiding him closer. The kiss tasted of too-hot tea and of a promise kept quietly. There was no rush; the tray between them remained untouched, like a little white flag.
"Yesterday…" Yuji drew breath, searching for the right words. With her, he didn't cheat. "I talked to her. To Hana. I texted you 'Done.' I said no. Clear. I feel… clean. So much better."
"I know." She brushed his wrist, right where the imaginary line she had drawn the day before still seemed warm. "Not because you told me now. Because it shows."
Yuji smiled, a light rising from within. "I want to be good with you. Not perfect—good. Like… remembering you don't like daikon, and that tofu needs protection from my appetite."
"And that if Gojo tries to sing at the table again, you stop him with a special-grade exorcism."
"That's a suicide mission."
They laughed, breaking bites in half, she stealing a piece of apple and he letting her take it as though it were some sophisticated ritual. Aiko poked his side.
"How many push-ups did you do?"
"Not many. I didn't want to wake you. And also…" He looked at her, his face tinged with red. "Just watching you sleep was enough. Is that strange?"
"It's sweet. But next time wake me up—I want to see the onigiri turn into that fish shape." She straightened the poster, gently. "So it suffers less."
"Thanks. He's a survivor too."
Yuji cleared his throat. "Tonight I'll stop by the restaurant. I'll take the tanuki with me. And… after closing, if you'd like… we could stay at my place again for a while. Just us. Tea, cookies that aren't expired, and me listening to you talk until you fall asleep."
"You're courting me with the full package?"
"With the annual subscription."
Aiko narrowed her eyes, mock stern. "Conditions?"
"Only one: warn me with 'steam' if you're tired and want me to come sooner. And—" He stopped, embarrassed. "And let me say what I think when I look at you. Like now."
"Say it."
Yuji stretched out his arm, like he was making an oath. "I think I adore you. Not in the big, loud way. In the way that sits here"—he touched his chest—"and grows when you laugh. And when you pretend to be strict. And when you eat my ugly onigiri as if it were art."
Aiko's eyes grew shiny, like after a run. "It is art," she said. "Itadori's art."
He bowed his head, a little clumsy, a little proud. Then he took her hands and warmed them between his own, warm breath and careful fingertips. The kettle gave a short sound, like applause.
"Okay, Mr. Itadori," she concluded, in the tone of someone signing a happy truce. "Rules for the day: one, you train your heart and your muscles in equal measure. Two, I survive the rush without killing anyone with the POS machine. Three, 'steam' if something changes."
"Four," he added, serious and cheerful all at once. "Tonight I bring you back here, to this little room that smells of detergent and cactus. And you straighten the poster again, if anything happens."
"Deal."
They finished breakfast with a slowness that wasn't laziness, but care. Before leaving, Yuji wrote on the window's condensation with his finger: steam. Then, beneath it, a crooked heart. "I'm signing the contract," he said, laughing.
Aiko stole one last kiss and slipped into his sweatshirt—too big for her, perfect for carrying his scent with her. "See you among good sounds," she murmured at the door.
"See you later…" he answered, almost sadly.
The door closed without a sound. The room was left with the tea still warm, and a simple promise holding steady.
Later, at the restaurant, the world would start running again.
Tramonto Rosso — Opening
Aiko was the first to step into the Tramonto Rosso. The shutter rolled up with a sigh of metal and the bell above the door rang once, like a greeting. Inside lingered the smell of the day before: basil and frying oil, tea left unfinished the previous night, wood slick with time, the cool of fish that would soon rest on ice, the weary sweetness of rice.
She switched on the lights one row at a time, from the counter to the kitchen, as if waking a house. She tied her hair up, knotted her apron, and ran her fingers across the table-cloths to smooth out the deeper creases. The restaurant answered in small noises: the fridge gathering courage, the hood giving a cough, the water beginning to warm in the stockpot.
She saw it immediately.
The box was not in its place.
The night before, she had sealed it with a strip of tape and left it in the back, high on the shelf of things-that-aren't-needed-but-can't-be-thrown-away. Now, instead, it sat by the register, like a customer waiting to pay the bill. The marker with which she had written Maybe not on the wrapping paper looked darker, as if it had slept badly.
Aiko frowned and felt, just for a second, that little chill that doesn't come from the hood. Then she shook her head. Mom moved it. If her mother had earned a Yen for every item put "where it fits better," they would have already opened a second location.
She carried it back to the kitchen and set it on the lower shelf, behind the sacks of rice. "Stay here, my round-bellied friend," she muttered. "Far from the register and close to serious things."
She took out her phone, snapped two pictures—one from a distance, one up close—and saved them as a draft without sending. Then came the morning gestures: soaking the beans, measuring salt, checking supplies, lining up chopsticks and forks like patient little soldiers.
Her mother came in with a ring of keys and an oversized coat, scented with soap.
"Did you sleep?"
"Yes."
"Did you eat?"
"Yes, Mom. Now the broth..."
Her mother kissed her cheek in passing and turned the radio to a channel that played Italian songs from the '60s.
"Oh, I put the glasses away. Don't go blaming imaginary culprits if they're not where you want them."
Aiko seized the moment.
"Did you move the box? The brown one with maybe not written on it?"
"What box?"
"The one… with the souvenirs."
"No, darling. I haven't touched souvenirs in years."
Her father arrived shortly after, hands cold and carrying crates from the fishmonger. "The tuna is in a good mood." He set down his knife, tasted the broth with the seriousness of a judge. "Good," he decreed, then noticed the radio. "Turn that music off, I just woke up!"
Aiko asked him too about the box. He shook his head. "I didn't even know there was a souvenir box."
But...how…?