"Hey," his voice came immediately. "When are you coming home?"
She said nothing.
"I miss you," he added quickly. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that earlier. I didn't mean it. I'll do better. I promise."
His voice softened, careful, almost rehearsed. Just like the beginning, when he was trying to fulfill the role of her husband properly.
She listened quietly then spoke.
"I know you meant it," she said calmly.
"What?"
"You meant exactly what you said." Her voice was steady. Too steady. "It's fine."
"Yumi—"
"You don't have to pretend."
She realised something then. He should not change. He should not try. He should just be himself. Do whatever he wanted. Act however he pleased.
She doesn't know how long they have left either; it's best he just live to his fullest. Sounds overly altruistic to be her, but the least she cares about right now is some empty attention.
"I had already forgotten about everything. Been busy and will be very busy the next few days," she said calmly. "So I'm not coming home tonight. You should relax and do whatever."
"Yumi," he frowned. "Are you mad?"
"No."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"What are you doing?"
"Eating."
"..."
"If nothing else, then I'll go."
She ended the call.
Lewis watched her closely but said nothing.
At home, Toji stared at the darkened screen long after the line disconnected, his thumb hovering where her name still glowed faintly.
She stayed in the office for days. Two, maybe three. Time blurred until it stopped meaning anything at all.
She slept on the couch they had prepared for her, ate when Lewis reminded her, and worked until the words on the screen stopped forming sentences.
And yet, for all that motion, nothing came of it.
There was no sudden clarity. No decisive resolve crashing into her like she had half expected. No solution. No answer waiting at the end of the exhaustion. What was she even looking for anymore? Was it a solution? Solution to what actually?
What did she even want?
"Want."
The word felt laughable.
She had never been in a position to want anything in the first place.
What eventually settled into her bones was acceptance.
The boss had always taken whatever she cared about the moment he noticed the attachment.
He did it when she was small, when she clung too tightly to a blanket or a toy. When she cried over a kitten she fed scraps to behind the estate walls. Things she cared for would disappear overnight.
Love was a liability.
He had taught her that lesson by removing it again and again, calmly, methodically, until the message carved itself into her blood.
If he did not remove the obstacle, he would say, then the obstacle would remove her.
She understood now that Toji was no different.
When she finally went home, her chest felt hollowed out, her body heavier than it should have been.
Toji was more affected by the sound of the door opening than he expected. He had spent the past three days rotting in that apartment, waiting. Waiting without admitting it, gaslighting himself into believing he was not.
But he was.
He fought with himself over calling her, over texting, over showing up uninvited. In the end, he knocked himself out with alcohol more than once, hoping sleep would erase the feeling.
It did not.
He tried to go out. To meet old contacts. Old assassin mates. To drink and forget like he always had.
It never worked.
She stepped inside, and this time he moved fast.
"Yumi."
He pulled her into a desperate hug before she could react. The contact made her chest ache sharply. She almost cried on the spot, which confused her more than anything else.
His voice saying her name made her want to melt.
"Toji," she whispered.
"Say it again," he demanded.
"Why."
"I want to hear it."
"Why," she mocked, "Are you in love with me or something."
"Of course I am. I'm your husband."
He kissed her forehead, then finally pulled back to look at her properly.
She looked the same. Or maybe she didn't.
He could not quite tell. She looked tired. Of course she did. She had not been home in days.
"Only because I pay," a pouty response.
"Does it make it feel better saying that?" he pressed another kiss to her cheeks.
His affection made something in her crack. Her eyes reddened immediately, and she turned away.
"Look at me."
His arms stayed wrapped around her, tight and close. "Did you miss me too?"
"No."
Her voice caught halfway through the word. Damn it.
"I'm sorry," he said softly. "Are you still upset about that day. I was stupid. Come on. Forgive this old man."
He nuzzled against her. "Let me help you wash up."
And so they returned to something that looked normal.
But it was not the same.
There was a distance between them now. An invisible wall that had not existed before.
Even though she came back to the apartment, she rarely stayed. She slipped in after midnight, left again before sunrise.
She had lived like this before, but now the time she spent at home was even less. Their shared space became somewhere they almost never occupied together.
Yumi worked like she was racing something invisible. As if slowing down even slightly would allow it to catch her.
Toji would wake to the faint smell of coffee and burnt candles, find her already dressed in sharp lines, dark circles beneath her eyes.
She left before dawn and returned long after nightfall, hands trembling when she thought no one was watching, chin lifted like it always was.
It was her way of proving she had not changed.
To her father.
To the watchers she knew he had placed around her.
She was still efficient and obedient to the structure that owned her.
At first, Toji thought she was simply built differently. Probably ridiculously busy.
Then the cracks started to show.
She took her pills more often now without hiding nor explaining.
She would shake one into her palm, swallow it dry, and move on like it meant nothing.
"You okay?" he questioned once.
"Always," she replied swiftly, already walking away.
Toji did not understand it.
But he knew something was wrong.
---
Then came a night when she returned even later than usual.
He waited.
Ten o'clock. Midnight. Two.
When the door finally opened, she stumbled inside.
Her steps were uneven. Her pupils were blown wide. She smelled of whiskey and rain, her coat slipping halfway off her shoulders.
"Oh," she slurred faintly when she noticed him. "You're awake."
"You're high." He walked toward her, brows furrowing immediately.
"I'm functioning." She tried to move past him.
He caught her wrist. "How much did you take?"
"Stop asking."
"Yumi."
"I said stop asking." She struggled against his grip. "You should listen to me. I'm technically your boss."
"Yes, boss," he said tightly. "And I'm your husband."
He tried to guide her toward the couch, but she shoved at his chest, weak but angry.
"You are when I tell you to be."
"Yumi-" He reached down, trying to cup her face.
"Don't!"
Her voice snapped sharp enough to cut.
"Don't fucking touch me. Leave me the hell alone!"
She tore herself free, breathing hard. "I didn't pay for you to manage me like a damn mother, you old ass man! Leave me alone when I didn't call for you. Understood!?"
He froze.
That tone was new.
She had never spoken to him like that before. Never angry. Never sharp.
It stung. More than he expected.
She turned and stalked down the hallway toward her office.
He followed anyway. "You're shaking, Yumi."
"None of your damn business."
He exhaled, frustration clawing up his chest. "It is my goddamn business, you brat. Let me do my job right. Why are you pissed? Shouldn't I be pissed!? You think I like babysitting and watching you destroy yourself like an unhappy teenage girl who recently discovered drugs?"
She stopped and spun around.
"Shut the hell up. You don't get to watch." Her glare was furious, but her voice cracked. "You do as I say and that's the deal."
The words landed heavy.
He wanted to argue. Wanted to snap back. Wanted to grab her and force her to sit down.
But the way her eyes glistened stopped him cold.
It hurt. It really did.
Why did it hurt this much?
He did not know. That scared him more than anything else. How deeply she affected him. How tightly she had wrapped herself around something inside him. How much he felt when she pulled away.
How much he lov—
He cut the thought off violently.
She disappeared into her office and shut the door.
Toji leaned back against the wall in the hallway and slid down until he was sitting on the floor. His fingers threaded into his hair, gripping hard as he exhaled a long, shaky breath.
"Yumi, damn it..." he muttered under his breath.