♫ 'Hush-a-bye, hush-a-bye now.
My good Anri, sleep.
Where did my boy's sitter go?
Beyond that mountain, back to her home.
A souvenir from her home,
What did you get?
A toy drum and a Sho flute.'♫[1]
"It's okay, Anri…you're okay…"
"Mum…you and Dad will be here when I wake up, right?"
—
"Kai,"
The sound of my own voice makes me stir. Not all at once—enough to make my heart flutter with a sickly drop—I mumble something incoherent into my pillow before I realise I'm actually awake.
My room is dim and grey with early morning light, the kind that slips through the blinds, turning everything soft around the edges. My phone is still propped against my pillow where I left it, screen darkened a little from inactivity—I shift again, swiping my finger over the screen until it brightens.
The call is still going.
For a second, heat crawls up my neck—what if he heard me talking in my sleep?—but I look closer at the screen with groggy eyes. Kai's room is mostly dark; enough natural light for me to make out how he looks softer in sleep. The blankets are pushed low over his waist, and one of his arms is half under his pillow as if, at some point in the night, he stopped caring about how he looked. His hair is a mess, dark and soft, where it droops over his forehead. Without his usual stare pinning me in place, his face looks different. Even with the scratch on his lip, he doesn't look icy anymore. Doesn't look like someone who made another man beg for his life last night.
Made me beg for him. Well, it's not like he held me at gunpoint—not like Akio. I practically offered that little piece of myself as if a switch had been flipped. God, I can't believe he actually saw that side of me.
Stolen glances at Kai sleeping quickly turn into full-blown ogling. He looks almost cherubic in sleep, all the sharpness gone from his features, innocence painting across his face by dreams he'd never confess to.
It somehow unsettles me more than if he'd looked cruel.
Last night comes back in flashes before I can stop it. Kai's voice through the speaker, the sight of him on that bed with his sweatpants hanging indecently low on his hips, the way he said 'Mine' as if the word had been waiting on his tongue for years. My body still feels loose and wrung out from what we did, heavy in that boneless way that should be embarrassing to wake up in.
Instead, all I can think about is that he didn't end the call. All I can think about is that he made me feel wanted—that he looked at me the way I've always wanted him to.
I don't even know why that part gets to me so much—and it's not even the things he admitted. Not the violence sitting underneath his skin as if it belongs there.
We both fell asleep without hanging up. That's cute on paper, right? It shouldn't feel like such a spectacular gesture. But ever since Dōgenzaka, Kai's dropped his disappearing act—I could just be delusional—but he doesn't just tell me he's staying, he's actually proving it.
I shift carefully onto my side, dragging the blanket up a little higher even though no part of me is cold. My hair's probably a mess, my face feels sleep-swollen. I should hang up before he wakes up and catches me staring like a creep.
I don't.
Mine, a part of me thinks.
That word has been echoing through me since I woke up. Yours. Mine. It should feel like a warning. So why does every repetition just pull me in deeper?
My pulse turns stupid in my chest, all flutter and no rhythm in that helpless way I'm starting to associate with him. I feel too light against the mattress, as if I'm made of air instead of skin and bone. It should scare me how Kai can sound the way he does—feral, possessive—like if there hadn't been a screen between us, he would've taken me apart with his teeth. But there's the other part, the way he's soft after, the way he asked if I was okay—like he's entitled to both my fear and the part of me already falling for him.
Kai stirs—it's small at first, barely anything—a shift under the blanket. His mouth parts on a slow breath. One bruised hand slides a little higher on the pillow, and I go so still I nearly stop breathing.
His lashes flicker.
I freeze.
There's a second where he looks dazed, still halfway under, not fully pulled back into himself yet. His eyes land on the screen without searching, finding me without effort.
"Still here," his voice is low with sleep, rough enough that it slides over my skin before the words fully register, and my heart gives this helpless kick against my ribs all over again.
Kai blinks, slower this time, and I watch the awareness settle into his face. The softness doesn't vanish completely, but it gets tucked in behind that quiet, dangerous authority.
I mumble at first before clearing my throat. "Could say the same about you," I croak, my voice huskier than usual.
And the filthiest parts of last night keep replaying:
"Need you to—to fuck me—want it so bad."
Oh, Fuck. Did I have to be so loud last night?
Worse, I was way too honest.
Why was I talking so shamelessly like I'd completely lost my mind? There's no way my neighbours didn't hear. I guess I could just drop out of uni and move to another district.
Kai's mouth shifts slightly as if he can see my thoughts spilling out of my ears. "How long have you been awake?" he asks.
"A couple of minutes," I answer too defensively.
"Mm," he hums, shifting onto his back properly, one arm sliding up behind his head. "If it'd been longer, you'd have been in trouble."
I roll my eyes because it's easier than showing him that he's under my skin before 9 AM on a Saturday. I shift higher so I'm leaning against my headboard.
This should be weird. Maybe it is, and I'm too far gone to care. I've literally watched this man admit to I don't even know—criminal shit? I still feel confused, as if I'm barely scratching the surface. I actually got Kai to talk, but it was still in that careful way he does, where his words are curated and measured for control—at least, that was until he started talking about Akio. It was as if he was trying to prove something to me. Maybe it's a warning to be careful of what I wish for.
But somehow, I think we're past innocence when we crossed a line last night. Somewhere between the way he uttered my name and my obeying without so much as a struggle, something unspoken and irrevocable shifted. I keep circling it in my head as if I can land on a conclusion that last night was just a misstep. But I can't unsee the way he looked at me.
The frightening part isn't even wanting him anymore. It's the part where I now have to decide what wanting him costs. Because I know myself enough to admit this much: I've experienced grief and loss—scars that'll never heal—but losing Kai is the most painful notion compared to anything I've already survived.
I look back at the screen. Kai's more awake now, propped higher against his pillow, hair still a mess from sleep. His eyes stay on me, as if his silence is never really silence with Kai, as if he can read me just from my face.
"What?" I mutter.
"Did you forget?" A faint smile touches his mouth. "Go and get ready, Anri."
I blink. "What? Why?"
Kai stretches one arm above his head and sighs as if I'm being difficult—which I am, but it should be illegal for him to be so calm while I'm still trying not to remember the noises I made for him last night. "We're going out," he says.
I don't dare to ask where. I'm dying to know, but he's only going to answer my question with a question of his own or find some way to flip the script on me. When he's being vague, he's intentionally withholding something. He seldom gives himself away. Part of me finds it really fucking annoying when I'm a person who needs to know things, another part of me likes the choreography of it, as if he's got me dancing in the palm of his hand like I've been trained to.
There's also no point in pretending I'm not interested. Not after last night. "Like—like a date?" I ask, trying to keep my voice from sounding too hopeful.
Kai's mouth twitches again—a soft smile that looks obscene with that cut on his lip. It gives me butterflies all the same.
"I'm taking you out," he says, voice still rough. "You can decide what to call it later."
"You're annoyingly vague," I mutter, because if I don't say something with a bit of bite, I'm going to sound way too giddy for my own dignity.
Kai watches me for a moment as if he's assessing. "And you're trying not to smile," he says, smooth as velvet and fuck—my traitorous lips twitch despite myself. "Go get ready, Anri. I'll be there in an hour."
He reaches for his phone before I can answer, and the line goes dead. For a second, I just sit there.
A date.
Maybe
I think.
I stand up, dragging my hands over my face. The room feels too quiet now without Kai's breathing coming through the speaker, and I realise too quickly that I miss him already.
I have about an hour—barely enough time to get ready and be out the door, but plenty of time to lose my mind over the fact that Kai Takato is 'taking me out.'
After my shower, I don't spend forty minutes tearing through my wardrobe as if I'm trying to manufacture a better version of myself. I dry my hair—messy, just how I like it—I stand in front of the mirror in my bathroom and actually let myself breathe. I pick an outfit I like. Something that feels like me. Dark, oversized shirt, soft, straight-cut trousers, white trainers—a little worn from walking. Then, as an impulse, I decide to change the studs in my ears for tiny silver hoops and end up liking how they look.
I almost hate myself for jumping to the comparison, but Akio made me feel like I needed to sharpen every edge I had. I tried to look like someone worth choosing, someone older, maybe even hotter—trying to look like someone who's hard to look away from. I remember feeling half-sick before that date, wishing the whole time that it was Kai whom I was getting ready for instead.
I tug the shirt straight, rake my fingers through my hair, fluffing it up, and take a final glance at my reflection. I don't look 'out of this world' incredible. I just look like me—not some transformed, impossible version of myself who's desperate to be picked apart.
If I know Kai—and, annoyingly, I'm starting to think I do—he'd notice if I tried too hard, and somehow, that just makes this easier. Not easy—I'm still nervous—just easier. Less pressure, because one way or another, he had already chosen me by watching too closely, even if I was oblivious to it until recently.
—
I'm pretending I'm leaning over my balcony to smoke a cigarette to calm my nerves, and not because I'm waiting for that black BMW when it pulls into the alleyway. Even when I've been watching his location pin on my phone.
I can't tell if it's better or worse that I can see Kai's location at my own leisure. Kai's made this almost too easy. I could tell myself this is practical, safer even. It might be even simpler than that. I like knowing where he is without having to ask, even when that comes at the expense of his knowing where I am at all times—and that's not a bad thing; it just means I can't play games anymore. No disappearing, no strategic silences. If Kai ever loses sight of me, even briefly, he'll get tense, possessive in a way that's hard to ignore.
Kai probably thinks his possessiveness is a weakness. I beg to differ. It's a language, and I long to be fluent in it.
By the time I get downstairs, Kai is already out of the car—leaning against it with a dark bag slung over one shoulder, as if he had time to get comfortable, but still looks unfairly composed.
The morning feels damp with the kind of June air that feels sticky—I'm suddenly even more relieved that I didn't go overboard with my outfit. Even Kai's dressed lighter than his usual tight fits. He looks annoyingly good like this: dark shirt—sleeves loose at his wrists, opened to a white undershirt—black, tapered cargo pants with those black boots he always wears.
He looks up properly when I round the corner into the alleyway. But it's not just a glance—I should be used to the way he stares, and maybe it's just payback for watching him sleep—his eyes move over me once, slow enough that heat starts creeping up the back of my neck before I've even made it across the pavement. There's something in the way his attention lingers that makes my heart start doing that stupid thing again.
"Kai…" Slips out of me, and I don't even know why.
Kai pushes himself away from his car. "Come here," he says quietly.
As if there isn't already only three strides between us.
He closes the last bit of space—leaning forward, fingers catching around my wrist, and his hand wraps around me so easily. There's barely any force in it, but he pulls me closer anyway, as if it were obvious I'd come if he asked. My pulse flutters like a trapped bird underneath his touch, and I know he feels it because his thumb stays there for a second, resting against the inside of my wrist.
A shiver runs through me, and I make a soft, little noise before I can think better of it. I can't even catch my breath because his hand slides higher, unhurried, brushing up along my arm. The way his fingers brush up my forearm, past my shoulder, up to my neck sparks something down my spine, which feels dangerous for a daylight-coded date on a Saturday morning. His fingers finally graze my cheek. The touch is light—barely there, but it still knocks the breath out of me—until I lean into it. The way that a cat does when it finds a warm hand. Lucky for both of us, I stop short of actually purring.
He tucks a strand of hair back behind my ear, and I nearly short-circuit on the spot.
"Those suit you," he says, fingers tracing the edge of my earlobe, skimming along the hoops.
"You notice too much," I mutter.
Kai's mouth twitches into that familiar smirk—one I used to find infuriating.
"You only just figured that out?" he says.
I huff out something halfway between a laugh and a scoff, because of course, he'd say that as if he isn't the most obsessive person I've ever met.
"No," I murmur. "I just didn't realise you'd be so bold about it in broad daylight."
Something warm and dangerous, all at once, flickers in his mismatched eyes. His fingers linger at my ear for half a second longer before they fall away, and the loss of contact leaves my skin feeling abruptly cold.
"You're awfully mouthy for someone who doesn't seem interested in stopping me," he says.
I swallow, then lift my shoulders in a loose shrug. "You haven't given me a reason to."
Kai hums softly. "Good."
I should tell him to shut up. Instead, my mouth betrays me with the tiniest twitch, and Kai notices that too, obviously. The way my lips fight a smile, how my shoulders drop when I'm no longer bracing for impact. The way I keep looking at the cut on his lip when I think he won't catch me doing it.
I look away first because if I keep staring at him like this, I'm going to lose what little grip I have left on acting like a normal person.
"You haven't eaten," he says.
It isn't a question.
I open my mouth, then close it again, because apparently my body enjoys betraying me in multiple ways before noon.
Kai exhales softly through his nose, as if my silence has just confirmed something he already knew. "Right," he says. "We're getting food first."
I cross my arms. "You say everything like it's already decided."
"That's because it is. You're gonna need energy if you're going to be walking around all day."
Kai shifts the bag higher on his shoulder and turns, already starting down the street like he knows I'll follow.
I do.
"All day?" I ask when I catch up.
His expression barely shifts, but he glances over at me. "You'll survive not knowing every detail in advance."
That should annoy me more than it does. Instead, something warm and stupid rolls over in my chest, because for all his evasiveness, he still came here and thought far enough ahead to account for me, like the question was never if I'd be part of it—only when.
We stop outside a small café a few streets later, the kind of place I've probably passed before without really seeing. There's a chalkboard sign out front with strawberries drawn in pink marker and looping handwriting underneath advertising seasonal pancakes and coffee.
I blink at it.
For a second, my brain does something strange—reaches back automatically, as if this is normal, as if cafés and pancakes are still part of my life. Mornings spent pressed into a vinyl booth, Mum tearing sugar packets open with her teeth because her hands were always full, laughing when—
I stop myself.
"You picked this?" I ask instead.
Kai glances at the sign, then back at me. "You like strawberries."
He really has been watching all this time.
It takes me a second.
Then another.
My stomach does this humiliating little flip.
"What?" he asks, because apparently my face has started narrating my inner life without permission.
"Nothing," I say too quickly.
Kai holds the door open, and I step inside first. I can't help but notice that he somehow knew I'd like this place, even before I saw the sign.
When I walk in, the warm air hits me, carrying the smell of coffee, butter, and sugar. It's quieter than I expected for a Saturday morning. A few people talk softly, milk steams behind the counter, and cutlery taps gently on plates. This place makes the outside world seem farther away.
Kai picks a table near the window. Not hidden exactly, but not right in the middle of everything either.
I slip into my seat, doing my best not to seem too aware of him across from me. But I can't help it. The light inside is softer than outside, and now I really notice the cut on his lip for the first time since last night. It's not dramatic—just there. More real in-person than behind a screen.
A server comes over with menus and a pair of cold glasses of water. I thank her automatically and reach for mine, more because I need something to do with my hands than because I'm actually thirsty.
Kai doesn't even look at the menu for long.
"What do you want?" he asks.
The question should be simple. It still catches me off guard.
I pick up my menu to avoid looking at him. "I can order for myself."
"I know."
I glance up at that. Kai's already watching me again, calm as ever, like he just wanted the answer. Not because he was going to order for me. Not because he didn't think I could handle it. Just because he wanted to know.
That lands somewhere softer than it should.
The menu is full of the exact kind of stuff that would've made me overthink myself to death a month ago—sweet drinks, brunch plates, overly cute desserts pretending to be breakfast. My eyes snag on the strawberry pancakes almost immediately, and then I hate myself because, of course, they do.
Kai notices that too.
He doesn't say anything. Just waits.
When the server comes back, I point to the pancakes before I can second-guess it. "I'll have the strawberry pancakes…and an iced latte."
Kai's mouth twitches.
I narrow my eyes at him.
He orders coffee, some kind of savoury toast, and fruit on the side in that matter-of-fact tone of his, as if this is all perfectly normal and not some weirdly intimate morning after whatever the hell last night was.
When the server leaves, I look at Kai over the top of my water glass. "You could've at least ordered pancakes for yourself so that I don't look so greedy."
"Sweet stuff will mess up my macros," he says. "You, on the other hand, haven't eaten since yesterday's lunch. We have a mid-week match and more coming up. You need the energy."
I can't hold back a giggle. "Macros," I echo. "You serious? Inspirational, Captain."
Kai doesn't laugh.
He just looks at me, expression steady. "Mock me all you want, I still notice when you don't eat." He says. "This isn't about macros, it's about you."
That does it. The humour drains out of the moment, leaving something warmer and heavier in its place. I glance down at my glass, suddenly very aware of how closely he pays attention.
"…Right," I mutter after a moment.
For once, I don't try to argue back.
Kai folds one hand loosely around his coffee cup when it arrives a minute later. The bruising over his knuckles shows up ugly and undeniable against the white ceramic. I look at it too long. The scrape across one knuckle is darker than the rest.
The food comes quickly, which I'm grateful for because I'm dangerously close to just sitting here thinking about his hands and his mouth and the fact that he's making sure I eat before he lets me do anything else today.
"Itadakimasu,"[2] Kai murmurs—the kind of tic that tells me it's more muscle memory than manners. There's something strangely revealing about how automatically he says it. It's oddly disarming—not even because he said it. It's the way he did—reflexive politeness from a man who's anything but gentle most of the time. For a split second, he looks younger, almost innocent.
I find myself echoing it under my breath before I even really think about it.
Then I look down at my pancakes and nearly laugh.
They're ridiculous. A soft stack dusted with powdered sugar, strawberries layered on top, with whipped cream spilling lazily down one side. They look too nice to touch.
Kai notices the way I'm staring. "Problem?"
"They just look…pretty."
His mouth tilts faintly. "Eat."
I cut into them and take a bite.
A sound nearly escapes me before I can stop it. The pancakes are warm and soft, the strawberries are just tart enough to balance the sweetness, and the cream is colder than I thought it would be. I close my eyes for a moment, then regret it as soon as I open them and see Kai watching me.
I swallow. "What?"
"You like them."
I hate that he's right. "Maybe."
Kai hums softly and takes a sip of his coffee, as if that settles it for him.
I keep eating because it's either that or stare at him until I lose my mind. The food does help, annoyingly enough. The weird floaty nerves in my stomach start settling into something warmer and heavier, something less likely to make me say something embarrassing every five seconds.
Not that it lasts.
About halfway through, I glance up and catch Kai looking at me again. Not in a creepy way. Worse. In that steady, unreadable way that feels like he's taking in more than I'm actively giving him.
"You're staring," I mutter.
"You've got cream on your lip."
My whole body stills.
"What?"
He doesn't answer. He just leans forward, and for a second, I forget how to move.
His hand comes across the table, slow enough that I could pull away if I wanted to.
I don't.
His thumb brushes the corner of my mouth, wiping the bit of cream away with impossible care. Up close, I can see the bruising across his knuckles again.
My breath catches.
Kai glances once at his thumb, then back at me.
Then he licks the cream off it.
Not quickly. Not like he's doing it to be funny.
Slow enough that heat flashes through me so hard it makes the room blur around the edges for a second.
"Kai," I say, and my voice comes out thinner than I mean it to.
His eyes stay on mine. "What?"
As if he doesn't know exactly what.
I grip my fork tighter. "You—"
"Eat," he says, sitting back like he didn't just do that. Like he didn't just make my heart trip over itself in the middle of a café at ten in the morning.
I stare at him.
Kai lifts his coffee again, and all I can see for a second are the bruises on his knuckles wrapped around the cup and the split in his lip when he takes a sip.
Violence and gentleness. Somehow, both fit in the same body. The same mouth. The same hands.
By the time I finish the last pancake, I feel calm in a way that almost scares me.
Not really calm. Just full enough that my body isn't shaking anymore, which means there's too much space for everything else. For Kai sitting across from me like this is all normal. For the memory of his thumb at my mouth. For the cut on his lip every time he drinks his coffee. For his bruises, as if violence, control, and old habits all fit in the same person and still leave space for gentleness.
I hate how much I want to figure him out.
Kai finishes before me, of course. He's neat and quiet. He wipes his mouth with a napkin, sets it down, and grabs his wallet before I can even pretend I'll pay.
"I can pay for mine," I say, mostly out of habit.
Kai gives me a single look.
That's all. Just one look.
Then he slides his card into the tray the server left, calm and sure, as if he'd already decided this before we sat down.
I lean back and sigh. "You know, if you like control this much, you could at least try to hide it."
Kai sighs softly. "Last time I tried to hide it, you ended up in Dōgenzaka with someone who thought he could touch you," he says, quiet enough that I feel it more than hear it.
The café noise keeps moving around us—soft murmurs two tables over, cups clinking—but it all seems to blur at the edges for a second. Not because he says it harshly. He doesn't. That's the problem. There's no accusation in his voice, no blame. Just this quiet, level honesty that gets under my skin far too easily.
"I'm not interested in pretending with you anymore," he says. "Not about that."
My fingers tighten uselessly around my water glass.
For a second, I can't think of anything to say. Which is rare for me. Annoyingly rare. Because what the hell am I supposed to do with that? With him sitting across from me in this warm little café, saying something that sounds so calm and means so much underneath it.
I look down at the table.
"You can't just say things like that," I mutter.
Kai's mouth shifts faintly. Not a smirk. Something quieter.
"You'd rather I lie?"
The words hit harder than they should.
My eyes flick up to his face and then away again almost immediately, because no, obviously not. That's the worst part. I don't want him to lie. I don't want him to hide it. I just want him to stop saying exactly the right thing in exactly that voice, as if he isn't fully aware of what it does to me.
"No," I say, too soft at first. I clear my throat. "That's not what I meant."
Kai studies me for a moment, expression unreadable in that infuriatingly steady way of his.
Before I can sink any deeper into that, Kai lifts a hand slightly and says, "Sumimasen."
It's quiet. Smooth. Barely louder than his normal speaking voice, but the server turns almost immediately anyway, and something about the ease of it catches me off guard. Of course, he sounds like that. Like he's always known exactly how to ask for things without seeming like he's asking at all.
The server takes the tray and returns a moment later. Kai thanks her, sliding his card back into his wallet.
We both stand. Kai slings his bag over his shoulder, bowing to the server before we leave.
Outside, the air feels cooler after the café, the sky is still low and grey without actually giving in to rain.
I shove my hands into my pockets, mostly so I have something to do with them.
"So," I say after a few steps.
Kai glances sideways at me. "So?"
I look at him. "Are you actually going to tell me where we're going now?"
His mouth twitches faintly. "Hakusan."
I blink. "Hakusan?"
Kai gives a small nod, like that should explain everything.
Then it clicks.
"The hydrangea festival?"
Kai hums, not mocking exactly. Worse. Amused.
Of all things, he picked something soft. Seasonal. Pretty in a way that makes me want to be suspicious of him just to protect myself.
That's worse somehow.
"You planned this," I say before I can stop myself.
"Yes."
—
The first thing I notice when we reach Hakusan is that the whole place feels softer than the rest of Bunkyo.
Not quieter, exactly. There are still people everywhere—couples, old women with umbrellas hooked over their arms just in case, students pretending they're not here to take photos—but the noise sits differently here. Gentler. As if even Tokyo knows better than to shout too loudly around this many flowers.
We reach the torii gate of Hakusan shrine. Beyond it, rows of green lanterns hang low beneath the eaves and all along the paths.
Hydrangeas spill over the edges of stone walls and crowd the paths in thick, ridiculous clusters, all of them too vivid against the grey sky to look real. Some are pale and powdery, some so deeply blue they almost look ink-stained. Water hasn't started falling yet, but the air has that waiting feeling to it, sticky and overcast, as if the rain is standing just out of sight, deciding when to make an entrance.
I slow down without meaning to.
Kai notices, obviously.
His hand brushes lightly between my shoulder blades to steer me around a family drifting into the middle of the path. The touch is brief—gone almost as soon as I register it—but my whole body still reacts like he did something much worse.
I glance at him. "You know you don't have to keep doing that."
Kai looks down at me, one hand still slung in his pocket, the bag hanging from his shoulder. "Doing what?"
"Touching me like I'm going to wander off."
His mouth shifts faintly. "You say that like it wouldn't happen."
I roll my eyes, but I can't really fight the smile trying to creep onto my face, so I look away before he sees it.
Or before he sees too much of it.
The path curves up ahead, lined with more hydrangeas than I know what to do with. People stop every few steps to point at them, crouch for pictures, lean in close to the petals like they're looking for secrets inside them. It should feel a little silly. Instead, it gets under my skin almost immediately. Maybe because the whole place feels too carefully chosen. Too obviously something Kai picked because he knew I'd like it.
That thought sits warm and dangerous in my chest.
I shove my hands into my pockets and try to sound normal. "This is kind of…"
Kai glances over.
I frown at a cluster of violet blooms spilling over a low fence. "Annoying."
That gets the smallest lift of his eyebrow. "Annoying?"
"Yes," I say. "Because now I have to live with the knowledge that you can, apparently, be thoughtful when you feel like it."
Kai hums once, low in his throat. "You're coping badly."
"I'm coping fine."
"You've looked at the same bush for thirty seconds."
"It's not a bush," I mutter. "It's a hydrangea."
Kai follows my gaze to the flowers. "Poisonous, you know."
I blink. "What?"
"Hydrangeas." His eyes stay on the blooms. "Whole plant's toxic."
I stare at him. "Why do you know that?"
Kai finally looks back at me. "Why don't you?"
I let out a breath through my nose that's almost a laugh. "Still fucking beautiful though."
Something in his expression shifts. Not enough to call it a smile. Just enough that I know he heard everything underneath that.
He looks back at the flowers.
"Mm," he says.
The path narrows ahead, where more people are stopping to take pictures, and without saying anything, Kai shifts slightly closer—not touching, just there, close enough that strangers have to go around us instead of through us. It's subtle. The kind of thing I might've missed once.
I don't miss it anymore.
A girl with a camera brushes past, apologising under her breath. Kai's hand lands on my back for a second, guiding me out of the way of another group coming down the steps too fast. It's automatic. Thoughtless in the way only practised things are. His palm is warm through the thin fabric of my shirt, and the second it's gone, I miss it so quickly I almost resent myself for it.
I look up at him. "You're hovering."
"I'm walking."
"That's not the same thing."
Kai says nothing.
Which, from him, usually means I'm right, and he doesn't feel like giving me the satisfaction of hearing it out loud.
We move a little farther in, where the crowd thins just enough to breathe. The shrine buildings sit beyond the trees in flashes of red and dark wood, glimpsed between people, flowers, and stone paths dampened by old rain. Somewhere off to the side, there's the smell of something sweet frying—festival food, probably. I catch it, and immediately my stomach tightens in a way I know he's going to notice if I'm not careful.
We drift toward a quieter stretch of path where the hydrangeas crowd closer to the stone. Some of them hang low enough that I could brush the petals with the back of my fingers if I wanted to. I don't. It feels wrong somehow, disturbing something that looks this perfect in passing.
Kai stops beside one of the bushes and looks down at a cluster of blue blooms with the same unreadable calm he looks at everything with. It should be funny—Kai Takato standing in front of hydrangeas as if he belongs in a perfume ad—but somehow it isn't. He looks too at ease here. Or maybe not at ease. Just contained in a different way.
"I didn't picture you here," I say before I can stop myself.
Kai glances at me. "Here?"
"At a hydrangea festival," I say. "You don't exactly give off flower-viewing enthusiasm."
"I don't."
I cross my arms. "Then why are you here?"
Kai's eyes stay on mine long enough that I immediately regret asking.
"Because you are."
My mouth opens, reflexively sharp—and stalls. I huff out a laugh instead, a little too quick. "That's—ngh." I look away, shifting my weight, like that should be enough to shake it off. Like it's just another thing to bat aside.
The silence stretches, not awkward exactly—just quieter than before. I let my arms drop, fingers brushing the damp fabric at my sides, and when I glance back at him, my voice comes out lower.
"…You're weird," I say.
It's not an insult this time. And we both seem to know it.
We're halfway down another flower-lined path when music cuts through the hum of voices and footsteps—brass first, warm and bright, then the easy pulse of drums behind it.
I stop without thinking.
Somewhere further in, past the hydrangeas and the small crowd gathered near one of the open spaces, a jazz band is playing. Not loud enough to swallow the whole festival, just enough to spill through it. The trumpet catches first—playful, a little wistful—gliding over the low chatter of the crowd.
Kai takes two more steps before noticing I'm not beside him anymore.
He turns, follows my line of sight toward the band, and of course, he doesn't look surprised.
I look back toward the band. A small crowd has gathered at the edge of the square, some standing, some sitting along the low stone border. The notes float through the moist air, merely old-fashioned enough to feel charming instead of corny. Something in me relaxes before I can stop it. I want to be pissed off. I want to bite back at him and tell him he's way off the mark for taking me to a place like this. But I'd be lying through my teeth. He knew I'd like this, and now I'm stuck among these beautiful flowers, trying not to cry because this feels like a sick, romanticised dream.
Kai steps back to my side.
"You want to stay?" he asks.
That lands somewhere warm. Any other time, I could scowl at him and feign indifference. Instead, I just nod.
So we stay.
We don't stand too close to the crowd. We stay off to the side, where the hydrangeas still line the path and the music reaches us, softened by air and leaves. Sometimes I feel it inside my chest more than I hear it. The lazy swing, the little lift in the trumpet, the rhythm settles under my skin like electricity. It's the kind of thing that makes it impossible not to watch, not to get pulled in.
Which is why it takes me longer than it should to realise Kai isn't really watching the band.
He's watching me.
I turn my head just enough to catch him at it.
Kai doesn't even pretend otherwise.
"What?" I ask, already too aware of myself all over again.
His gaze doesn't shift. "Nothing."
"Bullshit," I mutter. "You've barely looked at them once."
That gets the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth.
"I'm looking."
"At me."
"Yeah."
The bluntness of it nearly knocks the air out of me.
I look away first, toward the band again, because of course I do. "What's with you today? You're acting so—" I trail off because I don't have the words for this. I can't reconcile this version of Kai—attentive, steady, quietly present. As if I'm his.
Am I supposed to just get used to this?
Kai's voice stays low, easy, as if this isn't a strange thing to admit in the middle of a festival with people drifting around us. "I can't help it."
That gets me to look at him again.
His eyes are on me properly now, calm and fixed in that way that always makes me feel like the rest of the world has gone a little out of focus.
"You get a look on your face," he says.
I blink. "What kind of look?"
"The one you get when you care about something."
Heat creeps up the back of my neck.
Kai glances back toward the band for maybe half a second, then back at me like even that was too much time spent looking away.
"You made the same face during your piano recital," he says. "You get a sparkle in your eyes."
For a second, I genuinely don't know what to do with that.
Because it's one thing for Kai to stare. It's one thing for him to notice things. It's another to find out he's been carrying around tiny details like that—my face at the recital, the way I look when music gets under my skin, the specific expression I make when I'm too absorbed to guard myself properly.
That's not just observation.
That's devotion. Or obsession. Or something close enough that the difference barely matters.
I stare at him. "That's creepy."
Kai's expression doesn't shift. "Maybe."
I let out a breath that almost sounds like a laugh, mostly because if I don't, I'm going to do something worse, like stand here blushing under a hydrangea bush while a jazz band plays ten feet away.
"You really remember stuff like that?" I ask, quieter now.
Kai's gaze drops briefly to my mouth, then lifts again. "Only with you."
That one hits even harder.
I turn back toward the music too quickly, but it's pointless. My whole face feels warm. My chest feels too full. I can still feel Kai looking at me from the side, and the worst part is that I don't want him to stop.
The band finishes on a bright little flourish that leaves the crowd clapping and smiling at each other like they've all been let in on the same secret.
I'm still half-listening to the applause when a familiar voice cuts through it.
"Ace?"
I turn so fast I nearly shoulder-check Kai.
Yuujin weaves through the edge of the crowd toward us, raising one hand. His grin is quick and bright, the kind that always makes him look like he's up to something. Mei walks beside him, her hair tucked behind her ears. She glances between Kai and me, as if she's already noticed something interesting before they even stop walking.
"Well," Yuujin says, slowing in front of us. "This is a weird crossover episode."
Mei laughs softly and looks straight at me. "You're still cute as ever, I see!"
Heat hits my face with such violence that it should be medically studied.
"Oh my God," I mutter, dragging a hand over my mouth. "Hi to you too."
Yuujin snorts. "You say that like you're surprised. Mei says that about you every time your name comes up."
"Yuu—" Mei nudges him lightly with her elbow, not really reproachful, and then smiles at me again. "It's true."
I want to be vaporised on the spot.
Beside me, Kai says nothing.
Yuujin's grin turns sly as he looks between us. "Right. Mei, this is Takato. Kai Takato. Takato, Mei."
Mei's eyes flick up to Kai properly now, openly taking him in for a second before she smiles. "Wow," she says, with zero shame, then giggles. She turns mostly to Yuujin. "He's handsome," she says—I think she tried to be quiet about it, and if I heard it, Kai definitely has.
My soul leaves my body.
Yuujin makes a strangled noise of delight. "Okay, no, that's crazy, because I was literally thinking the same—"
"Don't," I say flatly.
Yuujin's gaze shifts to him then, quick and curious. "Takato," he says, like he still can't quite decide whether Kai showing up beside me in public is funny, alarming, or both. "Didn't think I'd see you here."
Kai's expression barely changes. "You're here."
"Yeah, but I'm charming," Yuujin says. "I can blend into date spots."
Kai's eyes flick to me for half a second at the word date. I pretend not to notice. Badly.
Mei's smile turns a fraction more knowing as she looks between Kai and me again. "You two look very good standing next to each other, by the way."
Yuujin folds over, laughing. "Mei!"
"What?" she says, innocent as anything. "I'm right."
I cannot believe this is happening to me in public.
"You two enjoying yourselves?" she asks.
"Yes," Kai answers before me.
Yuujin jerks his thumb farther up the path. "We were heading that way. There's a stall Mei wants to emotionally blackmail me into spending money at."
"I'm not blackmailing you," Mei says. "You offered."
Then she looks between us one last time and says, bright as anything, "Try not to look too good together in public. It's distracting."
I make a strangled noise that is not dignified enough to count as speech.
Mei just laughs, warm and soft, and lets Yuujin tug her away before I can die any harder in front of them.
"See you, Ace! Look after him, Kai!" Yuujin calls over his shoulder.
"Bye, Ace! Was nice meeting you, Takato!" Mei echoes, and then they disappear back into the slow-moving festival crowd, still talking over each other.
For a few seconds, neither Kai nor I says anything.
The noise of the festival settles back around us in layers—people talking, shoes on stone, the tail end of the band packing up behind us—but the space between us has gone strangely still.
Then Kai starts walking again.
I fall into step beside him because what else am I supposed to do?
We make it maybe twenty paces before Kai says, very evenly, "You never mentioned Mei."
There it is.
I keep my eyes ahead because looking at him right now feels like a tactical error. "Why would I?"
Kai doesn't answer straight away.
"She seems comfortable with you," he says at last.
I let out a breath through my nose. "She's like that with everyone."
"Mm."
I glance at him. "She is."
Kai's expression gives me nothing. We keep walking down the path, and I can feel the air change; the clouds overhead hang low and swollen.
"That's just Mei," I add. "She probably calls me cute because she's taller than me. It's not that deep. She and Yuujin are basically together."
"Basically?"
"I don't know…" I trail off because I don't know how to articulate 'friends with benefits' without sounding stupid. "They like each other and…stuff." I sigh. "Are you jel—"
"No." Kai's jaw tightens. "I just—" he looks away, the movement sharp enough to give him away.
I tilt my head, watching him. Yeah. He's full of shit.
"Tsk, please," I huff. "You're not special for that, Captain."
"Careful," Kai warns. "But…fair."
Something warm unfurls in my chest, slow and indulgent. A quiet satisfaction. Not victory exactly—but closeness. As if I've been let behind the curtain and found something real there. For once, he's the one holding back.
Trying very hard not to enjoy that, I shove my hands into my pockets and keep talking before I can think better of it.
"Besides," I mutter, "Mei called you handsome, which is way worse than her calling me cute."
Kai looks at me then.
Really looks.
And just like that, I know I've said something I wasn't supposed to say out loud.
His gaze sharpens by a fraction, enough to make my stomach tighten. "Worse."
I hate the way he repeats it. Too calm. Too interested.
I look away too quickly. "You know what I mean."
"Do I?"
"Oh, my God." I drag a hand over my face. "Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Act like you don't have admirers."
Kai's mouth twitches, but there's nothing smug in it. If anything, he looks almost too still, like he's listening harder than he should be.
"I've literally seen girls hit on you," I add, because apparently my self-preservation has died somewhere between the jazz band and Mei calling him handsome. "Everyone looks at you. Girls. Guys."
Kai goes quiet. Not indifferent. Just still in that way of his that makes me instantly aware I've said something more revealing than I intended.
Then the corner of his mouth lifts, barely.
"They weren't the ones I was looking at, Anri. If they were looking at me, I wasn't looking back," he says. "You're the only person that's ever…made me look twice."
The answer lands too softly to defend against.
Before I can figure out what to do with that, the sky finally gives up.
Rain starts properly—the kind you can't pretend isn't happening. A sudden fine rush of it patters through the leaves and across the stone path, quick enough that the people ahead of us break into laughter and little stuttering runs for cover.
"Shit—" I start, glancing up.
Kai is already moving.
"Stand still," Kai says, already digging into the bag.
He pulls an umbrella free, but before he opens it, something dark hits me in the chest.
I blink down.
His hoodie.
I look up at him. "What—"
"Put it on."
Rain taps harder against the pavement. It's coming down properly now, soaking the stone darker by the second, catching in my hair and across my shoulders. Kai has already snapped the umbrella open above us—it's one of those transparent, plastic umbrellas where the rain ticks atop in a way that's almost hypnotic—angling most of it over me while he stands there getting steadily drenched with rain.
I stare at the hoodie in my hands.
It's black, heavier than any of mine, still holding a trace of him—clean, warm, that dark expensive scent that always seems to cling to his clothes no matter what. The kind of scent that gets under my skin too easily.
"Kai," I say, because my brain has momentarily stopped offering anything useful.
His gaze flicks over me once, assessing the rain already darkening my shirt. "You'll get cold."
The words are plain. The tone isn't.
Something in my chest turns over.
I don't argue. Mostly because I know I'll lose. Partly because I don't want to. I shove my arms through the sleeves, and the hoodie swallows my hands almost immediately. The hem hangs too low, the shoulders too broad, the whole thing too obviously his.
Kai watches me fix it on instinct—tugging it down, pushing damp hair back out of my face—trying not to think too hard about how I'm standing under his umbrella, in his clothes, in the middle of a hydrangea festival like this is normal.
His eyes dip over me—his gaze is intense. Raindrops dripping down his hair and sliding down his neck—that's when I notice his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallows hard. Before I can try to understand why wearing his hoodie is worth being studied by his stare, he reaches over and pulls my hood up, his fingers brushing my temple as he smooths the fabric down with his touch.
The rain drums overhead.
"Well?" I mutter, because the silence has started to feel like a held breath, and I don't trust what happens if neither of us exhales.
Kai adjusts the umbrella, lowering it until its edge dips into my line of sight. "Better."
It shouldn't land the way it does. It definitely shouldn't stick.
I look away first, fingers curling deeper into the sleeves. "This is a ridiculous peace offering."
He doesn't answer. Just starts walking again, slower this time—slowed by the rain, by the way the crowd compresses beneath every scrap of shelter. The pause sits between us, unanswered but not exactly denied.
I fall into step beside him. His hoodie hangs heavy and warm around me, the umbrella forcing us closer than before, close enough that our shoulders brush—then hover there, uncertain, before staying.
Everything smells different in the rain. The path is greener, fuller somehow, earthier. The hydrangeas have darkened too, blue bleeding rich at the edges, violet deepening into something almost bruised. Voices blur together around us—laughter, footsteps, the shuffle of people hurrying past—but under the umbrella, the sound dulls. The world pulls inward, narrows to this small, rain-softened space.
Kai glances down at me.
"You stopped talking."
My grip tightens on the sleeves. "Maybe I'm recovering."
"From what?"
I shoot him a look. "You know exactly what."
His hand settles at my waist as he steers me around a puddle spreading across the path. This time there's no pretence of accident. His thumb presses once—firm, deliberate—through the borrowed fabric, and then he lets go.
The absence of it is worse.
"I'm still trying to be careful," he says, voice low beneath the hiss of rain. "Believe it or not."
My heart does something deeply unhelpful.
"I didn't say I minded…" I mutter.
He hums softly, the sound too knowing to argue with.
And despite everything—despite the questions, despite Mei, despite the way Kai keeps saying things he has no right to say so calmly…I don't want to pull away.
We keep walking, closer now, the umbrella making it impossible to pretend otherwise. Rain whispers against the clear plastic overhead. Somewhere ahead, a child laughs, high and bright, the sound almost surreal through the grey.
There's a family a little ahead of us—a little boy in a pale blue raincoat pulling his mother toward a patch of flowers like he's discovered colour for the first time. His dad is holding the umbrella badly, and half the rain is still getting on all three of them.
The boy laughs anyway, and I grip onto the umbrella handle, even though Kai is the one who's holding it.
Something in my chest pinches so suddenly that I almost stop walking.
Kai notices, because of course he does.
His pace slows with mine. "What's wrong?"
I hate the way he says it. Not because it's cold. Because it isn't. Because it's too direct, too immediate, like the second I change by half an inch, he's already there.
"Nothing."
Kai glances at me. "You got quiet."
"I'm allowed to be quiet."
"You're allowed," he says. "You're just never this quiet without a reason."
I huff softly through my nose. "You make everything sound like an interrogation."
"If I were interrogating you," Kai says, calm as anything, "you'd know."
I cut him a look. He barely reacts, just keeps walking at my pace, the umbrella tilted more over me than over himself.
Annoying.
Worse, thoughtful.
The family disappears down the path. I keep my eyes on the wet stone under our feet.
A narrow path peels away from the main one, quieter, half-hidden beneath drooping hydrangea heads and slick, rain-dark leaves. I notice it at the same time Kai does—or maybe he noticed first and simply waited for me to catch up. His hand settles at my waist again—steady and unhesitating—and guides me toward it.
By the time the festival noise has softened behind us, it feels like we've stepped into a pocket of rain and flowers that belongs only to us.
Kai slows to a stop when we're far enough down the path to feel secluded, then turns to face me.
"Hey," Kai says, voice low enough that it somehow sounds warm, even though I have to grip the handle of the umbrella to stop myself from trembling. "Talk to me."
"It's stupid," I say too quickly.
"Try me."
I almost want to say never mind. Pull back into myself, where I've managed to hold everything together since October last year—just to stay upright without letting anything spill. My chest feels crowded with words I've been carefully stepping around, but Kai is steady and waiting, as if he's making room for them.
"My mum used to like things like this," I say before I can stop myself and because if I don't tell the truth, Kai will pluck it from me somehow anyway.
Kai doesn't say anything straight away.
He just waits.
That should make it easier to say nothing else. Somehow, it makes it worse.
"She liked flowers…so did I…I mean, I still do," I add, more bitterly than I mean to. "Or maybe she just liked dragging me around places like this and acting like we were a normal family for a few hours."
Kai's voice stays even. "Acting."
I laugh once, quietly, with no humour in it. "Yeah."
I swallow hard.
"She wasn't bad all the time," I say, staring ahead, beyond Kai's head, as if making eye contact would be the most detrimental thing in the world. "That's the annoying part."
Kai says nothing.
I can feel him listening.
"It'd be easier if she were just awful," I mutter. "If both of them were. Then I could hate them properly and move on with my life."
"But you can't."
I shake my head.
"No," I say. "Because they weren't. Not all the time." My mouth twists. "Sometimes they'd sober up, and my dad would put on some stupid record, and she'd laugh at him, and suddenly it was like…I don't know. Like, I made up all the bad parts. Like maybe I was dramatic for thinking it was that bad."
Kai's gaze is on me now. I don't need to look to know it.
"They drank," I say flatly. "They fought. They loved each other in that way some people do, where it looks rotten from the outside, and they still call it love anyway."
Kai is quiet for a moment. "And you were in the middle of it."
I let out a breath that almost trembles and hate myself for it.
"Yeah."
"You were a kid," he says, so simply that it nearly undoes me.
The words hit wrong. Or right. I don't know. They hit somewhere soft and festering, like they've been sitting there a while, and I just never touched it.
I shrug like I can shake them loose. Like it's nothing. "Didn't really matter."
"It mattered." He says with awful certainty.
I look at him then—too quick—and it irritates me how serious he is.
It should feel like pressure. Maybe it does. But there's something steadier under it, something that makes my throat tighten in a way I don't want to examine.
I look away first.
I don't know why it feels easier to talk in this secluded path. Maybe because nobody's looking at us. It should feel unbearable to be face-to-face with Kai—this should feel too intimate for comfort, but it doesn't—his mismatched eyes stay pinned on me as I continue.
"They were drunk when they died," I say, keeping my grip on the handle.
Kai goes very still in front of me.
"My parents were in England, visiting family on my Dad's side. Mum fell into a canal." My voice sounds detached to my own ears, as if I'm talking about a news report instead of the thing that split my life clean down the middle. "And my Dad went in after."
Kai doesn't interrupt.
I laugh again, softer this time, uglier. "Romantic, right?"
"Anri."
I hate how he says my name when I sound like this.
"I'm serious." I blink hard at the rain beyond the umbrella. "That's the worst part. I don't know what happened right before. I know they were drunk. I know they argued a lot. I know they loved each other in this fucked up, codependent way that swallowed everything around them." My throat tightens. "But I don't know what their last moment was."
Kai's voice is low. "What do you mean?"
I swallow.
"I mean, I don't know if they were fighting," I say. "Or smiling. I don't know if my dad went after her because they were in the middle of another drunken argument and it got out of hand, or because he loved her so much he went in without thinking." My hands are cold. I can't tell if it's the weather or me. "I don't know if the last thing they ever said to each other was cruel or kind."
The silence after that is awful.
Not empty. Just full.
Somewhere between one tangent to the next, Kai's fingers find mine on the umbrella handle. His thumb brushes along my knuckles.
I keep talking anyway, as if I haven't noticed, as if my pulse hasn't.
"I'll never know," I say, and this time my voice does shake. "That's what gets me. I'll never know what won in the end. All the shit between them, or the part where they loved each other."
Rain whispers around us. Somewhere further off, someone laughs, and the sound feels like it belongs to another planet.
When I finally look at him, his face is unreadable in that dangerous way of his. Not blank. Just too controlled.
"You think," he says carefully, "that if you knew which it was, it would change something."
I stare at him. "Wouldn't it?"
He doesn't answer straight away.
Then, "No."
The word hits me like a slap.
My expression must change because Kai's gaze softens by a fraction. Not enough to be gentle. Enough to be worse.
"It wouldn't make what you lived through smaller," he says. "It wouldn't make you less alone in it."
Anger flares up fast, hot, familiar. Easier than everything else.
"You don't get to say that like you understand."
Kai holds my stare. "Then tell me where I'm wrong. You don't know what I understand, Anri."
My mouth opens.
Nothing comes out.
Because the horrible part is, he isn't wrong. I hate that he isn't wrong.
I let out a breath that's almost a laugh, mostly because if I don't, I might do something more embarrassing, like cry in the middle of a shrine path with Kai Takato looking at me like he can see every rotten little thing in my chest.
He shifts the umbrella slightly when the rain picks up for a moment. His thumb is still tracing along my knuckles.
"My mother used to say: 'It's okay, Anri,' after she'd sing to me," I blurt out, my voice barely there. It sounds stupid—childish—ripped up from some hidden place.
Kai says nothing.
"She—she'd say it when my dad got bad. Or when I—" My throat sticks. My grip slips on the umbrella, and Kai catches it before it slips. "When I couldn't stop crying. Or when she didn't know what else to say." I blink hard at a cluster of blue hydrangeas as droplets bead at the corner of my eyes. "Sometimes I still hear it, but it's just—empty. It doesn't help. I don't think it ever did."
"I've heard you say it—'it's okay, Anri.'" Kai's reply is soft, but there's steel under it. "You remember the night you fell asleep in my car?" He starts, seemingly hesitant. "You…you said it in your sleep. Like you were dreaming—like you were soothing yourself."
That slices right through me. My hands are shaking now. I look down, breathing too fast. I feel too exposed all of a sudden—how could he see me so pathetic and still look at me?—as if he's naming something I've been doing in the dark.
"I didn't know I said it out loud," I whisper. "Why—why didn't you tell me?"
Kai's fingers tangle with mine where our hands overlap. "You didn't mean to," He says. "I didn't want to make you self-conscious about something you were using to survive."
My chest aches.
"Maybe…" My voice cracks. I almost don't say it. "Maybe I'm more fucked up than I thought. Because sometimes I think—" I bite the inside of my cheek. I shouldn't finish.
I stop.
Kai waits.
I should let the sentence die.
I don't.
"Sometimes I think that's why I—why people like you—" I force myself to look at him, even though I want to run. "Why you make sense to me."
Kai goes so still that it almost feels like the rain has stopped with him.
For a second, all I can hear is water ticking softly against the plastic above us, and the distant murmur of voices further down the path. His face gives me nothing easy. Nothing kind. Just that terrible, unreadable control that always feels worse when I'm already this open.
When he speaks, his voice is low.
"You think that means you understand me."
I frown before I can stop myself. "Doesn't it?"
"No."
The word lands without force. Which somehow makes it hit harder.
Kai's gaze stays on mine, too steady, too calm. "I think it means you recognise something in me," he says. "That's not the same as understanding it."
The sting of that flares up quickly and ugly. "Then tell me what I'm missing."
Something shifts in his face then. Not softness. Not exactly. Something heavier. As if I've stepped too close to a door that was never meant to open in daylight.
"If I tell you the truth…I can't take it back," He murmurs.
I look up at him. He doesn't look like the captain, the perfect student, the man in control. His jaw is tight, rain clings to his lashes, his hair is plastered dark against his forehead, and his mismatched eyes are too open, too honest, as if he's already crossed a line internally and is just waiting to see if I'll follow.
"Then don't take it back," I say quietly. "I don't want to guess anymore."
"My parents are dead too," he says.
My breath catches. It's so plain that for a second I just stare at him, stupidly, the rain and flowers and paths around us all blurring at the edges. But Kai doesn't let me settle into it. He doesn't let me reach for some easy, terrible symmetry between us.
"The difference," he says, eyes still on me, "is that you lost yours before things could ever be different."
A knot tightens in my throat.
"That isn't what happened to me." He murmurs. "They were never going to change, and I knew that—I don't miss my asshole father. And my mother…she kept him happy enough for us to survive him. My father was—ngh." Kai makes a pained sound before he continues. "My father was chairman of the Takato Group—development, property, hospitality, whatever name made it sound clean enough. Saitō—his right hand, fixer, whatever you want to call it—kept the rest of it quiet."
"Quiet?" I ask, stupidly.
"If something goes wrong, someone gets into trouble, Saitō takes care of it. He's a fixer who knows how to work the dirty system. He was more of a father to me than 'the great' Takato-san ever was, but even then…I inherited a world that was dirty, long before I was old enough to understand."
I stay quiet. I can't speak. The words don't fit, and I don't know how to reach for them yet. There's something in his face warning me not to turn this into something gentle or shared too soon.
"Christmas. Last year. Dear old Takato-san and my mother went on one of their drunken nighttime drives. Takato-san was a miserable old fool, never sober behind the wheel, loved to drive fast just for the thrill of listening to me beg for him to stop, it was one of his games—but this particular night, the miserable old fool failed to account for the brakes malfunctioning," Kai sighs, and I can't tell if it's fond or sarcastic—maybe even a bit of both.
"Were you there when it happened?" I ask too quickly and immediately regret it for being too invasive.
"No, I wasn't. I was at the house. The last memory I have of them isn't a fond one. They were screaming at each other on the way out. It's funny, Anri, because I don't even feel sad about it. I hated both of them in that moment, and I still do."
"Kai…I'm sorry I—I didn't know."
"I didn't tell you, didn't tell anyone. Just quit soccer in the last year of high school and started 'working'—shadow jobs if you like. You know, steal a few cars, rob a konbini. Realise you're somehow good at it, enough to start moving up quickly. Then suddenly, you can find someone eager enough to do it for you, for the right price, of course."
Rain falls quietly around us.
Under our umbrella, the air feels tight. Almost stifling.
Kai looks away first. Not far. Just enough to glance at the hydrangeas crowding the edge of the path, the bruised blue of them made darker by the rain.
"You want a word for the world I come from," he says after a breath. "Something clean enough to hold in your head."
My grip tightens uselessly around the umbrella handle.
"You heard things. You saw enough to start guessing. Articles. The note. Mizuno." His mouth shifts, humourless. "Tokuryū. Fine. That's what the police would call parts of it."
Rain ticks softly overhead.
"Criminal works too, if you need a blunter word." He continues.
The air leaves my lungs too fast.
"Kai—"
"Let me finish, Anri."
He doesn't stop.
"I do bad things, Anri. I threaten people. I've hurt people before Akio. I know how to find men desperate enough to scam, steal, intimidate, take the fall—whatever the moment asks for. And when it goes wrong, I know how to keep it contained. I help bury things that should ruin men like my father. I pay for silence. I make sure people are taken care of if keeping their mouths shut costs them. When something ugly needs to disappear, I know how to make it disappear."
For a second, all I can hear is the rain and the blood rushing in my ears and the awful, steady quiet of him in front of me.
Kai looks away again, his eyes drifting to the wet stone path and the hydrangeas growing darker in the rain.
"And I don't know how much of what raised me was clean," he says, his steady voice making it worse. "The house. The money. The people around it." He grips the umbrella handle tighter. "After a while, the difference doesn't matter."
A chill runs through me.
Kai's expression stays the same. If anything, he seems calmer now that he's said it out loud. He isn't relieved, just certain.
"When people look at me," he says, "they see enough money, enough manners, and enough restraint to feel comfortable. They decide for themselves what kind of person that makes me."
His voice gets quieter.
"Most of the time, they're wrong."
My chest tightens until it aches.
"You're not the only one who grew up in something rotten, Anri," he says. "But don't think that means you know everything about me."
I swallow hard. "You say that like I should be scared."
Kai looks at me properly then, and there's nothing soft in his expression now. Just honesty, so bare it almost feels cruel.
"Yes," he says.
The word hits me clean.
But he doesn't step back. He doesn't let go of the umbrella. He doesn't put distance between us and tell me to run while there's still time.
"I should want better things for you than this," he admits.
Kai's hand tightens once around the umbrella handle.
"You're still…" He stops, as if the word itself catches on the way out. His gaze drags over my face, too intent, too steady. "Sweet enough to be saved from me."
The words hit somewhere deep and awful. Sweet. The idea of him still seeing me that way feels almost more unbearable than anything else he's admitted.
Kai exhales through his nose, humourless.
"You still have parts of you that aren't ruined," he says. "You still look at things like they can be beautiful without needing to own them. You still…" His mouth tightens. "You still have a chance to walk away from this before it becomes whatever it'll become with me."
I can't tell if my hands are shaking from the cold or because he's saying all of this like it costs him something to say it and not nearly enough to stop.
Kai's eyes stay on mine.
"I know what I should do," he says. "I know what someone better than me would do."
My throat tightens.
He doesn't look away.
"But I don't want to let you go," He says, almost low enough to be a whisper.
For a second, neither of us moves.
The rain goes on whispering against the umbrella, soft and steady, and somewhere beyond the path, people are still talking, still laughing, still existing in a world that feels very far away from this one.
Kai's hand falls to my waist.
Firm. Possessive. Not enough to hurt. Enough to make it impossible to forget it's there.
My heart pounds too hard and too fast, but the strangest thing is I don't want to run. I don't feel trapped. I feel found. Maybe that's what should scare me most.
Kai glances past me, toward the path and the crowd, watching people move past in the distance under umbrellas and between the flowerbeds.
The umbrella shifts overhead as Kai moves closer—only a fraction of distance remains between us.
I can hear myself breathing.
I can hear him too.
For a second, all I can do is look at him.
The rain has darkened his hair a little at the edges. The cut on his lip is still there, more visible up close, and something about it—about him standing here looking at me after everything, still holding the umbrella over my head, still close enough to touch—makes my chest ache so badly I almost hate him for it.
Kai's eyes drop to my mouth.
Slowly.
Then back up.
"If you want me to stop," he says, voice low enough that I feel it more than hear it, "say it now."
The words go through me like a shiver.
Because that is a choice. A real one. Clean, terrible, and right in front of me.
And the worst part is that he already knows.
I stare at him, my fingers tightening uselessly in the sleeves of his hoodie. "You know I'm not going to say that."
"Yes," Kai says softly. "I do."
Kai abruptly pulls the umbrella closed and lets it fall to the ground as if it's in the way. His grip returns firm on my waist, his free hand lifting. Not fast. Not greedy. His knuckles brush my cheek first past the hood, then settle warm at the side of my neck, thumb just under my jaw like he wants to feel the place my pulse has gone wild.
It's that, more than anything, that nearly undoes me.
I tilt my face up before I can think better of it.
Kai watches me do it.
His gaze drags over me like he's memorising the exact second I stop pretending I don't want this.
He presses his forehead against mine, a ragged exhale against my mouth. "Please, Anri…" he sounds almost wounded in a way that doesn't make this any easier. "Please tell me to let you go. Please say no…just this once."
My eyes sting so suddenly, it catches me off guard. My hands grip onto the opening of his shirt in a feeble attempt to pull him closer—it could be the rain, it could be that he's impossibly taller than me, or just the threat of Kai leaving is enough to turn my arms and legs into jelly. A single tear falls from my eye, then another. Kai's mouth is close enough to mine to ruin me.
I shake my head, small and frantic. "I—I can't, please don't ask me that…please don't ask me to lose you."
Kai's lips land on mine as if he can take the plea out of my mouth.
It isn't rushed.
That's what makes it unbearable.
His mouth is warm despite the rain, the kiss slow enough that I feel the full weight of it when it lands—as if the kiss seals something shut. I make a small noise I don't mean to, and Kai's hand tightens at my waist instantly, pulling me closer with a quiet kind of possession that makes my knees feel unreliable.
I'm kissing him back before I can even pretend I'm not, fingers bunching tighter on the opening of his shirt, my whole body tilting toward his like it's already forgotten how not to. Kai kisses like he does everything else when it matters—controlled right up until the point where the control starts looking dangerously like hunger.
His thumb presses once at my jaw.
The cut on his lip catches just enough that I feel it.
That nearly ruins me all by itself.
When he deepens the kiss, it isn't with haste. It's with certainty. The kind that says he's already decided I'm his problem and he's done pretending otherwise. My hands climb without me meaning them to, gliding up the front of his shirt instead, and Kai makes a low sound into my mouth that goes straight through me.
Rain falls heavily over both of us. But I don't care if I get soaked. I don't care if someone walks into this secluded area and sees us.
I kiss Kai like I'm deprived and he's nicotine. When he kisses me harder, I answer by chasing it desperately, as if I can carve it into him that he'd have to kill me to get rid of me that easily—as if I'm punishing him for even suggesting that he should let me go.
As if he can watch me for this long, protect me, control me, possess me, kiss me, take me out to some boyfriend-coded date and think the day could end with me walking away from him and getting on with my life.
As if I wouldn't cut his name into my heart if he asked me to.
When Kai finally pulls back, it's only far enough to breathe.
His forehead rests against mine. His hand is still at my neck. The other is still hard at my waist, keeping me exactly where he wants me.
I can't think.
I can barely breathe.
Kai's eyes stay on my face, darker now, his voice rough when he speaks.
"That's it."
A helpless shiver runs through me. "What is?"
His thumb strokes once, slow, beneath my jaw.
"This is real now, my Anri."
I drag in a breath that doesn't feel like enough.
"Kai, I—"
The words catch.
Not because I don't know them.
Because I do.
Because they're sitting right there, hot and terrifying on the back of my tongue, and if I let them out now—here, in the rain, with his hoodie on, with my mouth still warm from his—then that's it. There's no taking them back. No pretending this is still something smaller. Less dangerous. Less real.
So instead of saying it, I kiss him again.
It's messier this time. Needier. I catch at the front of his shirt and pull him back in like I can stop the confession by swallowing it whole.
I can't.
I love him.
The truth hits me so cleanly, it almost hurts.
I love him, and that should be the part that finally makes me afraid.
End of Act One
[1] Edo Lullaby (Edo no Komori uta), a traditional Japanese cradle song, originated in Edo (now Tokyo) during the Edo period (1600s–1868)
[2] Itadakimasu (いただきます) is a Japanese phrase said immediately before eating, translating to "I humbly receive" or "I partake".