you can tell yourself you're invincible, but at the end of the day, your charisma and your charm can not uproot the anger at what you stand for. who you are at your core. he thought of darkening another doorstep, but he feels so intangible right now and he cannot keep chasing ghosts.

he looks at her in her slip of a nightgown and he is suddenly acutely aware of how disheveled he is. his hair tie has slipped, white locks errant and in disarray around her face, tucked in the upturned collar of his shirt. his left sleeve is ripped in twain, still spattered. 

looking down at himself, then back up, he blinks. 

"job went sideways," he finds himself saying, "and i thought i might die." words don't come after that. his brows furrow. he admits - "i'm not used to not...knowing what to say."

Yumi Hasegawa

☉

he follows her in. he sits when she bids him to. and when she turns her back on him, he looks down at the bandaged arm. wild eyes, impassioned fury, a monster under skin. he knew people. he knows people. he knows what makes them tick, but their psyches are collapsing. 

everything, everyone, made unpredictable.

'here,' she says and she slides a glass in his hand. estranged by variables and uncertainties, he grasps tenaciously to this familiarity. 

the bourbon is knocked back, a smooth fire going down his throat. half still remains and he cradles it in his palm, licks his lips with a grimace. his eyes betray him, darting to her shoulder and his hand next, placed over hers as she readjusts.

"i couldn't go anywhere else," he says roughly, brows knitting.

his pulse thrums, reminding him that he is alive. bourbon sits neatly on his tongue, tracing through his veins. want pools, unhidden, and intense, as he takes her chin and thumbs her lower lip. 

Yumi Hasegawa

☉

it was not his life that flashed before nikkari's eyes when his blood spilled onto asphalt. it was flesh - sweat-ridden, exposed, shuddering in ecstasy. thoughts he'd brushed away as impulses (she is an attractive woman, after all) for the sake of their partnership. 

all of that is so far away. whatever sallow thoughts had remained burn like flash paper as yumi crashes against him. he responds in kind, lips wrenching open hers to slip his tongue into her mouth. he tangles his fingers in her hair, snakes an arm around her waist, and growls in the back of his throat as he drags her into his lap.

the weight he leaves on the small of her back is insistent, a rhythmic press against the already-strained fabric of his pants. 

Yumi Hasegawa

☉

yumi breathes hotly into his mouth and he turns his head, lashes fluttering against her cheek, and a noise of complaint escapes him when she withdraws. she makes her demands of him, grabbing his hands, but he drapes wet kisses against her jaw, tongue on the side of her neck. 

and then she's up, leaving him staring hungrily as she slips off her nightgown. no wayward glance is given and it's entirely forgotten in lieu of her exposure. her hands go to his front and he helps her with his shirt, shaking it off, batting her away from his pants. 

impatience bears down on him and he hitches an arm under her leg, fingers dimpling, demanding she wrap around his waist. 

"i want to taste you first," he murmurs in her ear. 

Yumi Hasegawa

☉

a mind is only as sharp as a body and beneath his shed clothes is taut muscle, well enough to carry her towards the bedroom. his shoulder is rough against the door, spurred by the teasing graze of her hips. he lay her down on the bed and for a breath is paralyzed, caught staring at dark hair fanning out behind her like some fallen angel, her swollen lips, the curve of her breasts.

only an instant and then he is upon her, ravishing and ravaging with needy urgency - his hands are under her collarbone, mouth replacing pinching fingers as they drift down the length of her body.

her lace is hitched carelessly, replaced by a warmth in the palm of his hand to make her want, to keep her pleased, as he trails slow kisses away from her chest, and to her midsection, and to her thighs.

Yumi Hasegawa

☉

she demands respect by way of devotion, dry tinder blushing with flame, and though he is most always a careful, concise, methodical person, he abandons such inhibitions in lieu of pleasing her. minutes tick by, stretching into small eternities, as he swallows sweetness, trading tongue for scant brushes of his stubble, the turning of his wrist. 

until she is pliant at his touch and when she shudders, he burrows closer, beckoned from his obsession only by the sound of his name. 

his eyes are dark with promise. he rises to a stand, wipes his lips, but lingers there, holding her gaze as he licks his thumb and undoes his belt. "yes, miss hasegawa," he murmurs, sliding to meet her at hip to hip, skin to skin, in a tangle of limbs and sweat and hours of long-pent-up desire.

Yumi Hasegawa

☉