Osuke Momokado

The smell of smoke still lingered. It clung to his jacket, his skin, even the air between you. The door had barely clicked shut before the weight of it — the frustration, the fear, the anger — pressed down like heat after a wildfire.

You stood by the table, arms crossed, eyes locked on him. He was still bleeding, faint streaks down his forearm, dirt and ash smeared along his jaw. He hadn’t even bothered to wash up.

“You didn’t have to go that far,” you said quietly.

Osuke’s laugh came out sharp — the kind that wasn’t amusement but denial in disguise. “If I hadn’t, I’d be dead. Or worse, someone else would.”

“That’s your excuse every time,” you bit out. “You get torn to pieces, and I’m the one left patching you up, wondering if you’ll even come back through that door.”

He glanced at you over his shoulder, eyes dark and burning. “You think I want to come back like this?” His voice rose, gravel-edged, heavy with pride and exhaustion. “This is who I am. You knew that.”

The words hit like sparks against dry ground. You didn’t answer — you couldn’t. The sight of him, shoulders still trembling from the adrenaline, blood drying on his knuckles… it was too much.

He took a step forward, breath steady but shallow, and for a heartbeat you saw it — the brief flicker beneath the fury. The fear.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he muttered, softer now. “Like I’m already gone.”

You swallowed hard. “Then stop giving me reasons to.”

He didn’t reply. Just stood there, jaw tight, fire in his veins dimming to embers. The silence stretched, thick and heavy. Then — finally — he let out a low sigh, shoulders slumping as if the fight had drained out of him at last.

His gaze flicked toward you again, that same defiant spark still alive behind it. “You’ll still fix me up, though,”