By the time the barbecue wound down, the garden had started to look civilized again. Someone had poured a bucket of water over the coals, and the grills hissed and gave off a last sour cloud of steam that drifted up through the lanterns. Empty bottles clinked into plastic crates by the side gate. What was left of the food had been split between containers bound for Renji’s refrigerator and the plates of several men who swore they would be hungry again within the hour. Yoshino stacked plates at the end of the long table while one of the younger men folded the paper tablecloths into a garbage bag. Across the lawn, Shouma was working by the grills with Shouta and two others, and he was carrying a great deal more than anyone had asked him to. He had a crate of empties against his hip and a folded chair hooked over his other arm, and when Shouta reached for the chair, Shouma shook his head and kept walking.

She caught herself watching him again. Then again a minute later, when he set the crate down and pushed his sleeves back up his forearms.

Stop it, she told herself, and put a plate on the stack harder than she meant to. You have to learn to stop doing that in public.

It had been easier before she knew what those arms felt like around her. Tsubaki had left not long after the three of them came back from the spa. Akira’s Lexus had rolled up to the front gate, and Tsubaki had kissed Yoshino on both cheeks and whispered, “Behave, or don’t. Just tell me about it,” before sliding into the passenger seat. Yoshino had stood by the gate waving until the taillights turned the corner. When she came back across the lawn, Shouma was heading toward her with two bulging garbage bags hanging from one hand and a tray of dirty glasses balanced on the other.

She planted herself in his path. “You know there are fifteen men here who could help you.”

“They are helping.”

“You’re carrying half of everything.”

“They’re trash bags, Yoshino.” He said it in the patient, level voice he used for explaining things to small children and drunk men.

She narrowed her eyes at him. There it was again, the faint amusement he got at her expense, so slight that she would have missed it a month ago. “You’re getting a lot more annoying now that you actually talk more.”

His mouth twitched.

Yoshino stopped walking. Her voice dropped to a furious whisper. “Are you laughing at me? I’m trying to make sure everyone does their share!”

“I promise I’m not laughing.”

“Yeah, okay. You think it’s funny when I get mad at you, especially when it’s because you’re doing too much.”

He kept walking toward the house without answering, but she could see the corner of his mouth lifting now, and he wasn’t trying very hard to stop it. Yoshino let out an offended huff and followed him. As they reached the back doors, she bumped her shoulder into his arm, hard and on purpose. The glasses on his tray rattled. He didn’t so much as glance at her.

He’s enjoying this, she thought. He enjoys everything I do tonight.

She was helping Daigo carry a stack of serving dishes into the kitchen when she heard a car idling in the front drive. She paid it no attention at first. Cars had been coming and going all evening. Then, through the open doorway to the front hall, she caught sight of her grandfather, and she stopped in the middle of the kitchen with the dishes still in her arms. Renji was dressed to travel. He had changed out of his short-sleeved shirt into a dark suit and a charcoal overcoat, far too heavy for an Osaka summer night. One of the men was carrying a small black suitcase out the front door toward the waiting car.

“Gramps?”

Renji kept walking. What Yoshino didn’t know, and what most of the gumi didn’t know either, was that he hadn’t heard her. Over the last year, his hearing had been slipping away from him, and he had become very good at hiding it.

Yoshino pushed the dishes into Daigo’s arms. “Gramps! Where are you going?”

This time he turned. His face broke into a wide smile at the sight of her. “Oh! Hokkaido. Didn’t Hotei tell you on the way from the train station?”

She hurried after him onto the front step. The night air was warm and smelled of cut grass from the afternoon’s mowing. “Hokkaido? Oh. Yeah, he did tell me, but I forgot. I was so tired on Friday.”

“Well, I have to go now.”

“You were just going to disappear?”

“I wasn’t disappearing. Hotei told you, and now I’m telling you.”

Renji stopped beside the car. He looked at her with the long-suffering patience of a man who suspected his granddaughter and the young man he thought of as a son were up to something, and who had decided not to ask what. “I have business that needs my attention. I’ll be gone about a week.”

“A week?” Yoshino’s voice climbed. “What about the spa? We start tomorrow!”

“You start tomorrow.” He tapped her forehead with one finger. “Don’t look at me like that. I haven’t abandoned you. You’ll have fifteen men, Tsubaki, Akira and Shouma at your disposal tomorrow and every day after. If you manage to destroy that building with all that help, I’ll seriously reconsider every decision I ever made about your education.”

“I’m not going to destroy it.”

“Good. Then we agree.”

Yoshino folded her arms, ready to keep arguing, but before she could, Renji bent down and kissed her cheek. His cheek was rough against hers, and he smelled of the same aftershave he had worn her entire life.

“Behave yourself.”

“I always behave myself!”

Somebody behind her coughed. Yoshino spun around. Three men standing by the gate suddenly found the gravel very interesting. Renji’s eyes went past her to Shouma, who had come out sometime during the argument and was standing in the doorway with his hands in his pockets and his face perfectly blank. “Toraishi.”

Shouma straightened. “Yeah?”

“Make sure she’s all right.”

Yoshino whipped around again. “Gramps, I’ll be fine.”

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

“I’m standing right here! I’ll be fine! Dude just go”, Yoshino lighted shoves him away.

Renji ignored her completely. His eyes stayed on Shouma, and his voice dropped into the low, flat register that made grown men stand up straighter. “And the two of you had better not do anything stupid while I’m away. I don’t want another situation on my turf like the one when Kirishima was here. You hear me?”

“Yes.” The answer came from Shouma and Yoshino at the same moment. Unfortunately, two of the men by the gate said it with them. Renji turned his head slowly toward the gate. The two men went rigid.

“I wasn’t talking to either of you.”

“Sorry, Boss.”

Renji turned back to Yoshino and pointed at her. “I’m warning you. Your father used to act all innocent and then go behind my back and do whatever crazy thing he wanted.”

“I never even met my father, you old man.” It came out before she could stop it, quick and sarcastic, and Yoshino clapped a hand over her mouth. Beside the door, Shouma turned his face toward the wall. She could see his shoulders shaking.

He’s laughing, she thought. And I probably shouldn’t have said it like that.

Renji muttered something under his breath. It sounded a great deal like a complaint about being surrounded by idiots, with a separate line reserved for granddaughters who talked back. He climbed into the back seat and pulled the door shut. Yoshino waved until the taillights disappeared past the gate, and when she lowered her hand, she became very aware of Shouma standing beside her. Her eyes slid toward him. His slid toward her. A second later, they both looked away.

This is becoming a problem, she thought. I can’t stop looking at him.

Every accidental meeting of their eyes seemed to carry far more than it used to, and acting normal was getting harder by the hour. Behind them, somebody cracked open another bottle. Several of the men had settled back around the last tables in the garden to keep drinking, and others were starting the night watch around the property, walking the fence line with flashlights. The house had slipped into the rhythm Yoshino had known since she was small, loud in one corner and watchful in another, half celebration and half fortress. For once, nobody seemed interested in her or Shouma at all.

Good, she thought. If they all get drunk, they’ll leave us alone.

She glanced sideways at him. He had taken out a cigarette and was turning it between his fingers without lighting it, looking out at the dark street.

I really hate that he smokes, she thought. But he looks so good when he does it. I am never saying that out loud.

They went inside together. Yoshino was halfway up the stairs when she felt the backs of his fingers brush hers. She looked over at him. He kept climbing as if nothing had happened.

At the top, though, he stopped and looked down over the railing. The front hall below was empty. Voices came faintly from the garden, far enough off that nobody seemed to be heading in. When he turned back to Yoshino, there was a look on his face she had never seen him wear in this house before. It was mischievous, and it was aimed directly at her.

Her pulse jumped. “Shouma…”

He caught her around the waist and kissed her. Yoshino had time for one startled breath through her nose. Then her arms went around his neck, and she rose up onto her toes as his hands settled firmly at her waist. She smiled against his mouth without meaning to. He tasted faintly of sake. The banister pressed into her hip, and she didn’t care.

How does everything else just go away when he does this?

For years, Shouma had been the person she could touch without thinking. She had leaned on him and clung to him and shoved him and annoyed him for sport. Now every one of those familiar touches had taken on a different meaning, and her body seemed to have learned the new meaning faster than her head. Footsteps sounded below and the back door opened downstairs.

They sprang apart and looked down into the stairs as they hear voices in the kitchen.

“Put that in the refrigerator.”

“I am.”

“No, you’re standing there.”

“Because you’re in the way, bro.”

Yoshino clamped both hands over her mouth. Shouma pressed his lips together hard. Their eyes met. A laugh escaped through her nose with an undignified snort, and Shouma caught her wrist and towed her farther down the hall before either of them lost it completely.

The footsteps below grew louder. Yoshino pointed frantically from her door to his. Shouma only shook his head with a small smile and slowed down on purpose, strolling, as though part of him wanted one of the men to come up the stairs and catch him sneaking around with her.

He’s doing this on purpose, she thought, staring at him. Who is this man?

They separated at their doors like guilty teenagers. Yoshino slipped into her room and almost shut the door. Then she stuck her head back out into the hall.

“Pssst.”

Shouma was halfway through his own doorway. He looked back.

“Pssssst!”

“What?” he whispered.

Yoshino shaped every word with her whole mouth, silently, her eyebrows climbing higher with each one. “PUT. YOUR. PAJAMAS. ON. AND. COME. TO. MY. ROOM.”

Shouma stared at her.

She pointed at him, then at her own room.

“I understood you the first time,” he whispered. He shook his head, smiling in spite of himself, and disappeared into his room. Yoshino shut her door and leaned back against it with both hands pressed to her cheeks. They were hot under her palms.

I’m grinning like an idiot. My heart won’t slow down. She slid a little way down the door. Ahhh. Ahhhhh. Okay. Okay. Shower. Go take a shower.

Half an hour later, two quiet knocks sounded at her door. Yoshino crossed the room in her bare feet and opened it just wide enough for Shouma to slip through, then turned the lock behind him. He had changed into black sweatpants and a black hoodie with the sleeves pushed up. His hair was still damp from the shower and pushed carelessly back off his forehead. He smelled of soap and, faintly underneath it, of the cigarette he had evidently smoked on his balcony before coming over.

She had only just come out of the bathroom herself. Her hair hung wet over one shoulder, half braided, and she wore blue striped pajama pants with the matching camisole. The room was lit by the bedside lamp alone, a low amber glow that left the corners dim and turned the window into a dark mirror. The air conditioner hummed in the wall. Shouma’s eyes dropped to her mouth for a fraction of a second. Yoshino caught it. She said nothing about it, finished the braid, and tied it off with the elastic from her wrist. Her fingers weren’t entirely steady.

“Before I start kissing you again,” she said, “did you lock your own door?”

“Yeah.”

“What if somebody checks?”

“They won’t.”

“But what if they do?”

Shouma shrugged. He took his keys from his pocket and set them on the small table beside her bed with a quiet clink. “Wouldn’t be strange if I wasn’t there. Sometimes I’m out around this time anyway.”

Yoshino blinked at him slowly. Then her eyes narrowed. “Out?”

“Yeah.”

“Out where?”

He looked at her. Yoshino tried to arrange her face into something neutral. Judging by the way his eyebrows went up, she failed.

“What?”

“Nothing.” She folded her arms. Her voice went light and sweet, which was always a bad sign. “I’m just curious what mysterious activities Shouma Toraishi has been getting up to at night while I was away.”

“Mysterious activities?”

“Yes.”

“Like going out to eat?”

One of her eyebrows rose.

“Alone,” he added.

“Uh-huh.”

“Sometimes I feed the cats.”

Her suspicion wobbled. “What cats?”

“The neighborhood cats.”

“You feed stray cats?”

“Sometimes.”

Yoshino stared at him. Shouma stared back, perfectly serious. “I can’t let them starve.”

Her face softened despite every effort she made to stop it. “That’s disgustingly cute.”

“Mm.”

“Don’t ’mm’ me. You sneak around at night feeding cats? That’s hilarious. And very cute.”

“Like I said,” He said it as if it were obvious, a little defensive. “What am I supposed to do, let them starve?”

Yoshino’s eyes lit up. She took a step toward him. “Oh my God. Tell me more. What else do you do?”

He sighed through his nose. “Sometimes I drive back to Kyoto. Sometimes I work in the garage.”

“At night?”

“Sure.”

“Working on what?”

“Whatever’s in there. There’s always something to fix.”

She studied him more carefully. There were whole pieces of his life she had missed while she was in Tokyo. Nothing dramatic, maybe. Ordinary pieces. Where he went when he couldn’t sleep, or which of the neighborhood strays had apparently decided he belonged to them.

He’s so sweet, she thought. And I’m glad there’s no woman in any of that. She scolded herself immediately. Stop thinking that.

But she had been thinking it, and Shouma had been watching her face the whole time. His eyes narrowed.

“Are you jealous?”

“No.”

“I’m not making fun of you.” His voice had gone quieter. “I want to know if you’re jealous.”

“I was curious.”

“About whether I was seeing someone.”

“No.”

He waited and thought to himself, I need to tell her that I have no one at all, and I have never had feelings for anyone but her.

Yoshino’s mouth pinched. “Maybe.”

There was no teasing in his face now. He stepped closer and took her face gently in both hands. His palms were warm and slightly rough, and they covered her jaw almost to her ears.

“There wasn’t anyone. I told you I broke up with her, and that was a while ago.” His thumbs came to rest just under her cheekbones. “There hasn’t been anyone. I have never had feelings for any of the ones I dated in the past.”

The last of her embarrassment slipped away. “Okay,” she whispered.

Then he kissed her. It wasn’t hurried like the kisses from before. This one was slow and deliberate, and Yoshino’s hands found his waist without her deciding to put them there. She curled her fingers into the soft cotton of his hoodie and pulled him in until there was almost no space left between them. When she finally drew back with a small, pleased hum, Shouma followed her mouth and took one more.

She smiled against his lips. “You’re greedy.”

“You told me to keep going.” His voice was low and a little rough. “The way you were kissing me back gives it away.”

“I guess..hm.”

“So don’t complain.”

“I wasn’t complaining.” She slid her arms around him and tucked her face against the side of his neck. His skin was still warm from the shower. Shouma’s hands settled at her waist, and for a while they simply stood there in the middle of the room, holding each other, with nothing to pretend about.

“You know something?” she murmured into his neck.

“Mm?”

“This afternoon, when you kissed me… that was my first kiss.”

His hand stopped moving on her back. “Your first?”

Yoshino lifted her head. “Yeah.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t think to tell you.”

“I would’ve done it differently.”

She laughed. “What would you have done?”

“I don’t know. But I would’ve done it differently.” His face went flat, the way it did when he didn’t want something to show. “I honestly thought Kirishima might’ve kissed you, since you two were together. I figured he’d probably done… something.” He looked past her shoulder at the wall. “It’s been bothering me for a while.”

Yoshino smiled and laid her forehead against his chest. She could feel his heartbeat through the hoodie, quicker than his voice suggested. “Well, we never kissed. And I loved your kiss. I love that it was my first. But now I don’t really care about that part.”

Shouma looked down at her. “Why? You deserve to care. You deserve the best.”

“Because I’m more excited about the next ones.”

Something in his expression sharpened. He looked at her with such focus that Yoshino’s courage wavered. She made herself keep her eyes on his.

“And everything else,” she added, more quietly, “that comes with being lovers.”

Shouma blinked. “Lovers,” he repeated, slowly, as if testing the weight of it. “Hm.”

“Yes.” The word sounded much bolder once it had come out of his mouth. Yoshino cleared her throat and looked at his collar. “Speaking of which. I talked to Tsubaki.”

His eyebrows went up.

“She figured it out.”

“Yeah, I kind of guessed that.” His voice went dry. “From all the shit she was saying in that office.”

“And apparently she’s been waiting for this longer than we have.”

“That sounds like Tsubaki.” He exhaled. “Meddling, annoying woman.”

“She wants us together. But she thinks we shouldn’t tell Gramps anything yet.”

The irritation went out of his face at once. “I agree.”

“I figured you would. You said so at the spa, and I might’ve missed some of it because I was busy dying inside about the condoms and everything else that came out of her purse.”

“We should wait,” he said. “And take things slowly.”

Yoshino nodded automatically. Then she stopped.

Shouma went on, not noticing that she had begun backing up through what he’d said and finding she didn’t like where it ended. “I’m not going to pressure you into anything. I’m the first man you’ve let this close. Whatever happens, we can hold off until you’re completely ready.”

“Um. No.”

Shouma stopped. “No?”

“No.”

“I thought we were agreeing.”

“We’re agreeing not to tell Gramps.”

“Yes.”

“We are not agreeing that you’re suddenly going to stop kissing me.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Or holding me.”

He opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

“Or touching me.” She lifted her chin. “Or whatever else happens.”

“Whatever else happens covers a lot of ground, Yoshino… it’s too broad.”

“I know.”

His stare sharpened. Before he could say anything, Yoshino reached up and pressed her fingers flat over his lips.

“I’m willing to keep this private for a while,” she said. Her voice was steady, though her face was burning. “I’ll even behave in front of everyone if that’s what we need. But behind closed doors? No. I spent years tying myself in knots over how I felt about you. Now I know you feel the same way, and I’m not going backward because my grandfather might lose his temper.”

She took her fingers away.

“You say that now,” he said.

“I’ll say it tomorrow too.”

“Renji would have my hands. He will literally kill me.”

“He wouldn’t.”

“That’s not very reassuring.”

“He’d just think about it very seriously.”

“Yoshino. No.” He caught her wrist, not hard. “We can’t tell MY boss, YOUR grandfather, that we’re dating. He’d break my hands.”

She went very still. “Wait. Go back. Say that again.”

“He’d break my hands.”

“No. Before that.”

“That we’re dating?” He frowned, as if she’d asked him what day it was. “Yeah. We are.”

Yoshino’s mouth fell open. “Wow. Not going to lie, I thought I was going to have to do the whole ’what are we’ conversation with you eventually.”

“Well, you don’t. I thought we both understood how we felt. Or at least where this was going, eventually.”

“Eventually?”

“Yeah.” He said it plainly, in the same voice he’d use to tell her the car needed gas. “I’m going to marry you eventually. But just because I know you this well doesn’t mean I get to skip steps. I want you to have everything you deserve.”

Yoshino stood in his arms without moving. Her eyes stayed fixed on his face. For a few seconds she couldn’t find anything to say at all.

“Sorry,” she managed finally. “I’m at a loss for words. But please. Keep talking.” Inside her head, Yoshino was dazed and twirling around with goo-goo eyes, roses and the most shoujo romance background to ever exist. She was jumping for joy and screaming internally, outside of her body, she was silent, red in the face but with an assertive look and fixed eyes on Shouma.

Shouma gave her a puzzled look, but he went on. “Behind closed doors, I’m your boyfriend and you’re my girlfriend. In front of Renji, we keep it normal. After a few months, I think we can tell him. Then I want him to watch me date you properly for a year before I ask his permission to marry you.” He paused. “You can tell me what you think. If you’re not ready for that, we wait.”

“No. I mean, yes. I love everything you just said. I mean no, I don’t need to wait.” The words were tumbling over each other. She took a breath. “I’m not going to say no to you. When the time comes, when you propose, I’ll say yes.”

She smiled, took two fistfuls of the front of his hoodie, and kissed him before he could say anything else. The startled sound he made disappeared into her mouth. She walked him backward one step at a time, still kissing him, until the backs of his knees met the mattress and he sat down hard. Yoshino followed without thinking about it and settled onto his lap, her knees sinking into the bed on either side of his hips, her arms looped around his neck. Shouma’s arms crossed over the small of her back and held her there. He didn’t pull her closer. He only kept her steady. For a moment the playfulness went out of both of them. There was nothing funny in the way he was looking at her now. His eyes had gone dark and very still, and his breathing had slowed in a way that made her pulse do the opposite. Yoshino slid her fingers into his damp hair and kissed him again. He answered at once, one hand spreading wide across her back while the other stayed at her waist, his thumb pressing into the soft place above her hip. She had expected kissing him to become less overwhelming after the first few times. It was doing the opposite. Every kiss taught her something new. When she tugged gently at his hair, his breath caught. When she pulled away too soon, he followed her. Under all that roughness there was a softness to him she hadn’t known about, and she was learning the taste of his mouth too.

He tastes sweet, she thought, dazed. There’s a little smoke under it, and then this sweetness I can’t stop going back for.

She drew back just far enough to breathe. Then she leaned in again at once.

Shouma turned his face aside with a quiet laugh that was mostly breath.

Yoshino made an offended sound low in her throat. “Mm. No. Don’t turn your face away. Give me your lips.”

“We can keep going.” He ran his hand slowly over her hair, from the crown of her head down the length of the braid. His voice had dropped almost to nothing. “But slow down.”

“Why?”

His eyebrows lifted slowly. He held her gaze and didn’t say anything at all. Then her body caught up with her head.

“Oh,” she said.

“Yeah,” he whispered.

Heat rushed up through her face. She had been so absorbed in kissing him that she hadn’t registered how close they were, or the warmth and tension that had been building between them while she wasn’t paying attention. Now that he had made her notice it, she could feel all of it at once, every place where they were pressed together through thin cotton.

“Oh,” she said again, louder. “Oh.”

Shouma put one hand over the lower half of his face.

Yoshino scrambled off his lap so fast that her heel caught the edge of the rug and she nearly went down. “Ah!”

A knock sounded at the door almost immediately.

They both froze.

“Yoshino? It’s Takashi. You okay?”

Yoshino’s face went hot. “Yes! I’m okay! Thanks, Takashi!”

There was a pause on the other side of the door. “All right! We’ll be downstairs for a while, so if you need anything, just yell!”

“Yeah! Thanks!”

His footsteps went away down the hall and down the stairs. The room went quiet except for the air conditioner. Yoshino turned around slowly. Shouma was still sitting on the edge of the bed with his face buried in both hands. The tips of his ears had gone bright red. She stared at them, and then a laugh started shaking out of her, silent at first.

“Don’t,” he said into his palms.

“Your ears.”

“Mm.”

“I’ve never seen you this red.”

“I need a second.” His voice was muffled. “And we need to be quiet.”

She laughed harder, trying to whisper through it, and crept back toward him. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re not.”

“Pssst. I am!”

“You’re not really whispering, and we have to keep it down.”

He lowered his hands just far enough to glare at her over his fingertips. Then the glare collapsed. “I’m sorry. I’m not even trying to glare at you. I’m mad at myself.”

That only made her grin wider.

His expression softened after a moment, and his voice went careful. “I really am sorry if I scared you.”

“No. That’s not why I jumped.”

He didn’t look convinced.

“I swear.” She sat down beside him on the mattress, close enough that their knees touched. “I wasn’t scared. I was so deep into kissing you that my brain stopped working. I could feel everything, but it was all sort of blurred together. Then you pointed it out, and my brain caught up with my body all at once. And I think I heard Takashi on the stairs right before that, and that’s what made me jump.”

Shouma looked away slowly.

Yoshino nudged his shoulder with hers. “You’re blushing.”

“No.”

“You are.”

“I’m leaving.” He pushed himself up off the bed.

“No!” She grabbed his arm before he could take a step and wrapped both of hers around it, hanging on with her whole weight. “You are staying.”

Shouma looked down at her.

“Please, Shouma. Do. Not. Leave.”

His resistance lasted about two seconds. “I wasn’t actually going to leave, silly.”

Yoshino smiled in triumph and leaned into his side. “Besides, you’re acting like you’re the only one affected. I think I have what is called a lady boner.”

Wait, she thought. Did I just say that out loud?

Shouma’s eyes moved to her face, and Yoshino felt a second wave of heat climb her neck.

“I mean, actually I don’t know. I don’t know what to compare what you felt to what I felt…but I definitely want you.” she stammered.

He shoved his shoulder playfully towards her. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and completely without humor. “It’s unfair, because I want to make you mine.”

He said it so simply that it took the breath out of her. He seemed to realize it at the same moment, and he looked at her as if waiting to see what she would do with it.

Yoshino looked back at him. “Well,” she said softly. “I want you to make me yours.”

He lifted his hand and brushed a loose strand of hair off her cheek. The room went quiet again. Yoshino leaned in and kissed him once, much more gently this time, and when she drew back, Shouma rested his forehead against hers.

“I’ve wanted to kiss you for a long time,” he said.

Her heart gave a hard knock. “How long?”

“Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to.”

“I want to hear you say it.”

“Years.”

Yoshino smiled.

“And other things?” she asked.

He closed his eyes. For a moment he didn’t answer. “Obviously. For a while now.”

“How obviously?”

“You’re enjoying this too much.”

“Okay, but I spent years thinking I could never tell you how I felt.”

“Same.” He shook his head, but she caught the smile before he could hide it. She leaned in to kiss him again, and this time he caught her gently by the waist and held her there, an inch away.

“Slow.”

“I know.”

“I mean it, Yoshino.”

“I know.”

His eyes stayed on hers.

Yoshino let out a long, theatrical sigh. “Fine. I promise to do what you say.” She smacked his shoulder for good measure.

Shouma caught her hand before she could do it again and brought her knuckles to his mouth. He kissed them, lightly, and held them there against his lips for a moment with his eyes on hers.

Whatever sarcastic reply Yoshino had been preparing went out of her head.

This is unfair, she thought. This is so unfair, Shouma.

Teasing, she could handle. Gentleness like this was far more dangerous. She looked down at their hands. Shouma touched her chin and lifted her face back to his.

“We have nothing but time,” he said. “Let’s take it slow.”

She understood exactly what he meant. She swallowed and held his eyes.

“I love you, Yoshino.” His voice was low enough that she felt it as much as heard it. “And I want to love you the right way, because you deserve that.”

Her stomach dipped. “You can’t say things like that after telling me to calm down.”

“Why?”

“Because it does the opposite.”

He let out a quiet laugh. Yoshino buried her face against his shoulder with a muffled groan. “You’re horrible.”

“Say that if you want.” He turned his head so that his mouth was near her ear. “But I promise I’ll love all of you, and I’ll be here whenever you need me, forever.”

“I know,” she said into his shoulder. It came out half a sigh, half a complaint. She stayed there a moment longer, then sighed again. “I feel the same about you. Word for word.” She lifted her head. “Anyway, let’s watch a movie before Takashi comes back. If we’re quiet, he’ll think I’m asleep.”

“That might be the safest thing either of us has said all night.”

She looked at him. “Let me fall asleep in your arms.”

Shouma’s face softened at once. “Of course.”

She chose The Phantom of the Opera and started it on the television mounted across from the bed. When she turned around with the remote, Shouma had already stretched out against the headboard with the pillows stacked behind him. He lifted one arm and patted the empty space at his side. “Come here.”

His voice was soft and certain, and it was not a question. Yoshino climbed onto the bed without a second thought and fit herself against him. He drew the blanket up over both of them, and she laid her head on his chest while his arm curved around her shoulders. She could hear his heart under her ear, slower now than it had been. They watched the movie for about twelve minutes.

Then Yoshino looked up, and Shouma looked down. She lifted her face toward his and let her eyes close, and he met her halfway. The movie carried on without them. By the time she settled back against his chest, Christine had been led down into the dark under the opera house, and the low notes of an organ filled the room. The television threw a shifting blue and gold light over the blanket and the walls. Shouma’s fingers moved slowly up and down her upper arm, barely touching. For a while they managed to watch in a comfortable silence. Yoshino suspected neither of them was following much of it. Eventually her attention drifted back to him. She studied his profile in the light from the screen: the straight line of his nose and the faint crease between his brows as he frowned at the television. He looked very serious for someone who had spent most of the movie so far kissing her instead. She leaned up and pressed a small kiss to his jaw. He didn’t react.

She waited a few seconds, then kissed his cheek. Nothing.

Her mouth curved. She shifted higher and brushed a kiss against the corner of his mouth. Shouma kept his eyes stubbornly on the screen, though she could see a muscle working in his cheek as he fought not to smile.

“You’re ignoring me,” she said.

“I’m watching the movie.”

“Oh, really?” She glanced at the television. “Have you seen this before?”

“No.”

“Then what’s happening?”

He was quiet for a moment, eyes still on the screen. “The guy in the mask is obsessed with her.”

Yoshino blinked, surprised he’d kept track of that much. “Well, yes. But what’s happening right now?”

“No idea. Looks like the two of them are going to fight over the girl.”

“So you’re watching it. But you’re not really watching it.”

He finally turned his head and looked at her. “Whose fault is that?”

Yoshino pretended to think it over. Then she leaned in and kissed him again. “Yours, obviously.”

This time Shouma gave up any pretense of the movie. He turned toward her fully, and his hand slid from her shoulder up the side of her neck until it cradled her jaw. Yoshino smiled into his mouth and curled closer, her fingers finding their place on the front of his hoodie. He kissed her slowly and then less slowly, and the arm around her back tightened until she was pressed along the whole length of his side. Behind them the orchestra swelled into something grand and tragic, which seemed almost silly next to what was happening under the blanket. When they finally parted, she stayed close enough that the tips of their noses touched. There was color high on his cheekbones. His eyes kept going back to her mouth.

“You know,” she whispered, “for someone who keeps telling me to slow down, you’re very bad at letting me watch my movie.”

One eyebrow went up. “Your movie?”

“Yes. Mine.”

“You’re the one who keeps kissing me.”

“And you’re the one who keeps kissing me back.”

He laughed under his breath and ran his thumb across her cheek, then leaned in and kissed her forehead instead of her mouth. Yoshino settled against him again, extremely pleased with herself.

“That guy’s insane,” he said a few minutes later, nodding at the screen.

She lifted her head. “The Phantom?”

“Who else?”

“He’s complicated.” She propped her chin on his chest. “And a little bit dreamy. The obsession, the devotion. It’s kind of hot.”

“He kidnapped her.”

“Well, yes, but—”

“And he’s been stalking her.”

Yoshino pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. “You’re making it sound terrible.”

“It is terrible.”

“It’s a gothic romance, Shouma.”

“I like the music but this character, nah.” He frowned at the screen. “He lives under an opera house. Think about the mold. No wonder he’s out of his mind.”

She laughed into his chest. When she looked up again, though, his face had changed. He was watching the man in the mask with an expression that had gone quiet and hard around the eyes.

She understood what he was seeing before she asked.

“Does he remind you of someone?”

“Sure.” His voice was flat. “The piece of shit.”

Yoshino regretted the question at once.

I don’t want him thinking about Kirishima, she thought. Not tonight. He isn’t worth it.

“Shouma, forget I asked. I’m sorry. I don’t want to talk about him, and I shouldn’t have made that comparison.”

“Don’t be sorry.” He looked down at her, and the hardness eased. “You’re smart enough to see a pattern. Yeah, it reminds me of him, but it doesn’t matter. Let’s just finish the movie so we can sleep.”

She grinned and stretched up to kiss his cheek. “Dude. You’re such a man. I love that I get to call you my man.”

He caught her chin lightly between his fingers. His mouth was trying not to smile. “Your man?”

Yoshino laughed and kissed him again, and her amusement softened into something quieter when his hand moved to cradle the back of her head. Earlier that afternoon, every kiss had carried the rush of finally crossing a line they had spent years pretending wasn’t there. Now some of the urgency had settled. They could kiss simply because they wanted to, without it needing to become anything more.

This is what he meant, she thought. Taking our time.

She had taken his caution as an obstacle at first. Here, curled against him with the blanket around her shoulders, she was beginning to see it differently. She liked the warmth of his palm against her cheek and the occasional pass of his thumb along her jaw. She liked how he sometimes stopped between kisses only to look at her, as if checking that she was still there.

The men downstairs seemed determined to remind them that privacy was temporary.

It started during one of the film’s quieter passages. A ragged chorus of male voices rose up through the floor, and at first Yoshino thought someone had put music on in the common room. Then she recognized it for what it was: several very drunk men trying to sing along to a song none of them knew very well. Shouma stopped kissing her. Yoshino opened her eyes.

They lay still and listened as one man reached for an ambitious high note and missed it by a wide margin. Somebody immediately started shouting at him. Somebody else started shouting at the shouter. Yoshino stared at Shouma. Then she buried her face in his chest, her shoulders shaking. “Oh my God,” she managed. “How are they this loud? Geez…”

“They’re drunk.” He sounded resigned. “This is half the reason I go out and feed the cats. It’s also why I got the townhouse in Kyoto. There were mornings I couldn’t get up for class because these idiots kept me awake all night with their karaoke.”

“Wowww.”

Another round started up, with clapping that had no relationship at all to the rhythm. Yoshino groaned and pressed her forehead against his breastbone. “There goes the atmosphere.”

Shouma laughed, and she felt it rumble under her cheek. “Want me to go tell them to shut up?”

“No. Let them have their fun.” She lifted her head, and a slow, wicked smile spread over her face. “Besides. Next time they get this loud, we could have sex, and be as loud as we want.”

Shouma’s eyes went wide. Then, without any change in his expression at all, he said, “I’m not making love to you while those assholes sing like that. And we’re not having sex in this house.”

She laughed, picturing the singing downstairs getting worse as the night went on. Then her laughter faded, and she tilted her head. “Okay. So when can we have sex?”

Shouma shook his head. “Not now.”

“Tomorrow?”

“No.”

“Next week?”

“I said no.”

“Dude. Wait. Are you really not going to have sex with me anytime soon?”

“Yoshino.” He said her name very gently, and she stopped. “We will. But I need you to trust me on this. Give me some time. When it’s right, I’ll tell you.”

She sighed and lay back down against him with her head tucked under his chin, “This is so laaaaaame.” He drew the blanket higher over her shoulders. The movie kept going, though she had stopped watching it some time ago. She was warm and getting sleepy, and his hand moving slowly up and down her back made it hard to think about anything else. She had spent so long imagining what being with Shouma would be like that she’d expected everything to change.

The strange part was how little had. She had slept next to him before. She had hugged him and leaned on his shoulder, stolen food off his plate, and cooked for him when he forgot to eat. She knew the smell of smoke that clung to his clothes after he’d been outside, and she could tell his easy silences from the ones that meant something was wrong. But now, under the blanket, his thumb was moving slowly over her knuckles as if holding her hand were something he wanted to take his time over, not a habit. Now she could tip her face up and kiss him whenever she liked, without having to disguise it as anything else.

We’ve always been like this, she thought, and almost smiled at herself. Except they hadn’t. Not really. They had spent years doing things other people might have called romantic while insisting there was nothing to it. Their friendship had been a convenient explanation for almost everything. It had covered the touches that lasted too long and the jealousy neither of them would name. It had covered her, too, every time she got loud and brash to hide something real. Now that it was out in the open, she couldn’t understand how they had fooled themselves for so long. She glanced up at him. He was watching the screen with that familiar look of concentration, his face composed, but when she shifted against him, his arm tightened around her without any thought behind it at all.

Idiots, she thought fondly. Both of us.

Her hand wandered across his chest, following the folds of the hoodie, and then lower, toward his stomach. She wasn’t sure if she meant to tease him or if she only liked being able to touch him without having to make up a reason. Either way, Shouma recognized where her hand was going before she had a chance to find out. Without taking his eyes off the television, he caught her wrist and brought her hand back up to the middle of his chest, holding it there under his own.

“I said no.”

Yoshino lifted her head slowly. “I wasn’t touching anything.”

“Yeah, but I know what you’re trying to do.”

She stared at him, offended mostly by how right he was. “You’re very strict for someone who’s supposed to be my boyfriend.”

His mouth twitched. “Someone has to be.”

She let out a long, injured sigh and dropped her head back onto his shoulder. For a while she lay there contemplating the injustice of having a boyfriend with so much more restraint than she considered necessary.

“Fine,” she whispered at last, turning her face into his neck. “But don’t stop kissing me.”

That made him look down. He studied her face for a long moment, and his eyes softened in the way that still caught her off guard whenever she saw it aimed at her so openly. He brushed his lips across her knuckles and let go. “Come here.”

His hand slid behind her neck, his fingers slipping under the base of her braid, and he drew her up to him. Yoshino went willingly, shifting until she could reach him without straining. Their mouths met softly. She felt him smile when her free hand found its place on his chest again. He kept the kiss gentle, unhurried, and he kept it going even after the credits began to roll.

“I always wanted more from this movie,” she murmured eventually, watching the names scroll past. “There are only a few parts that are actually romantic.”

Shouma followed her gaze. “Isn’t the whole thing supposed to be romantic?”

“It’s tragic.”

“Yeah, I don’t have any other opinion aside from the masked guy being crazy.”

Yoshino laughed softly. “Love usually is.”

He looked down at her, and his expression turned thoughtful. “Doesn’t have to be.”

The plainness of it caught her off guard. A few weeks ago it would have been nearly impossible to get a sentence like that out of him. Now he had simply said it, as if it were obvious.

“No,” she agreed quietly, and touched his cheek. “I suppose it doesn’t.”

He leaned into her hand before he kissed her again. Then he tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Tired?”

“No,” she murmured.

“You’re falling asleep.”

“Am not.”

“Your eyes are closed.”

“I’m resting them.”

He laughed quietly. “Right.”

She opened one eye long enough to give him a mildly offended look, but keeping it open was too much work. It drifted shut again. She heard him laugh once more under his breath before he kissed her forehead. A moment later, he shifted to make her more comfortable. Yoshino stirred at once and tightened her arm around his waist, as if he might be getting up to leave.

“Don’t go,” she whispered.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

She tipped her face up, her eyes heavy with sleep. “Promise?”

He looked down at her, and the plain sincerity in his face made her chest go warm. “Yeah. I promise.”

“Okay.”

Satisfied, she tucked herself back under his chin. She slid one leg between his under the blanket, looking for his warmth, and he moved to give her room without either of them having to think about it. They had been doing this for years, on cramped sofas and in the back seats of cars, and it had never once needed explaining; however, this time, they weren’t inches away, they were holding each other passionately. Within a few minutes her breathing slowed. The fingers that had been gripping the front of his hoodie loosened and went still.

“Yoshino?” he whispered. She made a small sound that wasn’t a word. Her eyes stayed closed.

He waited, then moved a strand of hair off her cheek. When she didn’t stir, he smiled to himself and settled back against the pillows.

She’s out.

The house was still awake around them. Now and then footsteps crossed the hallway, and voices murmured past the door and faded. Downstairs, the singing had finally given way to scattered laughter and the clatter of dishes. Outside, the men on watch were making their slow rounds along the fence. Shouma could pick out some of the voices drifting up through the floor. He didn’t care what they were saying. Most of them were going to wake up in the morning regretting the evening, and at least one would be complaining about his head before breakfast.

On any other night he would have gone down to check on things, or stepped out onto the balcony for a last cigarette. There was always something that needed doing. He had gotten used to filling every quiet hour with it. Tonight he didn’t want to move. Yoshino was asleep on him, her cheek over his heart and one arm thrown across his waist. Every so often she shifted and pressed closer, as though checking in her sleep that he was still there. He looked down at her face. With no chance of being caught at it, he let himself look for as long as he wanted. Her braid had come half undone, and loose strands had fallen across her forehead and the bridge of her nose. He moved them aside with one fingertip and let it trail along her cheek. Her lips were parted slightly. In the light from the television, which had gone to the blue screen of the menu, her lashes cast small shadows on her skin. He had watched her sleep often over the years. As kids, she’d fall asleep next to him after wearing herself out on whatever had caught her interest that day. As teenagers, there had been long car rides and the afternoons after Renji made them clean the house, and she would drop off without warning wherever he happened to be, as though being near him were reason enough to rest. Sometimes she slept with her head on his shoulder. Sometimes she sprawled across him with no thought at all for whether he was comfortable.

He had never complained much. It wasn’t that he enjoyed being used as a pillow. It was the trust in it. Yoshino was stubborn and fully able to defend herself, and she hated being treated as if she were helpless. But when she was tired, she came looking for him, and she settled beside him as if it had never occurred to her that he might not make room.

For years he had told himself that was ordinary. That the warmth that went through his chest when she fell asleep against him was only fondness for someone he had known most of his life.

He knew better now. Looking back, he couldn’t count the times he had chosen to misunderstand himself because the truth would have made everything harder. He had wanted her long before he was old enough to know what wanting meant. Somewhere along the way, the comfort of having her near had turned into something he couldn’t wave off anymore. He had caught his eyes following her across rooms, and caught himself irritated when another man got too interested. Once or twice he had caught himself looking at her in a way he had no business looking at Renji’s granddaughter, and he had turned away and gone outside to smoke until it passed.

Worse, he had wanted her to want the same thing. He let out a slow breath at the ceiling, and the corner of his mouth lifted at his younger self.

What a pain in the ass I was.

He had spent years acting as if he didn’t care. Whenever his feelings came too close to the surface, it had been easier to tease her or brush her off than to admit how much of his head she took up. He had told himself that keeping his distance was the sensible thing, with everything around her family and what was expected of both of them. But Yoshino had never made it easy. She had a habit of walking straight through every wall he put up, usually without noticing it was there. She showed up at his side when he wanted to be alone and pushed plates of food at him whenever she suspected he hadn’t eaten. She argued with him and worried over him until he had no idea what to do with her. And somewhere in all of that, he had fallen in love with her. It wasn’t only the beautiful woman asleep on his chest, though he would have been a liar to say her looks had never gotten to him. It was the stubborn set of her jaw when she refused to give ground in an argument. It was the look she got when she couldn’t decide whether to be angry with him or laugh, and the way she could walk into a room full of men who frightened most of Osaka and talk to them without blinking, then go red to the ears when he told her she was beautiful.

It was smaller things too. The sound of her moving around the kitchen in the morning. The way she argued out loud with recipes she had decided to improve. Those were the things he’d missed most while she was in Tokyo, more than he had admitted to anyone, himself included.

Yoshino shifted in her sleep. Her hand slid up his chest and came to rest near his collarbone, and she made a faint sound, almost a sigh, and tucked her face closer into his neck. He pulled the blanket up around her shoulders and laid his palm flat between her shoulder blades, moving it slowly until she went quiet again.

“I love you so much Yoshino.”

The words came so easily that it surprised him. For years those words had lived only in his own head. Saying them to her had once seemed more frightening than most of what he faced in his work. There had been too much riding on it, between her family and the chance that she didn’t feel the same. He knew why he’d waited. He could take rejection or embarrassment. What he couldn’t risk was losing her trust, or making her uneasy around him in the one house where she had always been able to relax. He had wanted her in his life even if it meant she would never be in it the way he hoped. But she loved him. It still caught him off guard. Yoshino Somei had looked him in the eye and told him she loved him. He lowered his head and pressed a kiss to her forehead and stayed there a moment with his cheek resting against her hair.

I’m not letting you go.

He smiled faintly at that, because he knew loving her didn’t mean keeping her shut away from the world or making her decisions for her. She would never stand for it, and he wouldn’t want her to. Her independence was one of the things he admired most. She had plans of her own and a life that went well beyond him, and he wanted to be the man who stood behind those things, not in front of them. What he wanted was simpler than that, and harder to say. He wanted the life they had already been living in pieces, without having to pretend it meant nothing. A home that felt lived in, with her things mixed in among his. Knowing he would never again have to wonder when he’d see her next. For a man who had spent most of his life moving from one obligation to the next, never sure what the gumi would ask of him tomorrow, wanting something that ordinary felt almost embarrassing. He had never seen much point in imagining the future. Too much of his life could change without warning. But when he thought about her, he found himself wanting things he had rarely let himself think about. He liked the thought of it. He liked it more than he had expected to. Tomorrow would bring them back to earth. There was the spa to organize and fifteen men to keep in line, and putting Tsubaki in one building with a crew of gumi was going to produce arguments. Somebody would break something expensive before the week was out. He would have to watch that Yoshino didn’t end up carrying all of it herself because she was the most organized person there. She had a habit of taking over whenever other people fell short, and he knew how easily she ran herself into the ground trying to make everything work.

Then there was Renji.

Shouma’s face grew thoughtful. The old man had watched the two of them for years. He knew their habits and their tempers, and he had an irritating talent for noticing what other people missed. It wouldn’t take much for him to realize something had changed. The question wasn’t whether Renji would find out. It was what he’d do when he did. Shouma had no intention of treating it lightly. He would go to Renji properly when the time came, without excuses and without making Yoshino out to be less than she was to him. If the old man had questions or objections, he’d hear them out. And if Renji decided to make it as hard as possible, which seemed likely, he would deal with that too. What he would not do was pretend his feelings were temporary. He had spent too many years doing exactly that. He looked down at her again. Her fingers had closed around a fold of his hoodie. He covered her hand with his.

We’ll figure it out.

For once, not knowing what tomorrow would bring didn’t bother him. There would always be people expecting things from them. That was the life they had both been born or brought into. But facing it with her no longer felt like one more weight to carry. It felt like something to look forward to. He brushed his lips against her hair.

“You’re going to get me in so much trouble, you know that?” he whispered. His voice was rough with something close to laughter. “But it’s ok…I’ll do anything for you.” She didn’t answer, but she pressed her cheek more firmly against his chest. He settled back into the pillows. Outside, the leaves of the persimmon tree moved against the wall, and somewhere down by the gate one of the night watch said something and another man laughed. A small crease had appeared between Yoshino’s brows. He smoothed it away with his thumb and left his hand resting against her cheek.

“Shouma…” she murmured, so quietly he barely heard it.

He went still. “I’m here.”

The crease didn’t come back. She sank deeper into sleep without opening her eyes. He watched her for a while. Then he tightened his arm around her and kissed the top of her head.

“I’m here,” he said again, softly. This time it was as much for himself as for her. He shifted onto his side, careful not to wake her, and pulled the blanket around them both. She followed the movement in her sleep, curling into him until her forehead rested under his chin and her arm locked around his waist. He kept one hand between her shoulder blades and the other loosely laced with hers, and he listened to her breathe. Bit by bit, the last of the tension went out of his shoulders, and he felt the day finally catching up with him.

“I love you, Yoshino,” he whispered. She was too far under to hear it. That was fine. He’d said it before, and he would keep saying it when she was awake until she was used to hearing it. It wasn’t something he meant to save for rare moments. It was simply how he felt, and that wasn’t going to change. He rested his cheek on her hair and closed his eyes. Beyond the door, the house settled into its nighttime quiet, and the voices of the men on watch faded into the dark outside.

Nobody is going to stop me from loving you, he thought. Nobody.