It was the kind of restaurant that tried too hard.
Mood lighting that made her feel like she was being interrogated by candlelight. Tiny overpriced plates arranged with theatrical flourish. A playlist clearly curated by someone who thought acoustic covers of 2000s pop hits equaled ambiance. And of course — no date.
Again.
She stabbed a sad little sprig of microgreens with her fork and considered, for the third time in ten minutes, whether it was more pathetic to sit through a no - show blind date alone or to fake a dramatic emergency and sprint out of here like a woman on the verge.
Yuna had sworn this one would be different.
"He's normal," her best friend had insisted, which was already suspicious. "Teaches English, plays in a jazz band, reads Murakami. Doesn't own a fedora."
As if the absence of headwear crimes was the bar now.
Hana checked her phone again—still nothing. No "sorry, running late," no "I'm lost," not even a cowardly, "I panicked and fled because I'm emotionally unavailable and allergic to intelligent women who could verbally decimate me in under ten seconds." Rude.
She sighed, leaned back in her chair, and took a very deliberate sip of wine. She might've been stood up (again), but at least she was getting tipsy on someone else's dime. She fully intended to send this bill to Yuna with a passive-aggressive sticky note that just said: this is on you.
Her phone buzzed.
She didn't look immediately. Mostly because she was mid-sip, but also because if it was her date texting her now, he could suffer a little longer. But then she caught the name glowing on the screen and nearly choked on her wine.
Katsuki.
Of course he would choose now — right when she was at her most tragic, abandoned in a restaurant full of couples making eye contact like they were auditioning for a tragic romance drama — to call.
She considered letting it ring.
She also considered throwing her phone into the soy sauce dish and pretending the call had never happened.
But the thing was — he never called unless it was important. Urgent, even. Which meant this was probably some disaster. A client with a crisis. A motion that needed filing. Or maybe he just ran out of coffee pods and decided that was her problem now.
Hana sighed like a woman preparing for martyrdom and answered the call with all the enthusiasm of a condemned samurai.
"Hello—"
"Penthouse. Now," came Katsuki's voice, flat and imperious as ever.
She blinked. "Not even a 'hello, Hana'?"
He hung up.
Dead air.
She stared at her phone.
Did he—?
He did.
No explanation. No detail. No please. Just Penthouse. Now. Like she was some sort of corporate bat signal he could activate at will.
She set her phone down with the exaggerated patience of someone who was very much not okay.
Right.
Okay.
This was fine.
She was already dressed nicely. Sort of. Unless he considered "stood-up but still fashionably resilient" a dress code violation.
She flagged down the waiter, handed him the menu with a polite smile, and said sweetly, "My dinner got cancelled. If anyone asks, I was radiant, mysterious, and left with a man so attractive it caused a minor scene."
He looked confused. She didn't care.
Because of course she was going to the penthouse answering his royal summons like some overworked, underpaid legal gremlin. And of course—she was doing it in heels.
She grabbed her coat, her pride (what little remained), and muttered under her breath:
"He better be on fire."
-----
He took a slow sip of what was probably his third coffee — maybe fourth. It was hard to tell anymore. Somewhere between back-to-back contract revisions and Naomi's sixth passive-aggressive budget email, the day had blurred into a steady stream of deadlines and caffeine.
The penthouse was quiet. Just how he liked it.
Then came the soft ding of the elevator.
Followed by the distinctive metallic click of the lock disengaging.
Katsuki didn't bother checking the time. She was early, which either meant she was up to something or trying to make a point. He heard her before he saw her — the sharp rhythm of heels, the familiar rustle of her bag as she tossed it onto the entryway bench like a returning hurricane.
Then she appeared.
He glanced up. And frowned.
She was dressed like she had plans. Not office-appropriate, not her usual haphazard "function over fashion" mess. No. This was intentional. A wrap dress that hugged more than it hid, lipstick just dark enough to be noticed, and a messy updo that wasn't really messy at all. It wasn't flashy, but it was a very obvious not for you outfit.
"You're too dressed up."
She paused mid-step. Her expression was unreadable for a second — then flicked into something breezy and bored, like she'd just remembered her own excuse.
"I was on a date," she said easily, slipping out of her heels. "English teacher. Plays jazz. Reads Murakami."
She tossed that last part in with a lofty nose tilt, like that was the literary cherry on top of his irresistibly average existence.
Katsuki narrowed his eyes. "And you ditched him?"
She shrugged, "eh, I got bored."
She always looked him dead in the eye when she lied.
It wasn't confidence. It was deflection. A tell he'd cataloged sometime around week two. The sharper the eye contact, the messier the truth behind it. Chin high. Shoulders squared. Daring him to call her out.
Date, my ass.
He didn't press it. He never did. But irritation prickled under his skin anyway.
"We're going to Nisshin City."
Hana was caught mid-flop, "What's in Nisshin City?"
"Dinner meeting," he said, "If it turns out to be a waste of my time, I need you to bail me out."
She groaned. "Can't you just say something normal? Like 'I have to go, my pet dog died'?"
"I don't have a dog."
"It's called improvising."
"It's at Kage no Mori."
Wait. What?
Hana's brain blue-screened for a second.
She paused, trying to make sure she heard that right.
He did not just say Kage no Mori. As in the Kage no Mori—the reservation-only, black-aproned, Michelin star temple of culinary divinity that she'd tried to sneak into at least twice. Once by faking an anniversary. Once by pretending to be someone else's cousin. Both failed.
Horribly.
And now he was dragging her there? Casually? Like it was just another Wednesday?
She tilted her head.
Well. That changed things.
Screw the fake date. She hadn't even meant to lie, not really. It just came out—too fast, too easy. What was she supposed to say? Yeah, I was stood up again, but I looked hot doing it? That she got dressed up and waited forty-three minutes in a restaurant full of couples before deciding she liked wine better than loneliness?
Nope.
No thank you.
Lie. Move on. Regroup.
"Well, if you insist."
Katsuki didn't reply, but she felt his stare. Brief. Unreadable. Like he was cataloging something, then shelving it with the rest of her weirdness.
She settled deeper into the cushions.
He didn't say anything about the way she immediately reached for the throw pillow. Or how she shifted sideways and tucked her legs under herself like she was prepping for a Netflix binge.
He just watched.
Four months in, and he'd learned how easy it was to bribe her. Bribe wasn't even the right word. It was basic survival. She worked like a lunatic when fed properly. Deadlines hit. Crisis averted. Email wars won. But if left hungry? God help them all.
"I'm taking a shower," he said, loosening his tie with one hand. "Wait here. And don't touch anything."
"Wouldn't dream of it," she replied sweetly, already poking around the coffee table like it was a scavenger hunt.
He didn't glance back.
Didn't need to.
But as he walked down the hall, Katsuki realized—he didn't remember telling anyone else to come with him tonight. Not Kai. Not Naomi. No associate. No second chair.
Just Hana.
And for some reason… that didn't feel accidental.
-----
Hana was sprawled on the couch, one leg dangling off the edge like a bored Victorian ghost, aggressively scrolling through her phone. Mostly doomscrolling, really. Group chat chaos. Yuna sending TikToks at a volume that clearly indicated she was ignoring deadlines again. A notification from her budgeting app she would never open.
Then—the sound of the bathroom door opening.
She glanced up.
And promptly forgot what year it was.
Katsuki emerged in a low-slung towel, hair damp and mussed, steam curling behind him like some kind of cinematic thirst trap emerging from a Calvin Klein ad set in hell. Broad chest. Sharp shoulders. Abs that could file legal briefs on their own. And the towel—the towel—hung dangerously low, clinging to his hips like it had commitment issues.
Her first thought: Oh no.
Her second thought: Oh yes.
Her third thought: Someone please punch me unconscious before I say something stupid.
Her mouth went dry. Her spine went rigid. And still—because her body was an agent of chaos—she kept watching.
Look away, some distant voice whispered. Regain your dignity.
She did not.
Because her dignity had already packed up and left when he turned his head, casually toweling the back of his neck with one hand like he didn't just look like the closing shot of a very expensive K-drama.
-----
Katsuki saw her before she realized it.
She was frozen on the couch, phone still glowing in her lap, her gaze locked on him like he was some kind of forbidden artifact from a museum that specifically said do not touch.
He could've ignored it.
But something about her expression—the wide eyes, the barely-concealed panic, the sheer horrified awareness of her own staring — tugged at something unfamiliar in his chest. Not amusement, but satisfaction.
And maybe a little curiosity.
So he moved slower than necessary. Towel secure, but not too secure. Every step calculated. She wasn't the only one who could run a silent power play.
It wasn't vanity. He didn't care if people looked—he was used to being observed, assessed, anticipated. It was part of the job. But Hana didn't look at him like everyone else did. She didn't try to read him. She didn't try to predict him.
And when she finally tore her gaze away — snapping her eyes to a lamp like it was about to perform surgery — he chuckled. Soft, low. Barely audible.
It surprised even him.
He wasn't someone who laughed, let alone chuckled. But something about the sheer absurdity of it — her, in that ridiculous flustered spiral, pretending to care deeply about modern lighting fixtures — was too much.
-----
She was going to sue him.
She was going to sue him for workplace indecency and unfair manipulation of the female gaze and emotional damages that could not be quantified.
"You're staring," he said without looking at her.
"Am not," she replied too fast, immediately looking at a lamp, "I was checking my email."
"Were you."
"Yes. Very important email."
Katsuki just smirked as he disappeared into his closet, towel still criminally intact.
Hana, meanwhile, was having an out-of-body experience.
He'd smirked.
He'd chuckled.
She'd seen abs.
And her brain was now a pile of charred rubble.
By the time he returned—fully dressed, thank god—her heart rate had dropped back into survivable territory. Dark slacks. White shirt. Sleeves rolled just enough to still be rude. His tie was nowhere to be seen. This man had no respect for women's blood pressure.
"Ready?" he asked, all deadpan expression like he hadn't just pulled a full Greek god moment in his own damn apartment.
She cleared her throat. "Born ready."
And without another word, they stepped into the elevator—her heels clicking against the marble, his presence like a gravitational pull beside her.
Hana made a mental note: next time, she was bringing sunglasses.
And maybe a taser.