She couldn't move.
Which was alarming, because Hana always moved—fidgeted, paced, tapped her pen against her lip, talked too much when she was nervous and made jokes at funerals. Stillness was unnatural on her. It wasn't something she did. It was something that happened to her—like sleep paralysis or jury duty or this kiss.
Because he was kissing her.
Hasegawa.
Her ex-boss.
Her super hot, emotionally catatonic, insufferably controlling ex-boss.
And not just any kiss. No, this wasn't some rom-com moment with swelling violins and forehead touches and maybe a hand cradling her cheek. This was a tactical kiss. A calculated shutdown, probably filed under strategic silencing maneuvers in his internal spreadsheet. No affection. No preamble. Just sheer, brute-force logic disguised as intimacy.
And still.
Still—his mouth tasted like black coffee and cigarettes and cologne so sharp it made her knees weak. That spicy-cedar one he wore to court when he wanted to make opposing counsel feel like a deeply inferior species.
There was nothing romantic about this.
But she couldn't feel her knees.
And her brain had…crashed. Like a browser with too many tabs open. Like Excel after a particularly cursed macro.
Error. Rebooting. Please wait.
-----
She wasn't hitting him.
That was the first thing he noticed.
She should have been. That's what she did—flail, slap, threaten bodily harm with the single-minded intensity of someone who didn't understand what fear was. But now?
Still. Silent.
Which was somehow worse.
Katsuki didn't linger. Didn't indulge. He wasn't here to lose control—he was here to regain it. So he pulled back, slow but deliberate, anchoring her with one last brush of breath before stepping back just enough to see her face.
Her eyes were wide. Unreadable.
Good.
That made two of them.
"Are you going to shut up and listen now?" he said, voice flat, expression colder than it should've been.
Because if he didn't put ice in it, fire would creep in.
She blinked. Once. Twice.
Still processing.
Katsuki exhaled tightly and pushed forward before she could regain full motor function and start throwing punches again. "I need you back at the firm."
No response.
"I don't care if you're mad. I don't care if it was unethical. He was hurting you, and I handled it."
That got a reaction.
Her jaw twitched. Her shoulders stiffened. Her mouth opened, probably with something scathing queued up, but she stopped herself. Recalibrated. Blinked again like she was waking up from a head injury.
Then, finally—softly, tightly: "You're not even going to apologize?"
He held her gaze. Unflinching. "Why would I apologize for something I don't regret?"
Her inhale was sharp. Her eyes flared—just for a second—and then cooled. Fast. Practiced.
"Go home, Hasegawa." Her voice was back. Quiet, clipped. Less of a shout, more of a scalpel. "You're wasting your time."
"You told me I could be an asshole all I wanted and you'd never leave," he said. Low. Lethal. "Was that a lie?"
That stopped her.
Her hand hovered near her hip. She stilled again—and not in that shell-shocked, post-kiss way. This was different. This was thinking. This was calculation. You could see the synapses firing behind her eyes.
He'd found the crack.
Not a big one. Not enough to crawl through. But a hairline fracture was all he needed.
"I'll think about it," she said at last, barely more than a whisper. "I'll call you. After the festival." Then walked away.
But he wasn't done.
Because Katsuki Hasegawa did not leave things unfinished. He did not make twelve-hour drives to rural sake towns just to walk away with a noncommittal maybe.
So he said, "I'm not going back without you."
She turned then. Slowly. Eyebrows raised, expression caught somewhere between are you serious and do I need to call the police again.
"It's festival season," she said, crossing her arms under her chest, which did not help his concentration. "All the inns and transients are probably booked."
He didn't respond.
Just looked at her.
One long, steady look that held no threat. No push. No arrogance. Just the simplest version of the truth he could give her:
He wasn't leaving.
Her mouth opened—and then clicked shut again. She squinted at him like he was speaking a different language. Like she was trying to decipher the emotional equivalent of a cease-and-desist letter.
And then she groaned.
"No, you have money. Figure it out. Buy a house if you need to." She was already walking toward her bike, muttering something about billionaire stalker tax write-offs under her breath.
And just like that—she was gone again.
-----
The second her foot hit the pedal, her brain betrayed her.
Because it couldn't let her leave in peace. No. That would be too simple. Too healthy. Instead, it immediately conjured the worst-case scenario: Katsuki, still standing there behind the brewery, kidnapped by some backwoods cult of rice wine bandits or mauled by a very polite bear in a yukata. His mangled body discovered by a horrified tourist, and she—she—would be the last person known to have seen him alive.
Then there'd be an investigation. News vans. Her face on NHK.
And worse—worse—someone would dig up that security footage of him throwing her over his shoulder like a Neanderthal with an MBA.
"Goddammit," she muttered.
Her legs slowed.
Her bike squeaked.
And with a sigh that sounded more like a personal betrayal than a decision, Hana muttered, "I'm so gonna regret this," and turned the bike around.
-----
Katsuki didn't even move as she rode off the first time—didn't flinch, didn't twitch. He just leaned back against the wall, lit a cigarette with the bored precision of someone clocking into a meeting he knew he was going to win, and waited.
Because Hana was chaos incarnate, but her moral compass was absurdly consistent. She once gave her entire lunch to a homeless man outside FamilyMart and then passed out in the breakroom three hours later because she "forgot to eat." The woman ran on caffeine, spite, and the exact kind of bone-deep empathy that made her infuriatingly, predictably soft in the ways that mattered.
So, yes. She'd come back.
And sure enough—there she was. Pedaling back with the twitchy, reluctant rage of someone deeply pissed at themselves for being decent.
Predictable, he thought, smoke curling past his lips. But the word wasn't dismissive. It was satisfied.
-----
His eyes met hers like he'd been expecting her to turn around all along.
Smug bastard.
A slow, wicked smirk tugged at her mouth.
Oh, he thought he won this round? Thought one kiss and a half-hearted emotional confession was enough to make her forget the literal war crimes he'd committed in the name of…what? Possessiveness?
Please.
She coasted to a stop in front of him, foot down for balance, eyes steady. "Follow me."
He didn't move. Just looked at her like she might be bluffing.
"You can stay at my place," she added, "until after Obon."
His brow ticked.
"Don't think I've already said yes. You're not that persuasive," she added quickly, tone sugar-coated and sharp. "I just don't want you murdered in a town that's technically under my family's name. That's bad press."
Katsuki's jaw flexed, but his expression didn't shift. Calculating. Controlled. Still impossible to read.
So she twisted the knife.
"Oh—and by the way?" Her voice turned saccharine. "Don't think that kiss is going to change my mind."
No reaction.
Good. That would make this so much more satisfying.
"It wasn't bad," she said, eyes dancing. "But it's not the best either."
And before he could respond, she pedaled off again—faster this time—smiling to herself like she hadn't just lobbed a live grenade behind her.
----
What.
Not the best?
Not the best?
His fingers tightened around the cigarette, jaw twitching so hard he could feel it in his temples. She pedaled off again, smug and victorious like she hadn't just committed slander in broad daylight.
He stubbed the cigarette out on the wall with slightly more force than necessary, turned on his heel, and got into the car.
The moment the door clicked shut, his brain launched into litigation mode.
Not the best?
He'd kissed plenty of women. Drunk, sober, in the backseat of this exact car. In parking lots. In elevators. Against desks. No one had ever complained. Some had asked to be ruined.
And this one? This unhinged, loud-mouthed, bike-riding menace with sunscreen on her nose and judgment in her eyes—
She just stood there. Didn't even kiss him back.
Maybe she was numb. Maybe she haven't had a taste of what the "best" feels like—he didn't care. It wasn't about ego. It was about accuracy.
Because if she thought that was him trying?
She had no idea.
Wait until I actually try, he thought, slipping the car into gear.
Then he caught sight of her up ahead—pedaling like she had a point to prove, legs bare under those offensively short shorts.
His knuckles flexed on the wheel.
"That fucking shorts still too short."