Sunday morning. Osu was quieter than usual. Not that Katsuki noticed things like "atmosphere" or "vibes"—he wasn't here for ambiance. He was standing outside Hana's apartment, jaw clenched, one hand in the pocket of his coat like he wasn't trying to commit homicide with the other.
She'd ignored him the entire Saturday.
Then, sometime around midnight—after another fruitless attempt to message her about a client deliverable he definitely made up—he found out she'd blocked him.
On everything.
Everything except office email, which he suspected was only spared because even in the depths of fury, Hana respected corporate structure.
It was childish. It was dramatic. It was her.
And it was working.
This wasn't sustainable. The silence, the avoidance, the ongoing cold war she'd unilaterally declared. He had work to do. A company to run. He couldn't afford this level of emotional disruption. It was inefficient.
It was also, apparently, his fault.
He knocked once. Sharp. Loud enough to carry through her walls and whatever Netflix murder documentary she was undoubtedly using to justify her rage.
Shuffling behind the door. Good. She was home. Possibly peeking through the peephole. Possibly debating whether she could get away with throwing something at him.
"Hana. Open up," he said evenly. "If you don't, I swear I will kick this door down."
A pause. Then, from the other side: "I'll sue you for trespassing."
His mouth twitched. "I'm not kidding."
A beat. Then he heard the locks shift, the unmistakable sound of begrudging surrender.
She opened the door looking exactly like what he'd expected—and exactly like a punch to the chest.
Giant hoodie (Ren's, probably), hair an unruly halo, eyes bloodshot like she hadn't slept in days. She didn't say a word. Just turned and walked away, leaving the door open like she was too tired to finish being angry.
He stepped inside and shut it behind him. No invitation. She knew better. He didn't wait to be invited.
And there she was. On the floor.
Inside a blanket.
Like a human burrito of spite and ice cream.
Leaning against the couch, eyes locked on a documentary detailing how an underappreciated employee snapped and murdered his boss.
Katsuki sat on the couch with practiced nonchalance. "That's… concerning," he remarked, nodding at the screen.
"It's not Monday yet. Why are you here?" she replied, voice flat. She didn't look at him.
"You blocked me."
"I blocked you for actively ruining my life."
He took that in without reacting. Not externally. Internally? He'd catalogued every word, every inflection, every ounce of venom she managed to lather in that deceptively calm tone.
He should've been irritated. He was. But beneath it—deep, buried, locked behind seven reinforced vault doors—was a flicker of relief.
She was mad. But she wasn't gone.
She was still here.
And that meant he could fix this.
Even if it killed him.
Which, judging by the documentary she was watching, was not entirely off the table.
-----
Now he was here.
The scent of expensive cologne, judgment, and impending arguments practically seeped into the rug. She stared at the TV, eyes locked on the screen where a disgruntled office worker was explaining how he'd finally snapped and murdered his boss with a paperweight. Mood.
All she wanted was one weekend. Just one. To not think, not feel, not be stared at by six feet of emotional repression in a Brioni coat. But no, apparently even blocking him wasn't enough.
It wasn't forever. Just the weekend. Like a little digital vacation. But then he showed up like a software glitch in her emotional firewall and now she couldn't even enjoy her triple fudge trauma swirl without wanting to launch the spoon at his head.
He turned the tv off.
"This fight and cold war," he said, voice low, steady, irritatingly calm. "It's getting ridiculous. You go to war with me in one breath, then vanish the next. It's not helping either of us."
She took another bite. Didn't look at him. Just stared at the blank screen where her true crime comfort show used to be. "Why?" she said flatly, lips brushing the spoon. "I was just living my life. You're the one who can't leave me alone."
Katsuki didn't respond right away.
He was too busy calculating the probability of his own murder.
Because she was right, technically. She had been living her life—if existing under an avalanche of resentment and sarcasm counted. But her version of "living" looked a lot like hiding. Like blank stares and clipped tones and the kind of wounded silence that bled out beneath her usual noise.
And maybe he had shown up uninvited. Maybe he'd crossed another invisible line. But watching her huddled under a blanket, eating her feelings and avoiding him like plague?
That was the line he couldn't not cross.
She sighed—long and theatrical—and set the ice cream on the table with the weariness of someone giving up on joy forever. Then, in one fluid motion, she pulled the blanket over her head until she was just a human lump on the carpet. A sulking, suspiciously quiet burrito of sadness.
Then he heard it. Barely.
A sniffle.
His stomach clenched. No warning. Just an involuntary reaction like his body had learned to flinch before his brain could catch up.
"Hana…"
"Shut up."
He stared at the burrito.
She never cried. Not in front of him. Not unless she was furious and exhausted and dangerously close to burning down something irreplaceable—including herself.
And now she was sniffling under a blanket like it could protect her from whatever part of this hurt the most.
Katsuki exhaled slowly, every breath an act of restraint. He didn't move. Didn't touch her. Just sat there, the silence heavy, his jaw tight with everything he didn't know how to say.
"I fucked up again, didn't I?"
Hana didn't answer right away.
Because she couldn't. Not without her voice cracking and her pride unraveling.
She hated this. Hated crying. Hated that she was crying. She wasn't supposed to be the kind of woman who cried over her boss like a heroine in some emotionally depraved office erotica.
She'd climbed onto his desk like she had a point to prove. Like she could get the upper hand by wrecking him first. And he let her.
God, she wanted to vomit.
Or disappear.
Or reverse time and slap herself before she could take off his tie and pretend it was just about control.
Because it wasn't.
And she was so, so humiliated by the fact that somewhere under all the defiance and chaos, she'd actually wanted it to mean something.
She sniffled harder.
Her voice came out muffled, pathetic. "You always do."
He didn't argue.
Didn't explain.
Didn't offer some cold, logical defense like he usually did.
He just sat there. Quiet. Still.
And somehow that made it worse.
Because if he had argued, she could've yelled. If he'd tried to logic his way out of it, she could've shredded him on the spot.
But silence?
That was surrender.
And Hana didn't know what the hell to do with that.
-----
The silence stretched, blanketing the room in something heavier than grief—expectation, maybe. Or resignation.
Still cocooned beneath the blanket, Hana sniffled once more. Her voice, when it came, was soft. Controlled. Like she was choosing her words one by one, lining them up carefully so they wouldn't break her.
"If I'm already crying, then I might as well say it," she muttered. "And you don't get to look at me while I do."
Katsuki didn't move. Not even to breathe.
"I'm just tired," she said, the words muffled but precise. "Tired of all of this. Yuna told me it's okay to want something—and I want to believe her. I do. But every time I've ever wanted something, I end up being too much. Too weird, too clingy, too loud, too messy. It's like I'm always one wrong emotion away from scaring people off."
He stared at the mound of blanket that was her. Her voice, usually so sharp and quick, was almost unbearably gentle.
"So I've been trying," she continued, "to only want things once I know I'm wanted back."
Something twisted in his chest. Foreign. Unwelcome. Immediate.
Because fuck.
She wasn't accusing him. Not really. This was her truth. Raw and awful. And he was hearing it too late to pretend he hadn't noticed the damage.
He had seen her—day after day, month after month—and still underestimated the cost of holding her at arm's length. She was always talking. Always fighting. Always there. He'd thought that was enough.
But this?
This was the sound of someone preparing to leave.
"And then you kissed me," she said, like it was an afterthought.
"Three times," she went on, the rhythm clipped now. "First one was just to shut me up. The second one, you told me you didn't regret. Then the third—here, in this apartment—you kissed me and never said anything afterward. No follow-up. No clarification. Just back to normal like nothing happened."
Katsuki's jaw tightened.
He hadn't followed up because he hadn't trusted himself. Because if he had acknowledged it—really acknowledged it—he wouldn't have been able to stop.
Hana drew a shaky breath. "So fine. I move on. I go on dates. I meet people. Try to do the normal thing, try to be the less-chaotic version of myself that doesn't scare men off. And every time I try, you're there. Sabotaging it. Every. Time."
He almost opened his mouth. Almost said something sharp and defensive and catastrophically dumb. But then she kept going, like she'd been holding this in for weeks and the dam had finally cracked.
"You don't say anything. Not directly. Not until you drop some bullshit line like, 'You shouldn't be going on blind dates anymore,' or 'If you want a date, put it on my calendar.'"
Her voice cracked a little then, not from tears, but from incredulity. "Who says that? What kind of psychotic corporate flirting is that?"
He swallowed hard. She couldn't see his face, couldn't see how still he was sitting, how his hands were clenched so tightly on his knees he could feel his pulse in his palms.
But his mind was racing.
Because he knew—he'd said those things. Thought they were clever. Thought they were enough. A show of interest that didn't require vulnerability.
Coward.
"And then," Hana added, voice lowering to something steadier, almost clinical, "the thing I did the other day."
Katsuki went absolutely still.
"I wasn't trying to seduce you. I was trying to make a point." Her voice had leveled out again, calm in the most dangerous way. "You keep kissing me whenever you want me to shut up, or when I won't give you control, or when you're too much of a coward to actually say what you want."
He felt it like a slap. Because it was true. And she'd said it without malice. Just facts.
"I don't have the energy for that anymore," she murmured. "I'm drained, Katsuki. Exhausted."
He knew. He could see it, hear it. She was unraveling in the quietest way imaginable.
"You've seen me at my worst. At my most chaotic. And if you really want me—then maybe I get to be too much sometimes, because you've already lived through it and didn't run. But if you don't? If you're just… messing with me? Then fine. I get it."
A pause.
"But I'm not going to stand here—well, lie here under a blanket—and keep waiting for you to figure out your shit. I want to be happy. I will be happy. And I know someday I'll find someone I'm not too much for."
Her voice dropped even lower.
"So if that person isn't you, Katsuki… then I need you to leave me alone."
There was no sound but her breathing.
The TV still off. The ice cream melting on the table. The weight of her words sinking into the space between them like a slow collapse.
She was giving him a choice.
-----
The silence held between them like an open wound. And for once, Katsuki didn't try to close it.
He exhaled, slow and deliberate, eyes still fixed on the blanket-covered shape in front of him.
"Other than my last girlfriend," he said quietly, "I've only ever had two serious relationships in my life. The second one… wasn't even official."
Kai didn't even know about the first. No one did. He'd boxed it up and buried it under years of ambition, law school, courtrooms, mergers, victories. He'd rewritten himself so thoroughly, sometimes he forgot who the original draft had even been.
"I destroy the people I touch, Hana," he said, voice even but low. "I have this irrational need to control every aspect of them. Because that's what I do best. I interpret love as… letting me take over. I always believed that if someone really trusted me, they'd let me decide what's best for them."
A beat passed.
He didn't look away.
"I thought that was protection."
Under the blanket, Hana's breath caught in her throat.
That's why he sabotaged Hiro. Not out of jealousy. Not just to win. He genuinely thought he was protecting her. As if her ex—was a threat he had to neutralize. Not because he didn't trust Hana, but because he believed he knew what she needed better than she did.
Because that's how his mind worked.
Broken, brilliant, infuriating.
She wiped her nose on the inside of the blanket and said nothing. Just listened.
"I know it's messy," he admitted. "Unhinged, even. But that's how I was set up. That's what got rewarded. Control. Precision. Winning."
Another breath.
"Then you came in. And you gave me just enough to feel like I was still in control—but then you'd push back. Hard. Always. And I'd want to assert myself all over again."
He laughed, bitter and dry.
"It's maddening. And terrifying. Because I'm not used to anyone getting through that filter. And you didn't just get through—you dismantled it."
Hana curled deeper into the blanket, lips pressed together. Her chest hurt. Her brain, even more.
She'd felt that push-pull dynamic, but hearing him explain it—hearing the logic behind his sabotage, his silence, his domination—made it clearer than anything else. He wasn't trying to play with her. He was trying to fit her into the only framework he understood: if he could control her, she'd stay. If he couldn't, she might disappear.
"I kept convincing myself I didn't want your chaos," Katsuki continued. "That I needed order. Quiet. Predictability."
His voice dropped to something darker, more vulnerable.
"But it's your chaos that gave me something to think about other than work. You kept challenging me. You'd let me lead, just enough to make me believe I had the power—then you'd pull it out from under me. And I realized I never had it."
Another silence.
"But I wanted it anyway."
Hana swallowed, eyes stinging again. Her heart thudded too loudly in her ears. She wasn't sure if she was still angry or just sad, or maybe something worse: hope.
She was so tired of hoping.
"I didn't say anything after I kissed you," Katsuki said, voice low, like he was admitting a sin in a confessional. "Because I thought you understood. I thought I didn't need to say it."
He shook his head, jaw flexing.
"That was an oversight. A stupid one."
She couldn't help it.
She emerged.
Blanket sliding off like a slow reveal, curls messy and eyes puffy, hoodie sagging off one shoulder. She didn't look triumphant. Just raw.
Katsuki stared at her like she was something sacred and very, very breakable.
"I meant what I said about the calendar," he added. "If you want a date, book it. Not because it's a joke. But because I will forget birthdays and anniversaries. I'll forget the name of your favorite ramen shop and I'll remember your allergy to shellfish two days after I poison you."
His hand reached out slowly, fingertips brushing her cheek, catching the tail end of a tear.
"But if it's in my calendar? It becomes the most important thing in my day."
She didn't pull away.
"You are mine, Sukehiro," he said, tone quiet but final. "As much as I am yours."
She felt that in her bones.
"My time is at your disposal," he continued. "And if you want to burrito yourself again, or emotionally collapse like a potato, you come to me. Not anyone else. I want to be your safe place."
Something in Hana cracked.
"Do you… want to come in here?" she asked, voice quiet as she lifted one edge of the blanket, offering it up like a ceasefire flag.
Katsuki snorted, the sound more breath than amusement. "That blanket smells like ice cream and emotional collapse."
"Exactly," she said.
Still, he didn't hesitate. Just moved toward her with the same precision he brought to courtrooms and conflict—like if he was going to do this, he was going to do it right. He ducked under the blanket, laid down beside her, and let her crawl onto his chest like it was her natural habitat. Her weight settled over him, grounding and light all at once.
He wanted to kiss her.
Badly.
She was right there—warm and soft and close enough that her breath brushed his neck. But her body was too tense, her eyes still carrying the weight of everything she hadn't said. So he didn't. He wouldn't.
Not until she was steady.
Instead, he rested his hand lightly on her back and asked, "Have you eaten proper food?"
A pause.
"No," she admitted, muffled against his shirt.
"Do you want to go to an omakase?"
Her head shot up so fast the blanket slid halfway off her back. "Really?"
He nodded. "Yeah."
She dropped back onto his chest with a dramatic sigh. "Let's just stay here. Order Chinese."
"Okay."
They lay there in the quiet, the kind that didn't ache so much anymore. His arm curled more tightly around her.
Then, after a beat, he said flatly, "Delete the F1 guy's number from your phone. And unblock me."
Hana laughed into his shirt. A low, tired, real laugh.
"I can do one of those."
He raised an eyebrow.
She smirked. "Guess which."
Katsuki closed his eyes and let the tension in his chest ease. Not all the way. But enough.
She was still chaos. Still unpredictable and too much and exactly everything he hadn't known how to want.
But she was here.
And she'd let him in.