She was going to kill him.
Like, genuinely. Not in a fun metaphorical way, not even in a "death by passive-aggressive sarcasm" way. No. Real, physical, legally actionable murder. Maybe she could frame it as a workplace accident. Something about a paper trimmer malfunctioning. Or a tragic toner explosion.
Because Katsuki Hasegawa was actively—aggressively—sabotaging her social life.
"I swear to god, you're doing this on purpose," she snapped, jabbing a finger toward him like it was a laser pointer and he was the world's most infuriating cat. "You wait until I make plans and then suddenly it's contract revisions and merger notes and—'Hana, I need this by ten,' and 'Hana, the Viking needs a spreadsheet.' You're a menace!"
He just looked at her. Blank. Unbothered. Amused.
Oh no.
No no no.
Was that a twitch of a smile? Was he seriously finding this funny?
She saw red.
The nearest hardbound file—dense, heavy, perfect for blunt force trauma—was suddenly in her hand. She hadn't even registered grabbing it. Fight or flight had chosen violence.
"Don't," he said, eyes narrowing. "Don't even think about it."
Ugh. Buzzkill.
She clenched the file, then her fist. Murder is not an option. Murder is not an option. She dropped the book with a dramatic thud and stalked toward him, every heel click fueled by caffeine, rage, and nine months of unresolved sexual tension.
"I woke up at five," she hissed, "to do my hair, my face, and figure out how to not sweat in this dress."
"You look good."
"This is not for you!"
"Then who's it for?"
She threw up her hands. "He's nice! A freaking F1 racer! He lives with his mom, he said I had 'intense eyes,' and he asked if I liked museums!"
Katsuki's expression didn't change. "The bar is low, Sukehiro."
She was right in front of him now, breathing hard, cheeks flushed. She'd fight him. She would.
And then—
His hands came up, cradling her face like it was his.
Soft. Intentional. Completely disarming.
"I don't want you going on blind dates anymore," he said, voice low and infuriatingly calm. "If you want a date, book it on my calendar."
Hana's brain short-circuited. Like, full power outage.
Nope. Absolutely not. He did not get to say things like that. Not while looking like that. Hair messed up from their earlier make-out session, shirt half-untucked, still smirking like he hadn't just detonated her frontal lobe with one line.
She was still mad. She deserved to be mad. She was a woman of principle, and right now those principles involved fantasizing about tasering his kneecaps. But now?
Now she was actively planning how to ruin him.
Not professionally. Not even romantically.
No, this was going to be emotional vengeance. Psychological warfare. The kind of petty that required spreadsheets and color-coded tabs.
She stormed to the couch and flopped down. Crossed her arms. Stewed.
Katsuki moved without speaking, which was somehow worse. He went straight to her desk drawer—of course he knew where the first-aid kit was, the control freak—and pulled out a band-aid.
He sat beside her, warm and infuriating, and peeled the wrapper open with practiced ease.
"Let me cover it," he said quietly.
She narrowed her eyes. "You didn't even have a pretty band-aid, you pervert."
Silence.
Thick.
Stupid.
Crackling.
He didn't reply. Just pressed the bandage gently to the side of her neck—right over the bruise he'd put there.
She hated how gentle he was. How focused.
How hot he looked doing first aid like a walking HR violation.
Okay. No. She was still mad.
She would stay mad.
-----
They sat in silence.
The kind of silence that felt like it should be louder. Violent, maybe. Or illegal.
Hana was on the couch beside him, phone pressed to her ear, speaking in a tone he didn't recognize. Soft. Sweet. Casual.
"Hey," she said. "Something came up. Can we reschedule?"
It was the voice that got him. That wasn't her work voice, the one she used to annihilate associates in five syllables. It wasn't even her chaos voice, the one she used when she was about to throw a stapler or eat gyoza over court documents.
No. That was her date voice.
For the F1 racer.
He didn't even know the guy's name. Didn't care. Formula One, imported charm, the kind of guy who wore aviators indoors and probably owned more than one cologne. Yuna's idea, apparently. That alone should've disqualified him.
Katsuki scoffed under his breath.
If she kept going on these idiotic blind dates, he'd brand her again and again until even the scent of another man near her made her skin twitch.
He hadn't meant to do it the first time. Not consciously. But when her neck arched under his mouth and she moaned into his collar like she wanted to be ruined—he'd marked her. Intentionally. Deliberately.
Because Kai had said he was moving too slow.
Because Hana was chaos, and chaos didn't wait.
And if he didn't take action, some well-mannered international driving endorsement with an overbite and mommy issues might actually take her.
That wasn't going to happen.
He shifted beside her, keeping his voice even. "I'll treat you to dinner."
She didn't look at him. "I will poison you."
Okay. So she was still pissed.
That was fair. But counterproductive.
"Hana," he said, tone dropping low, the kind of voice that made people across boardrooms fold. "Seriously. You look really good tonight. I'm not about to let someone else appreciate that."
She turned. Slowly.
"You're unhinged."
"It's your fault."
The moment the words left his mouth, he knew he'd made a mistake.
Because he knew that look.
The exact moment Hana Sukehiro decided on revenge. Her eyes lit up like a stormcloud realizing it could ruin someone's entire picnic. Her expression smoothed out—not calm, no, never that. Calculated.
"My fault?" she repeated.
Shit.
Yes. That tone. That was the something-is-coming tone. The last thing interns heard before crying in the supply closet. The tone that said: I'm going to ruin you, and you will thank me for it.
He didn't even have time to react before she moved.
Slid into his lap like gravity owed her a favor. Like she'd always belonged there. Like it was her seat and he was just a chair wearing a suit.
Katsuki forgot how to breathe.
"Hana—"
"My fault?" she said again, slower now, her hands already moving.
She was kissing him.
Again.
And Katsuki—allegedly a man of logic, of discipline, of terrifying control—couldn't fucking help himself.
She shifted in his lap, and that was it.
Her hips rolled against his—slow, testing, devastating. And he felt her. Through layers, through cloth, through the stupidly thin barrier of his self-control that was already fraying at the seams.
He cursed internally. Loudly. Fluently.
She was making him lose focus. And he was supposed to be better than this. He was supposed to be stronger. But then she moved again, and his hands snapped to her hips, gripping tight, guiding her into a rhythm that made his breath stutter and his spine press into the couch like his body was bracing for impact.
Then she made that sound.
That sound—half gasp, half moan, fully lethal. Right against his mouth like she wanted to destroy him. Like she knew exactly how.
And yeah. That was the moment he unraveled.
Fully.
Completely.
No witnesses. No survivors.
He barely noticed when she slipped his shirt open, hands working with infuriating ease, fingers grazing the skin of his chest like she was cataloguing every place she could wreck next. Her mouth followed. Hot. Open. Trailing kisses along his jaw, down his neck—every press of her lips a new sin she'd never repent for.
His brain short-circuited. His hands—no longer restrained by dignity or logic—slid beneath her dress, up the curve of her thighs, anchoring her to him like if he let go, he'd lose something vital.
It was maddening. She was maddening. A full-blown psychological and physiological assault with freckles and red lipstick.
He couldn't think.
Didn't want to.
And then—just as he was spiraling into full freefall, just as his hand ghosted along the edge of her underwear—
She smiled.
He felt it against his skin. That smug, dangerous smile.
And then she stood.
Grabbed her bag like she hadn't just rewired his central nervous system and waltzed toward the door with murder in her eyes and victory in her bones.
"Two can play this game, Hasegawa," she said, voice light and lethal. "I may be chaotic and unstable, but I can also ruin you and you wouldn't see it coming."
And then she was gone.
Left him there.
Shirtless.
Panting.
Hard.
Definitely frustrated.
He stared at the door like it had betrayed him personally. Then dropped back onto the couch with a groan that sounded suspiciously close to a death rattle.
His head thunked against the armrest.
"I really," he muttered to the ceiling, "shouldn't have underestimated her."
----
"Tadaima," Hana muttered, toeing off her shoes with a grunt and kicking them toward the genkan like they'd personally betrayed her.
Her whole body hurt. Not in a poetic, I've-had-a-long-day way. More like in a my boss made me rearrange the entire legal landscape of East Asia kind of way. Her curls were falling out of the lazy clip she'd used this morning, her tote was digging into her shoulder like a passive-aggressive reminder that life was pain, and she was ninety percent sure her pantyhose were beginning to conspire against her circulatory system.
Yuna was in the living room, half-kneeling beside a suitcase that looked like it had been emotionally manipulated into submission. Clothes everywhere. Something silky dangling from the couch. Hana didn't even want to know.
"I thought you were leaving in the morning," she said, collapsing face-first into a floor cushion.
Yuna turned with the easy grace of someone who was both alarmingly well-moisturized and living her best life. "I am," she said, folding something with exact, joyful violence. "But if I pack tonight, Kai won't get to comment on how I travel like a storm system. Win-win."
Hana peeked one eye open. Kai. Right. She still didn't know how she felt about the human embodiment of a limited edition wristwatch dating her best friend. But Yuna was happy. And safe. And stupidly in love. So she'd stopped launching passive-aggressive commentary across the breakfast table.
Usually.
"How was the date?" Yuna asked without looking up.
"I got held up at work," Hana said.
Yuna's eyes flicked over. "Why? You want me to tell Kai to lighten your workload? I'm sure he can arrange for a sudden calendar malfunction."
"Kai isn't my boss," Hana groaned. "And I'm not taking advantage of your whatever this is."
Yuna grinned. "Fair."
She zipped one side of her suitcase, then tilted her head thoughtfully. "I'll bring something back for you and Ren. What would Ren like?"
"Anything pervy," Hana said without skipping a beat. "Maybe a body pillow. Or one of those hentai mouse pads with boobs."
Yuna choked out a laugh. "Noted."
Her gaze fell to Hana's neck. Pause.
"What happened to this?" she asked gently, brushing her fingers over the edge of the very obvious, very flesh-colored but somehow still conspicuous bandage on Hana's neck.
Shit.
Hana, to her credit, didn't flinch. She was too exhausted and emotionally hollowed out to summon the instinct to dodge. But her brain started sprinting laps around the nearest excuse zone.
"Oh, that? That's nothing. Just—burnt myself. On a curling iron. That I don't own. But sometimes things catch on fire. Spontaneously. Spontaneous combustion is a real thing, Yuna, and my skin is sensitive and—hey, are you done packing that—"
Yuna peeled it off like she was unwrapping a birthday present. A deeply cursed, neck-shaped birthday present.
She went quiet.
Then louder than necessary: "Oh. Oh my god. Hana, this is not a curling iron mark. This is a bite mark. This is a—this is a branded-like-you're-an-heirloom-cow-level situation. Holy shit. Did you and—was this from Katsuki?"
Hana dropped her head to the table. It made a soft thunk. "Don't say it out loud. You'll summon him."
Yuna squealed. Actually squealed. "When did this happen?! How?!"
"It's a long story."
"We're not doing short versions. We're doing popcorn, wine, and you telling me everything."
"It wasn't planned," Hana groaned into the cushion. "He just—he kissed me. And then chaos. Like usual. And then I got mad at him. Like really mad. And then he said something stupid, and I blacked out, and then I was on his desk and—look, it was a lot, okay?"
Yuna blinked. "Like…on the desk?"
"On the desk."
"Was it good?"
"It was terrible." She looked up. "It was so good."
Yuna sat back on her heels, processing. "You look…tired. But not in a bad way. In a post-earthquake-and-rebuild kind of way."
Hana sighed, rolling her eyes. "I feel like drywall after a storm."
They sat in silence for a few seconds, Hana picking at the peeled band-aid, Yuna watching her like a hawk in glittery loungewear.
"I'm not going," Yuna said suddenly.
Hana blinked. "What?"
"To Tokyo. I'm telling Kai I'm not going. You need me here."
"Yuna—"
"Nope. You're spiraling. You're trying to pretend you're fine, and I know your voice gets that tone when you're holding it together with caffeine and unresolved trauma."
"I'm not—okay, yes, I am holding it together with caffeine, but I'm fine. You're not my emotional support water bottle. Go to Tokyo."
"You sure?"
Hana sat up straighter. "Totally. If I get bored I'll go emotionally terrorize Ren. He still owes me for drinking my last Ramune."
Yuna studied her for another beat. Then smiled. "Okay. But if you need me—"
"I know," Hana said quietly. "I always do."
Yuna reached for a folded blouse, pretending to fuss with it, but her gaze stayed on Hana—who had, at some point, slid off the cushion and was now lying face-down on the floor like a dramatic period piece heroine left to die of heartbreak. Hair everywhere. Arms splayed like she'd melted out of her own spine.
"I'm just gonna lie here for a bit," Hana mumbled into the rug. "Process the crushing weight of my questionable life choices."
Yuna raised an eyebrow. "Are you becoming a potato again?"
"Emotionally, yes," came the muffled reply. "But like. A hot potato. Sexy. Still deeply unstable."
Yuna sat back and smiled, heart full and aching all at once. She didn't say anything for a moment—just watched her best friend quietly implode like a glitter bomb of chaos and heartache on the living room floor.
There she was.
Hana in her natural habitat.
Emotionally fried. Terminally stubborn. Still full of fight.
Yuna sighed fondly. "You know I love you, right?"
Hana's hand lifted off the floor with a limp thumbs-up. "Love you too. Tell Kai to bring me Tokyo snacks. And condoms. In case you get brave."