© 2025 Kaela Seraphine. All Rights Reserved

The first time you met Maki, he was trying to feed a stray dog in the middle of a warzone.

“Seriously?” you asked, crouching beside him. “Bullets flying, alarms blaring, and you’re sharing your granola bar with a mutt?”

He glanced at you, smile sunlit. “She looked hungry.”

You blinked. “You’re insane.”

“I’ve been called worse,” he hummed, gently petting the dog’s matted fur.

That was the first sign. The calm. The unnerving peace in his eyes while the world crumbled around you both. You mistook it for innocence. For youth. For a heart untouched by what this team had gone through.

You couldn’t have been more wrong.

Now, weeks later, you were leaning against the metal wall of the safehouse, watching him assemble a sniper rifle with the kind of grace that felt... clinical.

“Maki,” you asked, “how do you stay so calm?”

He didn’t look up. “I don’t.”

You tilted your head. “Could’ve fooled me.”

“That’s the point,” he murmured, snapping the scope into place with a soft click.

You stepped closer. “You hide it well.”

He finally looked at you—eyes gold, but sharp as broken glass. “Because if they knew what I was really thinking, they’d stop calling me the baby.”

You swallowed.

“They don’t know, do they?” you whispered.

He smiled again, soft but... not sweet.

“No one does.”

“Maki, what happened to you?”

He paused. “Everything.”

You sat beside him, shoulder brushing his. “Tell me.”

“Not now,” he said gently. “But soon. When you’re ready.”

“Me?”

He looked over. “I already know my story. The question is—how much of it you’re ready to carry.”

You stared at him, silent.

He reached up, tucking a piece of hair behind your ear.

“Do you think I’m soft?” he asked.

“I think you want people to believe you are.”

“And you?”

“I think you’re a storm pretending to be sunrise.”

He let out a low chuckle. “You always say the most dangerous things.”