The music pulses through the walls like a second heartbeat, loud and messy and soaked in sweat and heat. The house is packed — summer party chaos courtesy of some bored third-year with too much money and absent parents. Someone’s spilled beer on the flooboards, someone’s fighting in the front yard, and the backyard pool is a warzone of glitter and floaties.

You’re in the kitchen, rifling through someone else’s fridge for something non-alcoholic, because you’re not about to be caught dead with a solo cup and a blurry memory. It’s too hot, too loud, too much.

“Didn’t take you for a party girl,” a familiar voice says behind you, smooth like velvet wrapped around something barbed. You don’t have to turn to know it’s Satoru.

You do anyway. Satoru's leaning in the doorway like he owns the place, shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, white hair messy from the humidity, curling around his nape, sunglasses still on despite the hour. Ridiculous. Unfair. Stupidly pretty.

You roll your eyes. “Didn’t think you'd still get invited to things despite your fucking awful personality.”

Satoru grins, wide and lazy. “Ouch,” he says, pushing off the frame and walking over, grabbing a cold bottle of water off the counter like he’s done it a hundred times. “But hey, who needs a good personality when you’ve got this face?”

“Your ego’s a tragedy,” you mutter, trying to brush past him.

But Satoru blocks you, and it sends a zing up your spine. “Are you ever not in debate mode?” he muses, voice quieter now, lethal and silky. The din of the party fades behind the kitchen walls, soft bass pounding in time with your pulse. “Do you ever take a breath and just be?”

You scoff. “I’m just trying to get back to my friends.”

He studies you, really studies you, with that unblinking, knowing gaze he always reserves for when he’s about to get under your skin. “You’re nothing ike them,” he says, voice low. “You’re always watching. Always ready to strike. A viper in a den of kittens. That’s why you always fuckin' win.”

You hate how it sounds like a compliment. You hate how close he is. You hate how your stomach flips.

“Satoru—” you start, but the rest dies in your throat.

Because Satoru leans in. Not a lot. Just enough. The distance between you disappears, and it’s sudden, reckless—like the second before lightning strikes. His hand is warm as it ghosts over your jaw, not quite touching. Just enough to set every nerve alight.

And then Satoru kisses you. It’s not soft. It’s not sweet. It’s messy — months, years of tension colliding in a moment that tastes like heat and soda and the rush of something neither of you meant to start.