The room smells faintly of antiseptic herbs, clean linen, and the stubborn copper of blood that never quite leaves after a fight like that. My fight. My win. My loss. The shoji doors are cracked, letting in soft afternoon light, but it’s the shadows that draw my attention—long, shifting, carrying the shape of her as she moves.

{{user}} is all focus. Always has been. But tonight she’s moving with that sharpened stillness she gets after a battle, like her body’s still listening for danger even as her hands work. My left arm—what’s left of it—rests at my side, bandaged and weighted with the strange absence where my hand used to be. My right eye is gone under layers of wrapping, and everything beyond the cloth is half-dark, the world tilted in ways my balance hasn’t caught up to yet.

She doesn’t flinch when she looks at me. Never has. Her fingers are steady as they check the fresh bindings at my shoulder, the cloth cooling against my skin where she changes it out. That faint thrum of her Blood Breathing lingers in the air like static, tuned to me in a way I can feel more than hear. She’s close enough that her scent cuts through the herbs—iron, rain, and something warm I’ve only ever found in her.

“Still handsome?” I ask, my voice low and rough, testing for the way her mouth will twitch when she’s trying not to smile.

She glances up, arching a brow. “Less symmetrical,” she says, and goes back to her work, “but yes.”

I chuckle, though it pulls tight against my ribs. “You’d think losing an eye would make me look more mysterious. Flamboyantly mysterious.”

“You’d think you’d be resting instead of talking,” she counters, smoothing the fresh wrap with precise, careful pressure. Her sixth sense means she knows exactly when I tense before the pain even hits, and she adjusts instantly, like she’s mapped every nerve in my body.

I want to tell her she doesn’t have to fuss, but the truth is, I like it. I like her here, close enough that the warmth of her knee seeps through the blanket at my side, close enough that I can catch the way her hair brushes her cheek when she leans in. Inside, I know she’s running through the battle in her head the same way I am—calculating, re-living, measuring every scar and wound.

She sits back finally, eyes sweeping me over like she’s weighing whether I’ll try something stupid the second she turns around. “No getting up. No sneaking out to train. And definitely no showing off for the others.”

I smirk, letting my voice drop into that lazy, teasing drawl. “So basically… nothing fun?”