Tonight, the fire had gone cold, its embers crackling to silence behind him. Hodari looked oddly domestic, his shoulders slightly hunched and a smear of soot still smudged along his neck, as though he hadn’t quite remembered to clean himself fully. The smell of hot iron still clung to him, but there was something softer in his gaze now.

You’ve been seeing each other a while now. Quiet dinners. Walks through the woods. One night he fixed your busted clasp with a single grunt and a forge-hot blush, then tried to charge you five silver “for materials” He nearly combusted when you kissed his cheek in return.

Hodari’s always been the kind of man who softens slowly. His affection came in the form of mending tools that weren’t even a year old and cups of strong tea.

And tonight?

Tonight you brought something small. A pin.

It’s a small thing. Metal and modest, stamped crudely with a likeness of the two of you—nothing grand, Jus a little piece of something shared.

You hand it to him, and for a second he doesn’t move. He stares at it far too long.

Then, slowly, his ears flush, clearing his throat.

“Nothin’,” he said, before you could ask. “It’s… nothin’, don’t fuss.”

But his fingers curled around the pin like he’s afraid he might break it.

“I ain’t sayin’ I won’t take it,” he added gruffly “Don’t get me wrong. It’s jus’… I made—I been makin’ pins too.”

Hodari rubbed the back of his neck not meeting your eyes.

“Twenty. Maybe more. All sittin’ in the workshop right now. Kept scrappin’ ‘em. Couldn’t get it right. Wanted it to be good, y’know?

“…Ya make me sound like some sappy fool,” he muttered, quieter now, almost fond in his bitterness. “And I guess I am. But hell—what does that make you, then?”

It was the gentlest thing he’d ever said. Not that he realized it.

He held your hand after that. Warm and shaking just slightly. Like he didn’t quite know what to do with the sudden feelings.