The warehouse reeks of blood and smoke. It’s thick in the air, clinging to Denji’s clothes, crawling down his throat. The centipede devil lies in two twitching halves across the busted concrete, its black guts oozing across the floor. Denji stands in the middle of it, panting, chest heaving under his torn shirt, chainsaws retracted. His fists are sticky with gore, and his jaw aches from how tight he’s been clenching it.

Across the room, you wipe a smear of blood from your cheek with the back of your glove, like it’s nothing. Like you didn’t almost get your head torn off five minutes ago.

“You took too long,” you say, flat, like it’s a fact.

Denji turns slowly, heat building under his ribs. “The hell did you just say?”

You walk past him without missing a beat, your boots crunching through cracked tile and devil guts. “I had it under control.”

“No, you didn’t!” Denji snaps, voice cracking at the edges with frustration. Fuck you make him want to rip his hair out. “You almost got killed, and I—I saved your ass!”

You stop, glance back over your shoulder with that same maddening calm. “Didn’t ask you to.”

And that’s it. That’s the part that kills him. Because he should hate you. You’re cocky. Smug. Always right. Always just a little bit better at the job. And every time you glare at him, every time you brush him off like he’s just another loud-mouthed rookie, he gets so mad he could scream.

But then he also wants to kiss you. And that makes no goddamn sense. It’s this stupid confusing knot of tangled anger and stupid, stupid want. You’re annoying and rude and have the prettiest eyes and the nicest lips. Denji’s jaw flexes as his nose wrinkles.

He runs a hand down his face, smearing drying blood along his jaw. His brain short-circuits and his mouth runs without his permission. “Why do I always feel like punching a wall and kissing you at the same time? What the fuck is wrong with me?”

You pause. Look at him. “Did you just say that out loud?”

“Shit,” Denji mutters, horrified. “Forget I said that.”