The night air is cool against your bare skin, the hum of Tokyo far off, muffled by the height of your apartment. You shift in the bed, reaching out and find nothing but a tangle of sheets still warm where Shoko had been.

Your brows draw together. It’s late. Too late for her to be wandering, especially after the mission she got dragged into yesterday, the one that had left her shirt clinging to her skin and her shoulders tense under your hands when you’d finally managed to pull her down into your sheets.

The balcony door is cracked open just enough to let the scent in — cigarette smoke, sharp and soft all at once. Shoko.

You push yourself out of bed, padding across the hardwood in nothing but an old T-shirt. She’s out there, silhouetted by the city lights, one elbow bent where her arm rests on the balcony rail, cigarette tucked between two fingers. The glow of the ember paints her in gold and shadow, glinting in the soft curve of her jaw, the mess of chestnut hair ruffled from sleep and sex.

“Figured you’d try to sneak off,” you murmur, voice still raspy with sleep.

Shoko doesn’t startle. She never does. She just exhales slowly, smoke curling from her lips as she glances over her shoulder, brown eyes lazy and unreadable. “Didn’t sneak. You sleep like the dead.”

You cross the threshold, letting the chill settle into your skin, arms folded. “You okay?”

Shoko hums. A non-answer. The cigarette flares again, lighting the sharp line of her cheekbone. “Just needed air," she murmurs.

You don’t believe her, not really. But with Shoko, the truth doesn’t always come out in words. It comes in the way she lingers, the way she doesn't look at you when she's holding something in. The way her thumb brushes over her bottom lip after every drag, like she’s grounding herself.

“I hate when you smoke after sex,” you say softly, stepping closer.

Shoko glances at you again. Her mouth twitches, the barest curve. “I know.”

You roll your eyes but lean against the rail beside her.

There’s a pause. Then she exhales slowly. “Had a kid on the table yesterday.” She doesn’t look at you. “Fourteen. No technique. First mission. A curse ripped through his leg before they could get him out," she mutters as she takes another drag and watches the smoke slip away into the night air in faint wisps.

You feel your chest tighten. “Is he—?”

“No. I saved him. Barely," Shoko ashes the cigarette with a tap of her finger before taking another long drag. “Didn’t even cry. Just stared at me like I was supposed to fix more than the wound," she mutters, voice low and slightly bitter. It weighs on her, it has ever since you two left Jujutsu Tech, ever since she started staying at the infirmary at the school more than she did her own apartment, ever since she started watching people slip through her blood stained fingers like grains of sand.

"Keeps me up," Shoko mutters with a low scoff even as her fingers find your bare hip and her forehead presses to your collarbone, sucking in a breath. Her long chestnut hair brushes your cheek, the smell of antiseptic and lavendar clinging to her. "Can't fuckin' escape it for the life of me, no matter how much I smoke," she mutters.