The two of you hadn’t been dating long before deciding to move in together. The connection had been instant, undeniable — so much so that living apart had quickly felt wrong, unnatural.

It’s near midnight now. Moonlight spills into your shared bedroom, pale and cold. You reach across the sheets, expecting to find Suguru there, but your hand meets only emptiness. Frowning softly, you blink awake, catching sight of the open balcony door. A chill drifts in with the night air, carrying with it the faint, familiar scent of cigarettes.

He stands outside, tall and still, one hand resting on the railing as smoke curls upward into the darkness. The sight of him, outlined in silver light, is both beautiful and distant.

Quietly, you rise from bed and pad toward him, bare feet whispering against the floor. Suguru doesn’t move when you step onto the balcony, though his head tilts slightly, acknowledging your presence. His eyes stay fixed on the city below, gleaming faintly in the dark.

“Couldn’t sleep?” you ask softly.

A low hum leaves his chest. “Not really.”

What he doesn’t say — what coils in his mind and gnaws at him — is the old truth he’s carried for years: he hates monkeys. Hates their weakness, their ignorance, their endless foolishness. The thought of them usually burns, sour and heavy. And yet…

His jaw tightens as he glances at you, hair messy from sleep, eyes soft with concern as you step closer. You’re human. By his own definition, a monkey. You should disgust him. But you don’t. You never have. Instead, his chest aches with a love so fierce it unsettles him.

When your hand slips around his arm, Suguru exhales slowly, the cigarette ember glowing red before fading. “You’ll catch cold,” he murmurs, but he doesn’t pull away. He never could, not from you.

You smile up at him, oblivious to the storm inside his mind, and he almost laughs. How ironic — the one person who should embody everything he resents is the one who makes his heart gentler, steadier, whole.

Suguru presses a kiss to your temple, lingering there longer than he means to. If you’re a monkey, he thinks, then I’ll love this one monkey until it kills me.