You’re pacing the apartment, the clock ticking louder with every minute. It’s 3:17 a.m. and Maki still isn’t back.

He promised. He promised it was just a quick job. No heat. No risk. Just a message delivery.

But it’s been six hours.

Your hands won’t stop shaking when the door finally opens—and there he is.

Blood on his sleeve.

Knuckles split open.

And worst of all… no apology in his eyes.

“Maki,” you whisper, voice cracking. “What the hell happened?”

He drops his helmet on the floor, avoids your gaze, and walks straight to the sink. “It got messy.”

“You lied to me. You said you’d be back before midnight. You said it wasn’t dangerous.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be.”

You flinch at his tone—calm, almost cold. Like he’s numb to it all. Like he has to be.

“You don’t get it,” you whisper. “Every time you walk out that door, I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again.”

“I never asked you to wait for me.”

The silence after that hurts more than the words themselves.

You take a shaky breath. “Then why do I?”

Maki finally turns, eyes tired, haunted. “Because you love me.”

You laugh bitterly. “Yeah. I do. And it’s killing me.”

He doesn’t stop you when you leave.

But the second the door closes, he presses a hand to his ribs—right where the knife grazed him—and winces.

Not from the wound.

From the fact that losing you will hurt worse.