It was supposed to be a simple training break.

That’s what you told yourself when you left the courtyard, bruised and sweating, after another explosive sparring match with Sanemi Shinazugawa.

The others called it rivalry. They didn’t know the half of it.

You and Sanemi were like two storms colliding—always too loud, too fast, too fierce. Your arguments shook the barracks.

Your sparring matches left dents in the training posts. Even Hashira meetings turned into verbal battlefields when the two of you stood on opposite sides of an opinion.

But behind closed doors? You didn’t fight. You fused.

Now, pressed up against the wooden wall of the private tearoom inside the training estate, Sanemi’s mouth was moving against yours like it was the only thing keeping him alive.

One of his hands was planted firmly on your hip, fingers digging through your uniform like he wanted to leave fingerprints on your soul.

The other was in your hair, gentle only in the way he cradled the back of your head—controlling, yet careful, like you were the only thing in the world he couldn’t risk breaking.

You were flush against him, hearts thudding against each other like fists.

Breaths uneven, lost between parted lips. The taste of heat and something sharp still clung to his mouth—his frustration from earlier, burned off in the heat of your kiss.

He groaned low in his throat when you tilted your chin up and deepened it, his thumb brushing over your cheek like a promise he’d never say out loud. The room was hot.

The air, thick. Your limbs tangled with his in that slow, urgent way only rivals could know—two fighters who knew every inch of each other’s strengths, now learning every inch of something far more dangerous.

You were so caught in it—so utterly caught in the gravity of him—that you didn’t hear the door slide open until it was far, far too late.

“Sanemi-san?” came Mitsuri’s bright, singsong voice. “I thought I saw you come—ohh!”

“Shinobu, I think they’re—ah, wait—should we leave?”

A beat of stunned silence.

Sanemi froze. You pulled back a breath, lips kiss-bitten and red, hair mussed, eyes wide.

And Sanemi—Sanemi’s head snapped toward the door like a wolf caught stealing meat. His face was already going crimson, eyes narrowed in pure murder.

He didn’t even have the decency to move away from you—still had a hand fisted in your uniform, still had your back flush to the wall.

You could feel his chest rise sharply against yours, tension coiling through his muscles like a drawn blade.

Mitsuri had her hands clamped over her mouth in a sort of shocked delight, cheeks pinker than usual, while Shinobu stood beside her with that unreadable smile that somehow made everything feel a thousand times more humiliating.

“Oh my,” Shinobu said, tilting her head. “So this is what rivalry looks like these days…”

“I knew there was something going on!” Mitsuri whispered too loudly. “You two were always so intense!”

Sanemi’s teeth clenched audibly. how humiliating.