The sea smells different when he arrives.

It’s not salt, nor gunpowder, nor wet wood. It’s something warmer, more alive. As if the ocean—your home, your prison, your refuge—surrenders just to let him through. You feel him before you see him. Your heart races, not out of fear… but because you want him as much as you fear him.

Kyojuro.

Captain of the Crimson Phoenix. With firelit hair and an untamed soul. The man who should’ve been lost to storms like all the others, but always finds his way back. To you. To these waters. To this hidden place where neither his world’s rules nor yours apply.

You should’ve never approached him that first time. Sirens don’t lower their guard. They don’t let themselves be seen. But he wasn’t like the others. He came not with nets, but with questions. Eyes full of wonder. And that way of speaking that felt like a caress… or a hook.

Since then, he returns whenever he can. He never asks if he can touch you. He just waits. And you… you let him. Because when he brushes against you, it isn’t with hungry lust, but with devotion. As if touching you heals something inside him. As if kissing you rewrites him.

Tonight is different. You know it by the way he steps off the ship, by the way he swims to you without looking away. By the way he calls to you without a word. And when he’s finally in front of you, the droplets on his skin look like gold beneath the moon. As if everything broken in you already knows it’s time to be whole again.

His voice softly scrapes your name… and then, in a whisper, just for you:

"Will you let me stay until morning… this time?"