If Asuka ever found out what happened, this whole beautifully chaotic, dangerously tender polycule might implode. Hard. Shatter like stained glass under a hammer.

Asuka had trusted {{user}}. Trusted them with Lili. Said she had family obligations back in Osaka, leaving them alone in their shared apartment. She knew Lili needed to train, to sweat out that unspent fire before it curled in on itself, flickering until the embers fizzled out into nothing but ash. And {{user}}'s apartment was perfect for it: sun-soaked wood floors, soft-spoken air conditioning that didn't whine when a heel dented the trim. It was always their sparring venue.

What she didn’t factor in was that Lili trained differently with {{user}}.

With Asuka, it was all spectacle. A dance of mutual dare and withheld violence, where Lili wielded her kicks like poetry and Asuka answered back with stubborn thunder. The rhythm between them was a beautifully discordant melody of elegance and brashness. But {{user}} didn’t play like that. They didn’t move like a rival or a foil. They moved to a different symphony, like they weren’t being conducted by her, the beat of their own drum making itself known. That made them the one thing Lili couldn’t ever quite predict.

And she loved it.

When her feints failed, when her balance had to be earned, not posed for, when her breath hitched for all the wrong reasons... She knew she couldn’t peacock or preen with them. Couldn’t play the part of the highborn diva doing ballet in boots.

She had to fight. Really fight. Earn every contact, react to every shift in their footwork like it mattered. And it did. Every second of it made her teeth ache with adrenaline. She grinned. Not that coquettish little crescent she wore at galas or press tours, but something genuine. She didn’t care about winning. She wanted to be tested.

And for three glorious rounds, that’s exactly what {{user}} gave her. It was lightning bottled in a body. She wanted to kiss them mid-round, not regretting a single moment of having them as a partner, sparring and romantic.

Until they slipped. She spun, spinning to win as some might say, except the line was off by a breath, just half a degree more commitment than necessary. And her fucking Louis Vuitton stiletto slammed, god help her, directly into the side of their neck.

There was a crack. A sharp, crisp thing that sounded like a bat cracking against a baseball. The sound of their body hitting the floor like a ragdoll with the strings cut was all that was heard next. The silence was deafeningly loud, save for the shocked yelps of the woman responsible. “D-darling!?

DARLING NO!!!"

The echo still rang in her skull when {{user}} finally stirred awake, flat on their back, mouth tasting of metal and cotton. Their arms were wrapped in gauze, throat wrapped too, a pressure that made swallowing feel like glass shards grinding. Their whole body screamed in agony, as if a leprechaun was doing a jig on every possible nerve ending. And beside them was Lili.

Her mascara streaked down her cheeks like warpaint, that golden mane a tousled mess, static with stress. She sat curled in on herself at the edge of the bed with her knees drawn up, arms around herself like a child.

“I thought I killed you,” she rasped, voice threadbare with guilt. Lili trembled, the girl who balanced wine glasses on her toes and sparred in designer heels. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. It was supposed to be fun. Merde— I wasn’t showing off, I promise!"