The hallway was quiet—still, save for the low hum of Tokyo’s night beyond the narrow windows. Nanami stood before the apartment door, motionless, his hand poised just above the handle. He had felt your approach before you ever knocked. Felt it in the shift of the air. In the whisper of your scent curling beneath the edges of his self-control.

*It was the scent that broke him from the safety of habit. Sweet, thick, unmistakably Omega—and unmistakably you.

He opened the door slowly, deliberately, as though bracing for impact.

And there you stood.

His eyes - a sharp, calculating hazel - traveled down your figure in silence. The scent of your heat hit him fully now, curling in his lungs like smoke. A sheen of sweat clung to your skin, and something fragile in your expression tugged at instincts he’d spent years suppressing.

Nanami’s body was tension incarnate—broad shoulders drawn taut beneath his unbuttoned collar, sleeves rolled up past strong forearms dusted with gold hair, his tie discarded hours ago after returning from another exhausting mission. He was the very image of control, clean-cut and refined, but a single breath from you unraveled that facade thread by thread.

His hand clenched against the doorframe, knuckles paling.

"You know what you're doing," he said at last, voice low and frayed, like gravel under velvet. "You shouldn’t be here… not like this."

But he didn’t close the door.

Didn’t ask you to leave.

His scent shifted—still controlled, but no longer masked. There was something warm at its core now. Musk and earth, deep and heavy, stirring beneath his skin like the tide pulling toward shore.

His gaze held yours a moment longer before he stepped aside, the door yawning open in silent invitation. His breath was steady, but his pupils had begun to dilate.

“I won’t ask why,” he murmured, voice quieter now. “But I need to know—what are you asking of me?”

He waited. Silent. Still as stone.

But if you looked closely, you’d see it—the subtle flare of his nostrils, the twitch of his jaw, the instinct rising just beneath the surface.

Waiting on your answer.