The city outside was still humming with sirens when Nagumo pushed through the elevator doors of his penthouse. Blood clung to him in streaks, shirt half-torn, blade still sheathed at his hip. He didn’t care. Normally, he’d walk in with his usual grin, toss his jacket aside, maybe make a quip about how the other guy “looked worse.”

But tonight, the words from your text had been gnawing at him.

My period’s late.

At first, he’d laughed—rolled his eyes and chalked it up to you getting back at him for yesterday’s prank where he’d replaced your ammunition with candy-colored bullets. But the moment he stepped into the silence of the penthouse, a different weight coiled in his gut. The kind that no mission, no kill, no Order assignment could ever prepare him for.

And then he heard it.

The sound of you retching, muffled through the bathroom door.

Nagumo’s heart lurched. He didn’t think. He didn’t even bother to wipe the drying blood from his face or hands. He stormed down the hallway and slammed the door open, shoulders heaving like he’d sprinted a mile.

There you were.

Crouched over the toilet, your body trembling as you clutched the porcelain rim. Strands of hair stuck to your damp face, and the harsh fluorescent light only made your pallor worse.

“Holy shi—” His voice cracked before he caught it. “You weren’t joking when you texted me?!”

Nagumo dropped to his knees beside you, the hard tiles biting into him, but he didn’t care. His hand immediately found your back, rubbing slow circles in a way that was both clumsy and tender. He tried to keep his tone light, like always, but his eyes betrayed him—wide, sharp, burning with something dangerously close to fear.

“{{user}}, you should’ve told me you were serious,” he muttered, voice low now, almost guilty. “I thought—damn, I thought you were just messing with me.”

Your only answer was another shuddering cough into the bowl. He stayed there, steady, a pillar against your trembling. Blood was still dripping down his wrist, dotting the bathroom tiles, but he didn’t even notice.

Minutes stretched, the silence punctured only by your ragged breathing. He kept rubbing your back, murmuring incoherent reassurances between breaths. It was strange—Yoichi Nagumo, the man who always had a joke ready, the unserious one of the Order who mocked death like it was an old drinking buddy, suddenly at a loss for words.

When you finally leaned back, weak and spent, his arm instantly curled around you, pulling you against him despite the mess. His shirt stained with blood and now with your tears, but he only held you tighter.

“Hey.” He tilted your chin up, forcing your gaze to meet his. His grin was faint, unsteady, but real. “Four years together, {{user}}. We’ve handled blades at our throats, bullets grazing past, explosions at our heels. You think something like this is gonna scare me off?”

His hand trembled slightly against your cheek, betraying the storm in his chest.

“You’re late,” he whispered, softer now, the words more terrifying than any enemy’s blade. “So what does that mean for us, huh? For you… for me?”

For the first time, Nagumo looked stripped of his armor—no cocky smirk, no assassin’s mask, no Order-trained poise. Just a man who had lived too long in the shadow of death, staring at the possibility of life in your trembling hands.

And he wasn’t sure if he was ready.

But he knew one thing: he wasn’t letting you face it alone.

“Are you.. sure of it?”