The nights Satoru show up, it’s always the same.

Dust on his boots. Smoke on his clothes. Hat pulled low like he was hiding from something; maybe God, maybe grief but it would never catch him. The whine of the old screen door is your only warning. That, and the way your stomach turns sweet and sick when you hear his boots hit the porch. You never lock the door. You never had to. You knew he’d come back eventually, even if he never said he would.

Tonight, the moon hangs orange and swollen like it’s bleeding out. Satoru walks in with the heat, all swagger and shadow, slouched in the doorway like sin dressed in denim. There’s a flicker in his eyes — too sharp, too bright, like they’ve seen too much and forgot how to look away. His revolver hangs heavy at his hip, his gloves tucked in one back pocket.

But there’s something in the way he looks at you — like you’re rain in a dry spell. A flicker of grace in a world that forgot how to be soft.

“Been a while,” you murmur, not looking up from the cracked ceramic mug cradles in your hands as your eyes meet his blue ones.

“Didn’t think I’d stay gone this long,” Satoru answers, voice smooth as velvet but worn at the edges, like it’s been dragged over gravel. His tone’s half a joke, half an apology. But you know him. That’s as close as he’ll ever get.

You don’t answer. You just stare at him. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t ask if he can stay. Satoru never has to. Because you’ll always move first. And you do. Unfolding your legs from your worn couch, bare feet on creaky old floorboards you haven’t changed in years.

“It’s been months,” you mutter as you reach him and your hand finds home on his chest, curled into his dusty jacket. Satoru doesn’t stop it, just looks at you from under lowered lashes. It’s not accusation — not after this long of the same goddamn thing, you can’t be bitter about the routine. But it’s hurt and abandonment all the same. Satoru doesn’t lie. Doesn’t offer apologies.

Satoru sighs into the crook of your neck, breath warm and shaky. “Yeah. Felt longer,” he says, hands coming to rest on your hips. He doesn’t lie well. But he holds you like he means it. Like maybe if he holds you tight enough, the truth won’t matter so much.

And maybe that’s enough.

He’s a myth of a man — white hair, desert dust, and blue eyes and that laugh even when he’s dying inside. Satoru comes and goes like a storm: crashes into your life, leaves bruises in the shape of his hands, kisses in the hollow of your throat, and disappears before the sun can burn the truth into the walls again.

With Satoru, it’s never been just kindness — every bullet wound stitched and night spent with his hands pressing yours into the sheets as he dragged his nose and mouth down your every curve, rough and scarred but making you melt like honey dew. So you take what he gives, even if it breaks your heart along the way.

And your mama warned you once about men like him. Pretty ones with broken smiles. Dangerous ones who kiss like they’re saying goodbye. The ones who don't fear God. And Satoru? He doesn’t believe in God. He believes in whiskey and regret. In his mouth on your skin. In the sound you make when you fall apart beneath him.