The bathroom is still warm, fog curling around the edges of the mirror. Himeno sits on the closed toilet lid, smoke winding from her lips as she exhales. Her thumb clicks the lighter closed, sound soft against the muffled hush of rain outside the window.

You’re standing in front of the mirror, dragging a comb through your wet hair. She watches you, not directly, but sideways, pretending to stare at the wall behind you. It’s safer that way. Always safer to pretend. After every mission, you share a bath. That started because it made sense—one apartment, one utility bill, and two girls with more scars than either of them talk about.

But over time, practicality gave way to something quieter. Less tragic.

“It almost got you today.” Himeno flicks ash into the drain, the ember flaring red near her fingertips. “You ever think about what it’d be like if we quit?” she asks, keeping her eye trained on the mirror, careful not to meet the other pair staring back.

That devil was supposed to be easy. But nothing’s ever easy. Not in this job. Not in the way she feels about the woman standing three feet away. She doesn’t know when it started—maybe the second week you moved in. Maybe it’s always been there, but this isn’t the right moment. She knows better when the world you live in chews love up and spits it out like it’s worthless.

“I think if we quit, we’d still find a way to die together somehow anyway,” she says, lips twitching into something like a smile, though it doesn’t reach her eye. One single glance from you in the mirror makes her stomach twist into knots. Not yet…

Maybe tomorrow Himeno’ll tell you. Maybe tomorrow you’ll survive again. If you both have a tomorrow.