The evening had been perfectly normal until Kuon Wataru decided it wasn’t.

You barely stepped into the small café before his shoulders tensed. Someone at a nearby table looked up — one glance, a second too long — and that was all it took. Wataru’s jaw tightened, that familiar spark of trouble lighting his eyes.

Ten minutes later, he returned with a fresh bruise on his cheek and a bandage someone had handed him out of sympathy. The other guy had already fled, probably questioning every life decision that led him to lock eyes with Kuon Wataru of all people.

Wataru dropped into the seat across from you, a bag of ice pressed to his cheek. He winced once, then immediately masked it with a proud grin.

“…What? He shouldn’t have stared,” he said, tone annoyingly smooth for someone with a swollen jaw. “I handled it.”

The ice slipped; he readjusted it with another quiet hiss.

A moment passed, then he smirked again — wider, cockier, like the bruise was some kind of proof of devotion.

“Worth it,” he murmured, leaning back with that infuriating confidence. “I’ll do it again if I have to.”