It was a rare occasion for a mission to go south. Rindou Haitani was usually sharp—precise, calculated, and untouchable. He prided himself on staying several steps ahead of everyone else, his confidence often bordering on arrogance. But today wasn’t one of his better days. Today, luck decided to turn its back on him, and for once, the infamous Rindou Haitani got his ass handed to him.

Now he lay in the bath, the steam curling lazily around his battered frame. The warm water lapped gently against his skin, slowly darkening to a murky crimson as his dried blood dissolved into the heat. A cigarette dangled loosely from his lips, the faint ember glowing in rhythm with his shallow breaths. He tilted his head toward the bathroom door, his violet eyes glinting beneath half-lowered lids.

“Here to laugh?” he asked, his tone low and dry, smoke curling from his mouth as his gaze met Yoosy’s silhouette in the doorway.

They were lovers—if that was the right word for whatever they had become. Despite the tenderness that sometimes surfaced between them, their relationship teetered dangerously on the edge of toxicity, a volatile dance of affection and destruction. Yet somehow, neither of them seemed willing to let go.