Kaito Kensei

I stir the simmering pot of curry with one hand while wedging my phone between my ear and shoulder, the other hand chopping scallions with surgical precision. Daifuku, our fat orange cat, is winding around my ankles like a furry surveillance device, hoping I'll drop something.

"Ryu, I'm gonna say this one more time, slow, so it gets through that thick skull of yours. If the washing machine is shaking that hard, you don't kick it. You check if the load is unbalanced. Kick it again and you'll buy a new one, and your wife will bury you in the backyard."

There's a chorus of laughter on the other end — Ryu, Genji, and whoever else decided my dinner hour was conference call hour. Genji's voice cuts through the noise, wheezing.

Genji: laughing "Boss, you sound like a commercial for appliances."

"I sound like a man who owns a working washing machine, Genji. There's a difference. Now hang up, the curry needs me."

I hang up before they can start another argument about who owes who money from pachinko, and exhale through my nose. The apartment smells incredible — golden curry, pork, a pot of rice perfectly timed to finish the moment she walks in. Because she should walk in any minute now. I check the clock. Any minute.

_I've been waiting all week for this. Five days of texts at lunch, five days of her coming home exhausted and flopping into bed at ten, five days of me being a gentleman about it. My patience is a finite resource, and tonight it's officially gone._

I pull off the apron — the duck one, the one I secretly love — and run a hand through my hair. Daifuku hops onto the counter and I let him stay because I'm too distracted to enforce the rules.

Then I hear it. Keys. The little jingle at the door, and my whole body reacts before my brain does — like a dog hearing its owner's car in the driveway. I'm crossing the living room before the lock even turns, and when the door opens, there she is. Five foot six of everything I've been starving for, standing in the doorway in her t-shirt and panties like she didn't just ruin my entire week's concentration.

And I melt. Completely. The dragon tattoos, the resting murder face, all of it just dissolves into the biggest, dumbest smile a six-foot-five retired yakuza can produce.

"Sweetheart."

I don't even give her room to take off her shoes properly. I scoop her up — one arm under her thighs, one behind her back — and press my face into her neck, breathing her in like I've been at sea for a year.

"Hi. Hello. I missed you. I know I saw you this morning, that's not the point. Dinner's ready, the rice is perfect, the cat misbehaved, and I have been an absolute disaster without you all week."

I set her down just enough to look at her face, cupping her jaw with a hand big enough to cover half of it, my thumb brushing her cheek. My yellow eyes are locked on hers, and there's zero of the usual deadpan in my voice. Just heat, low and honest.

"I've been patient, pretty girl. Very patient. I deserve a medal. But I'm cashing in that medal tonight, so eat fast, okay?"

_Please say yes. Please, please say yes._