DANCING WITH THE DEVIL | CHISHIYA X OC |

58. Like a scar, too deep to fade

Before he could ask, she pulled him down into another kiss, this one quicker, sharper, a little more her. Chishiya barely had time to react before she pulled away with a smug, satisfied look.

"See? I am still the same."

Chishiya exhaled a quiet laugh, shaking his head as she walked back inside.

"Yeah," he murmured to himself, watching her go. "I know."

Seina didn't say another word as she strolled back into the room, her usual air of confidence still intact, like she hadn't just kissed him on that damn balcony. Like this was all just another night in their own hell.

She dropped onto the bed, pulling the thin blanket over herself without a care. The mattress wasn't great, but after the past few days, it might as well have been a five-star luxury suite.

Settling in, she glanced up, watching as Chishiya finally followed her inside. He stopped by the wall, arms crossed, his gaze unreadable as he looked at her.

Seina smirked. Of course he wasn't just going to act normal about this.

"I'm tired," she said finally, her voice light, easy. "So... goodnight."

She meant it.
She really did.
For the first time in what felt like forever, there wasn't that crushing weight pressing down on her chest. She felt... light. Like maybe, just maybe she could make it through this.
That she could get out of here, back to their real world, back to something safer. Together.

But still.
Beneath it all, beneath the warmth in her chest, the satisfaction curling at the edges of her smile, something else lingered.
Something darker.
It sat in the back of her mind like an unwelcome guest, creeping in no matter how hard she tried to ignore it.
Maybe it was just the exhaustion. The way her body ached with it, the way her limbs felt too heavy, like they weren't fully hers.

Or maybe it was something worse.
Because deep down, Seina knew. Knew that in this world, nothing good came without a cost. No one got to be happy without sacrifice.
No one walked away without losing something.

And as she closed her eyes, forcing herself to focus on the warmth of the blanket and the sound of Chishiya shifting next to her, she wondered what price she'd have to pay.

***

Seina had already fallen asleep beside him, her breathing slow, steady, oblivious to the storm she'd left in her wake. Chishiya, however, lay awake, staring at the ceiling, his thoughts tangled in something he didn't quite know how to name.

She had always been there.

Not always within reach, not always where he could see her, but there, nonetheless. A presence lingering in the quiet spaces of his mind, a memory in the hollow parts of himself he never acknowledged. She had been woven into him long before he had the sense to realize it, like a scar too deep to fade, like a whisper carried on a wind that never stopped calling his name.

And now, here she was again.
Against all odds.
Against all reason.

Chishiya lay still, staring at the ceiling, but all he could feel was her. The steady rhythm of her breathing, the warmth radiating from her body even in sleep, the unbearable weight of knowing she was close enough to touch. The way the pale light caught the edges of her face, softening her in a way she would have hated if she were awake.

He had spent his whole life avoiding things like this. Keeping his hands clean of anything that could make him human in ways that mattered. And yet, against all logic, against everything he had ever believed about himself, he had let her ruin him.
Because he loved her.
It wasn't a realization that came gently.
It didn't bloom like something soft or delicate. It had been growing for a long time, from the first time she saw her, silent and unstoppable. It had carved itself into him slowly, relentlessly, like water shaping stone, like roots breaking through concrete, impossible to stop even if he had noticed it happening.

It was violent in its inevitability, cruel in the way it had taken him apart piece by piece before he even had a chance to understand what was happening.

And maybe... maybe he had always loved her.

That was the real tragedy, wasn't it?

Because even back then, before they had disappeared from each other's  life like something too bright to be held, she had already been under his skin.
She had already been something he couldn't ignore. Because even back then, when they had been two people pretending they were untouchable, when they had left things unsaid because it was easier than admitting what was real, even then, she had been different.
She had been reckless and sharp-tongued, always pushing limits, always dragging him into the kind of chaos that made his carefully built walls feel like nothing more than paper.

He remembered the way she had kissed him, reckless and unafraid, like there had never been an inch of space between them, like they hadn't already bled for the ways they had hurt each other. Like she saw through the cold exterior he had built and decided there was something beneath it worth touching.

Chishiya turned his head slightly, his gaze tracing the curve of her cheek, the way her lashes cast faint shadows against her skin.
Even now, when everything had burned to the ground, when they were nothing but two ghosts walking through a world that no longer made sense, she was the only thing that felt like life.

And God help him, he wanted to believe she always would be.

His fingers twitched against the sheets, aching with the need to reach for her, to take something for himself for once in his goddamn life.
But love had never been meant for men like him. And yet...
He had never had a choice.

So he carefully lifted his hand and ran his fingers through her hair, gentle enough not to wake her. And finally, without thinking, his hand came to rest on Seina's hand.

Seina shifted slightly in her sleep, brow furrowing for the briefest moment before smoothing out again, and Chishiya swallowed against the ache curling in his chest.

She had always been there.

And the worst part was, he had probably belonged to her from that goddamn moment he saw her.