♊︎Year 5067, Month 8, Day 8, Time 12:46 am♊︎
☯︎︎
The tattooed woman struggles with setting aside her doubts over her previous conversation that nibbles at the ends of her mind even as she walks up the stairs to get to where San resides.
it's not a matter of 'do you plan to betray him', it's more of a matter of 'when'
The words replay in her mind once, then twice, then thrice, and it would've continued to torment her if Jongho hadn't ripped her out of her thoughts.
"Hey," Jongho sets a hand on her shoulder to stop her, almost making her jump out of her skin. He takes note of her jitteriness, quirking an eyebrow in worry. "Olivia told me what you just did. She's worried for you. I'm worried. San's worried. You haven't been in the best place lately."
"I'm fine. I'm peachy. Juniper is just good at getting under my skin."
"That's not—," Jongho stops himself to think of what he's about to say. "That's not what I meant."
"I know that's not what you meant, but what else am I supposed to say? It's been weeks since I've been back and we're still not even an inch closer to finding Candy because we've either been recovering or busy with other things. MALUS is up to my ass somehow finding me wherever it is I go. I just came back from finding out that my whole life is a lie after getting tortured half to death by Evan, and on top of that I find out that somewhere out there, there is a clone of me that the Meisters are using to replace me. So tell me, Jongho, what the hell am I supposed to say?" The mechanic drops his gaze.
"At least, don't lie to us and tell us you're fine."
"Fine. I'm insufferable. Absolutely crappy. Happy?" Jongho cracks a smile, shaking his head.
"That's better. Sounds real." He lets go of Kurenai, scratching the back of his neck before blowing out some air. "That's all I wanted you to admit to yourself. Now go help San." He nods on over to the door behind her where she hears San and Olivia chatting.
She walks over to it and pushes the door in slightly, wincing when it creaks and silences the prior conversation.
"I hope I'm not interrupting." Kurenai excuse herself, stepping into the room and warily walking over to where San sits atop a stool with his bareback to Olivia who's cleaning up his wound.
"I was just finishing up with his last pair of stitches," Olivia informs her with a sweet smile, dabbing the freshly stitched wound with alcohol and standing up straight. She fishes out a roll of bandages and tosses it to Kurenai who easily catches it. "I trust you to wrap him up."
"Sure." Kurenai nears San. He doesn't turn to look at her or even acknowledge her, making Kurenai fidgety.
"I'll leave you two to it then." Olivia turns sharply, exiting the room rather hastily and closing the door behind her. The tattooed woman clears her throat, a flimsy attempt at getting San's attention which half works when he glances over his shoulder to side-eye her.
"I would turn around to face you, but my body feels like it's burning up from the inside." He comments, bringing a small grin to both of their faces.
"Let me make it easier for you then." Kurenai moves over to stand in front of him, averting her eyes from his soft gaze. A gaze she feels unworthy of having directed at her. "How are you feeling?"
"Terrible. But now that you're here I think the pain is a lot more bearable." The mulleted man presses his lips together into a taut line and Kurenai snorts, bitting down on her tongue from commenting.
"Of course, it was a stupid question." She decides, lifting a hand and pressing it on his pale cheek. "I'm sorry."
"For what?" San raises a hand to grasp hers and press it harder to his face. "You've done me no wrong to be apologizing. And if you're talking about my injury then that's all on me. I decided to protect you and I would repeat that decision a million times over." He looks up at her with such sincerity it makes Kurenai's heart twist as Juniper's words come back to mind.
it's more of a matter of 'when'
"Your heart is too big for this world." Clearing her throat and retracting her hand to San's dismay, Kurenai sniffles softly, remembering what she was supposed to be doing.
"Really? How so?" San giggles as she works on wrapping up his injuries, her fingers lightly skimming over his warm skin as she does.
"I dunno. You just— you're just too kind to people."
"But you're not just anyone, you're—," the man stops himself before he can say anything out of line. "I do care for you deeply."
"I know. I also know that this care will be your demise if you start to put my well-being over yours." Kurenai chastises him, looking at him with a serious countenance. "Done." She sighs after a moment. Finishing up her work, Kurenai ties the finishing knot, stepping back to admire her work, but more so San.
She notices the small droplets of water running along his smooth skin as a result of his wet hair that he pushes back with puffed-out cheeks.
"Pass me a shirt, yeah?" San snaps Kurenai out of her daze, oblivious to the way she was staring at a certain water droplet that was slowly creeping down his collarbone. "There should be a dresser drawer over by the door leading to the hallway. I've got some shirts in there. You can take one for yourself as well if you'd like."
Doing as she's told, Kurenai makes her way to the black dresser that sits exactly where San had directed her. In it, a multitude of clothes lies inside prompting Kurenai to wonder where they are once more.
"Now that I think of it, you never did tell me what this place is." The tattooed woman digs with a little more suspicion in her tone than she intended. San picks up on it quickly and he chuckles, wincing when he feels a sharp pain shoot up his torso.
"I haven't shown anyone this place so it's not only you that had no clue about it."
"Is this place supposed to be kept a secret from the Meisters? Is that why only Jongho knew about it?" Kurenai passes San his shirt, choosing to give him a plain gray t-shirt to match the black sweats he already had on.
"Thanks and no," San mutters when he receives the shirt, throwing it on and smiling faintly at her second question. "Actually, this place was my grandfather's locksmith shop. We came in from the back alleyway, but if you were to see the street-view, you'd see a rusty old sign saying 'Choi's Locksmithery'. It's not supposed to be a secret, but I like having my privacy. You know, I used to live here before..."
"Before MALUS took you in." She finishes for him, walking over to stand in front of him once more. He nods sadly, looking down at his hands that lie flat on his thighs. Before Kurenai can think it through, another question squeezes its way past her lips. "I've heard you mention your grandparents once, but you never did tell me how you ended up under the Meisters tutelage."
"It's not a pleasant story for me." San scrunches up his nose, getting up out of his seat and slowly moving over to the bed across from him, groaning when he sits down on the edge of it. "But, I'll tell you anyway."
"What's the catch?" Kurenai folds her arms over her chest, sensing an ulterior motive behind San's sudden change in opinion.
"The catch is, you have to explain everything about your relationship with Juniper and Vael to me to hear my story."
"And...?" She prompts him to continue figuring that there is still something he's holding back."
"And you have to lie down with me for the night." She doesn't notice when her eyes widen so much until she hears San's laughter ring in her ears. His smug expression presents a challenge for Kurenai, one that makes the two little opposing voices in her head yell at each other like madmen.
"B-But, I can sleep on the... the... um." Kurenai loses her train of thought when she sees San raise an inquisitive eyebrow at her, making her realize that the tone in her voice is betraying her statement.
Torn in two and with the sirens going off in her head, Kurenai opens her mouth to answer his request, but the words she lets tumble past her lips are the total opposite of what her mind screams at her.
"Alright, I'll do it. Just let me clean up first." She answers to both her and San's surprise. Before she can let the weight of her words sink in, Kurenai moves forward, heading over to the first aid kit lying on one of the nightstands closest to the bed. "I guess I'll go first and explain while I clean up my wounds." She sighs, opening an alcohol wipe packet with her teeth and pulling over the stool to sit on. "What do you want to know?"
San ponders the question.
"How did you three meet?"
"As you may have heard, Juniper was a subject before she was Blacklisted." Kurenai works on cleaning her wounds with the alcohol wipes, clenching her jaw, and sucking in some air through her teeth as it stings her open skin and brings tears to her eyes. "We never actually came across each other before because the Meisters always isolated me from almost all the other subjects. This was when I was deemed unstable."
"Unstable?" San interjects, tilting his head to the side with a pout.
"This was when I was 20, so I had just been reprogrammed according to the information Hongjoong dug up for me." Kurenai expounds, finishing up with her smaller nicks and scratches to move onto the larger gash on her inner thigh that's covered in dried blood. "As I was saying, around the time I was stabilized, Juniper was Blacklisted for selling confidential MALUS information to buyers. They assumed she would have stopped doing it when they blacklisted her and cut off all her resources, but she still managed to hack the security system over and over again."
"Wait, does this mean that she's better than Hongjoong at hacking?" Kurenai rolls her eyes with a playful smile.
"No, I think they're at the same level. The only difference is that Hongjoong has some morals. Juniper only sides with whatever benefits her." San nods. "But back to the main topic," Kurenai sends him a pointed glare before continuing, "when the Meisters found out she was still stealing and selling their classified information, they decided to do something about it. So naturally, since I was back in the game, they chose me to head in as a double agent for Juniper."
"That's why you worked as a hooker."
"As a dancer." Kurenai gives the mulleted man a stern look, ignoring the teasing smile playing on his lips. "I strictly danced for the guests' entertainment; nothing more, nothing less." She goes back to working on her inner thigh, finding it hard to manage cleaning it with her pants. Picking up a pair of scissors in the medkit, she cuts cut off the leg sleeve just above her wound. "I worked at the pub she worked at for a couple of weeks and kept tabs on her, but I guess I was a bit rusty because Juniper caught onto me. She never found out that I was still connected to MALUS. Instead, I let her assume what she wanted and she just assumed that I was also a blacklisted agent."
The tattooed woman pauses her story for a couple of seconds as she fumbles for some better substance and comes across a hydrogen peroxide bottle which she internally thanks the heavens for. Applying a good amount of the liquid to her wound which foams up because of the bacteria being killed and whatnot, Kurenai picks up gauze and wipes away the dry blood covering the still tender wound.
"I guess Juniper took pity on me because she decided to take me under wing after she 'sniffed me out'. She taught me the works in that place as the head dancer and was overall a big help when it came to adjusting to such a nasty place." She then resumes her story, her eyebrows furrowing the longer she works on cleaning her wound. "The closer I got to her, the more I found out about how she was able to hack and steal all that information. That was when I found out she had an inside agent which was Vael. He wasn't a subject but he did work in IT under Evan."
"Something tells me there was a problem forming around that time," San concludes when he notices how Kurenai's gaze dims down slightly. Kurenai purses her lips.
"Juniper had trusted me so readily based on an assumption I never confirmed; it was odd to me. Because of her blind trust, she opened herself up to me in the most vulnerable ways that she ended up becoming something akin to a sister for me." There's a depressing lilt to her tone of voice that garners pity in San's chest for the woman. "Each time I was ordered to give a report of my status and what I'd found out about Juniper, I felt like I was murdering the trust she had put in me. It took a toll on me and my mental state."
"What happened?" San softly asks, his voice just barely above a whisper as if trying not to startle her. Kurenai stops working on her wound then, her hands becoming too shaky to continue.
"I, uh, When I realized how attached I had become, it was too late. The Meisters ordered me to finish the job." The tattooed woman clenches her fists till her knuckles turn white, digging the curvature of her nails into her palms. A teardrop falls down her cheek. "I— I shot her. And then I shot Vael when he came to her rescue." Kurenai chews on her bottom lip, refusing to look San in the eye out of shame. "I shot her in the eye and Vael in the chest. And I left."
"Did... Did you confirm their deaths?"
"No." Kurenai shakes her head, wiping away her tears with a sniff. "I was aware of the confirmation procedure, but I didn't go through with it. I called in one of Juniper's contacts when I realized what I had done and left before I was caught. When I found out they had survived through the grapevine, I tracked them down and paid them a visit. I wanted to make up for what the Meisters made me do, but they wanted nothing with me, so I arranged for them fake IDs and Aliases and never saw them again."
"Until now. That... must've been painful to confront." His heart goes out to her. "I can see why you were on edge now. I'm sorry if I was ever being inconsiderate."
"It's fine. That's the past. I don't plan to stay around them for long anyway, so it's not like I'll hurt them again." Kurenai looks up at San finally to meet his pity-filled eyes which stirs a bit of humiliation in her. She slowly looks back down at her wound again, picking up where she left off in healing herself.
San takes her body language as a hint that she doesn't want to continue talking about this, so he lets her work in silence as he waits for her patiently, something she's truly grateful for.
As she works on applying a medical glue to seal her wound shut, she begins to feel increasingly self-conscious. She notices San staring at her every movement, sensing him out of the corner of her eye. It becomes a little too distracting for her, so she turns her head to frown at him.
"Do you have a shirt I can borrow?" She asks the man, noticing how he leans back on his hands while manspreading with no care for how intensely he's staring at her and trying to get his attention off of her.
"Yeah, just pick any from the cabinet you got my shirt from earlier." She stands up straight once again, still clenching her teeth from the sting of the alcohols wipes and after effects now that her adrenaline has died down, and walks over to the drawer once more.
"I'm stealing a pair of boxers as well," Kurenai comments absentmindedly looking for an oversized shirt she can wear when she settles on a green flannel and some black briefs that fit her all too loosely. She turns around to change out of her dirty and smelly clothes when she realizes that someone is still watching her with eyes that are a little too eager. "Do you mind?"
"Oh, not at all. Proceed." San waves her off with an innocent expression. She facepalms.
"What I meant was, turn around, you pervert." She grits through her teeth, twirling her finger to motion what he should be doing.
"Pervert? Now, where did that come from?" San feigns offense, getting up sluggishly and turning around. Kurenai rolls her eyes at his childish antics, pulling her cross top over her head when she's sure he's turned around and throwing on the flannel. She changes her bottoms for the briefs, leaving her underwear, and throws her dirty clothes and neon-green wig in the trash which San does notice. "Weren't those Candy's clothes?" He turns to see her walking towards him, crossing his hands over his chest and quirking a brow.
"They were," Kurenai sighs, picking up a roll of bandages to wrap her thigh. "But I guess not anymore." When she finishes bandaging herself up, she rolls onto the bed and relaxes into the mattress with closed eyes and a smile.
It's a full bed that fits both her and San, but she soon comes to the conclusion that he hasn't lied down yet considering that she didn't feel him anywhere near her. Cracking one eye open to peer at him, Kurenai finds San just standing there at the edge of the bed with an emotionless expression.
"What's wrong?" She inquires after a moment. He shakes his head, snapping into action and laying down next to her on his side to avoid injuring his back some more.
"Nothing. I was just thinking about how Candy is holding up. Yeosang's been worried out of his mind these last few weeks and I can't help but feel responsible because I couldn't do anything to stop Gemini." He admits, surprising Kurenai.
Out of the whole team, San had been the only one whose spirits had not dimmed, but it isn't until San confesses this to her that she realizes he's been hurt just as much as the rest.
"If I had just trusted you about Seonghwa then, maybe she—."
"Stop that." Kurenai cuts him off, rolling over to her side as well to face San, placing her head on top of her folded arm. "Stop dwelling on what could've been or else it'll eat you away. I would know."
"I know, but I can't help thinking about what it would be like if I had just been able to notice the difference between you two. I've known you for so long and yet I couldn't tell you apart from a clone. It just feels... like everything I've said has been void until now."
Kurenai grabs one of his hands, giving it a little squeeze before offering a comforting smile.
"I know what it's like to feel so fake even though you meant everything you to someone. It happens and I don't blame you. Neither does anyone else. So please, let it go. Focus on something else that will help us get Candy back." San nods, clearing his throat.
"You're right. I need to focus on something else."
"Tell me about your past. The deal was that if I stayed with you, you would tell me how you ended up as a subject." Kurenai throws in a new topic of discussion, taking his mind off of Candy for a bit.
"Right, my past." San presses his lips together, turning his head to look away from Kurenai. "Before I joined MALUS, I lived with my grandparents. I lived with them for as long as I could remember, I never met my parents."
"What happened to them?" Kurenai scoots closer. Neither of them minds it, though, finding comfort in each other's close presence.
"I don't know what happened and my grandparents never said. I always assumed they'd died because it made their absence easier to handle than if I thought they'd abandoned me." He smiles weakly. "I lived with my grandparents here but every day after school I helped my grandma run the cafe since my elementary and middle school was in the vicinity. Then, when I turned 10, I helped out my grandpa with his locksmith business. My life was so simple then. I thought it would never end."
"What changed?" San takes a shaky breath, gathering his thoughts for a moment. "When I turned 11, a couple of days after my birthday, I witnessed an armed robbery here at my grandpa's store. Some thugs came in and assaulted us for our money, but my grandpa refused. They all got into an argument and my grandfather sent me away, I didn't listen and hid behind an aisle." The mulleted man starts to tear up, the edges of his lips fighting to stay neutral, but the rest of his face gives him away. "The argument escalated and one of the men shot my grandfather right between his eyes. I saw it all happen and I didn't do anything."
"What happened with the criminals?" Kurenai prods, feeling something tug at her heartstrings. "What was your reaction? Did you call someone?"
"I froze. The criminals saw me and I froze in place. They fled luckily, but the damage was already done. My grandpa was gone and I— I couldn't even say goodbye because he was gone before he even hit the floor. I just remember sitting next to his corpse that whole afternoon without a thought in my head until my Grandma came home a found me."
"Oh, San." Kurenai extends a hand and places it on his cheek, wiping away the tears that started streaming down his face. "I'm so sorry you had to go through that."
"It was bad." He agrees, placing a hand over Kurenai's wrist to keep it there. "But it wasn't as bad as the guilt I felt after. A guilt that was like an opened wound where people would rub in salt every time I was asked to recount what had happened. My grandma, the police, the news reporters. They all reminded me of my failure to protect someone I loved."
"After a few months, the guilt was too much for me to handle. I guess my grandma also blamed me even though she'd deny it at first because after the first couple of months she started beating me out of frustration. I dropped out of school the following year and my grandma had to close down the cafe not long after. We didn't have enough money to pay for it. That's when I turned to pickpocket-ing. Every day I would watch my grandma waste away because of me and I couldn't let everything we owned get thrown away, so I stole. I begged, stole, robbed; I did anything I could to get by. I got better at it as time went by and soon enough I was stealing from safes and cars up in the richer parts of Karma and Answer District. And life was good like that for a while."
"Did your grandma know about how you got all that money?"
"No," San laughs humorlessly. "I lied to her and told her I got a job at a restaurant as a busboy. She later found out when I was finally caught and arrested. She received a call from the police station to come pick me up and she did, though furiously."
"Did she start to hit you again when she found out?" San shakes his head.
"She said I was too old for corporal punishment, so she went with the last resort. She kicked me out at the ripe age of 13 with nothing more than a backpack and some other pastries. I wandered the streets for a year, hiding in old homes or buildings and stealing from people as I did before. I was furious at her for kicking me to the curb, furious at the world. All I wanted to do was to help and show that I could care for the people I loved, but she hated me more for it. The last thing I knew of her was that she was getting chemotherapy for her Leukemia. When she passed, I became distrustful and bitter, and I stayed that way for a while. I was conflicted over what I should be feeling for her," He pauses, staring at Kurenai and dragging a finger across her cheek to connect the beauty marks on her face "That was all before I met you a year later."
"How do you remember all that?" She wonders, unable to grasp why he remembers all of this and she can't seem to remember anything besides what she's hallucinated with San.
"Remember that day at the dorms when I almost drowned?" San mentions, both of them laughing as they recall the moment.
"I do."
"Something... something about that day sort of triggered my memories." He admits, confusing Kurenai.
"How so?" She further pries.
"I can't explain it, but after I nearly drowned, chunks of my memories would just come back to me," San furrows his brows, pursing his lips while deep in thought. "Each time another chunk came back it was always triggered by something I did."
"Are you talking about the visions?" He nods.
"I don't know how much was revealed to you during our visions, but for me, I would get hit with around a year to two years worth of memories with you."
"I—," Kurenai shakes her head at a loss for words, "the only memories I would get were the ones triggered in that exact moment by our actions. Almost like deja vu."
"Then how come...," San veers away from what he was going to say, clamping his lips shut and waving the question off. "Never mind. It's nothing."
"What is it? Something is bothering you, I wanna know." Kurenai prompts him to speak, so he does.
"How come you remember those moments, but you can't recall our past relationship? It just feels like... you're ashamed to admit that we knew each other before even though the evidence is so clearly there." San lowers his voice a little so that only she can hear him, peering into Kurenai's turbulent, onyx eyes. "Why do you reject it? Are you scared?"
Kurenai opens her mouth to respond but quickly closes it when nothing comes out. She knows that she's been denying their past, their shared truth. It scares her. It scares her that her memories might be right. It scares her that she's probably loved this man more than herself at some point. She's scared about what accepting her past might mean for her future.
After all, it's evident that her memories have screwed up the last four months of her life so far. Starting with the people she would have laid down her life for and ending with her feelings for the man lying beside her, she's sure that it's only the doings and undoing of her memories that have brought her to this point.
It's why she fears what more they might do to her life.
"Yes," Kurenai breathes out after pondering it. "Yes, I am scared, San. I'm terrified."
"Of what? Of me? Of the Meisters?"
"No. No, I'm not afraid of you or the Meisters. I—." Kurenai stops herself, biting down on her bottom lip which hurts a little since it was just recently busted. San holds on tighter to Kurenai's hand, searching her face for a sign, any sign, to point him in the right direction of what's going on in her head.
"What are you afraid of, Kurenai?"
"This! I-I'm afraid of us. Our memories. I'm terrified to think of just what else our memories may hold that we don't know about and I'm afraid that if I accept it, it'll make things that much worse for me." The tattooed woman admits at long last, spilling out her heart to him.
"How bad can things with me be? You'll never know if you don't at least try." San's eyes soften and so does his tone; it kills Kurenai.
"You don't— you're not getting it, San! Ever since we met and I started recuperating my memories, everything's been going to crap!" She tries to make him understand, tears of frustration welling up in her eyes. "I've been blacklisted by the very people that stole these memories; I just found out I have an evil clone on the loose trying to kill you, me, and Mingi; and now Candy is missing." San lowers his eyes, too pained to see Kurenai's expression.
"Do you think I've come to ruin things, then?" He furrows his brows, closing his eyes as his heart races in anticipation of Kurenai's answer that's taking its sweet time.
"I don't think you've come to ruin things." She answers, lifting some of the worries off San's chest. "I don't exactly know what I feel when it comes to you. I'm aware that I loved you at some point and that love costed me."
"But that was when you were under MALUS, was it not?"
"It was, but how much more do you think it will cost me now? Now that I have so much more to lose?" Kurenai pulls her hand away from San and flips over to her back to stare up at the ceiling instead of him, an action that arouses deep conflict in San's stomach. "I have a life. I have people I care for. I can't just throw it all away because of some damn whim."
"But that's my point! I'm not a whim. I'm your past, our past. If not even the Meisters could keep us apart, then what can?" San argues this time, urging her to give him a chance. "I understand how scared out of your mind you are because I am, too, but I believe this can work for us if we just try. I was a part of your past, let me be a part of your future."
"What future do I have as a blacklisted subject, huh? What future do we have? We're literally being hunted down by the largest criminal network with the best assassins." Kurenai turns her head to the side, tears streaming down the side of her face. "And what about Mingi, what am I supposed to tell him?"
San stays quiet, a lump forming at his throat when she mentions the other man she's had a relationship with.
"I'm torn on what to do because settling my past and present is not as easy as you make it to be. Yes, you were a key part of my past, but Mingi is a big part of my present." She pauses. "I don't know what to choose for myself and I fear I may hurt one of you if I chose wrong. All my life my decisions have been made for me and now I can't even choose what my heart wants because I don't even know what it's telling me."
"What did it tell you when you kissed me back at the club?"
"Back at the club, I meant that kiss. It wasn't just a show to grab Juniper's attention or some act I did because I was 'drunk', I wanted it." Kurenai raises a hand to cup San's cheek, glancing at his perfectly shaped lips and finding them as enticing as she did before, maybe even more now that she's really thinking about it. "I still want it. I don't know what it is exactly that I feel. I'm scared to find out and fall into a pattern where I'll end up screwing everything over again. All of the feelings that come along with each memory that I gain... it's all new to me and I don't know how to handle it."
He moves a hand to grab her wrist securely this time, scooting closer to her as she flips onto her side once more to face him and kissing the inside of her wrist ever-so-softly.
"You don't have to solve that all at once. We can figure it out together as we go."
"But how?" She whispers, brushing her thumb against his bottom lip; her face so close to his that they're practically breathing in each other's air. San moves his hand down to her elbow and then to her waist; his fingers hovering slightly over her body in a teasing manner that drives her insane. He smiles.
"However you want." San hums gently, hearing their hearts beat rhythmically. The tension between them is so thick that it can almost be cut through with a knife.
"Anyway, I want?" Kurenai double checks, so close that their lips brush against each other when they speak. San only manages a nod.
Without letting him even start his sentence, Kurenai presses her lips against his, softly this time. San gasps a bit, his eyes wide in shock and he freezes up.
He was taken by surprise; he didn't know what way to react, but as Kurenai's lips move against his, he feels himself melt into the kiss along with her. He sighs into her mouth, running a hand down her spine that causes her to shiver in anticipation.
She hums in delight as San traces shapes into her back, getting lost in the sweet taste of his lips on hers.
He pulls her in tighter by the waist, his strong arms snaking around her perfectly to press her against his chest. Kurenai moves one of her hands to run her fingers through his damp hair, the other fisting his shirt.
Unlike the kiss they shared earlier that was filled with only the greed and lust that overtook them, this one feels substantial, meaningful. It's not rough or desperate in the sense that they're running out of time. Instead, it's more of a desperate passion that both their bodies strive to convey to each other when nothing else can.
Every touch, every kiss, every sensation is an unspoken language between them that tells them everything they need to know and yet not a single word is uttered.
Because at the end of the day, they don't need to share words to know that their connection runs deeper than vain promises spit out by lying tongues. It's a connection that can cause them great joy as well as great turmoil.
They're both aware of that, but it all feels too good to stop it.
The pair's lips move in sync with each other, messy and passionate. They can feel their bodies burning up from the inside, but it's a satisfying heat. San's lips leave hers to explore the rest of her, lightly sucking and nibbling on her skin which leaves behind a trail of reddish bruises where he bites down a little too hard.
"San," Kurenai moans softly, hands ghosting over the exposed skin on San's arm and holding onto his bicep as his lips graze the skin on her neck and jaw.
San slides a hand from Kurenai's waist down to grab her butt, giving it a light squeeze that makes her gasp. Lifting his face back up to meet her and slipping his tongue into her mouth, he deepens the kiss, slowing down its pace and making it even more intimate than it was before. He draws a bit of blood from her lips where they were busted in her earlier fight but neither of them minds.
He moves his hand further down to her thigh and lifts that leg so that it's draped over his waist, propping himself up on one arm and twisting his torso to hover slightly above Kurenai. Detaching his lips from hers with a wet pop, San laughs breathlessly at hearing Kurenai whine softly for him, staring down at her flushed face and somewhat swollen lips.
The tattooed woman doesn't open her eyes instantly, keeping them shut for a few seconds after he's unlatched their lips. She pants carelessly, opening her eyes after a moment and staring into San's warm pools in a daze.
Returning her hands to his face, Kurenai cups his cheeks with both hands this time, opening her mouth to say something but gets cut off.
"What's wrong, Sunshine? Cat's got your tongue?" San teases with that Cheshire grin. Kurenai focuses on his face once more, the sight of the man in front of her flickering between a younger, green-haired version of him and the current one.
Kurenai stares at him blankly for a couple of seconds, the flickering image triggering old memories of their past love that play like an old tape at the back of her mind. She can do nothing but watch as everything from the moment they met in that dingy construction site to the last moments they shared in each other's arms as they died plays in her head.
"I think I've heard the-- t-that name... Sunshine..." The woman repeats, unknowingly starting to tear up and cry. She doesn't feel the droplets running across the skin on her cheeks, not even when San wipes them gingerly off of her cheek with calloused finger pads. "I— You— You called me that on the day you almost drowned."
"It was an old nickname I'd given you. You're gloomy disposition that day just reminded me of why I had given it to you in the first place." He pokes fun at her, humming in delight when he sees her frown.
"No, San, I saw it just now. I saw all of our memories just now." Kurenai's chest heaves as the first sob escapes her mouth, the truckload of emotions that just hit her as her memories flush into her head becoming too much to bear peacefully. "I saw when I met you and w-when we first kissed and when I— when I killed you! Oh, god, it was real."
The more Kurenai recounts her past, the more panic starts to pump through her veins, taking hold of her head and heart. More sobs tumble past her lips and tears spill out of her eyes, prompting her to bring her hands to her face to wipe them away vigorously; only for them to be replaced by even more.
"It's okay. I promise. It's all okay." San attempts to soothe the woman, cupping her face with one hand and aiding her in wiping away some tears. His eyebrows knit together, frustrated out of his mind that he can't do anything for Kurenai besides watch her tackle this alone. He can provide comfort because he knows there's nothing else he can do until this emotional rollercoaster is over. "I don't blame you for that. It was the Meisters who set us up. It was me who tricked you into stabbing me. It's okay."
"It's not okay! I-I could've done something else. I could've sacrificed myself and instead, I killed you." Kurenai breathes through her sobs, ashamed of how pathetic she sounds. "I'm so, so sorry, San. Please, forgive me."
"Don't apologize." San leans down, setting a small peck on her lips wordlessly before lying back down next to her. "There's no need to apologize when I was the one who tricked you. I should've— I should've known that by making you kill me, you would end up hurting."
Kurenai's sobs slowly die as the emotions brought on by the memories simmer down, leaving only uneven breaths and minute whimpers in their stead. San pulls Kurenai in once she's quieted, her dazed eyes trying their best to focus on him. Kurenai doesn't question his actions, both tired and content with the current connection between them.
Their chests are pressed so closely that they can feel each other's hearts beating, not wanting to pull back from this intimate position and opting to drink in each other's company.
"You should sleep, now. We'll have time to discuss things later," San yawns, kissing the top of Kurenai's head and running his fingers through her short black hair. He slides a hand under her flannel to rest at the small of her back innocently, finding comfort with the skin-to-skin contact. "We've got a long day ahead of us."
"You won't... leave me alone, will you?" Kurenai mumbles into the warm skin in the crook of his neck, curling up against his warm chest.
"Never. Goodnight, My Sunshine." He speaks into her hair.
The nickname causes a smile to ghost her lips; it touched her to know he remembered something as small as that.
Taking in a deep breath of his sweet and familiar scent, Kurenai whispers a tiny 'goodnight' and falls asleep quite easily in San's arms where she's sure that for the moment, at least, nobody and nothing will disturb them.
☯︎
A/N: HELLO LOVLIES!!! Thank you so much for reading this special chapter! I hope I didn't leave anyone confused regarding San's backstory and Juniper's. I wanted to just add in something I've been thinking of concerning Kurenai. I've had some people tell me that her aesthetic in terms of how she dresses is curious so here is a small collage to show the vibe or style I wanted her to give off.
Of course, you can always imagine her however you'd like, but, again, this is how I imagined her to dress.
Once again, thank you all for reading, and don't forget to drop a comment, question, or even a simple vote! Thanks!
- Venus <3