"I'm not looking at anything you don't want me looking at." A pause. "Much."
The gun fires.
The sound cracks through the room, deafening, and I flinch so hard my teeth snap together. Plaster dust rains from the wall an inch to the left of Renan's head.
Renan doesn't flinch.
He laughs.
Actually laughs, this delighted bark of sound, like Koshin just told the funniest joke he's heard all year.
"Fair enough." He's grinning. I can hear it. "This is the best thing that's happened to me all week, you know that? I'm going to remember this forever. Holidays. Birthdays. Random Mondays when you're being insufferable."
Koshin's arm doesn't waver. "Next one goes through your skull."
"No it won't." Footsteps retreating. "The Coin thing is time-sensitive, but I'll tell them you're busy. Very busy. Important…relations."
The door closes.
I clamp my thighs shut so fast my muscles cramp. My face is burning. I am never going to recover from this. I am going to carry this moment with me to my grave, which will hopefully be soon.
Koshin is still between my knees. Still blocking me from a door that's already closed. The gun disappears back into his waistband and his hand finds my thigh again, resting there, thumb tracing slow circles against my skin.
He doesn't seem embarrassed. He doesn't seem anything except focused on me in a way that makes it hard to breathe.
"I can't believe—" I press my hands over my face. "He saw—I was—"
"He didn't see anything."
"He saw enough."
"He saw my back." Koshin's voice is low. Certain. "That's all he'll ever see."
I keep my hands over my face. Maybe if I stay like this long enough, the bed will swallow me whole. Maybe I'll just cease to exist and never have to look Renan in the eye again.
Koshin's fingers wrap around my wrists. Pull my hands down. His eyes have gone white again, threads of silver swimming through, and the look on his face isn't teasing or smug or any of the things I'd expect.
It's something else entirely.
"You just changed Discord's direction."
I stare at him. My brain is somewhere on the floor with my trousers, having a crisis.
"I just—" I stop. Swallow. "I spoke. At your meeting. I told gods how to run their war."
"You did."
"And you confirmed it. Without hesitation. Without even—" I gesture vaguely because words are hard right now. "You just said 'you heard her' and that was it."
He watches me. His fingers running through my hair.
"Why?" The word comes out smaller than I meant it to.
He doesn't answer right away. Then his mouth curves.
"You were right." He says it simply. "And I wanted to."
That's not an explanation. That's barely even a sentence. But his eyes are on mine and his hand is massaging my head and the reality of what happened in that room is sinking in.
