Page 105

Then homicidal.

I stare at the picture. Maybe it isn’t what it looks like. Maybe it’s old. Maybe it’s a joke.

Maybe she should die.

He’s sprawled back like sin itself, chest on display.

I just stand there on the sidewalk staring at my screen while every violent instinct I own rises in perfect, glorious formation.

I decide then and there that I’ll kill him.

And then her.

In that order.

Actually, maybe her first so he has time to suffer properly.

I grit my teeth so hard my jaw hurts. All that dramatic inner conflict from ten minutes ago is gone.

Burned. Buried.

He’s a whore. I knew that. Everyone knows that. Men like Kento don’t belong to anyone. They drift through people like fire through dry grass.

I open every social app I have.

My fingers move fast now, fueled entirely by pettiness and the very stable desire to set the world on fire.

I start typing.

Party at my place tonight.

All the whores are invited.

I’m in the mood for a gangbang.

I put my phone down and breathe through my nose.

Now there’s rage under my skin and embarrassment in my lungs and, somewhere beneath both of those, the rawer truth I still don’t want to name: I wanted him to be better than what I already knew he was.

Not morally better. Let’s not get absurd.

Just… different with me.

I let out one humorless laugh at my own stupidity and start walking again, faster this time.

Because what exactly was I expecting?

That Kento would stop being Kento because he put his mouth on mine?

Please.

Men like him don’t change. They consume.

So fine.

If that’s the game, I can play too.

Let him see the post.