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I stare toward the hallway anyway, just in case the creature’s learned how to open doors and is currently making its way toward us with murder in its tiny body.

“I hate that thing,” I mutter.

Kento hums. “I know.”

“No, I mean I genuinely hate it. I hate its legs. Why does it have hair? It shouldn’t have hair. That’s too much texture for an animal that should not exist.”

His shoulders shake with another laugh.

I cross my arms as much as I can from where I’m still stuck on his lap and glare at the middle distance. “It’s an upholstered nightmare.”

He laughs against my hair, head dipping to my shoulder, and I feel offended on behalf of myself and also pleased, because I make him laugh.

“Ilya,” he says, still sounding amused, “an upholstered nightmare?”

“Yes.”

Kento laughs even harder and I feel my face heat, which is unfair because I’m the victim here. I’m the one forced to remember that my terrifying, obsessive, clinically deranged almost-something keeps a giant spider in his apartment.

“Don’t laugh at me.”

“I’m trying not to.”

“You’re failing.”

“Terribly.”

I huff and look away. He presses a kiss into my hair.

The sound of his laughter fades, and when I glance back at him, he’s looking at me in that quieter way of his now. Less entertained. More intent.

“He scares you, doesn’t he?”

I look down at my hands. “I mean…” I swallow. “I hate it. But it’s your pet, so I didn’t think you’d move it just because I don’t like it.”

I expect him to make a joke. But then he kisses the top of my head again. Seriously, why does he keep doing that?

“I want you to feel safe when you come here, okay?”

A person moving a spider because I don’t like it shouldn’t feel more destabilizing than being fucked, but it does.

I frown without meaning to and lift my eyes to his. “Why?” He looks genuinely confused. So I press my lips together and make myself ask properly. “Why is it important if I feel safe?”

His hand rises and slides into my hair. His fingers thread through the strands, resting against my scalp, and I have the urge to lean into it.

“It matters because when you come to me, I don’t want you feeling unwell.”

The words are so oddly specific that they slip past my defenses, and I can’t stop them.

He tilts his head, studying my face with that dark attention of his that always feels too intimate, even fully clothed in a kitchen with sunlight on our bodies.

“I want you to walk in here and know nothing in this place is going to hurt you.”

Those words climb into my throat.

He’s just making a space for me.

“Is that what you want?”