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“Hi, prince.”

“What are you doing here?”

I sound annoyed. I am annoyed. Mostly at him. Partly at myself. Fine, mostly at myself. I practically kicked him out of my life, and now I’m acting like he’s committed a crime by respecting my wishes. I’m aware this makes me unbearable.

He looks up.

His eyes are wrong. Dark. Like someone scraped the light out.

Is he… sad?

He doesn’t answer. He reaches for me, both hands find my hips and pull. My thighs hit the edge of the mattress as his forehead lands against my stomach.

“I missed you.”

The words go straight through the fabric. “I missed you so much.”

I shove at his shoulders, but he doesn’t move. If anything, he holds tighter, face buried in my sweater like he’s trying to breathe me instead of air.

“Kento.”

He holds me tighter. I sigh. My hands stop pushing. They just sit there on his shoulders, useless.

I lower myself. Knees folding until I’m closer to his height, until I can get a look at his face. I catch his chin and tilt it up. “Are you okay?”

He smiles, but it doesn’t reach anything. “I’m okay. Now that I see you.”

He adds, “Did you miss me?”

“No.” I scoff, but the word falls flat, stripped of all the bite I’d meant to give it. The moment it leaves my mouth, something in Kento’s eyes dims, like I’d reached inside him and switched off the last light he was trying to keep alive. My stomach drops so fast it makes me feel sick. I want to snatch the word back, shove it down my own throat before it ever reaches him.

He buries his face back in my stomach. “Then lie,” he says, muffled, wrecked. “Say you did. Please.”

Something in me twists. Right under where his mouth is pressed.

Where was he?

I want to ask. The question sits on my tongue, but he stands before I can spit it out.

Both hands come up and take my face like my jaw belongs in his palms and always has. “Say it.”

“I missed you.”

His mouth is on mine before the last syllable dies. His fingers slide into my hair and tip my head back, and I let him.

Then he puts me on the bed. My back hits the mattress, and he’s already over me, already kissing me deeper.

“Wait—” I get out. “Kento—”

“Don’t,” he breathes. “Don’t say anything.”

He kisses me again. Deeper. Like he’s trying to crawl back into the weeks he missed through my mouth.

I should shove him off. I should ask where the hell he was. I should do anything except fist my hands in his shirt and pull him closer.

Kento

I kiss him. I missed kissing him so much. I missed him. All of him. Every day while I was in there. It was so hard to keep up my usual act when I saw him earlier. The second I laid eyes on him, all I wanted to do was rush over and hug him.