Page 88 of Brutal Unionn

A sharp pop echoes in the small room as my shoulder slams back into its socket.

I scream—a sound that punches from my throat involuntarily, choked off as quickly as it came. I crumple to one knee, breath ripped from my lungs, eyes wet with the sudden jolt of agony.

Aoi crouches next to me, still smiling, completely unfazed.

“You’re welcome,” she says, brushing imaginary dust off her knee.

I grip my arm, rubbing at the newly repositioned socket. “I am not feeling very thankful bitch.”

“If it were up to me,” she says, breaking the silence as she tears open a sterile packet of antiseptic, “you’d already be dead.”

I lift my eyes to her and speak through gritted teeth. “Good thing it is not up to you.”

She kneels in front of me without ceremony, not gentle but not cruel, and begins wiping the blood from my arms with a damp cloth. The sting is immediate, sharp. My jaw clenches, but I don’t pull away.

She tilts her head, studying a particularly deep gash just above my bicep. “Sho wouldn’t forgive me, though. Not for that.”

I scoff, the sound bitter. “He almost killed me himself. Twice.”

Aoi dabs the wound clean and starts applying a numbing solution, her movements precise. “That’s not the same,” she says coolly. “He didn’t want you dead. He just wanted you to feel it.”

“Feel what?”

She meets my eyes. “Everything that you put him through for the last three years.”

We fall into a tense silence again as she starts sealing one of the deeper cuts with liquid stitches. It burns like fire across my skin, but I bite down on the pain. She presses a gauze pad into another wound to stop the slow bleed, her hands methodical, practiced.

“He loves you, but he is not above punishing those who have wronged him,” Aoi says casually, like she’s pointing out a stain on my shirt.

“I know.”

Her hands don’t stop moving. She applies another layer of adhesive to the cut on my shoulder before wrapping it tight. She doesn’t look at me when she speaks again.

“You hurt him again, and Iwillkill you.” There’s no malice in her voice, just a matter of fact tone of how things will play out. “I don’t care what Sho says. What he forgives. What he still hopes you’ll become. If you tear him open again just to see what’s left inside—I’ll end you myself.”

“There is nothing remotely more painful that you can do to me then what has happened between Sho and I.” I snarl, narrowing my eyes on her. “You think I don’t already know what I’ve done to him?” I say quietly, eyes locked on hers. “You think I haven’t paid for that every second of the last three years?”

She leans back on her heels, finally looking at me—truly looking, her gaze cutting, steady.

“I think youhaven’tfinished paying yet,” she says. “But at least now you seem ready to try.”

She sets the last piece of gauze down, then rises with that same slow, graceful control, like every movement she makes is calculated ten seconds in advance. She closes the first-aid kit and places it back on the shelf with exact precision.

As she turns slightly, ready to leave, the door opens behind her.

Sho steps into the doorway dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt partially cleaned up from the fight, his shoulders taut, eyes already locked on the both of us. “Ore no kanojo ni kamawanai de.”Don't mess with my girlfriend.

Aoi doesn’t flinch. She turns back to him slowly, lips curving into a lazy smirk, and responds in English with a shrug, “Just two girls chatting.”

She walks toward him without hurry, her heels silent on the floor. As she passes, she reaches up, smacks his cheek lightly—twice, not hard, but familiar, firm. Her hand lingers for a second longer than necessary, then drops away.

She leans in, her lips near his ear, and whispers in perfect Romaji, soft and sharp like a blade drawn in the dark:

“Baka ni naru na.”Don't be an idiot.

Aoi disappears down the hallway, and Sho doesn’t turn to watch her leave. He keeps his eyes on me. His eyes drop to my shoulder, where the bandages Aoi just applied sit clean and tight, then rise back to my face.

He lifts his chin slightly, wordless, and nods toward the hallway behind him, turning to leave. I scramble to my feet and follow, ignoring the dull pain of my bones.