Taiga is still reeling from the kiss when the world snaps back into place.
The air is wrong—too warm, too perfumed. The weight of his clothes registers next, stiff fabric clinging where it shouldn’t, the same stifling suit he had worn that night.
The party.
The beginning.
For a moment, he doesn’t move.
He knows this room. Knows the rhythm of it—the polite laughter, the calculated glances, the quiet transactions dressed up as charm. He had come here as someone else’s accessory, an escort on borrowed time, smiling on cue.
Then he sees them.
Jesse, bright and open, speaking with easy animation. Kouchi beside him, steady, attentive—the kind of presence that anchors a room without trying.
There.
Taiga’s breath catches—not from surprise, but recognition layered too thick.
This is where it starts. This is where he chooses.
He steps forward—
“Hey.”
The voice cuts in lightly, close enough to startle. Taiga turns.
Shintaro is looking at him with easy concern, head tilted slightly, as if this is nothing more than a passing curiosity.
“You okay?” he asks. Then, with a half-laugh, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
For a second—just a second—Taiga almost answers.
I did.
The words never make it out.
Instead, he exhales, something tight in his chest loosening just enough to move again.
“I’m fine,” he says. He isn’t. But he knows what to do, already turning back.
And then he walks toward Jesse.
Jesse notices him first.
There’s a flicker of surprise—quick, unguarded—before it settles into something warmer, curious.
“Do I know you?” he asks, half-smiling.
Taiga almost laughs.
Not yet.
“Not yet,” he says instead, because the truth comes easier than the lie this time. “But I thought I should introduce myself.”
Kouchi’s gaze sharpens, subtle but immediate. He shifts just slightly, enough to place himself between them without making it obvious.
Taiga notices. Of course he does.
He meets Jesse’s eyes again, steady. “I’m Taiga.”
A beat.
Then, quieter—
“You shouldn’t get involved with me.”
Jesse blinks, caught off guard. “That’s… a strange way to introduce yourself.”
Taiga’s smile is brief, almost apologetic. “I’m serious,” he says. “Don’t fall for someone like me.”
The words land heavier than they should. Jesse laughs it off—because what else is there to do with something like that?
But Kouchi doesn’t.
He’s still watching Taiga, something unsettled threading through his expression. “What is this?” he asks, low enough not to carry. “What are you trying to do?”
Taiga shifts his attention to him. For a moment, he says nothing.
Then—
“I made a promise I didn’t understand at the time,” Taiga says. “I’m just… keeping it.”
" You don’t owe the past anything,” he continues. “Things don’t always make sense.”
His gaze flickers, just for a second—too distant, too heavy for someone they’ve just met.
“If you want him… don’t wait for proof. Just choose him.”
Kouchi frowns, like he wants to argue—like he doesn’t understand.
But something in Taiga’s voice makes him stop.
The world tilts.
Kouchi doesn’t move.
Jesse says something—light, uncertain—but Taiga doesn’t catch the words.
Because the first thing to go is the air.
It slips—not all at once, not violently, but wrong. Like breathing has become something he has to remember how to do. His chest tightens, a slow, deliberate constriction that doesn’t ease no matter how he inhales.
Ah.
The realization comes quietly. Not surprise. Not fear. Just recognition.
It’s starting.
His fingers twitch at his sides. Numbness follows—faint at first, then spreading, a cold absence creeping up from his fingertips like something unspooling beneath his skin.
Familiar—and not.
Juri’s had always been immediate. Certain. A clean break, even at its worst.
This isn’t. This lingers.
Uneven. Dragging at the edges of him like something that doesn’t quite know where to settle.
Taiga swallows against it. He keeps his face still. Keeps his shoulders loose. Keeps standing.
Jesse is still looking at him—open, curious, unaware.
Kouchi is still watching—sharper now, like something doesn’t sit right.
Taiga smiles, but it feels like wearing something that no longer fits.
“I should go,” he says, voice steady enough to pass. No one stops him. He turns before they can try.
Each step is measured. Controlled. The floor doesn’t tilt, not yet, but the edges of the room blur just enough to make distance feel unreliable. Sound dulls—laughter thinning into something hollow, glass against glass too sharp, too far away.
He makes it past the crowd. Past the door.
Past the point where anyone would follow.
Only then—his breath catches, stutters, fails.
Taiga presses a hand briefly to his chest, fingers curling into fabric as if that might hold something in place. The numbness has spread higher now, threading through his arms, his ribs, his throat.
Wrong. Not the same.
He exhales, slow and deliberate, even as his body forgets how.
“…Right,” he murmurs, almost amused.
This is what it takes.