Chapter Text
Hinami has twice the kagune of everyone else and it would probably be intimidating if anyone could manage to get close to her in the first place.
Ayato tries again, without boots, stepping lightly and gripping his breath. He passes the radius at which he’s usually caught, and quickens, and lunges — only to drop to a stumbling halt when Hinami turns and gives him an apologetic smile.
“Sorry, Ayato.”
Perched on some nearby boxes, Eto claps and laughs. Ayato releases his breath in a huff.
“You didn’t need to lead me on,” he mutters. Hinami wrings her hands together, and Eto perks.
“Ah! She didn’t. You really almost got her.” Eto’s finger waggles back and forth, and then taps her chin, thoughtfully. The next day, when they return from reconnaissance, Eto presents Hinami with a new mask. Hinami slips it over her hair, but no matter how she adjusts it, she can’t stop it from covering her eyes.
“Exactly,” Eto says, and Hinami’s hands drop to her sides.
She turns her head toward Ayato, and Ayato frowns at Eto, and Eto smiles, probably, from beneath her wrappings.
“Let’s just give it a try.”
Hinami trips and stumbles into walls, but by the next day she isn’t clutching Ayato’s arm so hard for balance. By the next week, Ayato can barely get a sight on her before she can raise a hand and point at him.
“Perfect,” Eto laughs, and even Hinami smiles with some rare delight, and after seeing that, Ayato snorts and turns away, rubbing his warming cheeks with a sleeve. Eto’s eyes flicker.
“Maybe you could use a new mask too, Ayato,” she says, and just laughs again when he shrugs.
Eto leaves them then, and he has a feeling that she knows exactly how relieved he is about it. He and Hinami make it back to HQ together, and though traffic is usually sparse at this hour, the place seems more deserted than usual.
Hinami is still wearing the mask.
“Hina, you know we’re in a safe place now, right?” Ayato asks dryly. “You can remove it.”
Her cheek reddens a bit. “I like it,” she admits. “I can hear everything. For example, I can tell we’re in a hallway right now. And, I know that nobody’s around.”
He stops. She does too. He stares at her, and she must be able to tell, because that scarlet color begins seeping to her other cheek.
He leans toward her, and, just for effect, whispers.
“Eto’s ‘keep-away’ training is boring, isn’t it. You’re way too good at it already. There’s no way anyone can get near you unless you want them to.”
Hina licks her lips and swallows. “That’s right,” she agrees.
He steps closer.
“Training used to be more fun when it involved contact, didn’t it?” he continues, and Hina chuckles softly.
“I don’t know about that,” she says, and his mouth presses into a thin line, knowing she’s thinking of all the awkward wrestling and blushing that came before they could, as Eto put it, get over themselves.
This is war, she’d told them, with some rare irritation. Do you want to become a weapon that they can use to kill the ones you love? Or do you want to fight and live?
That Hinami’s face is turning sideways and down tells Ayato that her thoughts have gone the same way as his, and he places his hand beneath her chin to lift it up again.
“Tag,” he says. “Finally.”
Hina smiles faintly.
“Well,” she says, “you know what we agreed,” and she can’t see him, so he doesn’t nod, just presses her back against the wall. He traces her smile with his thumb and then kisses her, gently, just the barest contact at first, until her mouth drops open and her tongue presses against his with a sigh.
As usual, he feels a heat shudder down his spine, and his hands raise to either side of her face as he continues kissing her, nibbling at her lower lip, and the bone of her cheek, and then those ears of hers, because he knows his tongue on the lobe of those can make her knees buckle.
He hesitates, and she feels it.
“No one’s coming,” she tells him, in a gasp. “No one’s around at all.”
“Good to know,” he murmurs, unbuttoning her shirt. “Maybe now you can let me listen to you for a while.”