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strato-callisto · 18 days ago

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love is war ⛐ 𝐘𝐓𝟐𝟐

he’s not built for retreat; he’s a child of war. he loves like it’s a battle he intends to win. (or: the one where your boyfriend yuki is downright impossible to break up with.)

ꔮ starring: son of ares!yuki tsunoda x daughter of aphrodite!reader. ꔮ word count: 10k. ꔮ includes: romance, comedy, pinch of angst. alternate universe: non-f1, alternate universe: demigods/camp half-blood. mention of food. established relationship, (mostly) good-natured threats of violence & bodily harm, tsundere-ish yuki, idiots in love, ensemble of f1/f1a driver cameos. ꔮ commentary box: as somebody so perfectly put it, there can never be enough yuki fics. i definitely want to do more longform of him, but let’s start here!!! dedicated to @hello-car-fandom, who threatened to have my head if this had too much angst ⚔️ 𝐦𝐲 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

♫ let you break my heart again, laufey. i love you so, the walters. call your mom, noah kahan ft. lizzy mcalpine. i love you, i'm sorry, gracie abrams. slow dancing in a burning room, john mayer. say don't go, taylor swift.

“I think I need some space.”

Yuki takes one deliberate step back. Then another. Then another. His heels crunch down into the gravel path like he’s measuring the precise radius of your existential crisis. When he’s about six feet away, he lifts his chin and folds his arms across his chest.

“There,” he says. “Enough space? Or do you want me to move to New Jersey?”

You pinch the bridge of your nose. “Not physical space, Yuki.”

“Oh.” He nods, slow and exaggerated, like he’s just solved a particularly complex battle strategy. His tone is practically dripping with derision as he goes on, “Emotional space. Right. My bad. I’ll just… stop loving you real quick. Let me grab a sword and stab my own heart to speed things up.”

You glance around, mostly to avoid his eyes. Camp Half-Blood hums in the background—the clang of swords from the arena, a Pegasus wheezing from the stables, the smell of burnt toast wafting from the Hermes cabin (someone’s probably set another prank on fire). It’s golden hour, all soft shadows and warm light brushing over the orange cabin walls. You’re standing on the fringes of the cabins, trying to end something you never meant to keep this long.

Three months.

That’s how long you’ve been dating Yuki Tsunoda—son of Ares, perpetually pissed-off demigod with a death glare sharp enough to cut celestial bronze. You kissed him on a dare. He kissed you back like he had something to prove. Somewhere between that first ambush at the archery field and your second accidental sleepover on the Apollo cabin roof, he started holding your hand like it was second nature.

Now he’s looking at you like you’re the one who started the war. “Yuki,” you say, and your voice is gentler now. Because it always is, when it’s him. “I just think maybe we rushed into this.”

He scoffs. “Rushed? You made me wait a week before you even told me your real name.”

“That’s standard Aphrodite cabin protocol.”

“Yeah, well, standard Ares protocol is stabbing first and asking questions never, so consider yourself special.”

You almost laugh. Almost. But your throat does that tight thing it does when you’re trying not to cry or speak too much truth. Because he is special. Not just for who he is, but for how he makes you forget the reason you ever said yes to dating him in the first place.

Aphrodite’s Rite of Passage.

The sacred, stupid, romanticized tradition: Make someone fall in love with you, then break their heart. Symbolic of your mother’s great legacy: love as power, and pain as proof. Your half-siblings warned you not to get too close. Not to pick someone who could make it hurt.

You didn’t listen.

You sigh. “This isn’t the conversation I wanted to have today,” you grumble.

“Then don’t have it.” He walks forward again, closing the space he gave you, until he’s close enough that you can smell the cedar in his leather jacket and see the faint cut on his knuckle from morning sparring. He leans down slightly, eyes narrowed. "I’m not going anywhere.”

“Okay,” you spit. “Fine.”

He grins—cocky and crooked and unfair. “Knew you couldn’t resist me.”

You roll your eyes and start walking back toward the Aphrodite cabin, trying not to think about how your heart feels heavier than your armor ever has.

Tomorrow. You’ll do it tomorrow for sure.

By the time you reach the Aphrodite cabin, the sun’s dipped low enough to dust the strawberry fields in amber. Your steps are slow, thoughtful, like you’re dragging something behind you that no one else can see.

Your mother’s cabin is all soft light and curated elegance. Floral arrangements that never wilt, a gold-framed mirror that flatters even your worst moods, and the faintest trace of roses in the air, as if beauty could be distilled and bottled.

Maya is on her bunk with one leg draped over the other, painting her nails a shade called Heartbreaker #64. Charles lounges beside the vanity, leafing through a vintage issue of Camp Quarterly with an arched brow that says he’s judging everyone featured in it.

Maya glances up first. “You look like someone just told you pegasus glitter causes acne,” she says flat out. “Bad day?”

You shrug, setting yourself down on the edge of your own bunk. “It was fine. Eventful.”

Charles hums. “Eventful, she says,” he huffs without looking up from his magazine, “like she didn’t just spend the afternoon dueling emotional warfare with the child of literal rage.”

“He’s not that bad,” you say defensively.

“He has a punchable aura,” Maya offers. “But, like, in a chic way.”

You let out a groan and stare at the cuticle of your thumb. It’s peeling again. A nervous habit. A subtle, human kind of unraveling.

The conversation floats to camp gossip. Capture the Flag strategies. The satyr who accidentally enchanted his own shoes and can’t stop dancing. Someone from the Apollo cabin who may or may not have written a love song about their celestial bronze spear.

Then Maya tilts her head, too casual. “So... how’s the Rite going?”

You don’t look up. “It’s going.”

Charles shuts his magazine with a dramatic sigh. “That’s not an answer. That’s what people say when they’re stuck between ‘I don’t want to talk about it’ and ‘I’m one emotional sneeze away from losing it.’”

“It’s just—Yuki’s complicated.”

“Yuki?” Maya echoes. “Sweetie, that boy is about as emotionally subtle as a war cry.”

You crack a smile. “Yeah. But he’s... not just that,” you say lamely.

He’s funny, in this gruff, sideways way, you nearly add. He gets this crease between his brows when he’s focused, and he always gives me the last piece of ambrosia even when he pretends he doesn’t care.

You don’t have to say it out loud. Your half-siblings see it all over your face. It’s why Maya’s nose scrunches, why Charles raises a brow.

“You are bucking on ending things,” he accuses.

“I’m not—” You pause. Restart. “I am. I’m supposed to. That’s the whole point.”

Maya nudges you gently with her foot. “You don’t have to do it today.”

You glance toward the open cabin window. The breeze carries the sound of laughter from the dining pavilion. Camp is winding down, settling into the kind of peace that only comes after enough battle drills to exhaust a whole pantheon.

You decide that the only way to survive this conversation is to go around it. “Speaking of,” you say, rising to your feet, “are we doing dinner or what? I’m starving and emotionally depleted. Classic Aphrodite combo.”

Charles goes to grab his jacket. “I suppose heartbreak pairs well with grilled nectarines and mood lighting.”

Maya links arms with you as you head out. “Let’s eat our feelings like civilized demigods.”

You let yourself go with them. Out into the evening haze, toward something that isn’t resolution, but at least tastes like relief. Your boots crunch over the gravel path, the sound of cicadas like a nervous heartbeat under the trees.

The Dining Pavilion is carved from white marble, open to the sky, with wooden tables stretching out like spokes on a wheel. Each cabin has its own place. Aphrodite’s table glows with gentle charm magic. Gleaming silverware, rose quartz inlays, cushions that fluff themselves when you sit.

You slide in beside Maya while Charles sets down a napkin with more ceremony than most people reserve for coronations. Across the pavilion, the Ares table is louder. War stories and laughing jeers, someone sharpening a dagger with way too much enthusiasm. Yuki is in the middle, leaning back in his seat like a prince surveying his domain. Chloe's recounting some battle drill; Max is mock-stabbing a breadstick.

You tell yourself you’re not looking for him. But the truth is, you always know exactly where he is. And maybe that’s the problem.

Plates fill like magic. Grapes as big as your thumb. Melted cheese over flatbread. Fire-roasted vegetables and extra-lean brisket sliced by actual dryad hands. You murmur your drink of choice, and a glass of cold, fizzy lemonade appears.

Maya leans over. “Are we making a formal list of everything we’re eating to feel our feelings, or just winging it tonight?” she asks, pointing to your spread.

“I’m emotionally committed to this cheese,” you reply curtly as you spear a cube with unnecessary precision.

Across the pavilion, Yuki shifts. You catch it out of the corner of your eye—how he’s pretending to laugh at something Max says, but his eyes flick toward you like a reflex. A glance so quick you’d miss it if you weren’t already tuned to the frequency of him. He doesn’t smile. Just watches. Then looks away like it never happened.

Charles follows your line of sight and hums into his goblet. “Ah. The battlefield of longing,” he drawls.

You toss a grape at him. He dodges with the grace of someone who’s had a lot of practice.

When it’s time for offerings, everyone gets up. The fire blazes in the center of the pavilion. Pure, ancient, and hungrier than it looks. You carry your plate in both hands, careful with the slice of pear you saved just for this.

The Ares kids get there first, of course. Efficiency is their love language. Yuki’s at the front. You step up behind him in the line, not expecting anything. Not asking for anything.

But he glances over his shoulder, then nudges Chloe ahead with a muttered excuse. Steps to the side.

He lets you go first.

You try not to react. You step forward, place the pear on the coals, and murmur your prayer in silence. Something half-formed and aching and not meant for divine ears. When the smoke curls upward, sweet and fragrant, you feel his presence again. Not too close, but near enough to warm the edges of your shadow.

“Thanks,” you say, barely audible.

Yuki shrugs, eyes forward. “You’re my girlfriend.”

You smile at the fire. “Right.”

Hestia would strike you down for this, but maybe you didn’t do the offering entirely for the gods. Maybe some things are just rituals we perform to pretend we’re not still hoping for grace.

The lava is already flowing by the time you reach the Climbing Wall.

Thick ribbons of molten orange ooze from the crevices between boulders, pooling into the cracked ground below as if the gods forgot to turn off the faucet. The air is syrupy with heat. You can taste the iron in it, metallic and sharp, like biting your tongue mid-confession.

Yuki is already halfway up the wall.

You spot him from a distance. His frame moving quick and angry between footholds, hair windblown and wild, like he’s picking a fight with gravity. He doesn’t see you yet, or maybe he does and pretends not to. You’ve noticed he does that sometimes: catches you watching him, then looks away like he’s doing you a favor by not making it a thing.

You tighten your harness. It digs into your hips in the same way the truth is starting to dig into your ribs. There’s no graceful way to do this.

You climb.

By the time you reach the midpoint, Yuki is waiting on a ledge, one foot balanced on a jut of obsidian, arms crossed. He looks unimpressed. “Took you long enough,” he says.

“There was lava.”

“There’s always lava.”

You brush sweaty hair from your eyes, and before you can talk yourself out of it—before the heat or the height or the way he looks at you like he’d catch you if you slipped has a chance to stop you—you blurt out, “I can’t do this anymore.”

Yuki blinks. Then shrugs.

“Yeah, I figured. The lava’s been getting worse. The left wall almost crushed Isack yesterday. You just gotta move faster—here.”

He grabs your wrist and pulls you up beside him, guiding your foot to a better hold. His hand is rough and warm and utterly unfair. “No,” you say, breathless. “Yuki, I can’t do this anymore.”

He stares at you for a beat. Then, slowly, a grin pulls at the corner of his mouth.

“Wow,” he says. “You really hate climbing.”

You exhale through your nose. “Yuki��”

“You know, you could’ve just said that before we got on a ten-story deathtrap. There are easier ways to avoid training.”

The wall rumbles beneath you. Lava drips from a higher ledge like the world is sweating. You’re very aware of how thin the stone is under your feet, how fragile your balance feels when your chest is already so full of things you can’t name out loud. “I’m serious,” you whisper.

Something flickers across his face—uncertainty, maybe. The kind that’s too proud to admit itself. He doesn’t say anything. You think, for a second, that maybe he finally gets it.

And then the wall groans, loud and sharp, and Yuki shoves you to climb. “Go!”

“What—”

“If we don’t reach the top in the next ten seconds, we’re getting lava facials and fashionably shredded pants. Climb, princess!”

You move out of instinct more than choice. Hands scrambling for grips, feet finding purchase on heat-slick stone. Your heart’s racing, not just from the climb.

When you reach the top, Yuki is beside you, panting. He flops onto the ledge with a dramatic groan. “That,” he says, “was brutal. We should celebrate not dying. Ice cream?”

You stare at him, incredulous.

He stares back. The most stupid boy alive.

Somehow, that hurts worse than if he’d just let go. You look out over the treetops and cabins and battlefields below, and wonder how much longer you can keep climbing like this. How long before the wall wins.

“Yeah,” you sigh. “Let’s get ice cream.”

Canoe Lake looks like it’s been dipped in sunlight.

The water catches the noon-gold sky and holds it, soft and rippling. A pair of naiads peek their heads out from the reeds near the edge, whispering to each other behind cupped hands made of river mist. Somewhere across the lake, a canoe tips too far and someone yells, followed by the splash of a camper falling in and a chorus of laughter echoing like birdsong.

You sit cross-legged on the dock, sandals kicked off, toes skimming the lake. Next to you, Yuki unwraps his ice cream. He’s decisive, efficient, all sharp edges, even with something as simple as a popsicle stick. Triple chocolate, of course. You don’t know when it became his favorite, only that now you know without asking.

Your own ice cream is vanilla with raspberry ribbons, melting fast in the sun. You lick a drip from your wrist, watching it streak down your skin like it’s running away.

“You’ve got lava in your hair,” Yuki says casually, not looking at you.

You glance at him. “You shoved me.”

He shrugs, licking his cone. “I saved your life. You’re welcome.”

It’s easier like this. Teasing, light. The silence between you isn’t heavy. It just exists, stretching softly between your shoulders like a borrowed sweatshirt. You rest your chin on your knee. “You always do that, you know.”

“Do what?”

“Act like everything’s fine. Even when I’m not.”

Yuki doesn’t respond right away. He peels at the edge of his cone wrapper, eyes trained on the horizon. Then he says, quiet but stubborn, “It’s because I know you’ll tell me when it’s not. Eventually.”

Your chest twinges. That unfair, aching part of you wishes he wasn’t so confident in you. Wishes he’d let you go a little easier. But he’s not built for retreat; he’s a child of war. He loves like it’s a battle he intends to win.

“I used to think this would be easier,” you say.

He hums. “Being with me? Shocking.”

You laugh, and it startles you. How real it sounds. How much of you it pulls to the surface. Yuki turns his head, finally looking at you. There’s a small smudge of chocolate on his lip. You don’t tell him. In fact, you brush it away with your thumb.

He doesn’t wince away. He leans into it, even, as if it were some perverted form of gravity.

For a moment—one moment, as the breeze lifts your hair and the lake glitters like a secret—you let yourself fall in love with him a little more. Just for today.

The glue smells like regret.

It sticks to your fingers and the inside of your nose as you fold another piece of construction paper into something vaguely resembling a swan. Across the table, Charles is glitter-bombing a pinecone with intense concentration, and Maya is threading beads into a leather cord for a bracelet, tongue poking out in thought. The Arts & Crafts Center buzzes with activity: the whirr of sewing machines, the slap of paint brushes, the occasional yelp when someone accidentally staples their thumb.

You sigh, setting your glue-covered swan aside with the others in your growing flock of paper disappointments. “He won’t budge,” you mutter, and you’re not talking about origami failure number twenty-two.

Charles doesn’t look up. “Have you tried ghosting him?”

Maya gasps, scandalized. “We’re not Romans, Charles.”

“I’m just saying,” he replies, tapping his glittery pine cone with a final flourish. “Disappearing into the woods worked for Persephone.”

“She got kidnapped.”

“I mean, six of one—”

“I’ve tried being distant,” you cut in, dragging a fresh sheet of red paper towards your side of the table. “I’ve tried ‘we need space.’ I’ve tried saying I don’t think we’re working.”

“And?” Maya asks.

You grimace. “He offered to help me ‘work through my fear of commitment’ by scheduling daily combat training. Combat training.”

Charles snorts. Maya shakes her head like you’re a particularly stubborn tangle in a necklace chain. “Okay,” she says patiently, “what if you pick a fight? Like, really hurt his pride. Say something cruel. He’s an Ares kid. Maybe that’ll be the final straw.”

You glance down at your paper. Fold. Crease. Press. “I don’t know. That feels…”

“Mean?” Charles offers.

“Accurate?” Maya adds.

“Final,” you say.

They both go quiet for a second.

“Don’t you want it to be final?” Maya asks gently.

You open your mouth. Close it. Right. Most breakups were meant to be final. Words you couldn’t take back, lovers who were relegated to being strangers.

A breeze slips through the open windows, fluttering the edges of the paper swans. You watch them shift slightly on the table, as if ready to take flight. “I want to do what I’m supposed to,” you settle on saying.

It doesn’t sound like the whole truth, but it’s the truth you’re choosing today. “Okay,” Maya says. “Then we’ll help you.”

Charles grins. “You could tell him you’re in love with someone else. Maybe Russell—you know, that one Athena kid?”

Maya laughs. “No, say Gasly. He’d be furious. Getting replaced by a son of Hermes!”

You smile despite yourself. Your half-siblings may be conniving and conceited, but there’s something about the godly parent you share that lightens the load. Just a bit, just enough. “I’ll keep it in mind,” you say.

Charles leans back in his chair. “Whatever you decide, just—don’t forget you’re allowed to want what you want. Even if it’s messy.”

Even if it’s Yuki, you think. Or even if it’s not.

You reach for another sheet of paper, pink this time. “Alright,” you say. “Let’s try emotional devastation.”

Charles and Maya raise their glue sticks in solemn toast.

“To heartbreak,” Maya says.

“To the fine art of it,” Charles adds.

You laugh. Not because it’s funny, but because they make it easier to try again.

You squint through the heat-haze like you’re peering into the mouth of a forge, watching campers swing and stumble and spar with a kind of sweaty, chaotic grace. A centaur yells something about footwork. Someone else yelps as their sword goes flying. It’s a symphony of violence and summer at the arena, where metal clangs and scuffed sand sticks to the bottom of your shoes.

Yuki stands next to you, arms crossed, chin tilted up like he’s already won something simply by virtue of existing. His shirt clings to him from training earlier, collar askew and temple damp with sweat, but he doesn’t seem to notice. Or care.

You, on the other hand, are trying to look nonchalant and strategically devastating.

“You know,” you start, casually twirling your sword like you actually do this for more than P.E. credits, “Lando Norris has really been improving. He might be one of the best in camp.”

Yuki doesn’t look at you. Only hums out a small ‘mmm.’

Undeterred, you add, “He’s kind. And funny. And golden. Like if the sun had a favorite child.”

That gets you a glance. “You think I’m scared of Apollo’s shampoo commercial of a son?” Yuki asks flatly, that familiar air of I’m the best one at this party rearing its head.

You shrug, leaning on your sword for support. “I’m just saying. Maybe it wouldn’t be so terrible if he asked me to the next campfire sing-along,” you say breezily.

Yuki laughs in a response. Not a snort. A laugh. Loud, full-bodied. He doubles over slightly, grinning like you’ve made his week. “You? With Lando?” he wheezes, shaking his head. “He’d get a nosebleed the moment you said ‘hi.’”

You cross your arms. “What? You don’t think he has a chance?” you challenge.

Your mistake. Ares children sniff out challenges like bloodhounds. Yuki smirks, already turning toward the sparring lineup. “He’d be lucky to survive a conversation,” he says.

Five minutes later, Lando is standing across from Yuki in the sparring ring.

It’s not that Yuki’s being obvious. He’s not glaring. He’s not threatening. He’s just a little more efficient than usual. Sword swinging with surgical precision, footwork tighter than usual, movements coiled and clean and just a little cruel around the edges. It’s a performance of disinterest, wrapped in technique that would make the war god himself slow-cap.

Lando tries. Really. He parries, he ducks, he flashes that grin like maybe charisma will win the day. It won’t.

By the end of the match, Lando’s sword is on the ground, his shirt is sliced at the hem, and he’s gasping like he just sprinted up Olympus. Yuki wipes his brow with the back of his hand, expression unreadable. “Good fight,” he says flatly.

You’re biting the inside of your cheek to keep from smiling.

He walks past you on his way back to the benches and says, quiet enough for only you to hear: “Looks like golden boy needs more footwork.”

You roll your eyes, but your stomach does a flip anyway.

It’s possible your plan needs some revising, for both your sake and poor Lando’s.

The Ares cabin looks like a threat.

You’ve walked past it a hundred times, but never this close. Not deliberately, anyway. It’s aggressively red, like someone tried to bottle a temper tantrum and then painted with it. The barbed wire on the roof is mostly for aesthetic, but the landmines? Real. Active. One of them once sent an Hermes kid ten feet in the air for trying to steal a protein bar.

You march right up anyway, chin lifted, heart trying to punch its way through your ribs. The boar head above the door seems to narrow its eyes at you as you pass under. Charming.

It’s part of the plan. The new plan.

Make Yuki want to break up with you. Be annoying. Be the clingiest, most unbearable version of yourself. Say Yuki-poo. Make friendship bracelets with his name on them. Use glitter. The Aphrodite playbook.

The inside of the cabin smells like sweat, metal, and Axe body spray. You don’t gag, but it’s close.

A few Ares campers lounge on mismatched cots and training benches. Chloe is polishing a sword. Max is attempting pushups while balancing a shield on his back, because apparently that’s a normal afternoon.

They both look up when you enter. “Well, well, well,” Chloe drawls, flipping her braid over her shoulder. “Look who decided to slum it.”

“Lost, princess?” Max adds, barely breaking form.

You smile sweetly, all teeth. “Just here to see my boyfriend.”

They both laugh. You’re well-versed enough in the act of the Mean Girl to know there’s a little bit of that in there. A little meanness, a lot of judgment.

“Still shocked that’s a real thing,” Chloe says. As if you’re not there.

“He hit his head in training, probably,” Max huffs.

“Or maybe he has a soft spot for incurable romantics,” you say, sickly sweet. “Besides, I bring balance to his murder goblin energy.”

Chloe snorts. “You’re brave, girl. I’ll give you that.”

You open your mouth to deliver a truly devastating retort when the door creaks. Yuki steps in, still a little flushed from archery. Quiver slung across his back, and a water bottle dangling from his fingers.

He takes one look at the scene and raises a brow. “You’re terrorizing my cabin now?”

You pout. “Terrorizing is a strong word. I was being delightful.”

Chloe and Max both mutter some version of We’ll leave you two lovebirds alone and vanish in the next moment, which is suspicious until you realize—

Oh.

They’re not teasing you anymore. Not really. Not like they used to. You remember the way Max used to call you lip gloss behind your back and how Chloe used to stare you down like she was planning your downfall. Now? They back off when you show up. Not because of you.

You glance at your boyfriend. He’s unscrewing the cap of his water bottle, nonchalant.

“Did you... threaten them?”

He shrugs. “I just said if they ever made you uncomfortable, I’d rearrange their limbs.”

“Yuki.”

“Not permanently.”

You’re torn between exasperation and something warmer that settles into your chest like sunlight through leaves. Still, you try to rally. “Well, I hope you’re ready for a full day of couple activities,” you start, tone a little on the shrill side. Fake it till you make it, baby. “I’m thinking matching shirts and a choreographed spear duet. We’ll start a scrapbook. I already ordered stickers.”

He looks at you, slow and skeptical. His next words aren’t even a question as much as they’re a suspension of disbelief. “Are you fucking kidding me.”

“I’m deathly serious,” you chirp. “Now come on, my war muffin. We have memories to make.”

“Do not call me that.”

“Too late.”

Just like that, he follows you. He drags his feet, sure, but he also walks close enough that your shoulders brush against yours with every step towards whatever the hell you have planned. No resistance. No flinch. No inch of space gained.

You wonder if he even knows how to let go.

Rows upon rows of ripe fruit catch the light like little hearts on stems.

The air smells like summer trying too hard: sweet and sticky and full of potential. You weave your way through the Strawberry Fields, dragging Yuki by the wrist. He doesn’t dig his feet in the soil, but he does grumble.

“This is a trap,” he says, eyeing the romantic signage nailed to a post by the entrance. It reads: Couples Photo Spot! Capture your Camp Crush!

“No, it’s enrichment,” you say patiently. “Like they do at zoos. You need it.”

“I need a sword.”

“You need strawberries and sunlight and to smile at least once before lunch.”

He scowls. You know he doesn’t mean it. Or if he does, he only half-means it. Maybe a quarter. Maybe less.

The grass is damp beneath your sandals, and your dress hem brushes against the low leaves of the plants. A dryad nods at you as she passes, holding a basket already half-full. You offer a polite smile in return and then tug Yuki to the designated photo arch. It’s a wooden trellis strung with vines and silk flowers. An offering of Instagram aesthetics to the gods.

“Stand there,” you say, positioning him like a mannequin. “No slouching. Try to look like you haven’t been drafted into this.”

He crosses his arms. “I have been.”

You lean in, phone set to a timer so the two of you can be in frame. “Come on,” you urge. “Say love you!”

He doesn’t. But he does smile. It starts as a tug at the corner of his mouth. Then something happens—the smirk stalls, softens. A pink creeps into his cheeks, subtle as sunrise. Before you can catch it, he’s looking at you like he’s not in a field full of aphrodisiac fruit and cheesy signage, but somewhere quieter, steadier. Somewhere you are.

The photo snaps. Your heart makes a startled noise in your chest. Stalling, backing up, getting stuck.

“Okay,” you say, lowering the phone. “That one was almost charming.”

“Don’t tell the others,” he says, nudging your elbow. “I have a reputation.”

“Of being a menace?”

“Exactly.”

The sun catches in his hair when he turns. Golden and boyish. You hate how easy it is to forget what you came here to do. You hate that part of you stopped wanting to.

Later, when you scroll through the photos back in your cabin, you find one where you’re laughing—head thrown back, eyes crinkled. Yuki’s looking at you, not the camera. Like he knew it wasn’t the photo that mattered. Just you.

You look over your shoulder. And then, as if it’s a secret between you and the evening, your fingers fly across your screen. Your phone is then locked and shoved deep into your pocket.

Your new home screen, set.

You don’t have the faintest idea why you agreed to this.

You’ve been walking uphill for ten minutes—sweating, panting, and reconsidering your life choices—when you decide it’s time. Again.

Yuki’s ahead of you, not even winded, the strap of his backpack slung casually over one shoulder. He walks with the confidence of a man who knows his way around. You hate how attractive that is.

“So,” you say, voice light, fake-cheerful. “I’ve been thinking.”

Yuki doesn’t turn around. “That’s always dangerous.”

You press on. “You’re too good for me.”

He stops walking. One foot on a rock, the other still in motion. He turns, eyebrows drawn low. “What?”

You catch up, avoiding eye contact like it’s toxic waste. “You know. You’re great. Like, weirdly great. And I’m... me.”

“You are you,” he echoes, flatly. “Congratulations.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I. That’s a dumb reason to break up.”

You blink, caught off guard. It’s the first time he’s uttered the prospect of breaking up since you’ve started your whole one-woman mission. And even though that’s exactly the point, you find yourself on the defensive. “Who said I was trying to break up?”

He gives you a look. The kind that peels paint. You sigh out, “Fine. I might be trying to break up. But I’m being noble about it.”

“Noble?”

“Selfless, even.”

“So I should be worse? Like—kick a dryad? Insult someone’s mom?”

You fling your hands out. For a moment, you have a mental image of Yuki insulting Athena and being struck down the next day. “I don’t know, Yuki,” you whine. ��Maybe just stop being so infuriatingly decent about everything.”

“You mean about you. My girlfriend. Who, gods forbid, I want to be decent to.”

That shouldn’t land the way it does, but it does. Square in the chest. You try to answer, but your sandal catches on a root, and suddenly the ground tilts sideways.

You go down hard. Palm scrapes. Knee slams. Dignity obliterated. “Ow,” you mutter.

Yuki’s there in an instant, crouched beside you like it’s instinct. Not frantic, just focused. Gentle in the way only someone trained to break things can be. “You okay?”

“Fine,” you lie. Your voice wobbles.

He doesn’t call you on it. Just takes your wrist, checks your palm. His thumb brushes over your skin, careful, steady. He frowns at the blood, then looks up to survey your face as if checking for the possibility of tears.

“Stupid root,” he mutters.

“It didn’t attack me, Yuki.”

“Still.”

You try to laugh, but it comes out wrong. You hate this part. The part where he’s soft for you. The part where you don’t want to hurt him. Where you wonder if maybe he’s not the one being fooled.

He wraps a strip of cloth from his pack around your hand with surprising grace. “You’re always doing this,” you sniffle.

“Doing what?”

“Catching me.”

The woods go quiet for a beat. No birdsong. Just breath. “Yeah,” he says, and it almost sounds like a joke. It’s easier to think of it that way, anyhow. “And you keep falling.”

You should say something clever. Something that deflects. But for once, you don’t. You just sit there, holding onto the silence like it might save you from yourself.

You pout the whole way back down the trail.

You don’t sigh or moan or throw yourself against the nearest tree like some rejected nymph in a tragedy. No, you sulk with dignity. You drag your feet. You breathe louder than necessary. You mutter, once, about how the hike was cursed from the start.

Yuki says nothing. He just stays close. His steps slow to match yours. When your ankle rolls slightly on a slope, he’s there with a hand at your elbow like gravity reports to him now. By the time camp comes back into view, the only thing that’s really injured is your ego.

Even though you insist you’re fine, Yuki walks you to the infirmary. He doesn’t argue, just gives you a look that says he’s letting you pretend you’re winning. You pretend right back.

You expect him to vanish after that. That’s what boyfriends do, right? Drop you off, say something vaguely flirty, peace out.

He doesn’t.

He sticks around while Jack bandages your knee. He intercepts a passing Ares camper who raises an eyebrow at you sniveling over a couple of scratches.

“Don’t,” Yuki says. Firm. Final.

The kid shrugs and keeps walking, but not without a glance at you that holds something unfamiliar: not mockery. Not curiosity; respect, maybe.

You hate it. And love it. And hate that you love it.

Later, at lunch, Yuki sits next to you instead of at the Ares table. A few of his siblings whistle. One of them makes a kissy face. You open your mouth to say something cutting—something shiny and cruel enough to deflect the weird warmth blooming in your chest—but Yuki beats you to it.

“Do that again,” he tells the one supposedly named Liam, “and I’ll redecorate the cabin with your teeth.”

The table goes quiet. Then: someone snorts. Someone else mutters, “Whipped.”

Yuki shrugs, unbothered.

He turns back to you like nothing happened, like threatening bodily harm is just part of the flirting process. Which, for him, it might be. In turn, you petulantly poke at your grapes. “You didn’t have to do that.”

He chews his chicken leg and says, “Yeah, I did.”

And that’s it.

The rest of the day unspools in golden thread. The sun stays kind. The wind stays soft. You get through your afternoon duties with a limp and a lot of dramatics, and Yuki doesn’t leave your side once.

It should be annoying. He should be annoying. Cocky and loud and rough around the edges. But today, he’s quiet in the way that matters. Steady. He hands you a water bottle before you ask. He tosses a pebble at your window after dinner and waits while you limp down the steps.

“Come here,” you say, pulling him down by the collar before you can think better of it.

You press a kiss to his cheek. Quick. Soft. Like a sigh.

He freezes. Not in fear—Yuki doesn’t do fear—but in some complicated cousin of it. Surprise, maybe. Wonder, even. Then he turns his head just enough that your noses almost brush. His eyes are darker now, gentled at the corners.

“Careful,” he murmurs, his lips close enough that he could kiss you back. “I might think you like me.”

You roll your eyes. “You’re my boyfriend.”

He grins, as if the title is some badge of honor he can wear over his chest. “I know.”

He doesn’t pull back. Not right away. And, because you’re a little bit of a masochist, you don’t push him. The two of you head to the Dining Pavilion hand in hand, and the night wraps around you both like a secret you’re not ready to tell.

The evening’s campfire crackles after dinner. Someone from Apollo’s cabin is singing off-key with so much enthusiasm it wraps around to be charming. A few kids clap out of time. Someone’s got a tambourine. It’s chaos, but the endearing kind. The kind that feels like maybe nothing terrible will happen tonight.

You sit with your knees tucked up to your chest, warm from the fire and from the way Yuki’s arm is slung over the log behind you. Not touching, exactly. Just close enough to notice. Like proximity is his love language instead of actual physical touch.

A new song starts—something twangy and fast—and kids begin to rise, pulled into the clearing by rhythm or peer pressure. Either way, the dance circle forms like a weather pattern.

You glance at Yuki.

He’s watching you right back, mildly horrified. You stand.

“No,” he says immediately.

“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

“You were going to say, ‘Dance with me.’”

“I was going to say, ‘Dance with me, please.’”

He gives you a look that could curdle milk. “Same difference.”

“C’mon.” You hold out your hand, wiggling your fingers. “Live a little.”

“I live plenty.”

“Yeah? Prove it.”

He glares. You smile sweetly, the kind of sweet that makes people suspicious. A challenge to a child of Ares is like a moth to a flame.

Yuki takes your hand.

He steps into the firelight, shoulders tight, spine stiff as a blade. You don’t laugh. You don’t even grin. You just start moving, lazy and loose. Yuki follows. Badly, at first. He steps wrong, glares at his own feet. But he doesn’t back down, and you don’t tease him.

A few campers cheer. Some whistle. You hear Chloe yell something about miracles.

Yuki flips her off without looking away from you.

That’s when something shifts. It’s in the way his hands find your waist instead of hovering. In the way his mouth relaxes, not quite a smile but something close. He starts moving with the beat. Not on it, not exactly, but adjacent. Like he’s learning a language in real time.

You spin once. Just because. He cusses low under his breath as he catches you, as he dips you low enough that even the Aphrodite kids can’t help but squeal.

“Warn a guy next time,” Yuki hisses.

“Oh,” you half-joke, “so there’s going to be a ‘next time’?”

“I will drop you.”

“You won’t.”

He doesn’t.

He keeps dancing with you, twirling you, trying and failing to keep in step. At one point, you’ve both kind of just given up, but neither of you want to go anywhere. So Yuki keeps your back pressed to his chest, his arms around you—kind of just swaying you from one side to another, as if threatening to toss you elsewhere.

You stay like that.

No jokes. No dramatic exits. No sudden declarations or daggered truths. Just you, and him, and the firelight flickering like it’s holding its breath.

For a moment, you let yourself believe it’s real. That you’re a normal couple at a normal camp, dancing under normal stars.

His chin rests lightly on your shoulder. You close your eyes.

Just for a moment.

The air in the Aphrodite cabin tastes sweet and smug.

Someone’s strung fairy lights around the mirror frames. Someone else has sprayed the whole place with rosewater perfume and pride.

Kimi’s holding court on the chaise lounge, a laurel crown balanced in his hair, recounting the exact moment he let the Hermes girl down. Something about timing, and eye contact, and the art of sounding regretful without actually feeling it. Your siblings hang on every word like it’s gospel.

“She cried,” he says, tone somewhere between awe and delight. “Like, full tears. Mascara and everything.”

The room breaks into applause.

You stand by the vanity, arms crossed, watching your reflection rather than the celebration. Your lip gloss is slightly smudged. There’s a leaf in your hair. You don’t bother fixing either.

Charles sidles up, offering a chocolate-covered strawberry like it’s a peace treaty. “You good?”

You accept the strawberry. Bite the head off with more force than necessary. “Great. Thriving. Totally unbothered.”

Maya flops beside you on the bench, tilting her head. “You look like you’re about to set something on fire.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

The truth hums between the three of you. Charles lowers his voice. “You know you don’t have to go through with it, right? The Rite? Mom’s... flaky about tradition.”

“Flaky,” you repeat, chewing. “She turned a guy into a sunflower last year because he ghosted her.”

“Okay, dramatically flaky.”

Charles and Maya can each say what they want, but that’s only because they’re done. Maya had a son of Hypnos groveling at her feet last summer; Charles cut off a situationship with surgical precision. Love and heartbreak. The two sides of the same coin that seemed to decide you were worthy.

Maya leans in. “You could wait it out,” she offers. “Tsunoda is cute in a rabid raccoon sort of way.”

You don’t answer. Mostly because your mouth is full, but also because you don’t know how to say: I already waited. And it didn’t get easier.

Across the cabin, Kimi laughs like he’s never been wrong. The room smells like sugar and something burning at the edges. Maybe it’s just your mood.

You stand. “I need air.”

Your half-siblings exchange a look. You don’t stay long enough to decode it.

The night air is cooler than it has any right to be. You inhale it like a drug, like maybe oxygen will clean out whatever rot’s settled behind your ribs.

The rot stays, and festers, and spills out. No amount of perfume can hide the vileness of it.

Friday at Camp Half-Blood means war paint and last-minute strategy. Capture the Flag, sponsored by the promise of glory.

Kids smear blue and red across their cheeks, buckling armor with the kind of reverence other cabins save for prayer. Somewhere in the distance, Apollo’s kids are harmonizing a fight chant. Ares’ cabin is foaming at the mouth.

You slip from the Aphrodite huddle without much ceremony. They’ll be fine without you. A glitter bomb here, a flirty distraction there. It’s choreography they’ve perfected.

You move quiet through the underbrush, eyes peeled, heart louder than footsteps.

He finds you first.

Yuki’s armor is crooked, helmet slung under one arm. There’s a smear of dirt on his cheek, a scratch blooming across his collarbone. He looks like war incarnate, and also like the boy who made you strawberry oatmeal last Tuesday because you said you missed home.

You stop. He doesn’t.

“You’re avoiding your team,” he says.

“You’re avoiding yours.”

He shrugs. “They were being annoying.”

“They’re going to lose without you.”

“Then they shouldn’t rely on me.”

It’s always like this. Casual, sharp-edged honesty hidden under a bored shrug. You used to find it charming. You still do. You pull in a breath, let it rattle.

“Yuki,” you start.

He exhales. “Really? Here?”

“I have to.”

He doesn’t say anything, just leans against the nearest tree like your words can’t reach him if he keeps his posture relaxed enough. “This isn’t working,” you try for the nth time. “I mean, us. I think—”

“You think I’m too good for you,” he interjects, deadpan. “Or you’re too complicated. Or you’re doing me a favor. What’s it going to be today?”

Your mouth goes dry.

He looks at you. Really looks. The kind of look he gave you when you first met, as if you were a war map he had to plot. Or maybe he was just looking at you as a girl he wanted to have. “You think I don’t know what this is? That thing your siblings talk about like it’s some kind of divine hazing?” he asks wryly.

You stare. You’d go slack-jawed if there wasn’t a part of you still trying to keep up with the ongoing wargames. None of it makes sense to you—why headstrong, prideful Yuki Tsunoda would agree to date you in the first place, knowing that an inevitable ending was coming for him.

He nods, slowly, as if he can read your thoughts. “I’m not stupid,” he says through some self-deprecating laughter. “Just in love with you. There’s a difference.”

The world tips a little.

“So what now?” you manage.

“That depends.” His voice is low. A rasp just above a whisper. “Are you doing this because you want to, or because you think you have to?”

You don’t answer. Because you don’t know. Or maybe you do. Maybe that’s the whole problem.

Before you can speak, a triumphant yell cuts through the trees. Oscar—Poseidon’s solo act—bursts into view, flag in hand and smugness radiating off him like heat. Fucking Piastri. Always ruining a moment.

The conch horn blares.

Game over.

You and Yuki both lose.

“You don’t have to answer now,” he says as the forest around you prepares for blame, for celebration, for whatever comes after a game has been played to its completion. And then, quieter than he’s ever been, Yuki adds: “But don’t lie to me when you do.”

He walks away, all bleeding heart and blasted pride.

You stay standing in the dirt, painted for battle, heart hanging off its hinge.

You don’t realize how loud silence is until it’s sharing a table with you.

Lunch comes with sunlight and fake cheer, plates clattering on wood. Demeter kids compare corn yield like it’s a gossip column. At the Aphrodite table, the food’s prettier than the conversation.

He used to sit with you. Nearby, orbiting your space like a star that never admitted it had a gravitational pull. Now he’s two tables over, wedged between Ares campers, laughing at something that sounds like a threat.

He doesn’t look over. You fail to spear a grape thrice.

“You’re staring,” Charles says, without looking up from his mirror.

“I’m chewing,” you mutter.

“With intensity.”

Kimi snorts into his water. Maya, beside him, sips from her straw with pointed delicacy. You roll your eyes and rest your chin in your hand. The space beside you—where Yuki used to hover, hand occasionally grazing yours like it was accidental—is filled by empty air and the soft scent of your own perfume.

You know nothing, you realize. You can’t help but wonder if your siblings are the same.

“What do you think love is about?” you ask, abrupt.

Charles raises a brow. “Love?”

“Yeah. Just—what it means. To you.”

They exchange glances, the kind that pass judgment with a single twitch of the mouth. Kimi, the youngest, answers first. “Power.”

Your face speaks for itself. He goes on to hastily add, “Not, like—bad power. Just... that kind of gravity that ruins your orbit. You give someone the ability to wreck you and hope they never cash it in.”

“Wow,” Maya says through a mouthful of bread. “That’s not dramatic at all.”

“You asked,” Kimi mutters.

“I think it’s choice,” Maya says, ignoring him. “The constant decision to stay. Not the big declarations or poems or whatever. It’s staying, even when you don’t have to.”

Charles chimes in as he twirls the mirror in his hand. “It’s illusion. Mirror and smoke. The fantasy someone sees when they look at you, and the hope that they’ll still want you when they realize you’re not that thing.”

You let their words settle like petals in water. Soft, slow, eventually sinking. Power, choice, illusion.

Charles squints at you. “Why? What do you think love is?”

You don’t answer.

Your eyes drift—traitorous things—across the mess hall, past the clatter of forks and trading of ambrosia squares. Yuki’s got his back to you. Ares red, proud and loud. He throws a fry at Max and gets a shove in return. He laughs. The kind of laugh you used to earn.

You think about the oatmeal. The way he never corrected you when you called him war muffin, even when he groaned. The dozen failed breakup attempts, the knowledge of the end, the stupidity to stumble into it anyway.

“Dunno,” you tell Charles as you shove an apple slice into your mouth. Otherwise, you think you’ll end up saying something stupid. Like how your real answer might just be Yuki’s name.

You find the rainbow by accident, which feels about right.

It’s mist curling from the Camp washroom vents, refracting sunlight into something delicate and trembling above the grass. You almost miss it, distracted by the fact that your perfume is running out and your heart is a war-drum trying to beat its way out of your ribs.

You reach into your pocket, fingers closing around a bronze compact mirror. It’s scratched and well-loved, which is to say expensive sentimentally, if not monetarily. You hesitate, then flick it open. Your face stares back. Haunted and a little windblown.

“Oh Iris, goddess of the Rainbow,” you murmur, “please accept my offering.”

You toss the mirror through the light. It catches midair, flares, and the rainbow stretches wide like a door half-open. The mist trembles. The world smells faintly of lavender soap and old copper. You think of who you want to see.

No answer. Of course.

Aphrodite doesn’t pick up her calls. You knew that. Still, you talk.

“Hi. Or—I don’t know. Whatever. It’s me, mum.”

The rainbow hums. Nothing more.

“I know this is supposed to be part of the Rite. The whole ritual heartbreak thing,” you start. “You fall in love, you break it apart, you come out stronger. That’s the story, right? You’ve done it a hundred times. Maybe a thousand. Probably a million.”

Your voice sticks. You breathe through it.

“I tried to follow the script. I did the bracelets. The glitter. The fake fight. I made it annoying and sweet and unbearable. I tried to be so much that he’d want to leave. But he didn’t. Even when I told him to go, he just… didn’t.”

The light pulses faintly, like it’s listening. Briefly, you wonder if there’s some sort of Olympus voice mail that the love goddess consumes for her midday entertainment.

“I don’t know what to do.” You laugh helplessly. You’re just rambling now, but it helps to say the stuff out loud. Even if it is to your mother who’s probably busy orchestrating the next romance of the century. “I thought this was supposed to be about love. About proving we could wield it. But maybe I didn’t understand the assignment. Maybe I was supposed to protect it.”

You press a thumb to your lips. The words spill out anyway.

“Because I do. Love him.”

Saying it feels like opening a wound that bleeds clean.

“He’s ridiculous. He yells when he’s flustered and doesn’t know how to compliment people and keeps his feelings tied up in barbed wire. But he makes sure I eat. He takes my hand without thinking about it. He looks at me like I’m not a duty or a test, just a person. Just someone he cares about.”

The rainbow flickers. So does the truth.

“That’s it. I love him,” you declare. To yourself. To your mother. To the universe. “I’m not going to break his heart. Not because I’m too soft or too scared or too selfish—but because I think that’s what real love is. Choosing not to destroy something just because you can.”

The wind shifts. The rainbow thins. You reach up and wave your hand through the mist. The message cuts, but it settles the same way the truth does when it means something.

You turn, feet already moving.

You check the Armory first, because it’s loud and bloody and exactly the kind of place Yuki disappears into when he doesn’t want to be perceived. He’s not there. Just an Ares kid hammering at something that looks like it wants to scream. Sparks fly. Sweat beads. No Yuki.

The Climbing Wall spits fire when you walk by. You half-wonder if it’s sensing your mood. Still no Yuki.

The Arena, the Archery Field—no trace. Only the echo of arrows and sweat and somewhere, a kid yelling about someone stealing their shield. You don’t slow. You know the rhythms of his day, the places where he sharpens his mood into something useful. But he’s not there. Not in the heat. Not in the noise.

He’s not hiding, but he isn’t waiting either. He’s just somewhere else, being himself quietly, which is a rare enough occurrence that it makes your chest ache in that dumb, poetic way your siblings like to romanticize.

You find him where the sun goes soft: the Strawberry Fields.

He’s kneeling in the dirt, smearing red across his fingertips. The basket beside him is only half-full, and there’s a ripe berry dangling forgotten between his fingers. You’re a bit surprised that this is where he’s decided to wallow, but you’ll take what you can get.

“This is a very aggressive way to harvest fruit,” you say in lieu of a greeting.

He doesn’t jump. Just glances up with a tired sort of resignation, as if he expected you to show up eventually. “I’m not harvesting. I’m sulking.”

“Right. Well. It’s very on-brand.”

He huffs a breath. It’s not quite a laugh. Not quite not.

You step closer. The scent of crushed berries and warm earth hangs between you. The sun presses against your back, hot and golden, like it’s trying to comfort you, or push you forward. Or both.

“Yuki,” you say. The same way you’ve started every It’s not you, it’s me.

He doesn’t look up again.

“I need you to do something for me,” you push on.

He half-turns. His brow arches, guarded and skeptical. “What.”

You swallow. The words are stupid. You know that. But they feel right anyway. “Break my heart.”

There’s a pause. Then a scoff. “What are you talking about,” he says. Not quite confused. Flat, more like.

“I love you,” you say, and the words fall like stones into a still pond. Heavy. Loud in their silence.

“I thought I had to end things to prove something to her. To everyone,” you go on, because Yuki lets the quiet stretch and you can’t take it. “But if this is a test, then I’m failing it gladly. Because I love you. And if you want justice—if you want revenge for everything I put you through—then please, break my heart.”

He’s staring at you now.

The wind shifts. Bees hum lazily from blossom to blossom. Somewhere behind you, a camper yells about fresh pies. The world doesn’t pause for your feelings, but it does soften around the edges.

“You’re an idiot,” Yuki grumbles as he gets to his feet. Then he’s standing, and then he’s kissing you.

It’s not gentle. He tastes like strawberries and smoke, and the kiss is all teeth and relief and too much, too fast, and not nearly enough. You grab fistfuls of his shirt, like holding on might anchor you. Like it might make the moment stretch forever.

Somewhere in the field, someone hollers. There’s clapping. A whistle. A chorus of teenage delight and scandal. You hear Kimi yell something about decorum. Charles is probably hiding behind a bush.

You pull back just long enough to see Yuki’s ears go scarlet.

“You good?” you ask, breathless. Sweet without trying to be. Sweet, just because it’s him.

He glares, which is more of a smile than anything. “Fool.”

“Takes one to date one.”

And then you kiss him again, because he’s still smiling and you want to memorize the shape of it. You want to carve it into myth. He holds you tighter, one hand on your waist, the other threading into your hair.

The strawberry basket tips in the grass, forgotten. The sun leans low, casting long shadows over what exists and what’s yet to come. There are no flags, no rites, no proving. Just beginnings and endings blurring together, attesting to the fact that sometimes—the less you know, the better.

The campfire smoke clings to your hair, your clothes, your skin. Emberlight flickers over flushed cheeks and open mouths mid-song, Apollo kids strumming at their guitars like they’re auditioning for a tragic Greek reboot of Hamilton.

Marshmallows melt too fast over the flames. You’re leaning back on your elbows, half-listening, mostly watching the stars that flicker above Half-Blood Hill. The same constellations that hung over your first kiss, your first almost-breakup, your first everything with Yuki.

Then Lando sits beside you, a little too close, his smile sweet and sunburned, as if he’s been saving it just for this moment.

“So,” he says, nudging your shoulder, “any chance you're single again, or should I stop trying to look this charming?”

You turn your head, let the pause stretch long enough to be funny. Then: “I’m happily in love and thoroughly spoken for.”

He laughs, easy. No harm, no foul. Just a mild bruise to his ego. “It was worth a shot.”

Before you can say anything else, Yuki’s voice slices clean through the strum and hum of campfire harmony. “Dance with me.”

You blink up, and there he is—hands in jean pockets, gaze direct, the firelight catching gold in his eyes like coins at the bottom of a well. He doesn’t ask twice. He merely reaches out, and you go. Like gravity, like instinct, like you’ve been waiting for the pull.

You don’t dance so much as sway, and Yuki isn’t exactly leading so much as preventing a full collapse. But it’s close enough to music, close enough to rhythm, close enough to joy.

“You were jealous,” you tease.

“Shut up,” he mutters, but the scowl on his face gives him away.

“Of Lando Norris.”

“He has nice teeth. I don’t trust people with nice teeth.”

You laugh. The sound tumbles out of you, light and real, cutting through the warm night. He looks annoyed by how pleased you are, which only makes it worse. “You get weird when you’re jealous,” you sing-song.

“You’re weird all the time, and I still put up with you.”

The words remind you of Maya’s answer. About what love is. Choice, she’d said.

Because you want to hear it, because some masochistic part of you still doesn’t believe anything unless it’s said out loud, you ask Yuki, “What do you think love is?”

You expect him to grunt, or dodge, or say something irritating and half-true. You brace for a joke, a jab, a shrug. Something casual to keep things bearable. That’s always been his thing. Making something epic out of the ordinary.

Instead, Yuki just looks at you, serious. Open. Raw in a way you’ve only seen once, maybe twice, and never like this.

He answers, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, “This.”

The fire snapping and popping, sending sparks up into the dark like fleeting stars. The amateur musicians and the middling dancing. Your arms around his shoulder; his hands at your waist. Keeping you in place, keeping you safe.

Then, just to make things extra clear, Yuki adds: “You.”

To him, this is love.

To him, you are love. ⛐

#killing myself. falling over and dying #f1

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