Renji leaned in again, elbow brushing mine. "Not bad. But loosen up. You’re too stiff."

I stiffened more. His breath was close, smelling of coffee and something fried. I wanted to recoil, but Kairi’s body didn’t flinch. My shoulders stayed steady, my hand obedient to his instructions.

Then he moved behind me. His hand came over mine again, lightly pressing my fingers. His chest nearly brushed my back. The pencil dragged a smoother line under his guidance.

My inner voice shrieked. Too close. Far too close. If I’d been in my own body, I’d have shoved him across the room. But Kairi’s body... tolerated it. Worse, I felt the faintest warmth radiating through the proximity, nerves twitching where skin met his sleeve.

And then—my entire frame went rigid. Something pressed at my rear. Not firm, not unmistakable, but there.

My mind split in two. Half catalogued the situation clinically: Pressure at lower spine. Possible contact with thigh. Likelihood of unprofessionalism: high. The other half wanted to scream.

My pencil scratched another clean line, betraying no tremor.

"See? Like that," Renji murmured, oblivious, his eyes fixed only on the drawing.

But I could feel every second of it. Every intrusive brush of proximity. And the cruelest irony? The drawing came out beautifully.

The moment his chest brushed against my back, I froze. His warmth pressed too close, his hand hovering over mine on the sketchpad, his breath ghosting against the side of my cheek. It was suffocating—an intrusion disguised as guidance.

And then I felt it.

A hard shape, pressing insistently at the small of my back, reminding me in no uncertain terms of what he was doing, what he wanted. My body betrayed me, heat stirring in places I didn’t permit, a flush creeping up my neck. Kairi’s body reacted with a shiver, a tightening in my lower abdomen that made me grit my teeth.

"Move," I hissed, but he didn’t. His closeness lingered, that disgusting pressure nudging into me like a silent threat.

I glared, chest heaving, still trembling from the surge of anger—and something else I refused to name. Kairi’s body was maddeningly sensitive, making every accidental brush, every invading touch feel amplified.

The silence stretched until the filth around me clawed its way into my awareness. Empty cans, crumpled paper, half-eaten food spilling from containers. The stench finally overpowered the lingering heat of the moment.

"Pathetic," I muttered under my breath, more to myself than him, as I shoved aside a pile of wrappers. My irritation turned into action, hands moving before I realized it. Trash into one pile, papers stacked, food shoved toward the bin.

Cleaning his mess wasn’t kindness—it was necessity. If I didn’t, I would drown in this chaos. And the irony wasn’t lost on me: Kairi’s body, so finely tuned for healing and precision, was now bent over garbage duty in the den of a man who could draw beauty from filth.

I hated how human it all felt.

The moment his chest pressed against my back, I stiffened. His warmth sank into me, his breath grazing my ear like some cheap lover’s trick. I could smell him—ink, sweat, a faint musk that clung to the air. It should have disgusted me, but worse than that... it stirred something else.

And then I felt it.

The firm outline digging into the small of my back, insistent, obscene. My breath hitched before I could stop it. Heat coiled low in my stomach, my thighs tensing as if this ridiculous little body was begging—no, craving—what I despised.

I didn’t hear his words. My awareness narrowed to proximity—his hand over mine, his torso flush against my side, his breath skating the edge of my cheek, and that... pressure at my rear.

It was suffocating.

Not passion, not attraction—just closeness, unwanted and invasive, magnified tenfold by the fact that this wasn’t my body to endure it with. My skin crawled in waves, but Kairi’s nerves processed it too faintly, as if dulled, unable to properly scream.

And that, somehow, made it worse.

Kairi’s body shivered, traitorous nerves lighting up as if the mere suggestion of contact was enough to send her into heat. I grit my teeth, swallowing bile. "What are you, some kind of slut?" I sneered inwardly, glaring at my own reflection in the dark window. "One brush against a man and you’re ready to melt? Pathetic. Useless."

"Move," I snapped out loud, my voice sharper than glass.

He didn’t. He lingered, his closeness pressing in, that vile hardness still there, daring me to acknowledge it.

The crack of my palm across his cheek rang out before thought even caught up. His head whipped sideways, eyes wide and stupid.

"I—I’m sorry," he stammered, stumbling back, cheeks red, hands raised like a guilty child.

I stayed rigid, jaw tight, my skin still buzzing from the contact I didn’t ask for. From the response this cursed body gave without permission. I hated it—the racing pulse, the dampness pooling where it shouldn’t, the lingering ache as if it mourned the absence of his weight.

Slut. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

I forced my eyes away, only to be assaulted by the squalor around me. Cans stacked like monuments to laziness, papers smeared with ink and grease, food rotting in corners. The stink clawed at my nose, finally overwhelming the heat that lingered in my skin.

"Filthy," I muttered, shoving wrappers aside with unnecessary force.

My hands moved on their own, scraping garbage into piles, stacking paper, dragging filth toward the bin. Cleaning wasn’t kindness—it was survival. If I didn’t clear this mess, it would consume me.

Renji just stood there, rubbing his cheek, mumbling apologies as if words could erase what his body had already done.

I glanced at him once more, then down at the vessel I was trapped in. Soft, trembling, oversensitive. The perfect healer’s body—delicate enough to feel every pulse of magic, every whisper of pain. And now? A puppet swaying at the first hint of lust.

I almost laughed. "You’re supposed to be brilliant, Kairi," I hissed inwardly.