Chapter Text
“You look lovely tonight,” Hisashi flirts, looking at his date seated across from at the table. He wasn’t sure that Inko would show up tonight. Her skittish demeanor earlier that day when he asked her out, made Hisashi think she would chicken out.
But to his immense pleasure, she hadn’t.
From the moment they both sat down, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. He’s heard his other employees call her plain-looking, but he can’t agree. Inko has big green eyes that express a level of kindness and gentleness that is hard to come by. Her long green hair frames her face, though usually it’s tied up in a ponytail while at the office. Her lips are painted an alluring red, contrasting her pale skin (considering her line of work, it’s not surprising that she doesn’t get out much). And although she usually dresses quite modestly, her dress tonight-while not revealing-hugs her in all the right places.
He tries not to let his eyes wander. It’s not polite after all.
Inko blushes. “Thank you. You are too.” Her blush deepens, and he finds himself entranced further by her beauty. Hisashi has never found anyone attractive. Not out of narcissism (though his dearly departed brother would argue differently), he just genuinely has a hard time finding the appeal in dating or having sex.
On the other hand, that means his flirtations sound less like an invitation into the bedroom, and more like he’s conducting a business meeting. He’s already played his hand, so unless she wants to hear about stock options, Hisashi will have to woo her some other way.
He flashes a smile, and Inko swoons a little.
There’s something about her that feels familiar, but he can’t put his finger on it. Not in the way she looks or acts or carries herself. He stares at her, trying to figure out what it is.
“Akatani-san?”
Hisashi puts the thought on a backburner. “Sorry, sorry.” He sips his wine, buying himself a few seconds. Finding his footing, Hisashi puts his glass down. “I feel like we should get to know each other. I’m curious, where are you from?”
Inko is a woman of few words, he realizes, and it’s not a lack of interest. He sees the way her eyes darken, looking him up and down. Nor is it a severe lack of intelligence that seems to infect most of the lower-ranking villains (though, he supposes, she’s not a villain, technically).
No, it’s something bigger than that. An insecurity that’s holding her back.
“Shizuoka,” she says. “Though I don’t know much else.”
Sensing her uneasiness to continue, Hisashi makes a sympathetic sound. “I understand completely.”
“You do?”
He nods. “Lets just say, my mother wasn’t the best caretaker.” More like dead as a doornail and likely eaten by the same rats that tried to eat Yoichi and him. “So, I practically raised myself.” And his (ungrateful) (smaller!) brother.
Inko puts her fork down, bowing her head. For a second, he’s afraid he’s made her cry. From their brief interactions together, he’s seen how emotional she can be. A trait that he would despise in anyone else, but in her, makes something in him feel off.
But when she lifts her head, she isn’t crying or upset. She’s….laughing?
When she calms down from her laughing fit-though Hisashi wouldn’t mind listening to her laughter all day, every day-Inko explains herself. “I apologize. It’s just…it’s hard finding someone that I can relate to. My mother….my biological mother left me at the hospital I was born at. Gave me a first name and a scarf, and decided I wasn’t worth much else.”
Puzzle pieces click together in Hisashi’s mind. Her insecurities suddenly making sense. It wasn’t a fear of being perceived as unattractive or being caught out in public with her boss (not that anyone knows who he is outside his employees, and they know better than to gossip about it). No, her insecurity is one that they share. The same one that drives him to find One for All and keeps him up at night.
The shared fear of being abandoned.
And hey, what do you know, it all stems from their earliest moments outside the womb.
At least Inko got a name and a gift (even if just a heap of fabric). Not that that makes up for the trauma.
Hisashi reaches across the table, overcome with a desire to touch her. Hold her hand. Stroke her hair. Something. Anything.
He doesn’t even have to ask. Inko offers her hand, allowing him to hold it. Her eyes find his, and in them, he can see their future together.
-x-x-x-
Their next few dates go even better, and they get closer and closer.
Lingering touches turn bolder.
And soft pecks on the lips turn into them locking lips any chance they got.
Until, finally, alone in his office, it all comes to a boiling point.
Hisashi traces his fingers down her back. He finds the place where her blouse meets her skirt and gently untucks it. His hands reach under her shirt, splaying across soft skin.
Inko kisses his neck. Her lips trailing up and down his neck. It’s heaven. It’s bliss. It’s…
“Sensei!” An underling with apparently no will to live pounds on the door. “Sensei!”
Inko looks at the door, blushing all over.
“Not now!” He calls back, hoping the moron will get the hint. “I’m busy!” The underling mutters something but seems to get the memo.
After a second of silence, he returns to savoring the love of his life. He kisses her deeply, using his other hand to unbutton her blouse. She starts unbuttoning his shirt in kind.
His office, which always feels so cold, is suddenly hot. Hisashi shrugs his jacket off, followed by shirt. For once he doesn’t care that they land on the ground in a haphazard pile. He’s only focused on the way Inko’s lips feel on his, hot and soft and every kind of right. A buzzing electricity between them that, even with his nearly two centuries of being alive, he can’t explain.
Hisashi finds, undressing his love with all the care he can manage in his state, that Inko is even more beautiful with her clothes off. He’s suddenly glad that his underlings found her plain and unassuming. More for him.
“God, I love you so much,” he professes. He kisses down her neck, trailing down to her chest. Teasingly, he licks a strip just above her breasts.
Inko gasps, clutching the desk she’s perched on. “Mhm…Hisashi,” she moans.
He kisses back up to her neck. “Say it,” he whispers in her ear. “Say you love me too.” He can feel his breath coming out faster. His fingers trace patterns on her inner thigh, teasing her, taunting her.
“Ah…Hisashi…”
“Say it.” His pants tighten. “Please, I need to hear you say it.”
She moans again, leaning closer to him. Her hands grab at him, pulling him closer. Only when he’s eye to eye with does she summon the words he’s been waiting to hear. “Hisashi, I love you more than anything in this world.”
The last of his resolve breaks.
Capturing her lips in a bruising kiss, Hisashi makes quick work of the bottom half of his clothes. His fingers continue to make her come undone. She trembles beneath his steady hands, and when he looks upon her, much like his first-time laying eyes on her, Inko’s beauty takes his breath away.
Her flushed skin and tangled hair and kiss-bruised lips.
God, he really, actually loves her.
Hisashi feels dizzy. He plants a few more kisses anywhere he can reach. All of it belongs to him. All of it.
Carefully, though his patience is wearing thin, he grabs her hips. His fingers stroke the sensitive skin there. She kisses him sweetly.
It’s too much.
It’s not enough.
He wants more.
No.
He needs more.
Hisashi has never been one to deny himself, and with desire burning straight into his core, it’s hard to stop. But he does. Just for her.
“Inko,” he whispers. He holds her face with the gentlest of barely-there touches. Her kind eyes look at him, half-lidded.
“Hisashi,” she whispers back, breath coming out shallow and hot.
And - just as he has so many times before - Hisashi gives in.
-x-x-x-
Inko is….distant after that. For a while Hisashi wonders if he crossed a line (something he’s never cared about before, but love changes a person, he supposes).
She continues to do her work diligently but goes straight home afterwards. Never staying long enough for Hisashi to talk to her, or coming to him with whatever is bothering her. And in all honesty, it’s starting to drive him a little bit insane.
Her behavior - not that she would know any better - reminds Hisashi of his brother. Distance was the first step in their relationship deteriorating.
Which led to the vault, but he can’t vault Inko. Especially when it ended so horribly the first time (See, Yoichi, he can learn).
But after the vault came his brother’s betrayal.
Yoichi had looked so happy without him. Running around with those miscreants. Free.
He can still recall the hurt he felt, looking at those black and white photographs from an informant. The gnawing ache that seemed to get worse and worse the more he dwelled on it.
But Inko isn’t Yoichi. She’s different. They understand each other.
So, that’s why - when she stopped showing up for work and not answering his phone calls - Hisashi decided to swing by her apartment. That’s what a good boyfriend would do, right?
He has a copy of her key (given to him in case of an emergency, and this is certainly an emergency), but when he sticks it in the lock, it doesn’t work. Hisashi tries again, jiggling it.
Sometimes keys stick and locks break. But once again, nothing happens.
He laughs to himself, still thinking nothing of it. (He’s thinking a lot of it. Please, Inko. Please. Don’t be what he thinks this is.)
Hisashi grows worried, stuck standing outside the love of his life’s door. The numbers on the door mock him. He tries to stay calm. Perhaps she’s sick….
But that would mean she needs help.
Or maybe, he reasons, she’s out of town.
But Inko wouldn’t leave without telling him first. Even if she’s cross with him, she wouldn’t go on vacation without putting a notice in.
With every reason she could be gone, it renews his sense of urgency. His Inko would never go radio silent without good cause. She wouldn’t.
By the tenth time of trying to reach her by phone, and the thousandth time of knocking on her door, Hisashi has had enough. Looking around to make sure her neighbors are minding their business; he uses his brute force to enter the apartment.
Splinters of wood land on the floor. His hands grip the entryway, chest heaving. The front hall is empty. The red polka dot umbrella she bought on a whim one rainy afternoon is gone. Her flats, the only shoes she owns outside of house slippers, are gone as well.
He staggers in. He feels himself going into auto-mode.
The pieces of wood break apart under his shoes. He inhales deeply, trying to settle himself.
It doesn’t work.
“Inko!” He calls out.
The kitchen and living room are just as empty as the front hallway. Her walls are devoid of all photos, and most of the furniture is gone. All the things that made Inko’s apartment hers is….gone.
He feels his chest tighten. It’s the exact same feeling he had the day he discovered Yoichi missing. That panic that only ever grows and grows until it consumes him.
He’s half-out of his mind by the time he reaches her bedroom. But just like the rest of the apartment, it’s empty too.
Tears prick the corners of his eyes. Hisashi feels gross shedding them; feels even grosser when he finds the note Inko left for him.
Hisashi can’t bring himself to finish it, anger taking over.
It’s the same betrayal all over again.
(No, a voice whispers to him. It sounds an awful lot like Yoichi. It’s your fault.)
He almost burns it to ash but stops just in time. The crisp white paper, folded with so much love is more than he got last time. Even if her reasoning makes no sense to him.
Slumping to the floor, he breathes in the scent of her floral perfume. Alone again.