Promise Me |Juzosuke|

|2: Protect At All Costs|

TW: uh wasn't rlly planning on this being a part of the story but welp here we are so here's some important warnings:
-Attempted Coercion
-Heavily Implied Attempted SA
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Munakata considered his interaction with Sakakura as he went looking for Yukizome. She had requested that he spend time with her once he had finished his work for the day.

That was the original plan, until Sakakura returned from his mission late and with new injuries. Though it had put him behind, Munakata had learned new and important information about Sakakura in the end. One would expect that his failure to be honest would result in Munakata being angry at Sakakura or feeling betrayed, but really Munakata was frustrated that he didn't insist upon aiding Sakakura during that time. Munakata didn't blame Sakakura, Enoshima had been more dangerous than either of them had expected and things still would've gone south regardless of whether or not Sakakura was honest. Now it really made sense why Sakakura had such drastic change of character before the tragedy.

Munakata was wandering around, lost in thought, when Yukizome appeared behind him.

"Oh there you are, silly! I've been looking for you forever!" The housekeeper said cheerfully, hugging him from behind.

"I apologize, my work took longer than I had anticipated," Munakata replied, still deep in thought. If Sakakura was blackmailed, then it certainly was possible that Yukizome was as well.

"It's because of Sakakura isn't it?" Her tone sounded almost accusatory, but Munakata figured it was just because he had kept her waiting.

"I was handling his injuries, yes. He has a habit of getting hurt for my sake."

"I get he's just protective and all but don't you think that you can handle yourself? You don't need him to protect you like that. Besides, I'm always here."

"He's very useful and he's our friend. I see no reason to tell him to back off."

"Don't you need space?"

"He's not invasive. He'll back off on his own," he replied. He didn't add the part about her sometimes invading his space because he didn't want to hurt her feelings. He adored the ginger woman but sometimes she could be overwhelmingly fiery to the point of being nearly suffocating. Even Sakakura seemed to get overwhelmed with her energy at times.

"I see..." She sounded almost disappointed in his answers.

Something felt off to Munakata and he got sucked back into deep thinking.

"Kyosuke, what's wrong?" Yukizome asked him, noticing that he was still lost in his thoughts.

"Hm?"

"You're thinking really hard about something, aren't you?" Yukizome asked him and released her grip on him, walking around to face him, her hands behind her back.

Munakata briefly considered bringing up the fact that Sakakura had been blackmailed to start the converstion, but then decided against it. Knowing Yukizome, she'd likely pry as to what Sakakura was blackmailed with. Though that would pobably only be out of concern, Munakata didn't want to deal with the headache because he wasn't going to be telling her what Sakakura had uses against him. He had promised Sakakura that he wouldn't tell anybody and he wasn't going back on his promise.

Munakata finally said, "Why did you tell me Enoshima was innocent?"

"That's what this is about? Kyosuke, that... was a long time ago. I didn't know anything about her at the time. I didn't realize that she was responsible for everything," Yukizome replied, trying to avoid the question.