K. Morikita

Yakuza no Iro Chapter 29: Where there is proximity, there is tension.
          
          Kana’s gaze drifted to his hands, a faint heat of embarrassment touching her neck. "... I'll make it up to you."
          
          "Yeah?" he murmured. "I can think of a few ways you could pay me back with that bod–"
          
          He stopped dead. His eyes sharpened, the clarity of what he’d just spewed hitting him. He cleared his throat and looked away, forcing his attention back to the medical tape.
          
          "Buy me dinner once you can walk straight," he muttered, his voice dropping to a low, rough murmur. "We’ll call it even."

Yakuza no Iro Chapter 28:
          Kana was now in his room, on his bed, and anchored to his lap. She had already bled her grief into his neck and clung to him until her fingers ached. One thing was clear—the bridge back to the katagi world had already burned. The only path left was toward Shion.

Yakuza no Iro Chapter 27: This chapter took me longer than usual to edit, as it was deeply emotional for me. I hope Kana’s feelings reached you the same way they reached Shion.

Yakuza no Iro Chapter 26: Shion found Kana bleeding in the bathroom.
          
          "What happened?" The silence stretched between them, thick and heavy.
          
          “I fell,” she said quietly, her head lowered, hair cascading forward. "The sidewalk was uneven. My heel caught on a gap and I fell."
          
          His gaze burned into hers, but the impact hit deeper. ‘She... fell,’ he thought numbly.
          
          He exhaled a short, sharp shot of breath that sounded like a fracture. He nodded his head downward, his lips curling into a brief, bitter ghost of a smile–an expression of pure, exhausted disbelief.
          
          “Okay. I’m glad you’re fine.” He looked up at her then, his eyes stripped of the warmth. “Get some rest.”
          
          Then he stood up and walked out of the room without looking back. The door shut with a heavy, final click… the sound of a man who was simply done trying to bridge the gap.

Yakuza no Iro Chapter 25: The shadow of Kana's stalker has emerged and shed first blood...
          
          Wet tracks now stained her cheeks.
          
          Home. She needed to get home. There was only one place left–one person who was both danger and protection. Her mind clung to him, desperate and undeniable, a need to reach him at all costs–the only power that could keep her whole against a shadow that mirrored his own.
          
          Okita Shion.

Yakuza no Iro Chapter 24: After a brief pause, gentler now and more certain, he added, “I’m sorry.” It didn’t erase what had happened. The fear and the weight of his words from before could not be undone. But his words now, they have reached her.
          
          The blade has finally meet its sheath. Will the sheath contain the blade, or will the blade cut the sheath?

Yakuza no Iro Chapter 23: If Shion had to choose, it came down to exactly what he wanted to be present in his future. And that made the answer less straightforward than it should have been.
          
          Because when he stripped everything else away–expectation, obligation, long-term gain–what remained was a question he hadn’t properly considered until now.
          
          What exactly, truly, did he want from Kana?
          
          His end goal had always been clear: the Big 3 territory inheritance. That was, and always had been, the purpose behind all of this. The reason the contract existed in the first place.
          
          Right?

Yakuza no Iro Chapter 22: “If there is someone on the side, Emori-san, I advise you to keep him in the shadows. I don't tolerate interference with what belongs to me. If he becomes a problem, I will remove him. Do you know what that means?” Shion said.
          
          The word 'remove' didn’t sound like a breakup or a dismissal. Coming from him, it was a burial.
          
          She hadn't just accepted a protector; she had invited a blade into her workplace. It wasn’t just a title, or a contract. For the first time since she met him, Kana saw the true, lethal cost of being ‘his woman’.

Yakuza no Iro Chapter 20: they're finally closing the gap!
          
          “Please… won’t you tell me what is wrong?”
          
          She shook her head again. Still no words. But this time, her arms tightened around him, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt like she was afraid of falling.
          
          That alone told him everything, and nothing.
          
          Kana wanted protection. She needed it, craved the safety of his presence so desperately it scared her. And yet, she believed she wasn’t allowed to ask for it. Believed she shouldn’t burden him–her creditor, her keeper–with whatever terror was eating her alive.
          
          And Shion, for all his power and all his reach, was trapped on the other side of consent.

Yakuza no Iro Chapter 19: A glimpse into the unhinged that is Shion.
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          There was something deeply, comically wrong with how happy he was, how the thought of Kana waiting for him in his home made his violence feel lighter, almost festive–that the man who broke faces and ribs moments ago was now counting the seconds until he could sit on a couch with a girl who barely tolerated him.
          
          He thought of the tea. She had declined the luxury of a spa voucher, but she had let him brew for her. A quiet, rhythmic chuckle echoed off the bathroom tiles as he laughed to himself under the water, shaking his head. The high of her acceptance was too intoxicating to ignore. 
          
          Pathetic. Disgusting. Delightful.