Chapter Text
Chapter One: Terminal Exhaustion
Kohaku didn’t like traveling last minute. He hated it. The very concept of spontaneity when it came to air travel made his skin itch. Rushed packing, unpredictable delays, strangers breathing too close in terminals that smelled like burnt coffee and old stress—every part of it was a personal insult. Worse, the chaos unraveled the carefully stitched seams of his sanity. Kohaku wasn’t built for chaos. He was built for itineraries, for neatly outlined plans, for checkboxes ticked off with satisfying little pen clicks.
And yet, here he was.
Running on half a granola bar, four hours of sleep, and a quiet internal scream that had stretched across three airports. His shoes were soaked from a puddle he hadn’t seen coming, his hoodie was damp at the shoulders from a rainstorm that ambushed him in the parking garage, and he was ninety percent sure his deodorant had given up somewhere over customs. He didn’t look like a man about to fly. He looked like a cautionary tale about time management. His carry-on was packed like a clown car of regret, zippers barely holding together a chaotic mess of clothes, chargers, and one stress-wrinkled dress shirt he’d intended to iron but never did.
It slapped against his back with every step like it, too, resented his choices.
He sighed through his nose, the long, silent kind that spoke volumes. His boarding pass was already smudged at the edges, damp from being clutched in a panic-sweaty hand earlier at the security line. He scanned it with a flick of his wrist, ignoring the polite smile from the attendant that felt more like a mercy than a greeting. The jet bridge swallowed him in that familiar metallic cool, the scent of recycled air, rubber, and the ghosts of a thousand sad sandwiches clinging to the walls like mildew.
The line didn’t move.
Businessmen blocked the aisle like overgrown pigeons, squawking into their Bluetooth earpieces, holding coffee cups like trophies of productivity. Kohaku waited behind them with the expression of a man rehearsing an apology he’d rather not give. Sango’s voice echoed in his head, sharp and unmistakable even across time zones. “If you miss this birthday, I will personally fly to wherever you are and beat you with a balloon animal.”
He’d believed her.
She didn’t make idle threats—she made art. Once, she sent him a cake shaped like his own head with a wick in the top and lit it on fire while singing “Happy Birthday” in a minor key. His nephew had clapped. Kohaku had gotten the message. So here he was—despite the delays, the hunger, the unraveling fabric of his mental state—boarding a flight he’d booked six hours ago.
The airplane loomed ahead like an aluminum regret. A man was passed out against the wall of the gate, mouth agape, hugging a neck pillow like it owed him rent. Somewhere behind him, a baby shrieked like it had lost all faith in humanity. In front, someone dropped a takeout bag and the scent of soggy fries and despair filled the air. Kohaku didn’t flinch. He just kept walking, eyes forward, soul dead.
Row 17. Window seat.
He slid into 17A with the exhausted grace of a man who’d lost all concept of shame. Backpack underfoot. Knees slightly crunched. Hoodie hood up. Eyes closed. He didn’t sleep—not yet—but he hit that sweet spot between wakefulness and unconsciousness, where the body stops pretending it’s okay and the brain floats like a balloon slowly losing air.
It didn’t last.
Someone was coming. He didn’t hear her at first—he felt her. The awkward energy of someone late, tired, possibly in combat with her own luggage. He cracked one eye open. She stumbled in like a woman mid-fight with gravity, one heel clicking, the other half-dragged. Her bag leaned dramatically to one side like it was trying to abandon her mid-aisle. Her blazer was wrinkled, hair falling in strands across her face, and her eyes squinted like the plane lighting had just insulted her lineage.
Their eyes met.
Just a second. Maybe less. But it hit him—sharp and sudden—the jolt of recognition that wasn’t about memory. Not a “Have I met her before?” but a “Why do I feel like I should have?” A flicker of something that didn’t have a name. She blinked. Looked down at her ticket like it had betrayed her.
“Seventeen B,” she muttered.
Her voice was rough, like she’d been shouting or hadn’t spoken in hours. Maybe both. Kohaku stared back, trying to mentally process that this stunningly exhausted stranger would be sitting within knee-brushing distance for the next several hours.
She didn’t move at first.
Just stared at the empty seat between them. Then at him. “Look,” she said, deadpan. “I’m too tired to do the polite stranger dance. So here’s the deal—I might fall asleep. I might die. If I do, feel free to roll me into the aisle and ask the flight attendant for peanuts.”
Kohaku barked out a laugh he didn’t know he still had in him. “Noted.”
She gave him a weak, sideways smirk. “Great. And if they try to charge my card after I’m dead, tell them I want the miles at least.”
He shifted his legs to make room, unsure if his heart had just skipped a beat from exhaustion or something else entirely. “I’ll make sure it’s on your tombstone. ‘Died doing what she hated: proximity to strangers.’”
She sank into the seat like a dropped puppet. Bag shoved under the chair in front. Hair left a mess. Blazer crumpled. She didn’t fix anything. Just buckled in, exhaled like she’d barely made it out of a war zone, and closed her eyes.
“This week has been three years long,” she muttered.
Kohaku turned his head slightly. “Rough day?”
She laughed. Just once. It sounded like disbelief wrapped in sandpaper. “Try Shanghai to Seoul, back to Shanghai, then Tokyo—all in four days. Seven meetings. No sleep. And my boss decided to go over Q4 revenue forecasts on the way to the airport.”
“With…printed slides?”
She groaned. “In a binder.”
“That’s violence.”
“Thank you!” she said, flinging her hands up briefly in surrender. “He said, ‘I like to feel the numbers.’ Who says that?!”
Kohaku shook his head solemnly. “You’re a survivor.”
“I’m a statistic,” she mumbled, kicking off one heel with a grunt. The other followed. Her socks hit the floor, toes flexing in soft rebellion. She sighed like it was the first time she’d done it in days. Not a dramatic sigh, just… surrender. That tiny act of removing her shoes seemed to shave five percent off her stress.
Kohaku tried not to look. He tried harder not to care.
But there was something about her stillness.
The way her shoulders slumped like a marionette whose strings had finally been cut. The way her fingers rested lightly in her lap, twitching every so often like she was still running data in her sleep. She radiated fatigue like a scent. Like energy. Like someone who had been strong too long and didn’t know how to stop.
“Do you want the armrest up?” he asked gently.
She looked at it blankly. “No. Leave it. I’m too tired to pretend I’m open to human interaction.”
He huffed a laugh. “Respect.”
They fell into silence.
But it wasn’t awkward. Not filled with the usual tension of strangers politely ignoring each other. It was…mutual. Earned. Like both of them had stepped into a no-bullshit zone together and agreed, silently, not to ruin it.
“Thanks for being normal,” she said quietly. “Last week some guy pitched me a crypto app before takeoff.”
Kohaku cringed. “Oh no.”
“He had a pie chart.”
“Oh no.”
“On paper.”
“Ma’am,” he said, dead serious. “That’s a hate crime.”
She laughed again, and something in her face eased. Her jaw unclenched. Her posture dropped a notch further. She turned slightly, unconsciously leaning just a fraction closer to him, like she didn’t realize she was doing it.
And then the plane began to taxi.
And five minutes later, she was gone.
Not dead. Just deeply, powerfully asleep.
She didn’t do the slow descent into slumber most people do. There was no polite fidgeting, no dramatic sighing. One minute she was upright. The next, her head dipped. Chin to chest. Then slowly, slowly, her body tilted.
Toward him.
At first, it was just a soft brush of her hair against his hoodie. Then her temple found the edge of his shoulder. And stayed there. He froze. Not out of discomfort—but confusion. Her weight was subtle. Natural. Like she’d done this before. Not with him, of course—but with someone. Someone she trusted. Someone she could fall against and know the world would hold.
His breath caught. Just slightly.
Then the scent of her hit him.
It wasn’t perfume. It was exhaustion and something else. Hotel soap. A hint of lavender. Citrus tea. Skin. Warmth. All of it tangled into something that said, I didn’t mean to fall asleep here, but I’m safe now.
And then her mouth landed on his neck.
Not in any overt or strange way. Just…there. Her head slumped slightly with turbulence, and her lips pressed into the space above his collarbone. Soft. Barely touching. But present. She exhaled.
Kohaku’s soul left his body.
His fingers curled slightly against the seat. His spine tensed. He didn’t dare move. Not because he was afraid of waking her—but because he was afraid of what it meant if he didn’t want to.
He sat like that for twenty minutes.
Her breathing evened. Her body relaxed into him further. And then it got worse. Her hand slid over in her sleep, landing on his stomach. Light at first. Then curling slightly, fingers brushing against fabric like she was chasing warmth.
He snapped.
Not loudly. Not visibly. Just…internally. A whisper of surrender that echoed through his bones.
She shifted again, and the armrest dug into her side.
Her brow furrowed in her sleep.
That was the moment he broke.
Slowly, carefully, he reached down and lifted the armrest between them. She made a small noise—half hum, half sigh—and then she was fully against him. Not just head-on-shoulder. She folded into him like she belonged there. Shoulder tucked beneath his arm. Thigh against thigh. Hand on his chest.
And that was it.
She wasn’t a stranger anymore.
Not to his body. Not to the part of him that remembered this—this warmth, this softness, this unconscious intimacy. As if she’d done this before, in some other life. On rainy afternoons. On quiet mornings with coffee and no obligations. She held him like a memory.
And he let her.
Across the aisle, an older woman was watching.
Her book sat open on her lap, unread. Her gray hair was neat. Her smile was wicked. When Kohaku met her eyes, she raised an eyebrow. He shook his head once, slow and warning. Don’t you dare.
She winked.
He groaned inwardly and let his head tilt just slightly—just enough so her hair brushed his cheek. His arm curved a little more around her.
Just until landing, he told himself.
Just until the lights came on.
Just until the world came back.
But deep down, a quiet, traitorous thought whispered:
What if she doesn’t move?
What if she wakes up…and stays?
And for the first time all day, Kohaku didn’t hate traveling last minute.
Because he had a sleeping woman on his chest, a hand on his stomach, and the haunting suspicion that he was going to remember this flight for the rest of his life.