Warm, slightly chapped lips pressed against his, and Asuma relaxed. Every tensed muscle began to unwind, spilling something very much like release from the back of his neck all the way down to the base of his spine. His shoulders loosened; his stomach calmed. He tipped his head slightly against Natsumi's palm, eyes sliding closed, and leaned up into the kiss.

She welcomed him, lips parting with the barest hesitation. He caught the faintest edge of spearmint--she'd brushed her teeth?--before his attention focused entirely on sweeping his tongue over her lower lip and then teasing it gently past her teeth, working out her personal comfort level. She pressed closer, surprising him, her bandaged hand sliding over a jaw he'd just realized seemed to be lacking the better part of a week's worth of growth. Her tongue flicked the edge of his.

Asuma grinned against her lips, an entirely new kind of fire lighting in the wake of his calm, and reached up to cup his free hand around the back of her skull, fingers sliding through clean, neatly brushed black hair. It slid over his skin like a river of gleaming silk.

He rolled off his side and onto his back, pulling Natsumi down with him, releasing her wrist to steady her with his arm wrapped around her shoulders. Relishing the warm solid press of her very alive body against his; the dull, very distant ache of half-healed bruises that completely failed to build into something worse.