Shinobu Kocho's temple twitched twice.
She lifted her face from the side of his neck, her purple eyes filled with cold fury.
"What did you just call me?"
Yaha tilted his neck. The crimson hadn't quite faded from his eyes, but that lazy curve had already returned to his lips.
"Your ears don't work either? Fl-"
Her heel slammed into his shin.
The blow wasn't especially hard, but Shinobu Kocho wore hard-soled combat boots, and the metal plate on the heel caught the spot where the bone had the least padding.
Yaha looked down at his leg.
"You fucking-"
"Shut up."
Shinobu Kocho withdrew her hand from his waist and stepped back twice. The pink left on her cheeks from pressing against his hot skin for too long hadn't quite faded. Paired with an expression cold enough to freeze someone to death, the contrast was jarring.
Yaha rubbed his shin, muttered something, and decided it wasn't worth arguing over. He turned toward a relatively intact stone platform at the edge of the ruins.
He took two steps.
As he pulled his right hand from his pocket, the back of it brushed the fabric along the trouser seam.
It twitched.
The movement was tiny, almost imperceptible.
Shinobu Kocho caught it.
Yaha had already sat down on the stone platform. With his left hand, he pulled a palm-sized porcelain bottle from inside his clothes. It held the wound ointment he'd condensed from reversed cursed energy back in the Swordsmith Village. He flicked off the cap with his thumb and tossed it toward her.
"Put that on."
The porcelain bottle traced an arc through the air.
"On your waist. Don't come blaming me if it scars."
Shinobu Kocho caught the bottle one-handed. The porcelain was warm in her palm, heated by his body.