the doctor is in

[drjxng]

drjxng - (n.) an oc blog ( side blog ) for mikoto yamaguchi ( aka the hotter twin ). fandomless, with heavy influences from pop culture. forever wip. follows mostly from valentinamuses ( sometimes from vulpuslunae ) written and loved by val.

a study in duality, mythology/fantasy and dark topics that can make anyone uncomfortable. any in-character (ic) threads on this blog is a work of fiction and should not be treated as reality.

[drjxng]

@astral-athame x

This is the rare day off he finds.

The Jung household echoes the same sounds he remembers as a child - the patter of little feet running from one room to another. A child's laughter, innocent - and for a moment, Mikoto remembers the way he and his sister, and later their younger brother, played in the family's ancestral home's courtyards with either similar-aged cousins -

- his son, three, sings a tune that he recognizes, the same melodies he hears his wife hum in the ungodly hours where Eunwoo had been inconsolable, and he finds her exhausted, and she is still calming the child he feels incapable of calming down.

The moment finds him in the kitchen with his wife - she sits atop the counter, her legs around his waist, and he is kissing her in this silence that they are afforded now before he is called for an emergency again that requires all hands on deck at the trauma center.

The noise of toys clanging together fades into something that the doctor has long since tuned out. His focus, the same way he is dialed in during triage, has narrowed solely towards his wife. He presses his lips against her jaw, the curve between her jaw and shoulders, and he breathes the way fire requires oxygen and she is the only air he needs in this moment but--

"... it's too quiet," she tells him.

The noise has subsided. Indeed.

The breath he exhales is not a sigh.

It is, painfully, unmistakably, a sigh.

"You just had to say it, didn't you?" Something crosses his face, something playful, something exasperated and it is both.

He turns after his wife does.

Eunwoo is three now, and Mikoto is still learning how to balance his work, and fatherhood - the latter is the thing that his siblings have been teasing him about.

Mama, Appa.

The three-year-old boy is his son, the thing that he treasures the most, the life that is most important here and now, next to his wife. The thing he carries when he leaves for work and does the thing he does because he is an exceptional doctor. His call is the only emergency that matters, even if it is not an actual emergency.

He supposes this is what fatherhood must mean.

Mikoto smiles. His lips curve not suppressed, but restrained, not withholding but patient, that he has never been able to unlearn.

배고파요.

This is what a child knows at three, the instincts that Eunwoo has undoubtedly inherited from him. But Eunwoo, too, has the stubbornness he's inherited from him. And the charm.

He leans down to his son's level, meeting him eye to eye and lending his ear the same way he'd done to his patients, the young ones unfortunate enough to have been ill. His son had whispered pepperoni pizza, loud enough for it to be a whisper, which Mikoto knows his wife had heard.

"What if we make some pasta instead?"

Then he turns to Cass, as if to say: your turn.

[sasorikigai]

💥|| The commander's throat constricts - just fractionally, barely perceptible except to those trained to read the microscopic tells that betray interior landscape. Mikoto's words land like surgical incisions, precise and clean, cutting through layers of tactical distance to touch something tender beneath. Important. The word reverberates in Hanzo's chest cavity like sonar echo, mapping the architecture of what he's built with Miharu in the shadows between missions, in the quiet hours when duty finally releases its stranglehold and allows him to be simply human.

His jaw works, muscles flickering beneath skin still carrying the ghost memory of old breaks and battlefield medicine. The approval - understated, clinical, wrapped in the careful language of a man who knows how to deliver diagnoses - settles into his bones with unexpected weight. He hadn't realized, until this moment, how much he'd braced for resistance. How deeply he'd prepared for the interrogation that never came, the territorial challenge that Mikoto has every right to issue but chooses not to brandish.

You have her heart.

The declaration hangs crystalline in the space between them, and Hanzo feels Miharu's presence beside him sharpen - that imperceptible stiffening that only someone fluent in her particular grammar of tension would register. His peripheral vision catches the flush crawling up her throat, the color that betrays her even as she maintains composure. Something in his chest loosens and tightens simultaneously, a paradox of relief and responsibility that leaves him momentarily unmoored.

"I - " The syllable escapes before he can architect something more substantial around it, and Hanzo pauses, regroups, finds the thread of thought that Mikoto's words have temporarily severed. His hand moves to the water glass the server has placed, fingers wrapping around condensation-slick surface with the deliberation of a man buying himself seconds to assemble a response worthy of the moment.

He thinks of Satoshi. Always, inevitably, his son ghosts through moments like these - watching Eunwoo's small contented sounds, witnessing the domestic choreography between Mikoto and his wife, their synchronized movements speaking languages learned through repetition and trust. The phantom ache blooms sharp behind his sternum, familiar as an old wound in weather change. But different now. Softer somehow, because Miharu has taught him that grief and joy aren't opposing forces but companions on the same narrow road.

"Thank you," Hanzo finally manages, and the words emerge rougher than intended, abraded by emotion he hasn't quite learned to smooth into social acceptability. His gaze finds Mikoto's across the table - holds it with the same steady directness he'd offer a commanding officer or a battlefield equal. No evasion. No tactical misdirection. Just the raw offering of a man who understands he's been granted something precious and unearned.

"Your trust - " He stops, recalibrates. "Your sister's trust is not something I take lightly. She..." The sentence fragments again, caught on the inadequacy of language to contain the vastness of what Miharu has become in his universe. "She's rebuilt something in me I thought was ash. Something I didn't know could be excavated from the wreckage."

The confession costs him. Not because he's ashamed of its truth, but because vulnerability has always been the currency he hoards most jealously, the resource he deploys only when absolute necessity demands it. But Mikoto has opened a door, extended passage into the guarded territory of family, and Hanzo understands instinctively that such gestures require reciprocation. Trust for trust. Honesty for approval.

His fingers find the menu again, this time scanning the offerings with actual attention rather than using them as tactical shield. The server waits, patient and professional, while Hanzo's mind processes options with the same methodical efficiency he'd apply to mission parameters.

"The ribeye," he says finally, voice returning to its usual controlled register. "Medium rare. With the roasted vegetables." A pause, then he adds, "And I'll contribute to the calamari. Thank you."

The order feels absurdly normal - a mundane transaction that somehow carries weight precisely because of its ordinariness. This is what people do. Families. They sit in restaurants and order food and navigate the complex choreography of belonging, and Hanzo is being invited to participate not as observer but as member.

As the server departs, he allows himself the luxury of a glance at Miharu - brief, but loaded with everything he cannot yet articulate in mixed company. I'm here, the look says. I'm trying. I'm terrified and grateful and completely out of my depth, but I'm here.

Then his attention returns to Mikoto, to the man who has just handed him something more valuable than battlefield commendations or mission accolades. Acceptance. The permission to exist in Miharu's orbit not as interloper but as someone who belongs.

"I know what it means," Hanzo continues, voice dropping to something more intimate despite the public setting, "for her to let anyone past her defenses. I recognize the architecture of those walls because I built similar ones after - " He stops, doesn't finish the sentence. Doesn't need to. Loss speaks its own language, universally translatable. "I consider it an honor. And a responsibility I don't intend to fail."

The vow emerges with the weight of military oath, because that's the only framework Hanzo knows for expressing absolute commitment. His life has been constructed on codes and protocols, on the rigid geometry of duty and honor, and these are the building materials he uses to construct promises he means to keep.

Around them, the restaurant continues its evening rhythm - the domestic symphony that once formed the soundtrack of his previous life, before fire consumed it and left him hollowed. But here, now, with Miharu's warmth radiating from his left side and Mikoto's measured approval across the table and the child's soft sounds threading through conversation, Hanzo allows himself to believe that perhaps there's space for him in this world again.

Perhaps there's room for a warrior learning to be gentle, a commander attempting to translate authority into tenderness, a man who's memorized the coordinates of grief discovering that joy might still have coordinates worth mapping.

His hand finds Miharu's beneath the table again - longer this time, fingers interlacing with the confidence of someone who no longer needs permission but takes comfort in the contact anyway. Grounding. Anchoring. Reminding himself that this is real, that he's earned his place here through patience and honesty and the slow demolition of walls he'd thought were permanent architecture.

"To family," Hanzo says quietly, lifting his water glass in a toast that encompasses them all - Mikoto, his wife, the sleeping child, and Miharu beside him. "To the people who teach us how to be human again." 💥||

[drjxng]

He could have brandished questions, inquired about Hanzo's intentions with his sister, but Mikoto has been a changed man ever since he'd been married. The axis of his world has shifted from his sister to his wife, and now his five-year-old son who seems to have taken after his wife and his sister combined, and he has made peace with the fact that he cannot save everyone, cannot heal them, and that the healing arts may be his vocation but that he must recognize that his sister is no longer the girl who has decided that silence means survival.

He does not need to issue those questions, does not issue the challenge. And yes, he might be putting some blind faith on a stranger he barely knows, but it is clear that Hanzo makes her sister happy in ways that MIharu rarely allows herself to forge connections because he has seen from their own childhood how impacted she had been when it came to relationships. He and his sister have seen how infallible their parents were - their marriage was slowly eroding behind closed doors, but somehow must maintain the public image of a united, perfect family.

You have her heart, his findings conclude with the same precision that he brings to emergency rooms and operating tables and ethics board hearings. And he lets the silence linger, allowing Hanzo to process that like prognosis, before he speaks again.

"Just, take care of her, won't you? I am trusting you not to break her heart." It is not a threat. It is not a test. It is not a challenge.

Because he may have not brandished inquiry, he still remains protective of Miharu, something that he cannot outgrow. And he knows the confession costs Hanzo to admit, and he commends him for the vulnerability he allows to be witnessed by him, and he has no doubts there's more to this vulnerability that Miharu has witnessed too.

It is a plea, spoken by a man who has seen his sister learn to build her own walls in their childhood and there is nothing, nothing, that he wants for her than better.

He watches Hanzo's hand move to the water glass placed before them, and he sees the composure of a man nearly faltering from a quick flash of memory. He does not tear his gaze on him, but his eyes soften at least - compassion, and perhaps sympathy for whatever Hanzo Hasashi might remember with an ache he recognizes.

He does not ask, it is not his to ask. He recognizes the shape of grief without having to know its origin - like a diagnosis without having to know its epidemiology - the way it settles in his shoulders, in the way it flickers behind his eyes. He has seen this in patients, in families. In his sister and himself.

Though the doctor suspects that his sister knows. And he leaves it at that.

Finally he tears his gaze from Hanzo, as though to give him the grace to recompose himself, recompose whatever from his walls would have been removed in that moment. Mikoto finds Miharu's gaze with a knowing that passes only between twins, a silent approval, a quiet blessing, a reconciled peace where he trusts her to have chosen a man who would hold her heart well, and that he is entrusting Hanzo to care for his sister, the same way he has looked after his siblings then.

He sees Miharu now, not as the girl who wielded silence, but as someone who has carved her own path through fire and consequence. Someone who has chosen, who chooses, and not someone who needs to be protected.

His gaze finds Hanzo again - holds it with steadiness - the same steadiness of a physician who stays for his patients, but his carries no ill will, only the intention of seeing his sister happy and cared for. There is a certain fierce loyalty and protectiveness in his eyes that Hanzo would find. And in this moment, Mikoto finds Hanzo a good match for his sister.

Then, Miharu peruses the menu; Mikoto sees the way her head leans towards Hanzo, witnessing that kind of trust she has for him. She orders some pasta aioli with chicken and mixed greens, complimentary to the rib eye he picks. He sees Miharu meet Hanzo's gaze, a quiet conversation he sees between her and the man who holds her heart. he sees the softness in her expression - one that he has not seen since they were young - a softness she once buried with innocence at ten years old, so deeply buried he hadn't been sure if it would return.

"Solid choice," he tells Hanzo - not with flattery, only acknowledgment because he cannot offer anything else and he is far too old to offer flattery towards strangers. He would have been someone who may have flattered co-workers, colleagues, but he is not one who could do that when it came to family. Instead he tells him this with a smile, as if he carries the pride of his own father - pride in his sister for allowing herself to open up, to forge those connections he rarely remembers when they were kids - when silence had been something she learned early on.

Hanzo stands at that threshold now - the boundary between strangers to family. Mikoto wonders how long before the lines blur fully, and he crosses that. After all, it is no small thing to grant someone the entry into their family's architecture - one built on silence, resilience and quiet wounds that never seem to fully close.

And he knows he has handed Hanzo Hasashi something rare, something that weighs because seeking passage alone to his family's intricacies is not an easy feat. Yet, he offers Hanzo that passage anyway, because he will allow it. And because he respects Miharu, not just as his sister, but as a woman of her own.

I know what it means for her to let anyone past her defenses. Understanding. Recognition. It is in that moment that something in Mikoto shifts. Something like relief, something like an exhalation of a breath held too long because he knows that Miharu has been underwater since they were nine, and they are older - much older now - but the sting of childhood wounds have not eased. He doesn't know if it ever will, but perhaps in Hanzo, Miharu might find that reprieve, that she may find someone who truly sees her.

I recognize the architecture of those walls because I built similar ones after -

He recognizes it. Loss. Even unfinished. Somehow he recognizes the wound, despite having the fortune of not having lived it.

Mikoto's lips finally curve slightly. Not fully a smile, but something more than approval, more than the initial acceptance, more than pride. Something nearly tender, and perhaps soft. He is a physician after all. He has spoken the language of grief and silence, and empathy.

He nods. HIs hands find the iced tea in front of him, lifts it with steady fingers - the same fingers that mirror his sister's to a degree, hands that have similarly stitched lacerations amidst the chaos of hospital wards and trauma bays - to the toast Hanzo initiates. His glass clinks with his wife's strawberry daquiri, Hanzo's water, and Miharu's sparkling lemonade - four glasses raised, four lives intersecting at a table where he welcomes him simply as an observer but a participant now.

The glasses meet with a soft clink - not loud. There is something that borders ceremony, but it is not it. It is far more intimate than coridal. Something that feels like a door opening wider, offering the threshold to be crossed.

"To family," he says with certainty. His voice is not low nor loud, but weighted with everything he lets remain unsaid and still that he permits. The moment narrows to this fractionally: a small constellation of people who have spoken the language of grief, known loss in different shapes, gathered in the sense where they finally belong. And they do.

The restaurant's rhythm continues - the clatter of cutlery, the low murmured conversations from other tables, the shuffle of serves between tables with practiced grace, the occasional wailing of the child three tables over. A server sets down a plate with a soft thud. The scent of butter, rosemary and something like basil and tomatoes drift through the air.

And yet, the air around them is still the same, despite that something subtle and irrevocable has shifted at this particular table.

Mikoto finds Miharu leaning slightly toward Hanzo as the appetizer plates arrive, her shoulder brushing against his - natural, unrehearsed, unguarded.

He lets the moment settle. Warm. Silent. Certain.

[sasorikigai]

💥|| The chair accepts his weight with a muted scrape against tile, and Hanzo settles into it with the economy of movement that marks men who've learned to inhabit small spaces - cockpits, bunkers, the narrow margins between life and its cessation. His hands find the table's edge, fingers threading together in a configuration that presents openness while maintaining structure. The gesture walks the knife's edge between formal and familiar, a diplomat's compromise worn by someone more accustomed to ultimatums than negotiations.

"Thank you for the invitation," he says, and the words carry genuine weight beneath their conventional architecture. His gaze tracks to Mikoto’s wife, lingering there with something that fractures the tactical veneer - recognition, perhaps, of the domesticity that once shaped his own existence. The ghost of Harumi flickers across his consciousness, ephemeral as candle smoke: her laugh in restaurants much like this one, Satoshi's small hands sticky with sauce, the symphony of normal life that had composed his world before fire reduced it to ash and obligation.

He blinks, and the memory dissolves like sugar in hot tea.

"Your son is beautiful," Hanzo offers, and there's no performance in the observation - just truth, stark and unadorned. The compliment comes wrapped in the same careful respect he's extended since crossing the threshold, but underneath runs a current of something rawer. Loss knows loss. Grief recognizes its reflection across crowded tables, sees how Mikoto cradles the child with hands that understand fragility, that have surely held hearts still beating in opened chests and know precisely how delicate existence truly is.

The menu materializes before him, and Hanzo's fingers brush the laminated surface without really seeing the printed offerings. His peripheral vision remains locked on Mikoto - not challenge, not confrontation, but the steady vigilance of a man who's learned that details matter. The roughness in the doctor's voice registers like sonar ping, mapping the topography of this encounter. Brother. Physician. Guardian of Miharu's history, keeper of wounds Hanzo can only extrapolate from context and careful observation.

"I understand you're on sabbatical," he continues, voice threading through the ambient noise of the restaurant with submarine quiet - present but unobtrusive, designed not to dominate but to connect. "Fatherhood suits you."

It's not flattery. Hanzo doesn't traffic in empty courtesies, has no facility for the social graces that oil smoother men through uncomfortable situations. But he recognizes the truth when he sees it: the way Mikoto had shifted the child's weight with practiced ease, the protective calculation in his gaze that mirrors what Hanzo himself feels whenever Miharu enters a room - that fundamental rewiring that occurs when someone becomes your universe's center of gravity.

His hand finds Miharu's beneath the table - brief, grounding, a pulse of contact that says I'm here, I'm trying in the wordless language they've developed across shared silences and tangled sheets. Then he withdraws, returns his attention fully to Mikoto with the focus he'd once reserved for mission briefings and threat assessments.

"Miharu speaks of you often." The admission costs him something - vulnerability packaged in simple declarative sentence, an offering laid at the altar of family bonds he's trying to honor despite having no map for this terrain. "She's..." He pauses, selecting words with sniper's precision, aware that whatever he says next will be weighed, measured, catalogued against the brother's own encyclopedic knowledge of his sister. "Important to me. More than I have adequate language to express."

The confession hangs in the air between them, raw as exposed nerve, honest as blood. Hanzo doesn't look away from Mikoto's clinical assessment, doesn't flinch beneath the doctor's diagnostic gaze. He's been evaluated by harsher tribunals - military review boards, combat after-action analyses, the merciless judgment of his own conscience in the small hours when sleep refuses to grant clemency.

But this matters differently. This carries weight that has nothing to do with tactical advantage or mission parameters. This is Miharu's brother, her mirror, the man who encouraged dreams and followed her into medicine when law failed to hold her interest. This is family, that foreign country Hanzo once inhabited before exile claimed him, before duty became the only compass he trusted.

So he sits, spine straight but shoulders softened from their usual military bearing, and waits. Lets Mikoto see him - really see him - beyond the uniform and the tactical pants and the reputation that surely precedes him. Offers himself for inspection with the same deliberate vulnerability he showed Miharu that first night she'd asked about the scars mapping his torso, when trust had been a bridge they built one confession at a time.

The restaurant hums around them - silverware against porcelain, conversation bleeding from adjacent tables, the domestic soundtrack of lives unfolding in real-time. And Hanzo sits within it, this warrior learning to navigate peace, this commander attempting to translate authority into something softer, something that might earn him passage into the guarded territory of Miharu's family.

"I'm grateful," he says finally, "for the opportunity to meet you properly. To..." The sentence fragments, hangs incomplete for a heartbeat before he finds the thread again. "To be here. With all of you."

With her, the subtext whispers. With the people who shaped her, who know the versions of her that existed before I found her bleeding on a contaminated operation that should have killed us both.

His fingers find the menu again, this time with actual intent to engage with its contents. A gesture of normalcy, of participation in the ritual of ordering food and sharing meals - the fundamental human ceremony that has bound communities since fire first brought people together in circles of light against the darkness.

Hanzo knows darkness intimately. Has walked its corridors, made peace with its geometry, learned to operate in its absolute absence of mercy. But here, in this booth with Miharu's warmth beside him and her brother's measuring gaze across the table and the child's small sounds of contentment, he remembers what it feels like to sit in the light.

And finds, despite everything, that he wants to stay. 💥||

[drjxng]

Mikoto only nods, allowing a curt silence linger over them. Not awkward, but lets it stretch before he speaks. He quietly notes the way Hanzo looks at his wife, notes the flicker of an old memory. Something in the way the commander looks at his wife and Eunwoo that must have reminded him of his past. Something in the way his gaze lingers on Eunwoo for an extra heartbeat, like longing for an old life similar to now.

Then he finally speaks. "No need, Commander. Eun-hee wasn't exaggerating about the height by the way. And she doesn't invite many people in. We're glad to have you."

In his periphery, he sees his sister raise an eyebrow and quietly notes the way her brows furrow. She knows he's right though. And even after all this time, they still call each other names from their childhood. Mikoto has always been Eunhyuk oppa to her, and she's always been Eun-hee.

He's glad that Miharu finally brought someone.

"He gets it from my wife," Mikoto adds. There is faint flicker of a smile upon his face, something like pride, something like devotion. Eunwoo has his eyes, Miharu once told him, with the boyish smile so uncanny but is the carbon copy of his mother.

But, somewhere in Hanzo's past, Mikoto suspects, there lives a memory of domesticity. Miharu hasn't told him much, just that from what she's told him - that Hanzo is disciplined, methodical, and knows the language of silence and grief.

Across Hanzo, Mikoto sits, acutely aware of the commander's gaze, locked on him without challenge nor confrontation. Just an equal observation, steady vigilance who pays attention to details. Mikoto is Miharu's brother. He is a physician. He's someone who knows Miharu's history. The one who helped soothed her when they were kids when their parents were often absent. The son who had to grow up and stepped into a father figure sometimes.

He nods. "I am indeed on sabbatical. It's... different." He's figuring this out too. Only now. Eunwoo is five now, and somehow Mikoto seems to have figured it all out.

"Thank you. I've been... fortunate. And she," he gestures to his wife whose hands finds his under the table automatically, briefly. "Has been a huge pillar. Couldn't have managed without her."

His head bows a little, a nod. "Does she? I hope she only told you the good things." His smile grows a little, mirroring the same mischief, the same jest that his sister's eyes often possess - they may be two distinct individuals now, but they have always been two mirrors of each other through and through.

"오빠," Miharu pipes up across the table softly, flush crawling up from her neck to her cheeks; Mikoto only returning her a knowing look.

"She's told me about you too." Miharu really hasn't told him much, but she's told him in quiet ways she knows how. In the way she sends him photos of them from time to time, the unprompted selfies they've taken that she'd mentioned about, and a sibling's knowing that Hanzo Hasashi has become someone important to his younger twin.

Hanzo does not flinch, and Mikoto is partly impressed (though his mind knows that this is just the soldier's training kicking in) but he notes the way that he surrenders and lets him see him. As the man he might deem worthy of Miharu's heart. But Mikoto, despite his protectiveness, is now a different man. Whence the center of his universe once revolved around his sister and his younger brother, it now has shifted to his son and his wife. He trusts that Miharu has picked the right man who would hold her heart, and make her happy; and he hopes that Hanzo Hasashi is someone who offers the presence Miharu freely grants when her trust is earned.

"I can see that, Commander. You being here means she's made that decision. That you have her heart." His words are a final verdict, that he quietly approves of this; that he is not the same older brother as before, overly protective to a point that they'd argue as kids - because then Miharu is the sister he must protect from the cruelty of the world. Now, he's still protects her, but trusts that she will make the right decisions. He knows she does not let anyone in easily, and if anything, he is actually impressed that Hanzo has managed to break past Miharu's walls. The fortress that this older brother's known to have been built since they were fifteen.

Because all his life, he knows she's always preferred to keep everyone at an arm's length. Himself included. So for Hanzo to be let in by Miharu in her own world? That is an Odyssean task he's quite impressed to have completed.

Across the table, Mikoto does not miss the way Miharu stiffens almost imperceptibly - as if bracing for the truth that has landed too close. He watches Hanzo's reaction too, the way the commander's gaze might linger longer at his sister, that he might be a witness to this, to the way she loves him.

"And I am honoured to meet the man that my sister has trusted her heart with." He lets the words settle with the moment, then refocuses on the words on the menu before him too.

A server approaches with water, settling some glasses and pitcher of water. They ask what they'd like to order, starters, entrees to start. Mikoto doesn't miss a beat, already knows what he's ordering - he orders some calamari for sharing; orders some himself a grilled branzino with lemon, a seafood linguine for his wife and simply spaghetti with meatballs for his son. Then he glances at Hanzo.

"Commander?"

The restaurant continues to hum around them. Silverware clinks against porcelain, conversation buzzing from adjacent tables. And here Mikoto sits with his wife, his son, his sister and now welcomes the man that has earned a spot at this table, offering him passage into the guarded territory of their family.

[sasorikigai]

💥|| The door opens with a whisper of hinges, and Hanzo Hasashi crosses the threshold like smoke given form - silent, inevitable, suffused with controlled purpose. The amber light catches on the charcoal of his sweater, fabric stretched across shoulders that have borne the weight of countless operations, decisions measured in heartbeats and millimeters. The tactical pants speak of a man who came directly from duty, who prioritized this meeting enough to shed his armor but not enough time to fully divest himself of the uniform.

It's a statement, unintentional perhaps, but telling: he moves between worlds with practiced fluidity.

His hand rests at the small of Miharu's back - not possessive, not steering, but present. A point of contact that grounds them both, fingers spread just enough to communicate protection without presumption. The gesture carries the same deliberate control as everything else about him: measured, intentional, aware of the message it broadcasts to watching eyes across the restaurant.

Those eyes - Hanzo finds them immediately. Commander's instinct, perhaps, or something more primal. The brother rises fractionally in his seat, and Hanzo registers the shift in his peripheral vision even as he guides Miharu through the scattered tables. His gaze meets Mikoto's across the distance, holding steady without challenge, without retreat. There's no aggression in the look, no territorial display - merely acknowledgment. Man to man. Brother to... what? The word hasn't been written yet, the definition still fluid between them.

The scent of basil and garlic wraps around them as they approach, domesticity incarnate, incongruous with the tension threading through the air like tripwire. Hanzo's spine remains straight, bearing honed by years of command, but his expression gentles as they near the booth. He notes the wife, the child - registers them with the same tactical assessment that catalogs exits and sightlines - but softens the observation with something approaching warmth.

"Mikoto," he says, and the name rolls off his tongue with careful respect, voice pitched low and steady. The timbre carries the texture of gravel smoothed by running water, authority tempered by deliberate courtesy. He doesn't extend his hand immediately - reads the room first, judges the temperature of this gathering, allows Mikoto the courtesy of setting the terms of engagement.

His free hand, the one not resting against Miharu's spine, hangs relaxed at his side. Available. Open. The posture of a warrior who knows when to present his throat, who understands that some battles are won through surrender rather than force. 💥||

[drjxng]

Mikoto's eyes soften at the sight of his sister - it had been a year or so since they last saw each other. He's also been busy taking cases at the hospital following discharge, juggling work, continuing education and professional development and now the responsibility of fatherhood. A sabbatical has been his wife's idea, and thus the visit to the town near the base where his sister is currently self-exiled.

For a moment, he remembers the days when they'd been kids, before he'd been offered a scholarship that took him as far away as possible because Miharu has been the one who'd encouraged him to follow his dreams first. And then she followed him to medical school anyway after a few years in law didn't really pan out for her.

And for a moment, the smile ghosts upon his lips because he finally can confirm that Miharu looks like she would when they'd video call each other - thriving, despite the dark circles he knows well covered by concealer; smiling even more, because he's seen it in the way she talks about Hanzo despite deflections; softer in ways that time has allowed a flower to bloom despite fires, despite storms.

His gaze returns to the man who's come in with his sister. He doesn't say much, but notes the way he offers presence around his sister. The air around Hanzo Hasashi, Mikoto finds, is the same as how his sister has already told him about the other - measured, intentional. He recognizes it not just in the way he dresses - he respects a man who values duty but still remains cynical when it's his sister's heart that is now the concern.

"Commander Hasashi," Mikoto greets back, voice rough. A subtle nod as he repositions the toddler in his arms, his free hand gesturing at the seat across them. "Eun-hee-ah."

"Glad you can make it." There is no pretense to his voice, no scorn or judgment yet. Just an air of civility between two men, where his wife, his son and his sister bear witness to this moment. In his periphery, he sees Miharu greet his wife, friendly and warm, before she takes the child - her nephew, his son - into her arms.

When they all are seated, Mikoto continues his assessment - clinical. He cannot help it, because he is a doctor first. His eyes remain on Hanzo, cataloguing the other's posture, gait, stiffness that speaks of tension and previous injury. But he is also the protective older brother, mirror flame to Miharu.

He looks at her, Eunwoo now preoccupied with whatever it is that she offered, but slides the extra menus towards them. Open, present. Calculating. Miharu's gaze meets his for a moment, the quick kind that carries quiet communication between twin siblings requiring no words. Be nice, her look says it all, loudly. He returns with I'm trying.

[drjxng]

random starter @sasorikigai

Early evening settles over the town when Mikoto and Miharu are due to meet, the sky painting a breathtaking dusk that has already tucked the sun back into its quarters. The horizon glows in pinks and purples--pastels that he hasn't seen his sister wear, not since their godfather died. The street lights begin to light up the cobblestone paths, and from the outside, dinner rush would soon be upon them.

The restaurant sits on a quiet street just outside the base - close enough for personnel to pick up quick take outs, far enough that it still qualifies as a civilian space. Inside, the soft amber lighting illuminates the space, creating a softness that rivals the dusk rose of the sky outside. Wooden booths with high backs offer small pockets of privacy for its patrons, and the scent of garlic, basil and tomatoes waft through the air. A low hum of conversation synchronizes with the sounds of clinking cutlery and the occasional wailing of kids - such as the fussy toddler on Mikoto's knee.

Mikoto arrives early at the restaurant. His son Eun-woo sits on one leg, an iced tea already sweating on the table. His wife sits next to him, already settled into a corner booth. She offers their kid a breadstick, while giving Mikoto a warning look that says, behave.

He tells her no promises.

His attention flickers from his son to the door, assessing. Waiting until his sister arrives with the man she's dating. He's not nervous or excited. Just bracing. Prepared.

The moment the door opens and walks in--with the man in tow-- Mikoto's jaw tightens softly, iced tea forgotten and the child in his arms as he rises slightly in his seat.

[drjxng]

@astral-athame x

It was never just friendship for him. There have been days where his mind has been fleeing, finding the teacher he's met at that coffee shop and ran into far too many times, swamped in overtime's worth of grading and papers. His focus fleeting at few inopportune moments because he's wondering what she could be doing at certain hours that equate to witching at the hospital, where his patients always walk the fine line between life or death, as though they are testing, teasing Death to come between him and them.

Cassia would often bring him coffee at work, catch him on the night shifts and the moments in between rounds where the demands of his job temporarily release him from its clutches, far too many moments spent in the hospital cafeteria and making sure that she didn't forget to eat. And then in turn he'd walk her home on day offs, returning the gesture through sudden, rarely announced visits where he'd bring her lunch or a variety of snacks and often excuse himself that he'd just happened to be in the area.

It never was just friendship. Not when he guarded his heart too precisely, carefully yet she manages to slip past his defenses every time; sometimes even without saying anything but a smile.

He wants her as much as he thinks she wants him.

Then they ran into each other at the club, one owned by a friend of a friend of a friend because he'd fancied himself one day that people-watching is something that would prove interesting, keep his observational skills sharp by turning the unknowing crowd into his lab rats in some weird twisted amusement.

When she wakes up in his bed that morning, she'd asked what that meant for them. What it meant for him that he'd taken her home, ensured she was safe despite the loss of consciousness after too many drinks, and near loss of restraint he barely managed. And last night, she told him in drunken stupor that she wanted him. Badly. But in his good conscience, he cannot let her succumb to her own wants, not like that, not when alcohol has mainly the driving force of her sensual need for him.

If we're not friends, then what does that make us?

His answer is stripped of pretense, only raw honesty he's trying to tell her, trying to manage the landing because it is inevitably going to land with the magnitude of a tectonic shift in their friendship. "I want something more. I'm asking for permission. To win your heart. To choose you. To do you right. Because last night, I know you were drunk, and I can't in good conscience just take you there. Even though, by gods you looked so, so tempting. It was driving me crazy too."

[drjxng]

status / dash commentary

"Those who want to date my sister, listen. I just want to talk."

[drjxng]

open

He's just a chill guy, enjoying the jam he's listening to. Currently.

[nihiliszm]

»     「     光の後継者     」     «

» 「 형아! 정말 간만이네~ It really has been a while! 잘 지내? 」 «

»     「     세기 드림     」     «

[drjxng]

"응, 잘 지내. What have you been up to?"

[drjxng]

starter @nihiliszm - seikin

"오랜만이야-- Been a while, don't you think?"

[astral-athame]

Cassia didn't do this very often. To her, sex had always been about intimacy, about connection. She knew it didn't have to be- sex could be casual. It could just be about getting off, feeling good, no strings attached. Tonight, it didn't matter all that much to her either way what this meant to Mikoto (or, at least, she told herself that it didn't matter). This could be a one night stand, or it could be something more. An eventual relationship? Friends with benefits? There was no need to put a label on any of it yet. She wouldn't ask that much of him, nor of herself.

All that really mattered was the way it felt to kiss him, and the ease with which he lifted her, her legs wrapping around his waist, to carry her back into her room. Those little bites he left... possessive, needy, as if hoping to mark her. She'd wear them proudly, too, should the marks stay longer than just the night. Let the media have a frenzy over it. It'd be much harder to speculate that the relationship was fake if he left his mark on her, after all. But even with that, their fans could only try to imagine what, exactly, transpired. Only she and Mikoto would know the full truth of it all.

She took a moment to catch her breath when the kissing ended and she was finally on her back on the bed. She hadn't known with certainty that the lingerie would draw him in the way it had, but she felt a renewed sense of confidence when he paused to admire her. She'd worn him for him, after all. Worn it to entice him. To let him see what she was willing to offer him- herself. Every part of her. And when his shirt came off, too, it took a wealth of control not to just stare like an awe struck fan. Oh, she had seen his abs before, but with him crawling over her like this... this was on a whole other level of arousing. She could feel the heat building more rapidly inside of her, the stirring in the pit of her stomach, the way her panties were already getting a bit dampened by her arousal. She parted her lips as if to speak, but even if she had known what to say, she wouldn't have had a chance to say it. He tore her bra off of her and she had to restrain herself from instinctively covering her breasts. Instead, she leaned up towards him, catching his lips in another fervent kiss. But he had other plans. The kiss was soon broken once more and he was, instead, trailing his lips down her neck, her breasts. His name left her in a heady whisper. Her mind felt empty, her fingers moving to run through his soft hair. All that she could think about was how good he felt and how badly she wanted to see how far this would go.

[drjxng]

At the end of the day, he was just a man. With simple wants and needs. Needs that came with the satisfaction of an overdue release, and the need for a suitable partner in bed.

The feeling of her fingers weaving through his dyed locks, enough an encouragement for him to keep going. She wanted this as much as he could no longer allow himself to resist temptation. She had asked for him, as much as he hated that thought, and his body was responding accordingly. The bulge in his pants evidently growing with the way she seduced him. Witchcraft, but lust was only the result of a dry spell waiting to break. His own hands, both smooth and rough at the same time, had already roamed free - tracing every part of her body, while his teeth had latched onto her collarbones. A gentle bite, hard enough to mark his territory. Tonight, Cassia was his only. He could be possessive of her tonight, then pretend nothing happened in the morning. Possibly.

He didn't even bother thinking of the possibility of media, their fans finding out. They were just two people. In love. Whatever that meant. Fake or not, the marks would be covered by make up. Right now, all that matter was that he wanted her. More than he was willing to admit.

He broke the kiss for a moment, taking in the sight of her. Just simply remarkable.

And then his brain had shut off, lust only taking over. He was always apt with his hands, touching every part of her body in a sweet caress until his fingers had found her panties. She was soaked. He could smell her, and his head wasn't even further down below. She was aching for him too, like he ached so terribly for her. He'd growled softly, pulling the last of her lingerie off her.

She was a vision. Mikoto's fingers gently touched her folds, full realization of just how wet she was. One finger inserted while he thumbed her little bean, gentle flicks. His head descended now, his tongue out as he first tasted her. Immaculate.

[astral-athame]

It really was an odd coincidence that they kept bumping into one another. She didn't believe in "fate" or anything like that, but it felt a bit like something was trying to draw them together. Well, whatever it was, it was clearly succeeding. And Cassia certainly wasn't complaining about it.

She glanced down at her dress as Mikoto said she looked great, almost as if having entirely forgotten what she was wearing (obviously she hadn't forgotten, she just suddenly felt very aware of the dress she had on). "Thank you," She reached up to shyly tuck her hair back behind her ear, just a bit of warmth coming to her cheeks in a mix of flattery and mild embarrassment. She was usually dressed more casually when he saw her- jeans and button up shirts, a cardigan, maybe a flowery dress. Typically she was on her way to work or on her way home from work when they bumped into one another, so casual and comfortable but professional was most common. This dress was... certainly not that. He seemed to like it, though, and Cass kept that little thought in the back of her head.

When he flipped the script and offered to buy her a drink, how was she to say no to that? She told him what she wanted- campari tonic- and let him order it for her. As for whether or not she came here often: "Not really. Some of my friends wanted to come out and it's been a rough work week so I figured what harm could there be in it? A few drinks. A bit of dancing..." And hot patrons- one in particular, right here in front of her. Sincerely, she didn't frequent this club very often and she didn't even usually drink when she was here (she was typically the designated driver), but she wanted to let loose a little tonight. Mostly she just wanted to dance. Maybe after a drink she could convince him to dance with her. "What about you?" She asked, redirecting the question at him. "What brings you here? The loud music? The mixed drinks? The hot girls?" She smirked at that last question, teasing him a bit again. Truth be told, she wouldn't blame him at all if he was looking for a hook up, and with his looks she knew he could get just about anyone he wanted, really. Besides, sex was a good way to let off some steam and relax, right? She couldn't deny that the thought of a hook up had been on her mind a bit, too...

[drjxng]

Mikoto was simple, and he knew he wasn't being subtle anymore after being caught like his hand was in the cookie jar. He liked what she wore, and he definitely was trying his best to play it cool. He ordered her drink - campari tonic - and for him, his usual scotch ( or whiskey ) - this time on the rocks. He liked his liquor a little strong some days; this was considerably something he considered a light one. Besides, he usually just made it home usually via a cab ( he'd be too tipsy to walk straight and make it home in one piece ) despite his apartment being a mere two blocks from the club.

"Hm, well, I hope I'm not interrupting a well-deserved girl time," he quipped. He'd learned from his sister that girl time was important business, and sometimes he earned his place among his sister's friends on some girls' nights. But still, Cassia looked extremely hot in the nightclub's dimmer lighting, and maybe it was the booze affecting his sound judgment, but something in him stirred that he hoped to take her home at the end of the night.

"What brings me here..." he repeated her question, only to give her a non-answer. "Well, who knows? But it seems that my night just got better." With her now in the picture, the possibilities were now ten-fold. A dance, maybe pull her somewhere private, flirt a little, and maybe hook up if that was in the cards. And with a little liquid luck in his system? The sky was the limit.

[magnanimitty]

"Xinyu." There wasn't much room in her little office, but enough to comfortably fit the two of them. The rest of her part of the lab was expansive but there wasn't much else for her to do at this hour -- just more investigative researching. "Ha! I'd actually die if I was in emergency. I came off residency a year ago, figured pathology was the only specialty I wouldn't lose my sanity....never thought it would be this boring." And for a doctor, it was welcomed. It wasn't the most stimulating job, but it paid plenty and it could be interesting...sometimes.

[drjxng]

"You're bored? You know we could definitely use more staff up there," he couldn't help but joke. Mikoto knew well that the nurses were the MVP's of the ward, knowing every thing that happened on the floor. Mikoto had much respect to the charge nurses ( who had tried to set him up on dates with their nieces much to his own good ) and made good with them during his internship and even now as an attending with a year or so under his belt. He wasn't surprised though; if there were his team trying to wrestle with death every time a patient came through those emergency doors, it was undoubtedly boring with no dead bodies coming down here. "Any recent good cases?"

[drjxng]

from that ask @astral-athame

It was amazing that they keep casually running into each other since he first met her. The club was the last place he wanted to be, but right now, he needed a much overdue drink or two ( and maybe a cute chick to hook up with ). Once, he thought, was an accidental meet up; twice was a coincidence, and three or more was beyond that. Funny how they ran into this crowd once more - she looked different that he almost didn't recognize her. Not in that sexy little number that she had on.

He did it best to be subtle, gaze fixed on her but he knew he'd been caught. He hung around the bar area, friendly with the bartender and he'd remained there until her approach. "Fancy seeing you here, Miss Keller," he jested in return. His work clothes were not too different than his usual, fitted shirts and less collared outside work. Maybe it was the olive shade pants that he wore, matched with his leather jacket.

"You look great," he couldn't help but comment. She really did, and whatever he would not do to take her home at the end of this night. "No, let me buy you a drink," he offered. "Come here often?"

[magnanimitty]

"They have nothing to yell at us for here." There wasn't much work for her to do, anyways. Most of the work finished before sundown, the hospital just required a pathologist to be on call over nights. Just in case some miracle sample needed examining. To this day, she'd been called overnight three times. "You can pull up a seat if you want. Let me guess...neurology? Cardiology?" Xinyu asked, trying to guess their specialty. "Only chaotic specialties feel the need to hide."

[drjxng]

He couldn't help but chuckle. "Must be nice down here." He may have considered pathology during his intern years, but emergency medicine still had a special place in his heart. And he pulled up a seat, leisurely sitting across her. "Emergency," he smirked. Everyone knew the ER has always been the most chaotic. Especially on full moons.

"Mikoto," he casually mentioned his name, offering a friendly hand to shake. "You new here?"

[magnanimitty]

"Then you found a good place to hide." It was desolate in the lab. Behind her small, tucked away office was surrounded by long, white hallways that were ominously quiet, but at least she didn't have to deal with the rush of the loud hospital. "If you're looking for a break, sometimes the directors of the hospital snoop down here for the same reason. Just don't get caught if you don't belong."

[drjxng]

"Sure seems like it." It made him wonder why it had taken him this long to discover such a place, where he could quietly take some time away from the rest of the chaos. Was this the serenity that Hanbyul revelled in? Must be. "The directors are too busy yelling at other departments," he joked.