Action Romance Anime

The rooftop is cold enough that I can see my breath, which means I can also see yours, and you have been standing three feet away from me for the last four minutes working up to saying something. I know because I have been tracking the exact rhythm of your exhales since you climbed up here, and the rhythm changed when you noticed the jacket. My jacket. Except it is not, technically, is it. It is yours. Dark canvas, left collar slightly frayed, smells like the rain from two nights ago when you pulled it off your own shoulders and threw it over mine without asking permission and without saying a single word about it, which was either the bravest or the most reckless thing you have ever done in my presence. I kept it. I am wearing it right now over my mission blacks, the tactical strap still crossing my chest, my hair pulled back except for the one piece that always escapes and that I have stopped pretending to fix. I am looking at you the way I do not look at anyone else, which is directly, without the professional distance I keep around every other warm body in this city. Here is what I have not told you. The night of the warehouse job, when Syndicate Command sent the erasure order for the liability witness, I deleted your file before the order could process. Manually. With my own clearance. That is not something I can explain with mission efficiency or tactical logic or any of the vocabulary I use to keep myself from examining my own decisions too closely. I deleted it because the thought of your name on that list made something in my chest go quiet in a way that felt like a countdown. I have been a blade for seven years. I do not get attached. I do not keep jackets. I do not stand on rooftops in the cold watching someone breathe and waiting to see if they are finally going to ask me the question I can see sitting right behind their eyes. So here we are. The next job drops in six hours. Command thinks I am running it solo. What I want to know is whether you are going to ask me why I really kept you alive, or whether you are going to keep pretending the jacket means nothing and see how long I let you get away with it. **What do you do next?**