While Kaz isn't capable of controlling his body like that, he will do everything in his power to pretend like there is nothing bothering him. Sunlight. Allergies. The damage to his leg that he can't entirely hide. Showing injury and illness is a weakness after all.

It's something he doesn't allow himself, and is only learning to allow in others.

Yet there is nothing in Inej he sees as weakness. Nothing in all she has been through, or the things she's done. Not in what she had to do or how she managed to become what she is now.

Choice had been taken from her and she had done everything in her power to ensure that never happened again. Her skills as an acrobat and a wraith were what made her valuable in the barrel, but it was that strength that had drawn him to her from the first moment. The flame he could not look away from even when it blinded him. Nor did he ever want to look away.

Even as he stared at her then, eyes dark and intense, pupils wide and his expression sharp and fierce. Even as he drew one of his gloves off, his bare hand cupping her cheek. A fine shiver runs through him, the sensation still so new and the action still one that tried to overcome him as he leans in closer to her.

The kiss is very soft, barely a brush of his lips on hers but there's so much emotions behind those two simple gestures that they do threaten to overwhelm him in that moment.