The sound of your footsteps thundering up the stairs was deafening — not because they were loud, but because everything else in your world had gone quiet. Too quiet. The screaming downstairs, once violent and explosive, now faded into a sickening silence. It was the kind of silence that filled your ears with a pressure you couldn’t pop, the kind that made your skin crawl. You didn’t even know who had the last word this time. Maybe no one did. Maybe that’s what scared you the most. Your lungs burned as you reached the top of the stairs, the taste of tears already thick in your throat. You didn’t know when you started crying, or if you ever stopped. The fights always started the same way — some offhand comment, a missed cue, a tone of voice — but this time was different. This time it didn’t feel like fighting. It felt like destruction. Like something sacred had been shattered, and there was no putting it back together.

Your hands shook as you stumbled into your room, grabbing the old duffel bag from your closet and flinging it onto the bed. You started throwing clothes in at random — shirts, socks, a hoodie, whatever your fingers landed on. Nothing felt real. Your mind was screaming but your body was stuck in autopilot, your breath hitching every few seconds, chest tightening like a vice. The edges of your vision started to blur, black spots blooming like ink in water. You were losing control — of the situation, of yourself, of everything.

You fumbled for your phone on the nightstand with numb fingers, dropping it once before you could unlock it. Your heart was pounding so hard it drowned out the sound of your own thoughts. The only name you could think of, the only person you could trust to not fall apart with you, was Iwaizumi. You hit his contact and pressed the phone to your ear with a trembling hand.

Beep… beep… beep… “Hello?”

His voice was groggy, low — coated with sleep, but alert enough to register something was wrong. It was late. Too late to be calling anyone without it meaning something. You pressed the phone tighter against your ear, your voice cracking under the weight of everything you couldn’t say. You didn’t even try to stop the tears now.

“Please come get me…” Barely a whisper. Broken. Haunted. There was a long pause. You could hear the rustle of his sheets, the soft creak of his bed as he sat up straight. And then — a shift in his tone. All sleep was gone now. All that remained was urgency, fear, and that fierce protectiveness that made you call him in the first place.

“Where are you?” he asked, sharper this time. You could hear him already moving — keys, maybe a jacket being grabbed, footsteps.

Your fingers clenched the fabric of your bag. You looked around your room one last time — at the walls that had witnessed every fight, every scar, every quiet breakdown — and suddenly it felt less like home and more like a prison cell.

You didn’t answer him right away. You just held the phone to your ear and tried to breathe, tried to exist, tried not to fall apart completely before he got there. You both knew where you were, there is only one place that could make you this shaken up. And Iwaizumi was already stepping on the gas.