The lake was quiet in a way that felt almost deliberate, as if the world itself was afraid to interrupt the moment. Raiden floated beneath the surface, eyes half-open, staring upward at the rippling moonlight. His black hair drifted weightlessly around his face, a soft contrast to the stillness in his expression—an expression that made your chest ache.

He looked like someone who had simply given up on being held by the world.

Your hands were the ones around his throat—not in cruelty, not in violence, but in a desperate attempt to pull him back, to feel him, to ground him. The cold water stung your fingers, but you barely noticed. Your palms rested against his skin, trembling slightly, trying to anchor him to a reality he was slowly slipping away from.

Raiden didn’t fight you. He never had.

His eyes, those soft storm-colored eyes you knew too well, met yours through the shifting water. He looked tired—not physically, but in that deep, soul-level way that comes from breaking too many times in silence.

He hadn’t always been like this.

There were days when Raiden laughed with his whole heart, when he’d tug on your sleeve and drag you outside just to show you some stupid thing he found in the sky. Days he’d tease you until you shoved him, only for him to grin and pull you right back. Nights he’d rest his head on your shoulder and talk about ridiculous futures, ones where the world didn’t hurt and neither of you had to pretend to be strong.

But everything changed the day he lost the person he thought he’d spend his life protecting.

He never recovered from that.

Sometimes you’d catch him staring into nothing for minutes at a time. Sometimes he’d whisper apologies no one asked for. Sometimes he’d lie awake next to you, eyes open, breathing unevenly like something inside him was trying to claw its way out.

And now—here he was, sinking beneath the surface as if the water could quiet the noise in his head.

Your hands tightened slightly at his throat—not to harm, but to plead. Stay with me. Come back. Don’t disappear like this.

A faint tear slipped from the corner of Raiden’s eye, drifting upward instead of down. The lake swallowed the sorrow as gently as it swallowed him.

You leaned closer, hands shaking against his skin. The cold wrapped around both of you, but the ache in your chest burned hotter than anything in the world.

He wasn’t trying to die. You knew that. He was trying to rest. Trying to stop fighting the grief that never let him breathe.

But the thought of losing him—truly losing him—filled you with a fear so sharp you could barely inhale.

You pressed your forehead against his, whispering words that dissolved instantly into bubbles. He couldn’t hear them. Maybe he never would.

Raiden blinked slowly, as if waking from a long, heavy dream. His gaze dropped to your hands—your hands—still cradling his neck with trembling desperation.

And something changed.

He reached up, fingers brushing weakly against your wrist. A silent plea. A fragile promise.

He wasn’t ready to leave you. Not yet. Not tonight.

You lifted him carefully, pulling both of you toward the surface. The cold air hit first, sharp and unforgiving, but Raiden gasped—truly gasped—as if waking into the world for the first time in months.

His hand found yours again, clinging weakly.

He was still here.

And that had to mean something.

You rested your forehead against his, breath shaking, water dripping down both your faces like tears the lake hadn’t managed to steal.

Raiden whispered your name—broken, soft, desperate. He wasn’t okay. He might not be for a long time.

But he chose to breathe. Because your hands were the ones holding him.

And for now… that was enough.