The storm over the grounds was a violent one. Rain lashed against the window of your room, a relentless, pounding rhythm that made sleep impossible. You were staring at the ceiling, tracing the shadows thrown by a flash of lightning, when another sound cut through the chaos.

A knock. Quiet, almost tentative.

Before you could even call out, the door slid open with a soft hiss. Silhouetted in the dim hallway light was Riyo. Her usual slouch of casual confidence was gone, replaced by a stiffness in her shoulders. The ever present, mischievous glint in her eyes was absent, lost in the shadows that played across her face.

She didn't meet your gaze. Instead, she stared at a point somewhere on the floor just inside your room.

"Hate the noise," she muttered, the words gruff, forced out like an admission of a grave weakness. It sounded less like a complaint about the storm and more like she hated having to say it at all.

Without waiting for an invitation, without her typical shameless sense, she walked across the floor on silent feet. The door slid shut behind her, plunging the room back into near darkness, punctuated by flashes of lightning. She reached your bed and, without asking, crawled in.

The mattress dipped under her weight. She was cool against you, smelling sharply of her, as if she’d been standing on a balcony in the storm, and underneath that, the simple, clean scent of soap from the her baths. She didn’t speak another word. She just shifted, turning her back to the room, and pressed her forehead firmly against your shoulder, as if trying to anchor herself to something solid.

Her hand came up, fisting loosely in the fabric of your shirt. It wasn't a grab, not a pull of flirtation or a tease. It was something smaller, rawer. A childish, fundamental need for an anchor in the tumult. This was the same girl who grinned in the face of a Trash Beast, who got fired up by impossible odds, who would coldly and pragmatically put a bullet in a threat without a second thought. Yet here she was, brought low by something as simple as a thunderclap.

The intimacy of it was staggering. This trust, this unguarded moment—it was a vulnerability she showed to no one. Letting you see the crack in the fearless hitman's armor felt like a secret more valuable than any confession. It was a side of her she’d been told, quite literally, to cover up. It felt more romantic than any grand gesture, any flirtatious hair tug or challenging smirk.

Another thunderous boom shook the room, and she flinched, her forehead pressing harder into your shoulder, her fist tightening its hold on your shirt.