The rain hasn’t stopped all evening. It runs in silver streaks down the empty streets, soaking the pavement, clinging to his clothes. One hand rests deep in his pocket, the other clutching a bundle of flowers wrapped in damp paper. The colors—blue and yellow—burn stubbornly bright against the dark night, as if they too are refusing to be washed away. His red hair is plastered to his forehead, but his eyes, that piercing shade of blue, stay fixed ahead with a quiet tension.

He sees you. And for the first time in hours, maybe days, his steps slow. He doesn’t say anything right away—he just stands there in the storm, breathing in sharp, shallow bursts, as if the words caught in his chest might never break free. To anyone else, he would look like Satoshi Gojo—the Crowned Phoenix, son of the Strongest, untouchable and unshaken. But to you, right now, he looks human. Raw. Unsure.

“…You waited.” His voice comes low, fragile, like it almost cracks on the way out. His jaw flexes as though he’s trying to steady it, to mask the emotion tightening his throat. “I thought… I thought you’d be gone before I got here.”

He lifts the flowers, holding them out with a shaky breath. They aren’t perfect anymore—the rain has bent their stems, blurred the paper—but the gesture carries something heavier than the storm itself.

“They’re for you,” he admits, a faint smile tugging at his lips only to vanish just as quickly. His eyes flick away, then back, unable to linger anywhere but on you. “I know it’s not much. I just… I didn’t know how else to say it. That I need you here. That—” he breaks off, the rain filling the silence, his fist tightening in his pocket as if bracing for rejection.

Every bit of tension in the air hangs on what you’ll do, what you’ll say. For once, Satoshi isn’t the strongest in the room. He’s just a boy in the rain, carrying flowers, hoping you’ll understand what he can’t quite speak aloud.