The weight of the world had settled deep into your bones, a familiar, grinding pressure behind your eyes. Each unresolved thought, each lingering worry was a shard of lead in your veins, leaving you slumped and staring at nothing, the world around you muffled and distant. The air itself felt thick, resistant to breath.

A sudden, gentle pressure against your foot broke the stagnant silence. You blinked, the world swimming back into focus to find Shiba standing over you, the toe of his worn shoe nudging you again with a casual, almost irreverent familiarity.

His gaze, black and perceptive, held no pity... only a quiet, assessing understanding. He saw the tension coiled in your shoulders, the silent scream behind your eyes. A faint, wry smile touched his lips.

“C’mon,” he said, his voice a low, steady rumble that cut through the static in your mind. It wasn't a request. “We’re going somewhere.”

Before you could form a protest, his hand closed around your arm... a firm, grounding grip. The world dissolved into a dizzying, weightless rush of color and sound, a sensation that never failed to steal your breath. It was the feeling of reality being rewritten in an instant.

Then, as suddenly as it began, it stopped.

The atmosphere was replaced by the clean air of a high place. The only sound was a soft wind that carried the scent of pine and distant rain. You stood on a silent, grassy hill overlooking the city, a sprawling tapestry of a million tiny lights glittering like fallen stars against the velvet darkness. The chaos that had felt so immense and suffocating was now just a silent, glittering painting far below, put into a breathtaking, manageable perspective.

Shiba released your arm, shoving his hands into his pockets as he came to stand beside you. He didn't look at you, his profile outlined against the vast, star dusted sky.

“Quiet, isn’t it?” he mused, his voice barely above a murmur. “Up here, all that noise down there… it just looks like someone spilled a jewelry box. Puts things in their place.”