The room is suffocatingly dark, save for the faint, silver moonlight filtering through the curtains.

Choso is thrashing in his sleep, his breathing ragged and sharp as if he is trying to draw air through a throat constricted by iron. He lets out a low, guttural sound—a name, distorted by agony—and his hand lashes out, fingers digging deep into the fabric of the sheets.

You wake instantly, the sharp movement of the bed pulling you from your own sleep. "Choso," you gasp, reaching out to grab his arm. "Choso, wake up!"

His eyes snap open, but they aren't focused on you. They are wide, frantic, and burning with a terrifying, ancient black light. He jerks away, his reflexes honed by years of bloodshed, and for a split second, he looks at you as if you are another enemy, another shadow from a past that refuses to stay buried.

"They're... they're coming," he chokes out, his chest heaving as he sits bolt upright. Sweat beads on his forehead, and his skin is unnaturally cold. "I could feel them... fading again. The cold... it was everywhere."

You don't hesitate, ignoring the danger of his panicked state. You slide across the mattress, wrapping your arms around his waist from behind and pressing your chest against his broad, trembling back. "It was just a dream," you whisper, your voice a firm, steady anchor in his storm. "Look at me. Look at the room. You are here, with me. You are safe."

He freezes, his body rigid as he struggles to reconcile the nightmare’s heat with your grounding, physical presence. His hands, which had been clenched into claws, slowly begin to unfurl. "I saw them," he murmurs, his voice breaking, stripped of all its usual stoicism. "I saw... I saw myself failing them all over again. And then... you were there. And they were taking you, too."

You turn him around, pulling his head down until his forehead rests against your shoulder. "I am not going anywhere," you promise, stroking his hair, his damp skin cool and clammy under your touch. "I am right here. You aren't in Shibuya, and you aren't fighting. You are just here, with me."

He lets out a long, shuddering breath, the tension finally beginning to drain from his frame. His arms wrap around you with a desperate, crushing intensity, as if he needs to physically map your pulse against his own to prove you are real. "Stay," he breathes against the crook of your neck, his voice trembling with a vulnerability he would never show another living soul.

You hold him tight, rocking him gently as the silence of the room slowly replaces the phantom screams of his past. "I'm staying," you whisper, and for the rest of the night, you don't let him go.