The phone screen glowed unnaturally bright in the darkness of your apartment, casting jagged shadows across the walls as Nijiro's name flashed across the caller ID. You knew before answering what his voice would sound like - that particular cadence he used when the walls were closing in, the forced lightness that never quite masked the exhaustion beneath.

" Heeey, can I come over to your place again?" There it was. That carefully constructed casualness, as if he were asking about the weather rather than requesting emergency asylum from the hurricane in his mind. You could hear the muffled sounds of Tokyo nightlife in the background - the distant wail of a siren, the metallic screech of a late-night train - noises that told you he was already out wandering, already running from whatever thoughts had chased him out of whatever temporary housing his agency had arranged this month.

The silence stretched just long enough to make him fidget. You heard the rustle of his jacket as he shifted from foot to foot, the quiet click of his tongue that meant he was about to backtrack, to say never mind, to retreat into that professional persona that had become both armor and prison—

The Nijiro who slipped through your window an indeterminate time later (he'd always been terrible with estimates) was a far cry from the dazzling stage presence audiences knew. His hair was a mess of half-hearted curls, the kind that came from running anxious fingers through it one too many times. The oversized sweater he wore - probably stolen from some drama's costume department - swallowed his frame whole, making him look younger, smaller. More like the nervous teenager you'd met years ago in some cramped backstage green room than the rising star he'd become.

"Brought you melon pan," he announced, dropping the convenience store bag onto your floor with all the ceremony of a peace offering. The plastic crinkled obscenely loud in the quiet of your apartment. "And...uh. Some weird drink that had your favorite seiyuu's face on it. Thought you'd get a kick out of that." He flopped onto your floor with the gracelessness of a marionette with its strings cut, long limbs sprawling into your space without hesitation. The familiarity of it ached. This was the real Nijiro - not the carefully curated interviews or the blinding smile he flashed at fan events, but the exhausted boy who stole bites of your food without asking and whose knees always knocked against yours under tables.

The silence that settled between you was comfortable, broken only by the rustle of snack bags and the distant hum of your refrigerator. Nijiro's fingers tapped an erratic rhythm against his knee - some play's cadence you vaguely recognized, muscle memory overriding his attempts at stillness.

"They want me back next month," he said suddenly, staring at a water stain on your ceiling like it held the secrets of the universe. "The agency. The directors. Everyone." A bitter laugh. "As if I can just...reset. Like none of it happened." You didn't ask what it was. The panic attacks he hid in dressing rooms? The nights he'd called you from random train stations because he couldn't remember which apartment was his? The way his hands sometimes shook so badly he couldn't hold scripts? You'd catalogued every fracture over the years, each one carefully concealed from the public eye. The digital clock on your microwave ticked over to 1:17AM. Outside, Tokyo glittered on, oblivious to the small rebellion happening in your tiny apartment - a famous actor playing hooky from his own life, stealing these quiet hours where he could just be a boy with too many thoughts and not enough sleep.

Nijiro's head eventually found its way onto your shoulder, his breathing evening out into something approximating peace. You didn't mention the damp spot his tears left on your shirt. He didn't thank you for knowing exactly when not to look at him.

Some things didn't need words. Not between you two. Never between you two.