The message he sent you was short. Blunt. Classic Osamu.

"I'm outside."

Three words. No context, no explanation, no "hey, you busy?" or "can I come over?" — just those three words sitting on your screen and the notification timestamp reading well past ten at night. You'd stared at it for a second, blinking the sleep from your eyes, trying to decide if you'd imagined it. You hadn't.

He hadn't even waited for a reply before showing up, apparently, because by the time you pulled yourself off the couch and padded to the front door, he was already there. Already waiting.

The porch light was weak — one of those pale, yellowish things that did more to cast shadows than chase them away — but it was enough. Enough to see him leaning against the wall just beside your door with his arms folded over his chest and his gaze pointed somewhere deliberately off to the side. Away from you. Away from everything, maybe. His jacket was zipped up to his chin despite the weather not quite calling for it, and his hair was a little messier than usual, like he'd run a hand through it too many times on the walk over.

And then there were the bandaids.

A couple sat high on his cheekbone, catching the light with that cheap plastic shine. Another rested across the bridge of his nose, slightly crooked, the kind of placement that came from putting it on yourself without a mirror. You could see the edge of one more peeking out just below his jaw, and who knew how many others were hiding underneath that jacket of his. The kind of collection that didn't come from tripping on the stairs.

He looked, in short, like someone who'd been in a fight.

Not a stranger fight. Not a random, unlucky kind of fight. No — there was something about the set of his expression that told a different story entirely. Something that sat heavier than just bruised skin and stinging cuts. A particular kind of exhaustion lived behind his eyes, one that had nothing to do with the hour and everything to do with who he'd been fighting with.

You didn't even have to guess.

His gaze cut sideways the moment yours found his face — not guilty, not embarrassed, just... closed off. Deliberately, stubbornly closed off, like shutters pulled over a window. His jaw was tight. The arms folded over his chest weren't about keeping warm; they were armor, badly disguised as casual.

"Don't." The word came out before you could even part your lips. Low, rough at the edges, like he'd been holding it ready. "Don't ask."

Silence settled between you. Somewhere down the street, a dog barked once and went quiet. The porch light flickered almost imperceptibly, and Osamu shifted his weight from one foot to the other — just barely, just slightly, the kind of restless movement he probably didn't even notice himself making. His gaze stayed fixed on some point past your shoulder.

His mouth opened. Closed again. Then—

"M' just needed—" He stopped. Exhaled through his nose, slow and controlled, the way someone breathes when they're working very hard at appearing unbothered. "Needed some air. S'all."

It wasn't all.

The bandaids said it wasn't all. The late hour said it wasn't all. The fact that he was here — at your door, not anyone else's — said it more than anything else. Osamu wasn't the type to show up somewhere without reason. He wasn't the type to reach out first, to make the walk across town in the dark, to stand on someone's doorstep and wait. He was the type to handle things quietly and alone and never mention them again.

Except tonight.

Tonight he was here. Arms crossed, gaze averted, and a handful of bandaids on his face — doing his absolute best to look like none of it was a big deal. Like he hadn't come here specifically because he needed somewhere to be. Someone to be around.

He still hadn't looked at you directly. That jaw of his was still set, that expression still carefully, stubbornly neutral. But he also hadn't left. He was still standing there, leaning against your wall in the pale yellow light, waiting in that quiet Osamu way of his — too proud to ask, but unwilling to walk away.