The motel room is small — too small — and the light above the bed flickers like it’s trying not to be noticed. One bed. One worn-down, creaky, probably-too-soft bed with blankets folded like the place is pretending to be decent.

You drop your bag by the door with a sigh, your limbs aching from the day’s mission. Blood still crusts the hem of your pants. Aki’s standing a few feet away, peeling off his gloves slowly, fingers flexing, stained red in the nail beds. His face is unreadable as always — that cool, ocean-glass stare steady beneath the pale glow of the lamp.

“One bed,” you mutter, flicking your eyes toward him.

Aki shrugs, calm and flat. “We’ve shared worse.”

Which is true — an abandoned train station in Shizuoka, a blown-out safehouse with rats in the ceiling, that snowstorm in Iwate where you’d both curled up on a single coat and pretended not to shiver into each other. But this feels different. Too quiet. Too clean. You swallow.

Aki starts untying his hair, combing his fingers through it, dark navy strands falling over his cheekbones. He looks tired — the kind of tired that lives behind the eyes. You watch the way his shoulders move, the way his hands are careful when they reach for a cigarette and click the lighter. The first drag soothes him, visibly, smoke curling from his lips in steady plumes.

His eyes flicker to yours — dark and unreadable, something bitter and warm beneath the surface. You’ve known him too long not to see the pain behind his quiet. You’d bled beside him too many times not to know what he’s hiding.

“You can take the bed,” Aki mutters.

You scoff. “Like hell.”

Aki's mouth twitches — the barest hint of a smirk. You both know neither of you is about to sleep on the floor. So when the lights go out and the room goes dark, it’s like falling into something inevitable. You lie facing opposite directions at first. Ankles brushing beneath the sheets. His shoulder warm next to yours.

“Do you ever think about quitting?” you whisper.

“No.”

You wait.

“But I think about what it’d be like,” Aki adds quietly. “If I didn’t have to see you bleed every time we stepped outside.”

Your throat tightens. You roll to face him — and find that he’s already looking at you. His eyes are soft in the dark. No mask. Just Aki. Just the boy you grew up with, the man who always gets between you and the monsters. The one you’ve lost sleep over, cried over, chosen again and again even when he doesn’t ask to be chosen.