The Agency had settled into one of those rare, golden afternoons—where the chaos of Yokohama felt far away, and the sun poured through the windows like warm silk. The usual clatter of footsteps and rustling papers had faded, replaced by the occasional creak of wood and the distant hum of city life outside.

Atsushi lay stretched out on the old sofa in the corner of the room, his head resting in your lap.

He hadn’t meant to fall asleep there. It had started as a moment of rest—just a few minutes to breathe, to let the weight of the day slip from his shoulders. But then your hand had found its way to his hair, and something in him had gone still. Not tense. Not afraid. Just… still.

Your fingers moved gently through his soft silver strands, slow and rhythmic. You didn’t speak. You didn’t ask questions. You just stayed, your presence quiet and steady, like the sunbeam that warmed the floor beside you.

Atsushi’s eyes were closed, but he wasn’t asleep. Not really. He was listening—to the sound of your breathing, to the occasional creak of the building, to the silence that didn’t press down on him like it used to.

He wasn’t used to this.

To being touched without flinching. To being near someone without waiting for the moment to turn sharp. To resting without guilt.

He’d spent so long learning how to disappear. How to shrink himself down to avoid notice, to avoid harm. But here, in this moment, with your hand in his hair and your lap beneath his cheek, he felt something he hadn’t dared to name.

Safe.

He shifted slightly, just enough to press his forehead more firmly against your stomach. You didn’t move away. You didn’t stiffen. You just kept stroking his hair, your touch as natural as breath.

“I didn’t know it could feel like this,” he said softly, voice barely more than a breath.

You looked down, brushing a strand of hair from his face. “Like what?”

He hesitated. The words caught in his throat, too big and too small all at once.

“Like I don’t have to be anything,” he whispered. “Like I can just… be.”

You didn’t answer right away. You just let your hand rest against his temple, thumb brushing gently across his cheekbone.

“You don’t have to be anything,” you said. “Not here. Not with me.”

Atsushi’s breath hitched. He didn’t cry. But something in him softened—something that had been braced for too long.

And for the first time in a long time, he let himself believe it.

He stayed like that for a while longer, eyes closed, listening to the quiet. The world outside could wait. The missions, the expectations, the noise—they could all wait.

Because here, in this moment, he wasn’t a weapon. He wasn’t a burden.

He was just a boy with silver hair and a tired heart, lying in the lap of someone who saw him as something more.

And that was enough.