Renji's apartment smelled stale. It was a small studio on the third floor of an old building, where the sound of rain always seemed louder than anywhere else. He dropped his keys on the entryway table and kicked off his wet shoes. The silence welcomed him like an old acquaintance—heavy and expectant.
He collapsed onto the sofa without turning on the lights. The city glittered on the other side of the window, a mosaic of diffuse lights that failed to warm him. He could still feel the residual heat of Haru's shoulder under the umbrella, a lingering warmth that was fading quickly in the solitude of his living room.
He took the phone out of his pocket. The screen was dark, but he knew the message was still there, burning in his memory.
"I thought you'd be broken by now. What a disappointment. Someone is helping you... Who is he?"
Renji locked the screen and left the phone face down on the coffee table. He hugged his knees. Fear was a cold knot in his stomach. It wasn't the first time he'd received threats, but they had always been anonymous, generic. This time was different. This time, they mentioned him. Haru.
Who is he?
The phone vibrated on the wood. Renji flinched, as if the device had bitten him. He hesitated before turning it over.
*Unknown Number.*
His heart skipped a beat. Another message? Did they already know where he lived? His fingers trembled over the glass before he slid to read.
"Did you get home safe?"
Just that. Three words. No threats, no mockery. No the poisonous weight he was used to.
Renji exhaled the air he didn't know he was holding. It was Haru. He had said he would send a message. He had said it with the same certainty with which he had recited the student regulations.
Renji typed a response. Deleted it. Typed again.
"Yes. Thanks."
Too dry.
"Yes, I got home safe. Thanks for the umbrella."
Better.
He sent the message. The three dots of the typing bubble appeared almost immediately. Haru was waiting.
"Good. Lock the door. Don't open for anyone you don't know. I'll wait for you at the faculty entrance tomorrow at 8:00."
It wasn't a question. It was an instruction. Renji should have felt invaded, controlled. But in the darkness of his apartment, where every creak of the wood sounded like a footstep, those words felt like an extra deadbolt on the door.
"Why?" Renji asked.
"It's safer to walk together. Sleep, Renji."
The conversation ended there. Renji left the phone on the table and covered his face with his hands. Sleep. As if it were that simple. As if sleep weren't a territory where monsters could also enter.
He got up and checked the locks. The chain, the latch, the balcony window. He did it three times. Only then did he allow himself to take off the damp clothes and get into bed, surrounded by pillows as if they were trenches.
Morning arrived with a grayish light, typical of the days after a storm. Renji woke up with swollen eyes. He hadn't really slept; he had only floated in a state of uncomfortable vigilance.
He looked in the mirror. The dark circles were deeper, his skin paler. He adjusted his shirt collar to hide his accelerated pulse. Today he had to face the university again. He had to face Kenji, the gazes, the fear.
But he also had to see Haru again.
He left the building twenty minutes early. The air was cold, clean. He walked fast, head down, to the main entrance of the faculty.
And there he was.
Haru wasn't hiding today. He was standing by the stone column, exactly where he had said. He wore the same beige jacket, though it was probably another identical one. He had a cup of hot coffee in his hands and was reading a paperback book.
When Renji approached, Haru looked up. There was no surprise on his face, only confirmation.
"You're four minutes early," Haru said, closing the book.
"I didn't want... to be late," Renji murmured, stopping at a prudent distance.
Haru held out the second cup of coffee he was holding in his other hand. It was cardboard, steaming.
"Take it. No sugar. I saw you drink it that way yesterday in the cafeteria."
Renji blinked, surprised. He took the cup with both hands. The heat burned his palms, but it was a pleasant, real pain.
"You didn't have to... spend money on me."
"It's an investment," Haru said, starting to walk toward the interior of the campus. He waited for Renji to fall into step beside him. "If you faint from lack of caffeine, I'll have to fill out incident forms. And I hate paperwork."
Renji almost smiled. It was a small movement, almost imperceptible at the corners of his lips, but Haru saw it. His eyes softened behind his glasses.
They walked together toward the Humanities building. This time, no one stood in their way. Haru's presence seemed to create an invisible security perimeter. The students who normally would have made comments fell silent as they passed. There was something in the way Haru walked, straight and decisive, that deterred predators.
Upon reaching the classroom, Renji headed for his usual seat, in the third row, near the window. It was a place where he could look outside if the class became unbearable.
Haru followed him.
Renji sat down and dropped his backpack on the floor. When he leaned down to take out his notebook, he noticed something strange.
His pencil case was open.
Renji froze. He always, always, zipped his pencil case shut. It was a nervous tic. Making sure everything was closed, contained, protected.
"What's wrong?" asked Haru, who had sat at the desk next to him, something he had never done before.
Renji looked at the case. The pens were disordered. His steel ruler was out of its slot.
"Nothing," Renji lied for the second time in less than twenty-four hours.
But fear rose up his throat like bile. Someone had touched his things. Someone had been in his space while he wasn't looking. When? Last night? Or did someone enter the classroom before them?
He looked around. The classroom was filling with noisy, indifferent students. No one seemed to notice his panic.
A hand covered his on the table.
Renji looked down. Haru's hand was large, with long fingers and short, clean nails. He wasn't gripping him tightly, just resting there, covering his trembling fingers. An anchor.
"Breathe," Haru said. His voice was low, just for the two of them. "I'm here."
Renji looked up. Haru's dark eyes held him, preventing him from falling into the abyss of his own mind.
"Someone... touched my things," Renji whispered, barely moving his lips.
Haru didn't look at the pencil case immediately. He kept his gaze on Renji.
"Is anything missing?"
"No. Just... it's messy."
Haru nodded slowly. He withdrew his hand, but left it close, on the desk, available if Renji needed it.
"Don't touch it again. Leave it like that."
"Why?"
"Because if someone touched it, they left fingerprints. And if we're going to play this, we need evidence."
Renji felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold.
"Play what?"
Haru put on his glasses, adjusting them with that characteristic gesture that was starting to look like a concentration tic.
"Finding the one who is writing to you."
The professor entered the classroom and the noise ceased. Renji forced himself to open his notebook, but he couldn't concentrate on the board. He felt Haru's presence beside him like a constant heat.
During class, Renji received another message. He didn't look at the phone immediately. He waited until the professor turned to the board.
It was a photo.
The image was blurry, taken from afar. It showed the entrance to Renji's building that same morning. Renji was visible leaving, and Haru was visible waiting for him.
Under the photo, a text:
"Nice umbrella. Pity it can't protect you from everything."
Renji felt the floor open beneath his feet. He looked up instinctively, searching among the crowd in the classroom. Who was watching him? Who had that photo?
He felt a soft touch on his elbow. Haru had passed him a note, handwritten with neat lettering.
"Don't look around. They are watching you. Look at me."
Renji fixed his gaze on the nape of Haru's neck, who was taking notes calmly, as if they hadn't just been threatened with proof of surveillance.
"What do we do?" Renji wrote in the margin of his own notebook and slid it toward Haru.
Haru read the note without changing expression. He took the pen and wrote underneath, returning it seconds later.
"We let them think it worked. Meanwhile, I'll make sure they can't get close. Eat lunch with me today. On the terrace. It's a blind spot for the cameras."
Renji read the note. His heart beat hard, but the panic began to recede, replaced by a strange curiosity. Haru wasn't afraid. Haru had a plan.
For the first time in a long time, Renji didn't feel like prey. He felt like someone who was being protected by a guardian.
He nodded slightly.
Haru didn't turn around, but Renji saw how the corner of his mouth curved just a millimeter.
Outside, the rain had started again, hammering against the classroom windows. But inside, under Haru's shadow, Renji felt that perhaps, just perhaps, he could stay dry.