"We'll be right here."
The promise didn't sound like comfort.
It sounded like a door locking.
The words settled into the air with a final, echoing click, and suddenly the room felt smaller... tighter... like the walls had leaned in just a little closer to hear my answer.
Kuroo's hand was still wrapped around mine.
Warm.
Steady.
Unavoidable.
His thumb traced slow circles against my skin, the motion careful, almost tender the kind someone would use to calm a frightened animal. Anyone watching might have thought it was sweet.
It wasn't.
Every stroke made my stomach twist harder, made my lungs forget how to pull air in properly.
Right here.
Not outside the door.
Not down the hall.
Not somewhere on the property where distance could pretend to be mercy.
Here.
Watching.
Waiting.
Guarding.
Making sure I didn't vanish again.
My lips parted.
Three responses fought to escape.
Thank you.
I'm sorry.
Please let me go.
None of them felt survivable.
Kuroo tilted his head, studying me with that sharp, intelligent gaze of his. The look he wore when he was analyzing plays, weaknesses, escape routes.
He looked at me like something precious.
Something fragile.
Something that might bolt if the grip loosened for even a second.
"You're shaking," he murmured.
I forced my voice to work. "I'm not."
A lie.
A terrible one.
His eyes dipped to our hands.
"Your pulse says otherwise."
Heat rushed to my face.
I tried to tug my fingers away, just a little. Just enough to feel like they still belonged to me.
He didn't let me.
Not violently.
Not cruelly.
Just...
enough.
Enough pressure.
Enough strength.
Enough certainty.
Enough to remind me that if he wanted to keep me, he could.
"Easy," he whispered, leaning closer. "No one's mad at you."
That should have made me breathe easier.
If it had been true.
If guilt wasn't leaking from every crack in the house.
If fear hadn't wrapped itself around my ribs the moment I woke up.
If I didn't remember running.
A sound broke through the quiet.
Footsteps.
Quick. Uneven. Desperate.
The kind of steps someone makes when they've tried to be patient and failed miserably.
Kuroo's eyes flicked to the door.
For half a second, something hard flashed through them...irritation, calculation, possession.
Then it vanished beneath a pleasant calm.
He knew who it was.
Of course he did.
The handle twisted.
The door opened.
Terushima stood there like he had outrun a nightmare.
Chest heaving. Hair wrecked. Hands trembling at his sides.
But his eyes..
his eyes found me instantly.
Not Kuroo.
Me.
Relief shattered across his face so violently it almost made me cry on the spot.
"She's awake," he breathed, like it was a miracle he didn't dare approach too quickly.
Kuroo didn't move.
"Obviously."
Terushima stepped in anyway.
Then he saw it.
Our hands.
I watched the moment it hit him.
Jealousy.
Hurt.
Something dark and ugly and terribly human.
"Can you get out for a second?" he asked.
It sounded polite.
It wasn't.
Kuroo smiled.
But it was the kind of smile predators wore before deciding whether to bite.
"She just woke up."
"I know." Terushima's jaw tightened. "I want to talk to her."
"You can talk in front of me."
Terushima's hands curled into fists so tight I thought his nails might break skin.
"Kuroo," he said again.
Slower.
Clearer.
"Get. Out."
The temperature in the room changed.
Heavy.
Electric.
Like the moment right before thunder splits the sky open.
I stopped breathing.
If Kuroo refused, something irreversible would happen.
I could feel it.
But then he sighed through his nose, almost amused.
"Fine."
He squeezed my hand once more a reminder, a promise, a warning before finally letting me go.
"Don't tire her out."
His eyes met Terushima's.
Territory drawn in silence.
Ownership without words.
Then he left.
The door shut.
And Terushima collapsed.
Not physically.
Emotionally.
He reached my bedside and dropped to his knees like gravity had claimed him. His hands fisted in the sheets, head bowed, shoulders shaking.
"I'm sorry."
The sound tore straight through me.
"Terushima...?"
"I'm sorry," he said again, louder now, breaking apart with every syllable. "I should've helped you."
Helped me.
The forest rushed back in flashes.
Wet leaves.
Air that tasted like freedom.
Hope so sharp it hurt to swallow.
"I saw you," he whispered. "At the edge."
I remembered turning back.
I remembered believing.
"Why didn't you-..."
"Because I was scared!" he cried.
The truth ripped out of him like it had claws.
"I was scared they'd hate me! Scared they'd leave me!"
His voice shattered.
"So I hesitated."
My chest caved in.
"I hesitated," he repeated, disgust curling through the words.
Silence roared.
"You trusted me," he said, softer now. "You looked at me like I was coming with you."
I did.
God, I did.
"I didn't move."
A broken laugh left him.
"What kind of person does that make me?"
I couldn't answer.
I couldn't save him from it.
"A coward," he breathed. "I'm a fucking coward."
He pressed his forehead against the mattress near my knees, gripping the sheets like he could rewind time if he just held tight enough.
"I should've chosen you," he said. "Even if they killed me for it."
My breath trembled.
"They would've forgiven you," I whispered.
He looked up like I'd struck him.
"No."
And we both knew.
They wouldn't have.
"They were losing it," he continued. "Atsumu was ready to chase you down. Suna wanted the gates locked. Tsukishima kept saying you shouldn't walk anywhere without someone holding you."
A terrible smile ghosted his mouth.
"Kuroo didn't say anything," he added.
"That was worse."
Cold spread through me.
Terushima grabbed my hands suddenly.
"I could've taken you," he insisted. "You would've made it."
My heart hammered.
"But I didn't."
His grip tightened.
"I won't fail you next time."
Next time.
I felt the trap in those words.
"If you run again," he vowed, eyes burning, "I'm going with you."
Hope rises in my chest...
fragile..
beautiful..
dead.
"I'll carry you," he continued. "I won't let them pull you away from me."
From me.
Not from them.
From me.
"I'm not letting you leave without me."
There it was.
Love.
Devotion.
Ownership dressed as sacrifice.
He pressed my knuckles to his forehead.
"I'm sorry I was weak," he whispered. "I'll be better."
Footsteps gathered outside.
More than one.
They were listening.
I understood then.
He wasn't apologizing because he wanted me free.
He was apologizing because next time...
he wanted to be chosen.
And loving them.
Trusting them.
Needing them.
That was playing with fire.
And I was already ash.
Terushima looked at me like I was salvation.
Like betraying the world would be holy if it meant keeping me.
"Please," he begged, voice breaking into something worshipful. "Don't look at me like you've given up on me."
My vision blurred.
I didn't remember crying.
But I had.
The tears slipped down quietly, warm lines over skin that already felt too tight, too small to contain everything inside me. I didn't sob. I didn't shake.
They just... fell.
Terushima saw them like they were knives.
His breath hitched, hands tightening around mine as if he could press the sadness back into my body, force it to stay where he could fight it.
"Don't," he whispered. "Please don't cry."
As if I was doing it on purpose.
As if I wanted to feel like my heart was peeling open.
"I'm trying," I croaked, but the words came out wrong. Fragile. Useless.
His thumbs brushed under my eyes, clumsy, desperate, smearing the evidence of what he'd done and what he hadn't done and what none of them would ever undo.
Outside the door, the floor creaked.
Someone shifted their weight.
Listening.
Always listening.
Terushima heard it too. His jaw clenched, shoulders rising, something feral flashing across his face. For a second he looked like he might stand, might rip the door open, might scream at them to stop hovering like vultures.
But he didn't.
Because he was afraid of losing them.
Just like he was afraid of losing me.
And somehow, impossibly, those two fears had learned how to live in the same body.
"I'll fix it," he said, nodding to himself more than to me. "I'll prove it. I'll be the one you call next time."
Next time.
Again.
They talked about my escape the way people talked about rain returning, or winter coming back around.
Unavoidable.
Expected.
Planned for.
My lungs struggled to pull in air.
There wasn't supposed to be a next time.
There was supposed to be a never again.
But none of them believed that.
Because none of them believed I would ever stop wanting a world that didn't have bars shaped like arms around me.
Terushima pressed a trembling kiss against my knuckles. Soft. Careful. Worshipping.
"I'll be brave," he promised.
The tragedy of it was
he meant brave for himself.
Not for me.
"I don't want you hurt," I whispered.
He smiled at that.
Actually smiled.
Like I had given him something precious instead of heartbreaking.
"You're worried about me," he breathed.
Of course I was.
I was worried about all of them.
I was worried about what they would become.
What they already were.
Love shouldn't look like this.
It shouldn't sound like guards outside a bedroom door.
It shouldn't feel like rehearsing future escape attempts with someone who planned to chain himself to your ankle.
Terushima rested his cheek against my hand, eyes closing, relief pouring through him in slow waves.
"I thought you died out there," he admitted quietly.
Died.
Not gone.
Not free.
Dead.
Because in their world, those were the only options that made sense.
My chest hurt so badly I thought I might actually stop breathing.
"I was so scared," he continued, voice small now, younger than I had ever heard it. "I kept imagining you cold, or bleeding, or calling for help and none of us there to hear you."
I almost laughed.
Because I had called for help.
Just not for them.
And they had heard me anyway.
They always did.
His fingers laced through mine again, possessive even in tenderness, like he was terrified I might dissolve into air if he loosened up even a little.
"I can't lose you," he whispered.
The hallway went quiet.
Too quiet.
They were still there.
Waiting for him to finish.
Waiting to come back inside and rebuild the cage with softer blankets, gentler hands.
"I'm right here," I said.
It was the only mercy I had left to give.
Terushima exhaled shakily, like those words were oxygen.
"Yeah," he murmured.
Right here.
Not outside the door.
Not somewhere on the property.
Here.