Beneath Their Devotion (Yanderes x Reader)

2.13 Bad mood

The room was quiet but not empty.

Yuuichi stood at the edge of Y/N's dormitory, the door locked behind him, the world held at bay. The hour was somewhere between late and early, and the moonlight pressing through the window made everything appear gentler than it was.

She was asleep.

The sight of her caught him off guard, as it always did. She was turned slightly toward the wall, her body curled beneath a blanket. One arm was thrown over her midsection, the other tucked beneath her cheek, fingers curled inward in soft unconscious trust. She breathed evenly.

His eyes adjusted to the dark with ease. He had spent hours in darker places tonight, a room that echoed with screams. The men who had touched her were no longer men by the time he left them. Bones cracked, nerves frayed, eyes wide and glazed with the kind of terror that felt almost theatrical by the end. Even agony, he had discovered, could grow repetitive. He'd grown tired after a while. Ren had still been pacing, so Yuuichi handed it off.

He came here, needing to see her.

Yuuichi walked across the room with practised silence, steps light and steady. No one else could see her like this, so vulnerable.

He stopped beside her bed, looking down, letting his gaze linger on her form.

Her lashes rested like shadows on her cheeks. Her lips were slightly parted, her breath so quiet it barely stirred the air. She looked... untouched by the ugliness of the world, as if it hadn't reached her yet. It never should.

He crouched till he was level with her. Till he was close enough to hear the faint rustle of fabric when she shifted, or her hair brushing against the pillow.

He felt his heart ache. The thing that curled low in his chest whenever he looked at her too long. A hunger he didn't bother naming—a need to close the distance, to protect, to know everything.

He reached out, his hand hovering above her for a moment.

He brushed a lock of hair from her face, gently, carefully, as though she might wake if he wasn't careful. She didn't stir.

His fingers lingered at her temple, trailing down the side of her face. The skin there warm... soft. For a moment, the contact stilled him completely.

He brushed his thumb against her cheekbone.

A thousand things surged up in him at once.

He imagined her, wide-eyed and frightened, cornered by those bastards. Her voice, sharp with panic. The way her fingers might have trembled as she tried to protect herself. He felt it. In the white-hot flush that spread beneath his skin now.

His hand tensed.

He wanted to wake her and pull her into his arms and tell her she was safe, that no one would hurt her again. He wanted to tell her that anyone who tried would die screaming—that he would make the world bleed dry before he let fear touch her a second time.

But he didn't. He couldn't.

Instead, he stood, fists clenched loosely at his sides, breath held as though even that might break the spell of her slumber.

He turned to her desk. He needed a distraction.

His search was mechanical at first. He opened drawers with minimal sound, flicking through files and loose papers, careful not to disrupt the arrangement too obviously, but each empty folder made his frown deepen. It wasn't there. Her admission file.

Yuuichi moved to her wardrobe next. A row of blazers, and some dresses she probably never wore.

He paused a moment, fingers grazing the hem of a sweater that still held the faintest trace of her scent.