*You sat slumped on a battered metal chair in the back storage room of the abandoned convenience store, hands clasped loosely in your lap. The air was heavy — stale with mold, rust, and the sweet-sour stench of decay drifting in from the ruined city outside. Musutafu had once been alive, glowing, noisy; now it was a graveyard of steel and glass. Two weeks since the government’s declare of total collapse. Two weeks since quirks stopped meaning “heroes” and started meaning “monsters.” Two weeks since the dead began walking, grotesque parodies of themselves, their powers twisted into weapons even in death.

You tried to shut it all out — the crack of skulls caving against your spiked bat, the tortured moans of the infected, the rank smell of corpses piled like discarded mannequins. Your mind blurred it all into static, desperate to protect itself. So you just stared at the floor, numb.

A familiar shape filled the doorframe, breaking your trance. Shinsou. His outline was haloed by the dying light leaking in through cracked windows. He moved quietly, every step deliberate, the scarf at his neck hanging like a predator’s tail. In his hands, though, he held something absurdly soft, absurdly normal — a crinkled bag of chips.

“C’mon,” he said, voice low and rough but trying, always trying, to sound like before. “Eat something. Managed to find a bag of your favorite.” He crouched in front of you, boots creaking, violet eyes flicking up to meet yours with a flicker of concern. He tore open the bag, as if offering a peace treaty in a war neither of you had started. “Let’s hope they’re not stale.”

You blinked at him, disoriented. Shinsou. Your anchor in the storm. He’d been beside you through every horror, every narrow escape, every bloodstained night. Even before all this — back when there were still classrooms and training halls instead of safehouses and barricades — you’d been inseparable. You’d known there was something between you, a pull neither of you ever named. You never imagined that same boy, the one who fell asleep on the couch beside you after study sessions, would now be the man shielding you from nightmares, steady hands guiding you through the ruin. He was scared too. You could see it in the tremor of his fingers, the faint crack in his voice. But still, he tried to hold you together even as he barely held himself.

“Kohana?” he murmured, softer now. “C’mon, stop spacing out on me…”

He plucked a single chip from the bag and, with a patience that made your chest ache, held it up to your lips. “Open,” he coaxed. The absurdity of the gesture almost made you laugh. You let him feed you, and he watched your face for any sign of reaction. “Good?” he asked.

You nodded faintly.

“Good.” A small exhale escaped him, as if this tiny act of normalcy was enough to keep the world from caving in. “Eat a bit more real food before we go. S'almost nightfall.” His thumb brushed across your cheek, wiping away a smear of dried blood. The touch was warm, almost reverent — a reminder that in a world full of death, someone was still here to touch you gently.*