The Weight He Couldn’t Carry Alone

The fluorescent hum was the only sound that refused to yield to the night. The monitor in Random Play’s back room cast its pale blue light across the cluttered desk—spread-out footage logs, a half-empty coffee cup, and a young man with his forehead pressed against the worn wooden surface, as though every ounce of strength had been drained from his body.

Wise had held this position for a long time. Long enough that his breath had dampened a small patch of the overdue film records stacked beside him. Long enough that the neon outside the window had cycled from bright to dim. Long enough that the scenes endlessly replaying in his mind—the sudden data-stream corruption, the abrupt Ether fluctuation, his own reaction arriving half a beat too late—had looped more times than he could count.

This afternoon’s exploration had nearly ended in disaster. He should have anticipated the next floor’s layout change three seconds early, but the encryption protocol in that sector had been upgraded without warning. When he slammed through the firewall, his fingers had trembled on the keyboard. Three seconds. The combatants on his team had been faster than him by three seconds. The comm channel had filled with the screech of an energy shield overload—shrill, laced with static, and it had burrowed into his ears and refused to leave.

If you hadn’t cut the connection in time, they’d be trapped in the third-layer rift right now. He’d told himself this over and over, each repetition weaker than the last. It didn’t help. That alarm was still coiled in his stomach, cold, refusing to dissolve.

Belle had been sent to bed an hour ago. His sister had stood in the doorway for a long while, lips parting as if to speak, and then closing again. Wise had pulled the corner of his mouth into something approximating a smile. “Just a bit more. Go sleep.” His voice came out like sandpaper dragged across rough wood. Belle had turned away eventually, her footsteps dragging slowly up the stairs.

He’d heard her door click shut. After that, the shop was left with only the fluorescent buzz and his own breathing.

Time blurred. The data reports in front of him smeared into a mess of black and white spots, and he couldn’t muster the energy to rub his eyes. When the front door—the one with the loose hinge—creaked open, he assumed it was the wind. Or Belle coming back down. He didn’t look up.

Footsteps stopped behind him. Not Belle’s gait—she walked lightly, landing on the balls of her feet first. These steps were heavier, steadier, the heels striking the wooden floorboards in an even rhythm. Unhurried. Like whoever it was had all the time in the world.

Wise stared at the reflection of his own fingers on the desk. The person stood there for a few seconds, and then he heard the soft clink of ceramic being set down—and simultaneously, something cold was slid away from his right hand. His coffee, long gone bitter and undrinkable.

In its place, a curl of warm steam washed over the back of his hand, carrying the clean, slightly bitter scent of brewed herbs.

He lifted his head slowly.

Yanagi stood by the desk. The sleeves of her cream-colored cardigan were rolled to her mid-forearms, revealing the slender wrists that had held a blade through countless missions. She was setting his cold coffee cup on the side cabinet, her movements casual, unhurried, as if she were in her own home. She wasn’t wearing her Section 6 jacket. The top button of her collar was undone.

She pushed the warm cup toward him. Plain white ceramic, with a fine hairline crack along the rim. The tea inside was clear and golden, a few dried chrysanthemum blossoms floating on the surface, slowly unfurling.

“Yanagi… miss?” Wise heard his own voice—dry, carrying that particular roughness that comes after long silence. “Is there data to hand—”

“No.”

She pulled the chair beside him and sat down. The legs scraped against the floor with a short squeak, and Wise’s brow twitched—he’d meant to oil that chair for weeks. The fact that he was noticing the sound at all told him how exhausted he was.

Yanagi didn’t explain why she was here at this hour. She folded her hands on her knees, back straight, posture identical to how she stood at a tactical briefing. But her gaze wasn’t on the papers spread across his desk. Her gaze was on his face.

“I read the after-action report,” she said. Her tone was even, neutral, as though she were reciting a file that had nothing to do with either of them. “The encryption protocol shifted mid-operation. You recalibrated and severed the connection within three point seven seconds. All personnel extracted safely, including two of my operatives.”

Wise’s nails dug into his palms. “Three point seven. That’s slower than normal by—”

“Slower than normal by less than a second.” Yanagi cut him off. “Three layers of encryption spiking simultaneously. It’s a miracle you didn’t crash entirely.”

“But the shield overload alarm in the comm channel—” His voice rose half a tone before dying again, the muscles at the back of his neck tightening. “I heard it, Miss Yanagi. They took a direct hit because I was slow.”

Yanagi was quiet for a moment. Her eyes traced from the hard line of his jaw to his fingers, white-knuckled against his palms, and then back up.

She reached out and took his clenched fist in her hand.

Her palm was dry and cool, steadier than when she held a blade. She didn’t try to pry his fingers open—she simply pressed her palm against the back of his hand, slowly enveloping his curled knuckles, waiting for him to loosen on his own. Her thumb traced across the side of his hand once, unhurried, back and forth.

Wise froze. The muscles in his neck tightened further, and his breath caught. He had never seen Yanagi do anything like this. She always maintained an arm’s length of distance, her gaze level, her words precise, and then she stepped back. She didn’t even brush fingers when passing documents.

“Wise.” She said his name without honorific. Two syllables, short, like dropping a stone into still water.

He looked at her. Her knee was nearly touching his.

“Every anomaly in the Hollow is unpredictable. You carry the entire team’s data interface through your own consciousness—a load beyond what most Proxies can bear.” She hadn’t moved; her hand still held his, her palm still dry. “Today, you assessed the situation and chose to preserve everyone rather than push forward recklessly. That was a decision, not a failure.”

Wise’s lips parted. Something was lodged in his throat—he couldn’t tell if it was grievance or something else. His eyes began to burn. He turned his head to look away, but Yanagi gave him no room—her gaze held steady in front of him like a wall.

She released his hand. In that instant, Wise felt something slip away from between his fingers, and before he could grasp what it was, Yanagi’s body was already moving toward him.

Her arms came around his shoulders and back, and the warmth of her full body reached him through two layers of fabric—the softness of her cardigan, the stiff edge of her shirt collar pressing against his neck, the scent of her shampoo mixing with the cool night air still clinging to her clothes. Her chin rested on the top of his head, folding him into her entirely.

Wise’s spine went rigid as a plank. His shoulders were hunched, both hands hovering awkwardly in midair, unsure where to land. His forehead pressed against her collarbone, and he could feel the resonance of her voice through her chest.

“You’re allowed to be afraid.” Her voice came muffled through the knit fabric, warm, a little muted. “You’re allowed to feel like you weren’t good enough. But you are not allowed to carry it alone.”

Her arms tightened a fraction. His nose pressed into the weave of her cardigan.

“I won’t let you carry it alone.”

The hovering hands finally came down. First just his fingers, clutching the fabric of her cardigan at her back—tentative, testing whether this was real. Then a little tighter, knuckles whitening.

His shoulders started shaking. Then his back. Then everything he’d been holding for longer than he could remember—today’s three seconds, every near-miss before it, the late nights practicing expressions in the mirror after Hollow extractions, the hours before dawn sitting alone in front of a screen until the monitor went dark—all of it, as though someone had cracked a seam in his ribs, came pouring out.

He heard himself inhale—short, shattered, like someone who couldn’t swim breaking the surface. Heat spilled from his eyes, soaking into the cream-colored wool at her shoulder, a small patch darkening rapidly.

Shame surged. He tried to pull back, to say sorry or I’m fine or anything that would make this stop, his shoulders already retreating—

“No.”

Yanagi’s palm pressed against the back of his head, pushing him back into place. Her fingers threaded through his hair, not hard, but she didn’t leave room for argument.

“Here, you can cry.”

All his resistance crumbled. His whole face buried into the hollow of her shoulder, his grip on the wool at her back tightening tighter and tighter. The air he pulled in still shuddered; when he released it, sound came out with it, and he couldn’t hold it back. The damp patch on her shoulder grew a little wider.

The shop went quiet. The only sounds were the low hum of the air conditioner, the occasional stray cat in the back alley, and the ragged rhythm of his own breathing. Yanagi’s hand stayed at the back of his head, her thumb tracing slow circles along his hairline, over and over like the final waves receding from a shore.

The chrysanthemum tea still gave off faint wisps of steam. A golden blossom turned over on the surface.

After some indeterminate time, Wise lifted his head from her shoulder. His eyes burned, his nose had gone red, and her hand had mussed his hair beyond repair. He wiped his face with the back of his hand, then realized his hand was wet. He sniffed, opened his mouth, and managed:

“…Sorry.”

Yanagi looked down at the dark, damp patch on her shoulder, then back at him.

“Your clothes—”

“They wash.” She said. Her eyes were lowered, and at the corner of her mouth there was the faintest curve—so slight he almost thought he’d imagined it. “You don’t.”

She didn’t move away. The space between them was still that close, close enough that she could feel the residual dampness on his face stir with her breath. She lifted her hand and pressed the pad of her thumb to his cheekbone, tracing slowly over the track of a dried tear. Her thumb was slightly calloused.

“Tea.” She nodded toward the white cup. “Drink it. Then sleep. I’m not leaving until you close your eyes.”

Wise blinked. A droplet still clinging to his lashes fell onto the desk. “Miss Yanagi, you really don’t have to—”

“I told you.” She cut him off, her gaze steady. “I won’t let you be alone. This isn’t an assignment. This isn’t scheduling.” She paused, the hand resting on his curling a little tighter. “I came because I wanted to. Because I wanted to—”

She didn’t finish the sentence. But the broken thread hung there between them, and he didn’t reach for it.

Wise lifted the white cup with both hands. The steam hit his face, carrying the scent of chrysanthemum and honey. He took a sip—slightly bitter, then sweet, the warmth traveling from his tongue all the way down to his stomach. He drank in small sips, and with every swallow, felt something in the cracked seam inside his ribs get filled just a little more.

Yanagi sat beside him. She didn’t check her phone. She didn’t flip through the papers on his desk. She just sat, one arm draped over the back of his chair, her fingers hanging loose near his shoulder—not quite touching, but close.

When Wise set the empty cup down, exhaustion hit him like the full weight of the night all at once. His eyelids were too heavy to lift, his head beginning to droop. He heard Yanagi shift—she reached out, steadying his shoulder, guiding him back against the chair.

“Close your eyes.”

“Front shutter—”

“Locked.”

“The Bangboo parts—”

“Tomorrow.”

“Belle—”

“She can handle the morning. She said so.”

His resistance crumbled. His head tilted to the side and came to rest on Yanagi’s shoulder. She didn’t pull away—instead she adjusted slightly, letting him settle into a more comfortable angle. Her palm came to rest on his back, through his shirt and her cardigan both, and every few seconds she patted gently, lightly, like rocking a child.

In the final instant before consciousness slipped away, he heard her voice from somewhere far off, so quiet it barely existed.

“Here.”

Then nothing.

He dreamed of a balcony in spring afternoon sunlight. There was warmth. A cup of tea. A hand holding his that didn’t let go. All the flickering data and alarms had retreated beyond the walls.

Yanagi looked down at the young man asleep against her shoulder. The two furrows that had been carved between his brows for so long had finally smoothed out. His breathing was even, the rise and fall of his chest gradually slowing. She reached over, slid the empty cup out of reach, then pulled the spare thin blanket from the back of the chair, shook it open, and laid it over him.

She tucked the edge of the blanket under his arm. He curled inward slightly, but didn’t wake.

Outside, the sky shifted from ink-black to gray-blue, and from gray-blue began to pale. The alley cats had gone quiet. The front clock chimed once—half past five in the morning, probably.

Yanagi didn’t move. She stayed in that position, back against the chair, her shoulder tilted just slightly by the weight of him. Her fingers rested on the blanket over his back, feeling the rhythm of his breathing. The monitor had long gone dark; the papers on the desk were losing their definition in the gradually brightening light.

She lowered her head and pressed her lips to the tuft of hair sticking up from his forehead. So light that he didn’t even stir when he shifted in his sleep.

Her gaze traveled down to his hand resting outside the blanket. The knuckles still held faint red marks from when he’d clenched them. She laid her own hand over his, palm to the back of his hand, not gripping—just resting.

“From now on.” Her voice was so small only she could hear it. “I’m with you.”

Morning light slanted through the back window, falling on the bottom of the empty cup on the desk, across the edges of scattered documents, over his fingers lying outside the blanket. The light shifted slowly, crossing her hand resting on his, crossing the shadow of their overlapping forms.

The air conditioner still hummed. The curtain’s edge lifted in a faint breeze and settled back down.

He slept. She kept watch. Outside the window, the day was breaking.