Adventure of Sazabi's Yuki Takamora 4

Eric's room is dark except for the streetlight leaking through the blinds. Yuki thrashes across the bed, crying in her sleep, sheets twisting around her legs.

Eric, a slim young man with spiky ash-blond hair, wearing an open silver-gray shirt and thin glasses,, stumbles upright beside the bed. His clean-shaven face tightens as he reaches for the lamp.

Warm light fills the cramped room, catching the tremor in his hand and the scattered music gear near the wall. He keeps his distance, watching for a response.

The nightmare sharpens into something horrible just beyond the darkness, a shape pressed against the memory of the room. Terror locks around Yuki's breath.

The scream tears through the cramped bedroom. Yuki jerks upright, sheets falling away, and the vision breaks beneath the warm lamp's glare.

Eric flinches but stays beside the bed, hands raised where she can see them. The noise leaves his face pale and his glasses slightly crooked.

The scream has won her back to waking, but her composure is frayed thin. For several seconds, Eric's voice reaches her only through a heavy, trembling hush.

The last of Yuki's control gives way. She folds over herself, sobbing hard enough to shake the bed, tears bright beneath the warm lamp.

Eric lowers himself to sit on the floor beside the bed, keeping his hands visible and his voice gentle. He does not reach for her without permission.

The room holds the uneven rhythm of her breathing and the soft mechanical hum of the lamp. Eric watches her carefully, pale but steady.

He remains beside the bed through the sobs, close enough to be present and far enough to leave her space, waiting for her breathing to find a safer rhythm.

Yuki finds Eric's face through the blur and fixes her red gaze there. She draws one careful breath, but it catches halfway and breaks into several shallow ones.

The effort leaves her breathing faster rather than steadier. Eric notices and changes course, turning the lamp's pull-chain until its small metal click marks an even rhythm.

The pattern cuts through the room's hush: click, pause, click. Her breath still stutters, but the panic no longer pulls her gaze away from him.

He keeps the clicks slow and predictable, leaving the next step open: follow the sound, or let him try another way to anchor her.

Yuki keeps her red gaze on Eric and listens for the next click. For a few seconds, his face and the lamp stay aligned in the fragile rhythm.

Then the pattern slips. The clicks seem to multiply inside the room, and Eric's features blur at the edges despite her effort to hold them still.

The pull-chain goes quiet. Without the clicks, the room feels suddenly wider, but Eric remains in view, one hand resting open on his knee.

His voice lowers with the lamp's hum. The failed rhythm leaves her without a task to force, while the room offers the scattered gear, the blanket, and the steady edge of the bed.

Yuki fixes her attention on the bed's edge. Its straight seam stays where it should, dark fabric against the warmer floor, unmoving while the room swims around it.

The blur loses some of its force. The seam remains a simple boundary beneath her gaze, and her breath begins to leave her in slower, less broken pieces.

Eric stays seated on the floor, his open hand still resting on his knee. He follows her pace instead of adding another rhythm, letting the quiet do its work.

Yuki reaches across the bed and catches Eric by the shirt, pulling him close. The careful breathing breaks, and she folds against him, crying again.

Eric shifts onto the edge of the bed so she does not have to reach. One arm settles around her shoulders only after she has pulled him in, steady and warm through the shaking.

Her tears dampen the front of his silver-gray shirt. Eric keeps his breathing slow but does not ask her to follow it, letting the embrace replace the failed exercise.

The lamp hums beside them. The bed's edge remains beneath her hand, while Eric stays close and gives the room no demand beyond his quiet presence.