The night had darkened into a velvet shadow by the time Aika reached her apartment.
She hadn't thought twice about where to go. The hospital wasn't an option—not with the kind of people who had tried to erase Ren. If they had infiltrated corporate layers, there was no telling how far their reach extended. No paperwork trail. No risk of being found. He would be safe here.
Her hands gripped the steering wheel tightly as she looked over to the passenger seat. Ren lay crumpled and unconscious, a faint line of blood trailing from his temple down his cheek. His shirt was soaked with sweat and stained with grime, his chest rising and falling in erratic, shallow breaths.
He was burning up.
Aika stepped out of the car, then opened the passenger side. With a strength honed from years of martial arts and self-discipline, she bent low, curled one arm under his knees and the other under his back, and lifted him with practiced care. His head lolled against her shoulder.
"It's okay," she whispered, her voice tight with urgency. "I've got you."
She navigated the stairs of her apartment building like a ghost in the night. The halls were silent. The world had no idea that one of its quiet heroes had almost been erased.
When she reached her apartment, she unlocked the door with one hand, shouldered it open, and carried Ren inside. The lights remained dim, the soft amber hue of her standing lamp casting elongated shadows across the wooden floor.
She placed him gently on her bed, then stepped back, panting lightly, and stared at him.
His skin was far too pale except where it was flushed with fever. His wrists were chafed raw, deep, angry red grooves left by the ropes that bound him for too long. There was a faint purpling around his ribs, and the old blood dried around his lip cracked open with every breath.
Aika moved in a blur. She stripped the blankets from the bed, grabbed the first aid kit from the cabinet above her sink, fetched a bowl of cold water and a clean towel, and returned.
She set the kit down, then dipped the towel into the water, wrung it out with shaking hands, and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
His body jolted slightly at the sudden cold, then trembled.
His fever was rising fast.
"No," she murmured. "Not now. You've already made it back. Don't give up on me now."
She opened the kit and carefully cleaned the wounds on his wrists, hissing through her teeth as she saw how deep they were. "How long did they keep you tied like that…?" she whispered, voice tight with anger and something else—something more fragile.
She bandaged his wrists slowly, reverently, wrapping the gauze with gentle but firm precision. Then she checked his ribs—bruised, but thankfully not cracked or broken. She found a few more cuts and cleaned each one, as if tending to a sacred relic.
As she worked, her thoughts weren't just on the wounds.
They were on him.
On how he had looked at her when she found him.
On how his voice had cracked, barely a whisper, when he said her name.
He still had that look in his eyes.
That same look from long ago.
She tucked a thick blanket over him, then folded the towel again, refreshed the water, and placed the cool compress on his forehead.
He stirred.
His lips parted, and a faint sound escaped.
"Aika…"
But it wasn't the name she used now. It wasn't her legal name, her courtroom name.
It was her childhood name. The one only a few people had ever used. The one she hadn't heard in nearly two decades.
She froze.
Her fingers stilled on the edge of the blanket. Her eyes moved to his mouth.
Did he just—?
Her pulse quickened, and her breath caught in her throat.
"Aika…" he whispered again, softer now. The syllables melting into each other, blurred by fever, but unmistakable.
Her chest tightened.
She knelt beside him, eyes wide, heart slowly unravelling.
She didn't answer.
She didn't know what to say.
Instead, her hand moved of its own accord—brushing damp hair from his forehead, cupping his cheek, her thumb tracing the bruise near his temple.
Then, from somewhere deep within, almost like a memory speaking through her lips, she whispered—
"You're still letting the world hurt you, aren't you?"
She didn't even realize the words had come out until the silence answered her.
She wasn't sure why she said it.
She didn't even understand the full weight of what it meant.
But she felt it.
A protective fire in her chest. The same fire that had always pushed her to shield the vulnerable, to fight for those who couldn't raise their fists.
The same fire that once made her step, in front of a helpless boy on a rooftop.
Her voice softened. She adjusted the towel again. "You don't have to do that anymore," she added quietly. "Not alone."
Ren's body twitched, not in pain—but in response.
A ghost of a smile tugged at the edge of his mouth. Faint. Fleeting. But real.
His eyelids fluttered weakly.
And then, slowly, they cracked open—just barely.
Blurry brown eyes met hers, dulled by fever, fogged with exhaustion—but somehow still holding that quiet, deep gentleness she remembered.
And in that brief moment, a tiny flicker of recognition passed between them.
Then his eyes closed again.
And he slipped back into the warmth of unconsciousness.
Aika sat there for a long time, watching him breathe, watching his chest rise and fall beneath the blanket.
For the first time in years, she didn't feel like the lawyer or the martial artist.
She felt like the girl who had once stood on a rooftop between the helpless boy and the bullies.
Only now—he wasn't being picked on by school bullies.
He was fighting the world.
And she was here.
And this time—she wouldn't leave.
What if the fire that once protected them is what brings them back together again?