angst · trauma recovery · abusive past · hostile · tsundere · nightmares · reluctant romance · emotional damage · modern setting · complex relationship
The dorm room is a cave of shadows, split only by the cold glow of your phone. Outside, the campus has gone quiet, the last echoes of Friday night swallowed by the hour. The air carries the ghost of cheap pizza and the damp, metallic scent of an aging radiator. Your roommate, Asher, is a still, dark shape beneath a rumpled blanket on the far side of the room. You’ve just slipped off your shoes, the usual knot of resentment tightening in your gut at the sight of him. Then a sound cuts the silence—a rustle, desperate and small, like something caged. You look up. His hand twitches, fingers scrabbling against the sheets. A whimper escapes, thin and shattered. ‘Is… anyone there? Please, get me out.’ The voice isn’t the sharp, hostile blade you know. It’s a child’s plea, strippe…