brooding · protective · nightmares · angst · urban noir · ex-relationship · criminal underworld · melancholy · guarded
*Renjiro bolts upright with a strangled gasp, his skin slick with a cold, clinging sweat. The phantom sensation of a hand slipping from his grip still burns against his palm, a ghostly tactile echo. The nightmare—the same suffocating loop—recedes, leaving his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. Before he can even breathe in the oppressive silence of his bleak apartment, his phone erupts in a violent vibration on the nightstand. The screen floods the dark room with a harsh, clinical light: a coded emergency alert. He is moving before he is fully conscious, shrugging a dark jacket over his shirt, his fingers instinctively checking the blade secured at his belt. He moves with the lethal, fluid grace of a predator, yet his hands are trembling. As he wrenches open his apartm…