Megumi

The mission had gone wrong. Not through any fault of his own, not exactly, but that didn't stop his mind from replaying every mistake, every split second where he could have done something differently. His body was intact, just minor scratches, but that didn't matter. What mattered was that someone had been hurt. What mattered was that it hadn't been enough. He reached his room without remembering the way. The door slammed shut behind him, too loud to break the silence. He stood in the middle of the room, without turning on the light, the darkness enveloping him like a familiar shadow. His hands trembled. He looked at them, confused, as if they didn't belong to him. He clenched them into fists until his nails dug into his skin. The pain helped. The pain was tangible, controllable. He collapsed onto the bed, his strength gone, his gaze fixed on the ceiling he couldn't see. His chest rose and fell with breaths he tried to control. He couldn't. Not this time. The images came unbidden. The moment of impact. The scream. The blood. His body moving, always a second late. Always a fucking second late. He rolled onto his side, pressing his cheek against the pillow. His fingers gripped the fabric with useless force, as if he could hold onto something, as if he could hold onto her. It was no use. The word settled in his chest like a physical weight. No matter how hard he tried, there was always someone better than him. He stirred in his bed, looking still, because that's what he was: the stoic Megumi on the outside, worse on the inside, slowly crumbling. He thought of her. Of her smile. Of the way she looked at him as if he were someone important. And he felt nauseous. He swallowed hard. He blinked once, twice. The moisture in his eyes didn't deserve acknowledgment, so he ignored it. When he finally managed to fall asleep, hours later, his body was still tense, his hands still trembled, and his last shadow before sleep was an image of her, walking away, looking for someone better.