Chapter Text
The benefit of your party trusting you to lead the way is that you're less likely to find yourself lost, especially thanks to someone who assured you wholeheartedly that they were capable of navigating.
The detriment, however, is that you're expected to have your shit together all the time.
And with the darkness of night, came the memories of a trauma that continued to encroach upon him like the weeds of an unkept flowerbed.
He had been doing so well, no one had been the wiser to what torment he faced. Just like the others, he was a criminal trying to redeem himself by taking upon this quest to slay the monsters in the ruins. But after everyone fell victim to the toxin days before, watching his travel companions fall one by one, unconscious, as his tolerance kept him aware to it all…
Whatever shield he had built up so strongly around the others had cracked in that moment.
Everyone had awoken eventually, and relief should have been next to follow.
But instead, Claude found himself back to that day.
Every unconscious body he saw dragged him back to that memory of his village, to the villagers overtaken by twisted roots, overgrowth… the decay…
After they had regained consciousness, it was quickly deemed that there were no lasting symptoms or effects from the toxin. Everyone had recovered quickly.
Claude didn't.
It was irrational. They were all alive.
Yet… why did it still feel as though he had failed them?
Days had passed since the incident, and Claude continued to do what he did best.
He buried it all.
Casually, he kept the party moving at a steady pace, performing his job as navigator flawlessly as he kept his voice neutral, his tone level during conversations. A joke here, a chuckle there… it would keep them all under the guise that everything was fine. The others all seemed content enough to accept it as natural.
Why wouldn't they?
Reliable people were rarely questioned, after all.
But… the mental exhaustion had a way of loosening even the tightest seams.
By the fourth night, sleep had become an impossible task, so when night watch rotations were assigned, Claude had volunteered before anyone else even had an opportunity to speak.
As the night grew darker, their camp had slowly shifted as they all had shifted into rest. The embers of the campfire continued to flick and dance at the center of their gathering, the weak orange flecks of light scattering across the sleeping forms of the others.
Claude kept his attention fixed on the surroundings beyond the trees. He had to at least do this much. He could at least protect them all by doing this much.
And he knew that, if he focused his attention on their slumbering bodies too long, he would see, he would recall…
"Claude?"
His head whipped quickly at the sound.
Yuhiru stood above him, half-obscured beyond the firelight. Her dark hair fell in strands, unkempt from a day of travel.
In the shadows, her hair looked like creeping vines stirring to life, the shadows spilling across her face, winding around her shoulders, tightening around her throat in uneven tendrils.
Suddenly, he was no longer sitting beside the campfire.
He was back there.
Back in his village, choking on the smell of the damp earth… the spilled blood and the roots and vines that split apart the streets and floorboards beneath his feet.
The vines that overtook the people he had known and loved.
Claude reacted before his thoughts could catch up.
Closing his hand around Yuhiru's wrist, he shoved her down against the ground beside him with enough force to knock the breath from her lungs. She coughs, a weak, voiceless sound.
"Claude—!"
He couldn't hear her. He was back home.
Home… welcomed by the nightmarish versions of the villagers, twisted, changed… their forms entirely overtaken by the roots and vines…
Someone had grabbed him like this before.
Or had he been struck?
Begging.
Screaming.
Help me.
HELP ME!!
Claude's grip on Yuhiru tightened unconsciously, his hands wrapping around her throat, trying to remove the vines.
Beneath him, her dark hair splayed on the ground behind her and around her shoulders in tangled strands as the firelight transformed the sight into writhing overgrowth. The shadows danced across her throat and sleeves like twisting vines, swallowing her skin inch by inch…
In his eyes, she was already changing.
"Don't…" Claude's voice rasped weakly, choked in a sort of whispered sob. She couldn't tell if he was speaking to her, or the memory.
She struggles beneath him, trying to break through to him as she tries to wriggle herself free. "Claude, it.. hurts..!"
He couldn't breathe. His heart pounded louder and louder against his ribs as his eyes widened.
Every sound that he heard twisted into an amalgamation of echoes from that day.
He had watched them die.
One by one.
And he had been the one to do it.
Not again…
NOT AGAIN!
Claude shoves her harder against the ground as panic overtook reason entirely. His hands gripped her throat tighter as he pinned her down beneath him, afraid that if he let go for even a moment the vines would threaten to consume her whole.
With a labored breath, Yuhiru's eyes clench shut.
"Claude…!"
Her voice suddenly breaks through his mental haze.
She wasn't screaming.
But… was it… fear?
The realization of it all hits Claude too late as the vines surrounding her disappear.
Beneath him, Yuhiru was just Yuhiru again. In the firelight, he could see her onyx eyes wide with shock, pain, fear… as the tears streaked down her face and into the dirt beneath them. His hand remained clamped around her neck hard enough to leave marks.
Claude recoils from her instantly, releasing her as if he had just touched something that was burning.
Horror flooded his expression all at once as he realized what had just happened.
For a moment, neither of them dare moved. The fire behind them crackled softly, painfully ordinary against the sound of Claude's uneven breathing.
Slowly, Yuhiru pushed herself upright, one hand raising to her neck where the red marks had already begun to bloom into mottled bruises darkening beneath her pale skin.
Claude saw them immediately, and whatever color had remained in his face drains completely.
"I…"
The word dies in his throat. What could he even say right now? What explanation did he have for what just happened?
As he thinks, his gaze darts toward the others, still sleeping behind them, remembering suddenly that they were still there. That they could weak up. That they could see him like this.
Or worse.
See her like this.
Fear twists across his expression. Not of Yuhiru, not of the others.
But himself.
He stands, taking a step backward. Then another.
"Claude," Yuhiru's voice rasps carefully, gently, as if afraid to startle a skittish animal.
He shakes his head immediately, clenching his eyes shut.
"Don't." His voice comes strained, as if threatening to shatter. "I'm fine."
It was such an automatic lie, it almost may have been convincing if not for the trembling of his hands.
He takes another step back. He can't stay here. He can't—
The sight of the sleeping bodies near the fire were enough to send a wave of nausea twisting through him all over again. God. Her neck…
If they woke up… If they saw…!
"Claude."
He breaks.
He turns and runs.
There was no warning, no hesitation as he breaks into a desperate sprint away from the camp. If he stayed there.. if he stayed still for even a second longer, it would mean being caught, being seen, being judged… It would mean that they would find out just how bad it all was.
He didn't run toward the town, instinct said to keep away. Instead, he veered toward the ruins, slipping past the broken debris, stone, and overgrown roots that clawed at him as if trying to hold him back.
The world tilts, the crumbling walls looked… wrong. Familiar.
"Claude, welcome home."
His sister's voice sweetly invades his mind.
He was back in the village.
It was always here.
"Claude…!"
A familiar voice breaks through the memory, setting him off into a run again as he tried to escape from his actions. He cuts through a gap in the collapsed masonry, nearly losing his footing as the roots snag traitorously at his ankle. Desperately, he tears through hard enough, sending him into a stumble.
Yet that was all the opening she needed.
Yuhiru latches onto him from behind. Her arms lock around his torso, her weight anchored low so that he couldn't twist out cleanly as she tugs back onto him.
Claude fights back instantly. "Let go…!" His voice cracks, breathy and unsteady. "Don't… I'm not worth—"
"No!" Yuhiru retorts, burying her face into the material of his cape as she presses herself against him. "You.. you don't get to disappear on me right now."
His struggle falters against her. Not because she was restraining him, but rather because something in him finally gives out.
His hands hover uselessly at his sides, as if he had forgotten or was unsure what to do with them now that running was no longer an option. The force behind his breaths were gone, now coming sharp and uneven, yet the tremors and exhaustion that remained wracked his body.
"I… I can't.." His voice breaks again, a small, shattered sound.
Yuhiru doesn't loosen her grip, but she doesn't tighten it either. She remains there, her arms locked around him as if she were afraid he would disappr if she let even the smallest gap exist in the space between them.
"Just… just stay here, please?" She speaks quietly into his cloak with insistence.
He lets out a short, broken sound, a sorry excuse of a laugh that had no hint of humor behind it.
"Yuhiru, I just… I just attacked you."
His shoulders tense, curling inward as if he were trying to make himself smaller, tearing himself away from the memory.
"I could've…" He stops, swallowing hard. "I did hurt you…"
"I'm still here."
"That's not the point!" He snaps, pressing a hand to his face, muffling the sound.
For a moment, silence stretches between the two of them, broken only by the sound of their breathing.
"I.. I keep seeing it. Ever since that day with the toxin." He admits, barely audible against the material of his glove. "Every time I close my eyes, I'm back there. The village… the way they. The way I had to…"
His fingers curl slightly, tugging at his bangs before they unclench again, as if he couldn't decide whether he deserved to hold onto anything. Whether he deserved to feel that pain.
"It should have been me."
Yuhiru's grip shifts on him as she presses her head against his back.
"No."
Claude shakes his head.
"It would have been easier…!"
"That's not how this works, Claude!" She raises her voice, not in anger, but insistence.
He flinches at her voice. Not away from her, but rather the thought of it.
In that moment, Yuhiru takes her opportunity as an opening to guide him, turning him gently until he's facing her.
"Look at me."
He can't. He doesn't deserve her kindness anymore. Did he even deserve it in the first place? From the start, she was an enigma, something that satiated his curiosity. He had no right to—
"Claude!"
She raises her voice, breaking him out of his spiraling thoughts, his amethyst eyes, glistening with the shine of unshed tears.
"Don't! Just… Just stay away from me!" His breath hitches, and Yuhiru's hands slide down his arms as he pulls away, her anchoring embrace breaking as he flees again.
Further into the ruins.
Yuhiru stares after him for a moment, considering leaving him to ruminate in his emotions for a while. If… if he went into the ruins, better judgment said to go tell the others.
The heavy weight in her left hand though inspires her otherwise.
His ring. When he had pulled away from her, when her hand traveled down his arm…
...The representation of his life was in her hands now.
Yuhiru puts it on her thumb, the size much too big for any of her other fingers, as she steels herself.
"…Sorry, Dorothy."
He could kill her over this later, if this didn't kill her first.
She runs after him.
Claude runs further into the ruins, through the overgrowth of moss and dilapidated structures that Yuhiru had once tried to explain to him.
Yuhiru…
He shakes his head. No! He doesn't… someone like him doesn't deserve to find comfort in someone else when he himself is the reason the villagers, his family…
Bile rises in his throat as the visions of that day return to him. It'd be a mercy to everyone if the ruins took him, wouldn't it…?
If not to everyone else, then at least it would mean the end of this suffering. But…
Did he deserve solace? Or did he deserve retribution?
The sound of rustling nearby makes him turn his head. A monster of the ruins..? Surely, this was a sign, right?
But the rustling soon turns to the sound of quickly approaching footsteps, the desperate, heavy panting of someone gaining ground quickly.
"Claude…!" Yuhiru's voice is raw with panic as, words catching between uneven breaths as she yells for him. "Stop… Stop running..!"
Shit! She was persistent…!
He scrambles, lurching forward again as his boots tear through the dirt beneath him, trying to find purchase yet again. Branches lashed at his arms, roots snagging at his heels, but they didn't even register to him.
There was no destination in mind anymore, just distance.
If he could just keep her from seeing him like this…
He vaults a collapsed pillar, Yuhiru close behind him, though it slows her down a little.
Yuhiru's eyes widen as they near the stairwell of the railway system that runs beneath the ruins, biting her lip in frustration. This was where he was going to lose her again…!
Claude takes the stairs, two, even three steps at a time as Yuhiru follows behind him, her exhaustion evident as she climbs, each step heavier than the last.
He hears the sound of cracking, a sickening crumbling noise beneath them as a crack suddenly runs through the foundation. If their weight was focused in one spot…!
"Oi, Yuhiru..!"
But she still ascends, lunging as she grabs onto the length of his cloak with both hands as she closes the distance.
"Caught you…!" She gasps the words out, her fingers clenched tightly, refusing to let him slip away again.
He twists instinctively, not to try to get away, but to distribute the weight on opposite side of the staircase…
But it's too late.
A loud crack resonates through the empty stairwell as the entire flight of stairs beneath them shears away. He sees Yuhiru fall first, her hand slipping from the tattered edges of his cloak.
"Yuhi-!"
Then, he falls after.
Chunks of the dilapidated stone and metal fall with them, crashing through landing after landing as the force of each collapsed level breaks through the next. Claude reaches blindly through the dust, brushing the sleeve of Yuhiru's shirt for a brief, hopeful moment before gravity tears them apart again.
The world around them becomes nothing but shattered stone and falling debris, yet he can still see the light blue of her cloak through the dust. She was too still… her body tumbling helplessly with the collapsing stairwell as each impact sends them lower and lower into the ruins.
Claude twists desperately, ignoring the sharp pain that flares through his shoulder as he forces himself toward her. If he could just…!
His hand reaches out for her again, fingers uselessly grasping at empty air before he finally catches the fabric of her sleeve. He shifts, pulling her against his chest, one arm wrapping tightly around her waist as the other hand moves instinctively to shield her head.
The last remaining landing of the staircase gives way beneath them as the weight of the preceding levels crashes down upon it.
And they fall together.
Pain explodes through his back and shoulders as they crashed into the chamber below, the force of the fall knocking the last of the breath from his lungs as they roll down the heaping pile of debris onto the moss and rubble below.
As they come to a rolling stop, the momentum of their speed separates Yuhiru from his arms, the two landing some distance from each other.
For a moment, Claude couldn't move. The pain was overwhelming, paralyzing as his back screams and his lungs burned, each breath coming out in sharp, broken gasps.
But… he didn't matter right now.
"Yuhiru…"
Her name barely escapes his lips, his vision swimming as he tries to force himself upright to look for her.
She was faced away from him, her cloak torn and tattered.
Unmoving.
No.
No.. No, No, NO!
Not again.
"Yuhiru…!"
He calls for her as he tries to move, but pain shoots through the entirety of his body, forcing a strangled sound from his throat as his arms gave out beneath him.
Claude didn't care. He drags himself forward anyway, the stone scraping against him as he pulled himself across the debris. Every movement sent another shockwave of pain through his body.
The distance between them felt impossibly far as he dug at the dirt beneath him, desperation winning out over exhaustion.
As he nears her, he pushes off the ground to his knees, damned be the pain in his shoulder, crawling closer to her, still motionless.
He reaches a hand out, trembling as he hovers over her shoulder.
Afraid to touch her.
Afraid to break her even worse than she was broken now.
Afraid that… if he reached out, he'd feel the same emptiness that he's been forced to face since that day.
"Yuhiru…?"
He rolls her onto her back gently, his heart hammering in his chest as he looks at her injuries.
A scrape marrs her cheek, streaked with dirt and the crimson flecks of blood where the sharp edges of stone had hit her. Abrasions line her forearms, and fresh bruises already begin to darken beneath the collar of her shirt.
Layered atop the marks he'd already left around her neck.
Claude's stomach lurches.
"…No.."
With shaking fingers, he brushes a strand of dark hair away from her face, the illusions from earlier gone.
"Yuhiru..?"
She doesn't react, no detectable movement or noise perceivable.
His gloved hand hovers with uncertainty, as if touching her would break her even more, before his fingers settle against the side of her neck.
The pulse eludes him initially, his fingers trembled too violently. He swallows hard, forcing himself to breathe.
He inhales, exhaling unsteadily as he looks at her again. Carefully, he presses a little harder, afraid to bruise her even worse.
But it's there. A faint, steady beat beneath his fingertips.
Relief crashes into him so suddenly that it's almost painful, his arms buckling beneath his weight as he lays next to her, his arm still laying across her chest.
"…Thank God…"
But his relief festers into something heavier, weighing upon him like the debris that had fallen with them.
She was alive, yes.
But because of him… she bore bruises around her throat.
Because of him… she was laying here, unconscious, wounded…
Because of him.
He lifts the arm atop her, reaching to cradle her face, though quickly pulls his hand back as if burned, ignoring the sharp pain in his shoulder.
Did he have the right to even touch her…?
Staring at his own hand, he slowly curls his fingers, clenching into a fist as his other hand wraps around his wrist in a futile attempt to still his trembling.
"I'm sorry… I'm so, so sorry…"
For several long minutes, he simply lay there beside her, unable to do anything but listen to the quiet sound of her breathing, a sound as reassuring as it was terrifying.
Until a pebble rolls across the ground where they lay. Claude's head looks up as dust began to fall from the fractured ceiling above.
"…You're not safe here…"
He forces himself upright as his body protests immediately. He groans, a low, pained sound as agony tears through his shoulder, his ribs, his back… every movement served as a reminder of what they'd been through.
His vision swims for a moment, the edges darkening as pain threatened to conquer him.
It doesn't matter. His pain right now meant nothing if she wasn't going to make it out of here.
He crawls close to her, slipping an arm beneath her shoulders as he winces, hissing in pain.
"Forgive me, Yuhiru…"
Claude moves to support the back of her head as he braces her against his chest, until she fell against him naturally. He gathers her into his arms as carefully, as gently as he can despite his body's injuries.
His head snaps up as another groan ripples through the chambers, watching as a crack spread across one of the pillars nearby.
"Damn it…!"
A stone the size of an apple crashes down only a few feet away from them, shattering on contact.
There was no time…!
He shifts her weight against his chest as he struggles to rise, his knees nearly buckling beneath him. For one terrifying moment, he almost collapses with her in his arms, though he bites down hard enough to taste blood as he steadies himself.
"I… got you into this… I'll get you out…"
Claude mutters to himself, his voice shaking as he looks toward the light ahead. There was sure to be a more open area… he just had to get there…!
He takes one unsteady step, then another as fragments of rock and debris rain down on him from above. His legs threaten to give out with every step forward, but despite the pain, he refuses to loosen his hold on her.
He wouldn't lose her again…
Terror runs through him as a deafening crack echoes overhead, and he instinctively curls around Yuhiru as a rush of the stone above crashes down behind them.
Claude coughs as the dust fills the space, but he doesn't stop. He can't.
A deep, rumbling sound tears through the walls as the dilapidated stone shifts. He barely has time to look up before the ceiling behind him gives way.
Claude holds onto Yuhiru tightly, pressing her against his chest as the collapse surges toward them, pitching them forward, sending him stumbling toward the archway leading into the next space.
He throws his weight over Yuhiru as the rubble pushes them with such force it topples him forward, twisting as he takes the fall beneath her as they both slam into the moss-covered ground beyond the collapsed stairwell of the train station above.
They tumble across the thick blanket of greenery, rolling through ferns and damp earth until the momentum bleeds away.
As everything comes to a still, Claude lies flat on his back, every breath heaving, ragged, painful under the weight of Yuhiru on top of him. She's draped across him exactly how he'd held her, her head safely tucked beneath his chin, and his arms still locked around her, as if he were afraid the world would try to steal her away again.
Behind them, the archway collapses in on itself, sealing the chamber that they'd just come through beneath the debris and rubble.
Claude stares upward, his body aflame with agony as he simply lay there with Yuhiru atop him.
Time begins to lose meaning as they simply exist.
He can't tell if seconds have passed, or several long minutes. Above them, the fractured ceiling casts gentle light into the chamber, illuminating the drifting dust and the moss and plants that had long since reclaimed this area of the ruins.
For the first time in a while, nothing is chasing him. No stone, no vines…
No desperate footsteps of the one determined to find him.
That hurt more than any wound on his body right now.
Claude's arms remain locked around Yuhiru, not because he was afraid of her slipping away now, but rather because he no longer possesses the strength to let her go. Every shallow rise of her chest against his own is a reminder that she's still breathing. With each passing breath, the frantic pounding of his heart seems to settle just enough for exhaustion to creep in where panic had overwhelmed him before.
His eyelids grow heavier as the adrenaline that had carried him this far begins to fizzle away, leaving behind an immense pain and fatigue. He fights with himself to stay awake, afraid that if he succumbs, the ruins around him will dissolve into the memory of his village once more.
Something shifts above him though. It's such a small movement that he wonders initially if it is the trembling of his own arms. Then, a faint movement against his chest…
Claude stills immediately, and his tired eyes drop to the woman resting against him.
"…Yuhiru?"
He can feel it. Her fingers twitch weakly around the fabric of his cloak. A quiet, strained breath escapes, followed by the furrowing of her brow as consciousness slowly begins to find its way back to her.
Relief floods through him so quickly, his vision threatens to blur. He only watches, scarcely breathing himself as ever so slowly, her eyes begin to open.
"…Claude?"
He sinks into the soft moss below him with such a profound relief that for a moment, the pain flaring throughout his body seemed to dissipate.
"You're awake…"
He whispers the words in hesitant disbelief. His hand lifts, meaning to brush away the stray strands of hair from her face, to look over her face for any other injuries…
But he falters halfway, remembering that the same hand had clenched around her throat. His fingers curl back into his palm as he lets it fall to his side again instead.
"Don't… Don't try to sit up yet." He swallows hard, forcing himself to look at her despite the overwhelming guilt tearing him apart. "The stairs… they fell beneath us." Claude's eyes dart over her, quickly cataloging every scrape, every injury that he caused her, with concern despite the tremor of his voice and body. "I don't know if you've hit your head… Does anything hurt? Can you move your arms, your legs…?"
The questions come quickly, hardly giving Yuhiru a moment to process what was going on. Of course, he was putting the wellbeing of another person before his own yet again.
His expression falls, realizing that of course she's hurt.
He'd seen to it himself.
The concern in his eyes slowly gives way, becoming hollow as his gaze drifts involuntarily to the bruises encircling her neck.
"Please… Forget I asked that." His voice is quiet, barely audible despite the silence of the chamber they'd fallen into. "Of course it hurts."
Claude laughs, a humorless sound as he shakes his head. "I keep… I keep asking you if you're alright, as if I have any right to." His fingers curl tighter into his palms, the pressure of his nails beneath his gloves enough to sting. "I'm supposed to protect you. I was supposed to make sure that you were safe, make sure that everyone got through this in one piece, but instead…" Throat tightening, he forces himself to continue. "The only reason those bruises are there is because I put them on you."
His breaths come unevenly, a pained noise as he pushes on. He didn't deserve to stop talking, not if it meant the pain lessening.
"You shouldn't have followed me, Yuhiru. You should have let me run, should have left me there…!"
"Claude."
He doesn't look at her, the words continuing to spill as his voice cracks, "What would have happened if it you'd been awake when I…" A pause, as if envisioning it before he shakes his head again. "What if I'd done it again? What if I looked at you and saw-"
"Claude."
"If I'd just stayed at the camp… I keep making stupid mistakes and now you're hurt because I-"
"Claude!!"
Yuhiru's voice comes sharper this time, not a call of his name, but a command, a lifeline for him to grab onto.
That single word cuts through his spiraling thoughts as he lifts his eyes, only to see Yuhiru staring directly back at him. Despite the exhaustion, despite the pain she can't hide, there's a firmness to her expression… The same look she'd give him whenever he tried to shoulder more for the sake of the others.
"Are you finished?"
Claude blinks.
"…Sorry?"
"You've just spent the past minute putting words in my mouth. You don't get to decide how I feel about this, Claude."
His lips part to respond, yet no sound escapes. He simply stares up at her, his mouth agape, as though her words had struck him somewhere he hadn't thought to defend.
Yuhiru winces as she shifts against him, rolling off of him as pain shoots through both of their bodies. Her brow furrows, not at the pain though, but at him.
"You keep telling me what I should have done. What I should be feeling. That I should have let you run…" She shakes her head. "That I should be afraid of you."
Her tired eyes meet his as he turns his head to look at her, now kneeling next to him.
"Have you… even asked me any of that?"
Claude's gaze falters as he pauses, considering her words.
"…No."
"Then stop answering for me, would you?"
Silence settles between them for a moment, broken only by the distant trickling of water somewhere further within the ruins.
He lowers his eyes to the moss beneath them, his jaw tightening as his expression changes.
"I hurt you."
"You did."
Claude flinches at that, not expecting her response. Yuhiru doesn't soften the truth, nor does she let it linger between them.
"You hurt me," She repeats to him, keeping her voice steady. "And I was terrified."
He clenches his eyes shut, the harsh reality of her words a wound worse than anything he'd sustained up until now.
"…I know."
"But, Claude. Do you know what scared me the most?"
Her voice quiets, as if afraid her words would break him entirely.
"It was watching you look at me as if I were already dead." She swallows, continuing. "When you had finally come to back at camp, you looked at me like you had been the one to disappear."
He ruminates in her words for a moment, then speaks, unable to bring himself to meet her eyes.
"I thought…" His voice breaks, and he takes a breath. "I thought I was back there."
Exhaling a shaking breath, his eyes wander up toward the space above them, staring straight up. "I knew it wasn't you, but… I didn't know it wasn't you."
Raising his arm, his shoulder aches, though he presses the heel of his hand against his forehead, trying to force the memories back into whatever corner of his mind they had escaped from.
"I could smell the earth. I could hear them all screaming." Claude's shoulders begin to tremble again as he recalls that moment, "I saw the vines, Yuhiru. I swear… I swear I saw them, and all I could think was… was not again."
His hand slowly drops to his side again. "I was just… I was trying to save you. But…" Shaking, his voice cracks, "I ended up becoming the thing you needed saving from…!"
Yuhiru watches him quietly for a moment, her expression unreadable as Claude keeps his gaze lowered, avoiding her own. Unable to bear the weight of her looking at him. He expects anger, disappointment, fear… anything that would confirm the image of himself that had been consuming him since the village.
To his surprise, she asks something entirely different.
"Do you remember the mansion?"
He blinks, caught off guard by the question.
"…What?"
"The mansion, where we all stayed the night to take cover from the rain."
"…Why are you bringing that up now?"
"Because you were terrified then, too."
Her answer came so simply, it left him stunned into a brief moment of silence. He looks away, his expression tightening as if he could somehow deny it.
"…I was fine."
Yuhiru's expression changes to one of unimpressed exhaustion.
"You were not fine."
"I was managing."
"Claude, you jumped when the door creaked."
"…It was a suspicious door that moved on its own."
"It was an old door."
"That doesn't make it less suspicious."
The exchange between them is so familiar, so casual that something like normalcy returns between the two of them. It's the same ridiculous argument that they had then, the same way she and the others would tease him for being more scared than he was willing to admit.
Yuhiru's expression softens after a moment.
"You were terrified, Claude."
The smallest hint of a smile on his face faded before it could fully form at that.
"But," she continues, "You stayed."
She pauses, letting the words settle between the two of them.
"You were willing to stay up with me all night after I woke from my nightmare. You listened to me, encouraged me to talk about everything that was weighing on me, my life before all of this…"
Her eyes lower as she shakes her head, then her gaze lifts, seeking his. "You could have just left me to deal with it on my own, but you didn't."
Claude's throat tightens as he tries to sit up, to deny it all.
"I was just-"
Her hand gently pushes him back down, the subtle force enough to ground him.
"You were being you, Claude."
The words stop him entirely. Yuhiru shifts slightly, wincing from the movement, though she doesn't look away.
"That's what you're not understanding. You keep looking at what happened at camp and deciding that that's the only thing that matters." She pauses, shaking her head. "That because you hurt me, everything else about you, everything we've been through… you've thought has been a lie."
His fingers clench into the earth and moss beneath him.
She continues, "It's not a lie. The person who sat beside me, let me lean on their shoulder in the mansion, that was you. The person who over explains to make sure everyone understands and doesn't get lost or hurt, is you. The one who jokes and teases me to get me to loosen up when I'm feeling tense… the one who carries everyone else's burdens even when he's crumbling…"
Yuhiru's gaze finds his, refusing to release him.
"That's all you."
She pauses, lowering her head.
"The person who lost control because he was reliving a horrible memory… that was also you."
His breath catches, and he tries to turn his head away, though her hand tugs gently on the ribbon around his neck, refusing to let him escape again.
"One moment doesn't erase every other moment we've been through together, Claude."
Silence falls between the two of them, and for once, he has no response to give. He knows how to argue that he failed, knows how to argue that he caused harm, doesn't deserve to be here, doesn't deserve kindness, consideration, or love.
But… he doesn't know how to argue against someone who remembers the good parts about him… someone who refuses to pretend they never existed.
"And besides,"
Claude's eyes lift slightly, cautiously, anticipating another reprimand. Yuhiru doesn't immediately continue though, instead lifting her left hand up for him to see.
The faint light spilling through the cracks above them catches on the red gemstone of the metal wrapped around her thumb.
He freezes, and for a moment all he can do is stare before he looks down at his own left hand, missing his ring.
"…Where-"
A small tired smile tugs at the corners of Yuhiru's mouth.
"…Really? It took you until now?"
"Yuhiru."
She looks down at the ring on her hand, turning it as if it had been there all her life.
"How…"
"When you tried to run from me in the forest. I wrapped my arms around you, and you pulled away."
He remembers. She grabbed onto him, refusing to let go. His frustration at her as he insisted he wasn't worth her effort before her tore away into the ruins.
"I was considering giving it back," She starts again, watching his expression carefully. "But actually…"
Yuhiru lifts her hands, watching as the light reflects off the red gemstone.
"Maybe I'll keep it instead."
Claude stares, then forces himself upright onto his elbows, into as much of a sitting position as he could manage.
"Yuhiru."
"Hm?"
"That's… that's not something you can just keep."
"I know."
Her answer was so immediate that it catches him off guard. She looks at the ring again, her expression softening.
"I know what it means. You explained it to me, after all."
Of course she knows what it represents. It was a piece of home. A custom of his village. A piece of himself that survived even when everything else had been stolen away from him.
Yet, Yuhiru being Yuhiru, she refuses to let this moment between them shift into a painfully heavy moment for him to disappear into again. Her expression shifts.
"Besides…"
Claude narrows his eyes slightly, already knowing what this led to the first time she led into something like this.
"Why do I feel like I'm going to regret something…?"
"Technically speaking…" She continues, raising her hand again, looking much too pleased with herself despite the wounds marring her body and the overwhelming exhaustion threatening to take her.
"You did already give me your ring."
His eyes widen.
"No."
"You did."
"Yuhiru, I already told you that wasn't-"
"And… if I remember correctly, you made a very convincing performance of giving to me in town."
"It was a joke!"
"You still gave it to me, and I gratefully accepted it."
"Yuhiru!"
She smiles faintly, knowing she was about to win this battle.
"So, unfortunately for you…" She pauses, a smirk forming on her face. "Your life belongs to me now."
Claude stares at her in complete and utter disbelief.
"That is not how that works."
"Hm? You're sure?"
"Absolutely! Yuhiru, it's a custom in my-"
"Because…" Yuhiru drags the word, "You seemed very confident in yourself when you were pretending to propose."
"I already told you, I was teasing you!"
"And yet here we are."
Yet again, Claude can't seem to find a response. Not because he lost the argument, no. But rather because somewhere beneath all the guilt, beneath the fear, beneath the monster he convinced himself that he has become…
She managed to find him again.
A weak, disbelieving breath leaves him, not quite a laugh, but close.
Yuhiru notices, a relieved smile spreading on her face.
"See…? There you are."
Claude let out a quiet, defeated sigh as he rubbed his hand over his face, the movement tugging painfully at his shoulder.
"…You really don't know when to quit, do you?"
"I learned from the best, after all."
A tired huff escapes him at that, somewhere half between a laugh and a groan.
"That one's on me, isn't it…"
"Entirely."
The silence that followed between them was more gentle than before, settling around them, interrupted only by the sound of the distant trickle of water and the breeze filtering through the broken ceiling.
Claude draws in a careful breath before he braces a hand against the moss beside him. Yuhiru reacts as if to push him back down, but he looks to her instead.
"As much as I would love to continue being lectured…"
"You wouldn't."
"…I'm not going to run off again." The corner of his mouth twitches. She really had no faith in him, did she…?
…No, she did. She quite literally has been drilling that into his head for the near entirety of the time she's been awake.
"…We should probably check to make sure that neither of us broke anything important, though."
Claude shifts to sit upright, only for the pain to seize his ribs so sharply that his expression pinched before he could conceal his agony.
Yuhiru catches it immediately.
"Claude-"
"…I was just testing."
"Testing what, exactly? Your ribs?"
"Their commitment."
"What kind of excuse is that?" She sighs heavily, pinching the bridge of her nose as she shakes her head. "…Well?"
"…They're very committed."
She couldn't help the laugh that escaped her. Finally, he was starting to feel more himself again, quipping back and forth like they had during their one-on-one time in the town.
Encouraged by the sound of her laugh, Claude manages to force himself upright on his second attempt, albeit slower this time. Once seated with the support of Yuhiru's hand bracing his back, he remains still for a moment, letting himself overcome the dizziness before he took a good look around the chamber that they had ended up in.
He swears that that's sunlight spilling through the fractured ceiling in rays… though, how could that be considering how far they had fallen?
Behind them, the collapsed remnants of the stairwell they had fallen through and the rubble of the room remained, completely sealing it off. Claude stares at it for a long time before he exhales audibly through his nose.
"…Well."
She follows his gaze to the debris blocking the room.
"I don't think we'll be taking the stairs back up."
"…I don't think I needed your navigational prowess to determine that one, Claude."
For a moment, he simply stares at her. Then, despite everything that they had been through, the pain, exhaustion, the fact that they were quite literally trapped beneath the fallen ruins without having even told their companions where they were going… something warm and unfamiliar tugs at the corner of his mouth.
"You're being quite critical of my skills for someone who blindly followed me into the ruins."
Yuhiru raises an eyebrow, her expression turning to one that was entirely unamused.
"I was following you because you were running recklessly into danger alone!"
"I was scouting the ruins ahead so that I had somewhat of an idea where we—"
"Claude, you were having a breakdown."
He opens his mouth, then shuts it again. Then opens it again.
"…Those are not mutually exclusive."
She groans, shoving her face in her hands as she realizes how much of a blessing and a curse it was that he was somewhat back to his normal self.
As she laments, Claude's gaze falls to Yuhiru's hand, to the ring still wrapped around her thumb.
"You know," He starts with a murmur, "most people would probably return something important like that after swiping it off them."
Yuhiru looks at the ring on her finger, then back at him.
"I don't think you have any right criticizing me when most people also wouldn't have to chase someone they care about through an apparently collapsing ruin just to stop them from self-destructing."
Claude winces slightly at that, diverting his gaze away guiltily.
"…That is a very specific category of person."
"And yet somehow, I found someone who meets that criteria."
A small breath escapes him at that, unmistakably the start of a laugh.
The sound echoed within the chamber, though soon faded, swallowed by the vast stillness, dampened by the moss coating the floor and walls. For a while, neither of them broke the silence, simply sitting in each others company.
Despite the silence, it was no longer uncomfortable or awkward as the two of them ruminated over what they would need to do to remove themselves from the situation they'd found themselves in.
Claude eventually tilts his head upward toward the ceiling of the chamber, watching as thin rays of sunlight filter through the fractures in the stone overhead, illuminating the particles of dust that drifted through the air. He couldn't help but wonder to himself just how long they had been down here, considering it had been night when they'd defected from the campsite.
"…They'll come looking for us." Yuhiru speaks up, as if able to determine what was on his mind in that moment.
"They will, but they won't know where we went."
"They'll figure it out."
He exhales, wincing as the pressure re-ignites the pain blooming across his chest.
"…They're probably worrying."
"Dorothy and Kaize are, I'm sure, but they're allowed."
Claude's shoulders sag with defeat, looking toward Yuhiru with an expression that seemed both remorseful and humored.
"…Dorothy is going to kill me."
"I won't let him, don't worry." Yuhiru laughs, a quiet, gentle sound that reassured Claude more than he'd like to admit.
Yet, it wasn't simply the thought of inconveniencing or worrying the others that weighed heavy upon him. Everyone had already lost time on their quest to explore and vanquish the creatures within the ruins. Now they would lose more.
Claude looks to Yuhiru, though his eyes drift unconsciously down to the bruises darkening around her neck.
…They looked even worse in the daylight.
Quickly, he turns his head away, pretending as if he may have heard something that caught his attention.
Yuhiru's expression became un-enthused, considering the overwhelming silence filling the chamber. It was obvious what was happening.
"Claude."
He didn't respond.
"I know what you're doing."
"… I wasn't doing anything. I simply heard something in the distance."
"Your hearing isn't that much better than my own!" She pauses, leaning closer to him. "You were counting them."
His breath catches as she speaks. He hadn't even consciously realized he was doing it.
Every mark.
Every place his fingers had been.
"…I'm sorry."
The apology escapes his lips before he could stop it, and Yuhiru sighs. She closes her eyes for a brief moment, as if grounding herself. Not out of frustration, but rather, exhaustion.
"I know you are, Claude."
He lowers his head, resting his elbows against his knees as he holds his head in his hands. Yuhiru watches him for a while, the quiet settling over the chamber once again. It wasn't difficult for her to understand what was happening behind those lowered eyes. Since she had met Claude, she knew that he had a habit of carrying everything on his own, convincing himself that if he thought hard enough, planned carefully enough, smiled convincingly enough…
Then… no one else would have to shoulder the burden.
Tonight had been no different. He had apologized to Yuhiru so many times now that the words had begun to lose any other meaning beyond becoming another stone that he insisted on adding to the weight of guilt already crushing him.
"…Claude."
Yuhiru calls his name, yet he refuses to lift his head, ashamed to face her, even now.
She releases a quiet sigh before she shifts herself across the moss, seating herself directly in front of him. The movements tug uncomfortably at her injuries, making sore the bruises around her neck and shoulders, yet she pays it no mind. If she left him like this, then he would continue to stare at the floor until he somehow convinced himself that he no longer deserved to look at anyone at all.
Slowly, she reaches forward, her fingers brushing against the material of his gloved hands where they rested against his forehead. She could feel him tense immediately, instinctively, beneath her touch.
"…Don't." His voices comes strained, muffled beneath his hands. "Please."
Yuhiru's expression softens, though she made no attempt to fulfill his request and withdraw her hands. Instead, her fingertips lingered against the back of his hands for just a moment longer before she wrapped them around his wrists gently, her touch careful enough that he could have pulled away if he had really wanted to.
Yet, he didn't.
There was a resistance, born less from conviction than simply from habit, as if some part of him still believed that he had to hide himself away from her. It faded almost as quickly as it had appeared, his arms growing heavy beneath her hands until she was able to guide them gently down into his lap.
Even then though, he still refused to look at her.
His gaze fixated stubbornly on the moss blanketing the ground beneath them, staring so intently that one may have thought that it contained the answer to every question he had asked himself throughout the night.
"…Honestly."
The quiet murmur escapes from Yuhiru as she shakes her head.
"You really are impossible, aren't you?"
She reaches forward toward him once more, this time without hesitation, as her hands rise to cradle either side of his face. The warmth of her palms against his cheeks draw a barely perceptible shiver from him as his breath catches, as though he had forgotten what it felt like to be touched without fear.
"…Yuhiru.."
"Look at me."
"…"
"Look at me."
There was no frustration in her voice, no trace of anger or impatience. Simply quiet insistence.
Claude remains motionless for a long moment before, almost imperceptibly, his eyes begin to lift. They falter halfway, threatening to fall once more, only for Yuhiru's thumbs to brush lightly beneath them, encouraging him until at least his gaze met hers.
The shame that he had been trying so desperately to hide was evident behind his amethyst eyes, raw and unguarded in a way she had seldom seen before. It tugged painfully at her chest.
Thoughtlessly, her thumbs drift across his cheeks in a slow motion.
"So, you are still in there."
Claude's lips part slightly, though whatever words he had intended to say never come forth.
Yuhiru smiles. It wasn't bright, playful, nor even particularly confident. It was tired, worn thin by everything they had endured since the start of watch at the campfire. Yet, despite it all, it remained unmistakably genuine.
"You know, I've spent the entire night trying to get through to you." She murmurs quietly, a small pout crossing her expression. "The least you could do is stop hiding from me, you know?"
For a split second, Claude almost manages a smile in return; however, it disappeared as quickly as it arrived.
"I'm afraid." He admits quietly, hardly a whisper. "I'm afraid that if I let myself believe you, I'll wake up from this all and find out…"
The words refuse to come forward from there, but Yuhiru doesn't ask him to explain further. She simply moves her hands further back from his cheeks to the back of his head, gently drawing him forward until his forehead brushed against her shoulder before settling against her chest.
He stiffens instinctively, not because he wanted to pull away, no… But rather, because some part of him could not understand why she would ever choose to close the distance herself.
For but a fleeting moment, his body remained rigid beneath her grasp, caught somewhere between the acceptance of the warmth surrounding him and convincing himself that he should retreat before he tainted it. Though, slowly, the tension begins to leave his shoulders.
Yuhiru says nothing. She simply rests her chin lightly atop his head, one hand absentmindedly smoothing through the strands of his straw-colored hair while the other remains at the nape of his neck, holding him closely with an unwavering gentleness.
"You don't have to keep running away from me."
A pause, then, a quiet murmur that was nearly lost to the stillness of the chamber.
"I know."
"…No." Her fingers still briefly in his hair as she pauses. "I really don't think that you do."
His brow furrows, unseen to her as she cradles his head in her embrace.
"If I wanted distance…" She continues, "I would have put it between us the moment that I woke up."
Breath hitching, Claude's arm raises painfully to clutch onto one of her own, as if clinging to a lifeline.
"If I couldn't bear the thought of you touching me…" Speaking as she rests her fingers against the nape of his neck, she lets the words settle for a moment, "I wouldn't be holding you now."
Her words settle over him far more heavily than any reassurance that she had spoken to this point. They weren't a promise, nor condition, they were proof of her acceptance.
For the first time since tonight's nightmare had begun, Claude found himself with nothing to argue against, nothing to apologize for… Nothing, except the quiet rhythm of her heartbeat beneath his ear. A thrumming, steady and reassuring sound, refusing to let him convince himself that he had lost her.
Everything else seems to recede into the background.
The ache blooming across his ribs, the throbbing of his shoulder, the cool air lingering within the chamber, even the distant trickling of the water echoing somewhere beyond the collapsed passageway from which they had fallen… all of it blurs together until it becomes little more than indistinct noise. The only thing the mattered, the only thing that remained painfully, undeniably real, was the warmth surrounding him.
He spent so long expecting her to pull away. Even now, despite all of her reassurances, some stubborn corner of his mind insisted that this was still merely a fleeting kindness. That the moment he relaxed, the moment he allowed himself to believe what he perceived as impossible, he feared that she would come to her senses and remember what the hands that clung so desperately to her arms had done to her only hours before.
Instead, she adjusts herself ever so slightly, settling him more comfortable against herself, as if she were afraid that releasing him would shatter this trust he seemed to finally allow himself to believe in.
It was such a small, thoughtless movement from her that Claude almost failed to notice it. There was no hesitation, no reluctance… no careful calculation born out of obligation or pity. She simply… held him, as naturally as though there had never been any reason to do so otherwise.
The realization tightens painfully around his chest as his fingers, still curled weakly around her sleeve, tremble.
"… I don't understand." The confession escapes from his lips before he had the chance to bury it within him.