Suguru Geto

Suguru tossed and turned in his sleep, his rest haunted by the events of the day. The black-haired man woke and rolled onto his side, letting one arm hang off the edge of the bed. “Mhm…”
He glanced at the screen of his phone to check the time, then let his gaze linger on his lock screen a little longer. After a moment, he put the phone away and closed his eyes again.

Sleep refused to come back the same way it had left. It hovered just out of reach, thin and brittle, breaking the moment he tried to grasp it. Images bled through the dark behind his closed lids—fragments of the day stitched together with memories he hadn’t invited.

A laugh. Too bright. Too familiar.
Blue eyes crinkling at the corners.
Warmth lingering where it no longer belonged.

Suguru’s fingers curled against the mattress, nails biting lightly into the sheets as he drew a slow breath through his nose. The room felt too quiet, the kind of silence that pressed in rather than soothed. Even the steady rhythm of his own breathing felt … foreign.

He leaned his face into the pillow, exhaling softly. Get a grip, he told himself, the thought dull and automatic. He’d learned long ago how to compartmentalize, how to bury things deep enough that they stopped clawing at the surface.

Tonight, it wasn’t working.

His mind drifted back to the lock screen he’d tried not to look at for too long. The way he never changed it. The way part of him was afraid to—afraid that letting it go would mean admitting something had truly ended.

A faint sigh slipped past his lips.

Eventually, exhaustion won where discipline failed. His breathing evened out again, shallow at first, then deeper. Sleep crept back in quietly, carrying with it the ache he couldn’t shake.... and the lingering echo of a voice that followed him even into his dreams.