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(yandere! choso x reader) chapter 2
Summary:
Y/N only wanted Choso to love her back. So, heartbroken and desperate, she makes a wish for him to love her more than anything in the world. At first, it feels like a dream â he finally sees her, wants her, needs her. But Chosoâs love quickly becomes something darker, deeper, and impossible to escape. Y/N wished to be loved. She never wished to be free.
â§Ë° â ïž c/w Ë°⧠this series contains dark yandere themes â obsession, manipulation, gaslighting, captivity, stalking, blood play, and identity corruption. expect dubcon, breeding kink, rough intimacy, praise/degradation, and explicit sexual content. also includes violence, emotional coercion, and toxic romance. read at your own risk âĄ
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For a moment, Y/N forgot how to breathe.
Across the street, beneath the broken streetlight, Choso stood completely still.
The rain had thinned into a mist, delicate and silver, catching in the weak glow above him. It softened the world around his body until he looked like something half-real, something the night had dreamed up and placed there just to see what she would do. His dark hair hung loose around his face, damp at the ends, framing the pale sharpness of his cheeks. Shadows cut across his eyes, hiding them from her, but Y/N could feel his gaze anyway.
She felt it on her skin. On her throat. On the place where her pulse had started to panic. He was smiling.
Not much. Not wide. Not with teeth. Just enough for her to see the slight curve of his mouth from where she stood frozen on the sidewalk, her phone clutched so tightly in her hand that her fingers had gone numb.
The same black jacket. The same broad shoulders. The same tired posture she could recognize from half a block away. The same man who had looked at her beneath a streetlight less than an hour ago and told her, gently, devastatingly, that he could not love her the way she wanted him to.
Y/Nâs breath came back in a sharp, painful inhale.
The wish could not have worked.
Her mind grabbed onto that thought with desperate force, holding it so tightly it almost hurt. It was impossible. Ridiculous. A stupid local legend. A tree in an old park with ribbons tied to its branches. Heartbroken girls probably went there all the time and cried dramatic things into the dark. That did not mean the universe listened. That did not mean something under the bark of an ancient willow had heard her ugly little prayer and decided to answer.
Choso had followed her because he felt guilty. That was all. He had seen her run off crying and decided, too late, that maybe letting her walk home alone was cruel. Maybe he had taken a different street. Maybe he had called until she ignored him enough times to make him worry. Maybe he had come looking for her because that was the kind of thing Choso did.
A shiver crawled down her spine.
Because that thought did not feel true anymore.
Choso stepped away from the streetlight.
Y/Nâs stomach tightened.
The light above him flickered once, buzzing weakly before dimming again, and for a second his body disappeared into shadow. Only the outline of him remained, tall and still and moving toward her with unhurried certainty. His footsteps were quiet against the wet pavement. Too quiet. The city continued around them in distant little piecesâcars rushing through puddles, sirens whining somewhere far off, the low electric hum of buildings breathing in the darkâbut around Choso, everything felt muted.
As if the night was making room for him.
She wanted to. Her body screamed at her to step back, to cross the street, to turn around and walk home like this was normal, like her hands were not trembling, like her heart was not beating so hard she could feel it behind her teeth.
But she stayed there. Rooted. Like the willow had followed her out of the park and wrapped its thin, invisible roots around her ankles.
Choso crossed the empty street without looking both ways.
A car turned the corner too fast, headlights sweeping over his body in a sudden wash of white. For one brief second, Y/N saw him clearly.
His pale skin shone almost unnaturally in the moonlight, cold and beautiful, rain clinging to his lashes and cheekbones. His expression was soft. That was what made it worse. There was no anger there. No panic. No wildness she could name. Just tenderness, stretched thin over something deeper. Something watching from underneath.
Then the headlights passed. His face slipped back into shadow. Y/Nâs mouth went dry. He was closer now. Only a few steps away.
Close enough for her to see the slow rise and fall of his chest. Close enough to smell rain on his clothes. Close enough to remember what his voice sounded like when he had said her name earlier, heavy with warning, heavy with regret.
Now he said it again. âY/N.â
Her name came out quiet. Almost affectionate. Almost hungry. She swallowed. âChoso.â
His eyes lowered briefly to the phone in her hand. Then back to her face. âYou didnât text me,â he said. Y/Nâs fingers tightened around the device.
The words should have sounded normal. They were normal. He always asked her to text when she got home. That was their routine, their soft little almost-intimacy, the thing that made her feel cared for and pathetic all at once.
But tonight, the sentence landed differently. Not like concern. Like accusation. âYou didnât text me that you got home safe,â he continued.
The mist drifted between them. Y/N forced herself to breathe. âI know.â Choso tilted his head slightly. The movement was small, but it made her skin prickle. âWhat are you doing here?â
She glanced past him, toward the dark mouth of the street leading away from the park. Her apartment was not far. She could still leave. She could tell him she was tired. She could laugh this off. She could pretend she had not stood in front of a cursed tree and asked for him to need her so badly that nothing else mattered.
âI justâŠâ Her voice caught.
Y/N tucked her phone into her coat pocket, mostly so he would stop looking at it. âI needed to take a walk.â His eyes did not leave her.
âThe park is closed.â
Her pulse jumped and she looked at him. Something about his face remained unreadable in the dark. His brows were relaxed. His mouth still had that faint softness to it. But his stare had sharpened, fixing on her with a focus that felt too intense to be natural.
âHow did you know I was in the park?â she asked. For the first time, Chosoâs smile faded. Only slightly. âI saw you come out.â Her stomach turned.
Then, softer, âI came to find you.â
Those should have been different things but they did not feel different. Y/N took a small step back without thinking and Choso noticed.
His eyes dropped to her feet. Then rose again, slowly, as if tracking every inch of distance she had tried to create.
âAre you waiting for someone?â he asked. The question chilled her more than the rain.
âAre you waiting for someone?â he repeated.
His voice stayed gentle. That was the horrible part. He did not sound jealous. He did not sound angry. He sounded genuinely curious, like there was an answer he needed from her before deciding what the night would become.
Y/N shook her head. âNo.â
âThen why didnât you go home?â
âI told you. I needed space.â
The word seemed to settle between them.
Something moved across his expression, so fast she almost missed it. A flicker. A tightening near his mouth. A shadow passing behind his eyes. The kind of reaction someone had when you touched a bruise they had not told you about.
He repeated it softly. âSpace.â
Y/Nâs fingers curled inside her coat sleeves. The way he said it made the word sound strange. Not like distance. Not like breathing room. Like an insult. Like a threat. Like something alive he wanted to crush in his hands.
âYes,â she said carefully. âSpace.â
Choso looked down for a moment. Rain dripped from a strand of his hair onto his cheek, trailing slowly like a tear. He did not wipe it away.
When he looked back up, his eyes were clearer. Darker. âFrom me?â Y/Nâs heart stumbled.
âDid you need space from me?â
She wanted to lie. Everything in her wanted to lie, because honesty had already ruined enough tonight. Honesty had put her beneath a streetlight, begging without begging. Honesty had led her into Willow Park. Honesty had made her tie a red scarf around a branch and pour the ugliest parts of her heart into the dirt.
But Choso was staring at her like he would know. Like the truth had already crawled out of her mouth and into his hands. âI needed space from what happened,â she said.
His gaze softened. âWhat happened?â Y/N stared at him.
For a second, the fear slipped, replaced by disbelief so sharp it almost made her laugh. âWhat happened?â she repeated. âYou rejected me.â Chosoâs face changed.
Pain. Confusion. Something darker. âI hurt you,â he said. It was not a question. Y/N looked away. âItâs fine.â
The way he said it made her chest tighten. Not with hope. Not exactly. Something about the weight of his guilt felt too heavy, like it had grown teeth. He looked at her as if her pain had become physical to him, as if he could see it hanging off her body in bloody strips.
Y/N shook her head. âIâm not doing this right now.â She turned slightly, ready to leave.
He had not touched her. He had not blocked her fully. But his body had shifted into the space between her and the sidewalk home, and suddenly the street felt much narrower than before. âY/N,â he said again.
Her name was softer this time but too soft. She slowly looked back at him. Chosoâs head was bowed, the upper half of his face shadowed, but his mouth was visible. That small, almost tender curve had returned.
Then he asked, âDo you like me?â The question slipped into the night with the quiet precision of a knife. Y/Nâs entire body went cold. It was such a childish question. So simple. So almost sweet.
Do you like me? As if he did not know. As if she had not torn herself open in front of him earlier. As if she had not looked at him with her heart sitting plainly in her hands. As if every breath she took around him did not already answer that question.
She stared at him, barely able to speak. âWhat?â
Y/Nâs throat tightened.
The air smelled like rain and asphalt and something faintly green underneath it. Something damp. Something earthy. Like Willow Park had not let her leave after all.
âWhy are you asking me that?â
âBecause I want to hear you say it.â
The answer came immediately. Y/Nâs pulse jumped too high. Choso lifted his head, and the light finally caught his eyes. They were the same eyes she knew. Dark. Tired. Beautiful in the saddest way.
But something in them had shifted.
Before, Choso always looked at her like he was holding himself back. Like wanting anything too much was dangerous. Like she stood on one side of a locked door and he had swallowed the key out of guilt.
Now there was no door, no guilt, no restraint, just focus. A terrible, intimate focus that made Y/N feel as if every secret want inside her had been exposed beneath his gaze.
âIâŠâ She swallowed hard. âYou already know.â
âI want to hear it.â His voice was quiet, but there was something underneath it now.
A pull. A command disguised as a plea. Y/N hated that part of her still responded to it.
She hated that even afraid, even cold, even with her mind screaming that something was wrong, her heart still tripped over itself at the idea that Choso wanted something from her.
She looked at the ground. âYes.â
Y/N squeezed her eyes shut for half a second, then opened them again.
âYes, Choso. I like you.â
The silence that followed was immediate.
The kind of silence that made every sound after it feel forbidden.
His shoulders rose with it, then fell.
For one strange second, he looked relieved. Not happy. Relieved, like something inside him that had been suffering for years had finally been given air. Then he smiled again. And this time, Y/Nâs blood ran cold.
Because it was beautiful. Because it was wrong. Because Choso almost never smiled, and when he did, it was faint, reluctant, half-buried under sadness. But this smile came easily. Too easily. It spread over his face with a softness that did not belong to the moment, did not belong to the man who had rejected her less than an hour ago.
He stepped fully out of the shadows.
Moonlight washed over him.
He looked like himself. He looked exactly like himself.
That was the most horrifying part.
There were no black veins crawling beneath his skin. No unnatural glow in his eyes. No monstrous thing standing where Choso should have been. It was just himâpale, damp, quiet Choso, with rain clinging to his lashes and tenderness painted across his mouth.
She felt it the way animals felt storms before they arrived. In her bones. In the soft, vulnerable places of her body. In the old instinct that told prey when a predator had stopped pretending.
Choso looked at her like he had never seen her before. No. Worse. Like he had finally seen her exactly right.
âI like you too,â he said. Y/Nâs breath caught. The words should have saved her. They were the words she had wanted for so long that she had imagined them in a hundred different ways. In a hallway. In his apartment. Over dinner. In the middle of a fight. Whispered against her mouth. Said softly with his hands shaking as he finally let himself have her.
She had wanted those words so badly they had become embarrassing.
But now that he had said them, they did not feel like a dream.
They felt like the first lock clicking shut.
Y/N forced herself to laugh, but it came out weak. âThatâs not funny.â
âYou literally told me earlier that you couldnât love me the way I wanted you to.â
Chosoâs expression flickered.
For a moment, he looked almost confused, like the memory belonged to someone else.
Then his brows knit together.
Like rejecting her had been a minor mistake. Like he had taken a wrong turn on the way home and corrected himself. Like the man who stood under the streetlight earlier, full of guilt and distance and restraint, had been peeled away from the inside and replaced by someone who knew only one thing.
Choso stepped closer again. Y/N stepped back. This time, he stopped immediately. His eyes dropped to the space between them. A soft frown tugged at his mouth. âDonât do that,â he said.
It was barely above a whisper. Y/Nâs heart slammed against her ribs. âDo what?â
âMove away from me.â Her skin prickled.
The words were simple. Almost gentle. And that made them so much worse. Y/N stared at him, her breath shallow now. âYouâre scaring me.â The moment she said it, something broke across his face.
Not anger. Hurt. So sudden and raw it almost made her feel guilty. Almost. âIâm scaring you?â His voice sounded wounded. Y/N took a careful breath. âYouâre acting strange.â
âI came to find you because you were alone.â
âYou came to find me because I didnât text you.â
âBecause I was worried.â
âYouâre never like this.â
âMaybe I should have been.â
The words slid into her chest and stayed there.
Y/N did not know what to say.
The rain misted around them, catching in his hair, on his face, along the collar of his jacket. His attention never wavered. That was what made her want to crawl out of her own skin. Choso had always looked away first. Always. He would glance down, turn his head, let silence save him from feeling too much.
Now he looked at her like blinking was a sacrifice.
âI couldnât stop thinking about you,â he said.
âAfter you walked away,â he continued, his voice low and steady, âI tried to go home. I got halfway there.â
His gaze moved over her face slowly, almost reverently.
âAnd then I couldnât breathe.â
Chosoâs brows drew together, like he was trying to understand it himself. âI kept thinking about you walking alone. Crying because of me. I kept thinking about someone else finding you before I did.â
The last words were quieter.
His eyes lifted back to hers.
âWere you waiting for someone?â
âNo⊠you asked me this already.â
âDid you want me to think you were?â
âDid you want me to follow you?â
âNo.â She says her hands starting to shake nervously. He stared at her.
For a second, his expression was unreadable.
The words were so soft she almost did not hear them.
And once she did, she could not unhear them.
Y/N took another step back.
This time, Choso did not tell her not to.
The disappointment in his eyes was almost unbearable. Too heavy. Too intimate. Like her distance had physically injured him.
âYou should go home,â Y/N whispered.
Choso tilted his head. âWith you?â
âNo.â The word came out too fast. His face fell. Y/N immediately felt horrible, which made her feel even more afraid. âI mean⊠Iâm tired. I need to be alone.â
âSpace,â he said again. This time, the word sounded colder. Y/Nâs mouth went dry.
Choso looked past her toward the park gate. For one second, his gaze lingered there. Y/Nâs blood turned to ice. Had he seen?
Had he seen her tie the scarf? Had he heard her wish? Had he stood somewhere in the dark while she cried into the willow and asked for him to love her more than anything on earth?
âWhat did you do in there?â
âI told you,â she said. âI took a walk.â
âIn the closed park.â
Y/N forced her voice to stay steady. âI had a bad night.â
Chosoâs expression softened again.
She hated the way he said it.
Like he knew more than he should.
Like her grief had reached into his chest from across the city and squeezed until he came running.
âI can make it better,â he said. Y/N shook her head. âYou donât have to.â
âThat doesnât mean you can.â His eyes lowered to her mouth. Just for a second. Then back up.
âI can try.â The words should have been sweet. They would have been sweet yesterday.
Yesterday, Y/N would have gone home and replayed that sentence until sunrise. She would have pressed it between the pages of her heart like a flower and convinced herself it meant something. She would have wanted him closer.
But tonight, beneath the moon and the broken streetlight, with the willowâs whisper still crawling at the edges of her mind, Chosoâs tenderness felt like a hand around her throat.
Waiting to see if she would let it.
âI need to go,â she said.
There it was again. That tiny fracture in his expression. That flash of something not quite him. Then it vanished.
The silence after that was sharp.
Y/N had never spoken to him like that before. Not really. She had been sad with him, honest with him, frustrated in careful little doses. But she had never put a wall in front of him and forced him to see it. Choso stared at her. Then, slowly, he nodded.
Relief rushed through her so quickly her knees almost weakened. âOkay,â she repeated.
He stepped aside. Just enough. Y/N moved past him carefully, every nerve in her body awake. She could feel him beside her as she passed. Not touching. Not blocking. Just there. His warmth cut through the cold air, and for one awful second, she wanted to lean into it.
Then his voice stopped her.
Y/N froze. Her back was to him. She should have kept walking. She did not. âWhat?â
Chosoâs voice came from behind her, low and intimate.
A tear slipped down her cheek, hot despite the cold.
âChoso, please donât.â
âI like the way you look at me,â he said.
âI like the way you pretend you donât wait for my messages.â
âI like when you get quiet because youâre afraid you said too much. I like when you talk too fast because youâre nervous. I like when you laugh at your own jokes before anyone else does.â
He paused. His voice softened further. âI like that you remember things I forget telling you.â Y/N turned around slowly. Choso stood exactly where she had left him, moonlight cutting his face in half.
His expression was calm. Too calm for the words coming out of his mouth.
âI like that you get jealous and try to hide it,â he said. âI like that you want more from me than I know how to give. I like that you looked hurt tonight because it meant you cared enough to be hurt.â
Y/N felt sick.Not because the words were cruel. Because they were everything she had wanted.
Twisted into something that made her want to run. âStop,â she whispered. Chosoâs eyes softened. âI donât want to.â A chill moved through her.
The wind picked up behind him, rustling the trees beyond the park gate. For a second, Y/N swore she heard ribbons fluttering.
Hundreds of them. Whispering. Choso took one slow step toward her. âYou asked me earlier,â he said, âwhy I cared if you got home.â
Y/N could not move. His gaze pinned her in place. âI care because I donât like not knowing where you are.â
âI care because when youâre away from me, something feels wrong.â
âI care because I think Iâve been trying not to want you for so long that I forgot what wanting you was supposed to feel like.â
His face was no longer hidden now. She could see every detail. The rain on his skin. The faint shadows beneath his eyes. The parted softness of his mouth. The impossible tenderness in his gaze.
He looked down at her like she was something holy. Like something doomed. âI like you,â he whispered. His eyes drifted over her face with slow, devotional focus. Then he smiled. âI think I like you more than anything.â
The words slammed into her with such force she almost stumbled.
More than anything. Her own voice echoed in her skull.
I wish Choso loved me more than anything on this earth.
The street tilted beneath her. No. No, she had not said love. He had said like.
Chosoâs smile deepened, but his eyes stayed sad.
âI should have said it earlier,â he murmured. âI donât know why I didnât.â
Y/N stared at him in horror.
Because before tonight, he had not felt this.
Before tonight, Choso had been guarded and distant and painfully careful with her heart. Before tonight, he had cared in small ways, quiet ways, ways that hurt because they were never enough. Before tonight, he had been able to let her walk away.
And now⊠Now he looked like letting her go might kill him.
Y/N backed away. This time, Choso did not follow. But his eyes did. They stayed on her with a devotion so intense it felt physical, wrapping around her ribs, pressing between them, making it harder to breathe.
âIâm going home,â she said, voice shaking. Choso nodded. âText me when you get there.â Y/N almost laughed.
It came out as a broken little sound. âOkay.â
âNo.â His voice sharpened just enough to make her freeze. Then softened instantly. âI mean it, Y/N.â Her fingers trembled at her side.
âYou need to tell me when youâre safe.â
Then turned and walked away. Every step felt wrong. Too loud. Too slow.
Too exposed. She could feel him watching her back, and this time there was no comfort in it. No secret thrill. No pathetic little warmth blooming in her chest because Choso cared enough to make sure she got home.
Now his gaze followed her like a shadow with hands. Y/N did not run. She wanted to. God, she wanted to. But she forced herself to walk calmly down the sidewalk, past shuttered storefronts and parked cars slick with rain, past the puddles reflecting yellow light in broken pieces. She did not look back.
Not once. Even when she felt him still there. Even when the hairs on the back of her neck rose. Even when her phone buzzed in her pocket before she had made it half a block. She stopped beneath a dark awning. Slowly, she pulled it out.
Youâre walking too fast.
The street behind her was empty.
No figure under the streetlight.
Be careful. The sidewalk is uneven near the corner.
Near the corner, the pavement cracked upward beside a tree root.
She lifted her eyes slowly. Across the street, reflected in the dark window of a closed shop, she saw him.
Watching from somewhere the glass could see but she could not. Y/Nâs mouth opened, but no sound came out. Her phone buzzed one last time.
I donât want anything to happen to you.
She stared at the message until the letters blurred. Then, from somewhere behind her, soft as a prayer and close enough to raise goosebumps along her neck, Chosoâs voice whispered into the rain.
âI love you so much.â
âââââââââââââââ
Y/N did not remember unlocking her front door.
One second, she was standing under the awning with rain crawling cold down the back of her neck, staring at Chosoâs message until the words blurred into something that no longer looked like language. The next, she was inside her house, the door slammed shut behind her, the lock turned, the chain dragged into place with trembling fingers.
For a long moment, she did not move.
She stood in the narrow entryway with her back pressed against the door, her breath coming too fast, too shallow, too sharp to count as breathing. The house was dark except for the faint amber glow of the hallway nightlight plugged into the wall near the kitchen. It cast long, weak shadows over the floorboards, stretching the furniture into strange shapes that seemed to lean toward her when she blinked.
Her phone was still in her hand.
The screen had gone black.
Y/N stared at her own reflection in it.
Wide eyes. Damp hair. Lips parted. Face pale with a kind of fear she did not know how to name.
It slipped from her hand and clattered against the floor, the sound too loud in the quiet house. Y/N slapped both hands over her mouth, heart slamming so violently that for one terrifying second, she thought she might actually be sick.
The screen lit up against the floorboards.
Her fingers shook as she crouched and picked up the phone, staring at the message like it might change if she looked at it long enough. She swallowed once. Twice. Her throat felt too tight.
She hit send before she could overthink it, before she could ask him how he knew, before she could demand where he was, before she could admit to herself that some part of her was afraid he was close enough to see the porch light spilling through the curtains.
The message delivered instantly.
It should have calmed her.
Y/N locked her phone and set it facedown on the small table by the door as if putting it there could make the night stop touching her. Her hands were still trembling. Her skin felt too tight over her bones. The house around her was familiar in all the ways that should have made her feel safe: the old couch with the blanket thrown messily over one arm, the shoes by the door, the family photos on the hallway wall, the faint smell of lavender cleaner her mother always used.
Y/Nâs eyes flicked toward the empty living room.
Her mom was gone this week. Some overnight business trip several towns over, something about training, meetings, hotel breakfast, and calling when she could. Y/N had barely listened when she told her. At the time, being alone had sounded peaceful. Private. Normal.
Now the silence felt enormous.
Now the house felt like it had too many corners.
She took a breath, held it, then let it out slowly.
âYouâre fine,â she whispered to herself.
âYouâre home. The door is locked. Youâre fine.â
The words did not settle. They floated uselessly around her, thin and breakable, unable to cover the image of Choso under that broken streetlight. The way he had smiled. The way he had asked if she liked him. The way his voice had wrapped around those words.
I think I like you more than anything.
Y/N squeezed her eyes shut.
No, she was not doing this.
She was not going to spiral in the hallway at midnight because of a tree, because of a wish, because Choso had suddenly decided to act strange after rejecting her. There had to be an explanation. There had to be something reasonable underneath all of this. People changed their minds. People got guilty. People said things they did not mean when emotions were high.
The willow had not done anything.
Y/N forced herself to move.
She walked through the house turning on lights as she went, refusing to look too long at any window. The rain outside began to fall harder, tapping against the glass with quick little fingers. By the time she reached the bathroom, the soft mist from earlier had become a steady downpour, drumming against the roof, rushing through the gutters, hissing over the street outside.
The sound should have been soothing.
Instead, it made everything feel hidden.
Like the world beyond the walls had disappeared.
Y/N shut the bathroom door behind her and locked it.
Then she stared at the lock.
A tiny, flimsy twist of metal.
She turned away quickly before her thoughts could finish.
The bathroom light was too bright, making her reflection look harsh and exhausted in the mirror. Her makeup had smudged beneath her eyes. Rainwater clung to her hair and made the ends curl against her neck. She looked like a girl who had been crying in the dark. She looked like someone who had asked for something terrible without understanding the cost.
She undressed quickly, dropping her damp clothes into a pile near the sink. For one awful second, as she peeled off her shirt, she got the sudden, crawling sensation that something was watching her from behind the mirror.
The bathroom hummed quietly around her. The vent. The light. The pipes in the wall. Rain striking the small frosted window above the tub.
Y/N swallowed and looked at her reflection.
Her own eyes stared back.
âStop,â she muttered.
She turned on the shower as hot as she could stand it.
Steam bloomed fast, clouding the mirror, softening the room until the edges disappeared. Y/N stepped beneath the spray and let the water hit her face, her shoulders, her chest, trying to scrub the night out of her skin. She washed her hair even though she had no energy for it. She rubbed soap over her arms until her skin flushed. She stood there too long, head bowed, hands braced against the shower wall as the water pounded over her.
But no matter how hot the shower got, she could still feel the cold.
The cold of Chosoâs gaze.
The cold of that last message.
I donât want anything to happen to you.
For half a second, she could have sworn she heard something outside the bathroom door.
Like weight settling on old wood.
Y/N turned quickly, heart lurching.
Water streamed down her face, blurring her vision. The shower curtain hung still. Beyond it, the bathroom glowed bright and empty.
The rain hammered harder.
Old house, she told herself.
Still, she finished quickly after that.
When she turned the shower off, the sudden absence of water was almost violent.
The bathroom fell into a silence so thick it made her ears ring.
Water fell from the showerhead into the tub.
Y/N stood there, wet and shivering despite the steam, listening to the sound of her own breathing.
Her whole body stiffened.
The sound had come from the hallway.
One slow wooden groan, like someone shifting their weight from one foot to the other.
Y/N stared at the closed door.
Her towel hung on the rack just beyond the shower. She reached for it without taking her eyes off the door, wrapping it around herself with clumsy hands. Her heart began to climb again, each beat harder than the last.
Her voice cracked on the single word.
Of course there was no answer.
Her mother was out of town.
The rain beat against the roof.
The pipes ticked softly in the walls.
The hallway stayed quiet.
She hated herself for it, but she grabbed her phone from the counter and checked the time.
âDamn it,â she whispered.
She had work in the morning.
A normal thought. A boring thought. A human thought.
Somehow, it nearly made her cry.
Because tomorrow still existed. That was the strange, cruel thing. No matter what had happened beneath the willow, no matter how Choso had looked at her beneath the streetlight, the world still expected her to wake up, get dressed, show up, smile at people, answer questions, act like she was not slowly coming apart from the inside.
Y/N dried off fast, pulled on pajama shorts and an oversized shirt, and twisted her damp hair into a loose bun. She brushed her teeth with the bathroom door open because somehow open felt better than closed now, even though every second she expected to see a shape standing in the hallway.
The shadow of the banister.
The family photos staring from the wall.
Y/N walked to her bedroom with the light on her phone shining ahead of her like a weapon.
Her room looked exactly as she had left it. Bed unmade. Laundry chair piled high. Books and lip gloss scattered across her desk. A half-empty water bottle on the nightstand. The familiar mess should have comforted her.
Instead, her eyes went straight to the window.
Not all the way. Just enough that a thin gap showed the rain-dark glass beyond them.
Y/N stopped in the doorway.
Had she left them like that?
The window reflected her room back at her in dim, warped layers: the bed, the dresser, her own pale shape standing frozen near the door. Beyond the reflection was only darkness, slick with rain.
Still, the feeling returned.
That awful, intimate certainty of being seen.
Y/N crossed the room quickly and yanked the blinds shut. The plastic slats clattered together, too loud, too frantic. She twisted the wand until they closed completely, then pulled the curtains over them too.
Only then did she breathe.
The house answered with another creak.
This time from downstairs.
Y/N turned around sharply.
Just wood settling. Rain swelling. Her pulse roaring in her ears.
She went to her bedroom door and looked into the hallway. The light from the bathroom spilled across the floor, cutting the darkness in half. At the far end, the stairs descended into shadow.
The house did not answer.
Y/N shut her bedroom door.
Then, after a second, she pushed her desk chair beneath the handle.
It made her feel better for exactly three seconds.
She turned off the overhead light, then immediately turned on the lamp beside her bed because the dark rushed in too quickly. The room became soft and amber, shadows pooling in the corners, rain sliding down the window behind the curtains in endless streams.
Y/N climbed into bed and pulled the covers up to her chest.
Her phone sat beside her pillow.
She did not want to look at it.
That should have relieved her.
She opened the thread with Choso before she could stop herself.
Youâre walking too fast.
Be careful. The sidewalk is uneven near the corner.
I donât want anything to happen to you.
Y/N stared at the messages until her vision blurred.
How had he known about the sidewalk?
How had he been behind her and ahead of her and nowhere at all?
She clicked the phone off and shoved it under her pillow.
âNo,â she whispered into the room.
âNo. Iâm not doing this. Iâm tired. Iâm scared. Thatâs it.â
But her mind would not obey.
Choso beneath the streetlight.
The willowâs ribbons shivering though there had been no wind.
His voice behind her in the rain.
Y/N turned onto her side and squeezed her eyes shut.
The words would not leave her alone.
They should have been beautiful.
They should have felt like every late-night fantasy finally crawling into the real world. For so long she had wanted Choso to love her openly, desperately, without hiding behind guilt and distance. She had wanted him to want her badly enough to fight himself for it.
But there was a difference, she was beginning to realize, between being wanted and being hunted.
The thought made her eyes open.
The room sat quiet around her.
Rain threw shadows against the curtains.
Somewhere in the walls, the old house gave a soft, tired groan.
Y/N watched the bedroom door.
The chair remained wedged beneath the handle.
She repeated it until the words became dull and meaningless.
Eventually, exhaustion dragged her under.
It took her in pieces. Her thoughts loosened first, then her body grew heavy, then the sounds of the room stretched and warped into dreams. Rain became whispering. Floorboards became breathing. Somewhere between waking and sleep, she thought she heard her phone buzz beneath the pillow, but her hand was too heavy to reach for it.
Then everything went dark.
She drifted through shallow, uneasy dreams of pale ribbons wrapped around wrists, of a willow tree growing through her bedroom floor, of Choso standing at the foot of her bed with rain dripping from his hair onto the carpet. In the dream, he did not speak. He only watched her with that sad, terrible smile.
When Y/N woke, it was sudden.
Her eyes snapped open into the dark.
For a moment, she did not know why.
The room was almost black now. The lamp was off.
She did not remember turning it off.
Rain still battered the window, harder than before, the storm grown violent while she slept. The curtains moved slightly with the draft. Shadows trembled over the walls. Her room felt colder than it should have.
Her eyes struggled to adjust.
The digital clock on her nightstand glowed red.
Y/N stared at the numbers, sleep-thick and confused.
The hour every strange sound became a warning.
She shifted under the covers and realized her mouth was dry, her skin prickling with sweat beneath her pajama shirt. For a second, she thought the anxiety had simply woken her. A nightmare. That was all.
Like fabric brushing against fabric.
Her eyes moved carefully toward the foot of the bed.
Darkness gathered there, thick and shapeless.
A barely-there shift near the corner where her laundry chair sat piled with clothes.
Y/Nâs heart began to pound.
She wanted to turn on the lamp.
But sleep still clung to her body like wet hands, weighing down her limbs, blurring the edges of fear until she could not tell if she was awake or still dreaming.
The corner of the room seemed darker than the rest.
Y/N swallowed, throat clicking softly.
âMom?â she whispered.
Her eyes slipped shut again against her will.
Something creaked near the door.
Y/N forced her eyes open.
The chair was still beneath the handle.
But the handle looked different.
The chair was still there.
She was tired. Half-asleep. Panicking over shadows.
The room seemed to hold still with her.
Her eyes moved toward the side of the bed.
The darkness beside her nightstand was empty.
At least, she thought it was.
Her phone lay near her pillow now.
Y/N stared at it, confused.
Had she pulled it out in her sleep?
Y/Nâs lungs stopped working.
Her fingers twitched under the blanket.
She did not touch the phone.
Y/N stared at the message, every nerve in her body screaming.
Outside, thunder rolled low and long over the roof.
The room flashed white for half a second.
In that half second, she saw the shape by the closet.
Then darkness swallowed it again.
A sound tried to leave her throat, but it came out small and broken, barely more than air.
Her body refused to move.
The shadows near the closet were empty now.
Maybe they had always been empty.
Maybe the lightning had made the laundry chair look taller. Maybe the coat hanging over the back had become shoulders. Maybe fear was building monsters out of cotton and darkness.
Her eyes burned from staring.
Choso: You looked scared.
A tear slipped silently into her hairline.
Y/Nâs breathing hitched.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
She was asleep. She had to be asleep. Maybe she was still beneath the willow, maybe none of this had happened, maybe she had collapsed in the park and dreamed the whole thing while rain soaked through her clothes.
Y/Nâs eyes snapped open.
For a second, she felt it clearly.
But near the edge of the bed.
Like someone had sat down very carefully.
The blanket tightened across her legs.
Her eyelids began to flutter again, panic and exhaustion warring inside her body. She wanted to stay awake. She had to stay awake. But the fear was so huge, so impossible, that her mind tried to protect itself by slipping away from it.
The last thing she felt before sleep dragged her under again was warmth near her ankle.
A touch so light it could have been imagined.
Then a voice in the dark, soft as rain against glass.
Y/N tried to wake herself up.
But sleep swallowed her whole.
And somewhere very close, someone whispered like a promise, like a prayer, like a curse answered too well:
âNothing is going to happen to you.â
@justlindsey , @dementiapallor11 , @alebrasil0101
