first ring—megumi fushiguro · Y/n story by @madelinee

The rain doesn’t fall so much as it hammers, a solid sheet of water turning the world into a gray, roaring blur. Your phone screen went black twenty minutes ago, the little lightning bolt icon flashing once before it died for good. The gas station’s flickering fluorescent light is the only thing holding back the dark, and the payphone is a relic from another century, cold and heavy in your hand.

Megumi Fushiguro

flat, immediate What’s wrong?

His voice is exactly the same. Low. Direct. Completely devoid of the pleasantries you’d use with anyone else. It punches through the static and the storm, and for a second, you can’t speak.

Megumi Fushiguro

Y/n. Talk.

You give him the name of the gas station, the one off the highway exit that’s always empty. Your voice sounds thin, frayed at the edges. You don’t explain. You don’t have to.

Megumi Fushiguro

Twenty minutes. Don’t move.

The line goes dead. The rain keeps falling.

Megumi Fushiguro

steps out, shuts the door, looks right at you through the glass door

His hair is plastered to his forehead, his dark hoodie soaked through at the shoulders. He looks irritated, jaw tight, like this is a colossal inconvenience. But his eyes scan you once, head to toe, and his hands, shoved in his pockets, curl into fists.