HOLLOW – CHAPTER 20
— XAVIER'S POV —
The light above him didn't buzz anymore. It just hummed, soft and constant—like it had accepted he wasn't leaving.
Xavier hadn't slept. Not really.
He wasn't sure how long it had been since he'd moved.
The floor pressed into his back, the wall into his shoulders. The quiet had changed at some point—less like silence and more like something waiting.
He blinked slowly.
Still here.
Still him.
Still not sure what that meant.
The door creaked in the hallway. Not his door—another one. Somewhere deeper in the building.
A thud. Then another. A dragging sound.
Then nothing.
He didn't flinch. Just listened.
Maybe it was the building settling. Maybe it wasn't.
He was past the point of assuming the world worked in ways he understood.
The feeling faded before it took shape.
Just a pulse. Like a breath drawn too close behind his neck. But when Xavier turned, there was nothing.
No shadow. No sound.
Just the room again. Still. Unchanged. Too unchanged.
He took a shaky breath and rubbed his eyes.
Get up.
He didn't know whose thought that was—his or someone else's. But he obeyed.
His legs were unsteady, joints tight from too much stillness. He reached for the door, hesitated, then opened it an inch.
The hallway beyond was dim. Same flickering light. Same peeling paint.
And someone sitting at the end of it.
Cross-legged. Back against the wall. Hands in her lap.
She didn't move when he looked.
Didn't call out. Didn't try to approach.
Just waited.
It took him a second to register the profile.
Keiki.
— KEIKI'S POV —
She didn't move.
She sat cross-legged at the far end of the hallway, palms resting loosely on her knees, spine straight against the chipped plaster. The air smelled like dust and burnt wires. A vending machine two rooms down still blinked, even though the building clearly hadn't been serviced in years.
She'd been there for almost ten minutes.
Hadn't knocked. Hadn't called out.
Just waited.
She knew he was in there.
Knew from the residual pressure bleeding through the cracked door. It wasn't cursed energy, not exactly. But it clung to the air. Saturated it. Like the room had been painted in whatever he couldn't hold back.
It made her mouth taste like static.
She could feel it in her teeth.
Not painful.
Just… unfamiliar. Like touching the wrong side of a magnet.
She tilted her head.
The door shifted a sliver.
A sliver of motion. A shadow behind the glass. He'd seen her.
She didn't move.
Didn't want to scare him off. Not again.
He'd run once before — not from them, exactly, but from being seen.
— XAVIER'S POV —
It was her.
Even sitting in the dark like that—still, framed by broken tiles and peeling paint—he knew.
Keiki didn't look up. Didn't wave. She didn't even blink.
She just waited.
Xavier's fingers tightened on the door frame.
For a second, part of him wanted to shut the door again. Not out of fear. Out of something worse.
What do you even say to someone like that?
Someone who knew you weren't right.
Who'd seen the bloom.
Who hadn't run—but also hadn't reached for you, either.
He swallowed.
She still wasn't moving. Like she didn't want to chase. Like she was giving him the decision.
And somehow, that made it harder.
Because now it was his.
Not hers. Not Yuji's. Not Gojo's.
His.
He opened the door wider.
The hallway didn't get brighter, but it felt like it did.
— KEIKI'S POV —
She watched the door open.
Slow. Careful. Like he thought it might bite.
His shoulders were hunched, one arm braced against the frame. He looked taller somehow—taller and smaller at the same time. Like the weight inside him had added inches but taken everything else.
He didn't speak.
She didn't expect him to.
So she started.
"I thought if I waited, you'd come out on your own."
He didn't react.
She continued, voice low. Calm.
"You've been sitting in a room with no windows, no heat, and no exit plan. For two days."
That got something—a blink. A shift in posture. He hadn't realized.
"I didn't come to drag you back," she said. "No one sent me."
Another pause. Then:
"I just needed to know you were still… here."
— XAVIER'S POV —
"…Barely."
His voice cracked more than he wanted. He didn't try to fix it.
Keiki didn't react. No pity. No flinch.
Just silence. The kind that didn't feel empty.
She stayed where she was.
Didn't fill the pause. Didn't try to fix it. She just let it sit between them like something sacred.
And Xavier hated how much that helped.
Because it meant she knew.
Not everything. Not the whole truth. But enough.
Enough to stay.
Enough to wait.
He didn't look at her when he spoke.
Didn't think he could.
"I don't even know what I'm doing anymore."
His voice was low. Like he was trying not to wake something.
"I was just… a guy. A normal guy."
He laughed, but it was dry. Empty.
"I joined the Navy to get away from my problems. Thought maybe if I was surrounded by noise, I wouldn't have to hear myself think."
His throat tightened. The words got harder.
"Then it got quiet again. Too quiet. And the shit I left behind—family, pain, everything I thought I could outrun—it was still there. Just waiting."
He shook his head.
"I thought I'd escaped it. Thought the ocean would wash it off me."
A beat.
"It didn't."
The silence that followed wasn't peaceful this time.
It was heavy. Dense.
Like the air had thickened just to carry it.
Xavier's hands curled into fists against his sides.
"I didn't ask for any of this."
His voice cracked again. But this time, he didn't try to stop it.
"I didn't ask to be… whatever I am. I just wanted to live. Quiet. Small. Away from everything."
He swallowed hard, eyes stinging.
"I'm so tired of fighting shadows I don't even understand."
The first tear slipped without permission. Then another.
He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes like that might stop it. It didn't.
His shoulders shook once—just a little. Like the body was tired of carrying what the mind refused to put down.
And for the first time since it all started…
He cried.
Not because he was weak.
Because he was human.
And finally let himself be.
— KEIKI'S POV —
She didn't move.
Didn't speak right away.
She just watched him — not the tears, not the posture — him. The shape of someone unraveling just enough to breathe again.
She knew that shape.
Had worn it.
Keiki let the silence hang, not to be cruel, but because it felt sacred. Like talking too soon would disrespect what he'd finally let go of.
When she did speak, her voice was soft. Not careful. Just true.
"My brother got sick once," she said. "When I was six."
Xavier didn't look at her. But he was listening. She could feel it.
"We were living in Okinawa. Summer. Too hot to sleep, too quiet to play. He collapsed in the hallway. Just… dropped. No warning."
She paused.
"The grown-ups didn't explain. Said it was just a fever. That I shouldn't worry."
She shifted slightly, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
"But I did worry. I remember sitting outside his door all night with a cheap plastic fan and some grape-flavored candy. I didn't sleep. I just... listened for breathing."
Her fingers curled around her knee, tightening.
"He got better. They said it passed. But I never forgot what it felt like — that weight. That silence. Like something was there, and no one wanted to name it."
A beat.
"That was the first time I felt something I couldn't explain."
She looked up now, meeting his eyes — not to study him, not to assess.
Just to be there.
"And when I got older, when I tested positive for cursed sensitivity, they told me I had potential. They said I could help people."
She smiled, small and tired.
"I said yes. Not because I wanted to be a sorcerer. But because I never wanted to feel that helpless again."
— XAVIER'S POV —
He didn't speak. But the silence wasn't the same anymore.
And neither was the pressure in his chest.
This time, the energy didn't rise in fear.
It rose in response.
Warm. Present. Quiet.
Not a weapon.
A welcome.
And for the first time… it didn't try to escape.
It listened.
And he listened back.