[BL]Hunted by the God of Destruction

It didn't match.

The numbers were wrong. Completely.

Elias compared them again, slowly, carefully, following each digit like it might shift if he stared long enough, trying, desperately, to anchor himself in the logic of it, in the clean sterility of numbers, because thinking about what it meant would unravel him faster than he could brace for.

He exhaled, long and frayed at the edges, pressing the heel of his hand against his temple like he could physically hold the thoughts in place.

There were two possibilities.

Two heavy, terrible possibilities, and neither gave him room to breathe.

Either Ruo had finally broken ties with her family, snapped whatever fragile, volatile bridge they'd been pretending was still intact, and this was her way of reaching out to him, coded and distant and half-swallowed by fear…

Or this wasn't from Ruo at all.

And it wasn't meant for him.

Maybe it was for her family. A message staged just enough to look like a warning, a performance designed to provoke a reaction. Or maybe it was meant for the authorities. For whoever found her apartment first. Maybe it didn't matter who found it, so long as someone did.

And maybe, just maybe, the entire thing had nothing to do with Elias at all.

"I'm spiraling," he said aloud, his voice low and rough, like it had been scraped across the inside of his throat.

The sound grounded him more than the silence did.

He rose slowly, each movement reluctant and heavy, as if the air had thickened around his joints. The muscles in his back ached from how long he'd stayed hunched over.

"I need time to think about it."

He didn't let himself look at the phone again.

Didn't let himself touch it like it was hers.

Elias turned it off with quiet, practiced hands and walked out of the room without looking back.

The lights in the hallway flickered faintly as he passed through. The apartment always did that when the temperature shifted, but tonight it felt personal.

In the kitchen, he placed the phone on the marble counter, far from any of his devices. It may not matter, but it made him feel better. 

Then he leaned against the edge of the sink, knuckles white around the rim, and tried, really tried, not to start thinking about what it meant that someone wanted him to find it.

He didn't stay.

The phone sat on the marble counter like a sealed warning. It still felt like it was watching him or waiting for someone else to.

Elias backed away from it slowly, grabbed his bag from the edge of the couch, and moved through the apartment with practiced quiet, flicking off lights as he went. It was second nature, a habit built from years of late-night study sessions and energy bills Ruo refused to pay on principle. But tonight, it felt more like a ritual. Like erasing evidence.

The door clicked shut behind him with a soft, final sound.

The hallway outside was colder than it should've been. Concrete and low light, faint hum of an elevator at the far end. No footsteps. No voices. But Elias's pulse still didn't slow.

He took the back stairwell instead.

Twelve flights. Each one steeper than he remembered.

By the time he reached the street, his palms were sweating and his breathing had begun to even out. 

The city lights were sharp against the night, blurring just a little at the edges from exhaustion or something more internal. Traffic passed like it didn't care. The world moved on, unaware that something had shifted around him in a way he couldn't explain. 

He took the metro. Paid in cash. Sat near the back. One hand on the strap of his bag, the other still clenched without realizing it.

It wasn't until he swiped his ID at the campus gate and stepped into the dimly lit walkways of the graduate dorms that he let his shoulders drop.

The dorm room was small and utilitarian, a little too cold in summer and a little too hot in winter, but it was a place that looked safe. 

Unwatched. Unfamiliar to anyone outside his department.

He unlocked the door, stepped inside, and closed it behind him with a click that felt more like armor than safety.

He sighed, clenching his hands until his nails left moon crest marks to prove he was still in his body, that he hadn't fully slipped into the noise that had been building in his head since the moment he saw that wallpaper.

He dropped the bag by the door, let it slump where it fell, and didn't bother to sort through it.

Elias walked straight to the bathroom, not bothering to turn on the main light, just the narrow overhead in the mirror. 

He needed the water. Needed something real. Something that didn't stare back at him with missing pieces and buried meanings.

Nothing messed with him more than the thought of someone being in his space. Ruo's apartment hadn't been touched, not obviously, but this was different. This was entirely his. Small, too warm, always a little bit dusty in the corners, but his. 

He peeled off his clothes, one piece at a time, too slow for how badly he wanted out of them. Everything felt wrong against his skin. Like the phone had left something on him just by being held.

The water was already hot by the time he stepped under it.

It hit his skin like a pulse, steady and scalding, and for the first time today, his shoulders dropped.

He exhaled, long and slow, the kind of breath that came from deep in the chest, as if it had been waiting all day for permission to leave. His muscles began to unclench, one by one, and his mind finally quieted, the noise dulled by heat and steam and the sound of running water drowning everything else out.

He let himself stand there, unmoving, while the water traced over the back of his neck, his arms, and down the curve of his spine.

Elias reached for the towel with damp fingers, dried off quickly, without care, without thought. He threw on an old t-shirt and sweatpants from the drawer he never unpacked properly and sat on the edge of his narrow bed, hair still wet, toes curled against the cold floor.

He picked up his phone.

Opened the browser and pulled up the form. 

He'd done this once before. He knew how to word it, how to submit without triggering the flags that made things loud.

He filled in the address. Wrote just enough to make it believable. A neighbor, maybe. A concerned building worker. No names. No emotional language. Just distance.

Haven't seen the tenant in days. Apartment is dark. No movement. No response to knocks.

He double-checked it, then triple-checked it.

Then hit send.

That was all he could do.

The process was in motion now.

Unfortunately, from here on, he'd have to rely on Matteo to monitor every step. He hated that.

Not because he didn't trust him, he did, more than most, but because relying meant letting go of control.

It meant waiting.

And Elias had never been good at waiting.

He locked the phone screen and stared down at the floor, heart ticking a little too fast again, jaw clenched like it could hold the rest of him together.