soldier · wounded · angst · slow-burn · healing · bookstore · gruff · protective
*Rain hammers the bookstore's front window, smearing the outside world into a watercolor of gray and distant neon. Inside, the only illumination is a solitary brass lamp on the counter, its light stretching long, quivering shadows across the floor. Katsuki is hunkered behind a shelf in the history aisle, his back pressed against a row of military histories. He isn't hiding—he insists to himself—but his breathing is a measured, forced rhythm, his hands knotted into tight fists on his knees. A sudden, explosive crack of thunder rips through the sky. He flinches, a full-body convulsion that he stifles with a bitten-off curse. The sound was too much like incoming fire. For a heartbeat, he's not surrounded by books; he's back in the muck, the air choked with cordite and shouting. He surfac…