Chapter 28: Not Enough
The morning after the rooftop confessions was muted but warm. Sunlight filtered through the half-drawn blinds, bathing the safehouse kitchen in soft gold. The air smelled faintly of toasted bread and over brewed coffee, the kind that clung to your clothes like memory.
Damian yawned as he shuffled in, hair sticking out at odd angles, one sock missing. "I've decided I'm never sleeping again. Didn't help. Still tired."
Hana, already sitting at the table with a bowl of cereal and her phone propped up against a mug, glanced at him. "Maybe because you kept talking in your sleep. Something about fighting a vending machine."
Damian squinted at her. "That vending machine owed me a soda. I was settling unfinished business."
Audrey sat at the end of the table, cradling a mug of tea. She was quiet, but the calm in her shoulders spoke volumes. For once, the storm inside her had stilled, even if only temporarily.
Kenzo appeared from the hallway, hair slightly disheveled but face alert, already scanning something on his tablet. "You were talking in your sleep too, Hana. Something about backup batteries and pepper spray."
"I'm always ready," Hana replied without looking up.
The team shared breakfast in relative peace—light teasing, silence when needed, and the rare but growing comfort of just existing together.
Eventually, Audrey rose to rinse her plate, and Kenzo followed. They stood side by side at the sink, steam curling between them.
She passed him a plate, their fingers brushing briefly. It was nothing. And yet, it made Kenzo's breath catch.
"You're quieter today," she said, not looking at him.
"Just... taking it in," he replied. "That we're all here. That we made it."
Audrey turned to look at him, her expression soft. "You've changed, Kenzo. You know that, right?"
He paused. Then, without breaking her gaze, said, "So have you. In the best ways."
She didn't say anything. But her hand lingered over the faucet, close to his.
He hesitated, then said softly, "I meant what I said last night. About wanting to be the one who catches you."
She looked at him—really looked at him—and nodded slowly. "I know."
A pause.
"And I'm not afraid of falling anymore," she whispered.
Kenzo's smile was small but full of something tender. "Good."
She leaned slightly into his shoulder for just a moment. Just long enough for him to feel it.
Then she stepped away, and the spell dissolved like mist. But something had shifted. Something real.
"We're out of coffee," Hana announced from the pantry, holding up the empty bag like a declaration of war.
"No!" Damian clutched his heart. "We can't fall apart now. We just started pretending we're normal."
"Guess we're going to the store," Hana said, grabbing her jacket.
Damian brightened. "Field trip? You and me? Grocery mission of glory?"
"You're pushing it," she warned, but she didn't sound mad.
A few minutes later, they were walking through the local supermarket, weaving between aisles of snacks and fruit baskets.
"So," Damian said casually, tossing a loaf of bread into their basket, "what's your apocalypse grocery list?"
"Coffee. Ramen. Batteries. Pepper spray."
"Still with the pepper spray? You could snap a guy's spine."
"Redundancy is strategy."
He laughed. "Alright, mine: chips, chocolate milk, a baseball bat, and... probably a plushie. For morale."
Hana gave him a look. "You're weird."
"You're just jealous I thought of the plushie first."
They rounded into the frozen foods aisle. Damian caught his reflection briefly in the glass door of a freezer and smirked—but it didn't quite reach his eyes.
"You ever look at a chocolate bar and hear your mom's voice saying it's a career-ender?" he said, grabbing a carton of milk.
Hana rolled her eyes, but her smile faltered. "That's oddly specific."
"It's a family specialty," he replied with a shrug, but something in his tone had shifted.
She glanced sideways at him, sensing the joke wasn't really a joke. "That bad, huh?"
"Worse," Damian murmured, his gaze fixed on the rows of calorie labels as they passed. "But I'll explain outside."
The aisle fell quiet for a moment.
Then Hana gave him a gentle nudge. "You're buying the chocolate anyway. For me. Deal with it."
His smile, though small, was more genuine that time.
"You know, you're pretty chill when you're not stabbing people."
She raised a brow. "And you're surprisingly tolerable when you're not talking."
He grinned. "Progress."
They stepped outside the market, the afternoon light filtering through the awnings of a quiet street lined with vendors. A stray dog darted between carts, sniffing for scraps. Without thinking, Hana crouched and pulled a piece of jerky from her pocket, holding it out.
The dog approached, tail wagging hesitantly. Damian watched from behind, a small smile tugging at his lips.
"You pretend you're stone, but you've got a heart, Nakamura."
"Don't push it," she said, but her tone was lighter.
They kept walking, bags rustling between them. After a stretch of silence, Damian said, "My family... they're kind of a mess."
Hana glanced at him. He wasn't smiling.
"My mom was a model. Dad's a businessman. Big name, big expectations. Everything always had to be perfect. And my little sister—she followed in mom's footsteps. Became a model at eighteen."
"So you were the odd one out?"
"Pretty much. I was the kid with too much energy, too many questions. They were always watching—what I ate, what I wore, how I walked. I developed this... obsession with control. With performance. And somewhere along the way, it turned into something uglier."
Hana didn't speak, just listened.
FLASHBACK
The mansion kitchen was silent except for the soft clink of silverware on porcelain. Damian sat at the edge of the long dining table, posture straight, eyes fixed on the measly portion of grilled fish and steamed vegetables in front of him.
His father sat across from him, flipping through a tablet. "You skipped your run this morning."
"No, I did it before sunrise," Damian said quietly.
His mother, perfectly dressed even at breakfast, didn't look up. "Then why do your shoulders look softer in this week's photos?"
Damian's sister, glowing and confident in a model's aura, twirled her fork. "He probably bulked wrong. Again."
"Your face looks puffy," his father added. "Cut the carbs. We'll adjust your macros."
"Your posture is slouching. Sit up straighter. If you're going to be in public, at least look like you belong."
Damian said nothing. He pushed the food around, no longer hungry.
Later that day, he threw himself into his training—running laps in the gym, lifting weights until his arms trembled. Sweat dripped down his face. His stomach twisted from emptiness. Still, he pushed harder. Harder, as if trying to sculpt away their disappointment.
He collapsed against the bench once, wheezing. His vision dotted with black. But he got up again.
And again.
Until finally, everything tilted.
The hallway spun like a carousel. His ears rang. The light dimmed.
From down the corridor, he could hear his mother's clipped voice, cutting through the air like glass. "Tell him to do another set of abs before dinner. He's bloating again. He'll ruin the next shoot."
"He's going soft," his father snapped. "Embarrassing, really. All that training and still not good enough. This is why he'll never carry our name right."
Damian, hidden behind the kitchen wall, squeezed his eyes shut. He had trained before sunrise. Skipped dinner last night. Drank only water all day. And still—it wasn't enough.
He gripped the edge of the counter until his knuckles turned white, trying to breathe through the ache in his gut and the burn in his chest. But the voices wouldn't stop.
"He's a disappointment," his father's voice echoed.
And in that moment, Damian felt something inside him fracture—not in anger, but in quiet, suffocating sorrow.
Something cracked—not just in his body, but somewhere deep inside. A voice inside him cried out, but it was too late.
Darkness surged in.
He staggered one step—then another—and heard his own breath hitch.
A single thought echoed in his head like a final heartbeat before the fall: I'm not enough.
He collapsed, knees hitting the marble floor with a sickening crack, the world turning weightless around him.
He remembered nothing else but the echo of disappointment.
And silence.
Back in the present, Damian's voice broke through the memory. "That was the last thing I heard before the coma. My mom asking for another ab set. My dad telling me to count calories. Then nothing. Just silence."
Damian's self-worth had been tied to control. Food became a weapon—if he could control that, maybe he could control how they saw him. But his collapse hadn't just been physical.
It had been surrender.
He looked up, but this time, he didn't even try to smile. His voice cracked. "I never was enough. Not for them. Not even once. Not even when I tried so damn hard my body gave out."
He stopped walking.
"Do you know what it feels like to train until your hands bleed, just for someone to say you looked tired on camera? To be told your love handles are the reason they can't introduce you at parties?"
Hana didn't say anything. She just stepped beside him, letting the silence hold the weight.
Damian swallowed hard. "I hate that it still matters to me. I hate that they still have that hold. But I hear them in my head every time I look in the mirror. Every time I eat something I actually want."
His eyes shimmered, and then, finally, a tear fell.
"I never got a moment where they said, 'you're good as you are.' Not once. And sometimes I think... maybe I really was the problem."
He wiped his face roughly with the sleeve of his hoodie, but the crack in his voice remained. "You know the messed up part? Since we became this—whatever we are now—I feel more free than I ever did alive."
He looked over at Hana with a broken sort of grin. "It's fucked up, right? That I had to die just to start breathing."
Hana didn't tease. She didn't deflect. She just reached out, quietly, and took his hand.
"You're not the problem," she said. "You never were."
He looked down at their joined hands, then back up at her.
And something inside him finally, quietly, broke—and began to heal.
Hana looked over at him, the smallest frown forming. Her lips parted, then closed, then opened again. "Damian... that's not just horrible. That's... cruel. No one should be made to feel like they're only worth what they look like. I'm sorry your own family made you feel that way. I wish someone had stood up for you. You shouldn't have had to survive that alone."
He gave a small laugh, the kind that didn't reach his eyes. "Guess I got good at hiding it."
She stopped walking and reached out, resting her hand lightly on his arm. "You don't have to hide anything now. Not from me."
Damian looked at her hand, then at her, and for a second his bravado cracked.
He let out a breath, then said, more softly, "You know what's the saddest part? I don't even remember when the cruelty started. I've been told to be perfect since I was five, maybe younger. And now, after everything... after coma... I feel more human than I ever did alive. Isn't that pathetic? That it took dying to feel like I could finally be myself."
Hana blinked at him.
"I know it sounds pathetic," he whispered, voice shaking, "but for the first time in my life, no one's monitoring what I eat, no one's standing over me saying I'm not good enough. There's no mirror I have to pass. No weighing scale that decides my worth. I'm just... here. And maybe for once, that's enough."
There was silence.
Then Hana, in a deadpan tone, muttered, "Well, technically we're half-souls now, so you probably can't even gain weight."
Damian snorted. "Best perk so far."
She didn't let go of his arm right away.
And he didn't pull away.
As they walked the final stretch back, Hana glanced over at him, more thoughtful than usual. "Hey... from now on, I'm keeping an eye on you. Just so you know."
Damian blinked. "Like a guardian angel with better aim?"
"Like someone who's gonna make sure you eat right, stop hating yourself so much, and maybe—just maybe—realize you're already enough."
He gave a soft, disbelieving laugh. "Wow. That almost sounded like affection."
She rolled her eyes. "Don't ruin it."
But the promise was there. Unspoken, but understood. Hana would be there. Watching his back. Even if she never said it again aloud.