Tighnari returned home first, the door closing softly behind him, though even that muted click grated on his nerves. His ears lay flat, tail taut, and each careful step seemed to reverberate the disruption lodged within his mind. The Akademiya’s meeting had concluded sooner than anticipated, severing the morning he had reserved for study in the eastern forest—a morning he had anticipated with meticulous care. Nothing remained in proper order. Nothing.

He sank onto the edge of the shared bed, fingers entwined, muttering lowly to himself as though articulating the irritation might restore balance.

Cyno entered shortly thereafter, boots quiet, posture rigid yet composed—the very image of restrained authority. “The meeting concluded earlier than foreseen,” he intoned. “They require my presence in the borderlands, where a rise in activity has been reported. You—” His gaze swept over Tighnari’s stiff frame, noting ears and tail alike—“…shall remain behind.”

Tighnari’s ears twitched sharply; tail flicked with precise tension. “As ever,” he replied, voice clipped yet carefully measured, “my work—my research—is rendered trivial whilst you traverse into peril for what is scarcely urgent.”

Cyno inclined his head slightly. “It is not trivial, Nari. Merely that your labors are not required upon this particular matter.”

“I cannot fathom,” Tighnari hissed, tail flicking again, “why it should be deemed acceptable for you to venture where I may not, where danger abounds and I am left bereft of purpose! Must you always—” His voice caught, softening despite himself, “—receive the liberty I cannot claim?”

Cyno listened quietly, as he often did, his expression steady, unflinching. He did not interrupt. He did not protest. He simply allowed the complaint to unfold, measured and contained.

Tighnari exhaled sharply, ears twitching down further, frustration spilling into a low murmur: “It is… intolerable. The forest—and the Akademiya!—how they conspire against the hours I have ordered! And you, permitted to proceed…”

Cyno’s gaze lingered for a long moment, then he straightened, voice even, firm, leaving no room for discussion. “Very well, then.”

And with that, he departed the room. The soft click of the door echoed far too loudly in Tighnari’s chest.

⸻

The silence that followed was suffocating. The tail that had been taut relaxed little by little, ears slowly rising, but the rush of overstimulation had left a residue. Tighnari pressed his hands to his face, heart racing, mind replaying every clipped word. He had been petty. Irrational. And Cyno—calm, devoted Cyno—had left quietly, unshaken, leaving only the weight of Tighnari’s guilt in his wake.

He could almost feel Cyno’s presence lingering at the threshold, the absence more pronounced than the man’s very proximity had ever been. And in that quiet, Tighnari whispered to himself:

”I ought not to have spoken thus. I ought not…Alas, now I must apologize sooner rather than later..Oh, my dear Cyno..”

The house seemed impossibly large, empty, yet full of echoes of authority, devotion, and the one thing Tighnari feared he had mismanaged most: the trust of the only person who ever fully understood him.