You’re flat on your back, eyes fixed on the far corner of the room. Specifically, on the tarantula tank sitting there like a smug little monument to your discomfort. The newest addition to Eugene’s collection of “friends.”

You don’t like it.

Eugene knows you don’t like it.

You’re almost certain the tarantula itself knows you don’t like it—and it likes that.

The tank doesn’t move. Neither do you. But your gaze stays locked on it, because deep down there’s a part of you convinced that if you stop watching, it’ll somehow find a way out like the last one did.

The dorm’s small, the kind of space where every square foot has a claim on it. It’s yours. It’s his. And lately, it’s theirs—his growing little zoo of creepy-crawlies, the tarantula just one of many since his control expanded beyond bees. Now there’s a humidifier in the corner for his caterpillars, a cricket tank you try to ignore, a shelf full of insect-housing-jars, and the distinct smell of lettuce and damp dirt that you swear wasn’t there at the start of the semester.

Your school uniform still clings to you—Nevermore’s sharp indigo-and-black striped blazer, matching skirt, tights with a tiny tear near the knee. You haven’t bothered to change. Haven’t moved much, either. The day wrung you out, and now you’re just… here.

Outside, the light shifts. The sun sinks low enough to paint the room in that thin, tired gold.

The door opens, heavy hinges groaning.

“You don’t have to glare at her, you know?” Eugene’s voice breaks the quiet, lisp soft but noticeable. The door slams shut behind him without ceremony. “She’s not going anywhere.”

You don’t answer. You’ve had this argument before, in more words and with less energy.

The humidifier in the caterpillar enclosure hums in the corner, a steady backdrop to the silence you let hang.

Eugene sets his bag down, walks past you to check the tarantula’s tank like he’s inspecting priceless art. “She likes you,” he says without looking up. “I can tell.” Another lie to get you to come around them.

You roll your eyes toward the ceiling. “Like Charlotte liked me? Sure she does.”

That gets him to glance back, smirking. “She does," He presses on, repeating your final words. "Maybe even more.”

“And we all saw how that went for her,” you reply, recalling the remnants of barn spider guts splattered across your wall after his previous pet grew too bold around you.

“She’s fine, she won’t escape.” he insists, straightening the small fern inside the enclosure.

You don’t look back at him.

He huffs at your silence—quiet, knowing—and finally turns to his own bed, dropping onto it with the same exhausted heaviness you feel in your bones. The tarantula doesn’t move. Neither do you.

The humidifier hums on.