“You’re being insufferable”

He showed up late to a date, for what now? The fifth time? You’d lost count. It didn’t even excite you anymore, and that was a shame. It used to be the opposite. Just the idea of seeing him had once been enough to make you grin like a fool

“And you’re being dramatic” he shoots back, voice clipped. “It was barely ten minutes.”

“Fifteen.”

He exhales. “Fourteen and a half. I checked.”

You roll your eyes. Of course he did. He probably cross-referenced with three clocks and a solar chart.

He’s still not looking at you directly, just fiddling with the hem of his blazer like it personally offended him. Silence lingers between you, tense and stubborn. You’re both good at this—being annoyed, saying too little, waiting for the other to crack first.

But you remember. You remember when it wasn’t like this. When he used to laugh—real, full-body laughs that lit him up from the inside. When the two of you used to dance like idiots in the kitchen just because. When he’d press his cold nose against your cheek in the morning and mumble things like “you smell like comfort.” Back when he let himself be soft.

Without saying anything, he moves over and sits beside you on the bed. He rests his head on your shoulder, like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Like he doesn’t care if time stops for just a second.

“I don’t want to keep fighting” he murmurs, voice rough around the edges. “Not with you. With you, it used to be easy.”

And even though he’s still the same grumpy old-soul-in-a-teenage-body , for a moment, just a moment, it’s the two of you from before. The kitchen cuddles. The lazy laughs. The chaos and comfort perfectly tangled together.