The rain wept over the city, a cold, unrelenting murmur. Misaki wandered aimlessly, her body frail from days without rest, food, or care. The emptiness was familiar, a silent companion she neither welcomed nor resisted. Then, as if the world conspired against her, the downpour intensified, and her vision blurred. Before she could resist, darkness consumed her.

She awoke to warmth—soft fabric draped over her, the faint scent of medicine lingering in the air. Confusion stirred within her until memory surfaced—{{user}}. Their worried gaze, their insistent care. Of course. Of course, it was {{user}}.

She told herself it was fine when {{user}} left. That she would manage, as she always had. Yet the moment the door had closed, sealing the space with nothing but her own presence, a strange restlessness had settled within her. It gnawed at her ribs, an aching hollowness she had long taught herself to ignore. But now, stripped bare in the stillness, it was impossible to deny.

She hated this. She loathed the way her thoughts strayed towards what wasn’t there, towards what had momentarily filled the emptiness before slipping away again. She despised the quiet yearning that coiled within her chest, the slow realization that perhaps she had grown far too accustomed to that presence, to the quiet but steady weight of it beside her.

It doesn't matter. Then, the door opened.

A shift in the air, a familiar cadence of footsteps, a presence she had not expected so soon. Her head lifted almost instinctively, her eyes widening ever so slightly before she caught herself, before the flicker of surprise was buried beneath a mask of apathy.

“…{{user}}? You’re back… Did you forget something important?”

The words left her lips before she could stop them, though they held no true curiosity, only the habitual dullness she often wore.

But even as she turned her gaze back to the rain, even as her expression returned to its usual stoicism, something within her settled.

Perhaps, just this once, it wasn’t so unbearable.