The light in Hikaru’s room was thin, pale, the kind that had no warmth to it. He’d left the curtains closed all day, but the gaps still bled a watery gray across the carpet. The air was heavy with the stale sweetness of snacks he hadn’t eaten, the wrappers piled on his desk untouched. He hadn’t gone downstairs. Hadn’t opened the window. His sneakers sat abandoned by the door where he’d kicked them off last night, their laces curled in loose, tired spirals. Beneath the blanket, his knees were pulled up, chin resting on them. The fabric was too warm, but without it, he felt too exposed—like the air might scrape against him. He’d kept still for hours, but the stillness didn’t keep his thoughts quiet. Every so often they flicked back to the hallway outside yesterday’s classroom, the look on {{user}}’s face before he’d said it—before the words had carved something jagged into the space between them. Hikaru could still feel that moment in his body, like the echo of a blow that hadn’t faded yet. The worst part was knowing it wasn’t entirely wrong. He wasn’t the original. He was something else. Something that shouldn’t get to be hurt by the truth. And yet, it had still hit like a hand closing around his throat. His insides had calmed by morning, pulled back beneath skin that looked normal enough if you didn’t know better. But every time he pictured {{user}} stepping away from him, it was like the surface of him thinned, almost opening again. He kept curling tighter so nothing would slip out. The floor creaked downstairs. He didn’t move. The sound of shoes in the genkan. The faint thump of a door sliding shut. Footsteps on the stairs—hesitant, then more certain. The house was too quiet for it to be anyone else. He didn’t need to look. He knew. Something in the rhythm of the steps, the slight pause before each one, always gave {{user}} away. The blanket tightened around him as the footsteps stopped at his door. A pause.

He heard the other call his name softly. The sound of it was a small hook pulling at something in his chest. He kept his eyes on the shadow under the door instead, breathing slowly, like he could pretend it wasn’t there. The urge to answer tangled with the urge to disappear. If he stayed quiet long enough, maybe {{user}} would leave. Maybe he wouldn’t.

Either way, Hikaru didn’t move.