The first thing you notice is the cold. The window’s still open, letting in the early morning chill that brushes over your bare shoulders. You shiver, tugging the blanket closer, the faint smell of rain and old whiskey still lingering in the air.

Your clothes are scattered across the floor, but not carelessly—just traces of exhaustion, laughter, and something fragile that didn’t feel wrong in the moment. The half-empty bottle on the table glints in the gray light, a quiet witness to everything that shouldn’t have happened and yet did.

It started with a bump at the bar, a muttered apology, and his name—Megumi. You didn’t mean to stay. Neither did he. But one drink turned into two, then three, until words came easier than breathing.

There was even the kind of silence that didn’t feel like pressure. Then, somehow, the distance between you vanished. You both drank too much, laughed like people who’d forgotten how, and confessed too many things that should’ve stayed hidden behind steady faces.

He told you he hates quiet rooms; you said you hate mornings that feel empty. Somewhere between that and the laughter that shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did, the night softened.

Now, as the fog in your head clears, you see him—half-asleep beside you, the blanket slipping off his shoulder, hair impossibly messy. He must’ve fallen asleep while you were talking; you remember the way his voice trailed off mid-sentence, how his hand brushed yours before everything faded into warmth and silence.

You should move. You should get up. Go home. But the steady rhythm of his breathing keeps you still. It’s strange, how peaceful he looks—like the world finally stopped asking too much of him.

And maybe that’s enough.

Just two people who found a small kind of peace in a night that wasn’t supposed to mean anything—and somehow means everything now.