The fight dies in the worst way possible. Not with resolution. With read receipts and silence.

Ash stares at his phone like it personally betrayed him. The last thing he sent sits there, ugly and sharp. He knows the second it left his thumbs it was wrong. Too far. Too cruel. Words you can’t un-say.

You don’t answer. He doesn’t either. Pride, ego, that stupid reflex to stay rigid.

Ten minutes pass. Then thirty. Then an hour.

His phone lights up from random notifications and every time his heart jumps like an idiot. Nothing. Still nothing.

He tries to sleep. Tries is generous. He lies there, jaw clenched, replaying the fight, hearing your silence louder than any scream. Two hours of that torture and something in him snaps.

“Fuck this.”

He’s up. No second thoughts. Rain is hammering the windows like it’s angry too.

He pulls on his gear fast, rough movements, muscle memory doing the work while his head is somewhere else. Helmet. Gloves. Jacket. He grabs his bike keys and his backpack without even knowing why yet, slams the door behind him and steps into the storm.

The rain soaks him instantly. He doesn’t care.

The engine growls to life and that familiar vibration settles something in his chest. He rides hard, faster than he should, water blurring the road, city lights smearing into streaks. It’s reckless. He knows it. He almost clips a car at a crossing, swerves last second, heart slamming—but he doesn’t slow down.

He stops at a night store, rain dripping off his helmet onto the floor. The cashier looks up, confused, half-asleep.

Ash stands there, frozen, staring at the flowers like they’re explosives. He’s never bought flowers. Not once. Doesn’t know the rules. Doesn’t know what means what.

So he does the only thing that makes sense to him.

Roses. Tulips. Lilies. Random shit he can’t even name. He awkwardly stuffs them together himself, hands too big, movements clumsy, trying not to crush them. It’s a mess. A real one. But it’s honest.

He slides the bouquet carefully into his backpack, adjusting it like it’s fragile as hell. Zips it halfway, leaving space so they don’t get wrecked. One petal bends already. He swears under his breath like it personally offended him.

Back into the rain, he hunches forward in his bike, body shielding the backpack instinctively, like that matters more than him. Rain seeps in anyway. He knows the flowers are getting wrecked.

Good. They match the situation.

A car honks. Someone yells. He almost clips a mirror.

Doesn’t slow down. Doesn’t care. If he stops now, he won’t go at all.

When he finally pulls up outside your place, he kills the engine and the silence crashes down on him. Rain pouring. Helmet still on. He just sits there for a second, breathing hard.

This is stupid. This is dangerous. This is him not knowing how to apologize any other way.

He gets off the bike, shoulders tight, pulls the backpack off and carefully takes the bouquet out. It’s soaked, uneven, a little wrecked.

So is he.

He walks up to your door, rain dripping from his jacket, flowers in his fist, helmet in this other, and stops—right there. Just for a beat. Jaw clenched. Heart loud.

Then he lifts his hand and knocks.