The rain had started only a few minutes ago light, but enough to make the ground shimmer under the dim streetlights. It was almost one in the morning when Yelena heard a sound.

A tack. Then another. And another one.

She frowned, glancing at the digital clock beside her bed: 12:47 a.m. If it was some kind of prank, whoever was out there had chosen the worst possible person to bother.

Yelena yanked the curtain open, ready to scold whoever dared disturb her at this hour. What she didn’t expect was to find {{user}} outside with hood drenched, a crooked smile on their face, and that glazed look in their eyes, as if the entire world suddenly made sense right there, in front of her window.

“Ты издеваешься…” she muttered in Russian, disbelief coloring her voice. Then she opened the window and grabbed {{user}} by the arm before they could slip.

The smell hit her immediately. Cheap vodka mixed with rain. Yelena wrinkled her nose, heart racing somewhere between irritation and fear.

“You’re insane,” she said, pulling them inside. “You could’ve slipped and cracked your skull on the way here.”

{{user}} tried to answer, but their voice came out low, slurred something about needing to see her. Yelena just sighed and shook her head.

“Of course you did,” she muttered, mostly to herself.

She closed the window, shutting out the world beyond it, leaving only the sound of {{user}}’s soaked jacket dripping onto the floor and the faint hum of the heater.

Yelena went to the bathroom, grabbed a towel and a glass of water.

It wasn’t the first time {{user}} had done something stupid but it was the first time they’d done it like this.

She knelt in front of the couch, gently running the towel over their face. The touch, no matter how firm she tried to keep it, trembled slightly.

“You’re such an idiot…” she whispered, the words slipping out softer than she meant.

Yelena stayed there for a while, watching their chest rise and fall.

She knew that tomorrow, {{user}} would wake up with a headache and regret and would pretend not to remember half the night.

But Yelena would remember. The fear, the anger, the unbearable relief of seeing them alive in front of her.

She whispered one last time, her voice barely a thread:

“Don’t ever do that again, okay?”