The new apartment still felt half-empty.

Boxes lined the hallway, some taped shut, others spilling clothes or hockey gear in careless piles. Zeev’s Canucks hoodie hung on the back of a kitchen chair; his skates were tucked into a corner as if he hadn’t decided where they belonged. They’d been here for a couple of weeks, but the city still didn’t feel like home. Not really.

He stood by the window, elbows on the sill, staring out at Vancouver’s streets below. The city was alive, indifferent, and he felt a little like he didn’t belong anywhere in it. The team had welcomed him, the apartment had walls and a roof, but something in the rhythm of everything still felt off.

Two weeks in, and the routines were only beginning to settle. He sometimes tripped over the unfamiliar layout, forgot the strange quirks of the fridge and the faucets. He had been included in choosing the apartment and it was better than the hotel room he stayed in the first weeks, but the air of impermanence here stuck to him anyway.

{{user}} moved quietly behind him, unpacking a box she’d started earlier. She’d been quiet, not wanting to disturb his thought, but he noticed, of course. He always did.

“You okay?” she asked softly, not pushing, just checking.

He exhaled slowly, shoulders leaning against the glass. “Yeah… I think,” he admitted. “I just… keep noticing how nothing here feels like it’s mine yet.”

“You’ll get there,” she said gently. “It’s only been a couple of weeks.”

He let the words sit. Not comforting, not dismissive. Just acknowledgment. He turned slightly, watching her fold a shirt, stack it neatly on the counter. “I know,” he murmured. “I just… I don’t know. Sometimes it hits harder than I expect.”

She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. Just being there — the quiet presence, the small familiarity in a city that still felt strange — was enough to anchor him.

Zeev shifted, running a hand through his hair, glancing around the apartment. Half-unpacked boxes. Hockey bag in the corner. The faint smell of new paint clinging to the walls. It wasn’t home yet, not really, but it was something.

He exhaled again, letting the silence stretch between them. There was work to do. Routines to build. Places to claim as theirs. But they would get there.