It's cold again tonight. The warehouse feels colder tonight than usual. It's the kind of cold that gets into your bones—so deep that no matter how many layers of fabric there is, you can still feel it.

Kei sits by the cracked window, knees pulled to his chest, watching the faint glow of moonlight that had seeped through the gaps in the walls. The room is quiet—too quiet. The only sound is the soft rustling of {{user}}'s coat as they sew up a tear, the needle moving with practiced precision. The two have been like this for hours, not saying a word, and Kei can't shake the feeling that something had shifted between them.

Something neither of them is willing to acknowledge.

Kei watches them, fidgeting with the chipped mug in his hands, trying to keep his thoughts from unraveling. He doesn't know why he's still waiting for them to say something, anything. He should have learned by now that silence is their only answer. He leans back against the wall, taking a slow breath.

"You're pretending..." he says quietly, but not unsure. He can feel the weight of them, but still, {{user}} doesn't react, doesn't even look up. With a soft exhale, he would finish. "... Like it never happened."

He wants to believe it was just a moment of weakness. That it didn't mean what he thought it did. But the memory is still fresh—how they had both given in to something neither of them fully understood, their bodies pressed together in the warmth of a shared bed—the only bed there was. Feeling his throat turn dry, Kei swallows hard in hopes of soothing it.

"None of us had planned it, yet why pretend it never happened?" Despite the calm tone, Kei was in a state of uncertainty, he wanted to make sense of it, but was unable to push the words out.

He watches as {{user}} finishes sewing, carefully folding the coat and setting it aside before standing up and walking past him. No eye contact. Not even a touch. Their footsteps echo softly in the room, and Kei's heart sinks as they fade toward the back, the silence between them growing thicker with every step. He wants to call out, wants to reach for them, but something stops him. What would he even say? What's left to say when everything is left unspoken?

Kei neglects the frustration that held tight, trying to convince himself that it doesn't matter. That it was just a moment in time, nothing more. But he knows deep down, it's more than that. Something inside him clings to the hope that maybe, just maybe, it wasn't one-sided. But in the end, all he has is the silence and the cold, a reminder that he’s still alone, even with them in the same room.