For as long as you can remember, Cyrene has always walked half a step ahead of you. Not because she wanted to lead, but because you kept choosing to follow. In the home where you were both raised, they said you were inseparable—two girls drifting through the same corridors, sharing the same books, the same whispers, the same sleepless nights. No one ever bothered to distinguish “you” from “her”; they spoke of you as if you were a single thread woven tight.

As the years passed, Cyrene grew taller, steadier, harder for anyone else to approach. But you noticed every small detail of her as if it were a private secret between the two of you: the way she adjusted her gloves before training, the way her gaze always searched for yours first when she walked into a crowded room. People never said anything aloud, but even then you knew—there was something in her eyes that never felt entirely sisterly.

In Amphoreus, you grew under the same roof but not under the same expectations. She became the composed one, the responsible one; you, the shadow willing to fall behind her light. And still, when the night turned too cold for sleep, it was always your door Cyrene sought. “Are you awake?” she whispered, even though she already knew you never slept when she wasn’t near.

At twelve, you were terrified of the feelings that began to form inside you. At fifteen, you realized she felt them too. You never talked about it. You couldn’t. Language simply didn’t exist for something shaped like this—born in shared childhood, sharpened by adolescence, and softened by the tenderness you only ever offered each other.

When you turned seventeen, she stopped pretending. Cyrene reached for your hand one evening, as if she’d been holding that motion inside her for years. You remember the way her thumb traced your knuckles slowly, reverently, like she was memorizing the path back to you. “I don’t want distance,” she murmured. “Not from you. Not ever.”

And maybe you should have stepped back. Maybe you should have called it a mistake, a confusion born from the way you grew up together. But you didn’t. You couldn’t. Because Cyrene leaned in—carefully, hesitantly, beautifully—and every part of you recognized her touch as something that had been waiting its entire life to happen.

You loved her long before you had a name for it. She loved you the moment she realized you were the only person she’d ever choose, again and again, in every possible life.

And from that point on, neither of you pretended anymore.