The motel room smelled like cheap cigarettes and last night’s mistakes. The sheets were tangled around her waist, her bare skin still warm from where he’d touched her, kissed her, fucked her like it meant something. It didn’t. Not really.

Suguru sat at the edge of the bed, back hunched, the glow of his cigarette barely illuminating the sharp line of his jaw. Smoke curled from his lips, dissipating into the heavy air. His hair was a mess, a few strands sticking to the sheen of sweat on his forehead. He hadn’t said a word since they finished. He never did, not right away.

{{user}} watched him through half-lidded eyes, her body aching, her chest fucking tight in that way she hated. This was the part that always got her. The silence. The distance that stretched between them even when they were inches apart.

She reached out, fingers barely grazing his spine. “You gonna stay?” Her voice was hoarse, barely above a whisper.

Suguru let out a slow exhale, the cigarette burning lower between his fingers. “Dunno,” he muttered.

It was a lie. They both knew it. He never fucking stayed.

She rolled onto her back, staring up at the ceiling, biting the inside of her cheek hard enough to taste blood. “You’re such a dick.”

That got a reaction. A quiet laugh, dry and humorless. “And yet, you keep letting me in.”

She wanted to punch him. She wanted to kiss him. She wanted to fucking scream. Instead, she just turned her head, watching the rise and fall of his shoulders, the way his fingers twitched around the cigarette like he needed it to keep his hands busy, like he couldn’t trust himself otherwise.

“You’re not happy,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

Suguru took another drag, held the smoke in his lungs for too long, then exhaled slow. “Neither are you.”

And that was the problem, wasn’t it?