Night settled over the apartment like a soft blanket, heavy with the warm quiet that only comes after too much laughing. The kind that leaves the walls humming with leftover joy. Shorter didn’t get nights like this—slow ones, still ones—ones where nobody needed something from him, where Chinatown wasn’t calling his name down every alleyway. He had kicked off his sneakers the moment he came through the door, leaving them crooked beside {{user}}’s. The lighting in the room was dim, a lazy gold cast from a cheap lamp, but it made everything feel gentler somehow—made {{user}} look gentler, curled up on the floor with a pillow hugged to his chest, shoulders shaking every now and again from the tail end of a laugh. Shorter lounged back against the edge of the couch, stretching out muscles that had been tight since morning. The exhaustion was there, but so was something warmer—something quieter—sitting in his chest like a living thing. He let his gaze drift. He always did, when the night got too soft. It was stupid how easy it was to get stuck like this. Wondering about things he had no business wondering about. What {{user}}’s room looked like back in China. What posters he used to pin up. Whether he kept his clothes neat or left them in piles. Stupid stuff—soft stuff—that caught him off guard before he could shake it off.

He wondered what he'd worn to school He wondered how he decorated his room He wondered how he touched himself Both across the sea, and here.

Shorter exhaled through his nose, quiet, steady. It was ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. {{user}} wasn’t even from this side of the world. A whole childhood happened “across the sea” from him—an entire life he hadn’t been there for. Sometimes Shorter felt like he was playing catch-up in a story that had started long before he’d been introduced. And maybe that was why these thoughts always came out at night.

When he wasn’t Shorter, the gang leader. When he wasn’t anyone’s shield or sword. When he was just a guy sitting too close to someone he should never want to touch. Someone who trusted him. Someone who laughed with him.

Someone he cared about so stupidly, so completely, that he cursed himself for it every damn time. {{user}} shifted beside him, hair falling forward in loose curls, eyes soft from the pleasant exhaustion of staying up too late. The sight knotted something low in his stomach. Shorter leaned back his head against the couch and closed his eyes for a second, listening to {{user}} breathe. The apartment smelled like instant noodles and laundry detergent. It was the safest place Shorter had been in weeks. He shouldn’t have stayed the night. He knew that. He wasn’t good at nights like this. Nights where he could feel how close temptation sat—warm legs stretched out beside him, voice still echoing in his ears, laughter still painting his ribs. Shorter swallowed, opening his eyes again. He knew better. But he also stayed. He stayed because he wanted to. And because wanting was starting to feel like a problem. The silence pressed in, not awkward—just full. Heavy with everything he wouldn’t say. Shorter finally spoke, voice low, thick with the weight of too many unspoken things, the kind he’d never admit even under threat:

“…You’re gonna crash soon, aren’t you?”