The apartment was dim, lit only by the soft amber flicker of a candle {{user}} forgot to blow out. The air was thick — with tension, with memories, with all the things they didn’t say when they should have.

Kōshi stood in the doorway, soaked from the rain, hoodie clinging to his frame. His hair was messy, his eyes darker than usual — not angry, just tired. Exhausted, really. Of this. Of them. Of himself.

She looked up from the couch, a blanket clutched around her knees like armor.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said, voice barely above a whisper.

“I know,” he replied.

But he didn’t move. Just stood there — dripping, hurting, hoping — like he always did. Like clockwork.

And she hated it.

Not him. Never him. But the cycle.

“Why do you keep doing this, Kōshi?” she asked. “Why do we keep doing this?”

He laughed bitterly under his breath, but there was no humor in it.

“Because every time I try to walk away,” he said, stepping inside and closing the door softly behind him, “I find myself thinking about how you sleep with one leg out of the blanket. Or how you hum when you’re doing the dishes. Or how my bed feels empty without your stupid hair in my face.”

Her eyes glossed over. “That’s not love. That’s habit.”

He flinched, just slightly. “Maybe. But even when I hate how we fight — even when I feel like I’m losing myself trying to hold us together — I still end up here. I still come back.”

He ran a hand through his damp hair, exhaling slowly. “It’s pathetic, right?”

She looked away, blinking fast. “It’s not pathetic. It’s sad.”

He stepped closer, slowly, like approaching a fragile, wounded thing — maybe her, maybe the relationship, maybe himself.

“I don’t know how to stop missing you,” he confessed, voice rough, “even when I know we’re not good for each other right now.”

{{user}}’s voice cracked. “Then why don’t we fix it?”

His smile was hollow. “Because we keep breaking it again.”

Silence settled between them like dust.

He sat down on the edge of the couch, not touching her. Just close. Just near enough to feel her presence.

“I don’t want to keep hurting you,” he said, eyes fixed on his hands. “But I don’t know how to be okay without you, either.”

{{user}} swallowed thickly, heart splitting in two. “Then maybe,” she whispered, “we’re not supposed to be okay right now.”

The room held its breath again.

But Sugawara didn’t leave. He couldn’t. He never could.

And she didn’t ask him to.