The skate park at 2 a.m. never really slept. The floodlights were dead, the half-pipe slick with nighttime dew, and the whole place hummed with that unsettling quiet that only cities manage to make loud. It suited Riven and you perfectly.

You'd met the first time in a police station—two boys with bad timing and worse reputations. Riven had been hauled in for tagging half a train carriage; you had been caught hanging around the wrong alley at the wrong hour with the wrong crowd attempting to buy an illegal type of drug. Both sets of parents had taken one look at the other boy and immediately decided: negative influence. His parents thought the same of you.

That had basically guaranteed you’d become friends.

Tonight, you and Riven lingered in the shadowy corners of the skate park, the air heavy with the cold bite of winter and the faint chemical smell of old paint. The concrete bowl stretched out beneath the moon like some abandoned monument, cracked and half-rotted from kids like you who'd carved their names into it over and over.

Riven leaned back on his board, hood up, jaw sharp under the dim light. His eyes were always bright at night—half mischief, half something harder. “This place looks dead,” he muttered, tapping the side of the spray can in his hand. “Perfect.”

You smirked. “Dead means no security guards.”

He gave a low laugh—dark, amused. It echoed strangely around the empty ramps.

The two of you moved along the graffiti-plastered wall. Riven worked quickly, fluidly, like his hands were more comfortable with a can than anything else. You added your own marks beside his. You didn’t need to plan it; your styles just clicked, overlapping into something chaotic but weirdly beautiful.

“Your parents still think I’m destroying your life?” Riven asked, voice low.

You shrugged. “Mine think you’re a walking red flag.”

He grinned without humour. “They’re probably right.”

But he didn’t step away. If anything, he drifted closer, shoulder brushing yours as he painted. It wasn’t sweet. It wasn’t shy. It was territorial—like the two of you carved out this whole space just for yourselves and didn’t want the world to touch it.