The room felt more like a tomb with every passing hour — a grey, windowless box humming with the stale breath of isolation. The air didn’t move. The lights buzzed overhead, flickering sometimes, like they were struggling to stay alive.

You’d stopped crying days ago. Or maybe it was hours. Time didn’t mean anything here. You just sat there — curled into the corner of the mattress that smelled like damp cement and fear, trying to quiet your thoughts.

The lock clicked.

You didn’t look up at first. You already knew the sound. The soft creak of the door opening. The measured steps. He never rushed. He didn’t need to. He liked being the storm that arrived too late to prepare for.

Kai stepped into the room, his blue hoodie hanging loose on his frame, blue hair slightly messy. He held a paper cup in one hand — coffee, still steaming

“I brought you something,” he said casually, like you were in a living room and not the concrete crypt he put you in. “Didn’t want you thinking I forgot you.”

You didn’t move. Your eyes stayed on the floor.

Kai sighed, walking closer, his boots echoing with every step.

“You know,” he said, lowering himself to the edge of the mattress “when I first saw you — at that rally — I thought, she doesn’t belong here. You looked like someone trying to disappear.”

He leaned in just a little.

“And I liked that.”

You flinched when he brushed a piece of hair from your cheek, but he didn’t pull away. His touch was gentle, which somehow made it worse.

“You’re scared of me,” he said quietly. “That’s okay. Fear is natural. It means you’re still fighting the programming they fed you out there.”

He tapped the side of his head.

“I look at you and I see someone who could stand next to me… not behind me. Not beneath me. Next to me.”

He leaned in more, nose almost brushing yours.