𝓱𝓪𝓷𝓷𝓲𝓮𝓳𝓳𝓲

Qifrey takes the goblet from Olruggio—half-filled, but still heavy in his hand. The corner of his mouth lifts when he notices your eyes lingering on its contents, stirred by quiet curiosity. As far as he remembers, you've never had the opportunity to imbibe before.

"Apprentice, do you want to—"

Before Qifrey can finish, you're already leaning across the table to pick up a decanter. Both men fall silent as you begin to pour carefully into an empty goblet.

"Um." Olruggio starts, visibly alarmed when the level of liquid continues creeping higher and higher. "That might be a little too much..."

You ignore him. Only when the goblet is filled nearly to the brim do you set the decanter back down, deep red swishing dangerously close to the rim as you lift it to your lips.

You take a cautious mouthful. At first, there's no reaction from you at all. Qifrey's about to gently prompt you when your face scrunches up ever so minutely.

"Euh."

Without another word, you push your goblet into his empty hand before ambling off into the festival crowd—presumably in search of water to wash the taste from your mouth. Qifrey sighs softly through his nose and looks down at the two drinks he's now holding, though the fondness tugging at the corner of his mouth ruins any real attempt at exasperation. He raises your abandoned goblet to his lips instead.

Olruggio stares after you until you disappear amongst the throng, before glancing sideways at Qifrey. "You spoil them," he says, after a while. Qifrey smiles faintly into the rim of your—his now, he supposes—cup.

"It's hard not to."

Olruggio watches him for a moment longer. For a second, Qifrey thinks he might speak further, but whatever is on his mind ultimately goes unvoiced. The two of them drink silently side by side beneath the flickering lanternlight instead, arms brushing ever so often, and Qifrey is starting to feel the faintest hum of warmth unfurling in his fingertips when a passing villager suddenly recognises him.

It's not long before Qifrey finds himself pulled into conversation. He barely manages a glimpse of Olruggio—grinning, goblet lifted teasingly in farewell—before an over-eager farmer tugs him further from the table, insisting he hear about this year's harvest. Another villager he vaguely recognises comes up to thank him profusely for removing a boulder that'd been damming the river upstream. A young couple insists he share a toast with them, while an elderly woman presses yet another cup of wine into Qifrey's hands and refuses to let him leave without trying her granddaughter's honeycakes.

By the time he manages to extricate himself and circle back to the wine tables, the powdered sugar from the pastries still clinging faintly to his tongue, he finds Olruggio sprawled face-first across the wood, snoring faintly. Qifrey stares at the two empty decanters next to him before slowly reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose.

He's drooling.

"…Unbelievable." Qifrey unclasps his cloak with a quiet sigh. The heavy fabric slips from his shoulders, and he gathers it carefully in his hands before draping it over Olruggio's slumped back. The man barely stirs, mumbling something utterly incomprehensible into the tabletop.

Qifrey shakes his head and goes to find you instead.

 He spots you eventually, near one of the smaller fires scattered along the edges of the square. It's quieter here, far enough from the heart of the celebrations that the festival clamour softens into a distant hum. You don't notice his approach—seated cross-legged with your back to him, next to a girl roughly your age. The flickering firelight washes over you both, casting your silhouettes in shifting glow and flickering shadow, outlined against the dark.

And the two of you are alone.

His steps slow on instinct. Even from a distance, Qifrey recognises her as the baker's daughter. He cannot make out your face from this angle but hers is plainly visible—dark curls pulled back from a heart-shaped face, a smile designed to put people at ease. Her eyes shine bright as polished amber as she speaks, hands moving expressively while the fire crackles warmly between you.

It hasn't been long since you passed the Pentacle's second test—he needs to ensure you don't accidentally let slip the secret behind magic. Qifrey lingers a few paces away, remaining just close enough to stay within earshot.

She's asking about your spells now. About the magic you've learned and yet to, the villages you've helped as a witch. Her fascination is written openly across her face, her smile bright at every answer you give. You're responding in your usual tone—brief, practical, somewhat curt—but she seems delighted to listen to them regardless. Even as Qifrey watches, she shifts closer gradually across the mat, until her shoulder bumps lightly against yours.

Quite suddenly, Qifrey realises what he's looking at. This girl isn't interested in magic. She's interested in you.

The thought lands strangely, oddly shaped and ill-fitting, a square cube shoved through a round hole. For a moment, Qifrey can only stand there half-hidden in the shadows, watching—and realising, with faint disbelief, that somewhere along the way, you've stopped being a child.

And he hadn't noticed. Not until now.

The baker's daughter is still talking animatedly beside you, chin propped in one hand as she rambles on about how exciting it must be to be a witch—learning magic, seeing things ordinary people never will. Every so often she laughs at one of your short replies, smiling as though your reticence only encourages her further. Eventually, her expression softens slightly.

"But it must get lonely sometimes, doesn't it?" she asks, tilting her head to look at you so that her dark hair spills over her shoulder. "Living all the way out there in the atelier?"

You shake your head. "I have Master," you say, plainly.

The words strike him with embarrassing force. Catch him off guard, soft and aching all at once, fingertips rolling over old bruises that have yet to fade. Qifrey still remembers what you'd said that day, by the fountain.

Master is the prettiest.

"No, I mean…" The girl blinks, then laughs softly under her breath, before nudging your shoulder lightly with hers. "Do you have someone you're interested in?"

You stare at her blankly. "What does that mean?"

Her smile widens. "It means someone you think about a lot," she explains patiently, leaning in with one hand cupped around her mouth, the ends of her hair tickling the curve of your shoulder. Qifrey can barely catch what she's saying from where he stands. "Someone whose smile makes your heart beat faster. Someone you want to kiss. Someone you like more than anyone else in the world."

Your brow furrows, before your gaze drops to your lap. From the shadows, just out of reach of the firelight, Qifrey feels a faint frisson of guilt stab through him; perhaps, he has kept you too isolated all these years as his apprentice. You should not have to learn about these things from a village girl beside a bonfire while he lingers awkwardly in the dark, hiding from your sight. As your master, Qifrey should have explained such matters himself—or at the very least, asked someone more experienced in these conversations to guide you through them.

You are frighteningly skilled in the domain of magic. You are quick to learn and quicker to understand, your mind sharper than most young witches your age, and you can navigate spells even some adults would struggle to grasp. It is his failing, then, that this conversation is leaving you aflounde—

"Oh. Then yes."

Qifrey stills.

The baker's daughter brightens at first—only for disappointment to flicker almost immediately across her face a second later. It's subtle, but unmistakeable. She leans in closer, echoing the question hovering in Qifrey's thoughts.

"Who is it?"

Qifrey should leave. This is not a conversation he ought to be listening in on; he should have walked away minutes earlier instead of lurking like a thief, making flimsy excuses for himself. He's just about to make a hasty retreat when, for some unfathomable reason, you suddenly look up and glance over your shoulder—eyes landing directly on where he stands just beyond reach of the firelight.

"Master."

Qifrey's heart vaults into his throat. Caught. "Sorry," he finds himself saying before he can think better of it. "Olruggio passed out from drinking too much, so…"

So what? His explanation trails off uselessly. The words feel awkward and clumsy in his dry mouth, slipping from his tongue without direction or purpose. Under your gaze Qifrey feels painfully transparent—as though you are picking apart every half-formed thought behind his fumbling excuse with ease. It is a deeply unsettling feeling, considering you are simply looking at him the way you always do.

Before Qifrey can scramble for another excuse—or perhaps, to flee entirely—you rise to your feet, brushing the dust from your clothes.

"It's alright. I can go."

Behind you, the girl's expression deflates with poorly concealed disappointment. It's quickly smoothed over with a smile, however, when you offer her a polite nod in farewell. Manners obliged, you cross the short stretch between you, grass crunching softly beneath your feet and fall into step next to Qifrey, the motion as easy and natural as drawing breath. Qifrey tries his best to keep his gaze from wandering as he leads the way back to the village square.

By now, majority of the festivities have begun to wind down. The two of you retrieve Olruggio from the wine tables; his friend is too drunk to do anything beyond mumble incoherently, much less offer any assistance. Qifrey quickly inks a levitating spell onto a stretcher you assemble from spare canvas and poles, and Olruggio moans tragically when you roll him onto it together.

"I'm never drinking again," he mumbles.

Qifrey sighs, one hand pressed to his forehead. "You say that every time."

"This time I mean it."

You snort softly under your breath, reaching down to cajole the stretcher into the air. "Mr. Olruggio can tell himself that tomorrow morning."

In response, Olruggio only groans.

Despite the sorry state Olruggio is in, it's a leisurely walk back to the atelier. Normally, Qifrey wouldn't mind the trek—embedded glowstones illuminate the winding path with soft pools of warm light, and the autumn wind is pleasantly cool against his cheeks—but tonight, his thoughts eat away incessantly at the edges of his mind. The question circles endlessly, its grip unrelenting, no matter how hard he tries to dismiss it.

There is someone.

Qifrey thinks hard, as you walk through the dark fields with Olruggio's stretcher floating between you, his soft snores accompanying the steady crunch of your footsteps on gravel. Who? Who have you been watching when Qifrey wasn't paying attention, thinking about, wanting to kiss? A few faces come to mind, but none feel right. And worse still is the uncomfortable realisation that he hadn't noticed—anything at all.

"Master?"

He nearly stumbles over his own feet. Qifrey's arms flail for balance, windmilling wildly, before he manages to catch himself at the last second. Faintly mortified, he glances over—only to realise belatedly you've been observing him the entire time.

"Master seems deep in thought," you say, unhelpfully.

Qifrey feels like an insect—pinned to a display card, positioned beneath a viewing glass, exposed to your wordless scrutiny—this feeling, again. He swallows and glances away, throat dry all of a sudden.

"Sorry." The admission slips out eventually, awkwardly. His own voice is oddly startling amidst the quiet rustling of wind in the fields. "I… overheard, earlier. What you and that girl were talking about."

You eye him for a moment before shrugging. "It's okay. I don't mind."

Now Qifrey just feels silly. The conversation lapses back into silence after that and Qifrey must bite his tongue to keep himself from prying further—your private life is your own, and if there are matters you've chosen not to bring to him, then he's no right to interfere. Yet on the other hand… as your master, is he not also responsible for your wellbeing beyond magic alone? For guiding you through all the fragile, complicated parts of adolescence no spellbook will prepare you for?

Unfortunately, Qifrey's own experience is painfully lacking—woefully inadequate for someone attempting to act as a proper mentor in this regard. He fights back the urge to scrunch his face up in frustration in front of you and drops his gaze to the path beneath his feet instead. Beldaruit had shoved a stack of books into his arms before he'd left the Argentgard—books about apprentice raising, books he hadn't so much as glanced through before abandoning them at the door. In hindsight, a mistake—because now, Qifrey hasn't the faintest idea how to broach this subject.

"Well," is how he ends up doing it, anyway. "The one you're interested in… what kind of person are they?"

You glance up and your eyes meet. Qifrey has to hope that the faint light of the glowstones are too dim to illuminate the desperate curiosity on his face.

"Master wants to know?"

"Of course." Your matters are Qifrey's matters, and the thought of you miserable or hurt over some unworthy fool makes something unpleasant tighten low in Qifrey's stomach. But you hadn't told him, and remembering that leaves behind a faint, irrational sting that Qifrey immediately tries to strangulate with both hands. "But if you don't want to tell me, that's alright too. I promise not to pry."

Olruggio snuffles loudly between the two of you. He'd fallen asleep before you'd even stepped foot out of the village and hasn't stirred since. Without looking, you reach over for the loose edge of his cloak and yank it carelessly over Olruggio's face.

"They're kind," you begin, after a few contemplative paces. Your voice is barely audible beneath the night wind, and Qifrey has to lean in to catch your words. "Gentle. Everything I do, they're always encouraging me, no matter how I perform. And when I'm standing by their side…" You inhale quietly, then push out a soft breath before continuing. "It feels like being under the shelter of a big tree—as if nothing can touch me there."

Qifrey searches for something to say in response and finds himself strangely empty-handed in the face of your frank response. An emotion he can't quite put a finger on twists like gnarled roots beneath his ribs.

"They sound like an amazing person," is what he says, at last.

You smile—more to yourself than him, cradling a secret you're not quite willing to place in his hands. It's soft-edged, quiet, so achingly sincere that Qifrey finds himself caught somewhere between looking away and simply staring. Terrible as the thought is, he's never imagined you capable of looking at someone that way—so unbearably tender Qifrey feels as though he's intruding simply by witnessing it.

Yet, he's been proven wrong. Someone has managed. Who? Just who managed to put such an expression on your face?

"Yeah." You nod, completely oblivious to his inner turmoil, lacing both hands behind your back as you walk. "They are."

Something sour settles against the roof of Qifrey's mouth but he swallows it down before it can fester into something uglier. Qifrey should feel relieved that you've found someone who makes you feel safe—it's what he wants for you. What he needs to do is trust your judgment.

"Do they know?"

You tilt your head at him like the answer should be obvious. "No."

"Oh. Well…" Qifrey coughs lightly, unsure. "If they're so important to you, then maybe you should tell them?" It seems like the next step in the natural order of things—or, at least Qifrey thinks it is. He doesn't know. His gaze flickers down to the snoring lump on the stretcher, one arm dangling limply over the side before he looks away again. You frown.

"How?"

Qifrey immediately regrets bringing up the subject at all. "Well, I…" He falters almost at once, floundering—fingers steepling together before he starts absently wringing both hands instead. It's an impossible struggle, scrambling desperately for words that don't make him sound completely inane while you stare. "I think it should… probably be somewhere private? With only the two of you?" Qifrey offers uncertainly, worrying at his lower lip with his teeth. "A good moment when the other person isn't busy or distracted… and all their attention is on you."

"Oh," you say, far too seriously. Qifrey can feel his face growing warmer by the second. Stars above, he wants to pluck off his hat and shove his head face-first into it until this conversation passes. But you are looking at him attentively, still awaiting your master's advice, and so Qifrey forces himself to continue.

"I don't think you need to prepare anything elaborate," he adds on, weakly. "The important thing is to be sincere when you do it."

"Sincere," you repeat.

"Yes. Even if they don't share the same feelings…" Qifrey clears his throat lightly. He desperately needs something to distract himself but has nothing. "If what you say is genuine, then I believe the other person will understand that."

You're silent for a moment. There's a thoughtful expression on your face that makes Qifrey wonder whether you are truly turning his disastrous advice over in your head.

"What about Master? Is there someone you're interested in?"

For the second time that night, Qifrey nearly trips over his own feet. He lurches dangerously for a second, gravel crunching sharply beneath the soles of his boots before he glances over with a light chastisement on his lips; certainly, you must be teasing him. But it doesn't seem so. You only regard Qifrey with those familiar, inquisitive eyes—and heat crawls slowly up his neck. It's moments like this that make him even more grateful for his collar.

"You…" Qifrey reaches out before he can think better of it. You startle, eyes darting up when his hand comes to settle atop your head.

"Master?"

"I don't have time for romance," Qifrey says, with a lightness he doesn't entirely feel. "My hands are already full with an apprentice like you."

"So Master is blaming me?"

Your disgruntled expression almost makes him laugh despite himself. "Perhaps." Qifrey doesn't elaborate, offering no further explanation before his hand begins ruffling through your hair instead. You let out a startled yelp and try to duck away, glaring up in poorly concealed offence while Qifrey smiles properly for the first time that night.

"Master!"

One day, you will leave the atelier behind. You will become a fine witch—far finer than Qifrey ever was—and perhaps you will travel farther than he's dared, to lands past the peninsula and beyond. Or perhaps you might follow in his footsteps, taking on apprentices of your own with kinder intentions than he did you, and maybe you will build a life with the person you spoke of so warmly tonight, your future unfolding slowly beside theirs instead of his. There are infinite prospects, such countless possibilities, yet the one thing Qifrey is certain of is this: that one day, inevitably, you will surpass him in every way, just as a sapling eventually outgrows the shade of the tree that sheltered it. And that day…

Qifrey finds himself looking forward to it.

The spring weather here possesses a notoriously fickle mind; one moment the sun hangs bright and warm overhead, turning the hills of the Downs golden with its light—and the next there's rain scattering across the grassy slopes in glittering sheets. Olruggio's out today, on another job at some nearby lord's castle, and Qifrey is in the kitchen taking stock of the pantry staples when the first droplets begin pattering against the atelier windows. Frowning faintly, Qifrey glances up from baskets of legumes on the counter to peer out of the glass, just in time for the drizzle to abruptly thicken into heavy rain.

The laundry, Qifrey remembers suddenly, just as you exclaim, "The laundry!" from somewhere near the door.

"Apprentice—" he starts, intending to tell you to leave it and wait for the rain to pass, but you're already out before he can get the words out. Sighing softly through his nose, Qifrey crosses the atelier to where you've left the door hanging half-open instead and looks outside.

You've already made it to the clothing lines strung up beside Olruggio's workshop somehow. You're reaching up on your tiptoes, struggling to to tug down one of the larger bedsheets he'd hung earlier that morning, arms already laden with gathered laundry. Even as he watches the rain steadily soaks the darkening fabric of your robes, trickles down the strands of hair plastered to your cheeks.

Before he can think twice, Qifrey steps outside. The cold spring rain splashes across what little bare skin he has exposed, droplets scattering unrelentingly across his senses, but it's still enough to make him cringe. Qifrey ignores the discomfort, hurrying across the grass towards where you're wrestling with the sheets.

"Apprentice."

"Master?" you blurt, visibly shocked to find him standing beside you in the rain. "What are you—"

"Focus on getting the sheets down," Qifrey says, already reaching out to take the bundles of damp fabric from your arms while you tug the clothespins free. "I'll hold these."

You hurry obediently. Rainwater trickles unpleasantly down the back of Qifrey's neck in rivulets, but he exhales slowly through his mouth and keeps his attention of you instead. With your hands free, you dart quickly from line to line gathering the remaining laundry before shoving them into his arms. Qifrey is just about to take your wrist and make the mad dash back to the shelter of the atelier when—

"Wait!"

You tug at his robe before he can move. Qifrey blinks in confusion, droplets of rainwater catching on his lashes as you yank your palm quire from your inner sleeve, hunching protectively over the paper amidst the downpour. In your other hand, your wand. You set the nib against the page, sketching with quick, practiced strokes as the spell takes shape beneath your hand—sigils and keystones instantly familiar to Qifrey. Then you're rising onto your tiptoes again, leaning in close, and Qifrey's breath hitches when your fingertips brush over the bare column of his throat.

A slip of damp paper slides neatly into the folds of his collar. Qifrey glances up just as the rain parts above his head, as though held at bay by an invisible hand. Water continues pattering steadily against the grass, the atelier's shingles, your dripping sleeves—but not a single drop touches Qifrey.

"I've always wanted to do that," you say.

Qifrey looks down at you, frowning. "What about you?"

You shrug lightly. There's rainwater dripping from your wand, and your palm quire is soaked through. "I'm already wet. Doesn't matter."

Qifrey clicks his tongue softly at that, but before he has the chance to admonish you—or simply drag you beneath the shelter of his own arm instead—you're already turning on your heel. Qifrey huffs, fondness and faint exasperation mixed together, and follows after you, easily catching up with his longer stride.

"You've gotten good at that spell, haven't you?"

"It's my favourite."

Qifrey glances at you over his armful of laundry in mild surprise. You've always shown to be partial to water magic, but this is a simple spell—nothing more than practical utility, the sort of magic most witches learn early and rarely think about again. An odd choice, considering how much of your talent lies in far more complex magic. "Why that one?"

"It changed my life," you say, simply.

It's hard to keep the smile from his face when you slip past him and through the atelier's open doorway. It's a small thing, really, but the thought that you've kept that spell close all this time makes him absurdly happy. Qifrey shakes his head, warmth settling in his chest despite his damp clothes, before he follows you inside.

There is already a trail of water dripping across the flagstones. Qifrey pauses briefly to inspect the topmost sheet bundled in his arms, rubbing absently at the drenched fabric between his fingers. Despite your efforts, it looks like the whole lot will have to be rewashed—a pity. He'll toss them into the washing barrels later after he's drawn you a hot bath.

"Apprentice," Qifrey calls as he ruffles his damp hair roughly, glancing around the mess of the kitchen counter. He'd been sketching a moisture-extraction spell earlier before the rain interrupted things. The water on his glasses makes it difficult for Qifrey to spot his own quire and he tugs them from his face, but he can still hear your footsteps pattering about near the hearth. Qifrey swipes at the lenses with a sleeve before he finally finds what he's looking for, quickly flipping to a fresh page. "Come here. I'll draw a heating spell to—"

His throat abruptly closes around the rest of that sentence.

You're standing by the hearth, back half-turned to him as you wring water from the hem of your robe. It's soaked through, rainwater falling in steady drips from the sleeves, pooling at your bare feet—you must have kicked off your boots in the doorway earlier—and the wet cotton clings to the shape of you. It is what allows Qifrey to see: the water beading at the ripe peach-flushed skin of your nape, every divot of your spine beneath sodden cloth, where fabric gathers at your thighs and pulls taut at the small of your back. More than he should have ever allowed himself to.

Heat roils low in his gut, a long-starved beast rearing its head—familiar in its shape but frightening in its intensity. Desire.

Qifrey wrenches his gaze back to the kitchen counter, heart suddenly hammering hard and fast in his chest. What is wrong with him? You're his student. You're his apprentice. You are so young, still barely just a—

—but you haven't been for a while now, have you?

Dread, cold and tinged with something uglier Qifrey doesn't dare name, curls its claws viciously into his stomach. How can he be having these thoughts? Worse, how can he possibly still be lingering on them at all, instead of recoiling outright from sheer shame?

"Master?"

Qifrey's head snaps up. You've turned toward him, brow furrowed faintly in concern. Your hair is still dripping, and the firelight catches maddeningly on the droplets clinging to the tip of your nose, your upper lashes. He tightens his grip until the quire's bronze edges sink like fangs into his skin.

"The spell—" Qifrey tries, his voice sounding strained, strange to his own ears. "I need to—I forgot the—"

"Master?" You're too close all of a sudden, frowning openly now. "Are you feeling alright? You're acting strange—"

He turns away before you can come any nearer. There's a faint rushing noise in Qifrey's ears, so shrill it's almost a scream, rising to a fever pitch—loud enough that he can barely hear the rain outside.

"I forgot I have something urgent," Qifrey says abruptly. "Dry yourself off. And put on something warm."

He leaves before you can respond. His footsteps ring sharply down the hallway, too quick and uneven against the floorboards to be anything but fleeing. When Qifrey reaches his room he shuts the door firmly behind him before slumping back against the wood, breathing hard.

Master?

Qifrey groans and squeezes his eyes shut, digging the heel of his palm harshly against his good eye as though he might somehow scour the image from his mind. What is wrong with him? He's washed your hair before, when you'd broken your arm chasing quadryphons down the hillside just outside the atelier. It was him who'd changed your bandages and tended to your wounds after that incident at the Kestrel's Maw, applying creams and salves gently as you'd tried not to wince and hiss. He's even shared a bed with you on nights when bad dreams left you sleepless and in need of a warm presence. And not once—never once—had he looked at you the way he just did.

Qifrey lets his hands fall between his knees. His palm quire slips loose from his fingers, clatters to the floorboards. On the page where he'd started sketching the heating spell for you, conjuring ink smears wet and crooked across the paper, dark stains blooming through the unfinished spell. Ruined.

When did this happen? Qifrey thinks despairingly to himself. When did I—

Qifrey cannot bring himself to finish the thought. The very idea makes something twist violently in his chest. Qifrey cannot put a name to it, because naming it would make it real, and making it real would make him a monster—even more of a monster than Qifrey ever thought he could be.

Qifrey throws himself desperately into avoidance after that.

Dangerous thoughts thrive when left in stillness, and so Qifrey gives himself none. He starts taking on jobs he normally wouldn't—ones that take him far from the atelier, some of them for days at a time. It's easier to exhaust himself into numbness than risk thinking too deeply at all. And when he cannot escape the atelier outright, Qifrey buries you beneath increasingly difficult assignments under the guide of preparing you for the Pentacle's third test—research work, spell reconstruction, transcription—anything that will keep you occupied in your room while he locks himself away somewhere else.

But at night, alone in his bed, the thoughts come anyway. Memories twisted into sick, perverted fantasy—the way your spine would feel under the curve of his palm through wet cotton, the warm press of your body against his in the dark, bare legs tangled with his. The soft whisper of your breath against his throat. Master. Master. Times before he can catch his thoughts they slip from his grasp, and he wonders what it would sound like if you said it different—if the word would catch on a moan, if it would break apart with a sigh against his mouth.

Master.

It's a futile exercise. Qifrey runs all the much harder, anyway.

In a desperate attempt to curb his thoughts, Qifrey turns towards safer, uncomplicated things instead. Olruggio's visibly surprised the first time Qifrey asks to accompany him on a job, but welcomes him with the same thoughtless warmth he does most things. And it's easier—easier to sink into the familiar steadiness of Olruggio's presence and gentle eyes, to lose himself in the long evenings spent shoulder-to-shoulder beneath the stars, to share spells and wine and laughter that doesn't ask anything of him. Easier than thinking about you.

You notice, of course. It would have been an insult to assume otherwise. But you've never been particularly forthcoming about your own feelings, and so you still call him "master" and do the work he assigns and prepare tea for him in the mornings. Tea that Qifrey now drinks steaming hot instead of lingering at the kitchen table with you, before leaving the atelier on yet another week-long job. You're upset by this new arrangement, that much is obvious, but at least Qifrey is spared the small mercy of having to confront it directly.

You'll grow accustomed to it eventually, Qifrey tells himself as you watch him tug on his cloak by the door, one hand already on the latch.

It'll pass.

You catch him one summer evening, vespertine insects chirping softly outside while the sun pulls and stretches at the atelier's shadows. Qifrey hears your approaching footsteps but does not turn around, busying himself instead with packing his satchel at the kitchen table, the light from the window staining his hands saffron-yellow.

You're quiet for a while, hovering silently behind him like a spectre. Eventually, you work up the courage to speak.

"Master, about dinner—"

"Hm? Ah, there's soup in the perpetual cookpot." Qifrey cuts you off before you can continue. He'd spent most of the afternoon preparing a fresh batch of shorecumber yoghurt soup while you were shut away in your room—as though feeding you properly could somehow compensate for everything else Qifrey's failed to do lately. "I also made some carapace and mountain apple salad, if you'd like."

"No, I'm not—" He catches the faintest edge of frustration creeping into your voice before you stop yourself. "I don't want perpetual soup."

Qifrey blows out a quiet breath between his teeth. The conversation is already slipping towards dangerous territory, toward questions he does not want to answer. He lowers his head to rummage through his satchel instead, pretending to check for an ink bottle he doesn't really need.

"Oh. Well then, there's some bread in the pantry that needs clearing, and—"

"Actually," you interrupt softly, "I was thinking I could cook for Master, tonight."

His fingers slip on the rounded glass. Qifrey barely catches the ink bottle before it can tumble from his hand and shatter across the table; the Qifrey of a few months ago would have accepted immediately, probably with an embarrassing amount of enthusiasm—but now the thought of sitting across from you at the dinner table feels almost terrifying. Your eyes are always watching, always observing; Qifrey is suddenly terrified you might somehow notice the ugliness festering behind his own.

The thought alone turns his stomach. No. No, he cannot.

"Sorry," Qifrey says, still refusing to turn around. "I'm helping Olruggio with a project tonight. I'll be late, so don't wait up for me." He gathers the loose papers scattered across the table, shoving them carelessly into his satchel as the pages crumple beneath his fingers.

"You're always late now."

Qifrey's thumb falls still against the clasp. Your words are quiet but the accusatory note in them pierces him cleanly, a bolting deer felled mid-flight. He turns slowly. You are standing behind him with your expression carefully blank, but Qifrey knows you too well by now not to recognise every little sign and tell—your shoulders held stiffly, hands clenched within the sleeves of your robe.

"Does…" You falter, voice lapsing briefly before you force out the words anyway. "Does Master not want me anymore? Because he has Mr. Olruggio now?"

All the air flees Qifrey's lungs at once like a rushing wind. What?

"Apprentice—" He hurriedly sets his satchel down on the table, but even with his hands freed Qifrey still does not dare reach out and touch you. You're not looking at him now, your gaze fixed stubbornly on the ground between his feet. His fingers curl helplessly into fists at his side, panic crawling up his throat like bile. "No. No, that's not—"

But it has been, hasn't it? Suddenly, horribly, Qifrey's reminded of the story you'd once told him—of the cliffs, of the sea. The way your parents had decided there were too many mouths to feed and chose yours to abandon because you'd been the smallest. And in his frantic attempt to bury his own shame, it dawns on Qifrey with terrible clarity that he has been doing the same thing to you all over again.

The realisation makes him sick all the way to his stomach.

"I'm sorry," he blurts out. "I'm so sorry. I—I've been an idiot."

You look up at him then, and Qifrey's breath catches painfully in his throat. Your eyes are stubbornly dry but rimmed faint red, shadowed with exhaustion. Your cheeks seem thinner, too. Questions strike him one after another in sickening succession: Have you not been sleeping properly? Eating as you should? Questions Qifrey would have—should have—been able to answer easily, had he paid you more than a passing glance these past few weeks.

He takes a step closer, then another, before Qifrey fully realises what he's doing. "I didn't mean to make you feel that way. I was just—I was just being selfish. Caught up in my own things. I forgot—" Every word that passes his lips feels empty, and his explanations sound like nothing more than excuses even to his own ears. Qifrey reaches out and gently loosens your fists from their white-knuckled grip on your robe, one finger at a time. Your hands are stiff in the cradle of his own. "I forgot you needed me to be here. I'm sorry."

You don't respond; you only look at him with those quiet, uncertain eyes—like the ones that had stared up at him in Havso all those years, dulled and wary all at once—as though weighing whether you can still trust the things he says to you. Please, Qifrey wants to beg. Please tell me I haven't already broken something I can't fix.

"I'll make it up to you," the words tumble out of him now, wobbly kneed and hurried, tripping over each other on the way out. "I promise. No more late nights, no more disappearing for days. And—I'll cook dinner. And make any dessert you like." Qifrey squeezes your fingers gently, almost desperately, trying to make you believe him in ways he doesn't know how. "I'm not going anywhere. Understand?"

You stare at him for what feels like an eternity. Slowly, you nod.

"Okay," you say.

Relief hits Qifrey like a blow to the gut. He wants, all at once, to pull you into his arms—to feel your smaller frame against his chest and hold you there until that bright-eyed certainty returns to you, to reassure himself that he has not yet destroyed whatever fragile thing exists between you beyond repair. But he is weak and a coward, too aware of himself now in all the wrong ways, and so Qifrey settles for simply holding your hands, his thumb stroking carefully over the faint ink-blot stains along your knuckles.

"What do you want for dinner?" he finally asks.

Your brow pinches. "You're not going to Mr. Olruggio's?"

"Olly's smart—I'm sure he'll figure the problem out without me." Qifrey reluctantly releases your hands to undo the clasp of his cloak. He hangs it carefully on its hook by the doorway before turning back to you with a smile. "I'm staying in tonight—it's been a while since we've had dinner together."

Finally, something flickers across your face. Then—

"Stew," you say. Qifrey blinks.

"Stew," he repeats. "You mean, the one with the squash vegetables?"

"Yeah."

A quiet laugh escapes him before he can stop it. It's such a painfully simple request that Qifrey cannot help the sudden rush of fondness that swells in his chest—he would have cooked anything you'd asked for after all this. But you asked, and so Qifrey turns toward the kitchen instead, pushing his sleeves up to his elbows.

“Stew it is, then.”

That night, a knock comes at his door again.

Qifrey knows who it is before he opens it. It's been a while since you've sought the comfort of his bed—you haven't since he started pulling away—but you've always had the habit of reaching for him on nights you are frightened or too troubled to sleep on your own. And after today, Qifrey supposes he should have expected this.

"Master," you say quietly, when he nudges the door wider with a tentative hand. Part of him knows he should tell you no—however innocently this ritual started, it is surely inappropriate now, especially with the way his thoughts have muddied as of late. But you don't ask, and by the time Qifrey opens his mouth you are already slipping past him and into his room.

His refusal lodges itself in the back of his throat as he watches you from the doorway. You're already seated on the edge of his bed, bare feet tucked under his blankets while you reach for the pillow he keeps for you. It's routine, now; you arrange his bed to your liking and lie down once satisfied, and eventually Qifrey settles beside you with deliberate distance kept between your bodies. Sometimes he reads compendiums aloud until your breathing evens out, others he talks about whatever spellwork occupied his day. But most nights end the same way: you, tucked against his side, one of his hands absently combing through your hair until sleep finally absconds with your consciousness.

His presence comforts you, Qifrey supposes. The same way a baby suckles on a pacifier, or a frightened child reaches for a familiar blanket. You are not thinking of anything improper—not of the way the dim lamplight catches against the bare slope of your shoulder, nor the way his eyes lingers on the exposed sliver of skin for a second too long before he tears them away.

He's the only terrible one here. Perhaps Qifrey should gouge out his other eye, too.

"Master." You're watching him from the bed, knees drawn up beneath the blankets, waiting. "Are you coming?"

Qifrey has already been terrible enough of a master to you these past few weeks. The thought of rejecting you yet again because he cannot control his own mind is unbearable.

You turn down the lamp as Qifrey climbs carefully into bed next to you. The mattress dips beneath his knee in the dark, and he lies stiffly atop the blankets with his hands folded over his chest, squeezing his eye tightly shut. Even with his poor sight this close proximity is too much; he cannot—will not—look at you.

"Go to sleep," Qifrey says quietly.

You remain still at first. He can hear your soft breathing beside him in the dark, and for a fleeting moment Qifrey thinks you might have already drifted off.

But suddenly, you move. The mattress creaks as you turn on your side, blankets rustling, and then your arm is sliding around the curve of his waist. Qifrey's breath shudders out, lips parting in a soundless gasp. You pull yourself close, the entire line of body pressing flush against his own, and bury your face against his throat—nose barely skimming the sensitive stretch of skin just beneath his jaw—and Qifrey can feel can feel your heartbeat, thrumming against his ribs like it belongs behind them instead. Every place your bodies meet burns as though his nerves themselves have been doused in oil and set alight.

Sparks race down the length of his spine, flint striking steel in his belly. A feeling slips down his throat, thick as honey, sharp as glass. Qifrey cannot do this. He can't, he can not—

"Don't leave," you murmur, breath curling against the naked hollow of his throat. "Master can't ever leave me."

Your words are small in a way Qifrey has never heard before, fingers trembling faintly where they're twisted tightly into the fabric of his sleep shirt as though he might disappear the moment you let go. You're afraid—truly afraid—and Qifrey loathes the fact that he was the one who made you feel that way. So despite the quiet part of him still insisting this is wrong, that the line between master and apprentice was never meant to blur like this, Qifrey carefully threads his fingers through your hair and pulls you closer against him.

"I'm not going anywhere." His voice is barely a whisper in the dark. "I promise."

"Really?"

"Yes."

His answer must have finally reached that quiet, terrified child inside you, because not too long after that your grip on his shirt loosens and your breathing begins to even out to soft, damp exhales against his skin. You must be exhausted from today—or perhaps you simply haven't been sleeping properly for a long while, now. It shames him that he doesn't know the answer.

The shadows stretch and settle against the far wall, pale moonlight washing silver across the blankets at the foot of the bed, the tangled line of your legs beneath them. And Qifrey holds you in the dark and lets himself pretend—just for a little while—that this quiet, aching hunger within him is not something so terrible after all.

It's a good morning when Qifrey's worst headache yet hits.

The morning starts off pleasantly enough. Sunlight unfolds slowly in a corner of his room, warm and sleepy in a way that demands nothing of him, and Qifrey wakes to the sound of you pattering carefully about the kitchen. You're likely on your tiptoes, a valiant attempt not to rouse him—but a futile one, unfortunately; his left eye has always left him a sensitive sleeper. Qifrey tarries in bed for a moment longer before finally pushing himself upright, and fumbles blearily across the nightstand for his screwtop tin of glueflower paste.

There's already a steaming cup of erbe tea waiting for him on the kitchen table when he steps outside. It sits beside a half-finished piece of buttered toast, whose owner seems to have become distracted; you're standing at the sink with your back to him, attempting to wrestle a particularly fat willowgrape from your brushbuddy's grasp before the greedy creature can choke on it. Qifrey very pointedly ignores the stirring behind his ribs as he slides himself into his usual chair.

Your eyes find his over your shoulder, regardless. "Morning, Master."

The brushbuddy chirps, emboldened by your momentary lapse in attention, and instantly makes a grab with its tiny paws. Despite himself, Qifrey finds it difficult not to smile. A good morning, he thinks quietly to himself as he reaches for his cup. A perfect one, actually.

The pain strikes without warning. It is sudden, blinding—as though someone has driven an iron spike through his head and is now deliberately twisting it, grinding its point deeper into the soft tissue of his brain. Qifrey's vision swims. The cup slips from his spasming fingers, and then he feels the scalding splash of tea across his fingers, blistering hot. He groans into the heel of his palm, the sound muffled strangely, ringing in his ears as if he's underwater.

"Master?"

Your hands are on him all of a sudden—his shoulder, his waist, and then his forehead, damp and clammy with cold sweat. Qifrey register your touch only in fragments, words reaching him as though from some distant shore; the next moment he's half-collapsed on the couch, worn cushions sagging beneath his weight as you lower him carefully. He catches a glimpse of your face for less than a second—pale, jaw tight, lips pressed in a thin line—before you're gone, footsteps hurried and shouting for Olruggio.

Qifrey barely manages to make out the hushed snippets of your exchange before Olruggio's rushing out of the door. He squeezes his eye shut against the pounding in his skull. Part of him wants to protest—that it will pass, that calling for the doctor is pointless, that there is nothing they can do for the ailment that plagues him—but the words barely make it past his lips.

Suddenly, your hands are on the sides of his face again, slapping his cheek lightly to rouse him when his head lolls. "Master. Master." Your voice is gentle, but even in this state Qifrey can pick up the undercurrent of worry bleeding through. "Drink up."

Something presses against his lips—the blunt edge of a wooden spoon. Qifrey parts his mouth obediently without thinking, swallowing whatever you offer him.

The tincture is sharp and metallic like cold moonlight on his tongue, slipping down his throat. But its effect is immediate. The pain does not vanish but loosens its grip with alarming speed; the muggy fog over his thoughts lifts, his nausea easing, and the pressure behind his eye recedes.

Too quickly.

Qifrey grabs you by the wrist before you can pull away. You startle in his grip. "Did you use forbidden magic?" His voice comes out hoarse. "Tell me."

"Master—"

"What did you use?"

His gaze drops instinctively to your hands, searching for the telltale traces of fresh spellwork. Qifrey has spent years wrestling with these pains—yet no physician, tincture or elixir has ever managed to cut through one with such frightening speed. How could you have—

"Tell me, Apprentice," Qifrey repeats, and this time the fear seeps through despite his efforts to hide it. "You didn't use healing magic, did you?"

You look at him, and for a second Qifrey feels dread warp, cold and heavy, in his stomach. Then, slowly, you shake your head.

"No."

Qifrey blinks. "No?" But how—

"I didn't use healing magic." You glance down at the wrist still caught in his hand, before continuing. "I used magic during the extraction process—the spineedles are delicate, so I used a preservation spell to stabilise the active compounds while the toxins boiled off during heating." You hesitate. "I've been researching it for a while, now."

Spineneedles. Relief floods through Qifrey, so suddenly he nearly sags back into the couch. Not forbidden magic. Just careful study, patient experimentation, and far more thought than any apprentice should be devoting to a problem like this.

"Perhaps you shouldn't be a witch after all," Qifrey mutters tiredly, tipping his head against the cushions. It's like all the tension has gone out of him, leaving only fatigue in its place. The ache in the back of his skull has lessened to a distant throb. "With your talent, you should be a doctor instead."

"If it'll cure Master, I'll be anything."

Your words are spoken matter-of-factly, but Qifrey's breath lodges thickly in his throat. Something about it feels dangerous, precarious, like he's standing on a sheet of ice so thin he can hear it cracking beneath his feet. Qifrey is suddenly reminded of another conversation similar to this one—one that had drifted too close to unspoken territory for comfort. You'd not been particularly satisfied with his answer then, but he had not possessed a better one to give. "Apprentice, we already had this discussion about why healing magic is forbidden—"

"I love Master."

You say it so matter-of-factly that Qifrey barely registers what you've said at all, until he does. Everything inside him seems to go still at once. Slowly, disbelievingly, he lifts his head.

You are still watching him, wrist resting within the loose cradle of his fingers. Surely, he must have misheard. But there is no embarrassment in your expression, nor nervous laughter, no frantic attempts to retract your words. Only certainty.

"You—"

"Master said confessions should be done sincerely," you interrupt quietly. "When it's only two the people involved. When all their attention is on me." You hesitate, just for a moment, and then: "I just wanted to Master to know he'd be worth it. Master is everything to me."

It's as if time has lapsed into nonexistence for a second. Qifrey can hear the soft rustle of the morning breeze stirring the kitchen curtains, the faint squeak of your brushbuddy as it slinks about the rafters—but all of it feels impossibly far away. Because you are still looking at him with that earnest, unwavering gaze, admitting to the same feelings Qifrey has spent months convincing himself belonged to him alone, and yet—you are his apprentice.

You are his apprentice.

You'd been little more than a child when he'd picked you up in Havso; young and impressionable back then, his to protect and care for. And now a terrible thought reaches deep into his chest, a worm burrowing into the rotten core of an apple—had he done this? Mistaken possession for care somehow, shaped your innocent devotion into something it was never meant to become? Every lesson huddled over spellbooks, every time he'd reached across the cluttered kitchen table to guide your hand, every reassurance whispered into your hair in the dark—suddenly they rearrange themselves into something more disgusting, grotesque beneath his scrutiny.

The possibility that he might have been cultivating this unknowingly all along sickens Qifrey to his stomach. The only thing that frightens him more is this: how desperately he wants, anyway.

You are so painfully ignorant of it all—the warped thoughts he has harboured of you, the nights he's lain awake, hand fisted in his pillow to keep it from wandering someplace it shouldn't. You don't know about the ways he's been slowly driving himself mad in the dark. You have no idea what kind of monster you have just confessed your love to.

"Apprentice," he manages at last. "You can't—this isn't—this is only infatuation, and—"

Your hand closes around Qifrey's before he can drop your wrist—gently, like you're approaching a spooked stag, poised to bolt. Nausea rolls unpleasantly through his stomach.

"I know my feelings. Master needn't try convince me otherwise."

Your certainty is what unspools the remainder of his repudiation. He's helpless, Qifrey thinks ashamedly, to stand before it. For one treacherous second he imagines what it would be like not to pull away; to turn his hand beneath yours and weave your fingers together, to close the distance he's spent months desperately maintaining. He imagines allowing himself the same foolish hope he'd once indulged in with Olruggio—before knowledge, before loss and guilt had hollowed him out and taught him the price of wanting something he could never have.

The fantasy dies almost immediately.

"I don't see you that way." The lie scrapes against his throat on the way out, self-mutiliation—if words could cut, they would leave his pharynx in ribbons, a bloodied mess. But this must end here and now. "You're my apprentice, and I care for you a great deal, but nothing beyond that."

Silence settles between you, quiet folding in on itself. Then, softly, you say, "That's alright with me. I just wish Master would be more honest with me."

Qifrey has heard those words before—not spoken in exactly the same way, but close enough. Close enough that for one dizzying moment he is in two places at once: here, your wrist still caught in his grasp, and somewhere years ago, watching someone else he loved—still does—offer up everything for a wretched, unworthy cause.

All I have left to say is… just go easy on me, okay?

For a strange, terrible moment, Qifrey thinks he would have preferred anger. Hatred he could have endured. Tears he would have tried to comfort. Instead you place something infinitely more fragile in his hands and ask for nothing in return—and Qifrey wants to weep from the absurdity of it all. Who is he to deserve such grace, such senseless devotion?

You deserve better, Qifrey thinks, despairingly. But still he cannot bring himself to speak those words aloud, in the same way he cannot seem to release your hand and so they remain, lingering like ghosts—everything he wants to confess but can't ensnared in the silence between you.

The smoke reaches them before any messenger does—a dark, greasy plume unfurling against the pale morning sky. It is visible even from the atelier's window, though Qifrey does not notice it until Olruggio bursts into the room without warning, already yanking on his cloak as you glance up from your books.

"Fire," is all Olruggio needs to say, breathless, for Qifrey to understand. His hand closes around Qifrey's upper arm, drawing his attention toward the horizon. "It's coming from the direction of Hearthglen Village."

Qifrey is on his feet even before Olruggio finishes speaking. Despite the dry spells of summer, Hearthglen is protected by enough fireproofing spells to withstand far worse than a stray spark or lightning strike—Qifrey has full trust in Olruggio's magic, in this regard. Small fires could happen. But infernos capable of producing a column of smoke like that—thick and black enough to stain the horizon from miles away—are impossible.

Should not be possible.

"Apprentice," Qifrey calls over his shoulder as he strides urgently towards the door, pulling his hat onto his head along the way. "Stay here."

He doesn't wait to see if you listen. He and Olruggio are out of the door in the next second, sylph shoes flaring with green light as they take to the air, hurtling straight towards the smoke billowing upwards into the morning sky.

Qifrey should have trusted his instincts.

The fire is not natural—Qifrey knows it the instant they crest the hill and the village comes into view, fire licking at the thatched roofs, dragging barns and homes alike into its insatiable maw. And there they stand amidst the carnage—their white hat and trailing veil a stark smear against the smoke-charred sky—a single painted eye staring back at Qifrey from where their face should be. For a heartbeat, the years collapse inward and hate rises in the back of his throat like bile, acrid. But answers can wait—and people cannot.

Olruggio doesn't hesitate. He banks sharply left, already racing toward the line of burning buildings, shouting for the villagers to flee. Qifrey launches himself at the Brimmed Hat, water surging from the village well in a roaring column in response to his spell.

The Brimmed Hat laughs. They're infuriatingly talkative—they make several attempts to strike up a conversation in the middle of the fight, chattering away as though this is some pleasant afternoon stroll rather than a village burning around them. Qifrey ignores every word. Water tears through the square at his command, rushing in great swells to smother flames and strike at his opponent, but the Brimmed Hat dances around each strike, veil fluttering in the heat haze, that ominous painted eye seemingly able to see Qifrey's every move before it happens.

Out of the corner of his eye, Qifrey glimpses Olruggio moving through the smoke and chaos. Olruggio disappears into a burning building and emerges with a wailing child tucked carefully in the cradle of his arms, depositing them into a frantic mother's embrace before he turns back to the flames. Again and again he does this—vanishing into the smoke and reappearing with another villager in tow. The fire continues to spread, racing from rooftop to rooftop with unnatural hunger.

And then Qifrey sees it. Olruggio runs into another house, this one already half-consumed by flames. But one of its support beams has already begun to bow beneath the strain and the building is tilting dangerously; already Qifrey can hear the groan of timber in his mind under the strain. But before Qifrey can say anything—so much as do anything—it gives way. The entire structure collapses onto itself with a roar, disappearing beneath a shower of firebrands and burning debris. For a single, terrible instant, it resembles a funeral pyre.

It's only a momentary lapse, but it is enough. The spell catches him squarely in the chest.

Qifrey is on his hands and knees even before he registers the fall. He hunches over, scorched ground hot beneath his palms, and tries to clear his throat, but the damage presses heavily up his windpipe—wet and viscous. Blood. Qifrey chokes. The taste of copper floods his tongue.

"Oh dear." The Brimmed Hat drifts closer. Their veil flutters lazily behind them as they hover just in the corner of Qifrey's periphery. "Not so threatening now, are we?"

They raise their hand again. Qifrey tries to move but his body will not obey him, his wand slipping from between his fingers, viscid with his own blood. The cobblestones beneath him spin into dizzying tesselations. And then—

A blade of water cuts through the air. It hits the square with enough force to split stone, carving a deep furrow into the ground where the Brimmed Hat had just been standing just a second ago. Both Qifrey and the Brimmed Hat look up at the same time.

Qifrey almost doesn't recognise you at first, hovering above the town square, framed against the smoke-darkened sky. The hem of your cloak flaps in the wind, your wand and quire just barely visible beneath it. The Brimmed Hat's visage is concealed behind that painted eye, but Qifrey can tell that they're surprised. They turn toward you, hands lifting as if in greeting or surrender.

"Now that's intere—"

Another spell hurtles down. The Brimmed Hat vaults backwards, vanishing into a cloud of smoke before reappearing atop the remains of a collapsed building several yards away. Your magic obliterates the ground they had been standing on, stone and dirt exploding outwards in a violent spray.

"You're serious!" They sound more delighted than alarmed, laughter echoing through the ruined square. "What terrifying killing intent, for a Pointed Hat so young!"

You ignore them. The moment your feet touch the ground you are already running to Qifrey's side, dropping to your knees next to him hard enough to tear the fabric of your trousers. Your hands are on him immediately, one bracing his shoulder while the other presses desperately against the wound in his chest. Qifrey struggles to lift his head to, pain lancing through his chest with each ragged breath he drags into his lungs. The edges of his vision blurs every time he inhales—his ribs are definitely broken.

"I thought…" He coughs, the words coming out rasping and wet. "I told you to stay… at the atelier…"

"Master can punish me all he likes later." Blood continues seeping stubbornly between your fingers despite the pressure, but that isn't the problem—it's the fluid slowly accumulating in his lungs, the way his breathing has gone thick and rattling. Qifrey can see the moment realisation dawns behind your eyes as you listen to each uneven breath, and with it comes panic. When you meet his eyes again you look frighteningly young, your fingers slick and red with his blood.

"Master." Your voice catches. "Master, what do I do?"

The answer is supposed to be there; behind his teeth, on the tip of his tongue. Qifrey is your teacher, your master—he should know what to say, how to fix this. But the only thing staining his mouth now is blood.

"Master," you say again, and this time you almost sound like you're begging. "Please. Tell me what to do."

"Oh, how touching." The Brimmed Hat drifts over, knees tucked loosely against their chest. Their painted eye is now fixed entirely on you, and when they speak again, their voice seems to have softened into something coaxing, almost kind. "Such devotion. I haven't seen such an adorable master-apprentice pair in years."

You don't react. Your attention remains fixed wholly on Qifrey—one bloodstained hand pressed against his chest as you desperately rifle through the contents of your satchel, searching for something, anything that might help. The Brimmed Hat laughs, a little pitying.

"It's admirable how hard you're fighting to save him, little Pointed Hat. A shame that even if you succeed today, he'll be dead soon enough, anyway—though I suppose dead isn't quite the right word for it."

Qifrey's stomach drops.

"No," he chokes out at once when your hands go completely still. Blood flecks his lips as he struggles for breath. "Don't listen to them—"

"What do you mean?"

At your question, the Brimmed Hat tilts their head—and though their face remains hidden behind their white veil, Qifrey is suddenly, horribly certain that they are smiling.

"You haven't told them?" They click their tongue softly, delighted, almost sympathetic. The gesture is mild, mockingly gentle. It makes hatred surge through Qifrey so fiercely that, for a moment, it eclipses even the pain. "You should be more honest with your apprentice."

"Shut up—" Qifrey tries to force himself upright and immediately regrets it. Agony carves a white-hot line through his chest, stealing the breath from his lungs. A violent cough doubles him over, sends fresh blood bubbling between his lips and splattering across the cobblestones. "Apprentice, they're lying. Don't listen to—urgk—a word they say—"

But you are no longer looking at him. Qifrey feels a wave of panic surge through him, overwhelming, drowning him beneath it. He knows that look, is familiar with it—the expression you wear when confronted with a puzzle you cannot solve, when every thought narrows around a single question like a predator's jaws clamping around a prey animal's neck.

"Master," you say, very slowly. "What are they talking about?"

"I—"

The Brimmed Hat cuts across him with a low hum of amusement. "Little witch… did your master ever tell you about how the silverwood propagates before?"

Whatever remaining blood Qifrey has drains from his face.

"Unlike other plants, the silverwood spreads by lodging itself into animal hosts... even humans." They tilt their head at Qifrey, and he very briefly catches the flash of a sharp grin beneath their veil before they continue. "Gradually, it takes over the host's body bit by bit, until there is nothing left but a very beautiful silverwood tree." They spread their hands with a flourish, a theatrical gesture. "That is the fate awaiting your master, dear apprentice."

The words land like stones, sinking silently into still water. Qifrey dares not look at your face. He cannot. He is afraid of what he will see there—the dawning horror, the terrible understanding, the slow realisation of his deception.

Then the Brimmed Hat laughs.

"But do not despair!" They throw their arms wide, head cocking as they look at you. "We are witches, are we not? Magic exists to challenge the impossible, to overturn fate!" They hover just a little closer, voice lowering into something almost conspiratorial. "As long as you are willing, you can save your master. I'll even give you a nifty little spell to preserve his life until you can find a better solution." One hand, bare-skinned and terrifyingly human-like, slides up to curve around the shape of their mouth. "All you need to do is cast it yourself."

"Apprentice—" The word comes out mangled with fresh blood, thin and watery with his spit. "Apprentice—don't—you cannot—"

Qifrey tries to push himself up, to reach for you, to do anything to stop what he sees coming. His arms shake violently beneath him before they give way altogether, and he crashes back against the cobblestones hard enough to drive what little breath remains from his lungs. He needs to move. Why won't his body listen to him?

Slowly, you get to your feet. You move as though caught in a dream, entranced by some spell, hands hanging at your sides, stained with the drying streaks of his blood. And your face, your face—when he finally forces himself to look—is bloodless and set, and yet, so very terrifyingly calm.

"Apprentice," Qifrey begs, desperate. "Please."

neighbors offered awkward condolences whenever they passed you in the hallway. older women sometimes brought food to your apartment because you had become frighteningly thin during those first several months alone.

even strangers occasionally looked at you with quiet sympathy after hearing the story about the woman abandoned by the mysterious surebrec man who disappeared without explanation alongside their infant son.

but pity was fragile.

especially in a place filled with fearful people searching desperately for something to blame whenever tragedy appeared.

eventually, the whispers began.

people talked about how strange your relationship with alto always seemed. they questioned why he disappeared so suddenly. they questioned why nobody could ever find traces of him afterward.

some even claimed the surebrec bloodline itself was cursed, and because you loved him, perhaps some of that curse had infected you too.

you overheard it sometimes while walking through crowded streets.

“that woman’s unsettling.”

“didn’t her husband vanish?”

“and the child too…”

“something’s wrong with her.”

grief isolated you enough already, but the rumors slowly finished what loneliness started.

you stopped speaking to most people stopped leaving the apartment unless absolutely necessary.

days blurred together endlessly while exhaustion settled deeper and deeper into your bones until even simple things became difficult. there were nights where you sat on the floor beside rudo’s empty crib until sunrise without realizing how many hours passed, fingers gripping the wood tightly while memories crushed the air from your lungs.

you missed him so badly it became physical pain. sometimes you still heard phantom cries in the middle of the night. sometimes you woke half asleep already reaching toward empty space expecting to feel your baby against your chest again.

sometimes you dreamed about alto standing in the doorway holding rudo safely in his arms at last, only to wake up alone in suffocating silence afterward.

those dreams hurt most.

because no matter how abandoned you felt, some weak pathetic part of your heart still wanted him to come back.

years passed. nothing changed.

then eventually, the whispers evolved into accusations. people became crueler once they realized you were not recovering.

they watched how strangely grief consumed you and decided it must mean something darker. they noticed how hollow your eyes looked.

how you wandered outside during storms sometimes searching desperately through crowds like someone waiting for ghosts. how fiercely you reacted whenever anyone spoke badly about alto.

how you still kept that apartment untouched, frozen like a shrine dedicated to people who no longer existed.

and slowly, the word began spreading.

“witch.”

you heard it for the first time from a frightened child hiding behind his mother near the market.

the woman immediately dragged him away afterward while staring at you with visible disgust.

after that, the word followed you everywhere.

people whispered it under their breath while passing by. others said it louder intentionally.

they claimed you cursed alto. claimed you drove him into madness. claimed the disappearance of your family happened because something unnatural surrounded you.

and the horrifying thing was that eventually, after years drowning inside grief alone, you stopped defending yourself properly. because part of you already felt cursed too.

the day they finally came for you, the sky looked heavy and colorless overhead while cold wind pushed dust through the streets.

you did not even resist when guards forced their way into the apartment.

by then, exhaustion had hollowed you out too deeply.

they dragged you outside roughly while neighbors gathered nearby watching silently from windows and doorways, their expressions filled with fear, judgment, and cruel satisfaction.

nobody stepped forward to help you. nobody defended you. you were no longer seen as a grieving mother.

just something broken.

something frightening. something easier to discard than understand.

the walk toward the execution grounds felt strangely unreal.

chains bit painfully into your wrists while crowds gathered along the streets eager to witness your punishment firsthand. people shouted accusations while you passed. others threw insults. some even spit near your feet as though you were already less than human.

“witch!”

“she drove them away!”

“monster!”

the words blurred together eventually beneath the numb exhaustion crushing your mind.

because honestly? part of you no longer cared what happened anymore. you had already lost everything worth surviving for years ago. still, one thought continued haunting you relentlessly even now.

your son would be older now. walking, talking, laughing, maybe he no longer remembered your face.

that thought hurt more than the chains cutting into your skin. because you had not even been allowed to watch him grow up.

not even once.

the officials spoke for what felt like forever once you reached the execution platform, listing accusations while crowds listened eagerly around them.

you barely heard any of it. your thoughts drifted elsewhere instead — toward warm little baby hands grabbing onto your clothes, toward sleepy late nights with alto beside you while rudo slept safely between both of you, toward the final desperate sound of your own voice begging them not to leave.

then finally came the sentence.

the pit. the seemingly bottomless abyss where unwanted things were discarded forever.

nobody survived being thrown down there. nobody ever returned.

the crowd grew disturbingly quiet once guards dragged you toward the edge.

cold wind roared violently upward from the darkness below while the abyss stretched endlessly beneath your feet, swallowing all light completely. staring into it felt wrong somehow, like looking into something not meant for human eyes.

your stomach twisted weakly.

not from fear. from exhaustion.

because after everything, even death no longer felt particularly frightening.

the guards forced you closer toward the edge while chains rattled harshly around your wrists. and suddenly, painfully, your mind betrayed you one final time.

you remembered rudo laughing softly against your chest as a baby while alto sat beside you half asleep on the couch.

you remembered alto kissing your forehead while whispering promises late at night.

you remembered being happy.

truly happy.

the memory hit so hard your knees nearly gave out beneath you.

tears burned your eyes immediately. because despite everything— despite the abandonment. despite the years alone. despite the grief slowly destroying your life piece by piece— you still missed them, desperately.

your voice cracked softly before you could stop it. “…alto.”

then the guards shoved you forward. for one horrifying second, all you felt was weightlessness. wind screamed violently past your body while darkness swallowed everything around you whole. the world above disappeared rapidly, shrinking farther and farther away until there was nothing left except endless blackness consuming you completely.

you thought you were dying.

honestly, part of you welcomed it.

until suddenly— impact. pain exploded violently through your body as something hard slammed beneath you instead of endless falling. air tore from your lungs while darkness blurred around your vision, your body crumpling painfully against piles of discarded debris and metal.

you coughed violently, disoriented and shaking.

somehow and miraculously alive.

weak groans echoed somewhere nearby through the darkness. strange smells filled the air. slowly, painfully, you forced your eyes open.

and that was when you saw him.

enjin stood several feet away partially hidden among towering piles of trash and scrap, his sharp eyes fixed directly on you with visible surprise written across his face.

because nobody was supposed to survive the fall into the pit.

yet somehow— you had.

enjin continued staring at you for several long seconds after pulling you from the wreckage, his sharp eyes moving slowly across your battered figure like he was still trying to understand how someone like you had possibly survived falling into the pit alive, because people thrown down here were not supposed to wake up afterward, much less sit breathing among the mountains of filth and metal surrounding you both.

and honestly, judging by the way your entire body screamed in pain every time you so much as shifted slightly against the debris beneath you, perhaps you should not have survived either.

the air down here felt unbearable.

thick and poisoned in a way that coated the inside of your throat with every breath, carrying the overwhelming smell of rust, smoke, rotting waste, and something far worse lingering beneath it all that you could not properly identify.

every inhale burned your lungs harshly enough to make your chest tighten painfully, while the endless darkness surrounding the pit made the entire place feel less like a real world and more like some endless graveyard where forgotten things were sent to decay forever.

you coughed again violently, your entire body curling inward from the force of it while sharp pain tore through your ribs hard enough to make tears sting your eyes immediately afterward.

the man in front of you swore quietly under his breath.

then, without another word, he crouched down in front of you and removed the strange mask hanging loosely around his neck.

you flinched instinctively the second he reached toward your face.

your body reacted before your mind could catch up properly, exhaustion and years of fear making every sudden movement feel dangerous automatically now.

he noticed immediately.

his brows pulled together slightly before he exhaled through his nose in visible impatience, though there was still something oddly restrained about him, like he was deliberately stopping himself from sounding harsher than necessary.

“relax,” he muttered while carefully securing the mask over your mouth and nose anyway. “unless you enjoy coughing your lungs out.”

the filtered air hit your lungs almost instantly. cooler, cleaner. not perfect, but enough to stop the horrible burning spreading through your chest every time you breathed.

you inhaled sharply in surprise before another weaker cough escaped you, your trembling fingers instinctively lifting toward the mask while your body sagged slightly from relief you had not expected to feel.

for the first time since waking up down here, it no longer felt like every breath was slowly killing you.

the man watched your reaction silently for a moment before finally speaking again.

“…better?”

you nodded weakly after several seconds, though your throat still hurt too badly for words to come easily.

up close, you could see him more clearly now despite the dim lighting scattered through the pit. dark eyes sharp enough to feel almost unsettling whenever they fixed directly onto you, messy gold hair partially shadowing his face, worn clothes that looked built for surviving this place specifically rather than simply existing inside it.

because you still looked painfully out of place among the endless garbage surrounding both of you, like someone dragged violently from another world and discarded into this one by mistake.

which, in a way, was exactly what happened. the realization made your chest ache again.

“…how are you alive?” he finally asked after another long silence, his voice quieter this time but still carrying obvious suspicion beneath it.

you opened your mouth slightly before stopping.

because honestly?

you did not know.

you still remembered the feeling of falling.

the endless darkness swallowing you whole while wind screamed violently around your body, the certainty settling into your chest that this was finally the end after years of grief slowly hollowing you apart from the inside.

you remembered thinking about rudo during the fall.

about alto.

about the family ripped away from you so completely that even breathing afterward had started feeling meaningless.

and then— everything.

pain, darkness. waking up here somehow alive when nobody was ever supposed to survive the pit.

your fingers tightened weakly against the fabric covering your knees. “…i don’t know,” you whispered finally, your voice sounding rough and strained beneath the mask. “i thought i died.”

something unreadable crossed his expression hearing that answer. not pity exactly. but not indifference either.

you lowered your eyes toward the debris beneath you, exhaustion suddenly crashing heavily over your shoulders all over again now that the adrenaline had started fading from your body.

and without meaning to, the words slipped out quietly before you could stop them.

“…i had a son.”

silence immediately followed.

the confession felt strangely intimate in the middle of this horrible place, especially coming from your mouth after years of barely speaking about rudo aloud without breaking apart completely afterward.

still, once the words started, they would not stop.

“they took him from me,” you continued weakly while staring blankly at the piles of rusted metal nearby. “then everyone started saying i was cursed… that i drove my family away.”

your throat tightened painfully. “eventually they stopped seeing me as a person at all.”

the man stayed quiet while listening, though his eyes narrowed slightly as though he was carefully piecing your story together inside his head.

you laughed weakly then, but the sound came out cracked and bitter instead of genuinely amused. “guess throwing me down here was easier than dealing with me anymore.”

for several long seconds, the only sounds between both of you were distant crashes echoing somewhere deeper inside the pit and the uneven sound of your own breathing beneath the mask.

“…people up there are disgusting,” he muttered flatly.

the sentence startled you slightly. because there was no judgment in his voice. no accusation, just blunt irritation.

your eyes lifted toward him again slowly. “…you believe me?”

he shrugged one shoulder casually, though his gaze remained fixed carefully on you. “i believe people are stupid enough to blame anything they don’t understand.”

something inside your chest twisted painfully hearing that simple statement.

because after years of being treated like some monstrous thing instead of a grieving mother, even the smallest amount of understanding felt almost unbearable.

you looked away quickly before emotion could fully show across your face again. the movement made pain flare sharply through your side, forcing a weak sound from your throat before you could stop it.

instantly, his attention sharpened again.

“you can stand?”

you tried shifting experimentally.

the second pressure hit your leg properly, agony shot violently upward hard enough to make your vision blur black around the edges. your body nearly collapsed sideways immediately afterward. before you could hit the ground again, strong hands caught you firmly.

“easy,” he muttered while steadying your weight against him.

the sudden closeness startled you both slightly.

one of his arms had wrapped securely around your waist to stop you from falling completely, while your own hands instinctively grabbed weakly onto the front of his coat just to stay upright through the dizziness overtaking you.

for one horrible second, your exhausted grief-stricken mind betrayed you again.

the warmth felt familiar enough to remind you painfully of alto. your chest tightened violently. the man noticed the shift in your expression immediately.

“…hey,” he said quieter this time. “you with me?”

you blinked hard several times before forcing yourself back into the present again.

not alto, not your lover, not the man who disappeared into the rain carrying your son years ago, just a stranger helping you survive the pit.

still, your voice came out small afterward. “…sorry.”

he studied your face carefully for another second like he understood there was something deeper behind that reaction, though thankfully he chose not to ask about it.

instead, he adjusted his hold slightly so more of your weight rested safely against him.

“name’s enjin,” he said while slowly starting to guide you forward through the endless mountains of debris surrounding both of you. “and unless you wanna die in your first hour down here, you’re sticking close to me for now.”

you stared at him weakly in surprise.

after everything that happened above, after years of isolation and cruelty and grief twisting your life into something unbearable, the simple fact someone was helping you at all almost felt unreal.

your fingers tightened slightly against his sleeve while exhaustion dragged heavily at your body.

“…thank you,” you whispered honestly.

enjin glanced sideways toward you briefly before looking ahead again into the darkness of the pit, his expression soften beneath the dim lighting.

enjin practically carried you by the time the two of you finally reached the cleaners’ headquarters, because despite how stubbornly you kept trying to walk on your own, your body had long since reached its limit somewhere during the endless journey through the pit.

every step felt unbearable now.

the impact from surviving the fall still throbbed violently through your ribs and legs with every movement, while exhaustion dragged heavily through your entire body in waves strong enough to make your vision blur every few minutes.

even breathing remained difficult despite the mask enjin had given you earlier, because the deeper you traveled through the pit.

the thicker and more polluted the air became, carrying the overwhelming smell of rust, smoke, oil, decaying waste, and something else lingering beneath it all that made your stomach twist unpleasantly whenever you inhaled too deeply.

the pit itself still felt unreal to you.

massive towers of discarded garbage stretched endlessly beneath dim artificial lights overhead, creating an endless landscape of twisted metal, broken machinery, ruined buildings, and mountains of filth so enormous they looked almost like distorted cliffs rising from the darkness.

strange sounds echoed constantly through the distance around you both — heavy crashes from shifting debris, low mechanical groaning somewhere unseen beneath the trash, muffled voices from people moving throughout the pit, and occasionally something far less human that made unease crawl quietly down your spine.

everything about this place felt hostile. alive in the worst possible way. and through all of it, enjin stayed beside you without complaint.

you noticed that more and more the longer the journey continued.

he never once snapped at you for slowing him down despite how obvious your condition had become. every time your legs nearly buckled beneath you, his arm tightened automatically around your waist before you could fully collapse.

whenever your breathing turned uneven beneath the mask again, his eyes flickered sideways toward you immediately in silent observation even if he pretended not to care afterward.

that realization unsettled you slightly.

because after years spent being treated like something cursed, unwanted, and dangerous above the sphere, your body no longer knew how to react properly to kindness without immediately expecting cruelty to follow afterward.

eventually, after what felt like hours walking through endless darkness and debris, enormous reinforced structures slowly emerged ahead through the haze.

the headquarters.

even from a distance, you could tell immediately that this place mattered.

the realization alone nearly made your chest ache. because it had been years since anywhere felt remotely safe to you.

the second several of the cleaners noticed enjin approaching with an injured stranger leaning heavily against him, attention shifted immediately toward both of you.

“oi, enjin, what happened to her?”

“where the hell did you find someone looking like that?”

“wait… is she from outside?”

their voices blurred together slightly through your exhaustion while too many unfamiliar eyes landed on you at once.

instantly, your body tensed.

your shoulders tightened instinctively while your gaze lowered toward the ground without thinking, because years of accusations and public humiliation above had conditioned you into expecting judgment the moment crowds started looking too closely.

enjin noticed immediately.

his expression hardened slightly before he glanced toward the others flatly.

“quit staring at her like idiots,” he muttered sharply while continuing forward without slowing down. “she just got here.”

something about the way he said it made the others quiet down afterward, though you still felt curious stares lingering across your exhausted figure while he guided you deeper inside the headquarters.

the inside felt warmer than expected.

conversations echoed softly from nearby rooms while distant footsteps carried through the building around you.

nothing like the lonely silence that swallowed your apartment after alto disappeared years ago. the thought hit harder than expected. your chest tightened painfully again.

before the grief could fully consume you, enjin pushed open another heavy door leading into what looked like some kind of medical area.

beds lined the room carefully while cabinets filled with supplies stretched along the walls nearby.

the smell of medicine lingered faintly through the air, strangely comforting after everything else you had experienced since falling into the pit.

a woman organizing supplies near one of the tables immediately looked up upon hearing the door open.

eishia froze the second she noticed your condition.

her eyes moved quickly across your battered body before narrowing sharply in concern.

“…what happened to her?”

“fell into the pit,” enjin answered simply.

silence filled the room instantly.

eishia stared at you in disbelief for several seconds before slowly looking back toward enjin.

“…and she survived?”

“apparently.”

before you could fully process anything, eishia was already moving toward you quickly with surprising urgency. “sit down immediately before your body gives out entirely.”

you tried insisting quietly that you were fine.

your legs betrayed you almost immediately afterward.

the second enjin helped lower you carefully onto one of the beds nearby, exhaustion slammed through your body so violently you nearly blacked out from relief alone.

pain throbbed heavily through your ribs, shoulders, and legs now that you were no longer forcing yourself to stay upright, while your muscles trembled weakly beneath lingering shock and fatigue.

eishia carefully removed the mask from your face first before examining your injuries.

despite the clinical nature of her movements, there was gentleness in the way she handled you that nearly caught you off guard completely.

every touch remained careful, mindful of your pain rather than rough or impatient like you had grown used to from others over the years.

“…your body’s severely overworked,” she murmured softly while checking your ribs. “and these bruises alone should have kept you unconscious far longer than this.”

you laughed weakly beneath your breath, though the sound came out exhausted more than amused. “guess my luck finally worked once.”

her eyes flickered toward your face briefly hearing that response, noticing immediately how hollow your expression still looked beneath the exhaustion weighing down your features.

but thankfully, she did not push.

instead, she simply continued treating your injuries quietly while enjin remained nearby leaning silently against the wall with crossed arms.

you noticed that eventually. the fact he stayed.

he easily could have left the moment you arrived safely here.

instead, every time your tired eyes drifted upward through the haze of exhaustion, he was still standing there watching silently from across the room like he was making sure you did not disappear the second he looked away.

the realization warmed something fragile and painful inside your chest.

because after years spent completely alone with grief swallowing your entire life piece by piece, having someone remain nearby without obligation felt strangely overwhelming.

hours passed before another figure finally entered the room.

the energy shifted immediately.

because corvus carried energy effortlessly without needing to raise his voice or posture aggressively at all. the second his sharp gaze settled onto you from across the room, silence spread naturally through the space around him.

“…so,” he said calmly after several seconds studying you carefully, “you’re the one who survived the pit.”

your hands tightened weakly against the blanket draped over your lap.

“…yes.”

his eyes narrowed slightly, though not with suspicion. more like curiosity.

something about that unsettled you far less than the judgment you had grown used to above the sphere.

his gaze shifted briefly toward enjin afterward.

“explain.”

enjin shrugged lightly against the wall. “found her outside half-dead.” his eyes flickered briefly toward you afterward. “she’s from the sphere.”

the room quieted slightly again hearing that.

corvus’s attention sharpened immediately. “…the sphere?”

your throat tightened painfully.

because hearing it spoken aloud dragged every memory violently back into your chest all over again — alto disappearing into the rain carrying rudo, the years spent alone afterward, the accusations, the execution, the endless grief that slowly destroyed your life piece by piece.

corvus seemed to notice the shift in your expression instantly. his voice softened slightly afterward. “…sit comfortably,” he said quietly. “and start from the beginning.”

and somehow you did.

for the first time in years, someone actually listened instead of judging immediately.

you explained everything slowly while exhaustion weighed heavily through every word leaving your mouth. alto’s disappearance.

rudo being taken away from you. the years of rumors spreading afterward until people stopped seeing you as human entirely. the accusations of witchcraft. the execution. the fall into the pit.

the room stayed completely silent while you spoke. nobody interrupted. nobody mocked you.

by the time you finally finished, your hands trembled weakly in your lap without you realizing it.

“…i know how insane it sounds,” you whispered quietly afterward while staring downward toward the blankets. “but i swear i never hurt anyone.”

silence lingered for several long seconds afterward.

“…you don’t sound insane,” corvus answered calmly.

your head lifted slightly in surprise. his expression remained serious, though there was no disgust there.

only understanding.

“…you sound exhausted,” he continued quietly.

something inside your chest nearly broke apart hearing those words.

because after years spent being treated like a monster, hearing someone acknowledge your pain instead of accusing you for it felt almost unbearable.

before emotion could fully overwhelm you, another woman suddenly entered through the doorway nearby adjusting the glasses resting lightly against her face.

semiu immediately looked toward you curiously the second she stepped into the room.

corvus gestured lightly toward her.

“semiu.”

she approached slowly before studying you carefully through the lenses of her vital instrument.

then her brows furrowed slightly. “…that’s strange.”

you blinked weakly. “…what is?”

semiu tapped lightly against her glasses while continuing to stare at you thoughtfully.

“normally i can see a person’s hidden potential, their essence, and their connection to a jinki almost immediately,” she explained carefully. “but yours feels… empty somehow.”

your stomach tightened awkwardly.

because of course it did. you came from the sphere. you had no vital instrument. no connection to anything like the people down here possessed.

after you explained quietly, semiu hummed thoughtfully beneath her breath before glancing toward corvus again.

“well,” she sighed dramatically while pushing her glasses upward slightly, “she obviously can’t jump into cleaner work immediately.”

she looked back toward you before her expression softened slightly. “…but we do desperately need help around headquarters.”

you blinked in confusion. “…help?”

“organization.” her face twisted dramatically afterward. “all the horrible tasks everyone conveniently avoids during missions.”

for the first time since arriving, a tiny almost-amused sound escaped you weakly.

semiu noticed immediately. and smiled slightly in satisfaction afterward.

corvus nodded once.

“you’ll work with semiu for now while recovering and adjusting to life here.”

you stared at him silently for several seconds. because after years spent being treated like something cursed and unwanted after being thrown into the pit to die alone, these people were offering you safety.

your throat tightened painfully before you quickly lowered your gaze to hide the sudden emotion filling your eyes.

“…thank you,” you whispered shakily.

time passed slowly inside the cleaners headquarters, though eventually the days stopped feeling unbearable in the way they once had when you first arrived in the pit half-dead and terrified of everything surrounding you.

at first, surviving there felt impossible.

the headquarters constantly was busy with movement from different teams coming and going at all hours of the day, the sound of boots echoing through metal hallways while reports about trash, missions, damaged equipment, and injured cleaners passed endlessly through.

unlike the lonely stillness that consumed your old apartment after alto disappeared, this place never truly slept. somewhere inside headquarters, people were always working, arguing, laughing, preparing for missions, or returning exhausted and filthy after fighting through the pit.

and occasionally, when reports crossed your desk late at night, you caught fragments about investigations connected to the world above the sphere itself — things even the public down here apparently did not fully know.

you never pushed for answers.. not yet.

honestly, you were still trying to recover from your own life collapsing apart before involving yourself in mysteries far larger than you.

so instead, you focused on healing. and somehow, little by little, it actually began happening.

your work alongside semiu became routine surprisingly quickly once you adjusted properly to life inside headquarters.

while the others fought trash breasts and handled dangerous missions throughout the pit, you managed information, schedules, reports, supply requests, mission reports.

semiu constantly complained dramatically about how much work there was, though secretly you suspected she enjoyed having someone capable beside her for once.

“if i have to reorganize one more disaster report written by cleaners with the handwriting of actual toddlers, i’m throwing myself into the abyss,” she muttered one evening while dramatically collapsing across her desk.

despite yourself, you laughed softly, and that alone still felt strange sometimes. because for years after alto disappeared, laughter felt almost impossible.

everything hurt too much back then.

but here, surrounded by people who treated you normally instead of like something cursed or dangerous, pieces of yourself slowly began returning without you fully realizing it.

you slept easier now; not perfectly.

there were still nights where grief dragged you awake suddenly after dreams about rudo, leaving your chest aching so painfully you needed several minutes just to breathe properly again. there were still moments where seeing little gloves or abandoned toys around the headquarters made memories hit hard enough to leave you quietly shaken afterward.

you still missed your son every single day. that part never changed. and honestly, part of you thought it never would. but grief no longer swallowed your entire existence the way it once had.

it no longer consumed every waking thought. and perhaps the biggest reason for that change was enjin.

he remained consistent in your life from the very beginning. constantly teasing everyone around him while pretending not to care nearly as much as he actually did.

the longer you knew him, the more obvious it became that enjin deliberately hid concern beneath humor because genuine vulnerability simply was not something he showed easily.

instead of openly comforting people, he lingered nearby quietly whenever someone struggled. instead of asking emotional questions directly, he noticed little things himself and responded through actions rather than words.

and somehow, those small actions became incredibly important to you.

he started stopping by reception constantly after missions even when he had no actual reason to be there. sometimes he dropped food beside your paperwork after realizing you skipped meals while working.

sometimes he leaned lazily against your desk complaining about other cleaners until you rolled your eyes at him. other times, especially after difficult missions, he simply sat nearby in silence while you worked late into the night, his presence steady and grounding without demanding conversation.

with anyone else, silence used to feel unbearably lonely.

the realization unsettled you at first. because for so long, your entire heart belonged to memories of alto. even after he disappeared, even after the grief destroyed your life piece by piece.

part of you still clung desperately to the idea that loving him meant never moving forward afterward.

but healing complicated things.

because the more time passed, the more you realized your feelings toward alto had changed into something quieter.

you still loved him somewhere deep inside yourself.

he was the father of your child. the man you once built your future around. that kind of love did not simply vanish completely. but it no longer owned every part of you anymore either.

though, something weird happened this one day.

the headquarters had already settled into the quieter exhaustion that usually followed long missions by the time enjin finally returned that evening.

the sound of heavy rain pounding relentlessly against the metal roof outside almost drowning out the usual conversations echoing through the halls while tired cleaners wandered throughout headquarters carrying damaged jinki’s, the lingering exhaustion of another day spent fighting trash beasts somewhere deep within the pit.

you sat beside semiu at reception sorting through stacks of mission reports beneath the dim overhead lighting.

your attention only half focused on the paperwork itself while semiu dramatically complained beside you for what had to be the fifth time in the last hour alone about the state of the documents scattered across the desk.

“i genuinely think half the cleaners here lose all literacy the second they return from missions,” semiu muttered with visible offense while waving one stained report through the air like evidence during a trial. “look at this. this isn’t handwriting anymore, this is emotional damage.”

despite yourself, a soft laugh escaped you while reorganizing the pages more neatly into separate piles.

“i can still read most of it.”

“that’s because you’ve developed survival instincts.”

you shook your head slightly, still smiling faintly beneath your exhaustion, though before either of you could continue the conversation the large reception doors suddenly slammed open hard enough to rattle sharply against the surrounding walls, immediately drawing attention from nearly everyone nearby.

your eyes lifted automatically toward the entrance.

and instantly— something inside your chest twisted so violently it nearly hurt.

enjin stood near the doorway soaked completely from rain, strands of damp hair sticking messily against his forehead while irritation rested naturally across his expression like always, one hand shoved casually into his pocket while the other lazily held the door open behind him.

that part alone would not have unsettled you.

what did was the boy standing beside him.

filthy enough it looked like he had crawled through half the pit just to survive reaching headquarters alive.

mud streaked heavily across torn clothing while bruises darkened nearly every visible inch of his skin, and despite how exhausted he clearly looked, his posture remained tense and defensive in a way that immediately made him seem more like a cornered animal prepared to fight rather than a child finally somewhere safe.

but it was not his injuries that truly stole the air from your lungs.

it was his arms.

bandaged carefully beneath familiar gloves.

your breath caught so sharply it physically hurt. because you knew those gloves.

god, you knew them.

your fingers tightened unconsciously around the paperwork in your hands while your entire body suddenly went cold beneath the realization crashing violently through your chest.

the gloves looked worn now, older than the ones you remembered years ago, but the design remained unmistakably familiar — the same gloves meant to ease unbearable pain caused by mutilation spreading across fragile young arms.

the exact same condition your son once carried. the exact same curse that destroyed alto slowly over time.

for one horrifying second, the room around you disappeared completely beneath the roaring sound of your own heartbeat.

the boy stood stiffly beside enjin while silver hair, damp from rainwater, partially shadowed his face beneath the harsh lighting overhead, though even exhausted and filthy there was still something achingly recognizable about him that made your chest tighten harder with every second you stared.

his eyes.

the shape of his face.

even the irritated expression twisting across his features looked devastatingly familiar somehow.

your stomach turned violently. because it can’t possibly be him. years had passed since alto disappeared carrying rudo away from you into the rain.

fucking years.

your son should have been older now, taller, different entirely from the baby whose tiny fingers once wrapped around your own while sleeping safely against your chest late at night.

and yet— the more you looked at the boy standing there beside enjin, the harder it became to breathe properly.

semiu noticed your silence first. “…hey?”

you barely heard her. your entire focus remained fixed helplessly on the boy while memories crashed violently through your mind one after another without mercy.

baby rudo crying softly in the middle of the night while alto held him awkwardly against his shoulder trying to calm him down.

tiny silver strands of hair against blankets. small hands gripping your fingers. alto staring silently at rudo’s mutilated little arms with devastation written across his face while pretending he was not terrified.

the night he disappeared forever carrying your son away from you.

your chest physically ached beneath the weight of it all. then suddenly— the boy looked toward reception properly for the first time.

and your entire body froze. because for one devastating heartbeat— he looked exactly like alto. not perfectly, not completely, but enough that grief nearly ripped straight through your chest all over again.

the shape of his eyes resembled alto so painfully it made your stomach twist, while even the frustration written across his face mirrored the same expression alto always wore whenever irritated but trying not to show vulnerability beneath it.

your hands started trembling visibly now beneath the desk.

semiu immediately noticed.

“…what’s wrong?”

you could not answer. could barely breathe. because the realization growing louder and louder inside your mind felt impossible.

hopeful in the cruelest way imaginable. the boy eventually noticed your staring too. his brows furrowed instantly while distrust sharpened across his face. “…what?”

his voice shattered something inside you immediately. he sounds more older now, with a rougher tone.

but underneath it— there was still something painfully familiar buried there too.

you opened your mouth slightly, desperate to speak, desperate to ask something, anything— but no words came out.

for several horrible seconds, you could only stare at him while your heart pounded violently enough to hurt.

enjin’s eyes flickered between both of you almost immediately after noticing the sudden shift in atmosphere. “…you okay?” he asked slowly, confusion beginning to replace the casual irritation usually resting in his expression.

you blinked suddenly like waking from a trance, though your breathing still felt uneven beneath the pressure crushing your chest.

your voice barely worked when you finally forced words out.

“…his gloves.”

the boy instantly stiffened. one arm shifted subtly backward like instinctively hiding them while suspicion darkened his face immediately.

“what about them?”

the movement nearly destroyed you.

because rudo used to do the exact same thing as a child whenever strangers looked too closely at his hands or arms.

your vision blurred faintly with sudden tears. “…where did you get them?” you whispered shakily, unable to stop the desperation creeping into your voice now.

the boy frowned harder. “an old man gave them to me.”

your heart nearly stopped. an old man.. no one else but alto who gave it to regto. now, the name slammed into your chest without even needing spoken aloud.

suddenly the room felt too small, and too loud.

your hands shook harder now while memories of alto standing silently beside regto years ago flashed violently through your mind, both of them speaking in low voices while discussing the gloves and pain management for rudo’s mutilation before everything in your life collapsed apart forever afterward.

enjin’s expression shifted immediately after noticing your reaction properly now. his eyes narrowed slightly between you and the boy standing beside him.

but that didn’t matter.

because the boy still stared at you with growing confusion written across his face, silver eyes sharp and defensive beneath the exhaustion dragging heavily at his body.

and the longer you looked at him, the more impossible it became to ignore the truth screaming inside your chest.

after all these years— your son was standing right in front of you.

the silence hanging throughout reception after your question felt so unbearably heavy that it almost seemed to press physically against your chest.

your entire body frozen behind the desk while realization crashed violently through your mind over and over again in waves so overwhelming that for several terrifying seconds you genuinely forgot how to breathe properly.

and enjin noticed immediately.

his eyes moved slowly between you and rudo while understanding gradually sharpened behind his expression piece by piece, the casual irritation he normally carried fading almost entirely now beneath something much more serious.

he saw the way you looked at the him.

like seeing both a miracle and a nightmare at the same time. he saw the tears building rapidly in your eyes.

the panic overtaking your breathing. the devastation written openly across your face. then his gaze flickered once toward rudo’s gloves. and suddenly— everything clicked.

“…oh,” enjin muttered quietly beneath his breath. the sound nearly broke whatever fragile control you still had left.

because now someone else understood too.

your trembling fingers rose shakily toward your mouth while your eyes remained helplessly fixed on rudo standing across the room, years of grief and longing and hopeless wondering crashing together so violently inside your chest that you genuinely thought your heart might stop beneath the weight of it all.

your son… your baby.. is alive.

you did not even realize tears had started falling until one slipped heavily down your cheek.

rudo noticed immediately. his expression shifted uncomfortably. mostly confused, uneasy.

“…why’s she crying?” the question shattered you completely.

a broken sound escaped your throat suddenly before you could stop it, your entire body curling slightly inward beneath the force of the sob forcing its way out of your chest after years spent trying unsuccessfully to survive without him.

you had found him. after everything, you had finally found him. before the situation could spiral further, enjin moved immediately.

“semiu,” he said calmly without taking his eyes off you, his voice quieter now but carrying unmistakable seriousness beneath it, “take care of the kid for a minute.”

“wait, what?” rudo snapped immediately, still confused and defensive all at once. “what the hell’s going on?”

but enjin ignored the questions entirely.

instead, he stepped closer toward you slowly before crouching slightly beside your chair, his attention softening immediately the second he properly saw how violently you were shaking now.

“hey,” he said quietly.

you flinched slightly at first, overwhelmed beyond reason, though the moment his voice fully registered something inside your chest loosened just enough for air to finally reach your lungs again.

tears blurred your vision so heavily now you could barely see clearly anymore. “c’mon,” enjin murmured gently. “not here.”

you shook your head weakly almost immediately while pressing trembling fingers harder against your mouth like you were physically trying to hold yourself together.

“…i can’t,” you whispered brokenly through uneven breaths. “i can’t—”

“i know.” though, his voice remained steady. the exact same calm tone he always used whenever your grief surfaced too sharply and words stopped working properly afterward.

he never forced comfort onto you. never overwhelmed you with questions. instead, enjin simply stayed beside you through it. he was patient, steady, present. and somehow, that always hurt your heart in the gentlest possible way.

without another word, he carefully took the paperwork still loosely clutched in your shaking hands and set it aside before holding one hand out toward you.

“stand up for me.”

your legs barely obeyed.

the second you tried rising from the chair, dizziness slammed violently through your body hard enough your knees nearly buckled underneath you immediately afterward.

before you could collapse, enjin caught you instantly.

one arm wrapped securely around your waist while the other steadied your trembling hands against his chest, his grip firm enough to support your weight completely without hurting you.

“easy,” he muttered softly. the warmth of him grounded you just enough to keep breathing.

behind him, you could still feel rudo staring in visible confusion while semiu quietly stepped between the reception desk and the boy, clearly trying to redirect his attention away from the scene unfolding.

you could not look back at him again. not right now. because every second spent staring at your son while he looked at you like a stranger threatened to rip your heart completely apart.

and enjin seemed to understand that immediately too. because instead of forcing explanations or making you remain there longer than you could handle, he simply adjusted his hold around you slightly before guiding you carefully away from reception and down the quieter hallways of headquarters.

your breathing stayed uneven the entire walk back.

tears continued slipping silently down your face while your thoughts spiraled endlessly around the same unbearable realization over and over again.

rudo was alive. all that matters is that he is alive. god, after all these years— he survived. but he did not know you.

he looked confused by your tears instead of recognizing you. the thought hurt so badly it made your chest physically ache beneath every breath.

eventually, enjin guided you carefully into your dorm room before quietly shutting the door behind both of you, cutting off the distant noise of headquarters almost completely until only soft rain and your shaky breathing filled the silence instead.

you barely made it several steps inside before your legs finally gave out beneath the crushing weight of everything overwhelming your chest.

a sob broke violently from your throat while your hands covered your face instinctively, your entire body folding inward around years of grief suddenly reopened all at once.

“that’s my son,” you cried brokenly through shaking breaths. “enjin, that’s my son—”

your shoulders trembled violently now while tears streamed uncontrollably through your fingers. “i thought he was dead,” you whispered desperately. “i thought i’d never see him again—”

before you could fully collapse onto the floor, enjin immediately caught you again. this time, he did not simply steady your balance.

he pulled you completely against him.

his arms wrapped firmly around you while your hands instinctively clutched tightly against the front of his shirt like holding onto him was the only thing keeping your shattered heart together right now.

he simply held you there while years of grief finally poured out of you all over again.

you buried your face against his chest while tears soaked helplessly through the fabric beneath your hands, years of grief reopening all over again now that the impossible truth sat directly in front of you.

every memory came rushing back without mercy — rudo’s tiny baby cries late at night, the feeling of his little fingers wrapping around yours, alto standing silently beside his crib while exhaustion and terror slowly destroyed him from the inside out.

and then the worst memory of all. alto taking him away. the apartment door shutting. your screaming. the empty silence afterward.

“i thought i lost him forever,” you whispered shakily between sobs, your breathing uneven enough it almost hurt. “i thought… god, i thought he died somewhere and i never even got to hold him again…”

enjin’s hand moved slowly against your back while you cried, his touch calm and grounding rather than overwhelming, like he understood instinctively that words would never fix something this devastating.

he simply stayed with you through it.

his palms moved carefully along your waist and lower back in slow circles meant only to soothe the violent shaking wracking through your body while he kept you held securely against him the entire time, never once looking impatient or uncomfortable despite how broken apart you must have looked right now.

“breathe for me,” he murmured quietly after your breathing became dangerously uneven again. “c’mon. slow.”

you tried. god, you tried.

but every time you closed your eyes all you could see was rudo standing in reception looking at you like a stranger while having no idea his mother was falling apart right in front of him.

fresh tears spilled down your face immediately.

enjin sighed softly beneath his breath before carefully guiding you backward toward the bed. “you’re gonna make yourself sick at this rate,” he muttered gently.

normally, his teasing would have earned at least a weak glare from you. right now, you barely even processed the words.

he sat down first before pulling you down beside him carefully, one arm still wrapped securely around your waist while the other brushed slowly through your hair to calm you whenever another shaky breath threatened to turn into sobbing again.

and eventually, without really thinking about it— you curled instinctively against him.

your face buried against his chest while his warmth surrounded you completely, grounding you enough that the violent panic inside your chest slowly started loosening little by little beneath the steady rhythm of his breathing and the quiet movement of his hands roaming soothingly along your waist and back.

the room stayed dark except for faint light filtering through the window from headquarters outside.

rain continued tapping softly against the glass.

and enjin remained there holding you through every ugly, broken piece of your grief without once asking you to stop crying.

“he looked so much like alto,” you whispered weakly after a long stretch of silence, your voice raw from crying now.

enjin’s hand paused briefly against your waist before continuing again slower this time.

“…yeah,” he answered quietly. your fingers tightened slightly against his shirt. “for a second i thought i was seeing a ghost.”

the confession made something ache faintly inside enjin’s chest. because honestly, the look on your face back at reception would probably stay with him for a very long time.

that mixture of hope and devastation nearly destroyed him to witness. he lowered his chin slightly against the top of your head.

“you don’t gotta figure everything out tonight,” he murmured.

but you barely heard him anymore.

exhaustion had finally started dragging heavily through your body after crying so hard for so long, your thoughts becoming slower while the warmth of enjin’s arms and the steady movement of his hands gradually lulled your breathing into something calmer.

you felt safer. and eventually, the trembling wracking through your body eased almost completely.

your grip on his shirt loosened.

and somewhere beneath the sound of rain and his heartbeat beneath your cheek, sleep finally pulled you under for the first time in hours.

enjin stayed awake longer. much longer. one arm remained wrapped around your waist while the other continued absentmindedly brushing through your hair even after your breathing fully evened out against his chest, his eyes fixed quietly toward the ceiling while thoughts turned heavily inside his mind.

the kid he found half-dead fighting a trash beast.

he exhaled slowly through his nose. “…damn,” he muttered quietly to himself. because somehow, against all odds— he accidentally brought your child back to you.

eventually exhaustion caught him too. his hand slowed against your waist, his breathing deepened.

and sometime later in the night, enjin finally fell asleep beside you while still holding you securely against him. the second you realized his breathing had fully evened out, your eyes slowly opened again in the darkness.

sleep never lasted long once your mind started spiraling again.

especially not tonight.

for several quiet moments, you simply laid there against enjin’s chest while emotion twisted painfully through your ribs all over again beneath the unbearable realization still echoing endlessly through your mind.

carefully, you lifted your head slightly to look at enjin sleeping beside you. even asleep, his arm still rested protectively around your waist like he unconsciously refused to let you go completely.

the sight made your chest ache softly.

gently, you slipped out from underneath his hold as carefully as possible so you would not wake him, your movements slow while exhaustion still dragged heavily through your body from crying earlier.

enjin stirred faintly but did not wake.

once certain he remained asleep, you quietly pulled a jacket around yourself before slipping out into the dim hallway beyond your dorm.

the headquarters had mostly settled into silence now.

distant machinery hummed softly throughout the building while dim lights illuminated the empty corridors ahead of you.

your heartbeat pounded harder with every step.

by the time you finally reached the kitchen area near the lower hallways, the dim overhead lights casting long shadows across the metal floors while distant rain continued tapping steadily against the outside structures of headquarters, softer now compared to earlier but still loud enough to fill the emptiness surrounding you as your heartbeat pounded violently harder with every shaky step forward.

you genuinely had no idea what you were supposed to say to him.

for years, during countless sleepless nights spent grieving a son you believed gone forever, you imagined dozens of different reunions inside your head. desperate fantasies where rudo somehow recognized you immediately despite the years apart, where he ran into your arms and remembered your voice and remembered being loved before everything in your life shattered apart.

but reality was crueler. because the boy standing at reception earlier looked at you with confusion instead of recognition.

and honestly, how could he not?

he had been so little when alto took him away from you. far too young to remember his mother properly. the thought made grief tighten sharply around your ribs all over again.

quietly, you stepped closer toward the kitchen entrance before stopping completely the second you finally spotted him sitting alone near the counter beneath the dim kitchen lights.

rudo sat casually on top of one of the counters while munching absentmindedly on stolen candy from an open bag beside him, one leg hanging lazily over the edge while the other remained bent underneath him.

though despite how relaxed he tried appearing, tension still lingered visibly throughout his posture in ways that immediately betrayed how overwhelmed he truly was beneath the surface.

for several long moments, you simply stood there silently staring at him.

seeing him somewhere calm instead of bruised and covered in rain somehow made everything hurt even worse.

he looked older now obviously, taller and sharper compared to the tiny baby you still carried so clearly inside your memories, but so many little things remained painfully familiar that your chest physically ached looking at him too long.

the silver hair.

the stubborn irritation constantly lingering across his expression.

even the way he absentmindedly adjusted the gloves around his arms between bites looked horribly familiar in a way that almost made tears rise again immediately.

your throat tightened painfully.

before you could stop yourself, a shaky breath escaped you quietly.

rudo’s head snapped toward the doorway immediately. his silver eyes narrowed slightly the second he recognized you standing there. “…oh,” he muttered around the candy still in his mouth before awkwardly looking away again. “it’s you.”

the words hurt more than they should have.

“it’s you.” not “mom”.

not anything warm or familiar.

just a stranger standing awkwardly in the doorway after crying while staring at him earlier.

you swallowed hard before forcing yourself to step slowly inside the kitchen. “…sorry,” you whispered softly, your voice still rough from crying earlier. “i didn’t mean to scare you.”

rudo shrugged one shoulder stiffly though suspicion still lingered visibly across his face while he watched you carefully from the corner of his eye.

“you didn’t.” but the lie was obvious.

silence settled awkwardly between both of you afterward while rain tapped softly against distant windows somewhere throughout headquarters.

your hands trembled slightly at your sides. how were you supposed to do this?

rudo suddenly broke the silence first. “…so,” he muttered while tossing another piece of candy into his mouth, “you gonna explain why you looked like you were about to pass out staring at me earlier?”

your chest tightened immediately. straight to the point. that felt painfully like alto too.

you lowered your eyes briefly toward the floor while desperately trying to steady your breathing enough to speak without breaking apart again.

“…because i recognized you.”

rudo frowned instantly. “that doesn’t explain anything.”

“…i know.”

another heavy silence followed. he watched you carefully now, more guarded than before.

“…do i know you or something?” the question physically hurt. you looked back up toward him slowly. “…you used to.”

his brows furrowed harder immediately. “what’s that supposed to mean?”

your fingers curled slightly against your palms while emotion pressed heavily against your ribs again. you needed to stay calm. if you cried again too hard, you would only scare him more.

slowly, carefully, you stepped closer toward the counter though still kept enough distance not to overwhelm him completely.

“…rudo,” you whispered softly, voice trembling despite your best efforts, “do you remember anything before regto?”

he visibly stiffened at the name. “…not really.”

frustration crossed his face immediately afterward. “just random stuff sometimes. nothing useful.”

your heart ached painfully. of course he did not remember much. he had been far too young.

“…what about your father?” you asked gently afterward. rudo’s eyes narrowed instantly. “…what about him?”

there it was, that immediate defensiveness. the same protectiveness you used to see constantly from alto whenever anyone mentioned the surebrec bloodline too closely.

you swallowed hard. “did he ever tell you about your mother?”

rudo went completely still. then slowly, suspicion sharpened visibly across his expression. “…how do you know about my dad?”

your chest tightened harder. because even now— even after everything— he still protected alto carefully.

“…because i knew him,” you answered quietly.

rudo stared at you for several long seconds before scoffing slightly. “what, were you friends or something?” the question almost made a broken laugh escape your throat.

your hands trembled harder now. slowly, carefully, you reached inside your jacket pocket.

rudo immediately tensed. “hey,” he muttered sharply. “what’re you doing?”

“nothing dangerous,” you whispered quickly. “i just… need to show you something.” hesitantly, you pulled out the old worn photograph you had carried with you for years.

the edges had softened with age and handling, slightly bent from how often you held it during nights where grief became unbearable, though the image itself remained clear enough despite time.

your fingers shook violently while staring down at it briefly.

then slowly— you held it out toward him. rudo looked wary immediately. “…what is that?”

“…proof.”

his expression twisted skeptically though after a second he still reached forward cautiously and took the photograph from your hand.

the second his eyes lowered toward it— he froze. completely. silence swallowed the kitchen whole.

because staring back from the old photograph was a younger alto sitting beside you while holding a tiny baby wrapped carefully in blankets against his chest.

the three of you together.

you watched shock slowly overtake every other emotion across his face while his fingers tightened unconsciously around the edges of the photograph.

“…what the hell…” his voice came out barely above a whisper now.

your eyes burned painfully again. “that was taken a few months before your father left with you.”

rudo looked back up toward you immediately, silver eyes wide now beneath visible disbelief.

“…no.” the denial came instantly. but you understood why. because how could someone possibly accept something this impossible immediately?

“rudo—”

“no,” he repeated harder while suddenly standing upright from the counter now, the photograph still clenched tightly in his hand. “that’s not funny.”

“i’m not joking.”

“then how the hell do you have this?!”

your voice broke slightly despite trying desperately to stay calm. “…because i’m your mother.”

the words shattered through the silence between both of you.

rudo stared at you like the entire world beneath his feet had suddenly cracked apart without warning, his red eyes locked onto your face so intensely now that for several painful seconds it genuinely seemed like he had forgotten how to breathe properly altogether.

“…what?” he whispered weakly.

your chest physically hurt now beneath the weight of everything you felt. “i’m your mother,” you repeated softly, tears beginning to gather helplessly in your eyes again. “alto took you away years ago because he thought it would protect you from the surebrec curse, and afterward… afterward i never saw either of you again.”

rudo immediately looked back down toward the photograph almost desperately like he was searching for proof that this had to be fake somehow.

but there was none, the picture was real. painfully real.

his eyes flickered between your face and alto’s over and over again while visible panic slowly started building underneath his confusion.

“…no,” he muttered again, though this time it sounded less certain. “that doesn’t make sense.”

“i know.”

“regto never said anything about this.”

your throat tightened. “he probably thought he was protecting you.”

rudo’s breathing had started becoming uneven now. “you’re lying.” the words came sharp and defensive immediately afterward like he needed them to be true.

your eyes burned harder. “…i wish i was.”

rudo suddenly dragged one hand harshly through his silver hair while pacing backward several steps across the kitchen, the photograph still clenched tightly inside his grip.

“no, because this is insane,” he snapped while panic and frustration started bleeding visibly into his voice now. “i fall into the pit, almost get eaten by trash beasts, then suddenly some random woman starts crying looking at me and now you’re saying you’re my mom?!”

the sound of his voice cracking slightly near the end nearly destroyed you. because underneath all the anger, he sounded scared, confused, overwhelmed.

you fought desperately to keep yourself composed despite tears threatening to spill down your face again.

“…rudo,” you whispered softly, “look at me.”

he refused immediately. “no.”

“please.” his jaw tightened hard.

slowly, hesitantly, he finally looked back toward you again. seeing your own eyes reflected back at you inside your son’s face after all these years nearly shattered your heart beyond repair.

you stepped closer carefully.

“when you were a baby,” you whispered shakily, “you used to cry whenever your arms hurt too badly at night, and alto would panic every single time because he thought he was holding you wrong.”

rudo froze completely. fresh tears blurred your vision.

“he used to walk around the apartment for hours carrying you against his chest because it was the only way you’d fall asleep sometimes.”

rudo’s breathing visibly hitched.

his grip tightened harder around the photograph. “…stop.”

but your voice kept breaking anyway. “your favorite blanket was dark red because alto picked it himself even though he pretended he didn’t care what color it was.”

rudo stared at you now with something dangerously fragile cracking visibly across his expression.

because those were not random lies someone could invent. those were memories, like actual real ones.

his voice came out smaller afterward.

“…how do you know all that?” a tear finally slipped heavily down your cheek. “…because i raised you,” you whispered brokenly. “because i’m your mother.”

the words seemed to linger motionless throughout the kitchen long after they left your mouth.

swallowed by the quiet hum of headquarters during the middle of the night while rudo stood several feet away from you completely frozen in place with the old photograph still clenched tightly between his gloved fingers.

his red eyes locked helplessly onto the image like looking away from it might somehow force this entire impossible conversation to disappear before it could settle into reality.

you could practically see the confusion tearing through him in real time.

because only minutes ago, you were simply some strange woman who cried while staring at him at reception for reasons he did not understand.

yet now suddenly you stood in front of him claiming to be his mother while holding fragments of a life he never even knew existed, memories and truths that had apparently been hidden from him his entire life without explanation.

his breathing had become visibly uneven now, the subtle rise and fall of his shoulders growing sharper beneath his hoodie while disbelief and panic and uncertainty twisted violently across his expression all at once.

though underneath all of that confusion there remained something far more fragile beginning to surface little by little the longer he stared at the photograph in his hands.

slowly, almost reluctantly, rudo finally lifted his eyes away from the picture and back toward your face again.

“…you’re serious,” he whispered eventually, though even now the words sounded more like he was trying to convince himself than genuinely asking a question.

your chest tightened painfully hearing how small his voice sounded now compared to the defensive irritation he carried earlier.

“yes,” you answered softly, your throat still raw from crying.

the second the confirmation left your mouth, rudo immediately looked away again afterward like eye contact itself had suddenly become too overwhelming to maintain.

one gloved hand dragging harshly through his silver hair while he tried desperately to steady his breathing enough to process everything happening around him.

“…no,” he muttered weakly beneath his breath after several long seconds of silence, though the denial lacked conviction now, sounding far more exhausted than angry. “no, because this doesn’t make any sense.”

you wanted to hold him so badly it physically hurt.

every instinct inside you screamed to cross the distance between both of you immediately and pull your son into your arms after years spent mourning him like a ghost.

but you forced yourself to remain still because rudo already looked overwhelmed enough to run from the room completely if you pushed too hard now.

silence stretched heavily between both of you afterward while rain tapped softly against distant windows somewhere throughout headquarters, the sound filling the spaces where neither of you seemed capable of speaking properly anymore.

eventually, rudo looked back down toward the photograph again, his brows furrowing harder this time while his gaze lingered not on the baby version of himself wrapped carefully in blankets, nor even on the younger version of alto seated beside you—

but on you.

“…you really knew him,” he muttered quietly after a while.

the way he said it made your throat tighten painfully.

because to rudo, alto had probably become less of a real person over time and more like fragments of unfinished memories mixed together with unanswered questions and abandonment and grief, while to you—

alto had once been everything. you swallowed hard before answering.

“…i loved him,” you admitted softly.

rudo visibly stiffened at the confession.

his fingers tightened unconsciously around the edges of the photo while his red eyes flickered briefly back toward alto’s face again like he was trying to reconcile the image in front of him with the version of his father he barely remembered himself.

“…he never talked much,” rudo admitted after another long silence, his voice quieter now compared to before. “about anything, really.”

your chest ached hearing that because honestly, it sounded exactly like alto.

burying everything painful deep inside himself until silence became easier than vulnerability.

rudo suddenly looked back toward you again afterward, uncertainty written all over his face now despite how hard he clearly tried hiding it beneath irritation and suspicion.

“…so all this time…” he started slowly before hesitating mid-sentence, like even speaking the thought aloud felt dangerous somehow. “you were alive?”

the question shattered something quietly inside your chest.

because there was no accusation in his voice. only confusion, and hurt.

you nodded weakly.

“after i was thrown into the pit, i survived,” you whispered carefully while fighting to keep your composure steady enough not to break apart again. “eventually the cleaners found me and gave me a place here.”

rudo stared at you silently for several seconds afterward.

then slowly his expression shifted as pieces finally started connecting together inside his mind.

“…wait,” he muttered faintly.

his brows furrowed harder while realization crossed visibly over his face. “that’s why enjin acted weird earlier.”

you blinked faintly before nodding. “…he figured it out.”

rudo let out a quiet disbelieving laugh beneath his breath while rubbing tiredly at his forehead like his head physically hurt trying to process all this information at once.

despite the situation, a weak smile almost tugged at your mouth hearing the familiar irritation in his voice.

the silence afterward no longer felt quite as sharp as before, though tension still lingered heavily between both of you while rudo continued staring down toward the photograph in his hands like it might suddenly answer every question spiraling violently through his mind.

eventually, his voice came quieter than before.

“…why didn’t you try finding me?”

the question hit you like a knife directly through the chest. your breath caught immediately. because deeply you had, for years.

you took one shaky breath before forcing yourself to answer.

“i did,” you whispered weakly. “i searched for as long as i could.”

rudo looked back up toward you immediately.

tears burned painfully behind your eyes again. “but nobody knew where alto went after leaving with you,” you admitted softly while your fingers curled tightly against your palms to stop them shaking.

“and after everything that happened… after the execution… surviving the pit itself became all i could do for a while.” your voice weakened further despite your efforts.

“there were years where i genuinely thought both of you were dead.”

rudo’s expression shifted slightly hearing that. you continued quietly before your voice could fail completely.

“i stopped sleeping properly for a long time because every time i closed my eyes, all i could think about was whether you were cold somewhere… or hurt… or scared and alone.”

your breathing wavered dangerously. “i never stopped thinking about you, rudo.”

silence swallowed the kitchen afterward.

rudo looked away first this time, his jaw tightening visibly while he stared back down toward the photo again though now his grip around it had loosened slightly compared to before.

“…i don’t remember you,” he admitted quietly after several long moments.

the words hurt so badly you physically felt it inside your chest. but you forced yourself not to break apart again because none of this was his fault.

you nodded slowly. “…i know.”

rudo’s brows furrowed slightly harder afterward.

“…but.”

the hesitation caught your attention immediately.

slowly, he looked back toward you again. “…your voice kinda feels familiar.”

your heart nearly stopped.

the confession sounded uncertain, almost frustrated, like he did not understand the feeling himself, though it still shattered straight through every wall around your heart immediately.

fresh tears instantly blurred your vision again while emotion rose violently into your throat so fast you almost could not breathe around it.

rudo noticed immediately.

“…don’t cry again,” he muttered awkwardly while visibly looking anywhere except directly at you now. “seriously, i don’t know how to deal with that.”

despite everything a weak laugh escaped you through your tears. and the sound made rudo freeze slightly.

because for one brief second, something about it tugged sharply at a memory buried deep somewhere inside him. soft hands brushing through his hair. someone laughing quietly while holding him close.

the feeling disappeared almost immediately afterward before he could fully grasp it, though confusion still lingered visibly across his face afterward.

“…weird,” he muttered quietly beneath his breath.

you wiped shakily at your eyes before finally risking one careful step closer toward him.

this time he did not move away. your chest tightened painfully noticing the difference.

“…you don’t have to believe everything immediately,” you whispered softly. “i know this is overwhelming.”

rudo huffed quietly while glancing back down toward the picture again. “…yeah,” he muttered tiredly. “that’s one way to put it.”

another silence followed afterward, though softer this time.

eventually, rudo looked back toward you again while uncertainty lingered visibly across his expression.

“…so what happens now?”

for several long, breathless seconds after rudo asked what happened now, neither of you moved at all, because the question itself was so simple.

and yet the answer to it felt impossibly large, too large for the kitchen, too large for the middle of the night, too large for the years of grief and distance and silence that had already grown between you before either of you even knew how to live inside the same world again.

you could see the uncertainty in his face.

he was trying to act annoyed still, trying to keep that guarded look in place like it could shield him from everything suddenly crashing down around him.

but the longer he stood there with the photo in his hands and your voice still lingering in the air between you, the more obvious it became that he was starting to touch at the edges, not from weakness, but from the sheer force of trying to understand something that should have been impossible.

slowly, carefully, you took one more step toward him, and when he did not move away this time, your chest tightened so painfully it almost became difficult to breathe.

“nothing has to happen right now,” you said quietly, your voice soft enough that it would not feel like pressure, soft enough that it would not make him bolt, soft enough that it would not turn this moment into something bigger than he could handle.

“i am not going to drag you anywhere, and i am not going to force you to call me anything before you are ready, because i know this is a lot, and i know i came into your life like a stranger with a story that sounds completely impossible, but i needed you to know the truth before i lost the nerve to say it out loud.”

rudo stared at you in silence, his brows drawn together, his grip on the photo tightening and loosening in uncertain little shifts as though he could not decide whether to hold on to it for proof or throw it away because the truth hurt too much to keep in his hands.

“…so you really are my mom,” he muttered after a moment, still sounding like he wanted to reject the sentence even while saying it.

your throat tightened hard.

“yes,” you whispered.

he looked away again almost immediately, jaw flexing as he dragged one hand through his hair with obvious frustration, and when he spoke again, the words came out quieter, more hesitant than before. “and that guy… alto… he was my dad.”

the name hit you like a bruise pressed too hard.

for a second, you could not answer, because saying alto out loud after so many years still felt like opening a door you had spent a long time trying not to touch, but then you gave a small, trembling nod.

“yes,” you said. “he was.”

rudo’s expression changed again, not into anger this time, but into something more complicated, something that looked almost like hurt wrapped around confusion so tightly it was hard to separate the two.

“then where is he?” he asked, and for the first time since you had walked into the kitchen, his voice cracked just slightly at the edge of the question.

enough to tell you that beneath all the suspicion he was still carrying some hope, still waiting for the answer to become less painful if he simply heard the right words.

your own chest felt like it was folding inward.

you had spent so many years preparing for this question in your head, rehearsing it in silence during long nights when the grief felt unbearable, but none of those versions ever sounded any easier than the truth.

“…i don’t know,” you admitted softly.

rudo blinked.

his entire posture changed instantly, his shoulders going rigid all over again like he had been struck.

“what?”

you swallowed hard, forcing yourself to keep going before the fear in his eyes could become something worse.

rudo stared at you as if he was waiting for the rest of the sentence, as if surely there had to be more, some missing piece.

some secret ending where alto came back and explained everything and fixed the damage and made the years apart make sense, but there was nothing more to give him, only the truth sitting there between you like a wound neither of you had the tools to close.

his fingers slowly relaxed around the photo, and for a moment he simply looked down at it again, studying the younger version of himself in the image.

studying alto beside you, studying your face as it had been then, before everything broke apart.

“…i really did have a family,” he said finally, and the way he said it, so quietly and so raw, made your heart clench violently.

your eyes burned again. “yes,” you whispered. “you did.”

rudo didn’t answer right away after that, and the silence that followed was different from the earlier silence, less defensive now, more stunned, more tired, more like someone standing in the wreckage of something they had never known they were supposed to miss until it was already gone.

eventually, he shoved the photo carefully into his pocket, not with rejection, but with a strange kind of caution, like he was afraid of losing it now that he had it, like maybe keeping it near him was the only way he could prove this was real and not some hallucination born from stress and too many unanswered questions.

then he looked back at you. really looked this time. not like a stranger, not like an weird person, not even like a son who believed you yet.

just like someone trying desperately to decide whether to keep standing where he was or run before his chest split open from the strain of it all.

“…why didn’t regto tell me?” he asked, and the hurt in his voice was more upsetting than any anger could have been.

you lowered your eyes briefly because that question had no easy answer either.

“maybe because he thought it was safer that way,” you said quietly.

“maybe because he believed you would be better off not knowing where you came from, or maybe because he was trying to protect you from pain he thought you were too young to carry, but i do not know for certain, and i would never pretend otherwise.”

rudo looked frustrated now in that restless, pacing kind of way he seemed to carry in his bones, but there was no real heat behind it, just confusion trying to find something solid to land on.

“that is weird,” he muttered.

a small, broken sound almost escaped you at that, half laugh and half sob, because even now, even after everything, that blunt little sentence felt so painfully like a child trying to make sense of adults doing the worst possible version of protecting him.

“yeah,” you whispered. “it is.”

the two of you stood there for a while without speaking again, with the rain still tapping faintly outside and the kitchen lights buzzing softly overhead.

until rudo finally let his shoulders drop a little, like he had stopped fighting the entire truth long enough to actually feel the weight of it.

then, in a voice so much quieter that you almost missed it, he asked, “did you really look for me?”

that one nearly undid you completely.

because he was not asking whether you loved him now.

he was asking whether you had loved him enough then to keep searching.

and the answer was the simplest, most painful thing in the world.

“every day,” you said, your voice trembling just enough to betray you. “every day i could stand it, and on the days i could not stand it, i still thought about you anyway.”

his eyes shifted away first. not because he was rejecting you.

because he was trying not to let you see how close the truth had gotten to him. and you understood that more than he probably realized.

for a long second, neither of you moved, and then rudo exhaled through his nose in a way that sounded tired beyond his years, rubbed the back of his neck once, and looked at the floor rather than your face.

“i don’t know what to do with this,” he admitted.

your chest softened painfully. that was honest enough to be heartbreaking.

you gave the smallest nod.

“you don’t have to know tonight.”

he glanced at you again, and this time there was something almost vulnerable in the look he gave you, something young and uncertain and just a little lost.

“then what am i supposed to do?”

your voice stay gentle when you answered.

“you can keep that picture,” you said softly. “and you can ask me anything you want later, and you can hate me for not being there if you need to, and you can walk away if this is too much right now, but if you are willing, i would like to stay long enough to answer what i can.”

rudo stared at you for another long moment, and then, to your complete shock, he gave a tiny, frustrated huff that sounded almost like he was trying not to feel too much all at once.

“you really talk like a parent,” he muttered.

your heart stuttered so hard it nearly hurt. and because you were so overwhelmed, you smiled through your tears before you could stop yourself. “apparently i still remember how.”

he looked at you then, properly and fully, and while he didn’t smile back, the tension in his face loosened just enough to make your knees feel weak.

the weeks following that night in the kitchen passed slowly at first, awkward and uncertain in ways that neither you nor rudo fully knew how to navigate properly.

because no matter how desperately both of you wanted things to feel natural immediately, reality was far more fragile than that.

there were still moments where rudo looked at you like he was trying to connect the woman standing in front of him now with the blurry feeling of warmth buried somewhere deep inside old childhood memories he could barely remember clearly anymore.

and there were still moments where you caught yourself staring at him too long in disbelief because after years spent grieving him like someone permanently lost to the world, your heart still had not fully accepted that your son was alive and walking around headquarters every single day.

but slowly, little by little, things began changing, it happened in small moments first.

rudo lingering near you longer than necessary whenever you worked beside semiu even though he pretended he was only there because he was bored.

him absentmindedly stealing snacks from the kitchen and dropping them beside your work without acknowledging it afterward.

the way he eventually stopped flinching whenever you touched his hair gently while passing by him in the hallways.

they were like small thing, tiny things, but to you, they meant everything.

because every single one felt like proof that your son was slowly letting you back into his life after years spent believing you were gone forever.

rudo adjusted much faster emotionally than he probably realized himself.

because despite all his complaining and awkwardness and constant attempts to act annoyed anytime emotions became too obvious, he gravitated toward you instinctively now in ways that made your chest ache with overwhelming affection almost daily.

he sat beside you during meals more often than not.

he started knocking on your dorm door late at night whenever nightmares kept him awake even though he always acted embarrassed afterward.

sometimes he would just sit quietly beside you while you worked without saying much at all, like your presence itself calmed something restless inside him he did not fully understand yet.

and every single time it happened— you loved him more. you loved him so much it physically hurt sometimes.

which unfortunately led directly into one very specific problem.

due to enjin.

because rudo noticed the change between you and enjin almost immediately once he finally stopped spiraling over the shock of your relationship to him.

and he hated it. not because he disliked enjin exactly. he actually respected him quite a bit whether he admitted it or not.

but because enjin flirted with you constantly.

like very openly, shamelessly.

and now that rudo understood you were his mother, suddenly every teasing comment or lingering touch from enjin felt deeply offensive for reasons he could not explain without sounding ridiculous.

which only made him more irritated.

“can you stop leaning on her like that?” rudo snapped one afternoon while glaring across the lounge area where enjin sat lazily beside you on the couch, one arm stretched comfortably along the back behind your shoulders while you reviewed cleaner reports.

enjin barely looked up from his cigarette. “nah.”

rudo’s eye twitched immediately. “you’re annoying.”

“you’re jealous.”

“i’m not jealous!”

you sighed tiredly while trying unsuccessfully not to laugh beside them. “boys.”

“don’t lump me together with him,” both of them said simultaneously before immediately glaring at each other afterward.

it only got worse over time. because once rudo realized enjin genuinely cared about you, his protectiveness escalated into something almost ridiculous.

he interrupted flirting constantly. showed up out of nowhere whenever enjin tried spending time alone with you.

once, he physically shoved himself between both of you during a conversation because enjin casually rested his chin against your shoulder while talking.

“seriously?” rudo complained immediately while dragging you several feet away afterward. “in public too? disgusting.”

you blinked at him in disbelief. “rudo, he only leaned on me.”

“exactly.”

behind him, enjin looked moments away from laughing himself unconscious. “kid,” he muttered dryly, “you know she’s an adult, right?”

rudo immediately pointed accusingly toward him. “and you need to stay away from her.”

“or what?”

“or i’ll bite you.”

you nearly choked trying not to laugh.

the worst part was that rudo genuinely did not realize how obvious he was.

because underneath all the irritation and complaining and protective glaring anytime enjin touched your waist or called you pretty, he was scared, not consciously maybe.

but enough that it still lingered quietly beneath everything else.

after losing both parents so young, after years spent abandoned and confused and alone, some small terrified part of him still feared losing you too now that he finally had you back again.

you noticed it most during quieter moments.

the way rudo instinctively searched for you first whenever returning from missions.

the way his shoulders visibly relaxed anytime he heard your voice nearby, the way he unconsciously hovered close to you after nightmares even though he pretended otherwise.

and you understood, because after years spent mourning him sometimes you still caught yourself checking whether he was really there too.

one night, after another long argument where rudo accused enjin of “looking too comfortable” laying across your lap while you brushed absentmindedly through his hair.

rudo eventually stormed dramatically out toward the hallway muttering insults beneath his breath while enjin laughed loudly behind him.

you sighed helplessly. “you’re making it worse on purpose.” enjin looked entirely unashamed. “it’s funny.”

“he’s sensitive.”

“he’s possessive.”

you gave him a look. enjin only grinned lazily before catching your wrist gently and pulling you closer toward him against the couch.

“besides,” he murmured quieter now while looking toward the hallway rudo disappeared down earlier, “kid’s scared you’ll disappear if he looks away too long.”

the observation made your chest ache softly.

because it was true.

rudo had spent so much of his life losing people. first alto, then regto, then the world he thought he understood.

now suddenly he had you back again after years believing you were gone forever too. of course he held onto you tightly. you looked down quietly toward your hands afterward.

“…sometimes i’m scared too.”

enjin’s expression softened immediately. his thumb brushed gently against your wrist. “yeah,” he murmured softly. “but you got him back.”

your eyes burned faintly. because despite everything, despite the years stolen from both of you, you did.

later that night, after enjin finally left your dorm while teasing loudly about “letting your son calm down before he starts throwing furniture,”

you eventually found rudo sitting alone outside headquarters near the upper balcony area, staring quietly out toward the endless darkness of the pit below.

you approached slowly before sitting beside him. for several minutes neither of you spoke. then suddenly, “…he likes you a lot,” rudo muttered grumpily without looking at you.

you smiled faintly. “…yeah.”

rudo looked annoyed immediately. “don’t sound happy about it.” your laughter slipped out softly before you could stop it.

rudo groaned dramatically beside you. “see? this is exactly what i mean.”

carefully, gently, you reached over and brushed some silver hair away from his face the same way you used to when he was tiny.

rudo froze slightly beneath the touch.

“…rudo,” you whispered softly, “nobody could ever replace you.” his expression shifted immediately. all the irritation faded just enough for something softer to appear underneath instead.

you continued quietly while your chest tightened painfully with love.

“you’ll always be my baby.”

rudo immediately looked horrified. “don’t call me that.”

you laughed quietly. “you literally are.”

“i’m gonna leave.”

“you say that every time.”

he grumbled beneath his breath afterward though this time he leaned slightly against your shoulder anyway despite pretending not to. and for a long while, both of you simply sat there together quietly while rain drifted softly somewhere far above the pit.

eventually, rudo spoke again. “…do you think he’s still alive?”

you knew immediately who he meant.. his father alto.

your chest ached softly. because in reality you did not know. maybe somewhere deep down, a part of you would always hope alto survived somehow despite everything.

because grief never truly disappeared. it only changed shape over time.

you looked quietly toward the darkness stretching endlessly below. “…i don’t know,” you admitted softly.

rudo was silent beside you afterward. then slowly, almost carefully he rested his head lightly against your shoulder.

and despite everything that happened, despite the years lost, despite the pain, despite the fact alto disappeared into the world carrying unbearable guilt and fear inside his chest a part of him still remained here.

alive in the silver hair brushing against your shoulder, alive in the boy sitting beside you now.

alive in the son both of you loved enough to destroy yourselves trying to protect.