Threads

The classroom was too loud, too bright, too full. Mirei sat in her usual seat, second row from the window - close enough to escape into the sky if her mind wandered, far enough to avoid being dragged into the noise that never quite settled.

Aren sat beside her, absently erasing something in her notebook, not because it needed fixing, but because her hands couldn't stay still.

"Did you sleep?" Mirei asked, voice low enough to keep the conversation just between them.

Aren shrugged, her pencil flipping between her fingers. "A little."

It wasn't true, but it wasn't a lie either. Aren didn't cram the way other students did - she buried herself in her books when her head got too heavy, when the silence of her own room felt too loud. But even if she was exhausted, Aren never let it show too much. Not to anyone but Mirei.

Gale was at the front, perched on the edge of someone's desk, one foot up on a chair, spinning a basketball loosely between his fingers. The afternoon light caught in his hair, framing him in soft gold. It was too easy to watch him - too easy to fall into the memory of glue-stained sleeves, red yarn chains, and the easy way he used to smile when they were younger.

Mirei looked away before she got caught.

"Morning, gremlins."

Caelis dropped into the seat behind them, all sharp grin and slouched posture, his usual aura of easy chaos.

Aren didn't flinch or shrink back. She turned, resting her arm on the back of her chair, her expression perfectly normal - friendly, even. "You're late."

"Fashionably," Caelis said, running a hand through his hair, making it worse.

Mirei glanced between them, wondering if Caelis would notice the way Aren's gaze lingered half a second too long. But Aren played it cool - just like always. Not hiding, not chasing, just... there. As if Caelis was any other classmate.

But Mirei knew the difference between acting natural and feeling it.

"I saw you glaring at a math textbook earlier," Caelis said. "Looked like you were plotting its murder."

"Just trying to understand derivatives," Aren said smoothly, her voice light enough to match his energy. "But sure, maybe it deserved to die."

Caelis snorted. "That's the spirit."

There was no tension, no awkwardness, just a natural back-and-forth, the kind Aren had perfected after years of masking. She didn't act like someone desperate to be noticed - not yet. For now, she treated Caelis the same as anyone else, knowing that was the only way to survive.

Mirei envied her for that.

The teacher's voice cut through the classroom chatter, pulling everyone into the day's lessons. Mirei's pencil hovered over her notebook, her mind already drifting elsewhere - back to Aren's steady voice, Caelis's careless smile, the easy way they moved around each other without realizing how close they already were.

And then there was Gale - a gravitational pull she couldn't escape, no matter how much she wanted to.

Her hand slid under her sleeve, fingers brushing over the faint line on her wrist. Once, her hands had been stitched shut - thread after thread, until there was nothing left to give. Now they were open, empty, always reaching for something just out of reach.

She wondered how many others in the room were holding themselves together with these threads - how many were unraveling silently under their uniforms and their practiced smiles.