Loose Ends

The classroom air felt heavier than usual, a thick, invisible tension stringing itself between the desks. Mirei could feel it the moment she stepped inside - the way Aren’s shoulders were set too straight, her jaw too tight, and the way Caelis was sprawled in his chair, arms crossed, frustration radiating off him like heat off asphalt.

It wasn’t a loud argument. Not yet.

“Why are you acting like this?” Caelis muttered, voice low but sharp enough to cut through the morning noise. His knee bounced restlessly under his desk, a tell he never managed to hide.

Aren didn’t answer. She sat stiffly, eyes locked on her textbook like it might somehow shield her. Her pencil twirled between her fingers, too fast, like she needed the motion to keep herself from unraveling.

“Aren.” Caelis leaned forward, elbows on his desk. “Seriously, what’s your problem?”

“Nothing.” The lie was so smooth, Mirei might’ve believed it if she didn’t know Aren better than that.

Mirei sat down quietly, watching the scene from the corner of her eye. The invisible tug-of-war between them was so painfully obvious, she wondered how no one else noticed. Or maybe they did, maybe they were just used to it, the way people got used to cracked pavement and flickering lights. She started tapping the end of her pencil onto the desk, as a way to distract herself from the arguement around her.

It was stupid, Mirei thought. They were both too stubborn to say it. Caelis, too clueless to figure out why Aren was always just a little too sharp with him, always pulling back just before she said something real. And Aren, she was too scared to let it slip. To say what they both already knew. Or what they thought they knew.

They weren’t fighting about nothing. They were fighting about everything.

“I didn’t do anything,” Caelis said, voice edged with frustration.

“You never do,” Aren muttered.

It wasn’t loud, but it hit like a gunshot in the quiet.

Mirei’s pencil paused mid-tap against her desk. There it was - the thread stretched so thin it was ready to snap.

Caelis blinked, caught off guard. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Aren’s grip on her pencil tightened, her knuckles white. “Forget it.”

“No.” Caelis leaned closer, his voice still quiet, but sharper now. “You’re always mad at me for something, but you never say what. Just tell me. What did I do?”

Aren’s silence was deafening.

Mirei knew Aren wouldn’t say it. She wouldn’t admit that Caelis’s easy grin, the way he slouched into conversations like he belonged everywhere, the way he never noticed the way she looked at him - it all hurt too much. It was easier to fight than to say the truth out loud.

Mirei wondered if they all did that. If they all knew exactly why they were hurting, but were too afraid to hold the truth in their hands. Like it would burn straight through their skin.

She glanced at Gale, who was leaning back in his chair, eyes half-lidded but not quite unaware. His fingers tapped a lazy rhythm against his notebook, but Mirei knew him too well - he was listening. He always was.

They were all like this, she realized. Aren and Caelis, stuck in the same loop - afraid to break it, afraid to name the feeling they both knew was there. Gale and Mirei, circling the past, pretending it was too far away to touch. Even herself, fingers tracing invisible seams on her wrist, keeping her silence like a shield.

Maybe everyone already knew the answers. They just couldn’t bring themselves to say them.

The bell rang, sharp and sudden, and the tension snapped like a thread pulled too tight. Aren stood without looking at Caelis, and Caelis sat back, running a hand through his hair, frustration bleeding into exhaustion.

Mirei gathered her books, her mind spinning with all the things left unsaid. All the loose ends they pretended didn’t exist.

And all the knots waiting to form.