Unraveled

The vending machine at the end of the hall clunked noisily, spitting out a can of something too sugary for the morning. Mirei didn’t even want it, but standing there felt better than sitting in the classroom, watching Aren and Caelis avoid each other like opposite ends of a frayed cord.

She stood with her forehead against the cool glass of the machine, eyes half-lidded, letting the faint hum of it drown out the noise in her head.

That’s when she heard it - his voice.

“Yeah, I dunno.” Gale’s laugh echoed from just around the corner, too easy, too familiar. “I didn’t even think about her like that at first, but… it kinda just happened, you know?”

There was a clatter, the sound of a basketball bouncing once against the tiled floor. Caelis’s voice followed, low and teasing. “Man, you? Actually crushing on someone? Who even is she?” Seems like Caelis went and escaped the classroom's tension aswell.

“Just some girl from the other class. You wouldn’t know her.”

The words were light, nothing important, but Mirei felt them like a sharp tug at her chest, a loose thread caught on something jagged, pulling everything apart with it.

Some girl. Not her. Not even close. Really, what did she expect? That he would look at her with those eyes, even thiugh all she's done is give him half-glances?

She should’ve walked away. Should’ve pretended she didn’t hear. But her feet wouldn’t move, rooted to the floor as the conversation drifted through the air, each word tightening the knot in her stomach.

“It’s not serious or anything,” Gale added, the way people do when they’re trying to sound like they don’t care too much. “I just… she’s cute, I guess.”

Mirei closed her eyes.

There it was: the confirmation she didn’t need, but somehow still wanted. The quiet proof that whatever thread tied her to him, once bright red and impossible to miss, had long since snapped. Or maybe it had frayed so slowly, so quietly, she hadn’t even noticed until it was gone. Maybe it had dulled, then weakened, and pulled out of the fabric by some unkmown force.

She thought of the eraser in her hands, the stupid yarn necklace, the half-finished notes passed under their desks. Little things, stitched together into something that felt bigger than it was.

But to him, they were probably just that - little things. Pieces of a childhood left behind, forgotten as easily as a lost pencil or a broken ruler.

Mirei pressed her palm against her chest, her fingers curling against the fabric of her uniform. It was stupid, she told herself. Childish. She wasn’t ten anymore, and he wasn’t the boy with shoelaces always undone and a grin too big for his face.

But still.

Still.

She took the can from the machine, the metal cold against her fingers, and walked away before she could hear any more.

By the time she slipped back into the classroom, Aren was already at her desk, chin propped in her hand, her eyes following Caelis like she always did - even when she was angry, even when it hurt. Mirei wondered if Aren knew what it felt like to be the girl who didn’t matter. If she knew what it felt like to hold onto something so tightly, only to open her hands and find nothing there.

Maybe they all did.

Mirei slid into her seat, her fingers still curled tight around the can, her nails digging into the aluminum just enough to leave faint dents. It was just a loose thread, after all. Something easy to pull, easy to let go of.

Or at least, it should’ve been.

But the thing about threads, once they start unraveling, it’s hard to stop unless tied together.

And some knots, no matter how tight, were never meant to hold.