Stitches

The fluorescent lights buzzed, flickering every few seconds like they were trying to decide whether to keep holding on or just give up entirely. The convenience store was half-empty, shelves slumped with fading packaging, the kind of place that always smelled faintly of old ramen broth and stale candy. It was past one-thirty in the morning - too late for anyone with common sense to be out, but Mirei was never good at listening to that kind of sense anyway.

She stood in the back aisle, staring at a row of instant coffee cans, hands shoved deep into the sleeves of her hoodie. Her fingers ached - fresh seams, sloppily sewn with shaking hands, trimmed off before they could set. All that was left were the faintest pink lines, crisscrossing her skin like the ghosts of old threads.

"Why am I even here," she muttered to herself, voice lost under the hum of the cooler.

"You always show up here when something's wrong."

Mirei's heart nearly jumped out of her chest.

Caelis stood at the end of the aisle, hands in his pockets, hair messier than usual. His hoodie looked like it had been slept in - maybe it had - and his eyes were dark, a quiet tiredness settled beneath them. But his voice was the same as always - steady, low, like it could anchor you if you needed it.

Mirei's first instinct was to lie. To laugh it off, say she was just craving bad coffee at ungodly hours. But her fingers twitched inside her sleeves, and the weight in her chest was too heavy to pretend with.

Instead, she walked past him, out the glass door, into the night air thick with the scent of rain that hadn't fallen yet. Caelis followed without a word, the door jingling behind him.

They stood under the awning, side by side, the silence settling around them like an old blanket. It wasn't awkward. It never was, not with him.

"I saw Gale today," Mirei said finally, voice soft enough that the night could swallow it if it wanted to.

Caelis didn't react, not right away. He leaned back against the wall, hands still stuffed in his pockets, the quiet waiting kind of presence he always had - like she could take as long as she needed to find the words.

"He was talking about some girl," Mirei continued, her fingers curling into her sleeves. "Someone he likes."

Caelis' gaze shifted, just slightly. Not pity, not surprise - just quiet understanding. Like he already knew, or maybe had expected this to happen all along.

"It's not like I thought..." She swallowed, the words tangling up in her throat. "I mean, I knew it wasn't - I knew we weren't anything. But hearing it - it's different."

Caelis still didn't say anything right away. He let the silence sit between them, like a buffer for all the things she couldn't say yet.

Mirei tugged her sleeves higher, just enough that the faint pink lines on her wrists caught the light. They weren't deep. They never were. Just enough to feel, to remind herself she was still here.

"Did it help?" Caelis asked quietly.

Mirei blinked. "What?"

"The sewing," he said, eyes never leaving hers. "Did it help?"

She wanted to say yes. Wanted to pretend the neat little stitches had held her together, even if only for a little while. But the thread always came loose too soon. Her hands always shook when she held the scissors.

"No," she whispered.

Caelis didn't lecture her. Didn't tell her to stop, or that it was dangerous, or that she should talk to someone. He just stood there, the way he always did, like a silent lighthouse cutting through the storm.

"Do you wanna talk about him?" Caelis asked, and somehow the way he said him felt like a bandage being carefully pressed into place.

Mirei shook her head, her hair falling into her eyes. "Not tonight."

"Okay."

The rain finally started, soft and light, like the sky was apologizing for showing up so late. Caelis stood there, getting soaked, and Mirei didn't move either. They stood side by side, silent, two people who didn't need to fill the air with noise to understand each other.

And for the first time that night, Mirei felt the stitches inside her - the invisible ones, the ones she couldn't sew herself - hold just a little stronger.