The rain hadn't stopped.It had been falling since morning, thin and relentless, a gray curtain that turned the world dull and heavy.
Velithra sat by the classroom window, her cheek resting against her palm, watching the droplets race each other down the glass. The chatter around her blurred into background noise — laughter, gossip, the sound of desks scraping.
Kai wasn't in his seat.
He was always early. Always there before the bell. But now, the empty chair beside her looked strange, almost wrong.Too still.
She tried not to think about it, but the memory of yesterday lingered — the look on his face before he left her at the park, the weight in his voice when he said, You say that like it's a bad thing.
Something in him had changed. She could feel it.
By the time lunch came, whispers had already started circulating.
"I heard Kai got into a fight.""No, he didn't. He just… left.""Didn't he have some kind of trouble before coming here?"
Velithra's hands tightened around her notebook. She didn't even realize she was holding her breath until her chest started to ache.
When she finally saw him later that day, it wasn't in class.It was after school, under the same awning where they used to meet when it rained.
Kai stood there, hoodie up, eyes shadowed. The faint bruise at the corner of his jaw said more than he ever would.
Velithra stopped a few steps away, her umbrella dripping between them. "You weren't at school."
"Yeah," he said quietly. "Didn't feel like it."
She swallowed, searching his face. "What happened?"
"Nothing."
That word again. The one people used when everything was wrong.
He looked up at her then, and she saw something in his eyes — not anger, not fear, but exhaustion. The kind that comes from running too long without stopping.
"Velithra," he said softly. "You shouldn't worry about me."
Her voice came out before she could stop it. "Then stop making me."
The rain filled the silence that followed. His expression flickered — surprise, then something gentler, sadder.
He stepped forward, just close enough that she could feel the warmth radiating from him. "You really shouldn't," he whispered again, but this time it sounded like he was saying it to himself.
Then he turned and walked away before she could say anything else.
Velithra stood there, the rain seeping through her shoes, her chest tight.
She didn't know what scared her more — the thought of losing him…or the feeling that she already was.