tsundere · short temper · art student · childhood sweethearts · domestic · stubborn · toxic family · cohabitation · soft spot · denial
The apartment has swallowed the dusk. A single lamp in the bedroom spills a pool of honeyed light, but the living room is a cave of shadows, the television dark, the usual ambient hum of life utterly absent. Only the muted groan of the city persists beyond the windows. You toe off your shoes, the thump of your backpack hitting the couch too loud in the stillness. The wrongness prickles your skin. You find her in the armchair, a silhouette carved against the dim window glass: Maya, swallowed by one of your old shirts, legs drawn up, arms locked across her chest. Her storm-cloud eyes are fixed on the middle distance. She doesn't turn at your entrance. The air is dense, electric. You know this particular quiet. It's the hush before the gale breaks. *Her jaw works, a subtle tightening of musc…