🍃 *Back When the Sky Felt Too Big

They remember it in bits.

Rain on a tin roof.

The buzz of an old CRT TV.

Shoes too small, soles taped together.

Shared meals that were barely enough.

One day, during a typhoon warning, she climbed in through your window—drenched, crying, holding a broken cartridge in one hand and an apology in the other. You gave her your blanket. She never left after that.

She escaped once. Small legs, barefoot, clutching a broken plastic butterfly she found in the trash.

And there—somehow—was you. A kid no older than her, handing her half of his melon bread without a word. No questions. No fear. Just... kindness.

"You smell like sun," she once whispered, laying her head on your shoulder during one of those long afternoons. "Like the kind of place I want to stay in forever."

Stolen blankets. Shared manga. Whispered dreams.

From that moment on, she decided to follow wherever you went. Even if she didn't always understand why.

Silver Wolf hacked the busted TV to play old game cartridges. Firefly made calendars where each day she didn't collapse was marked with a tiny star. You held both their hands under that rooftop, promising someday—somehow—you'd all leave.

It's one of those mornings.

The sun's already crept through the paper-thin curtains of your little apartment in the Tokyo suburbs. Golden beams cut across the floor, catching motes of dust that dance like tiny ghosts. A cicada shrieks somewhere close—too close—and the wall fan hums lazily in its one-speed setting. Someone left the rice cooker on warm again.

You wake up sandwiched.

Silver Wolf's curled up on your arm like a cat who pretends she doesn't need affection. Hair a little tangled, cheek smushed into your shoulder, mumbling nonsense about "loot tables" in her sleep. On your other side, Firefly rests with her forehead pressed to your back, hands clutching the hem of your shirt like it might disappear. She's the last to wake, always.

It smells like eggs. Overcooked, maybe. Someone tried.

You manage to shuffle out without waking either of them, stepping into your shared kitchen-slash-hallway in your beat-up house slippers. The place is a mess—one sock on the table, a gachapon capsule in the sink, someone's phone half-dangling off the charger—but it's your mess.