chapter 3

Michael's eyes finally opened.

For a moment he simply looked up at Silius, blinking the sleep away, and then a slow smile spread across his face — easy, warm, completely unaware of the storm it had just caused in Silius's chest a few seconds earlier.

"Morning~" Michael said, voice still thick with sleep, stretching one arm over his head.

"M... morning," Silius managed, pulling his hand away from Michael's grip the moment he had the chance, as though letting go fast enough might erase what had just happened. His skin still tingled where Michael's lips had pressed against his knuckles minutes ago. He cleared his throat, forcing his voice into something steadier. "You better go and wash up before your mom decides to show up here."

Michael sat up properly, the blanket sliding down around his waist, hair messy in a way that should not have looked as good as it did. "Is he up yet?" he asked, tilting his head slightly.

*He.* Of course. Even half-asleep, even seconds after waking, Michael's first thought wasn't about breakfast, or the morning, or anything in the room with him. It was about Mathew.

Something in Silius's stomach twisted, though he couldn't quite name why. "I don't know," he said flatly.

Michael frowned, mumbling something under his breath that Silius didn't quite catch. "That's strange," he murmured, more to himself than to Silius. "I wonder what trouble he's making now."

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood, stretching again before he reached out and ruffled Silius's hair on his way past — a casual, affectionate gesture that meant absolutely nothing and somehow still made Silius's chest ache.

"I'll be right back," Michael said, already walking toward the bathroom.

Silius stood there for a long moment after the door clicked shut, staring at the space Michael had just occupied. The warmth from earlier — that flustered, hopeful flutter — drained out of him slowly, replaced by something heavier, more familiar.

"Why do you keep giving me fake hope when you already..." he started, the words trailing off into a mumble he didn't bother finishing. There was no point. He already knew the rest of that sentence. He'd known it for longer than he wanted to admit.

He let out a long sigh and turned to leave the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

---

Later that day, on his way to school, his phone buzzed with a message from Rile.

**Rile:** Hey sili, where is Mathew?

Silius stared at the screen, irritation flaring up faster than he expected. "Ughh... why does everyone keep asking me where he is? How tf should I know?" he typed back, thumbs jabbing harder against the screen than necessary. "It's not like I revolve around him, okay?"

**Rile:** But he revolves around you.

**Rile:** And it's unusual to see you without him.

**Rile:** Wait... don't tell me he's up to something again.

Silius groaned audibly, drawing a curious glance from a stranger passing by on the sidewalk. He shoved his phone back into his pocket without responding right away, choosing instead to focus on getting to school without losing what little patience he had left this early in the morning.

By the time he reached the gates, Rile was already waiting for him, green hair catching the morning light, grinning the way she always did when she knew she was about to be insufferable.

"Someone's in a bad mood today," she said the moment he was within earshot.

"Ugh... I don't know what that lunatic is up to," Silius muttered, not even bothering to specify which lunatic. There were, after all, several to choose from in his life lately.

"What happened?" Rile asked, falling into step beside him. "Did Michael again call his ex's name while sleeping?"

Silius didn't answer. He didn't trust his voice not to give something away.

Rile sighed, the sound heavy with the kind of exhaustion that came from watching a friend make the same mistake on repeat. "Just give up already," she said. "It's not like Michael will forget about him. He's obsessed with him, remember?"

"Obsessions will wear off after sometimes," Silius said, more to convince himself than her.

"Some won't," Rile replied simply, not even looking at him, as though the statement required no further explanation.

Silius shot her a look. She just looked back at him, unbothered, the way she always was whenever she was about to say something he didn't want to hear.

"You wanna know an example for that?" she asked.

"Ughh... no, I know damn well what you're gonna say next."

"Come on, Sili." Her voice softened slightly, dropping the teasing edge. "What's wrong with him?"

"Everyone in this school knows about it," she added when he didn't respond fast enough. "Why are you pretending like you're not seeing it?"

Silius stayed quiet, jaw tight, eyes fixed somewhere past her shoulder. There wasn't really an answer he could give that wouldn't unravel something he'd spent a long time trying to keep neatly tucked away. Pretending not to see something was, after all, much easier than admitting he'd seen it clearly for years and simply hadn't known what to do about it.

"Let's go to class already," he said instead, brushing past the question entirely.

Rile sighed dramatically, throwing her hands up in mock surrender. "Yeah, yeah," she muttered, falling into step beside him anyway, clearly choosing — for now — not to push further.

As they walked, Silius pulled out his phone again out of habit, scrolling without really reading anything, his mind elsewhere entirely.

*Where is he?* he thought, the irritation from earlier slowly curdling into something closer to worry. *Did he really end up getting in trouble?*

It was a ridiculous thing to wonder about, given how loudly he'd just insisted he didn't care where Mathew was or what he did. And yet there it was anyway, sitting at the back of his mind like an itch he refused to scratch, persistent and impossible to ignore no matter how hard he tried to convince himself — and everyone around him — otherwise.

Rile glanced over at him, catching the shift in his expression even though he said nothing. She didn't comment on it. She didn't have to. After years of friendship, she'd long since learned which silences were worth pushing through and which ones simply needed time.

So instead, she looped her arm through his and tugged him toward the school entrance, the morning sun catching against her bright hair as the noise of students filled the courtyard around them.

"Whatever it is," she said quietly, just before they stepped inside, "you know you don't have to figure it out alone."

Silius didn't answer. But for the first time that morning, the knot in his chest loosened, just slightly — enough to let him breathe a little easier as they disappeared into the crowded hallway together.