The cafeteria buzzed like it always did — trays clattering, conversations overlapping, someone's laughter too loud from the far corner — but it all felt distant. Blurred. Like a movie playing on mute.
I dropped my tray onto the table beside Sky's with a soft thud and sat down more heavily than I meant to. My shoulders ached, not from anything physical, but from everything else. The pressure. The stares. The unspoken conversations I didn't know how to finish.
Sky arched an eyebrow. "You look like you just fought in five wars and lost four and a half."
I gave a dry grunt. "That generous, huh?"
"You barely touched your sandwich, and that's criminal," he said, peeking at my tray like it offended him. "Should I stage an intervention? I have granola bars. Two and a half, technically, but I'm willing to share if this is rock bottom."
"I'm fine," I muttered.
Sky leaned in, his tone mock-serious. "You're not fine, Marx. You're doing the brooding stare-into-the-void thing again. It's cool once, twice max — after that it's just a spiral."
"I'm just... tired."
He blinked. "You mean emotionally or like, existentially?"
"Yes."
Sky snorted, then took a loud bite of his apple. "Man. Between Bella being all mysterious and hot-headed, and Carmilla being... Carmilla, you're carrying more romantic pressure than the last three drama series I binged."
I glanced up. "You binged drama series?"
"Don't judge me," he said through a mouthful. "I'm well-rounded."
Despite myself, I cracked a faint smile. Sky's greatest weapon wasn't his jokes — it was how relentless he was with them. They didn't leave you space to sink too deep.
The rest of lunch passed in that oddly quiet way — like my body was present, but my mind was pacing somewhere else. I caught Carmilla once across the cafeteria, seated alone with a book propped up, barely eating. Bella was further away, surrounded by people, but not with them. She didn't laugh. Didn't look over.
They both looked like they had answers I didn't.
Nothing much happened that evening.
Homework. A half-hearted attempt at reading something from Ethics. A moment where I just lay on my bed staring at the ceiling, feeling like the day had taken more from me than it gave.
Sky ended up walking home with me, kicking a soda can along the sidewalk, his usual commentary trailing beside us.
"My grandma says when the air starts to feel heavy before a festival, it means things are going to change," he said casually as we neared my building.
"You believe that?"
Sky shrugged. "I believe she makes killer tamales, and that's close enough."
As we climbed the steps to my place, he glanced up. "You know what tomorrow is, right?"
I gave him a blank look.
"The Sunfire Festival," he said like it should've been obvious. "Biggest thing this side of the district. The whole street'll be lit up with hanging lanterns, petals in the gutters, performers in weird clothes. One year a guy showed up on stilts dressed as a phoenix and got stuck in the power lines. It's tradition."
"That sounds like chaos."
"That's the point," he said, following me in. "It's the one day in this city where you can disappear into the crowd and no one cares who you are."
He drifted toward the balcony like it was magnetic, sliding the door open and stepping out into the cool air.
"Tomorrow's gonna be wild," he continued, leaning on the railing. "You'll like it."
Then he stopped mid-breath.
"What?" I asked, stepping up beside him.
He didn't answer. His eyes had shifted slightly to the right—toward the narrow gap where our balcony ended and the next one began.
Bella was there. Just a few feet away, separated only by a thin wall.
Not in her combat suit. Not even in anything that hinted at missions or danger. She was in soft gray shorts and an oversized white shirt, hair tied loosely back. She leaned on her own railing, her posture relaxed, eyes catching the last light of the day.
She saw Sky first. There was the briefest pause—long enough for the air to tighten—before she gave him a small, casual wave.
Sky froze like a deer in headlights.
Then, in one panicked motion, he spun around, nearly tripped on the balcony door frame, and stumbled back inside.
"What was that?" I asked, following him in.
He ran a hand down his face. "That was… Bella. In… casual clothes. And she waved. At me."
"And?"
"And—do you have any idea how hard it is to look cool when you panic-wave back and almost drop dead in the process?!"
I smirked. "Guess you'll have to try again tomorrow."
He groaned, collapsing onto the couch like he'd been mortally wounded.