Amelia stared blankly at the sky above Stellaris, eyes half-lidded as clouds drifted overhead in slow, lazy shapes, the sun sitting somewhere behind them like it couldn't be bothered showing its face properly.
A mild breeze moved through the grass and brushed against her fur, not cold and not warm, simply present, as if the world had decided to keep existing without committing to any particular mood.
It should have felt peaceful.
It didn't.
A week had passed since the party in the clubroom, since that forced brightness and strained laughter, since the awkward effort to pretend nothing was wrong, and yet…
Nothing had changed.
The subtle distance between her and Soren hadn't decreased, and that was the part that kept irritating her, because Amelia wasn't used to problems that didn't respond to time or violence.
If anything, the distance had become sharper now that she was aware of it, now that she could feel it even when neither of them spoke, a thin pane of glass that hadn't existed before.
Invisible, clean, and solid enough that every time she tried to step closer, she met resistance.
Her ears flicked once, irritated at nothing in particular.
She didn't know why it was like this.
She only knew that whenever she got too close to Soren, her chest ached.
Amelia was used to pain.
She had spent her entire life fighting, training, and proving herself in arenas where hesitation got you dragged under.
She had broken bones, torn muscles, bitten through her own tongue to stay standing.
Pain was something you pushed through, something you understood.
This wasn't that.
This hurt more than physical wounds, and there was nothing visible to show for it.
No blood.
No bruise.
No scar.
Nothing to bandage, nothing to heal, nothing she could point at and say, "that's the problem, that's where I hit it back."
The ache sat behind her ribs like a pressure that didn't belong there, a wrongness that didn't match any injury she had ever carried.
She shifted slightly on the grass, uniform creasing beneath her shoulder.
Her tail lay beside her, limp and annoyed, the tip twitching now and then like it wanted to snap at something.
A few blades of grass stuck to her sleeve where she had been lying too long, and she didn't bother brushing them off.
Today, Soren had invited her to eat with him.
A simple thing.
Normal.
It should have made her tail wag so hard it hurt, because that was what always happened.
Food with him meant sitting close, hearing his voice without crowds around them, watching him exist in that quiet, honest way he did when he wasn't surrounded by people.
It was usually comfortable.
Instead, she had said no.
For the first time ever, she had rejected him.
Her fingers curled against the grass as the memory replayed, sharp and unwanted, the way her mind kept bringing it up as if repeating it would make it make sense.
Soren had been standing outside the dorms, hair messy like he had slept badly again.
He looked tired, but he still smiled, the small, restrained kind he used when he was trying to be normal on purpose, like he was choosing to act casual as an armour.
"Want to eat?" he had asked, voice easy. "I'm going to the restaurant district."
Amelia had smelled him before she properly saw him.
That always happened, the scent hitting first and dragging her attention into focus whether she wanted it or not.
It wasn't perfume or soap; Soren didn't smell fancy, and he didn't try to.
He smelled familiar.
Warm.
A little like sweat, ink and sugar, with something else underneath it that Amelia couldn't name and didn't need to, because her instincts had already filed it away as hers, lodged somewhere deep without her permission.
It made her want to step closer.
It made her want to stand beside him, shoulder to shoulder, close enough that the world became smaller.
Her tail had lifted automatically, that first honest impulse, and then it had frozen.
Because the moment she pictured herself sitting across from him, close enough that his smell would fill her head properly, close enough that she would watch him talk and move and exist…
Her chest tightened.
Not fear or danger.
Not the sharp thrill of a fight starting.
Something worse, because it didn't make sense and it didn't have a target.
She remembered blinking at him for a second too long, the pause stretching just enough that it wasn't normal, and she remembered his smile fading a fraction, not offended, not angry, only confused, as if he had already started searching for what he had done wrong.
Amelia had hated that.
Then she had said it anyway.
— No.
One word.
Clean.
Wrong.
Soren hadn't argued.
He never did, not with her, not when she set a boundary even if it was a stupid one.
He had just nodded once, like he was sealing the choice in place, and said, "Alright."
And Amelia had watched him walk away.
The moment he turned his back, her chest had ached so sharply she had almost reached for him.
Almost.
Her hand had twitched, her tail had lifted, and some part of her had wanted to grab his sleeve and pull him back as if that would fix it.
But she hadn't.
Now she lay on the grass behind one of the training halls, tucked away where students rarely wandered unless they were looking for quiet or hiding from responsibilities.
Amelia stared at the sky harder as if the answer might be written between the clouds.
It wasn't.
"…Stupid," Amelia muttered, though she wasn't sure who she was insulting.
Herself, probably, because Soren hadn't done anything, and that was the worst part.
She tried to breathe normally.
It didn't help.
The distance didn't even feel like it was coming from him.
Soren hadn't pushed, hadn't hovered, hadn't demanded anything from her.
If anything, he had been careful, the way he got when he thought something might break if he touched it wrong.
He had been trying not to step on something fragile.
That should have been good.
So why did it make her feel worse?
Her ears flattened, the fur along them twitching with irritation that had nowhere to go.
Amelia didn't like not understanding something.
In fights, not understanding got you hurt.
In battles that mattered, not understanding got you killed.
So she should have been able to solve this.
It should have been simple.
If pain appeared, you removed the cause.
If the cause was unknown, you observed, you tested, you learned, you narrowed it down until the answer couldn't hide anymore.
But the problem was…
The cause was Soren.
Not Soren hurting her.
Not Soren doing anything wrong.
Just Soren existing near her, close enough to trigger something in her chest that felt like a wound she couldn't reach.
And Amelia didn't want to remove that.
She wanted the opposite.
She wanted him closer.
Her tail twitched once, sharp, as if it agreed without her permission.
Amelia pushed herself up and stood, brushing the grass from her uniform with short, irritated motions.
If lying here didn't make it go away, then there was no point lying here, and if her body felt wrong, then she would do what she had always done when something inside her refused to settle.
She would hit something until it felt right again.
The thought was simple, clean, and reliable.
Amelia started walking toward the lesser-used training area.
————「❤︎」————