Soren sat on the bench with his elbows resting loosely on his knees, watching the academy's weekend traffic drift past like it had nowhere urgent to be.
Sunday morning at Stellaris always felt a little softer around the edges.
Not quiet, exactly.
There were still students moving along the walkways, still voices carried on the wind, still the distant thud of someone training like the world was ending, but the pace was different.
Less frantic.
Less performative.
Even the air felt less tense, as if the academy itself had decided to loosen its grip for a few hours.
He had come out here on purpose.
Not because he was waiting for something dramatic, and not because he had a plan.
Mostly because he was tired of spending every weekend sitting in the clubroom, staring at the door like it might suddenly open and deliver a reason to feel normal.
If people showed up, they showed up.
If they didn't, they didn't.
But sitting there and waiting for it was starting to feel like a habit he had formed out of anxiety rather than preference.
So he sat here instead, letting the morning air clear his head, letting the small, meaningless movement of the campus remind him the world still existed beyond his own thoughts.
He wasn't tired, not in that bone-deep way he had been until recently.
His body still remembered the last few weeks, sure, strain and stress didn't vanish overnight, but he had slept properly, he had eaten, and he had stopped walking around like he was bracing for an insult every five minutes.
Things were back to normal.
Or close enough that he could pretend it didn't matter when it wasn't.
A group of first-years passed by laughing too loudly, one of them carrying a practice staff slung over their shoulder like they were showing it off.
Soren watched them without much interest, then leaned back slightly and exhaled.
Movement caught his eye.
His gaze lifted automatically, expecting some random student or a passing group.
Instead, Amelia was walking straight toward him.
Soren blinked once.
He didn't expect her to show, not because Amelia was unreliable, if anything she was painfully consistent, but because she had been keeping that careful distance for over a week now.
Not an angry distance, not avoidance that came with a glare or an obvious refusal to be around him, just a subtle shift that made him feel like he was standing near the edge of something sharp.
He had learned not to step forward when someone did that.
Not out of fear of them, but out of respect for whatever was going on inside their head.
Amelia didn't always have words for things that weren't about fighting, and forcing her into a conversation she couldn't shape would only make her retreat harder.
So he had left her space.
He had stayed steady.
He had let her orbit at whatever distance she needed without chasing, without demanding an explanation she might not even have.
If things seemed dangerous, he would step in without hesitation, but by now, Soren could tell that things weren't that bad, so he didn't feel the need to rush.
Sure, the distance hurt, but it would solve itself with time, or at least that's what he thought.
His posture shifted without him meaning it to, not defensive, but attentive, and his brain ran through possibilities automatically because it couldn't help itself.
'Did something happen?'
'Is she angry?'
'Did I miss something?'
Amelia stopped a short distance away, close enough that he could see the minute flick of her ears and the way her tail sat a little higher than usual, alert rather than relaxed.
Her expression was flat.
Which meant nothing, because Amelia's "flat" face could mean anything from bored to murderous depending on the context.
Soren opened his mouth anyway.
"Hey—"
"Eat."
Soren blinked.
The word landed like a blunt object thrown at his forehead, and for half a second his brain stalled as if it needed to reboot.
His gaze flicked over her face, searching for the punchline that wasn't there, and all he found was Amelia standing perfectly still like she had just issued a normal request.
Her ears twitched, and he watched her visibly force herself to add more words, the way someone forced themselves to lift a heavier weight because they had decided it was necessary.
"…I want to eat with you," she said, still blunt, still completely unembarrassed in tone. "If you're hungry."
There was a short moment where Soren's mind went blank.
Not because he didn't understand.
But because he did.
He understood so hard his brain didn't know what to do with it.
A warm, ridiculous flush crept up the back of his neck anyway, and he hated that his body reacted like that when Amelia wasn't doing anything flirtatious, she was just… being Amelia.
Soren swallowed once and leaned back slightly, hands lifting off his knees as if he needed a physical reset, then he looked at her properly.
Amelia wasn't smiling.
She wasn't doing anything that screamed "soft."
She was standing there like this was a simple, obvious request, and she was waiting like she expected an answer, not an emotional performance.
But her tail had the smallest twitch at the tip.
Her ears flicked once like she was listening too hard.
And the fact that she hadn't stepped back, even though Soren could guess her chest probably felt tight just being here, told him everything he needed to know about how much effort this cost her.
Amelia didn't put effort into things she didn't care about.
Something in Soren's chest loosened, quiet and immediate.
Surprise, definitely.
Relief, maybe.
And something else too, something fond in the simplest sense of the word, a warmth that didn't demand anything from him except honesty.
She was so absurdly straightforward it bordered on unfair.
Soren's mouth twitched, then he let the smile happen properly, the one he didn't have to force.
"Yeah," he said, voice warm. "I'm hungry. Starving actually."
Amelia didn't react like a normal person would react.
She didn't brighten dramatically.
She didn't laugh.
She didn't get flustered.
She just held his gaze, and the tension in her shoulders eased by the smallest fraction, like his answer had made something inside her unclench.
Soren stood, smoothing his cloak out of habit more than necessity, the motion was automatic, his hands finding the fabric and tugging it into place as if he needed something to do with them.
He was still mildly flustered, the feeling lingering in his chest like a quiet hum, but it didn't bother him.
If anything, it made him feel strangely light, as if a weight he hadn't even known he was carrying had shifted.
He glanced down at her for a second, and the thought slipped through without permission.
'Cute.'
Soren cleared his throat once, trying to keep his expression neutral, failing slightly.
"Alright," he said, nodding toward the path. "Let's go before you change your mind like last time."
Amelia's tail flicked once, sharp.
"I won't," she said, clipped, like the very concept was stupid.
Soren huffed a quiet laugh under his breath.
"Good."
He stepped forward, matching her pace naturally, and they started walking together, side by side, close enough that it felt right.
And as they moved, Soren realised something else.
The invisible pane of glass he had been careful not to press his hand against… it wasn't there anymore.
Not because he had forced it to break, but simply because Amelia had walked up and shattered it herself.
••✦ ♡ ✦•••
Walking beside Soren felt normal.
That was the first thing Amelia noticed, and it annoyed her because it shouldn't have been something she had to notice at all.
It should have been the default.
But for over a week her body had acted like it didn't know what "default" was, like her instincts had been rewritten without her permission.
Now, as she matched his pace and listened to the dull rhythm of their boots against stone, something in her chest eased.
Not fully.
Not cleanly.
But enough that she could breathe without feeling like she was swallowing a knot.
Her ears twitched once as she caught his scent properly.
Sweat and ink and the faint trace of cherries, and under it that warm, human smell that didn't belong to the academy's stone.
It hit something in her instincts the same way a den smell hit a wolf, safe, and a thought rose without warning, blunt and possessive.
'Mine… no.'
Amelia's tail stiffened.
She didn't like that word, it sounded wrong, but the instinct behind it didn't care about words, it cared about place, it cared about where she was supposed to stand, and right now she was standing where she wanted to stand.
That was all.
Soren glanced sideways at her as they walked.
His expression was calm, but his eyes kept flicking to her ears like he was checking for signs she might suddenly bite someone.
Amelia stared back.
"What?" she asked.
Soren coughed lightly, like he had been caught.
"Nothing," he said.
Then, after a beat, honest in the way he always was when he stopped trying to manage his tone.
"Just… you're actually here."
"Is that bad? I usually come."
"No…"
His mouth twitched.
"Normally, we eat together too, but last time…"
Amelia's tail flicked once, irritation flaring.
"That was—" she started.
Then she stopped, because she didn't know what word to use.
It had been stupid, painful, something she didn't understand, and admitting that felt like handing someone a weapon.
So she settled on the simplest answer.
"…I wasn't hungry."
Soren didn't laugh.
He didn't tease.
He just nodded once like he accepted it without needing more.
"Okay," he said, tone easy. "Then you're hungry now."
Amelia's chest tightened slightly at the way he said it, not pressure or expectation, just casual acceptance, as if he had decided she was allowed to fix things without being punished for them.
She didn't know why that made her feel better.
Her tail lifted slightly anyway, alert and awake.
They crossed the academy paths toward the restaurant district, passing students in twos and threes.
Some stared.
Amelia noticed the stares like she always did, because people always stared at her, and usually she didn't care.
Today she cared a little more than usual, because some of the stares weren't aimed at her.
They were aimed at Soren.
At the way he walked beside her without hesitation, at the way he didn't flinch when her shoulder brushed his, at the ease of it.
Amelia's ears flattened for half a second.
Soren noticed her noticing, annoyingly observant even when he pretended not to be.
He didn't look around and didn't make a scene.
He just spoke quietly, deadpan.
"Should I punch them?"
Amelia blinked, then her tail twitched in a way that was dangerously close to amusement.
"…No," she said.
Soren hummed like he was disappointed.
"What a shame, I was starting to miss the glares," he joked.
The restaurant district hit them with warmth and smell the moment they stepped into it, meat, bread, spice and oil.
Amelia's ears perked before she could stop them, a reflex that betrayed her far more honestly than her face ever did.
Soren's gaze slid to her ears, and he smirked.
"Oh? So you weren't lying? You're actually hungry?"
"Food's always nice," Amelia replied, flat.
Soren's smirk widened like he had won something.
"Then I know where we're going."
Amelia followed without question, and she didn't realise until a moment later that she was walking half a step closer than usual, close enough that their arms almost brushed every few seconds.
She didn't move away.
————「❤︎」————