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CHAPTER 33: FACE-SLAPPING LIMOUSINES

"You're awake—"

"—How are you feeling?"

That was the first voice he heard when he woke up.

"I'm sorry... guys, it's all my fault."

And that was Kuro on the side, muttering to himself.

"Ugh..."

Steven slowly got up, feeling the pain. He noticed an ice-pack on his head, which slipped off and fell on his chest. An icepack on his leg, one on his hand, arms...

...Wait, was he surrounded by ice packs?

"Oh... the nurse gave you those." Mayo helpfully pointed out.

"It wasn't your fault." Another voice said.

That was Jackal, right?

"Dammit." Jackal growled, shifting through his hair with one hand. "What are we going to do? Nothing about that was fair."

Fairness. What was that?

"Fair..." Steven looked to his left...

There was Zero, sitting on the window sill.

Carefree?

White hair, red eyes, in quiet repose.

"Huh... Steven had a bad feeling that—

A long star in dimming twilight, framed from the outside world.

A delicate hue of cobalt blue, Zero's shirt billowed gently in the evening breeze that slipped through the cracked window.

—It danced,

curling around his form...

as though reluctant to part from his skin.

The fabric, almost translucent, was imbued with the dying light.

His hair—a cascade of snowy strands—floating weightlessly around him. Each thread catching and refracting the fading light, moving in the air as if underwater. His eyes, caught ablaze, like two glowing embers set against the cool ashes of his complexion. They arrested the world in a drunken daze. The horizon—

—Please stop describing him. He already got a description.

As Steven watched, Zero turned his head slowly towards him. Their eyes met, and for a brief second, time seemed to hang suspended.

"You're up."

And then Zero looked away, back to the horizon.

Steven had a thought then: He wondered how easy it would be to push the white-haired boy out of the window.

"Guess we have to find another place..." Jackal shrugged, muttering something to Kuro.

"Hey," Mayo tapped his shoulder. "Your clothes are in... tatters. Here, hand me your shirt!"

Steven took off his shirt, leaving his torso shirtless. Now, only a lone pendant hung from his neck.

Mayo held her hand out for Steven's torn shirt, her golden eyes reflecting an intensity that seemed almost electric. When her fingers touched the fabric, they stilled for just a moment—as if listening to the textile, feeling its weave, its tension, its brokenness. She sat on her bed, her shirt sticking to her collarbones and her nose scrunched.

Drawing her hand back, she manifested two fine, long needles out of thin air. They looked as though they were spun from threads of the fading twilight itself. Her golden eyes narrowed in concentration, and then she began.

Her hands became a blur, moving so quickly they were almost transparent.

As her needles danced through the fabric, it was as though she was weaving the very air into threads. These threads were spun with an invisible elegance... an intangible beauty. Every stitch was deliberate, every thread woven in harmony with the next, as if a tiny symphony were being conducted on the textile stage.