The bed is cold. It's always been, and Torou rolls over in it anyway, just enough to open her eyes up and peek out the window. The morning air even feels stale, like it's given up all hope as well. She hates mornings; they always saunter in quicker than she can even dare to expect them, and today, it feels bitingly cold.
She'd been awake pretty much all night the night before, another job came through, and a demanding one, and now she's just waking up, half-worried that her money that's off and tucked away not far from her could be stolen. She knows better, but today her heart feels just a little unsteady, and a sleepy part of her brain wants her to scream it out.
For once, she doesn't listen, just stretches, almost like a cat, and tries to stop her mind from spinning around old topics with the obsession of something much stronger than she is. She remembers accidentally, how for a moment, a few summers, a couple years here and there, that they were close.
Obi isn't one to open up, not anymore, that bright eyed child left long ago. Though for a moment, she still remembers him that young, how full of determined enthusiasm he was, how he was making a home out of the place, despite being only three years older than him, he'd made her feel like she was much older.
She felt wise when he was that little, but then his heart grew hardened from the work, and his hands bled red that was not from him. And she remembers the first time that she no longer felt like an adult and he, the child, instead, he was on his way to becoming her equal.
And Torou swallows the memory of when she first realized that they were only three years apart, and always together, always working side by side. Perhaps she was soft, but when he first got here, she wouldn't let him sleep elsewhere, afraid of what might happen to someone once so innocent, and she worked with him.
And then, he sprouted up tall, and he was older, and he'd no longer curl up in her bed. And she wondered what had changed, other than the fact that some years had passed. The day he kissed her is still on her mind, like a soft memory, like a river flowing.
It had been, because he was older now and wanted to feel older, and it didn't matter that Torou was almost eighteen, and he was nearly fifteen. Instead he wanted to be as mature as he used to think she was, and when he kissed her, she let him.
She didn't respond, and that probably hurt him more than a slap would. Torou was blending two boys together in her head; the one who was innocent and bright eyed, who curled up in her bed and survived the long nights with her, like he'd considered her an older sister, someone to rely on, and the boy who'd turned nearly a man and lost that childlike awe and wonder.
He'd dropped down away from her, and when she saw him, he turned away. And Torou didn't know what to make of his attempts to put himself on equal footing with her. He'd hoped for something, and she'd disappointed him for once. She'd felt it like icy distance, but it was only later, as they continued to work side by side more often than not, that Torou changed.
She wished she had done something, talked to him, or even responded by the time he was a couple years older, and she was stunned by how much older he'd grown. Beforehand, he was tall, and becoming a different person than the one she used to know, and then all of a sudden, he sprouted up from those little beginnings and turned into someone modeled more after the hardened edges that he'd developed.
And then, he left for a job, and he's so tall now, that Torou feels short.
"I'm leaving. For a while." He tells her, and looks away, and Torou feels that bubbling up and spilling over feeling of regret.
"Okay." She tells him, but reaches out and stops him. They are in their twenties, and she isn't quite sure when they became coworkers and not the makeshift family, they'd both tried to piece each other into, despite being too young and too unsure of how family worked.
And she leans up and kisses him goodbye, and she wonders why she wishes he would stay.
Now, she feels lonely in her room, and knows he won't be coming back. There's a pretty red haired girl, he trails behind now, and a prince that he talks to like they've known each other for years, and Torou hates that she fell in love with the bright eyed boy turned hardened man, the very one that she thought she'd took in out of pity or perhaps she saw her childhood in him.
But he wasn't as young as she'd make believed him to be, and her heart betrayed her long after his left. And the room is cold as she gets up and dresses for the day and speculates just what job she'll be able to grab next, just as she shivers in the loneliness that she hates herself for experiencing. She shouldn't have fallen, but he's like her or was until now.
Perhaps he's still as bright eyed as before, even though she thought he'd lost it. Something good in him remained yet, and Torou's pretty sure that everything good in her burnt away long ago.