The air in the archive chamber had cooled, but neither of them moved. Eira sat with her knees drawn in, arms wrapped loosely around them, her head resting just beside Kael's shoulder but not touching. Not quite.
Silence stretched. The kind of silence that didn't demand filling.
Kael shifted first—not to break it, but to make space. He set his back more comfortably against the old intake panel and let out a breath, slow and quiet, like something soft uncoiling.
"You always seem like you're listening to something I can't hear," he said.
Eira didn't answer right away. Then, "I am."
She raised her eyes to the server banks ahead, long-dead and humming only from ambient power—like ghosts holding their breath.
"I used to pretend the city had a voice," she said. "Before I knew what surveillance was. I thought it whispered to people while they slept. That it gave dreams."
Kael tilted his head. "And now?"
"I think it takes them."
Her voice cracked a little at the end. Not much. Just enough for him to notice. But Kael didn't press her. He let her say what she could manage.
"Sometimes," she went on, slower now, "I still dream about rain. Even though I've never seen it."
"You ever tell anyone that before?"
Eira shook her head. "You?"
"Only Ysel," he said. "But she doesn't listen. Not really. She stores things, like facts."
He paused.
"You... listen like it's dangerous."
Eira's mouth curved into the ghost of a smile. "Maybe it is."
She didn't know why she said it, or what she even meant. Just that part of her ached at the quiet between them—ached to be seen without being logged.
Kael reached for something in his pocket and pulled out a small square of cloth, worn at the edges, darkened from age. He unfolded it slowly.
"My sister used to carry this," he said. "Before she got reassigned."
Eira's gaze sharpened. "Reassigned?"
Kael nodded. "That's what they called it. She started dreaming too loudly. Asking too many questions."
"What happened to her?"
He didn't answer at first. He placed the cloth in Eira's hand. "She said memories don't vanish. They just wait."
Eira closed her fingers around the fabric. It was rough. Imperfect. Real.
"I don't know how to be close to someone," she admitted. "Not really. I know how to... perform closeness. To simulate it. To say the right words and use the right posture."
Kael didn't move.
She continued, voice tighter. "Even now, I'm watching how I sit. How I blink. How far my shoulder is from yours. I still feel like I'm being monitored—even here. Even with you."
His voice was gentle. "Then let me be the one thing that doesn't ask anything of you."
She turned her head toward him—just barely. Her eyes were glassy, not from tears, but from the fear of letting them fall.
"I want to trust that."
"Don't rush it," Kael said. "I'm not asking for a vow. Just... let this moment be real."
The words settled around them like warmth.
Eira leaned a little closer—not touching, not quite. Just enough to let her breath rest beside his.
Outside, the city shifted. Lights pulsed far above. A drone passed in the corridor overhead, scanning silently.
They said nothing more.
But in that stillness, the space between them—once built of silence and caution—began to hold something heavier.
Not quite love.
But the slow, irreversible ache of something close to it.