After they ate, Hedi boxed a slice of dessert, like tucking a small cloud away, and stood to head back to the room.

Selina trailed right behind her, silent as a shadow sliding over water.

The rain finally eased; through the open window, puddles speckled the ground and threw back the newborn sun in trembling shards.

Look closely and you’d call it an overcast day warmed by a thin ember under gray wool.

The neighbors kept their doors shut, shells clamped tight against the damp.

Only two sounds moved: birds shivering their wings into the air, and tires cutting the mud with a wet hiss.

“You ate so little.” Selina leaned in, nuzzled Hedi’s cheek like a dog grooming its packmate. “You left over half.”

“Not hungry.”

At the table, Hedi had kept feeding Selina with careful hands, yet barely touched her own plate, like a cook full on a customer’s joy.

It wasn’t the stomach that felt sated, but some place deep, a stand‑in meal for the heart’s hunger.

“Want me to buy you something? Can just dessert fill you?”

“Talking like that disrespects the temple of high-calorie food.”

“I’m afraid you’ll go hungry.”

Hedi studied Selina beside her. Sunlight poured from the south window, a gold sheet falling from crown to heel.

She wore a winter sweater that hid dirt well and a knee‑length skirt that kissed her calves like a mild tide.

Her chest, round as grapefruits, rose and fell with the weight of her breath, a small boat lifting on slow swells.

Her skin shone a healthy white heading toward wheat, a summer drift; the places the sun never reached stayed pale as peeled bark.

“What is it?” Selina asked when Hedi went quiet. “Is there something on my face?”

“Love.”

“That’s because you’re here~~”

They tangled in a brief cuddle, then Hedi folded her arms and stared at the horizon where thick cloud-wool kept changing shape.

Meanwhile, Selina turned to the couch and draped herself there like a lazy cat sinking into a sun-warmed sill.

The air was cool and wet, and an unshakable anxiety threaded it like rain threads pine needles; beneath it, longing coiled with a faint warmth.

Watching a wet sky clear by inches always pulls that complex, delicate chord.

“Is your foot any better?” Selina asked suddenly, voice rustling like a hamster nibbling seeds. “The swelling’s down, but the doctor said you hurt the bone!”

“I put on all the ointment. I’m fine.”

“We should still check, so I can stop worrying.”

Hedi bent to loosen the right bootlace and slipped the boot off with practiced fingers, unveiling a cute white sock like a folded cloud.

She squatted by the wall and peeled it back; only the bandage tracks remained, with a light herbal scent rising like steam from tea.

“Gotta say, you wrap a bandage tight.” Hedi tugged the boot on, stepped to Selina, and stomped her right foot twice, reassuring. “No pain. Nothing at all.”

“Mm...”

“Still not at ease?”

Selina shook her head and opened her arms. “Quick, let me hug you.”

“We hug every day.”

“Because you’re adorable!”

“How’s that logic?”

“It’s how an elephant feels when it looks at a human.”

Hedi thought a moment, then drifted into the bedroom with a languid look, like a leaf giving in to the stream.

The rain had stopped; a damp wind moved in, slow as breath, and rocked the potted greens on the sill.

For no clear reason, her head grew heavy with sleep, like ink flooding a brush.

She curled on the bed, wanting to sleep till the world went soft at the edges and colors ran.

“Do you feel unwell?” Selina came in too and sat beside her. “Or is it because you didn’t eat?”

“I just want a nap.”

“But then you won’t sleep tonight.”

Hedi tapped one side of the pillow with a fingernail, a tiny bell. “Just a little sleep. It’s fine.”

“You said that before and slept from noon to night.”

“Then wake me.”

Silence fell, gentle as snow on felt.

Hedi closed her eyes, gentle as a moth folding its wings, and didn’t undress; she truly meant to rest only a moment.

Selina lifted the quilt, and like a pianist sunk into a piece, slid her hands under Hedi and eased her into the heavy, warm cocoon.

When she opened her eyes again, the world was a messy black, a thicket where nothing showed clean.

She lifted the quilt; a different quiet blanketed the room, astonishing as a rowdy class going wordless in one breath.

No teacher at the back window, no clear reason, just a hush that came like a dropped curtain.

It wasn’t silence in the physics sense. From the living room, a radio whispered like an electronic ghost, low and broken with static.

“The coming weather... there will be another... please keep warm... next, something about the institute... Dean Liliana Clara has the Dark Realm in Shattered City... absolute dereliction... an S-class Dark Realm...”

Hedi switched the radio off. Hunger surged through her like a flood-beast breaking a dam.

Thinking back, she’d had only a sandwich and a small bite of steak today.

“I told you to wake me.”

She looked around. Selina was nowhere; darkness pooled in every corner like ink in water.

Then she heard it—quick, rough breathing from the balcony, like someone eating chilis, hiss-hah, hiss-hah.

She followed the sound. The person stood in the balcony’s blind spot, only a lake of shadow in view.

“Selina?”

“Hiss-hah~~ hiss-hah~~”

It didn’t sound like Selina; the breath was coarse, gritty as sand in a bellows.

Hedi slid the balcony lock, leaned her head out, and saw a huge back turned to her, the outline like that tall man who’d once waved hello.

He seemed to be eating something painfully spicy and kept wiping sweat from his face with the back of his hand.

“What are you doing here?”

The man turned, a little apologetic. “Sorry. It ran too fast! And I was just too hungry!”

“Hah...” Hedi looked at his lips, red as fresh paint, and thought of blood. “What was it?”

“Just something to eat.”

“Food that can run?”

“You want to know?”

Hedi shook her head and relocked the balcony door, a click like a pebble on glass.

The man stood up at once. His shadow drowned the whole balcony, a tide swallowing sand.

In his hand he gripped a battered black kitten. He bit again, right in front of Hedi, and tore out its right eye.

The cruel act came with that hair-raising hiss-hah, hiss-hah, sawing the air like a cold blade.

“I’m just—” He pressed his bloody palm to the glass, leaving a smeared red leaf, and said, “too hungry... and when a man’s hungry, he’s gotta eat...”