Janus always tries to make the best of things. He's 12—just a year older than me—but sometimes it feels like he's a grown-up in disguise. He always knows the right thing to say, the right way to make me laugh when the days feel long and heavy.
"Do you think they'd let us paint the walls?" I ask him one afternoon, lying on my bed with a sketchpad balanced on my knees.
Janus looks up from his book, raising an eyebrow. "The hospital walls? Probably not."
"But what if we asked really nicely?"
He smirks. "You think Nurse Carla would say yes to anything we asked nicely? She'd probably say no just to stay consistent."
I laugh, then tap my pencil against the page. "I think it'd look nice, though. Like… flowers, or maybe a big mural of the sky."
Janus tilts his head, considering. "You're always thinking about the sky, Sao."
"It's because I can't touch it," I say, almost without meaning to. My words hang in the air for a moment, and I quickly change the subject. "Anyway, you'd help me paint it, right?"
"Of course," Janus says, and I can tell he means it.
Oriel appears later, as he always does, like a shadow that slips into the room without warning. At 13, he's taller than Janus and me, though not by much, and there's something about the way he moves—like he's part of the walls, like he's always been there.
"What are you drawing?" he asks, his voice sharp but curious.
I turn the sketchpad away from him instinctively. "Nothing."
Oriel narrows his eyes, stepping closer. "It doesn't look like nothing."
"It's just a doodle," I say quickly, though it's not. It's a sketch of the rooftop, the three of us sitting under a sky full of stars.
Janus senses the tension immediately and steps in. "Leave her alone, Oriel."
"I'm not doing anything," Oriel says, raising his hands as if to prove his innocence. "I'm just curious."
"Well, don't be," I snap, my voice sharper than I intended.
Oriel smirks, but there's something behind it—a flicker of something I can't quite place. He leans back against the wall, watching me with those dark, unreadable eyes of his.
"Fine," he says after a moment. "I'll leave you to your… doodles."
Later that evening, the three of us end up in the common room. It's quiet, except for the faint hum of the vending machine in the corner. Janus and I sit on the couch, flipping through an old board game we found in the storage closet.
Oriel sits in the chair across from us, arms crossed, his gaze flicking between us and the window.
"You're awfully quiet tonight," Janus says, not looking up from the game pieces.
Oriel shrugs. "Nothing to say."
"That's a first," I mutter under my breath.
Janus nudges me gently, giving me a look. I know he doesn't like it when I push Oriel, but sometimes it's hard not to.
"You're both terrible at hiding things," Oriel says suddenly, his voice low.
"What's that supposed to mean?" I ask, narrowing my eyes.
Oriel leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "It means you two act like everything's fine, like we're just normal kids hanging out in some normal place. But we're not."
The room feels heavier suddenly, like his words sucked all the air out of it.
"We know that, Oriel," Janus says quietly. "We live it every day."
"Do you?" Oriel's voice sharpens, and for a moment, I see the fire in his eyes, the frustration that bubbles just under the surface. "Because sometimes it feels like you're pretending. Like you don't see what's really going on."
"What are you talking about?" I ask, even though part of me doesn't want to know.
Oriel doesn't answer right away. He looks at me, then at Janus, and then back at me again. "Nothing," he says finally, his voice softening. "Forget it."
But I can't forget it. Not the way he said it, not the way his eyes lingered on me like he wanted to say more.
That night, when the hospital lights dim and the world outside turns quiet, I lie awake in my bed, staring at the ceiling. Janus's words echo in my mind, soft and steady, but it's Oriel's voice that stays with me the longest.
What was he trying to say? What does he think I'm not seeing?
I don't know, but something about it makes my chest ache, like there's a weight pressing down on me that I can't explain.
For the first time in a long time, the sound of the monitors doesn't comfort me. They feel too loud, too sharp, like they're keeping me tethered to something I don't want to face.
And somewhere in the darkness, I think about Oriel's eyes and the storm I saw in them.