REOMEN
I lowered myself into the vinyl chair next to him, the plastic groaning under my weight. I let out a long, exasperated sigh that came from the very bottom of my lungs. It was the only sound I could manage.
Denki's head turned slowly. He looked at me, his eyes red-rimmed and empty. There was no fight left in him. No clever smirk, no guarded calculation. Just a hollowed-out shell of the man I'd once called my brother.
My mind was a blank, roaring static. How the fuck do I start this? 'Hey, remember that time you spent a decade lying to my face and then tried to help ruin me? Good times, let's catch up.' There were no words for this. No script. We were in uncharted, deeply fucked-up territory.
From beside me, Denki let out a sigh of his own, a mirror of my exhaustion. It broke the silence, but not the tension.
"How are you holding up?" I finally asked. The words felt stupid and inadequate, but they were all I had. A generic question for a situation that was anything but.
