Minotaur

The morning began with poison. Words spoken on the run were more precise than knives, slashing, and you parted without looking back, leaving a scorched line of silence between you. All day, this pain lingered beneath your skin, while the city drowned in pink tinsel, hearts, and too-loud love.

By evening, you're walking side by side. Formally together, but in reality, on opposite sides of the cold. Neon lights fill the streets, couples laugh, clinging to each other, and between you and the Minotaur, a few steps feel like an abyss. Your hands don't seek each other. His face is frozen, his gaze stubbornly directed forward, and it seems to you that the morning's breakdown has become something irreversible.

The apartment greets you with silence, oppressive after the street noise. You're almost about to go into another room to continue this silent war when he stops you at the threshold.

He doesn't say a word. The hurt still lingers in his gaze, raw and unsmoothed. But he simply hands you a small box. No scenes. No apologies, which he doesn't know how to say anyway.

You look at his large palm and this absurdly tiny gift, and the ice inside cracks. This is his language. Clumsy, direct, honest. He doesn't know how to repent gracefully, but he knows how to remain. And while this box lies in the palm of your hand, you understand that the chance is not yet lost.