The lighter wouldn’t catch. It was a cheap, neon-orange thing Riku had found on the sidewalk three blocks back, cracked plastic and gritty with road salt, but he kept flicking the wheel anyway. *Skrit. Skrit. Skrit.* No flame. Just a shower of useless sparks that died before they hit the frozen air.
He didn’t even smoke. He just wanted the heat. He wanted proof that something in this gray, washed-out world could still burn.
Riku shoved the lighter into the pocket of his denim jacket, jamming his hands in after it. The denim was stiff, freezing against his wrists. He should have worn gloves. He should have worn a thicker coat. He should have gone home three hours ago when the final bell rang, instead of wandering into intense, bone-aching cold of Riverside Park.
But going home meant explaining. It meant his mom’s tired eyes and his stepdad’s overly loud TV and the suffocating silence in the hallway where nobody talked about the fact that Riku hadn’t spoken a real sentence in weeks. It was easier to be here. Freezing. Miserable. Invisible.
The park was empty, mostly. A few joggers in high-vis gear blurring past on the perimeter path, exhaling clouds of steam like locomotives. The trees were black skeletons scratching at a sky that looked like bruised iron. It smelled of wet asphalt and that sharp, metallic tang of snow that hasn’t fallen yet—burning copper and car exhaust.
He hunched his shoulders, trying to disappear inside his hoodie. The cold was doing that thing where it stopped hurting and started feeling like a heavy, dull weight, pressing down on the back of his neck. It felt… physical. Too physical. Like a wet wool blanket draped over his shoulders, heavier than gravity allowed.
He shrugged, a sharp, twitchy motion. The weight didn't move. If anything, it dug in deeper, prickly and static-charged, making the hair on his arms stand up.
"Stop moving," a voice said. "You're making it dig its claws in."
Riku jumped, his knee slamming into the metal armrest of the bench. Pain shot up his leg, sharp and bright, but he barely registered it because someone was sitting next to him.
Not near him. *Next* to him.
In a park with fifty empty benches, this guy had sat on Riku’s. He was close enough that Riku could feel the radiant heat of his body, a sudden, shocking furnace against the biting wind. The stranger was wearing a coat that looked like it cost more than Riku’s entire life—thick, structured charcoal wool with a high collar turned up against the wind. He was leaning forward, elbows on his knees, staring at the empty playground ahead of them with a boredom that felt aggressive.
Riku scrambled backward, pressing himself against the far armrest. "What the hell?"
The guy didn't look at him. He had dark hair, wind-messy but deliberately so, and a profile that looked like it had been cut from cold marble—sharp nose, strong jaw, an irritating amount of careless symmetry. He was Riku’s age, maybe a year older, but he carried himself with a heaviness that felt ancient.
"I said stop moving," the stranger repeated. His voice was low, textured like gravel crunching under tires. "It feeds on agitation. The more you freak out, the heavier it gets."
Riku stared at him. The air between them felt tight, charged with an electric hum that made Riku’s teeth ache. "Who are you? There are… there are other benches."
"Those benches don't have a Class-Three Gloom Parasite sitting on them," the guy said casually, as if pointing out a pigeon. He finally turned his head. His eyes were dark, almost black, but there was no pupil visible—just an endless, absorbing depth. He looked at Riku, but not at his face. He was looking at Riku’s left shoulder, his gaze intense, clinical, and terrifyingly focused.
"A what?" Riku choked out. He tried to stand up, but his legs felt like lead. The weight on his neck flared hot, a burning itch that spread down his spine. He swatted at his shoulder instinctively. "Is there a bug?"
The stranger sighed. It was a long, weary sound, the sound of someone who had explained this a thousand times to a thousand idiots. "Don't touch it. You'll get frostbite on your soul, or whatever you want to call the energetic resonance of your nervous system."
"You're high," Riku decided, the fear transmuting into defensive anger. "You're high, and I'm leaving."
He planted his feet to shove himself upright. The moment he tensed his muscles, the air around his head *shrieked*. It wasn't a sound he heard with his ears; it was a vibration that rattled his skull, a high-pitched whine like a failing capacitor. The weight on his shoulders slammed down, forcing him back onto the slatted wood. He gasped, the breath knocked out of him.
"Told you," the stranger said. He shifted, turning his body fully toward Riku. He didn't look crazy. He looked annoyed. He looked like a mechanic looking at a car with a blown gasket. "It's snagged on your isolation loop. You've been spiraling, haven't you? Thinking about how much better off everyone would be if you just… dissolved?"
Riku’s mouth snapped shut. The cold in his chest wasn't from the wind anymore. "How do you… stop it. Get away from me."
"I can't," the guy said. "Not until I peel this thing off. It's ruining the ambiance. I come here to think, not to listen to the psychic equivalent of a dial-up modem screaming."
He moved then. Fast. Faster than a person should be able to move in a heavy coat.
One moment he was leaning back, the next he was invading Riku’s space completely. One of his hands—gloved in black leather—slammed onto the back of the bench, boxing Riku in. The other hand came up, hovering inches from Riku’s face.
"Hold still," the stranger commanded. It wasn't a request. The tone was absolute, heavy with an authority that made Riku’s brain short-circuit. His body obeyed before he could tell it not to. He froze, his breath hitching in his throat.
He was close. Too close. Riku could smell him—not alcohol or weed, but peppermint, old leather, and something sharp like sulfur. He could see the faint, pale scar cutting through the stranger's left eyebrow. He could see the way the guy’s eyelashes fluttered as he narrowed his eyes, focusing on the empty air above Riku’s shoulder.
"This is going to feel like a static shock," the guy murmured, his voice dropping an octave, rumbling right in Riku’s ear. "Maybe a big one. Don't bite your tongue."
"Wait—"
The leather-gloved hand lunged. Not at Riku, but *through* the space beside his neck.
Riku screamed, but the sound died in his throat. It felt like someone had plunged a hook into his collarbone and yanked. A jolt of pure, freezing electricity arc-welded his spine. His vision went white at the edges. He felt a tearing sensation—wet and heavy—and then the weight was gone.
The stranger exhaled a sharp hiss, his hand clenched into a fist around… nothing. Just shimmering, distorted air that looked like heat haze on a summer road, twisting and thrashing in his grip.
"Nasty little feeder," the stranger muttered. He squeezed his fist. There was a sound like a dry branch snapping, and the distortion shattered into grey dust that vanished before it hit the ground.
Riku slumped back against the bench, gasping. His heart was hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. He touched his neck. It was cold, but the crushing, suffocating weight was gone. The world felt… clearer. The grey sky looked a little less like a ceiling and more like a sky. The air felt sharper in his lungs.
He stared at the stranger, wide-eyed. "What… what did you just do?"
The guy was peeling off his glove with his teeth. Beneath the leather, his hand was red, as if he’d slapped a block of ice. He flexed his long fingers, grimacing. "Exorcism light. Pest control. Whatever helps you sleep at night."
"It was… there was something on me?"
"Parasitic emotional residue," the guy said, stuffing the glove into his pocket. He leaned back, resuming his bored posture, but his knee brushed against Riku’s. He didn't pull away. "They like the quiet ones. The sad ones. You were basically a beacon. I could see you glowing from the parking lot."
Riku rubbed his neck, his mind racing to catch up with reality. "I’m not… glowing."
"To people like me, you are. You look like a walking bruise."
It was insulting. It was invasive. It was the truest thing anyone had said to him in six months.
Riku looked at his boots. The snow around them was undisturbed. "I thought I was just… depressed. Or going crazy."
"Probably a bit of both," the stranger said, not unkindly. "The bugs just exacerbate it. They feed on the loop. 'Nobody likes me, I'm alone, I should stay alone.' They eat that garbage up. Makes them fat. Makes you heavy."
Riku huffed, a small, involuntary sound. "You have a terrible bedside manner."
The stranger turned to him again. The intensity was dialled down, replaced by a flicker of amusement. The corner of his mouth quirked up. "I'm not a doctor. I'm just a guy who wanted to sit on this specific bench because it has the best view of the duck pond, and you were cluttering it up with your existential dread."
"There are no ducks," Riku pointed out. "The pond is frozen solid."
"Exactly. I like the quiet. Or I did, until you started broadcasting your misery on all frequencies."
Riku felt a flush rise up his neck, contrasting with the biting wind. He should be terrified. He should be running. But the guy hadn’t moved his knee. The point of contact was a steady anchor in the spinning world. And strangely, Riku didn't want to move either. For the first time all day, he didn't feel like he was fading away.
"I'm Riku," he said, the words feeling clumsy on his tongue.
The stranger looked at him for a long beat. He seemed to be weighing the name, tasting it. "Steven."
"So, Steven," Riku said, trying to summon a scrap of bravado. "Do you usually assault people in parks and talk about invisible bugs?"
"Do you usually sit in freezing temperatures trying to light a lighter that’s clearly out of fluid just to feel something?" Steven countered, his eyes dropping to Riku’s pocket.
Riku flinched. "How did you—"
"I told you. I see things." Steven reached into his own coat pocket. He pulled out a silver Zippo, flipped the lid with a satisfying *clink*, and struck the flint. A strong, steady flame roared to life, yellow and blue against the grey afternoon.
He held it out. Not to light anything, just offering the flame. Offering the warmth.
Riku stared at the fire. He hesitated, then leaned in slightly, holding his numb hands toward the heat. It was a tiny radius of warmth, but it felt like a bonfire.
"Thanks," Riku whispered.
"Don't mention it." Steven didn't pull the lighter back. He held it there, his hand steady, watching Riku’s face illuminated by the flicker. "You attract them, you know. The static."
"Is that supposed to be a compliment?"
"It's a warning. You're too… open. You let the world walk right through you. You need to close the door sometimes."
"I don't know how," Riku admitted. The vulnerability of it made his stomach twist, but he couldn't lie to this boy who had just plucked a monster off his back.
Steven watched him. The look wasn't pity. It was something sharper. Recognition? He snapped the lighter shut, plunging them back into the grey, but the memory of the flame lingered in Riku’s eyes.
"You learn," Steven said. "Or you find someone who can slam the door for you."
The silence stretched, but it wasn't the suffocating silence of the hallway at home. It was a silence that waited. A silence that asked a question.
Riku shivered, but it wasn't from the cold. He looked at Steven—really looked at him. The sharp jaw, the dark eyes that saw too much, the arrogant set of his shoulders that seemed to hold up the sky. And beneath that, a strange, jagged protectiveness.
"You missed a spot," Riku said, his voice trembling slightly. He gestured vaguely to his other shoulder, a weak attempt at a joke to break the tension.
Steven snorted. It was a genuine sound, unpracticed and boyish, cracking the marble façade. "I got the big one. The rest is just your standard teenage angst. I don't charge for that."
"You charge?"
"Usually. But today’s pro bono. Consider it a civic service."
And there it was. A smile. It tugged at the corner of Riku’s mouth, reluctant and rusty, but real. It felt weird on his face, stretching skin that had been set in a grimace for weeks. "You're an asshole, Steven."
"And you're freezing, Riku." Steven stood up. The loss of his body heat was immediate and brutal. Riku felt a pang of panic—*don't go*—but Steven didn't walk away. He stood in front of Riku, blocking the wind.
"Go home," Steven commanded. "Take a hot shower. Eat something that isn't a stale pretzel. And stop playing with broken lighters."
"Will I… will I see you again?" Riku asked. The question hung in the air, desperate and naked.
Steven looked down at him. The wind whipped his dark hair across his eyes. He didn't answer immediately. He looked at the space where the 'thing' had been, then met Riku’s gaze. The connection was a physical impact, a hook in the gut.
"If the static comes back," Steven said, his voice low, "I'll know."
"How?"
"Because you're loud, Riku. Even when you're not saying a word."
Steven turned and started walking, hands deep in his pockets, striding into the grey blur of the park. Riku watched him go until the charcoal coat disappeared behind a cluster of pines.
Riku sat there for a moment longer. He reached into his pocket and touched the broken orange lighter. He pulled it out and tossed it into the trash can next to the bench. It clattered against the metal, a final, hollow sound.
He stood up. His legs were shaky, but the crushing weight was gone. He took a breath. The air tasted like snow and peppermint.
He wasn't warm. But for the first time in a long time, he wasn't freezing to death.