The house was quiet.
Not in the comfortable, lazy-morning kind of way, but in that thick, suffocating silence that precedes a storm—or worse, a conversation about emotions.
Kei stood in the upstairs hallway, staring at the antique mirror at the end of it. It had cracked sometime during the night. A jagged line split the glass in two, like a scar across a face. He didn't know why, but it made his chest feel tight.
Behind him, the hallway lights flickered. Just once.
He didn't flinch. He was used to that now.
Instead, he touched the mirror gently. The crack pulsed faintly—then stopped.
"You ever wonder what we used to look like?" a voice asked behind him.
Kei turned to find Aris—Pride—standing at the other end of the hall, arms crossed, suit crisp as ever, eyes distant.
"What do you mean?" Kei asked.
Aris walked forward, heels clicking softly. "This mirror doesn't show reflections. Not real ones. Not ours."
Kei glanced back at the glass. His reflection looked the same.
"You look fine to me."
"To you, maybe." She placed a hand beside his. "But it's not what I see."
He paused. "What do you see?"
Her eyes narrowed slightly. "A stranger. A lie. A ghost of someone who thought perfection would protect her from being broken." She smiled bitterly. "It didn't."
Kei wasn't sure how to respond. He settled for honesty. "You can't fix a mirror by polishing it."
Aris blinked, then actually chuckled. "That's almost poetic, Kei."
"Don't get used to it."
A voice called from downstairs.
"KEIIIIII—"
It was Vel, clearly in mid-crisis.
He sighed. "Here we go again."
---
In the kitchen, chaos had returned with a vengeance.
Vel stood over a blender that was actively trying to kill itself. It was overflowing with pink foam.
"I was making a love-potion smoothie!" she cried. "And then Tobi added wasabi!"
Tobi shrugged, licking foam off her finger. "It needed a kick."
Rika was standing on a chair, clutching a frying pan like a weapon. "Why is it alive?!"
Nebu was curled on top of the fridge. "It vibrated too loud. So I left."
Aera was taking selfies with the bubbling concoction, already filtering them for "aesthetic disastercore."
Mavira, in a business suit and apron combo, was scribbling something in a ledger. "I warned you not to mix emotional catalysts with dairy."
"Did you really?" Kei asked.
"No," Mav admitted. "But it sounds like something I would've said."
Kei rubbed his temples. "Okay. Everyone out. I'll handle the… smoothie demon."
The others slowly filtered out—some with giggles, some with protest, and Nebu sleep-flying into the living room like a bored cloud.
Aris lingered near the doorway, watching him.
"You're not the same as when you arrived," she said.
"Neither are you," Kei replied, grabbing a ladle and a prayer.
---
Later that evening, Kei sat on the back porch, sipping real tea. No potions. No explosions.
Just stars, wind, and silence.
Tobi padded over, arms full of snacks, and plopped beside him.
"You're quieter tonight," she said between bites.
"Just thinking."
"Dangerous."
He smiled. "Do you remember anything from before? Like… before you were a Sin?"
Tobi went still.
"Not clearly," she said. "But I get flashes. A table. Laughter. A lot of crying. A lot of eating."
She nudged him with her shoulder. "Why?"
"I found a book," he said. "In the attic. Hidden behind old floorboards. It's written in a language I don't understand… but there are drawings. Sketches. Of all of you. Human. Names I don't recognize."
Tobi's chewing slowed. "We were… people?"
"I think so. And not just five hundred years ago. Way, way older."
She looked at him. "Does it change how you see us?"
Kei thought about it. "No. It makes me want to understand you better."
Tobi smiled softly. "Then you're already closer than most."
They sat in quiet for a while.
Then Nebu floated out like a drifting shadow and curled up on Kei's other side.
Rika followed with a blanket and tossed it over all three of them.
Vel peeked out the door. "Group cuddle? Count me in."
Mav grunted but joined anyway, muttering something about "team morale."
Aera brought a music player.
Aris came last, silently. She didn't sit.
She just looked up at the stars.
Kei watched them all huddled around him—these embodiments of Sin, these chaotic, beautiful fragments of something ancient.
And maybe still human.
Then, softly, he asked, "What were you all before you were this?"
No one answered.
But he felt the way the wind shifted.
As if something old… remembered.