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Niv lay still, eyes closed and doing his best to deny consciousness. He eventually stretched and oriented himself, finally accepting he'd be unable to recapture that blissful oblivion of sleep. He was alone, and no light peeked through the curtains, but the room was still very faintly lit. He stretched again, twisting himself until his spine loudly cracked a few times, then begrudgingly dragged himself out of bed. He clumsily pulled on the thin sleep pants and t-shirt from the night before, his body feeling weighted and unwieldy and he fumbled in the dark.

Niv wandered to the bathroom, where a light had been left on and the door left ajar. He pushed the door open, squinting against the light to give his eyes time to adjust. Here too he was alone.

He went through the usual motions of the morning ritual, but in the midst of brushing his teeth, with his gaze nowhere else to go, he became acutely aware of the face gazing back at him.

It was still the weary, vaguely hopeless visage he'd had to blankly stare down for years, but the harder he looked, the more it felt different. In some way he couldn't discern, it was different. Something about that man's eyes bothered him. Even when finished with brushing, he couldn't help but scrutinize his reflection for several minutes until the awareness of movement behind him broke his fixation.

"Morning sweetie." Mela said casually as she entered the bathroom, standing to one side of him somewhat awkwardly. "Is everything alright?" She asked softly. She had clearly noticed, dropping whatever had initially brought her there.

"Mhm." Niv replied without commitment, quieter than intended because of the sleep still in his throat.

"What's wrong?" She asked, leaning against the counter.

"Ah..." Niv took a deep breath as if to continue, but let it go as a sigh and shaking his head. "It's stupid." His tone was dismissive.

"Not too stupid to bother you." Mela countered gently. "Tell me." She prompted him, in the spirit of an offer rather than a command.

"I just... It sounds so dumb in my head." He paused, staring at his reflection again. "There used to be a... a softness, in my eyes." He said solemnly. "No matter how awful I looked... or felt, it was there." He rubbed around an eye with his finger. "They were... kind. It looked so out of place. Saying it out loud, it sounds so dumb and dramatic, but..." His eyes began watering as he took a moment to think, "I don't see it anymore, and I don't..." He shook his head ever so slightly, his skin tingling as he said quietly, "I don't know when that happened..."