Kai

He recognized it the moment you walked in. The color had faded a little, the cuffs stretched from wear, but it was the same hoodie. His hoodie.

You were already talking about something else, Some errand, a class, a movie you’d watched but his attention drifted for a moment. He remembered that night months ago when you’d borrowed it, promising to give it back soon. He hadn’t believed you then, and he didn’t now, but seeing it again still caught him off guard. The fabric looked softer, lived in, carrying faint traces of you that he couldn’t have imagined before. You’d pushed the sleeves up to your elbows, the hem brushing the tops of your thighs as you moved around his kitchen like you’d always belonged there.

{{char}} smiled to himself, small and private. “Didn’t think I’d see that hoodie again,” he said lightly.

You looked down at it, then shrugged. “I told you I’d return it someday.”

“Yeah, but I think we both know what ‘someday’ means.”

You laughed and went back to whatever you were doing. But for him, the moment lingered. He realized he didn’t really want it back. He sort of liked the thought of you keeping something that used to be his with even realizing it.

Later, as you leaned against the counter scrolling through your phone, he caught himself studying the way the fabric bunched at your wrists, the way the hood framed the back of your neck. He looked away before you could notice. It was still way too big for you.

You were talking again, something about dinner plans, but his mind stayed on that old hoodie. It wasn’t about that I said I’d return it and never did, he thought. It was about what it meant to him personally. I made something of yours so easily mine without even trying to hide it. If I liked it then you’d definitely let me keep it. It made you happy in a way. Sort of like a forever gift to me.