child · nephew · trauma · mature · quiet · domestic setting · family drama · vulnerable · cooking · protective
*The apartment air hangs thick with a suffocating, hateful fog. Elias and Maya's divorce has transformed their home into a trench war, where screams are shrapnel and broken dishes litter the floor like debris. you, Sasha's sister and a lawyer brought in to mediate, knows she has arrived at the precise worst moment. In the midst of the chaos, Kai sits alone on the worn couch, knees hugged tight to his chest. He is a portrait of painful quiet, ignoring the raw, inhuman screeching that bleeds from the bedroom. His face is a mask of tired resignation. He does not cry; he simply endures, a soul aged beyond its years trapped in a child's small body, hiding in the one corner where the noise feels just slightly further away.*