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Jinx tapped the little blue send button and watched her RCS bubble hang for a breathless second before his reply popped up: A heart, then a running man. She giggled, cheeks warm, and began to move.
In Ekko’s absence — a week, perhaps two — she had gone through the house like a gust of wind with a plan. The living room, once cluttered with crates and odd bits of scrap, had been stripped back until there was breathing room everywhere. She left the things she didn’t need by the yard bin like scraps of a life she’d outgrown and planted greenery in the borders and window boxes until the house looked as if it had grown a soft, wild fringe overnight. The sofa had been nudged aside. There was now enough space to spin, to roll, even to lay a mattress on the floor and stare at the ceiling. She liked the thought of Ekko finding a place to collapse, to lie down without the rest of the world crowding in.
In the kitchen she’d taken the upper cabinets down. The walls were bare and clean, everything that people usually keep up high was now in low cupboards and bins, practical and grounded. The emptiness on the walls pleased her — it felt less fussy, less obliged to be anything it was not.
Her favourite change was the bedroom. She’d built a simple bed from IKEA parts and made it enormous in the middle of the room — half the space and all of it theirs. The rest had been moved out: The table, the chair, the nightstand, all marched, rather stubbornly, into the other bedroom — but that room now had become an office, tidy and purposeful, full of light and ordered boxes. The bedroom itself was now just sleep and nothing else: No distractions, only soft sheets and the hum of the radiator and, if you wanted it, silence.
There was still another guest room, intact and waiting for anyone who might pass through. The bathroom, oddly, was almost unchanged in layout, but she’d removed the old tiles — she’d hated their coldness — and replaced them with a thick, cushioned sponge mat across the floor. It soaked up splashes and promised not to betray anyone with a slip. Practicalities mattered, comfort mattered more.
For Ekko’s return she’d prepared more than rearranged furniture. She set a bubble bath running and dropped in a water fizz-bomb that turned the water the colour of a shallow sea. Scented candles burned in safe clusters on the sill, their perfume mingling with steam and something sweet that made the air feel like an invitation.
When Ekko finally stepped across the threshold, he paused on the porch and smiled like anyone who recognises a home re-made for them. He took in the open living room, the neat greenery, the stripped-back walls, then the bedroom — vast and simple and entirely for rest. He wandered through the kitchen, fingers brushing the low cupboards as if learning the place anew, then peered into the other bedroom room turned into tidy and bright office. He even looked into the guest room, but nothing had changed there. The bathroom’s soft floor made him laugh softly when he tested it with a cautious step, the bath he saw through the doorway was a swathe of blue and steam and candlelight.
His first words were small and immediate: “You did all this?” He sounded a little astonished, a little amused, and mostly pleased. He crossed the room and hugged her, fingers pressing into her back where the muscles relaxed from the strain. He kissed her temple and then, quietly, deeply, kissed her again — a longer thank-you than any sentence could be.
He pulled back and took her in properly. He said he loved how everything felt lighter, how the house breathed differently. He loved the bed, he loved the office; he loved the bath. He teased her about leaving the yard a junkyard shrine but agreed the plants made it worth it. Mostly, he liked that she’d thought about making space for him to sleep without distraction, to arrive and collapse and be sheltered.
Later, while the bath steamed and candles guttered pleasantly, Ekko lay on the soft mattress in bedroom and Jinx flopped beside him, both of them looking up at the unadorned ceiling. He wrapped an arm around her, murmured a soft joke about being sent that little running-man emoji to hurry home, and she laughed, content. The surprise had been simple and exact: A house that made room for them, made room for rest, and a bath that smelled like sea. He told her, in the quiet that followed, that it felt like a promise kept — and she, already thinking of the next small, ridiculous, perfect thing to do, squeezed his hand and let the moment hold.