voice messages that never sent
happy birthday @shxhdsstuff!!
The last thing Ni-ki saw of you was a single gray checkmark that never turned blue again.
And then, your name disappeared.
It wasn’t dramatic. No final paragraph. No warning that the end had already been decided somewhere between exhaustion and pride.
Just a quiet severing, like cutting a thread that had been fraying for too long to hold anything together anyway.
He stared at the screen long after it stopped mattering.
Then he laughed once, short and disbelieving, as if you’d just stepped out of the room and forgotten to come back.
“You’re serious,” he said to no one.
The fight wasn’t supposed to be the last thing.
It started small, something stupid, something that could’ve been softened with sleep and distance. Words got sharp. So did you. So did he.
Then came the silence that felt louder than everything else.
Ni-ki told himself you’d unblock him in an hour. Maybe two. You always came back when the anger cooled into something softer, something survivable.
Then days became something heavier.
Something he stopped naming out loud.
The accident happened on a night that didn’t feel different enough to matter.
No warning in the sky. No sense that the world was about to shift its weight permanently.
Just a phone that didn’t get unblocked.
Just a message that was never delivered.
And somewhere in that gap,
Ni-ki didn’t believe it at first.
People said things like car crash, instant, and no suffering as if language could make any of it easier to hold.
He nodded when they spoke.
He even said the right things.
But inside, everything stayed unchanged.
Because people don’t disappear after arguments.
Even if it takes pride-breaking first.
That’s what he told himself every night when he opened your chat, hoping the block would have lifted like it was never real.
It was weeks later when your things were returned.
Neat. Careful. Too careful.
As if whoever packed it knew that anything careless would break something already shattered.
He didn’t open it immediately.
He sat on the floor beside it for a long time, as it might speak first.
When he finally did, everything inside felt too normal for something so final.
Clothes folded. A notebook. A charger.
He shouldn’t have opened it.
The files were already there.
His breath caught before he even pressed play, like his body understood before his mind agreed.
The first recording crackled softly, as if it had been waiting too long to be heard.
Then your voice filled the room.
“I know you’re still angry, but… I don’t really know how to start this without sounding like I’m trying to fix everything at once.”
“So I guess I’ll just start with sorry.”
Silence followed, thick enough to sit in.
“I’m sorry for the way I talk when I’m scared you’re going to leave. I make it sound like I don’t care, but I care too much, and it comes out wrong every time.”
“I know you’re still angry, but… You left your hoodie again. It still smells like you. I’m pretending I’m annoyed about it, but I’m not returning it anytime soon.”
A small laugh broke through, then faded quickly.
“I don’t know why I keep little things like that. Like I’m collecting proof you were here.”
“I know you’re still angry, but… I keep replaying our fight in my head and trying to find the exact moment where I should’ve just hugged you instead of arguing.”
A pause that stretched too long.
“I think I lost you somewhere between wanting to be right and wanting you to stay.”
Ni-ki stopped breathing properly after that one.
But he didn’t stop listening.
The recordings blurred after a while.
Not because they were unclear.
Because he couldn’t keep track of how many times he heard your voice say his name in different shapes of regret.
“I know you’re still angry, but if you don’t come back, I’m eating all your snacks. Consider this emotional damage compensation.”
Some were confessions you would’ve never said aloud while alive.
“I think I built my entire day around waiting for your messages more than I ever admitted.”
Some were quiet breakdowns pretending to be calm.
“I know you’re still angry, but I don’t know how to fix something I keep making worse.”
I know you’re still angry, but…
Like you had been speaking to a door you refused to stop knocking on.
Night came without him noticing.
The room turned blue-black.
The laptop screen was the only light left, painting him in a cold, unreal light.
Then he found the last file.
He hesitated longer than he had for any of the others.
When he pressed play, there was no opening rustle this time.
“I know you’re still angry, but… I think this is the last one I’m going to record.”
“I kept thinking I’d find the right moment to send these. After the fight. After things cooled down. After I wasn’t so scared of you not answering.”
Long enough that he thought it had ended.
“But I guess I ran out of afters.”
His grip tightened on the edge of the laptop.
“I hope you don’t hate me for how I handled things. I tried to be better in my head more than I actually was in real life.”
Then, quieter than anything before it:
“If you’re listening to this… I probably got the courage to send it.”
And for a moment, nothing in the room existed except the absence of your voice.
Ni-ki stayed there until the laptop dimmed.
Until the silence stopped feeling like a pause and became a permanence.
Because now he understood something unbearable.
You had never stopped talking to him.
He had just never been there to hear it.
And the last thing you ever tried to do,
Just not in time for him to let you.
Copyright 2026 - present © hazelira all rights reserved. All writing here is fiction & not in any association with characters mentioned.
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