Somewhere beneath the ribs, Heart sat restless.

Its fingers drummed against its own cage, frantic, desperate, like it wanted to claw through bone and run. Above, perched cold and still in the skull, Brain leaned forward in the dim light, hands folded, eyes glinting like scalpels.

They faced each other like old lovers turned sworn enemies.

Heart tilted its head, voice a tremor dressed up as defiance.

“You don’t understand,” it murmured, each word syncing with a pulse. “Even when it hurts, it feels alive. And I’d rather bleed than be empty.”

The confession hung in the air, fragile and dangerous.

That was Heart’s trick… to dress self-destruction as poetry and call it devotion.

Brain smirked, but the sound of its voice cracked like static.

“You’d rather chain yourself to someone who keeps cutting you open just so you can feel? I show you the patterns. The red flags. The warnings. You see them…and still drag us back.”

Brain carried receipts like rosary beads, replaying every betrayal on a loop.

Logic was its religion, memory its punishment.

But Heart? Heart had no patience for archives when the ache was louder than reason.

Heart spat back, leaning forward, eyes wild.

“Because you don’t know what it’s like when they leave. You don’t feel the hollow silence, the way it claws at the ribs. You don’t wake up shaking with the thought that maybe this time they won’t come back.”

Heart lived in the present tense, forever bleeding in real time.

Brain lived in the aftermath, the morgue of consequences.

Neither could understand the other because neither wanted to.

Brain’s tone dipped, sharp as broken glass.

“I remember. I remember what they said, what they did, how they lied. I carry it so we don’t crawl back to the flame like moths starving for fire.” A pause, heavy, cruel. “But you romanticize the burn.”

Heart laughed, bitter and erratic, beating against its bars like a caged animal.

“Maybe I do. But what good is survival without warmth? You’d rather see us safe, sure. But safe is lonely. Safe is silence. Safe is nothing.”

Heart’s delusion was survival through suffering. Pain was proof of life.

To Heart, silence was the real killer.

Brain scoffed, a knife of sound.

“You call it warmth. I call it poison. You’re an addict dressed as a martyr.”

Heart’s rhythm stumbled… one sharp, painful skip. Its voice broke but didn’t soften.

“And you’re a coward dressed as a savior. At least I still believe in something. At least I can love.”

Brain looked away then, for once, voice low and worn. Almost human.

“No. You mistake obsession for love. You mistake chaos for passion. And you mistake their destruction for devotion. And I’m tired of stitching us back together after you hand them the blade.”

A cough broke the silence. A rough, ragged sound, like paper tearing.

Lungs sat hunched in the corner, pale and tired, smoke curling from their mouth with every word.

“Jesus Christ, do either of you ever shut up? I’m the one stuck gasping when you two decide love is either a battlefield or a burial.”

Every inhale was a storm, every exhale a scream muffled by ribs.

Heart whipped its head toward them. “You don’t get it. You’ve never been in love.”

Lungs barked out a laugh that turned into a wheeze.

“You two keep treating this body like collateral in your tug-of-war. You—” they coughed at Heart, “you either race us into panic—” they jabbed a finger at Brain, “—or you cage us in walls until there’s no air left at all.”

Brain thrived in control, but it was cracking.

Heart thrived in chaos, but it was bleeding.

And Lungs? Lungs just wanted oxygen that didn’t taste like smoke.

“But without me, we’d never feel.” Heart whispered, eyes downcast, almost broken.

“Without me, we’d never survive.” Brain said flat, cold.

Lungs inhaled, slow and trembling. Their exhale rasped harsh as sandpaper.

“And without me?” They looked at both, voice sharp with finality. “You’d both be dead. So maybe stop strangling me with your bullshit.”

And for one fragile second, the body went still.

But every organ in the body knew the truth:

love and logic would kill each other long before they ever let the body breathe.