f!reader x Xavier | non-mc!reader x Xavier | unrequited love | plot twist | angst | there's gonna be grammatical errors | might have lore mistakes my bad
Xavier knew something was wrong the day he saw you sitting on his couch, uninvited with an awkward smile on your face.
He knew that you, out of everyone that remained of the Backtrackers, remained dutiful and isolated from the rest of the team. You didn't show up unannounced without a good enough reason. And yet, there was no great exigency that caused you to break into his home and watch day time television on his couch.
"The mechanic shop you had me maintaining near the outskirts of the N109 Zone is under repair after some nasty Wanderer situation. So, hope you don't mind me crashing at your place."
"Could you not stay at Philos?"
"You forget I'm still angry at Jeremiah. Yeah, no, that's not happening unless you want him knocking at your door demanding compensation for all the flowers I'd destroy out of spite."
"The flowers are innocent."
"Don't care."
And yet he couldn't shake the feeling that something was off about you. You never specified exactly what happened, however, crucially, he never pressed you for more details aside from one or two questions that you vaguely answered.
You crashed in the spare bedroom, yet each morning he always saw you on the couch, no matter what odd hours of the night he woke up. You would just wave at him, watching whatever was on. He never took you as the type to indulge in modern television, investing your time in dramas and sitcoms like you had nothing better to do.
"So, if I'm understanding this right, Kim is in love with Taeha, but because of the historical accuracy this show is trying to present, they can't be together because they're both men and being gay is illegal?"
"I'm not even sure what's going on because you've been watching this for the past three days and I just started right now."
"Okay, but, what would be your opinion on that? Would it just be better to elope somewhere and move away?"
"If I understand it based on this half-hour you've made me watch, I don't think that's possible. They're both in the military to start off and Taeha is his commanding officer. They'd be hunted and killed for deserting if they made that attempt."
"Tragic."
"Sure, but since when did you commit so hard to watching dramas? The last time I saw you, your commitment was towards monitoring everything you could about the current technological advancements."
"Mnm, I was. I simply hit a cap point for now and thought a hobby was in order. Besides, I like hanging out with you."
And there was just something about the way you turned to him, eyes soft and smile so tender that made him realize that he never really got to know you. He'd never taken the time to really learn about your likes and dislikes. What other hobbies did you have? Did you try to make friends here, like he and Jeremiah had?
Were you happy with the way things turned out? Did you have any regrets? Did you have any doubts?
Did you feel like you were withering away here?
For the time being, he made the effort to try to learn more about you. He hung out with you more, finding a nice TV show to watch together. He learned what made you laugh the hardest or what trashy show ended up being a guilty pleasure. He learned that you were closeted romantic, catching the tears in the corner of your eyes as you tried to disguise the sniffles when the couple finally kissed.
Before he really knew it, months had gone by with you in staying at his place. He grew accustomed to your presence in his home, always greeting him when he came home and wishing him pleasant dreams when he couldn't keep his eyes open anymore. He woke up with a blanket over him more times than he could count.
"I noticed something about you."
"Mnm, what's that?"
"You've been wearing the same sweater the entire time. I don't think you've taken it off. With how often you wear it, I can't imagine all the dead skin cells and sweat that might be clinging to that poor thing."
"I'm sure you've heard of them before, but just in case you haven't, there's this machine that cleans your clothes. They call it a 'washing machine' and it's pretty easy to use. You just toss your clothes in, add some laundry detergent and fabric softener, press a button or two and it cleans your clothes for you."
"Uh-huh. But why not wear something else in the meantime?"
"It's my favorite sweatshirt. You gifted it to me a few decades back, don't you remember?"
"Hm, yeah, it looks familiar. I'm surprised it's still in good condition after all this time."
"I take good care of my gifts, Xavier."
He should've known something was wrong at the time, too. He should have noticed it. Aside from the meter, there was nothing noticeably different about the bills that came every month. No extra water usage. No dip in his food bill when he went out. Even the days he was gone longer on missions, the food in his fridge remained untouched. Not even extra dishes.
You always made the excuse that you ate beforehand every single time, too stuffed to even drink a glass of water. He never took the time to question it, believing more that you just did everything outside of the apartment.
Xavier believed in you, even if his instincts warned him in the back of his mind. He trusted you because you were never lied to him. You never betrayed him. You stood by him when the other Backtrackers turned. You sullied your hands with their blood alongside him, knowing the dangers of losing part of your own humanity. Living with the looming threat that if you lost your sanity, you would turn into a Wanderer just like them the longer you remained.
"She's training to be a Hunter now."
"Mnm, it's been a decade since the disaster hasn't it?"
"It has."
"Worried?"
"No. Well, maybe a little."
"Relax. Her Majesty was rather skilled from what I can remember. I'm sure she'll be alright. Just keep doing what you're doing and keep an eye on her from the defectors and everything should be fine."
"Don't you mean 'we'?"
"... Of course."
He should've known then. He should have questioned you right then and there and pressed for more information. But he didn't. He ignored what his eyes were telling him because you were his friend. Because he grew comfortable around you despite the suspicion gnawing inside of him.
Xavier should have known something was wrong when you refused to go see Jeremiah at Philos. You claimed you were still angry at him, but who held a grudge that long? He never knew what it was that made you resent him so much that you just outright refused to even contact him. Which was why he thought he'd try to smooth things over and ask him while he was getting updates on the other Backtrackers.
"Wait, you're telling me that she's been squatting at your place for months now? And she's still mad at me?"
"This week would mark the eight months she's been at my place. She showed up and said that the shop was in repairs. Though, every time I bring it up, she tells me that the construction was delayed due to the increase in Wanderer activity."
"That's weird."
"She's never lied to us about situations like these before, so I trust her. But, I'm also here to see if I can extend the olive branch. I don't really know what it was that made her hate you so much."
"Hm, I want to see something."
"Dodging the question?"
"I'm looking up the updates from her last entry and something isn't quite adding up. You said she's been there eight months right?"
"Watching TV on my sofa like it belongs to her."
"... Xavier, the last update she gave me was almost a year ago. It's been eleven months. She never missed an update before that."
"That doesn't make sense. I understand eight months since she's been with me, but eleven? Where are the extra three months unaccounted for?"
"No idea. You said she was mad at me, right? Enough to not want to talk to me? But, even if that were the case, if she really had a problem with what I told her, she would just message you, not me."
"... I'll try talking with her. Something isn't adding up."
"Tell her I'm sorry, while you're at it. I... I didn't mean to call her out."
"Call her out?"
"She'll know. It's not something I'm allowed to tell you."
Hundreds of possibilities surged through his head on his way back. Hundreds of potential lies. Hundreds of questions that all led to the one conclusion he refused to believe.
You didn't betray him.
You were loyal.
You stood by his side when all he wanted was to make sure that the woman he loved wouldn't have to be sacrificed time and time again for the sake of a doomed planet.
You turned your back to your comrades. You turned your back to your people that cursed their names for their betrayal. You killed people that you once called a friend. You did it all with him, never once wavering.
Had time finally caught up with you?
Were you finally too exhausted of this life and just wanted to go back home?
He needed to finally quell the suspicions that plagued him. He'd rather make an ass out of himself, questioning your loyalty than be weighed with the guilt that his decisions finally pushed you over the ledge.
And like always, when he entered his apartment, you were there, smiling at him and welcoming him home. The TV was on, like it always was. You were watching reruns of the drama you've probably seen a hundred times already.
But things were different. He wasn't allowing his eyes to be clouded in the presence of a friend, but someone that could potentially ruin all the work they've done these past hundreds of years. He was going to see you for all that you were.
"How was Jeremiah? Still tending to his plants?"
"Yeah. But, we need to talk about something." You hesitated briefly, the corner of your lips tightening a bit before you relaxed yourself.
"Can it wait until after the show is over?" A show you've seen a hundred times already? It wasn't that interesting.
Xavier wasn't going to let you deflect. He walked towards you and picked up the remote, turning it off and standing before you. You closed your eyes, sighing deeply before sitting up and meeting his eyes.
You weren't running away. You never did.
"What's up?"
Too many questions sat at the tip of his tongue, his eyes darting around the room for a moment to take in the environment. Was it... always so cold near you? Is that why you wore a sweatshirt all the time? Was there a draft?
The lights never turned on, but the TV was never off. No matter what odd hours he woke up, be it in the middle of the night or late into the afternoon, you were always sitting right there.
Eight months.
Eight months... and he never got close enough to touch you.
Xavier felt his grip around the remote loosen until it clattered to the floor, his heart sinking so deep into his stomach as a cold chill ran down his spine. He a took step towards you. Then another. And another. Each one heavier than the last until finally, he was standing so close, his legs brushed against yours.
You didn't flinch. You didn't move away. But your expression looked so clouded, your smile wavering as you looked up at him with tears in your eyes. He reached forward to touch your cheek, feeling something solid, just... frozen.
You were freezing to the touch.
"What happened?" Your eyes fluttered shut, your hand coming up to hold his hand closer to yours, nuzzling your cheek into his palm.
"Something bad. I'm sorry, Xavier. I'm sorry." He dropped down to one knee, taking your face fully in his hands as he watched the tears that gathered finally fall.
"Tell me everything." You laughed weakly, peering at him through bleary eyes, your lips quivering as you tried to keep a brave face for him.
"I failed. I wasn't strong enough for the ambush sprung on me. I didn't have time to react and I didn't know my system's defenses had been breached. The remaining defectors caught me and though I tried to fight them off, eventually I was captured."
Xavier bit his tongue, the anger that ignited within him threatening to overtake him. He couldn't allow his emotions to get out of control right now. Right now, you needed him to stay calm. You needed him to be in the right state of mind.
"They threatened me, tortured me, tried to blackmail me and when I didn't budge, they were willing to use me as bait. The problem is, when you rile someone up enough, they make mistakes. They get so angry and so resentful, they lash out." You chuckled weakly, shaking your head lightly. "They didn't mean to kill me. But... I was hoping they would. It would ruin the mission if you had to deal with a hostage exchange."
Anger gave way to shock. Shock turned to disbelief. Disbelief turned to grief.
"You're dead?" And suddenly, everything clicked into place. Why you never moved from your spot on the couch. Why you never ate. Why you never drank. Why you wore the same clothes every single day.
He was right. He was wrong.
You didn't betray him. You never did.
Your loyalty got you killed.
Your trust and faith in him to find the solution he was so desperate for made you think your life wasn't worth saving.
You swore your allegiance to him. To the Queen. You never wavered.
And in the end, all you got in return was an early grave after dedicating your life to finding a solution and a way back home.
Guilt tore at him in a way he couldn't imagine, his chest feeling like it was caving in on itself as he struggled to maintain his composure. It didn't make sense though. Something still wasn't adding up.
"How are you... here?"
You laughed. You laughed, staring into a fit of giggles before bellowing out with laughter as the tears continued to fall. As you held his hands so tightly, trembling from all the emotions you were experiencing.
"Guess ghosts are real, huh? You know what they say, if you die with regrets, you can never really move on. Didn't think it'd apply to aliens like us, huh?"
It wasn't funny. It wasn't funny at all.
He spent these months with you in his home. He watched all sorts of dramas and movies with you. He learned everything he could about you, crossing that bridge and getting to know the person you were.
A hopeless romantic deep down inside. So much, you cried at even the most shallow of love stories because you were happy they were in love. But you cried the hardest when the second lead never got their chance to be with the person they loved. When they let them go... because their happiness meant more to them than their own heart.
"Even if the second lead would have given up their entire soul for the main lead, it takes a lot of whole lotta grit to let someone that means the whole world to you go. Their happiness is all that matters."
No. It couldn't mean...
"Jeremiah said he's sorry for calling you out... what did he mean by that?" Your lips brushed against his palm in a chaste kiss, your eyes slowly dragging from his lips up to his eyes to really look at him.
"He knew I was in love with you."
It never crossed his mind. It never was a thought he entertained when he was so devoted to his beloved. To the young woman he was so desperate to save.
He could argue that you never let it show. He could shift the blame that you didn't like being around people often that he never saw it. He could lie to himself all he wanted.
The truth was in the sweatshirt you wore. The day he gave it to you, you never looked so soft. Your smile was splitting your face, the giddiness rolling off you in waves as you put it on as quickly as you could. The only time you went out of your way to hug him, squeezing him tight as you thanked him for the gift.
It was just a sweatshirt. He got it because it suited you and he thought you would like it since you had been working so hard.
And now you were dead.
"I don't think I've ever seen you cry before, that's so alien. It's a little weird." Xavier couldn't help it. He couldn't help the anguish he was feeling, never knowing your true feelings. Even if he couldn't return them. Even if...
He pulled you tight into his arms, hugging you close and burying his face into your shoulder. His body wracked with sobs, the guilt of every decision he made and all the people he lost tearing right through his chest and carving a hole where his heart was.
You died and remained with regrets.
You haunted him because you wanted to remain close to him.
Even if all you did was spend time watching stupid shows and movies on his couch while he drifted in and out of sleep. That was enough for you. It wasn't fair to you. It wasn't fair at all.
Xavier cradled you in his arms, pulling you onto his lap as he sobbed into the very gift that meant so much to you.
"It's okay, you know? I don't blame you. It was just something that was bound to happen the longer we stayed here." You soothed his back softly, comforting him even in death. "I'm sorry you had to find out this way. Even if it wasn't something I couldn't control, I'm sort of glad it happened. It meant I could hang out with you like this."
He shook his head violently, his grip around you tightening so much that he would have left bruises if you were... alive. "You could have done that at any time! Not like this. Not when you're just a ghost in my apartment. Not when..." God his voice never sounded so broken before. "Not when you're dead. Not when your body is somewhere we don't know."
"Yeah, sorry. That was... insensitive of me." He couldn't let go.
He didn't want to let you go.
There was still so much he had to learn. So much he wanted to talk to you about. There was so much time you both were supposed to have. So much time wasted. So much time he could have taken to actually hang out with you. Suddenly, a hundred years felt so damn short. He took the long lifespans for granted and now it was all too late.
"Xavier." You did your best to peel yourself back so that you could look at him. His eyes were burning and his nose was blocked up, but he met your gaze head on. Your fingers brushed against his cheek, wiping the tears away.
He committed your face to his memory. The way your eyes softened when you looked at him with the most gentle smile on your face. The way you looked at him with such tenderness and love, he wished he could see it on you for real.
"I love you." You leaned in to kiss him, your lips soft against his as he gently kissed you back. It wasn't out of love, but he felt you deserved it. You did.
It was closure and you deserved it more than anyone.
He felt it before he saw it. Your form was dissipating right there in his arms, but he didn't pull away. He just clung to you tighter, kissing you harder to give you something before you completely disappeared.
"Thank you." Were the last words you said before you were gone.
He sat there on the floor, his arms empty and his apartment colder than ever. You were never coming back. He was never going to see you sitting on his couch and welcoming him back. He was never going to hear you laugh too hard at a comedy skit or ball your eyes out over some romantic drama.
He was never going to learn more about you. Never hear your voice again. Never see you again.
You were gone.
"Thank you for always being by my side."
a/n: could not put the post twist in the tags, sorry. if it bothers you, feel free to yell at me. and yes, I write this in one go because I have no self-restraint
⊹ ࣪ ˖ KENMA KOZUME is the small streamer YOU'VE been watching ⭑.ᐟ
before you read... ⊹ ࣪ ˖
• g!n user x Kenma Kozume , might be a bit ooc , swearing.
Introduction ``
• you've been watching Kenma stream since you were in middle school, more specifically like a few months before going into first year of highschool.
• you were introduced to him one random night while you were looking for a walkthrough of a horror game you've been invested in. his stream had 35 views at best back when you started watching him.
• you bonded with him through the chat as time passed and had been acknowledged as an "og subscriber" by the time he got 10k subscribers on twitch.
• on the first day of highschool, you found out that you were in the same school as the small streamer you've been watching for a while now. and surprise, surprise, you were also in the same class.
• you didnt think to befriend him irl, since you thought that the viewer-streamer friendship you already had was enough for you. plus, you didn't want to cross a boundary with him as a fan.
• you were forced to sit together in second year though and started growing closer unintentionally.
headcanons ᯤ⁹⁹⁹⁺
➤ Kenma referred to you as the "classmate who always smells nice" during the first year of high school. cause it was true, you really did smell nice. you sat behind him and he always caught this refreshing scent coming from you. it was quite nice, according to him. he liked it.
➤ it was kind of awkward for both you and him during second year. awkward for him cause he wasn't used to pair-sitting arrangements and awkward for you cause you knew who he was and it was eating you alive.
➤ Kenma mentioned you in stream once, very casually. “my new seatmate in class smells like a fresh flower bed and has been talking to me more. should I be happy or scared?", he's joking around, of course. but you were silently screaming while watching the stream cause you knew damn well that seatmate was YOU.
➤ Kenma saw you playing a game he played on his latest stream during break time one day and asked you about it. you officially started talking more from that day on.
➤ he definitely gives you game recommendations that he's played during his streams, not knowing you already know the games from watching him and have in fact, already played all of them.
➤ after some time of getting to know each other more, Kenma starts inviting you to hangout with him at arcades and cyber cafe's. of course, with the addition of Kuroo tagging along during said hangouts.
➤ he is SO rude in the most funniest way ever. it just shows how much Kenma has really warmed up to you. he'd say stuff like, “[user], you're actually so bad at this game. it's so bad.” or “don't talk when I'm combo-ing”. but you can clearly tell that he's clearly just joking around with you, even when his tone is flat as hell like most of the time.
➤ Kenma told you he was in the school's VB team and you start showing up to watch him practice sometimes. the team got suspicious and started questioning Kenma if you were his partner, in which he firmly denied with a deadpan expression.
➤ he definitely unintentionally talked about you in stream from time to time without even noticing. casually drops : “my friend irl is really good at this game. I'd never tell them that tho lol”. little does he know you're actually watching his stream, and you've secretly clipped him saying that.
➤ Kuroo once caught you two sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, heads almost pressed against each other, watching a Valorant gameplay in complete silence.
K : "oh my God. you're dating."
then he gets sushed right after he says that.
➤ you two unironically text each other every day without fail. doesn't matter whether it's about, games, homework or just idle chat. you're ALWAYS texting each other about the most randomest of bullshits.
➤ he doesn't know when it happened, but you started turning into the one thing he looks forward to at school, besides kuroo and volleyball kinda. he doesn't think too much of it, just thought that it was normal to look forward to seeing a "friend". but, he would question the warm feeling in his chest that he gets whenever you smile at him from time to time.
➤ Kenma started inviting you to play with him during his streams. but suspiciously enough, one of his "og viewers" start disappearing from the chat whenever you hop onto a game with him. (I wonder why ahaha)
K : "weird, [ur username] isn't here again today"
user : "maybe they're busy? Idk tho, just a hunch", you say as you start sweating irl.
➤ after some time of really getting closer to each other, Kenma starts inviting you over to his house to play games. Kuroo's "special controller" that he always used while playing with Kenma has officially become YOUR special controller. well, of course only for the time being. he plans to buy a controller especially for you. In a totally platonic way of course hahahahaha
➤ when you FINALLY drop the bombshell on him and told him that you're actually that ONE og viewer he's been chatting with on stream everyday, he had to physically reboot. he genuinely got SOOOO embarrassed cause he's talked about you on stream AND has talked about [ur username] to you.
Rafayel leans back against the railing of his seaside studio, the faint scent of salt and paint clinging to him. He glances at you with that teasing half-smile, eyes glinting like he already knows you’re about to regret asking for a joke.
“Alright, cutie… you asked for it.” He clears his throat dramatically. “Why did the seagull fly over the sea instead of the bay?” He pauses just long enough to build suspense, watching your face.
“Because if it flew over the bay… it would be a bagel.” He lets the joke hang in the air for half a second, then snorts under his breath, clearly amused with himself. “…Wait, I’m not done.” He tilts his head, grin sharpening. “What did the crab say to the seagull after hearing that joke?”
“‘Claw-ful.’” Rafayel groans at his own punchline, dragging a hand down his face before peeking at you through his fingers.
A/N: No comment. Not proofread. Just more Caleb angst.
You've always been naturally afraid of the cold, yet you fell in love with a block of ice.
You wrapped yourself around Caleb Xia, the ice-cold Colonel, for three whole years; refusing to let go, even when the cold penetrated your bones.
You figured you must be sick in the head, so you go to the hospital, and find out you are indeed sick in the head.
Late stage brain cancer. Glioblastoma Multiforme.
Looking at the test results in your hand, you frown. The doctor said you had only six months to live.
You loved the warmth, but came to Skyhaven, where it was winter all year round, for Caleb. Now, with only six months left, Skyhaven may not see spring again, so you decide to move.
Before leaving, you say "Goodnight" to your neighbor across the street one last time. Your first love, your secret crush, your open crush, and the boy who was the object of all your various stages of affection.
"Goodnight, Caleb!" you say, the same way you do every night.
"..."
How cold hearted, you think.
When the two of you were at the DAA, you clearly told him, "Caleb, where I grew up, "goodnight" means I love you!"
How pathetic, you think.
Back at the Academy, Caleb had promised you that even if he lost his memories, he would always remember you.
As a result of the Toring Chip, Caleb suffered amnesia for three years, and until the day you left Skyhaven, he still couldn't remember anything.
A/N: Lowk self indulgent soz if this isn’t ur thing lollll also I forgot to keep his name in the first screenshot sorry guys lol. Hope you guys like it!!!
gaku’s the type of boyfriend who will eat anything, and i lean anything, that you leave for him. he’s not a picky eater by any means— so, when he spots a forgotten, half eaten chocolate bar you couldn’t finish, he’s more than happy to finish it over before the rats do.
hold up a fork or spoon to his mouth and gaku’s already leaning in to take a bite without complaint. the man even smiles a little!
this is an attempt to get back into writing.. i love you guys and thank you for the continued support
Imagine the first thing that caleb ever said to you was, "Duck!" Followed by a gunshot seconds later, loud and violent and too close. You barely managed to throw yourself down before something behind you collapsed with wet, rotten sound against the pavement. And for one horrible second, all you could hear was ringing. Then came your breathing. Sharp, panicked and painfully human.
Imagine you stayed crouched on instinct, fingers gripping the rusted pipe you had been using as a weapon, heart beating so violently on your chest that might as well burst through your ribs. Then a pair of boots stopped in front of you. "You good?"
Imagine the way you looked up slowly. The stranger standing there held a pistol loosely in one hand like it weighed nothing at all. The sunlight caught briefly on the barrel before he lowered it. There he was, tall, broad shoulder. Dark jacket streaked with dirt and old blood. A rifle strapped across his back. Alive. Which honestly felt stranger than the gun. because by then, months into the apocalypse, you had gotten used to seeing more corpse than people. The dead were predictable, people weren't.
so Imagine, you stared at him silently. The walker behind you twitched once on the ground, half its skull missing. "If you said yes too fast," The stranger continued casually. "I'm gonna assume you hit your head." That made you blink. Then looked at the dead walker, then back at him. "...I had it handled." He snorted immediately which made you feel somehow offended. "No you didn't." "I did." "It was literally reaching for your neck." "It was under control." "Sure."
Imagine the way you narrow your eyes as he grinned. And somehow, soomehow that irritated warmth in his expression felt more dangerous than the walker ever did. Because people who still smiled like that in the apocalypse? Were either crazy, or the kind of people that made you forget that the world ended. Both were dangerous. So as the stranger crouched beside the corpse and started checking its pockets, you stared at him.
"...What are you doing?" "Looking for cigarettes." You looked at him like he was joking. Then he actually pulled out a crushed pack from the walker's jacket. "No fucking way." "See?" He said proudly. "Today's a lucky day." "You're digging through a corpse." "Adaptability is important." "That thing literally tried to eat me." "And now it's donating supplies. Circle of life." You barked out a laugh before you could stop yourself. And the sound startled you more than him.
because Imagine, you genuinely couldn't remember the last time you laughed. So as the stranger looked up immediately his pruple iris met yours as his eyebrows lifting slightly in surprise before his mouth curled into a softer grin. "There." He pointed at you. "That." "What?" "That face, keep that around." He stood up again, slipping the cigarette into his pocket. "Means you're still human." Human, huh. You almost forgot what that felt like.
Imagine you should have left after that. Really. Because that was the rule now. Don't trust stranger, don't stay in groups too long, don't tell people where you sleep, don't get attached. Attachment got people killed. You learn that early. The world ended, and suddenly everyone became capable of terrible things. You had seen people abandon family members to save themselves. Seen strangers kill each other over canned food. Seen a man beat another man for a half-empty water bottle.
Imagine the dead were monsters because they had no humanity left. The living were monsters because they still did. So yes, you absolutely shouldn've left. Instead, you found yourself sharing canned goods with a stranger inside an abandoned laundromat while rain hammered the roof overhead. "So," He said through a mouthful of food. "You got a name?" You hesitated and he noticed. "Fair." He admitted with a small nod. "I could be a serial killer." "In the apocalypse?"
"Timing's rough, I know." "...You could rob me." His eyes flicked towards your backpack. "You own exactly one pipe wrench and three crackers." You narrowed your eyes at him. "You checked my bag?" "It was open." "You're an asshole." "And yet," He pointed at himself dramatically. "The asshole saved your life." You rolled your eyes and he laughed again. God, he laughed so easily. Like the world wasn't rotting around him. Like death wasn't waiting outside every door. It made no sense. "What's your name then?" You asked eventually. "Caleb." He said, offering a hand. You stare at it suspiciously for a full three seconds before finally shaking it. And his grim was warm, stead, and real. "Nice to meet you." He said. And weirdly, it sounded genuine.
Imagine traveling with Caleb happened gradually. Not because either of you asked. It just... Happened. The first few days were temporary. Then temporary became a routine. You scavenged together, ate together, slept in shifts together. And somewhere along the line, surviving stopped feeling like a lonely thing which honestly scared you more than the walkers did. Because dependence was dangerous and Caleb was dangerously easy to depend on.
Imagine he knew things, too many things. How to siphon gas without swallowing fumes, how to identify infected water, how to reinforce doors properly, how to ration food, how to move quietly through buildings. And most of all, guns. And god, he sure knows how to handle guns like they were extensions of his body.
"You're holding it wrong." You glare at him for where you stood, in the middle of an empty parking lot. "I'm holding it." "Barely." "I hate guns." "You'll hate getting eaten more." You groaned framatically while he stepped behind you. "Relax your shoulders." He instructed. His hands adjusted your stance carefully with warm palms and gentle pressure. Suddenly, you become aware of how close he was. "Don't lock your elbows." "You sound like an old man." "You shoot like one." You scoffed. Then immediately nearly lost control of the recoil after firing.
Imagine the way Caleb burst out laughing. "Oh my god- your face-" "Shut up!" "You looked personally betrayed by physics." "I hate you." "No you don't." And the terrifying thing was, he said so confidently like he already knew. And maybe he did.
Imagine that night, Caleb talked. Not constantly, but enough. Enough to fill the silence that used to suffocate you when you were alone. He told stories while cleaning weapons, while checking maps, while sitting beside weak campfires. Sometimes it was stupid stories, sometimes it was the embarrasing ones, sometimes it was stories about her. Pips. You never learned her real name at first. Just that nickname.
"She used to steal my hoodies constantly." Caleb muttered once while staring into the fire. "Then deny it while literally wearing them." You smiled faintly. "She sounds awful." "She is." But his expression softened immediately after saying it. And god, that look. You noticed it every time he talked about her. Like his entire face changed without him realizing. "She hates vegestables." "She talks in her sleep." "She gets lost in grocery stores somehow." "She cries during movies but acts like she doesn't." "She's tougher than people think."
Imagine every single story sounded precious coming from him. Not because of words but because of the way he said them. Like he carried her carefully even in conversation. And you, you listened quietly while something ugly and aching slowly grew inside your chest. Not anger, not jealousy exactly. Just... Awareness. Awareness that you were temporary. That Caleb has somewhere to go, someone to find. And you? You were just the person walking beside him until he got there.
Imagine in one particularly cold night, the two of you sat on top of an abandoned convenience store roof. The city stretched dark around you. No lights anymore, no traffic, no life. Just empty buildings and the distant groan of walkers wandering through the streets below. And Caleb sat beside the fire cleaning his knife carefully. The orange light flickered across his face. And you tried not to stare but failed iserably.
"This someone you keep talking about," You said eventually. "What would you do if you find her?" Caleb looked up immediately and the expression on his face, it genuinely startled you. Not angry, worse, he was certain. "Nah," He said quietly. "Don't joke like that." His tone remained light. But something underneath it wasn't. "She knows how to survive." He continue after a moment. "Pips is smart. Stubborn too." A small smile tugged at his mouth. "Probably yelling at people somewhere right now."
"I see." You nodded slowly and silence setteled again. The cold wind drifted across the rooftop. Then, "What would you do if you find her?" That made him smile properly. Soft, unthinking, in love. And it hurt embarrasingly bad. "Find somewhere safe." He said. "Heard rumors about a secured place. N109 zone. Well protected, functional power, and farms too." "Sounds fake." "Probably is." You huffed quietly. "But if it's real," Caleb continued, eyes flickering toward the dark skyline. "I'd take her there." Her. Not us.
and Imagine, really, why would it be us? You weren't anything. Not officially. Not emotionally. Not in the way that mattered. The two of you were just survivors sharing road because surviving alone was harder. So why did you chest ache every time he smiled like that over someone else?
"Wait-" You stared at him increduloudly one afternoon while scavenging an airport hangar. "You were an actual pilot?" "Yep." "You're lying." "I'm offended." "You said aviation school." "I graduated." "No way." Caleb looked unbearably smug. "You wanna see my license?" "You carried your pilot license through the apocalypse?" "Well now you're making it sound stupid." "Because it is stupid." He laughed so loudly it echoed through the hangar in which you did ended up laughing too.
Imagine there was never a single quiet day with Caleb around. He filled spaces effortlessly. Sometimes with jokes, sometimes with stories, sometimes with sheer existence alone. And slowly, dangerously, you started building routines around him. Waiting for his voice in the mornings, listening for his footsteps, sleeping easier during his watch shifts. Like your body itself had started believing Caleb meant safety. Which was the dumbest possible thing you could do during apocalypse. Because safety wasn't real anymore. And neither was forever.
Imagine then you found her. No, she found him. It happened near an abandoned medical checkpoint outside the city. You remembered hearing running footsteps first. Then a weak voice. "Caleb..." The reaction was immediate. You watched as Caleb froze so suddenly beside you that you nearly walked into him. And then he was moving. Fast, faster than you had ever seen him move before. And the girl stumbling towards the checkpoint looked half-dead already, sweating, shaking, varely conscious. But the second Caleb caught her. You understood something. Oh- that's her. Because you had never seen him look at anything the way he looked at her.
Imagine it wasn't relief, not happiness either. It was something deeper. Like finding oxygen after drowning. "Pips." He breathed. The sound of it almost made you look away. She collapsed against him almost immediately. And Caleb held her so carefully it made your throat tighten. You stood there awkwardly holding your rifle while realizing something horribly pathetic. You never stood a chance.
Imagine, MC was sick, not bitten, at least you didn't think so. But she burned with fever badly enough that even touching her forehead for a second make your palm feel hot afterward. Her breathing came unevenly, weak and shallow, and every now and then, her body trembled hard enough that Caleb had to tighten his hold around her to keep her steady. And you... You did not ask questions. In apocalypse, poeple stopped asking questions a long time ago.
so Imagine you kept moving. "Left." Caleb muttered while checking the bloodstained map in his hand. "There should be a maintenance corridor." You glance down the dark hallway. "Should' is doing a lot of heavy lifting there." "Have faith." "I had faith once, then society collapsed." That actually made MC laugh weakly against his chest. A tiny sound, something so fragile. Caleb immediately looked down at her like she has hung the moon. "You still with us, Pips?" "Mhm.." God, that look again. You turned away first.
Imagine the facility was massive. Some kind of old evacuation site connected to an abandoned research building near the edge of the city. Suspicious as it way sound with the amount of military trucks still littered the parking lot outside, rusting quietly beneath overgrown weeds and dried blood stains. And inside, it smelled worse. Rot, mold, old death. The deeper you went, the quieter it became and somehow, that was worse than noise.
Imagine your flashlight swept across overturned hospital beds and scattered papers on the floor. And every now and then, you caught movements behind reinforced glass doors. Walkers, trapped inside rooms. Their dead fingers dragged slowly against the window as you passed. Stratch, stratch, stratch. MC flinch weakly at the sound making Caleb adjust her closer instinctively.
"You okay?" "Cold..." Your eyes flicked towards her. She was shivering now despite the fever. Not good, not good at all. "We need to stop soon." You said quietly. Caleb nodded grimly. "There should be a rooftop access point somewhere above us." "Please tell me this place has the aircraft." "If the rumors are right." You sigh. "Again with the rumors." "Hey, rumors are all we got left nowadays."
Imagine the first sign something was wrong came from the silence. No walkers, none. Not in the hallway, not behind doors, not banging against walls. Nothing. You slowed slightly. "Sooo.." You murmured. "EIther we got lucky-" "Or it's worse." Caleb finished immediately. "See? That. That's exactly the kind of optimism I hate." A faint grin tugged at his mouth. Then- click. You froze.
"What was that?" MC whispered weakly. Your flashlight lowered slowly towards the floor. A wire. Thin, nearly invisible, connected to a rusted can near the wall. Your stomach dropped. "...Fuck." caleb's expression hardened instantly. "Don't move." Too late. Because somewhere deeper in the building, there was a clang. Then another, then another. Metal crashing violently against metal. Your eyes widened. "No, no no no-" A siren suddenly screamed alive overhead. Red emergency lights flooded the hallway instantly.
and Imagine then came the sound. Groaning, hundreds of them. From below, from above, from inside the walls themselves. "Oh you have GOT to be kidding me." You hissed and the building erupted. Banging, screaming, bodies slamming against the doors. Walkers flooded into the hallways from every direction. "What the fuck did that trigger?!" You shouted. "Probably an emergency lockdown system!" Caleb barked back. "WHO THE FUCK BUILDS THAT?!" "THE GOVERNMENT?!"Fair enough. "Move!" You snappened immediately.
Imagine the three of you started running, your boots slammed againstthe floor whie red lights flashed overhead violently. Walkers poured from stairwells and broken doors, drawn by the siren echoing throughout the facility. One lunged from the side and you buried your knife in its skull without slowing down. "Straight ahead!" Caleb yelled, MC coughed hard against his shoulder, trembling badly now. "Caleb-" "I got you." God, even now, exhusted and terrified, his voice soften for her automatically. And you hated how much hearing that hurt.
Imagine the stairwell was chaoes, bodies crowded below, rotting hands clawed upward through gaps in the railing. You nearly slipped on blood while forcing your way higher. "Door!" You shouted and Caleb kicked it open, hard. The three of you stumbled into another corridor breathing heavily. Then stopped, your stomach dropped instantly. "...No." The hallway was packed with walker. At least fiftly, or maybe more. The emergency lights painted them in horrible flashing red as they turned slowly towards the sound of you. Dead faces, open mouths, clouded eyes. Then they started coming towards your way.
"Run!" You slammed the door shut immediately while Caleb shoved a cabinet against it. Bodies crashed into the other side violently, the metal groaned. "Window!" You shouted. "No jump." Caleb snapped after one glance, "Too high." The room itself looked like some kinf of old administrative office. No exits, no escape. Only another hallway leading deeper inside the facility. And somewhere above, a helicopter waited. So close. You could practically taste freedom. Then MC made a small broken sound. You turned immediately. Her condition was getting worse, sweat drenched her skin completely now. Her breathing came shallow and uneven and she looked barely consious against Caleb's chest.
"We don't have time." You muttered. "I know." The door behind the cabinet shook violently. BANG, BANG, BANG. Wood splintered as more frowls filled the hallway outside. You started pacing automatically, brain working too fast. Think. Think. THINK. "There." MC whispered suddenly. You followed her shaking hand towards a map hanging crookedly on the wall. Your eyes narrowed. "...Maintenance bridge." Caleb looked too. "It connects to the west wing." "Which connects to the rooftop acccess." You finished.
Imagine the way relief flickered briefly across his face, then disappeared. Because noth of you saw the problem immediately. The bridge crossed directly over the main atrium, where the horde was gathering and thousands of footsteps ehoed below already. Draw by the sirens, by you. "...Shit." You whispered. The door cracked loudly behind you. One dead arm shoved partially through the splintering wood. MC looked close to passing out completely now. And Caleb, Caleb looked terrified for the first time since you meet him. Not for himself but for her. You saw it clearly. The desperation, the fear, the helplessness. And somehow, that hurt more than anything. Because even at the end of the world... Even now, he loved her so much.
Imagine the west wing was falling apart. You could feel it in the walls. Every few seconds, the building groaned somewhere deep beneath your feet like something enormous was twisting inside its bones. Dust drifted constantly from the ceiling. Pipes screamed while metal shrieked in the distance loud enough to make your teeth ache. The whole place sounds echausted. Like it had been dying for a long time and only now decided to collapse properly. And honestly? You understand that feeling.
Imagine the way you shoved another cabinet against the stairwell door while Caleb checked the corridor ahead. "Clear." He whispered. The hallway beyond flcikered under failing emergency lights, everything painted in unstable red. Old blood stained the walls in long brown smears. Abandoned luggage littered the floor alongside military bags and overturned stretchers. People ran here once, you could tell. The evidence of panic still remained everywhere.
Imagine MC coughed weakly behind you and Caleb immediately turned around. "You okay?" She only hum in return, but you could easily tell that she wasn't. And Caleb, the panic in his eyes everytime he looked at her. You noticed it more now. The way he adjust his grip instictively whenever she trembled, the way his voice siften automatically around her, the way exhustion disappeared from him whenever she needed something. And you looked away first, because there were some things you could survive easier by pretending not to see.
Imagine the rooftop access was close, that was the cruel part. So close. Only one more connecting hallway between you and the emergency ladder leading towards the helipad. Only one hallway. But unfortunately, it was also the exact direction the walkers were coming from. You heard them before you saw them. That horrible collective sound. Dragging feet, wet groaning, bodies colliding endlessly into each other. Too many, far too many. The emergency siren overhead still blared intermittently through the building, distorted and dying. Every scream of the alam pulled more dead things inward like a beacon.
Imagine the hallway ahead opened into a wider terminal junction, and beyond it, the maintenance access leading toward the rooftop. And you almost laughed when you saw it, because of course, of course the only escape route sat directly behind a moving wall of corpses. "Fuck." You breathed quietly as Caleb followed your gaze before immediately saying, "No." You looked at him. "You don't even know what I'm gonna say." "I know exactly what you're gonna say." The walkers shuffled closer in the distance. You counted automatically. Thirty, maybe forty or more.
Imagine, the corridor itself was too narrow to fight through. Too loud, too cramped. One gunshot would bring the entire damn building down on top of you. You look to your side and see MC swayed weakly against Caleb's chest. "We can still go around." He muttered quickly. "There is no around." "We find another route." "And waste how much time?" Your voice came out sharper than intended. "Look at her Caleb." His jaw tightened immediately because he knew. MC's condition was getting worse by timme. Even standing looked difficult for her now. She needed medical attention immediately. Not later, not tomorrow. Now.
Imagine another distant crash echoed through the building as you could tell the walkers stirred louder, closer. Your brain started calculating instinctively. The distance, noise and movement patterns. If something loud pulled the horde sideways, even briefly, there would be enough time. Not too much, but enough. And just then, your stomach dropped before you can even fully formed the thought. Because you already knew, there really wasn't another option. Not dramatic sacrifice, not heroism. Just math. A simple, horrible math.
Imagine, if nobody distracted them, all three of you died here. That made you swallowed hard before quietly saying. "I can pull them away." "No." Immediate and sharp. You almost smiled despite yourself. Still stubborn. "Caleb-" "No." "We don't have enough ammo." "We fight through." "We won't make it halfway." "We try anyway." "Then what?" Your voice cracked sharser this time. "She collapses? One of us gets grabbed? You know how this ends." "We don't know that." "Yes we do!" Your voice echoed harder tha intended through the hallway and the walkers immediately stirred louder, closer. Shit.
"Caleb." You whispered roughly. "This isn't a movie." "I know that!" "Then stop acting like there's a magically another way out of this!" His breathing turned uneven. Angry. Panicked. "No." He said again, quieter this time. "I'm not letting you do that." And something painful twisted in your chest hearing that. Not because it fixed anything, but because it didn't. Reality stayed cruel no matter how badly he wanted otherwise. "You're not letting me?" You repeated softly. "You know what I mean." "Do I?" "Don't do that right now." "Do what?" "That thing where you act okay with this!"
Imagine you stared at him and there it was. Fear. Raw, ugly and despirate. Not anger. Fear. Because Caleb already understood what this could mean. Your throat tightened painfully. The walkers slowly crowded deeper into the junction ahead now, bodies pressing together beneath the red emergency lights. The deads were moving patiently towards you. MC whimpered weakly against Caleb's chest. That sound alone nearly shattered the entire argument apart. You close your eyes briefly then you looked back at him. "She needs you alive."
Imagine the words tasted bitter. Not because they weren't true but because they were. Caleb looked away sharply for the first time. Like hearing it out loud physically hurt him. "We can all make it." He muttered and you almost laughed. Not cruelly, just tired. "You don't even believe in that." Then there was silence. A heavy one, because he didn't. So as the building groaned violently again around you. Like somewhere below, another barricade finally gave out and that sound alone made your stomach drop. No more time. That was it, this was the movement.
Imagine the way you stepped closer before your courage disappeared completly. "Hey." You muttered softly. Caleb looked at you immediately and God, that expression. Exhausted, terrified, desperate. Human. And suddenly you wanted something horribly impossible. One more night around a campfire. One more stupid argument. One more morning hearing him complain dramatically about canned food. You wanted more time. But the apocalypse didn't care what people wanted. It never did.
"I promise I'll make it to N109 zone." You said quietly. Something in Caleb's face cracked instantly. "Don't say it like that." "Like what?" "Like you're saying goodbye." Your chest ached so badly it almost made you angry. Because none of this would've been easier if he treated you carelessly. Instead, Caleb made surviving beside him feel dangerously close to living. And maybe that was crueler. "I'm not." You lied softly. "You better not be." The words came out rough. Almost shaking. And your eyes burned suddenly. God. Why now? Why did everything have to hurt now?
Imagine the walker were close enough now that you could hear their teeth snapping. You checked your gun quickly, not enough bullets. Not enough time. "Listen to me carefully." You said. "Once I move away from the hallway, you run straight for the ladder access." "No." "Caleb-" "No." "You hate to." "I said no!" His voice cracked violently this time. Then MC stirred weakly again between you both. "Caleb.." She whispered painfully and that broke something in him immediately.
Imagine you saw it happened. Her. You. Reality. All colliding together at once. His grip tightened around her while he looked at you helplessly. And somehow, that hurt more than if he chose easily. "You need to come back." He said suddenly. The words hit so hard you forgot hwo to breathe for a second. "What?" "You hear me?" His voice shook now. "You need to come back." The horde surged louder down the corridor. Closer. Then even closer. You forced yourself to breathe again. "That's not really something I can guarantee." "Yes it is." "Caleb-" "I'll wait for you."
Imagine the way your throat burned instantly. Why would he say things like that? Why now? You looked away first. Because if you kept staring at him like this, then you might stay. And then all three of you would die here. "Ten minutes," You whispered roughly. "If I don't make it to the hellpad yen minutes after you get there. Leave." "No." "Yes." "I'm not leaving you behind." "You have to." "No!" "CALEB!" That shout cracked violently between you. Even the walker react to it immediately. Your breathing turned ragged.
"So what?" You hissed. "You stay? Die with me? Is that your plan." His silence answered enough. Your chest physically hurt, because some selfish, ugly part of you almost wanted him to say yes. Wanted proof that losing you would matter. But then MC coughed painfully against him again. Then there was reality. Always reality. You soften immediately. "Please." You whispered this time. "Please don't make this harder."
Imagine the way Caleb stared at you like he was trying to memorize your face. Then slowly, painfully slowly. He reached for the chain around his neck. The one with dog tags, and that stupid little apple charm. The one you had seen him touch absentmindedly during quiet nights. Seen him hold it while talking about home. About flying. About survival. His fingers shook slightly as he prssed it into your palm. "Return it when we meet again." Your throat tightened instantly. You curled your fingers around it carefully. "...Fine." "You promise?" You swallowed hard. "...I promise."
Imagine, the deads were close now. Close enough that you could smell it. The blood, rot and wet decay. You stepped backward slowly. Raised your gun. Then looked at Caleb one last time. "Come to think of it, I never actually told you my name, didn't I?" That made him pause. "It's (Your name)." You smile at him. "And just you know. You're cool as fuck, Caleb." And for a stunned second, he laughed. Small, broken, disbelieving. Then you watched his face crumpled immediately afterwards. "Please." You heard him whispered again.
and Imagine, you almost stayed. Like, really almost stayed. But then the horde turned the corner and your body betrayed you. You stepped into the open hallway and screamed. "HEY FUCKERS!" Every dead head snapped towards you instantly. The entire horde shifted. Towards you and away from the ladder. Exactly as planned. So as your heart hammered violently and as adrenaline flooded your veins so hard your hands shook.
"That's right." You breathed shakily while backing away slowly. "Come get me." Behind the walkers, you saw Caleb hesitate. Of course he did. He was still looking at you instead of running. "NOW!" You shouted. He still didn't move. "CALEB!" That finally broke him. And you watched him grip MC tighter before sprinting towards the ladder access while the horde chased after your voice. And that was the moment when relief hit so hard it nearly made your knees buckle. It worked. Holy shit, it actually worked. But then the dead started moving faster, so you turned and ran.
Imagine the way the corridor slammed against bloodstained floors while walkers poured after you endlessly through the site. You shoved over stuffs, kicked open doors and made as much noise as possible. And while every instinct screamed at you to hide, you just kept drawing attention. Because if even a few broke away and notice Caleb and MC. It would be over. So you ran louder, harder, faster. When a walker lounged from the side corridor. You shot it instantly and the gunfire exploded through the building. More groans answered immediately.
"Oh you've gotto be kidding me..." You almost laughed at yourself as the now were coming from ahead too. Great, fantastic. You swerved sharply into another hallway while your lungs burned violently. Your legs already ached from exhaustion. Too many days running, too little food, too little sleep. The apocalypse slowly ate people before the walkers ever touched them. Still, you kept moving. Because somwhere above you, Caleb was escaping. Caleb was surviving. And stupidly, that mattered enough.
Imagine far above the building after God knows how much time have passed by. The helicopter blades thundered alive. You almost stumbled hearing it as relief had once again crashed into you so suddenly it hurt. They made it. And a laugh escaped you breathlessly. "Thank God..." And for one tiny moment, everything felt lighter. Worth it. Then pain esploded across your shoulder. A walker slammed into you from a side doorway hard enough to send you crashing into the wall, your gun flew across the floor in the process as the walker snapped its teeth inches from your face. So you shoved your knife upward desperately into its skull.
Imagine the way your breathing turned ragged instantly. Everything hurt. Your shoulder, your ribs, your legs. And somewhere nearby, more groans echoed. Closer, too close. So you forced yourself upright shakily as blood dripped slowly down your sleeve, one you couldn't tell if it was yours or not. Then you felt it, heard it, above you, the helicopter sound grew louder. Then slowly, it started dafing away into the distance. Your chest tightened painfully. Ten minutes. Maybe he waited longer. Maybe he fought them. Maybe he searched for you until very last second. Or maybe, maybe he just understood what this really is. Not bravery, not heroism. Just survival choosing who got to continue.
Imagine as you leaned briefly against the wall, exhausted beyond words. Caleb's dog tags rested tightly in your hand. Cold, heavy and real. Just then you heard more footsteps, not human, never human anymore. You laughed quietly to yourself. Tired, hollow and half-breathless. "Goddammit." Because maybe love really could kill a person. Not quickly, not romantically. But in choices, in sacrifices, in wanting someone else to live more than you wanted yourself to. And that somewhere deep down. You already knew, you were probably not making it to N109 zone.
[ⓒdark-night-hero] 2026° ko-fi?
:I'm thinking if I should make it a whole series of something because this has sooo much potential as one. PS. Told ya'll Caleb is yet to come home I'm this banner. And I basically lost him to Zayne, like wtfffg
someones gotta step up the game bcs what if colonel caleb x nurse non mc(you) had a body swapped where they have to worked in a different profession and had no idea how this happened. maybe angsty crack fluff. wait this means they crossdressing but not physically lol anw someones gotta write thisss
Synopsis: frat boy!gojo, your boyfriend, got himself blocked on all of your socials. it was his fault, even he knows that - spamming your girl with dick pics whilst she's studying for an important exam was only ever going to end one way.
you've practically forced him to resort to a means of communication he didn't know still existed. and well, he's gonna have fun with it.
Warnings: some sexual content, 18+, cursing, college au, can be read as a standalone but is a part of my EdenU au, gojo is dramatic, reader is done with him, reader is goth and female, established relationship, not proofread
Dear most gorgeous girl in the world,
You’re killing me.
Please unblock me on iMessages, Insta, Snap, Facebook/Messenger, Whatsapp, X (sorry Twitter or whatever liberal agenda you’re on now), Discord, Reddit, Letterboxd, LinkedIn, Spotify, and Tumblr. How did you even know I was stalking you on Tumblr? Do you have a girlfriend sixth sense? Like does your clit tingle when you realise I’m near? Cause my balls speak to me when you’re within a mile radius, like “yeah, boys? you feel her? where? lead the way!”
If you gave me a chance, instead of instantly blocking me (heartless meanie), you’d know I am very, very apologetic. I’ll stop spamming you my dick pics, even though you should be honoured to receive reminders of how hard just the thought of your name makes me.
Love,
Your sad big-dicked daddy :(((
Dear Gojo Satoru,
Clearly you can’t take a hint. Let me spell it out for you.
I.
Am.
Busy.
Leave.
Me.
Alone.
Unhappily,
Your girlfriend
P.S. Do not call yourself ‘big-dicked daddy.’ It upsets me greatly.
From: [email protected]
Subject: keep being mean to me please im close
Dear adorable goth baby,
You’re so hot when you’re being mean. I already know you’re frowning in that cute way that makes me want to smother you in kisses and you’re rolling your eyes so hard NGH!
I already said I’m sorry.
Please give me another chance.
I’m so damn bored I started playing spin the bottle alone in my room. I made out with that picture of you sleeping with drool down your chin. Picture You was even getting handsy. ‘Down girl!’ I said. ‘Bad!’
Stay tight,
Toru (not Gojo Satoru, that’s like a slur coming from you, very triggering stuff)
P.S. I am your big-dicked daddy tho I’m confused?
Satoru,
I gave you multiple chances when I asked you to stop and give me at least 5 hours to study before we go out for dinner and I entertain you, you giant freaking child. But no, you just had to hound me with your dick, like I was supposed to be dickmatised and persuaded to drop everything at your beck and call.
Fuck, I’m getting mad all over again.
Stop emailing me. You’re gonna see me at 7pm for our date anyways. You can last 4 more hours.
Yours not for long,
Girl who just wants to pass
Sweetiepie :(
I’m sorry.
I thought it was gonna motivate you to work hard. Pwease forgive me. Pwease? Towu is vewy vewy sowwy.
In fact, I’m so so so sorry, I’ll pay for dinner tonight. Scout’s honour.
Asking for mercy and forgiveness,
Your boyfriend no matter what
From: [email protected]
Subject: dinner? that the best you can offer?
You always pay for dinner. Last time I offered, you damn near wrestled me in the middle of the restaurant so you could get your card out first. We’re still banned from there, remember?
Btw, you were never a Scout, don’t play with me.
Dear love of my life who doesn’t understand how email etiquette works,
Of course I always pay for dinner — you’re broke and your family is destitute, I remind you lovingly. But even if you were as rich as me, or even richer (which isn’t possible, not to flex), I would still pay every single time. It’s the least I can do for reparations for the violence committed by my gender against yours. Plus, that restaurant sucked anyway — the owner is problematic towards immigrants and the servers don’t even know if the meat is locally and ethically sourced, like hello??? In the big 2025?!?
How’s studying going?
Do you need a snack or a smoothie to boost you?
I can drop by. Promise I won’t linger. I just didn’t see a purchase on my card for breakfast or lunch. Please don’t starve. If I can’t watch your ass jiggle when I hit it from the back, I’m gonna be devastated.
Yours most sincerely,
Satoru
P.S. You have to be a Scout to say Scout’s Honour? Crazyyyyyy
Dear Satoru (happy now?),
Please don’t remind me of my family’s shortcomings. You know I like to pretend I came from a normal background. And stop being more woke than me. It’s hot.
Studying’s fine, I guess. I think I forgot how to study. I’ve missed a lot of content too. If a certain someone hadn’t been clinging to me so tightly every morning, maybe I wouldn’t be so behind. God, you make my life so hard.
A smoothie and pastry would be lovely, actually. I can’t be bothered leaving my room to get some food. Just drop it off outside and disappear by the time I open the door — if I see even a glimmer of white hair, I’m going to freak.
Thanks.
Love begrudgingly,
A girl who’s gonna fail her exam
Dear cutie,
I don’t cling to you that hard. You’re dramatic. I wonder where you got that from. And last I checked, we have a safeword you can use anytime to get me away from between your legs if you really wanted to get to class. But I like our game where you pretend you’re not just as obsessed with me as I am with you (I know you get all hot and bothered when I reference Marx, dirty girl)
Food’s outside babe. The line was stupid long and I ran into Fushiguro — remember the guy I told you has the highest body count on campus?
He’s in a relationship now and he’s so pussywhipped lmaoooo
Couldn’t be me.
Hoping you’ll stuff your face and get all the brain power you need,
Satoru
I told you to disappear before I could see you.
You didn’t have to kiss me and hump my leg you animal. My neighbours were NOT happy with the pornographic noises you made, asshole.
Yeah, I remember Toji. Cool dude. Always wearing gym wear no matter the weather and for some reason hates you. Don’t make fun of him for being loyal and loving to his girlfriend. You’re probably so much worse. I envy his girlfriend. She probably doesn’t have to put up with a yapper who spams her with dick pics.
Thank you for the food though. Very appreciated. What I didn’t appreciate, however, was the number and the smiley face on my drink. I already told you, if someone tries to hit on you, bark at them and tell them you have a girlfriend you worship endlessly.
Look:
Dear angry girlfriend I do in fact worship endlessly and beyond,
I’m sorry I didn’t follow your exact orders but I desperately needed a kiss from my girl. If I don’t get my daily dose, I wilt, like a rose. You know this.
And disrespectfully, f your neighbours. It wasn’t anything they hadn't heard from us before. Sensitive ears ahhh
About Fushiguro — he does not hate me. Why does everyone say that?
We’re actually besties. We’re like dumb and dumber, but dumber is him obvi. Plus, once he gets some shots in him, he’s super in love with me. I get more over the clothes action from him than from you lol
You never need to thank me for feeding you. I fear that’s like bare minimum. Get those standards up girl.
Oh and sorry about the drink. I didn’t even notice. Leave it outside your door and I’ll get you a new one. I’ll even make a scene and call the manager over. Maybe I’ll buy the store and get everyone fired. Just give me the word babe.
Yours forever,
Satoru
Dear my sweetest, most frustrating boyfriend,
Fine, I’ll forgive the kiss (I might have needed it too). And yeah, f my neighbours because the guy on my left loves playing Doctor Who Season 8 on repeat and on full volume every night like clockwork. It’s not even the best season!
Forget about the drink. Just don’t ever go back there again. Number and smiley face aside, the drink is abysmal and tastes like bog water. Pastry is great though. 10/10
You’d really make a scene for me?
Yours occasionally,
No longer starving girlfriend
Dear the Morticia to my Gomez,
I’d make a scene for you at the drop of a hat. I’d serenade you in malls, on campus, in a Michelin star restaurant, and in a lecture. Heck, I’d yell ‘BOMB’ in an airport if you asked me to – just maybe not an airport we frequent.
There’s quite literally nothing I wouldn’t do for you. If you didn’t know that already, then I’m not as great of a boyfriend as I thought I was. I will remedy that immediately, my goddess eternal.
Obsessedly yours,
Your husband in every way but legally (we can fix that)
Dear Toru,
Stop being sweet. It’s disgusting.
Come inside already. I’m done pretending I’m getting anything from the textbooks. I’m only giving myself a headache.
Imagine being the one who turned Sylus into a vampire.
Imagine back then, it was an act of desperate love. A way to save him from death, from fragility, from the world that kept trying to take him away.
and Imagine at first, it worked. He lived. He healed. He stayed by your side. For years, decades, whole lifetimes, Sylus remained himself, warm, sharp-tongued, mischievous, clinging to you with a kind of devotion that looked a lot like love.
but Imagine, immortality has a cost.
Imagine, slowly, impossibly, Sylus began losing pieces of his humanity. His smiles became rarer. His voice colder. His eyes, once so bright, turned distant, like he was staring through everyone and everything. You told yourself it was just a stage, a side-effect, a part of eternity he had to adjust to. But as the decades passed… You saw it. What you turned him into was hollowing him out. And you didn't know how to save him this time.
so Imagine the night he fell into a long, unnatural sleep. The kind vampires take only when their minds fray, you made the most painful decision of your life. You left. Because staying had stopped helping him. Because you were beginning to fear that your presence was tying him to the very thing that was destroying him. Because you loved him too much to watch him fall apart.
Imagine, you wandered for years, keeping yourself alive but empty, always wondering if you had made a mistake by ever creating him… Or by ever leaving. And during your absence, MC found him. A human. Soft-spoken. Kind. The first person in centuries who managed to make Sylus's eyes come back to life. Under MC's care, Sylus began to wake again. Began to feel again. But waking came with a price.
Imagine his memories had gaps, whole lifetimes missing and the fragments that returned were warm, bright, loving. Moments where he was cherished. Protected. Held. But he assumed they belonged to MC. He couldn't know they were yours. He couldn't know he was remembering the way he used to look at you, the way you used to whisper promises into his hair, the way he once held you like you were the only anchor he had in the world.
Imagine to him, you became a shadow, a dream, a warmth with no name. And you watched from afar. You never approached. You never interrupted. Because Sylus, your Sylus, was coming back to life… Just not because of you.
then Imagine one night, you overheard him tell MC. "I'm becoming someone I don't recognize. Cold. Hungry. Wrong." "But you… You make me feel human. You make me feel like I can still be saved." And MC, bless them, fought for him. Held him. Loved him in a way you had always hoped someone would, if it couldn't be you.
Imagine that's when you realized the cruel, final truth. You weren't his salvation. You were the curse he never asked for. The gift you gave him was the very thing that had slowly destroyed him. You stopped deluding yourself. You stopped hoping he would remember. You stopped wishing he would come looking for you. Your presence had become a weight he couldn't carry. You were the reason his mind had fractured in the first place.
so Imagine, you chose your last act of love. You chose to fade. Not die, vampires don't die easily. But fade in the way ancient immortals do. Letting the world forget them, letting time erode them, letting themselves slip out of existence until only silence remains. You disappeared quietly, without a word, without a goodbye. Believing Sylus had never loved you. Believing he never would. Believing the memories he felt for MC were proof that you had never mattered like you once hoped.
but Imagine here is the tragedy. Sylus did love you. He still does. He just never knew that the warmth in his chest, the ache he couldn't name, was the ghost of you. And by the time he realizes it… You will already be gone.
[ⓒdark-night-hero] 2025°
: this has been on my mind ever since the banner released.
Edit : and because i lost my 50/50 on this banner :D
🏐 "𝑪𝑨𝑳𝑬𝑩 𝑿𝑰𝑨,," ◦ ₊ㅤ ﹙ nsfw caleb eats you out ꗃ .. smut mdni ꒰ ୨୧ ꒱ mina says reupload from toruzip ⁀ ˳ ⟡
He was a goddamn dog, at his knees in seconds.
He was whining, pushing up your nightgown in bed and nuzzling the tip of his nose against your clothed cunt. Tongue flicking out to lick at the damp spot in the fabric.
“Pleasepleaseplease—”
“You can have a taste…” you sighed softly, knowing how much Caleb loved having a taste before pounding you into the futon with the sweetest, most innocent smile ever.
His goofy smile made your heart ache, your lips puckered into a small pout. Wet tongue and lips kissed at your slick cunt, a needy moan spilled past your soft lips when Caleb had pushed your underwear into the juncture of your thigh and quickly latching his lips around your clit. Coaxing it to peek out of its hood.
You swore you heard him whisper “yippee!” Gleefully against your pussy.
His tongue suckled around your pearl, while your fingers twitched and dug into the fabric of the soft bedsheets. “..C-Caleb..” you mewled out, breathless.
Groans and pleasured words vibrated against your slick pussy, as the brown haired man spread your thighs further apart with his rough hands. Moving his lewd focus onto your tight hole, his left hand’s thumb rubbing slowly and sensually back and forth over your puffy clit.
“Come on my face.. please… comecomecome..!” He whined against your slit, all needy and soft.
His tongue slowly slid into your tight, slick hole, curling upwards and rubbing against your gummy walls before retreating. All your senses were betraying you, all you could feel was the hot need pooling in your womb, walls clenching and contracting against his slick muscle.
“..g’nna cum…” you whispered, arching your back and hands reaching out to steady themselves in Caleb’s fluffy brown locks.
Caleb full on moaned, before pushing his slick tongue in and out of your pussy with a faster pace, thumb rubbing tighter and faster circles around your throbbing clit. Walls trembling and aching, you came only after a few seconds.
You squirted out onto his face, whining and moaning his name is a lewd, erotic cry. Arching your back, pushing your tits out into the air.
Caleb continued to suckle up your sweet essence as much as he could. Peppering kisses along your slit when you were breathless and sated, limp on the bed. “I’ll come back with my cock soon..” he happily whispered to your tight, sloppy hole.
Before he pulled away and happily smiled down at you. You swore you could’ve seen a tail wagging behind him, the lower half of his face completely dripping from your squirt.
“Did you like that, pipsqueak? Did you like it? Canifuckyounow? Pleasepleaseplease—”
tags: childhoodfriend!Sylus x childhoodfriend!reader, fem reader, childhood friends to strangers, angst, nonmc!reader, ooc!Sylus,
warnings: nicknames such as princess, slut shaming, zayne appearance, angst, trauma, trauma bonding, suggestive theme, ANGST
summary: why did sylus leave you? why did he decide to cut off ties with you? why? why did he break his promise? you don't know, maybe you'll never know. but maybe this will bring you some answers to your questions.
wc: 11.6k
a/n: ready some tissues, and prepare your tears if you're as sympathetic i am because this one is either going to piss you off or make you bawl. i broke my own heart writing this. sorry :((.
(either going to love me or hate me)
Love was a language Sylus had never been taught. From the beginning, he had grown up untouched by affection, never shown what love was supposed to look like, only what it looked like from the outside. To the world, the Qin family was a flawless portrait—successful careers, wealth enough to drown a lifetime in luxury, and a handsome son who completed the picture. People envied them, wished for their life.
But the portrait was painted over rot.
At night, Sylus would lie awake and listen to the truth splintering through the walls—shouting, breaking glass, plates shattering like brittle promises. He heard every crack, every bruise in their voices.
And his parents never bothered to hide any of it. His mother would tell him to pack his bags, that they were finally leaving his father. But it never happened. Instead, his father would drift into his room with soft apologies, sugarcoated words that dissolved by morning. Nothing ever changed. It never did.
Sometimes Sylus wished he could walk away from all of it—trade the gold, the diamonds, the silver-lined life for something far more precious.
A family that loved without hurting. A home that didn’t cost him pieces of himself.
Then he met you.
You were blinding—so impossibly bright that the edges of the world seemed to tremble in your light. Too vivid, too alive, too much, and it terrified him.
You saw him. Not the polished reflection of a child born to two “perfect” parents, not the shadow he tried to hide behind. You saw him as he truly was—someone who scraped and fought for what he wanted, who refused to let the world define him. You saw him as Sylus. Sylus, who would shield you from storms, who would give you the sky and the ground beneath it if he could, who waged a quiet war every day against the dark echo of his father’s drunken rages and his mother’s endless anxieties. Until the war was lost.
Until the mistakes he swore he’d never make crept in, stealthy and inevitable, leaving bruises on the life he was trying to build.
As your friendship grew, he began to see the fragile, breathtaking perfection of you. The way your laughter scattered light across rooms like wind through glass. The way your voice could stop his chest from tightening, even for a moment. The subtle grace in your gestures, so effortless it felt almost unreal. And that terrified him.
Terrified that his darkness would stain you. Terrified that he would break the delicate world you carried so easily. Terrified that you would see the truth of his life, raw and jagged, and recoil.
So he wrapped himself in lies. He pretended the chaos didn’t reach him. He pretended he didn’t curl into himself at night, listening to the thuds and shouting from downstairs. He pretended his family was whole, stable. He pretended he was okay.
He envied you. He envied the family you had—the laughter that filled every corner of your home, the warmth that seemed to wrap around him like a blanket. He envied the family he could never have. They welcomed him with open arms, let him sleep over, trusted him with their precious daughter, and in that, he glimpsed a world he’d always been barred from.
Then your family invited his. At first, he hesitated. Maybe once they arrived, you’d see through the facade he had spent his life building. Maybe once you saw the truth, you would pull away, and he’d lose the only good thing in his life.
But he wanted you too badly. He wanted to keep the fragile, radiant thread that tied him to something real, something worth holding. So, with enough persistence and quiet insistence, he told his family to join yours for dinner.
And it went better than he ever could have imagined. His parents smiled, even laughed, offered food they would never have cooked for him at home, carried themselves as though they were the parents they pretended to be in public.
And maybe that was where Sylus learned to pretend. And yet, it infuriated him. That even here, in this rare slice of normalcy, he was more like his parents than he had ever wanted to be. The silver in his hair came from his father, yes—but so did the height, the temper, the sharp, undeniable charm. From his mother, he inherited red eyes that flickered with quiet intensity, a soft voice, and a mind that never stopped turning, overthinking, worrying, analyzing.
Guess the apple really doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Then one day, he heard his parents fighting. Nothing unusual—except that it was during the harsh glare of the afternoon sun, spilling through the blinds and making everything too bright, too raw. Not the dark, muffled nights he had grown used to, when he could pretend the walls absorbed the chaos. He heard the sharp sting of insults slicing through the air, the scream of his mother ricocheting off the walls, the crash and tinkle of bottles smashing to the floor. His chest tightened, and he felt tears well up, hot and blinding.
They were doing it again.
Sylus needed air. He needed space. He slipped out of the house, hoodie pulled up over his shaking frame, the fabric clinging to his shoulders like a fragile shield. He let his feet carry him, moving without direction, the concrete hard beneath his sneakers, the sun burning against his skin. Out of habit, he found himself in front of your house.
He wanted to knock. To step inside. To see you, to feel a fragment of normalcy. But he couldn’t—he wasn’t ready for you to see him like this, unraveling, fragile. Not when he had always been the strong one, the protector, the one who bore the weight silently between you.
So his feet turned left.
He walked until the sun softened, tilting golden and low, painting the streets with long, languid shadows. His wandering brought him to an empty playground. No children’s laughter, no parents calling, no echoes of life. Only the faint creak of a swing swaying in the breeze, the metallic taste of heat in the air, and the faint scent of grass and dust. The slide glinted in the fading sunlight, the sandbox smooth and untouched. It was perfect. Quiet. Safe. Just him, alone with the wind, his heartbeat loud in the empty space.
He sat on the swings, his muffled sobs filling the empty playground. The world around him disappeared; all he could hear were the echoes of his mother’s screams and his father’s shouts reverberating in his mind. His head felt hollow, thoughts scattering like smoke.
He didn’t deserve this. No child did.
He wanted to scream, to lash out at the world, to blame someone—anyone—for putting him here. But he couldn’t. He had to be strong. If his family was crumbling around him, the least he could do was hold something together, even if it was fragile, even if the walls he built were held together with nothing more than tape and sheer will.
He sobbed until his chest ached, until the swing beside him creaked under a new weight and he didn’t notice.
He only looked up when he felt a tap on his shoulder.
A handkerchief was offered to him. He glanced at the girl holding it, unfamiliar, a stranger in the quiet of the playground. He tried to compose himself, dabbing at his tears before shaking his head.
“No, it’s okay. I don’t need it—” His voice broke as he looked away.
“It’s alright, Qin. You can have it.” Her tone was warm, steady, patient.
Sylus froze. She knew him? Maybe a neighbor? He finally dared to look, and she was still offering it. Hesitation twisting his hands, he took it, wiping away the remaining tears and sweat from his face.
“You… you know me?” His voice wavered, uncertain.
“Oh, could I not, silly?” She chuckled, swinging lightly beside him. “I’m in your chemistry class.”
Heat rushed to his ears. Embarrassment burned him alive. He couldn’t even remember her name, let alone that she was his classmate—and here she was, seeing him unravel in front of her. His instinct was to apologize, to explain away his state, but she waved him off gently, insisting he let it out.
But Sylus didn’t.
Instead, he forced himself to calm down. He drew in a deep, shaky breath, letting it out slowly, grounding himself in the warm afternoon light. He straightened his back, planting his feet firmly in the soft sand beneath the swing, and turned toward her. “Who are you?” His voice was steady now, though his heart still hammered in his chest.
“MC.” She said, her smile gentle and warm, as if she wanted to etch herself into his memory.
But Sylus stood frozen, eyebrows knitted together. “I’m sorry… I still don’t recall.”
It was almost laughable, even to him. Sylus was rarely forgetful. In fact, he noticed everything: the slight creases in a person’s sleeve, the faint scent of pencil shavings in the classroom, the subtle hum of electricity through the fluorescent lights. But around you, everything else went still. The world blurred. The air thickened. And that was why he couldn’t remember—because at that moment, all he could see was you.
MC tilted her head slightly, a trace of defeat softening her features, eyes drifting to the sun-bleached playground slides. “It’s fine. I’ve just… always admired how good you are in Chemistry.”
“Uh… thank you?” Sylus muttered, unsure whether to feel embarrassed or flustered.
She didn’t question why he had been crying. She hummed quietly, a soft, meandering melody that threaded itself into the warm afternoon air, filling the silence with something gentle, something safe.
Then she spoke again, casually, almost carelessly: “My mom’s being a bitch.”
Sylus blinked. The confession struck him off guard, abrupt, unfiltered. “Sorry?”
MC exhaled, a long, drawn-out sigh that carried all the weight of her frustration. “She told me to stop being laid-back, to study harder. I mean, come on—I’ve been working my ass off every day. VP of Student Council, top of my classes, academic trophies, competitions… and it’s still not enough for her.” Her gaze dropped to the ground. “My parents are fighting at my house right now. I just… escaped.”
Sylus’s attention sharpened. Her words unfolded around him, each syllable painting a picture he had never expected.
“And I usually come to this place to blow off steam,” she added, glancing at him with the faintest smile, “but it turns out I have company today.”
The words were simple, but there was an honesty in them that made something inside him stir. Without thinking, he stood, instinctively straightening again, ready to apologize for intruding, for even existing in her space.
“Stop apologizing, Qin,” she laughed softly, swaying on her swing. “You looked like you needed company anyway.” Her voice was easy, forgiving. Her presence seemed to absorb the heaviness clinging to him, urging him back onto the swing.
He sat again, heart still pounding, mind teetering on the edge of confession. For the first time in a long time, he felt the raw urge to let it out, to not hide the weight he carried.
“Me too,” he said quietly, almost hesitantly.
“Hm?”
“My parents… they’re fighting too. I just… needed a getaway.”
MC nodded, the gesture simple but understanding. She didn’t speak, didn’t pry. Instead, she returned to her gentle humming, a delicate, fluid counterpoint to the afternoon sun and the quiet rustle of leaves. The silence that enveloped them wasn’t awkward—it was a shield, comforting and unspoken.
And in that moment, Sylus realized something he hadn’t before. For the first time in his life, he didn’t need to pretend. No walls, no tape, no masks. Just the soft warmth of someone beside him, and the quiet permission to be human.
Ever since that encounter in the playground, Sylus saw her everywhere. In the crowded halls, where lockers clanged and footsteps echoed like a drumbeat, she seemed to float just out of reach, her presence a quiet beacon amid the chaos. In the cafeteria, among the clatter of trays and murmur of voices, his eyes always found her—laughing, talking, moving like she belonged to a world he could barely touch. In the gym, the echo of sneakers on polished floors could not drown out the thought of her, her silhouette framed in sunlight streaming through high windows. On the bleachers, in classrooms, by the library—everywhere, always. And it was slowly driving him insane.
How could someone like him, weighed down by the constant pressure of his life, act like everything was fine? How could he keep the mask in place, maintain the walls he had built so meticulously, when the simple sight of her made his chest tighten and his mind spin? Every glance, every careless smile, every small gesture—he felt it like a pulse running through him, shaking loose the careful control he had perfected over years of quiet suffering.
And yet, with her, it was different. With her, he felt truly seen. Not as the boy burdened by his parents’ fights, not as the one who performed strength for the world’s sake, but simply Sylus. His faults, his fears, his trembling hands—they didn’t have to be hidden. She made him feel something that you could never make him feel. With you, he had learned to perform, to mask, to protect. With her, he could exist without pretense. It was terrifying and intoxicating all at once, a freedom he hadn’t known he craved.
It was a cruel clarity: for the first time, he understood what it meant to feel alive, to feel raw and human. Yet the knowledge came with pain, because she also reminded him of everything he had to hide when she wasn’t around. She made him want more than he thought he deserved, more than the carefully controlled life he had built from fragments of stability and broken promises.
And that was the cruelest part: she made him feel something that you never could, something precious and dangerous—a life beyond pretending, a self he hadn’t dared to touch until now.
But still, even with MC’s quiet understanding, even with her presence offering him a rare reprieve from pretense, he found himself longing for you. Longing for the way your laughter filled a room like sunlight breaking through clouds, for the gentle imperfection in the tilt of your smile, for the authenticity in the way you moved through the world without armor. He longed for the warmth of your arms, the safety of being held by you, a feeling that both terrified and soothed him.
You were someone he could never replace. Even with MC, who made him feel seen and unmasked, you were different—you took his breath away with every glance, every word, every small gesture that carried the weight of your unspoken kindness. You were a promise he had carved into the corners of his heart: a promise to cherish you, a promise to love you, a promise to never let the shadows of his parents creep into the space he shared with you.
And yet, Sylus carried the gnawing belief that he did not deserve you. The thought clawed at him relentlessly—that if he let you see the chaos, the mold, the rot inside his life, he would somehow taint you too. He would never forgive himself if even a fragment of his brokenness reached you, because in a world collapsing behind closed doors, you were the piece of brick that held him upright, the fragile cornerstone of his fleeting stability.
To let you in completely felt impossible. To love you fully while carrying all that darkness felt like a betrayal. And yet, in the quiet, in those fleeting moments when your presence brushed against his life, he could not help but ache for you—the one constant he had never dared to take for granted, the one flame he could not, would not, let go.
So why did he let you slip away?
Sylus was such an idiot. He knew it the moment it happened. How dare he pair up with MC instead of you in Chemistry? The second he slid into the seat beside her, his chest tightened, a hollow ache forming in his stomach. And when his eyes found yours across the room, regret hit him like a jolt of electricity—sharp, undeniable, and suffocating.
You weren’t angry. That would have been easier to face. No, you were just sad—quietly, achingly sad, the kind of sadness that settled in your shoulders and whispered in your eyes. You scanned the classroom desperately, hoping to find someone to partner with, only to discover that everyone else had already paired off. And there you were, standing alone, the last one left, your expression a mixture of hope and resignation. Sylus could feel the weight of it pressing down on him, a silent guilt that made his hands clench involuntarily.
The teacher had offered, patiently, for you to join another group, but you had declined. Social interactions with people you weren’t close to weren’t your forte, and you had chosen to work alone. Sylus watched you gather your courage, pulling the quiet strength around you like armor, your fingers fidgeting slightly as you prepared to tackle the assignment on your own. The sight made him ache.
He wanted to leap across the room, grab your hand, pull you into their group, erase the hurt in your eyes before it could settle there permanently. But MC’s presence had already pulled him in. Her voice filled the space beside him, light and insistent, as she asked questions and suggested ideas. Sylus nodded, answered, discussed, engaged—while you remained in the corner, quiet, watching him with a look that pierced deeper than anything he could bear. You weren’t just observing; you were seeing him, really seeing him, and the thought of slowly losing you terrified him
That was the first fracture.
A week passed, slow and relentless, and with it, Sylus was slipping further away from you. It wasn’t sudden, not like a cliff falling into darkness—but more like water slowly seeping through cracks, invisible until the foundation had already shifted. He had become consumed by the project, a task months away from its deadline, working closely with a girl he had just met, and in that busy swirl, your presence began to fade from his attention.
And you understood. You always did. It wasn’t as though he was entitled to your time or your attention; it was for academics, after all. You accepted it quietly, without complaint, holding back the small ache that throbbed in your chest every time he was absent.
But Sylus noticed it too. He noticed the distance growing, the subtle shifts that he could no longer ignore. He walked with you to school only twice that week, when it had always been every morning, your shared silence a comforting ritual he now missed. His replies to your messages became delayed, clipped, almost automatic. Conversations that once stretched effortlessly now ended abruptly, leaving emptiness behind where warmth had always been.
The truth was, those days were filled more with MC than with you. He met her in quiet corners, tucked away from prying eyes, working on the project he should have shared with you. In those moments, he felt a strange ease, the freedom to let down the walls he always built around you. With her, he could speak of the darker things in his life without hesitation, without the fear of breaking the delicate balance he always maintained with you.
And little by little, lines began to blur. MC wasn’t just a partner in a school project anymore. She became someone he confided in, someone who could bear the weight of his frustrations, someone who could understand the shadows he kept hidden from you. Unlike with you, he wasn’t afraid to taint her with his problems, to spill the black paint of his life into her open hands without worrying if it would stain her too.
And the worst part—perhaps the most painful part—was that he didn’t even try to stop it.
But he wanted to rekindle the friendship that had quietly frayed over the span of a week. He wanted to bridge the gap he had created, even if only slightly.
So when Mr. M heard the thud of his head hitting the table, Sylus acted on impulse. He threw you under the bus, claiming the mishap was your fault. It was shameful, and yet, in a way, effective. In the end, he got what he wanted—but it was nothing like the image he had built in his mind.
Both of you received the punishment, and in that shared consequence, Sylus finally found a moment alone with his best friend. He stepped in once again, shielding you from a bully who had mocked your My Little Pony notebook. And when your familiar grin emerged, just a little crooked and full of relief, he felt it—a rush of victory that warmed him from the inside out. You invite him to 2nd Ave, the place where you both go when the world becomes a little too loud.
That triumph lasted only until MC appeared. In an instant, his vision blurred, and the moment he had shared with you splintered. His attention shifted, drawn magnetically to the girl who had become his confidant, the one with whom he could speak freely, without restraint, without fear of burdening.
When she invited him over to her house, Sylus felt a thrill of excitement. Curiosity prickled at his skin as he imagined stepping inside her world, peeking behind the curtain of the person who understood him. He wanted to see the cracks, the similarities, the act she might put on just as his parents had. He wanted to impress, to perform the role of the perfect guest, the perfect son, the perfect version of himself. The perfect child of perfect parents.
And yet, the moment MC left, he turned to you, expecting the warmth of your eyes, a playful remark, some acknowledgment of him and his careful appearance. But there was nothing. Your gaze was empty, distant, and he froze for a heartbeat, unsure how to fill the silence.
Before you could respond, Mr. M appeared, hauling both of your backpacks, shattering the fragile pause. And just like that—you were gone.
He had followed you, rushing, until you disappeared into the girls’ bathroom, the door slamming shut behind you with a hollow thud. He hesitated a moment, heart hammering, then asked softly what was wrong. You lied without missing a beat, murmuring that you weren’t feeling well. He didn’t press further—he never did.
Instead, he left, convincing himself that you were waiting for him elsewhere, maybe with a tray of food he had planned to deliver. The thought made his chest tighten with a small, bittersweet comfort.
But he hadn’t expected MC to appear again, sliding into the empty seat beside him—the one that had always been yours. The world seemed to tilt slightly as she laughed at something he said, as if the chair had been waiting for her instead. He forgot entirely about the food he had meant for you, the stale, half-cold school lunch abandoned in his hands, now offered absentmindedly to MC.
And all the while, he didn’t notice your gaze across the room. The way you watched him, quiet and still, a storm of disappointment and hurt hiding behind your eyes. He was too busy, too enthralled, too consumed by MC, by the ease of her presence, by the way she seemed to understand him without effort, to see the look you were giving him.
You were there. He just couldn’t see.
That was the second fracture.
He looked everywhere for you, his heart tightening with each empty hallway and vacant classroom. He never saw you emerge from the girls’ bathroom after locking yourself in, and at first, he didn’t realize what that meant. It wasn’t until the bell rang, sharp and final, signaling the end of lunch, that the absence hit him fully. MC had already waved goodbye, leaving him with nothing but the echo of her laughter—and you, nowhere to be found.
Maybe you were waiting for him in the next class. He hurried there, scanning every desk, every corner, every familiar spot where you might be. But you weren’t there. He waited, hope gnawing at him, counting every second, but nothing changed. One class passed. Two classes. Three. And still, no sign of you.
The final bell rang, and something inside him snapped. He bolted from the room, adrenaline carrying him down the hallways, past lockers and chattering students. Every classroom became a potential hiding place. Every shadowed corner, every empty hallway, the gym, the library—he searched them all, relentless, desperate, driven by the hollow ache of your absence.
And with each step, the fear in his chest grew heavier: what if he had already lost you?
During his frantic search, Sylus ran into MC. She had council duties to attend to, and he agreed to wait, though his thoughts never left you. Once she departed, he resumed the search, retracing steps, scanning every corner of the school, every empty hallway, his chest tightening with the absence of you.
The last place left unsearched was the vast track field behind the building. The open expanse felt endless, the wind stirring uneasily around him as he hurried across it. And then he saw you.
You were sitting on the bleacher bench, rigid and still, the sun striking your eyes as if you were deliberately forcing yourself to stare into the light. You looked fragile and untouchable at the same time, as though the brightness could somehow shield you from everything else, including him.
Sylus approached, his steps tentative, concern weighing heavily in his chest. He tried to bridge the distance, to find some way to reach you, to understand the sudden void your absence had left. But the tension radiating from you was palpable, almost a barrier, and he felt it press against him, even without words. You didn’t turn to face him fully, your posture taut, your movements clipped, your presence charged with the quiet weight of disappointment.
He handed you a handkerchief, holding it in front of your eyes to shield you from the harsh sunlight. The gesture was small, careful, but even as he tried to offer comfort, something else tugged at him—an invisible pull that drew his attention away, pulling him toward MC. And in that instant, everything else faded from his mind: the reason he had come, the worry that had driven him across the school, the sight of you bathed in sunlight, alone.
Before he even registered it, he was moving away, leaving the bench, leaving the heat of the sun against your skin, leaving you behind. You remained there, still and silent, while he crossed the field toward MC, and with each step, the distance between you widened—quiet, imperceptible, but irreversible.
That was the third fracture.
Throughout the walk to MC’s house, Sylus couldn’t stop thinking about you. No matter how many corners they turned or how many streets they crossed, the image of you lingered in his mind—your quiet avoidance, the hollow look in your eyes when you glanced at him, the way your presence felt suddenly distant. It gnawed at him, that emptiness. He tried to bury the ache, swallowing it down like he always did, forcing himself to stay composed, strong, unshaken—but it sat in his chest like a stone.
His thoughts spiraled. He replayed everything—your childhood moments, the laughter, the late-night talks, the small victories and shared secrets. He realized how deeply thankful he was for all of it, how he wouldn’t trade a single memory with you for anything. He loved you, and that truth sat quietly, unwaveringly, in the center of him. But that constancy frightened him now.
Because with MC, he felt light. He felt unburdened, unfiltered. He didn’t have to think before he spoke, didn’t have to monitor the weight of his words or hide the mess trailing behind him. And the freedom scared him. He feared the moment he would be forced to choose—between the person he had grown up with, the one who shaped his world, and the person who made that world feel less heavy.
It had hovered at the back of his mind for a while. He wasn’t clueless; he knew MC liked him. And the feelings he felt toward her—gentle, warm, uncomplicated—weren’t hard to reciprocate. It was easy to fall into step with someone who carried the same shadows he did.
But then there was you.
The light of his day.
The melody to his song.
The Monica to his Chandler.
The princess to his knight.
You were delicate in his eyes—not weak, never weak—but precious. Someone to be cared for, treated gently, protected like royalty. If you were the princess, then your father was the king who had unknowingly entrusted you to him. And Sylus, young and naive, had appointed himself your knight—the shield, the sword, the unwavering guardian.
But what knight could protect a princess when he couldn’t even keep his own home from crumbling? How could he offer you stability when he himself was stitched together with fear and bruised memories? He felt unworthy—terrified that one day he would break you, that his darkness would seep into your light.
Maybe leaving was better. Maybe giving you space to flourish on your own was kinder. Maybe distancing himself was the right thing, even if it tore him apart. You deserved someone whole, someone steady—someone who wasn’t splintered beneath the armor.
And MC… MC understood the fractures. She carried her own bruises, her own scars. Her world looked more like his. Two people floating in the same broken boat, weathering the same storms—it made sense. It was easier. It felt fair.
Yeah. MC was better, he told himself. Someone like her fit the shape of his damage. Someone who mirrored his pain made him feel less alone. Maybe with her, he could finally see his worth, fractured and flawed as it was.
Because in his eyes, a princess deserved a prince—not a knight who was already bleeding.
Meeting MC’s dad wasn’t terrifying the way meeting your father had been. There was no towering presence laced with silent judgments, no royal stillness that made Sylus question his worth. Instead, it felt familiar—eerily so. The quiet resignation in the man’s eyes, the heaviness in his shoulders, the home that carried an undertone of exhaustion… it all mirrored the atmosphere he grew up in. It made everything easier, more predictable. Less like stepping into someone else’s kingdom and more like stepping into a house where the walls already understood him.
When he asked where MC’s mother was, the answer came effortlessly—too effortlessly. “Out again,” she said, tossing the words like loose change. Probably drinking. Probably with someone who wasn’t her husband. She said it so casually it unsettled him, yet somehow made him feel seen in a way that hurt. Like the two of them had been raised in the same storm, different houses but identical thunder.
He expected her room to contrast the chaos of her family—maybe immaculate, coordinated, the room of someone who looked put-together every time she stepped outside. But the moment he crossed her doorway, stray clothes gathered at his feet like a greeting committee. Bottles—water, soda, energy drinks—were scattered around like abandoned soldiers. Makeup was smeared across a desk, books half-opened and forgotten, papers crushed into defeated balls near the trash can but never in it. The bed looked like a storm had slept in it, sheets twisted, pillows exiled to the corners.
It hit him like a slap: MC was nothing like you.
Her room was everything your world wasn’t.
An eyesore—yet an honest one.
And in that disarray, something clicked inside him. MC was pretending just like he was. She wore composure like a mask, hid chaos behind accolades, drowned instability under trophies that gleamed brighter than her home life ever could. She was a mirror he didn’t expect. A reflection of everything he tried to hide.
MC gasped as if she hadn’t expected him to witness this version of her—raw, uncurated, real. She apologized in a rush, tripping over explanations about forgetting to clean, about being used to the mess. Sylus understood. How could he not?
He watched her scramble to make her world look presentable before stepping in to help. Together they cleared the floor, gathering clothes into a laundry basket, tossing away old bottles, smoothing the wrinkles in her bedding. By the end, the room felt lighter. Breathable. Not perfect—never perfect—but navigable.
Then they worked on the project. No words, no forced conversation, just quiet synchronicity. Two people who didn’t need explanations. Their movements matched like a practiced rhythm, fluid and natural, puzzle pieces that clicked because they were carved from similar fractures.
And when they finished, they sank onto her bed to rest. But rest transformed into something else. One moment Sylus was staring at the ceiling, the next MC’s lips were on his—soft, sudden, a question he didn’t know how to answer. He didn’t say no. Maybe he couldn’t. Not when she understood the kind of broken he was. Not when being with her made the world feel less heavy.
He kissed her back.
Everything blurred after that. Clothes that had once been neatly folded were thrown to the floor again—except this time, his were there too. Hands traced skin, mouths left blooming bruises, time sped so fast he couldn’t grasp a single moment long enough to feel it fully. It was frantic, desperate, two hurt people clinging to each other like they were trying to fill the cracks instead of acknowledging them.
He told himself it felt right.
That two people with matching shadows were meant to collide like this.
That it was natural for two broken pieces to fit together.
Unlike him and you.
You, with your sunlight-heart and steady warmth. You, who didn’t understand the language of chaos because you were raised in a world that held you gently.
He forgot you.
Forgot 2nd Ave.
Forgot the plans you were excited to share.
Forgot the place where you had always waited for him—always.
He forgot.
And as the night dissolved and reality settled, he thought he had finally made his choice. A choice shaped not by desire but by damage.
The fractures were slowly turning into bigger cracks.
The next day slipped past him like fog—soft, hazy, unreal. He had spent the night at MC’s house, limbs tangled beneath her wrinkled sheets, her warmth pressed against him. It was comforting in a way he didn’t expect, like sinking into a place that understood him without asking questions. It felt easy. It felt safe. It felt perfect in a way that scared him.
When morning crept in, MC stirred first, grumbling about hunger before tugging him out of bed. They padded down the hallway toward the kitchen, the air cold against their sleep-warm skin. MC’s father was nowhere to be seen. She mentioned casually that he was probably out doing drugs or something worse. Sylus didn’t respond. He didn’t know how to. He just stood there, letting the words settle heavily between them.
The kitchen was barren—not even a granola bar tucked somewhere, not a forgotten snack in the corner. The emptiness contrasted sharply with yours, where every surface inexplicably hid candy like tiny, sweet surprises. He suggested a place before thinking, a slip of the tongue that would haunt him minutes later.
2nd Ave.
Your place.
MC didn’t question it. She simply bought cup noodles and nudged one into his hands, leaving Sylus no choice but to follow her into the small, warm shop that had always been your safe haven. The two of them sat together, eating in silence that felt gentle and familiar—two people sharing the same kind of quiet.
She told a joke, something light and unexpected, and Sylus laughed. Really laughed. Loud enough to drown out the soft ding of the shop door opening behind him. He twirled noodles around his chopsticks, leaned over, and fed MC with a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. It was sweet. Soft. Almost romantic—at least, that’s what it would have been if he hadn’t turned his head at the wrong second.
There you were.
Or rather—there you went.
A faint silhouette moving away, shoulders small, hands wrapped too tightly around a candy bar. The sight hit him like a cold hand to the chest. Guilt, sharp and immediate, washed over him. He pushed back his chair, ready to run after you, to explain, to do anything—
But MC was already lifting her chopsticks toward him, offering him her own noodles with a bright, oblivious smile.
He froze.
And the moment passed.
The sweetness curdled in his mouth. The warmth between them suddenly felt suffocating. The shop felt too small, too exposed, too wrong. By the time he left MC’s house later that day—despite her urging him to stay another night—his thoughts were a tangled mess. He slipped into his own home like a ghost, shed his clothes on the floor, and stepped under the shower, letting the hot water burn against his skin.
He told himself this was for the best. That you would be better off without someone like him weighing down your life. A princess belonged beside a prince, not a knight with cracked armor and a home full of ghosts. Maybe distance was mercy. Maybe stepping back was protecting you in its own cruel way.
So with a heart that felt far too heavy for his chest, he crawled beneath the covers of his bed. In the darkness, he let his eyes fall shut and imagined a world where things made sense. Where he wasn’t constantly breaking the things he wanted to protect.
But the only way he could see that world was by keeping his eyes closed.
Sylus didn’t expect it. He had fallen asleep around two in the afternoon and didn’t wake until the next morning, roused only by MC’s messages lighting up his phone. He’d slept through the entire day. Maybe it was exhaustion. Maybe his body finally claimed the rest it had long been denied. Or maybe—just for a moment—he managed to dream of a life that felt worth waking up for, only to be pulled back into reality by a girl he never expected to grow close with. A girl who wasn’t his best friend. A girl who wasn’t you.
He barely realized what he was doing when he opened MC’s messages and agreed to an invitation he didn’t truly want—a movie date. It felt like he was simply following the script life handed him, whether he liked the scene or not. He went through the motions: showered, brushed his teeth, got dressed. His body moved on its own, driven not by thought but by the weight of everything he didn’t want to feel. He felt like a ghost of himself, drifting through the world. Numb. And numbness, he figured, was better than feeling anything at all.
When he met MC at the cinema, he tried to convince himself he was choosing the better path. That maybe you were somewhere out there writing your own story, finding your own prince. And Sylus—well, Sylus was supposed to be the knight. But what is a knight without a princess? A knight protects royalty… but was royalty ever truly beside him? Perhaps he had never been a knight in the first place—perhaps he was only a jester, someone meant to entertain, to fill silence, to stand in the background until needed. Maybe with you he could’ve been something more, but inside his own home he wasn’t even that—just an object of amusement for parents who treated him like a passing distraction.
The date went fine, he guessed. They watched the movie. They talked afterward. It was normal, casual, unremarkable.
Until MC asked him what they were.
What were they, really? Partners? Classmates? Friends? But friends don’t kiss, and friends don’t leave each other suspended in half-truths. So Sylus told her they were more than that, and MC lit up with excitement. Sylus simply… accepted it.
This was how it was supposed to be anyway. Or at least, that’s what he kept telling himself.
Sylus didn’t expect to wake up to someone shaking him. It was still early, light filtering through the curtains in soft streaks—and there she was. MC. Smiling down at him like she belonged in that moment. She was startling him awake, insisting they should go to school together. He didn’t even know how she got into his house. And he didn’t ask.
Now he was going to school with his girlfriend. That word still felt wrong in his mind. They had walked this road together hundreds of times before, side by side, taking comfort in routine. But this time was different—this time she was his girlfriend. Not just a classmate. Not a friend. Something else. Something more, on paper. But not where it mattered.
Along the way, he felt her hand slip into his—warm, soft, fingers interlocking with his. He didn’t fight it, didn’t pull away. He just let her. Because that was how couples were supposed to walk. Holding hands, steps in sync. The way stories and movies said it should be.
Her hands were soft. Softer than he expected. Like they had never known weight or sorrow. He hadn’t realized just how unexpected that softness would feel against him. Then again, it made sense. Her room was always a mess, her hair always undone. She was laid back, unbothered. Only schoolwork ever seemed to make her hands move. Her mother’s voice was the only thing sharp in her world.
So as a gesture of comfort, Sylus squeezed her hand. Three times.
For a moment, he forgot where he was. Forgot what he was doing. You always understood the squeeze. You’d squeeze back four times—always four—like you were answering a question no one else could hear. But MC only smiled. She didn’t answer back. Not like you.
Then something made her laugh. She stopped mid-step, eyes drawn to an ice cream shop on the corner. Your ice cream shop. Sylus’s chest tightened. She tugged him inside, face bright with desire, completely unaware of the memory she was walking him straight into. They had five minutes before class started. But he didn’t say anything. He didn’t warn her. He just let her follow whatever whim she had.
She ordered her ice cream without a second thought. Something simple, something unremarkable. And Sylus, without thinking, ordered something familiar. Something he would have mocked before. Something he didn’t even realize he chose until it was already in his hand. The same thing you always ordered.
He didn’t say a word as he ate. Forced the cold into his mouth, letting the taste hit him like a memory he didn’t want to feel. And maybe it wasn’t as terrible as he always told you. Maybe he never hated it at all. He just liked the way you’d get passionate, the way you teased him for being annoying, the way you argued with fire in your eyes. He would do anything now just to argue with you again.
Now, that fire was gone. Replaced by silence. By unanswered calls. Unread messages. He told himself it was necessary. That this was how things had to be. That ignoring you was easier than facing the truth of what he was doing.
But the butterflies in his stomach never calmed. They twisted and clawed every time he thought of you.
They finished eating in silence, only talking to fill empty space. By the time MC checked the clock, they were already late. So they ran. They ran like it meant something. Like it would change what was already broken inside him.
Sylus was athletic, naturally strong in ways people didn’t expect. He carried the kind of muscle built out of quiet anger and survival. But somehow, the distance from the ice cream shop to the school building left him short of breath.
Now he was in front of the teacher. Sweating, exhausted, eyes heavy with thoughts he didn’t dare speak. He apologized, lied about sleeping past his alarm. Tried to play the part of the irresponsible teenager. But then he saw you.
Sitting in your usual seat. Eyes filled with worry. The empty space beside you felt like an invitation he didn’t deserve.
He sat down. But he refused to look at you. No greeting. No explanation. He stared forward like you weren’t there.
But you were too strong, too patient to be silent. You asked where he was. He told you the lie again. Overslept. But you had gone to his house that morning. And he wasn’t there.
He let out a breath. You thought it was annoyance. You thought he was tired of you, tired of your questions, tired of your care. You didn’t know he was trying to make it hurt just enough for you to leave. That he was picking his words carefully, trying to make you walk away without ever saying it outright. Because he’d decided three days ago. And he hated himself for it every single moment since.
Then he compared you to a mother—his mother —not out loud, but in the quiet parts of himself. A woman who gave love only for show. Who never hugged him unless someone was watching. A woman who taught him that affection could be a performance—and he swore he would never be that kind of person.
And yet here he was. Breaking you in silence.
You suggested you talk later. Tried to apologize for something you never even did. But he shook the offer away. Said that class was starting. The teacher was teaching. Something he usually wouldn’t give two shits about. Anything to push you further.
Anything to stop the ache he felt every time you were near.
And it worked. Or so he told himself.
But then you looked at him. Really looked. And you saw it. The faint purple bruises peeking out beneath, bruises he hadn’t thought to cover. Your eyes softened. He looked away.
And that was it.
That was the biggest crack of all.
Sylus knew you were trying to find him—he felt it like a pulse beneath his skin, a quiet pressure building in his chest. With the way he’d been avoiding you, like your presence alone could infect him with something he wasn’t brave enough to confront, it didn’t take much to decipher. The moment the bell rang, he bolted, fleeing the room before your voice could reach him. Before your pleas could unravel him. Before he could crumble in front of you and confess everything he’d tried so hard to bury.
So he did what he does best—run.
Run from the things that scared him.
Run from the truth.
Run from you.
But you were never something to run from. You weren’t a problem—God, you were the farthest thing from it. How dare he twist something so gentle into something monstrous? The problem was him. Him, and the way he loved you too much. Him, and the terror of staining you with the mess he called a life. Him, pretending bravery he didn’t have. He wasn’t brave. He was a coward dressed in the armor of someone trying too hard.
He reaches the bleachers, searching for MC. They’d planned to eat together—somewhere quiet, somewhere the world couldn’t intrude. A small space carved from the chaos, where only their thoughts and shadows existed.
There she is, sitting on a red mat, waving him over with a soft smile. They share food. Sit in silence. Speak occasionally, as if the moments between them are smooth and natural—maybe they are. Maybe they’re supposed to be. Then MC notices a smear of mayo on his lip, and she wipes it away with her thumb, the gesture gentle, close, intimate in all the ways it should matter.
But Sylus feels nothing.
No spark.
No warmth.
No pull.
And it’s wrong. Aren’t couples supposed to feel something? A flutter, a rush, a hint of giddiness? So why was he empty?
Desperate for something—anything—he leans in, kissing her. Moves his lips against hers, searching for a flicker of emotion. She responds, and they stay like that for ten slow seconds.
Ten seconds of trying.
Ten seconds of hoping.
Ten seconds wasted.
Nothing. He feels absolutely nothing, and the void inside him threatens to swallow him whole.
Why can’t he feel anything?
Then he hears it—a soft gasp. Barely a sound, barely more than breath. But it’s yours. Of course it is. He would know your voice even in a storm.
And when he pulls back, you’re already gone.
Sylus doesn’t know why, but the urge to apologize claws up his throat. Apologize for what? He wasn’t yours. He was allowed to kiss other girls. He didn’t owe you anything. So why did it feel like he’d broken something delicate? Something irreplaceable?
He mumbles an apology to MC, something vague about an urgent matter, and leaves before she can respond. He’s already chasing after your fading warmth.
You don’t notice him. You’re too consumed by the sharp crack of your own heart breaking. Your sobs echo like distant thunder in your ears, drowning out everything else. You don’t even see the person in front of you until you collide with his chest.
Sylus stops. Freezes. Feels something inside him glitch, stutter, collapse.
He wants to run to you. Wants to grab your shoulders, tilt your chin up, ask if you’re okay. Wants to kiss the spot where you hit your head and pull you into him like you’re something precious he can still protect.
But he’s too late.
The other guy reaches you first.
Sylus watches helplessly—watches as your eyes lift toward the stranger, watches as that man steadies you, watches him do everything Sylus should’ve done. Everything he should’ve been brave enough to offer.
And that’s the moment it finally hits him, sharp and merciless.
You were never meant to be his.
It was impossible.
A knight doesn’t get the princess. Not in stories like his.
He stands there, silent and small, as you unknowingly prove it—when you finally look up at someone who isn’t him, someone who might actually be able to love you without fear.
And Sylus realizes the truth he’d been running from:
He is the knight who arrives too late.
And you—you have just found your prince.
Two years passed.
Two years without you.
Two years of seeing you every single day, yet doing nothing more than breathing in your direction and pretending it didn’t hurt.
At first, it broke him—shattered him, really. It took everything in him not to reach for you, not to sweep you back into the warmth he once believed he could offer. Because everywhere he went, he saw you.
And you were always with him.
Now that he thinks about it, he knows exactly who the person was that caught you that day.
Li Zayne.
President of the Student Council—the one MC’s always spoken so highly of. The brilliant one. The polished one. The kind with a future scripted in gold. And apparently, he had the looks to match the legend. A whole package wrapped in charm.
But Sylus never cared to listen. He was too busy touching MC’s skin, trying to coax warmth into the cold hollowness spreading inside his chest.
He drowned himself in her body, in her words, in her comfort—desperately trying to wash you out of him.
And somehow, it worked.
You stopped haunting him. Your shadow stopped lingering behind every corner. He didn’t search for you anymore; he barely noticed you were around. Slowly, painfully, he started forgetting.
But the cost was too high.
Because forgetting you meant forgetting himself.
Sure, you no longer plagued his thoughts—yes—but nothing did. His mind quieted in the worst way, emptied itself out until he didn’t think, didn’t feel, didn’t want. He simply moved.
Moved like he was following stage directions.
Like someone else was puppeteering his limbs.
He didn’t notice you.
He didn’t notice MC.
He didn’t notice Zayne.
He didn’t even notice himself.
Life became a routine—wake, shower, eat, school, laugh when expected, eat again, home, sleep.
A cycle.
A loop he didn’t intend to break.
Out of fear.
Out of cowardice.
Out of the kind of love that claws, not blooms.
Then the word prom hit him like a blow to the ribs.
You’d always wanted to go.
Always looked at the posters and murmured that it must feel magical to step into a night like that. And he—foolishly, tenderly—had promised. Promised he’d take you. Promised you’d have your night, your dress, your brief moment of being a princess while he played the role of your knight one last time.
But now he stands in the middle of the gym, surrounded by cologne and perfume, by spinning lights and glitter.
A hand rests on his shoulder.
A hand that isn’t yours.
He forces himself to dance with his girlfriend, to spin with a smile that isn’t real. But his eyes betray him—slipping away from MC, searching the crowd with a hunger he tries to deny.
What would you look like tonight?
He’d imagined it too many times—your hair styled, your smile soft, the kind of beauty that could stop a room. Spinning around the gym like a princess in a borrowed fairy tale.
But you were nowhere.
You never came.
While the music roared and the lights flickered, you sat alone in your bedroom. No makeup, no dress, no corsage. Loneliness, your uninvited date. But Sylus didn’t—couldn’t—know that.
Eventually, when MC was satisfied with the dancing, he excused himself for “air.” But his feet didn’t stop at the gym doors.
They kept moving.
And moving.
And moving.
Until he reached your house.
He stood there, confused—or maybe pretending to be—trying to gather the courage to ask why you hadn’t come. To ask if you were okay. To ask if he still mattered.
But he froze.
A sleek black car sat in your driveway.
And it didn’t take a genius to know who it belonged to.
Zayne had become your company.
He was already too late.
Again.
So with a heart too heavy for his chest, he straightened his armor—cold, cracked, unnecessary armor. He picked up his shield, the one he never stopped hiding behind.
And he walked away from the palace you called home.
Now it was the final fracture, the crack that would break everything.
Sylus had done it. He had survived. Officially survived the last school year without you. The last two school years. He’d thought that would be the end of it—thought that one day the absence of you would hollow him out so completely that, when he finally shut his eyes, they simply wouldn’t dare open again.
Unfortunately for him, that day never came. Most mornings he woke to his alarm—an alarm you set, a song you loved. Every dawn dragged him back to you; you were the first thought that bloomed in his mind before he could even remember his own name.
On some days, he woke to screaming. The familiar shatter of bottles had carved itself into routine. It happened so often now that Sylus wouldn’t have been surprised to open his eyes one morning to find one of them gone for good. But he learned to let the noise wash over him, learned to anchor himself to anything else. Just like he did every night.
Then, on certain mornings, MC would show up at his door to shake him awake, to drag him somewhere before classes.
He’d gotten used to it by now. It wasn’t like he ever had much of a choice.
But today he walked alone—hoodie pulled over his head, AirPods sunk deep into his ears, drowning in a song he’d become obsessed with. He didn’t realize it yet, but he was running later than usual. Not terribly late, just three to five minutes—but for Sylus, that was enough to tilt the day off balance.
He drifted through the halls, oblivious to the chaos that clung to the edges of the morning. Oblivious to the stares. Oblivious to the whispers that rose and fell around him like ghosts.
He reached the classroom and silently thanked whatever fickle star had kept the teacher from arriving on time. He stood there, staring at the whiteboard, music flooding his senses. He zoned out—again. It happened so often now that he never even noticed it happening.
Then he turned around.
And he saw you.
A cluster of girls surrounded you, their laughter bright and rising, like something out of a life that had never belonged to him. They were giggling about something—or someone—but he couldn’t bring himself to care.
All he cared about was you.
After Zayne graduated, you had become a ghost of yourself. A loner with no orbit, no crowd. You kept to the back of the room, tethered to your phone or a book—anything that could keep you safely tucked away from people.
But now you stood there.
You were finally letting the world touch you again.
Something inside Sylus flickered to life—something warm, something hopeful. Relief unfurled in his chest, soft and aching. You were getting better. You were learning to live without him. He’d always known you could.
He moved to sit down. But then your eyes found his.
He didn’t realize it, but he gave you a look. A look full of hurt, edged with something like relief. Hurt that you were forgetting him—truly forgetting him. Even when you had Zayne, there had always been a sliver of hope in your eyes reserved just for him. But now… now your gaze held something different. Something he couldn’t name. Something that churned in his stomach like a warning.
He swallowed it down, forced himself to believe it meant nothing. That he had more important things to worry about than the way your eyes suddenly felt colder or further or unreadable.
He slipped into the farthest chair from you, determined to break your gaze before he melted right there under its weight.
He didn’t know it yet, but the walls he built around you—the ones he crafted with trembling hands and desperate vows, the promises he swore would stand forever—had finally collapsed.
The kingdom he tried to create for you, stone by stone, hope by fragile hope, had crumbled into nothing.
Fallen.
Shattered.
Reduced to dust that slipped through his fingers before he even realized he was losing you.
Sylus decided he was done for the day. He told MC he was heading home, unaware of the storm waiting for him behind his own front door. He walked quietly, slipping his AirPods back in, letting the music soften the heaviness in his chest—just enough to keep him upright.
He passed your house. It still looked exactly the same as it did years ago—warm, gentle, alive. A home that breathed comfort. A home that once held him like family. Now, he didn’t dare consider himself worthy of such warmth. The familiar ache bloomed inside his chest as memories of your shared castle of safety clawed at him. So he forced his gaze away and kept walking, distancing himself from the only real warmth he had ever known.
When he reached his house, silence greeted him—unnatural, suffocating silence. He slipped off his shoes and stepped inside. His parents weren’t home. Probably out chasing separate disasters, both too busy unraveling to notice he was unraveling too.
His stomach grumbled, so he went to the kitchen to look for food. That’s when he saw it—a note on the table. Something twisted in him because part of him already knew what it was. Another part begged to believe it wasn’t real. But with trembling fingers, he picked it up and read. The handwriting was frantic, smudged, angry, words scratched out until the paper nearly tore.
Sylus, your father and I are fucking done. I’m done with his bullshit, done with the way he treats me, treats you, treats us! I’m so fucking tired. I’m taking him to court. I’m getting a fucking divorce. I tried so hard to keep this family afloat because you needed more than just a mother, but look where that led me. Your father already packed his bags. You’re not going to see that bastard ever again. Today was the last straw—I saw him bring someone over. Had sex in our fucking bedroom.
His hands shook. Even expecting this didn’t ease the sting. His eyes burned, filling with tears he refused to let fall. He wiped them away, swallowing the pain like he always did.
A strange, thin relief threaded through him—finally, no more screaming. No more plates thrown. No more war. But the relief didn’t settle. It only left him hollow. He crushed the note in his fist and threw it away. His appetite vanished completely.
He needed someone. Anyone. Someone who wouldn’t make him feel like he was being swallowed whole by silence. He grabbed his phone, saw MC’s name, and walked out of the house.
He didn’t knock on her door—her home was just as empty as his. Her father went on business, her mother gone for months. He climbed the stairs and found her on her bed, scrolling through her phone.
“Sylus?” she said when he opened the door, but before she could fully take in his expression, he was already kissing her—desperate, frantic, wordless.
One thing led to another, and soon they were tangled under her sheets, bodies locked together in a heat that offered neither of them comfort. Sylus had hoped it would make him feel something—connection, relief, anything—but instead it only deepened the hollow pit inside him. He stayed silent afterward, holding MC’s hand because he didn’t know what else to hold onto.
Dusk settled, exhaustion took over, and they drifted to sleep. MC woke first as she always did, fixing herself and waiting for him to stir. Sylus woke in a cold sweat, as if he’d just been shaken awake from a world ending. He’d dreamt of his parents fighting, of his younger self abandoned and alone—and worst of all, of you. You, looking at him with pure disgust, hatred twisting your features every time his name was spoken.
MC asked him what was wrong, but before he could answer, she whispered her guess.
“Is it because of the rumors?”
He frowned. “Rumors?”
“About… you know.” She lowered her voice, saying your name like it was something dangerous.
Confusion washed over him. Rumors? About you? You who barely spoke, who folded yourself into corners to avoid attention. But MC continued, explaining everything—the accusations, the names, the mockery.
And suddenly, everything made sense.
Yesterday, you weren’t talking with friends. They were laughing at you. Picking you apart. Using you as a joke.
Sylus felt his blood run cold. His stomach twisted violently. What had they said to you? What lies had they fed you? Had they hurt you? Had you believed them? Was that why you looked at him with such betrayal?
MC wasn’t even finished when Sylus had already pulled on his clothes and bolted out the door. Rage and grief and fear tangled in his chest until he could barely breathe. He sprinted toward your house, desperate to make sure you were okay.
Passing his house, something caught his eye—two boxes on the front porch, one large, one small. Maybe his father’s things? Maybe—No. Not now. Not important.
He reached your house and knocked urgently. Then louder. Then louder still. He yelled your name. Called for your parents. Rang the doorbell until his finger hurt.
Nothing.
Not a single sign of life.
No footsteps.
No voices.
No shadows behind curtains.
Maybe you went on a trip, he tried to tell himself. Maybe.
He pulled out his phone. Opened your chat. The last message was from you—two years ago.
“I’m sorry.”
His chest cracked open. He should’ve been the one apologizing. He always should’ve been the one apologizing.
He typed message after message:
“Where are you?”
“Can we talk?”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I’m waiting for you.”
“I’ll keep waiting for you.”
“I always do.”
He hit send—and each message turned green.
Not blue. Green.
You blocked him. Erased him.
Cut the last thread tying you together.
Pain stabbed through him like a blade. He stood there for a moment, breathless, defeated, then walked back to the empty house waiting for him.
The boxes were still there. Something compelled him to bring them inside. He set them down, chest tight, and opened the larger one.
The first thing inside was his hoodie—wrinkled, soft, familiar. The one he gave you. The one that still carried his cologne. The one you had held onto.
Next came his blanket, then his pencil, the eraser you chewed, the notebook you shared, his spare keys—every piece of him he had ever given you. Every memory. Every reminder.
The guilt slammed into him like a wave, heavy and merciless. He had broken every promise he made to you. He tore down the walls he built to protect you. He broke you.
Tears finally fell, unstoppable. He didn’t bother wiping them away. He let himself cry—truly cry—for the first time in years.
His gaze fell to the smaller box. He opened it. Inside were ten jars of paper stars.
You had kept making them.
For him.
Always for him.
Sylus shattered. He fell to his knees, sobbing—raw, broken cries ripping out of him. It felt like mourning someone who was still alive but lost forever. Because he was. You were gone, and he was the reason.
He left the boxes—the memories, the stars, the guilt—on the kitchen table. He couldn’t take them to his room. They didn’t belong there. Nothing did.
He cried himself to sleep in a house that felt like a stranger. His mother didn’t come home. His father never would again. He was completely, utterly alone.
But even then— even broken, even abandoned—he waited.
For you to return from some imagined family trip. For him to explain everything. For the chance to finally say he was sorry.
He waited.
Because that was the only thing he had ever known how to do when it came to you.
You never came back to the neighborhood. Your parents returned, but you didn’t step out of the car with them. Your absence clung to the street like fog—dense, cold, impossible to breathe through.
Sylus became a wreck of the boy he once was. He lived
with heavy, bruised eyebags carved so deep they made him look half-dead, like something haunted the bones of his face. A ghost wearing his skin. A ghost still searching for the only person who ever made him feel alive.
He drowned himself in alcohol. His father once told him that drinking made the world softer, quieter, that it washed problems away like rain.
It didn’t.
Not for Sylus.
Every drink, every burning swallow, he hoped it would blur you—erase you—give him even one second of numbness. But instead, you sharpened. You were the only thing he saw. You were in the rim of his glass, in the reflection of the bottle, in the burn sliding down his throat.
Alcohol didn’t help him forget. It made him remember. It forced him to relive everything—every mistake, every moment he let you slip through his fingers, every version of you he destroyed by being exactly who he feared he’d become.
And it was eating him alive, piece by piece, memory by memory.
He tried to stop drinking once he started hallucinating you. He’d see you sitting at the edge of his bed, head tilted, the way you used to look at him when you were trying to understand him. He’d hear your laughter echoing faintly down the hall. He’d feel the ghost of your fingertips brushing his wrist.
When he tried to quit, the world became too quiet—so quiet it felt cruel. Cruel enough to laugh at him. Cruel enough to remind him that the silence existed only because you were gone.
So he drank again.And again.
Because with alcohol, at least he could still see you.
Even if you were only an illusion.
Even if the you he saw was stitched together by grief and guilt.
His mother didn’t stop him. She couldn’t. She was too busy grieving the man his father once pretended to be—the man he could’ve been if he didn’t crumble under his own shadows.
And watching her mourn made Sylus hate himself more. Because somewhere along the way, he became both of them.
A drunk like his father.
Fragile like his mother.
A perfect reflection of everything he swore he’d never become.
He had lost everything.
Everything.
He wasn’t a knight anymore.
Because a knight is nothing without his princess—and you had vanished without a trace, disappearing from his life like morning fog burning off under the sun.
Now, every time he closed his eyes, it was your face that greeted him.
Your eyes that haunted him.
Your name that echoed in the hollow chambers of his chest.
You were gone.
But you never stopped ruining him in the most beautiful, devastating way.
a/n: and that concludes part 2. i hope this part gave you guys a bit of closure. im so sorry TwT. they all deserved better, it hurt me writing this.
so uh... part 3?
as promised, taglist:
@fruitymoonbeams-blog, @babygirl-panda19, @theliving-radio, @seraphineash, @nm4565natty, @glassandhoney, @violentriddlehoard, @animegamerfox, @noxus123, @deadlyskepticalnightmare. @bruisedchickensoup
for those who wants to be tagged for part 3, just comment and i gotchu
reblogging and commenting helps me a lot and gives me tons of motivation to finish so pls reblog and comment hehe i appreciate it so much
again, im so sorry TwT
part 1, part 2
tags: childhoodfriend!Sylus x childhoodfriend!reader, fem reader, childhood friends to strangers, angst, nonmc!reader, ooc!Sylus,
warnings: nicknames such as princess, slut shaming, zayne appearance, angst, poorly written
summary: You grew up with your best friend, Sylus. He lives down a couple houses from yours and often stays over. You guys are basically each other's halves, never one without the other. Then feelings grew between the both of you but instead of acting up on it, Sylus decided that he can't fall in love with his best friend. Then you saw him with another girl at your favorite corner store.
based on the song "The Neighborhood" by Grace Enger
a/n: this is my first ever one-shot of Sylus, I hope that everything goes smoothly and nice. English isn't my first language so I am so sorry for any complications. Feel free to tell me any constructive criticism. Thank you and enjoy!
wc: 16.6k
this was also proofread and helped by my friend @zhuchinniii
It has been about two years since you moved from your hometown, Dawnville. It was the place you grew up in, from when you were an infant, to learning how to walk, how to ride a bike, and going to school. The narrow streets with houses on every corner made Halloween feel lively. Christmas decorations shone on every block.
It was home.
You had your family there, aunts and uncles, cousins, and grandparents. It was never a plan to move out and start a new life in the city, heck—you hated the city. All the noise, the smell of cigarettes, smoke from car engines, the traffic. It was your worst-ever nightmare. But somehow, the smell of pee and huge rats running on every street was better than seeing him.
Him—the boy who once lit your whole world without ever trying. The one who steadied your handlebars when your training wheels came off, who walked beside you to school every morning like it was a promise. The one who wore the matching costumes you loved far more than he ever admitted, who sat at your table along with his family every Christmas as if he belonged there.
You built your definition of “home” around him.
And then he left you standing in its ruins.
Your phone rang just as you were watching your favorite show, lost in a trance and forgetting what you were doing for a moment. The sudden sound startled you, and you shook your head, blinking as you snapped out of your thoughts.
You grabbed your phone and saw it was your mom calling. Pressing the green button, you held the phone to your ear and heard her familiar, cheerful voice.
"My darling! Oh, how've you been? It's been a month since I last called. I was cooking your favorite and then I thought about you. How's college?" Her rambling brought a smile to your face. You missed her. The last time she visited had been six months ago.
When your parents found out you were accepted into college, they had been ecstatic—and rightfully so. Their precious daughter, who once came home with scraped knees from running around the neighborhood, was finally growing up. You still remembered the proud look in their eyes that day.
They hugged each other first, then turned to embrace you—but you dodged their arms. Both lowered their arms, concern written across their faces.
"What's wrong, honey?" your dad asked.
You hesitated, unsure if you wanted to answer, then let out a quiet sigh, eyes dropping to the floor.
"It’s out of town," you muttered.
Your parents exchanged confused glances. "The city is only an hour’s drive away," your dad reassured. "We can drive you there if you don’t want to go alone."
But your expression didn’t change. They studied you, puzzled, as you hesitated, unsure how to tell them the truth. Taking a deep breath, you finally whispered,
"It’s in Linkon."
"LINKON CITY?!" they both exclaimed, their voices overlapping. You shrank slightly, eyes dropping again."But… that’s sixteen hours away," your mom said, her usual brightness dimming into a flicker of worry.
"We can’t drive you there, bubble," your dad added. The nickname made your chest tighten—you loved that nickname.
"I-I know…" Your voice wavered. "But I really want this, Dad."
"You mean," Your mom started, “You mean that…you’re going to have to move out?” Your mother spoke softly though there was a hint of disappointment in her tone. But there was still a small smile on her face, staying supportive of her daughter’s decision.
The air stilled, suddenly everything felt colder. You could feel their gaze on you, your heart racing with nervousness. You didn’t trust yourself to say anything else, so to play it safe you nodded as confirmation.
"Oh," Your mom breathed out, your father holding her back in hopes of bringing a bit of comfort.
Your father cleared his throat, hoping to lighten the mood, so he asked you, "Well, what college in Linkon?"
You meet his eyes, "Malaya College."
The demeanor of your parents changed, both straightened their backs and tried to hide the surprise expression but you saw it. "Holy shit." Your father muttered before getting hit by your mother.
"You really got into Malaya?" She asked.
You nodded, and so did they. Finally accepting the fact that you aren't their baby girl anymore.
The process had been chaotic. Your mother insisted on buying things for your dorm you hadn’t even seen yet—a comfy mattress, bedsheets in your favorite color, a desk for your schoolwork, and a pile of school supplies. Meanwhile, your father methodically stripped your bedroom bare, carefully grabbing items you might need in Linkon before packing them into boxes. He tried to hide it, but you noticed—the subtle shiver in his hands every time he lifted something, the hesitation in his movements.
And now here you are. In Linkon. Inside one of the most prestigious colleges most people only dreamed of attending. And earning a scholarship to boot.
"I'm okay, Mom." You laughed, "College has been a pain but nothing I can't handle." You hear your mom move all over the house, the sound of metal grabs your attention. "Are you still cooking?"
Your mom sighed, stirring the huge spoon inside the broth of what she was cooking. " Yeah, I couldn't wait and had to call you."
A chuckle escaped your lips, "I miss you too, Mom. How is dad?"
When you mentioned your dad, you could practically feel your mom rolling her eyes on the other end of the line. “Your father left the refrigerator door open for two hours—Two hours! I sometimes wonder if he does this on purpose or if he really is just an idiot.” Your mother rants, annoyance spilled through her tone.
"Sounds like him."
"Ugh, whatever." Your mom replied, taking a sip of the broth before humming out a satisfied sound. "Reminds me,"
"Of what?"
“I called because there’s something I wanted to tell you." You hear the tap running, your mom must've been washing her hands.
Your brows furrowed, and concern started to take over your thoughts. Your mom would usually call you just to check in, saying that she misses you and gives little updates on what was happening back home. Taking a deep breath, you softly mumbled, “What is it?”
"Sylus came over yester..." Your mom tells you but the words she spoke didn’t register in your mind. Only one word caught your attention.
Sylus.
Call yourself insane but you thought that you'd be good by now. Like hearing his name wouldn't make you freeze up somehow. But guess you were wrong.
It has been two years since silence swallowed whatever you and Sylus used to be. Two years since your other half—your shadow, your constant—became a stranger you still instinctively look for.
People used to call you twins, not because you looked alike, but because you moved through life side by side. You played the same games, sat through the same classes, and even traded chores like it didn’t matter whose responsibility they were. If one of you had work to do, the other was already there.
And then there was the corner store. Your spot. The place you claimed as your own, where you pretended you were only staying for the food or the cold air, while really you were just clinging to the comfort of being next to him.
Twelve years. Twelve years of being inseparable, of sharing every corner of life, and then—nothing. Not slowly. Not with distance creeping in. One day he was still yours, and the next he wasn’t. He stopped calling. Stopped coming over. Stopped playing your games, stopped messaging, stopped looking at you like you were someone who mattered.
He just shut the door on you. Completely.
The hurt came fast too, sharp and cold. You kept combing through your memories, replaying the last moments you shared, trying to understand what changed so suddenly.
There was… something. Someone.
A flicker you noticed beside him once.
“Hello?” Your mom’s voice broke you out of your trance. “Huh?” You replied.
You hear your mother tsked, you don’t see it but you know that she was pinching the bridge of her nose. “I said that Sylus came over yesterday.”
You gulp, flushing the thoughts away. “What about him?”
You fiddle with the hems of your hoodie strings, waiting for your mom’s answer. “He gave me a box, it’s quite heavy too. Told me that it was for you, so I don’t know what’s inside.”
Your eyes widened at her answer, something you hadn’t expected. You thought that maybe he was there to get something back from the things he gave you but you already returned everything. “For me?”
“Yes, maybe it’s a sign that you should visit.”
Visit? Hell no. Especially not after he ignored you. You refused to look him in the eye, to see him. You were shy, embarrassed, and angry. Maybe it was because of something you did which resulted in him not talking to you.
“I can’t, midterms are coming up.” You lied. Midterms were nowhere near close.
“Bummer,” she sighs, “Guess we’ll just have to go there and give this to you.” Her voice was cheerful, happy that she’s finally got an excuse to see her daughter again.“By the way, what exactly did happen between you and—“
You fake a yawn before she finishes talking. “Whoa, would you look at that! It’s time for bedtime. Goodbye, my dearest mother, and tell father I send my regards. I must make haste for thy night has come. I love you.” You end the call. It was 10 AM on a weekend.
But it did get you thinking. What exactly did happen?
“Ahh!” You yell, feeling the ice-cold water cascade down your body. Then you hear a laugh.
“HAHAHAHA!”
You huffed in annoyance, looking at the person who was laughing. There he was, Sylus, your best friend.
“What the hell, Sylus?!” You scream at him, standing up from your bed, water falling onto the carpet of your bedroom.
“It’s already 10, you need to get up. The movie is starting in an hour.” Sylus whined.
You glare at him. Then an idea formed in your head. A smirk formed on your lips. The laugh from your best friend slowly ceased to exist as he saw the look that you were giving him.
“P-princess.. what are you doing?” The nickname rolled off his lips, hoping to stop you from what you were about to do.
“Oh my, knight. Can you give your darling the princess the biggest hug of her life?” You giggled, lifting your arms to show your drenched pajamas that absorbed the water he threw onto you.
Sylus nervously rubbed the back of his head, shaking his head no. “I’m deeply sorry, princess. But your knight has knightly duties. If you don’t mind, I shall go now and do those and meet up with you once you’ve finished yours. Ba-bye!” He bolted straight out of your bedroom.
“Sylus! Come back here!” You yelled, running after him. Your drenched pajamas swaying with every moment, the water dripping onto the floor.
The chase lasted around your house, your mother became a barrier Sylus had used but decided to ditch her and go straight towards the backyard where he tripped and fell.
“Oof–“ He cried as he fell onto the ground, breaking his fall with his hand.
He looked back at the back door where he came out, but instead of the vacant door, he saw you. You, in your wet pajamas with your arms still wide open. His face changed into a scared expression, regretting his way of waking you up.
“Oohh, Sylus..” You taunt him.
“No– have mercy, please.” He lay on his back and started to move farther away from you.
But his pleas weren't heard, you launched yourself and hugged him tight. “Oof!” He said again. He feels the water from your clothes transfer to his, he groans in annoyance as you snuggle on top of him.
“Ugh.. princess…” He ached, gesturing you to get up but you paid no mind. You pushed your head farther onto his neck and hugged him tighter until you felt comfortable.
“Ah, that’s better.” You happily sighed.
Sylus had no choice but to accept his defeat, his hands moving to your back as he hugged you too. After all, you are his princess.
“Can this class go on any longer?” You heard Sylus groan beside you, fingers gripping his hair. His face was twisted in exaggerated misery.
It was math time. He hated math.
“It’s only been twenty minutes,” you muttered.
“It’s been an eternity!” He threw his head onto the table—and didn’t expect it to actually hit. The resulting thud echoed through the classroom, making the teacher pause mid-sentence. Every head turned toward your desk.
“Ow…” he mumbled, trying to hide his face.
“Mr. Qin!” your teacher barked. Sylus’ face scrunched in embarrassment as he looked up.
This wasn’t the first time. Sylus was reckless, always bumping into things, always causing a ruckus.
But never during math class. No. He hated math, yes—but he hated Mr. M even more. The man was ruthless, doling out impossible grades, showing favoritism, and assigning tasks no student could finish in time. And he was old enough to get annoyed at the smallest thing.
“Yes?” Sylus squeaked, turning toward the balding teacher. The class giggled at the sight, which only made Mr. M’s glare sharper.
Some girls whispered among themselves. Junior year things. And yes—Sylus looked incredibly handsome, which only made him more adorable when he lifted his head, revealing the growing red circle on his forehead. You couldn’t help but let out a small laugh.
“Pray tell, why are you banging your head on your table?” Mr. M demanded.
Sylus tried to calm himself. Despite his recklessness, he had a good record. Teachers usually let it slide with just one innocent look. But Mr. M wasn’t one to be swayed.
His jaw clenched as he tried to maintain composure, ready to tell the truth and ruin his spotless image. But before he could, you slid your hand under the table, intertwining your fingers with his.
Instantly, his tense shoulders softened. You squeezed three times.
He squeezed twice. You raised an eyebrow but let it go.
“Sorry, sir,” he began, his tone sweetly innocent. “My elbow was propped against the table, so my head could rest on my hand. But my seatmate found it funny to knock my arm, causing my head to lose stability… resulting in the loud noise.” He smiled, eyes wide and guileless.
You were going to kill him.
Before you could protest, Mr. M had already spoken. “Bring four notebooks and stand outside holding two in each hand, squatting against the wall.”
“What?!” You yelled, turning toward him.
Sylus stifled a laugh beside you, but you were beyond amused. This was how he repaid you for covering for him?
You scoffed, turning back to Mr. M. “But sir! I was the one trying to make Sylus pay attention! He was yawning the entire lesson, ready to nap if I hadn’t nudged his arm.” You offered a sheepish smile, feeling Sylus heat up beside you.
He was red—redder than the mark on his forehead—ready to defend himself. “Sir—I was—”
“Out! Both of you!” Mr. M shouted, gesturing to the door.
Victory washed over you as you grabbed four notebooks. Sylus muttered under his breath, clearly irritated.
“Asshole,” you whispered just loud enough for him to hear.
“Bitch,” he shot back.
Neither of you took offense. That was just how you expressed closeness. Of course, both your parents had been shocked the first time they heard you insult Sylus during dinner at your house. Your mom scolded you, but Sylus had come to your defense, explaining it was normal. Eventually, they got used to it.
With both four notebooks clutched tightly, Sylus held the door open for you. You stepped into the hallway, leaning your damp chest against the cold, hard wall that separated the classroom from the buzzing corridor. The faint hum of fluorescent lights above flickered slightly, casting long shadows that stretched across the linoleum floor.
Sylus plopped down beside you with a heavy sigh, the sound echoing softly in the quiet hallway. You caught each other’s gaze—his crimson-red eyes locking with yours. For a moment, the noise of the school faded away, leaving only the two of you suspended in that fragile bubble. Then a small snort escaped him, followed by a laugh you couldn’t hold back. It started as a quiet chuckle, but soon both of you were laughing uncontrollably, the tension of the classroom and Mr. M’s scolding dissolving with every breath.
“If both of you don’t do what I said, I will personally deduct points from your grades for bad behavior!” Mr. M’s voice rang out, sharp and commanding from behind the door.
“Too bad we can’t fake it,” you muttered, staring at the huge window where Mr. M had surely seen your rebellion.
“Let’s just get this over with,” Sylus said, standing and bracing himself for the wall squat. He held the two notebooks in front of him like a makeshift shield. You mirrored him, your arms trembling from the awkward position, the cool hallway tiles pressing into your damp clothes.
“I hate you,” you muttered, adjusting your stance and feeling the strain in your arms and thighs.
“I love you too,” he said with a grin, and despite yourself, your chest ached. You hated to admit it, but you did—you loved him more than you should.
Shaking off the thought, you turned to face him, only to find him already watching you, his expression soft, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
“Are you still up for 2nd Ave?” you asked, referring to the corner store where you both always ended up after school.
He chuckled, the sound warm and familiar. “Of course, I am.”
Before you could say more, the door across the hall burst open, a flood of students pouring out for lunch. The sudden rush of bodies and noise made your cheeks burn with embarrassment. Every passerby seemed to glance at you, some snickering, and you could feel their eyes drilling into you.
A boy in particular, with a sneer on his face, approached. “Nice mylittle pony notebook, nerd,” he mocked. Junior year was a pain, and being a nerd made it worse. But Sylus stepped in without hesitation.
“You still piss the bed at twenty, Johnson. Shouldn’t you be in college by now? Or is daddy’s money not enough to buy your way into high school when he should’ve bought you a smarter brain instead? Can’t afford that too?” Sylus shot back, his voice sharp, protective. A thrill of relief ran through you, and a small smile crept onto your face.
Johnson, unfazed, turned on Sylus with venom. “You could do great things, Qin. But is the pussy that good that you’re willing to stay with this loser?” He laughed, slapping a friend on the back as if congratulating himself on a cruel victory.
Sylus opened his mouth to reply, but you shook your head, signaling him to let it go. He bit back a retort, eyes narrowing at Johnson, but he obeyed, the quiet tension between you two holding more weight than any insult could.
Johnson glanced at the hallway one last time, his eyes settling on you and Sylus, then muttered something under his breath before leaving with his friends.
“I don’t get why you don’t stand up for yourself,” Sylus murmured, his voice low, tinged with frustration and concern.
“Because you beat me to it,” you said, cracking your neck, the strain from holding the notebooks making itself known in aches across your arms.
“I guess,” he replied softly, voice warm, “I’ll always be here to stand up for you when you can’t. You can always count on me.”
He smiled at you, lips curling in a way that made your chest tighten. You saw them move to form another word, but something behind him caught his attention. His red eyes widened, his body stiffening as he turned to face the front of the hall.
Your brows furrowed, heart skipping a beat. “Why? What is it—”
You followed his gaze and froze.
It was her. MC.
MC. The perfect girl. The kind of girl who seemed sculpted by sunlight, each movement effortless, each smile a quiet miracle. Popular, yes, but not the cruel kind of popular. She was the opposite—a human angel, gentle as a breeze and radiant as the first light of dawn. She gave without thinking, shared lunches with strangers, defended the weak, stood tall against cruelty like it was nothing. She was flawless not just in looks but in spirit, the kind of person who made everyone else feel smaller simply by existing.
And beautiful—oh, breathtakingly beautiful. Like Aphrodite herself had leaned down from Olympus and whispered a secret into her hair and eyes. You remember the first time you saw her—it felt like stepping into a daydream, a sunbeam in human form, and for a brief, aching second, the world felt impossibly cruel for not giving you that light.
Of course, everyone adored her. Ten guys—or more—hung on her every word. Your biology partner. The leader in your group project. The weird kid in the back who smelled like bacon. And Sylus.
Sylus. Your best friend. The boy who once chased away your bullies without question, who laughed with you until your sides hurt, who held your hand when the world was heavy. He was the one you thought belonged beside you, the person whose heart you thought you shared.
But no. He didn’t see you that way anymore. Not really. Because MC existed. Because her kindness radiated and he, poor foolish, hopelessly human boy, fell for it. He fell for the girl whose hands were soft but strong, whose smile could make flowers bloom, whose brain danced circles around everyone else. She needed help in chemistry, he could provide it. And just like that, you were invisible.
You remember that day in chemistry—the one you had dreaded and somehow knew would hurt. Partnerless. Sitting alone at the edge of the lab, while your best friend leaned over her desk, laughing, smiling, sharing that world you thought was yours. Their heads bent together, two minds colliding over formulas and reactions, while you—once so important to him—were nothing but a shadow in the corner, an afterthought.
You wanted to scream. To shake him. To tear that impossible, perfect girl from his side. But you didn’t. You couldn’t. Because you weren’t allowed to. You could only watch. And your chest hurt in a way words couldn’t capture, sharp and hollow all at once.
He was laughing with her, and you realized, with a slow, sinking heaviness, that laughter was never meant for you anymore. You had been replaced. Not by someone cruel, not by someone unworthy—but by someone perfect. Someone flawless. Someone who had never given you reason to hate her.
And that was the worst part. You didn’t hate MC. You wanted to. You needed to. But how could you hate an angel? How could you curse someone whose existence only reminded you of what you had lost?
So you sat there, quiet and invisible, heart breaking in ways only the betrayed can understand, watching your best friend fall hopelessly in love with a girl who wasn’t you.
Yeah, Sylus was popular too. Hot, handsome, the kind of boy who made hearts race without trying. Silver hair soft as clouds, eyes the color of blood, skin pale enough to make him look like a creature from a gothic fairytale, and a body sculpted like he could lift a sumo wrestler without breaking a sweat. Every detail about him screamed perfection.
And you had fallen. Hard.
It was a love story in the making—but you were never meant to be part of the script. You were the obstacle, the rising action, the thorn in a story that wasn’t yours to star in. You stirred the plot without even trying, and you accepted it.
Because it was your fault. You had dared to fall for your best friend. Sylus. Your knight. The boy who had sworn, without question, to protect you. To protect his princess. And you had believed, even for a fleeting moment, that maybe…just maybe, it could have been you.
But reality was cruel. He didn’t feel the same. Not like you did. To him, you were a sister, a twin, someone untouchable in the way lovers are. And it hurt—oh, how it hurt—but you swallowed it down, locked it in a chest that only your heart could hear. It was better to be a friend than a stranger. You told yourself that. But sometimes “better” felt like a blade in your chest.
And then, there she was. MC. Walking toward you and Sylus, radiant as ever, like the world had bent itself just to make her shine. Her voice was soft, a gentle hello, accompanied by a nod that acknowledged your presence. She didn’t notice—or maybe she chose to ignore—the punishment you and Sylus were enduring, the notebooks in your hands, the squats against the wall, the quiet humiliation.
And your chest tightened. Because in that moment, you realized something painfully obvious: no matter how much you wanted to, no matter how much you wished, you were invisible to him in the way she would never be.
Yet, you smiled anyway. You always smiled.
"Good morning, Sylus." MC’s smile landed on him like sunlight through a window—warm, effortless, blinding… and entirely not meant for you.
You clenched your fists, heart twisting. He froze for a moment, eyes sparkling at her, before managing a shaky, “Oh, hi.” You could practically feel the way his attention had shifted away from you the instant she appeared.
“Are you busy after school?” she asked, tilting her head in that infuriating, casual way, like the world had paused just for her.
You wanted to scream, Yes, he’s busy! He was supposed to be with me! 2nd Ave is waiting! But your voice caught in your throat. You stayed silent, invisible, while the two of them smiled at each other like you didn’t exist.
"Great!" Her laugh floated through the air, light and musical, a sound that had always felt like sunlight breaking through storm clouds. "I was thinking we could finally finish our chemistry project today. I already colored the cardboard, so we just need to assemble it."
"O-okay," he managed to say, voice tight and unsure. "Same place as last time?"
You rolled your eyes, sharp and bitter at how pathetic he sounded, how desperately he clung to her.
"Actually…" she trailed off, lips curling in that maddening smile you wanted to punch away. "I was thinking… my place."
"Huh?"
"Hah?!" The disbelief in both your voices collided, but hers carried excitement while yours carried the hollow weight of inevitability.
"But you never let anyone in your house," he said, almost mechanically, taking the words straight from your thoughts. "Wouldn’t your dad… get mad?"
"Usually he would," she said lightly, with a confidence that stabbed you. "But my dad knows you."
Your jaw dropped. No. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t possibly have told him about Sylus. And yet… she did.
"Really?" His grin—only ever reserved for you—lit up, so unguarded, so free.
"Yeah," she said, brushing past the thought of chemistry altogether. "I’ll tell him about you. How can you help me with chemi…" Her voice softened as she spoke about him, about everything he had done for her, everything you had always imagined he did only for you.
And then you saw it. The glint in her eyes. The same one that shone whenever he looked at her. Her lips moved deliberately, and you caught it—the faint sheen of a new lipstick, the same shade he once said looked good on you.
The one you wore now.
And that’s when the truth hit like ice in your chest. You had already lost. You had lost the moment he looked at her for the first time. You had lost the moment she decided he was worth telling her father about. You had lost long before you even realized the game had begun.
"...so what do you say?" Her voice twisted through the space, teasing, expectant, while her fingers idly twirled her hair.
Sylus didn’t hesitate. "Yeah! I’ll wait for you after class."
Your chest tightened. You wanted to scream, to shake him, to remind him that your shoulders had held him through everything. But instead, you watched as your place, your usual spot, your small world, was quietly handed to her.
Once Sylus was sure she had left, he turned to you, eyes sparkling like he’d just discovered a secret world. "Holy shit… can you believe it? I’m the first person ever to step into her house aside from her parents! She actually trusts me. And she tells her dad about me? This is… insane. I might actually have a chance with her!"
He rambled on, but you barely noticed that your legs had stopped squatting—you were just sitting on the floor, notebooks heavy in your lap, your chest heavier.
"What do I wear? I look hideous. Can I borrow your perfume? Mine ran out yesterday, and yours smells good," he pleaded, oblivious to the quiet storm brewing in your chest.
Hideous? The word cut through you, sharp and bitter. Dear God, no. He looked incredible. Always had. Even with cake smeared all over his face on your birthday, he had been perfect to you. And… he just complimented you. Your perfume. You. And yet, your chest twisted painfully at the realization that he was asking for your help to impress someone else.
Before you could even respond, the door to your classroom opened, and Mr. M’s voice cut through the moment. "Leave. Better not make the same mistake as last time." He dropped both your bags in front of you.
You grabbed yours quickly, swallowing the sinking weight in your chest, refusing to wait for Sylus.
"Princess, wait!" he called, stuffing his notebooks into his bag. You didn’t turn around, afraid he’d see the look on your face—the way your heart felt like it was splitting in two. You kept walking.
His footsteps followed behind you, soft but persistent. You quickened your pace until you reached the girls’ bathroom, ducking inside before he could catch up.
You heard him stop at the door. "Hey… is everything alright?" His voice was careful, worried, and it hurt more than it should. You stared at the cold bathroom floor, wishing you could disappear. Lucky for you, you were alone.
You lifted your gaze to the door and forced a calm tone. "Yes, Sylus. I… I think you should go to lunch. My stomach’s not feeling good." Technically true. Your stomach ached. Not from food, but from the heaviness in your chest, the ache of watching him drift toward her.
"Oh," he said softly, "I can bring you something from the nurse’s office. Maybe you’ll feel better."
"No, it’s okay. Go eat. You didn’t have breakfast." You crossed your arms, turning your face toward the brown door as if the world could vanish behind it.
"Okay then… I’ll wait for you and get you a tray." His footsteps receded slowly, each step a quiet hammer against your ribcage.
A heavy sigh escaped your lips, soft and almost ashamed, as you turned to face the mirror above the sink. On the surface, you looked fine—like nothing had shifted inside you at all. Anyone passing by would see just another ordinary student, smiling faintly, carrying on.
But the reflection staring back at you was betraying the truth. Your eyes, once bright, now held a dull shadow. The light had dimmed, sinking beneath the weight of the scene you had just witnessed.
Sylus would have noticed. No doubt. But he wouldn’t. And somehow, that hurt even more.
You closed your eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath, turning the tap to splash cold water over your face. It stung, yes, but it felt like the sting could wash away the ache in your chest, even if just a little. You dabbed at your face with your handkerchief, and when you looked back into the mirror, you forced a fragile smile onto your lips.
“You’ve been through worse,” you whispered to yourself, recalling the day your cat had died. Even then, Sylus had been there, mourning with you, making the world feel a little less empty. Now, though… now, you mourned alone.
The click of the bathroom door opening pulled you from your thoughts. It was your cue to leave. Summoning the last shreds of courage, you made your way to the cafeteria, your stomach tight with a mixture of hunger and dread, expecting—hoping—to find Sylus waiting for you, tray in hand.
Scanning the crowded room, your eyes fell on him immediately. Silver hair glinting under the fluorescent lights, taller than most, unmistakable even from a distance. Relief fluttered in your chest. There he was, sitting at your usual spot. His food untouched, as though he had been waiting just for you.
A small, hopeful smile tugged at your lips, fragile as glass. But it shattered almost instantly.
MC sat beside him. In your designated spot. Her presence there felt like a physical shove to your ribs.
And then… the final blow. Sylus nodded, almost absentmindedly, at the tray of food meant for you. MC picked up the spoon and fork and began eating, as if your existence had nothing to do with this meal.
Not yours. Hers.
The weight in your chest pulled you down as the cafeteria blurred around you. You nodded to yourself in quiet surrender, feeling utterly defeated. You slipped out, unnoticed. Sylus didn’t look up. Maybe he didn’t even see you enter. Perhaps he had already forgotten you were there. With her, he always forgot.
And the bitter truth settled in: the person who had always been your anchor, your safe harbor… had drifted just out of your reach.
Instead of eating, you dragged yourself to the nurse’s office, claiming a stomach bug as your excuse. The lie was small, harmless, but somehow it felt heavier than a boulder in your chest. She handed you some medicine, urging you to rest. You lay back on the crisp, white bed, letting the sterile scent of the office fill your lungs.
“Where’s Sylus?” she asked gently, her tone careful, soft. “Why isn’t he here with you?”
“Eating,” you muttered, the single word tasting bitter in your mouth.
“Not here?” Her pen paused mid-air. She looked at you with concern, a crease in her brow.
You shook your head, barely daring to meet her eyes. “Apparently, not.”
She nodded slowly, wisely choosing not to pry. She could see it—the hollow look in your eyes as you stared at the ceiling, unmoving, as if the white expanse above you could swallow you whole.
“Hey…” Her voice was softer now, almost coaxing. “Do you want to take the day off?” She held out a pen and paper. “I can make a note. You… don’t seem okay, mentally.”
Finally, you turned your head, letting your gratitude show in the faintest of smiles. Casley—school nurse, friend, older sister in everything but name—always understood. She always did.
“I… I would appreciate that,” you murmured, your voice thin. “Thank you.”
“Anytime, babes.” Her smile was small, quiet, tender. She scribbled the permission slip and handed it over to you, and for a moment, the weight on your chest eased—not because of the slip itself, but because someone saw you, really saw you.
And now… here you are, outside the school, perched on the bleachers, letting the wind brush against your cheeks. Casley told you to go home, but home felt empty, a ceiling and four walls, nothing but echoes of memories. What would you even do there? Stare at the ceiling again, counting the seconds that Sylus didn’t spend with you?
Because usually, he was there. Always. Most of the time, your days were measured by his presence. And if he wasn’t physically there… he was just a call away. Always.
But today, today was different. And the silence that filled the space where his voice should have been… was deafening.
Call yourself clingy or whatever, but a life without him felt unimaginable, like a sky without stars, like a song without a melody.
When the school doors opened, Sylus appeared, scanning the crowd with the intensity of someone searching for a lifeline. His eyes landed on you, and he let out a breath that carried relief, almost like he had been holding it in all day. He started walking toward you, each step pulling at your heart in a way that made it ache and flutter all at once.
He called your name, urgency lacing his voice. You pretended not to hear, lowering your gaze, hoping he wouldn’t notice the way your chest thumped.
But he did. Of course, he did. He stopped right above you, his shadow swallowing the sunlight, and your world narrowed to the space between him and the ground beneath you.
“Can you move?” you murmured, feigning annoyance, though your voice trembled despite your best effort.
“Where were you?!” His words came sharp, edged with worry and anger. “You weren’t in any classes.” He huffed, stepping closer, pushing the sun back into your eyes. “You didn’t show up to lunch.” He sank down beside you, eyes fixed, arms crossed over his chest. “And you were missing for three hours! Do you know how worried I was?”
You felt a pang, a cold twist of guilt and helplessness. His concern was pure, unyielding, and yet it cut you deeper than any blade.
“Don’t you have a study session to go to?” you asked, letting the irritation drip through your words like venom.
“Yes, actually.” He straightened, uncrossing his arms, but the smile he offered—bright, unshakable—made your chest constrict. He smiled. He smiled. The kind of smile that once belonged only to you, reserved for the quiet moments between just the two of you.
And you burned with it. With everything. Maybe it was the looming storm of your period, the gnawing hunger, the betrayal curling in your gut. Or maybe it was the unfair ache in your chest that came from loving someone who looked at someone else with that same warmth.
“So… why did you skip classes?” His voice softened, but it still carried that concern that made your heart both ache and break.
“I wasn’t feeling well.”
“You still have a stomachache? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I… wasn’t aware that I needed to tell you everything that happens in my life.” Your voice cracked like brittle glass as you tried to hide behind the sun’s harsh light.
Sylus furrowed his brows, confusion etching his features. “The hell do you mean?” he asked. His usual patience wavered slightly, and it felt like a knife twisting inside you. “Was it because I—” He faltered. “Was it because I threw you under the bus earlier?”
You scoffed softly, looking away. Words failed you. Nothing could explain the whirlwind of hurt, jealousy, and love tangled in your chest.
Then, a shadow fell across your face. You flinched, but it wasn’t just shadow—it was his hand, shielding you from the sun. “I don’t know what I did wrong,” he said softly, “but you should at least take care of yourself… and not sunbathe without sunscreen.”
And you knew he meant it. He hadn’t done anything wrong. Not a thing. The pain you felt, the anger simmering in your throat, wasn’t his fault. It was the cruel reality that the boy you loved—the boy who had been your constant, your safe harbor—smiled for someone else.
You exhaled shakily, lifting the handkerchief he had placed over your eyes, and finally sat up to face him. Your heart was a storm, your lips trembling with the words you could never speak.
“I’m sorry,” you murmured, your voice trembling as you tried to meet his eyes. “I didn’t—”
But the words died on your lips, swallowed by the sudden, sharp call of another.
“SYLUS!”
Both of you turned, and there she was. MC, waving her hands like she was summoning him from your very chest. And he went. He went.
“MC!” he shouted back, bright and careless, and just like that, he left you behind.
You froze, chest tight, as you watched him move toward her, his silver hair catching the dying sunlight, the same light that had once seemed to shine only for you. He didn’t glance back. Not once. Not a flicker. Not a pause.
And then she hugged him. You weren’t prepared for that. Not for the way he leaned into her warmth, laughed at something she whispered, bent down to meet her in a way that had once only ever been for you.
You were just… there. A shadow in the corner of your own story, forced to watch as your heart unraveled.
You told yourself you should be happy. He’s your best friend. He deserves this. And yet, the truth clawed at your chest: happiness felt impossible, swallowed by the ache of watching him love someone else while your own love rotted silently inside you.
“I didn’t expect that I’d fall in love with you,” you whispered to the handkerchief clutched in your trembling hands, a confession meant for no one, not even yourself.
Night fell, heavy and quiet. You sat in your bedroom, the world outside your window dark and distant. Your phone glowed in your hand, a small, fragile hope suspended in the blue light. You sent a message to Sylus, the simplest words carrying all your worry, all your silent longing: Did you get home safely?
It was 6 PM. Now, it was almost 8. He hadn’t even read it.
Your chest tightened. You wanted to call, to demand an answer, but something inside whispered that you couldn’t. He was a big boy. He could take care of himself.
You hope. You always hope.
And yet, lying there in the quiet, you wondered if he would ever hope for you too.
Morning came—or rather, the afternoon, since you had slept past one. Saturday, thankfully, allowed your heart and body a rare reprieve, but the heaviness in your chest remained: Sylus still hadn’t read your message.
A knot of worry tightened in your stomach as you forced yourself to get ready. You passed through the living room, where your mother greeted you with a warm smile.
“You’re up. Lunch is in the fridge.”
“I’ll eat later,” you murmured, slipping into a jacket.
“Where are you going?” Her hand rested on her hip, a gentle note of concern in her voice.
“Just… to Sylus’,” you said, opening the door before she could protest.
“Be safe, honey!” her voice trailed behind you as you ran down the block, the thought of him pulling you forward like a compass you couldn’t resist.
The familiar porch came into view—coffee table, matching chairs, shadows of countless afternoons spent there. Your heart fluttered painfully at the memory, each step heavier than the last.
You pressed the doorbell, expecting him, but instead, Mrs. Qin answered.
“Mrs. Qin!” You blinked in surprise.
“Oh, sunshine!” Her arms wrapped around you in a hug that smelled faintly of jasmine and home. “I haven’t seen you in forever. How’ve you been?”
“I’m… alright, Mrs. Qin. I promise I’ll visit more often. Is Sylus home?” Hope blossomed, delicate and fragile, in your chest.
Her smile faltered. Lips pressed together into a pout. “I thought he was with you?”
The words hit harder than you expected. Your stomach dropped. He hadn’t come home last night. A rush of panic surged through you, thoughts spiraling. What if something happened?
Noticing the sudden tension in your expression, she repeated softly, “Is he not with you?”
You swallowed, your mind scrambling for a way to calm her without revealing the storm brewing inside. “Oh… yes! He was with me earlier, but…” You scratched your head nervously. “We were… playing hide and seek!” You forced a chuckle, gesturing vaguely. “I was wondering if he hid here, but… apparently not.”
Both of you were sixteen, past the age of hide and seek.
Mrs. Qin tilted her head, a wistful expression in her eyes. “I guess childhood really doesn’t go away, does it?”
You smiled weakly, said your goodbyes, and made your way back home, your thoughts a stormy whirlwind of worry, longing, and questions with no answers.
The world felt too loud, too bright, too empty, and you wondered silently if Sylus even realized how much he meant to you—or if he ever would.
Where the hell was he?
Your chest tightened with every step as you decided to make your way to 2nd Ave. You’d never walked there alone before—not once. You were always with Sylus. Now, the silence around you felt hollow, the streets too wide, too loud, too empty.
Maybe he was waiting for you at the corner shop. Maybe he had just slipped in ahead of you, like he always did. You checked your phone again—messages still unread. Each one a small knife, twisting in your chest. You exhaled slowly, trying to convince yourself that everything was fine.
Ahead, the corner store came into view. The familiar warmth hit your skin, a contrast to the cold tightness in your chest. Candy lined the shelves like little distractions, sweet and colorful, promising something to hold onto in the midst of a storm.
You grabbed one, letting the small comfort of it ground you, and started toward the counter. And then—you stopped.
A laugh. Light, carefree, impossibly familiar.
There, in the corner of your vision, Sylus. His silver hair caught the light as he twirled noodles on his chopsticks, careful, deliberate, smiling. And beside him—MC.
They were together.
Your heart fell, plummeting to the pit of your stomach. The air left your lungs as if it had been stolen. You couldn’t move. Words died on your tongue. You were frozen, caught in the slow-motion torment of watching them.
Sylus laughed, leaning toward her, feeding her noodles with the gentlest of gestures. She laughed too, and when a noodle slipped from her lips, he laughed harder, until his chest shook, until he couldn’t breathe from joy.
And you stood there, invisible, untouchable, unworthy.
You felt a sick twist of betrayal, though no one had done anything wrong. He was just being himself. He was just happy. Just… not with you.
Your stomach turned, your hands went cold, and every breath felt jagged. You wanted to scream, to run, to vanish, but you couldn’t. You were a witness to your own heart breaking, and the cruelest part? You were powerless to stop it.
“Hey, loser!”
The voice sliced through the haze of your thoughts. Andrew—the cashier. You knew him, and Sylus did too. He’d always watched you two hang out at 2nd Ave, day after day, small routines that felt like they belonged to another life.
When Sylus walked in a few minutes ago, Andrew had expected to see you trailing behind him, like always. Only to be shocked when another girl appeared, laughing beside him.
“Knew you’d come,” Andrew said, scanning your candy as you set it down on the counter. “I was a bit confused when Sylus came and you weren’t there… figured you were just running late.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not here to hang out with him.” Your words were clipped, deliberate. You took your wallet out, placing the money on the counter.
Andrew froze for a moment, tilting his head. “I thought you guys were just—”
“Times have changed.” You cut him off, your voice quiet but sharp. No explanation. No excuses. Just the cold reality of it.
Without waiting for a response, you grabbed your candy and pushed the door open. Your feet carried you mechanically toward the exit, your head bowed so you could avoid the inevitable sight of them together. Every step felt heavy, a metronome counting out your heartbreak.
A small, desperate part of you wanted to look back, to see him, to see any flicker of recognition in his eyes—but fear held you frozen. Fear that one glance would shatter you further.
At the door, you hesitated, hand on the handle, almost daring the world to notice your silent plea. Almost hoping Sylus would see you, would call your name, would remember.
But he didn’t.
The last thing you heard before leaving was his laughter, ringing like a cruel, beautiful bell in your chest, leaving an ache that no candy, no excuses, no breath of air could soothe.
After that day, you took a step back. You tried to untangle the knots in your chest, trying to convince yourself that keeping your feelings in check was enough. That the love you had carried for Sylus wouldn’t shatter the fragile balance of the friendship you’d fought so hard to build.
Being friends was better than being nothing at all.
It was stupid, wasn’t it? All of it. Maybe your mind was just a traitor, weaving illusions around a boy who paid attention to you—the first one to notice you other than your father. Maybe it wasn’t real love at all, just hormones and loneliness masquerading as something deeper.
It would fade. It had to.
Ten months of quiet suffering, four months of desperate self-awareness… it would disappear with time. When you saw him laughing with her, brushing noodles across her lips, it would all dissolve. The heartbreak would come, yes, but after it passed, you’d be fine. You’d go back to normal. You’d survive.
Besides, they weren’t even confirmed. Sylus had only gone to her house for a project. That was it. They were just friends. Like you and him. Like it had always been. He was probably busy, couldn’t answer your messages, couldn’t call you back…
Oh, who were you kidding? You should have prepared yourself. The truth was that people drift apart. Time would come when you would live lives that didn’t overlap, and he would fade into the background of your world. You just hoped, selfishly, that it wouldn’t be so soon.
You stare at the desk, tracing the faded doodles left behind by students who didn’t matter. The edges of the sketches blur under your gaze as your mind spirals. It’s already Monday, the air heavy with the hum of early arrivals. You came early, as always, hoping to see him first. Usually, you would leave his house together, laughing over small things, a bubble around the two of you. But today, Mrs. Qin told you he had already left.
Thirty messages. Four calls. Silence.
Your heart thunders in your chest at every creak of the classroom door. You hope. You hope against the mounting weight in your chest. You hope that the next person to enter will be him.
Time passes, the classroom fills, the teacher begins. You keep your eyes on the door, your notebook open but empty, each tick of the clock another reminder that he’s not here.
And then—
The door rattles. It swings open.
Your head snaps up.
There he is.
Sweat glistens on his forehead, his silver hair damp and wild. His chest rises and falls with quick breaths. For a moment, the world shrinks to him alone, the heat of your worry and relief mingling into a raw ache you can barely contain.
He’s here. He’s finally here.
But why does your chest feel heavier than ever?
“Mr. Qin?” Ms. Torres’ voice cut through the classroom, sharp and impatient, her hand planted firmly on her hip.
Sylus swallowed hard, his throat working as he muttered, “Sorry, Ms. Torres… I overslept.”
Your eyebrows knit together. Overslept? That word tasted bitter on your tongue. How could he oversleep when he had already left his house hours before you even knocked on his door? Your eyes followed him as he trudged to the desk beside you, still catching his breath, his hair damp from sweat and exertion.
You leaned in, your voice barely above a whisper, “Where were you?”
“Overslept,” he repeated, monotone, eyes fixed on the desk as though you weren’t even there.
A scoff escaped you. “Uh… yeah. Overslept my ass. I went to your house—your mom said you had already left.”
He paused, fingers brushing the edge of a notebook, before rolling his eyes. But you saw it—saw the way he avoided your gaze, the faint tremor in his composure that didn’t reach his stoic mask.
“And why haven’t you answered any of my texts… or my calls?” you pressed, the quiet desperation in your voice betraying the hurt you’d been swallowing for days.
“I wasn’t aware I had a second mother,” he replied, flat and cutting.
Your chest tightened. Your eyes widened, shock and a sudden, sharp ache colliding. “What?” you whispered, disbelief mingling with something raw and heavy in your chest.
He didn’t respond, as if pretending your words didn’t exist. You tried again, your voice trembling slightly, “What is wrong with you?”
Still nothing.
A sigh slipped past your lips, fragile and restrained. “Look… if this is about the other day, I’m sorry. I really wanted to talk to you, to explain… but I guess you were too busy.” Your gaze searched him, pleading for some flicker of recognition, any hint that he still cared. His expression remained unyielding.
You swallowed the lump in your throat and continued anyway, “We can still talk after class—I’ll explain everything, I’ll…”
“The teacher is having a lesson,” he interrupted, his voice steady but distant, shutting you down like a door closing between your hearts.
Taken aback, you blinked, confused. Your words had never caused this much silence before. Normally, you would fight, apologize, and then the storm would pass. But this… this felt heavier. More permanent.
“Since when do you care about lessons?” you asked, the edge of hurt lacing your tone.
He finally looked at you then, eyes blazing red in the harsh classroom light, yet vacant, searching for something he couldn’t find in you. “Until now,” he said, voice hollow, and just like that, his gaze drifted away, leaving you with a chasm where his warmth used to be.
You were about to speak again when something—a small, cruel detail—caught your attention.
A bruise. Purple and angry, just behind his ear.
And then another, on the side of his neck.
Your stomach dropped. The air left your lungs in a rush, replaced by a cold weight that pressed against your chest. Each breath was jagged. Fear. Pain. Helplessness. You weren’t sure which emotion stung the most.
You closed your mouth, swallowed the scream in your throat, and sat still. Silent.
Some fights, some moments, weren’t yours to fix. And this one… this one felt like it might never be mended.
Lunch came, and still—Sylus hadn’t said a word. Not a glance, not a flicker of acknowledgment. It was absurd. You two were supposed to be inseparable, two bodies carving a rhythm through the same classrooms, the same desks, the same breaths. The silence felt deliberate, suffocating, a knife twisting in the spaces where warmth used to live.
Your hands itched to clutch your hair, to tear it from your scalp in some frantic plea for attention. Maybe—just maybe—if you made yourself unrecognizable, if your sanity frayed into sharp edges, he would finally see you.
The bell rang, a cruel punctuation to the torment. You had hoped to intercept him before he vanished, but when the doors opened, he was gone. Faster than light, faster than hope.
You groaned, packing your things in a haze of frustration, following the trail of his absence, but the hallways were a river of bodies, pushing, shoving, laughing, oblivious to the storm roiling inside you. And he—Sylus—was already swallowed by the current, a ghost slipping through your fingers.
The cafeteria became your last refuge, the place you had once shared bites of mystery meat and stale bread, his presence like a shield against the bland horror of the food. Now, it was a cavern of emptiness. The smell of oil and sadness mingled, and you felt it clawing at your stomach. You couldn’t eat. You couldn’t breathe. He wasn’t here.
You searched. Every corner, every floor, every echoing corridor. The gym, the library, the stairwells where sunlight spilled like hope on cracked tiles—nothing.
And finally, the track field. A handful of students moved like shadows against the golden afternoon, and your heart, already fragile, tightened like a fist around a threadbare scarf.
You scanned, desperate, wild-eyed, looking for the familiar silver glint of his hair, the way he moved like he owned the world even when he didn’t. But he wasn’t there.
And the truth sank into your chest, heavy and cold, like winter rain sliding under your ribs.
You had nowhere left to follow him. No footsteps to trace, no whispers to chase. Just the hollow echo of absence, and the slow, unbearable realization that maybe—just maybe—he was slipping away from you entirely.
But still—nothing.
The halls were empty, yet heavy. Every step echoed like a warning, a reminder of absence. Your chest felt hollow, as though someone had stolen the air and replaced it with stone. You turned back toward the school, dragging your feet, each step heavier than the last, until it happened:
A sound. A fragment. A laugh, so familiar it burned. Sylus.
Your body moved before your brain could catch up. Heart thrumming so loud it drowned the world, you followed, unthinking, desperate, like a moth drawn to flame—blind, helpless, stupidly hopeful.
Behind the bleachers, sunlight spilled across the red mat where he lay. Sylus. Silver hair catching the light, shoulders relaxed, mouth pressed against a sandwich as though the world had paused for him alone. The faint smear of mayonnaise on his lips gleamed. You could see it. And your chest convulsed at the sight.
Then—a hand reached for him. Gentle. Careful. Her hand. MC.
You froze. The air around you turned viscous, heavy, cruel. She brushed the smear from his lips, her fingers lingering for a heartbeat too long. The way she touched him—the tenderness—the intimacy—was a blade carving through your chest.
And then, the ultimate betrayal. He leaned into her. Slow. Deliberate. His silver hair brushed her cheek. His eyes softened in a way that was never meant for you. And finally… their lips met.
The world fractured.
The ground seemed to disappear beneath your feet, leaving only a chasm where your heart had been. Your lungs seized. You could not breathe, could not think, could not exist in the same universe as that moment. The sight—the sound—the way his body shifted toward her as though you didn’t exist—was a punch to your gut, a fire to your veins, a storm behind your eyes.
Sick. Hollow. Every nerve on fire. Every memory of him—every laugh, every shared secret, every fleeting smile—twisted into a dagger and pressed into your ribcage. Your hands trembled, your knees quivered. The air was too thick, too sharp, too cruel.
You ran.
Past the bleachers, past the hallways, past the cafeteria where you’d once laughed together, past the classrooms that held echoes of his voice. Your feet burned, your chest ached, tears blinding your vision, yet none fell. They couldn’t. If they fell, it would mean you were broken. You were broken anyway.
Their laughter followed you, haunting, mocking. Every step, every heartbeat screamed: he’s not yours.
The day had finally come. You were no longer the only girl in his world. He had found someone else—someone warmer, softer, brighter. Someone who would take the place your heart had carved for him.
And you? You were left clutching at emptiness, each memory a shard of glass pressing into your ribs. The sky above was indifferent, the city around you alive, yet you felt invisible, unmoored, a ghost of yourself.
You would survive this. Somehow. But the ache—the sharp, hollow, unrelenting ache—would follow you, echoing in every corner of your chest, in every quiet moment, for as long as you remembered him.
You didn’t know where your feet carried you. You didn’t care. You only knew that the world had narrowed to the pounding of your heart, the sting of tears blinding your vision, the burning ache of betrayal pressing on your chest.
It ended abruptly when your forehead collided with something solid. Pain flared through your skull, hot and sharp, and your cheeks flamed with the kind of humiliation that makes your stomach churn. You were already sobbing, the sound ragged and raw, and now the world had the gall to watch as you crumpled in the hallway. Students passed by, a blur of indifference, their whispers slicing like tiny knives.
“Ow…” you moaned, voice cracking under the weight of your own misery. You tried to rise, but your legs, heavy with exhaustion and grief, refused to cooperate. You sank back, your palms scraping against the cold floor, your body trembling. Another attempt, another failure—but this time, a hand reached toward you.
You lifted your tear-stained face and saw him: eyes like spring leaves in sunlight, impossibly green and impossibly calm. A senior, a grade above you and Sylus, someone who seemed to carry the air of quiet authority without trying.
“Are you alright?” His voice caught you off guard. Smooth. Unhurried. Like liquid silk sliding over raw nerves.
The truth hit you with brutal clarity—you hadn’t collided with a wall at all. You’d crashed into a person. The President of the Student Council of all people. Your face burned hotter than before; your ears felt as if they might combust.
“I… I’m so sorry,” you managed, trembling as you wiped your tears and tried to erase the marks of your breakdown from your hands. His extended hand hovered patiently in front of you, waiting without judgment.
You took it, letting him lift you to your feet. He stood taller than you imagined, and there was a strange calm in the tilt of his shoulders, the set of his jaw, that made your heart ache in a way you couldn’t name.
“It is not advisable for a student to run across the hallways of this school,” he said, his monotone voice smooth, almost hypnotic, “especially in such a state.” You could have listened to him forever—each word a gentle command, a fragile tether keeping you from falling apart entirely.
“I—I’m really sorry… for that, and for bumping into you,” you whispered, your gaze fixed on the floor, embarrassed beyond reason. How could you, a sixteen-year-old with your heart still raw, manage to face the head of the student council while looking like a child abandoned by the world?
“It is quite all right,” he said quietly. Then, without ceremony, “Let’s go.”
He turned, graceful and sure, and you exhaled, relief rushing like a tide. He had duties, responsibilities; surely, you weren’t part of them. His friends would follow him—surely.
And yet… you glanced up, just in time to meet his gaze. The green of his eyes held yours. A faint smile curved his lips, slow, deliberate.
You pointed at yourself, your voice hoarse and incredulous: “Me?”
He nodded. That smile never faltered.
“Oh,” you muttered, swallowing the panic twisting your throat. You cleared it, stepped forward, and followed.
A thousand thoughts collided in your head—detention? A warning? A scarlet letter branded on your reputation for reckless behavior? Expulsion? Mortification on an unthinkable scale?
“Calm down,” he interrupted, breaking the torrent of fear with a simple phrase, delivered like a hand on your shoulder when you were spinning out of control.
“Huh?” you mumbled, still shaking.
“I can see you stressing,” he said, a chuckle soft and warm, an anchor in the chaos. “You aren’t going to get in trouble. Don’t worry.”
“Then—then where are we going?” Your words were small, fragile.
“To the nurse’s office,” he said simply. “You hit your head pretty hard… on my chest.”
The words crashed through you. Your stomach turned, heat rushing to your cheeks, your brain stuttering. Your forehead had hit his chest. His chest—solid, unwavering, like it was built from something stronger than mere muscle. And he hadn’t even flinched.
“Are you… okay?” you whispered, guilt and awe tangled in your voice.
He nodded, calm and steady. “Why?”
“You… you hit me pretty hard. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Positive.”
You didn’t speak again. Not until the nurse’s office loomed, a sterile sanctuary from your chaos. You walked beside him, the weight of your emotions pressing against your ribs, your heart pounding in time with each deliberate step he took.
And somewhere, deep beneath the confusion, shame, and embarrassment, you noticed the way his presence—the very fact that he existed beside you—was pulling at the raw edges of your fractured heart.
“Do you want some candy?” His voice was soft, deliberate, like a secret offered in the middle of a storm. You had hoped, desperately, that Casley might be in the nurse’s office, that some familiar anchor could save you from the torrent of embarrassment that still clung to your skin.
But she wasn’t there. Of course she wasn’t.
He didn’t hesitate. He stepped beside you, silent, deliberate, the green of his eyes calm and impossible to read, following your shuffle through the nurse’s office. His presence was a quiet gravity, and though you tried to shrink into yourself, you felt the pull.
A piece of candy appeared in front of your face, startling you. You flinched, but before you could form a word, before you could even say no, his hand was there, guiding yours to accept it. Your fingers brushed. It lasted a second too long, and you felt it—an unspoken weight pressing against your chest.
“Um… thank you,” you whispered, your voice breaking like fragile glass.
He didn’t respond with words. He was already moving, rummaging through drawers with precision, the kind that made your heart thrum in your chest. You watched as he pulled a blue pouch, rinsed it under the sink, filled it with ice. The mundane motions became intimate choreography. Every action was deliberate, every glance charged with a quiet attention that made your skin prickle.
“Can you move your hair off your forehead?” His voice was calm, insistent, and it made your pulse jump.
You obeyed, hands trembling slightly as strands clung to damp tears. He stepped closer, carrying a chair with quiet strength, placing himself before you. Instinctively, you leaned back. Instinctively, he didn’t flinch.
He held the cold pack against your forehead. His touch was steady, deliberate. Focused. Nothing about him wavered, and yet, you felt every subtle warmth radiating from his palm, through the thin fabric of your shirt, into the tender skin of your temple.
“I can hold it,” you murmured, offering your hand, but he waved it away without a word.
Too kind. Too deliberate. Too close. It made your chest ache.
You noticed the small details—the faint bumps along the bridge of his nose, the scar at his temple, the sharp line of his jaw catching the sterile light of the nurse’s office. And then—his eyes.
Green. Deep, impossible, flecked with gold like sunlight spilling across a field of wildflowers. You felt yourself staring, hypnotized, and when his gaze found yours, your body stiffened, heat crawling up your neck. You forced your eyes down, to the floor, to the candy in your hand, anywhere but his.
He chuckled softly, a sound that threaded warmth through your panic. Your cheeks burned. And yet… you couldn’t stop yourself.
“You… you have really pretty eyes,” you blurted, and the words sounded like a confession. Immediate regret hit you, a cold sting against the warm ache in your chest.
“Thanks. So do you,” he said, the pack still resting gently against your forehead. His voice was calm, soft, and it sent tremors down your spine. The world narrowed. The hum of the office, the tick of the clock, even your own ragged breaths—faded into nothing.
You told him your name.
“Zayne,” he said, slow, deliberate.
“I know,” you whispered, and it was true. How could you not? He had presence, authority, a magnetic gravity that pulled attention and respect like tides to the moon. And yet… it wasn’t the campaigns, not the speeches, not the posters plastered across the school that made your heart stumble. It was the way he existed in the room, the way he moved, spoke, looked, breathed—it was impossibly intimate.
“You know?” he asked.
“Yes,” you murmured. “You were the one I voted for.”
His lips twitched into the faintest, quietest smile, and your chest caught in your throat. A smile that didn’t need words, that held warmth and recognition and… something else you couldn’t name.
“Thank you,” he said, and somehow, it felt like an offering, a quiet gift he had pressed into your trembling hands. You mirrored the smile, shy, tentative, and the cold pack pressed against your forehead was suddenly the most comforting weight in the world.
And for a fleeting, perfect second, the world made sense again—if only because he was there, close enough that your fingers had brushed, eyes nearly touching, breathing nearly shared.
The afternoon slipped past quietly, like sunlight filtering through clouds, soft and golden, untouched by the chaos of the world outside. You found yourself talking to Zayne as if you’d known him for years, though it had been only hours. He was grounded, warm in a way that made it easy to forget the heaviness in your chest. Each word, each laugh, felt like a tiny thread stitching the fragments of your day back together.
He told you the little things about himself—his likes, his dislikes, the odd quirks that made him real and human. You made a mental note never to give him carrots, despite his insistence that they were only for building snowmen when winter came. His cat, absurdly named Dog, sent a laugh bubbling up from your chest, a laugh you didn’t know you’d been holding back. He spoke of dreams, big and burning, of becoming a doctor one day. You told him, with a mix of awe and certainty, that the world would bend to him, that someone like him couldn’t fail even if he tried.
All the while, his hand remained pressed gently against your forehead, a silent anchor. The weight of it was grounding, reassuring—a steady presence that made the hours vanish like mist in the morning sun. You didn’t notice the cold numbness that had crept across your skin, or the ache in your muscles from sitting so still. All that existed was the warmth of his hand, the sound of his voice, and the strange, dizzying calm that wrapped around you like a fragile cocoon.
When Zayne finally lifted the compress, a soft hum of victory escaped him, a private celebration in the quiet room. “It won’t leave any bruises,” he said, his tone casual but triumphant, like a magician revealing the final trick.
You laughed softly, the sound threading through the still air. “Look at you, Doctor Zayne. You could practically perform surgery right now.” Your words were light, teasing, but the warmth in your chest betrayed the flutter that his nearness had stirred.
Zayne chuckled in response, and the sound reverberated somewhere deep inside you, a low, gentle resonance that refused to leave.
For the first time that day, you let yourself sink into the quiet, into the unspoken comfort of proximity, the strange, electric ache of being close to someone who felt like sunlight on a bruised heart.
That was two days ago. Two days since Sylus stopped talking to you. Two days since he and MC started going out, officially. They were titled as the power couple, really cringey but even you couldn’t deny the aura they carried.
You tried to not let it affect you. You busied yourself, did your homework faster than you usually would, ran outside to let off some steam during the night at bright places, stressed-ate, and did your chores even when you weren’t supposed to. All alone.
Now you were back in your bedroom. A jar and another half-filled with paper stars. That’s the only thing you did without him. Crafting paper stars was your thing, and your thing only. You tried to teach Sylus a few years back, but he somehow couldn’t do it. Maybe it was because of how large his fingers were, so it couldn’t cooperate with him. Maybe of how fidgety he was. Or maybe he was just really impatient. Nonetheless, you continued to do the paper stars whenever you were bored, needed something to fidget with, or when you felt alone.
Alone was a feeling you’d never had to meet before. But now, you found yourself learning its name, letting it settle beside you. It’s not like you had a choice, for it's the only companion you have known the past two days.
You look at your jar filled with paper stars, this wasn’t your first rodeo with star-filled-jars. The other jars were in Sylus’ bedroom. Whenever you filled a jar, Sylus gathered it as if it were something fragile and sacred. It was his way of saying that even if he couldn’t shape the stars himself, he would keep yours safe in the small universe he held for you.
Now you don’t know where to keep the two jars you’ve created. It made you think of him. You’ve told him you’re sorry over messages, but like the previous texts, he hasn’t bothered to check.
It was hard to imagine a world without Sylus by your side. It’s crazy. Over a decade of being by someone you thought could never go away.
But come on. You were being dramatic. It hadn’t even been a week. Sylus probably just… got swept up in it. Being there, laughing, talking, whatever it was with her. He’d realize soon enough. He always did. Once the week ended, he’d come back. He’d knock on your door, mutter some half-hearted apology, and everything would go back to normal.
It would, wouldn’t it?
You’d forgive him, like always. Pretend it never happened. Pretend your chest didn’t tighten every time you thought about it. Pretending the way it felt—the way it still felt—wasn’t enough to make you want to hide under the covers and never breathe. You’d learn to live with it. With the truth that maybe… just maybe… you weren’t going to be the only girl in his life.
And if you told yourself that enough times, maybe it would be true.
So you slipped back under the cover of your bed. Not to hide from the world, not to suffocate yourself—but to make the day end faster. To fast-forward through the hours until he came back. Until Sylus would knock on your door and everything would feel right again, like it always had.
You told yourself that five years ago.
You were now in your last year of college. Away from the neighborhood you grew up in. Away from 2nd Ave. Away from him.He never messaged you back. He didn’t talk to you. He didn’t knock on your door. He even swapped seats in every class just to sit as far away from you as possible.
And yet… you still clung to hope.
It was strange, thinking back from the perspective of college life. From here, everything felt distant—like watching an old movie you almost forgot the ending to. But you remembered that day as clearly as if it had happened yesterday. The disappointment, the silence, the way your world seemed to tilt when he was gone.
You opened your phone, scrolling through messages from Zayne. Yeah, you two were still in touch. It had been impossible not to grow close to him when he seemed to be there for you at every turn—your own anchor through the storm that Sylus left behind. You remembered how it all started, how his presence slowly became your safe space.
And then your mind drifted further back, to the moment that had changed everything. Prom. That night.
A year had passed, and prom came and went.
You didn’t go.
Not when the person who had promised to go with you went with someone else.
You told yourself over and over again that it was fine. Stupid, really, to expect anything else. To think that he would go with someone other than his girlfriend. Even though you had a dress picked out, even though your mind had been spinning with the thought of that night for months.
Prom night, you ate ice cream until it dulled the ache. You imagined him laughing, smiling, living the night without you. And it killed you.
Tears streamed down your face as you watched Me Before You for the tenth time. You had memorized every line, every scene, but this time… this time you cried harder. You didn’t know why—maybe because knowing the ending didn’t stop Will from leaving Louisa, maybe because everything Louisa did still couldn’t change his mind.
But deep down, you knew the truth. You just wanted a reason to cry.
That was… until you heard a knock on your door.
You wiped your tears on your sleeves, gulping down the ice cream still melting in your mouth. It was probably your mother. She had been far more attentive lately, ever since she noticed how withdrawn you’d become—how you barely left your room, how the world seemed to shrink to the size of your bed and your laptop.
The knock came again. Louder this time.
“Wait!” you called, your voice hoarse. You closed your laptop and pushed yourself off the bed, shuffling toward the mirror. Puffy cheeks, red eyes, the faint smear of ice cream around your mouth—every detail screamed that you had been crying.
You tried to make yourself presentable, brushing hair into something resembling order, smoothing your shirt. But the knocking continued, urgent and insistent, and eventually you gave up.
Grudgingly, you opened the door. “What is it—”
Your words caught in your throat.
It wasn’t your mother.
“Zayne?” you whispered, shock making your voice small.
Zayne. He had been there ever since Sylus disappeared from your life. At first, it seemed like chance—coincidental encounters at the library, the park, even the bleachers at school. Every time, he made it a point to talk to you, to make you laugh, to distract you. And you hadn’t minded. Not at all.
But over time, it became less random and more deliberate. He started making plans, weaving them around your schedule, phrasing everything so politely that it felt like you couldn’t say no. And you didn’t mind that either. Anything, anyone, to keep your thoughts from spiraling back to Sylus.
“I saw a new diner open nearby, so make sure you don’t eat anything before dinner. I’ll pick you up at six.”“I heard that you’re working on a group project on your own. Meet me at the library after your final class, I’ll help you.”“A movie with your favorite actor is showing tonight, I bought us tickets. Don’t be late.And for a while, it worked. With him, you could almost forget about Sylus. Zayne slowly coaxed your smile back, even if some of it felt forced, even if it hurt to laugh when your chest ached for someone else.
But every night, when the world grew quiet and the distractions disappeared, Sylus crept back into your thoughts. Seeing him—anyone, really—other than yourself felt strange, almost wrong. Even strangers seemed to notice, and sometimes they would say so.
But you refused to entertain it. It felt rude, selfish, even, to think such things—not when he had someone else. Every time someone asked, or wondered aloud why you and Sylus weren’t together anymore, you shut it down. You insisted it was rude to think that you two were entitled to each other, that people could exist apart, that you were allowed to live separate lives.
Even though it was all a lie.
Now here Zayne was, looking down to meet your gaze. He tilted his head in confusion, wondering why your cheeks were stained with the tears you let out earlier. You tried to look away in embarrassment but Zayne gently touched your chin and made you look back at him.
You take a look at what he’s wearing. A neat black suit and a sparkling bowtie. He had his hair swept back neatly, but a single strand had escaped, curling down across his forehead. It was almost cinematic, falling just above his eyes, softening his sharp features. It reminded you of Zayn Malik’s hair during that one event when he was still in One Direction.
You didn’t have the time to compliment him before he asked you.
“Why are you crying?”
You pushed him away gently, grabbing his hand to steady yourself. You forced a laugh, waving your hands as if dismissing him. “Pfft, what? Me, cry? Never!” The lie caught in your throat, but you knew Zayne didn’t believe a word.
He didn’t argue. Instead, he gave you a stern look before nudging you inside your room, making sure the door stayed three inches open, just like your dad wanted. He stepped in, eyes scanning the chaos on your bed.
Closed laptop. Messy sheets. An almost-empty tub of ice cream.
He glanced back at you, then pointed at the stool in front of your vanity. “Sit.”
You didn’t argue. You lowered yourself onto it, watching him grab the ice cream and laptop and move them to your bedside table.
“You weren’t at prom,” he said, not looking at you.
“I… I just didn’t have the time—”
He cut you off, holding up the comforter, which had splashes of ice cream and tear stains. “You bought your dress a month ago.”
You scratched your neck, trying to think of an excuse. “I… I suddenly remembered I had an assignment due at midnight. Half my grade.” You shrugged helplessly.
Zayne raised an eyebrow, clearly unconvinced. He carried the comforter to the laundry basket, then moved to your closet to grab a clean one. “Uh-huh. As far as I know, teachers aren’t supposed to give deadlines during prom night.”
“Yeah, well,” you gulped, “you know how Ms. P is. She’s allergic to happiness.”
He started changing your sheets, efficient and silent. “You really don’t have to do this. I can fix it tomorrow—”
You tried to stand to help, but as soon as your feet hit the floor, he shot you a glare that said, try me. You slumped back in defeat.
“You don’t have to tell me anything,” he said quietly, smoothing the new sheets over your bed and pillow. “Fine. I won’t force it out of you.”
You muttered a silent thank you, grateful that he didn’t press, grateful that he didn’t ask why you were alone on prom night.
He finished fixing your bed and sank down at its foot, patting the space beside him. Wordlessly, he invited you to sit. So you did.
You avoided his gaze, fingers fiddling with each other as your eyes stayed fixed on the floor.
“Are you okay?” His voice cut through the fog of your thoughts. For a moment, the hurt, the screams, the ache inside—you felt it all pause, frozen in that single question.
And then it broke.
“WAAAH!! HUHUH!!” Your sobs erupted, hands clutching your face as your body shook with the force of them. Shoulders rising and falling uncontrollably, your cries racked through you. Zayne immediately rose to close the door, leaving it just slightly ajar so your parents wouldn’t see.
Even then, the sobs didn’t stop. A pair of arms wrapped around you, and you clung to them without hesitation, pressing your face into Zayne’s shirt, drenching it with tears and mucus, barely aware of the mess you were making.
He didn’t scold you. He didn’t pry. He simply held you, rubbing your back and murmuring quiet, steadying words. Every now and then, a gentle kiss to your head, nothing more.
He didn’t tell you to stop. He didn’t ask why.
Because deep down, he already knew.
He knew everything—from the way you stood beside Sylus like an afterthought, to how he vanished the moment another girl caught his attention. That girl being, of course, the Vice President of the club he ran.
Zayne had made it his mission to help you get over him. He didn’t know why at first—maybe guilt, maybe pity, maybe just the stubborn sense that you deserved better. He didn’t even really know you. If he were honest, he only knew you as Sylus’ best friend. And yet, when you collapsed into his arms that day, he silently vowed to be there for you.
Somewhere along the way, though… he had fallen.
How could he not? The effort you poured into everything, even small things. The way your smile could light his week, even when he knew it was forced. The way your eyes sparkled when you talked about the things you loved. The way your voice carried when you rambled, leaving him hanging on every word. Adding to that, you also remembered everything about him—how he hated carrots, how you’d bring him candy because he’d eat it by the handful, no matter the time.
How could he not?
Even knowing your heart belonged to someone else, even knowing he was meant to be a temporary fix, a rebound, he stayed. Because your happiness mattered more than his own. Because if he could make you smile, even just a little, the pain of watching Sylus hurt you became bearable.
He was already in college—he’d graduated high school a year ago—but he came back before prom night, hoping for at least one dance with you. Prom night had been the breaking point. He searched the gym, the floors, the bleachers—anywhere you could have been. When he saw you absent from every spot, he went to your house. Your mother told him you hadn’t left your room, and so he knocked, hoping you would let him in.
He never dreamed of telling you how he felt. He didn’t want to ruin the friendship you’d built together. He simply hoped, maybe naively, that you’d realize it yourself. It wasn’t like he tried to hide his care for you; in his last year at DawnVille High, he tried to get you out of your room to hang out. He treated you to dinners, invited you to malls, studied with you in the library, in your room, or even at his.
When college came, he went to Linkon City to study at the best Medical School. It was hard, but he got into the school of his dreams. Even with his busy schedule, he made time for you. He called, visited, brought snacks you didn’t even ask for whenever you felt a little down—driving sixteen hours just to get snacks you could buy on 2nd Ave. Yet you never went to him; you never reached out when Sylus’ shadow loomed closer and closer.
Your cries tore at him. The sadness Sylus had left in you pained him deeply. And yet, he had no choice but to stay. To be there. To hold you. And knowing that he could—knowing that, in some small way, he was helping—you gave him enough peace to keep going.
He waited until you calmed down, until your sobs softened into sniffles, until your grip on him loosened. Until, finally, you were okay—or at least as okay as you could be in that moment. Between your cries, you confessed how stupid you felt, how much of an idiot you were. How your delusions had eaten you up. How you were ready to let everything go.
He listened.
Every rant, every self-inflicted insult, every desperate plea—he took it all in. And when you finally ran out of words, he reassured you, his voice calm and steady, almost convincing you that it was all going to be fine. Almost.
You realized just how close you both were, and you jumped out of his arms, flustered, before apologizing for ruining his shirt.
He waved it off. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got an extra shirt at home.”
“No!” You panicked. “You literally have a suit on, a fancy tux. I ruined it with my tears and snot!” You fumbled for your wallet, ready to offer money to get it fixed. But before you could, he gently took your hand and drew you into another hug.
“I don’t care about the suit,” he said, your name soft on his lips. “I just want you to be okay.”
You frowned, still guilty about his ruined clothes.
“How about you make it up to me, hm?” he asked, a teasing glint in his eyes.
You lifted your head from his chest, meeting his gaze. “What is it?”
“Dinner. Together. At Dan’s Diner.”
It was perfect. After days of nothing but ice cream, it sounded like heaven.
Then came your breaking point. Two whole years of Sylus ignoring you. Two years of silence, distance, empty seats, and pretending you didn’t exist. You endured all of it. You swallowed every ache, every humiliation, and you never complained to anyone except Zayne. And in return, you tried to ignore Sylus too—tried.
Then the rumors started.
People began whispering that you were seeing the student council president, Zayne Li, once you reached senior year. The rumors were vicious. Every corner you turned, students looked at you like you were a disease they didn’t want to catch. At first you didn’t get it. Okay, so what if people thought you were seeing Zayne—even though you weren’t? It wasn’t their business.
But then came the names.
It happened first in the library. A group of boys walked past your table. Nothing out of the ordinary—until they got closer. Without even looking at you, one of them muttered under his breath, “Slut.” His friends snickered as they walked away. You froze, unsure if you even heard him correctly. And even if you did, it couldn’t have been directed at you… right?
You forced yourself to ignore it and went back to reading. But the moment your break was over and you stepped into the hallway, the air shifted. Laughter echoed everywhere. You didn’t pay attention at first—you were good at being invisible. But then you heard it again.
“What a slut,” a girl giggled.
Confusion twisted in your stomach. You lifted your head, only to hear a sharper insult from your left. “Wh*re.” Someone snickered, loud enough that it couldn’t be an accident.
Your heart dropped. Because when you looked around, everyone was already staring at you. Heat crept up your face, stomach churning as you walked quickly toward your next class, still in disbelief.
You sat down and waited for the teacher. No one looked at you at first—until your chair scraped the floor. Heads snapped toward you instantly. Some looked disgusted. Some embarrassed for you. Some were amused. You shrank into your seat, staring at your desk.
Then the girls behind you started speaking loud enough for the whole room to hear.
“Can you believe it? Even I wouldn’t be that desperate,” one said, shooting you a quick glance.
“It’s always the quiet ones,” her friend added.
“Right?” the first girl laughed, then looked directly at you. “So is it true? After you couldn’t bag Sylus, you went after the school prodigy, Zayne Li? Are you really that desperate for popularity that you whore around popular guys?”
Laughter erupted. You froze.
“What?” you muttered.
She mimicked you instantly. “Whaa?” More laughter. “Who’s next? That purple-haired artist in Class A—Rafayel?”
“She’s already all over him,” her friend chimed in. “I guess being away from Zayne can’t contain her hunger for dick.”
Your hands trembled. Your breathing went uneven. Nothing—nothing—they were saying was true. Yes, Rafayel was your art partner. That was it. Yes, you and Zayne kept in touch after he graduated, but how did anyone even find out? People had always hated how close you were to Sylus or Zayne, but no one had ever said anything this cruel directly to you.
“You have no one to protect you now,” the girl taunted. “Loverboy One obviously has a girl. And it won’t be long before Loverboy Two finds one now that he’s away from you.”
You were about to defend yourself—finally—when you saw him.
Sylus.
He was standing inside the classroom. You didn’t know how long he’d been there.
Had he heard everything?
Or did he come just in time to pretend he didn’t?
Your eyes met his, pleading for anything. A word. A frown. A step forward. Some sign that the boy you grew up with was still in there somewhere.
Instead, he looked away.
He walked to the farthest seat from you and sat down like you were invisible.
Ouch. That hurt more than every insult combined.
This was the same boy who used to fight anyone who looked at you wrong. The boy who once promised he’d always protect you. The boy who used to treat you like you were something fragile, precious, irreplaceable.
Now he looked at you like gum stuck to the bottom of his shoe.
And that was when the tears finally formed in your eyes.
You took every insult that came after that.
Because the cruelest insult was the look he gave you.
That night, you stripped your room bare of anything that dared to whisper his name. His pencil. Your eraser—poked through with holes from the days he wouldn’t stop fidgeting. The shared notebook filled with lopsided doodles and half-finished jokes. His shirt. His hoodie. His blanket. The keys to his home. Even the handkerchief he pressed onto your forehead once, when the sun hit your eyes too sharply.
One by one, you shoved them into a box. Not neatly—never neatly. You crushed everything together, as if chaos could make the detachment easier. Tears fell before you could stop them, soaking into old cotton, warping notebook paper. Little stains he’d never notice. Little pieces of you he never cared enough to keep.
You taped the flaps shut with shaking hands, the motion weighted by the fragile hope that returning his things might somehow make him return your heart.
Call it dramatic if you want, but losing a twelve-year friendship feels heavier than the day your cat died—because back then, even in that grief, he was still there to hold you together. Now you’re mourning the loss of the one person who once helped you survive every other loss.
You never wanted anything more than what you had. The feelings that grew between the cracks were accidents—stubborn, uninvited things you tried so hard to starve. You didn’t need romance. You didn’t need constant attention. You just needed your friend not to pretend you were invisible.
When the tape finally held, you stared at the box—heavy with the weight of years, of memories, of a version of him you were terrified no longer existed. Then your gaze drifted upward.
Paper stars.
Once, they lived in two jars on your shelf. Then five. Then ten. Loneliness had crept into you exactly where Sylus used to fit, and every night you folded another star. Sometimes two. Sometimes five. By the end of junior year, five jars glimmered back at you. Now, with senior year slipping away, ten jars crowded every inch of space he never bothered to fill.
You gathered them carefully, the way you wished he had gathered you.
A smaller box this time. Gentle hands this time. Ten jars of folded heartache—your only thing that had ever truly been yours. And still, you were giving it back to him. Maybe out of hope. Maybe out of desperation. Maybe because letting go felt like the only thing left you could do.
You wiped your face with the heel of your palm, smearing away the angry tears, the exhausted ones, the ones that felt too old for your body. Then you stood, gripping both boxes—twelve years in cardboard—and walked toward the door, toward his house, toward whatever ending waited for you.
The walk to his house was painfully quiet. Only your own muffled sobs kept you company, echoing in the hollow space your chest had become. By the time you reached the front of his house,, your arms were numb from carrying the boxes, but the physical ache didn’t matter. It was nothing compared to the heaviness clawing at your ribs, the grief that made every step feel like a betrayal of the person you used to be.
You stood at the edge of his yard, staring at the dark windows—silent, still, untouched. Memories blurred into the present: the nights you stayed over, laughter spilling into the walls, whispered conversations that felt endless. Now the house stared back like it didn’t remember you at all.
The lights were off. No footsteps. No warmth. Nothing.
Your mom had mentioned that his parents left earlier that morning to visit family. But Sylus hadn’t gone with them. You didn’t have to ask why. He was with MC, like he always seemed to be now—as if that had become his new home.
A perfect time to leave the boxes, then. A perfect time to finally let go.
A week before everything shattered, you had already told your parents you might be leaving sooner than planned. The school had sent an email, insisting students arrive a month early to settle in and prepare. A clean, practical reason to disappear.
You never told anyone except Zayne. And now, with exams behind you and your heart feeling too bruised to stay, the truth settled over you with an awful certainty:
You were more than ready to leave. You were ready to vanish from a place that no longer had room for you.
You’d find a new favorite corner store at Linkon, because the one by yours still feels like him. The restaurants are haunted, the streets of broken promise. You already said it, that you think you’d break if you would have stayed. Now you’ll move and give all his things away.
So you left his stuff—the boxes, your jar filled with paper stars, his keys, and his mail—in the doorway. He didn’t know it yet, but by morning, he wouldn’t see any part of you.
Then you swore to yourself that you’d be fine, that you’d be good. But, of course, you’d keep loving him more than you should. And he… he’d keep the neighborhood.
a/n: dk how schools in america works. dk if this was good or not. sorry hehe. um, part 2???
the j in jujutsu corp stands for jeez why are we still working here...
【 A FIVE PART SERIES 】 . . . the hectic life of sleep-deprived employees, their shithole of a company, and you, the friendly new intern who wears the chanel spring 2026 two-piece to work. welcome to jujutsu corp, where your arrival finally brings color (and much needed gossip) to the office.
content: language, crude humor, crack fic, modern au, office au, female reader, intern!reader, reader is a nepo baby but everyone loves her bc she’s cool, reverse harem, everyone is an adult, the company stuff in this fic is not peer-reviewed
✶ MASTERLIST UNDER THE CUT !!
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✶ 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒 (can be read in any order)
( the ones marked with ✶ are written parts )
┊ our new intern wears chanel to work
┊ boss if you make her cry one more time our stock plummets ✶
┊ team building is why our company’s in shambles
┊ do ghosts work overtime?
┊ the security files (they almost got fired)
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✶ ݁ TAGLIST
the ones that filled up this form will automatically be tagged! you can also comment or send me an ask :)
⚜ summary: The soulmark system is supposed to be simple: two names, one great love, one companion. But when you, Mei, and Prince Caleb all bear each other's names, the truth becomes impossibly tangled. Some truths reveal themselves only in death, and some loves are understood only when they can no longer be returned.
⚜ cw: MDNI, fem!reader, non-mc reader, soulmate au, arranged marriage au, unrequited love, heavy angst, AGAIN HEAVY ANGST, love triangles, miscommunication, misunderstandings, mc is mei, ancient china au, court politics, tragedy, tw mentions of contraceptives/abortifacients, tw concubinage, tw childbirth, tw death from childbirth, angst with a bittersweet ending, major character death, prince!caleb, no one is the villain they're all just blind, unbetad, unedited.
⚜ wc: 18k, went all out here lol
⚜ a/n: I kind of rushed this because I want to post this before Caleb's myth drops, so I am so sorry if the writing is bad and the angst is meh. Also, due to the character limit, the format might feel weird, I recommend reading in AO3 instead.
⚜ arranged marriage aus | lads masterlist | AO3
I
Your nursemaids tell you stories about soulmarks before you are old enough to understand what they mean.
They say that sometimes a person bears two names on their wrists when they come of age. The marks appear without warning, as if written by an invisible brush. One name is the great love, the soul you are bound to above all others, the one who will consume you, complete you, destroy you if you lose them. The other is the companion, the soul that walks beside you through life, steady and true, a hand to hold when the path grows dark.
The marks never tell you which is which, that is what you must learn by living.
Some say the cruelest fate is not to lose a name, but to watch one change color and finally understand which it was. When your great love dies, their name darkens on your wrist like a bruise that never heals. When your companion dies, their name turns grey, like ash, like a memory fading.
You are seven years old when you first hear this story and you do not think about it much. Seven-year-olds do not worry about death or love or the mysteries written on skin that has not yet appeared.
You think about apple orchards instead.
The imperial palace has extensive grounds, and your father's position as a high-ranking lord means your family has chambers here, close to the court. You have the run of the gardens when your tutors release you from your lessons. The apple orchard is your favorite place, the rows and rows of trees heavy with fruit in autumn, branches perfect for climbing in summer, blossoms like snow in spring.
Caleb is always there.
He is a prince, the third son of the Emperor, which means he has more freedom than his older brothers. He does not have to sit through as many state functions or memorize as many treaties. He spends his afternoons in the orchard, reading under the trees or playing with his wooden practice sword.
You are shy around him at first. He is older, ten to your seven, and he is a prince, but he has kind eyes and a patient manner, and when you climb too high and cannot get down, he laughs and helps you, boosting you onto his shoulders to reach the ground.
"You are brave," He sets you down gently. "Most children would cry."
You flush with pride and do not tell him you wanted to cry very much.
Mei comes into your life when you are eight.
Her family are retainers to your household, lower in rank but trusted. Her mother serves your mother, her father serves your father, and now she is assigned to serve you.
Mei is exactly one year older than you, nine years old with serious eyes and a protective streak that runs deeper than the rivers surrounding the capital. She finds you in the orchard one afternoon, crying under an apple tree because one of the palace children, a duke's daughter with a cruel tongue, called you a country bumpkin and plain.
"Who said that?" Mei's voice is fierce. "Tell me who said that."
You shake your head, hiccuping.
"It does not matter. She is stupid and her eyes are bad." Mei sits beside you, pulling you against her side. "You are not plain. You are my lady. Mine to serve, mine to protect, and anyone who says different is a liar."
You rest your head on her shoulder and feel the tears dry. There is something about Mei that makes you feel safe. Something about the way her arm wraps around you, solid and certain.
"Will you stay with me?" you ask, and your voice is small.
"Always," Mei promises and reaches for your hand. "Where you go, I go."
Caleb finds you both there an hour later, and that is how it begins.
The three of you in the orchard, Mei's hand always finding yours first, Caleb's laugh bright as lantern lights, and you in the middle, not yet understanding what you are building.
You turn nine, then ten. Caleb turns thirteen, then fourteen. Mei turns ten then eleven, and she grows tall and graceful, her childhood roundness replaced by elegant lines.
You notice the way Caleb looks at her.
It starts small. He stumbles over his words when she speaks to him. He watches her when he thinks no one is looking. He brings her gifts, ribbons for her hair, a hairpin carved from jade, a book of poetry he claims he found in the market but you suspect he bought specifically for her.
Mei accepts these gifts politely, but there is distance in her manner. She does not blush nor simper. She does not gaze at him the way the court ladies gaze at princes.
She looks at you instead.
You are too young to understand what that means.
The years continue to pass. You turn twelve, then thirteen. Caleb is sixteen now, nearly a man, his shoulders broadening, his voice deepening. He has begun training with the imperial guard, learning strategy and swordcraft. He is good at it. Everyone says so.
Mei is fifteen now, and she is beautiful. You are not blind to it. The court notices her now, despite her lower rank. Men watch her when she walks through the palace gardens. Marriage offers have begun arriving for her family to consider.
She dismisses them all.
"I am not interested," she tells you one evening while she is brushing your hair in your chambers. "My place is here, with you."
"But you could marry well," you protest. "You could have your own household, your own…"
"I could." Her hands are gentle, working through a tangle. "But I do not want to. I want to stay here with you. Is that so strange?"
You do not know how to answer that.
Caleb's feelings for Mei are no longer a secret, at least not to you. He is obvious about it now, seeking her out in the gardens, asking her to walk with him, writing poetry that he does not give her but leaves where you might find it.
You read one once.
It compared her eyes to lotus pools and her grace to a heron taking flight.
You fold it carefully and return it to its hiding place. You do not tell anyone about it. You certainly do not tell Mei. Watching Caleb fall in love with her is both painful and beautiful. Painful because you…
You do not let yourself finish that thought.
The apple pies start when you are thirteen.
The cook in your father's kitchens makes them perfectly, sweet and tart, the crust flaky, the filling rich with cinnamon. She makes them for the household, small luxuries to brighten the long summer days.
Mei steals the first one.
"Come on," she whispers, catching your hand and pulling you toward the back stairs. "While everyone is at court."
You follow because you always follow her.
You sneak through the servants' corridors, giggling, the stolen pie warm in Mei's hands. You eat it in the orchard under your favorite tree, passing it back and forth, licking cinnamon from your fingers.
"We will get in trouble," you complain, but you are laughing.
"We will not. I will take the blame if anyone asks." Mei grins at you, her face smudged with apple filling. "Worth it though, was it not worth it?"
It was. It is. Every stolen moment with her is worth it.
You steal pies together all that summer.
It becomes your secret, your private rebellion.
Sometimes Caleb joins you, and then it is the three of you again, laughing, eating too fast, lying in the grass and watching clouds drift across the sky. Those are the good days. The golden days. The ones you will remember later when everything has gone wrong.
You turn fourteen. Your childhood is ending, sliding away like silk through your fingers. You begin attending more formal functions, your education intensifying. You learn household management and history, poetry and music. You learn how to smile and curtsy and all other things that daughters of noble houses do.
You learn how to watch Caleb watch Mei and pretend your heart is not breaking. You are old enough to name the feeling that has been growing in your chest for years now.
You are in love with Caleb.
You have been in love with him since you were seven years old and he lifted you down from a tree. You have been in love with him through every afternoon in the orchard, every stolen pie, every moment of laughter and lightness. Every time he shared his cloak when it rained, every time he noticed you were sad before you said anything, every kindness you took for granted.
But he does not see you, not the way you want him to.
He sees only Mei.
You cannot blame him.
Mei is extraordinary. She is everything you are not, confident where you are hesitant, bold where you are careful, beautiful that sometimes people stop and stare.
She is your dearest friend. Your protector. Your companion.
How can you resent her when you love her almost as much as you love him?
You tell no one about your feelings for Caleb. Not Mei, the person you trust the most, not your mother, not even your diary. You bury them deep, pressing them down like stones at the bottom of a river. You smile when he talks about Mei. You nod sympathetically when he confides his fears that she will never return his affection.
You are a good friend. A very good companion.
II
Your mark appears on the morning of your fifteenth birthday.
You wake to find two names written on your inner left wrist in ink that seems to shimmer when you move your arm.
Caleb
Mei
You sit on your bed for a long time, staring at your wrist. Your heart is pounding so hard you can hear it in your ears.
Two names.
One is your great love. One is your companion.
You know with certainty that it feels like destiny that Caleb is your great love. He has to be. You have loved him for eight years. He is written in your bones, carved into your heart. The mark is simply confirming what you have always felt.
And Mei…
Mei is your companion. Your truest friend. The person who has walked beside you through childhood, who has held your hand promised to never leave.
It makes perfect sense.
You should feel happy. You should feel hopeful. Instead, you feel strange, as if the world has shifted and nothing is quite where it should be.
You dress quickly and go to find Mei.
She is in her family's chambers, and when she opens the door, you see immediately that her mark has appeared as well. She is wearing longer sleeves, but you can see the edge of ink peeking out at her wrist.
"It happened," you say, and your voice sounds breathless.
Mei nods.
She does not look happy. Her expression is unreadable.
"Mine too," she replies, her voice quiet and almost reluctant.
You enter her room and close the door behind you.
"Will you show me?"
For a moment, you think she will refuse, then she pushes back her sleeve.
Two names.
Your name and Caleb.
The same names as yours. The same two people.
You do not know what to say, you just stand there, staring at her wrist.
"We have the same marks," you say, and it is not a question.
"Yes."
"That means..." You trail off.
Mei pulls her sleeve back down, hiding the names.
"It means we are both connected to each other and to him. That is all."
But it cannot be all. The marks mean something, they have to mean something.
"Do you think..." You wet your lips. "Do you think you know which is which? For you, I mean?"
Mei looks at you for a long moment. There is an emotion in her eyes you cannot name, it makes your chest tight.
"I think," she starts slowly, "that the marks do not tell us. We have to live and discover the truth ourselves."
"But you must have a sense. You must feel…"
"I feel many things." Mei cuts you off gently. "But I do not think it is wise to make assumptions. Not yet."
You want to demand she tell you what she is thinking, but Mei has always been private, and you have learned not to press when she closes herself off.
"Will you tell me?" you ask instead. "When you know for certain?"
"Yes." She takes your hand, squeezes once. "I will tell you everything. I promise."
You leave her chambers feeling unsettled. The conversation felt wrong, but you cannot put your finger on what.
Caleb's mark appears three days later.
He comes to the orchard in the afternoon, face flushed with excitement, and shows you and Mei his wrist without preamble.
Your name
Mei
The same names. All three of you connected in a triangle, bound by invisible threads of fate.
"This is it," Caleb looks at Mei with such naked hope that you have to look away. "This is proof. You are one of my soulmates, Mei. I knew it. I have always known it."
Mei says nothing. Her face is very still.
"Mei?" Caleb's smile falters. "Are you not happy?"
"I am..." She pauses. "I am surprised. I had not thought…"
"You have my name, do you not?" He reaches for her wrist, pushes back her sleeve before she can stop him. You see the flicker of emotion cross his face when he sees your name alongside his. "We all have each other's names. We are all bound together."
"Yes," Mei says quietly. "We are."
"Then this is fate." Caleb is still smiling. "You see? The gods have decided for us. You cannot refuse me now. You cannot say we are not meant to be together."
Mei gently pulls her arm free.
"The marks tell us we are connected. They do not tell us how."
"One of us is the great love. One of us is the companion." Caleb's voice is earnest. "I know which you are, Mei. I have known since I was thirteen years old."
You stand there, watching this exchange, and you feel as if you are disappearing. Neither of them is looking at you. Neither of them is acknowledging that your name is there too, that you are part of this triangle as well.
"Caleb," Mei says, and her voice is gentle but firm. "This is not the time for such declarations."
"When is the time?" He is pleading. "I have waited years, Mei. Years. Tell me you feel nothing, and I will stop. Tell me I am wrong."
Mei does not answer. She is looking at you instead, her expression unreadable.
"I think," you speak instead, and your voice sounds distant even to your own ears, "that we should not make assumptions. The marks have only just appeared. We have time to understand what they mean."
Caleb finally looks at you. You see the moment he remembers you are there, standing beside him, your wrist bearing the same names as theirs.
"You are right," he says, and he sounds chastened. "I am sorry. I got carried away. This is…this affects all of us. Not just me."
"Yes." You manage a smile. "It affects all of us."
But you already know that Caleb's mind is already made up. He has decided Mei is his great love. He has decided the story of his marks before he has lived it.
And you are the companion. The friend, the third point to fate’s triangle.
Later that night, alone in your chambers, you trace the names on your wrist with one finger.
Caleb. Mei.
You know which is which, you have always known.
Caleb is your great love. He is the one who will consume you, complete you, destroy you when you lose him.
Mei is your companion. Your steadiest friend. The one who walks beside you.
The marks have simply confirmed what your heart already knew.
III
The summons comes three months after the marks appear.
Your father's household is to meet with the imperial court to discuss a formal arrangement. You, Mei, and your families are to attend. Caleb will be there as well, representing the royal family's interests.
You know what this is before you arrive. You have heard your mother and father discussing it in low voices, arguing behind closed doors. You have seen the way the court ladies watch Caleb now, whispering behind their fans, calculating his worth as a potential match.
You know what is coming, and you feel numb about it.
The meeting takes place in one of the smaller audience halls. Your father and mother sit on cushions across from the Emperor's representative, an elderly minister with shrewd eyes and a neutral expression. Mei's parents are there as well, seated slightly behind, their faces tense.
Caleb stands to one side in formal court robes. He looks older than his eighteen years, solemn and princely. He does not look at you or Mei. His gaze is fixed somewhere in the middle distance, his jaw tight.
The minister speaks first. His voice is dry and formal, reciting the terms like he is reading from a ledger.
The arrangement is this:
You will be betrothed to Caleb as his primary wife. Your rank demands it. You are the daughter of a high-ranking lord, a princess in all but name. The match is appropriate, politically advantageous, entirely proper.
Mei will be given to Caleb as his concubine. Her family's status as retainers, servants, three generations of faithful service but no title, no land, no name of consequence, makes her ineligible for the role of wife, but the marks have spoken. The gods have written both of your names on his wrist, and to ignore the marks entirely would be to insult heaven.
Any child that Mei bears will be recorded as yours. The lineage will be clean. On paper, you will be the mother of all his children, whether they come from your body or hers, ensuring the imperial bloodline remains unbroken.
Everyone in the room remains very still while the minister speaks. You focus on your breathing, in, out, in, out, because if you focus on that, you do not have to think about what is being said.
When the minister finishes, your father speaks. "This arrangement is acceptable to our house."
Mei's father speaks next, his voice tight. "It is acceptable to ours as well."
They do not ask you. They do not ask Mei. Women do not get asked in matters like these.
Caleb finally looks at you, but you cannot understand his expression. It is blank, the face he has learned to perfect for courtly functions. Then he looks at Mei, and his face changes and softens.
The minister continues with more details.
The formal ceremony will take place in three years. There will be a betrothal period where you and Caleb will be expected to spend time together, to learn each other, to prepare for married life.
Mei will move into Caleb's household two weeks after the wedding. That is the tradition, the wife is installed first, before the concubine is brought in.
You find this detail particularly bitter. Two weeks. Two weeks of pretending to be a new wife before your dearest friend, your companion, is moved into the same house, into your husband's bed.
The meeting ends. You stand and bow. Everyone bows. You are dismissed.
In the courtyard outside, Mei catches your arm, her grip is tight enough to hurt.
"I do not want this," she whispers. "I do not want him. You know that, do you not? You know I have never wanted him."
"Then why did your parents agree?" You cannot keep the hurt from your voice.
"They had no choice. When the imperial court makes a request, it is not truly a request." Mei's eyes are bright with anger. "But I am telling you now, I do not want this. I will not pretend I am happy about it."
"Neither am I." The words come out sharper than you intend.
Mei flinches.
"You are angry with me."
"I am not angry with you. I am angry with…" You gesture helplessly at the palace around you, at the whole structure of it, the system that decides women's lives without consulting them. "I am angry with everything."
"Then we are in agreement." Mei's voice softens. "We are both trapped."
You look at her and see the exhaustion in her face. She looks older than her sixteen years. There are shadows under her eyes, and her usual confidence is stripped away.
"I need you to do something for me," you hear yourself say.
Mei straightens.
"Anything."
"I need you to..." You stop before forcing yourself to continue. "I need you to go along with this. Be what Caleb wants. Be what Caleb needs."
"What?" Mei's voice is sharp. "Why would I do that?"
"Because if you do not, he will be miserable, and if he is miserable, this whole arrangement falls apart, and then what happens? They send you to a different household? Marry you off to some stranger? I will lose you entirely." You are speaking too fast now, the words tumbling out. "But if you do this, if you accept your position in his household, then we stay together. You and I. That is all I care about. Staying together."
"You cannot ask this of me."
"I am asking. I am begging." Your voice breaks. "Please, Mei. Please do this, if not for him, then do it for me."
Mei stares at you for a long moment. You see her throat work, see her blink rapidly as if fighting tears.
"You do not understand what you are asking."
"I do."
"You do not." Her voice is cold. "But I will do it. If this is what you truly want, I will do it. I will be what he wants. I will be what he needs."
The words sound like a vow and a curse all at once.
You reach for her hand.
"Thank you."
Mei does not answer. She pulls away from you and walks across the courtyard, her back straight. You watch her go and feel something inside you breaks.
Later, when you are alone in your chambers, you will wonder why you did that. Why you asked her to sacrifice herself. Why you thought that was the solution, but in this moment, you tell yourself it makes sense. You tell yourself you are keeping her close, keeping her safe, keeping her yours in the only way the world will allow.
You tell yourself many lies that evening.
IV
The betrothal period passes in a blur.
Three years is a long time to pretend.
You spend time with Caleb as required. You take walks in the gardens, attend court functions together, sit across from each other at formal dinners and make polite conversation. You learn his preferences, how he likes poetry but cannot stand most music, how he has a sweet tooth he tries to hide, how he is terrible at strategy games but too proud to admit it.
He is kind to you. He treats you with the respect due a future wife, but his eyes are always searching the room for Mei. You pretend not to notice.
Mei, true to her word, allows Caleb's courtship. She accepts his gifts. She walks with him when he asks. She smiles politely when he attempts poetry. She does everything a concubine-to-be is expected to do.
But there is a distance in her manner. There is a wall she has built between herself and him, invisible but unmistakable. She goes through everything without being truly present.
You wonder if Caleb notices. You suspect he does not.
There are moments, though. Moments when it feels almost like before.
One afternoon in the second year of your betrothal, the three of you find yourselves in the orchard together. It is autumn, the trees heavy with fruit, the air crisp and clean. Caleb plucks an apple from a low-hanging branch and tosses it to you.
"Remember when we used to steal pies from the kitchen?"
You catch the apple, surprised by the sudden nostalgia in his voice.
"Of course. Mei was always the one who got us into trouble."
"I was the one who got us out of it," Mei retorts, but she is smiling.
It is a real smile, not the polite mask she wears at court.
"You were both terrible influences." Caleb's voice is warm, teasing, he sounds like the boy you knew at ten. "I was a perfect prince before I met you."
"You were boring," Mei counters.
"I was dignified."
"Boring," you and Mei say in unison, and then all three of you are laughing.
You sit in the grass, passing the apple back and forth, and for a moment, it is like nothing has changed, like you are still children without complications, still friends who steal pies and climb trees and watch clouds.
"I wish it could stay like this," Caleb admits quietly.
The words hang in the air. You want to agree, want to reach for that feeling and hold it tight, but Mei's smile fades.
"It cannot," she says. "It never could."
Caleb's face closes off. You look away. The three of you sit in silence for a while longer, and then Caleb makes an excuse and leaves. Mei watches him go, her expression unreadable.
"Someone will always be unhappy," she murmurs so softly you almost miss it.
You do not know who she means, perhaps all of you.
The wedding ceremony is elaborate and exhausting.
You are eighteen now, no longer a child.
You wear red silk embroidered with phoenixes in gold thread. Your hair is arranged in an intricate style that takes hours and hurts your scalp. Your face is painted and your lips stained crimson. You look like a doll. A beautiful, expensive doll.
Caleb wears matching red, his robes heavy with embroidery. At twenty one, he has grown into his features, handsome and princely and entirely unlike the boy you used to steal pies with in the orchard.
You exchange vows in front of the entire court. You drink from the same cup. You bow to his ancestors and to the Emperor. You become his wife in the eyes of the gods and the empire. Through it all, you smile and say the right words and do not let yourself feel anything.
After the ceremony, there is a feast. Hundreds of guests, endless courses, music and dancing. You sit beside Caleb at the head table and accept congratulations. People toast your health, your happiness, your future children.
Mei is somewhere in the crowd. You catch glimpses of her throughout the evening, always at a distance, never meeting your eyes. She is wearing pale pink, a concubine's color, and she looks beautiful and sad and so very alone.
The ceremony for taking Mei as concubine happens a week later. It is quieter, more private. Only close family and a few court officials attend.
Mei wears crimson as well, though a simpler style than your wedding robes. She kneels before Caleb and you, you, his wife, granting permission for her to enter the household. She bows three times. She pledges her loyalty to you first, then to him.
When she rises, her eyes are dry, but you see the strain in the set of her shoulders.
That evening, Caleb comes to your chambers.
It is your wedding night, delayed by a week to accommodate the concubine ceremony. Custom demands he spend this night with you, his wife, before he is allowed to turn his attention elsewhere.
You are ready or as ready as you can be. Your maidservant has prepared you, dressed you in a thin sleeping robe, arranged your hair. You sit on the edge of the bed and try to calm your racing heart.
Caleb enters. He looks nervous. He is still in his formal robes, though he has removed the outer layers.
"You look lovely," he says, and it sounds reflexive, the thing he was supposed to say.
"Thank you." Your voice is steady.
He sits beside you on the bed and the mattress dips under his weight. You can smell the incense that was burned during the ceremony earlier, still clinging to his clothes.
"I…" He stops."You understand, do you not?"
The question hangs in the air. You could pretend you do not know what he means. You could make him say it outright, but what would be the point? You are not cruel enough to make him spell out what you already know.
"Yes," you reply quietly. "I understand."
"I do not want to hurt you." His voice is earnest. He sounds young suddenly, younger than his twenty one years. "You are my wife. I will always respect you. I will always honor you, but my heart…"
"Is elsewhere." You finish the sentence for him. "I know, Caleb. I have always known."
He looks at you and you see guilt flicker across his face.
"Forgive me."
"Do not be sorry. The arrangement was not your choice any more than it was mine."
"Still. You deserve better than this. Better than a husband who…" He cannot finish the sentence.
You reach out and take his hand. His fingers are warm, slightly calloused from sword practice.
"Shall I tell you what I think?"
"Please."
"I think we can build a good life together. Perhaps not the life you dreamed of, or the one I dreamed of, but a good life nonetheless. We have been friends since childhood. That is more than most married couples can claim."
"Friends." He sounds sad. "Yes. We have been that."
"So let us continue to be that. Friends who share a household. Friends who support each other, and who fulfill our duties with grace." You squeeze his hand once. "We do not have to pretend to have great passion when we both know the truth."
"You are generous," Caleb says.
"I am practical."
"No. You are generous, and I do not deserve your kindness."
He leans forward and kisses you. It is gentle, chaste, a kiss between friends rather than lovers, then he stands.
"I should go," he says. "I should let you rest."
You nod. You do not point out that this is your wedding night, that custom demands more than a single kiss. You do not mention that the servants will notice, will gossip, will speculate about what it means that he is leaving so quickly. You let him go.
When the door closes behind him, you sit very still for a long time. You do not cry. You simply sit and breathe and accept that this is your life now.
Your marriage. Your role. Your future.
The next morning, you learn that Caleb spent the night in Mei's chambers.
V
The first months of marriage settle into a rhythm.
You wake early, attend to your duties as Caleb's wife. You manage the household, oversee the servants, handle correspondence. You are good at this, the careful navigation of social hierarchies, the endless small decisions that keep a prince’s estate running smoothly. Your mother trained you well.
Caleb is often away during the day, attending court functions or military training. When he is home, he is pleasant. He asks about your day. He ensures you have everything you need. He is a model husband in every way except the one that matters.
Mei lives in the chambers adjacent to yours, and you see her every day. You take your meals together when Caleb is absent. You walk in the gardens, sit in the pavilion overlooking the lotus pond, sometimes you steal away to the kitchens late at night to share rice cakes and talk about the rumors you hear at court.
In those moments, it almost feels like before, like you are still children, but then Caleb comes home, and everything shifts.
He seeks Mei out immediately. He brings her gifts, bolts of silk, jade ornaments, books of poetry. He writes her letters even though they live in the same household. He requests her company for meals, for evening walks, for viewing the moon.
Mei accepts these attentions with polite grace. She never refuses him. She never encourages him either. She exists in a strange middle ground, neither welcoming nor cold, simply present.
You watch this courtship from the sidelines and try to pretend it does not hurt.
The court notices, of course. The servants gossip. The other noble wives watch your household with speculation and poorly-concealed pity. Everyone can see that your husband prefers his concubine to his wife.
You hold your head high and refuse to acknowledge their whispers.
One evening, during a court banquet, one of the Empress' ladies makes a comment just loud enough for you to hear.
"How gracious Her Highness is, to allow her husband such obvious devotion to the concubine. Most wives would be beside themselves."
You smile serenely.
"Why should I object? Mei has served my family since childhood. She is dear to me. My husband's affection for her brings me joy, not sorrow."
The lie comes easily, you have had months of practice. The woman looks disappointed. She was clearly hoping for drama, for tears, for some crack in your composure. You give her nothing.
Later, Mei finds you in a quiet corner of the garden.
"You do not have to do that," she says.
"Do what?"
"Lie for me. Defend me. Pretend you are happy with this situation."
"I am not lying. You are dear to me."
"But you are not happy." Mei's voice is soft. "I can see it, even if no one else can."
You look away, focusing on the lotus flowers blooming in the pond.
"Happiness was never part of the arrangement."
"It should have been." There is anger in her tone now. "You should have been cherished. You should have been…"
"Please do not." You cut her off gently. "I do not want your pity any more than I want theirs."
"This is not pity. This is…" She stops. When you glance at her, her expression looks pained. "I wish things were different. That is all."
"So do I, but wishing changes nothing."
Mei moves closer, takes your hand. Her fingers are cool against yours.
"I would give this up in a heartbeat if I could. I would leave this household, go anywhere, if it would make you happy."
"You cannot leave. Where would you go? Back to your family? They have no wealth to support you. To another household as a servant? That would be a worse fate than this." You squeeze her hand. "We are bound together now, you and I. We must make the best of it."
"Then let me make it easier for you," Mei replies. "Give me leave to refuse his attentions. I do not want them. I have never wanted them."
You have noticed this. The way she holds herself distant when Caleb visits her chambers. The way her smiles never quite reach her eyes. The careful way she accepts his poetry without reading it aloud.
"If you refuse him outright, it will cause scandal. He is a prince. His pride…"
"His pride is not my concern."
"It is mine." You pull your hand free. "He is my husband. His honor is my honor. I will not have the court saying he was rejected by his own concubine."
Mei's expression closes.
"As you wish."
She turns to leave, but you catch her sleeve.
"Mei, wait. I did not mean…"
"You meant exactly what you said." Her voice is cutting. "You want me to continue this charade. To let him court me, to accept his gifts, to pretend I might care for him someday. All so you can save face at court."
"That is not fair."
"Fair?" Mei laughs bitterly. "What about any of this is fair? You married a man who loves me. I am forced to live with him and accept his attention when I…" She stops abruptly.
"When you what?"
"When I would rather be anywhere else." She finishes the sentence carefully.
You study her face, trying to understand what she is not saying, but Mei has always been good at keeping secrets. She has been keeping them your entire lives.
"I will not ask you to leave," you say finally. "But I will not give you permission to publicly reject him either. Find some middle path. Please. For me."
Mei nods once, then she walks away, leaving you standing alone beside the lotus pond.
The Moon Festival arrives in the eighth month of your marriage.
The court celebrates with lanterns and music, feasting and poetry.
You sit beside Caleb at the festivities, smiling and nodding as officials and nobles pay their respects. The celebration goes late. When you finally return to your chambers, exhausted, you do not expect Caleb to follow, but he does.
"May I come in?" he asks from the doorway.
You are surprised enough that you simply nod. He enters, closing the door behind him. He is still in his formal robes, though he has loosened them slightly. His face is flushed, from wine, perhaps, or from something else.
"Mei turned me away," he says, his voice raw…"She said she was tired. She said…" He stops. "It does not matter what she said."
Ah. So that is why he is here.
Not because he wants you, but because she refused him.
You should send him away. You should tell him you will not be a substitute for the woman he really wants, but you are tired of fighting, tired of pretending, tired of everything.
"You can stay," you hear yourself say. "If you wish."
Caleb looks at you for a long moment, then he nods.
He is gentler than you expected, almost tender. He undresses you slowly, his hands careful, and when he lies beside you, he takes his time. There is a loneliness in the way he touches you, as if he is seeking comfort rather than passion.
You let yourself sink into it. You let yourself pretend, just for these few hours, that he is here because he wants you, that his hands on your skin mean something beyond duty or disappointment.
Afterward, he does not leave immediately. He lies beside you in the darkness, his breathing slowly evening out. You think he has fallen asleep, then his arm slides around your waist.
It is unconscious, you think. A reflex. He pulls you back against him, his body curving around yours, his face buried in your hair. He holds you like he does not want to let go.
You go very still and barely breathe. You do not want to break this moment, this unexpected gentleness. Slowly, carefully, you place your hand over his where it rests on your stomach. His fingers tighten slightly, then relax. His breathing deepens. He is asleep.
You lie there in the darkness, held in your husband's arms, and let yourself pretend. Just for tonight. Just for these few stolen hours.
You pretend he came to you because he wanted to. You pretend the tenderness was real. You pretend that when morning comes, he will wake and smile at you, kiss you, and choose to stay.
You know better. You have always known better, but for tonight, in the darkness, you let yourself hope.
In the morning, he is gone.
The pillow beside you still holds the shape of his head. The blankets are tangled where he slept, but Caleb himself is nowhere to be found. You press your hand to the pillow, feeling the lingering warmth, and your heart breaks a little more.
A few weeks later, you have dinner with Caleb and Mei together, a rare occurrence now that the household has settled.
The meal is pleasant enough.
Caleb discusses trade negotiations with the northern provinces. Mei asks about a new shipment of silk from the south. You contribute everything that you have observed from the outer court.
For a moment, it almost feels normal. Three friends sharing a meal, the conversation flowing easily.
"Do you remember," Caleb says suddenly, "the year we stole pies every week for an entire summer?"
"The cook never did figure out who was taking them," Mei smiles.
"Because you were clever about it," you add. "You always took them when she stepped away, and you replaced the covering so it looked untouched."
"We were terrible," Caleb says, but he is laughing.
"We were children," Mei corrects.
The three of you reminisce for a while, trading stories and memories. For a while, the complications of your arrangement fall away. But then the meal ends, Caleb reaches for Mei's hand as they stand.
"Walk with me?" he asks her.
Mei glances at you. You see the regret and apology in her eyes.
"Of course," she tells him.
They leave together. You sit alone at the table, surrounded by empty dishes and fading laughter.
Someone will always be unhappy, Mei said once. You are beginning to understand what she meant.
The months continue, and the pattern repeats.
Caleb pursues, Mei deflects, you observe. The court whispers grow louder. Some say Caleb is bewitched by his concubine. Others say you are too patient, too forgiving, that you should assert your position as primary wife more forcefully.
A few, a very few, say quiet things about Mei's loyalty. About how she seems to spend more time with you than with Caleb. About the way her gaze follows you across rooms.
You do not listen to those whispers. You cannot afford to. Instead, you focus on your duties. You embroider. You manage the household. You write letters to your family. You sit through endless court functions with a smile painted on your face.
And at night, alone in your chambers, you trace the names on your wrist and remind yourself which is which.
Caleb, your great love, your husband, the man who will never love you back.
Mei, your companion, your truest friend, the one who walks beside you through all of this.
You repeat this until you believe it. You have to believe it. What else is there?
VI
The discovery comes on an ordinary morning.
You wake feeling nauseous.
At first, you assume it is something you ate at the banquet the night before, the fish had tasted strange, but the nausea persists through the morning, worsening when you try to take tea. Your maidservant takes one look at your face and goes very still.
"Your highness," she speaks carefully. "Have your monthly courses come?"
You open your mouth to say yes, then stop. When was the last time? You have been so consumed with household matters, with court functions, with carefully not thinking about your marriage, that you have lost track.
"No," you say slowly. "Not for... not for six weeks at least."
The maidservant's face brightens.
"Your highness, you may be with child."
The words do not feel real. They hang in the air, impossible. You and Caleb have barely touched since the wedding night. While he comes to your chambers perhaps once a month, he only stays as long as necessary to maintain appearances. Your couplings are brief, done for duty rather than the passion of newlyweds.
Except for the Moon Festival, that night had been different.
"Send for the physician," you instruct her. "Quietly. I want no announcement until we are certain."
The physician confirms it that afternoon. You are pregnant, and the child should arrive in early spring. After he leaves, you sit in your chambers and try to understand what this means.
A child. Your child. Caleb's child.
Word travels faster than you anticipated. You are still in your dressing gown when Caleb appears at your door. His face is flushed, as if he has been running.
"Are you sick?" The words come out rushed. "The servants said you called for the physician. Are you ill? Is something wrong?"
You stare at him, surprised by the urgency in his voice.
"I am not sick."
"Then why…" He stops, looking at you more closely, at the way your hand unconsciously rests on your stomach. Understanding dawns on his face. "Are you…"
"I am with child." The words come out quieter than you intended. "The physician just confirmed it."
For a moment, Caleb simply stands there, then he crosses the room in three long strides and pulls you into his arms. The embrace is fierce and desperate. His hands shake where they press against your back. You can feel his heart pounding against your chest, feel the tremor that runs through his whole body.
"Are you safe?" he asks, his voice muffled against your hair. "Are you well? Does anything hurt? Do you need…"
"I am fine," you say, bewildered. "Caleb, I am fine."
He pulls back just enough to look at you, his hands coming up to frame your face. His eyes are bright, searching.
"You are certain? You are not in pain? The physician said everything is well?"
"Yes. Everything is well."
"An heir," he breathes, but there is something else in his voice. Something beyond political satisfaction. "You are carrying my child."
He pulls you close again, and this time you feel it, the fear beneath the relief. He is trembling, actually trembling, his breath uneven.
"I heard about your mother’s pregnancies," he states gently. "After we married, I asked some servants in your household, I know she had difficulties and I…" His voice breaks. "I cannot lose you. Do you understand? I cannot."
The words stun you. You stand rigid in his arms, trying to understand what you are hearing.
"Caleb…"
He kisses your forehead. It is tender, lingering, more intimate than any kiss he has given you before. When he pulls back, his eyes are wet.
"Forgive me," he says. "I am being foolish. This is good news. This is very good news."
He steps away, composing himself, but you can still see the tremor in his hands, the brightness in his eyes.
"I should let you rest," he starts. "You need rest. The baby needs…" He stops himself. "I will make sure you have everything you need. Anything you want, just tell me."
Then he is gone, leaving you standing in your chambers, trying to understand what just happened.
Mei finds you an hour later, staring at nothing.
"I heard," She starts as soon as she enters your chambers "The whole household has heard by now."
You turn to look at her.
"Did you know Caleb asked the servants about my mother’s pregnancies?"
Mei pauses.
"No, but it does not surprise me."
"Why not?"
"He cares for you." Mei states it simply, as if it is obvious. "More than you think, more than he knows how to show."
"He only cares about his heir."
"No." Mei's voice is firm. "He cares about you. I have seen it in the small things he does"
"Those are just…"
"They are not just anything." Mei takes your hands. "He may love the idea of me, but he cares for you. There is a difference."
You want to argue. You want to insist she is wrong, but the memory of Caleb's embrace, his trembling hands, his fear, it sits heavy in your chest.
"He told me he cannot lose me," you whisper.
"Because he cannot." Mei reaches for your hand. "You are his wife. The mother of his child now. Someone he has known since childhood. Whether he understands it or not, you matter to him."
"But he loves you."
"He thinks he does." Mei's smile is sad. "But love is more than longing, more than pursuit. Sometimes it is in the quiet things. The unconscious gestures. The fears we cannot name."
You do not know what to say to that.
The weeks pass. Your body changes. Your stomach begins to round. You feel the first fluttering movements, strange and wondrous.
The court is told. Congratulations pour in. The Emperor himself sends a letter expressing his pleasure at the news of his grandchild. Your parents visit, your mother hovering anxiously, your father looking pleased in his austere way. Everyone is happy for you.
Caleb becomes more present. Not in the way you once hoped for, he still spends his evenings with Mei, but in smaller ways. He insists you sit during lengthy court functions. When you attend audiences, he cuts them shorter than usual. He checks that your chambers are warm enough without you asking.
Once, when you grow dizzy in the garden, he appears at your side before you can call for help, his hand steadying you, his voice tight with worry as he walks you back inside. You do not know how he knew you were there. You do not ask.
When you are five months along, Mei arranges an afternoon tea in your chambers. It is just the three of you. You, Mei, and Caleb. The conversation starts awkwardly.
Caleb discusses updates about the military. You share things about the household. Mei adds the preparations for the coming winter. Then Caleb says something about your lack of rest, and Mei's eyes flash.
"Perhaps if you visited more often as a husband rather than as an official checking on imperial property, she would feel less alone," Mei says, her voice sharp.
Caleb goes very still.
"I visit regularly."
"You visit to ensure your heir is well, not to ensure she is well."
"That is not…" Caleb stops. "That is not fair."
"Is it not?" Mei turns to you. "When was the last time he asked about your wellbeing that was not related to the child?"
You open your mouth to defend him, but you cannot think of an instance. Caleb's face has gone pale.
"I…"
"She is your wife," Mei continues, relentless. "She carries your child. The least you could do is see her as more than a vessel for your heir."
The silence that follows is heavy, painful. Then the baby kicks. It is strong enough that you gasp, your hand flying to your stomach. Both Caleb and Mei turn to you immediately.
"What is wrong?" Caleb asks, alarmed.
"Nothing. The baby just…" You place your hand over the spot. "The baby is moving."
Caleb stares at your hand on your stomach.
"May I…" He stops. "Would you mind if I…"
You take his hand and place it where you felt the movement. For a moment, nothing happens, then the baby kicks again, directly against Caleb's palm. His face transforms, wonder replaces the tension from moments before.
"I felt it," he breathes. "I felt…"
"Let me feel too," Mei says softly.
You take her hand and place it beside Caleb's. The three of you wait, silent, until the baby kicks again.
"Strong," Mei gasps, and there are tears in her eyes. "Your child is strong."
"Ours," you say instinctively. "You said you would help me raise them, that makes them ours."
Mei's fingers curl against your stomach. The baby kicks again, and for this one fragile moment, the three of you are connected. All of you feeling this new life, this small person who exists because of all your complicated relationships.
"I will do better," Caleb states, he is looking at you now, not at your stomach. "You are right, Mei. I have been seeing her as the mother of my heir, not as…" He stops. "I will do better."
Mei pulls her hand back.
"See that you do."
The moment breaks. Caleb stands and excuses himself. Mei begins clearing the table, but something has shifted. You sit there, your hands on your stomach, and let yourself feel a tiny spark of hope.
Then one afternoon, you find Mei alone and preparing herbs in the kitchen.
You watch her work for a moment before you recognize the plants she is crushing. You grew up in a lord's household. You know what tansy and pennyroyal look like when they are ground together. You know what they are used for.
The realization strikes you. Abortifacients.
"Mei?” You call her name before you can stop yourself.
She turns, sees you, sees the herbs. Her face goes pale.
"How long?" you ask.
"Since the beginning." She replies without shame. "I will not bear his children. I will not give him that."
"But why? A child would…"
"Would what? Tie me to him forever? Make this pretense real?" Mei's voice is sharp. "I am not you. I do not accept this quietly. I do not make the best of my cage."
The words are meant to wound, and they succeed. You take a step back as if struck.
"That was cruel.”
"Yes." Mei looks away. "Forgive me, that was cruel."
"If you hate this so much, why do you stay?"
"Because you asked me to." Her response comes quickly. "You asked me to be what he wants. To go along with this. To stay here, with you. So I stay."
"I did not know you were this miserable."
"Of course you did not know. You are too busy being miserable yourself to notice anyone else."
The observation is so accurate it steals your breath. You stand there in the kitchen, staring at each other, and for the first time, you see the full weight of what you have asked of her. The sacrifices she has made. The pain she has endured, all because you begged her to stay.
"I am sorry," you tell her, but the words feel inadequate. "Mei, I am so sorry."
"Do not apologize. This is not your fault. None of this is your fault." Mei turns back to her herbs, crushing them with renewed force. "But do not ask me to pretend I am content. Do not ask me to pretend I want him, because I do not. I never have."
"Then who do you want?" The question escapes before you can stop it.
Mei goes very still.
For a long moment, she does not answer. When she speaks, her voice is barely above a whisper.
"Someone I cannot have."
She does not elaborate. She finishes preparing her herbs in silence, and you do not ask again.
That night, you lie in bed with your hands on your growing stomach and take in everything you have asked of Mei.
You asked her to stay. She stayed. You asked her to accept Caleb's courtship. She accepted. You asked her to smile at court. She smiled.
And beneath all of it, in the privacy of the kitchen when no one was watching, she ground bitter herbs into tea and drank them so that the one boundary she had left would hold.
You think about what it must have been like. Month after month. The taste of tansy and pennyroyal, the cramping, the pain because of her refusal to let her body become one more thing that belonged to him.
She did that ever since she became Caleb’s concubine.
She did that while brushing your hair, while smiling at you, while reassuring you, while staying with you, and laughing with you in the gardens as if nothing were wrong.
You roll onto your side and press your face into the pillow, and you do not sleep for a very long time.
VII
The banquet is in honor of the Emperor's birthday.
All of the court is required to attend.
You are six months pregnant now, your stomach round and obvious beneath your formal robes. You move slowly, carefully, one hand always resting on your belly as if to reassure the child within.
Mei walks beside you, her presence a comfort in the overwhelming crowd. Caleb is somewhere ahead, fulfilling his ceremonial duties as a prince of the blood. You will join him at the high table once the formal presentations are complete.
The Emperor sits on his throne, receiving tributes and well-wishes. The hall is filled with nobles, officials, foreign dignitaries. Everyone who matters in the empire is here. Including the Emperor's concubines.
There are four of them.
You know their faces, their names, their positions in the complex hierarchy of the inner court. The eldest, Lady Qi, is kind and has always treated you with courtesy. The second, Lady Qin, is ambitious but intelligent, someone you respect if not quite trust.
The third is Lady Xue.
She is the youngest of the Emperor's concubines, only recently elevated to her position. She is beautiful, clever, and hungry for power. Her family is wealthy but not particularly well-connected. Her position depends entirely on the Emperor's favor, and that favor is slipping.
You have heard the whispers. The Emperor has lost interest in her. He visits her chambers less frequently. He has been seen courting a new woman, a merchant's daughter with a sharp wit and considerable political connections.
Lady Xue is desperate.
She needs to do something dramatic, something that will remind the Emperor why he favored her in the first place. She needs to prove her value, her indispensability.
She needs a victory.
You do not know that Lady Xue has been watching your household, noting the Emperor's pleasure at the news of his grandchild. You do not know that she has decided removing Caleb's heir would destabilize his position, would create chaos that she could exploit. You do not know that she has already bribed one of the servants to poison your wine.
The banquet proceeds.
Courses arrive in endless succession, delicate soups, roasted meats, fish cooked in wine and spices, steamed dumplings, sweet rice cakes. You eat sparingly, mindful of your pregnancy and the rich food.
Mei sits beside you, as is proper for a concubine. She barely touches her food. She has been tense all evening, her gaze constantly scanning the crowd.
"Are you well?" you ask quietly.
"I do not like this." Mei's voice is low. "Too many people. Too much attention on you."
"It is the Emperor's birthday. We cannot avoid attending."
"I know, but I do not like it."
You squeeze her hand briefly to reassure her.
"You think too much. Nothing will happen. I am perfectly safe."
Mei does not look convinced.
The wine arrives. It is a special vintage, brought out only for imperial celebrations. The servant fills your cup, then Mei's, then moves down the table.
You raise your cup to drink. Mei's hand closes around your wrist.
"Wait." Her voice is low, urgent.
"What—"
"The servant." Mei's eyes are fixed on the man retreating down the table. "He poured yours differently. He tilted the bottle at the end. Everyone else received a straight pour."
You glance at your cup. The wine looks the same as everyone else's, dark red and sweet smelling.
"Mei, you are being…"
"And he looked at someone when he set your cup down, across the hall. I saw his eyes move." Mei's grip tightens on your wrist. Her knuckles are white. "Do not drink it."
"It is the Emperor's wine. No one would dare…"
"Someone already has." Mei's voice is steady, but her hand is trembling. She is not guessing. She is reading the room the way she always does, with the sharp, relentless attention of someone who has spent her entire life watching for threats against you.
You set the cup down.
Mei stares at it. Then at you. Then at your rounded stomach.
You see the decision form behind her eyes a half-second before she moves.
"Mei, no…"
She snatches up your cup and drinks the wine in three quick swallows.
The hall goes very quiet. People are staring, someone laughs uncertainly, thinking this is some kind of joke. Then Mei's face contorts. She doubles over, gasping. The cup falls from her hands, shattering on the stone floor.
"Mei!" You lunge for her, but she is already collapsing. You catch her as best you can, supporting her weight, lowering her to the ground.
"Get the physician!" someone shouts.
Caleb is there suddenly, shoving people aside. He kneels beside you, staring at Mei's face. She is convulsing, foam flecking her lips, her skin turning an awful grey.
"What happened?" Caleb demands. "What did she drink?"
"My wine." You are shaking. "She drank my wine."
Understanding and horror dawns on Caleb's face. The wine was meant for you. For the child you carry.
Mei would have known that. She would have known the poison was meant for you. She drank it anyway.
The physician arrives, but it is clear almost immediately that there is nothing he can do. The poison is too strong, too fast-acting. It is burning through Mei's body, shutting down her organs one by one.
She is dying.
You pull her into your lap, heedless of propriety, of the watching court. You cradle her head against your chest, your tears falling onto her face.
"Stay with me," you beg. "Please, Mei. Please stay."
Her eyes flutter open. She looks at you, and despite the pain, despite everything, she smiles.
"I love you," she whispers.
The words are so quiet you almost miss them. You stare down at her, and in that moment, you understand.
You finally understand everything. Not Caleb. Never Caleb. You.
Mei has always loved you.
Caleb is there beside you, holding Mei's hand, weeping openly. He leans close, his face twisted with grief.
"I love you too," he sobs. "Mei, I love you. Please do not leave. Please."
He thinks she is talking to him. He thinks her final words are for him, but Mei is not looking at Caleb. She is looking at you. Only at you.
Her lips move again. You lean closer, and you hear her breathe three more words.
"Protect the child."
Then her eyes close and her body goes still.
Mei is gone.
The hall erupts. Guards are summoned. The physician declares her dead. The Emperor demands to know who poisoned the wine. Servants are questioned, dragged away. Lady Xue’s face is pale with shock, she did not expect her plan to fail.
She did not expect Mei to intercept the poison.
You hear none of it. You sit on the cold stone floor, holding Mei's body, and you cannot breathe. You cannot do anything except stare at her lifeless face and try to understand that she is truly gone.
She loved you. She has always loved you. And now she is dead.
Caleb tries to pull Mei from your arms. You resist, clutching her tighter, but eventually he succeeds. He lifts her body, his face streaming with tears, and carries her from the hall.
You sit there, alone, blood and wine staining your formal robes. Your hands are shaking. Your whole body is shaking. Someone, your maidservant, perhaps, helps you to your feet. Someone leads you from the hall. You move like a ghost. When you reach your chambers, you collapse, and finally, finally, you let yourself scream.
VIII
The funeral is held three days later.
Mei's body is prepared with the traditional rites, washed, dressed in burial silks, laid in a lacquered coffin. Incense burns at the four corners. Mourners file past to pay their respects.
You attend because you are required to. You are Caleb's wife, and Mei was part of your household, but you feel absent from yourself, as if you are watching from a great distance.
Caleb is devastated. He weeps openly during the ceremony. He talks about how he loved her, how he will always love her, how her death has left a hole in his heart that can never be filled.
Every word is a knife, because he is wrong. He is wrong about everything. Mei did not love him. She never loved him.
She loved you, and he will never know that.
He will spend the rest of his life believing she died loving him, that her last words were meant for him. The truth will die with her.
After the ceremony, after Mei's coffin is carried to the burial ground, after the earth is mounded over her and the final prayers are spoken, you return to the palace.
The investigation into the poisoning has concluded.
Lady Xue’s involvement has been proven beyond doubt, servants have testified, silver has been traced, the poison itself has been identified. She has been arrested, stripped of her position, sent to face imperial justice, but that is not enough for the court gossip.
The court needs someone to blame, and Lady Xue's arrest is not dramatic enough for them. A concubine's failed plot is politics. A jealous wife's poisoning is tragedy, and tragedy sells.
So the rumor takes root, you did it. You, the patient wife, the dignified presence at every function, finally cracked under the weight of your husband's obvious preference for his concubine and killed the woman he loved.
It does not matter that Lady Xue confessed. It does not matter that the poison was traced, the servants questioned, the evidence laid bare. The court has chosen its story, and your innocence is not part of it.
Caleb does not correct them. That is what breaks you, not the whispers, not the sidelong glances, not the women who draw back when you approach.
His silence. His refusal to stand beside you and say my wife did not do this. He is too deep in his own grief to notice yours, and the court takes his silence as confirmation.
Three weeks after the funeral, he comes to your chambers.
You are in bed, still in your sleeping robe even though it is midday. You have not bathed in days. You have not cared enough to bother. Caleb stands in the doorway, looking at you with an expression you cannot read.
"We need to speak," he starts.
You sit up slowly. You do not ask him to come in. You simply wait.
"The court is talking," he continues. "The rumors about you and Mei, about the poisoning, they are damaging my reputation and the imperial family."
"I did not poison her." Your voice is hoarse from disuse.
"I know that."
"Then why do you not say so? Why do you not defend me?"
Caleb looks away.
"Because I cannot bear to look at you."
"What?" you whisper.
"Every time I see you, I think of her. I think of Mei, lying dead on the floor. I think of how she is gone and you are still here. And I…" His voice breaks. "I wish it had been you."
The room tilts. You clutch at the sheets to keep from falling.
"I wish you had been the one who died instead of her. I wish…" Caleb cannot finish. He is weeping now, his shoulders shaking. "I cannot do this anymore. I cannot live in this house with you. I cannot look at you and not see what I have lost."
"Where would you have me go?" Your voice sounds distant, as if someone else is speaking.
"I have a summer estate. Three days' journey north. I am sending you there. You will stay until the child is born. After that… we will decide what happens after."
He is exiling you.
"And if I refuse?"
"You will not refuse. You will go. You will leave this palace, and you will not return until I send for you."
He turns and walks away, leaving you alone in your chambers. You sit very still for a long time after he leaves. Then, carefully, you look down at your wrist.
The names are still there. Caleb and Mei, written in the same shimmering ink. Mei's name has not changed. It is still the same as it was the day the marks appeared. You trace it with one finger, and finally you let yourself cry.
Not for Caleb. Not for your marriage or your position or your reputation. For Mei. For the friend who protected you. For the woman who loved you back and never told you. For everything you could have had if you had only understood sooner.
IX
The retinue assigned to escort you to the summer estate is small but capable.
Two guards, a driver, and your maidservant. They load your belongings into the carriage. You watch from the window of your chambers, already feeling like a ghost haunting your own life.
Your mother comes to see you before you leave. She looks older, worn down by the scandal. She does not embrace you. She does not say she believes in your innocence.
"Try to stay out of sight," she tells you. "Let the rumors die down. Perhaps in a year or two, people will forget."
"Perhaps," you echo, because what else is there to say?
Your father does not come. You are not surprised. To him, you were always a tool for power. A disgraced daughter is worse than no daughter at all.
The carriage journey begins. You sit in silence, watching the palace disappear behind you. The capital fades into countryside, rice paddies, small villages, rivers winding through green hills. It should be beautiful, you cannot bring yourself to care.
On the second day of travel, you notice something strange. The driver has taken a wrong turn. You lean forward.
"Where are we going?"
"To your destination, my lady." His voice is calm, steady.
"This is not the road to the summer estate."
"No, your highness. It is not."
Your maidservant reaches over and takes your hand.
"We are taking you somewhere safe," she says gently. "Somewhere you will be welcome."
"I do not understand."
"The summer estate is not safe for you. The other servants in the prince's household do not believe you are innocent. They believe the rumors. If you go there, you will be alone, unprotected, and when the child is born…" She stops. "We do not trust what might happen."
"Where are you taking me?"
"To Lady Mei's family."
You stare at her, confused.
"How…who arranged this?"
"Lady Mei did." Your maidservant's voice is gentle. "Some time before the Emperor's birthday banquet, she told us that if anything happened to her, we were to bring you to her family instead of the summer estate."
"Mei did?"
"Yes, my lady. She knew something was going to happen. She did not know what, exactly, but she sensed danger. She wanted to ensure you would be protected."
"She planned this." You cannot breathe. "She planned all of this."
Your maidservant squeezes your hand.
"She wanted you safe, so she made arrangements."
You sit back, stunned. Even in death, Mei was still taking care of you.
The journey takes five days instead of three. The roads grow rougher, the villages smaller. You are traveling west now, toward the mountains, away from the luxuries of the capital and into harder country. By the time you arrive, you are fevered and exhausted.
Mei's family home is modest, a compound built around a central courtyard, simple but well-maintained. As the carriage stops, you see an older woman emerge from the main building, her hair streaked with grey, her face lined with years of work.
She looks like Mei. The same eyes, the same determined set to her jaw. Mei’s mother, whom you have not seen since the announcement of your betrothal to Caleb.
You try to stand, to exit the carriage properly, but your legs buckle. The world tilts, going dark at the edges. You hear voices, feel hands catching you, but it all seems very far away. The last thing you remember is the smell of rain and the feeling of being lifted, carried inside.
When you wake, it is night. You are in a small, clean room. A single lantern burns in the corner. You are tucked into a bed that smells of herbs and soap.
A woman sits beside you, pressing a cool cloth to your forehead. Mei's mother.
"You are awake," she says softly. "Good. You have been fevered for three days."
Three days. You have lost three days.
"Where am I?"
"My home. My husband and I brought you inside when you collapsed. We have been caring for you."
You try to sit up, but she pushes you back gently.
"Rest. You need rest. The baby needs rest."
"Why are you helping me?" The question comes out sharper than you intend. "I am the one…they say I am the one who…"
"You did not kill my daughter." Mei's mother's voice is firm. "I know that as surely as I know my own name."
"How can you know?"
"Mei wrote to me." Her voice breaks slightly. "Several weeks before the Emperor's birthday, she sent a letter. She believed that you and your child were in danger. She told me she had made arrangements for your safety, that she had paid your servants to bring you here if anything happened to her. She told me…" Mei's mother stops to compose herself. “She told me that if you arrived at my door, it would mean she was gone, and that I should care for you as I would have cared for her."
"She knew something would happen."
"She knew danger was circling. She did not know the specific form it would take, but she knew, and she chose to protect you rather than herself." Mei's mother strokes your hair, the gesture so like her daughter's that it makes your chest ache. "That is who my daughter was. That is what her love looked like."
You cannot speak. You can only weep.
"She wrote to me every week since she entered your household," Mei's mother continues quietly. "She told me everything. About the tea she was taking. About how she would never bear that prince's child. About how her only happiness was you."
"She told you she loved me?"
"She told me she had always loved you, since you were children. Since the day you cried under that apple tree and she swore to protect you." Mei's mother's own eyes fill with tears. "She told me about the soulmarks. She knew that you were her great love, but you did not know, and that you believed the prince was yours."
"I do not understand." Your voice is shaking. "If she loved me, why did she never say anything? Why did she…"
"Because you asked her not to. You begged her to be what the prince wanted, to go along with the arrangement, to stay in that household for your sake." Her voice is gentle but unyielding. "My daughter would have done anything for you even if it meant giving up her life for you.."
The truth of it crashes over you. Mei sacrificed everything. Her happiness, her future, her very life. All because you asked her to. All because she loved you.
"I did not know," you whisper. "I did not know she loved me that way until…. I thought…I thought she was my companion. My friend. I thought Caleb was…"
"Caleb was her great love?" Mei's mother makes a sound that might be a laugh or a sob. "No, child. You had it backwards.”
"What do you mean?"
"My daughter knew the truth of all three marks. She knew which name was which for each of you."
I love you. Not to Caleb. To you.
"She also knew," Mei's mother continues, "that Caleb's great love was you. Not her. You. You were his great love, just as he was yours, but both of you were too blind to see it, too convinced of your own assumptions."
You stare at her.
"That cannot be right. Caleb loved Mei. He pursued her. He mourned her. He…"
"He loved the idea of her. The unattainable woman. The one who would not love him back." Her voice is sad. "But his great love was always you. My daughter knew that. She knew she was the companion to both of you. That her purpose was to walk beside you, to support you, to help you find each other."
"Then why did she drink the poison?" Your voice breaks. "If she was only the companion…if her death would not destroy him the way a great love's death would…why did she do it?"
"You were carrying his child. She knew that poison was meant for you, and if you died, you would both lose everything. She could not let that happen." Mei's mother wipes her eyes. "She removed herself from the situation. She knew that with her gone, you and the prince would have to face each other without her in the middle. She hoped…I think she hoped…that her death would force you both to see the truth."
You cannot speak. Everything you thought you knew is wrong. Every assumption, every certainty, all of it built on misunderstandings and blind hope and the failure to simply ask the right questions.
Caleb is your great love. You are his. And Mei knew that.
She always knew. She loved you anyway, with the quiet devotion of a companion who puts her great love's happiness above her own.
"I would have chosen her," you whisper. "If I had known. If she had told me, I would have…"
But the words falter before you can finish them. Would you have? Truly? If Mei had come to you at fifteen and confessed everything, if she had taken your hands and looked you in the eye and told you that she was your great love, not Caleb, would you have believed her?
Would you have turned away from eight years of longing, from the boy who lifted you out of apple trees, from the ache in your chest every time he entered a room? Or would you have held Mei's hands and felt sorry for her and gently explained that she was confused?
You do not know the answer. That is the worst part. You want desperately to say you would have chosen her, that you would have defied the court and your family and every expectation placed on you, but you are no longer certain of anything you once believed about your own heart.
"I would like to think I would have chosen her," you amend, and your voice is very small.
Mei's mother strokes your hair and does not argue. Perhaps she knows the truth. Perhaps she is kind enough not to say it.
"I know." Mei's mother pulls you into an embrace, and you sob against her shoulder. "I know, child, but she could not ask you to make that choice. She could not ask you to give up your position, your family, your future. She loved you too much for that."
You cry until you have no tears left. You cry for Mei, for yourself, for Caleb and the tragedy of three people who could not see what was written on their own skin. When you finally pull back, exhausted and hollow, Mei's mother smooths your hair.
"You will stay here," she says. "You and the child. You are safe here. You are welcome here."
"But what about…"
"No one knows you are here except those who brought you. Your servants…they are loyal to you, not to the prince. They will not betray your location." Her voice is firm. "You will stay. You will have this baby, and then we will decide what comes next."
You are too tired to argue. Too tired to do anything but nod and let yourself be cared for.
That night, lying in a small room in Mei's childhood home, you dream of apple orchards and stolen pies and a girl with fierce eyes who promised to always protect you.
You wake crying, but this time, someone is there to hold you through it.
X
The months pass slowly in Mei's family home.
Your pregnancy progresses.
Your stomach swells more, the baby moving constantly now, pressing against your ribs, making you breathless. The discomforts of late pregnancy are compounded by grief that never fully leaves, that sits like a stone in your chest.
Mei's mother attends you with quiet care.
She brings you ginger tea for nausea, rubs salve into your aching back, sits with you during the long afternoons when you cannot sleep.
She tells you stories about Mei as a child.
How stubborn she was, how fierce, how she once punched a boy who made fun of her younger brother. How she learned to sew because she wanted to make you a dress. How she wrote in her diary about you constantly, pages and pages of memories and hopes and quiet, desperate love.
You listen to these stories and feel yourself break a little more each time.
You also grow weaker.
At first, you attribute it to the pregnancy.
Late pregnancy is exhausting, everyone says so, but as the weeks pass, you notice things that worry you. You are tired all the time, sleeping twelve, fourteen hours a day. You have no appetite. Your hands shake.
The local healer examines you and shakes her head.
"The baby is fine. Strong heartbeat, good position. But you… You are not well."
"What is wrong with me?"
"Your body is giving up. Grief sometimes does that. Takes root in the bones, drains the life away."
"Can you treat it?"
"I can give you herbs to strengthen your blood. But the real medicine…" She pauses. "The real medicine is wanting to live, and I am not certain you do."
She is right.
You are not certain you do.
You go through day by day.
You eat when Mei's mother insists. You walk in the small garden behind the house, placing your hand on the rough bark of the apple tree that grows there. You sit in the sun and try to feel warmth.
But everything is distant, muted, you are a ghost drifting through someone else's life.
Seven months pregnant. Eight. The baby will come soon.
You wonder if you will survive the birth, part of you hopes you will not.
Mei's mother seems to sense your thoughts.
One evening, she sits beside you and takes your hand.
"You must live," she says. "For the child. For my daughter's memory. For yourself."
"I am trying."
"Try harder." Her voice is fierce, so much like Mei's that it hurts. "You have a choice, here. You can give up, let grief swallow you, or you can fight. You can live. You can raise this child and give them the love you never got to give my daughter."
"What if I cannot?" Your voice is small. "What if I am not strong enough?"
"You are. You have always been strong. You survived a marriage you did not want, a household that did not value you, the loss of your dearest friend. You can survive this too."
You want to believe her. You want to find that strength within yourself.
But as the weeks pass, as your body grows heavier and your spirit lighter, you feel yourself slipping away.
You think about the orchard often now.
Those golden afternoons with Caleb and Mei.
The three of you together, before everything went wrong.
You think about Mei's hands always finding yours first. The way she used to brush your hair. How she looked at you when she thought you were not watching.
You think about Caleb's laugh, bright and careless. How he used to help you down from trees. How his eyes would light up when he saw Mei, not realizing the person he was truly seeking was standing right beside him.
You think about the baby growing inside you.
Caleb's child.
The heir he wanted. The person who will carry both your grief and your hope into the future.
You hope the baby looks like Caleb. You hope they have his laugh, his kindness, his capacity for joy.
You hope they never make the mistakes you made. Never assume, never fail to ask, never let pride keep them from admitting what their heart already knows.
The contractions begin on a spring morning.
The sky is clear, the air warm. Cherry blossoms are blooming in the garden, pink and delicate.
You labor through the day and into the night.
It is long and difficult. Your body is exhausted before you even begin. Mei's mother stays with you, holding your hand, murmuring encouragement.
"You can do this," she says. "You are almost there."
But you already know that this is the end for you.
You have enough strength to bring the child into the world, but not enough to remain in it yourself.
The baby arrives just before dawn.
A girl, small but healthy, with a powerful cry and perfect tiny fingers.
They place her in your arms, and you look down at her face and see Caleb.
She has his eyes, that distinctive purple that marks her as imperial blood. She has his nose, his chin, his delicate features.
She is beautiful.
"What will you name her?" Mei's mother asks.
You do not hesitate.
"Mei."
Mei's mother's eyes fill with tears.
"Are you certain?"
"She is named for the only person who truly loved me." Your voice is weak, fading. "Let her carry that name. Let her carry that legacy."
You hold your daughter for a long time, memorizing her face, the weight of her in your arms, the sound of her breathing.
Then you look at Mei's mother and speak the words you have been preparing.
"Take care of her. Raise her here, away from the capital, away from the court. Do not tell Caleb where she is unless…" You pause. "Unless he comes looking. If he never comes, let her grow up here, in peace."
"And if he does come?"
"Tell him I forgive him." The words are important. They need to be said. "Tell him I understand. Tell him it was not his fault, any of it. We were all blind."
"I will tell him."
"And tell Mei…" You look down at the baby. "Tell her she was loved. Tell her she was wanted. Tell her…"
But you cannot finish, your vision is blurring, darkening at the edges.
Mei's mother takes the baby gently from your arms.
"I will tell her everything. I promise."
You smile, or try to. You are not certain if your face is moving anymore.
"Thank you," you whisper. "For everything. For taking me in. For…"
"Hush now. Rest. You have done well."
You close your eyes. The last thing you feel is warmth, sunlight streaming through the window, or perhaps just the memory of warmth, of spring afternoons and stolen moments and a hand that always found yours first.
You slip away thinking of apple orchards.
XI
The weeks after he sends you away are quiet.
Caleb returns to his duties. He attends the court. He trains with the imperial guard. He sits through the imperial council meetings and says the right things at the right times.
He visits Mei's grave every third day, kneeling in the dirt, speaking to her headstone as if she might answer.
He does not visit your chambers. There is no reason to, they are empty now, but sometimes he finds himself walking that corridor anyway, his feet carrying him there out of habit before his mind catches up. He stops outside your door, hand half-raised, and stands there for a moment before turning away. He does not examine why.
Your maidservants have been dismissed or reassigned. The rooms are being cleaned and closed. A servant asks whether your personal effects should be packed and sent to the summer estate, and Caleb opens his mouth to say yes, then stops.
"Leave them," he orders. "Leave everything as it is."
He does not examine that either.
At night, he reaches across the bed in his sleep. His hand finds empty space where a body should be, and he wakes confused and grasping, unsure who he was reaching for.
He assumes it is Mei. It has always been Mei.
After her funeral, Caleb checks his wrist obsessively. Waiting for the sign, for the darkening that would tell him his great love had passed, but both names remained unchanged, clear, vibrant, exactly as they had been since he received them.
He did not understand. How could Mei be dead and his mark remain the same? He convinced himself it was a delay. That fate took time to register death, that eventually, the change would come and he would finally have confirmation that Mei was his great love.
Then, three months after Mei's death and your exile, he wakes one morning and sees it.
Mei's name has changed. It did not darken as he expected, it faded. The characters have turned grey.
Grey. The mark of a companion.
He stares at his wrist, and the world tilts beneath him. No. That cannot be right.
Mei was his great love. She had to be. He loved her for years, pursued her, mourned her… But the marks do not lie.
If Mei's name is grey and she was his companion. Then that means…
He looks at your name. Still there. Still unchanged. Still shimmering.
The realization crashes over him. You. You were always the great love.
And suddenly, everything that felt wrong about Mei makes sense. The way his longing for her was always tinged with frustration, never peace. The way she never quite fit into the space in his heart he tried to force her into. The way loving her felt like chasing something perpetually out of reach. Because she was not meant to be caught, she was the companion. The friend. The bridge.
And you.. He remembers the last words he said to you. I wish it had been you.
The memory hits him. He told you he wished you had died instead of Mei. He looked at you, pregnant with his child, grieving your closest friend, accused of murder by the entire court, and he told you he wished you were dead.
He sent you away while heavily pregnant with his child. He had known about your mother's difficult pregnancies. He had known, and he had sent you away regardless.
And Mei died protecting you. Protecting you and the child. That was her last act of love for you, drinking poison meant for you, sacrificing herself to save you both. And he repaid that sacrifice by exiling you. By telling you he wished you were dead. By sending you away when you needed protection most. When Mei would have wanted him to protect you.
"No." The word tears out of him. "No, no, no…"
He is running before he realizes it, shouting for servants, for guards, for horses.
"The summer estate," he gasps. "Ready a retinue. Now. We leave immediately."
"Your Highness, it is barely dawn…"
"Now!"
The ride takes three days. Three days of riding hard, stopping only when the horses must rest. Three days of Caleb checking his wrist obsessively, looking at your name, praying it does not darken. Praying he is not too late.
He will apologize. He will beg for forgiveness. He will tell you he was blind, that he was wrong, that he convinced himself Mei was his great love when you were standing beside him the entire time.
He will make this right. He has to make this right.
When he arrives at the summer estate, he dismounts before his horse has fully stopped. He strides through the entrance, calling your name.
Servants appear, looking confused. The head of the household, a middle-aged woman with stern features, bows low.
"Your Highness. We did not expect…"
"Where is she?" Caleb demands. "Where is my wife?"
The woman's confusion deepens.
"Your Highness, she is not here."
The world stops.
"What do you mean she is not here? She was sent here several months ago. Where is she?"
"We received no such person, Your Highness. We received word that Her Highness would be coming, yes, but she never arrived."
Caleb's blood runs cold.
"That is impossible. She was sent here. With guards. With servants. They were to deliver her safely…"
"We have seen no one, Your Highness."
He tears through the estate like a madman. He checks every room, every chamber, every corner. He finds nothing. No belongings. No sign you were ever there. He returns to the capital and summons the servants who escorted you. They kneel before him, trembling.
"Where is she?" His voice is deadly quiet. "Where is my wife?"
"We delivered her to the summer estate, Your Highness," the driver says. "We saw her enter…"
"Liar." Caleb's hand goes to his sword. "The estate says she never arrived. Where did you take her?"
"Your Highness, we…"
"WHERE IS SHE?"
The servants exchange glances. Fear is written on their faces, but beneath it, something else. Defiance. Loyalty to someone who is not him.
"You told us you would come when the child was born," one of the servants he brought from the estate finally speaks up. "You made it clear you did not wish to see her until then. We thought, when she did not arrive at the estate, we thought you had changed your mind. That you had made other arrangements."
"What other arrangements? Where is she?"
Silence.
"ANSWER ME!"
But the servants from the retinue he assigned you do not break. They kneel there, silent and stubborn, protecting your location even under threat of death.
Caleb wants to execute them all. He wants to torture the truth from them, but a part of him, the part that remembers Mei's sacrifice, that understands these servants cared for you more than he did, that part stops him.
"Get out," he says finally. "All of you. Get out of my sight."
They leave, and Caleb is alone.
He sends men to every province, every village, every corner of the empire. He offers rewards for information. He follows every rumor, every possible lead.
Every morning, he checks his wrist. Your name remains unchanged. This gives him hope, irrational, desperate hope. If you were dead, the mark would darken. It has to darken. That is how it works. So you must be alive. Somewhere. Hidden, angry with him, but alive.
He will find you. He will make this right.
Seven years pass. Seven years of searching. Seven years of checking his wrist every morning, seeing your name unchanged, telling himself you are still out there. Seven years of guilt and desperation and the faint, foolish hope that maybe, when he finds you, you will forgive him.
Then he sees her.
A little girl in a market by the countryside, six or seven years old, who looks exactly like you the first time he saw you in the orchards. She has your smile, your features, the way you tilt your head, but her eyes, her eyes are his, that distinctive imperial purple, and standing beside her is a woman who looks like an older Mei.
Caleb stops dead in the middle of the market. People flow around him, annoyed at the obstruction, but he cannot move.
It is your daughter. Your daughter and his. The child you were carrying when he sent you away.
The woman holding the girl's hand looks up, and her face goes still when she sees him. She knows who he is, everyone knows the third prince by sight.
"You," Caleb says, and his voice is rough. "I need to speak with you."
The woman, Mei's mother, pulls the girl closer.
"We have nothing to say to you, Your Highness."
"That child…"
"Is not your concern."
"She has my eyes. She is… she is mine." The words break. "Please. Please tell me where her mother is. I have been searching…"
"Her mother is dead." The woman's voice is flat. "She died giving birth."
Seven years. You have been dead for seven years, and his mark never changed. Your name is still there on his wrist, unchanged, as if you are still alive. But you are not alive.
You have been dead for years, and the marks gave him no sign. No darkening. No confirmation. He checks his wrist again desperately. Your name is still there, still shimmering, still unchanged.
The marks are punishing him. They told him the truth about Mei but they refuse to tell him the truth about you.They leave your name unchanged, eternal uncertainty, no closure, no confirmation that you were his great love even though he knows, he knows you were.
"No," he whispers. "No, she cannot be... The mark is unchanged…" He sobs. "She cannot be…"
"She died in my home, far from you, far from the court that destroyed her and my daughter." The woman's eyes are hard. "She spent her last months in the same room my daughter grew up in. She named her baby after my Mei, and then she died, content that the child would be cared for."
"I tried to find her. Her servants would not tell me where they took her…"
"My daughter paid for them before she died. She made arrangements to keep your wife safe, to bring her here instead of your summer estate." Mei's mother's voice is sharp. "My Mei knew you would not protect her, so she did."
The words are a knife. Caleb stumbles, has to catch himself on a nearby stall.
"I need to see her." He reaches out, desperate. "Our daughter. Please let me…"
"You have no daughter." The woman pulls the girl behind her, shielding her. "You have an heir you never wanted, a wife you drove to death, and a legacy of cruelty. That is all you have."
The child, little Mei, peers around her grandmother's skirts, studying Caleb with curious eyes.
"Who is he, Grandma?"
"No one important, darling. Come. We need to go home."
"Wait!" Caleb takes a step forward. "Please. I know I have no right to ask…but please. Let me know her. Let me… I can provide for her. I can give her everything. Education, a title, a place at court…"
"She has everything she needs here." The woman's voice is final. "She has a home, a family who loves her, a quiet life away from politics and from the court. Why would I give that up to send her to you?"
"Because I am her father."
"You are the man who got her mother pregnant and then cast her out while she was heavy with child. That is not a father. That is a stranger who shares her blood and nothing more." Mei’s mother softens slightly, pity flickering across her face. "Go home, Your Highness. Go back to your palace. We do not need you. We never needed you."
She takes the child's hand and walks away, disappearing into the market crowd. Caleb stands frozen for a long time. Then he makes his way to the nearest inn and requests a room.
That evening, a messenger arrives. He carries two letters, one from Mei, one from you.
Mei's letter is long, detailed. She explains everything, the marks, the truth about who loved whom and what she hoped would happen after she was gone. She apologizes for not telling him sooner, for letting him believe she might love him someday, for not having the courage to simply say no.
You and my lady were always meant to be together, she wrote. I was merely the bridge. I pray that my death will help you see what was always written on your skin.
Your letter is shorter, simpler. I forgive you. That is all. No recriminations, no anger, no long explanations, just forgiveness, simple and complete.
Caleb reads both letters three times, then he folds them carefully and places them in his robes, over his heart.
That night, he dreams of apple orchards. He sees you as a child, seven years old, stuck in a tree, afraid to come down. He lifts you onto his shoulders. You laugh. He sees Mei, nine years old, fierce and protective, swearing to always guard you. He sees himself, blind and foolish, chasing the wrong person while the right one stood beside him the entire time.
When he wakes, his face is wet with tears.
He sends letters to Mei's family. He sends money, gifts, offers of support. Everything is returned, unopened. He tries three more times to visit. Each time, he is politely but firmly turned away.
He will never see his daughter again. This is his punishment, and he accepts it.
The marks on his wrist remain unchanged, Mei's name in grey, your name still shimmering as if you live.
He sees them every morning when he wakes, every evening when he undresses. They are a constant reminder of everything he failed to understand.
The absence of darkness on your name torments him more than any blackened mark could. It is a punishment worse than confirmation. It is eternal uncertainty, eternal hope that maybe, somehow, the marks are wrong and you are still alive somewhere. But you are not alive.
You were his great love, and you are gone.
He never remarries. He never takes another concubine. He lives alone in his household, performing his duties, serving the empire, but never truly living again.
Sometimes, on quiet evenings, he takes out your letter and reads it again. I forgive you.
He does not forgive himself. He will carry that weight until the day he dies.
XII
The orchard is exactly as you remember.
Apple trees heavy with fruit, grass soft beneath your feet, sunlight filtering through the leaves in dappled patterns. The air smells of summer, earth and apple blossoms and something indefinably sweet.
You are wearing a simple robe, the kind you wore as a child. Your feet are bare and your hair is loose, unbound by pins or ornaments. You feel light, as if a great weight has been lifted off your shoulders.
"Hello."
You turn.
Mei is standing beneath an apple tree, smiling at you. She looks exactly as she did at sixteen, before the marks appeared, before the arrangement, before everything went wrong.
"Mei."
"Hello, my love." She holds out her hand. "I have been waiting for you."
You run to her. You do not walk nor do you maintain dignity or decorum. You simply run, and she catches you, and you bury your face in her shoulder and sob.
"I am sorry," you gasp between tears. "I am so sorry. I did not know…"
"Hush." Mei strokes your hair, her touch gentle. "There is nothing to apologize for."
"I asked you to stay with him. I made you..."
"You made me nothing." She pulls back, cupping your face in her hands. "I chose to stay. I chose to drink that poison. I chose everything, knowing what it would cost, because I loved you."
You stare at her, and finally, you let yourself understand.
"You were my great love."
"No." Mei's smile is sad as she shakes her head. "You were mine, but I was not yours."
"The marks…"
"Do not match perfectly. They never had to." Mei traces a finger down your cheek. "My great love was you. My companion was Caleb. Your great love was Caleb. Your companion was me. Each of us loving different people, bound together by fate but not identically."
"He was my great love." You say it aloud, testing the words. "Truly?"
"Yes, and you were his. You were both too busy looking elsewhere to see it."
You look at your wrists. The marks are gone. Your skin is bare.
"They fade after death," Mei explains. "They no longer matter here. What matters is what we carry in our hearts."
You take both her hands.
"I love you, Mei. Maybe not the same way you loved me, but I loved you. I love you still."
"I know." Mei's smile is infinitely tender. "And that is enough. It has always been enough."
You stand there in silence, holding hands beneath the apple tree. The question rises in your throat before you can stop it.
"Do you think we would have been happy? If I had chosen you instead?"
Mei is quiet for a long moment.
"I think we were happy together in this life, in our own way. We loved each other, supported each other, shared moments of joy even in the midst of sorrow." She squeezes your hands. "What we had was real. Messy and painful at times, but real. I would not trade that for some imagined perfect version."
"But I could have loved you better. If I had known…"
"You loved me as well as you could with the understanding you had. That is all anyone can do." Mei guides you to the base of the apple tree. You settle into the grass together, shoulders touching. "We are here now. Together. As we were always meant to be, in some way."
"Will we see Caleb again?"
"Eventually, when his time comes." Mei glances at you. "Do you want to?"
You consider this.
Part of you wants to see him, to understand what he felt, what he wishes he had done differently, but part of you is afraid it will hurt all over again.
"I do not know," you admit.
"You have time to decide." Mei's voice is gentle. "This place is patient."
You sit in silence for a while, shoulders touching, listening to the wind move through the orchard. You think about Caleb, about the years he spent chasing Mei while you stood beside him, and you wonder if Mei ever resented being caught in the middle as much as you did.
Then Mei speaks, and her voice is different. Smaller and less certain.
"I was not always graceful about it. Loving you."
You turn to look at her.
"There were nights I hated you for not seeing me." She does not meet your eyes. "After he came to your chambers and you let him stay, after the Moon Festival, I lay in my room and thought terrible things. I thought, she knows. She has to know how I feel, and she simply does not care. I told myself you were selfish and blind and that I was a fool for staying."
Her hands are clasped tight in her lap.
"It passed. It always passed. By morning I would see you at breakfast, tired and sad and trying so hard to hold everything together, and the anger would dissolve, and all that remained was the wanting." She exhales. "But the resentment was there. I carried it alongside the love, and some nights, the resentment was louder."
You reach over and take her hands, uncurling her fingers.
"You are allowed to have been angry with me."
"I know, but I wanted you to hear it from me, not imagine me as someone who never struggled. I struggled. I raged. I wept into my pillow and cursed the marks and wished I had been born loving anyone else." Mei finally looks at you. Her eyes are bright. "And then morning would come, and you would smile at me, and I would think, oh, there you are, and it would start all over again."
You pull her close and hold her, and she lets you, and neither of you speaks for a long time. Then something shifts, a thought that has been circling the edges of your mind for longer than you want to admit finally settles where you can see it clearly.
"I did to you what he did to me."
Mei goes still beside you.
"Caleb kept me close but never truly saw me. He valued my presence but not my heart. He decided what I was to him before he ever asked." Your voice is steady, but your hands are not. "And I did the same thing to you. Every day. For years."
"That is not…”
"It is." You do not let her soften this. "You tried to tell me. In the kitchen with the herbs, you were telling me in the only way you had left, and I walked away. When you asked me for permission to refuse him, I said no, not because it was the right thing, but because it was easier for me. I made you carry his attention so I would not have to watch my marriage fall apart. I used you, Mei. The same way the arrangement used all of us, I used you."
Mei is quiet for a long time.
"You did not mean to."
"Neither did Caleb. He did not mean to overlook me. He was not cruel on purpose. He simply never questioned what he assumed." You turn to face her. "I never questioned either. I decided you were my companion and I stopped looking. I stopped asking what you needed, what you wanted, whether you were happy. I saw what was convenient and I never looked deeper."
"You were suffering too. You were trying to survive."
"So was he. That did not make it hurt less when he looked through me." You take her hands. "I am not asking you to forgive me. I am asking you to let me say this, because you deserve to hear someone name what was done to you instead of dressing it up as fate or duty or sacrifice."
Mei's composure fractures. It is small, a tremor in her jaw, the unshed in her eyes, but it is the most unguarded you have ever seen her.
"I waited a very long time," she whispers, "for someone to say that."
"I know. I am sorry it took me dying to get here."
A sound escapes her that is half laugh, half sob. She presses her forehead against your joined hands.
"You insufferable woman," she breathes. "Even now, you find a way to break my heart."
"I think that is what we do to each other. It seems to be our particular talent."
Mei finally laughs, wet and raw and real. You stay like that for a long time. Long enough for the trembling to stop. Long enough for the orchard to settle around you again.
When you finally pull apart, Mei wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, and the gesture is so ordinary, so human, that it makes your chest ache
"Tell me about my daughter," you say softly.
"She has a wonderful life. Bright and curious and loved. She grows up with her grandmother, learning to sew and tend the garden. She laughs often. She is happy."
Relief floods through you.
"Good. That is good."
"She looks like you, except for the eyes. Those are all Caleb."
You close your eyes. The orchard is peaceful, and safe, you could stay here forever.
"Mei?"
"Yes?"
"I am glad you are here. I am glad we have this."
"So am I.”
"Even when the marks fade?"
"Especially then. Because when the marks are gone, we know the love was never about what was written on our skin. It was about what we chose to give each other, day after day, even when it cost us everything."
Mei leans in and presses her lips to your forehead, soft and lingering.
"Rest now. You have been tired for so long. Rest."
So you do.
You rest in the orchard, in the place where your childhood lived, where your memories are sweetest.
You rest beside the girl who loved you more than you ever knew, who gave everything for you and never asked for anything in return.
And for the first time in forever, you sleep without grief.
The End
⚜ an: writing let the light in part two frustrated me so much because i can't get the angst right that i ended up focusing on this fic instead. this is also my first attempt writing an f/f fic so please be kind to me. as always your likes, comments, and reblogs are greatly appreciated!
synopsis: As the steady anchor between Oikawa’s ambition and Iwaizumi’s loyalty, you were the center of a trio that felt destined to last forever. However, as volleyball pulled them toward separate horizons, the easy intimacy of your youth eroded into missed calls and the heavy silence of diverging lives. Years later, catching a glimpse of their unfamiliar faces reveals a quiet grief: you didn't lose them to a fight, but to the slow, natural drift of time.
chidhood friends iwaoi and reader
word count: 2.7k
note: english is my 2nd language so im sorry for any grammatical errors. this is not proofed read or beta-ed.
friend 1: hey i saw oikawa's friend!
friend 2: who? which one?
friend 1: Iwaizumi.
friend 2: iwaizumi Hajime? where?
friend 2: @[reader] girl! OMG!
friend 1: [sent a picture]
friend 1: here at the gym im attending
[reader]: that's a rather closed up picture
friend 2: @[reader] what if
friend 2: look at him~ he's so buff now.
[reader]: hmmm
[reader]: i dont know that person
people like to joke that the three of you came in a set.
where one was, the other two were never far behind.
it started young— before volleyball became everything, before grades and expectations and distance became real enough to split people apart. back when scraped knees were the worst pain imaginable, and promises were made under the summer sun felt permanent.
Oikawa was the loud one.
Iwaizumi was the angry one.
and you—-
you were stuck in between, the referee, accomplice, and witness to every ridiculous thing they've done.
the little tag along.
"stop crying, Oikawa, you were barely cut" Iwaizumi grumbleed as he watched Oikawa clutched his wrist and look at his bleeding finger with tears and snot falling off his face.
"i'm bleeding!"
giving him the flattest look, Iwaizumi said "its a paper cut"
"its hurts like a chihuahua's bite!"
you stood up and humored oikawa by patting his head as if to comfort him
"let's treat that wound then Kawa-chan. lets ignore the big tough wolf over there" you said, giving Iwaizumi a playful stinky eye.
Iwaizumi, who stood across the both of with his usual unimpressed expresssion, muttered exasperatedly "you're both annoying"
"and yet" you said with a smile, wrapping a cartoon bandaid around Oikawa's finger, "you keep hanging out with us"
Iwaizumi clicked his tongue, cheeks faintly pink from the summer hear or maybe embarrassment.
"because if i dont, who's gonna stop you idiot from being foolish and dying?!"
Oikawa gasped and clutched his chest "Iwa-chan, was that you version of a love confession—"
"it was a threat"
"it was so heartfelt. we should be together forever!" Oikawa beamed
both of them stared at each other, one have the eyes of determination the other have the eyes that's irked enough to hit someone
for a moment the three of you were engulfed in silence until you launghed so hard you nearly fell backwards.
you swore you saw that scene in a gag show last night.
that was how it always was.
you in the middle.
oikawa clinging dramatically to you shoulder.
iwaizumi pretending he didnt care while staying anyway.
your parents had given up trying to separate the three of you.
sleepovers became normal. homework became group suffering. family dinners blurred together untilyour parents automatically made extra portions because they assume one or both would eventually show up.
sometimes, on nights when the rain was too loud and everyone was too tired to walk home, the three of you would end up half-asleep in your room.
oikawa sprawled like he paid rent
you stealing most of the blanket
and iwaizumi, stubbornly insisting he was "fine on the floor" until your mother forced him to bed too.
you'd wake up tangled together, oikawa snoring like a dying engine (dude sure can snore even when he was a child), and iwaizumi glaring at the ceiling like the world offended him
"you kick in your sleep" he'd grumble.
"and you drool when you sleep" you'd shoot back
"that was oikawa!"
"lies and slander" oikawa would mumble from under the pillow.
middle school came with sharper edges.
oikawa got pettier— prettier.
iwaizumi is getting broader
and people started looking at the three of you differently.
girls whispered when oikawa walked by.
teachers sighed when you, iwaizumi and oikawa bicker in class
"i'm telling your mom" you said, venom in your tone
"you wouldn't!"
"you stole my pudding!"
"you stole my milkbread!" oikawa exclaimed and pause as he wiped his mouth of the remnants of the syrup of the pudding he had 'stolen'
"and its a communal property!" he defended with conviction as if he was in a court hearing.
a court hearing of bickering teens
"wha— it had my name on it!" you took the plastic cup of the pudding and shoved it on his "see that? its said [readeeeer]!"
iwaizumi who's been silent through the entire altercation voiced his thoughts
"stealing is a incurable disease, trashykawa"
"this is betrayal! im surrounded by betrayers!"
people asked you question as if they were entitled to an answer
"so which on do you like"
to which you would roll your eyes and answer:
"neitgher, they're a disaster!"
but maybe that was only half true.
because there were moments.
small ones.
the kind you never notice until much later in life.
like how iwaizumi always walked on the side closest to the road. how he silently hand you his jacket when you complained about being cold.
how he remembered things you mentioned once in passing— you fave drink, the name of the author you likes, your fave season, fave genre.
he never made it obvious.
oikwa was an easy affection. bright and loud and impossible to ignore. he can charm anyone with the right word, right tone, bright smile and his conviction.
he remembers details of you as well. your fave style, the cafe you want to visit, foods your allergic to, subjects your weak at.
he would make a big deal out of them most of the time.
yet, they were the kind of people you only realized you depended on when they were suddenly gone.
maybe that was the problem.
because by high school, everyone was changing,
especially Oikawa.
volleyball became less of a hobby and more of a hunger.
there were longer practices, bigger expectations, sharper tempers.
the easy childhood softness between the three of you started stretching thing
victories made oikawa glow like the sun itself and lossess makes it feel like winter came a little too early.
you cheered from the sidelines, memorized their jersey numbers, and accidentally get dubed as a volleyball fan cause you explain to your girl friends the difference of a setter and a spiker, a normal serve and a floaty.
because, whether you know it or not, loving people means learning the language they speak.
still, somewhere along the way, you stopped being part of that circle. got sidelines and became part of the crowd watching them grow in their own fields.
at first it was small.
"we can't, practice will be running late"
"sorry, coach added extra drills"
"next time?"
"maybe"
next time became the new phrase often shared between the three of you and highschool made it undeniable the next time exists for every denied and cancelled plans.
volleyball wasnt just important. it was everything.
especially for oikawa.
every conversation bent towards it. every mood and hangout depended on it.
every version of the future seemed to begin and end with the court.
iwaizumi followed closed behind— not because he was chasing oikawa, but because he had always been the person standing beside him.
and you?
you stayed in the same place as before. trying not to notice how much emptier it was becoming. trying to hold together pieces of a fragile glass that once didnt need effort to put together.
lunches became rushed.
hangouts became rescheduled.
group chats became mostly you asking when everyone is free.
sometimes they answered.
most of the time they dont.
you told yourself not to be dramatic and expand your circle.
it didnt have to be them any longer.
"people grew up. people got busy. this is normal" was something you tell yourself most of the time.
but grief starts long before loss admits itself.
one evening, you sat alone in your room staring at your phone.
your last message in the group chat:
are we still meeting today?
seen.
no reply.
an hour later, oikawa posted a picture from practive.
iwaizumi in the background, sweaty, and as usual looks mildly annoyed and some of their volleyball teammates.
caption: my loyal subjects.
you stared at it longer that you should have.
then locked your phone. then unlocked it again.
then laughed at yourself because what were you even upset about?
they were busy. you knew that. you supported that.
so why did it feel like you were being left behind?
maybe because being understanding and being unhurt were never the same thing?
and they werent even cruel about it.
cruel would have been easier.
there was no fight.
no betrayal.
no dramatic ending.
just slow erosion.
like the tide taking something grain by grain until one day the shoreline looks unfamiliar.
and that silent night, you cried alone under the full moon's light.
"I'm leaving the country" Oikawa sprung it up on their rare sleep over of their third year.
"I'm going to Argentina after graduation" he continued.
Silence engulf your room
"wha—what do you—" before you could even finish your sentence iwaizumi spoke
"I guess the talk you had with coach cleared your head huh?"
"yeah. yeah, it did" he replied, closing his eyes as if recalling a good memory.
and for the first time in a long while your room felt too small for the three of you.
and for the first time you felt alone in the company of people you once hold dear.
its like they live in a different world, and you were an alien hovering.
and for the first time in a long while, since you first met them, you became polite.
for the first time, you had to knock and ask to be let in the world they built without you in mind.
"may i know what this is all about?"
their eyes met, realizing that you practically do not know what they were talking about.
that they had unintentionally left you in the dark.
lo and behold oikawa started chattering away, about how he met his idol Jose Blanco, to how he was practically offered a mentorship.
atleast you were one of the first people he told about this, right?
graduation came like a funeral dressed as celebration.
the three of you posed for the camera one last time. as if to commemorate the closing of a chapter or an ending of a book.
pictures were taken and promises were made when nobody knew how to keep them.
then came his flight
"i'll visit" oikawa said with his puffy eyes.
"bruh, we both know that's impossible. its volleyball over life for you" you said in all seriousness while holding back the tears that was threatening to fall.
"hey! i know work-life balance" he defended himself, pouting.
you and iwaizumi gave him a blank stare and said "yeah right" looking utterly unconvinced by his defense.
"dont forget me when i become internationally famous" he said smugly, as if to inflate his confidence that was shattered by your stares.
"as if your ego would let that happen" iwaizumi slung his arms across oikawa's shoulder and ruffled his head and they both laughed.
all of you laughed
then quiter—
"you'll be okay, right?"
such a stupid question, because what were you supposed to say? 'dont leave and stay here with us?'
let him rot in a town that is not letting him fly?
so instead you offerend him a smile that didnt reach your eyes
"obviously" he engulf both of you in one final hug and said "i will miss both of you. i will miss this. i will miss how easy we folded with each other. i will miss how easy we read each other." he said, his voices cracking.
you just hugged him thighter, because you knew.
this will be it.
this will be the last time you will see him this way.
this will be the last time you will see the semblance of the oikawa you grew up with, because by the time he comeback, by the time he step back in this very airport he will no longer be the oikawa you knew.
And Iwaizumi, he didnt say much. but maybe he also knew the implications, the realization of what time and distance entails for the three of you.
When Oikawa disappeared from sight, the silence did not suffocate you.
ironically, it comforted you. it reminded you of your childhood— where silence between the three of you were easy, comfortable, warm and full of understanding.
maybe that's why you said "you're leaving too, right?" with the gentlest smile you could muster while looking at the direction Oikawa disappeared to.
he stared straight ahead, jaw tight, shoulders tense, like if he let himself breathe too deeply, something inside him might crack.
iwaizumi blinked.
his expression shifted. caught off guard by the certainty of your question.
"when's your flight iwa-chan?"
"what?"
you chuckled and look at his face that is now staring at you as if you grew another head. "you and Kawa-chan's are two side's of the same coin. you're more alike than what you believe y'know"
"that's ridiculous, [reader]" he scoffed yet smiled softly at what you said.
"You're both larger than life. You will always chase excellence in the places that call for you. In that sense, both of you are the same."
he kept looking at you.
too intently.
too honestly.
"is that why you're asking?"
"yes"
for a long time, he said nothing.
the airport lights reflected in the glass around you, making everything feel distant and dissonant yet ironically comforting.
finally, he spoke.
"i thought you'd be the one leaving first"
you frowned, "what?"
"you always looked past here" he said, "past this town. past us"
his voice wasnt accusing. it was as if he was stating a fact.
a fact that shows how much absence affected your friendship cause he no longer knew you. you dont know where he pulled the words he had just uttered. because you thought you cant fly as high as they can.
"you had plans. big ones. you always seem like you would be going somewhere"
he looked away then, like saying this much already cost too much.
once again, silence engulf the both of you until the both of you parted ways.
adulthood came like a thief. and friendship, as it turns out, was one of the easiest thing to leave behind.
at first, the group chat were filled with text once again.
Oikawa from Argentina with his selfies, complaints, and dramatic declarations of suffering, longing and homesickness
Iwaizumi from California with his random health facts, and random sports questions for Oikawa, random daily life update
and you from Tokyo with you day to day life as the regular smegular colleger girl, in new town, new place, and new people.
then less.
and less
and null.
birthdays became late greetings
then missed calls
then silenced, once visited your group chat, welcomed it back like a friend.
the silence stretched so long that reaching out started to feel embarrassing.
like showing up to a house you used to live in and realizing someone else owns it now.
friend 1: hey I saw oikawa's friend!
friend 2: who? which one?
friend 1: Iwaizumi
friend 2: iwaizumi hajime? where?
friend 2: @[reader] girl! omg
friend 2: weren't the three of you friends before?
friend 1: [sent a photo]
[reader]; that's a rather closed up photo
You stare at the image.
Too close.
Too familiar.
Broader shoulders.
Sharper jaw.
A a built that still looks like home if you squint.
friend 2: @[you] what if 👀👀👀
friend 2: look at him~ he’s so buff now
You type:
hmmm
Then:
i don’t know that person
And maybe that’s the cruelest lie you tell. Because you do know him.
You know the boy who sat on your bedroom floor doing homework.
The boy who walked closest to the road without thinking. The boy who knew how you took your coffee before you started drinking coffee. You know the version of him that existed when your lives still touched.
But adulthood makes strangers out of people who once knew your soul.
And sometimes the grief isn’t that they changed.
It’s that they changed without you.
So no—you don’t know that person.
Not anymore.
You only know the ghosts.
And ghosts, unfortunately,
don’t text back.
A/N: this is my second time posting anything on here! I hope you enjoyed this one, dears! <3
comments mean the most to me!
like comment and reblog dearests!
