"Don’t."
The word was a short burst of air that escaped his lips before he could even think about it, and he flinched the tiniest bit upon hearing that term of endearment, though he tried to hide it. Part of him delighted at hearing it again, but that same feeling highlighted how absent that single word had been from his life and how much he had yearned to hear Kevin’s voice call him that again. He just… couldn’t deal with it right now.
Hikaru took a deep breath again, trying to recompose himself as he exhaled shakily.
"Why me?"
" I thought it was obvious. "
Before he left, he had always dwelt within the helmsman's company. It had been a solace, a sort of dome of comfort that no other space could replicate. Hikaru was what made him feel safe, what made him feel as though he mattered in a crew of hundreds. Had he made the wrong choice to leave, without a word to the other? He knew it had been. Regret bled through his veins as he desperately clung to what was left of his sanity, a hand finding the other man as he gripped his uniform shirt.
" I love you. "












