Chapter Text
"Is there no other way?" He wants to ask. No, he wants to scream and cry. And yet, he doesn't do it, knowing every path he traces leads to only this one solution.
Walking away—there has been times in his life where he knew escape was the best option and he didn't hesitate to do it. Cale Henituse has been through a lot of things and sometimes to leave a scene so irrepairable isn't a form of cowardice. It is just what's needed to be done in order to survive another day.
Walking away has never been this difficult.
It's more than just a selfish sense of justice or a nagging conscience based on some foolish morals and ego. The emotions grip his heart and he's left in silence. Isn't it really the only way left? Cale finds himself unable to tear his gaze away from Alberu's slumped figure on the seat in front of him. The two of them are huddled in a booth in a small restaurant—private enough no eyes try to pry into their business, public enough to deter possible breakdowns or fights from happening. Distant too, if one would describe. His lips are pursed into a straight line betraying no emotions.
"That's all, Hyung?" These words come out of his mouth.
"That is all, Cale."
The blond replies. Though, even before the response is spoken outloud, Cale too already knows that there isn't much else to be salvaged. It's just hilarious, absolutely funnand a comedic legend: the fact that everything they've been through feels like they're being reduced into a pair of almost strangers with history. That they can't even speak to each other anymore without the atmosphere suffocating on them heavily.
His head blanks.
Cale has heard before that in response to extreme situations, humans often are forced by their base instincts to choose between fight, flight or freeze. And for as long as he has lived, the redhead has done nothing but fight or flight. If someone beats him down, he gets up and fights again. If his head understands the opponent is beyond his limits, he flees and gets to see another sunrise. This is just the way of the living for Cale Henituse, ever the planner and then a fighter.
Here he is, for the first time ever in his life, frozen still.
Dread washes over his chest like waves of tsunami, the temperature around him feels as if it drops into subzero and his heart caged in a prison of ice. Unconsciously, he clenches his hands. It does nothing to curb the plethora of emotions he's experiencing. His mind works a hundred miles per hour—and yet nothing but bumbling anxiety-induced thoughts are produced. Like a fool, he sits there and stares, unable to do anything so much as twitch his fingers into life or work his mouth out of inaction.
Cale wants to puke.
"Hyung." He decides to say at last. It isn't a plea, nor is it a call. Somewhere along the way of their fragmented relationship, Cale has started feeling like he lost his privilege to reach out to Alberu. Not when the two of them gradually morph into two pairs of roses so deeply intertwined—all they could do is watch as their thorns continuously pierce each other. There were never bruises in the path they left as they walked together, but even unseen wounds can cause the most intense of pains.
Alberu merely gives him a last bitter smile, one he has to force to even show, "It will be better if we don't meet again." He never says 'it has been a good time' or things along those lines. A last sip to the bitter americano in front of him, and no goodbyes: these become Alberu's parting gift to him.
Cale stays stone still there for the few hours to come.