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Every summer, Kaelix’s father invites an intern to stay with them, a temporary guest folded into the seams of their home in exchange for room and board and a helping hand with his research. It’s always been like this—new faces emerging with the cicadas and disappearing before the first rainfall of September. Some years, there were none, sometimes he took in more than one. But Kaelix had long grown indifferent to the cycle. He’d learned not to look too closely, not to care. Not because he was cold—but because he was the kind to grow attached fast, foolishly fast. The kind to watch a person walk through the door and already start counting how many pieces they’d leave him in when they walked out.
“Zeal is coming tomorrow,” his father casually says during dinner, talking as if they were talking about the weather or the news. His mother barely even looks up, only hums her agreement and reminds their housekeeper to clean the guest room, to prepare something welcoming and warm for lunch.
The intern arrives around morning, just an hour shy for lunch time.
Kaelix sees him first from the terrace—the sun haloed behind Zeal’s head like a secret. He squints down, watches violet eyes catch the light like glass, a beauty mark sitting at the bottom of his lips like a thumbprint from God. His hair is black, his limbs long. Not taller than Kaelix, but close. He’s wearing a linen dress shirt that flutters too easily in the breeze, shorts that cut off just above the knee, like he doesn’t need to try.
He greets everyone with the charm of someone who’s been raised to impress—Kaelix’s parents, the housekeeper, the younger siblings clambering over one another for attention. And then, he’s looking up, waving, and Kaelix stills on the steps.
“Kaelix, right?” he says. His voice is a warm, gliding thing. Confident, unhurried, familiar in a way that shouldn’t be possible.
Kaelix only nods. “Yeah. Welcome.”
“Thanks,” Zeal replies, and with a smile that toes the line between approachable and unknowable, adds, “Later.”
And just like that, he walks past him. No handshake. No fist bump. No idle question. Just the housekeeper’s voice guiding him through the door and Kaelix—still standing, stood there, dumbfounded.
Over the following days, Zeal adapts to their house like water to sponge. Effortless, slow, and then suddenly everywhere. He walks barefoot without hesitation. He memorizes the names of Kaelix’s younger siblings and wins their adoration like it was his birthright. He talks with their housekeeper as if they’ve known each other for years. Laughs with Kaelix’s father like they were colleagues, not student and mentor. Every conversation ends with his name in someone’s mouth.
It irritated Kaelix. How someone can easily slip into a space and occupy it like they were always meant to be there.
One afternoon, Kaelix finds him in the kitchen—wearing one of his favorite shirts. The shirt Kaelix liked because it was just oversized enough to drape loosely over his frame. But on Zeal, it fits snugly, perfectly. As if it had never belonged to anyone else. He didn’t say anything but his eyes trailed wherever Zeal had gone.
“Why the fuck is he microwaving his coffee?” Kaelix mutters to the housekeeper, half-whisper, half-complaint. She chuckles in amusement as they both peer over the counter, watching Zeal, all content smiles and quiet whistles, waiting patiently for the microwave to beep.
Kaelix starts to learn him like a song—like a rhythm already playing in the background of his mind with a melody he’s yet to fully grasp. Zeal liked his coffee reheated, said it was practical, that making a new pot every time was tedious. He liked his eggs soft, yolk melting over avocado and toast. He played silly games on his phone that needed quick fingers and unrelented focus. He hummed when he studied. He hummed when he cooked. He hummed when he read.
There was always something open about Zeal, but always at a distance. A deliberate sort of distance, the kind that said, I know you’re watching me, Kaelix. And perhaps he did. And perhaps that’s what drove Kaelix to watch more.
One late afternoon, Kaelix finds him curled in the living room. Glasses low on his nose, book in hand, humming again. The sky outside burns in soft gradations—orange, rose, bruised lilac. A breeze rolls through the open window.
“You hum even when you’re reading?” Kaelix asks, brushing his hair behind his ear, trying to sound casual. He leans just a little closer than necessary.
Zeal doesn’t look surprised. His lips curl, teasing. “Only when I want to impress people who walk by pretending not to be interested.”
Kaelix blushes. It’s sharp and fast. “I didn’t do it on purpose.”
“Hm, sure,” Zeal says, snapping the book shut. “Not like I didn’t notice you peeking or anything.”
Kaelix rolls his eyes but doesn’t argue. He sits beside him—arms crossed, lips pressed, trying to act like he’s unaffected. But the silence isn’t hostile. It’s soft. Familiar. Like settling into a warm bath.
That night, Kaelix lies awake. The room dark. The ceiling blank. His thoughts wild.
He imagines Zeal saying his name—not casually, but gently. The way he says the names of Kaelix’s siblings. The way he talks when no one else is in the room.
He imagines Zeal’s voice in the dark, closer, lower. Breathe warm against his skin.
He flips onto his stomach with a groan, grabbing the monkey plushie he’s had since childhood and screaming into it. What the hell was this? Why did Zeal matter so much?
He doesn’t know what he wants. He only knows that he wants. And that is terrifying.
He doesn’t want Zeal. Not really. Not the intern with the pretty eyes and perfect shirts and laughter that threads through the walls of their home like ivy again. He doesn’t want him.
And yet his heart says otherwise.
“So why are you so frustrated if you don’t care about him?” Freo asks, lazily stirring his drink at a get-together. Kaelix had spent the past hour quietly falling apart infront of his friend who listened with amusement, ranting about Zeal until the words became static.
“Because,” Kaelix groans, raking his hands through his hair, “I don’t know.” He drops his head onto the table with a pitiful sigh.
Freo eyes him, unimpressed. “You weren’t like this with the other interns.”
“That’s because they weren’t as irritating as he is!” Kaelix cries.
And there it was again. That irritation. That longing masquerading as anger. That sense of something slipping just beneath the surface, just out of reach.
Zeal starts leaving things around the house.
His book on the garden bench Kaelix always sat on when he wanted to be alone. His headphones on the kitchen counter, still playing soft music Kaelix didn’t recognize but found himself listening to anyway. A hoodie thrown over the banister. His sandals by the back door. His presence, once temporary and cautious, begins to settle like dust.
Kaelix notices all of it.
One night, he finds Zeal outside on the porch, shirt loose and collarbone exposed, glowing faintly under the lamplight. He’s smoking a cigarette lazily, like it’s something he does only when he forgets not to.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” Kaelix says, standing in the doorway, arms crossed but eyes soft.
Zeal turns, exhales slowly. “I don’t. Not really. Just when I feel like I’m not real.”
The words settle heavy between them. Kaelix steps outside, barefoot, the wood warm under his feet from the day’s heat.
“I know what you mean,” Kaelix mutters, voice quiet. “Sometimes I feel like I’m watching myself from the outside. Like I’m stuck in someone else’s summer.”
Zeal looks at him. Not toward him but at him. It’s the kind of gaze that makes you feel naked in places no one can see.
“Maybe it’s because you don’t let anyone touch it,” Zeal says, flicking the cigarette ash over the porch rail. “The summer, I mean. You hold it so tightly it can’t breathe.”
Kaelix doesn’t respond. He just sits beside him and watches the dark.
That night, sleep doesn’t come easy. Every sound feels amplified—Zeal’s door opening for a glass of water, the creak of the hallway, the rustle of sheets. Kaelix listens for all of it, holds it to his chest like a secret.
A week passes. The air shifts. A summer storm rolls in, the kind that drowns the afternoons in thunder and makes the nights cool and wet.
Kaelix finds Zeal in the study, leaning over a desk lamp, notes spread across the table. His damp hair curls at the ends, and there’s a sheen to his skin that glows in the low light. It’s too warm in the room. The windows are closed, keeping the rain from the study.
Kaelix leans against the doorframe. “You’re always working.”
Zeal doesn’t look up. “You’re always watching.”
Kaelix’s breath stutters. He wants to laugh, or scoff, or say something sharp to break the tension, but nothing comes. His voice gets stuck at his throat.
“Do I make you uncomfortable?” Zeal asks, finally looking up, voice soft but pointed.
Kaelix’s pulse stutters. “No.”
Zeal stands slowly. There’s no malice in him, no arrogance. Just something quiet and steady, like a tide pulling forward.
“Then why do you look at me like you’re angry?” Zeal steps closer. Not enough to touch, but enough to make Kaelix feel every inch of space between them. “Like I’ve done something to you.”
Kaelix swallows. His mouth is dry. He wants to say something that matters, but all that comes out is, “Because I don’t understand you.”
A pause.
Zeal’s voice is low now, almost a whisper. “That’s not true. You understand me too well. That’s the problem.”
Kaelix steps back, heart racing. “You’re just an intern.” He says, looking away with crossed arms.
Zeal smiles faintly. “And you’re just the boy who says he doesn’t care but stays up imagining my voice in the dark.”
Kaelix freezes. How the fuck does he know about that?
He wants to run. He wants to stay. He wants to tell Zeal to leave. He wants to pull him closer just to feel what it’s like.
But instead, he turns and leaves the room
Later, alone in his bed, Kaelix stares at the ceiling while the storm rages outside. His hands are clenched, his body rigid with a frustration he doesn’t know where to place. Zeal hadn’t followed him. Hadn’t pushed. He didn’t need to. He’d said what he said, and Kaelix would carry it like an ache.
The house feels too quiet now. And Zeal’s silence is louder than any confession.
The next morning, Zeal is gone before Kaelix wakes up.
Not gone gone—just not in the kitchen, not in the living room, not by the orchids in the backyard. His shoes are by the door. His mug is rinsed and drying on the rack. His voice isn’t anywhere.
And that—somehow—makes it worse.
Kaelix walks barefoot through the house like he’s chasing a shadow. His siblings are playing outside, their laughter distant. His mother is humming in the other room. The housekeeper’s frying eggs and asks if he wants coffee. He declines. He wants Zeal’s coffee—over-microwaved, too dark, served in that chipped cup with the handle slightly broken.
He ends up sitting on the swing under the orchids, where Zeal usually spends his mornings reading or just lying there with his eyes half-shut. The air is warm, the kind that clings. There’s no breeze today. Only the heavy quiet of something unfinished.
Kaelix leans back, rests his head against the chain, and closes his eyes. He knows it’s pathetic—the way he’s waiting. The way he aches.
But still. He waits.
When Zeal finally returns, it’s late afternoon. Sunlight spilling golden across the floorboards, thick and slow. He enters through the back gate, hands in his pockets, sweat clinging to his neck and collarbone.
Kaelix is in the hallway when he sees him, and for a second, he forgets how to move.
Zeal looks up, startled but not surprised. “You always stand like that when you’re about to say something but don’t.”
Kaelix shifts. “Where did you go?”
Zeal shrugs, pulling off his shirt and using it to dab the sweat off his face. He’s wearing a thin undershirt beneath. It does nothing to help Kaelix. “Went for a walk. Needed space.”
“From what?”
Zeal looks at him, unreadable. “From everything.”
There’s a pause, then another. One of those long, stretching silences where everything unsaid builds pressure behind the ribs. One that makes Kaelix feel like he’s a kid again. A pause that makes him nervous and anxious.
“You said something the other night,” Kaelix says finally, voice smaller than he wants it to be.
“I say a lot of things,” Zeal answers, but his voice is gentle.
Kaelix doesn’t move. “It’s not fair. You say things like that and then pretend it means nothing.”
Zeal walks past him, their shoulders brushing. He doesn’t stop, but his voice follows behind: “Who said I was pretending?”
Kaelix turns sharply, heart in his throat. But Zeal’s already gone, disappeared into the spare room with a soft click of the door.
That night, Kaelix lays in bed again. But this time, he doesn’t imagine Zeal’s voice. He imagines his back, the way it curves slightly as he walks away. The way he doesn’t look back. He imagines calling out to him. And imagines Zeal stopping, not turning fully, just enough to show he heard.
He stays in bed, clutching the monkey plushie again, furious at himself for needing someone who’s made no promises.
But, still, he wants Zeal to brush past him in the hallway again. Wants to feel that electric closeness, that unbearable maybe. Wants him to hum when he reads, to leave his shirts lying around like an invitation. Wants him to look at him the way he did that night in the study, like he knows.
And worst of all—Kaelix wants Zeal to say his name.
Just once. Softly. Like he means it.
It’s late. Too late for the house to be awake, and Kaelix has given up trying to sleep. He’s tired of tossing, of imagining Zeal just across the hall. He’s tired of the weight in his chest that doesn’t lift. Of that unbearable maybe pressing down on him.
So he leaves his room barefoot, barely breathing as he moves down the hallway. He doesn’t even knock. His hand hesitates on the doorknob for only a second before he turns it.
The room is dim, lit only by the faint amber spill of the hallway light behind him. Zeal is sitting on the edge of his bed, legs bare, wearing only a tank top and boxers, bent over a notebook with a pen in hand. He doesn’t look startled.
“I figured you would,” Zeal says, as if Kaelix has come here a hundred times before. “Eventually.” He adds with a tone of confidence, almost like he already predicted that Kaelix would come to him.
Kaelix’s breath catches. “Then why didn’t you say anything?”
Zeal looks at him slowly, lazily. “Because I wasn’t sure if you’d come for me… or just for something you thought I could give you.”
Kaelix steps inside, closing the door behind him. The air between them feels thinner now.
“I don’t know what I want,” Kaelix admits, voice barely a whisper. “But I know it’s not nothing.”
Zeal stands. He’s taller now—maybe not in inches, but in presence. He walks over and stops inches away, his body warm and pulsing with restraint. His hand lifts, brushing a lock of hair from Kaelix’s face, then lingering at his jaw. He brushes a thumb over the younger’s lips, tracing the outline. He places it on the bottom lip, moving it so it opens Kaelix’s mouth.
Kaelix breathes heavily, eyes following Zeal’s own pair of eyes. There was hunger and lust in the other’s gaze, almost like he wants to devour him whole. It made Kaelix shiver in both excitement and nervousness.
“You look like you’re about to break,” Zeal murmurs, face a little too close as his hand moves to cup the younger’s cheek.
Kaelix leans into the touch. “Then break me.”
That’s when Zeal kisses him—soft at first, almost testing, like he wants to see if Kaelix will flinch or flee. But Kaelix doesn’t move. He breathes against his mouth, fingers gripping Zeal’s shoulders like they’re the only real thing in the world.
The kiss deepens, turns hungrier. Zeal’s hands move with confidence—sliding up Kaelix’s sides, under his shirt, pressing into bare skin like he wants to memorize every inch. Kaelix gasps when their hips meet, when Zeal’s mouth trails to his neck and bites, just once, just enough to leave a mark that only they’ll know is there. He cranes his neck to give the older more room to suck. His hand moves to grab Zeal’s dark locks, pulling when a certain bite makes him feel so much more than he should.
Their clothes come off slowly, like they’re savoring the permission to touch. The heat between them grows unbearable, sweat beading on their skin as their bodies press together, skin on skin, breath on breath. Zeal’s fingers linger on the waistband of Kaelix’s boxers, teasing. He kisses from the neck to the chest where his mouth finds its place on the soft pink nub. His tongue swirls around it, biting and sucking while his hand plays with the other nipple.
Kaelix moans, unabashed.
Zeal moves to the other nipple as his other hand traveled down to Kaelix’s hard member. The reaction he got was instant—there was a gasp, then a moan, and then a whine. He holds back from smiling when the feels the younger rutting on his hand. Looking for some kind of friction to get him off. He hasn’t even put a hand in and yet Kaelix was already this needy.
It made Zeal’s cock twitch.
“Ngh—come on, don’t tease me..” Kaelix moans, pulling his boxers down and pulling Zeal’s wrist, “Please, Zeal?”
Zeal blinks at him before breathing heavily, “Haah.. you don’t know what you do to me, Kaelix.” He growls, hands moving to jerk the younger off.
He looks down and spits directly on Kaelix’s cock, using it as lube. He moves his hand up and down and uses his other hand’s thumb to play with the tip. He watches Kaelix squirm, whining and whimpering. The expression on the younger’s face makes him unbelievably horny.
Zeal watched as beads of pre-cum ran down Kaelix’s cock, “You close, baby?”
“D-Don’t..!” Kaelix cuts himself off with a groan, “Don’t call me th-that!”
“Baby?” Zeal teases.
Kaelix whines, “S-Stop!” he pants, one hand gripping Zeal’s shoulder for balance.
He cums when Zeal bites his collarbone. The older’s hand was painted in white and Kaelix flushes in embarrassment, looking away from him but it was futile as Zeal moves his head to face him once more. A thumb traced his lips once more, this time they were looking eye to eye, then—Zeal inserts two fingers inside his mouth.
Kaelix groans, hands moving to hold Zeal’s wrist. Not to stop him.
But to move it even more.
He sucked on Zeal’s fingers with a hunger he didn’t know he had. Like he was being fed a vanilla flavored lollipop. Like they were a once in a life time treat. He sucked and sucked, gagging when they hit the back of his throat.
“Hungry little thing, aren’t you?” Zeal whispers to his ear, pulling them out and easing them into his hole. “You sucked them so hard we wouldn’t even need lube.”
“Wish they were your cock instead.” Kaelix moans out, biting his lips as Zeal scissors him with rigor.
Zeal doesn’t say anything but Kaelix feels him slump on his shoulder, breathing in his neck, “God, kid, you’re making me lose control.”
“And what if I do want you to lose control?”
Kaelix’s back hits the mattress hard as Zeal hovers above him, eyes dark with something fierce and focused. There’s reverence in the way he touches him—like he’s not claiming, not conquering, just seeing. Every sound Kaelix makes is answered with a whisper, a kiss, a deeper kind of silence.
And when Zeal finally puts it in, Kaelix sees stars.
Zeal moved with a pace that didn’t feel rushed or cruel, he moved with a slow pace at first—making sure Kaelix wasn’t hurting and when Kaelix gives him the go signal, he moved fast but careful. It burned in a good way. The pain blurred quickly into pleasure, a pleasure Kaelix is sure he’ll never feel with anyone else. The kind that made him feel open. The kind that made him feel exposed and safe.
The kind that made him feel wanted.
It’s not just about heat. It’s the way Zeal breathes into him, he calls him petnames but never his name. Almost like his name was a sacred word he’s afraid of mentioning. The way he says “Look at me”, and Kaelix does—eyes wide, lips parted, heart completely undone.
After, they lie tangled in sheets that smell like salt and breath and skin. Kaelix curls into Zeal’s side, chest still rising fast, one leg thrown over his like they’ve always slept that way.
“You’re trouble,” Kaelix whispers, cheek pressed to Zeal’s shoulder.
Zeal chuckles, breath warm against his hair. “You came to me.”
Kaelix smiles against his skin, a small, disbelieving sound. “Yeah,” he murmurs, eyes already heavy. “I did.”
The morning after, Kaelix wakes up alone.
Zeal’s side of the bed is already cold. The sheets barely look slept in.
At first, Kaelix thinks maybe he went to the kitchen—maybe he’s making coffee, humming a tune, slipping back into his easy rhythm. Maybe it’ll be soft smiles and small glances across the table like a secret only they share. But when he comes downstairs, Zeal is already seated at the patio with his notebook open, coffee in hand, talking to Kaelix’s dad about research, voice cool, focused, like last night never happened. Like he never happened.
Kaelix pauses at the doorway, stomach twisting. He waits for Zeal to look up. To smile. To see him.
But he doesn’t. He doesn’t even glance.
And it hurt.
Later, Kaelix corners him in the hallway. Not angrily, but breathless, confused. “You’re avoiding me.” He tells him.
Zeal raises an eyebrow, calm. “I’m not.”
“You are.” Kaelix lowers his voice. “You didn’t even say anything this morning.”
“There was nothing to say,” Zeal replies, already turning to go. “It happened. It was… good.”
Good.
Good?
The word knocks something loose in Kaelix’s chest. “That’s it? Just—‘good’?”
Zeal stops then, exhales slowly before turning back. “Kaelix, you’re young. I didn’t expect—”
“What?” Kaelix cuts in, heat rising to his face. “You didn’t expect me to care? To feel something?”
Zeal doesn’t answer right away. He just looks at him with that maddening, gentle detachment—the kind that comes with having felt more, lost more, lived more. “I expected you to understand it for what it was,” he says softly.
“A moment. A beautiful one. But not a promise.”
Kaelix’s breath catches.
“And if I wanted more?” he asks, quieter now.
Zeal doesn’t flinch. “Then you’re chasing something I can’t give you.”
It hurts more than Kaelix expects. Not because Zeal is cruel—but because he isn’t. Because everything about him is so calmly indifferent. So impossibly fine. He could say the most cruel thing and it wouldn’t even feel like it.
“I don’t get you,” Kaelix says, voice breaking. “You let me in, and now you’re just—back to being untouchable.”
Zeal steps closer, just enough to lower his voice. “Because I knew this would happen. And I didn’t stop it. That’s on me. But Kaelix—”
He says his name like a sigh, not a gift this time, but a farewell.
“Don’t turn this into something it’s not just because it made you feel something. Wanting doesn’t make it right.”
Kaelix feels the words slice through him.
Then Zeal walks past him, again, and Kaelix is left standing in the hallway, heartbeat shaking, the taste of last night already fading from his skin.
The rest of the day feels unbearable. Zeal is everywhere—laughing with his siblings, helping his dad carry papers, slipping back into the house like nothing’s changed. And Kaelix feels like he’s watching a dream walk backward. He wants to scream. Wants to kiss him again just to prove something still exists between them. But the more Zeal acts like nothing happened, the more Kaelix feels like he imagined it all.
That night, he doesn’t sleep.
He lays in bed, eyes wide open, imagining how Zeal would react if he just walked in again. If he climbed into bed and curled into his side, saying nothing, asking for everything.
But this time, he doesn’t go. This time, he stays where he is.
And hates himself for it.
The afternoon sun filters through the canopy of the backyard trees, painting the ground in patches of gold and shadow. The house is quieter today, the air a little heavier, the breeze slower. But the garden is alive with laughter. Kaelix sits by the terrace steps, curled into himself with his knees pulled up, a half-eaten peach growing warm in his hand. He watches from a distance as Zeal chases after his youngest sibling, the two of them shrieking with laughter as they dodge behind trees, squealing in delight.
The other kids swarm around Zeal like bees to honey—one tugging on his hand, another trying to climb onto his back. He lifts one easily, spinning them around, the laughter rising again.
Kaelix watches him like you’d watch something behind glass—close enough to see, too far to reach. There’s a knot in his chest that won’t loosen. It’s almost unfair, the way Zeal fits in. Like he’s always been here. Like it costs him nothing to be adored.
Kaelix presses his forehead against his knees, teeth clenched. His eyes burn but he refuses to let them fall. Not here. Not like this. The ache is sharp and cold, the kind that sits just beneath the ribs and grows when you try to name it.
Footsteps beside him. Then the familiar quiet presence of his mother.
She doesn’t sit right away—just watches the same scene he’s watching. The warm chaos of her children tumbling through the garden. Zeal in the center of it, bright and effortless. Kaelix doesn’t look at her. He stays folded up, small and silent, hoping she says nothing.
But then, in her gentle, unhurried voice, she asks:
“Do you like him?”
“Like who?”
His mother gives him a knowing smile, “You know who I’m talking about.”
She wasn’t teasing, not probing, not even trying to force it out of him. Just soft. Curious.
Kaelix’s breath hitches.
His throat tightens painfully, his grip on the peach firming like he needs something solid, anything to hold onto. He still doesn’t look at her.
“I don’t know,” he says after a long moment, voice barely audible. “Maybe. Probably. It doesn’t matter.”
His mother hums. Not in agreement, not in judgment. Just acknowledgment. A sound that holds space. “He’s kind,” she says. “Kindness can be confusing.”
Kaelix swallows hard.
He wants to tell her everything. That it wasn’t just kindness. That there were touches and whispers and kisses that still feel like fire under his skin. That he’s never been so sure and so lost at the same time.
But he doesn’t.
Instead, he watches Zeal again—now lying on the grass, arms outstretched as his siblings pile on top of him, giggling uncontrollably. Zeal throws his head back and laughs, eyes bright, hair tousled, shirt riding up just enough to reveal a sliver of skin.
Kaelix looks away, heart in his throat.
His mother places a hand on his shoulder. Just once. Then she goes.
He sits there long after the laughter fades, long after the shadows stretch. And when he finally lets a tear slip down his cheek, he does it quietly, eyes on the grass, the sun sinking behind the house.
Alone and wanting.
They end up going to town together because no one else wants to.
Kaelix’s mom hands him the grocery list with a hopeful smile. “Your dad’s swamped and I need someone to pick up a few things. Zeal offered to help.”
Of course he did, Kaelix thinks bitterly. Of course he offered.
He finds Zeal by the gate, leaning against the car like something out of a movie—sunglasses perched lazily on his nose, fingers tapping something into his phone. Like this is all just a scene he’s passing through. Kaelix swallows the burn in his throat and tosses the keys to him.
“Let’s just get this over with,” he mutters.
Zeal raises an eyebrow. “Charming as ever.”
The drive is quiet at first, save for the hum of the engine and the occasional rattle of loose change in the cup holder. Kaelix doesn’t look at him. He watches the road instead, arms folded tightly across his chest, trying not to remember the way Zeal’s mouth felt on his skin, or the way he disappeared into the morning like none of it had mattered.
They stop at the market, walking side by side but never quite in sync. Kaelix throws things into the cart with a little too much force, Zeal reading the list aloud with dry commentary that doesn’t quite land like it used to. It should’ve been just a trip. Just groceries. But nothing is simple anymore.
Not when he’s with Zeal, anyway.
Halfway through, they run into Freo and Seible near the fruit stand.
Freo spots them first, waving wildly. “Kaelix!”
Kaelix brightens instinctively, and Zeal notices—his posture stiffens just a bit.
“Hey,” Kaelix says, moving quickly to greet them. “Didn’t think you guys were coming out today.”
“Seible was craving those sugar-dusted fried banana things,” Freo says, slapping Kaelix on the back before casting a glance at Zeal. “And this must be the famous intern.”
Zeal gives a polite, easy smile, holding out a hand. “Zeal.”
“Freo,” he nods. “And this is Seible.”
Seible smiles slightly at him, his eyes flicking between Zeal and Kaelix like he’s already seen too much.
Kaelix shifts awkwardly. “We’re just running errands.”
“You should come sit with us after,” Freo offers. “We’re parked near that café by the church. You know, the one with the cold chocolate coffee?”
Zeal opens his mouth, but Kaelix cuts in first. “Yeah, sure. We’ll swing by.”
And they do.
The café is all chipped paint and humming fans, kids running in and out barefoot with ice cream-stained mouths. Kaelix falls back into his rhythm with Freo and Seible easily—laughing too loud, teasing Seible about his messy handwriting, leaning in close to Freo to whisper some half-story about their old teacher.
Zeal sits quietly, sipping his drink, sunglasses still on even in the shade. Kaelix doesn’t notice how still he is until Seible gets up to take a call and Freo goes to the counter for more napkins.
Then it’s just the two of them again.
“You seem… different,” Zeal says, not quite looking at him.
Kaelix shrugs, peeling at the straw wrapper. “What’s that mean?”
Zeal’s voice is casual, too casual. “Just that you laugh a lot more around them.” He shrugs, like it was the most obvious thing
Kaelix doesn’t answer at first. He watches Freo at the counter, chatting up the barista, that crooked grin on his face. Then he glances at Zeal, the tension in his jaw barely noticeable if you didn’t know him.
“I’ve known them longer,” Kaelix says finally. “It’s easy.”
Zeal hums. “Right.”
There’s a pause.
Then Zeal adds, offhand, “Freo’s… close to you.”
Kaelix blinks. “Yeah. He’s always been close.”
Another pause. Then he turns to face him fully.
“Why?”
Zeal’s lips part slightly. But nothing comes out. He just shakes his head.
“No reason.”
But Kaelix sees it now—under the coolness, beneath the glassy distance. The flicker of something hot and sharp in Zeal’s gaze when Freo throws an arm around Kaelix’s shoulder as he returns, laughing about something stupid.
It’s jealousy.
Quiet. Unspoken. But there.
And Kaelix hates how good it feels to see it. Hates how much he wants Zeal to feel it—the ache he’s been carrying, the need he doesn’t know what to do with.
Later, on the drive back, Zeal doesn’t say a word.
Kaelix sits in the passenger seat, eyes fixed on the blur of trees and telephone wires, heart pounding against the inside of his chest like it’s trying to climb out. He doesn’t understand any of it. He doesn’t understand why Zeal keeps pulling away only to look at him like that. Why he kisses like a secret and then acts like Kaelix is just another name on a list.
He doesn’t understand why he still wants him so much.
Wants him even now—quiet and cold, one hand on the wheel, looking like he belongs nowhere and everywhere at once. Kaelix presses his forehead to the window, eyes stinging. He breathes out slowly, almost a whisper.
“I hate this.”
But he doesn’t say it loud enough for Zeal to hear.
Or maybe—Zeal does and just doesn’t answer.
They didn’t talk for the rest of the drive.
Not when they passed the sugarcane fields bending with the wind, not when the clouds turned to bruises in the sky. Not even when Zeal parked the car under the tree near the garage, engine ticking quietly in the heat.
Kaelix got out without a word. He walked ahead, arms crossed, heart still clattering somewhere in his chest like a coin dropped between floorboards. Zeal didn’t follow right away. He stayed in the car for a moment, like he was debating whether to say anything at all.
He didn’t.
But Kaelix felt him behind him soon enough, heard his footsteps over the gravel, slow and steady.
They entered the house through the side—quiet, dim, the smell of garlic rice and dust hanging in the air. The kitchen was empty. The housekeeper must’ve gone to pick something from the garden. Everyone else was still outside, laughter distant and harmless. Kaelix put the grocery bag on the table a little too hard.
Zeal closed the door behind them.
The silence buzzed.
Kaelix turned to him, jaw tight, eyes burning.
“You’re a fucking coward,” he said.
Zeal blinked. “What?”
“You just sit there, act like none of this matters, like I’m—like we’re—” He stopped, voice cracking slightly. “You don’t get to look at me like that and then pretend I’m nothing.”
Zeal’s expression shifted—barely—but enough. A tightening around his mouth, a flash of something sharp behind his eyes.
“You think I don’t feel anything?” he said quietly. “You think this is easy?”
Kaelix stepped closer. “Then why the hell do you keep acting like it is?”
Zeal didn’t move.
“You kiss me like it means something,” Kaelix spat, “and then go cold the second it’s over. Like it was a mistake. Like I’m a mistake.”
Silence.
Kaelix pushed past him, shoving the door to the hallway open. He didn’t know where he was going, just that he needed to move, to get out of the space where Zeal’s silence felt like a noose around his ribs.
But then Zeal grabbed his wrist.
Not hard.
Just enough.
Kaelix turned, half-expecting more silence, more careful distance.
But instead, Zeal kissed him.
Hard.
It wasn’t soft like before. It wasn’t slow, or tentative, or anything that could be mistaken for sweetness. It was angry. Frustrated. A collision of mouths and breath and something far more dangerous than want.
Kaelix gasped into it, grabbed at the front of Zeal’s shirt, pulling him in like he needed to feel every line of his body just to breathe. Their teeth clashed. Zeal’s hands were on his hips, his waist, pushing him against the wall like he was trying to pin him back into silence. Kaelix kissed back harder, fingers tangled in his hair, biting at his lip like he needed to leave something behind—evidence, a mark, anything.
Zeal’s mouth broke away only long enough to mutter, “You drive me insane.”
“Then stop pretending I don’t,” Kaelix growled.
Zeal kissed him again, lips hot and bruising, and Kaelix let himself fall into it—into the feeling, the friction, the need.
They barely made it into Kaelix’s room, clothes half-peeled, breaths ragged, bodies desperate. It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t romantic. It was raw—built on weeks of silence, tension, missed touches and avoided glances. Every gasp was a release, every movement a confession neither of them could say out loud.
Kaelix hated how much he loved it.
He hated how much he loved being fucked over the mattress. He hated how much he loved being devoured. He hated how much he loved the attention, the bites, the kisses. He hated how much he liked—loved—Zeal.
Afterward, they lay side by side, not touching.
Not speaking.
The ceiling fan hummed above them like a warning. Kaelix’s throat ached, his chest heavier than it had been all week. He turned his head slightly, watching Zeal’s profile in the soft gold light from the window. His face looked calm again—too calm.
Kaelix looked away.
It wasn’t enough. Not really. He could still feel the distance. Even now.
Even with Zeal beside him, skin still warm.
He swallowed hard, rolled to his side, and curled inward. Like if he made himself small enough, the feeling would stop eating him alive.
Zeal didn’t move. Didn’t say a word.
And Kaelix didn’t cry. Not yet but he feels is eyes burn and his stomach twist with something that felt too close to shame, too close to love, too close to needing something that wasn’t being offered.
And it hurt.
Worse than before. Because this time—it almost felt like it meant something.
Almost.
The lake was colder than he remembered.
Kaelix dove in first, head under, skin stinging. It was a shock he welcomed. The kind that wiped away everything for a moment—thoughts, tension, memory. When he surfaced, Freo was already laughing behind him, having jumped in with the kind of reckless splash Kaelix envied. Seible followed after, cleaner, smoother, barely a ripple.
Their laughter echoed across the surface like music warped by water and sky.
A few other friends had come too—some older childhood friends from around the town, a few hangers-on from Freo’s circle. They brought beer and loud stories, the air around them buzzing with a kind of warmth Kaelix hadn’t felt in weeks.
He let himself float on his back for a moment, sun on his face, heartbeat slowly catching its rhythm again.
That’s when he saw him.
Zeal.
Sitting at the edge of the dock, ankles dipped into the water, sunglasses perched lazily on his nose again like he wasn’t watching—but Kaelix could feel it.
He always could.
There was no mistaking the way Zeal’s body leaned forward just slightly, elbow resting on one knee, fingers stilling at the bottle of water he hadn’t touched in ten minutes. Kaelix could see the tension in his shoulders from here. Could feel the way Zeal’s eyes followed every ripple Kaelix made in the water, every laugh that left his mouth, every drop sliding down his neck.
Kaelix turned toward the deeper side and dove again.
When he came back up, Freo swam beside him, nudging his side. “He’s still watching.”
Kaelix didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.
“Are you okay?” Freo asked, voice lower now, more careful.
Kaelix offered a half-smile. “It’s just a swim.”
Freo’s gaze lingered before he nodded and splashed water in his face, diving ahead before Kaelix could retaliate.
The noise of the group rose again. Someone had brought a speaker. Music drifted through the trees. Seible called Kaelix over to help open another beer bottle, and he swam back toward the shore, soaked hair sticking to his neck, eyes flicking toward the dock.
Zeal hadn’t moved.
But Kaelix didn’t go to him.
He walked right past the dock without glancing up, shaking water from his arms, laughing at something Seible said. His laugh was loud enough. His posture relaxed enough. It was performative and real at once—and Kaelix didn’t know anymore where the line blurred.
Zeal stood finally.
He walked down the dock and toward the back of the picnic blanket where someone had left a half-empty cooler. He didn’t say anything, but Kaelix felt him behind him again—like a shadow that didn’t need light to exist.
Their shoulders nearly brushed but they didn’t.
Kaelix tilted his head toward the sun, neck long, throat bare, ignoring the heat he felt at his back.
“Having fun?” Zeal asked, too smooth, too flat.
Kaelix didn’t look at him. “Plenty.”
Zeal hummed. “Glad to hear it.”
A beat.
Then Kaelix turned, slow and measured, eyes locking with Zeal’s.
There was something brittle between them—something held taut between the need and the pride neither could afford to surrender.
Kaelix didn’t blink. “You could swim, you know.”
“I don’t really feel like it,” Zeal said.
Kaelix tilted his head, stepping just slightly closer, wet sand clinging to his feet. “Or maybe you don’t want to get wet watching me.”
Zeal’s jaw flexed. He said nothing.
Kaelix gave him one last look—a dare, a challenge, something quieter than either of those things—and turned back toward the lake. He dove again, smoother this time, the water holding him like memory.
Behind him, Zeal stood still, fists loose at his sides, face unreadable beneath the glasses.
His chest rose a little quicker.
And he didn’t look away. Not even once.
The ride back from the lake was quiet. Not the charged, heavy kind of silence from earlier in the day—this was softer, more exhausted. Freo had offered to take Seible and the others in his van, so it was just Kaelix and Zeal in the car again.
Just the two of them. Again.
Kaelix watched the trees rush by, window cracked, hair still damp. The scent of lake water and sun clung to his skin, and his body felt heavy—not tired, just… full. Like he couldn’t contain whatever it was swelling in his chest.
Zeal drove with one hand, the other draped over the wheel, a line drawn across his face in gold from the setting sun. He hadn’t said anything since they left.
Kaelix hated how normal it felt.
“I thought you didn’t like swimming,” Kaelix said, voice quiet, like maybe it would float away before it reached him.
“I don’t,” Zeal replied.
No explanation.
Kaelix bit the inside of his cheek, hard. “So why’d you come?”
Zeal didn’t answer at first. He just kept driving, jaw tight. Then, finally—
“Your mom asked me to come with you, to watch over you.”
A dry laugh slipped from Kaelix’s throat. “That’s funny. You barely looked at me.”
Zeal glanced at him, eyes unreadable behind his sunglasses. “I did.” He says, “You were just too busy looking away to see it.”
Kaelix didn’t reply.
The rest of the drive passed in silence again, but this time it vibrated with something close to regret. Or want. Or both.
That night, the house was still.
The younger kids were asleep. His parents had gone to bed early. The air buzzed with cicadas and distant laughter from a neighbor’s open window. Kaelix paced his room like something in him refused to settle. He didn’t know what he was doing when he left his room. He didn’t know what he expected.
But his feet moved on their own—down the hall, past the kitchen, toward the spare room where Zeal stayed.
The door was cracked open.
And Zeal was sitting at the desk, shirt half-unbuttoned, light from the lamp throwing soft shadows down his neck. He looked up when Kaelix stepped in. Didn’t say anything. Just watched.
Kaelix stood there, fingers flexing uselessly at his sides.
“You know,” Kaelix said, voice tight, “You could at least try to be decent. Instead of acting like none of this happened.”
Zeal leaned back slowly, arms crossing. “What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know,” Kaelix snapped. “Anything. Something real.”
Zeal tilted his head. “You think this isn’t real?”
Kaelix’s voice cracked. “I don’t know what this is.”
A silence.
Then Zeal stood—slow, deliberate—and walked toward him.
He didn’t touch him. Just stood there, close enough to feel the heat.
“You don’t know,” Zeal murmured. “And that scares you.”
Kaelix looked up at him, throat tight. “You act like it doesn’t scare you.”
Zeal’s expression flickered. “That’s not the same as it not scaring me.”
Kaelix didn’t wait for more. He reached out—grabbed Zeal’s shirt, tugged him down—and kissed him. Hard. Frantic. Like he was trying to swallow the ache whole.
Zeal kissed back.
But this time, it wasn’t slow.
It was sharp. Heated. Teeth and tongues and breath caught between gasps. It was frustration, all of it—Kaelix’s confusion, Zeal’s restraint, the unbearable distance they kept pretending wasn’t there.
Kaelix pulled at his shirt, shoved him back toward the desk. Zeal grabbed his wrist, twisted just enough to make Kaelix shiver, and then pushed him against the wall.
Their mouths found each other again—hungry, angry, real.
Hands gripped too hard. Skin burned where it was touched. There were no sweet words, no careful moves. Just the sound of skin and breath and the low, desperate noise Kaelix made when Zeal pressed against him.
It didn’t last long. Not because it wasn’t enough.
But because it was too much.
When it ended, they were both breathless, sweaty, half-dressed, staring at each other like they didn’t know what to do with what they’d just taken.
Kaelix stepped back first and Zeal didn’t stop him.
“I hate that you make me feel like this,” Kaelix said, voice low, eyes burning.
Zeal didn’t answer.
Kaelix left. This time, he didn’t slam the door. A part of him didn’t want it to end.
And part of him was terrified it already had.
Kaelix shut his door softly behind him, heart pounding too loud in the quiet. The room felt too small, too close, like it was closing in on him. He peeled off his damp shirt, fingers trembling as he slid it over his head, skin still slick from the lake and the tension that had been tightening in his chest all day.
His hands roamed over himself, restless, searching—for relief, for release, for something to quiet the ache Zeal left behind. The memory of that fierce kiss, the sharp press of Zeal’s body against his, burned hotter than the fading sun outside.
He sank onto his bed, breath hitching as his fingers traced the line of his collarbone, down his chest, lower—each touch igniting a fire he couldn’t tame. His body twisted, muscles tense, aching for a touch he knew wouldn’t come. The frustration coiled tight inside him, sharp and insistent. His hand moved down inside his boxers, he was so hard.
He wanted Zeal.
His mind spun—Zeal’s indifferent gaze, that quiet jealousy, the way he had held him just long enough to leave him wanting more. Kaelix’s skin flushed, heat rushing through him, raw and urgent. His fingers moved faster, desperate, seeking some small comfort in the dark.
His eyes closed tight, lips parted in a breathless whisper—Zeal’s name caught on his tongue, half curse, half prayer.
“Zeal..”
He trembled with need, every nerve alive, every thought tangled in the same impossible, beautiful torment. And when release came, it was as messy and fierce as everything he’d been holding back—sharp gasps and whispered apologies to the night. When he finally lay back, spent and aching, the silence in the room felt different. Heavy, but not empty.
Because even in the quiet, the yearning lingered.
Kaelix lay there, chest rising and falling unevenly, the heat of his own skin mingling with the chill that had settled in his bones ever since Zeal’s distant touch—both physical and emotional. His fingers still tingled from the friction, but it wasn’t enough. Never enough. He pressed his palms against the cool sheets, trying to ground himself, to push down the storm that raged inside. The ache wasn’t just physical. It was deeper—an aching hunger for something he couldn’t name, a pull toward Zeal that didn’t make sense but refused to loosen its grip. His mind drifted back to the lake, to the way Zeal had watched him, eyes dark and unreadable behind those impossibly calm sunglasses. The way his jaw had clenched just slightly when Kaelix laughed too loudly with Freo and Seible, like a quiet warning beneath the surface. Like a possessive beast.
The distance between them was a taut wire, humming with tension. Zeal was always just out of reach—so close, yet so indifferent. It made Kaelix’s skin crawl with frustration and need.
He rolled onto his side, curling into himself, wishing for Zeal’s touch, his warmth, his voice. But all he had was the memory of a kiss that had left him burning and wanting, and the cold silence that followed. A bitter laugh escaped him, ragged and low. What was he chasing? What did he even want from Zeal? A touch? A word? A sign that he wasn’t just another name, another passing summer?
The ache settled heavy in his chest, the kind of yearning that kept him awake, kept him restless.
Kaelix whispered Zeal’s name one more time before the dark swallowed him whole.
The morning sunlight filtered softly through the curtains, casting pale stripes across Kaelix’s bare arms as he sat on the edge of his bed, staring out the window. The usual hum of the household had already begun—the clatter of plates from the kitchen, his younger siblings’ muffled laughter and shouts, footsteps pacing the hallways. But inside him, the noise was drowned out by the quiet weight of something unnamed and persistent.
He pulled on a loose shirt, the fabric slipping over his skin like a reminder of yesterday—the way Zeal’s hand had brushed his, the briefness of the touch echoing louder than any word.
Downstairs, the scent of freshly brewed coffee drifted upward. His mother was humming in the kitchen, the rhythm so familiar it usually brought comfort. But today it only made the ache sharper.
“Kaelix, you coming down for breakfast?” his mother called from the other room, voice light and easy.
“Yeah, I’ll be there,” he called back, forcing his voice to sound casual.
As he made his way downstairs, he found Zeal already at the table, sipping his coffee slowly, eyes half-lidded behind his dark sunglasses even indoors.
“Morning,” Kaelix said, sliding into the seat across from him.
Zeal looked up briefly, a flicker of something unreadable crossing his face before he nodded.
“You’re quiet this morning,” Zeal observed, voice low and steady.
Kaelix shrugged, stirring his tea absentmindedly. “Just tired, I guess.”
Zeal’s gaze flicked toward the door where his younger siblings were noisily chasing each other around the living room.
“They’re a handful,” Zeal said with a small smile, watching a particularly clumsy tumble that ended in peals of laughter.
“Yeah,” Kaelix replied, voice softer. “They keep the house lively.”
There was a pause, the kind that stretched and filled the space between them with everything they left unsaid.
“Got plans today?” Zeal asked, breaking the silence.
“Not really. Might hang out with Freo and Seible later,” Kaelix said, trying to keep his tone neutral.
Zeal’s lips curved just the faintest bit, but he said nothing more.
The conversation petered out as the morning moved on, the comfortable silence weighed down by the tension neither wanted to name. Later, as Kaelix prepared to leave, his mother appeared in the doorway, watching him with a quiet, knowing expression.
“You seem distracted lately,” she said gently.
Kaelix forced a smile. “Just tired, Mom.”
She nodded but didn’t press further. Instead, she handed him his pocket money and squeezed his shoulder.
“Have a good day, okay?”
He nodded, stepping out into the brightness, the cool air doing little to ease the heat simmering inside.
Outside, Zeal was already waiting by the gate, arms crossed, sunglasses hiding whatever storm was behind his eyes. Kaelix swallowed the lump rising in his throat and tried to steady his breath.
“Ready?” Zeal asked, voice calm but with an edge Kaelix couldn’t place.
“Yeah,” he answered, trying to sound indifferent.
But inside, the yearnings churned, the frustration building with every stolen glance, every carefully measured word. He didn’t know how long he could keep chasing shadows.
The terrace was drenched in the fading glow of sunset, but the warmth had long since fled from Kaelix’s chest. He stared out at the horizon for a moment, the sky bleeding colors he no longer felt. Then, finally, he turned toward Zeal, voice low and trembling like it might break him.
“Why do you have to be so cold all the time?” Kaelix’s words came sharp, a knife wrapped in hurt and frustration. “Like I’m some problem you want to solve by ignoring me.”
Zeal’s eyes narrowed, his jaw tight as he leaned against the railing, crossing his arms defensively. “Cold? Maybe I’m just tired of pretending everything’s simple. You don’t know what you’re asking.”
Kaelix swallowed the lump in his throat and took a step closer, his voice rising with a mix of anger and desperation. “What am I asking? For you to care? To stop pushing me away? To stop acting like I’m invisible the moment things get complicated?”
Zeal’s eyes flicked away, jaw clenched so hard it looked like it might crack. “You think it’s easy for me? I’m not some kid you can just chase after until I fall.”
Kaelix’s voice cracked, the ache raw and exposed. “Then why do you look at me like you want to burn me alive? Like I’m dangerous but you can’t stay away?”
Zeal’s gaze finally met his, dark and raw, a flicker of pain underneath the cold mask. “You don’t understand what you’re asking for, Kaelix. You don’t even know what you want yet. You think you want this with me but you don’t.”
“I’m not a fucking child, Zeal!” Kaelix exclaims angrily, “I know what I’m asking for. I know what I want. What I don’t know is what you want with me. You can’t just—just—you can’t come to my life, treat me like I’m something special then act like I’m nothing to you the next day.”
Zeal swallows the lump on his throat, “I just… I don’t know how to handle this, Kaelix.”
“Neither do I!” Kaelix snapped, voice shaking but fierce. “Neither do I, Zeal!”
They stood there, breath heavy, emotions raw and ragged between them.
“Why do you always leave when I get close?” Kaelix whispered, his voice breaking and his tears finally breaking free. “Why do you make me feel like I’m begging for scraps?”
Zeal looked lost, his hand running through his hair in frustration. “Because I don’t know how to be what you want. Because I’m older and an intern under your dad. Because I’m afraid of being attached to you more than I already am. Because it just isn’t right.”
The words hit Kaelix like a slap. His voice dropped, trembling with pain and need. “So… what am I to you, Zeal? What am I, really? Am I just some reckless kid you keep around for a little heat before you walk away? Or am I something more? Because I don’t know anymore. You keep me at arm’s length like I’m a mistake you can’t fix.”
Zeal swallowed hard, the fight draining from him. “I don’t know. I wish I did.”
Kaelix’s knees felt weak, the tears blurring his vision. “Then what am I supposed to do? Wait around until you decide you’re ready? Or just give up and pretend I never mattered?”
“No.” Zeal’s voice cracked, almost desperate. “I don’t want you to give up.”
Kaelix shook his head, sobbing openly now. “I don’t know what you want from me. I’m so confused. It feels like I’m chasing someone who doesn’t even want to be chased.” He cries, “Do you hate me?”
Zeal hesitated, then reached out with trembling fingers that barely brushed Kaelix’s arm. “I don’t—god, no, I don’t—I just don’t have the answers, yet. But I don’t want to lose you either.” He says, cupping the younger’s cheeks and wiping the tears with his thumb.
Kaelix closed his eyes, leaning into the faint touch, both aching and terrified. “Then don’t run. Not from me. Please.”
For a long moment, silence stretched between them—thick with everything unsaid, everything too raw to speak aloud, but somehow felt in every glance and breath
Kaelix pulled back slightly, just enough to look at Zeal with eyes still shining from tears. But the hurt in them now was colder, more resigned.
“You say you don’t want to lose me,” he said, voice low. “But you never really try to keep me either.”
Zeal stayed quiet, his hand hanging in the space between them, unsure whether to touch or let go.
“You don’t fight for this,” Kaelix continued, bitterness creeping in. “You just… show up when it’s easy. When it’s quiet. When I’m quiet.”
“That’s not fair—” Zeal began, but Kaelix cut him off.
“No, what’s not fair is you looking at me like I’m everything one second, and then acting like I’m nothing the next.” His chest heaved. “I can’t keep chasing after scraps of attention, hoping it means more than it does.”
Zeal’s lips parted, as if to defend himself, but the words faltered. He looked tired, worn down by whatever storm lived inside him.
“You’re young, Kaelix,” he finally said, softly but with weight. “You think this is forever. You think if you want something badly enough, that’s enough to make it work. But I know it’s not.”
Kaelix laughed bitterly, wiping at his face with the back of his hand. “Don’t you dare hide behind that. Don’t pretend this is about age when the truth is you just don’t want to feel anything. You’re scared of it, and you’re using years as a wall.”
“It matters,” Zeal snapped, the first crack of fire in his tone. “You don’t see it now, but it does. I’ve lived enough to know how this ends. I’ve seen what happens when people fall too hard, too fast. When someone like you gives too much to someone like me.”
“Someone like me?” Kaelix echoed, hurt flashing in his eyes. “So what am I—some summer fascination? Some impulsive experiment?” he hisses.
Zeal’s face twisted like the words physically hurt him, but he didn’t deny them. And that, more than anything, made Kaelix’s breath catch in his throat.
“You know what the worst part is?” Kaelix whispered. “I would’ve stayed. I would’ve waited. If you had just told me I meant something.”
“You do,” Zeal said quickly, too quickly. “You do.”
Kaelix stepped back, the space between them finally opening like a wound. “Then say it. Say what I am to you. Not some vague line, not some half-thought.” His voice cracked, raw and trembling. “What am I to you, Zeal?”
Silence.
It hung heavy, like fog between them.
Kaelix looked away, lips trembling, shoulders shaking from holding everything in too long.
“I thought you’d at least be honest with me,” he muttered. “Even if it hurt.”
Zeal opened his mouth—closed it again. His throat worked, but the words wouldn’t come. He looked utterly wrecked, but still said nothing.
Kaelix let out a shaky breath and turned.
“I can’t do this anymore,” he said, quietly. “Not if I’m the only one bleeding for it.”
He walked away, slowly at first—waiting, hoping for a call, a word, anything.
But none came.
And when he finally disappeared into the shadows of the hallway, it was with the certainty that he loved someone who didn’t know how to love him back.
Not yet. Maybe not ever.
The dining table was loud with laughter and the clink of utensils. Roasted chicken sat at the center, golden and steaming. Kaelix poked at his food, nodding when someone spoke to him, smiling when expected. It all felt like theater—each gesture rehearsed, every breath timed.
Zeal sat across the table, joining in the conversation, throwing in dry humor that made Kaelix’s little brother giggle with a mouthful of rice. Kaelix didn’t look at him. Couldn’t. The last time he had, Zeal didn’t have the words.
And Kaelix still hadn’t forgiven him for that.
His mom asked about his day, something about helping with the groceries again, and Kaelix answered automatically. Yes, he’d go. Yes, he’d bring Seible if she was free. No, he hadn’t forgotten the mangoes this time. He barely heard himself.
Everything passed through a filter—his focus blurry, dulled. Like sound underwater. And yet he was hyperaware of Zeal’s every movement. The way he sipped from his glass, the casual lean back in his chair, the small glance he cast across the table.
Their eyes met once. Brief. Burning.
Kaelix dropped his gaze immediately and forced a laugh at something his youngest sister said.
He felt like he was unraveling beneath his skin.
After dinner, Kaelix retreated to the garden swing, the one shaded by old orchids and clumps of ferns. He kicked the ground lightly, rocking back and forth in small movements. The night air smelled like cut grass and the faint echo of garlic from the kitchen.
He heard the screen door creak behind him.
He didn’t have to look to know it was Zeal.
“Can I sit?” Zeal asked.
Kaelix shrugged. “Free country.”
Zeal settled beside him, silent at first. The swing barely shifted under his weight.
“I was awful,” he said quietly.
Kaelix didn’t respond.
“I should’ve said something,” Zeal added after a moment. “Anything. You deserved that.”
Kaelix bit the inside of his cheek. His arms were crossed tightly over his chest.
“I just…” Zeal let out a frustrated sigh. “I’m not used to—whatever this is. I’ve never had something that wasn’t… temporary. Or conditional.”
Kaelix turned his face toward him, eyes unreadable in the dark. “So you just decided to punish me for it?”
“No. No.” Zeal’s voice cracked a little. “I just panicked. You asked me what you were to me and I didn’t know how to answer without ruining it.”
Kaelix let out a quiet, humorless laugh. “You ruined it by saying nothing.”
Zeal reached into his pocket and pulled something out. A small, folded square of paper. “I wrote something. Couldn’t sleep.”
Kaelix hesitated, then took it. He didn’t open it yet.
“You didn’t answer the question,” he said, eyes still on the note in his hand. “What am I to you?”
Zeal looked at him, mouth open. Then shut. Then opened again. “I don’t have a label for it,” he admitted. “But you’re not nothing. And you’re not temporary. I just… I need time.”
Kaelix looked away, eyes glinting under the stars. “I don’t want to be something you figure out too late.”
Zeal’s voice dropped. “I don’t either.”
A long pause.
Then Zeal stood, hands stuffed in his pockets.
“Read it when you’re ready,” he said. “No rush.”
Kaelix didn’t answer, just watched the note in his hand like it might vanish.
Zeal walked away, back into the house.
Kaelix sat there alone on the swing, the night cradling him in silence.
He didn’t open the letter.
Not yet. His heart was too hurt to open it anyway.
It was Freo who noticed first—Kaelix’s silence, the haunted way his gaze lingered on nothing in particular, the smiles that didn’t quite reach. They were sitting on the hill behind Freo’s house, legs tangled in overgrown grass, the summer heat pressing against their backs.
“You look like you’ve been punched in the gut every morning,” Freo said plainly, tossing a pebble down the slope.
Kaelix huffed, flopping onto his back. “You always know how to comfort people.”
“Not my job to coddle you,” Freo said, nudging his shoulder. “Talk to me.”
Kaelix was quiet for a moment, chewing on the inside of his cheek. Then, softly:
“I think I messed everything up.”
“With him?”
A nod.
Freo leaned back beside him, arms crossed behind his head. “Zeal?”
Another nod.
“You didn’t mess it up. You just wanted something he wasn’t ready to give.” Freo tells him, brushing a comforting hand on his arm.
Kaelix laughed, bitter and small. “I asked him what I was to him and he couldn’t even answer. Just stood there like it wasn’t obvious I was breaking.”
Freo didn’t say anything for a while. Then, “That sucks.”
“Yeah.”
“You still want him?”
Kaelix’s throat tightened. “I don’t know how to stop.”
It started slow with Freo, quiet and harmless.
They kissed once after a long night of walking through the old rice fields, fireflies blinking around them, half-drunk on laughter and soda. Kaelix didn’t pull away. Freo’s lips were warm and steady. It didn’t burn like Zeal did. It didn’t ache.
It felt… safe.
And maybe that’s what Kaelix needed. For a while.
They held hands at the lake one afternoon when Seible wasn’t looking. Freo traced lazy circles into his palm and made dumb jokes that actually made him laugh. They swam together, splashing each other until Kaelix forgot, for a moment, how much he was pretending to be okay.
But it never lasted. Not really.
Because Zeal was still there—drinking coffee barefoot in the kitchen, passing him in the hallway with tired eyes and a quiet hello. They started speaking again like nothing had happened. Small, cautious things.
“Did you sleep?”
“Not really.”
“You left your charger downstairs.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
Kaelix hated how easy it was to slip back into that space with him. The almost. The almost-close. The almost-tender. The almost-everything.
One night, Zeal caught him alone in the kitchen, rummaging for cereal.
“You and Freo,” Zeal said quietly, not looking at him. “You’re really close.”
Kaelix didn’t answer right away.
Then he said, “He makes it easy to breathe.”
Zeal nodded once. “Good.”
But something in his jaw twitched.
Kaelix walked past him without another word.
It wasn’t that he stopped seeing Freo—it’s that he couldn’t pretend he was fully there. Freo saw it too. One afternoon, as they laid tangled on Freo’s bedroom floor, a fan humming lazily in the corner, Freo ran a hand through Kaelix’s hair and only gave him a small smile.
“You’ll always belong somewhere else.” He tells him.
Kaelix closed his eyes. “I’m sorry.” Tone regretful as he felt like a piece of shit for using his friend as a way to forget the pain.
Freo kissed his forehead. “Don’t be. I was just borrowing you for the summer.”
And that was that.
Later that week, Kaelix and Zeal found themselves walking to the market together again—unplanned, unforced. The afternoon sun filtered through the trees. Their hands didn’t touch, but they walked close enough to feel the space between them pull tight again.
“Have you read the note?” Zeal asked.
Kaelix looked ahead. “No.”
“Why not?”
Kaelix shrugged. “Scared of what it says. Scared of what it doesn’t.”
Zeal sighed. “I miss you.”
“You had me,” Kaelix said quietly. “And you let me slip.”
Zeal stopped walking. Kaelix took two steps before realizing. When he turned, Zeal was watching him with the softest eyes.
“Do I still?”
Kaelix’s throat tightened. “I don’t know.”
But they kept walking together, their pace easy, the rhythm returning like muscle memory. The ache was still there, but it was quieter now. Less consuming. It hadn’t vanished—it had only learned to breathe with him.
The night is quiet. The stars are dull tonight, like they’ve pulled back just a little, as if they know the weight pressing in the space between Kaelix and Zeal. The house had long since gone to sleep. Dishes were washed. Lights flicked off one by one. Even the cicadas had grown tired. And still, Kaelix found himself sitting out on the old swing beneath the orchid tree, legs curled up beneath him, hoodie sleeves stretched over his fingers.
He wasn’t waiting.
Not exactly.
So when Zeal appeared in the doorway, barefoot and quiet, Kaelix didn’t move. Just glanced up, then looked away.
“You’re still up,” Zeal said gently.
Kaelix shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep.”
Zeal stepped forward, hands in his pockets. “Mind if I sit?”
A beat.
Then a quiet, “No.”
The swing creaked as Zeal sat beside him. For a while, they said nothing. Just sat with their knees brushing, the wind pushing leaves into soft applause above them.
“I meant to say I was sorry,” Zeal murmured, voice just above a whisper.
Kaelix didn’t look at him. “For what?”
“For the terrace. For… everything before that. I don’t always know how to talk when it matters.”
Kaelix let out a soft laugh—tired, more bitter than amused. “You don’t say.”
Zeal leaned his head back against the chain, eyes tracing stars through the branches. “I wanted to be careful. And I ended up hurting you more by trying to be safe.”
“Congratulations,” Kaelix said dryly, the words slipping out before he could stop them. He bit the inside of his cheek. “I didn’t mean—”
“No,” Zeal cut in softly. “You’re right. You get to be angry.”
Kaelix finally turned to him, eyes searching. “Then what now? Do we just keep circling each other until summer ends and you leave like they all do?”
Zeal looked at him, really looked—like he was memorizing the curve of his mouth, the way his brow furrowed when he was trying not to cry. “I don’t want to keep circling,” Zeal said.
Kaelix’s breath caught.
Zeal reached forward, tentative, brushing his knuckles against Kaelix’s cheek. And when Kaelix didn’t pull away, he let his palm settle there, warm and grounding.
Their lips met slowly—no desperation this time, just the kind of closeness that made Kaelix’s ribs ache. The kind that said stay.
Kaelix pressed his forehead to Zeal’s. “I still don’t know what I am to you.”
Zeal’s thumb traced the corner of his mouth. “Neither do I. Not yet. But I know I don’t want to forget you when I leave.”
Kaelix’s eyes shimmered. “That’s not enough.”
“I know.” Zeal’s voice cracked. “But it’s true.”
Kaelix looked away, then back at him. And something inside him caved.
He whispered, barely audible, “Call me by your name.”
Zeal’s breath caught.
“What?”
Kaelix met his gaze, eyes wet and unwavering. “Just once. If you mean this. If any of this means something. Call me by your name.”
Zeal cupped the side of his face. His voice trembled when he said it.
“Zeal.”
And when Kaelix answered, “Kaelix,” the word broke in his mouth like prayer.
There was no certainty in it. No promise of forever. But in that moment, under the orchids and the starlight, the space between them closed—if only for a while.
And that was enough. For now.
Morning came slowly, like the house itself didn’t want to wake them. The sky was still soft with sleep, pale and blue-grey, the kind of morning that tasted of dew and clung to your skin like memory. Kaelix stirred first, blinking against the filtered light that slipped through the curtains of Zeal’s guest room. He was warm—bare skin tangled in sheets, shoulder pressed against another body.
Zeal.
The name came to him before the thought fully formed.
They hadn’t spoken much after the swing—just soft touches, slow kisses, the hush of two people trying to make sense of a storm they hadn’t planned to weather together. No promises. Just breath. Just presence.
Kaelix turned his head slowly, finding Zeal still asleep beside him. One arm was draped carelessly across Kaelix’s waist, his chest rising and falling in a rhythm Kaelix could already feel himself memorizing. His hair was tousled, lips slightly parted, and there was a softness to his face Kaelix rarely saw when he was awake.
He looked… young. Younger than he ever let himself seem.
Kaelix traced the edge of his own thumb along the sheet, suddenly overwhelmed by how temporary it all felt. Like one gust of wind through the open window could scatter this moment into dust.
Zeal shifted, eyes blinking open slowly.
Kaelix froze.
But Zeal didn’t pull away. Just blinked once, then again, gaze settling on Kaelix.
“…Hey,” he said, voice still low and rough from sleep.
Kaelix gave him a quiet smile. “Hey.”
They laid like that for a few more seconds. The moment felt fragile. Too much, and it might break. Then Zeal exhaled and looked up toward the ceiling.
“My internship ends in a week.”
The words hit like a drop of cold water.
Kaelix didn’t answer right away. He just stared at the ceiling with him, feeling the warmth beneath the sheets suddenly grow distant.
“I know,” he said softly, barely.
Silence stretched, slow and thick. Kaelix shifted onto his back, wrapping the sheet a little tighter around himself, even though they’d both already seen everything.
“You going back to the city?” he asked.
Zeal nodded. “Yeah. Got a place lined up. Might get absorbed into the project if funding pulls through.”
Kaelix bit his lip, nodding absently. “That’s good.”
“Is it?”
The question hung there. Not sarcastic, not cruel—just uncertain. Honest.
Kaelix rolled onto his side, facing him again. “I don’t know. I want it to be.”
Zeal met his gaze. “Me too.”
They didn’t kiss. Not this time. The weight of seven days lingered between them like a warning.
Kaelix reached out, fingers brushing Zeal’s. “What do we do until then?”
Zeal squeezed his hand gently. “We don’t waste it.”
And Kaelix, heart aching with the things they still wouldn’t say, nodded.
“Okay.”
He didn’t say don’t leave. He didn’t say take me with you. He didn’t say stay.
But he held Zeal just a little tighter than he should. Zeal didn’t let go.
Not yet, atleast.
The next few days unfolded like a dream Kaelix knew he’d wake from too soon.
They went on trips—to the old stone chapel by the hills where the wind always sang, to the quiet lake where dragonflies flitted over the water, to the local fair where Zeal won Kaelix’s youngest sibling a cheap stuffed bear and got roped into playing ring toss until his knuckles turned red. It was funny to witness a grown man do everything he can to get a children’s toy but it made him smile.
Zeal caring for his siblings, that is.
Zeal was different with the kids. Softer, lighter. He let them braid his hair, let them clamber over his back like a jungle gym. Kaelix watched him spin in the sun with his littlest brother on his shoulders, the boy shrieking with laughter as Zeal stumbled in circles until they both dropped to the grass in a tangled, breathless mess.
Sometimes, Kaelix joined them—sometimes he just watched. Watched the way Zeal’s laughter reached his eyes. Watched his ease, his warmth, and felt both full and empty all at once.
Each night they spent curled in secret corners of the house or beneath the stars, talking in whispers or saying nothing at all. Their time was held together by stolen glances and the press of knees under shared blankets. Every touch felt like a question neither could answer.
One morning, Kaelix helped his mom hang laundry in the yard. The sheets danced in the wind, hiding their faces between waves of cotton and sunlight.
She passed him a clothespin. “You’ve been smiling more.”
Kaelix blinked, caught off guard. “Have I?”
She nodded. “It’s good to see. Even if… I don’t know what’s going on with you.”
They worked in silence for a moment. A breeze passed through, lifting a pale bedsheet like a sail between them.
Then Kaelix said, barely above a whisper, “I like him.”
His mother paused.
Not in shock—but in that thoughtful, quiet way she always did before answering with care. She peered through the gap in the laundry and gave him the softest smile.
“I figured.”
Kaelix looked down at the basket of clothes. “It hurts.”
“I know.”
“I wish it didn’t,” he added, voice cracking. “But I can’t stop it. I don’t want to stop it.”
She walked around the line and placed her hand gently on his back.
“You don’t have to,” she said. “Even the things that hurt can still be beautiful.”
Kaelix didn’t cry. But he did press his face into her shoulder, breathing in the scent of soap and sun and everything that felt safe. There was a weight off his shoulder that he felt after telling his mom about it.
Later that afternoon, Zeal found him sprawled under the shade of the old guava tree, reading with one of his sisters curled up nearby. Their hands brushed when Zeal sat down beside him. It wasn’t accidental. Kaelix looked at him, then down again.
Zeal didn’t say anything. Just plucked a guava from the branches above and tossed it into Kaelix’s lap.
They didn’t talk much that day.
They didn’t need to.
But when Zeal glanced at him, Kaelix saw it—that same quiet ache behind his eyes. The one he carried too. Like neither of them knew how to hold this thing between them without it spilling over.
Joy was everywhere in those last few days. But so was the pain of knowing it wouldn’t last.
And Kaelix lived every second like he was trying to burn it into his skin.
The laundry room was dim, lit only by the golden spill of the porch light filtering through the screen door. It was late—too late for anyone else to be awake—but the low hum of the washer cycling through its rinse filled the silence like a slow heartbeat.
Kaelix stood barefoot on the cold tiles, arms wrapped loosely around himself. The scent of detergent clung to the air—fresh linen and lemon—and everything felt painfully still. The soft sound of footsteps behind him broke that stillness, careful and familiar.
Zeal didn’t say anything at first. He just closed the door behind him gently and leaned his back against it, as if keeping the world out for just a little longer.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Kaelix said after a moment, voice soft and rough like he’d swallowed the whole night.
“Me neither,” Zeal murmured.
They stayed in that silence for a while. It wasn’t heavy—it was suspended. Like they were both afraid to say something that would cause it all to crash down.
Zeal moved first. He stepped closer, slow and deliberate, until he was in front of Kaelix. Close enough to touch, but not quite doing it yet.
“I’m leaving in three days,” he said finally, his voice thick, almost apologetic.
Kaelix looked up at him, eyes shining but dry. “I know.”
A pause.
“I hate how short this is,” Kaelix said quietly, finally allowing himself to be honest. “I hate that everything about you feels like forever, and yet I only got pieces.”
Zeal reached out and cupped his cheek gently, like he was trying to memorize the shape of him. “You got more of me than anyone has in a long time.”
Kaelix let out a small, bitter laugh. “Then why does it still feel like you were always halfway out the door?”
Silence again. A wound they couldn’t find the edges of.
Zeal pulled him in then, arms wrapping around Kaelix’s waist, resting his chin against the crown of his head. And Kaelix—Kaelix let himself crumble into it. Let the tension slide out of his shoulders, let his hands press against Zeal’s chest like an anchor, something to keep him from floating away.
When Zeal kissed him, it was quiet and aching. A kiss that didn’t ask for anything, only gave. Slow, lingering, and sad.
Kaelix broke the kiss first. Not because he wanted to, but because he couldn’t hold it anymore.
His face twisted and the tears came, silent at first, like a slow leak from something already cracked too deep. He pressed his forehead into Zeal’s shoulder and cried, fists curled in the fabric of his shirt.
“I don’t know what to do after this,” he whispered through it. “I don’t know who I am if you’re not here.”
Zeal held him tighter, swaying them gently, like a lullaby.
“You’ll be you,” he said softly. “You’ll still be everything you are now. You’ll still shine.”
“But not the same.”
“No,” Zeal admitted. “Not the same.”
The dryer clicked off behind them with a dull finality, and Kaelix couldn’t help the small choked laugh that came through the tears. “Even the machines know when to stop.”
Zeal smiled faintly, then kissed his temple, slow and warm.
“I don’t know what happens after this,” Kaelix said again, voice breaking.
Zeal brushed the tears from his cheek, gently, reverently. “We remember. We go on. We hurt for a while… and maybe—maybe we find each other again.”
Kaelix nodded, even though he wasn’t sure he believed it. But he wanted to.
And so they stood there, in the quiet hum of the laundry room, tangled in warmth and heartbreak, until the night passed them by and morning crept gently at the edges.
Neither of them said goodbye.
Not yet. Not there.
Only silence and skin and memory—folded into one last moment they’d carry long after summer ended.
The morning light filtered weakly through the scattered clouds, soft but unkind—casting a gray tint over the worn wooden planks of the train platform. Kaelix’s footsteps echoed hollowly beside Zeal’s as they walked toward the waiting train. The world around them seemed distant, a muted backdrop to the storm inside Kaelix’s chest. He didn’t want to say goodbye yet. He wasn’t ready to say goodbye yet. They haven’t even put a label on their relationship yet.
It was so unfair of Zeal to leave him confused once more.
Zeal’s eyes flickered toward him now and then, searching for something unsaid. Finally, just before the train’s whistle pierced the quiet, Zeal stopped and turned fully, resting a hand on Kaelix’s arm.
“This isn’t how I wanted things to end,” Zeal murmured, his voice rough with emotion. “Not like this—so unfinished.”
Kaelix’s throat tightened. “I don’t want this to end, either.”
They embraced with a fierceness born from weeks of silent tension and stolen moments. Kaelix’s tears soaked Zeal’s shirt, hot and uncontrollable, while Zeal’s hands trembled as they clutched Kaelix like he might disappear if let go.
“Please don’t forget about me,” Kaelix whispered, the words barely audible, a desperate plea wrapped in hope.
Zeal’s breath caught, his lips brushing against Kaelix’s temple. “I won’t,” he promised, voice breaking.
The distant rumble of the train grew louder. The platform filled with the harsh metallic clang of the train pulling in. They pulled apart reluctantly, foreheads still touching for a long moment before Zeal stepped back, his eyes haunted but resolute.
The train doors slid open with a hiss, and Zeal turned once more to give Kaelix a small, bittersweet smile. Kaelix’s chest ached with every second that ticked by, the finality settling over them like a suffocating fog. As Zeal climbed aboard and the doors closed, he remained frozen on the platform, the noise of the train becoming a fading echo. The world felt emptier, quieter—less real.
The drive home was silent except for the steady hum of the car tires against the road. Kaelix stared out the window, his eyes red-rimmed and glassy from crying. The sky stretched wide and pale above the passing trees, but the brightness only deepened the ache inside him.
His mother glanced over, her expression soft and filled with quiet understanding.
“You don’t have to hold it all in,” she said gently, reaching over to squeeze his hand.
Kaelix’s voice broke as he whispered, “It hurts so much, Mom. I don’t know how to say goodbye. I don’t know how to let go.”
She nodded, her hand warm and steady. “Sometimes goodbyes aren’t about letting go. Sometimes they’re about holding on in a different way. You’ll find your way through this, Kaelix.”
Tears welled again, and he wiped them away clumsily, swallowing the lump in his throat.
“I don’t want to forget him,” Kaelix admitted, voice trembling.
“You won’t,” she said softly. “He’s part of you now, and part of your story. And that stays, no matter how far apart you are.”
Kaelix leaned his head back against the seat, the weight of her words settling slowly inside him. The pain was sharp and raw, but beneath it flickered something fragile—hope. He hopes this wasn’t the end. He hopes there’ll be something more.
As the car carried them forward down the familiar road, the silence was no longer empty. It was full of what had been, and what might still be.
Months pass by and just like every intern that came and went, everyone in the house has forgotten about Zeal.
Except Kaelix.
Kaelix never forgot about him. Every corner of the house reminded him of Zeal. The laundry room where they’d share hidden kisses. The swing where they’d spend the night talking. The couch where he first made an actual conversation with Zeal. Everything felt like it was imprinted by Zeal.
He hadn’t even washed the shirt Zeal borrowed. He didn’t want Zeal’s scent to fade.
Not when that was the only thing left in the house that smelled like Zeal.
The room was dim, bathed in the flickering amber glow of the fireplace. Shadows danced across the walls, but inside Kaelix, everything felt unbearably still—like the world had slowed just for him to catch every sharp edge of his pain.
He sat curled up on the worn rug, legs drawn close to his chest, clutching two letters in trembling hands. One was the worn, creased note Zeal had given him the day before he left—a fragile piece of their shared past. The other was new, the edges crisp, the handwriting the same but colder somehow.
Kaelix’s fingers trembled as he clutched the letters in his hand. Reading the new one felt like a hard punch to the gut. Like a slap to the face. His eyes brimming with tears as his hand threaten to throw the letters into the fire.
‘I love you, Kaelix.’
The letter Zeal first gave him said that.
Kaelix almost wanted to laugh because it was useless now.
Zeal was engaged now.
He’s engaged to a woman he met on his job. He said on his letter that it was love at first sight for him and fuck—fuck—did it hurt. Kaelix felt like he was played to his face. He felt stupid for letting his guards down. For letting his stupid heart do its thing. He could have avoided Zeal like he had done to any other intern.
But he didn’t.
The letters slipped from his hands, landing softly on the rug as tears spilled freely down his cheeks.
He didn’t try to stop them.
For a long time, Kaelix just let himself break, the weight of hope, love, and heartbreak crashing down all at once. The room filled with the quiet sound of his sobs, mingling with the crackling fire. Somewhere deep inside, a part of him still clung to the memory of Zeal’s touch, the way his voice had promised to never forget him. The way his first letter promised to love him. But now those words felt like a bittersweet echo, a tender ache that wouldn’t fade.
Kaelix wiped at his tears, voice barely a whisper as he spoke to the flickering flames. “You’re an asshole.” He utters out, looking at the letters with a mix of disdain and pain.
The fire crackled back, a fragile comfort in the quiet, and for the first time, Kaelix allowed himself to believe that maybe, someday, the pain would soften—just enough to let the memories live without breaking him.