⧖

The ink smudged twice before he gave up on perfection. He’d never been one for words—especially not these kinds of words—but the silence of his study demanded to be filled.

The letter began the way all of Morgan’s letters did. Polite. Measured. The kind of phrasing that would make anyone think he’d been sitting in some candlelit library centuries too long.

I hope you’re holding up okay.

I know your work takes a lot out of you: seeing everything, feeling everything. You’ve always had this way of turning chaos into something meaningful. Even when everything’s falling apart, you make it look like it was supposed to happen that way.

There’s something I’ve been meaning to say, and I’ve been putting it off for… longer than I’d like to admit. It feels wrong, in a way. I’m supposed to be your mentor, your friend—the one who helps you find clarity, not someone who blurs the lines. Feelings like this aren’t supposed to happen. They mess things up. They make people selfish. And I didn’t want that to be us.

He paused. That sounded like something he’d say out loud—too smooth, too teasing. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. He wasn’t writing this as a mentor, or as a colleague, or even as a friend. He was writing this as someone who, against all odds and better judgment, had fallen.

But I can’t keep pretending it isn’t there. I’ve tried. Believe me, I’ve tried. But every time I hear your voice, or see you lost in thought, or catch you smiling like you’ve just seen something no one else can, it hits me all over again. You’ve become the one steady thing in a life that never stops moving. Somehow, you make it all feel… like home.

I don’t expect this to change anything. You don’t even have to say anything. I just needed you to know.

Yours,

Morgan

He folded it neatly, pressed his seal into the wax, and like an old man haunted by a single candle in a cold room, he mailed it.

Because Morgan didn’t know how else to say I love you.

Weeks passed.

Obscura went about their work as usual, bright and composed and as ethereal as ever. Morgan tried not to notice the silence that followed. Tried not to check the post every morning, or find his gaze drifting to the space where the letter should have returned from.

They didn’t mention it. Not once.

So he told himself the truth hurt less if he called it lesson learned.

Maybe they didn’t feel the same. Maybe they didn’t want to ruin what they had. Maybe it was better this way—better to remain the mentor, the friend, the constant shadow at their side.

And though he smiled when they laughed, something inside him dulled with each passing day.

It wasn’t until three weeks later—late evening, a quiet corridor, soft lamplight—that it slipped out.

They’d been talking about nothing, something mundane and warm, when he said it.

“Hey,” Morgan murmured, almost to himself, “did you ever get my letter?”

Obscura blinked. “Your what?”

“My letter,” he said again, slower this time, watching their expression. “I sent it a few weeks ago.”

There was confusion in their eyes now, genuine and sharp. “Morgan… what letter?”

Silence.

He froze, every word he’d ever said collapsing under the weight of that single question. The ache he’d buried clawed its way back up his throat, bitter and bright.

He forced a small, breathless laugh. “You’re joking.”

“I’m not,” they said softly. “Morgan, what letter?”

And he just stared at them—at the person who was supposed to have known, who was supposed to have read his heart in careful ink—and realized that fate, in all its cruel humor, had simply never delivered it.

His smile wavered. His voice came out quieter than he meant.

“This,” he thought, “is gonna be a long night.”