✿

The first twenty minutes of his work day are spent on organizational tasks. Checking his emails, planning his day, and mapping out the tasks that need to be done before 5 PM. Then, he neatly prioritizes them, sends out meeting invitations, and does meeting prep. Important tasks are done by 12 PM, and lunch is as much of a reward as it is simply a necessity. 

Sunday doesn’t skip lunch. Ever. However, if the nutritious value of a meal could be condensed into a small cube, taken with water like some sort of medication, instead of him having to go through the arduous and time-consuming task of a meal, he’d willingly offer such a solution to his digestive system in a heartbeat. It would present the opportunity of a restructure of his day. Away from the masses that push into the cafeteria building and cut in line, away from hands that make his meals — he would get to be far away from all these variables, which are out of his control.

Once lunch is over and the food is settling in his stomach, he takes a small walk through the inner courtyard, getting some much-needed movement and fresh air, before he heads back inside. Some small hand-stretches kickstart his progress on the afternoon's load of work. By 4:45 PM, he is setting up his materials for the following day. Disinfecting his workstation, he puts on his jacket, takes his bag, and leaves. The company card beeps twice against the scanners, two floors down, the car greets him with a harmonious sound someone had been paid a fortune to create, and then he begins his drive home.

​It’s easy to plan ahead. Even his home routine is mapped out in a way that benefits his household workload and his energy levels. There are as few variables in Sunday’s life, for there is no need for them to disrupt his peace. Where there is chaos, he can simply bring structure into it and tidy it up.

No matter if said variable is of a human nature or not.

Tuesday, 1st of April

You arrive fifteen minutes early on your first day at work. Sunday makes a mental note, applauding your punctuality. Being on time is something that even long-standing employees of the company struggle with to this day. A futile complaint, when the root of the problem sits in the CEO’s chair.

There is nothing outstanding about this first day. It’s like any other. He explains the on-premise rules, hands over any necessary documents, as well as your entry card. The next few hours are spent guiding you through the building and the more hands-on departments of the building. This used to bother him in the past, but there is no product that cannot be packaged and advertised to look and feel prim and proper with the right language and handling. Your attitude is very professional and coupled with the right amount of curiosity. Your verbal participation during his tour is a pleasant surprise.

Your first misstep happens when the day ends and Sunday takes off his gloves, wishing to reach for the disinfectant on his desk.

A firm, warm hand grabs one of his, shaking it properly. “Thank you so much for guiding me around today. I really appreciate that you took the time to answer all of my questions.” You let go, packing your things. “I’ll be seeing you, Mr. Sunday!” you tell him on your way out, with the excitement only a motivated, new hire could carry. He wonders how long it’ll take for that fiery exhilaration to settle into a calm simmer.

The warmth of your skin sticks to his hand, and even two rounds of disinfectant aren’t able to remove it. It bothers him, but he tries not to dwell on it, for your sake.

It was your first day after all.

Thursday, 22nd of May

Potatoes, fish, and a salad.

Sunday cuts his food into neat little pieces, carefully, so as not to get the rémoulade on his white button-up. It’s warm where he sits, just slightly out of the sun that shines into the cafeteria building through the big glass fronts, but close enough to benefit from the warmth it provides.

The noise of a chair being dragged across the linoleum floor rips him out of his mental summary of his earlier meeting. Looking up, he’s met with your happy expression.

Why are you sitting down across from him?

On your tray, there’s a bowl filled with noodles, piled high and covered in sauce and vegetables, a salad, and not one, but two of the small panna cotta desserts that they serve in these ridiculously intricate glass forms. Sunday is sure that they are a pain to wash, but industrial washers are another caliber entirely. Purchasing tableware like that would be an unwise decision for any private household.

“I finished my first presentation for the higher-ups today.”

Pools of molten gold travel their way up from your tray to your face, where they settle, analyzing your expression in that way that is a little more familiar to you now, slightly stressful nonetheless. You don’t know what Sunday is looking for in your expression, but you hope he’s not finding anything that displeases him.

“Is that so?” he asks, rolling the words around on his tongue before he tilts his head. “How did that go for you?”

“Really well,” comes your reply before you remind yourself not to boast. You hesitate. “...I think. The feedback was more positive than I had expected it to be, honestly.” Sunday’s brows furrow at that. He has seen your resumé, was present during your assessment, and he’s gotten insight into some of your previous projects. You’re capable; they would have never chosen you for your current position if you weren’t.

Is it self-doubt?

“Are you unaware of your capabilities, or is it mere performance anxiety?” he asks, taking a bite of his food. “Did anyone on the board cause you to feel that way? If there are any issues, I can–”

With your glass up against your lips, you splutter unelegantly, making Sunday grimace as he offers you one of the napkins he grabbed earlier. Coughing, you take it and dab at your lips, and your glass is put down on the table now. “No, no, it’s not like that,” you tell him. “It’s just easier to be a pessimist and be pleasantly surprised than it is to be disappointed when you’ve expected a grand outcome. It’s difficult for me to be cocky.”

A dire point of view to take up in life, Sunday thinks. He’s more of a realist himself, so it’s not like he can defend an optimistic lifestyle with self-assured sincerity. However, he does think you’d do better to be a little kinder to yourself. To your work.​

“You’re highly capable – I have witnessed the market average during our interview process for your position after all. It’s okay to hope for more and to want things. You’re allowed to take up the space you’ve earned for yourself. That wouldn’t be cocky of you.”

It’s a little distant, but there’s a certain warmth to his words. There’s also a bit of humor in the way he throws your words back at you, and it pulls a smile from you. Sunday feels gratification stretch out languidly within his chest.

“Then, Mr. Sunday,” you begin, grabbing one of the dessert glasses and putting it on his tray, “Let’s celebrate my success. I’m inviting you to a round of dessert.”

One glance at the glass.

He doesn’t pick up items that others hand him so willy-nilly, especially not items meant for consumption.

Sunday’s hand moves to your tray, picking up the second spoon you’ve brought for dessert. “Thank you for the invitation, then. To many more successes.”

Monday, 25th of August

It’s raining.

The sort of weather that makes anyone want to stay at home, curled up in their bed as the clouds’ tears trickle onto their windows, dragging paths across the glass. Warm weather, coupled with the sudden onslaught of rain and wind, always tends to tire Sunday out. He, too, falls victim to the mood swings of nature, and today, he feels out of it.

Not enough to stay at home and ruin his year’s perfect attendance.

So, when he arrives at work, he merely adjusts his daily routine to lead him to the underground parking lot. A calculated move to ensure he doesn’t get wet under the heavy shower of the heavens. Not to say that Sunday does not carry an umbrella. He keeps one on him at all times to ensure the safety of his clothing. Some of the fabrics that he likes to wear can be a bit sensitive to thoughtless watering via rain. He also isn’t too fond of a wet hair-do. Carrying an umbrella at all times is a calculated precaution.

The building is mostly empty today.

Figures – if given the opportunity to work from home, most people are going to make use of it on a day such as today.

Sunday secretly wishes he had done so as well. Maybe even called in sick, but his ego did not permit him to do such a thing. A shame.

Today, his way to the office leads him to the kitchen instead, where he fills up the kettle with fresh water from the tap. Inside his mind, he’s trying to work through his routine for today. There was the Q2 report that he had to run by Miss Fu Xuan this Friday, for which he had to prepare some slides. A re-work of the current onboarding program according to the data he’s collected this past year. An email he had to reply to, which required him to…

“...Sunday…”

It’s a little strange. He knows there’s something left unfinished, but it won’t come to mind. Did someone ask for something? Did he need to send something to someone? Did he need to oversee someone’s work? Who needed something from him in the first place? His mind feels hazy, and no matter how hard he thinks, not even a rough idea of what needs to be done appears inside his inner thinking space.

“Mr. Sunday.”

His skin feels sticky. His collar is awfully tight around his throat, and there’s a lump inside that makes it difficult to swallow. His hands feel cold and clammy and–

“Sunday!”

The young man is ripped out of his daze when you grab his forearm and pull it out of the stream of water. The kettle is filled to the brim, consistently overflowing. Judging by the state of the sink, he must have been letting the water run over his hands for quite a while now.

His gloves are wet.

When he blinks, it’s almost as if you materialize in front of him out of thin air. You’re close, standing right in front of him as you put the kettle onto its base after drying it off. Then, you redirect your attention to him, carefully peeling the gloves off his fingers. “I am sorry, but these are soaked,” you mumble, brows drawn into an apologetic frown upon doing something you know he dislikes.

Sunday is puzzled.

You look worried, and he decides that this isn’t an expression he wishes to see on your face. His hand squeezes yours gently. “What’s wrong?” His question feels like it isn’t spoken by him, his tongue as heavy as lead inside his mouth, the space between his ears filled with cotton.

“I should be asking you that,” you mutter, exasperated. Your free hand moves to touch his forehead and Sunday finds himself leaning into your touch pliantly, his eyes closing upon the contact of your cool palm against his warm skin.

The rest is all vague and blurry. The way to the infirmary, the methodical touches by Dr. Luocha, the way you drag him to your car, and tell him you’ll be bringing his car around once you are able to. What he recognizes is your voice and the warmth of your hands, particularly when you haul him into his home (he will have to ask you how you got his keys and why it doesn’t bother him when you enter his private space – maybe you’ll have an answer for both of these questions) and get him to rest in his bed.

Sleep takes him, once he’s being comforted by his clean sheets, your hand on his cheek, and the soothing sound of your voice. They carry him into slumber, far, far away from his work routine and his aching body.

It’s only when his eyes are closed and he can only hear your voice, that he remembers what sort of email he had to respond to:

Your email regarding his sister’s tour and her concert that you went to. He had wanted to thank you for your support and invite you to another show of hers. Maybe he’ll remember, once he wakes up again.

Wednesday, 8th of October

Today, Sunday meets you right as you enter the building on the ground level.

You don’t seem to be aware of how you’re practically geared up to run right into the stair railing, so Sunday reaches out to grab your arm by your elbow and gently redirects you to step to the side ever so slightly. This startles you so much that you end up bumping your hip into the railing anyway. A soft hiss leaves you upon impact, and you shuffle where you stand, your hand resting on where you’ve hit the metal bar.

“Are you alright?” the man asks carefully, his hand on your arm, tentative. He’s still holding onto you and he is surprised to find that the warmth of your skin, which he can feel through your shirt, isn’t remotely unpleasant.

“Oh... Yeah, sorry,” you tug your arm out of his hold ever so gently, but you still don’t seem to be all there. You look… Rough. Not that you don’t look as beautiful as you always do– Sunday halts for a moment, stopping his train of thought. That’s not important and not proper right now.

You look exhausted. Not in the way one does when they simply sleep too little or when they’ve had a long day. It’s a deeper issue, that much, he can tell. The area around your eyes is dry and he swears he could trace the freshly dried tear tracks on your cheeks with a finger, and he’d find a remnant of dampness if he were to reach out right now.

“What happened?” Sunday probes carefully, tugging you to the side, away from any onlookers that might be taking the staircase.

There it is. The defence you build up every single day, in an effort to stay professional. You’ve told him this before: That you struggle seeing yourself the way others do. That you always believe you are doing a far worse job than you are. Impostor syndrome is what you had called it. Your colleague understands the turmoil inside your heart, which must rear its ugly head upon being caught by him in a situation like this, where you are emotional instead of the put-together version of yourself that you prefer to show everyone at work.

A shaky exhale falls from your wobbly lips and Sunday surprises himself with the swiftness with which he pulls you closer.

“I won’t look,” he promises, his gloved hand cradling your head close against his chest, not offering any reaction when you cry into the thick material of the double-breasted vest he is wearing. He is unbothered by it. Not a single thought of his is spent thinking about any stains or marks, but instead, all his thoughts are dedicated to one task:

How should he go about comforting you?

Once your quiet sobs and the trembling of your shoulders have subsided into mere hiccups and sniffles, he grabs you by the shoulders and works out a bit of distance between your bodies. Not in any way that would feel like a rejection of sorts. Looking down at you, he offers an open, soft smile, “Will you join me for a cup of tea in my office?”

Usually, he’d be heading up to immediately get to his routine, and a tea break is certainly not even up for debate so early in the morning, before any work is finished. However, right now seems like a good time for an exception.

He expects a bit of a fight, so your immediate nod takes him off guard.

That inexplicable warmth stretches its way through his chest, a little easier to understand today than it usually is. Sunday offers you a gloved hand and finds that your hand in his is something he wouldn’t dislike becoming a part of his routine.

Friday, 19th of December​

Electric candles glow inside the small glasses, allowing the tinted shapes to spread their lights across whatever surrounds the small trinkets. The lights leave their mark on Sunday’s face as well, golden stars stretching out over his flushed cheeks before he hides them from the shadows being cast over them, choosing to hide his face in his scarf as much as he can.

Golden eyes, brighter than any light displayed at the small stall at the Christmas market, flit over to where you are standing. In your hands, there’s a mug, similar to the ones you both were holding onto earlier, when you’d grabbed mulled wine after work. You’d have to take advantage of the season on your final day of work, you’d explained earlier, and Sunday accompanied you. With the fitting excuse of it already being late and him not being in a rush to get into the busy rush hour traffic right before Christmas week.

A lot has changed over the past year and while Sunday isn’t a melancholic guy, he does think about his life and the things that have changed, every once in a while. In a healthy way, nowadays, not the way that would leave him feeling burdened and bothered about others’ issues in their day-to-day lives.

Changes are difficult for Sunday.

There is a familiar comfort within the way of life he has created for himself over the years. It’s very different from how he was raised and he’s glad about that. It’s his own life – one that he has molded with his own hands. A steady one that includes his work, his sister, a few precious friendships, and hobbies for leisure. It’s a quiet life, but one that feels good to him.

However, now it seems to include you.

You’ve dug your way underneath his skin, past the professional distance he keeps up with co-workers and new acquaintances, and you’ve taken root. Somewhere, buried deep between his ribs, where the pulse of his heart has started to quicken more often these days, there is a place which you’ve carved out for yourself. Small, at first, but over the months, it has become big enough for Sunday to notice. At first, it had bothered him, but now, you are just as at home in there as the thought of you is in his mind.

You only look up from the mug when he hands you a little bag. On it is the emblem of the small vendor. There’s a glint in your eyes and your expression is caught between a fluster and gratefulness. Sunday gladly takes both of those emotions for himself, filing them away in his mind.

By now, you know that refusing a gift from your colleague is futile, so you offer your thanks and hold onto his arm, which he has offered you. The Christmas market is filled with people. Families trying not to lose each other, people meeting their friends, lovers. Everyone seems to have huddled together for some joy and some warmth before the grand holidays, spreading cheer. There isn’t much of a need for words between you, but conversations come easily. Work, hobbies, and which books you’re both currently reading. Trivial things. Easy things.

One topic after the next brings you to your door and suddenly, Sunday wishes the way home would have taken a little longer. That the masses at the market had been a little more difficult to navigate through.

“Thank you for taking me home,” you offer your sincere thanks. Sunday wonders if your lips are as warm as the tone of your voice when you speak to him. “And thank you for the gift.”

His eyes search yours, and for a moment, it feels like the world is a little quieter. “Next year,” Sunday whispers, making you lean in so you can catch every word, “I want to change my routine.”

Surprised, you blink up at him.

Sunday. Changing his beloved routine. Even in the short time you’ve known him, it has become clear to you that he sticks to his plans and that they are nothing short of holy to him.

“I would like it to include more quality time.” With you. His words are accompanied by him taking off his gloves and putting them into the pocket of his coat. Gently, he cups your cheeks, tilting your face up. “Would you be alright with that?”

There is an earnestness about his gaze that has replaced the guarded looks he’d give you just a few months ago. A warmth that is solely yours, that belongs to you alone, whether you know it or not. His cheeks are a soft pink, lashes dusted with snowflakes, his attention on you.

You relax into his hold, offering him a happy smile. “Maybe we can work out a shared routine together?” you suggest, earning a sweet chuckle in return.

The paper bag in your hand feels light as it swings along slightly, once you push up onto your tiptoes to meet Sunday halfway. Two mugs are packed inside it, ready to find their place in your home soon.

Every thought scatters like dandelion seeds in wind. His breath catches in his chest, and for a moment he forgets how to exhale, forgets how to do anything except stand perfectly still and try to process what you just said.

No one says things like this to him. People thank the Chrysos Heirs for their service. They praise the Deliverer for fulfilling his role in the prophecy.

They don’t just casually wrap their arms around Phainon and tell him they’re proud of him for existing. For being himself. For the small, ordinary kindness of helping carry something.

The words settle into him like stones dropping into still water, sending ripples through every part of his chest. Something deep and ancient and wounded inside him stops hurting for just a moment. Like a constant ache he’d learned to ignore suddenly going quiet.

Then he very slowly, very carefully, like he’s afraid you’ll disappear if he moves too fast or breaks whatever spell is allowing this moment to exist, rests his hand over yours where they’re linked against his stomach. His fingers are trembling slightly. You can feel it.

“…Say it again?”

It’s barely audible. A whisper caught in his throat, rough with something that might be desperation or wonder or both tangled together so tightly he can’t tell them apart.

And he doesn’t even understand why he needs to hear it. Only that when you say it, something fundamental shifts in his world. Like he’s been walking through a cold, dark place for so long he forgot what warmth felt like, and now suddenly there’s sunlight on his face and he doesn’t want it to end.

You say it again, your voice soft and certain against his back: “I’m proud of you, Phainon.”

His grip on your hands tightens slightly. Like he’s anchoring himself.

After that, you keep saying it. Whenever you see him. Whenever he does something kind or thoughtful or just exists in your vicinity being himself.

“I’m proud of you.”

“You mean the world to me.”

“I love you.”

Casual and easy, like it’s the simplest truth in the world. Like it costs you nothing to give him everything he didn’t know he was starving for.

Every single time, Phainon freezes. Every single time, his breath catches and his eyes go wide like you’ve said something miraculous.

Every single time, he softens. Shoulders dropping, expression melting into something vulnerable and wondering.

Every single time, he holds onto the words like lifelines, like treasures, like prayers he’s afraid to forget.

He starts seeking you out more. Sitting closer during meals. Finding excuses to be in the same room. Standing near you when he doesn’t need to, just to exist in your orbit.

His presence becomes a constant, gentle thing. Always nearby, always hopeful.

You don’t comment on it. Don’t tease or question. Just keep giving him what he’s been starving for his entire life. Simple, uncomplicated affection that asks for nothing in return.

One day Phainon is the one who reaches for you first.

You’re reading, or cooking, or just existing in the same space doing something mundane and comfortable. And suddenly his fingers are brushing yours where your hand rests on the counter. Hesitant. Testing. Like he’s not sure he’s allowed but hoping desperately that he is.

“May I…” Phainon swallows hard enough that you can see his throat move. “May I have another hug?”

His voice is so soft it’s almost lost in the quiet of the room. So vulnerable it makes your chest ache. Like he’s asking for something precious and irreplaceable that he’s not entirely sure he deserves but wants so badly he had to ask anyway.

You don’t hesitate. Don’t make him wait or wonder or doubt. Just open your arms in invitation.

Phainon steps into them like he’s coming home. Wraps himself around you like you’re the only solid thing in a tilting world, like if he holds tight enough maybe you’ll never let go.

His face presses into your shoulder and you can feel him trembling. Fine tremors running through his whole body like he’s been holding himself together for so long and can finally, finally let go.

“Thank you,” Phainon whispers into your hair, voice breaking slightly on the words. “Thank you.”

He’s choosing it now. Choosing you. Choosing to want this, to need this, to let himself have this.

After that, he becomes quietly, desperately clingy in the most endearing way.

He hugs you from behind while you’re working on something, chin hooked over your shoulder and arms wrapped around your waist like he belongs there.

He rests his head on your shoulder when he’s tired, the weight of him warm and trusting and comfortable.

He holds your hand like he’s afraid you’ll vanish if he lets go for even a moment. Fingers threaded through yours, thumb tracing absent patterns on your skin.

And he starts saying it back, unprompted and earnest:

“I’m proud of you too.”

“You mean everything to me.”

“I love you.”

Not casual anymore. Not easy. Weighted with everything he feels, everything he’s learning he’s allowed to want, everything he’s been holding back for so long.

One night, curled together on the couch with your legs tangled and his head resting over your heart, he presses his face into your neck and goes very still.

“I never knew,” he whispers, and his voice is thick with emotion, “that being loved could feel like this.”

“Like what?”

You can feel his breath warm against your skin, can feel his heartbeat where your bodies are pressed together.

“Like coming home,” Phainon says finally. “Like being whole. Like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.”

He lifts his head to look at you, and his eyes are bright with unshed tears and wonder and love so fierce it takes your breath away.

“Thank you,” Phainon says again. “For teaching me what this feels like.”

You cup his face gently, thumbs brushing over his cheekbones, and he leans into the touch like a flower turning toward the sun.

“Always,” you promise.

And you mean it.

━━━━━━━━━━━━

ANAXA

You cup Anaxa‘s face gently because he looks exhausted. Dark circles shadowing the skin under his eye, shoulders carrying tension like a physical weight, that far-off look in his gaze that means he’s been pushing himself too hard again, burning himself out in pursuit of truth or duty or whatever impossible standard he’s set for himself this time.

Your palms are warm against his cheeks. He goes very, very still under your touch, like he’s forgotten how to move.

“Love you. Please take a break today.”

Anaxa blinks at you like you’ve just spoken a forbidden incantation. Like the words don’t make sense in the order you’ve put them. His eye goes wide, and his breath catches audibly in the quiet space between you.

For a moment he just stares, and you can practically see his mind working frantically to process what you’ve said, to categorize it, to understand it, to file it away in whatever meticulous mental organization system he uses to make sense of the world.

“Do not say things like that so casually,” Anaxa mutters, but his voice is unsteady in a way you’ve never heard before. Shaky. Uncertain. “My heart is not built for that.”

He can’t even finish the sentence. Can’t even say the word “love” back to you, like speaking it aloud would make it too real, too overwhelming, too much for his carefully controlled existence to contain.

He pulls away from your touch and walks away mid-sentence, movements sharp and precise even as you can see the rigid set of his shoulders, the way his hands clench briefly at his sides.

He’s walking away because he can feel warmth rising up his neck, creeping into his cheeks, spreading across his face in a blush he absolutely hates. Hates that a couple of words from you can undo him like this. Hates that he can’t control his reaction. Hates how much he wants to hear you say it again.

But exactly one hour later, because of course he timed it, of course he needed that precise amount of time to process and analyze and gather enough courage, he finds you again.

“…Did you mean it?”

Quiet. Almost shy. But he refuses to meet your eyes, staring determinedly at something over your shoulder or to the side, anywhere but directly at you because that would be too much, too vulnerable, too honest.

“Of course I meant it.”

“…I see.”

Anaxa says nothing else. Just stands there for a moment, absorbing this information, filing it away somewhere precious and protected in his mind. But his cheeks are red. Unmistakably red.

And you can see the smallest, most reluctant smile trying to form at the corner of his mouth before he suppresses it.

You keep saying it after that. Because you do love him. As a friend, as a person you care about deeply, as someone whose presence in your life matters.

Anaxa keeps pretending to be annoyed. Keeps muttering about how you shouldn’t say such things so carelessly, about how you’re going to give him a heart condition, about how you clearly don’t understand the gravity of what you’re saying.

But he never asks you to stop.

And you notice he’s always within earshot when you say it.

He starts doing small things back. Things he would never acknowledge as reciprocation but that you recognize for what they are.

Placing a gentle hand on your shoulder when you’re stressed, the touch careful and deliberate like he’s thought about it extensively before committing to the action.

Standing closer than strictly necessary when you’re working together, close enough that you can feel the warmth of him, smell whatever subtle scent clings to his clothes.

Speaking softly—almost tenderly—when addressing you, but only when you’re alone. Only when no one else can witness this small vulnerability he’s allowing himself.

One day you’re exhausted, running on too little sleep and too much worry, and he quietly sets tea beside you without a word. The temperature is perfect. It’s prepared exactly how you like it. He’s been paying attention.

“Drink. You’ve been working too long.”

“Thanks, Anaxagoras. Love you.”

He freezes. Just for a moment. “…I know.”

A pause stretches between you, weighted with something unspoken.

Then, barely audible, like the words are being pulled from somewhere deep inside him against his will:

“You matter to me as well.”

Your head snaps up in surprise, but he’s already turning away. Except you catch it—the smallest smile on his lips. Soft. Genuine. Meant only for you.

Anaxa doesn’t say “I love you” easily. The words don’t come naturally to him, don’t flow the way they do for you. They catch in his throat, weighted with too much meaning, too much vulnerability.

But he does say other things. “You matter more to me than anything else.”

Which, from Anaxa, is the same as screaming it towards the Titans. Is the same as writing it across the sky. Is the same as every grand romantic gesture condensed into one careful, honest sentence.

He shows it instead, in ways that are so perfectly him:

Memorizing exactly how you take your tea and preparing it without being asked.

Organizing your room when you’re overwhelmed, creating order from chaos in a way that soothes both of you.

Standing between you and anything that might hurt you—physical or emotional—like it’s instinct, like protecting you is as natural as breathing.

And one night, when you’re both tired and the world is finally, blessedly quiet, he reaches for your hand.

The movement is deliberate. Careful. His fingers slide against yours slowly, giving you every opportunity to pull away if you want to. But you don’t. You never would.

Anaxa threads his fingers through yours properly, palm to palm, and holds on. Doesn’t let go.

“This is acceptable,” he murmurs, but there’s something soft in his voice. Something content.

You laugh quietly, warmth blooming in your chest. “Just acceptable?”

His thumb strokes once across the back of your hand. “…More than acceptable.”

He squeezes your hand gently, carefully, like you’re something precious. “Essential,” Anaxa admits, so quietly you almost miss it.

And when you look at him, his cheeks are red again. But he’s smiling. Actually smiling.

And he still hasn’t let go of your hand.

━━━━━━━━━━━━

MYDEI

You hug Mydei tightly around his upper body after he returns from a dangerous mission. He’s half-naked as usual, all hard muscle and sun-warmed skin and barely-contained power thrumming just beneath the surface.

You can see the exhaustion in the set of his shoulders, the lingering tension from battle that hasn’t quite left his body yet. You watch him remove his armor, your mind brimming with things you want to tell him.

“I’m glad you’re safe. You’re important to me.”

Mydei goes completely, utterly rigid.

Every muscle in his body locks up like you’ve frozen him in place. His arms hover uselessly at his sides, hands half-raised like he was reaching for something but forgot what it was mid-motion.

He doesn’t know where to put them. Doesn’t know what to do with his body when someone is holding him like this. Gentle and careful and relieved, like his safety actually matters to them beyond his usefulness in combat.

His heart is beating like he’s still in battle. You can feel it hammering against your cheek where you’re pressed against his chest. Rapid and hard and unsteady. Fight or flight response when there’s no fight to be had and nowhere to flee to.

“Important?” Mydei repeats slowly, like he’s testing the word in his mouth. Tasting it. Trying to understand its shape and weight and meaning when applied to him.

Nobody has ever said it to him without conditions before. Without expectations attached. Without needing something from him first. His strength, his skill, his willingness to fight and bleed and break for their cause.

He almost doesn’t know how to breathe around the feeling expanding in his chest. Something warm and uncomfortable and desperately wanted all at once.

There’s a long moment where neither of you move. Where you just hold him and let him process, let him figure out what to do with this new experience of being valued for existing rather than for what he can do.

Then, very carefully, his arms come up around you. Stiff and awkward at first, like he’s not entirely sure how to hold someone gently. Like almost all his experience with his body involves strength and force and he’s terrified of applying too much of either.

But he wraps his arms around you gently and holds on. “…Thank you.”

It’s all he can manage. All he can force past the tightness in his throat. But it’s sincere. Raw. Honest in the Mydei way.

You keep doing it after that. Hugging him when he comes back from missions. Telling him he matters to you. Making sure he knows his importance isn’t conditional on his usefulness.

He gets better at accepting it. His arms come around you faster each time. Hold tighter. Longer. Like he’s learning that it’s allowed, that he can have this, that he doesn’t have to earn every moment of gentleness.

Next time, Mydei is the one who pulls you into the hug first.

You’re not expecting it. He just comes back from patrol and immediately crosses the space between you, movements purposeful and direct like he’s made a decision and won’t be deterred.

Wordless. Just stepping close and wrapping his arms around you with a sureness that wasn’t there before. Lifting you slightly off your feet because he forgets his own strength sometimes, because holding you tight feels more important than propriety or restraint.

He rests his chin on your head, and you can feel him relax. Actually relax. The tension draining out of his shoulders, his breathing evening out, his heartbeat slowing to something calm and steady.

“You ground me,” Mydei mutters into your hair, voice low and rough like gravel.

Which is his version of: “I love you. I’d cross worlds for you. You’re the reason I come back. You’re the reason I fight. You’re the reason I try to survive.”

Mydei becomes fiercely, protectively physical in a way that’s both overwhelming in the best way and endearing.

Hand on the small of your back whenever you’re walking together. Possessive and protective and grounding all at once. Arm around your shoulders in crowds, keeping you close, keeping you safe, keeping you his. Pulling you against his side like it’s natural, like you belong there, like he’s not complete unless you’re within reach.

He doesn’t use many words for feelings. Never has. Language has always been a secondary tool for him, less reliable than action, less honest than the body.

But his body speaks volumes. The way he positions himself between you and anything that might be dangerous, instinct and choice combined.

The way he relaxes only when you’re near, like your presence is the only thing that lets him lower his guard.

The way he seeks your touch like it’s the only thing keeping him anchored to something good and gentle in a world that’s taught him mostly violence.

One night, holding you close with your back against his chest and his arms wrapped around you like he’s trying to shield you from the whole world, he says:

“Before you, I didn’t know gentleness. I tried to be kind to to others because my life had been anything but to me. Just survival.”

His voice is rough with honesty. Thick with emotion he doesn’t quite know how to name. “I didn‘t know I could have it, though. I didn‘t think I could give it although I wanted to.”

He presses his face against your neck, and you can feel his breath warm against your skin.

“Thank you for teaching me.”

You turn in his arms to face him, and his eyes are softer than you’ve ever seen them. Vulnerable in a way he only ever is with you.

“Thank you for learning,” you whisper back.

Mydei kisses you then. Gentle despite all that strength, careful despite all that power. Like you’re something precious he’s still learning not to break.

━━━━━━━━━━━━

JING YUAN

You sit beside him during a rare break in his endless responsibilities and lean against his shoulder, comfortable and easy and trusting in a way that makes something warm settle in his chest.

“Jing Yuan? You’re doing amazing. I’m proud of you.”

Jing Yuan gives you a slow, lazy smile. The one he’s perfected over centuries, the one he uses to deflect and hide and maintain careful distance between himself and anything that might actually touch him.

“Oh? Flattery now? Should I expect more of this?”

But the teasing hides the truth.

Your affection hits him deeply, sinking past all his carefully constructed defenses and landing right in the quiet, lonely places he buries under charm and humor and the weight of duty.

Right in the parts of himself he doesn’t let anyone see. The parts that are tired and uncertain and so, so lonely despite being surrounded by people who respect him and fear him and admire him from a distance that never quite closes.

He’s the General. The Divine Foresight.

People respect him. Fear him. Admire him. Follow him into battle and trust him with their lives.

But you’re proud of him. Not the General. Not the title or the position or the divine foresight that sets him apart from everyone else.

Just him. Just Jing Yuan.

And he doesn’t quite know what to do with that. Doesn’t know how to process the way it makes his chest feel too full and too tight all at once.

Later, when you stand to leave, he catches your wrist gently. His fingers wrap around it carefully, thumb resting against your pulse point where he can feel your heartbeat.

“…Stay a little longer?”

Soft. Almost vulnerable. His guard slipping just enough for you to see past the lazy smile and the clever deflections to the loneliness underneath. To the part of him that’s so tired of being alone in rooms full of people.

You stay.

He doesn’t say anything else. Doesn’t need to. Just keeps your hand in his, thumb tracing absent patterns on your skin like he’s memorizing the shape of this moment.

Jing Yuan starts seeking your presence more deliberately after that.

Inviting you to join him for tea when he doesn’t actually need company but wants yours specifically.

Finding excuses to walk with you between meetings, stretching five minutes into fifteen into half an hour of comfortable conversation.

Sitting closer during shared meals, close enough that your shoulders brush, close enough that he can feel the warmth of you.

The touches become more frequent. More intentional. Casual brushes that aren’t quite as casual as he pretends they are.

One day you’re reading in his office while he works. Comfortable silence, shared space, the kind of easy companionship he’s craved for longer than he’d ever admit. He just puts his head in your lap.

No warning. No asking permission. Just sets aside the report he’s been reviewing and lies down with his head pillowed on your thigh like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“Comfortable?” you ask, amused and fond and completely unsurprised because this is exactly the kind of thing Jing Yuan would do.

“Extremely.” He closes his eyes with a contented sigh that sounds like relief. “Your presence is soothing.” His voice is soft. Genuine. Without any of his usual playful deflection.

“Love you too, Jing Yuan.”

He smiles without opening his eyes. A real smile, not the lazy one he shows the world. Soft and warm and meant only for you. “I know.”

Jing Yuan becomes shamelessly, unapologetically clingy at home.

Head in your lap while you read, perfectly content to stay there for hours. Fingers constantly finding yours whether you’re walking or sitting or just existing in the same space, threading through them and holding on like it’s as natural as breathing.

Pulling you into his arms whenever possible. Morning, evening, middle of the night when he can’t sleep and seeks you out for the comfort of your warmth.

“Hm? What? I simply enjoy your presence. Is that a crime?”

But his eyes are soft when he says it. Genuinely happy in a way you rarely see from him in his official capacity. Like here, with you, he can finally set down the weight of being the General and just be himself.

You’ve never seen him this relaxed. This unguarded. This content.

One quiet evening when the world outside is distant and irrelevant, you’re curled together with his head on your shoulder and your fingers combing slowly through his white hair:

“You know,” Jing Yuan murmurs, voice low and contemplative, “I’ve lived a very long time.”

“Mmhm.”

“Centuries of battles and strategies and responsibilities. Centuries of maintaining distance, of being untouchable, of never letting anyone truly close.” He shifts slightly, burrowing deeper into your embrace. “And I’ve never felt this content.”

He presses a kiss to your temple. Soft and lingering and full of everything he doesn’t quite know how to say.

“Thank you for that.”

You hold him tighter, and he makes a sound of contentment that’s almost a purr.

“Thank you for letting me,” you whisper back.

Jing Yuan smiles against your skin.

“Always.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━

DAN HENG

You press a gentle kiss to the top of his head when he’s reading—absorbed in whatever book or data file has captured his attention, brow slightly furrowed in concentration—and whisper:

“I’m proud of you.”

Dan Heng freezes like you’ve cast a spell on him. Like time itself has stopped and left him suspended in this single moment.

The book falls slightly in his hands, pages fluttering. His shoulders tense, going rigid in a way that has nothing to do with threat and everything to do with not knowing how to process what just happened.

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe. Doesn’t do anything except sit perfectly still and try to understand. “…Why?”

The question hangs in the air, weighted with every insecurity he carries, every doubt that whispers he’s not worthy of simple affection.

“Because you’re you. That’s enough.”

He’s silent for a long time. So long you think maybe he won’t respond, maybe you’ve pushed too far, offered too much too soon.

But later his cheeks are pink and he keeps glancing at you like he’s replaying the moment in his mind. Over and over. Trying to understand it. Trying to believe it. Trying to memorize exactly how it felt to be told he’s enough just as he is.

You keep doing it after that. Small affections offered freely.

Shoulder touches when you pass by. Head kisses when he’s focused on something. Quiet “I’m proud of you”s that make him pause whatever he’s doing and look at you with those solemn, wondering eyes.

He never asks you to stop.

Dan Heng starts seeking small contact in return. Tentative at first, like he’s not entirely sure it’s allowed but hoping desperately that it is.

Sitting closer than strictly necessary when you’re both reading, close enough that your shoulders press together.

Brushing shoulders when you walk side by side, the touch brief but deliberate.

Letting your hand rest against his without pulling away, without flinching, without any of the careful distance he maintains with everyone else.

One day, very quietly, he rests his forehead against yours. Just his forehead pressed to yours, his eyes closed, his breathing careful and measured like he’s trying to memorize this feeling.

“You’re important to me too.” Whisper-soft. Barely audible. More meaningful than any grand confession because it costs him so much to say it, to admit it, to let himself be this vulnerable.

Dan Heng’s love is quiet in the way a deep ocean is quiet. Vast and profound and constant beneath the surface.

He remembers everything you say. Every offhand comment about things you like. Every mention of preferences or interests or small details you probably don’t even remember sharing.

And then weeks later he’ll bring you something. A book you mentioned wanting to read, a snack you said you missed, a small trinket that reminded him of a conversation you had.

He reads beside you in comfortable silence, your bodies close together but not demanding anything from each other. Just existing in the same space, breathing the same air, finding comfort in proximity.

And sometimes, when it’s late and the world is quiet and his defenses are as low as they ever get, he’ll pull you close. Carefully. Deliberately. Like you’re something precious he’s still learning how to hold without breaking.

He’ll rest his chin on your head and just hold you.

“Thank you,” Dan Heng whispers, and his voice is thick with emotion he doesn’t quite know how to name.

“For what?”

“For staying. For—” He stops and swallows hard. You can feel the movement against your hair. “For loving me when I didn’t know how to be loved.”

You hold him tighter, arms wrapping around him securely. “Always.”

He lets out a shaky breath and holds you closer.

“I’m still learning,” he admits quietly. “How to accept this. How to believe I deserve it.”

“You do.”

“You make it easier to believe that.” Dan Heng presses a kiss to your forehead. Soft and full of everything he struggles to say out loud. “Thank you for being patient with me.”

You smile against his chest. “Always,” you promise again.

And you mean it with every fiber of your being.

⋆ ✦ ⋆

A/N: Thanks for reading. :) I hope you enjoyed it. :)

Word count: ~ 5400 words

How Sunday Falls in Love:

Through recognition, not chance.

Sunday doesn’t “meet” someone. He recognizes them. That instant awareness that this person doesn’t just exist beside him, but within the same rhythm. Love begins with awareness, not impulse.

He notices your voice first. The way you speak of things without cynicism, the compassion that doesn’t need to prove itself. He sees kindness as strength and it disarms him completely.

For someone who spent so long orchestrating paradise, genuine goodness that asks for nothing in return is revelatory. You’re not performing virtue. You’re just being kind. Naturally. Consistently. Like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

And he can’t look away.

Through curiosity that becomes attachment.

At first, he frames it as study. Understanding human emotion through observation, learning what he missed while trapped in his ideology of perfection.

But his questions become personal, his fascination sincere.

“Why do you smile at strangers?”

“Why do you forgive people so easily?”

“How do you choose hope when the world offers so many reasons for despair?”

He means them as philosophy, but they sound like longing.

Somewhere between discussion and debate, somewhere between analyzing your worldview and living inside it, he realizes he’s been collecting your every word as though they were gospel. Your perspective becomes the lens through which he reexamines everything he thought he knew.

You’re not trying to teach him. But he’s learning anyway. Learning that maybe, impossibly, there’s wisdom in acceptance instead of control. In trust instead of management. In letting things be imperfect and loving them anyway.

Through humility.

Falling in love humbles him in ways the fall from grace never did.

Losing Penacony, being wrong about paradise, joining the Express. That was one thing. But this? Love? This is something deeper and more terrifying. Because paradise was an idea he could theorize about, debate, refine.

But you? You’re real. Complicated. Impossible to perfect. And he doesn’t want to perfect you. He wants to know you.

That realization breaks something fundamental in him. The man who tried to orchestrate eternal happiness now finds himself utterly unprepared for one person’s genuine, messy, imperfect affection.

You challenge him. You tell him no. You remind him that consent and choice are what make love sacred. Not safety, not certainty, not the elimination of risk. Love exists because of choice, not despite it.

He’s drawn to that. To someone who isn’t afraid to look him in the eye and say, “You don’t need to save me. You don’t get to decide what’s best for me. I’m choosing this. I’m choosing you.”

He needs that kind of grounding truth more than he’ll ever admit.

Through vulnerability disguised as devotion.

When Sunday loves, he loves intensely. Too much, even. He gives endlessly, often to his own detriment, because that’s how he’s learned to exist. By offering, by providing, by making himself useful enough to justify his presence.

It takes time for him to understand that love isn’t only about giving. That it’s also about being received. About trusting someone else to care for him the way he desperately wants to care for them.

The first time you insist on taking care of him—bringing him tea when he’s exhausted, pulling him away from overthinking, holding him when he’s spiraling—he won’t know what to do with it. His instinct is to deflect, to insist he’s fine, to redirect attention back to you.

But when you persist, gentle and firm, when you say let me do this for you, something in him cracks open.

And he’ll realize: this is what he was missing in his philosophy of paradise. Not the elimination of suffering, but the presence of someone who’ll sit with you in it. Not control, but connection. Not management, but mutual care.

Through the mundane.

He’ll resist it at first. The quiet domesticity, the simplicity of shared mornings and unspoken routines. Paradise was supposed to be grand, orchestrated, flawless. Not this: you burning toast while half-asleep, him reorganizing the pantry by category (and then by color, and then by frequency of use until you gently tell him to stop).

But when he catches himself smiling because you handed him tea without asking how he takes it (you remembered), or because you hummed while sorting books (off-key, unconscious, human), or something inside him breaks in the gentlest way.

The first time you fall asleep on his shoulder during a movie, drool and all, he’ll sit frozen. Terrified to move, terrified to ruin it. This moment, imperfect and unplanned, feels more sacred than any paradise he designed.

He’ll trace the line of your jaw with his eyes, memorize the weight of your head against him, catalog the sound of your breathing. And he’ll think: This. This is what it was supposed to feel like.

Not perfect. Just peaceful.

Not a prison of eternal happiness, but the choice to build small joys, day by day, with someone who sees him and stays anyway.

Through the terrifying realization that he’s falling without a plan.

Sunday always has a plan. Contingencies, calculations, carefully orchestrated outcomes.

But love? Love doesn’t follow sheet music. It improvises. And that terrifies him.

The moment he realizes he’s in love—truly, irreversibly in love—it won’t be romantic. It’ll be panic. Because this wasn’t part of the plan. He wasn’t supposed to need someone like this. He wasn’t supposed to give someone this much power to hurt him.

And yet.

And yet when you smile at him across the Express common area, when you defend him to others who still see him as the villain, when you choose him again and again without him having to orchestrate that choice?

He’ll realize some things are worth the risk of not having control over the outcome.

Some things are worth falling for.

What Draws Sunday In

Emotionally:

- Steadiness. Someone who stays calm when his mind spirals. Who listens without judgment, who steadies without silencing. He spends so much time in his own head, tangled in philosophies and what-ifs and the crushing weight of his mistakes. You’re the calm in that storm. Not because you have all the answers, but because you don’t need them. You’re just there. Present. Real.

- Sincerity. He’s surrounded by people who perform devotion, who say what they think he wants to hear, who treat him either as a villain to be feared or a project to be fixed. Honesty is the rarest gift. When you tell him truth—even uncomfortable truth, even “I think you’re wrong about this”—it feels like oxygen after years of suffocating in platitudes.

- Compassion that isn’t naive. He admires strength through kindness. People who do good because they choose to, not because it’s easy. You understand that the world is complicated, that people are flawed, that suffering exists. And you choose kindness anyway. Not as denial of darkness, but as defiance of it. That philosophy—that active, deliberate choice to care—is something he desperately needs to learn.

- Curiosity with boundaries. Someone who can meet him intellectually without turning his thoughts into a battlefield. You’ll debate philosophy with him, challenge his assumptions, offer perspectives he hasn’t considered. But you know when to stop. When to say “let’s table this for now” because the conversation is becoming circular or painful. He needs someone who can engage his mind without feeding his tendency to spiral.

- The mundane and human. Someone who laughs at themselves, spills tea, forgets things, and reminds him that perfection isn’t the point. Every time you’re clumsy or forgetful or imperfect, it’s evidence against his old worldview. You’re not suffering because you’re flawed. You’re living because you’re human. And slowly, he’s learning the difference.

- Someone unafraid of his intensity. Sunday feels deeply and expresses it fully, though not always in words. His love is overwhelming, all-consuming, sometimes too much. He needs someone who doesn’t flinch when the light burns too bright. Who can say “I see how much you care, and I’m not afraid of it” while also setting boundaries when that intensity tips into unhealthy territory.

- Someone who chooses freely. This is crucial. After Penacony, after learning the hard way that forced happiness isn’t real happiness, he’s hyper-aware of choice. He needs someone who chooses him—explicitly, repeatedly, freely. Not because they’re trapped or obligated or manipulated. But because they want to. Every time you choose to stay, every time you choose him, it rewrites a little bit of his broken philosophy.

Intellectually:

- People who challenge his assumptions without dismissing his intelligence. Sunday is brilliant. Strategic, philosophical, well-read. He needs someone who respects that intelligence while questioning the conclusions he’s drawn from it. “I understand why you thought that, but have you considered…” is far more effective than “you’re wrong.” You take his ideas seriously enough to dissect them, and that’s more valuable than agreement.

- Independent thinkers. He’s spent too long trying to make decisions for others “for their own good.” He needs someone with strong opinions, firm values, clear boundaries. Someone who says “I appreciate your input, but I’m choosing this path” and means it. Your autonomy is attractive to him in ways he’s still unpacking. Because it’s proof that love and independence can coexist.

- Someone who finds meaning in questions, not just answers. Sunday’s philosophy failed partly because he thought he had all the answers. He’s drawn to people who can sit with uncertainty, who can ask “what if?” without needing immediate resolution. Who understand that wisdom is often found in the questions we ask, not the conclusions we reach.

- Synthesizers, not zealots. He needs someone who can hold multiple truths at once. “Your intentions were good AND you caused harm.” “You were trying to help AND you were wrong.” “You’re capable of redemption AND you need to do the work.” That kind of nuanced thinking, the ability to reject false binaries, is exactly what he needs to hear.

Physically:

- Expressive faces. You don’t hide what you’re feeling, and it’s mesmerizing to him. When you’re angry, it shows. When you’re delighted, it shows. When you’re looking at him with affection you haven’t voiced yet, it shows. He spent so long reading people to manipulate outcomes; with you, there’s no translation needed. You’re an open book, and he can’t stop reading.

- Genuine smiles that reach the eyes. He can spot a performance from a mile away. He’s lived inside one for years. When your smile is real, unguarded, reaching your eyes and crinkling the corners, it stops him cold. That’s not calculated. That’s joy, offered freely. He wants to earn that smile. Wants to be the reason for it. Wants to collect them like rare treasures.

- Hands that create. Whether you’re cooking, writing, building, drawing, playing an instrument—he’s drawn to hands that make things. His own hands orchestrated a prison disguised as paradise. Yours create without controlling, shape without constraining. He watches your hands work and wonders what it would feel like to create something together. Something real. Something imperfect and beautiful.

- The way you inhabit space. How you move through the Express. Comfortable, casual, belonging. You’re not performing. You’re not trying to take up less space or more space. You just exist. And after years of carefully curating his every movement, every expression, every word, that naturalness is magnetic.

- Eyes that really see him. Not Sunday the villain. Not Sunday the leader. Not even Sunday the redeemed. Just Sunday. The man learning to be human, stumbling through domesticity, trying to figure out who he is outside of his failed ideology. When you look at him and your eyes say I see you, the real you, and you’re enough? That’s more powerful than any philosophy he’s ever studied.

- Presence that invites closeness. There’s something about the way you exist in proximity that makes him want to be near you. Not crowding, not demanding, just welcoming. Like there’s always space beside you that feels like it might be for him. And slowly, carefully, he’ll test that. Standing a little closer, sitting next to you, existing in your orbit until proximity becomes intimacy.

- The small, human details he memorizes. The exact shade of your eyes in different lighting. How your hair looks when you’ve just woken up. The way you lick your lips when you’re lost in thought. The slope of your neck when you’re reading. The sound of your real laugh. Not the polite one, the one that escapes when something genuinely delights you. He collects these details obsessively, proof that you’re real and here and somehow, inexplicably, choosing to stay.

What Sunday Is Afraid Of

That his love will become control.

This is the nightmare that wakes him at 3am, heart racing, tangled in sheets that suddenly feel like restraints.

That he’ll slip back into old patterns. Arranging your life for “your own good,” making decisions to “protect” you, removing your choices in the name of caring for you. Building a beautiful cage and calling it love.

He’s terrified that his intensity, his need to care, will cross the line into suffocation. That his “I just want you to be happy” will become “I know better than you what happiness is.” That he’ll orchestrate your life the way he tried to orchestrate Penacony, with the same terrible results.

Every time he catches himself wanting to solve a problem you didn’t ask him to solve, wanting to smooth obstacles you chose to face, wanting to orchestrate outcomes for your happiness—he has to stop. Breathe. Remember:

Love is not control. Care is not management. Trust is not insurance against loss.

But the fear lingers. What if he can’t help it? What if control is so deeply embedded in how he loves that he’ll ruin this like he ruined everything else?

That he’s fundamentally broken in ways that can’t be fixed.

He tried to trap an entire planet in a dream. He thought he was saving them. He was convinced his way was the only way, that his vision of paradise was objectively correct, that he loved them enough to make their choices for them.

He was wrong. Catastrophically, irreversibly wrong.

That kind of wrong doesn’t just wash away. It’s not a mistake you apologize for and move past. It’s evidence of something broken in his fundamental approach to love, to care, to existence.

So when you love him, part of him is waiting for you to realize what he is: someone who got lost in his own righteousness, who hurt people while thinking he was helping, who confused power with compassion. Someone whose love, historically, has been dangerous.

The question that haunts him: If I could be that wrong about paradise, how do I trust myself to be right about this? About us? About anything?

That his intensity will drive you away.

Sunday doesn’t do anything halfway. When he loves, it’s consuming. Every thought colored by you, every action oriented around you, every plan including you.

It’s not obsession (he’s learning the difference, slowly, painfully). It’s not possession. But it’s a lot.

He feels everything deeply: joy, grief, love, fear. His emotions aren’t background noise. They’re symphonies, overwhelming and inescapable. And he knows, intellectually, that not everyone experiences feelings at that volume.

He’s watching for the moment when you’ll flinch away from the weight of it all. When his devotion becomes burden instead of blessing. When you’ll look at him and think this is too much, he is too much, I can’t carry this intensity.

Because if that happens—if you leave because he’s too much—he’s not sure he’ll recover. It’ll just confirm what he suspects: that there’s something excessive and unlovable in the core of him, something that ruins everything it touches.

That freedom without him means freedom from him.

The Astral Express taught him that people need choice, need autonomy, need the ability to leave. He understands that now. Accepts it, even. He’d never trap you the way he tried to trap Penacony.

But understanding doesn’t make it less terrifying.

Every time you choose to stay, he’s braced for the day you’ll choose to leave. Because if love is choice, then loss is too. And he’s not sure he’ll survive losing someone again. Especially someone he chose to let all the way in.

The irony isn’t lost on him: he spent years trying to create a world where loss was impossible, where everyone was safe and happy and protected forever. Now he’s learning to live in a world where loss is always possible, where safety is an illusion, where love requires risking devastation.

And he has to choose it anyway. Has to wake up every day and choose to love you knowing you could leave. That’s the price of real love, real connection, real humanity.

Some days, he’s not sure he’s strong enough to pay it.

That he’ll never be enough without perfection.

For so long, his value was tied to his vision, his plan, his ability to create something flawless. He was more. The architect of paradise. The one who would save everyone.

Now that vision is shattered. The paradise was a prison. The salvation was damnation. Everything he built his identity on was wrong.

What’s left?

Just Sunday. Flawed, learning, stumbling through domesticity and feelings he doesn’t have a doctrine for. A man who burns toast and reorganizes shelves compulsively and spirals into philosophy at 2am and still doesn’t quite understand how to accept care without feeling like he’s failing.

And he’s terrified that Sunday—just Sunday, without grand purpose or perfect paradise—isn’t worth staying for. That you’ll realize he’s ordinary, broken, incapable of being the person you deserve. That without the performance of perfection, there’s nothing valuable underneath.

That he’s putting his trauma on you.

His need for order. His spiraling thoughts. His inability to rest. His tendency toward self-sacrifice. His philosophical tangents. His control issues. His intensity.

He knows these are his problems. Penacony carved them into him, or maybe they were always there, amplified by grief and ideology until they consumed him.

And he’s terrified that loving him means carrying his damage. That you’ll become his therapist, his manager, his handler instead of his partner. That his healing will become your burden. That he’ll drain you dry trying to get himself right.

He doesn’t want to be a project. He doesn’t want to be someone who needs fixing. He wants to be someone who’s worth loving, not someone who needs to be tolerated out of compassion.

But what if he’s not there yet? What if he never gets there?

That this is another beautiful dream that ends in catastrophe.

Penacony was beautiful too. His vision was perfect. No suffering, no pain, eternal happiness. Everyone safe. Everyone content. Paradise.

And it was wrong. It hurt people. It was a prison disguised as salvation.

So when this—you, the Express, this new life—feels beautiful, feels right, feels like maybe he’s found something real… part of him is waiting for the other shoe to drop. For the moment when “beautiful” reveals itself as “delusional” again.

What if he’s wrong about this too? What if his judgment is so fundamentally flawed that even now, even after everything, he’s building another beautiful mistake?

What if loving you is just another version of Penacony? Well-intentioned, intensely felt, and ultimately destructive?

That he doesn’t deserve this.

Simple. Brutal. True. He doesn’t deserve softness. He doesn’t deserve patience. He doesn’t deserve someone looking at him with affection instead of fear or disgust. He doesn’t deserve mornings where someone makes him tea, evenings where someone wants his company, nights where someone trusts him enough to sleep beside him.

He tried to steal everyone’s freedom. He hurt his sister. He became exactly the kind of person he claimed to protect people from.

And now you’re here, offering him love like it’s simple, like he’s earned it, like his past doesn’t disqualify him from present happiness.

It doesn’t make sense. And part of him keeps waiting for the universe to correct this mistake. For you to wake up and realize what you’re doing, who you’re loving, what he’s done.

For reality to catch up with him.

What Sunday Needs

He needs patience, not perfection.

Sunday has spent his entire life trying to make the world flawless, and love will tempt him to do the same with himself—to be the perfect partner, the perfect man, never mess up, never be too much or too little.

What he needs instead is someone who stays when the mask cracks. Who says, you don’t need to be divine to be loved. Who lets him fail gently and learn that love doesn’t vanish when things go wrong.

He needs proof that imperfection isn’t dealbreaking. That you can be frustrated with him and still love him. That he can have a bad day, make a mistake, be too intense or too distant, and you’ll still be there tomorrow.

Not because you’re endlessly tolerant. But because you understand he’s learning, and you’re willing to learn alongside him.

He needs grounding through presence.

His mind never stops. Philosophies, hypotheticals, self-doubt, endless thoughts orbiting like stars with no center of gravity.

What steadies him is someone who brings him back to the tangible: the warmth of a hand in his, the scent of tea steaming between you, the sound of laughter in a quiet room. Physical reminders that the world isn’t made of ideals It’s made of moments.

When he’s spiraling, he doesn’t need philosophy. He needs your hand on his shoulder. Your voice saying his name. The weight of reality gently pulling him back down.

You’re not dismissing his thoughts. You’re reminding him he has a body, a present, a person beside him who exists outside his internal debates.

He needs honesty with compassion.

Sunday respects truth—he built an entire philosophy on what he believed was objective reality. But harsh words wound him deeply, cutting through to the fear that he’s fundamentally wrong about everything.

The right partner doesn’t flatter or indulge him, but they speak with kindness—calling him out when he drifts too far into his need for control, but doing it gently. “I know you’re trying to help, but I need to handle this myself” instead of “stop trying to control everything.”

He needs someone who tells him “no” with tenderness, not scorn. Someone who can say “that’s your trauma talking, not reality” without making him feel stupid for struggling. Someone who loves him enough to keep him honest, but kind enough to remember he’s already drowning in self-criticism.

He needs someone who teaches him to receive.

Giving is easy for Sunday. He thrives on offering comfort, stability, solutions. Receiving, though, makes him ache with vulnerability.

He’ll deflect praise. Downplay exhaustion. Insist he’s fine when he isn’t. Push through pain because he’s not supposed to need help. He’s supposed to be the one helping.

The person who loves him will need to insist, gently but firmly: Let me take care of you now. Let me make you tea. Let me listen while you spiral. Let me hold you. Let me stay.

When he finally allows it—and it’ll take time, repeated offers, proof that you want to care for him—he’ll tremble with relief. Like he’s been holding his breath for years and finally remembering how to exhale.

Teaching him to receive is teaching him he has value beyond what he provides. That he’s worth caring for just because he is, not because of what he does.

He needs laughter.

Sunday takes himself—and the world—far too seriously. His redemption arc depends on joy. On small, unguarded moments: dancing badly in the hallway, tripping over his own feet, laughing until tears replace the centuries of guilt.

Someone who can tease him without cruelty, who can make him laugh at himself. That’s someone who saves him. Not from his past, but from the prison of never being allowed to be ridiculous, messy, human.

He needs permission to be silly. To make mistakes that don’t have world-ending consequences. To play, for the first time in maybe forever.

When he laughs—really laughs, unguarded and surprised—it’s evidence of healing. Proof that joy can exist without it being orchestrated, that happiness can be spontaneous instead of controlled, that he’s allowed to just feel good without analyzing it to death.

He needs to be seen as a man, not a savior.

More than anything, Sunday needs to be loved for who he is beneath the philosophy and the perfectionism and the weight of Penacony.

Not as the leader who tried to create paradise. Not as a project to fix or a villain to redeem.

Just as Sunday. Flawed, yearning, learning what it means to live again.

The right person won’t worship him (he’s had enough of that). Won’t fear him (he’s tired of that too). Won’t try to save him (he has to do that himself).

They’ll just hold his hand and say: You’re enough. Stay here, with me. You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to save anyone. You’re allowed to just be.

And slowly, painfully, beautifully…he’ll start to believe them.

How Sunday Loves (When He Finally Allows Himself To)

He loves through control turned devotion.

For most of his life, control was his language of love. If everything was perfect, no one would suffer. When he falls in love, that same precision doesn’t disappear. It transforms.

He still notices everything: your smallest habits, the subtle shifts in your tone, the way you frown when you’re thinking. But instead of trying to orchestrate outcomes, he just… sees you. Pays attention. Remembers.

Love becomes his new philosophy. Not about building paradise, but preserving presence. Honoring who you are instead of shaping who you should be.

When you mention offhand that you like a particular tea, he’ll remember three months later. When you’re stressed, he’ll notice before you say anything. Not to fix it without asking, but to quietly ask “what do you need right now?”

The control hasn’t gone away. It’s just been redirected from managing your choices to honoring them.

He loves through acts of quiet perfection.

He’ll straighten your notes on the desk. Repair a broken clasp before you notice. Align your books by height because he thinks it looks peaceful. Mark your page when you fall asleep reading. Adjust the temperature in your room to exactly what you prefer.

His touch on your world is almost invisible, but it’s everywhere. Every gesture says: You are the one thing in this imperfect universe I want to keep steady.

He’s not controlling your space. He’s curating small moments of ease, little gifts of “you don’t have to think about this because I already did.”

Sometimes you’ll catch him at it—reorganizing your shelf or folding your jacket—and he’ll freeze like he’s been caught doing something wrong.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s okay. Thank you.”

And he’ll relax slightly, learning that service can be love instead of control, as long as it’s offered without expectation.

He loves through sound.

When he speaks your name, it’s deliberate, measured, almost melodic. Like he’s tasting the syllables, turning them into music.

He hums when he works. Low and thoughtful, fragments of melodies that sound like peace feels. Sometimes he’ll play for you: soft, unspoken emotion translated into harmony. You can tell how he’s feeling by the tempo, the pauses, the way his fingers linger on a final note.

To him, music isn’t performance. It’s confession. When words are too complicated or too vulnerable, sound becomes his language.

He’ll compose pieces inspired by you, though he’ll never say that’s what they are. But you’ll recognize yourself in the melody: the gentle rise and fall like your laughter, the complex harmonies like the way your mind works, the resolution that feels like coming home.

Music is how he processes emotion. How he tells you things he can’t say out loud. How he loves you when loving feels too big for language.

He loves through worship that’s almost overwhelming.

Sunday doesn’t love halfway. When he finally gives in, he adores.

Every touch is intentional, every kiss slow, deliberate, reverent. He traces your skin like scripture, memorizes your body like doctrine, approaches intimacy like prayer.

It’s not about possession. It’s about presence. About being so completely focused on you that the rest of the universe falls away. About treating you like you’re the only thing that matters because, in that moment, you are.

He’ll memorize what makes you sigh, what makes you laugh, what makes you melt. He’ll learn your body the way he learned philosophy. Thoroughly, obsessively, with desperate attention to detail.

Physical intimacy is where his intensity becomes undeniable. Where the careful control drops and you see how much he feels, how consuming his love actually is.

He’ll whisper against your skin in a language that’s half philosophy, half devotion. Tell you you’re beautiful like he’s stating empirical facts. Touch you like you’re the only perfect thing he’s ever encountered.

To him, you are proof that beauty can exist without being orchestrated. That something can be flawed and still be divine. That paradise was never a place. It was a person who chose to stay.

He loves through grounding.

As much as he gives, he also needs. Though it takes him time to admit it.

He’ll seek your presence when he’s spiraling. Rest his forehead against yours and just breathe until the thoughts quiet. Hold your hand like it’s the only thing keeping him tethered to reality.

You become his anchor. Not because you’re fixing him, but because you’re real. Solid. Present. Proof that the world exists outside his head.

When you remind him he doesn’t have to orchestrate every heartbeat, when you tell him he’s allowed to simply be, he’ll melt into it. Exhale like he’s been holding his breath for years.

In those moments, you’ll feel the shift. The philosopher becoming human again, the leader becoming just a man who’s tired and grateful you’re still here.

He loves through learning.

You teach him to laugh again. To accept chaos without fear. To find joy in imperfection.

He’ll stumble through domestic moments. Making tea (too precise about temperature), helping with chores (organizing everything), trying to understand why you hum to yourself while doing nothing at all (doesn’t everything require purpose?).

And slowly, through patient repetition and gentle correction, he learns.

He learns that not everything needs to be perfect to be good. That mistakes aren’t catastrophes. That you can burn dinner and laugh about it instead of spiraling into self-criticism. That love isn’t about being flawless. It’s about being present.

When he finally gets it—when he makes you deliberately imperfect tea just to prove he can tolerate it, when he laughs at his own compulsive organization, when he hums tunelessly just because he’s happy—you’ll know he’s healing.

He’ll look at you with quiet wonder, realizing that this—imperfection, simplicity, warmth—is the paradise he’d been chasing all along.

He loves through time.

Sunday doesn’t rush. His affection unfolds like a symphony: deliberate, layered, patient.

He’s not going anywhere. Once he commits, it’s for life. You become his constant in a world that’s always shifting. The one imperfection he never wants to correct, the one variable he never wants to control, the one choice he’ll make over and over again every single day.

You’re his proof that freedom and love aren’t contradictory. That you can choose someone without trapping them. That devotion doesn’t require control.

And every day you choose him back, every day you stay, every day you remind him he’s enough. You’re rewriting his entire philosophy.

Not through argument. Through presence.

Not through perfection. Through love.

____

A/N: Writing this made think about many things. About how difficult it would be for Sunday to truly let go of his past, but how he would try anyway. I think because Sunday embodies the kind of redemption arc that needs a lot of work: it’s not the grand victory, but the quiet transformation. The shift from wanting to save the world to simply wanting to share it. And well…since his arc isn’t finished yet.

I wanted to explore how Sunday’s philosophy could evolve into something tender. This man has spent his whole life giving love in abstract, idealized ways. He deserves a love that’s real. Someone who sees the flaws, the contradictions, the weariness and stays. I hope it worked out. :)

In the glamour of the Dreamscape, people hunger for all sorts of things. Luxury, adventure, shimmering bottles of soulglad and evenly cut steaks— anything that gives the impression of living life to the fullest. The fresh wave of tourists are all off on such ventures, you'd assume. Fine dining, day drinking, sightseeing… gambling, of course. You check most of them into the Reverie yourself, help them with their bags, answer any questions they have. Most of them are easy. Most of them are in the manual.

Some of them— like, are there any spots we should know about? Any hidden gems?—

Well.

Questions like that, you tend to leave unanswered. 

Because there's only one true hidden gem worth mentioning, tucked away in The Moment of Midnight: where tourists are least likely to linger, where trouble stirs itself to sleep. Only one spot not yet trampled by rowdy dreamers, or sponsored by too-expensive brands. Bérylune, reads the sign, though you won't see it until you've ventured through a narrow alleyway and stopped in front of a bright-blue door, flickering street lamps on either side. There it stands, solitary. Like a secret just for you.

No way are you letting anyone in on it. 

"Um, let me think." You shift your weight, absently, reaching up to fiddle with the straps of your handbag. The girl behind the counter hums. 

"Of course! Please, take your time."

Your eyes glide left, to the faint shimmer of the glass display— what you've been dreaming of all evening. What you dream of at the end of every tireless workday. Where you inevitably end up once you've exhausted yourself on your late-night strolls around the Dreamscape, wandering aimlessly, no different from your usual rounds at the hotel. No room ever goes unbooked, so there's no point to sitting down and feigning relaxation.

The least you deserve is to treat yourself. 

(It's not like you hate your job. You'd say you're lucky, all things considered: a hefty paycheck, golden lights wherever your gaze takes you, the superficial glimmer of casinos and streetlights lying at the center of what Penacony is. The extraordinary is routine. That, in itself, has become a kind of comfort. It's better than your old life. Less monotone. The city is always alight, so there's no need for counting stars. 

And there's the Dreamscape, of course. Always close at hand, the hazy bliss in front of you.)

Pastries sparkle from beneath the glass, the sight of them enough to make your mouth water. Soft, pillowy slices of spongecake, slathered in honey, squished between fruit tarts weighty with strawberries. Ruby-red, summer-ripe. Your hungry eyes flit from side to side. The bell chime rings out behind you, but you scarcely hear it over the piano playing from behind the counter, soft compositions from an old-school radio— you don't know who the composer is, but you recognize the song. It never builds up to any crescendo, blissfully empty of weight, of intensity. 

The room has begun to smell more and more like roasted coffee. An espresso machine purring to life. You think of mystery, of something illusionary. When you look down at your hands they're painted moon-blue. 

(For you, this is heaven. The crème de la crème of what the Dreamscape has to offer. Not the Golden Hour, not any casino— but this. 

And it's all yours.)

"I'll have the macaron set, please."

(… Mostly yours.)

Your gaze drifts to where the Halovian is standing, smoothing a steady hand down the fabric of his suit. His locks are next, rivers of silver running in between his thumb and forefinger, barely-ruffled by the breeze outside.

The lady behind the counter gives him a smile. To the untrained eye it's the same as ever, but you've worked in customer service all your life; you're well aware of what's real and fake, what expression says Please be normal, it's been a long day as it is, or I'm so happy to see you again. Seriously. It gleams brighter, much brighter, than the one she'd graced you with. A bashful flicker that has you wanting to sigh. 

… Not that you blame her. He is handsome.

"Of course, sir. Will that be for here, or to-go?"

"To-go, for tonight. Have you been well?"

"Yes!" She shoots up, in the process of bending down to bring the pastries out from the display. "Ah, um. Yes, I have! And you?"

A quiet hum. He isn't looking at her, you notice. Rather, the golden cuts of his eyes are stuck on the glass, on what's gleaming behind it. Not the macarons he ordered, but a golden pudding tart. "I've been well," he says. "Thank you."

Then he's quiet. His voice is nice to listen to, like a late-night talk show host in the prime of his career, pleasant white noise to tune out the world with. Suited for lullabies and ghost stories. Your eyes follow him, vacantly, the way his fingers tug down his sleeve to check his watch, the brittle flutter of his wings when he exhales, pairs of silky-looking feathers twitching against his neck. One of them is pierced, though you can't see it from this angle. 

This isn't your first encounter with the stranger. He's usually here around the same time you are, when the moon in reality would have showed its pearly-blue teeth; either gazing at the display when you enter, or sitting by a table in the corner with his lips against the rim of a porcelain cup. It's unusual for you to beat him to it; maybe work kept him late? 

… Yeah, probably not. He's too pretty to be anything but a flashy tourist. A secret idol, maybe?

You humour yourself with the thought.

His pupils flicker, suddenly, golden ripples across the surface of his eyes. You're zoned out, watching them, only now noticing that he's angled his face away from the counter— the sharp lines of his jaw pointing in your direction.

When you realize he's catching your stare, his lips have already parted.

"Ah, pardon me," he says, silky-smooth, eyes curling into slits. Smiling cordially. "Were you about to order?" 

Stupidly, you blink at him. After a moment, your gaze snaps back to the sheet of glass in front of you. "No, don't worry," your smile is barely-there, though you make an attempt— you never know who's important when it comes to Penacony. Never know when you might be speaking to an idol on vacation, or a CEO with the influence to get you fired. Best to be on the safe side. "I was still deciding, so…"

He waits for you to finish. When you don't, keen eyes of gold leave your face.

"I see."

Silence settles in the space between you. You don't dare look at him again, busying yourself with your choice of pastry, eyes flitting restlessly between them. Should you go for something syrupy sweet, or minty and refreshing..? He's facing forward, but the weight of his gaze is still searing your skin, the butt of a cigarette against your brittle cheek. 

It's heavy. It leaves an impression. 

(Because you've seen him, yes— but you've never caught his eye. Not for more than a moment, a quick glance or absent nod.

This is the first time you've spoken.)

When his voice calls out again, you've settled on a sizable fruit tart. Speckled with blackberries, the crust a nice golden brown, eyes focused on it when that bedtime story cadence echoes on your left. "I'd like them packaged, if that's alright." He tugs gently at the bottom of his glove, adjusting it with nimble fingers. "They're a gift."

Gift. 

The word makes your mind halt, for a moment. Something in the way he wraps his tongue around it. Soft, albeit briefly.

The poor girl behind the counter must have heard it too. Because she's wilted by the time you've raised your gaze, hanging her head a little lower than before, hiding barely concealed disappointment behind a tight-curved smile. 

"… Of course," she chirps, weakly. "One moment."

She places the macarons inside a small, rectangular box, lining them up one by one inside it; green, pink, ochre, repeated twice, a row of sparkling gemstones, only sliced into halves. Then she's closing it, wrapping her fingers around a silky blue ribbon to thread it around the front and back. 

"Thank you for waiting," she slides it across the counter.

The Halovian hums, accepting it with careful hands. He pays, swiftly, brandishing a black card. Yep, definitely not a working class comrade. His halo gleams in the dim light, thrumming faintly when it catches onto its golden edge. Like church bells tolling on a far-away planet. "Thank you," he says, quietly. "Have a good night."

When he turns to leave, his gaze overlaps with yours. No longer than a second, a glimmer of sun-soaked copper— he reaches for the handle of the door, and the moment turns to vapour. Midnight air courses in as he slips through the gap, chills the base of your ankles, the tips of your fingers. A soft jingle, and he's gone. 

His back disappears into the night, his shadow painted cornflower blue. You see it through the window.

(You wonder where he's going.)

"Excuse me, miss." A stale smile, and a downcast voice. "Would you like to order?"

You snap your head back into place. "Y-yes, please."

The fruit tart tastes as good as you expected it to. You eat it there, at a table in the corner— it's not like you could bring it back to reality, even if you wanted to eat it in the comfort of your quarters— sinking your teeth into the crust, feeling it crumble into pieces around them. The blackberries burst with juice, melting together with the cream, thick notes of vanilla and chestnut. You lick your lips with a happy hum. 

Too good to be true, though you guess that's the point.

When you return to reality, the taste won't linger on your lips. Your body won't feel satiated. You know this, but you still keep coming back— to a badly-placed patisserie, in the least popular Moment of the Dreamscape— gorging on pastries made from dreams and stardust. As if just the illusion is enough to keep you full. As if you could keep going, and going, plucking every star from the illusionary sky. 

It's a foolish thought.

(You suppose that's why you're here, anyway. The reason you can't pull yourself away from the Reverie, or the Dreamscape. In a way, you're perfect for each other.

Glamour, and delicacies, and questionable men.

… Truly, the essence of what Penacony has to offer.)

The next time you step inside, the patisserie is empty. No Halovian gentleman by the counter, nor by the tables, no silky-soft voice threading through the air. 

Again, you beat him to it. 

"Welcome back!" Smiles the clerk, her lips glossy and pink. The shade makes you think of cherry balm. With sluggish steps, you walk up to the counter, expression practically trampled in comparison to hers. You muster a weary upward tilt of your lips, a half-hearted nod— you don't have it in you to do anything more. The guests were just awful, today. Lips drawing into a thin line, flimsy excuse of a smile slipping off them, your gaze glides over to the glass-layered display.

A better you would be in bed by now. Watching a soap opera, waiting for your order of real food to arrive. But you're not better— you're just you— and if you don't get your hands on a treat within the next five minutes you think your brain will just burst. The lady behind the counter is humming to herself, the song unfamiliar. 

"I'd like… a croissant," you order, tentative. "With chocolate filling, please."

She nods. "Any drinks, or will that be all?"

Your lips part, before slowly falling shut again. Something warm doesn't sound so bad right now, actually… "I'll take a cup of hot chocolate, too."

"Great! One second…"

You exhale faintly, blinking twice. Watching with unfocused eyes as she presses the tips of her fingers against the small screen in front of her. Beep. Beep— the noise just barely cutting through your muddled senses, your hazy peripheral. 

"Aaand there you are!" She gestures towards the card reader, lacing her fingers together. "I'll get started on your order— will you be eating here?"

"… No." You shake your head, reaching for your pocket. "I'll take it to-go, plea—"

…

Your fingers spread out. One, after the other, like spindly limbs extending. Searching. 

But no, there's nothing. 

For a moment, all you can do is stand frozen in place. Eyes wide with disbelief— the beginnings of denial. Your fingers, still twitching idly in the pocket of your pants, stop smoothing over old receipts and loose change and lip balm— they turn as still as you. Seconds pass, no more than five, before a heaving sigh breaks past your lips.

Your wallet isn't there. 

Clinging onto what remains of your sanity, your hand slips out your pocket, right into the next. But, again, nothing. You're sure it's not in your purse, because you didn't bring it with you, and you remember holding your wallet no more than half an hour ago— unless you're mistaken? It's no good, your brain is already too subdued for second guessing. When you raise your gaze the clerk is looking at you, blinking like she's confused. The scent of cocoa seeps through the air, her hands busy with the milk pitcher, and for once you wish the service wasn't so fast. 

"… I'm sorry," you say, as clearly as you can manage— which is barely above a whisper, really. Your head hurts. You kind of want to cry. Being the responsible adult you are, you attempt to hold it in. "I… think I dropped my wallet."

"Oh no!" Her lips fall into a frown, but she seems hesitant on what to say next. "I'm sorry to hear that…"

Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry. You repeat it to yourself. It's just a croissant. Except, of course, it really isn't— it was supposed to be your well-deserved after-work treat, and you needed it today more than ever. The illusionary comfort only the Dreamscape can provide.

"Sorry," you repeat, breath pitifully stuck in the back of your throat. Ready to turn on your heel, and walk back into reality, your nails leaving crescents on your inner palms. It's subconscious— you barely feel the ache. "I'll… come back tomorrow."

"No need."

… A voice, feather-soft, calls out from behind you. 

When you turn your head towards its source, two golden eyes stare back at you. A certain Halovian, parting his lips.

"I'll pay for it. Just add it to my order." He pays no mind to your bewildered expression, speaking candidly. How did you not hear him coming in? "A croissant for me as well, please. Savoury."

The familiar stranger walks up to the counter, not even sparing you a glance. If you didn't know better, you'd think he was referring to another customer with no wallet to their name. You're the only ones here, though. He says something to the clerk, something you don't catch, because you're too busy staring at his face like he just dropped down from the sky— crashed through the roof like a bird with burning feathers. 

(Or an angel, maybe. An angel with just the right amount of wings, and a halo made of thorny gold. An angel with eyes like charred sunflower fields.

… Your mind is left entranced.)

"Oh, um. Alright! Will that be to-go, or…?"

"No, that's alright." He takes out his card. "We're eating here."

Only when it moves towards the card reader, does your brain finally catch up to what your eyes are seeing. Without thinking, you grasp onto his arm.

"W-wait, you don't have to!" Your fingers curl around the linen of his sleeve, the protest stumbling out your lips. Your mind is too jumbled up to realize what you're doing— you can't feel the heat of his skin, or the thumping of his pulse, but his eyes coil into slits where they meet yours. "Seriously, I'd hate to bother—"

"Oh, it's no bother." 

He smiles, suddenly; stale, his earrings swaying when he tilts his head to face you. Hand gentle when it comes to lay over yours. His gloved fingers feel silky against your own, untangling them casually, before he smooths the flat of his palm down the fabric you creased. 

"I'd be happy to," he says. 

"… But,"

Without further pause, he slides his card against the card reader. A decisive beep. Paying for your order, seamlessly, the smile on his lips never slipping off his face; from this narrow distance you think you'd be able to see the weariness in his eyes, but it isn't there. Neatly tucked away, maybe. Or is he just a night owl?

You purse your lips, unsure what else to do. The clinking of plates fills the air.

"… Thank you," you settle on. A quiet breath.

"You're welcome." His reply is instant. "Though I suggest you pay more attention in the future. A lost wallet is no laughing matter."

… He's right, but something about the way he says it doesn't sit right with you. You decide to stay silent, until the plates have been served, until you're seated at a table in the corner right across from him. Two croissants in front of you, yours streaked and stuffed with chocolate, coated in a layer of powdered sugar, like snow on a mountaintop— a halved strawberry sitting neatly on top of it— his filled with lettuce, ham, and thinly sliced cheese. He watches you take a tentative bite, the crumbs sticking to your fingers, before reaching for his knife and fork. 

"The Dreamscape is a safe place, relatively speaking." He continues, taking nimble bites between the words. "But that doesn't mean there are no souls who would take advantage over a young lady's naivety. It doesn't hurt to take precautions."

"… You mean, you think somebody stole it?"

An absent hum. "Not exactly." He's smiling, again, though it's hard to tell when the lights overhead intermingle with the shadows from the window to your right. His face is candle-lit, flickering faintly. "What I mean is— you should keep important things close to your person. For an adult, that's only natural, wouldn't you agree?"

(… He's making fun of you.)

"… It isn't like me," you explain, cringing at how defensive it sounds. As if sulking, you sink your teeth into the sugary croissant. "I'm not that scatterbrained."

The Halovian tilts his head, ever so slightly. 

"… Good," he places his cutlery back on the table. Then: "Here you are."

You watch as he brings your wallet out of his pocket. Sets it down in front of you, the leather smudged with a light layer of dust— though the rubber charm you clipped onto it remains unsoiled, her smile devoid of flecks. 

Baffled, you stare at it.

Then up at him. 

"It was lying just outside," he tells you, voice like a news anchor mentioning the weather. Too casual, you think. He brings a pure white handkerchief to the curve of his lips. "—You have good taste. That collection was my favorite of last spring's."

In the moment, you decidedly ignore his knowledge on idol merchandise. The bewilderment still coursing through your veins takes priority, your voice dumb-struck when you ask— 

"You had it all along?" A mortified pause. "Why didn't you give it to me earlier?"

"All actions should have consequences." He answers, simply. "Even something as idle as embarrassment has a strong effect on the mind… I'm sure you'll be more wary in the future."

You blink. Once, then twice.

The Halovian's expression remains carefully concealed. You see no notes of humour, nor of ill intent. Condescension, maybe, in the smooth line of his lips. The way he's looking at you. It's vague enough that you wouldn't notice if he wasn't saying something so…

… Socially obscene?

"I'm an adult," you finally bite, too exhausted to play at sounding cordial. Your brow twitches, restless with irritation. "… I don't need a stranger to gentle parent me, thank you."

…

Are you being rude? Sure. But you're tired, you've had an awful day, and— frankly, you don't have it in you to entertain whatever mind games he just admitted to using on you, even if he turned out to be the CEO of the Reverie himself. He's weird. Weirdo. Waste of a pretty face. The thoughts enter your mind, but don't turn into words.

… After all, you're still taking bites of the croissant that he bought you. The damage is done. 

(You settle on silent, petty scrutiny— he's for sure the type to put a tracker on his girlfriend's phone. The motel stalker type.)

Finally, he speaks. "Pardon me," he smiles, a narrow line. "It wasn't my intention to offend you."

Through a mouthful of powdered sugar and chocolate, you offer him a dubious look. He seems to notice it. "That was only half the reason," he explains, clicking his pointer finger on the edge of the table. Rhythmic thumps, in tune with the composition playing from the counter. "To be honest, I'm not too fond of sweets. But seeing you enjoy them so openly is… refreshing." A beat. "In a sense."

… Is that supposed to be a compliment?

Moreover— how long has he been watching you? The thought lingers on your mind, for no more than a moment. You let it go when he speaks.

"What I mean is— I've been hoping to converse with you." The tapping stops, abruptly. He goes silent— a look in his eyes like he isn't really there, a faceless stare boring into you. "… This was a golden opportunity."

His voice is all honey and silver, but you aren't sure what to make of it. When his eyes flit away from yours, briefly, his halo remains unmoving. Overseeing. His pupils flickering like a pair of injured sparrows. There's a gap in the way that he's acting, you think.

Everything about the way he carries himself suggests social awareness, so—

… what's with this awkward tension? 

(It's like he's a sheltered princess. Like someone locked him up in a tower, and told him how to speak to others— let him practice in front of mirrors, dance with marionette dolls. That kind of feeling. Like he's looking through you, rather than at you— like his mouth is being guided by a silent, invisible hand, lips tugged apart to make space for their words. But then, who is the dragon? The evil stepmother?

… Maybe he really is an idol. That would be the more grounded option. An out of touch celebrity vacationing on Penacony, unused to the mysteries of social boundaries. It would explain his knowledge in Robin merchandise, at least…)

Your stare must unnerve him. Or maybe he gets tired of waiting for a response. Either way, he lets out something like a chuckle; it shatters your thoughts. "Ah, forgive me… It’s unlike me to speak so brazenly. I've overstepped."

With graceful poise, he digs his fork into the nearly-finished croissant. Lifts the final piece towards his mouth, without so much as angling his jaw down. Silent, measured chewing, the seconds between his words filled with nothing but the white noise of the ticking clock behind him. It sits on the wall, hands counting down until sunrise, though it means nothing in the Moment of Midnight. Still hours away.

Like a snake slithering back into its nest, he stands up as soon as he's swallowed— swiping the tip of his tongue across the seam of his lips. The chair is pushed back into place, before he graces you with another easy-curved smile. 

"Please, don't let me ruin your meal."

"Um— wait." Just as he's about to leave, you stop him. "What's your name?"

When he turns his head, his eyes catch the moon-stream from the window. Gold turns to silver in the white streak of light. The Halovian parts his lips, but no noise makes it past them— he seems to reconsider whatever he was going to say. 

A quiet hum, at the juncture of his throat.

"… Wonweek."

"Ah… thank you, Wonweek." You probably shouldn't be thanking him, but it slips out before you can stop yourself. You're more preoccupied with other thoughts— such as, you don't know any idols with that stage name, so either he's lying or the work-stress is having a positive effect on your imagination— "For the food. And… for picking up my wallet."

He surveys you, for a moment. Doesn't say a word. Pupils coiling into thoughtful slits.

Silver locks sway, when he turns around. 

"It was my pleasure." 

… And then he's leaving. 

(The barely-there afternotes of his cologne linger on the seat across from you, stitched into the polyester: deep, mellow amber.)

This time, Wonweek is already there when you open the door.

With the Charmony Festival just around the corner, it's a miracle you can still move your legs. All day— all week— nothing but guests, checking in from every corner of the galaxy. It's so hectic you've been demoted to carrier, lunging around suitcases twice your size while the senior staff tends to the visitors. There's a numbing ache in your limbs, all the way to the base of your joints. Splintered out across your nerves.

Yet you make your usual rounds. The dried blue tones of the midnight sky sweep across your cheeks, as you rouse the bell chime into life— and he's there.

A brief flicker of gold, and a subtle smile, his eyes catching yours when they glide across the lounge. The air is thick with black tea, steam drifting from the silver-lined rim of his porcelain cup, the pure white speckled with bluebirds. His lashes flutter shut when he takes a sip. As always, the radio plays soft piano.

"Welcome back! What can I get for you, today?"

The lady behind the counter offers you the same smile as ever. She painted her nails, you notice— blue, but a touch lighter than the shade of her apron. Like the evening sky of a particularly hot summer. You wrap your tongue around a quiet hum, eyes moving to the glass display. Squinting at the pastries under it.

… Honestly, you aren't sure.

"Having trouble deciding?" Wonweek chimes in, when you've been standing in place for a moment too long. There's a cordial smile on his lips, a cheery note to his voice; like he's in a good mood. He abandons his spot to come stand beside you.

"… A little," you admit. "I guess I'm not sure what I'm in the mood for?"

A soft, affirming noise. 

"Would you like me to decide for you?" 

When you raise your head, his eyes are gleaming. Shimmering gold, flickering playfully, though his smile is nothing but composed, his gloved hands folded behind his back as he awaits your response. You're silent, for a breath. 

"… Sure," you then exhale, spur of the moment. "Why not?"

That seems to please him. At least, if his satisfied hum is anything to go by. Wonweek faces forward, the bridge of his nose falling into your peripheral.

"Let's see…" A thoughtful pause. "What would you say to a parfait?"

Your eyes follow the trail left by his steady gaze, stopping where it ends: on a tall glass filled with layers of custard and meringue, crushed berries and cookie crumbs, topped with dollops of cream and thick slices of fruit. The sight makes your mouth water. You're sure that he notices. That he can somehow tell. 

Not wanting to give him the satisfaction, you simply reach for your wallet, making sure your voice reaches his ears when you ask: "Do you want anything?"

He blinks. 

"… To pay you back," you explain, glancing at him cautiously. Hoping you'll sound even mildly assertive, through the fog around your after-work brain. "For last time."

"Ah." Another flutter of his lashes. "There's no need."

Your brows furrow in frustration. A moment's pause, until you're trying again, taking out your card while eyeing the display. Surely, there has to be something he'd want…? "It's only fair… I mean, you paid for mine, right?"

"Really, there's no need."

You turn towards him fully, lips catching on a sigh. "I want to."

"You aren't going to." 

…

His smile is close-knit. Eyes curled into threatening crescents.

"You're too kind," he says, voice deceptively cheery. His eyes are sharp when he opens them, daggers gleaming in the dark of night. "But, really, I insist."

Any further protests die out on your tongue.

Wonweek ends up buying a lightly toasted sandwich, to go with his darjeeling tea. You recognize the scent when you've seated yourself across from him, led along by his not-so-subtle social cues, like a puppet on a string. Needless to say, he paid for it himself. You get the feeling he'd have done the same with your parfait, had you given him an opening— if only just to get back at you for suggesting otherwise.

Are all Halovians control freaks, you wonder? Or is it just him?

”Are you enjoying the Dreamscape?” He asks, sinking his teeth into the sourdough. Chew, and swallow. He licks his parting lips. ”Is it to your liking?

You lean back in your seat, mellow warmth seeping through your fingers when they curl around the handle of your cup. Rich espresso, a roasted fragrance. ”I am," you tell him, honestly. "I wasn’t sure about the pastries… but they taste just as good as in reality.”

”Of course.” He smiles, something unusual in his expression. ”They need to.”

…

You watch him silently, through lidded eyes. He's looking down at your plate, making an expression you can't put your finger on— then back up at you, seamlessly, his face falling back into something vaguely insincere. 

Controlled.

"Are you enjoying it?"

(His smile curves up. It makes you think of a plant uprooted, tugged from its tender soil— on the cusp of being ripe enough to pluck.

It makes you think, for whatever reason, that you really shouldn't have asked.)

"I am." He answers, easily. "A dream that never ends… don't you think that's wonderful?"

"I guess so."

"Oh? Do you disagree?"

"Well, I…" You clear your throat. "Honestly, I think it's a little scary, sometimes."

He casts you a questioning look. 

"Like… I want to stay here forever." You stir your spoon in circles, watching the espresso swirl, a night-black vortex. "There are people who start to feel that way." 

"Is that so awful?"

Quiet. Stale, like the wrong edge of a scalpel. 

The silence that settles when his words have left his tongue is strained, a bowl about to break in the heat of a bubbling furnace. In your mind, you play out the noise it'd make— clatter, and crack, shattering on the floor and breaking into porcelain pieces— your lips trying in vain to wrap themselves around an apology.

For what, though? 

(You can tell from his tense brow you've upset him— but how?)

The seconds tick on, with the counting of the clock on the wall, a slow, steady mantra. As if to escape the unsettling atmosphere, you direct your gaze towards the tall glass in front of you. Wonweek chooses that moment to speak. 

"… Reality breaks them." His voice bears more than sterness: it bleeds. Tears the silence into overripe halves. When you bite into your parfait you taste peach, streams of sticky nectar in between your teeth, too syrupy. "If the Dreamscape can offer those lost souls some relief, it can be nothing but a good thing."

Chew, and swallow. He isn't meeting your eyes anymore.

"I… see your point."

Seawaves of blue filter in through the window, dripping down the contours of his face. From his cheeks, to his jaw, the shadow between his nose and lips— the glow of a silverfish's squirming body. It disappears when the moon slips beneath a cluster of clouds, his expression obscured. "I've seen you at the Reverie," Wonweek exhales a breath, his voice strung tight; lips falling into a straight-laced line. It softens when they part, near imperceptible. "… You always look so tired."

He meets your gaze when it snaps up. Captures it, and holds it, his own eyes not once wavering. Before anything else— before your mind can catch up to the strangeness of those words— you think to yourself that he looks a little sad.

"It's only when you're here… that you seem to be content." His fingers curl around the handle of the cup, and bring it to his moving lips, steam clouding his cupid's bow. An earthy scent, something like rain on an autumn morning. "In that sense, I thought you and I might be similar. Or, rather— I thought you'd sympathize with the Dreamscape as a whole. The respite it brings."

The three-eyed halo crowning him bears down on you, unblinking; his wings swaying in tune with his voice, a booming kind of quiet, like it's urging you to listen. You wish you could, but your mind is too occupied to truly understand what he's getting at. You can only think, blearily, through the white noise of your weary mind—

That you have never seen him before. 

You're sure you haven't, because as strange as he's proved himself to be— he's annoyingly handsome. You'd remember his eyes, if nothing else. The twitches of his lithe fingertips, the subtle sense of self-perceivement in his voice.

(You've never seen Wonweek at the Reverie.)

"… You're struggling, too?" you ask, tentative. Wonweek simply smiles.

"I used to." His voice is non-concealing. "Things are better, now."

He sets the cup down with a quiet clink. You watch him, silently, even as you realize he doesn't plan on elaborating. His smile is familiar. It's like the one you see in mirrors, when you tell yourself the future is larger than this.

In mirrors, in marble countertops, on nights that never seem to end. 

"If reality brings you nothing but suffering, then there's no need to open your eyes anymore. I've been wanting to tell you that."

You hear the leaving in his voice before he stands up, palms flat on the table when he rises. He pushes his chair back, plate empty save for a neatly sorted pile of breadcrumbs, and raises a hand to thread through his feathers. 

”I hope I'm not overstepping.” he adds, carefully. "Please, do take it to heart."

"… Okay."

One last smile, before he walks out the door. As always, you follow— with your eyes, as much as you are able, before the bell chime fades and takes him with it. You're left with a lacking, troubled feeling, but there aren't enough untangled threads in your mind to make space for it. You eat the remainder of your parfait in silence. 

Behind you, faintly, resounds the ticking of a clock. 

The next time you enter the patisserie, Wonweek is nowhere to be seen.

You sit by the window until the sun breaks through the clouds— until it would have, if it wasn't locked behind a never-ending midnight. A sugar-coated orange lining tearing the sky in half. Weeping dawn across its blue cheeks. There is no sight of him, even then; not of silver locks of hair, not of halos or of wings. 

He doesn't come in the day after. Or the day after that. Days bleed into weeks. Strawberry shortcakes, lemon meringue, coffee with too much or too little creamer. You sit by the table in the corner, and wait for a man that never walks through the door.

(At some point, you stop expecting him to.)

Sunday stops by the window. Inhales a breath.

You're there. As always. 

(What should make him feel relief leaves him with trepidation.)

Silently, he gazes into the interior of the patisserie: the lounge is dim-lit, but he sees you, curled in on yourself by a table in the corner like a baby bird in a too-big nest. He clutches onto the image, for a moment. Considers leaving once or twice. Mr. Yang is waiting— he's on borrowed time, well past owing favours. It would be easier to simply cut this loss.

His steps towards the door are silent. 

The midnight moon gleams just as blue as always, spilling cobalt all over the paved streets, the alleyway that led him here. His own shadow half-transparent. It's more beautiful than he remembers, though perhaps that should be attributed to his own disinterest— The Hour of Midnight never struck him as especially precious. No morning dawn, no golden light, no sound except that of distant partygoers. The glow of the moon seemed somber, if anything. 

(He never quite understood why this was where you'd found your peace.)

For a moment his fingers simply linger by the handle, the chill of the wood dulled by the black fabric of his gloves. His hand curls around it with tentative thought. 

When the door slides open, his eyes instinctually close.

Darkness. It lays itself over his vision, a thick blanket wrung around the sockets of his eyes— Sunday waits for the chime of the bell overhead.

It answers, dutifully. The sound of glass clinking against itself, shattering quietly. When he steps inside, soft piano: Satie's Gymnopédie No.1. 

The door falls shut behind him. Sunday spares no glance towards the woman by the counter, much too preoccupied with the pair of eyes across the room. You've raised your gaze, the silver spoon between your fingers shining with the blue from the window behind you. The air smells of fruit, honeyed and ripe. 

Sunday moves.

You're blinking up at him, dumb-struck, when he stops by your table. Watches your lashes flutter, feels his wings twitch with an emotion he doesn't want to name— something that ties a knot inside his abdomen, inside his chest. 

It makes it difficult to speak. 

(He likes that about you. That blissfully empty gaze. The way it conceals nothing.)

Seamlessly, he takes the seat across from you. Doesn't smile, but his voice is light when he says: "Good evening." A quiet inhale. "How have you been?"

Silence lingers in the wake of his words. It does not unnerve him; he is nothing if not patient. Nothing but a content overseer. Content to watch your fingertips twitch, when you let the spoon you're grasping fall onto the plate, a quiet clink of metal on ceramic. It looks as if you've barely grazed the fruit tart.

You look well, he thinks. There are shadows under your eyes, but they're not quite as dark as he remembers them being. Not the absent, worrying smudges he saw in the CCTV— your eyes themselves look somehow clearer.

He wonders what caused it.

(He knows it's not him. Wishes it did not grate at him, in that shameful, ugly corner of his mind, still not cleansed of petulant pettiness—)

When your lips part, he follows the drag of your cupid's bow. Your voice an arrow piercing through the air. 

"Hi," you say, uncertainly. "It's… been a while."

"It has."

…

Sunday's eyes do not stray, even when your own begin to waver. "How have you been?" He repeats, after a moment's pause.

"Uh, good. Just fine." You tilt your head, softly. "And you?"

An exhale leaves him, amused. Part of him wishes he could give you an honest answer, but— well, how is he to summarize it? I fell from the sky. I had an epiphany, of sorts— no, that's misleading. I think I died, for a moment. Just enough to gasp for air.

How should he relay it to you?

"… I've been well, all things considered," he feeds you a vague half-truth, a small smile tugging at his bottom lip. "I was hoping I'd see you again." 

That makes you look at him strangely. Your lips twitching open, and then falling shut, enough to have his hands wandering, fingers tugging restlessly at the smooth silk of his glove, the thin material stretching to accommodate his absent graze. Sunday hums, lightly.

"I'm leaving Penacony." He straightens his back, speaking clearly, the words filling his lungs with air that smells of honeydew. Of possibilities. "I know it doesn't concern you. We're just strangers, after all… but I wanted to say a proper goodbye."

He's just tying up loose ends. That's all. 

(He doesn't have it in him to hope for anything else.)

"… Why?" Your voice is pure, innocently curious. "If you don't mind me asking…"

"It's a long story. I'm certain I'd bore you."

You hum, tentative— reaching for your spoon. It scoops up the sliced kiwi, the foamy cream, brings a piece up to your parting lips.

"… Well, the Dreamscape has been crazy lately," you say after swallowing, your tongue dipping out to catch the fruit juice dribbling down your bottom lip. He follows it, absently. "I heard Sunday was exiled from the Oak Family, or something?"

— An upward twitch of his lips.

With the heel of his palm, Sunday hurries to obscure it— masks it with an idle cough, though he's certain that it doesn't come off as very convincing. You go silent, like you're confused. The look in your eye is what tips him over.

A melodious chuckle breaks past his lips. Light and clear, a home-bound ocean breeze; when he speaks it's all but muffled, caught between his fingertips.

"You are… so out of the loop."

"… Huh?"

He shakes his head, lightly— silver strands swaying, ghosting the skin of his forehead. Extends a hand across the table, his inner palm facing up. "Sunday," he says, eyes gleaming with mirth. "My name is Sunday."

He can practically see the gears of your mind turn, click sluggishly into place, a series of mismatched blinks. Hopelesslyendearing.

"… Not that Sunday, right?"

His smile only curls further. "I wonder."

"Are you? There's no way." You're starting to look panicked, eyes wide with disbelief. It shouldn't make him so amused, the visible embarrassment upon your features, he shouldn't be enjoying it as much as he is. 

(Inwardly, he berates himself. Right now, he really is no better than Wonweek, is he?)

"I hope you can forgive me," he half-croons, dove-like, a weak attempt at stifling the joy in his expression. "I suppose I enjoyed teasing you. I was sure you'd catch on quicker, but I underestimated you."

You look mortified. It's almost, almost enough to pull another chuckle from his breast.

(No better than Wonweek, he repeats, quelling the urge.)

"… Actually," you say, after the silence has properly settled, your expression far less like you want to burrow your head into sand— sweeping a hand across the silence gathering dust between you, "I'm leaving Penacony, too."

That makes him still. "Oh?"

”I quit my job this morning," nervously, your fingers trace the edge of the ceramic plate. "And without my job, I don't have a place to stay… so I'm going somewhere else. Not sure where, but, you know."

He hums, affirmative.

"I just had to get one last pastry." There's a smile on your face, albeit flimsy; he could probably tug it off with just a swipe of his thumb across the seam of your lips. His fingers twitch with the desire, but he kills it just as quickly. "I haven't been here in a while, actually. Not since the Charmony Festival fiasco… I got really busy, and you weren't here— well, it's not like that was why, you know, but still. I haven’t had one of these in a while.”

The trail of your wandering digits changes course. You break off a piece of the pastry at its center, crumbling dough between your index finger and thumb. A weary sigh escapes your lungs. 

Saddened, he thinks.

"Tarts taste sweeter in reality... I think I forgot."

Sunday watches you in silence.

"… Yes," he exhales, after a moment's pause. "you're probably right."

The composition from the counter changes, Satie's replaced by the tender strokes of a violin, sweet and light, filling the empty space of silence; Ashokan Farewell. His eyelids flutter closed, curtains of half-translucent moonlight drawing shut across his face.

"You know," he hears himself speak, "I think I'll follow your example."

When he stands up you follow, first with your eyes and then with your body— knees audibly knocking against the leg of your chair when you attempt to rise the first time. He smiles at the gesture, his expression serene. 

The glass display shimmers from afar, beckoning. 

… Ever since he had those pudding tarts, he hasn't been able to stop thinking about it.

Sunday waltzes up to the counter, brandishing a gentle smile. "I'll have one crème brûlée, please." You come to a stand-still beside him. "And one for my companion, as well." 

A tingling heat, where your gaze sears into his neck. He meets it from the corner of his eye, a playful cadence to his voice when he asks, "Unless you're already full? Or, would you like something else?"

A moment passes. 

"… Crème brûlée is fine," you hum.

Sunday exhales. "In that case, we'll—"

"But I'm paying."

You side-step him with grace, tugging your wallet open. When you angle your face to meet his expression, there's something pleased about the way your lips are curved; he thinks of Robin, a gentle cat's grin, the look she'd give him whenever she'd foot the bill in secret. 

It makes him chuckle, despite himself.

"Are you usually this stubborn?" he asks, eyes gleaming gold. 

"Not really," you shrug. "I just don't like owing people favours."

He can sympathize with that. 

Still, he pauses. Restrains the urge to be equally as stubborn; a struggle, it turns out, but he stays his hand. Tries not to listen to the voice in his head, familiar nagging, Don't let anyone do what you could do just as well yourself— a hand on the back of his neck. Even worse, the faded lull of his mother's voice, smaller, whispered. Somehow, it bears more weight.

(Oh my, are those for me? My little angel is such a gentleman.)

He swallows, imperceptively.

"… Are you sure?" he inquires. Your reply is instant.

"Yep."

Deadpan. You're weary of waiting, it seems.

Sunday sighs, his smile indulgent. Head lowered in a show of defeat. "… Alright," he concedes. "In that case, thank you."

"You're welcome."

"Next time," he continues, sharply, "will be on me, however." 

The words linger in the air. 

For a moment, he regrets them; almost certain that you've been put off. He's already pushing his luck, he's well aware of that— tongue twitching with a change of topic, willing it to be seamless, but it weighs down on the muscle like lead, iron searing hotly, a path from roof to throat.

You don't say a word. 

Only still, briefly. Stiffen in place. You spare him a glance before your head flips forward, fishing the credit card out of your wallet, the Robin keycharm still dangling from its corner like a wind chime. Her smile strikes him as mischievous. 

"Mm," it's a shallow hum, more breath than word. "That's fine, then."

Sunday blinks. Has to swallow the affection crawling up his throat in pollinated flurries, an itch that reaches all the way back to the root of his ribcage. Leaves his feathers to twitch, no more than a wingspan's worth of fluttering, pinpricks of excitement spreading through his neck— an electric sensation he cannot put a finger on. 

All he knows is that it makes his lips bloom. His hand comes up to cover it.

(Yes, that's right, he thinks. In the vast expanse of the cosmos— in some corner of the universe, wherever that may be— your paths will surely cross again. You'll find another patisserie. One with better lighting, where he can look at you properly from the other side of the table: where he will not be able to hide the smile behind his fingers.)

The lady behind the counter looks bashful, watching the two of you in sheepish silence, as if she isn't sure whether it's alright to chime in or not. Sunday should feel apologetic, but he scarcely notices her presence until she clears her throat. 

"… Will that be for here, or to-go?" 

The words break you out of your reverie. You sputter out a confirmation, visibly embarrassed, the card nearly slipping through the gaps between your fingers in your rush to slide it against the card reader— and Sunday truly cannot help himself. His smile curls upwards, like a bird taking flight, a sunflower twisting its stalk towards the clear-blue sky. It breaks through the clouds, carelessly.