MOON

All he has now, is a cold, lifeless apartment to go back to. With plastic still wrapped around his furniture and the fridge empty except for a few bottles of alcohol and an apple. He’d never found much purpose in making the apartment look more like his—because it wasn’t his home anyway. Not when he had nobody to welcome his return.

Just a loud, ticking clock he wants to throw away.

When Caleb returns to the base, he’s the only one that stays past dark while everyone else rejoices to return home for a fresh shower. He opts to wash his hair in the sink beside his office instead, the icy water doing little to add to the numbness of his skin, if it does anything at all. He stares at himself in the mirror, blinking slowly, and then decides he should really shave.

What a mess. His eyes bore holes into the dog tag he carries everywhere. It feels like an omen of luck, while it remains a burden in his chest—as if the only thing that still manages to make him feel worse than he already does. 

Is this it, he wonders? Is this what the rest of his life will be like? Spending out his days in his office or in the deepspace tunnel, wondering if those few hours will be his last? There are thoughts that slip in quietly---ones he should repress. Would it be so bad? To get lost in the tunnel, and never having to return to the base again? To finally melt away into nothingness to ease the pain? He grits his teeth, realizing that his nails are digging crescents into the palms of his hands.

No, his men have families. His men have people who still need them–a purpose.

After he’s finished somewhat tidying himself up (though even heavy concealer can’t cover his eyebags), he skulks out of the bathroom to head to his office. It’s usually pitch dark on the floor at this time of night. So when he notices one cubicle that remains illuminated by a lamp, he thinks he’ll have to scold whoever it belongs to for wasting the energy bill. He sighs irritably and stalks over, his brows furrowing into a halt when he sees the cubicle isn’t empty at all.

You blink up at him. “Oh.”

You’re an unfamiliar face. A new employee, perhaps. How long have you even been here? Especially this late at night? His eyes scan your desk to see the doodles you’ve been drawing onto multiple sheets of paper and his scowl deepens. And you’re here for this?

Suddenly, you shoot up to your feet, shoulders tense as you bow your head. “Colonel Xia. I’m you’re new assistant—I’ve been assigned here since last week.”

He quirks a brow at your drawings. Your face heats, and you scramble to shove them to the side, clearing your throat. 

“What are you doing here?”

“I was waiting to greet you, sir.”

“It’s 2:37 in the morning.”

“Off the clock,” you respond. 

“How long have you been here doing—that.”

“Since 7.”

“PM?”

“AM. They told me they weren’t sure when you’d be getting back,” you scratch the side of your face sheepishly. “Better safe than sorry.”

He wants to ask if there’s something wrong with you, but he stops, taken aback. No, he’s sure there’s something wrong with you. There is, but his eyes widen just the slightest anyway. 

For the first time in years, someone had been waiting for the colonel.

He quickly finds that you’re good at your job. A bit confused in the first few weeks, sure, but he knows that what he asks of you is a bit much. You somehow manage to get it to a T anyway in the first month, and he wonders if HQ finally made a good hiring decision for the first time in a while. He watches you through the glass of his office, scrambling in your cubicle as your coworkers ask you questions that instill that you’re probably holding the place together. Your first point of action every day is to make his coffee. Afterwards, you make your own. Then, you drop it off and chat with your coworkers for a bit before a crisis arises and you’re sprinting to whatever disaster you have to solve. And when you knock on his door, you keep your eyes down, as if to avoid him as you drop off his paperwork.

He knows he makes your life hard. But you deal with it anyway.

It’s amusing, really. You’re amusing to him. But anything remotely lively is amusing in this dreary building.

“Are you leaving, sir?” you ask him one night, when only the two of you are left. He fixes his coat onto himself, finally released from that suffocating hat that he’s has to wear to remain in uniform. You follow him to the door, pacing right behind him as you always do.

Caleb usually doesn’t like anyone behind him. Not when there’s so many people who would seize the opportunity to stab a knife into his back. But for some reason, when you do it, he doesn’t mind. Maybe because he knows you couldn’t damage him at all. Maybe because he knows you wouldn’t.

“I am.”

Your ears perk. “You must have plans.”

“...Do I have something else on my calendar?”

“Well no, sir, it’s just…” you pause for a moment, glancing at him apprehensively. “...Well, it’s your birthday, so I just assumed.”

Had time already gone by that quickly?

Not that he cared about his birthday. It just meant another year without anyone to return home to.

“I left you something in your office,” you nod. “I hope it’s to your liking.”

His eyes stare right into yours. A million thoughts run through his head. Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s a bomb. Maybe it’s more paperwork. Maybe it’s a resignation letter. From all the regular things to the worst things imaginable, it runs through him all at once, and then it stops, as he just steps out the door. “Alright.”

Though he should’ve gone home to wait until the next morning to check what it is, he returns a few hours later, when you’ve left. It’s a bit pathetic, really, but he couldn’t sleep. Not necessarily because of what you said, but because his body is more accustomed to falling asleep in his office than his own “house”. 

Definitely not because of the small cactus succulent you left on his desk, with a post-it in your handwriting. It contrasts heavily with the monochrome of the rest of the room, bright with life. The thorns feel sharp against his fingertip as he presses against it, as if to see how much he can push before it breaks skin.

‘Happy birthday’

As you’re dropping off papers a few weeks later, you point out that it looks like it can use water. He doesn’t look up from his work, clicking his tongue. “It’s a cactus. It can survive deserts–I’m sure it’s fine.”

But you stand there, staring at him with a frown, which for some reason gives him an unsettling feeling in his stomach. He swallows, and then sighs with annoyance. “Knock yourself out.”

You beam. So you can smile at him.

After that, he’s learned to read your knocks. Three knocks means paperwork, or something regarding his work. Two knocks means there’s someone who’d like to see him. Four knocks means you’re here to water the damn cactus. It happens once every few weeks, but his ears pick up on it easily. He pretends that he’s not watching your every move as you water, observing how you smile at how well it’s doing.

“Don’t you have better things to do? It doesn’t need that much care, does it?”

You simply shrug. "Just because it doesn’t need so much, doesn’t mean it doesn’t need it at all.”

He doesn’t say much to that.

But when you leave, he strangely finds his eyes drifting to the cactus. It’s a resilient thing, he thinks. He presses his fingertip against a spike, and it draws blood this time, trickling down his finger gently in a brilliant red. An ugly, resilient thing. From the corner of his vision, he sees a bud. It’s small–barely there–but he sees it. He wonders if it’ll bloom. If his office even receives enough light for it to bloom.

Could a flower bloom from such an ugly, hurting lifeform?

He begins watering the cactus himself, and he’s sure you notice, because you begin to bring in less water each time.

“I’ll keep your cactus well fed, sir,” you say the day he leaves for a few months excursion. The longest he’s been on. The most dangerous, too. It’s almost as if the higher-ups want to kill him. While his men weep and say goodbye to their families, you gaze up at him with a stack of folders clutched in your arms. Despite how defenseless you look to him in comparison to the military-trained men he works with every day, you seem unmovable. Like a tree standing in the middle of a meadow. Full of life. You’ve always seemed strong. Perhaps that’s why he’s always found you amusing.

You’re more deserving of this uniform than he is, but he hopes you never have to wear it. Someone like you should never have their life snuffed out like that.

Caleb places his hat onto your head, and for a moment, you blink. He presses it down to fit your head, though it remains slightly large anyway, and then drops his hand. “Have it cleaned by the time I come back.”

He doesn’t think you need to know that he had it cleaned just a few days ago.

Days of the excursion blur into one another, stitched together by gunfire and the low hum of the ship’s engines against the nothingness of the deepspace tunnel. Sleep comes in fractured pieces. Food tastes like nothing. The men still talk about home, though quieter now. 

There’s a moment where he stands alone at the observation deck. The glass is scratched, the stars beyond it warped and smeared like paint dragged across a canvas. It’s ugly out here. Empty yet consuming, like the universe itself is trying to swallow him whole.

He presses his hand against the glass.

Would it really be so bad? If he just… didn’t go back.

If he drifted a little too far. Took one wrong turn in the deepspace tunnel to let the ship go silent. Let himself go with it. No empty apartments. No ticking clocks. No unfurnished rooms. No reminders of a life that he no longer has access to. It almost feels merciful—like the tunnel is offering him a way out.

There’s no one there to mourn him anyway.

No family. No home. Just nothingness, like the rest of the tunnel. As if he belongs.

But then, his thoughts are interrupted. Not by anything else, but by a face.

It’s not even intentional. It comes uninvited, like a part of himself is trying to remind himself that he’s still human, even with the damn chip in his brain. Your face, bright and out of place in the sterile emptiness of his mind. The way you look up at him, eyes too eager for a place like that base. The way you huff proudly to yourself when you make his coffee. The way you nod vigorously as if to hype yourself up before you knock on his door. The way you tell off your coworkers while also remaining welcoming. The way you care for that stupid cactus. The way you frown at him like he’s something worth worrying about.

The way you wait for him at the docks, first to greet him every time he returns without fail.

When did you come to mean so much to him?

His jaw tightens. 

He needs to see the cactus bloom.

And so, with the determination he hasn’t felt in years, he arrives back at the base in one piece, where you’re waiting for him as you always have.

Caleb never tells you what you did for him that day, even when you were lightyears away. Even once he manages to get it through your thick skull that he harbors real, raw feelings for you, he doesn’t tell you how much that cactus has done for him. 

His life is brighter now, with you in it. His apartment, which once lay bare, as if nobody occupied the space now seems warmer. Your coat is tossed onto the couch, the sheets are crumpled, and there’s more than enough food in the fridge. There’s two toothbrushes in the bathroom, and potted plants are littered throughout the entire apartment. There’s magnets on the fridge—pictures of him returning from each excursion—and the two of you growing closer and closer with each photo. The most recent one has you flush to his side, your hands intertwined in his. So much has changed that it doesn’t even look like the same apartment anymore.

It feels like home.

In the morning, before you wake up, he gazes at you through lidded eyes, the soft sunlight peeking through the curtains and hitting his back to avoid reaching your face. He grins proudly at the dark marks littering your neck down to your chest, which surely adorn his own torso. There’s a sense of relief he gets from moments like these—being able to awake early out of his own will rather than being forced by the nightmares plaguing his mind. He cups the side of your face and rubs your cheek with his thumb as you stir, yawning softly. So pretty.

“Morning, colonel,” you squint.

"Caleb," he corrects.

"Boss."

"I can take a lot of your teasing, but that's crossing a line."

You smile, the way he loves. "Then what should I call you?"

Caleb looks to the side, pretending to be in thought. "'Sir?"

"I'm going to kill you."

“You seemed to like it last night,” he grins, guiding your face to kiss him before you can complain about his joke. Despite your pleas of morning breath, you melt into him. Your lips feel soft against his, your body warm. He wants to hold you forever. Treasure you forever. Stay here forever.

Again, you would rather die than admit it, but in those moments, your heart ached for him as well. 

But Sylus had never put a label on your relationship. And as palpable as his loyalty was, you could not help but feel like a mistress. After all, you simply weren’t woven to belong in his world. Why would he choose you? 

You dodged his offer to duel in the ring like a plague—how would he react if he were to find out you were useless without a blade, and that you had no intention of buffing yourself up to throw a meaner punch? And how would you explain to him that you loathed competitions? That you would rather perish in an instant than face off against someone you loved? 

You called in sick on auctions, overwhelmed by the sheer opulence and chaos of the first one you had attended with him. It overwhelmed you. The dress you wore was tight. The colour was just not right. The stench of alcohol made bile rise in your throat. The ugliness of ill intentions lurking beneath the guest’s calculated smiles made you want to throw up. 

If he were to slowly grow repulsed by your continued rejection, how could you blame him? After all, oil and water do not mix. 

And yet, he still returned by your side. After your rendezvous at the N109 zone had stopped, he would show up to Linkon instead, “coincidentally” bumping into you at gatherings and events, showing up to your apartment, clutching bouquets he just happened to come across and purchase because they reminded him of you. One could say that he pursued you relentlessly, wholly. However... 

One day, as you had been staying over at his base, you stumbled upon a cacophony of estranged noises emerging from his chambers. Curiosity gnawed at your skin, and though you had known it was wrong, you could not help but open the door a few inches and take a look inside. 

You really shouldn’t have. 

At first, you only saw Sylus, lying on his bed, albeit in a rather odd position. But as you widened the gap, your eyes adjusted to the soft lights, and another silhouette emerged. 

Beneath him was a woman pinned to the bed with his arms. Her hair was disheveled, eyes blown wide as she stared up at Sylus. And in his eyes, the familiar look of triumph glimmered, like a predator cornering its prey. 

And on her cheeks, the faint red of blood rushing to the flesh. 

You froze in shock. And for a moment, you could not tell if he was capturing an intruder, or… 

As you lingered too long, the woman’s perplexed gaze flitted to yours, and on queue, Sylus’s head turned. 

Nope. 

You slammed the door, but he blocked it with his evol. You turned away right as he began to throw himself off the bed, and without a second thought, you bolted. 

Your shoes thumped against the ground as you fled to nowhere. Tears blurred your vision, but you weren’t sure why you were crying. You had accepted your place in Sylus’s life a long time ago—you were expendable. A temporary infatuation. The two of you were never officially dating. We’re besties. You’d brushed that comment off as a joke before, another one of his teasing remarks, but now, you wondered if he was being serious.  

As you collapsed to the ground, legs retiring upon slate, the tears in your eyes dried entirely, leaving but a bitter pain throbbing behind your ribs. You found yourself on the rooftop. The cold air threaded through the locks of your hair, sending shivers down your spine. 

Footsteps approached from behind. You wiped the remaining tears and straightened yourself, back turned permanently to the figure closing in. 

For a while, Sylus lingered at the entrance, before finally, with slow, ginger steps, he approached you calmly. 

“Sweetie.” 

You did not turn. 

“Let me—” 

“I’m sorry for spying on you. I just… got flustered. I’m sorry for invading your privacy.” 

Stunned, Sylus did not speak. Instead, he waited for your voice to recollect itself. 

“I have… misunderstood our relationship.” 

“You haven’t misunderstood anything.” 

His steps neared. 

You turned to face him slowly. “It’s okay if you viewed our… whatever we had as a mistake. It’s okay to have second thoughts, Sylus. If your heart wavers…” 

His hand grasped yours, thumb rubbing soft circles over your knuckles “There was no mistake.” 

“But, then… what—” 

Gentle fingers brushed up the side of your face, streaking with it any remnants of tears, before cradling you with a tenderness you’d never felt before. 

“I’m sorry.” 

Your face melted into the dip of his palm. 

“Admittedly, I’ve held back. I haven’t bore my heart out yet.” 

Your heartbeat spiked, the ugly hunk of flesh pumping incessantly against your chest. Was he confessing? Had his heart truly wavered? 

“I was... afraid.” Your heartbeat slowly settled, yet your nerves did not relent. You had never before witnessed his eyes so unguarded, so pure and naked. “I thought that pushing you too hard would scare you away, and that you’d hate me, just as you always should have.” 

“Sylus...” 

“Forgive me.” Sylus brought his forehead to yours. His warm breath fanned over your lips. “My heart did not waver. She broke in. I should’ve knocked her out cold. I didn’t realize how improper it looked until...” 

“Until I... well, you know,” you laughed.  

He searched your eyes for consent, and upon receiving it, he wrapped his arm around your waist. “I guess I haven’t been honest with you either.” You averted your gaze. Sylus beckoned for you to continue with a tilt of his head. 

“I always thought I wasn’t worthy of you. That I was nothing more than a... mistress, I suppose.” 

His mouth hung agape. Before he could reprimand, you cut him off.  

“I know, I know. It’s stupid. But maybe, because of that, when I saw you two... I jumped to conclusions instead of hearing you out. I thought my worst fears had been confirmed. I thought you were finally done with me. And I should’ve given you a chance instead of storming off. I should’ve trusted you more, Sylus. I’m...” 

A thumb brushed under your lips. 

“You don’t have to apologize.” 

“I want to.” 

“Then maybe,” a sly grin tugged at his lips. His gaze brushed over your neck, stopping at your lips, before bearing into you with intent. “We can...” 

He tilted your chin. Smiling, you leaned in.  

Your lips met with a soft kiss. A little sloppy, perhaps, with noses bumping into one another, movements awkward and unsynchronized. But that was okay. With time, you would learn to fit. You would learn to move in step, to seamlessly blend into one another’s life without ever having to leave something behind. The waltz across the checkerboard would no longer be of two headsmen aiming for necks, but of the king and queen, guiding each other through labyrinths of life. 

But for now, the two of you had flaws to overcome, obstructions of life to demolish out of the way, and a lot to learn. 

“Sylus...” you pulled away, breathless. 

With devotion in his eyes, the man tilted his head. “What is it?” 

“Isn’t that woman still lurking around in your base?” 

The light of realization dawned upon his face. Silently, he threaded his hand through his hair. “Didn’t I promise you I'd always choose you?” 

Oh, you scoffed, he forgot. 

You grinned, bringing him down for another kiss.