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Blot!reader Ending -> Under Aegis, Under Love

This is a darker story. I suggest you refrain from reading it if you're in a fragile mental stare or unable to handle darker themes.

The mirror towers over you—monolithic and unyielding, like a figure carved from judgement itself. Its polished surface gleams, reflecting nothing, yet daring you to move forward. It feels like standing at the edge of something monumental—like a test, a trial, a threshold you cannot cross without losing something you'll never get back.

mini warning: This is very long and features every character.

Your breath trembles as you squeeze your eyes shut, trying to anchor yourself in the chaos of your thoughts. A futile gesture. The air hangs thick with anticipation, the silence ringing like a warning in your ears.

This is the moment. Now is the moment.

Your fingers drift to the ring—the one that once pulsed with heat and promise, always humming like a heart pressed against your own. But now... it sits cold against your skin. Silent. Still. Like it has already forfeit.

And yet...

You lift your eyes, scanning the crowd that's gathered like ghosts at the edge of a dream. Faces blur and blend, but you search desperately—until you see him.

He's pushing through them. Desperate. Determined. Shoving his way forward with all the urgency in the world written into the furrow of his brow. Then—there he is. Breathless, shoving himself onto the stage, eyes locked onto yours, hand outstretched toward you like a flower seeking sunlight.

He's not reaching out in pity. He's reaching with resolve.

Time bends around the gesture. Seconds stretch thin and fragile like glass as your eyes meet his. In the stage light, he's illuminated just barely—cheeks flushed, lips parted, eyes wide and brimming with something fierce and quiet and raw.

You're leaving. He knows it.

And yet... he still reaches.

Maybe it's for one last embrace. Maybe it's a confession he thought he could keep buried, something he'd planned to carry to the grave. He tells himself you wouldn't want to go through there seeming so alone up there, that you'd need one more sliver of comfort before you go. But maybe it's not for your sake at all—maybe this outstretched hand is a plea. Not a demand, but a question. A hope.

Stay. Stay with me. Stay here. Please.

Then—your name. Soft, trembling, real.

And in that moment, the world sharpens. The pieces click. like a puzzle finally snapping together. You belong here. Not because someone told you to. Not because of a prophecy or fate or magic.

Because he says your name like it means something. Like you mean something.

Your foot pivots. Your bag hits the floor. You run.

The air stings your lungs, and the tears blur your sight, but you keep running. One step. Another. And then you're crashing into him—into arms that catch you like they were meant to. Like they've been waiting.

The warmth of his embrace isn't perfect—it's new. Like a home freshly moved into, walls echoing with possibilities, rooms waiting to be filled. There's uncertainty, yes. But it's the good kind. The kind that says: you'll grow into this. You'll make it yours.

And in his arms, for the first time, you believe it.

You don't know what's ahead—but you know what you've chosen.

You've chosen this. You've chosen him. You've chosen to stay.

Riddle

When Riddle first heard about the Blot—from Trey's steady voice and Ace's nervous, stumbling explanation—it felt as though the ground beneath him had shifted. Internally, he spiraled. The thought that you—someone who had helped him when he was at his worst, when he had nothing but rules to shield him from the world—were now under suspicion? It felt like betrayal from the universe itself. You'd been a rare constant, a soothing presence he came to seek when his certainty wavered. You challenged him kindly, helped him grow. He had come to rely on your quiet wisdom when his own rigid beliefs began to fray.

He let himself wallow—for a short time. He knew better than to indulge despair too long, especially when he'd once admired Ramshackle's persistence. So, like he'd seen you and the others do a hundred times, he picked himself up. He cracked open every book, every law journal, every dusty volume of magical regulation he could get his hands on. And with each page, the weight of it sank deeper into his chest: the rules he'd once lived and breathed, the very framework of order he had dedicated himself to... they didn't fit this situation. They didn't protect you. They labeled you.

An anomaly. A threat. A danger.

By those definitions, you should be contained—locked away for the safety of the world. But that wasn't right. Not for you. Not when the danger they feared wasn't the truth of who you were. Fortunately, the information hadn't yet spread to anyone outside a close circle, and even more luckily, the heir of STYX himself didn't want you caged either.

Still, the helplessness ate away at him. Riddle Rosehearts was not a boy who accepted powerlessness easily. He almost let it win this time—almost—until he saw you on that stage, on the verge of disappearing. And something snapped. The next thing he knew, he was breaking through the crowd, climbing onto the platform, reaching for you with a hand that demanded you stay—not from duty, but from something deeper, something human.

And you reached back.

That moment never quite left him.

After graduation, Riddle realized his prodigious memory and methodical mind weren't suited for a medical path like his mother envisioned. Instead, he went into law. The process wasn't quick or easy, but he flourished, carving a name for himself as a high-ranking legal figure. He made policy his battlefield, red tape his opponent. Every form, every clause, every outdated loophole—he conquered them. And all of it, all of it, was for one purpose: to make you official. To ensure that this world acknowledged your existence, your right to stay, your right to belong.

It became his proudest accomplishment.

You and Riddle stayed close, though never loudly. Your bond was quiet—built on mutual respect, long talks over tea, and the subtle, comforting kind of companionship that grows over time. The kind that doesn't need grand declarations to feel permanent.

And the world kept turning, this time without dragging you behind. Time slowed down just enough to let you breathe—to let you be.

Riddle found solace in simpler things. He started tending to a small greenhouse. Roses, naturally. You'd often join him in silence, handing him tools before he even asked. He would glance at you as if remembering something distant and dear, and then excuse himself with the same careful grace he always carried.

Today, though, he returns with a faint blush dusting his cheeks and a book tucked awkwardly in one hand. His gaze flickers everywhere but your face, his free hand rubbing the back of his neck—nervous, uncharacteristically so.

The book is familiar. The title is the same one you'd spoken about so often in passing—something from your world, a story you'd half-remembered and clung to like a comfort blanket. In your quieter moments, you'd shared it with him, filling in plot points and character arcs as best you could. Riddle had listened, soaking up every word.

Unbeknownst to you, he'd written to an author, relayed everything you'd told him, and commissioned the story to recreated from scratch—just for you.

"It... won't be the same," he says softly, almost apologetically. "But it's close. I hope you like it."

The way your face lights up is answer enough. He watches you with a calm that replaces his nerves, shoulder squaring just slightly in pride. He's grown taller now—his presence more grounded, more mature. It suits him.

"You've done so well," he says, voice gentle. "You've survived this world. Made a place for yourself in it. I hope..." He hesitated for just a moment, then forges ahead, "I hope you'll continue to let me be part of your life. Even now that your troubles are resolved. Even if you don't need me anymore."

But deep down, he hopes you want him there. Because he wants to stay.

Trey

Trey had been one of the first to find out. One of the first few unfortunate enough to witness the moment you crumpled under the crushing weight of the truth—like the world itself had pressed down too hard, and your bones might give way. He hadn't known what to say, hadn't had grand magic or a thousand solutions like others might. But he stayed. He held you up as best he could.

He knew his place. Not a genius, not a powerhouse, not the heir of anything legendary. Just Trey Clover—quiet, kind, steady.

But he promised himself—promised you—that he'd be your anchor. Your safe place. A post to lean on whenever you needed it.

The next morning, before the sun had fully risen, he'd already prepared your favorite breakfast. Everything cooked with intention, plated carefully, and carried to you with a silent kind of resilience. He didn't ask questions. Didn't offer empty platitudes. Just sat beside you, letting his presence speak.

There was a quiet sorrow behind Trey's eyes after that—something he never spoke aloud. Something he kept hidden so it wouldn't add to the weight already resting on your shoulders. Instead, he acted. Discreetly, delicately, he passed your story along to those who could help. Only to the trusted. Only to those who cared. He knew he couldn't save you himself—but maybe, just maybe, someone else could.

Then came the day of your farewell. The day you stood on that stage, prepared to leave. Your eyes scanned the crowd, searching—and they landed on him. That was all it took. Something inside him broke loose, something urgent and new. He pushed forward, cutting through the crowd with more fire than he'd ever shown. He didn't think. He reached.

And when you dropped everything—when you turned back and ran into his arms—it felt like winning something precious. Like holding onto a miracle.

That night, you were invited to Heartslabyul as an official member. Ramshackle was too empty now, too far from the people who mattered. Trey had made sure your room was nearby—close enough that if you ever needed him, he'd hear. He sat with you at the long dining table for hours, huddled under a warm-toned light, helping sketch out the logistics of a life in this world.

A student ID was the easiest part. The rest? Not so much. A legal identity, housing, a bank account. You were both still students, limited on what you could do. But Trey didn't falter. He opened a secondary bank account under his name for you and promised—without hesitation—that you'd always have a place with the Clover family. His family.

Seven years passed, and when it was finally time to secure your citizenship, Trey was there. With the help of more powerful friends, the process moved forward. He wasn't the one with the grand solutions. But he was the one who had never left. The one who gave you warmth, and safety, and something real to hold onto.

You moved into the second floor of the Patisserie Clover, living above the bustling bakery that had become your shared world. You insisted on working there—contributing your share, learning the rhythm of the kitchen, growing into the space as much as you'd grown into the life Trey helped you build.

Your bond with him settled into something like a hot drink held between cold hands—simple, comforting, deeply intimate in a quiet way. Neither of you rushed it. Neither of you needed to. There was peace in the closeness, in knowing he'd always be there for a baking session, an unspoken conversation, or just a shared silence.

Whenever you called it a baking date, his younger siblings would giggle and squeal behind the counter, earning quick shushes from Trey as he herded them away, red-faced and muttering something about "manners."

He sends you handwritten recipes now—folded neatly and slid under your door or left by your workstation. His neat handwriting often breaks into loopy cursive where he scribbles suggestions in the margins:

"Try a pinch more cinnamon." "Less lemon, more parsley." "Bake 12 minutes longer—trust me."

It's more than instruction—it's care. His quiet way of making sure you're still eating. Still baking. Still holding onto something soft. Something safe.

On days off, when you drop by the Clover family home outside bakery hours, he answers the door with his signature crooked smile. Like he'd been waiting. He reaches for your hand without thinking, thumb brushing over your knuckles, warm and grounding.

And when his family peeks in and coos and teases—"Ooh, someone's in looove!"—Trey turns scarlet and clears his throat, gently steering you inside with an embarrassed cough.

But he never lets go of your hand.

Cater

Cater's reaction hit hard—but not in the way most would expect. He didn't cry, didn't get angry. Instead, he dialed himself up to eleven. Talked a little louder, laughed a little brighter, smiled a little wider. Like if he projected enough good vibes into the world he could shield you from the weight threatening to crush you.

Triple that energy, and you'd get close to how he acted when he found out what was happening to you.

He took you everywhere—cafes, shops, pop-ups, art exhibits. Dragged you from photo op to photo op, insisted on treating you every single time, and probably set fire to his savings in the process. To Cater, you weren't just on borrowed time. You were already gone. And knowing that—that he'd lost you before he'd ever had the chance to really know you—shattered something inside him.

You were one of his first friends here—his first real friend. Someone bothering to really know him. "Snack Buddies," remember? That was the time you first met—first really got to meet.

But when the news broke, and it hit him all at once: you never confided in him. Never told him. Never asked for help.

Why?

He didn't ask, but the question haunted him.

So, Cater did what he could. He made happy memories like he was racing a timer, crossing off an invisible checklist of moments he had to have with you before it was too late. Because whether the Blot consumed you or you found a way home—it would mean losing you.

And when the latter became real—when there was a chance you might leave—he fell apart all over again. You'd think he'd cling tighter, text more, demand more time. But instead, Cater pulled away completely. Cold turkey.

The day of your departure, he didn't even show his face. Not at first. He stood back, hidden by the crowd, heart pounding in his chest and shame thick in his throat. He thought he'd blown it. But when you hesitated, when your eyes flickered to search the crowd—he was already moving. Pushing forward, desperate and unfiltered.

And when you chose him—when you ran to him of all people—something in him healed. The way his face lit up, that pure, uncontainable joy, was the kind of thing people wrote poems about. He looked like he could live off that feeling forever.

After that, you stayed close... he disappeared.

The messages slowed. The calls stopped. You assumed he'd moved on, gotten busy, grown up. What you didn't know was that Cater wanted to reach out. He nearly did—countless times. But every time he picked up the phone, he froze. Because he couldn't bear to be the version of himself you didn't deserve.

He missed you like hell. But he was wrestling with something messy, something dark. And until he figured out how to manage it, he refused to drag you down with him. He already regretted not being there when it mattered most.

Still, he never stopped working behind the scenes.

Even before you were granted residency, Cater had started crafting a campaign for you—carefully disguised, of course. Through curated content, subtle storytelling, and aesthetic posts that humanized your experience, he made people care. He built connections, charmed influencers, schmoozed with political heirs and even flirted with the partners of people in power—all to tip the scales in your favor.

He made your story real. Something worth fighting for.

And somehow... It worked.

The years passed. The two of you drifted, save for the occasional text that barely scratched the surface—quick check-ins, never deep dives. Cater tried college, flitted between majors like outfits. None of them fit. In the end, he dropped out and doubled down on what he was good at.

He built a name as a wellness and lifestyle influencer—one of the biggest. His content was vibrant, authentic, magnetic. He started planning high-end events, known for their dreamy aesthetics and viral appeal. He'd found his groove—and finally, finally—when he felt steady enough to be in your orbit again, he showed up.

Bouquet in hand. Grin just a little too wide.

"Uh... are the flowers too much? Kinda tacky, right?" he laughed, hiding them behind his back like a teenager confessing a crush.

Then he apologized. For disappearing. For the silence. For not being there when it counted. And when you forgave him—when you told him it was okay—his smile lit up like the first day of spring.

And just like that, it was as if no time had passed.

He still flirted. Still pulled you into wild adventures like, "This escape room is trending so hard right now—we HAVE to try it!" But there was something different now. A deeper warmth behind his words. A gravity in his presence. He wasn't just performing anymore—he'd grown. Grounded himself. Found joy that was real.

It became obvious: you'd never left his heart.

His content reflected it, too. Guides for people starting over. Credit-building tips, community resources, affordable and good quality brands for lifestyle and personal style as well. Things you'd once said you wished you had. His videos were comforting, encouraging, and personal. As if he were still speaking to just you.

And maybe when he recorded them, he was.

He always found a way to include you in his world. If there was a party, you were the first invite. If he planned an event, your name was on the list.

And when the burnout hit him like a truck, he didn't pretend anymore, he showed up at your door with bags under his eyes and a crooked smile.

"I had a breakdown. Can I borrow your couch and emotional availability?" he asked, lighthearted as always—but the look in his eyes was raw, real. Something unfiltered and unborrowed.

You ended up curled together on the couch, watching some barely-relevant movie. Conversation flowed instead. About the past. The pain. The healing. And slowly, like puzzle pieces slipping into place, it felt like something was being mended.

On a shopping trip to the mall, he handed you cash and told you to grab a drink from the booth while he "ran off for something real quick."

You returned, drink in hand. He reappeared, overly dramatic, snatching it with a flourish of his hand. A ring gleamed on his finger. A chic, silver star. It suited him perfectly.

You arched a brow. "What's the sudden accessorizing?"

Cater grinned and gently took your own, lifting it beside his and your own ring—the Blot ring—caught the light, thrumming gently and operating as your heart.

"Now we match," he said, voice bright. "Yours has lore. Mine has vibes."

Then, a pause. A slow quirk of his lips. "Unless... you'd rather we get real matching rings? Y'know—like, a wedding set?"

You blinked. Once. Twice.

Then nodded, before your brain could catch up.

Cater beamed. Not his usual picture-perfect grin, but something softer. Almost disbelieving. The tips of his ears flushed scarlet and he immediately turned, tugging you toward the next shop.

Still grinning. Still buzzing.

And still holding your hand.

He never let go.

Ace

Ace was already moving the second he caught it—that flicker of hesitation, that silent don't make me go on your face. He shoved through the crowd with all of the subtlety of a brick to the window in the dead of night, determined and reckless in a way only he could pull off without getting arrested.

For all the times he'd dragged you into trouble, teased you until you swore vengeance, and laughed through the consequences, Ace had always, always had your back when it counted after the contract. Maybe he wasn't great with words, and maybe he'd never say it out loud, but he'd owned his mistakes in the only way he knew how—through stubborn loyalty and relentless action.

He was on stage before anyone could stop him, face flushed from the sprint, chest heaving with breath, and scarlet eyes wide with something raw. It wasn't you who ran to him—no. He decided. Decided that you weren't going anywhere. Not somewhere he couldn't follow and pester you like an annoying cat. Not when he'd finally figured out what you meant to him—late. He knows.

He grabbed your bag, yanking you back from the mirror along with it like it was about to swallow you whole, like it had teeth. His arms wrapped around you tight—too tight—and he buried his face in your shoulder like Floyd might, but with an edge of trembling desperation that betrayed just how scared he was.

"You're... not leaving," he mumbled, muffled into your shirt, like he could will it into reality. "You don't wanna. I saw it; that look. So don't. Just... stay. We'll hit up that diner we all like, I'll even pay." His voice cracked, rushed and anxious, like he'd lose his courage if he slowed down.

He pulled back just enough to look at you, the cocky front cracking as uncertainty leaked in. Maybe he'd read you wrong. Maybe he'd just made everything worse. But then—you crumpled against him like paper, a slow, small hum of agreement slipping out.

Relief hit Ace so hard he laughed—short, breathless like a dam breaking.

That night, he sat across from you at the diner, chewing his burger with a single-minded intensity like it personally offended him. He didn't say much. Just... plotted. Quietly. Eyes sharp, teeth grinding as he thought too hard for someone who claimed to avoid responsibility like the plague.

After that, he clung to you—not obviously, not in a way he'd ever admit—but subtly. Always there. Always dragging you into some dumb new scheme or surprise lunch plan or whatever excuse he could make to be around. At one point, he even suggested kicking out one of his roommates so you could move in with him and Deuce.

Riddle, of course, shot the idea down before Ace could even finish the sentence.

But Ace didn't stop there. He couldn't deal with paperwork, but he could scream at it. He hounded ethics professors, annoyed every bureaucrat who couldn't block the amount of numbers he had, bribed old alumni, and guilt-tripped anyone he could. He dug through every NRC connection he had, shaking people down for favors like a mob boss in red sneakers.

While others worked through the official channels, Ace worked in the shadows. He got you fake IDs, documents, licenses—things you definitely shouldn't have right now. And he never told you how. Never would. Just smirked when you asked and said, "You're welcome."

Years passed.

Seven of them, to be exact.

And Ace? Still Ace. Still a chaotic menace with a smart mouth and endless energy. But he never forgot how close he came to losing you. Not once. Not twice. And maybe that's why he showed up at your place so often—like it was his second home. Never official. But there was always something of his lying around: a hoodie slung over a chair, phone charger left on your couch, a pack of gum in his favorite flavor.

He always left a reason to come back.

You weren't sure what Ace actually did for a living. Sometimes he was in town. Other times, not. He'd pop up on TV out of nowhere, or facetime you from some iconic monument halfway across the world, acting like the time difference didn't exist.

He's a freelance agent of chaos. Sometimes you see him as a popular magician, sometimes he's up there for a random acting role he somehow got into, he'll be a chaperone for high-profile events, and other times he'll show up to locations and begin working until they eventually hire and pay him.

No one knows how exactly he makes money. He's never broke, though.

Some nights, you'd find him on your couch at 1AM, half-asleep with a pause game on the screen. He'd wave his phone lazily at you with a dopey smile. "I ordered food," he'd mumble.

When the food arrived, he'd sit across from you with his chin propped in his hands, batting his lashes like a brat expecting tribute. "Soooo~? What's the verdict? You miss me? Gimme a compliment. Tell me your day. C'mon, gimme the goods."

You'd roll your eyes. But you'd talk.

And as the night settled, the conversation turned quiet. His gaze would shift, eyes drawn to the ring on your finger. The ring. The one that kept you alive.

His teasing would fade, expression softening.

"Still won't come off, huh?" he'd murmur, gently brushing it with a fingertip. "Guess that means we're stuck with you."

Then—classic Ace—he'd flash a grin. "Hope you're listening when we hangout, Blotty-Boy. I'm the favorite. I win."

On one outing—a "Market Date," as he proudly dubbed it—Ace held your hand through the crowd. Too casual to be romantic. But he didn't let go until you were home. And his cheeks were definitely a little red.

As you gathered his things after he'd crashed at your place, he lingered in your doorway like a lost cat. He watched you with this lazy, unfocused gaze, then grinned, cocking his head.

"We're not a thing yet, right?" He said it casually, self assured and cocky as if the idea was gross.

You squinted. "Yet?"

Ace laughed, too loud, too quick. "Cool! Cool cool cool. Just checkin'. Y'know how it, uh... be."

It made absolutely no sense.

You were just about to call him out on it—maybe hit him with a pillow—when he turned too fast, stubbed his toe on your furniture, and limped dramatically into your kitchen like a man escaping his own feelings.

You couldn't help it.

You laughed.

Deuce

Deuce found out through Ace.

And he didn't think he'd ever forget the look on his best friend's face when he came back that day—shaken, hollow, eyes wide with the kind of pain Deuce hadn't seen on him since ever. All of Ace's usual snark had evaporated, replaced with stunned silence and a tightness in his jaw that made Deuce's stomach turn.

That was when he knew something was seriously wrong.

The moment Deuce learned the truth—what had really happened to you—it all came crashing down. Every dumb joke he'd ever made, every offhand comment, every time he'd laughed without knowing what you might've been carrying behind that tired smile.

Had I hurt you? Have you ever left feeling worse after hanging out with me? Did I ever really see you?

He wanted to see you right away. He needed to. But guilt froze him. So instead, he stewed in his own misery, locked in his room for a few days replayed every memory like a crime scene.

He called his mom. Asked for advice with a tight throat and told her everything. He spoke to upperclassmen, to teachers, to anyone he could ask without giving too much away—keeping your privacy close to his chest.

The night before he visited you, Deuce rehearsed what he wanted to say again and again, pacing in the dark and muttering under his breath until Ace hurled a pillow at him from across the room.

"Shut up and sleep, man. You sound like a broken record. It'll be... fine." Ace didn't sound too convinced either.

When Deuce finally got the nerve to reach out, the first thing he did was apologize. And he meant every word.

He apologized for every comment, every moment of ignorance, every time you might have walked away from him feeling a little more alone. He apologized for not noticing sooner, for not being someone you felt you could come to, for hesitating when he should've come running.

And when things settled down—when the world stopped spinning and the mirror wasn't looming over everything—Deuce did what he always swore he would.

He tried to be your hero.

He even said it, a little too proudly, puffing his chest out with a goofy grin.

Ace snorted in the background, pointing and laughing about how lame that was, which only made Deuce turn bright pink and swat him away.

After graduating, Deuce dove headfirst into his dream of joining the elite magical enforcement division. The training was brutal, but he worked harder than anyone, landing part-time gigs with local authorities during college. Math class? Forget it. But law enforcement? He was a natural.

Since holding a legal and well-paying job wasn't exactly possible for someone who didn't officially exist, his mom offered you a place in her home. She insisted it was nothing, that you'd be helping her more than she was helping you.

And while Deuce was climbing the ranks, he was also... quietly working on something else.

He never told you. Didn't want you feeling guilty. But in between classes and protocols, Deuce spent any free time at the registry office, the records bureau, making connections with people in the system who knew how to make the impossible possible.

He asked the right questions. Found the best agents, shortest wait times, safest routes. It took him four years ever since graduation from NRC. Four years of people telling him no.

But he did it.

One afternoon, Deuce came home with a stack of paper in hand and a grin so bright it almost hurt to look at. He held the binder like it was made of gold and gently passed it to you.

Inside: documents. IDs. Certificates. A name that matches yours. A history that said you belonged.

He didn't say how hard it had been. Didn't say how many nights he stayed up calling in favors or redoing paperwork because one date was wrong. He just smiled like it was nothing.

When you had enough to move out, he made sure your new place was in a safe neighborhood. Somewhere quiet. Monitored by himself or coworkers he trusted.

And still, Deuce didn't stray far.

He visited weekly. Brought groceries. Checked your locks. Fixed the squeaky cabinet door that you kept forgetting to mention. He taught himself random handyman skills just so you wouldn't need to spend money on things he could do himself.

If anything broke, Deuce was your first call. Always.

Every now and then, while you were at work, you'd come home to find a new vase of flowers on your counter. No note. No explanation. But you knew—remembered what Dilla always says:

"If you care about someone, you give them flowers. Everyone likes flowers.

Holidays at the Spade home became tradition. Dilla hosted with her usual warmth, but you noticed the way her eyes lingered when she watched you and Deuce. How she'd lean in to whisper to her friends with that little smirk of hers, clearly plotting.

She knew.

She knew from the first time Deuce called home to tell her all about his first week and his new friends, and it was solidified when he called crying, asking for advice, scared out of his mind because he thought he'd lose you. She knew then that you were someone irreplaceable to her son.

So there were always plenty games with opportunities for you two to get closer.

One evening, long after you'd move out, you heard footsteps outside your door. Familiar pacing. Muted mumbling—rehearsals. Then a knock.

When you opened the door, Deuce was there with a shy smile and an arm full of groceries—a familiar, soothing sight.

When your face lit up and you invited him in, the script he'd rehearsed was lost immediately.

He stood there for a second, watching you sort groceries away like he'd forgotten how to speak.

"I like this," he said softly. "This life—with you in it. Let's keep doing this. Forever."

It didn't take long before he realized how that sounded—way too much like a proposal—his eyes went wide and he panicked.

"I—uh—bathroom. Sorry—hold on—!"

He turned to escape, bumping into a chair and heading in the direction of your bathroom. But he wasn't thinking straight, instead locking himself in the closet.

Instead of exiting and facing you again, Deuce resigned himself into pretending the closet was certainly the bathroom and remained in there for two minutes.

Leona

Anger. That's all Leona felt when you finally told him—everything.

All the secrets, all the pain, all the betrayals you had carried in silence. It hit him like a punch to the gut. He wanted to yell, to demand why you hadn't told him sooner. Weren't you two close? He thought you were. He believed you were.

But then he saw your face.

The anger cracked and faltered. That look—defeated, hopeless, like your future barely extended beyond the next breath—it froze him. Words that had been bubbling up, heated and venomous, died before they could leave his tongue. He bit them back, knowing they weren't true. Knowing they'd only cause more damage.

And when the fury ebbed, guilt settled in like a riptide. Cold, unrelenting. It dragged him under the weight of forgotten moments—dismissive words, avoided emotions, a wall built to protect himself that might've been the thing that pushed you away.

Leona couldn't face it. Couldn't face you.

For a while, he pretended none of it had happened. That you didn't exist. That the crack in his carefully constructed world hadn't appeared.

He swung between silence and frustration, indifference and sudden closeness. His moods flipped so frequently you didn't know what version of him would walk through the door—a soft, quiet shadow of the Leona you knew, or the usual irritable beast barely holding himself together.

Just like everything else in his life—complicated, heavy, always out of reach.

He tried once. Just once. In his own quiet, cryptic way, he suggested that if things ever blew over—if you ever decided to stay—the Sunset Savanna would welcome you. He would welcome you.

But you hadn't answered right away.

Leona understood rationally, but emotionally it still stung. So he shut down again, folding himself back into his cold walls and endless naps. Sleeping more than ever, even though rest never came easy.

And when sleep did come, it was cruel.

His dreams were filled with scenes of you that felt painfully real—buying an extra snack, setting it aside for you and waiting like luring out a mouse. Waiting. Always waiting. But you never showed up. In those dreams, you were already gone.

Those had jolted him awake in a cold sweat.

And for once, he was grateful for the nightmare. Because it reminded him of the date. The time. You were leaving—today. In just thirty minutes.

Leona had never moved faster in his life.

He shoved through the crowd, all elegance and composure stripped away by desperation. Gone was the lazy prince. In his place: a man running out of time.

"Get down here!" he shouted, voice ragged, rough. He didn't care who heard. Didn't care how pathetic or needy he looked. For once, pride didn't matter—not it it meant losing you.

And this time—this time—it wasn't too late.

He'd been wrong to think it was another situation he couldn't fix. That this was just another thing predetermined to slip through his fingers.

But you weren't gone. You were right there. And when you crumpled into his arms, he caught you with the exhaustion of someone who hadn't truly slept in weeks.

"Don't ever do that again." he breathed, the words muffled against your neck.

Leona pulled strings afterwards.

Royal ones. Powerful ones.

The kind of favors that made officials fall silent the moment his name was spoken. Falena, stunned to see his brother clinging so tightly to anything—anyone—intervened, and whatever red tape existed was cleared overnight.

Time passed. The chaos dulled. But something lingered—something unspoken, fragile. Like walking barefoot on glass, or breathing air laced with hidden blades.

Leona never said it out loud. Never called it what it was. But he was yours. Entirely yours.

As he once hinted—half promise, half plea—the Sunset Savanna welcomed you with open arms. Your new home was suspiciously affordable and entirely issue-free. Too good to be true.

And then you learned why.

It had already been paid for, courtesy of one very bratty lion who refused to acknowledge it. You never got bills. No letters. Nothing.

You might've protested more if the man funding your lifestyle didn't already spend most of his time in your house.

"It's closer to work," he'd grumble.

It wasn't. His commute from his own home was a mere three minutes longer.

You grew close in that quiet, unspoken way. Words left unsaid, but already heard. He didn't admit how much your presence soothed him, but you could tell in the way he made space for you—space no one else had ever been invited to.

It wasn't a romance. Not exactly. But sometimes, it felt like one.

Mornings were shared silently—Leona already awake, running a hand through wild hair as he set out two breakfasts. You ate without fanfare, peaceful. You fixed his collar before he left, catching the way his ears drooped, the softened gleam in his eyes.

After graduation, Leona had become a royal advisor—a strategist and a diplomat. He hated politics, but he was good at it.

Knowing how intense his work had become, you tried to give him space. Tried not to hover, to let him breathe.

You didn't notice the tiny pout he wore every time you passed him in the royal halls with nothing but a nod. Or how his tail lashed behind him, smacking his poor assistant in irritation.

To counter this, said assistant had taken to buying an extra drink on coffee runs—one you liked—and placing it silently on his desk.

Leona would scoff. Grumble. Swat her away but thank her nonetheless.

But he didn't move the cup. He left it out like bait for a certain mouse he wanted to catch. Waiting. Hoping.

The game of cat and mouse grew exhausting and this cat hated waiting. Hated this distance between you two that was so small. But not small enough.

Leona had learned to go after what he wanted. And maybe—just maybe—you were something attainable as well.

One day, he followed you down the hallway in heavy silence. A full minute of nothing but soft footsteps. Then—he reached out. Tugged your sleeve gently, like a cat testing its luck. Leona's ears were pinned back, eyes narrowed with impatience.

"I'm tired of this," he muttered, almost a growl, but he wouldn't meet your eyes. "Come home tonight—my home. I... have something for you. Probably. Just—come over."

And before you could say anything, before the words could register—he spun on his heel and stormed off, fast enough to hide the flush blooming across his cheeks and back of the neck.

Ruggie

Ruggie knew the moment he saw it—the moment that thing spoke to you in the woods, and you snapped.

You attacked him. And still, he didn't leave.

Despite the pain, the fear in his bones, the shock of betrayal—he stayed. Like a loyal dog. Like someone trained, conditioned on your presence.

Because no one understood desperation better than Ruggie Bucchi. Not the kind that carves you hollow and turns your heart into a survival instinct.

He recognized the look in your eyes instantly: fear, heartbreak, guilt, and something far worse—desperation. It hit him like a punch, and it was the only reason he said nothing. He just got his wounds treated in silence. Quietly. Stoically.

Then he went to work.

He didn't think of himself as especially smart—his grades were average and his study habits were barely functional while juggling jobs. But when Ruggie wanted—needed—to learn something, he did. He'd scrape and claw until he knew every answer, every workaround. He became relentless.

The only problem was... there were no answers. No documented care of what had happened to you. No framework, no warning signs, nothing he could reference to make it make sense.

So he pivoted.

He focused on what he could control: the future.

So far, there was no news, no sign, no hope that you could return to your original world. Which meant one thing—you'd be staying. And Ruggie? Ruggie started planning around that.

When the truth came out—when the word spread what you were, what you had done—he wasn't surprised. By the time it reached his ears, he only offered a tired little smile and a nod.

Of course.

He'd seen that look before. In Leona's eyes. In every overblot victim he'd witnessed. That flicker of chaos right before everything fell apart. It was a solemn kind of acceptance. He couldn't fight the Blot. But he could help you rebuild from it.

When the dust settled, Ruggie threw himself into helping you find your footing again. He didn't know why he was so sure, but deep down, he believed you'd stay—even if a way home was found. He called it a hunch, but it felt more like a gut-deep certainty.

So, when the day of the decision came, he was there. In the crowd. Watching you with his heart pounding in his throat.

And when your eyes locked with his—when you moved toward him—he didn't wait to be sure. He ran. Even if he'd already convinced himself of your choice, he still ran. Just in case. Just to know.

You reached for him first.

There was a guilt in your voice when you spoke, a sorrow that clung to you like god. You apologized again and again for what happened. For attacking him when all he'd done was poke holes in your story. For unraveling you without realizing it.

He flinched at the little contact, old instincts flaring, but the fear didn't stick. Not when he looked at you and saw past it. Past the Blot. Past the trauma. To you—the real you. The one that had been alone and afraid in this world for far too long. The person he'd grown to care for in a dozen tiny, ordinary moments during long, exhausting shifts.

And then Ruggie did when Ruggie does best—he handled it.

He forged documents.

Because, let's be honest, legal bureaucracy is expensive and stupid and he did not have time or money for all that noise.

He learned some tricks. Picked up a few skills. Bent some rules so cleanly is was almost elegant. And suddenly—poof!—you were a legal citizen. Kinda. As long as nobody looked too closely.

He walked you through it like it was just another shady alley in a bad neighborhood. He knew which hands to shake, which landlords didn't ask questions, who to bribe and who to befriend.

He vouched for you. Put his own name on the line. Built an entire paper life for you before the real system caught up.

Ruggie wasn't a noble. He wasn't a high-tier mage. But he knew people. And more importantly, he knew you needed time to heal. That something like this didn't leave people stronger right away. Sometimes, it left them broken and brittle, and in need of someone who could carry the weight for a while.

So he did.

Years passed.

Careers were chosen. Dreams followed.

Ruggie could've chased big money is he wanted to—gods knew he dreamed of it. But something else tugged at him: his talent with kids, his way with the overlooked, the struggling.

He became a teacher.

An elementary school in the slums took him in. It was barely standing, underfunded, falling apart—but Ruggie didn't let it stay that way. He harassed Leona into helping, twisted the right arms, and used the legal finesse he'd gained from helping you to secure grants. A few years later, the school had a new building and shiny new resources.

He had a real paycheck. A real roof. And best of all, a sense of peace.

In seven years, what had happened between you faded into something like a joke. A painful one, sometimes—but one told with a fond smile.

Though you do occasionally catch him glaring at the Blot ring.

In the staff lounge, you're rinsing mugs. Yours and Ruggie's match—oddly shaped with messy lettering and hand-painted patterns that don't quite line up. It was made by one of the kids and he guards it like a treasure. You once joked he'd kill a man if it chipped. He didn't deny it.

Ruggie leans back in his chair, eyes shut.

"We should go camping again," he says suddenly. "Remember that weird leaf we ate?"

You groan. "Why was your first instinct to eat it instead of, I don't know, using your phone to identify it? I was sick all weekend. I ruined the trip."

The scrape of his chair was the only warning you got before he's behind you, arms draped lazily over your shoulders, chin resting atop your head.

"I think it was a great trip," he murmurs, voice quiet, warm. "You clung to me in the tent all night for warmth."

You swat him away, shoving the mug into his hand, rolling your eyes.

This is why the kids think you're dating. It's their favorite drama—watching their teacher and teacher's aide act like a romcom.

The way he fixes your collar without a word. The way you pluck stray glitter from his hair during craft time. The way your paper flower offerings and beaded friendship bracelets feel like something more.

One rainy afternoon, Ruggie walks you home. The sidewalk is slick and shining, streetlights haloed in mist.

He's carrying a tiny umbrella—barely wide enough for both of you. Drops run off the edges and soak his shoulder, but he doesn't mind.

He looks down at your hands, gaze catching on two rings. One is that cursed Blot ring—the symbol of everything you survived. The other is different.

It's a flower ring. Handmade. Crooked and childlike, gifted during recess by Ruggie himself with the pomp of a knight bestowing a crowd and a fleet of little girls gushing around you both.

And you're still wearing it. On your right ring finger.

His tail twitches, mouth lifting slightly. Maybe... maybe in due time it'll be real.

Jack

Finding out his friend had died last winter certainly wasn't on Jack's summer checklist. But grief never cared about timing, did it? While others distanced themselves to nurse wounds in silence, Jack didn't flinch. He stayed close—stubbornly loyal, solid as ever. Not one whisper of disrespect passed around you without his glare silencing it. Not a single look was cast without him standing between it and you like a guard dog with bristling fur.

You had earned his respect long ago in a way that no one else had. You didn't just endure it—you persisted. Wounded and changed, maybe, but never shattered. And in Jack's eyes, you had never looked stronger than you did in those moments when it would've made perfect sense to crumble, yet you stood your ground. That kind of resilience was rare. Sacred, even.

He never smothered. He was simply there—near enough that you could always find him, but never so close that you couldn't breathe. A presence, not a pressure.

Of course, Jack was grieving, too. Quietly, deeply. But it wasn't about him right now. He didn't know exactly what you were feeling—couldn't tell if it was fear, rage, sorrow. That uncertainty ate at him. Jack hated not understanding, not knowing how to help. That was the hardest part.

Still, when the offer came for you to return to your own world, He was... happy for you. Genuinely. It opened his eyes to how harsh this world had been for you and the others. Maybe leaving was the right thing. Maybe it was finally time. You deserved rest. You'd done so well already.

He watched everyone else depart, one after another. Tall and still, waving them off with a quiet pride. He told himself he'd do the same for you.

But when it was your turn, and you paused—scanning the crowd, eyes flicking like a compass searching for true north—Jack's tail betrayed him. A hopeful little wag. He hadn't expected that.

And when your eyes found him—when you actually sought him out—he stepped forward before he could think, a big, goofy grin on his face. You weren't alone. Not then. Not ever.

You stayed.

Jack couldn't make your paperwork disappear or navigate bureaucracy, but he could do the next best thing—stand beside you through all of it. He helped you build a home with his own hands, sourced furniture, knocked on doors, introduced you to people who mattered. He accompanied you to every inspection and official visit, never letting you face a room full of strangers alone.

You and Jack built a life not on grand declarations, but quiet consistency. His was a love spoken on footfalls—always at your side, always keeping pace. You went on walks when time allowed, and he always seemed to have a gap in his schedule that just so happened to match yours.

He never let you fall behind. Not on the path, not life.

You worried, once, that maybe you were slowing him down too. That your pace wasn't fast enough for someone like him. But Jack only shook his head, quiet and patient. "It's not slowing down," he'd said. "It's making sure we walk together."

And as soothing as his soft words were, you had a feeling that it didn't apply to occasional walks along a familiar path—but in life as well.

And when you told him you wanted to grow more independent—that you wanted to learn how to stand on your own—he respected that. He stepped back. But not too far. Never too far. He'd always be waiting nearby, just in case you stumbled. Just in case he needed to help you up and hold you.

You had a feeling he still felt guilty for never noticing before—like he was trying to pay you back in some way.

At local festivals in the Shaftlands, Jack positioned himself between you and the busy street, between you and a crowd of strangers. It was muscle memory now—part of how he existed. But when your hand gently closed around his, grounding him, reminding him to live in the moment and stop regretting the past, he'd pause. He'd smile. The tension would ease and Jack's tail would wag subtly.

"What should we do?" he's ask, dipping his head to hear you above the din, voice low and earnest.

The two of you were opposites, yet perfectly in sync—two halves of a rhythm that kept the other steady. A sense of calm always lingered between you two and you felt you belonged.

One day, he handed you a small wooden wolf. Carved with care. A little uneven, maybe, but unmistakably made with intention.

"For protection," Jack said, scratching the back of his neck. "Not like you'd need it. But still. Even lone wolves need their pack."

He knew you weren't weak. You never had been. But worry wasn't about weakness—it was about love.

And Jack? He had once overlooked you. You would never let that happen again.

(literally shaking. I had to write the wolf line. sobbing actually)

Azul

Azul had heard it from Jade. The calmer twin—at least in appearance—offered him a tight-lipped smiles that barely held together at the corners. His eyes, however, betrayed him, darting anywhere but toward Azul's. Whatever words were spoken next blurred into a haze. Azul couldn't recall them—couldn't even remember leaving that conversation. All he knew was that when his mind finally clawed its way back into focus, his face was already wet with tears.

Pain sharpened behind his eyes like needles, and his skull throbbed with each heartbeat.

The crash of waves against jagged stone startled him into awareness. The ocean. Of course.

He hadn't stepped into the surf—hadn't dared. He merely sat in the sand, just at the edge of its reach, shoes long discarded, trousers dampened. The night sky stretched out above him, ink-dark and choked with clouds, swallowing every star. No constellations to guide him. No wishes to whisper to the heavens. Only the rhythmic, indifferent roar of the tide.

Azul stared into the void, not searching for answers—he doubted there were any—but quietly, desperately, hoping the sea might shoulder the burden of his questions and carry them away.

This was beyond him.

Could he write a contract to contain the Blot? That much was plausible. He had bested worse in ink and clause. But you—you were the complication. The Blot sustained you now. It kept your warm smile, your pulse steady, your eyes alight with something he couldn't name. And the thought of crafting a deal that might unravel you in the process?

He refused to imagine it.

No negotiation, no clever clause, no legally binding trick could free you without cost. The laws he'd mastered faltered before a power still cloaked in mystery. And when he asked—softly, hopefully—if you could simply end the pact, your expression fractures. You hesitated. Something unspoken flickered in your eyes, some silent truth you were unwilling or unable to voice.

And Azul realized, with a sick twist in his gut, that maybe—maybe—in all their neglect and abuse, you'd grown attached. Found comfort in a creature born from despair. Let it wrap itself around your loneliness until it felt like home.

The thought hollowed him out.

He understood then, or thought he did. Of course you'd want to leave—of course you'd want to be rid of all this. Of him. What had he ever done for you, really, other than hurt you in the ways that counted?

And yet... you stayed.

Why?

Azul's first question was sharp and brittle, whispered into the wind: Why me? Why choose him—why remain by his side?

Was it vengeance? A long, slow plan to make him feel the way you once did?

And yet, even with that fear twisting through him, he still held you like you might dissolve into seafoam in his arms—fingers trembling, glasses askew, breath shuddering as if holding you together took everything he had.

He asked the question again and again, each time more uncertain, more raw. His gaze lingered on you, half-afraid to see the answer in your face. He was always a breath away from fleeing—from you, from himself. But instead, he clung, desperate and undignified.

Like an octopus, he thought grimly. How fitting.

For the first nights after your decision to stay, the twins kept an eye on you—discreet but constant. You slept in Azul's bed, tucked beneath crisp sheets while he took the floor with the tweels, pretending not to hear Floyd's complaints.

When you began to fret about life beyond graduation—where you would go, who you would become—Azul responded with vague platitudes and averted eyes.

"You're quite resourceful," he murmured, the words stiff on his tongue. "I'm sure you'll figure it out."

But Azul was already working. Quietly, obsessively.

The moment he graduated from NRC, he made you his focus. While the world thought he was expanding the Mostro Lounge and climbing the business ladder, he was also building something invisible: you.

He forged a flawless identity for you—legal, untraceable, foolproof. Crafted through intricate contracts, bureaucratic slight-of-hand, and only a modest amount of moral compromise. You were now a citizen under a clause so obscure not even the authorities fully understood it. Neither did you.

Mostro Lounge became just another cog in a much larger machine. Azul's empire expanded rapidly, subtly. He invested, acquired, and monopolized until his name was threaded through industries beyond hospitality. He climbed to circles no one expected him to reach.

And in seven years time, he still flushed whenever your hand brushed his.

He flirted with deniability, wrapped his longing in professionalism and paperwork. He summoned you to meetings about nothing, claimed he "required your input" on decisions he already made. He wanted to see you. That was all.

You, in turn, baffled and impressed him. Your boldness, your ingenuity, your endless refusal to be impressed by him. It drew him in, over and over.

You had become his assistant, on paper. A transactional arrangement, he insisted. "Good business," he said with a straight face. "You're a long-term investment."

And then you'd hit him on the back of the head and call him out for skipping meals. You dragged him away from his desk when he forgot to sleep. You brought him fried chicken and threatened to force-feed him if he didn't eat.

One day, he called you to his office under the pretense of reviewing documents.

He looked every bit the businessman—sharp suit, confident smile, pen in hand as he passed you a crisp three-page document.

"Contract of Mutual Existence," you read flatly, eyes narrowing as you scanned it. You'd gotten food at catching hidden clauses and double meanings. Too good, he often joked. Half irritated.

Azul leaned back with a satisfied sigh. "No fine print this time."

You looked up slowly, raising the paper with a quirked brow. "Azul. This reads like a very elaborate, legally-sound marriage contract."

He smiled. His entire face on fire. "Does it? How peculiar," he said, voice a touch too high. It was the third one this month.

When Azul returned to the sea to inspect his underwater ventures, you stayed near your home along the shoreline. Each time he missed you, and business didn't anchor him too tightly, he sent bottles. Glass vessels sealed with wax, each holding a neatly penned letter in his distinct hand. Always unsigned. Always thoughtful.

On the surface, they were about schedules, logistics, occasional reminders.

But between the lines?

He missed you.

One day, you responded—not with the business points, but to the emotion laced beneath them. You answered with warmth, humor, vulnerability.

The next bottle came the following foggy morning.

It scolded you for "ignoring the primary intent" of his last message. But the writing was rushed—the loops in his letters too wide, his i's undotted. You knew he'd scribbled it in a fluster.

"If you truly wished to speak about such trivial things," he wrote at the end, "I suppose I'll indulge you."

An invitation. A plea. A hope he still wasn't ready to name.

Jade

Look at you—so stubborn, so resilient, refusing to wilt no matter the odds. It was something Jade found truly admirable, even if he'd never say so directly. You headstrong nature could amuse him endlessly, or at time, vex him just enough when you made it difficult for him to get what he wanted.

When you needed to vanish, Jade was the one who made it happen. And when the time came, he was also the one who helped you reemerge. With a few murmured words and a thousand carefully calculated steps, he blurred your records, filed false trials, and spun a whole new identity out of the air, all with that pleasant, unreadable smile. He knew exactly what officials to approach. He whispered your name in all the with ears, leaned in with that dangerous charm, and let people come to the conclusions he wanted without having to utter a single direct threat.

He had even offered—so casually—to forge an identity for you "purely for archival balance." You had declined. He made one anyway, tucking it away where only he could reach it, just in case.

You still don't know how he pulled it off, where all those slippery ties and unseen connections stemmed from. Every time you asked, Jade only offered his usual signature: a hand pressed lightly against his chest, a polite tilt of his head, and a slow, feline smile.

"I'm truly wounded that you underestimate my importance in this world," he'd purr, with all the fake hurt of cat caught stealing cream.

And you, as always, would retort without missing a beat: "You won't even tell me what your importance is."

You didn't know much about Jade. Not really. Even after seven years, he remained a mystery wrapped in silk and half-smiles. When you pressed for more, his teasing gleam softened into something almost tender—and then he would simply steer the conversation away.

The truth is, Jade would love to tell you everything. He truly would. But Jade leech is not the type to give his entire hand to anyone, not even you—not yet. Choosing someone, letting someone in deeply enough to hold real power over him—that was a rather frightening though. Even for him.

Maybe he couldn't have you at his side just yet. But he was preparing. Working, planning, weaving something intricate beneath the surface. He never asked for a promise, a confirmation that you could stay—because he already had it.

You had chosen when you crashed into him that day, your "final day," clinging to him with desperate hands like he might slip away if you let go.

And for once, Jade hadn't slipped free. No sly remarks, no deflections. Just the honest, bewildering joy of being chosen.

You never told him the truth—that all his whispered half-truths, his careful gestures, his subtle manipulations hadn't swayed you—not really. It was the simple fact that he had tried—the image of Jade Leech, one of the most composed students of NRC, looking genuinely stricken at the thought of losing you—that had cracked something open inside.

Jade remains a mystery even now, but his fondness has becomes familiar, a quiet undercurrent in your life. Each month, without fail, he checks in—with tea, with oddly specifics gifts, with little slices of wisdom tucked between the ordinary. He's become a constant, like the tides or the moon.

Jade exists somewhere between affection and curiosity, treating your presence as something sacred—and slightly dangerous. He remembered everything: how you take your tea, which flowers make you sneeze, which stories from your home leave you aching.

And despite all his smooth composure, there are cracks you've glimpsed.

When you saved up for months to buy him new shoes for his eighteenth birthday—after spilling soda on his old ones—you witnessed something rare. His face barely moved, just the smallest twitch at the corner of his mouth, but his entire face flushed deep crimson.

He's never worn those shoes. Of course not.

You hadn't known then, but gifting shoes to a merfolk was no small gesture—it was a quiet plea, a proposal to leave the sea behind and stay. And though Jade would have gladly accepted, he is a calculating creature. If he was going to live on land with you, he would do it on his terms—with power, influence, luxury. He's still preparing, so he implores you to wait.

You don't get to see him often. Jade vanishes overseas, pursuing business ventures he refuses to explain. No matter how tightly you try to hold him, he always slips away.

But he never forgets you.

Polished envelopes arrive from around the world, each neatly penned with his sharp, deliberate handwriting. Inside are small polaroids of curious places, buttons collected from foreign markets, dried flowers pressed between color-coordinated paint swatches. Every letter is an art piece—so carefully crafted, so unmistakably Jade—and each one ends with something that reminded him of you.

No matter where he goes, Jade always finds his way back to your seaside home.

Usually during storms, you've noticed.

He arrives soaked with rain and salt spray, peeling off his damp coat without ceremony, wandering into your kitchen as if he's never left. He keeps his favorite things here—his rare teas, his terrariums, his little trinkets too precious to lose to the tides—and of course you. He walks the halls like a man belonging to the space as surely as the wind and the sea.

"This house," Jade says one night, voice soft and low, "feels like you."

While he showers in the room unofficially reserved for him, you find yourself putting away his belongings, moving through familiar motions. Among his things, you discover a dried flower poking out from a well-loved leather journal—the same kind you once offhandedly complimented—pressed neatly between the pages of his notes. It's dated the day you chose to stay.

There are more notes alongside it: meticulous recollections of your favorite things, plans for the future, some crossed out, some left gleaming and untouched, waiting to bloom.

Jade will never forget the hollow pit of fear he felt the summer of his second year, when he learned you died. When he saw the loneliness you tried so hard to hide.

The memory of your face that day—the way your mask cracked—is seared into him.

And Jade swore, with all the weight of his scheming heart, that he would never let you look that way again.

Floyd

You're cruel, smiling at him that way—charming and bright, like fireworks blooming behind his ribs—and it just makes Floyd all the more glad he climbed through the roof of the Mirror Chamber when he saw you hesitate, saw you scanning the crowd for him once, twice, even pausing to gesture helplessly at Jade.

He could never forget the feeling of it—sprinting forward, scooping you right off your feet, and just running—until the mirror was a distant memory and the only thing around was quiet grass and open sky. He only stopped when he was sure you were safe, setting you down so gently it hurt, then flopping backward into the grass with a breathless grunt.

Floyd laid there, silent for a long moment, staring up at the stars with a wide, slack grin—like he was thanking each and every one he'd ever wished on. Finally, he turned to you, lazy and loose, his downturned eyes gleaming almost too bright.

"You were gonna stay, yeah?" he asked, voice hoarse, barely above a whisper.

And when you nodded, he laughed—breathy, cracked—and dropped his arm over his eyes like he could hide the way his whole body shook with it. "Good. That's good..." His voice splintered halfway though, raw and genuine. "I'm so happy."

The day he got the news from Jade, something nasty and cold twisted inside him. His usual grin had slipped, just for a second—a flash of raw panic—before he pasted it back together with something jagged and mean.

Underneath it all, he was terrified that day.

Somewhere deep down, Floyd had decided it would be easier to shove you away before fate could rip you out of his hands. Because if you died... he wouldn't just cry—he'd shatter. He'd wreck everything he touched, sobbing and screaming until he puked, until he couldn't tell which way was up anymore. Part of him wanted to grab you right then and there, crush you against his chest and never let go. But another, meaner part whispered maybe it would be kinder to let you go first—before he had to to watch you disappear.

That night, Floyd clung to you like a barnacle, breathing frantic, half-laughing, half-sobbing apologies into the fabric of your shirt once all the adrenaline had faded. Promising you outings, stupid gifts, anything he could think of if it meant you'd really stay. His heart thundered against you like he thought you might evaporate if he loosened his grip even a little.

And as the years passed, Floyd stayed Floyd—only sharper. His boyish features grew leaner, more cunning. That devil-may-care smirk getting more dangerous with time.

You never found out exactly what Floyd said to the officials handling your case. But you caught the little things—the way he tucked a strand of teal and black behind his ear, the way his grin sharpened, the way his eyes, usually so lazy, narrowed in lethal amusement.

He whispered something sweetly, too sweet—and though the words floated like a joke, the promise beneath them was real. It wasn't a threat—it was a confession. A crime not committed yet, but promised all the same.

Whatever Floyd tangled himself up in after that, it paid. Well. Enough that he could buy you anything without blinking, still trying to make good on that desperate promise he made when he was younger: to keep you here, with him.

Sometimes, a call would come through—he'd answer it with a casual, sing-song, "Yo, what's up?" but you'd see how his whole body stiffened, how his gaze sharpened and darted to you. If you were close enough, he'd make sure the person on the other end knew: "Shrimpy's with me." His tone just dark enough to be a warning.

Whatever came next was in code you weren't meant to understand.

Then he'd be gone—sometimes days, sometimes longer.

You never pressed. Whatever Floyd's gotten himself into, he kept you shielded from it. He could play the fool all he wanted—but you weren't blind. Floyd was sharp. Too sharp.

Yet no matter how far he drifted, no matter how long he was gone, he always found his way back. melting into your arms the second you opened the door, whining about "boring meetings" and "stupid people" while you plopped a juice box in his hand and made him sit down.

Dangerous or not, Floyd still threw on that ridiculous pink frilly apron you got him as a joke, still danced around the kitchen beside you, tossing food into pots while you caught up like nothing had changed at all.

And sometimes—when he thought you weren't looking—he'd watch you. Like you hung every star in the sky just for him.

One night, lying on the roof of an abandoned building he'd found, Floyd pointed at the stars and named them lazily—Hubert, Spaghetti, Dum-dum. And then, softer, more serious, he'd tell you the real names and lore around the stars.

"That one's you," he said once, deadpan and refusing to elaborate.

Later that night, after he passed out on your couch—arms and legs draped across you like a lazy octopus—you searched it up, curious.

And sure enough, he'd bought you a star. Named it after you.

The description was simple: "The Way Home"

The brightest star available, always visible directly above the surface of the ocean by his house. If he swam up and followed it, it would lead him straight back to you.

Right back home.

Kalim

Kalim lay beside you in the small cabin that night, eyes burning, cheeks streaked with tears. His gaze was faraway, lost, staring quietly as you slept. You barely moved—your breathing so shallow it was almost impossible to hear—and your skin was cold where he gently grazed it. That scared him most of all.

He understood what had happened. He was smart enough to piece it together.

And that was the worst part.

Kalim understood. But he also didn't.

He couldn't understand how he, of all people, could've let you slip through the cracks. How he could have left you so neglected, so alone. Yet when he tried to recall certain memories of you from that winter... there was only a haze.

Without thinking, Kalim shifted closer—not too close, not in any way that could frighten or hurt you. Just enough to try and share his warmth, to lend you some of the fire inside him. He cradled you carefully, like a storm-torn flower he could somehow nurse back to life. In his heart, he made a quiet promise: he'd plant you somewhere safe. Somewhere warm. Somewhere you could bloom again, untouched by harm.

All you had to do was say the word. Ask for help—and he'd give you everything he had.

You might've expected him to spiral. And he did, in a way. Kalim cried himself hoarse most nights, and what little sleep he caught was fitful and shallow. But whenever you were awake, whenever you were near, he smiled brighter than ever—like he could will his happiness into you, like his laughter could heal the pieces too broken to reach on his own.

The night you chose Kalim over returning home, he could hardly believe it. He asked again and again if you were sure—if you really wanted him. Even through the lens of his cheerfulness, Kalim had eyes. He had ears. He knew there were so many others better suited, steadier, stronger.

And still, you stayed.

When you insisted—when you smiled and said you'd rather stay here, with him—Kalim made it home and cried until he was sick. but they were tears of disbelief, of wonder. Because somehow, against all odds, you picked him.

That night, a deep, steady guilt sank into him. If you were staying because of him, then your future was his responsibility now too.

Much to Jamil's quiet astonishment, Kalim changed. The parties still came, but Kalim started slipping away from them early—or abstaining altogether. He buried himself in studies, preparing for the future he wanted to built. You weren't a pet. You weren't a trophy. You were a person. Someone he loved. Someone who trusted him.

When he finally came of age, Kalim moved fast. Through his family's endless wealth and influence, he arranged for your housing, your paperwork, even set aside funds for education if you wanted to pursue it. NRC graduation already glimmered on your new record like a star. He threw a few grand parties—not for himself, but for you—to settle you into his world, to make it clear that you were someone treasured. Not to be trifled with.

It was dangerous, he knew. Flaunting the things he loved most. but Kalim would rather face that danger head-on than let you slip into neglect again.

He grew up fast after that. Head of the Al-Asim family, he became a force in foreign affairs, trade, philanthropy. His name carried real weight now. But no matter how many lavish homes he owned, no matter where he went, Kalim's feet always led him back to you.

The night you gave him a spare key, he clutched it like it was spun sugar, not gold. "You can always hide here," you said. "Even if I'm not home." You welcomed him without expectation. Without conditions. That quiet acceptance made his heart soar in a way nothing else could.

And so he came. Tired, worn from travel, arms full of souvenirs or letters or rare fruits. Straight to your doorstep. Straight to you.

He never mentioned it aloud, but in the desert heat, your cooler body was the sweetest comfort. He'd just smile and pull you into a hug, drinking in your calmness.

He never stopped checking in. Never stopped texting—morning, night, tracking time zones like a second language just so he could reach you at the right moments. His letters, messy with stickers and doodles, stacked up neatly somewhere safe in your living room. He kept sending them, even if he'd leave a country before you could reply. It didn't matter. What mattered was that you knew he was thinking of you. Always.

Every year, on the anniversary of the night you chose to stay, Kalim threw a festival in your honor. Everything crafted to your tastes—the food, the colors, the music. Even as an adult, when you asked him if it was intentional, Kalim would look away, cheeks pink, and beam at you with that boyish, desperate kind of hope:

"Did I get it right? Do you like it?"

And when you told him it was perfect—how thoughtful it was—he'd shine so bright it hurt to look at him.

Later, when the crowds disappeared and the last of the music faded into memory, you would find yourselves dancing at twilight. No cameras, no guests. Just you, and Kalim. His hands hovered close to your waist but never touched. Not until you gave him explicit permission.

As open as Kalim was with his feelings, he'd wait. As long as it took. Until you chose him back, just as surely as you'd chosen to stay.

Jamil

Jamil resigned himself to being your anchor the night you chose to stay—when you flipped that invisible coin in your head and turned toward him instead.

He couldn't understand it. Couldn't rationalize it. And really, there wasn't a good reason.

He told you as much, voice clipped, heart hammering against his ribs like a bird desperate to fly free as he tried to push you back where you "belonged":

"No—you're just being anxious. Go home. You—you belong there. Where it's safe. Where you're happy."

You didn't belong here. Not in this world that had already bled you dry once before.

It stung to say it, but Jamil would never admit that. Would never confess how you felt like a lighthouse in the storm—how your calmness, your steady, gentle warmth, always seemed to guide him back when the fog closed in.

Jamil Viper, who carried the world on his shoulders like a single mother working three jobs, had found you in something he'd never known how to name: a kind of clarity. A reminder of parts of life he thought he'd buried years ago.

And even thinking that made him feel stupid.

Jamil hadn't been a king when you met him—he hadn't even offered the basic hospitality you deserved. Even when he did start to notice you, he was too much of a coward to treat you the way you deserved to be treated.

Jamil Viper was emotionally unavailable. No one knew that better than he did.

Reluctantly, he accepted your choice as fact. But not out of the love you might have hoped for. To him, it was another burden—another responsibility laid on his already breaking back. He didn't—couldn't—understand that you hadn't chosen him to carry you. You had chosen him to walk beside you.

But Jamil only knew how to carry. It was what he'd been trained for.

Years passed. He remained at Kalim's side, even as the boy grew into a more capable, more aware man. Still, he insisted on handling what he always had.

Just so you could have a place—any place—in this world, Kalim agreed to fold you into their work while your documents processed. An aide, like Jamil, but lighter. Less burdened.

Quietly, behind the scenes, Jamil carved paths for you. He taught you how to navigate the minefields of politics and power, coached you through delicate negotiations. Late nights spent bent over books and documents felt familiar—like those days back at NRC.

He stayed close. But careful. Always one step away. Never intruding. Never letting anyone else get too close. You'd seen it—how fiercely he defended you when people talked.

And yet, slowly, the distance between you grew, The quiet, domestic moments you used to share—the late-night chats, the casual mornings—faded away like smoke.

He wasn't blind. He caught every flicker of hurt that crossed your face when he pulled away.

You made him feel alive, yes. But he'd made a mistake. A devastating one he realized too late. He hadn't just made room for you in his life—he'd made you a part of the machinery he longed to escape.

You had become a tie to the Al-Asim household. And cutting that cord meant cutting you away too.

So he left. One day. Without a word.

He finally got permission, and he took it.

Jamil's room was left barren. His presence, which had once settled in the corners of your life like a quiet, comforting hum, was simply...gone.

No lingering scent of coffee and his shampoo or cologne.

No easy mornings, exchanging lazy conversation over sunbeams and sleepy smiles. No shared glances that caught the light and held it just a second too long.

It was like a street at night without drivers. All the lights still there, but no one left to see them.

The first night alone in his tiny new apartment, Jamil tried to savor it—the peace of solitude he'd craved for so long. And at first, it was soothing.

Until midnight came.

He wandered outside, some half-formed instinct steering him toward where you should have been—and when you weren't there, the absence hit him like a blow.

The loneliness he had fought for now felt hollow.

Jamil didn't sleep that night.

Instead, he remembered. Remembered the day he first saw you fall apart. How he had ignored the sharp pain in his chest. Pretended it wasn't real.

He hadn't been able to untangle you then. All he could do was try to smooth the edges of the knot. To make your days a little softer after all the ones that had broken you.

It wasn't duty. It wasn't obligation.

It was care.

It was a love, quiet and clumsy and too late to name.

Two days later, he broke. He didn't have to be at work for another three hours.

But he couldn't sit still. Couldn't endure one more morning without you.

The air was warm as he drove, windows down, heart pounding. And maybe—maybe—if he took the turns slow and missed the potholes, he'd catch a glimpse of you. A ghost still waiting in the passenger seat.

He found you, somehow. And before he could think better of it, the words were out:

"Those morning felt like a religion," he blurted. Voice raw, unguarded. His posture was slightly hunched, like he desperately wanted to curl into himself. "And I don't think you knew. But that's my fault for not telling you."

You stared at him, wide-eyed, trying to process this vulnerability never seen before.

Jamil swallowed hard. His voice, usually so measured, cracked slightly as he spoke again:

"I'm sorry—about a lot. For getting you tangled up in my old position. For leaving without a word."

Those storm-grey eyes, always so guarded, softened. Genuine. Regretful.

A look you thought you might never see from him.

"I need you," he said, low and hoarse. "Selfishly—but that's the man I am."

His hand curled into a fist at his side. "Don't let me walk out of your life again."

A ghost of a smile flickered at the corner of his mouth, almost too sad to be called one.

"Hit me next time I try. Pull my hair if I try to walk out—because clearly I'm not thinking straight."

Vil

It had been shocking—almost incomprehensible—to learn that someone like you, someone who shone so effortlessly, could have ever gone unnoticed. You lit up the environment around in the smallest, most invisible ways: a faint warmth in a cold room, a softening of the air when you smiled, a kind of presence that smoothed the world around you without even trying.

And yet, you had died before he ever met you. Both in spirit—and once, horrifyingly, in body.

The thought of it stung more than Vil cared to admit. What had you been like before that? Back in your own world, before the weight of it all? Were you brighter then? Happier? Did you laugh more, shine more openly, without that delicate hesitation in your eyes?

He would never know. And maybe it didn't matter anyway.

You were here now—lovely still, even though you were damaged. Beautiful not in spite of your hurt, but because of them.

When you first explained the truth to him, voice shaking, eyes darting like a wounded animal expecting to be punished, Vil had remained cold, still as a marble statue. Not cold toward you, no—but he had retreated inward, retreading deep into his mind where he could turn over every memory, every subtle expression he'd seen on your face and missed the meaning of until now.

The idea that you had suffered alone—that you had broken quietly while the world looked away—was something he couldn't tolerate. Wouldn't tolerate.

The next morning, he came to wake you himself, gently brushing your hair from your face. You blinked blearily up at him, and the instant you noticed the dark marks under his eyes, guilt flared bright and ugly across your features, rearing its head and biting down hard.

His lips pressed into a thin line, his expression tightening with something closer to anger.

"No," Vil said firmly, the syllable slicing through the guilt before it could gnaw down to marrow. "We are not doing that. From this day forward, you're not going to live like you're waiting to break again. I don't care what the universe thinks it has in store."

His voice was stern—uncompromising—but there was a heat behind it, a furious kind of encouragement that only someone like Vil could offer.

It was clear in his tone: you had no choice. You are going to get better.

It was moments like these when Vil's tenacity blazed through, unrelenting and bright, like a floodlight tearing apart the fog. Not cruelty. Rescue.

When news eventually reached him that the Mirror had found a way back home for Ramshackle—and for you—Vil had paused. The thought of you leaving, returning to a life he'd never gotten the chance to see, made a low ache settle in his chest. He thought about the memories you had built here, the things he still wanted to show you, the futures he had half-imagined where you remained close by.

But Vil was not selfish. Or at least—he tried not to be.

So he smiled, and dressed you and the Yuus in their finest, styling every detail to perfection to send you back in a blaze of glory. His hands lingered for a second longer than necessary when they brushed your cheek, and his violet eyes softened with a rare, unguarded tenderness.

"What do you think you'll do first when you get home?" he asks quietly, more curious than anything else. He realized belatedly, that he had never once asked about your world, about what it was like beyond the glimpses you had let slip. And now that he might lose you, he regretted it. Regretted all the things he hadn't thought to say, or ask, or do.

It was true what they said: You never truly appreciate what you have until it's about to be gone.

But when you threw yourself at him instead—launching yourself into his arms rather than the portal home—Vil's breath caught in his throat. His eyes widened, lips parting wordlessly as he tried to process what had just happened.

Then he laughed, the sound light, melodic, and disbelieving, pulling you closer into a tight embrace.

"I worked so hard on you," he teased, his voice breaking slightly with the intensity of the moment, "only for you to ruin my grand sendoff." He pulled back just enough to study you, really study you. "But you made the right choice. You're my responsibility now. And I won't let you regret it."

Of course, responsibility meant more than just affection. It meant practicalities: endless paperwork, infuriating bureaucracy, finding a legal way to anchor you to this world. It was tedious, but Vil's influence—and a considerable amount of money—swept aside most obstacles.

You had the best lawyers money could buy. The best support system anyone could dream of.

His home was always open to you. Always.

Meanwhile, Vil's acting career could only soar. Higher and higher, until sometimes you wondered if he had already disappeared into sky you would never be able to reach.

You were still the same nobody from another world. Someone who had once hidden behind an old, battered Ghost Camera.

But something fierce burned inside you—a refusal to be left behind. And it turned out, the Ghost Camera had been more valuable than you ever realized.

Your photographs, capturing the raw, breathtaking moments no one else could see, caught fire. And Vil, true to his word, promoted your work without hesitation, praising you where it mattered—where it would be seen. Not because you were his friend, but because he supports genuine quality.

You climbed steadily. Not as fast as him, maybe. But you were climbing. And that was enough.

Vil stayed close. not possessively, never with a chain—but intentionally, with a presence so steady it wrapped around you like sunlight. He let you shine or hide as you pleased, never once pushing or pulling.

And even years later, there was a softness to the way he said your name when no one was listening. A way he called you like your name was something rare and precious that he trusted to keep safe.

Second place didn't feel so terrible anymore. Not when you looked at him like he were the entire world.

The café was bustling that afternoon, light pouring in through tall windows, golden and clear as you finished your last picture of the day. You handed him the camera, letting him pick the shots he wanted to post to his socials.

"You've done well today," Vil said smoothly, a playful purr curling in his throat. "Eat your treat. I'll be paying, of course."

You smiled and focused on your food while Vil flipped expertly through the photos. His brows furrowed for a moment.

Not a single photo of yourself?

Really now, that wouldn't do.

His gaze flicked up, and without a word, he raised the camera, subtly, carefully. Someone like you deserved to be photographed too. Vil was no professional photographer, but he knew angles, light, and presence better than anyone.

The afternoon sun caught you just right, haloing you in a soft, dreamlike glow. In the frame, you looked distant and unreachable, like a star that had drifted just close enough to touch—but only for him.

He nearly preened at the sight. And you didn't even realize.

He selected his chosen photos, downloading them to his phone—including the candid shot he had taken of you without hesitation.

Vil's gaze flicked back to you, a small, private smile tugging at his lips. Gentle and fond.

"No wonder I adore you," he murmured, almost too low for you to hear.

You're perfect.

Rook

Rook understood the shape of your silence—the shame that curled around your throat like smoke, the fear that coiled in your gut each time your eyes met his and remembered that he knew. That others knew. Facing him like pushing a boulder uphill with trembling hands, only to have it roll back again and again, leaving the taste of bile and old blood in your mouth. A Sisyphean struggle.

So he came to you, wordless and calm, finding you when you were alone and unguarded, gently taking your hand and leading you into the woods. His smile was soft, certain, and unwavering—the kind that told you he had no intention of letting go. He said the trees listened, and though you didn't understand what he meant, you played along. You picked a tree that felt right beneath your fingertips, scrawled your heart onto a slip of paper, and tucked it into a crevice like a secret.

You forgot about it. Days passed.

Until a lonely walk brought you back, and there it was—a new note waiting.

You had expected florid prose, something dramatic and honeyed. But Rook, for all his flair, is a romantic—not a fool. He understands when silence is sacred, when pain should not be gilded. His words were precise, gentle. Not overwrought. Just enough. Just what you needed.

So began your quiet ritual. The tree became your confessional, your pen-pal, your anchor. You poured your heard into those folded messages—some raw and trembling, others dark enough to frighten yourself—and still, when you looked into Rook's eyes the next day, there was no sign of knowledge. No flicker of pity. Just him. The same warmth, the same light.

And that, more than anything, gave you the courage to keep going. his care didn't chase you. It waited—constant, open-armed, patient. And when the day came that you ran into him, truly ran to him, his expression cracked open with surprise, then melted into something reverent and unguarded. As if you were stardust falling into his palms and he couldn't quite believe he'd caught you.

He removed his gloves with trembling fingers, cupped your cheek like it was a petal, and simply breathed. You were real. You were here. There was something in his gaze that echoes the Blot's worship—something sacred, if mortal. Something that tethered you.

After graduation, Rook vanished like mist in the morning. You didn't know then how he worked behind the scenes—clearing the legal brush that tangled your life, speaking to shadows, acquired impossible approvals. You had your suspicions, of course. nothing about Rook was ordinary. And yet, you never questioned it too deeply.

Because even in his absence, he was present.

When your thoughts turned to static and your bones refused to move, a ball chimed, soft and familiar. A note would be waiting, always written in that elegant hand, always scented faintly like something you couldn't name but always recognized. A constant hum of care that said:

"You seem stressed, mon étoile. I've run you a bath. I'll be home soon. Do not miss me too much."

It was strange how seamlessly this had become normal. He always knew what you needed before you did. You still struggled, still stumbled through the world like it was too sharp in places, but somehow, Rook softened it.

He was always just beyond the corner of your eye—smiling, watching, waiting. Never possessive. Just present. You, the greatest mystery he never wished to solve. The muse he chose to love without condition. With you, he was both fox and flame—elegant, wild, profoundly gentle.

He didn't visit so much as arrive—like a poem made flesh. With letters, with gifts, with whispers in the form of pressed flowers and wine-dark ink. He never once said mine. He didn't need to. Every gesture said: I see you. I choose you.

You once lingered over his words. "Home", he'd called this place. You hadn't thought about it much before—but yes. It had started to feel like home. Warmer when he was near—softer. The air itself seemed kinder.

You didn't know where he lived. You weren't sure anyone knew.

His skill was noticing things—finding people, truths, hidden threads—made him legendary in private investigation circles. A ghost with green eyes and a fox's grin. But he was always on the move. So perhaps... this was his home. With you.

And then, one day, he returned.

Arms open. As always. Bearing gifts and that smile that never lost its sincerity. He asked for nothing. Hoped for everything. And each moment with him felt like stepping into a world he wrote just for you.

You wandered the flittering chaos of a night carnival, stars flaring above—but he told you plainly: you outshone them all. He kissed your knuckled like they were spun from silk, eyes glinting with mischief, but also with a yearning he rarely gave voice to.

He'd never tasted cotton candy from your lips. But you could see he wanted to.

Still, he let you set the pace, accepted your subtleties with grace—even if it never quite suited him. The stack of love letters tucked in your drawer proved that well enough.

You laughed, softly, and it bloomed like a song in the dark. His pride shone in the curve of his smile, in the reverence in his gaze.

"Why exactly do you love me?" you asked.

A dangerous question. But not for Rook.

His eyes widened, lips parted. And for once, he didn't speak immediately. Didn't have a script. He breathed out your name like a prayer.

"Mon étoile..." he began, voice caught in his throat. Then smiled, defeated in the best way. "You are you. I can think of no finer reason. Though... ask me again in an hour, and I will give you poetry worthy of your name."

And that sincerity—unguarded and soft—was perhaps what you cherished most.

That night, Rook left quietly, but his hand lingered in yours, unwilling to part. And when you turned the pages of your book later, a letter slipped free, unsigned but unmistakably his.

You recognize the handwriting as surely as your own heartbeat. The same pen that once whispered back to you through a tree, when you could barely speak to anyone.

I dwell within your quiet heart— a haven cloaked in tender dark, where silence hums a lullaby and every beat becomes my spark.

This rhythm, soft as angel wings, resounds beneath my resting cheek. It sings me into gentle sleep— the only song I ever seek.

No morning sun, no moonlit skies, can find me where your pulse resides. But I don't mourn the world outside; I bloom beneath your touch, confined.

A worshipper behind the veil, who tastes your kindness through the bars— sweet offerings of sugar-spun devotion passed from hand to heart.

So ask me if I wish for light— when I have you, my sacred night.

Epel

Epel was about five seconds away from throwing hands with the Blot itself.

If he could've punched that cursed ring off your finger, he would've tried— consequences be damned.

Seeing Rook and Vil, two of the strongest he knew, return to the dorm looking pale and shaken told him everything he needed. Their posture was off. Their eyes didn't sparkle like they usually did. Vil's smile—always poised, sharp—faltered at the corners. And Rook? Rook couldn't properly meet his gaze.

Epel wasn't dumb. He wasn't blind. He'd seen the little tells in you—how your fingers would tremble slightly when you thought no one was watching, how your gaze lingered on the ring with something between longing and dread. He noticed it all. But this... this confirmed it.

And three days later... he was finally told the full truth.

That night, the dorm felt like a cage. Epel slipped out without a word, wandering aimlessly though the fog-drenched paths of NRC. Curfew didn't matter. Not when his chest was full of a rage that felt too loud to scream and too big for his body to contain.

It wasn't fair.

You weren't supposed to suffer like this. To be forced into silence, into survival. The thought of you leaving—choosing to leave—sent a sharp ache through his stomach. His nose scrunched up, expression twisted in pain.

Were you unhappy? No—of course you were. That was a dumb question.

Still, weren't you happy with him? With the rest of them?

So when you made your decision—when you chose to stay—Epel lit up like a firework display at a sledding festival. Politeness and composure went out the window in a flash. He ran to you, nearly tackled you in a hug that squeezed the air from your lungs. The warmth was overwhelming, and for a second you almost mistook him for Floyd.

"I knew you'd stay!" he cried, practically bouncing. "Yer tougher than damn Leona—easy!"

Vil didn't scold him. Not this time. That kind of joy deserved to live unbothered.

Classes resumed. Time moved forward. Things returned to almost normal at NRC—except now Epel stuck closer to your side, a little more protective, a little more vocal. Somehow even more attentive, if that was possible.

Graduation came faster than anyone expected, and with it came offers. Professors, alumni, and even some upperclassmen offered you places to go—options, safety nets. But Epel, with a smug little grin and too much confidence for his own good, would always nudge you and remind you:

"You ran straight to me the moment you decided to stay. So obviously... I'm your top pick."

It was cocky. It was so Epel.

And truthfully, you couldn't argue with it. Not when the idea of living anywhere else felt wrong in your chest.

Harveston welcomed you like spring after a long, bitter winter. No IDs or government paperwork were needed here. Epel's grandma and the rest of the town didn't ask any questions—they just smiled, nodded, and made sure your plate was full and you pulled your weight.

And Epel? He wasted no time getting you on your feet. He threw his whole heart into helping you build an entire life. He petitioned the village council, called in every favor he was owed, even stood up in meetings to vouch for you with a strong voice and defiant eyes.

He got you a job. A real one. And he made sure you did the rest. No pity. No whispered stories. Just small-town rhythms and the kind of grounding only hard work and community could offer.

You found yourself pulled into festivals and harvest parties, into baking competitions and long days of hauling crates and setting up stalls. Epel introduced you to everyone as "just another buddy." That mattered more than you realized. He never made you feel like a project or too much of a big deal. Just a person.

He helped by being normal.

Back in Harveston, Epel's proper posture and polished NRC habits fell away like snow in the sun. His accent thickened. His energy sharpened into something rowdier, freer. He was still charming, still thoughtful, still absurdly pretty—but now with mud on his boots and a mischief in his grin.

Still, he'd hold onto little gestures—gentle mannerisms he'd picked up from Pomefiore and held close as something useful—just to impress you. He'd never admit it, but the way he folded napkins or picked wildflowers and arranged them artfully when he thought no one saw said more than his stubborn mouth ever would.

One evening, the two of you leaned shoulder-to-shoulder, watching the town bustle beneath a sunset that stained the sky gold.

"Took guts to stay," Epel said softly, nudging you with a grin that had grown to feel like home these days. "Glad you did, tough-guy."

Seven years passed like a slow-drifting breeze.

You became thick as thieves. Partners in rural mischief and a quiet loyalty. He never asked you to change. Never needed you to be "better". You were enough—just as you were. And, to his absolute delight, Epel finally got that growth spurt he always wanted. The wiry boy you'd known filled out with the kind of sturdy muscle expected of a farmhand, yet somehow he still carried the delicate features of a pretty-boy idol. The contrast suited him in the oddest ways.

Harveston's pave was unhurried. It gave you space to grow without pressure, to heal without deadline.

Epel threw himself into potion work in his spare time. He was close—so close—to creating something that would bolster the strength of apple trees against cold snaps. His notes, written in neat but winding scrawl, were packed with half-jokes and long tangents. He mailed drafts often, addressed to Vil and Professor Crewel, and passed them to you for delivery. The envelopes always smelled like crushed grass, cinnamon, and drying herbs.

At your favorite local bar, you'd sit tucked away in the back booth, trading stories and lazy grins. You didn't need alcohol—just music and each other. But when someone whispered too loudly about your "strange" past or how you just appeared one day, Epel would always try—try—to keep calm.

Sometimes he succeeded.

Other times, well... he didn't.

Dragging him out by the collar had become a semi-regular occurrence. He always apologized—eventually—while fiddling with his hair and muttering colorful phrases that didn't exist outside of Harveston's backwoods vernacular.

Seasons changed. Festivals came and went. Apple treats became a staple of your life—sweet, tart, and always different and new. Pies, ciders, jams, sugared slices, meats. On the quietest nights, when the stars glimmered and the air was soft, Epel would sit beside you carving an apple with practiced hands, cutting each piece into a tiny heart before handing it to you without a word.

Then came the blueprints.

One evening, after helping out around the Felmier farm, Epel's grandma shoved him out the door with encouragement and a paper roll clutched in his hand. He trudged through the orchard toward you, dragging his feet and taking the long way around, muttering under his breath like the apples were eavesdropping.

His usual boldness was nowhere to be found when he finally reached you. Instead, he scratched his cheek, looking anywhere but your face.

"I, uh..." He thrust the papers at you awkwardly. "I asked a buddy to draw these up."

You unrolled them—blueprints. A small cottage. Cozy. Thoughtful.

"I was thinkin'... I'd start buildin'. A place for m'self." His voice dropped, eyes flickered to yours for only a moment before darting away. The accent was stronger, coupled with the quiet murmur and lack of enunciation. "You'd... you'd have a room. If y'want."

You could've teased him. You could've said something snarky. But looking at him—red-faced, fidgeting, heart to obviously in his throat—you just smiled.

The sun was setting behind him. The orchard glowed.

Home never looked so real.

Idia

Idia Shroud understood the impossibility of your situation better than anyone. He knew that twisted, self-sacrificing logic that chained you to this secret. This quiet pact of pain you carried like a second skin. The very knowledge people claimed he was blessed with—that brilliance, the foresight—was now a blade carving home open and stitching him back together, over and over again.

You were alive. But at what cost? And for how long?

Those questions seemed to haunt him. Worse, he already knew the answers—and they made him feel like he was complicit in your suffering. He hated it. Hated himself for it.

For weeks, he did nothing. Just spiraled.

He locked himself in his dorm, blinds drawn tight, lights dimmed, games unopened. He let despair wash over him like static—draining, numbing, constant. but eventually that despair twisted into something else. Sadness hardened into anger. Anger turned into resolve.

He gritted his teeth and contacted STYX.

The message went through with the press of a trembling finger—but then came the panic. His thumb hovered over the keyboard again and again before he sent a second message. This time directly to his parents:

Whatever happens from here on... I'm handling it. No one touches this but me.

And to his surprise, they agreed. Clearance was granted. Full authority. Every decision about you—from oversight to operations—was his.

It didn't feel like power. It felt like a countdown ticking too fast.

Idia's normally dull gaze grew sharp, conflicted, alive with a rare focus. The kind of look he only wore when a raid boss was almost down and his last few HP bars were flashing red.

He didn't let himself hope—not really—but he moved like someone who needed you to live.

The day of your escape came, and Idia didn't show his hand. No dramatic confrontations. No sweeping interventions. Just a short, awkward message pinged to your phone.

congrats ig. try not 2 trip on the way out lol

You stared at the screen, frowning. Was he... mad at you? Was this some kind of guilt trip?

You scanned the crowd more than once that day, hoping—maybe irrationally—to spot his wild blue flames, his guarded eyes. Nothing.

But he was there.

Hiding in plain sight. Hood drawn over his head, posture hunched. Face a ghost in the crowd. Only Ortho knew where to look.

He had plans inside plans. Reinforcements layered in encrypted code and ciphers. STYX agents disguised as students. Ortho monitoring vital signs and heat maps from the perimeter. Hidden failsafes stacked in sequence like dominoes. If something went wrong—when it went wrong—he was ready to respond.

Or so he thought.

The noise. The chaos. The too-bright lights and the electric buzz of the crowd—it all pressed in on him. His thoughts fractured, splintering into static. his fingers trembled in his sleeves. The air felt too thin. His skin, too tight.

The corners of his vision darkened, creeping inward like greedy vines. His heartbeat drummed in his ears, fast and frantic. His legs locked. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't move.

Not now. Please. Not now—

And then—impact.

You slammed into him at full speed, and the two of you crashed to the ground. The world lurched. Wind knocked clean from both your lungs. It was messy, disorienting—too real.

Idia's eyes widened as his vision cleared, and there you were.

You.

His mind blanked.

All the blueprints, all the backup files, all the emotional scaffolding he'd built came crashing down at once. The only thing left standing was the image of you—panting, real, wide-eyed and stunned.

"Wh—why—" he gasped, voice thin and confused.

You were here. Right now. Right now.

And just like that, the panic slipped away. His heartbeat didn't slow, but it changed. No longer frantic with fear—now thundering with relief so raw it left him dizzy.

The following days, Idia vanished. Physically, at least. No one saw him around campus.

But he texted you. Daily. Sometimes more. Memes, links, dumb jokes, weird cat videos from ten years ago. The messages were his way of saying I'm here. Are you still here too?

Oddly, his status stayed offline. No game log-ins. No streams. no records of activity.

Suspicious.

And two days later,t he truth surfaced.

Idia had taken his final exams early and graduated. Quietly. Efficiently. He didn't make a big deal out of it—except when he stopped by Ramshackle.

He showed up at your door with a keycard in one hand and Ortho floating behind him with a cheerful wave.

"S-so... Ramshackle's, like... super old. Totally haunted. And, uh, my room has heating—and AC." His words stumbled over themselves, faster and faster. "A-and Ortho's here to keep you company. Y'know. In case. Not 'cause I think you're gonna, like, pass out or anything."

You tilted your head, raised an eyebrow.

Idia's eyes darted. His confidence cracked—just for a second—before he blurted, in a single breath:

"Iknowyou'llmissme—so I guess you can have Ortho and my old room. Hehe. Yeah."

Silence.

Your deadpan stare could've knocked down a wall.

"...Right. Bye!" he squeaked, spinning on his heel and slamming your front door on himself.

In the time between that chaotic day and your graduation, Ortho became something like your personal tutor. Not in schoolwork—but in preparation for STYX.

"You'll be going there after graduation," he said plainly, in that chipper robotic voice that somehow still managed to carry warmth, concern, and certainty all at once.

"Big Brother's working hard for you so you have to be ready too!"

And so began an intense, borderline bizarre curriculum: learning STYX protocol, containment procedures, theoretical Blot behavior modules, ethics review formats. He quizzed you on security phrases between bites of lunch, made you practice biometric door access like it was a game, even drilled you on how to politely but firmly argue policies. You weren't sure if it was love, duty, or some strange combination of both—but Ortho made sure you knew: Idia was building something big behind the scenes. And you were part of it.

By the time Idia settled into his high-clearance fancy adult job, he'd already done what no one else could:

He made you make sense.

In records. In science. In theory and paperwork and metaphysical law. You were classified, officially, as a Blot-linked Anomaly—Level O. Top-tier clearance. Highest level containment and observation, but with protections no prior entity like you had ever been granted.

Idia rewrote the rules for you.

You were granted legal personhood—under obscure arcane-metaphysical statutes. Governmental immunity—within STYX's jurisdiction. And—because he knew what the alternative would be—you were granted residential placement inside the STYX institute itself.

An anomaly with a keycard. A legal paradox with a bed and medical insurance.

You were, in every sense, an ethical nightmare. And Idia—grinning like a gremlin in a suit—made it work anyway.

He waltzed into hearing and mock-trials with that smug tone and too-fast speech, flicking holographic tabs as he essentially mansplained bureaucracy to the government, sounding like a tech-support rep possessed by a dungeon master.

And he won.

Your official role was complicated—half test subject, half guest researcher. You studied Blot phenomena from the inside. Gave insight that no textbook or simulation could replicate. You understood it—and the institute couldn't argue with results.

You can still remember the induction day vividly.

A sterile white room. High ceiling and the hums of electricity in the walls. The air too clean. A long table with thick binders, STYX officials seated like a tribunal. Your name wasn't called—it was announced. Like a warning.

You walked in, tense and unsure, shadowed by handlers. You expected cuffs. Isolation. Observation behind glass.

Instead, you saw him.

Idia stood at the head of the room. No tablet in hand. No hoodie or clunky headset to hide behind. His posture was straighter now, if still awkward. His hair, slightly longer. His expression, sharper. His aura, commanding.

You worried he'd changed.

"This," he said without hesitation, "is the Progenitor Blot Host. Level O. Under my division. Effective immediately."

The silence that followed felt seismic.

You didn't miss the way some of the officers stiffened. Nor the way Idia's voice didn't waver once.

It was the first time you realized—he couldn't afford to slack off here. Not where you were involved. Not when your safety, freedom, and continued existence balance on the strength of his authority.

He had to be better. Stronger. Faster. Smarter.

Idia's eyes flickered to you just once—barely a second—and yet you could read the entire message in the twitch of his brow and the faint upward pull at the corner of his mouth:

Do I look cool?

He knows your biometric data by heart now. He tracks your vitals during every high-risk scan, every trial, every exposure text. And even though he's technically not supposed to show favoritism, he always meets your gaze when the lights come back on, murmuring under his breath—

"...Still breathing? Cool."

The institute didn't exactly welcome your presence with open arms.

You weren't recruited. You weren't "normal." And to them, you were still a marionette—a vessel tainted by the Blot. A walking threat. Something to be monitored, not included.

They never said it outright. But it showed. In the small things. One afternoon, while trying to access the digital archives to cross-reference a phenomenon you'd encountered in a recent simulation, the system denied you.

[ACCESS REVOKED. GUESS PERMISSIONS INVALID.]

Strange. You had clearance yesterday.

You didn't even have time to message Idia.

Thirty-eight minutes later, the lab doors hissed open and he strode in—expression dark, eyes narrowed. No greeting. No preamble. He moved straight tot he console, leaned over your shoulder, and typed with rapid precision.

"Override protocol," he muttered, his keystrokes laced with irritation. "Guest-Class E00-Prime. Reactivate."

A chime sounded.

[ACCESS RESTORED.]

Idia didn't look at you—just glared at the screen, muttering under his breath, "If they're gonna treat you like a lab rat, you might as well be a clever one." You didn't take the jab personally. It wasn't really aimed at you anyway.

You watched him walk out, coat swishing, muttering obscenities too clinically online for a translator to parse.

It happened during a routine trial—a recalibration of your resistance threshold under Blot saturation. You were halfway through putting your gloves back on when one of the technicians muttered to his colleague:

"That Blot puppet's biometrics are unusually unstable today."

As if you weren't standing there. As if you weren't a person at all. Just another specimen in a cage.

You froze for half a beat, fingers twitching. Then, too quickly you tugged the gloves on, trying to conceal what the man had noticed: The inky traces that danced over your thumb from that one injury years back and that ring that won't come off. A reminder. A curse. Or maybe just proof.

The room didn't explode. No shouting followed.

But it did go quiet.

Idia was still seated at the monitoring terminal, stylus in hand. He paused, exhaled slowly through his nose, and ran a hand through his hair—more a frustrated rake of fingers than any attempt to smooth it down. His expression soured into something drained and sharp. Jaw clenched. Eyes flat and furious.

"That 'puppet'," he said, in a voice low and calm—too calm, "has already rewritten half of your department's outdated, incomplete containment methods."

There was no room for rebuttal. No space for apology.

Then, just as simply, he turned back to his work, leaving the silence behind like a closed door.

Later that evening, there was a knock to grab your attention while you worked—barely audible. When you peered up, Idia was already halfway turned to leave. He handed you a stack of updated documents and a single sticky note attached to the top.

You expected a memo. Instructions. Maybe a passive-aggressive bullet point about test protocol.

Instead, you found a doodle.

Two cats, unmistakably drawn in his familiar style—one drawn with a mop of wild blue flaming fur, the other looked just like you. Both in STYX uniforms. Both holding hands.

You snorted softly, heart catching in your throat. The paper joined the growing collection pinned to your board—quiet testaments to moments only you got to see from him.

These days, Idia didn't look scared anymore—not in the way he used to. The haunted, awkward flinches had been replaced with a different kind of heaviness: exhaustion carved into his shoulder, irritation etched into the tight line of his lips.

He was an important man now. A prodigy in a system that neither wanted nor understood someone like him. His methods were too fast, too efficient, too different. He streamlined procedures they thought sacred. Challenged traditions written before he was born. And worst of all, he had you—not just as a specimen, but as a researcher.

They hated that.

But he didn't back down. Not once. Especially not when it came to you.

Idia always found time for you.

You were one of the few people who had ever cracked through the wall of silence and sarcasm he wore like armor. You hadn't waited for permission. You'd barged into his orbit and stayed until he adjusted to your gravitational pull.

One afternoon, after a long and particularly grating workday, you returned to your workspace to find a neatly packed container waiting for you.

Inside: pomegranate seeds. Clean, pristine. Like a container with tiny, glistening rubies. No note. But there didn't need to be one.

Your gaze drifted to where he stood—across the lab, scanning something on his tablet, posture a little too stiff to be casual. His gloves hung from his pocket. And even from a distance, you could see the faint red tint staining the tips of his fingers.

He'd peeled them himself. Cleaned them. Prepared them.

For you.

That night, you returned the favor.

Not in the same way—he wasn't much for raw fruit. But sweets? That was a different story. So you wrestled with recipe after recipe until you finally got it right: pomegranate gummies. Shaped like little cubes and dusted in sour sugar, something you're sure he would like.

At nearly midnight, your tablet buzzed.

Idia: rec room. 15 minutes. prepare to get destroyed loser

When you arrived, he was already there—lounging on the couch, console flickering in front of him. The sharp-edged leader of STYX had vanished, replaced by the man you knew. Hoodie slouched. Hair down. Eyes darting from you, to the gift, then immediately back down to the screen as if it's suddenly become the most interesting thing in the world.

His hair blushes a deep pink red the moment you sit with him and he wishes he could rip it all out to avoid detection of his feelings.

"...Thanks," he mumbles, just loud enough to hear.

You don't say anything. Don't have to.

STYX is sterile. Cold. Precise. Unforgiving.

But Idia isn't. Not with you.

He watches your tests from behind the observation window. Always. Every time.

When it's over, he taps the glass once with too fingers. A signal. Not protocol. Not habit.

Just him.

Still here? Still real?

You tap back.

Still me.

And that's all you need.

Malleus

Malleus had never felt powerless—not truly. Not until you.

He had magic vast enough to summon tempests, wisdom steeped in years beyond you, and bloodline ties to ancient, unknowable power. Yet none of it could undo what was happening to you. He exhausted every archive, every relic, every whisper of long-forgotten magic in search of something—anything—that might save you. Fix you. Keep you.

And what terrified him most wasn't the pain. Nor the heartbreak. Not even the guilt over your shared loneliness that, somehow, he had failed to notice sooner.

It was the love.

A love that burned through him like molten metal, unrelenting and cruel in its beauty. It stripped away his reason, fanned the storms inside his chest, and left him wrecked and raging beneath the calm exterior of a prince. If sorrow were a sea, Malleus had sunk to its deepest trench. If longing were a storm, he was its eye.

And when the sky opened up that night, raining knives and screaming thunder, the world mirrored the grief he could no longer contain.

He nearly missed your sendoff.

No one had told him the exact date. Or perhaps they had, and he simply refused to believe it could come so soon. But the moment he realized, he arrived in a fury, tearing through the crowd with a desperation unbecoming of a future king. On stage, his eyes found you instantly, like a flower might seek the sun, and he reached for you without shame.

You had become too important. Too beloved. it was irresponsible to leave now.

When you stumbled into his arms, he clutched you as if you might disappear with the next breath. His fingers trembled, but his hold never faltered. You were sugar glass, his most treasured thing, and he cradled you with all the reverence of an old god holding a dying star.

"I would give you every scale on my body," he whispered into your shoulder, voice thick, "if it meant you could stay—even just a few days longer."

And Malleus meant it.

In the years that followed, he moved swiftly. He offered you sanctuary in Briar Valley—not merely a place to hide, but a protected status backed by law and rite. He stood before the Council not with a request, but a declaration: you were not a denizen of Briar Valley, protected under ancient pact and fae magic.

You became both marked and protected, woven into the very wards of the kingdom. No officials dared challenge it.

On the day your name was officially inscribed into Briar Valley's record, Malleus arrived bearing a gift: a black obsidian lantern, its enchanted flame flickering but never faltering. He placed it on your table with quiet care before sitting beside you, hands folded, nearly vibrating with unspoken affection.

His smile was soft, reverent. There was no ambiguity in his love—it bled into everything he did. His words were poetry laced with old magic, and his gaze held the depth of centuries. You were his heart's anchor, and though he never asked for your love in return, he offered his own endlessly, unconditionally, whenever you needed it.

But Malleus knew time was cruel.

Your lifespan was a flicker compared to his eternity. And that awareness haunted him. Every moment he had with you was faintly shadowed by the truth that he would one day wake to a world without you.

So he made your time here radiant.

He was a king—a busy one. Yet he still found ways to slip from endless meetings just to see you. Just to breathe in the same space you shared and simply gaze upon you in early morning light.

One evening, you were summoned to the palace. The night air was cool and the moonlight kissed Malleus's features in silver and shadow. He offered you his hand without a word, and when you took it, he stood taller, prouder.

He guided you through the royal gardens—transformed entirely. Every flower, every stem, every vine had been carefully curated to reflect your favorites. The entire garden had bent to your presence.

"The flowers bloom longer now," Malleus said, voice gentle. "The garden is happy."

The garden was happy, yes. But so was the man gazing at you like you were a divine gift.

At the center of the garden stood a singular tree, regal and solitary, adorned with faerie-crafted jewelry. Bracelets spiraled around its limbs, enchanted to expand as the tree grew. Its crown glittered with delicate charms holding precious stones, catching the moonlight in bursts of color.

At its base, a plaque bore your name.

Beneath it, in Malleus' own hand, read:

"Preserved beyond time. Indelible."

He asked you to dance. There was no music, but the stars sand and the wind swayed gently, as if the universe itself honored your steps. His hand never left yours.

"Even eternity," he spoke lowly, "would feel brief with you beside me, child of man."

His romantic declarations no longer startled you, but they still stirred something deep in your chest. Green eyes softened, lips parted—he seemed on the cusp of saying something more, but hesitated. That, in itself, was unusual.

Malleus never hesitated.

That night, you found a gift on your windowsill. Scales—small, iridescent, humming softly with magic. They shimmered in hues of violet and emerald under the moonlight.

A sacred offering. A silent confession.

You didn't respond right away. Not because you didn't feel—but because the enormity of it left you breathless. How does one answer a dragon's heart?

Malleus noticed your silence and it clung to him like a shadow.

He showed up at your door a few weeks later, soaked through the rain, his cloak clinging to him like wilted wings. He looked utterly undone—drenched, tired, and heart-wrecked.

You barely had time to question him before he collapsed onto your couch—onto you. Head bowed, and shoulders trembling from something far deeper than weather.

"If I were to offer you my name—my truest name—would you carry it?" he asked quietly, voice cracking beneath the weight of what he couldn't bear to speak aloud. For an all-powerful king, he had never felt more uneasy. "Even knowing it would bind me to you? Do you feel unwelcome here? Do you not feel the same?"

His words were soft. Not with accusation, but aching uncertainty.

"Do you fear, my child of man, that they do not want you here? I want you here. And I have never wanted lightly. Had you gone that day... the stars themselves might have mourned and I would have died."

And you understood. He was no just offering his love. He was offering everything His name. His kingdom. His future.

His eternity.

Silver

Silver didn't say much. Not at first. And certainly not about what had happened.

He never spoke of your pain directly, never commented on your desperation, never dared to label what had taken root inside you. His agony was quieter, than yours—muted and distant, like thunder on the horizon. But it was there. You could see it in his eyes, shadowed and heavy, in the way his jaw would tighten before softening again, in the way he stood just a little too still when you weren't looking.

What was loud in Silver's presence—so loud it rand like a bell—was his support.

"Surviving is the more important thing," he told you one night, gently but firmly, as if reciting a truth he'd clung to himself. "And look at you; you're alive. Isn't that all that matters?"

There was no judgement in his voice, no distance in his tone. He didn't flinch from the truth of what you'd done or what you'd become. He knew, in the quiet, accepting way that only someone who has suffered understands, that certain things happen not because you choose them, but because they are inevitable.

His only offering was himself. His presence. Steady and unwavering.

There wasn't much else he could give. Fight the Blot? No—he wasn't that powerful. But he could hold you when your hands trembled. He could stand beside you when your voice broke. He could catch you when the world became too much.

And in that moment—when you found yourself collapsing into his arms, tired down to your bones—that was all you ever needed.

When the possibility of returning home first surfaced—then gradually solidified into certainty—Silver stayed close. He helped you pack without hesitation. Every item you chose was folded with care, placed precisely, handled as if it were made of delicate glass. The silence between you two was stretched thin with things left unsaid, woven with unspoken fears and lingering regrets.

He was close. So painfully close.

And yet... he felt distant, like hew as already grieving your absence.

And yet the day you stumbled into him—unprompted—he held you with quiet strength, a gentle hand patting your back. He assumed it was goodbye. Assumed you just needed one final embrace, one last anchor before you set off.

His smile was warm. Resigned. Steady. "Don't keep them waiting," he whispered.

But you didn't let go.

You melted into him, held on tighter, and something shifted in the way his arms wrapped around you. Slower. Firmer. Silver understood then—perhaps not in words, but in feeling—that he had become your home. Not a destination. Not a temporary harbor. But the place you chose to return to.

In that moment, Silver made a silent vow; he would always be near, He would never stray far enough that you could be hurt without him there to catch you.

He never made a spectacle of his care. When the process of legitimizing your existence in this world began, he walked every step with you, uncomplaining. Malleus may have done most of the work—pulling strings, drafting rites—but Silver was the one by your side during the mundane, tender moments. The ones that mattered.

He sat beside you as you struggled to read unfamiliar words of Briar Valley, tracing the text in the golden pool of lamplight with a gloved finger. His voice low, patient. Repeating phrases slowly until they made sense. He never rushed you. Never sighed. Never made you feel small for needing help.

He made you feel safe. He became your constant.

Silver never asked for more. Never pushed you to define what was growing quietly between you. But he never stepped away, either. He remained—a still, gentle force. Loyal. Steadfast. His love lived in the spaces between your words, in the pauses between breaths.

You're not sure when the closeness became intimacy. When the shared silence turned into shared peace. When his casual gestured became something you looked forward to. Longed for.

He's still not a man of many words. But he doesn't need them.

Every week, a fresh bouquet appeared on your doorstep. Morning dew still clung to the petals like tiny jewels, as if the flowers had just been picked. You never saw who left them, but you knew. You always knew.

Your suspicions were confirmed one afternoon when Silver walked with you between his shifts. As you passed a small flower shop, a fae woman called out playfully, "Is this the one you keep buying bouquets for, boy?"

He didn't respond. Pretended he hadn't heard but the way the back of his neck and the tips of his ears flushed deep red was more than enough answer.

On the nights when he didn't make it all the way home—when duty drained him and he wandered, half-asleep, to your doorstep—you sighed affectionately and dragged him inside without complaint. The neighbors didn't think twice. They'd seen it before, and to them, it had become a charming routine.

When he stirred in your arms, halfway through being hauled onto the couch, your name slipped from his lips in a voice so quiet it might've been a dream.

Murmured like a vow. Like a secret only the stars were meant to hear.

Your birthday—a day you had chosen, separate from the old world and its heavy memories—was a small affair. Quiet. Warm. You caught him watching you more than once that night, his eyes lingering, curious and uncertain. He didn't give you his gift until after the celebration, when the crickets sang and the fireflies blinked like stars.

It was a worn leather journal. Soft at the edges. Clearly cherished.

Inside, the pages were filled—front to back—with entries from the past seven years. Dreams—many including you. He'd begun writing in this journal the night he first heard your nightmare. The night he heard you whisper an apology in your sleep for things that were never your fault.

"You've had too many bad dreams," Silver said, handing the journal to you like it was something sacred. "I wanted to... give you my good ones."

And it was then you realized: he had loved you, quietly, but deeply, for a long time.

Silver spent his rare free moments teaching you the stars. On evenings when you waited by his post just to walk home together, he could point out constellations—explaining which moved, which were still, and which had already died long ago.

"That one," he said once, pointing to a lone, resolute star shining proud, "is the one I wished on when I hoped you'd stay."

His voice grew quiet.

"And you did. Maybe I owe it now."

You two existed like a pair of lanterns in a vast, moonlight field—close but not touching, illuminating each other with warmth and presence. His guard post was always stations where you spent your time. He always found an excuse to walk you home when it rained, never commenting on how he always happened to be nearby.

One morning, as you walked together, he brushed a stray petal from your hair. His hand lingered, fingertips brushing your temple.

"You look warmer," he murmured, soft as breath. "These days... you glow. So bright."

He leaned in, just slightly—drawn without realizing it. The air between you sparked with a hush. But the moment shattered when he blinked, stumbled, back, and muttered something about "suspicious movement" in a nearby alleyway.

You watched him go, flustered and stiff, as birds chirped a teasing song above—one he pointedly ignored.

As if making his mind while trying to cool off, he said, without meeting your gaze:

"I... I don't need anything back. Just let me keep walking beside you. I'll walk with you for as long as you'll let me. Until you're ready to stop."

Sebek

Sebek had the loudest reaction to your news—louder than anyone else by far. His disbelief came crashing down like thunder, his voice rising in sharp denial, as if sheer volume could undo what happened. But the real noise—the most piercing grief—wasn't in his voice.

It was in the silence that followed.

His guilt didn't howl or scream. It lingered in the haunted look he gave you when you weren't watching, in how he stood too stiffly beside you like he was guarding a grave. He carried his shame in the awkward shuffle of his boots, in the way he reached out but never touched, in how his proud shoulders hunched ever so slightly when you turned away.

And yet—Sebek had also been your loudest support.

At first, he disguised it behind duty. "Lord Malleus must be protected at all costs," he'd declare, voice clipped, "and your condition may pose a risk. Thus, I shall observe you... closely. At all times."

That "risk" became his excuse to accompany you everywhere—whether it was to the market, the edge of the woods, or even just across the courtyard. He trailed behind like a knight on silent vigil, casting glares at wayward squirrels and pedestrians alike. And when you crossed the street, Sebek would seize your hand in his own, rigid with purpose, ready to throw himself between you and traffic like the cars were enemies to be slain.

He even developed a personal vendetta against mosquitoes. Mosquitoes. The first time one attempted to land on your arm, he swatted it midair with such force you nearly yelped. "How dare this insect attempt to drain the life from my ward?!" he'd shouted, whipping his head back and forth searching for any others.

You blinked. My ward?

He froze—then went scarlet. The words had tumbled out too fast, too honest. Still, he didn't take them back.

It became something of a pattern after that.

When you both graduated and Malleus, in his benevolence, granted you full citizenship, Sebek stood a step behind you—straight-backed, proud, silent—and you felt him tremble slightly. Loud as ever, brash as always, Sebek had never been the easiest person to befriend. But his gentleness with you, the devotion that softened his edges without dulling his fire, made it clear you were necessary in his life.

Time softened him in other ways, too. He remained booming, dramatic, occasionally unbearable—but his loudness took on a different tone. Where once it had been frantic, desperate to prove himself, now it carried reverence. His voice no longer echoed with insecurity—it rang with sincerity.

He still blushed furiously when praised. Still stumbled over his own feet in emotional moments. But he showed up. Every holiday. Every errand. Every moment when you didn't know you needed someone—but he did. He always did.

His loyalty had transformed from a burning flame to a hearthfire: constant, warm, dependable. He spoke of you the way he once spoke of Malleus—awestruck, fiercely protective, and with a respect that went bone-deep. If anyone dared speak ill of you, they were swiftly silenced, not by fury, but by conviction. And when you were quiet, unsure, aching from things you didn't have words for—Sebek was already there. You never needed to ask.

The day you chose to stay in Briar Valley, to remain in this world, to remain with him—Sebek took it personally. Like an oath fulfilled. Like you had knighted him. He raged on your behalf when others questioned your place here, as if your mere existence wasn't enough proof of your right to belong. And then, without ceremony or fanfare, he simply started teaching you everything NRC hadn't.

He became your guide to fae etiquette, to customs and laws and subtle rules that could mean the difference between safety and insult. He scribbled notes in the language you understood painstakingly, often with a few dramatic flourishes in the margins. And over shared dinners—recipes he'd learned from Lilia and, somehow, improved upon greatly—he quizzed you gently. When you studied on the couch, he'd lean over your shoulder to track your progress, unaware of his posture slouched slightly when he relaxed beside you.

You teased him for it, and somehow, the teasing turned into posture lessons, then dancing. "Faerie cultural education!" he insisted, face burning. But his hands were gentle on your waist, his movements careful, and the moment lingered like perfume longer than either of you meant it to.

His affections were not subtle—Sebek never could be subtle—but they were real. His sword, the one he trained with daily, bore your name etched into the hilt in small, reverent letters. Beneath it, a single word: Oath.

In winter—your least favorite season, the one that had once taken your life—he arrives wrapped in snow and worry, cloaking you in his own furs before walking you home. Even if you insisted you were fine, he never let you go alone. The fear of history repeating kept his jaw tight and steps sharp.

In spring and summer, the guilt changed forms. Your garden is mysteriously weeded. Your tools repaired. Orchids show up on your doorstep with no signature.

He is your guardian in every way but name.

One night, Sebek arrives outside your door with breathless urgency, hair mussed, eyes bright with something like panic. "I had a dream—" he starts, then falters. Instead of finishing the sentence, he draws his blade with a shaky hand and holds it out—not in threat, but offering.

"I—I..." he starts again, then stiffens his spine, meeting your gaze with something proud and tremulous all at once. "I will protect you... until my last breath. If—if you'll allow me."

In his voice is a tremor of fear, of hope. In his stance is a vow. And in your heart, you already know the answer.

You've always felt his promise. In every small act. Every loud reaction. Every silent service he renders without thanks.

But now, he says it.

And you don't need to say anything back.

Because, for once, Sebek has finally said enough.

Blot

Is this truly how it ends? With me loving your shadow—faithfully, hopelessly— while knowing the sun would set long before it could ever rise for me. What was I thinking? That perhaps—just perhaps—you might turn your gaze to me one day and say I love you too?

How foolish of me. How impossibly naïve.

Now I dwell here where I belong—in the shadows, in this cavernous ache of silence and sin— and I watch you. My sun. My star. Spinning in the arms of a man who adores you in the daylight, who calls you beloved with lips I envy, yet whose love could never—will never— equal even the faintest flicker of the fire I've burned for you.

And still... You chose him.

And though it cleaves through me like glass dragged slow across skin, though it churns my stomach and steals the breath from my lungs, I cannot hate you.

I will not.

Because your choices, your desires, your joys— they will always matter more than my own. This is my vow, quiet and aching: You first. Always.

Still, I writhe. I grieve. I seethe in this agony that never abates.

What good was a second chance, if it meant losing you all over again?

Yet I endure it, swallowing the pain as one might swallow a needle— deliberately, through salt and blood. Because maybe I never earned the love you once gave me. The same way I never earned this pain. The same way the clouds keep moving even when the wind has gone still. When no one feels it anymore.

Do you remember the wind?

Down by our oak, when the time moved slow and syrup-thick, like a music box winding down. When you still loved me. And the breeze carried the scent of promises we didn't know how to keep.

Does your heart ache now as mine does, when the air tastes sweet, like the memory of your love pressed into my skin?

I am no rising star, beloved. I never was. You may find—perhaps you already have—that I've never been remarkable at anything at all. Even if I stood in a crowd of mannequins with wings stretched wide and divine light pouring from my bones, you would now see me. Not really.

I see everything. And yet I've never been seen.

Not unless I create. Not unless I carve something unforgettable. A masterpiece. A ruin.

So I write tragedies. I stage them across kingdoms and courts, in places where gods might look down and pity me. Crafting disasters so vivid they cannot be ignored.

Screaming, without voice: I am here. Look at me please. I matter.

But masterpieces fade. The world forgets even beauty, given time.

Still... I like to think you were my best story. That we were. My finest chapter. You, with your mortal simplicity and your unburdened wisdom— you understood me more than I understood myself.

And in this second life, you understood the way a soul splinters when it has nowhere to turn. Not to life. Not to death.

Reality stretched thin around us, a mirror reflecting only distance, endlessly. And I saw you once, waking slowly— eyes clenched shut, clinging to the fading warmth of a dream you dared not believe in. Curling in on yourself. as if your own embrace might shield you from the cruelty of waking.

Now, I see you stir beneath morning light, his hand gently covering my ring. And you smile.

Gods, your smile.

It makes my heart stutter with joy... and twist in horror. Because I didn't cause it.

So I flee. Never far. Never gone. Just enough to quiet the scream in my chest.

I return to the broken places— to the temples long forgotten, where stone angles weep dust. And I wonder... if I'd done better, if I'd been better, would you have loved me then?

Someone once dreamt of building these sanctuaries. A craftsman who likely rushed home to tell his mother he was chosen to craft a house for the divine. He woke early, passed his hammer to his son when he grew weak. Did he know the temple would crumble?

Would it have stopped him?

So I ask: If I had known you'd never love me, would I still have tried so hard?

These days, I accept your silence like sacrament. Nights pass cold. You do not seek me. But I am not bitter. I can't be.

If it brings you happiness, I will hold it steady, even if it crushes me. I will carry your heart in my chest if that is what it takes. If ever you call. If ever you need what I still offer, I will come—bare, unguarded, unholy and reverent.

Because we are the sun and moon. I will give you all the light I have just so you can shine brighter. Even if your eyes are always on him. On the earth.

But hear me, if only once— if you can feel this trembling ache of mine: A thousand hands may lift you skyward, but only two will catch you when you fall.

Mine. Always mine.

And I will hold you. Piece you together again and again until you remember how to breathe.

You won't find me in the sunlight. Not beside the flowers he buys you. But sometimes, when the dishes are clean and a little note waits for you in his handwriting—

It will be in his hand. Forged by mine.

He loves you, truly. But never like I do.

And sometimes... that isn't enough to take his place.

I only ever wanted to prove that I belonged there. At your side. From the very start.

In your heart, there is a statue. The Faceless Lover. It is heavy—denser than gold, darker than grief. It holds your sorrows, your shame, your guilt, and your sins, so that you can remain pure.

But no matter how hard you try to look, its face remains hidden. Blurred. Frightened.

It fears being seen again. Fears being known. Fears being unloved.

But if—just once—you reached out, gently, like you used to, and traced its face with trembling fingers...

You'd find it smiling back at you. Still waiting. Still loving you.

Always.

[ENDING -> Reach For Him]

Play again?

Sure.

This ending was sort of actually a bonus because the main twst cast were background characters in this story but I did want to demonstrate to you all that I am capable of writing them all as well.

I hope I didn't get any of your favorites wrong and most of this is just my opinion guess on their lives in the future as well as their love languages.

I also wanted to prove I can write romance... I just like writing heartbreaking angsty yearning instead smh

Lilia and Ortho were not included because it felt off to write something for a while and an old man.

Some character's parts were longer than others simply because I wrote it the first few times and it didn't seem right so I took a break and brainstormed some ideas but when I wrote it out it was longer than usual. I apologize for that. There is no favoritism. Honestly I don't even like the twst guys. The Blot is my favorite and it isn't even a canon character :|

I hope parts don't seem too repetitive. I did use a format pre-written to keep me on track but I tried to make each character's route unique.

Idia's part is especially long because his character honestly fits the best for this story. Again, not a favorite, but with his close relation to blot, he's more fun to write in this.

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