#non-mc

You sit in the therapist’s office with your hands resting loosely in your lap, fingers relaxed and unmoving. You chose the far end of the sofa without thinking much about it, mindful not to touch him. Not your knee. Not your sleeve. Not even the air between you. It is not an act of avoidance, not a statement. It simply felt appropriate. The space between you and your husband is unoccupied, but it is not charged. It is not a gulf. It is simply there, as most things are now.

This is the scene the therapist walks into for your first and possibly only couples’ session.

If she notices anything when she enters the room, it is not strain but absence. A woman who appears calm, almost placid, until one looks closely and realises the stillness is not peace but vacancy. And beside you, a man sitting upright, composed at first glance, but betrayed by his eyes. They flick towards you too often. He watches you when he thinks no one notices.

The therapist pauses briefly, taking in the arrangement, then moves to the armchair angled towards you both. She sets a recorder down, crosses her legs, and smiles with an easy warmth.

She introduces herself, thanks you for coming, then, without ceremony, begins.

“I’ve read your intake forms,” she says. “But I’d like to hear it from you. What brings you here?”

You do not answer. Not because you cannot, but because it feels unnecessary. Instead, your gaze drifts towards your husband. Counselling was his idea. Let him give the problem its name.

He does. He talks about distance. About confusion. About feeling as though something essential between you has stalled, gone missing, become unreachable. He calls it a roadblock. He sounds more unsettled than accusatory, as though he is trying to orient himself in unfamiliar emotional terrain.

While he speaks, the therapist listens carefully, her pen moving across the notepad in her lap. She watches you too. She notices that you do not react. Not with defensiveness, not with agreement, not even with disengagement. You simply are, seated there like a placeholder where a wife should be.

When he finishes, she nods once.

“Thank you,” she says gently. Then she looks at you. “Tell me how you met.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

You met Caleb through work, in a way, through the long, ordinary overlap of professional lives that never quite touched. He served with the Fleet. You worked for the DAA, in the administrative wing of his former posting, a place of forms and schedules and names that blurred together with time. You knew of him before you knew him, a figure spoken of in passing, his name familiar long before his face.

One evening, after work, you joined colleagues at a bar. It was the usual sort of gathering, lively and crowded, easy conversation flowing around you like water. Someone brought a friend. The friend brought another. Gideon, whose laugh carried too far and too easily, had finally managed to coax Caleb into joining them. You would later think of that moment as oddly deliberate, though it was nothing of the sort. Just chance arranging itself into something that would feel inevitable in hindsight.

The bar was loud and unremarkable, all light and noise and the press of bodies. You noticed Caleb not because he demanded attention, but because he occupied space with an ease that suggested he belonged anywhere he stood. He smiled often. He listened well. He looked at people as though they were worth the time it took to see them.

Your first impressions of him fit the familiar pattern everyone else had already noted. He was, undeniably, remarkable. Intelligent, quick-witted, handsome in an unforced way, successful without ostentation. Charisma clung to him effortlessly. You saw it clearly, not with longing at first, but with simple acknowledgement of what existed.

You kept yourself contained. Watching had always been safer than reaching, and so you observed from within the quiet boundaries you had learned to maintain. You allowed yourself only brief glances, never long enough to feel exposed.

It was enough.

He noticed anyway.

Not in a way that embarrassed you, not with any suggestion of triumph, just a quiet awareness that lingered. He found it faintly amusing, the restraint, the way you remained so carefully within yourself. Though he had no interest in pursuing anyone, no intention of inviting complication into his life, he still crossed the space between you that night. He spoke to you. He let the conversation unfold. He let it last longer than it needed to.

What followed did not announce itself as important. It settled instead into something that could be called casual. You saw him often enough, at shared gatherings, through overlapping circles, that his presence became familiar. An acquaintanceship, perhaps. That was the word you chose.

No one else would have.

Your colleagues noticed the pattern long before you named it. They watched the way he sought you out, how conversation curved naturally toward you even in crowded rooms. Caleb flirted with a confidence that felt both deliberate and unguarded, and he did it repeatedly. It was not something he was known for. It was not something anyone had seen him do with anyone else.

Once it became clear that these meetings were no longer incidental, that you were running into one another with a frequency that felt almost patterned, he suggested exchanging contact information. The offer was made lightly, as though it carried no consequence.

You accepted without hesitation.

He was not, you soon learned, a man given to easy communication. Messages came sporadically, sometimes brief enough to feel incomplete, sometimes late enough to seem unintentional. You told yourself it was nothing. Work, obligation, the demands of a life you only partially understood. You were good at making allowances.

Still, something faint and unpleasant stirred in the silence between responses. A small scratch of unease you did not examine too closely. You ignored it. Doubt had always been louder than reason, and you chose not to listen.

You told yourself his interest was real, built that certainty from what you chose not to examine. From the outside, it looked convincing enough, convincing to everyone else at least, who saw only the way he sought you out and never the silences you learned to tolerate.

And somewhere in the accumulation of those moments, your feelings shifted. What began as appreciation deepened into something warmer, more perilous. You began to wonder what it might feel like to be chosen by him, to be held in the quiet focus of his attention. The thought settled gently at first, then with increasing insistence.

You wanted to know what it would be like to be loved by him.

When the space between you finally narrowed, when conversation edged toward possibility and things began to move forward, you allowed yourself to believe that you might have a chance. That whatever this was had been progressing, all along, toward something that only needed to be named.

It did not announce itself as a turning point. There was no single decision, no moment you could later isolate and hold accountable. One evening blurred into another. A hand lingered. Proximity became permission. And then you were in your own bed, letting him in, and afterwards, again. And again.

The sex was good, undeniably so. He touched you with a confidence that felt practised but attentive, as though he knew precisely how to make your body respond and took quiet satisfaction in doing so. He stayed close afterwards, an arm draped over you, his breath warm against your skin, fingers tracing absentminded patterns along your back. He pulled you nearer when you shifted, as though closeness were intention rather than instinct.

It mattered more than you wanted it to.

Each time, it happened within the careful boundaries of your own space. You let him in, offered him familiarity, made room for him in a place that was supposed to be yours alone. Afterwards, he dressed and left without ceremony, and you remained, collecting discarded glasses, smoothing rumpled sheets, restoring order to a quiet that felt suddenly heavier.

You told yourself it was natural. That hosting was easier than asking to be invited.

By the time you finally admitted that you liked him, said it softly, without demand or expectation, you were already too far inside the hope of it. He did not respond with words. He did not pull away either. He kissed you instead, urged you back beneath him, let the moment dissolve into movement and heat and sensation.

You told yourself that was an answer.

That your confession had pleased him. That it had changed something. That wanting you meant, somehow, that he liked you too.

He did not feel the same. That truth existed long before you ever spoke it aloud. And just as deliberately, he chose not to tell you.

Nothing else changed.

The patterns you had already learnt remained intact, only now sharpened by proximity. Messages came rarely, if at all, unless he initiated them. When they did arrive, they were brief, purposeful, almost always tethered to his desire to see you. In public, he was unchanged, flirtatious, attentive in appearance, careful never to extend himself beyond that narrow boundary.

Once, cautiously, you mentioned the silences. He explained it away with practised ease. Work, long hours, obligations that did not end when his official duties did. He said he often did not see messages at all.

You accepted the explanation.

Still, the explanation scraped uncomfortably against reason. Surely there was a moment in a day, a pause before sleep, a breath in which a few words could be sent. Surely wanting someone included the impulse to reach for them when nothing else was required.

You did not say this aloud.

And so it continued the way it always had, without definition, without permanence. He came to you, and when he left, the absence lingered longer than his presence ever had. You learnt the rhythm of it: anticipation, intimacy, departure. Your home absorbed the pattern until it felt worn thin by repetition.

So when he finally invited you into his own space, a place you had never crossed into before, it felt significant in a way you did not question. Not because the room was remarkable, but because it was his. Because it was the one threshold you had never passed, and he was letting you in. That belief softened you. Made you hopeful.

And that hope, you would learn, was dangerous.

The sex was familiar by then, confident and unhurried. Heat, skin, the press of him against you, the steady rhythm that left you loose and breathless beneath him. When it was over, you lay tangled together, both of you bare and overheated, your pulse still echoing through your limbs. His arm rested across your back, his fingers tracing slow, absent circles along your spine, a touch intimate enough to feel deliberate.

You turned your face towards his, still floating in the aftermath, softness unguarded. He noticed your expression and smiled faintly, tired rather than tender.

“What is it?” he asked.

His hand kept moving. That small, repetitive motion steadied you and emboldened you. You did not plan the words. They surfaced on their own, quiet and earnest, carried on the fragile certainty you had been nursing for months.

“I just…” You swallowed. “…I like you so much, Caleb.”

His hand stilled. His eyes shifted, avoiding yours entirely, and he turned his head away as though the sight of you unsettled him. Yet in that brief moment before he fully withdrew, you caught something in his face. Something that did not belong. Off. Unfamiliar. Was it disappointment? Irritation? You could not name it or pin it to any expectation you had held, and it felt wrong in a way that made your chest tighten. You had just offered him everything, and the reflection staring back at you was not tenderness, not care, not recognition. It was something colder, something that left you exposed in a way no touch had ever done.

He moved away from you, drawing his arm from beneath you as if the space you had occupied were too heavy to hold. He sat upright, distant and measured, and when he looked at you again, his expression was blank. Flat. Unyielding. Devoid of the warmth or tenderness you had hoped for.

Finally, after all the silences and ambiguities, he spoke. Not with hesitation. Not with nuance. He told you that he did not feel the same. That he liked being with you, liked the closeness you offered, liked your body, your heat, the intimacy you had shared, but his heart belonged elsewhere.

His childhood friend. The woman he loved. The woman his heart had been wrapped around every single time he had been inside you.

He spoke of her with a careless clarity, naming her, describing her, detailing the depth of feeling that he carried for someone who was not you, for someone he had never truly claimed. Each word pressed against you like cold glass, sharp and unrelenting, carving away the fragile hope you had nurtured.

You realised, all at once, that you had been mistaken. That the spaces he had entered in your home, the warmth you had given freely, the hope you had allowed yourself, all of it had been met with indifference and taken for pleasure without promise. He had held you willingly and accepted what you offered without hesitation, but he had never treasured the thing you believed was safe to give. And once again, you were left with the quiet ache of having given something precious to someone who had never meant to keep it.

Your feelings were as bare as your body, open and unguarded, and something small and vital inside you began to wither. The sting of oncoming tears burned behind your eyes, and though you fought to hold them back, it was impossible. Your throat tightened. Your chest quivered. You were collapsing quietly into yourself.

He did not notice. Or if he did, he did not care. There was no guilt, no shame, no flicker of recognition for the fracture he had caused. Only that blank, assessing look, the sort that might as well have catalogued you as an inconvenience, an extra, unremarkable part of his world that could be moved aside without thought.

He was decent enough, perhaps, or simply indifferent, to give you the space to dress, to gather your things, to reconstruct some semblance of composure. You moved slowly and deliberately, but your hands shook. You tried and failed to hold yourself together.

And in that quiet, unshared moment, you understood something cold and absolute. He had not seen you, not truly, and you were left to gather the pieces alone.

You left his apartment for the first time, and the last, with only silence as your companion. The quiet was broken only by the intermittent, involuntary sniffles that slipped out, small and ragged, marking the fragility of the composure you could not quite hold. Your body, still tingling from closeness and the cruel intimacy of the night, carried the weight of everything he had said, everything he had not said, and everything you had finally understood.

Each step away from the door felt like crossing a threshold, leaving behind not just a place, but the hope you had brought with you. The hallway stretched on, indifferent and unfeeling, and with every breath, the raw ache within you deepened.

Afterward, he did not end things. He vanished.

You did not reach out. And for the first time in months, perhaps ever, you were truly alone in the echo of your own heartbreak.

The weeks stretched long and unremarkable. You managed to keep your tears at bay in public at first, until you began to hear whispers. Not office gossip exactly, but murmurs of Caleb actively pursuing that same childhood friend, of how he had always loved her, and the silent confusion over whatever had passed between you, which had never truly been anything.

Only then did your sobs follow you beyond your apartment, catching you in sudden waves, sometimes unbidden, other times provoked by hushed words or furtive glances from colleagues who had once watched him notice you. You learned to flee at the mention of his name, to hide yourself wherever privacy could be found. A restroom cubicle. An empty stairwell. An unused office. All because your face never masked your grief. The evidence was always obvious: cheeks flushed an embarrassing red, eyes swollen and raw, nose and upper lip puffy as though you had been physically struck by your own sorrow.

Eventually, the gossip faded. But by then, in the long passage of days and nights that blurred together, the raw anguish dulled. It flattened. It hollowed you out. A quiet emptiness grew inside, cold and absolute. If anyone could see the space within your heart, within your mind, it would be terrifying. An unoccupied room that had once held hope, warmth, longing, and trust. Now it held only silence, and the faint echo of betrayal.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A year passed both quickly and impossibly slowly. You were no longer the person you had once been, though Caleb was not the sole cause. He was only the final weight added to a structure already strained. The evisceration of your feelings had been a long time coming, and even after a full cycle of seasons had come and gone, you had not recovered from it.

In that year, you told no one what had happened. There was a time when shame might have kept you silent. Now, it simply no longer mattered. No one asked, and you did not offer.

Your co-workers noticed the changes anyway. You stopped going out after work. You spoke less. You seemed smaller somehow, quieter, as though parts of you had folded inward and stayed there. Laughter no longer came to you, not even when it should have. In moments that once would have drawn it out naturally, all you could manage was the same small, lifeless smile you gave in response to anything meant to be pleasant or amusing. It was not a performance. It was all that remained.

One evening, you lay motionless in the bath long after the water had gone cool, your chin barely above the surface, your thoughts drifting without shape or urgency. The room was dim. The light over the mirror hummed faintly. Time passed without marking itself.

When your phone buzzed on the counter, you did not move. Whatever it was could wait. Or it could disappear. The distinction felt unimportant.

Eventually, you rose, dried yourself without hurry, and went to the bedroom. The bed waited where it always had, unchanged, familiar in outline if not in meaning. You lay down because it was night and your body required it, not because the space offered rest. The mattress accepted your weight without response. Nothing in the room reached back.

You reached for your phone only to set the alarm for morning, and that was when you saw the notification waiting for you.

Caleb.

You opened the message and let the screen glow in the darkened room.

Caleb: been a while. how are you?

The words were brief and casual, as though you were old acquaintances rather than unfinished business. You stared at the message until you were no longer reading it, until you were only staring at the screen itself, light against glass, no longer processing anything at all.

You blinked, eventually. You closed the text, opened your alarm, and set it for morning. Then you placed the phone face down a short distance away on the bed, turned onto your side, and went to sleep.

The days that followed passed in the usual grey rhythm. You woke, dressed, went to work. You came home, showered, lay in the bath until the water cooled, then went to bed. The first message remained untouched and unremarked, a small weight you ignored. Then, three mornings later, a Friday, your phone buzzed again.

Caleb: saw you on the way to work this morning :3

You slid the phone into your pocket and returned to what you were doing. The day continued as days did now, with meetings, emails, and the low hum of routine. The message stayed where it was, unopened again not from avoidance, but from lack of priority.

On your lunch break, you sat in a stairwell with your back against the wall, the concrete cool through your clothes. You took out your phone and looked at his message properly this time. There was nothing in it that unsettled you. Nothing that invited memory or reaction. Just an observation, lightly offered, familiar in its ease.

You considered what to say, not because it mattered, but because the question had been asked. There was an answer that would satisfy it without opening anything further.

You typed it and sent it without hesitation.

you: i’m fine

That single, quiet reply was enough. Soon, he began to text you regularly, and you found yourself responding not out of desire, but simply to acknowledge the words he sent. He told you trivial things, sent memes, and made observations about nothing and everything. Each message was casual, almost careless, yet threaded with the expectation that you would reply. You did not initiate texts yourself.

When he finally crossed paths with you in person, always by chance and never by design, you acknowledged his words. Your responses were brief and factual, a quiet recognition rather than engagement. He noticed, of course, and interpreted it as attentiveness, an ability to listen, a kind of appreciation he had not earned. He did not see the emptiness behind your eyes, nor the absence of expectation or investment in the conversation.

And in this, though he remained unaware, the roles had quietly inverted. He was now the pursuer, not for romance, not for lust, not for anything tangible, but for your attention. You provided it only as acknowledgement of his presence, without giving anything of yourself in return.

A handful of months passed, quiet and unremarkable, and then you found yourselves in bed together again. He was, as ever, good, reliably so, and that alone was enough to anchor the encounters. You felt nothing, or almost nothing, and that void was familiar, steady, unthreatening. But in the midst of that emptiness, the spark of sensation and warmth was a small pleasure. It was worth taking, even if the pleasure was drawn from someone you neither loved nor particularly liked.

The dynamic had shifted. Where once you had been exposed and vulnerable to his whims and desires, now it was the reverse. You offered him your body when it suited you, a quiet currency in the unspoken arrangement you both inhabited. He benefited from it, yes, but so did you, in the solace of sensation and in the muted acknowledgement that something could still be felt, even if it was hollowed of hope.

And then one day, amid the quiet pattern you had fallen into, he spoke of himself.

“I got my heart broken,” he said casually, as though announcing the weather. “The woman I loved, my childhood friend, she chose someone else. She never felt the same way about me in the first place.”

You heard him, of course, but there was no rejoicing in his despair and no solace offered for the pain he now revealed. There was no apology for the way he had used you back then and no acknowledgement of the hurt he had caused. You simply nodded and said nothing, your attention measured and distant, as though the words were a trivial update rather than a revelation meant to matter. The space between you remained hollow, and yet within it, the quiet transactions continued.

Some months later, the pattern had settled into something almost routine. He texted you, and you went, moving through the motions you had come to know so well. By the time you arrived, the warmth of the night’s drinks had faded into a tipsy alertness, leaving him teasing, insistent, and entirely self-absorbed.

He greeted you with a grin, his hands already wandering, tugging playfully at your clothing as he kissed you. Just before the familiar closeness, the skin-to-skin touch that had become the quiet currency of your arrangement, he murmured, half serious and half amused, “You know… if I’m not married by the time I turn thirty, we should get married.”

He said it entirely for himself, with no thought of your future, your choices, or your desires. It was a declaration of whimsy, of audacity, of self-centredness dressed in humour.

You didn’t take it seriously. Nodding was enough, and words were unnecessary. Your agreement was empty, a placation, a silent ending to a conversation that had never truly been yours to join. His audacity passed over you like a ripple in still water.

Two years and some change slipped by without ceremony, the passage of time barely registering as it moved through you.

You continued sleeping together throughout it all. There was no dating, no progression, no moment where the arrangement was ever named. You would not have called it a friendship—there was nothing mutual enough, nothing balanced enough for that. If asked, you might not have known what to call it at all.

Caleb would have said differently. He talked at you as he always had, filling the space with his thoughts, his observations, his running commentary on the world, and somewhere along the way he seemed to convince himself that there was something between you. Something shared. Something meaningful.

There wasn’t.

There was only the recurring exchange of bodies, the familiar press of skin, the brief relief of pleasure between the sheets. Nothing more. Nothing promised. Nothing owed.

Late in that second year, as winter crept closer and the air sharpened, Caleb mentioned, almost casually, that he had turned thirty over the summer.

You looked at him blankly, the statement landing without resonance. Whatever significance that number had once held had long since slipped from your mind. He noticed the absence of reaction and, with an easy familiarity, reminded you of what you had agreed to all those years ago. Marriage. To him. Apparently, the time had come.

He did not say it outright, but it was clear enough in the way he framed it, in the lack of feeling behind the words. This was not about wanting to be married so much as wanting to have been. A milestone reached. A box checked. He was single. There was no one else in his life, no plan unfolding beyond the ruined future he had once imagined with his childhood friend. And so, by default, by proximity, by convenience, you were what remained.

You understood, with a clarity that did not sting. This had nothing to do with you. And you did not go searching for feelings you knew did not exist.

Still, you took time to consider it. He allowed you that much, at least, space without pressure, without urgency, as though the outcome were already decided and this pause merely a courtesy.

It did not take long. A handful of days passed, quiet and uninterrupted, and in that time you weighed the matter without sentiment. Love did not enter into it. Neither did hope. What remained was simple calculus.

Marrying a high-ranking officer would benefit you. The advantages were clear, tangible. Military spouse benefits far exceeded anything you received as a civilian, even with clearance. Stability. Protection. Access. Things that could be counted on, even if the man himself could not.

And so you decided, not because you wanted him, but because the arrangement made sense.

So you chose to marry.

There were rings, real ones, chosen and acquired with the same efficiency that marks everything about him. The union itself was brief, unadorned, carried out in a government office by someone who neither knows you nor cares to. There was no ceremony beyond the formalities. No witnesses who matter. No moment for joy or surprise.

There was no kiss when you were told you may. No laughter afterward, no shared disbelief at the suddenness of it all. You left the office married, intact, unchanged.

You returned to his apartment. There, for a fleeting interval, the physical rhythm between you resumed. The encounter was recognisable, straightforward, moving with a steady inevitability rather than urgency. Marriage did not alter it. It merely gave it a formal name.

There was no honeymoon, no adjustment period. None could exist, not when he had already been scheduled for a mission that would take him off-planet for more than a week. Even if he had wanted to linger, to take time with you, or to allow the two of you to acclimatise, he could not.

When the momentary interlude ended, you took your leave, as you had always done. He took the opportunity to rest, to be ready for the mission that awaited him, while you returned to your own apartment, still responsible for your own life, your things, and the eventual move. The doors of his home were open to you, the security protocols updated, but no more. Nothing else was prepared. No assistance offered.

You were married. And still alone.

Days pass.

After Caleb left for his mission, you moved what remained of your life over the next several days. The process was unhurried, not from intention but from necessity. You sorted, discarded, arranged the sale or disposal of what would not follow you. The boxes you brought were few. Clothing. Toiletries. The small personal items that still felt permissible to keep. His apartment was already furnished, already equipped, already complete without you, and you assumed, correctly, that nothing you owned was required there.

You claimed the spare bedroom as your own, unpacking only what was necessary, leaving the rest untouched. Its quiet corners allowed you to exist without interference. The bed, already there and unfamiliar, offered no rest like the one you had left behind; it was a place only to sleep, and you did so quickly, efficiently, without hope for comfort. The attached bathroom offered privacy, a way to manage the routines of living without crossing his path. You did not linger in the rooms, did not attempt to soften the space, or leave evidence of yourself behind.

The apartment’s rhythms were not yours. You kept your presence contained, your belongings minimal, your movements unremarkable. You did not disrupt. You did not intrude. You moved through the space as if it belonged entirely to someone else, because it did. You made no attempt to alter it, to leave marks, to claim it as your own.

He returned from his mission unaware, his routines undisturbed, the apartment continuing as it always had. Neat. Orderly. Uninterrupted. You fit into it quietly, unobtrusively, not as a part of the household but as a tenant in a life that was never meant to include you.

It took months, several, slow and unremarkable, before he began to feel something stir for you. Closer to a year than anything else. The way he looked at you, the way his hands traced over you, the way your bodies came together carried a weight and a closeness that had never existed in all the years you had known each other. Intimacy grew not in declarations or shared laughter, but in the quiet, consuming attention he gave you and in the subtle ways he began to notice what had always been there, unnoticed.

It started with the slow registration of small things. Not all at once, and never urgently. Just details that drifted into awareness and stayed there.

One of the things he had been noticing for some time, though never often enough to feel urgent, was the food in the kitchen bin. Not daily. Not predictably. But with a frequency that lingered in his awareness. Leftovers discarded while still largely untouched, portions too intact to suggest they had simply been ruined. Every few days, sometimes after longer gaps, he would pause while tying off the bin liner, briefly curious what might have gone wrong with it. Nothing appeared burnt, spoiled, or mishandled. And each time, he dismissed the question as quickly as it surfaced, trusting there must be some ordinary explanation that did not require further attention.

One afternoon, he came home earlier than expected.

You were seated at the table, a plate of food in front of you, untouched. You stared at it with an intensity that made him stop short in the doorway. Your gaze was fixed, unfocused, as though the plate were less an object than a place your attention had got lost.

He cleared his throat.

You didn’t move.

“…Hey,” he said cautiously.

Only then did you seem to come back. You blinked, then drew in a deep breath, sharp and deliberate, as though you had only just remembered you needed air. You stood, scraped the entire contents of the plate into the bin, rinsed it, and set it in the sink. The movement was efficient, practised, and final.

His brow furrowed slightly, surprised. “You’re not hungry?”

You paused for a fraction of a second, as if the question had to travel some distance to reach you.

“No,” you said mildly. “I guess not.”

Something in his chest tightened.

He watched the answer assemble itself without words. The discarded food. The moments of stillness. The absence of appetite he had half noticed and never named. For a fleeting instant, he considered asking if you were all right. But the thought dissolved as quickly as it formed. If something were wrong, you would say something. You always spoke when you needed to, didn’t you? Conversation flowed easily enough between you, or so he believed.

So he let the moment pass.

The questions lingered, unasked but tolerated, folding themselves into a growing awareness of you that he had never acknowledged before. Something was stirring in him—not urgency, not clarity, but a pull, a faint stirring of affection that he was only beginning to recognise. It was not protectiveness yet, not fully formed, but a tender curiosity that threaded itself through his attention, a desire to be near you for reasons he barely understood.

In the way a quiet, unexamined fondness often draws a person toward the one they desire, Caleb began to linger in the spaces you occupied, moving through the apartment in ways that allowed him to be near you without touching. Sometimes he paused in the doorway while you packed your lunch bag for work, sometimes he stayed a little longer in the same room, pretending to organise papers or check his phone, just to savour the quiet proximity. He did not intrude, not yet, but the air between you seemed fuller when he was there. It was enough to convince him that closeness was growing, even if it was nothing more than his own desire manifesting around you.

He started speaking at you more, filling the rooms with his observations, his half-formed thoughts, the running commentary of a mind that assumed conversation itself could knit intimacy. Words tumbled out of him, often unnecessary, sometimes trivial, yet he lingered on each one, hoping your presence lent them meaning.

The sex itself remained accustomed, confident, efficient, yet it took on a new undertone. Heat. Skin. The press of him against you. It seemed to him that the rhythm of it all was growing less habitual, more deliberate. Afterward, you did not move. You did not remove yourself from his hold. Not because you wanted to stay. Not because you felt comfort or affection. But because the ever present emptiness within you kept you still. His arm across you was neither vice like nor heavy, only solid enough that you understood he wanted you to remain. You did not resist. You did not push. You did not engage. And yet, by your lack of movement, he convinced himself it was mutual. And though he did not realise it, it was a rhythm shaped entirely by his own interpretations, his own desires, and not by anything you truly gave.

He believed, quite earnestly, that he was falling in love. The fleeting moments of unease, the times when something about your distance or quiet weighed on him, were brief and easily dismissed, replaced by the conviction that what he felt must be real. Each shared glance, each near touch, each quiet moment in the same space accumulated into a narrative of intimacy that existed entirely in his mind. And by the time a year had passed, he was certain of it.

You were beneath him, caged by his arms, held in the practised alignment your bodies had learned. There was nothing urgent about the moment. No hunger. No asking. Just the steady continuation of something long established. He pressed his mouth to your neck, breath warm against your skin, and said it there, quietly, confidently, as though it had already been true for some time.

“I love you.”

The words landed without echo.

You did not say it back.

You did not pull away. You did not stiffen. You did nothing at all. And it was that nothing that momentarily gave him pause. It registered faintly, distantly, like a misstep he was not yet ready to examine. He did not mention it. Not then. He finished what was already in motion, assumed silence was timing, assumed it would resolve itself.

Later, clothed, upright, removed from the intimacy that made it feel inevitable, he said it again.

As though repetition would summon agreement.

As though love, once spoken, must be returned.

One of the few times you actually met his gaze, nothing changed about it.

There was no softening. No relief. Not even the faint echo of happiness he had begun to search for in you. Your expression held the same vacancy it had for a long time now, an absence so complete it barely registered as emotion at all. It set him on edge in a way raised voices never could. There was nowhere for him to place what he was feeling, nothing in you that shifted to receive it.

You reminded him, calmly, that neither of you had married for love. Not gently. Not cruelly. Simply as a fact that had always been true. This had never been the arrangement, never the promise. You said it the way you said most things, without emphasis, without apology, without the impulse to cushion the impact.

He argued. Not angrily, but desperately. As if love were a substance that could be coaxed into existence with enough repetition. As if saying it often enough might convince it to take root where nothing had ever been planted.

You told him what he already knew.

There was nothing there to draw from.

He suggested couples’ therapy.

It was offered with a quiet insistence, a way to show he was willing to try. You agreed, openly unconvinced it would change anything, not out of defiance, but because you did not recognise a problem that conversation could resolve.

He made the appointment himself. You did not offer to help, and he did not ask. You were not going to take on the work of repairing something you did not believe was broken. Whatever this was, it belonged entirely to his unease, not yours.

And for the realisation that followed, there was no defence. You had not arrived at this emptiness in response to his confession. You had been living inside it long before he ever thought to name what he felt.

You nodded at his plans. You consented, a small acknowledgement that you would participate. You did not pretend there was hope in it for you. And in the quiet spaces between his words, you were already aware that effort alone could not bridge what had been hollowed for so long.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The three of you sit in the softly lit office. The counsellor leans forward slightly, pen poised. “Let’s begin with you,” she says, turning to you. “Do you feel your husband loves you?”

You consider the question for a moment, letting it settle. “No,” you say finally, calm and deliberate.

“Can you explain why?”

You pause again, scanning the timeline in your mind, weighing what you remember and what you’ve felt. “He said it once,” you answer, measured. “A year into the marriage. I did not say it back. That is why we are here.”

The counsellor nods, jotting notes. “Do you feel he shows love in other ways? Acts of service, attention outside of intimacy—anything that indicates he prioritises you?”

You take another moment. Each memory is assessed, catalogued for relevance. “No. He does not. I cannot point to a single instance of that.”

The counsellor glances at Caleb. “And you?”

“I… I don’t understand the question,” he says plainly.

The counsellor turns back to you. “Consider if he has taken your needs into account at all. Has he given you his time or energy in ways that aren’t about him?”

You think for a few seconds, scanning the routines, the interactions, the moments he might have prioritised you. “No,” you answer calmly. “It’s always been that way.”

The counsellor makes a note, eyes narrowing slightly as she observes. The quiet in the room is deliberate, weighted. Your detachment, your careful assessment, the absence of expectation, all make the imbalance in the marriage unmistakable, even if Caleb has yet to fully grasp it.

“Have there been times you’ve wished he would act differently?” she asks, voice gentle.

You let the question linger, reviewing your answers, your choices, the interactions you’ve endured. “I don’t expect him to,” you say finally. “I answer when needed, acknowledge when addressed. That is sufficient.”

Caleb shifts slightly but remains silent. The counsellor scribbles one last note. The room holds its quiet tension—what is unsaid as telling as what is spoken.

The session ends unresolved, as first sessions often do. The therapist suggested returning, though no second appointment was confirmed. You had only glanced at Caleb once, his eyes carefully avoiding yours, a silent distance stretching between you.

The train carries you from Linkon in measured motion, the soft hum of the tracks the only constant. Words drift through the carriage, snippets of conversation, laughter, the occasional clatter of luggage, but none belong to either of you. Your gaze remains fixed on the passing scenery, a ribbon of blurred colour and shape, while Caleb sits opposite you, eyes closed yet unmoving, alert in ways you do not notice.

You keep your knees angled away, careful not to brush against his longer legs, a subtle negotiation of space that has become second nature. Across from you, Caleb realises how little he truly knows you. He has listened, absorbed your words, your patterns, your silences, but never asked. Never probed the contours of your mind, never invited the shape of your thoughts into his own. You might as well be a stranger, and in that realisation, it is no wonder you believe he does not care, that he never could.

Now, watching you in this quiet, emptied presence, he feels it. The weight of what he never noticed. Your eyes are not calm, not tired. They are absent of emotion at best, distant, untethered. For the first time, he understands that his wife has existed beside him all this time and yet apart, unseen.

The drive back to his apartment after the train deposits you in Skyhaven is quiet in a way that makes sound itself feel intrusive. The next days follow much the same way. He does not try to talk, only watches when time allows, and the more he observes, the more he realises there is nothing really there. Nothing seems to matter to you. You come and go in quiet efficiency, leaving no imprint, almost no disturbances, no evidence of life beyond your body moving through the space. You are like a ghost in what is supposed to be your home, forgotten by time, forgotten by love.

At first, he notices the absence only in general terms. No marks left behind. Nothing personalised. No lingering sounds or smells. But as he pays closer attention, smaller details emerge. The way you move deliberately through the apartment, leaving no corner softened by your presence. The moment a glass slips from your grasp and shatters quietly against the floor. You murmur a brief, almost automatic apology, his glass, not yours, before bending to retrieve the broom and dustpan. Your movements are precise, but your mind seems elsewhere, distant and unfocused. You nearly step onto the shards, and for a heartbeat he flinches, reaching instinctively, but you continue, sweeping with methodical detachment, untouched and unaffected.

The quiet steps, the careful handling of everything around you, the choice of the spare bedroom, your distance from his routines, all of it reveals a life lived in the margins of the space you occupy.

He begins to see other subtle ways you exist without claiming anything. No laughter. No light. No engagement beyond what is necessary. Even as you sleep, you do not settle, do not sprawl, do not inhabit the space. It remains his apartment, ordered and untouched by you beyond the essentials you brought with you. In that realisation, he recognises how long he has ignored you, how little he has seen. Years of proximity, months of marriage, and he has never known you, not truly, not in any way that matters. You have been present only in form, not in life, and only now does the emptiness you carry become undeniable to him.

And so he apologises. Truly, for the first time, honestly. Not the hollow, convenient, “I’m sorry you feel this way,” but something heavier, more exacting: I’m sorry I didn’t see. I’m sorry I turned you into this. Because I did this to you, didn’t I? I made you like this.

For the first time, he sees himself clearly, not just as a husband, but as a man, as a person, falling short in ways that have scarred you. He remembers who you were before he returned to your life, before the fractures and betrayals. The woman who blushed at his teasing, who carried herself with quiet curiosity, whose eyes softened and sparked when you caught sight of him, even when you tried to hide it.

He realises, too late, that this quiet version, the one who rarely meets his gaze, who listens as he speaks of everything and nothing as though no response is required, is who you are now. The emptiness he finally recognises in your eyes, the way you move through the world without inhabiting it, the shadow of a presence that fills space without claiming it, all of it is the result of his absence, his selfishness. That hollowed, careful, silent version of you took shape in the year he was not there to witness it, and only now is he beginning to understand how far it has spread.

He reaches out, brushing a hand against your arm, an attempt at closeness that feels foreign and uncomfortable. You stiffen under the contact, eyes flicking to his, unyielding.

“I’ll do better,” he says, voice tight with shame, eyes glistening with the start of tears. “I love you. Just—let me show you. Let me prove it to you.”

His hand curls slightly, uncertain, as though he isn’t sure whether to pull away or hold on. There’s a weight in his posture, a recognition of all the years he failed to notice, all the moments that slipped by unnoticed because he never truly saw you. The shame presses into him, thick and inescapable, and it makes his voice tremble, low and raw. He has finally understood—not just your emptiness, but the part he built it with.

You watch, silent, letting him feel the enormity of it alone. There is no warmth in your eyes, no invitation, no reassurance. The moment is his to bear.

You draw back slightly, not harshly, but enough to make him notice, your expression calm, measured. “Love,” you say quietly, almost to yourself. “Do you even know me well enough to say that?”

“My, what do we have here? A stray puppy?”

That voice is as smooth and deep as melted chocolate. You want to thank God, Buddha, Satan and all other powerful entities for letting you witness this moment. 

He stares down at you, assessing everything. If you had known you’d end up here you would’ve taken a bath and worn something better. 

“How odd. You have no magic power and you lack any muscle that most assassins and warriors have. It’s almost as if you’re an ordinary person.”

Okay, ouch. But he isn’t wrong. 

You raise both hands. “You’re right, I’m as average as they come.” 

“Then tell me what an ‘average’ citizen such as yourself wanted with me.”

You tilt your head in thought before answering, “I wanted to meet you.”

“Surely, you’re joking.”

“I’m perfectly serious.”

“You must take me for a fool.”

“No, I truly did want to meet you.” 

“Why are you here? Surely, you didn’t come here to die.”

“No.” Though you were prepared. “I just wanted to see you.”

The fiend watches you closely. His eyes can pierce through any lie, but your gaze is as clear as a cloudless sky and without a trace of deception. He is unsure how to feel about this.

“You’re quite bold. But an ordinary person wanting to meet me for the sake of it feels too odd to be true. Quite stupid, even. Did it ever occur to you that I may not be so polite and just end up taking your heart?”

You raise your head, steady and unfearful as you ask, “Will taking my heart make you happy?” 

You want to tell him that every part of you belongs to him now, but even you would cringe at such cheesiness. You decide to be normal about this. “If my organs will make you happy then take them, but I do have a request.” You wriggle closer. “When you take my heart, please look into my eyes until I die.”

You’ve met your favorite, your savior. In a way, Sylus gave you a second chance at life. It seemed only fitting to perish with him being the last thing you see. 

Sylus stares at you with guarded curiosity. “I’ve never met someone so eager to die before. Either that or you are an excellent liar.” Some humans are trickier than others, they will say anything to get the upper hand. 

“Don’t get cocky, human.” His tail tightens around you. “I don’t know what you’re planning but it’d be all too easy to kill you.”

He expects you to resist, to scream or cry or seduce him. 

Instead, you cover your mouth, the edges curling upwards despite your efforts to appear serious. But it’s not your fault, he’s so cute when he tries to be menacing! You have no doubt that he’d just kill an NPC, but he will always be attractive to you, even as he threatens to rip your heart out.

“This is no laughing matter. Dragons are territorial, you should’ve thought twice before trespassing into my domain.”

“Sy—ahem, Mister Dragon, please remember my request when you end my life.”

“... I’m really going to do it.”

“I know!” You nod your head vigorously, the grin you try so hard to suppress looks ridiculous to him. Compared to throwing yourself in front of a train or overdosing on pills, this is your ideal way to die.

“...” 

“...”

“... tsk.” He releases you and you can’t help but miss the feeling of his tail choking you. Oh, well. 

“Mister Dragon?”

He returns to lying on his treasures, back turned away from you. 

Not wanting him to think that you were going to backstab him, you get down on all fours and crawl towards the fancy bed. “Sir Dragon?” 

He remains silent.

"Amazing, extraordinary, most handsome and venerable Lord Dragon—”

"Enough. Don't call me those embarrassing titles." He sighs and proceeds to give you his name. In the game's canon, the MC couldn't pronounce his name properly and called him Sylus instead. But the MC and Sylus have yet to meet.

Before you are two choices: 1) use his proper name, or 2) pretend that you can't pronounce it and ask to use "Sylus" instead. With the first option, there would be a connection between the two of you due to being the only person alive who knows his name. With the latter, you'd be stealing a defining moment for the heroine. Either way, the consequences will result in you forming a bond with Sylus.

The dragon waits for you to reply.

There is no need to complicate things, so you beam stupidly. "Your name is kind of hard to pronounce... can I just call you 'Sylus' instead?"

"Do what you want."

"Thanks."

“This is the part where you tell me your name.” He can’t believe he was teaching etiquette to a human.

“Er, right.” You give him your name. Though with that voice, he can call you whatever he wants.

“I won’t stop you so go back the way you came and leave me be.”

“I can’t.”

“This isn’t a request. Get out while I’m still being patient.”

“I mean, I literally can’t. I’m not from this place and I don’t know how to get back home.” To be frank, you have little interest in returning. Aside from the next LADS update, you aren’t going to miss anything. No friends, no family, only superiors who took advantage of you and a cold, barren apartment with a rent that was two months due. 

Sylus sighs and rolls over. He lays an arm over his torso, looking gorgeous as he looks at you with eyes full of disdain. “Trying to get me to pity you, isn’t going to work.”

“I’m not.” You don’t need his or anybody else’s pity. You are simply tired, and you were sick of pretending that you aren’t. When Sylus does lose his temper, then at least you could be honest in your final moments. 

CHAPTER 2: Enticing Offers Main Masterlist

To him, I was a mundane necessity that was always around but never truly desired, like an ordinary harbour with a small lighthouse in the distance, a place for him to rest for a time before becoming forgotten once again, for the great horizon beyond my shores represents her. There were times when I tried to stop him and desperately keep him within the bay, in the safety of my warm embrace as the paths before him were not worth disregarding and sacrificing his life for a love that will end up killing him long before the love he desires comes to fruition, and yet, he and the new twisted plans that Astra had in store for him says otherwise.

She's worth the pain.

She's everything to me.

I can't live with the idea of not being by her side.

I'll do whatever it takes to protect her and make her happy.

I would rather die in her arms than not save her.

You don't understand what I'm going through.

He pushed me away, as to him I was just in the way of keeping her safe in his own embrace, even if it meant meeting his tragic end by her own hands or to forever be cursed to not being able to love her nor live a long life together.

If only he knew that I did understand, far more than he could ever imagine, but yet... He doesn't see it that way. To him, I'm not as special as her. I'm not the person who makes his heart race; the one who was never a constant thing in his mind. I'm someone who he'll drop everything that he's doing, just to be near to like she could, to have her eyes on him and him alone.

I'm not, nor will I ever be, the sun, his sun that lights up his world. The sun that he willingly orbits around while craving more of her warmth and care, as I was just a tiny moon that sticks around him during the nights and early mornings. The same small moon that reflects his sun's shine when she is gone for a time, and then pales in the sky as the sun takes back her rightful place. A moon that is always there but never greatly appreciated as much.

I hate it.

I hate how he always gives his life away so easily for her.

I hate the times where would he screams, shouts and grows cold towards me time and time again whenever I try to protect him from the inevitable, only to then hold his cold, lifeless body in my arms, or watch the man I love becomes the empty unrepairable shell of what he once was after she was gone.

I hate how in some lifetimes, I also end up sacrificing myself just for him to have a chance to be with her as I slowly fade away like a long forgotten memory.

Most of all... I hate that I was never enough for him to love instead.

But yet... In the end, he and I were no different. We're both willing to risk our lives to be with the love of our lives, even if the moments together were short and fleeting. In the end, we both never once regretted our decisions, even during this twisted game with fate. However, there will always be one consistent thing that makes our destinies different.

For him, it was the fact that he and the love of his life would meet each other again in another life. That their hearts and souls will always belong to each other, and there will be another chance to be together. As for me? What was even there for me to hold on to?

Where is the reassurance that I'll have a chance to be loved and cherished by him? To be the one who is constantly having his loving gaze on them, and to be in his boundless embrace of devotion.

...

Maybe there won't be another next time.

Maybe there won't ever be a chance for me to love him so openly, as his and Mc's love was already set in stone, and I was just destined to fade into the cold, lifeless void like always.

Maybe it was for the best that we'll never see each other again, my love. To live our lives from now on and in the many lives after as strangers. To never recall the times we shared, the moments and memories that I'd once loved and cherished with all my heart and soul. To live in different timelines, dimensions, worlds, or even universes.

Maybe it's for the best that Astra lets a different cosmic god take my soul to somewhere far away...but not without taking your cursed, tragic fate with me in exchange for my compliance, so that you can finally live a life full of love and happiness with her. For her to love you with just as much love as I did for you in all those lifetimes.

To give you my last and final act of love and wishes for you.

Goodbye, my love... my all in all...

My snowman

My dragon

My starlight

My fishie

My candy apple

My Emcumbrace Pragma... I hope we never meet again.

...

..

.

**** When you're a god, all your mistakes become catastrophes.

Thor

****

One month.

Only a month had passed since their kind Lucian dissolved into golden sparks of warm rays from the Sun Beneath the Waters, leaving behind nothing but warm memories and an empty throne in the center of the throne room.

A month, and Iriel still couldn't forget his last words, spoken in a voice trembling with weakness when he pressed his exhausted palm against her silvery crown for the last time — a crown that contrasted so sharply against his faded, once-golden locks.

"Little pearl," he'd said in that soft voice of his. "Soon I'll be gone. Another will take my place."

That last phrase made her small heart clench with pain.

How could anyone imagine Lemuria without Lucian? He was part of the very essence of their underwater kingdom — like the gleam of crystals in the main Temple of Whale Fall, like the singing of whales in the deepest parts of the sea, like the shimmer of dense plankton in its dark waters.

"But why?" she'd protested weakly. "You're our god... you can't just leave..."

Lucian had pulled himself up in his bed, carefully nudging her by the hand, urging her to sit on the edge so their faces were level. In his sky-blue eyes lay infinite tenderness mixed with something little Iriel could only define as... weariness. As if he carried the weight of all the world's oceans on his shoulders.

"This is our way, child," he'd explained, gently stroking her cheek. "Sea gods aren't eternal. We serve our people, then pass our legacy to the next. It's the natural order of things."

"And the new god... will he be as kind as you?" Iriel squeezed her eyes shut, afraid to hear the answer.

For a while Lucian kept an oppressive silence. The stillness in his divine chambers became almost tangible. When he finally spoke, it was in a completely different tone — one tinged with unspeakable anxiety.

"He'll be born from sacred flame," he'd said slowly, as if carefully choosing each word. "He'll be strong, willful... perhaps even cruel and selfish. All gods are like this at the beginning of their path. They're like wild currents, unaware of their own power."

Iriel's azure eyes flew wide with fear.

"He'll be bad?" she'd squeaked.

"Not bad," Lucian shook his head, though his smile was sad. "Difficult. And he'll be very lonely. Loneliness makes gods cruel. That's why he'll need a friend more than I ever did."

Then he'd taken her small hands in his and looked directly into her eyes — more serious than ever before.

"So, Iriel, I'm asking you... no, begging you... Even if he causes you pain, promise that your friendship will be his anchor to Lemuria. Promise you won't abandon him, no matter how difficult the circumstances."

And she'd promised.

Of course she'd promised — looking into those kind blue eyes, she couldn't say anything else. Even though she'd cried in his arms for hours afterward, unwilling to part with her first and only friend.

Now, swimming down the corridor toward the throne room accompanied by her father, Triton, Iriel still couldn't understand what the word "difficult" meant in connection with their god.

Her Lucian had been easy, like the flow of water.

He'd never asked for anything excessive, only her presence, or rare requests to sing a song only she knew — because her voice, he'd said, reminded him of the sea before it grew tired of endless storms.

Father was difficult when he forced her to memorize ancient treatises until black spots danced in her eyes. The old priests were difficult with their endless ceremonies and complex rituals. But god... god had been home, warmth, safety.

"Iriel, remember everything I taught you," her father's voice sounded stricter than usual, snapping her back to reality. "Stand straight, speak only when addressed, and under no circumstances look the new god directly in the eye until he permits it."

"But Father, with Lucian I always—"

"Forget about Lucian," Triton cut her off sharply. "That god was... soft. Too soft for our time. The new one..." He paused, weighing his words. "The new god is fire in a child's body. He's dangerous, Iriel. Dangerous even to us who serve him. But he's also our only hope. Lemuria needs a strong ruler, not a kind dreamer."

Her father's words stung her compassionate heart.

Did that mean Lucian had been a bad god? But he'd been so kind, so understanding... Was kindness really such a terrible trait for a god?

Seeing the confusion on her tiny face, Triton placed a hand on her shoulder — a gesture meant to be comforting but somehow felt like a final farewell, considering he was about to leave her right at the gates of the throne room.

"You'll manage, my daughter. You were born for this. And remember — whatever happens in that throne room, your destiny is to become the Sea God's companion, the vessel of his legacy. It's the greatest honor a Lemurian woman can receive."

But "vessel of his legacy" sounded far too frightening for a girl who'd only just turned seven moons old. She'd heard adult Lemurian women talk about how painful it was to lay eggs, and though everyone said it wasn't as scary as young Lemurians feared, she still trembled at the thought.

And most importantly — she couldn't reconcile herself with the thought that Lucian was gone. That his gentle hand would never touch her head again, that his sad smile would never warm her frozen heart.

Instead, there was someone else now.

Someone "difficult."

She watched her father's back disappear around the corner at the end of the corridor, his dark green tail flicking one last time before he vanished. Then she looked at the massive gates decorated with carvings of sea waves and solar accents. Two guards in ceremonial armor made from leviathan scales stood silently on either side of the entrance, waiting for the little priestess to gather her courage.

Don't abandon him, she remembered Lucian's words. Whatever happens, don't abandon him. He'll need you more than he'll understand.

Taking a deep breath, Iriel nodded to the guards. The gates slowly parted, and she swam into the magnificent throne room.

The enormous dome of transparent crystal allowed a view of the endless sea expanse directly overhead, where schools of silver fish and graceful rays glided past. Columns of white marble, mined from the ocean's deepest crevices, stretched high toward the ceiling.

At the center of the marvelous chamber rose the throne itself — a work of art carved from a single pearl the size of an enormous whale. Its surface shimmered with every shade of mother-of-pearl, drawing the eye. Steps stretched down from the throne to the floor, though they were rarely used, given the Lemurians' equally picturesque tails.

On both sides of the throne stood Lemuria's elders — thirty of the most ancient Lemurians, each branch of whose ancestry traced back to previous gods. Among them Iriel recognized her father, Triton, standing to the right of the throne, his face frozen with tension.

But all this magnificence faded when Iriel's gaze fell on the throne.

In the place where sad, kind Lucian had sat just months ago, there was... a boy. No more than seven years old, like herself, but there was something... wrong about him. Something that made the water around him tremble with barely contained power.

Not that he was ugly — quite the opposite. His beauty was so perfect it seemed almost unnatural, as if someone had created a perfect statue and forgotten to breathe a soul into it. His hair was the color of a deep-sea storm — dark purple with lavender highlights at the edges, curling around his sculpted face in soft waves. His skin was pale, almost translucent, with a barely noticeable bluish tint that betrayed his divine nature.

But his eyes...

Iriel had never seen such eyes.

They were pink-blue, like pink dawn over the sea, with one difference — there wasn't a drop of the setting sun's warmth in them. These were a predator's eyes — searing, cold, ancient, despite his childlike face.

The eerie boy's body was clothed in ceremonial garments of underwater white silk, embroidered with patterns of pearls and corals, and on his arms rested golden bracelets with symbols of divine power.

But despite all the royal attributes, he looked... bored at the very least. His soft cheek rested carelessly on his fist, and his posture radiated poorly concealed irritation, as if this entire ceremony burdened him.

With a moment's hesitation, Iriel carefully swam to the foot of the throne. Her heart hammered so loudly it seemed the entire hall could hear it. Reaching the first step, she gracefully bent her back as her father had taught her. Her silvery hair streamed through the water with a gentle glow, casting light from the pearls woven into it.

"Your Divine Majesty," she said in a thin voice trembling with excitement. "I am Iriel, daughter of Triton, and from this day forward I... I will serve you with all my heart and soul, as the previous sea god commanded."

The silence stretched on.

The boy on the throne studied her with the same interest one might examine a new toy — evaluating, emotionless. His unusual eyes quickly slid over her small figure, lingering on her hands trembling with nerves and her lowered head.

Finally he spoke in a voice far too commanding and low — though melodious — for a child.

"Rise."

Iriel slowly straightened her back, not daring to raise her eyes above the plumage of his lilac tail.

"Look at me."

It was a command, not a request.

Swallowing the saliva pooling in her mouth, Iriel cautiously raised her gaze and met their new god's eyes. Despite the sparks of blue flame drowning in the depths of his pools, the boy's expression remained cold.

For a long time he simply stared, examining her face with interest.

Iriel felt her cheeks flush under such frank attention, but she couldn't help it — she just tried to fidget as little as possible, calming the nervous twitching of her pink fin.

"Too small," he finally pronounced, as if passing judgment.

An awkward silence hung over the hall. Several elders exchanged quick glances. Triton clenched his fists with all his might, but no one dared object.

The god-boy meanwhile waved his hand carelessly, drawling capriciously, "I wanted a jellyfish. At least they glow prettily in the dark."

One of the elders — Krall, ancient as the sea itself with a dark beard — laughed nervously. "Your Majesty must be joking. The girl was chosen by Lucian himself, she—"

"Lucian is dead," Rafayel cut him off sharply, and the water temperature around the throne rose noticeably, becoming almost unbearably hot. "But I'm here. And I don't need a fragile toy."

Iriel felt tears welling up from the offense burning inside her, but she immediately remembered her father's words about how crying in front of a god was the ultimate disrespect. She quickly bit her lip to suppress such inappropriate emotions.

Now she understood perfectly well how difficult gods could be...

Rafayel noticed her silent struggle and suddenly smirked — for the first time during the entire audience, an expression other than boredom appeared on his face.

"Ah, so you do feel something after all. Interesting."

He rose from the throne with a graceful, fluid yet commanding movement. Even at his young age, the thirty-fourth god moved like a predator confident in his power. Descending a couple of steps, he found himself level with Iriel.

The god's proximity made her feel the full force of his divine essence — the water around him pulsed with oppressive energy, and the scent... the scent was like the ocean after a storm — salty, sharp, wild.

Difficult.

"What's your name?" he asked again, though she'd already introduced herself.

"Iriel, Your Majesty," she answered in a trembling voice, unable to tear her gaze from him without permission.

"Iriel," he repeated, savoring each syllable. "Beautiful name. For my jellyfish."

Rafayel swam a small circle around her axis to study her from all sides. Iriel stood motionless the entire time, feeling like some exotic fish in his aquarium from the way this strange god's gaze penetrated so deeply.

"You're afraid of me," he stated, stopping in front of her.

Iriel wanted to object, to say she wasn't afraid, that she was ready to serve him faithfully — but the words stuck in her throat like a heavy stone. Because... she really was afraid. This boy radiated the same danger as the monsters from the ocean floor.

"That's good," Rafayel hummed with satisfaction, tilting his head like a bird. "Fear means understanding. You understand that I can do anything I want with you."

He extended his hand and touched her cheek. The touch was light, but Iriel felt the hidden power in it — power capable of crushing mighty rocks and raising hundred-level tsunamis.

"Of all the Lemurians, Lucian chose you," he mused thoughtfully. "I wonder if he saw something in you that I don't see yet. Or if he just pitied a little orphan."

"I'm not an orphan," Iriel objected quietly, daring for the first time during the entire audience to say something on her own. "My father is Triton, the chief advisor."

Rafayel smirked, rolling his eyes. "Ah yes, Triton. The same one standing in the corner praying I won't eat his precious daughter for breakfast." He then turned to the assembled elders and ordered carelessly, "Leave us. I want to talk with my 'faithful companion' alone."

Triton immediately flicked his tail, swimming forward. "Your Majesty, perhaps it would be better—"

"I said leave us," Rafayel's voice became quieter, but dangerous notes rang through it.

The water around him began to bubble, boiling as if caught in the hot glow of a real sun.

The elders hurriedly bowed, dissolving into apologies, and left the hall. Triton lingered for a moment, casting a worried glance at his daughter, but he couldn't disobey their god's will.

When the massive gates closed with a loud sound, only the small god and his equally helpless priestess remained in the hall. The silence was deafening — through the crystal dome came only the quiet gurgling of water and the hum of sea creatures.

Rafayel returned to the throne, but now without the gaze of unwelcome witnesses, his posture seemed more relaxed. He leaned back, draping an arm over the armrest, and looked at her with unrestrained, genuine curiosity.

"Do you know what my 'faithful companion' is supposed to do?" he asked with a cruel smirk.

Iriel nodded. Her father had explained all her duties in detail.

"Accompany you to all important events, learn all your desires and needs, help with rituals that require it, be near when you need someone's company..."

"Boring," Rafayel interrupted. "All that was done with Lucian. And I'm not Lucian."

He rose from the throne again and in one flick of his tail appeared in front of her face.

"I think we need new rules. First rule — you do what I say, when I say it, no questions. Agreed?"

Iriel nodded silently, understanding she didn't really have a choice.

"Second rule," he continued, beginning to circle slowly around her. "You don't tell anyone what happens between us. This will be our little secret, shell."

Iriel's heart pounded even harder.

What did he mean?

"Third rule — you don't cry in my presence. Tears irritate me."

The young sea god stopped directly in front of her and leaned so close he scorched her face with his hot breath.

"And the last rule — you belong to me. Not to your father, not to the elders, not to Lemuria. To me. Understood?"

She stared into his sunset eyes and felt something inside her twist into a horrible spasm. This wasn't the god her father had served. This was someone completely different: wild, unpredictable, dangerous.

But she remembered the promise she'd made to Lucian.

Don't abandon him.

Be his anchor.

"Understood, Your Majesty," she whispered.

Rafayel smiled a smile that was simultaneously beautiful and terrifying.

"Excellent. Then let's start with something simple. I want to see the palace. Will you show it to me?"

Iriel nodded, though everything inside her trembled with fear. Something told her this walk would be the first of many trials the new sea god had prepared for her.

There is something quite vexing at not being able to properly love someone. You might believe you were born broken or that you just really don’t deserve good things, which is not really the truth and you know it. Your brain knows it too, it’s just being mean to you and… well, you’re letting it.

It’s snowing and you’ve been out for a couple of minutes now, looking inside a cozy coffee, full of Christmas lights and happy couples. There you see the objects of your adoration, of your most pure and genuine love. She is so bright you cannot take your eyes away, her skin is dark like the night sky, her eyes are made of stars and her laugh takes your breath away. Perfection is not even a good word to describe what exactly she is.

Beside her, there you see him sitting comfortably. The doctor with his lush black hair, gentle smile on his lips, hand playing with the ring in hers. His hair is made of coal, his skin the most pure white from the first snow to fall.

The most strange feeling of all? You didn’t wish to be in her shoes or his. No. You wanted to be there as well, smiling with them and maybe, with a ring in your hand as well.

But this makes you broke, defective, doesn’t it? After all, who else loves more than one person the same way and at the same time? His family, traditional… They would never accept it and she probably isn’t into girls anyway. 

Looking at them while snow stashes in your hair, you feel the little bumps of people that pass by and grumble about you being in the middle of the way like an idiot. 

Honestly? What is the point of denying it? What is to love someone if not looking like an idiot? If you’re able to properly speak or to do anything in front of the one that has your affections, can you truly say you adore them?

Love is but a cruel feeling for it plays and entangles your heart in a web, forcing you to take it out of your chest and give it to the other —even if they never realize it —, just so you can finally breathe again. Love sometimes makes you an extra in your own life, so you just stand there, watching the ones that hold your affection, the two people that will never notice the fragile organ, wrapped in gift paper, left in their veranda.

It’s when you start sneezing that you decide to move, looking at them one last time while they kiss. ‘Maybe I should try to get my heart back and fix it’ you think, shrugging off and starting to walk back home.