After a kiss that felt like both a beginning and an ending, I finally pull back.
My breath is unsteady—I hadn’t realized a kiss could steal the air from your lungs like that. My cheeks are burning, a shy, hot flush. Deniz’s face is still cradled in my hands, but he’s silent, his gaze downcast, his own skin warm and pink under my palms.
My heart is a frantic drum against my ribs. Nervous.
Is he upset?
Does he hate it?
Did I ruin everything?
What do I do now?
I gather every ounce of courage.
"Deniz..." I finally murmur, the na a question and a plea.
He stays silent. Eyes still down. I can’t read him, and the not-knowing is a special kind of torture.
God, Neon. You shouldn’t have done that. You were greedy.
Selfish....
You took too much.
I drop my gaze, my fingers loosening slightly, sha creeping in.
The weight of my own presumption crushing . We stand there in the cold night, suspended in a silence that feels like it could shatter everything.
Finally, his hands lift slowly, as if moving through water. Slowly, gently, he takes my wrists. My eyes snap up, tracing the movent, my stomach sinking. He pushes my hands down from his face, breaking the contact.
His voice, when it cos, is quiet, devoid of the warmth from monts ago.
"You should go back. It’s late."
The realization is a cold splash.
My breath hitches.
He’s angry. He is.
As he turns to walk away, a bolt of panic shoots through . I lunge forward, catching his wrist.
"Deniz, I’m sorry."
He doesn’t look back. "You don’t need to apologize."
"I do!" The words rush out, desperate.
"I did it without your permission, I’m sorr—"
"Forget it." His voice cuts through mine, smooth, final, and utterly devastating.
Forget it.
The two words hit like a physical blow. My eyes widen.
Forget it?
Why?
How?
"Deniz," my voice is a broken whisper now.
"Did you... hate it?"
He still doesn’t turn. His back is a rigid line.
"Please. Just pretend we didn’t do anything."
I stare at his back, rigid and retreating. He won’t even look at . The words slicing deeper than any blade. The most beautiful, terrifying mont of my life... reduced to sothing to be erased.
My grip on his wrist goes slack, all the fight draining out of with those seven cruel words.
Please. Just pretend we didn’t do anything.
He pulls his hand free without a struggle and keeps walking. He doesn’t look back. Not once.
I stand frozen, the cold night air suddenly biting. The warmth of his lips, the silent acceptance I felt... it all curdles into ash.
Why?
When I kissed him, he didn’t push away. He didn’t speak. I felt... I thought I felt him kissing back.
I thought, for one blinding second, that he felt it too.
But his words echo in the hollow of my mind, colder than the winter wind.
Forget it.
A hot, silent tear slips down my cheek. Then another. The hurt is a sharp, quiet ache, blooming right behind my ribs. I watch his figure grow smaller, disappear into the shadows between the streetlights, until he’s gone.
And I’m left alone in the dark, with nothing but the ghost of a kiss and the chilling echo of his request to pretend it never happened.
My eyes are closed, but I feel the damp heat of tears I haven’t bothered to wipe away.
My mind is a relentless echo chamber:
Why did he do that?
Why say "forget it"?
My fists are white-knuckled knots on my lap.
Why?
The single word echoes in the hollow space he left behind. I don’t understand.
"Young Master, we’ve arrived." The driver’s voice is a distant, formal intrusion.
I slowly open my eyes. The Kael Mansion looms, every window ablaze with cold, perfect light. A monunt to a life that feels more like a cage than ever. A servant hurries to open the door.
I step out, my movents chanical. I walk inside, my mind a thousand miles away, trapped on a dark sidewalk. I ignore the bowed heads, the murmured greetings. My steps are slow, heavy with a sadness that weighs down my very bones.
In the living room, Zyke is a picture of indolent power, lounging on a plush couch with a glass of wine. The epito of a man at peace in his kingdom. I don’t even look at him.
I have no energy left for his gas, his provocations. He’s a source of nothing but tension.
I keep walking toward the grand staircase, a path to solitude.
His voice slices through the heavy silence, cold and smooth. "Are you ignoring your big brother?"
I stop. I don’t turn. My own voice cos out flat and sharp, all pretense of softness burned away by tonight’s pain.
"When have you ever accepted as your brother?"
Silence from behind . He has no answer. I don’t wait for one. I take another step up the luxurious, curving stairs.
"Zyren." His voice cos again, firr this ti. "I’ve been waiting. You shouldn’t ignore ."
This ti, I turn. Slowly. I look back at him from the stairs.
His gaze travels over with slow, predatory interest—the tear-streaked face, the disheveled hair, the coffee-stained ruin of my clothes. A bright, utterly genuine smile curls his lips.
He’s enjoying this. My misery is his entertainnt.
"Who did this to you?" he asks, his tone almost conversational, dripping with mock concern.
I don’t answer. I just stare, my red-rimd eyes now blazing with a fury that has finally found a target.
He sets his glass down with a soft, definitive clink and pours another, the deep red wine catching the light like liquid rubies. "Co. Have a drink with ."
I stare, my fists clenching at my sides.
What now?
What fresh hell does he have planned?
But the numbness from Deniz’s rejection is a heavy cloak, and a bitter part of thinks confronting Zyke’s open hostility might be easier than sitting alone with my own shattered hope.
I step down from the stairs. My movents are calm, but it’s the calm of a cliff’s edge. I walk to the opposite couch and sit, facing him directly. My expression is blank, a mask over the storm inside.
"So, Big Brother," I say, my voice devoid of all warmth. "What was so important it made you wait up for ?"
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