His breath scorched my skin, hovering so close I could taste the unspoken words between us.
"I don't want you to choose anyone... except yourself."
The whisper melted into the darkness, yet each syllable struck like a hammer to my chest, stealing my breath. My fingers trembled—reason screamed this was forbidden, yet my heart lay bare before him, defenseless.
He leaned closer, eyes burning with a intensity I'd never seen—wild and restrained all at once. For one suspended moment, I thought he'd close that final inch—
Then he stopped.
A mere hair's breadth between us, yet it might as well have been an abyss.
"...Were you waiting for me to kiss you?"
His voice was cruel in its tenderness.
I froze. His gaze threatened to drown me whole.
"I... wasn't—"
"Liar." Shadows flickered in his eyes, his mouth twisting into a self-deprecating smile. "But I won't. Not when you still can't see your own heart clearly."
The words plunged me into icy waters. That frantic pulse between us shattered, leaving only raw vulnerability.
"Are you punishing me? For trusting him?"
A long silence. When he finally spoke, the words were barely audible:
"I'm not punishing you. I'm protecting myself."
He turned abruptly, shoulders rigid against the dim light.
I stared at the unyielding line of his back, emotions churning. We stood so close, yet never truly touching.
"Then why save me?"
His frame tensed. The answer came rough, unfinished:
"Because if I'd been even a second later... I might have—"
The sentence died between us.
That night, trapped in the suffocating dark, neither spoke another word.
Only our breaths intertwined—relentless, inevitable—like two shadows refusing to part.
ns216.73.216.168da2
and then Add to home screen.