Chapter 4

최신 챕터

• Our love to hide   70-Gods of our own making

  The rally was over. The headlines had faded.But something had changed.Not just in the city.In the house.In the boys.Micah sat in the quiet of the shelter’s library once a storage room, now lined with rainbow spines and soft beanbags. He stared at the copy of The Little Prince, well-worn, dog-eared, the one Ethan used to read to him on panic-spiral knights.He read the same line over and over.“You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.”He closed the book.He wasn’t a tamed thing anymore. He was the tamer now.J had started teaching a free art class at the shelter every Friday.Kids who barely spoke would sit for hours, sketching monsters with soft eyes or superheroes with scars. J said nothing. He just drew beside them, passing them his colors, letting silence become language.One of the youngest kids Kai climbed onto his lap one day without a word. Just curled up like J was furniture. Safe furniture.And J froze. Then melted.That night, he didn’t sleep.He just

• Our love to hide   69-Becoming the fire

  Three years later.The house was still standing.The Hearth had grown three new staff members, a second floor remodeled into a library and therapy room, a reputation across the state as the place for LGBTQ+ youth to land safely when the world turned sharp.But peace is never permanent.Not in this world.Micah was seventeen now.Taller. Quieter. A little sarcastic, a little soft especially when talking to younger residents.He stood in the back hallway, staring at a wall of photographs, dozens of them, added over the years. Smiling kids. Graduation caps. A blurry photo of Nathan asleep with a toddler curled on his chest.Micah stared at his own photo. Age fifteen. Angry. Still healing.He muttered to himself, “I don’t know that guy anymore.”J walked up behind him, now in community college, his red-dyed hair now black and cropped short.“You miss him?” J asked.Micah shrugged. “Sometimes I wish I could warn him.”“Maybe he didn’t need a warning. Just a door.”Micah nodded. “We got tha

• Our love to hide   68- The Name we carry

  The courthouse was colder than expected.Fluorescent lights hummed above. The tile floors echoed every step like a warning. But Ethan held Micah’s hand. Nathan walked beside J.They weren’t here to face charges.They were here to make something official.To say: You belong here. You are wanted.Even if the walls didn’t look like love, the paperwork would be proof.The receptionist handed out the forms.“Fill out both for guardianship and name change if desired,” she said without looking up.Micah held the clipboard like it might explode. J tapped his pen nervously.Nathan smiled. “Take your time.”They sat on a bench in the corner.It was quiet for a while just the scribble of pens and the occasional shuffle of chairs.Until J muttered, “I don’t know what to write.”Micah glanced over. “For what?”J pointed.Preferred Name:“I don’t know what it is. I only know what it wasn't.”Ethan put a hand on his shoulder. “There’s no rush. You can keep the one you’ve been using. Or change it. Or

• Our love to hide   67-Learning Each other

  By day three, the house was humming.There were dishes in the sink, two pairs of sneakers at the door, and a half-finished comic sketch sprawled across the dining table. The air smelled like cinnamon waffles and something new, something like home.But beneath it all: tension.Micah and J circled each other like rival cats. Careful. Prickly. Suspicious.Micah liked silence. J filled it.J liked eye contact. Micah avoided it.Micah liked Ethan. J liked Nathan.And somehow, that meant war.It started small.Micah rolled his eyes whenever J talked.J made fun of Micah’s music taste loudly.Micah slammed doors. J muttered slurs under his breath, not hateful ones, but sharp like teeth.And then came the explosion.Ethan was grading essays in the kitchen when it happened.J stormed down the hallway, yelling loud enough to shake the windows.Micah followed, red-faced. “You don’t get to act like this is your house!”J turned. “I didn’t ask to be here!”“You’re just a guest. You’ll leave, like

• Our love to hide   66-No manual for miracle

  It started with a phone call at 10:47 p.m.Nathan was brushing his teeth. Ethan was half-asleep on the couch, a novel balanced on his chest.The call came from Marsha, the caseworker they'd connected with for the foundation planning. Her voice was low, fast, panicked. “We’ve got a seventeen-year-old. Kicked out tonight. No safe family. He’s queer, scared, and refusing to go to a group shelter. He’s asking for you two.”Nathan was instantly awake.“What’s his name?”“Jayden. But he goes by J.”Ethan, now sitting up, locked eyes with Nathan as he put the phone on speaker.Marsha added, “I know this is early. I know you’re not set up yet. But you said—‘Call us if a kid needs someone.’ This is me calling.”There was no hesitation.“Bring him,” Ethan said.They cleared out the guest room in record time.Micah hovered in the hallway, arms crossed. “Are we getting another one?”Nathan smiled. “Not replacing you, if that’s what you’re asking.”Micah looked away. “Wasn’t asking.”But he left

• Our love to hide   65-Room full of Ghosts

  The building smelled like mildew and lost time.Broken windows lined the second floor. The front doors hung crooked on their hinges. Inside, the air was thick with dust, old paint, and something that felt like memory.Ethan stepped through the threshold first.Nathan followed close behind, flashlight cutting through shadows that clung to the walls like smoke.“This is it?” Ethan asked.Nathan nodded. “It used to be a halfway house. Shut down ten years ago. Abandoned ever since.”A single beam of light spilled from a hole in the roof, slicing the gloom like a wound.Ethan looked around slowly. “It feels... haunted.”“Maybe it is,” Nathan said quietly. “But not by anything we can’t face.”They moved through the rooms one by one.Peeling wallpaper. Collapsed ceiling tiles. A mattress left behind in one corner, damp and sagging like a forgotten promise.But there were signs of life too.A drawing etched into the corner of a wall stick figures and a sun.A message scrawled in faded Sharpie