Mag-log inLeander POVI start memorizing him on purpose. I do it because I want to, not because anyone tells me to. This realization makes me feel uneasy.I have spent months trying to recover pieces of myself after the accident. I have seen doctors and therapists. Gone through endless reports. Everyone around me has been focused on restoring the man I used to be. With Avelin, I stop chasing memories for a while. Instead I start paying attention to him.I learned that he drinks his coffee slowly when he is tired. Quickly, when he is anxious. I learned that he presses his lips together when he is trying not to smile. I learned that he hates restaurants because they overwhelm his senses. I learn him carefully piece by piece, choice by choice. Every time I discover, I feel something deep inside my chest. It's not a memory. Something else.It starts with coffee. Again. It always seems to start with us.Three mornings after our conversation in the café, I arrive at work carrying two cups of coffee.
Leander POVHe suggested the café two blocks from the building. Neutral ground, public enough to keep things from becoming something we cannot take back, close enough to work that we both have an exit if we need one. I got there first. I do not know why I expected anything different. I am always early. Control is a habit, and habits do not care that I spent most of last night sitting in my penthouse thinking about the way he gripped my shirt.I chose a corner table. Two chairs. Neither of them is side by side.I ordered black coffee and looked at the door.He came in at seven forty-three with his coat slightly crooked and his hair not quite settled, like he dressed in a hurry and then talked himself out of turning back. The cold came in with him. He spotted me immediately, and for one unguarded second, before his expression arranged itself into something careful, I saw it. Something warm. Something he was already trying to contain.He sat down across from me without taking his coat of
Avelin POVThe first thing I am aware of is light.It comes through the curtains in long, pale strips, falling across the floor and reaching the edge of the bed where I have been lying, not sleeping, for the better part of the night. I know I was awake. I know because every time I closed my eyes, I was back at the door. His hand on my face. The warmth of his mouth. The bond surged so sharply through my chest that my knees went weak and I had to grip his shirt just to stay standing.I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling.The apartment is quiet. Baby Shen is still asleep, his small breathing audible through the wall if I listen for it. Outside, the city is already moving, cars and distant voices, the ordinary sounds of a morning that does not know anything happened last night.I press one hand flat against my chest. The bond mark is warm under my palm. Not burning the way it did at three in the morning, not sharp or desperate, just steady. Present. Like something that has been wa
Avelin POVThe apartment is too quiet without Madam Lia and Baby Shen.I notice it as soon as the door closes behind them. The echo stays for a time. It feels like the silence is everywhere, in the walls, in the furniture, and inside me.Leander is standing a few steps inside the living room. He puts his hands in his pockets. Then takes them out again. This small movement makes my chest hurt."He will be fine," Leander says, looking at the door."I know," I say.Then we are silent for a while.Leander breathes out softly. "It feels strange.""Yes," I say.Then we both start talking at the same time."Do you want…"We stop. We look at each other. Something small and quiet happens between us. It is not funny. It is not easy. It is something lighter than what we usually feel."You," Leander says."No, you," I say.He looks at me for a second. "We should have dinner."I feel better. This is something safe. "Yes," I say. "We should."***We go to the kitchen like we have done this before.
Avelin POVSunday mornings are different now. They are quieter inside my chest. It feels like something has decided to sit still.Leander is coming today. I do not say it loud. My body already knows. There is a pull under my skin. It is like a thread being gently tugged.Baby Shen feels it too.He wakes up earlier than usual. His small feet patter down the hallway before I am out of bed. He climbs onto the mattress without warning. He is warm and bright and full of energy."Papa's coming today," he announces.He says it as if it were an important fact in the world. My chest tightens slightly."Yes. He is," I say.Baby Shen nods seriously. He is confirming something. Then he presses his face into my shoulder. Holds on."Don't be sad," he says softly.I freeze."I'm not sad," I say.He pulls back enough to look at me. His small brows pull together in a way that looks much like Leander's."You are," he says. "It's okay. Papa will fix it."Something inside me cracks quietly. I do not answ
Renlo POVVoss Corporation on the Twelfth Floor Corridor at 9:04 AMI am carrying projections and my third coffee of the morning and the specific focused energy of someone who has had an emotionally significant conversation before nine AM and is processing it by being extremely competent about everything else, when I turn the corner on the twelfth floor and find Elias Thorn standing in the corridor outside the accounting department.He is not doing anything suspicious. He is looking at his phone with the studied casualness of someone who arrived somewhere on purpose and is now performing the appearance of having arrived by accident.I recognize this performance because I have been deploying it myself, on this same floor, for the past two weeks.He looks up. We look at each other."Caelisi," he says."Thorn," I reply.We have been doing this, the name exchange, the nod, the brief acknowledgment, since I started here, polite and professional. The specific register of two people connecte
Aveliin POVMorning should have felt lighter after the storm, but it didn’t. The sky had cleared, yet the air still carried the weight of what had just passed. Dampness clung to everything: the porch, the railings, the stones in the yard, residual evidence of the rain that refused to leave. Inside
Avelin POV That night, I don’t sleep. Not really. I stay close to him, one arm around his body, my hand resting over his chest, feeling his heartbeat, too fast, even in sleep. Even when he’s still. It’s as if his body senses something his mind has not yet caught up to. He begins muttering, initia
Avelin POVI found him on the floor at three in the morning. Not collapsed, not injured, just sitting with his back pressed against the wall beneath the window. His knees were drawn to his chest, and his forehead rested against them. I could see the tremors shaking through his body from the doorway
Conrad Vladmoss — POVI've read about amnesia. More than I'd like to admit. I know it can be unpredictable, fragmentary. It can last for years, or it can shatter open from something small: a familiar smell, a piece of music, the way light shifts through a window, the wrong name spoken in the right


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