In LOVE With Your OBSESSION
Prologue: The boy who didn't run
The village burned behind me
I didn't look back. Couldn't look back. If I looked back, I would see their faces,the people who had called me worthless, weak, broken,and I would feel something I couldn't afford to feel.
Guilt, maybe. Or satisfaction.
I ran instead. Ran until my lungs burned and my legs gave out, ran until I collapsed at the edge of a crater that hadn't existed when the sun rose.
unknown 1
Huffff, hufffff, huffff, *trembling*, I need to run, further away from...* huff* from here
suddenly I stumbled into something
unknown 1
Owhh..hiss..Huh?
That's where I found her.
She was kneeling in the center of the crater, surrounded by smoke and silence, her silver-white hair catching the dying light. She should have been dead. Everyone else was dead.
But she was alive. Glowing. Wrong.
I should have run. Every instinct screamed at me to run.
Instead, I crawled toward her.
She didn't move when I approached. Didn't acknowledge me at all. Her eyes—violet, with flecks of gold that swirled like galaxies—were fixed on something I couldn't see.
The words felt foolish even as I spoke them. No one was okay here.
The full force of her gaze hit me like a wave. Those eyes held depths that had no bottom, ages that had no count.
I should have asked what she meant. Should have run. Should have done anything except what I did next.
Kael
I don't know what you are
Kael
I don't know what happened back here
Kael
I don't know why the village..why everyone...
Kael
I don't know anything anymore
Kael
I just know I couldn't stay. couldn't watch it burn.Couldn't....
I stopped. Breathed. started again.
Kael
I just ran and I didn't look back
Her eyes shifted. For the first time, she looked at me—really looked at me—and something flickered in those impossible depths.
？？？
You should keep running
She was quiet for a moment.
？？？
You should. I am not safe
I laughed, a broken, hollow sound.
Kael
Safe? The village just burned to the ground. Everyone I've ever known is dead. I have nothing. I am nothing. What does safe even mean anymore?
？？？
It meant not sitting next to me
I looked at her. Really looked. At the silver hair streaked with ash. The pale skin that seemed to glow from within.The eyes that held galaxies.
Kael
You don't look dangerous
She almost smiled. Almost
？？？
"is your first mistake"
Author-san
Hey, guys, I am writing my 1st story , I might make rookie mistakes, I apologise in advance. Support me neeeee
Episode 1: The weight of Ashes 1
We sat in silence after that.
Minutes. Hours. I don't know. Time felt wrong, stretched and compressed all at once. The smoke cleared. The stars came out. And still we sat there, two survivors at the bottom of a crater, not speaking, not moving, just existing.
I thought about my mother.
Kael
My mother. She'd been beautiful once—or so I'd been told.
Kael
By the time I was old enough to remember, beauty had been worn away by years of work that left marks on her soul as well as her body.
She was a prostitute in a village that preached morality while lining up outside her door.
Kael
They called me bastard. Whore's son. Worse.
Kael
she died three years ago
Kael
The village healer wouldn't touch her. Said his hands were for decent folk.
Kael
No ceremony. No tears.
Kael
Just dirt and silence and a promise I never spoke aloud
Kael
I will not become like them
Kael
Kept it by staying small, staying quiet, staying invisible. Kept it by never fighting back, never drawing attention, never giving them a reason to notice me.
I didn't know what had happened to the village. Didn't know why it burned. Didn't know if something—someone—had done this.
But I knew who was sitting next to me.
She stirred beside me. Her hands, still pressed to the earth, twitched slightly.
I thought about it. Really thought. About my mother, the village,a lifetime of being nothing to anyone.
Kael
Because you're alone,
Kael
Because everyone else is gone, and you're still here. Because when I look at you, I don't see something to be afraid of. I see—
Kael
I see someone who needs to know they're not alone.
Something shifted in her expression. Something ancient and hungry and wondering.
？？？
You don't know what I am,
？？？
You don't know what I've done.
？？？
You don't know that sitting next to me might be the last mistake you ever make.
I met her eyes. Held them.
Episode 2: The weight of the Ashes 2
There. Truth. Let him run now. Let him—
Kael
safe? *laughing bitterly*
Kael
*voice cracking* The village just burned to the ground. Everyone I've ever known is dead. I have nothing. I am nothing. What does safe even mean anymore?
Kael
Safe meant hiding. Safe meant staying small. Safe meant letting them—
stop. Don't think about that
Not now. Not in front of her
His pain is so loud. I can hear it without trying . Feel it without wanting to
A lifetime of hurt, compressed into this small body, this small voice.
And he's still here. Beside me.
Why?
？？？
It means not sitting next to me
Last warning. Please take it. Please—
Kael
you don't look dangerous. *looking at her directly*
she doesn't. she looks....lost. Like me
Like someone who's been alone too long and forgot what company feels like.
？？？
*Almost smiling* this is your first mistake
？？？
First of many, if you stay
Please stay.
Please go.
I don't know what I want anymore.
LONG SILENCE. The fire crackles in the distance. The stars emerge overhead. Minutes pass. Hours. Neither moves.
Mama.
I keep seeing her face. Not how she looked at the end—wasted, feverish, abandoned by everyone who claimed to be decent.
How she looked before. Tired but smiling. Worn but warm.
"You're my miracle, Kael. Don't let them tell you otherwise."
They told me otherwise every day.
I promised her I wouldn't become like them.
I kept that promise.
And now the village is ash.
And I'm sitting next to a stranger who glows in the dark.
Mama, what do I do now?
His thoughts are so loud.
I don't mean to hear them. I don't mean to feel them. But they press against me like waves against a shore.
His mother. Her death. The things they did to him—
I know those things. I've seen them across a billion years. Cruelty never changes. It only finds new faces.
But his pain—his specific, personal, human pain—it's different.
It's him.
And I can't stop feeling it.
What's happening to me?
I don't know why I said it.
Why? The question I've been asking myself for a billion years. Why exist? Why continue? Why—
Kael
*After a long pause* Because you are alone.
Kael
we're the same. Two nothings in a crater, watching the world burn
Kael
Because everyone else is gone, and you're still here. Because when I look at you, I don't see something to be afraid of.
Kael
I don't. I should. But I don't.
Kael
Like I've needed my whole life.
Kael
Like no one ever gave me.
Not alone.
Two words. They shouldn't mean anything. They've never meant anything.
Why do they mean something now?
Why does he mean something now?
？？？
*voice trembling almost imperceptibly* You don't know what I am.
Tell him. Make him understand. Make him run.
？？？
You don't know what I've done.
The village. The fire. The lives I ended without thought, without feeling, without—
？？？
You don't know that sitting next to me might be the last mistake you ever make.
Please. Please understand. Please—
Kael
*meeting her eyes, holding them* I don't care
Kael
I don't. I can't. There's nothing left to care about except this moment. Except you.
He doesn't care.
He doesn't care what I am. What I've done. What I could do to him.
He's still here.
He's still here.
Why is he still here?
Suddenly, KAEL's composure shatters. He lunges forward and wraps his arms around her, sobbing uncontrollably.
Kael
*crying, voice muffled against his shoulder*
You've suffered. I don't know how or why, but you've suffered. I can feel it. I can feel you.
I can. Her pain is as loud as mine. Different, but just as real.
Just as endless.
Kael
*still crying*
You've been alone so long. So long. And I know what that feels like.
Kael
The shed. The dark. No one coming. No one caring.
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