The whole time, I can’t possibly take my eyes off him—at how much softer he looks when he speaks with her. Relaxed. But even though it’s gone, that affection I saw on him lingers behind my eyelids.
It fills me with something… unpleasant and unfamiliar.
I almost feel regret when I have to cut their time short, “Come on, Baachan, if we don’t leave now, you’ll be late.”
“Ah,”she glances at the antique clock across the room, before waltzing into the backroom, muttering curses about an ‘insolent grandchild’.
Christian raises a brow at me when she disappears, “Where are we headed now?”
“The theatre,” I explain matter-of-factly. “Every year, her favourite orchestra from her hometown comes to Seattle. She never misses it.”
The truth is, after losing in a game of rock-paper-scissors with Aster and Baal, I was the one who got the short end of the stick to accompanyBaachanto the Seattle theatre. If not for my boredom, I wouldn’t have bothered to take Christian out today with the rest of the team…
Now I’m glad I did.
“She’s just like you,” he says, scanning a row of jewels in a glass case on the counter, and I blink at him, dumbfounded.
“I have more in common with my old man than her, I assure you.”
“Maybe.” The corners of his lips tilt upward, the closest he’s ever gotten to a full smile in all these weeks. “But in my eyes, you’re just a mirror of each other. Strong-willed and stubborn.”
“… And a little bit crazy?”
The world suspends as a light chuckle falls from Christian’s lips. A rich, molten sound in the air.
“For sure a little crazy.” When he looks back at me, his smile has widened, brightening up his face so unexpectedly…
It’s the most relaxed version of him I’ve ever seen. His energies that were so agitated and anxious in the shop today—that sink into sorrow whenever he thinks no one is looking—
A peaceful white shimmers in them now. A shimmer around his body that mesmerizes me completely. My breath catches in my lungs... and for the first time, I think I finally understand what has happened to me.
I think…
I think I’m fucked.
WhenBaachanreturns I can’t seem to… remember myself.
I’m in a daze. A state of denial? Something… strange has clicked into place inside me.
By the time we get down the stairs, the rest of the team is already wrapping up; they’re on their best behaviour forBaachan, who sprinkles crushed yomogi over their heads ‘for good luck and protection’. Try as they might to get it out of their hair without her noticing, they all still end up on the receiving end of strange looks from the personnel manning the theatre’s ticket counter.
Their mouths open and close soundlessly, attempting to protest and failing, before inevitably giving up and letting us through.
When Rachmaninoff’s concerto starts up, I swear it’s going to be just like every other night at the theatre.
Xavier will fall asleep within the first five minutes, and Tobias will smack him in the chest right as he’s about to snore. Bored hues will ebb from Gabriel within the hour, but unlike Xavier, I can at least count on him to be well-behaved in his seat.
Baachanwill be watching me like a hawk to make sure I don’t slip away—to ensure the music ‘cleanses me with pure energy’—and the hours will pass by at a horridly slow rate.
But the moment I glance at Christian, I know it’s nothing like those other nights.
Because his eyes are fixed on the stage, utterly enraptured.
His energy, luminous shades of blue and silver, is the brightest I’ve ever seen, dancing around him with the ebbs and waves of the strings. It’s filled with hidden wonder, only the barest of hints crossing over onto his features, the frozen stillness of his body, the slight parting of his lips, the fragile gentleness in his eyes.
I can’t possibly pull my gaze away. I know the exact moment when he stops breathing. When I lose him to one of the heights of the piece and the caresses of piano, strings and wind. When it becomes erratic and fervent, his energy shivers, and when it finally calms down, he remembers to breathe again.
And the longer I watch him the more I want that gaze instead. The more I need it.
