Maksim’s still against the wall, not a word from him. Just watching. Observing. Like he knows this is sacred ground between Viktor and me, a history written in bruises and blood.
Viktor lowers his voice.
“Please, talk to me, Sasha.”
That voice.
That damn voice.
It always cuts straight through me. It’s soft, deep, steady. The one thing that makes me lower my guard, even when every part of me is ready to explode. He used it back then, too, when we were twelve. When I still hated him.
We both did — hated each other.
Because our fathers made us fight. Over and over. Pitting us like dogs in some twisted show of strength and legacy. And since neither of us ever surrendered, since we both refused to fall, we got punished for being “weak.” Beaten down for not being better than the other.
So one day, Viktor threw the fight and let me win.
And he’d looked at me, bruised and bloody, and said in that same low, soft voice, “Please… let’s be best friends, I’m so tired of hating you.”
Since then, he’s been the only one I’ve ever let close. The only one who knows me as much as I know myself.
I exhale slowly, the sound ragged and raw. My voice comes out low, gravel-thick. I don’t look at him when I say it. I can’t.
“He flinched.”
Viktor’s brows crease. “What?”
“When I touched him… he flinched. Like I was the fucking thing he was running from.”
The air in the room stills. His grip loosens, not all the way, just enough to let me breathe, but not enough to let me run. Like he knows I’m still one wrong word from tearing myself apart.
“I don’t know if I’m overreacting,” I grit out, jaw locked, looking dead in his eyes now, “But the way he looked at me today — terrified, shaking, like I was the one who’d hurt him. It… It fucking killed me. I know it was because of the nightmare he had, but still…”
Viktor doesn’t say anything. His eyes stay on me, unwavering. But I feel it, the weight of it all pressing between us—the quiet understanding.
Then Maksim, still leaning against the wall like he’s watching a particularly tragic indie movie, mutters dryly under his breath,
“I mean… it was a nightmare. Who wouldn’t flinch waking up to your hideous face looming over them?”
Viktor and I both turn to glare at him in unison.
He raises his hands, mock-innocent.
“What? I’m just saying. Could’ve been worse.”
Viktor shakes his head and turns back to me, his voice still laced with that softness, more careful.
“Has he ever acted like that with you before?”
I grind my teeth. “No. Never.”
The weight of it settles on my shoulders like a lead coat.
“Even after the alley…” I mutter. “He saw me that night. Beating that bastard bloody. He was scared, sure, anyone would be, but he wasn’t scared of me. He didn’t look at me like I was the monster.”
A pause.
“Until today.”
