He took a breath, tried to shake off the heaviness settling over him, and returned to the living room.
Hans was dressed again.
“What’s going on?”
“I’m going home.” Hans avoided eye-contact.
“Why?” Adrik followed Hans to the door.
Hans grabbed his jacket without putting it on. “You fucking speak Russian too.”
The words hit hard. Adrik stepped forward, panic rising in his chest. “Don’t go, Hans.”
Hans finally looked at him, and the hurt there made Adrik’s stomach twist. “When you’re ready to tell me who you really are, then call me.”
Hans opened the door and walked out. The door didn’t just close—it gave a soft, hollow thud, the kind that sank into Adrik’s bones instead of echoing in the room. It was the same sound he remembered from years ago. On a morning when the front door of his childhood home shut with a soft click as his grandfather stepped out, the air thick with unspoken words, never to return.
No warning. No explanation. Just the same dull, final thud.
His father had told him later, voice flat and cold, his enemies had taken the old man out. That was the end of it. No details. No closure. Just absence.
The familiar sound vibrating through his chest as he stood in his cottage brought Adrik back to that time, and with it, the same certainty he had lost someone.
He needed his grandfather now. Needed someone to talk to. But he had no one. The silence after the door closed pressed in on him, heavy and unforgiving.
Adrik stood there stunned, unable to move. Hans’ absence magnified the stillness. He’d been abandoned before by family who were supposed to stay, but Hans, whose body had been close to him seconds ago, had shown no signs of leaving him. This hurt in a way he wasn’t prepared for.
A tight, splintering pressure spread through Adrik’s chest, the type that made it hard to breathe. It wasn’t dramatic or loud—just breaking inside him, sharp and certain. His hands trembled as his thoughts circled one truth he didn’t want to face. Hans left. He actually left. The thought repeated itself, dull and relentless, until it hollowed him out from the inside. Somethingfragile within him shattered—a quiet, painful collapse that left him helpless.
His legs carried him forward, slow and unsteady, as if he were walking through water. He reached the front window and pressed his hand to the cold glass. The chill bit into his palm, grounding him in a way he didn’t want but needed.
Outside, Hans was already halfway down the sidewalk, shoulders hunched, moving fast like he couldn’t get away fast enough. The streetlights cast a pale golden glow on him, making him seem distant and untouchable. A wave of pain seized Adrik’s chest, making it difficult to breathe.
He hadn’t expected this. Not from Hans. Not after the way he’d looked at him, touched him, and kissed him like he meant it. The tender moment still clung to Adrik’s skin, but now it twisted into a memory he wished he could escape. A hollow ache spread through him, slow and heavy. Abandonment wasn’t new to him, but this… this was different. Sharper. More personal. Like Hans had taken something valuable from him and walked out the door with it.
His jaw tightened as he watched Hans turn the corner and disappear. The night swallowed him up without hesitation.
Adrik stayed at the window long after Hans had disappeared. The street was still under the yellow lamps, but inside him everything raced—a pulse behind his ribs, and Hans’ voice urging, “Call me when you’re ready to tell me who you really are.” He finally stepped back, the cold from the glass lingering on his palm like a bruise. He could still smell Hans’ cologne in the living room, faint but unmistakable, and it twisted something deep in his gut.
He walked toward the couch on autopilot, each step heavy. The lingering ache in his legs from the wall-sit was nothing compared to the sharp, hollow pain clawing at hisinsides. He sank down, elbows on his knees, hands clasped together so tightly his knuckles went white.
He replayed the last ten minutes in his head—the kiss, the warmth, the way Hans had leaned into him like he wanted to stay there forever. And then the phone call. The Russian. The look on Hans’ face when he came back into the living room.
Adrik dragged a hand over his face, exhaling shakily. He hadn’t meant to hide anything. He hadn’t meant to scare Hans off. He just… didn’t know how to be fully known by someone. Not without something blowing up.
His mother. His father. His past. All of it tangled together like barbed wire, and Hans had walked straight into it without warning.
He leaned back against the couch, staring at the ceiling. The faint hum of the refrigerator, the soft tick of the heating system, and all the tiny noises that filled the quiet room.
He wasn’t used to this kind of hurt. Physical pain he could handle—he’d lived through worse. But this? This slow sinking in his chest was the ache of something important moving beyond his reach. He didn’t know what to do with that.
He closed his eyes as the memory of Hans’ warmth pressed against him flickered through his mind again—the way Hans had looked at him like he mattered, like he wasn’t just a collection of secrets and sharp edges.
And now he was gone.
Adrik’s jaw clenched. He was angry at himself for letting the moment slip by, for letting the past bleed into something good, and for not knowing how to hold on to someone without scaring them away.
He opened his eyes again, staring at the weights Hans had left on the floor.
