Archive of Our Own ^beta

The beam is a lot heavier than Freodore expected.

Morning sunlight cuts through the dusty windows of the abandoned live house, light pooling in honey-gold across warped floorboards, catching in the floating dust that hangs in the air. While trying to renovate this nature-wrecked building was a cute idea in hindsight, Freodore had quickly realized that he was not nearly equipped enough for such a hands-on job—proven once more by the fact that the seemingly simple act of measuring a construction beam on his own feels like the most treacherous task he’s taken on this week. Possibly in his life.

He tries to shift it again. His grip slips.

The measuring tape snaps shut with a vicious little twang, slicing back against Freodore’s wrist in half a second and clattering to the floor. He hisses between his teeth, half frustrated and half defeated as he stares at it wordlessly, unable to figure out where to start with complaining about the entire situation.

Honestly, he’d kill to lay down and catch his breath right now. His knees ache from kneeling too long on the uneven wooden floor, his elbow is still stinging from banging it on something unidentifiable while helping carry some buckets around just earlier, and the beam he’s been trying to maneuver into a more convenient spot is wedged so obstinately against the frame that Freodore swears it must have a vendetta against him.

Breathe, Freo. Calm down. He leans his head against the wood with a thump. The beam wins if you give up. It’s fine. Just breathe.

The wood shifts again, suddenly and with a worrying creak, the weight redistribution making the gloves on his hands twist uncomfortably. Freodore’s heart jumps. He scrambles to rebalance his footing.

“Oh my god, can you stay upright for literally one f… one second?” he grumbles under his breath, exasperated. A couple dozen profanities come to mind in all sorts of languages, but he bites his lip to hold them in. He must be going insane. Even if he isn’t, it definitely feels like he is. 

Then—footsteps. Heavy boots, easy stride. Familiar. 

A shadow falls over him.

“You okay down there, good sir?”

The voice is unmistakable: smooth, amused, accompanied with one-of-a-kind giggly breaths. He doesn’t even need to look to see who’s come for him, but Freodore cranes his neck upward anyway, squinting past the fall of his own hair.

Of course.

Kaelix is standing above him, sleeves rolled up to the elbow, sun gilding the curve of his shoulders and the edges of his smile. His shirt’s already sticking to his chest from work he probably shouldn’t be doing without gloves, considering that his pale skin is covered in sawdust up to where the fabric is folded at his bicep. There’s a smear of blue smudged across the high arc of his cheekbone, and his hair is a mess of sunlit curls, drenched with sweat and flattened behind his ears. 

For a moment, everything slows. The noise of the crew fades to a distant thrum. Freodore forgets the heat, the resin sticking to his fingers, the fact that he was mid-meltdown thirty seconds ago.

“I—what?” Freodore, a little bit overwhelmed by just about everything going on, blinks. “Why are you here?”

“Oh! I finished painting the inner wall and the crew told me that you might need some help over here,” Kaelix says breezily. 

The taller boy tilts his head towards the beam, and his eyebrows furrow when he notices the tape measure on the floor. His eyes dart side to side as he puts together the full picture: Freodore using his entire body to merely keep the beam upright, the measurement tool on the ground and not in his hands, the blatant signs of stress and enervation all over him… 

“Oh no,” Kaelix gasps. “Wait, have you been measuring these all on your own? Why didn’t you call someone to help?!”

Freodore opens his mouth to explain, but he doesn’t even have an explanation. What happened was that he got a bit ambitious and assured one of the crew members that he’d be able to handle it on his own, since there was something else that called for their attention—and truly, honestly, Freodore did think in that moment that it would all be fine. At least he now knows that he was thoroughly incorrect.

Without waiting for a response, Kaelix is already moving.

Before Freodore can get a word out, Kaelix steps in and grips the beam with one hand, sliding it smoothly out of Freodore’s hands and towards himself instead. He shifts his weight forward, one palm at the top of the beam—curse him and his hundred and eighty five centimeters of height—and the other at waist-level, and straightens it with such practiced ease that the damned thing finally holds still.

“There,” Kaelix says, glancing down with a grin. “Better?”

Freodore blinks once, twice.

“You shouldn’t be able to do that,” he mutters, still crouched awkwardly at the beam’s base. “That’s… How are you real?”

“I’m tall,” Kaelix chirps like it’s the simplest thing in the world. “And now you can measure it more easily, right?”

Freodore scowls at the height comparison, the expression more of an instinct than actual indignation, before slowly reaching to grab the measuring tape and calibrating it in his hands. He tries to fight back a small smile at the sound of Kaelix’s giggles, being clearly amused by the designer’s reaction.

The beam is upright, Kaelix holding it in place with ease. The air smells a bit less like wet concrete, now a bit more like Kaelix’s saccharine cologne. The sun isn’t in his eyes anymore, blocked by Kaelix’s broad frame, gold gathered on his shoulders and at the crown of his head. 

Above all else, Kaelix is laughing, and Freodore finally musters up a smile. He takes a well-deserved breath of relief.

“I can’t believe you thought this was a one-man job,” the taller boy muses as the measuring tape snaps back as a test. “You could’ve called someone to help you, y’know?”

“But you’re all busy doing your own things,” Freodore replies quietly, leaning down to press the tip of the tape to the base of the beam. “I’d rather help in my own way as everyone helps with theirs, right?”

“Oh, Freo,” Kaelix says mock-woefully, chuckling between the words. “Some things are done more efficiently with other people around!”

Freodore tries not to acknowledge it. He really does. But Kaelix is still laughing, full and soft-edged, eyes crinkling at the corners. It’s the kind of laugh that makes him want to step closer—the kind that makes the summer heat in the room a little more tolerable, rolling through the room like fresh wind. It lingers in the space between them, warm and crackly.

He uses one foot to hold down the bottom edge of the tape as he slowly rises, and he can see Kaelix’s face clear as day when he gets to the top. He’s watching Freodore, silently examining the work, and Freodore’s hand trembles ever so slightly as he tries to read the measurement without getting distracted by those bright, turquoise eyes boring holes into the top of his head.

There’s a warmth in his chest he can’t name.

Somewhere between the scent of pine sawdust and acrylic paint, between his thumping heartbeat and Kaelix’s ringing laughter and that goddamned smile—something shifts, not suddenly or loudly, but a subtle tilt. A thread slipping loose.

Focus, he tells himself. Measure.

His hands feel a bit clumsy now, quivering and fumbling now that Kaelix is here, and he keeps having to restart the count of the small millimeter lines in his head every time he thinks he gets it. A few seconds longer than it should take, Freodore finally commits the number to memory, taking his foot off the bottom end to let the tape curl up in his hand.

“Better?” Kaelix asks, tilting his head curiously, oblivious to the meltdown Freodore is having under his skin.

Freodore nods, ever outwardly composed. “Yeah. Thank you for the help.”

The taller boy steps back as he guides the beam to rest on the pile against the wall, wiping his palms on his jeans and flashing another smile.

“See? Teamwork!” Kaelix’s eyes sparkle with mirth, the corners of his lips curling upwards. “M’kay, if that’s all, I’m gonna go back and see if Seible and Zeal need anything. Shout reeeeally loudly if you need me again, okay?” 

“I don’t know about that,” Freodore mutters, and it elicits a loud cackle from the other.

“Okay! I'm off! See you in a bit, Furifuri!”

Freodore doesn’t answer.

He just watches him go, heart ticking far too loudly in his chest.

In the quiet that follows, the heat surges again. He’s overcome with the thick and dense cement stench, the sun is back in his eyes, and he’s alone with his own thoughts once more. All because Kaelix isn’t here.

And, for a moment, it flashes across his mind—I’m in trouble.

Because it’s never been this difficult to get himself in order, really. He’s never had to think twice, never had such a confused panic under pressure, never been so affected by being watched. Something’s changing, and he feels it suspiciously strongly when around Kaelix Debonair.

The dressing room isn’t finished, but it’s a lot better than the dusty excuse for a closet that it had been a few weeks ago.

It’s true that the lights still flicker when the power’s running from the backup generator. The mirror bulbs do buzz faintly if Freodore listens close enough. There are, in fact, still boxes littered everywhere—fabric bolts spilling out like coiled serpents, tangled threads nesting in corners, pins catching the sunlight with a sharp little glint.

It should be chaos. It is chaos.

And yet—there’s something soothing about it today.

Maybe it’s the scent of lavender detergent clinging to the curtain samples. Maybe it’s the late afternoon light flooding through the small window near the ceiling, casting a deeper shade of orange onto the floorboards that makes the monotone brown seem a bit more alive and saturated. Maybe it’s the fact that all of Freodore’s favourite fabrics are slowly beginning to line the shelves, folded intricately and sorted just how he wants them.

Or maybe, just maybe, it’s Kaelix, humming some pop song in the middle of it all with a piece of purple velvet in his hands and a smile like he wouldn’t rather be anywhere in the world than here, folding cloth all day long.

Freodore watches from the edge of the worktable, a pair of tailor's shears slack in his grip.

He can’t help but keep in the back of his mind that Kaelix isn’t particularly graceful, not in the way professionals are trained to be. His folding technique is objectively amateur, the kind of approach passed down from parents to make organizing fresh laundry slightly more convenient—so no, technique is not why Freodore feels completely unable to take his eyes off the boy. More than that, it’s because of the way he carries himself; he moves with a kind of vague certainty, an unhurried ease that wraps around the moment and smooths all the edges down.

The hum in his throat is incessant. Gentle. It spills into the air like steam, curling between the racks and falling softly over the scattered fabrics. Every now and then, he sings a few words under his breath—never enunciated enough for Freodore to make them out, but enough to feel like he understands anyway.

“I didn’t think you’d actually help,” Freodore says eventually, more to test the air than anything else.

“Hm? No, I really don’t mind, I promise! I’m more than happy to help you out.” Kaelix laughs, painstakingly bright. He holds up a bolt with both arms like he’s showing off a prized fish. “I’m having a lot of fun seeing all these different types of fabrics… I haven’t seen, like, half of these in all my modelling years.”

Freodore nods. He’s always been more forward-thinking when it comes to design—in the fashion world, there are so many ‘do’s and ‘don’t’s, but Freodore firmly believes that anything can be turned into something beautiful with enough care and thought. As a result, he carries many different patterned textures with him, and he’s always eager to integrate any of them into his works.

“Have any of them caught your eye?” Freodore asks offhandedly. Speaking of fabrics, he does need to start planning stage outfits for the rest of the boys, and it would be ideal to have them help the creative process of their own clothing as much as possible.

“Ooh, good question…” Kaelix turns, scanning the piles that he’d just folded. “Mm… Maybe this one?”

He pulls out a rich golden brocade from the middle of the stack, placing it on the bench in front of him. An intricate baroque-style motif is woven into its surface, curling like ivy in deliberate, looping flourishes. The fabric holds a subtle sheen, the pattern glimmering when Kaelix tilts it under the light, dignified and ornate without excess.

“It’s so pretty, I think it’d be nice to style,” Kaelix says, voice filled with awe. “I dunno, I’ve never seen a brocade that replicates a damask kind of style… ‘cause the baroque pattern isn’t super raised, somehow, so despite it looking woven into the same layer, it still gives off the 3D impression. I dunno which material it is, though…”

Freodore stills, eyes going wide for a second with surprise. “Hm? You’re familiar with those terms?”

“What, ‘brocade’ and ‘damask’? The fabric names?” Kaelix chuckles as he puts the fabric back in the pile. “Well, only generally. I don’t really know their uses and things, like when one fabric would be better than another, but I can recognize them from a glance. I’m really curious about fashion, and when I used to model, I’d always ask questions about the technical stuff. So I picked up these kinds of terms.”

“I see,” Freodore says genuinely. “That caught me off guard.”

“Yah,” Kaelix says lazily, his smile audible. He then turns to face Freodore, who meets his gaze confusedly, and winks as he says, “I’ve got a deep respect for fashion designers.”

Ignore it. For the love of god, Freo, ignore it.

Freodore rolls his eyes and returns to cutting, though it’s slightly harder now to focus with the words playing over and over in his head. He really hadn’t expected Kaelix to be that familiar with this stuff, since most of the models he’s worked with before could care less about the actual details he put into the designs—it’s not something he takes against them, though, because it's not their job to care.

Which really only makes it more baffling that Kaelix does care. If Freodore knows anything about Kaelix, it’s how endlessly appreciative he is, and ‘appreciative’ is an understatement if anything at all. Upon their first meeting, with the rest of the boys there too, Freodore sincerely did not think that he’d heard that many questions from one person in his whole entire life; but that’s the funniest part, because now that they’re more acquainted with each other, it’s just so painfully Kaelix and he’d be concerned if it were anything other than that.

Not to mention that he’s already grown ‘used to’ (see: fond of) it—Kaelix is just so curious about everything around him, wanting to know more and more and more, wanting to find every little intentional seed planted into a movement, an artwork, a sentence, and sing praises for it. Freodore wonders how it doesn’t tire him out.

“Hey, Furifuri.” Kaelix pulls Freodore out of his thoughts, bringing him back to reality. “D’you sing while you work?”

The designer raises an eyebrow. “No.”

“Hm.” Kaelix sounds unconvinced, turning back to continue folding. “You should. You’ve got a nice voice.”

Freodore blinks once, twice. 

“You’ve never heard me sing…” he responds, phrasing it like a question even though it’s more of a statement. Freodore does have plans to take the stage after live house opens, yes, but he hasn’t even done a trial run of the sound gear yet. It’s impossible for Kaelix to have heard him sing, considering that he prefers everything to be perfectly in order before performing.

“I have,” Kaelix insists anyway, perking up. “That one time. Last week. You were doing the refrain of that song, um… What did you say it was? Ah, wait… Unforgiven! I think? The one by that girl group!”

Taken aback, Freodore flushes—it was one line from one song, and he’d only mentioned the name of it in passing when Seible asked what it was he was muttering under his breath. How the hell did Kaelix remember that?

“What? I was—I was mumbling.”

“Mumbling melodically,” Kaelix corrects, “so it still counts.”

He’s teasing. Lightly. No pressure in his voice, no weight behind the observation. Just... noticing, like he always does. Freodore ducks his head, pretending to concentrate on the shears, but the action suddenly seems foreign, like he’s doing it for the first time after a month or two.

When he dares to look up again, Kaelix isn’t watching him anymore. He’s gone back to sorting fabric, carefully folding the wrong side in without realizing, brow furrowed like he’s doing something delicate instead of something so utterly mundane. There’s a streak of thread stuck to his shoulder and a pin dangerously close to his knee, but he looks unbothered. Content. And he’s still humming some random pop song that comes on the radio once a day.

I could fall in love with someone like this, Freodore thinks.

The thought arrives uninvited. He recoils ever so slightly, surprised by his own forwardness—but once it’s there, it won’t leave.

And if he can’t make it leave, he’ll analyze it, because it makes him feel like he has some semblance of control even when he hasn’t got any at all.

How the thought came about… it’s not because Kaelix is beautiful—though he is. It’s not because he’s kind—though he is. Rather, it’s the way he makes the room feel full even in its emptiest corners. The way he hums incessantly, even if it’s the same part of the same song over and over, as a means of keeping the dead air a mile away. The way he handles velvet like it’s alive and important, even if he folds it all wrong.

It’s the way that this rundown excuse for a dressing room doesn’t feel like an old storage closet anymore—it feels like somewhere that Freodore wants to be, wants to work, now that Kaelix has touched it. He feels motivated now that these fabrics have been so meticulously cared for by him, that he’d gone through the effort of sorting all of them, all while accompanying the designer through the silence that he once thought he loved above all else.

And he must’ve been wrong because now, when it’s silent, he wonders where Kaelix’s stupid voice is to fill it.

Damn it.

Freodore sets the shears down gently and closes his eyes for a moment, just one. Just to keep the feeling from spilling over.

He doesn’t say anything.

But later, when Kaelix brushes his arm accidentally while passing him another bolt of fabric, and their hands linger just a little longer than necessary?

Freodore lets it happen, and the thought crosses his mind again. ‘I could fall in love with someone like this.’ Shit.

He’s beginning to think, very unfortunately, that maybe he already is.

It’s late. Freodore is hunched over the long table in the dressing room with a half-pinned jacket crumpled beneath his arms, needle thread hanging loose from his fingers. The stitching's crooked. It has been for the last ten minutes. He can’t quite muster up the energy to fix it.

In all honesty, Freodore is in pain. His head is pounding. His eyes sting. His stomach has given up protesting in favour of going quiet altogether. He doesn't remember when he last consumed something. Lunch? Coffee? Something with sugar, maybe. It's all a blur.

It’s fine. He’s used to ignoring what he needs. As long as he gets this done in time for the grand opening…

“Fuck,” he whispers under his breath, feeling the start of a migraine begin to creep to his temples. He leans forward, resting his forehead against the table’s edge before breathing in slowly. The scent of fabric and metal and faint detergent lingers in the wood grain. He closes his eyes, head full of white noise and some indistinguishable melody.

The swing-door creaks. Soft steps pad across the splintered boards.

“Freo,” a soft voice calls.

“Mm…?”

“Hey, don’t fall asleep.” There’s a hand on his shoulder, warm and comfortable against Freodore’s cool skin. “You’re gonna get neck pains if you fall asleep in this position. Here, up.”

The hand curls around Freodore’s shoulder. The designer takes a deep breath and lets himself be pulled back, eyes still closed and eyebrows creased with exhaustion. After a long moment, he groggily checks to see who’d just appeared—and there, above him, stands Kaelix: hair still damp from a shower, collar hanging loose, and with a foil-wrapped bundle tucked between his elbow and his waist.

“I knew you were overworking again.” He tsks, the words said between giggles. “You’re still here.”

“Hn…? So are you,” Freodore manages with a pout, voice papery.

“Actually, not really, because I left,” Kaelix corrects, “showered, raided Zeal’s kitchenette, and returned on a quest of great culinary peril.”

Freodore blinks up at him. He didn’t get a word of that. “What?”

Kaelix rolls his eyes like the drama queen he is, an easy smile playing on his lips, before he pulls out the foil package from under his arm and fits a nail beneath the folds. “Behold: sandwich.”

He unwraps it with a magician’s flourish: perfectly toasted bread, tidy layers of turkey, cheese, tomato, and the faintest brush of mayo.

“You didn’t eat, did you?” Kaelix tilts his head.

A second passes. “No. I… forgot,” the designer admits guiltily.

Without even a hint of judgement, Kaelix nods. “I thought that might be the case.”

He gently places the package next to Freodore’s sewing machine. The scent is so much stronger up close—it’s absolutely divine, herbed something and melted goodness wafting straight to his face. Freodore reaches out to take it, and his hand stops a centimeter short of grabbing it. He glances up at Kaelix, making sure that he really is allowed to have this, and Kaelix doesn’t waste a second to gesture for him to take it.

“You made this?” Freodore asks, holding one end up in front of him.

Kaelix shrugs. “Yeah! I mean, I’m no chef or anything, but I cook for my siblings and parents sometimes. Even if I can’t make you a five-star gourmet meal, I can make a mean sandwich, that’s for sure.”

Freodore takes a bite. Warmth blooms along his tongue, uncomplicated and comforting.

“It’s good,” he says around a second bite, softer now. The flavors are rich but perfectly balanced, and the satisfaction of finally getting something in his stomach spreads through him like a slow, steady tide. “It’s really, really good.”

Kaelix’s grin unfurls, almost incandescent in the darkness of the room. He drops into the opposite stool, stretches his long legs out, and simply stays. No chatter, no theatrics—only quiet companionship, the steady thrum of the generator, the barely audible rhythm of Freodore chewing.

He left. Cleaned up. Came back just to make sure I ate. The thought lands somewhere that Freodore can’t quite touch.

Kaelix could’ve gone home like everyone else. He could’ve showered and rested and let Freodore fade into exhaustion, knowing full well he would forget to take care of himself. Most people do—Freodore is independent, he can handle it, and he’ll always make sure people know that. It’s not their fault that he leaves everything to himself; it just makes it all the more appalling that Kaelix has seen past that.

He came back. Not to joke. Not to pull him off the table and scold him. Just… to make him something warm. To place it in front of him gently. To sit in silence and add himself to the atmosphere like he knows it brings Freodore some inexplicable comfort.

It shouldn’t feel like a big deal. It’s just a sandwich. Just a simple act.

And yet Freodore feels a surge of intense emotion thinking about it, realizing it, and something tight in his chest loosens with the next bite.

Because it does feel like a big deal. It feels enormous. Not in the way of grand gestures or sweeping romance, but in that small, devastating way a gesture can touch the heart when it hits exactly where he’s most starved for it.

He’s had people admire him before—whether praising his designs, his taste, or his vision. He’s had people tell him he’s talented, a prodigy, clever and adaptable and all these compliments that had turned into strings of sounds and nothing more.

But rarely, so rarely, has someone simply seen his need and met it without asking.

There’s no spectacle to Kaelix’s care. No agenda. It’s just a meal, just that look, just that soft presence across the table that says, I’m here. I’ve got you.

Freodore presses a fingertip to the edge of the foil and breathes in deep.

It should feel simple.

But it doesn’t.

He swallows the last bite, sets the foil aside, and finds Kaelix watching him with that gentle, fond look that makes the designer pause to reassemble his thoughts before speaking.

“I’ll pay you back,” Freodore whispers, voice gone fragile with sincerity.

Kaelix tips his head, ocean blue eyes wide with joy, smile filled with mirth. “You already have,” he replies as though it's the most obvious truth of the world. He gestures at the jacket laid out on the table, nearly finished and fit to his tastes, and laughs. “Thank you for all your hard work, Freo.”

Freodore’s breath hitches. There is no slow falling left to do; the ground vanished somewhere between the first toast-crunch and that smile. He is in love—utterly, shamelessly, irrevocably—and the knowledge settles in his bones not like panic but like peace. In its glow, Freodore sees his own heart clearly: reckless, wide-open, already given.

Outside, the hallway light flickers once and steadies. Freodore reaches for another length of thread, hands steadier now, rejuvenated with one less bodily need to worry about.

“You’re still gonna work?” Kaelix questions, expression befuddled. “After all that?! No, no. You’re going to sleep.”

“What?” Freodore stills, hand left in the air as he glances at the other boy. “But I’m almost done.”

“Then it’ll be a quick finish tomorrow!”

“But I could just do it now,” the designer reiterates, grabbing the needle with purpose.

“Oh yeah? I’m staying here as long as you’re staying,” Kaelix announces with a frown. “I don’t care how late it gets!”

A challenge? Freodore cocks an eyebrow. “I see. Okay. If you say so.”

He continues working, finally getting to that stupid stitch he hadn’t possessed the will to fix half an hour ago, and finishes the outer half of the jacket. The edge folds neatly beneath his fingers, the stitch slipping through smoother than expected, the thread gliding like it’s finally forgiven him for his exhaustion. He knots it off with practiced ease and flattens the seam, pressing his thumb over the final spot with a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

There. Done.

He allows himself a small exhale, one that feels more like surrender than victory.

He doesn’t look up right away—partially because he’s double-checking the hem, partially because he already knows what he’ll see. After all, Kaelix has gone quiet. Suspiciously so.

When he finally does glance over, it’s exactly as he expected: Kaelix’s frame relaxed now in a way it hadn’t been before, one arm draped lazily over the other. His head rests against the wall behind him, jaw tilted, mouth parted just slightly in a soft, shallow breath.

Asleep.

Barely—he’s still twitching a little, shifting every now and then like he’s fighting it—but the slope of his shoulders and the droop of his lashes give it away. He’s losing the battle.

Freodore sets the jacket aside quietly. Ideally, he should keep going—there’s one last bit to finish now, and it shouldn’t take more than an hour. It’s not like the exhaustion has gone anywhere, but then again, finishing them tonight would mean waking up tomorrow a little less anxious, a little more ahead.

But Kaelix is still here. 

Kaelix, who said he’d stay as long as Freodore did, even though he has no stake in this piece, no need to be up this late, no reason to sacrifice his comfort for any reason at all. Kaelix, who made him food, sat with him, waited in silence. Kaelix, who always gives without keeping score.

He’s too nice for his own good. Freodore looks at the angle of his neck—awkward, crooked, clearly not built for sleep. He’ll wake up with a stiff shoulder, maybe a crick in his back if Freodore does as much as let him stay like that much longer. He sighs.

“Okay,” he murmurs into the quiet. “You win.”

Freodore places the jacket aside, caps the needle, and crosses the room.

“Hey,” he whispers, gently brushing the sleeping boy’s arm. “Let’s call it—”

“Great! Thought you’d never say it.” Kaelix’s eyes snap open, bright and lucid. He springs to his feet, dusting off his pants.

“What,” Freodore intones. His brain is still muddled, and trying to figure out what happened is a bit more than he can take. “You—were awake?”

Kaelix only grins, utterly unabashed. “If pretending to doze gets you to stop maiming your wrists for one night, then yes, I’ll take the Oscar. Now grab your bag, Furifuri—bedtime!”

Folding his arms, Freodore does his best to glare daggers into the taller boy’s head, but the mix of exhaustion and amusement all throughout his body make it impossible to give it any real heat. “You’re… insane.”

“Humour me, alright?” Kaelix chuckles, voice softer now. “Let’s both go home and try this again tomorrow with functional brains. I promise that an extra hour finishing this off when you wake up is not going to kill you as bad as staying up later than this hour to do the same.”

The sweetness in his words makes Freodore’s muscles relax in a way that he can’t explain. Kaelix has always been good at convincing him, at talking to him gently and tenderly without lies or deceit, and he exhales defeatedly.

“Fine,” he murmurs, reaching for his bag.

They kill the lights together, hallway glow painting long shadows that mingle on the floor like stitched silhouettes. As they step out, Kaelix’s hand brushes against Freodore’s, and he lets their fingers linger just a heartbeat longer than necessary. Walking beside him, feeling the warm echo of that touch, Freodore can’t even summon annoyance anymore—it’s all been reduced to gratitude, to comfort.

Hopeless, then, he thinks, cheeks warming as Kaelix hums that stupid tune again.

And for the first time in his life, ‘hopeless’ feels like the safest place to be.

It starts as a throwaway idea from Seible: “Let’s just sing out front and let people hear us. Worst case? One old guy walks by and says it’s too loud. Promoting the live house starts with actual performance, and we need… um, that organic buzz!”  

Whatever that means. Freodore hadn’t argued—it’s been a long time coming now, and all the others seem just as eager to give it a shot.

So they set up in front of the live house on a lazy Saturday—two amps, a single mic stand, Zeal’s old keyboard balanced on a folding table, and Kaelix’s guitar case open by his feet. It’s not a stage. It’s barely a sidewalk. But when Kaelix tests the mic with a happy little “Check! One, two,” it already feels like something bigger.

The speaker cables are a tangled nightmare and the mixer board is barely balanced on two crates, but Freodore gets it working anyway. Live sound engineering isn’t something he’s used to yet, sans one or two practice runs in the last week with the rest of the boys, but he has a better grasp of it than anyone else here—maybe with Zeal as an exception, but he’s busy working up a bar menu for the first fifteen minutes and then he’ll come out and give it a listen.

Seible is chatting up some onlookers with the easy swagger of someone who was born to charm, laughing and very slowly luring them into where Kaelix stands—center sidewalk with a mic in his hand and the kind of effortless posture that makes every passerby glance back twice.

Freodore keeps one hand on the master volume, the other hovering over the EQ fader. He tells himself it’s to catch sudden pitch spikes or rogue feedback—not because he’s too nervous to step back and just watch like the rest of them, considering that Kaelix hasn’t even started yet.

The first few songs go by unnoticed. Freodore expected to be disheartened at this—but he’s not, because Kaelix isn’t. 

No matter the circumstance, no matter how many people are listening, Kaelix sings like it matters. He always does. Full-voiced and fearless, soaked, drenched, in emotion—he feels the song, and he’s smiling, laughing during the instrumental, having fun. It’s so easy to listen to him, so easy to enjoy, because there’s no better experience than when the performer is having a good time. Freodore admires this quality of his very deeply.

A pair of teenagers wandering past pause. A kid tugging at his mom’s sleeve stops to point. Slowly, a small audience starts to form—a few bodies, scattered and curious, some leaning against street poles, some sitting on the curb. There’s no showmanship in what Kaelix does. No flash, no pretense; there’s just voice, just presence, just the kind of easy charisma that makes people stay. 

And still—between verses, between lyrics—Kaelix keeps glancing up. His gaze doesn’t meet any of the onlookers head-on, doesn’t meet the phones pointed at him while he sings; his eyes flit to Freodore’s desk, watching the designer, looking at him.

Freodore adjusts the reverb by two decibels and doesn’t let himself look directly back. His cheeks are warm. It’s ridiculous.

It’s not long before Kaelix launches into a new song—one they hadn’t rehearsed in full, and so Freodore spends the first verse trying to balance out all the sounds to highlight Kaelix’s tone. Unfazed by the changes with his microphone, Kaelix voice dips low, silky with sincerity, and his falsetto goes so high, a light and airy quality to it. The sound swells, steady and soft. The mix is good. The air is warm. People linger.

And Kaelix’s eyes are on him for the better half of the time.

It’s no secret that Kaelix is crazy good with crowd work. When he wants to get an audience hyped, he can get an audience hyped— equally so, when he merely wants them to listen, be captivated, he can do that too. But there’s a different look in a performer’s eyes when they’re talking to a crowd compared to when they actually feel it—and Freodore swears he’s seeing the latter through his peripheral vision, swears he’s seeing Kaelix’s gaze soften when he glances over as if Freodore is the gravity he always returns to.

Freodore swallows hard. He should be concentrating, thinking about mic gain or cable input latency, whatever jargon comes to mind. But when he gets all of the sliders where he wants them, when the sound is perfect and doesn’t need changing anymore, all he’s left to think about is the way Kaelix is grinning when he sings a line about how he’ll see the listener even if they don’t try to shine.

To be honest, it lands like a confession. Even if no one else hears it that way, Freodore does.

When the song ends, Kaelix thanks the crowd, the few gathered strangers clapping politely. One of the teenagers calls out, “You guys gonna perform again next week?”

Seible takes away the conversation, swooping in to save them an explanation, and talks to the audience about how the BY THE BEAT promotions are going to work leading up to the grand opening night. The promoter is, naturally, better at handling all the schedule and agenda things, and Kaelix heaves a sigh of relief when he realizes that he doesn’t have to do any of the nitty gritty business-related stuff.

After Kaelix hands off the mic to him, he takes a bow, turns to Freodore, and begins walking close—wearing that damn smile again, just for him.

Heat rises behind Freodore’s ears as he pretends to adjust the levels one last time. He doesn’t actually change anything, but he’s not about to stand there like a fool.

Later, when the amps are packed and the sidewalk is empty again, Kaelix will nudge him and ask what he thought. He’ll make it sound like nothing.

But Freodore already knows what he’ll say.

He’ll say, “You’re comfortable, and I think it works great.”

He’ll mean, I think I love you, Kaelix.

The grand opening night is in less than two days.

All four of the boys have been working tirelessly. Seible yawns and stretches forward as he writes on some papers, deprived of sleep after spending hours on end making sure everything is in perfect order. Zeal’s face has been stoic with concentration for so long now, still testing out some newer items on his draft menu to make sure they actually work well in practice—he’s complained to Freodore a few times now that he thinks his tastebuds are going numb. It was also recently decided that Kaelix can work as security, a bouncer of some sorts, but he hasn’t actually got any urgent work to attend to other than practicing his singing for the first performance.

And Freodore? Freodore has locked himself in the dressing room for hours on end since this morning, double—no, triple checking each outfit. They all lay in front of him now, perfectly fit out on the desk, and he scans them all for any sewing errors. To his relief, he doesn’t find a mistake of any kind, and he sighs to release some of the brewing tension in his body. 

After all, it’s about time they try them on. It’s the most nerve wracking part of the designing process. He can’t get the anxiety in his chest to go away.

The door lock clicks open, and Freodore peeks his head out.

“Kaelix?” he calls out into the main area.

In less than a second, running footsteps patter down the hall, and then there he is. “Yes?” Kaelix asks, beaming. “What’s up?”

“That was fast. Do you want to try your stage outfit now?” Freodore asks softly, his slight nervousness bleeding into his voice. “It… should be done.”

“Wait, really?!” Kaelix’s eyes light up, mouth falling agape. “Yes please! I’m so excited, I’ve been looking forward to this so bad!”

“Of course.”

Once Freodore gently opens the door, Kaelix steps in, gaze immediately fixing onto the three sets on the desk. He immediately recognizes his own—he takes the hem of the jacket in his hands, feeling the material against his fingertips, a silent awe on his face.

“Is… Isn’t this the fabric I said I liked?” Kaelix whispers, looking at the inside pattern of the coat. A golden brocade stares back at him, identical to the one he’d pointed out a week or so ago. “You actually managed to put it in your design… Oh, you’re gonna make me cry, Freo.”

“What? Don’t cry,” Freodore says quickly, a hurried concern to his voice. “It’s not that serious.”

“I was joking,” Kaelix assures, though his eyes are blatantly teary. His gaze follows the length of the pants up to the black shirt that goes underneath, then flits to all the straps and belts Freodore picked out for him. “Do I… Do I really get to wear all this?”

Freodore laughs. “Yes, Kaelix, it’s all yours.”

Something raw and childlike glosses over Kaelix’s face as he picks up the layers of shirts, smiling so widely that his eyes look like crescents. Freodore turns his back to let him change, heart thumping in his chest louder than it ever has before, imagining what Kaelix might be feeling as he puts all of it on; perhaps the pants he’d picked out were too simple to match the jacket that he made? But that was the point, to highlight his upper body, with all the little golden patterns on the white button-up against the minimalistic black beneath it.

Don’t overthink it. It’ll look just how you imagined, he thinks with a long exhale.

“Do you need help with the harness buckles?” Freodore asks as he hears clicking. He really loves belt motifs in his fashion, so he’d picked out a wide selection for all of the boys, but he understands that it might be inconvenient at times when dressing up alone.

“No, don’t worry, I’ve got them! Uh…” Another click sets into place, and then Kaelix sighs with relief. “I think I’m done? You can turn around!”

He almost doesn’t want to.

Of course, he does anyway.

His eyes land on Kaelix—and fuck, holy fuck, he is the most stunning thing that Freodore has ever laid his eyes on.

The shirt and pants both fit perfectly around his frame, the golden embroidery at his shoulders complimenting his hair, and he’s folded the sleeves up just right to accentuate the gloves and darker undershirt with it. The gray, layered harness fit around his right shoulder is an idea that Freodore had almost discarded, but it adds an asymmetrical element to the upper half, and he’s fond of how it looks now that it’s in front of him. Looking at it now, the belts also look more in place than Freodore expected—it’s difficult to predict how an intentional messy style will be pulled off, since one of the belts is kind of meshed together with another and some string to hang a yolk yellow crystal off the clasp, but Kaelix makes it look gorgeous.

“My eyes are up here,” Kaelix says sarcastically when he notices Freodore scanning him head to toe.

The designer flushes, ears going warm. “What do you— I’m a designer, I’m looking at the outfit—”

“I’m joking, I’m joking!” Kaelix barks out bright laughter, waving his hands. “So? How do I look?”

Perhaps as an instinct from his model days, Kaelix turns in all the angles Freodore was looking for, striking a few poses. He winks once or twice, and Freodore tries to ignore how it makes him feel all funny inside, choosing instead to focus on the actual design and fitting itself.

“I… I’m…” Freodore furrows his eyebrows. His words aren’t working how they’re meant to. It’s freaking him out. “I think you look—” He pauses. “Good.”

Somehow, Kaelix flattens at that.

“Just good?” the bouncer says, half a tease, half concerned. “Is there something wrong?”

“No! You…” Freodore starts, and then promptly stops. 

He shakes his head, groaning under his breath—it’s going to take all of his strength, but he was holding back just now, and Kaelix deserves to know what he really thinks even if it kills Freodore to say it. The design looks perfect on him, it fits him perfectly, he wears it perfectly—it’s not just ‘good’, it’s Kaelix, it’s—

Damn it.

“You…” he repeats, trying a bit harder this time, “look magnificent, Kaelix Debonair.”

Kaelix pauses in all his movements. There’s a flicker of surprise that crosses his eyes, like he hadn’t expected such an earnest admission despite basically asking for it. Freodore feels heat swarm to his cheeks in an instant.

“You really think so?” Kaelix whispers, looking down at himself. His voice is so soft, so fragile, like he’s caught between shyness and elation, and the tone makes Freodore want to crawl into a hole and never face the sun again. “I think it fits me, too. You did so well with this, Furifuri.”

The designer stifles a nervous breath.

A loose lining at the collar has twisted; Freodore reaches up, fingers brushing warm skin as he tucks the errant ribbon back into place. Kaelix goes very still—not tense, just… aware. His breath slows. For one suspended second, they’re trapped inside the hush of the house lights, no audience but the busy silence of an almost-finished dream.

“I feel like you know me better than I know myself when it comes to these kinds of things,” Kaelix says, voice sultry and so terribly honest.

“That’s the job.” Freodore attempts nonchalance, but the words come out softer.

“I guess, but you make it feel like more than that. Like you know me inside out, whether fashion-wise or whatever else.” Kaelix’s smile tilts, tender and a touch bashful—an expression Freodore’s never been able to armour against.

Heat prickles all over Freodore’s face. He drops his gaze, focuses on the angle of the collar point, the neatness of the seam, acting like there’s anything more to inspect that he hasn’t already covered thoroughly. But when Kaelix’s warmth is right here, when Freodore’s heartbeat in in his throat, when he’s looking at one of his proudest works worn on one of the closest people in his life—

I could stay like this forever.

The thought flashes through him, as attention-grabbing and blinding as a camera flash—and with it, a ripple of guilt. Enjoying this much closeness, this much softness, when it might all be one-sided… isn’t that greedy? Selfish, even? Shit. He’s never had to deal with this before. How is he meant to prepare?

Freodore steps back too quickly, nearly tangling his own feet in the cable connecting the sewing machine to the other wall. Kaelix catches his elbow, laughter spilling out, easy, delighted. “Careful, Furifuri. Can’t have our designer and sound engineer getting hurt on soundcheck day!”

The designer’s pulse trips. He’s touching me like it’s nothing.

Because to Kaelix, maybe, it is nothing—a friendly grab, a casual joke, kindness with no hidden note beneath it. Maybe Freodore is the fool who just has to turn every brush of skin into music.

He wants to be happy with that. Swears he is happy with that. Yet the want runs deeper than happiness now, into ache and bright yearning that feels bigger than his chest can bear.

Kaelix releases him, unaware of the storm he’s left behind, and starts smoothing his hair in the wall-mounted mirror. “Do I look stage-ready?”

“Of course you do,” Freodore answers before he can stop himself.

Kaelix’s eyes meet his in the reflection. A distant softness flickers there—surprise? pleasure? Freodore can’t tell through the thunder of his own heartbeat. He ducks, pretending to fuss with a cuff button that doesn’t need fussing, throat tightening around words he isn’t brave enough to say.

I love you. I love you so fiercely it scares me.

Instead he murmurs, “All set,” and steps off the riser, collecting the hangers with Zeal and Seible’s outfits with shaking hands.

Freodore forces himself to move, coiling measuring tape, clicking off the work light. Every motion feels half-liquid, body still buzzing from the weight of all his realizations that have happened in the last hour. The guilt nips again—the thought that he’s hoarding tiny intimacies while Kaelix offers them freely, unaware of how deeply they land, even when Freodore knows that this care and benevolence has never been specific to him. Kaelix is just kind. Everyone knows it.

Yet even that guilt can’t smother the warm, flooding certainty spreading through him as they walk out side by side, shoulders bumping. He can call it selfish, call it hopeless, call it whatever name fear likes—but it doesn’t change the truth:

He is gone for this boy. 

Even if Kaelix looks at him like there might be something more, if Kaelix’s touch meets his with a spark that both seem to notice, if Kaelix suddenly seems a little more confident wearing an outfit that Freodore designed—Freodore knows it’s too good to be true.

If loving Kaelix in secret is all he’s allowed, he’ll still count it a privilege worth every racing heartbeat.

It’s happening. The Grand Opening Night.

Freodore barely has time to feel it.

He’s running on sheer instinct now—pinning a backup strap on Zeal’s jacket, fixing a loose mic pack for Seible, smoothing the hem of Kaelix’s shirt just before his second set. The transitions between performers are seamless. He fixes his own sweat-laced hair in the mirror before the mic is handed to him, and he high-fives Seible as he makes his way on stage for his first performance of the night. Zeal mans the soundboard in his absence, giving him a thumbs up when the instrumental starts, and he takes away the stage with every breath, every note, and yes, this is what he came here for.

Seible sings with trained charisma, deeply interpreting the lyrics to each song, and owns the stage for every second he’s up there. Zeal is the biggest surprise of them all—people talk, knowing that the famed Zeal Ginjoka is making his return to the music scene, and his low tones enrapture everyone present and take command of the room. Then, of course, Kaelix—always seeming to be in a state of ecstasy when he’s allowed to sing, when he’s heard, when the mic is in his hands and against his lips and his voice is echoing through all the speakers.

They each take turns throughout the night, slipping on and off stage in a choreographed chaos that only barely hides how new they all are to this. It should feel overwhelming, but somehow it doesn’t. Every time someone sings, the room holds still to listen. Every time someone laughs, the rafters echo it back like a blessing.

People are coming in. People are listening. Seible is overwhelmed by the amount of people that stop by and grab a drink, never getting a chance to sit down as he winds through the tables and greets each person individually. When he gets a split second to look at Freodore, the designer sees nothing but the joy of belonging; Seible is at home here—intertwining his passion and his great business skills, getting to sing while also socializing with all these people who want to see him, hear him.

Zeal stays at the bar between songs, amateur mixology easily mistaken for a professional’s with how he handles each customer’s order elegantly. There’s a crowd of people watching him do the tricks Freodore had seen him practice for hours on end for this last week, and the bartender is more than happy to start conversations with all the patrons, recommending various drinks and being ever so suave and amicable.

Kaelix frowns whenever he has to go out and attend to his bouncer duties, and Freodore catches him poking his head in more than once when the rest of BY THE BEAT are on stage and performing, always wanting to see his friends shine and succeed. Somehow, more than being actual security, Kaelix’s presence outside the live house is more akin to a free attention attractor—he does more advertising while out there than actual customer filtering, but it gets them good reception, so he keeps doing what he does after being advised by Seible.

Freodore has a lot on his hands. He’s never been the type to socialize like Seible or Zeal, save delivering a few drinks to tables in their places, nor does he really want to be standing outside and ID-ing people, which he leaves to Kaelix. He’s more than content sitting at the soundboard and making sure all the music is level, the playlist has the right genres fading into each other, orchestrating subtle swaps between background bar music and performance instrumentals without a jarring cut.

And when the final act fades into applause, when the house lights rise, when the crowd begins to gather near the bar, still buzzing—Freodore doesn’t move. Not right away. Slowly, carefully, he slinks to the green room and turns off all the lights, allowing himself to sit down and decompress. The sudden quiet backstage wraps around him like a coat. He lets his eyes drift shut, hand resting on the wall where the paint is still new. The smell of sweat and citrus cleaner lingers in the air.

This is it, he thinks. The realization of it all bubbles in his chest, threatening to burst at the seams. We did it.

“Hey.”

Freodore startles—not hard, but enough to snap his eyes open and make his head turn.

Kaelix stands a few feet away, backlit by the ghost-glow of the stage, curls damp with sweat, jacket collar askew. His face is flushed, radiant with the kind of joy impossible to fake, but there’s something else in his eyes too—something softer, steadier. 

He doesn’t look like he came to celebrate. He looks like he came to find Freodore.

“I figured I’d catch you hiding,” Kaelix says when his eyes adjust to the darkness, a little breathless. “I kept looking for you after the last set. You vanished. What’s going on?”

“I’m not hiding,” Freodore retorts automatically. “I just needed to soak everything in. My adrenaline is going crazy… What’s the word? I think I’m overstimulated. Too much happening.”

“Mm.” Kaelix doesn’t say anything right away. He just steps forward, then another, then another, slow and hesitant and waiting for Freodore to tell him to stop. Freodore doesn’t. He stops at the couch and takes a seat next to the designer, looking him up and down. “You tore the stage up, ya know. Boots the house down.”

Freodore laughs and shakes his head. “That’s your line. You’re the one people come to see. They know they can’t pass on you.”

“Huh?” Kaelix frowns at that. “That’s not true. They came here for all of us.”

There he goes, being kind again—Freodore smiles, not sad, just accepting. “For Seible and Zeal too, yeah. But you don’t have to—”

“No, listen,” Kaelix interrupts, sitting up a tad straighter. “You do this—this enchanting thing when you sing, you know? You look at the crowd like what you’re giving them means something, like the song was made for you to sing with how you put your own little spin on it. And they feel it. I felt it. It’s an amazing talent.”

Thump. Freodore freezes. His heart is too loud again, it’s in his ears and his throat and his legs, thudding behind his ribs like it wants out.

“I watched you tonight,” Kaelix continues, voice hushed and unmistakably delighted, like recalling a good memory out of the blue. “And I kept thinking—I hope you know. I hope you see it. How you shine. Because you always talk as if you’re missing something, like your performances aren’t complete yet, but even if that is true? You still continue to blow me away with your very best. So I do sincerely, truly hope that you let all your doubts go and see how much I—…I—”

He falters. Freodore is still taking in the words, unable to do anything but stare. Kaelix looks away then back, straight into his eyes, a new intent and purpose gleaming within them.

“I love that,” Kaelix breathes. 

His gloved hand lifts between them like he wants to touch, to feel, but doesn’t quite know where. 

Then, quieter, more timid: “I love you.”

Freodore breathes in slowly. If he goes too fast, he might shatter.

All this time, he thought he was being selfish—hoarding glances, catching moments and unsaid confessions in his throat. He thought he was the only one who saw. The only one carrying this secret weight, too scared to want more.

And now, here Kaelix is—grinning shyly through a shimmer in his eyes, hand half-lifted, waiting. Offering it back, even after admitting the most vulnerable thing in the world, still smiling and glowing and—

Freodore takes another deep breath. He doesn’t speak right away. He leans forward, eyes fixed onto Kaelix’s hand, then his fingers clasp around the fingertips of the other’s glove, pulling it off in a swift motion. The bouncer watches as Freodore does the same for his own hands—he slips off the star-laden gloves and takes Kaelix’s hand in both of his, slow and certain. His palms are shaking. He doesn’t hide it.

“You always look at me,” he says softly. “Whenever you’re onstage.”

Kaelix’s eyes are bright. It’s blinding. He nods. “I always do. I always will.”

“I didn’t think I was allowed to want that,” Freodore admits, and the words come out raw, tense. “I thought it was selfish.”

Kaelix’s breath catches. He doesn’t interrupt. His fingers curl tighter in Freodore’s grasp.

“I think,” Freodore whispers, processing his words at the same speed that he speaks, “that I love you more than I thought I ever would love anyone.”

A pause. It’s not regret that courses through Freodore’s entire body after he says it, somehow—it’s relief, in the weirdest way, like he’d finally gotten the truth off of his chest, bare for everyone to see. It’s liberating in all the ways that he thought would kill him; the sureness of his feelings is only consolidated after confessing, rather than creating more doubt to linger in. It feels… nice.

Kaelix opens his mouth like he might speak, but nothing comes out. He swallows hard, lashes fluttering once—twice.

Then the tears come.

They’re quiet, like he is. It starts as a barely noticeable shimmer along his lower lashes, then a spill down one flushed cheek, tracing the curve of it. He doesn’t look away, doesn’t laugh it off; he sits there, hand held gently in Freodore’s, and lets himself be seen.

“It’s you.” Freodore cups his face gently, thumbs brushing the salt away. “It’s always been you.”

“You’re sick.” Kaelix lets out a soft, shuddering laugh that breaks at the end, and then the tears flow more easily, hiccuped sobs cutting between strained words. “You’re sick. How could you—How could you love m—”

“Don’t ask me dumb questions.”

And when Freodore leans in, silently asking if he’s allowed to do this, Kaelix’s breath stilts, and he nods without saying anything at all, melting when their lips meet.

Freodore moves without urgency, instead with a definite purpose. Kaelix sighs into his mouth—soft, almost soundless—and leans forward like he’s falling, like this is gravity and he’s done resisting. His hands rise, one catching the curve of Freodore’s shoulder, the other settling lightly at his waist as if anchoring them both to this singular point in time.

Their noses bump. Kaelix laughs again. Freodore’s hands slip from his cheeks to cup the back of his neck instead, smiling even as he kisses him again—surer this time, deeper. He tries to memorize all of it at once—how his body feels like it’s on fire whether from the post-show adrenaline or this moment, how Kaelix’s lips feel against his, how Kaelix is so soft and gentle with him, Kaelix, it’s all just Kaelix. There’s no one else in the room—no stage, no clatter, no crowd. He’s not complaining at all.

When they part, it’s only by a breath.

“I love you, Freo,” Kaelix murmurs. He looks up at Freodore with wide eyes, full of adoration running so thick that it makes Freodore’s heart skip like a record. “I really, really love you. Thank you for loving me back.”

“It’s nothing I should be thanked for,” Freodore says as he gently flicks Kaelix’s forehead. “If anything, I should be thanking you.”

“A mutual thanks, then.” Kaelix winks, still taking in shaky, tearful breaths with his laughter. “Does that work?”

“‘Mutual thanks’? That’s so…” Freodore rolls his eyes, a fond smirk already playing on his lips. “Fine. If it makes you happy.”

Suddenly, Kaelix’s arms wrap around Freodore’s back, pulling him down with him flat on the couch. Freodore flails for half a moment before realizing that Kaelix’s grip is far stronger than his, and so he relaxes, still glaring daggers into the taller boy’s head. Kaelix doesn’t seem to mind, giggling as they lay together, muted shouts and cheers still echoing from the venue.

And when Seible and Zeal walk in half an hour later, exhausted from all the closing clean-up, to see Freodore asleep against Kaelix’s chest, in Kaelix’s arms… other than the photo they snap, they won’t tell anyone. Probably.