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The rain catches them without warning.
One second the sky is heavy and gray, swollen with the promise of something it can’t quite decide to become. The air feels thick, pressing against Charn’s skin, the kind of quiet that makes his shoulders tense without knowing why. The next second, the sky breaks open.
Fat drops splatter against the dirt road, darkening the dust in uneven bursts. Then the rain comes down in earnest, sudden and relentless, soaking through clothes in seconds.
“Run!” Jet laughs, already grabbing Charn’s wrist and pulling him forward.
Charn barely has time to react before he’s stumbling after him, sandals slipping against the slick earth. Rain blurs his vision, his glasses speckled and useless as water streams down his face. Jet’s grip is firm, sure, like he knows exactly where he’s going even as the world dissolves into gray.
They don’t get far.
By the time they duck under the narrow awning of a closed shop, they’re drenched. Charn’s shirt clings uncomfortably to his chest and back, fabric heavy with water. Jet pushes wet hair back from his forehead, only for it to fall forward again, dark and unruly.
Jet laughs, bright and unguarded, the sound cutting cleanly through the pounding rain. It echoes under the awning, warm and alive, and Charn finds himself laughing too, breathless, a little wild. It surprises him, how easily it comes, how the sound slips out of him before he can stop it.
This kind of laughter doesn’t belong to him. It only escapes when he forgets himself.
When he looks up, water drips from Jet’s lashes.
And for a moment, just one, everything else disappears.
The laughter fades, leaving something softer behind. Jet’s smile lingers but changes shape, quieting into something more careful, more intimate. His hand is still wrapped around Charn’s wrist, thumb resting against the fragile beat of Charn’s pulse.
Charn becomes acutely aware of it. The warmth. The steady pressure. The way Jet hasn’t let go.
Rain streaks down the world behind him, blurring edges and swallowing detail until there’s nothing left but this narrow space beneath the awning. The smell of wet earth. The sound of their breathing. The way Jet is looking at him like Charn is the only thing anchoring him in place.
Like there is nothing else in the world.
Charn’s breath stutters.
Maybe, he thinks.
Maybe they’ve been careful long enough. Maybe wanting doesn’t count if they don’t name it. Maybe restraint doesn’t mean much when it already feels like something has been decided for them, long before either of them dared to want.
He leans in, just a fraction. Not enough to cross a line. Just enough to feel the pull of it, undeniable and warm.
He imagines heat that isn’t from the rain. Imagines a closeness that doesn’t have to be measured or delayed or buried under responsibility. Imagines what it would feel like to stop pretending that restraint makes this easier.
Jet’s gaze flicks to Charn’s mouth.
The air tightens, sharp and electric. Charn can feel it everywhere, along his spine, in the way his chest feels too full, in the way his name sits unspoken between them.
Thunder cracks overhead.
The sound is sharp and sudden, splitting the sky open like a warning shot.
Charn flinches. Jet blinks.
The moment shatters, fragile as glass.
Reality rushes back in all at once, Khem. The curse. The waiting.
The weight of it presses down on Charn’s chest, heavy and unavoidable. Wanting suddenly feels dangerous again. Selfish. Like tempting fate when so much is already at stake.
Jet drops Charn’s wrist as if burned, stepping back under the awning. Rain splashes into the space between them, a thin, cruel barrier.
“Guess we should keep moving,” Jet says lightly.
Too lightly.
Charn nods, swallowing around the tightness in his throat. “Yeah.”
They step back into the rain together, walking side by side but no longer touching. The storm feels colder now, the water seeping into Charn’s clothes, his shoes, his thoughts. The space between them is small, barely a few inches, but it feels heavier than the rain itself.
Neither of them looks back.
But both of them feel it.
The moment that almost was lingers, low and distant, echoing like thunder long after the sky begins to clear.