Work Text:
He had a strange habit—one Oliver had only ever observed in a handful of people throughout his entire life, and even then, only fleetingly, as if it belonged to some secret, underground sect known only to the chosen few. And every time he witnessed this ritual, it felt like he was peeking at something sacred—a small madness that a person allows themselves only in complete solitude, when no one is watching.
When an ordinary person left a tea bag in their mug to let the drink steep into bitter astringency and the color of aged wood, dark, stubborn rings would inevitably form on the ceramic—stains that later had to be scrubbed away with baking soda, erasing the memory of the tea-drinking altogether, like erasing old photographs you no longer want to keep. Another person would fish out the wet bag and place it on a special saucer, laying it flat like a dried beetle in an entomological collection, or squeeze it with a spoon, twisting the string around the handle in a tight, almost surgical loop—neatly, properly, like a normal human being.
Kimi, however, did things differently. He wound the tea bag's string around the mug's handle itself—smoothly, with a mesmerizing methodicalness, as if he were rewinding time, trying to reclaim lost minutes. It was unconscious, like breathing; his fingers performed the motion on their own while his mind wandered somewhere far away—lost in thoughts about work, about the day just lived, about something elusive that Ollie could never quite guess but desperately wanted to understand. He would watch those fingers—long, slightly nervous, with perpetually bitten nails—and feel something warm and simultaneously prickly spread through him, as if he were observing someone doing something incredibly personal, intimate, almost forbidden.
Sometimes this ritual reached disaster-level proportions: the taut string would cut into the paper tag, folding it in half until it began to tear at the seams, emitting that dry, death-rattle sound Ollie had learned to recognize from a mile away. And at some point, the bright scrap of labeling, unable to withstand the tension, would simply rip with a dry rustle and, like a shot bird, flutter down onto the table, freed from its captivity—white, crumpled, helpless. But Kimi, lost in his thoughts, wouldn't even notice the loss. He'd leave the exhausted bag at the bottom of the mug—to sink in the boiling water until its very last breath, like an anchor he'd forgotten to weigh, slowly descending into the depths, leaving behind only a dark, bitter trail.
Ollie watched this every evening, and every time he caught himself remembering the scene in minute detail: the angle of Kimi's head, the slight movement of his lips when he muttered something under his breath, the lamplight falling on his shoulders. He remembered it the way you remember dreams you want to retell but can't find the words for, because language is too crude for such delicate matters.
And in exactly the same way, with that same unconscious, almost ritualistic persistence, Kimi approached another of his daily routines—his shower gel. Ollie had long noticed: if the tea habit was about movement and touch, about how fingers met porcelain and string, this one was all about scent. And that scent was pure torture for Ollie—the sweet, exhausting kind of torture you can't give up, even when you want to tear out your own olfactory receptors.
Kimi loved his shower gel with its cloyingly chemical orange fragrance—a sharp, viscous phantom of citrus that didn't smell so much as scream orange plastic. The scent was so artificial, so alien to anything natural, that Ollie winced every time he heard it from behind the bathroom door. Yet—strangely enough—he couldn't stop breathing it in when Kimi emerged from the shower. He inhaled it deeply, until his lungs ached, and felt it settle somewhere inside, sticking to his ribs, tangling in his lungs like fluff.
A real orange, to Ollie, was bright and alive—smelling of sunshine and bitter zest, of the south and the faint bitterness that clings to your fingers from the peel. But this one—it was as if it had been dried out, ground to dust, mixed with solvent, spiked with cheap essence, and poured into plastic bottles. The smell was foreign, almost aggressive, yet Ollie's consciousness clung to it with masochistic tenacity—clung the way you cling to memories you want to forget but that have become part of you, soaking into your skin, your hair, your very core.
This synthetic trail embedded itself in his memory deeper than he'd like—settling on his olfactory receptors like a sticky, intrusive film that ordinary water couldn't wash away. Ollie could smell it even through his own soap—minty, fresh, so correct—even when he stepped outside, and then it would begin to seem that the whole city smelled of orange: the trees, the passersby, the wet asphalt after rain. And everything came full circle: a new day, a new shower, a new cloying explosion that he hated but that had already become inseparable from the image of Kimi, his silent ritual with the tea string, and the forgotten bag at the bottom of the mug.
Ollie could no longer tell what irritated him more: the wet twine wound around porcelain, or that sticky, deceitful orange that dogged his every step, like an earworm you can't get out of your head. But somehow, for him, Kimi was made up entirely of these two small, almost imperceptible obsessions—wholly and completely. He was woven from these oddities, like a spiderweb of the finest threads, and Ollie, against his own will, found himself more and more entangled in it each day.
Or maybe it wasn't about the habits at all, but about Ollie himself. Because Kimi was contradictory—woven from a thousand and one tiny details, like a spiderweb of frayed threads, and Ollie, against his own will, remembered every single one. Not just remembered—absorbed, like a sponge that had long been overfilled but kept getting dipped back in the water, already unable to take in another drop but still reaching for the moisture, because it's the only thing it knows how to do. Why? He didn't know himself. Perhaps because someone else's chaos felt more understandable than his own. Perhaps because in that chaos he found a strange, almost painful order—the order so lacking in his own life, scheduled to the minute, to deadlines, to rules and obligations.
So, one morning, opening his planner to jot down another work meeting, Ollie discovered with dismay that between the dry lines of tasks, like weeds through asphalt, fragments of Kimi had taken root. They pasted themselves into the planner on their own, seeped into the ink, tangled under his hand like uninvited guests who show up without warning and refuse to leave. They appeared from nowhere—and Ollie could no longer tell where his own life ended and Kimi's began, so tightly had they intertwined in those lines.
He wrote in a sweeping, nervous scrawl, almost scratching the letters, as if afraid the ink would disappear if he didn't apply enough pressure:
‘Buy pasta (but not farfalle—that idiot hates them for some reason, says they look like bows, and bows are for children).’
And below, two lines later, already businesslike:
‘Submit a report for the last six months—by Friday.’
And right there, like a madman's postscript, off to the side, small, almost illegible:
‘That idiot washed socks with underwear again. The underwear is now fuzzy like rabbits. He walks around and doesn't even notice.’
Ollie would snap the planner shut, but Kimi's habits were already living their own life on paper. They crawled into his schedule, mingled with deadlines, intertwined with figures and sums, turning the dry list of responsibilities into a strange, painful diary of observations about a man who had no idea he'd become the main plotline of someone else's notebook. Ollie hated himself for it. He hated his obsession, his inability to stop, his stupid, manic interest in someone else's life. But every evening, sitting down at the table, he'd open the planner again and catch himself reaching for the pen to jot down another piece of nonsense. As if, if he didn't document it, Kimi's habit would disappear, evaporate, cease to exist. And that would mean Kimi himself would vanish, too.
Or, worse, Ollie would be left alone with his own thoughts—empty, quiet, without a single anchor, without a single thread to grab onto to keep from drowning in that silence.
"There's no end to this rain!" Kimi exclaimed, bursting into the apartment soaking wet. Water streamed from his hair in rivulets, his jacket shoulders darkened with moisture, and a dark, uneven puddle was already spreading beneath him on the floor—as if he'd brought a piece of the street inside, torn it up, and dropped it at the doorstep, leaving a wet trail behind him like a snail.
Ollie didn't even look up. He sat at the kitchen table, bent over his open planner, his fingers already reaching for the pen on their own. The ink obediently flowed onto the page—sweeping, almost aggressive, as if he were spilling onto the page everything he couldn't say aloud:
‘Forgot his umbrella again’
The entry landed on top of some work notes, crossed out numbers and dates, cut into the line about the scheduled meeting, like a raindrop into an ink stain. Ollie stared at the phrase and felt a strange satisfaction: now it was documented. Recorded. Entered into the chronicles. Now this fact existed not only in reality but on paper, and Ollie could reread it anytime he felt lonely.
"Are you even listening to me?" Kimi shrugged off his jacket and hung it on the back of a chair, which was immediately haloed in dampness. "I was knee-deep in puddles, by the way. And the buses are stranded. Like the whole city decided to drown today of all days."
"I hear you," Ollie replied, but his voice sounded hollow, distant, as if he were speaking from another room. He was still staring at the entry. ‘Forgot his umbrella again’—a few words, but they contained an entire universe of Kimi's habits: his perpetual absent-mindedness, his contradictions, his ability to ignore the obvious. It had been raining for three days straight, every news channel was talking about flooding, and this man walked out the door as if it were eternal summer outside, as if the rain were just someone's joke that had nothing to do with him.
Ollie reread the entry and suddenly realized he'd added, almost without thinking, on autopilot, like breathing or blinking:
‘(And why am I even writing this down?)’
He frowned. The pen froze in his fingers. Kimi padded down the hallway in wet sneakers, muttering something about the weather, about how he should have stayed at work, about the cold creeping under his collar, about how he hated autumn. And all those sounds—the padding, the muttering, the drops falling on the laminate—mixed with the ticking of the clock on the wall and Ollie's own breathing, creating that strange rhythm he'd been existing in for months—a rhythm in which Kimi was the main melody, and everything else just accompaniment.
"Hey," Kimi said suddenly, stopping in the kitchen doorway. He stood with his shoulder against the doorframe, looking at Ollie with curiosity mixed with a hint of concern. "Why do you always have that notebook on your table? Do you write all your stuff in there?"
Ollie snapped the planner shut. His palm pressed flat against the cover, like closing the door to a room where other people's secrets lived. He could feel his heart pounding somewhere in his throat, blood rushing to his cheeks, his fingers going numb with tension.
"Yeah," he answered shortly, trying to keep his voice steady. "Work stuff."
Kimi shrugged and headed for the bathroom—off to leave that same fake orange on the ceramic, the one Ollie had learned to recognize from a mile away, the way you recognize a loved one's voice in a crowd. And Ollie stayed sitting, pressing his hand to the planner, feeling the lines pulsing beneath his fingers—there, behind the cover. Lines in which Kimi had been living for six months now, completely unaware. Lines that had become his second life—a life he would never show anyone, but which existed, breathed, and waited.
Ollie didn't turn around, but he knew for certain: Kimi was standing under the hot water right now—almost scalding, the kind that left milky steam on the shower glass and turned skin pink, as if scalded by boiling water. Ollie knew because he'd been hearing this rhythm for six months: first the rush of falling water, then the dull thud of the gel bottle hitting the shower floor (that stupid orange), then silence, from which, a minute later, emerged a clearing of the throat and the sound of the cabinet door opening. Ollie knew this better than his own schedule, better than his deadlines, better than his own habits.
He heard the footsteps—the wet slap of bare feet on tile—and a minute later his body relaxed, because everything was going according to script. The same script he'd played out in his head hundreds of times without even noticing. The chilly rain outside. The hot shower—almost boiling. Now tea. Ollie stood up without thinking, as if his body were acting autonomously, separate from his consciousness, which was still floating somewhere in the clouds.
He put the kettle on, and the water began to boil with a quiet, cozy hum that soothed him better than any words. Dropped a tea bag into Kimi's mug—black, strong, the kind Kimi inexplicably loved, even though he claimed not to know anything about tea varieties. Then a spoonful of honey—thick, dark, amber, trailing from the spoon in a sticky thread, just like that twine from the tea bag, just like that thread that bound the two of them together in one knot.
And the stupid lemon wedge. Ollie pulled it from the fridge, placed it carefully into the mug, and it immediately stained the edge of the water a pale yellow—even before Kimi started mashing it. And he would mash it. Ollie knew. First he'd press down with the spoon until the juice spilled out in a murky yellow river into the black tea, then he'd stir—long, slow, thoughtfully, staring at the wall—and only then bring the mug to his lips.
"As if he doesn't get enough of that orange stuff," Ollie thought with a bitter smile. Kimi hated synthetic flavors in food but adored chemical orange in his shower gel. Kimi couldn't stand sweet sodas but put lemon in his tea every time, even when the tea was already strong, even when the honey was sweet enough. He needed that acidity, that burst, that little explosion on his tongue—the final chord before he started drinking.
When Kimi emerged from the bathroom—in an old stretched-out t-shirt, with damp hair tips, smelling of that orange chemistry—he froze in the kitchen doorway, staring at the steaming mug.
"You already made tea?" he asked, eyeing the mug where the lemon wedge was already floating on the surface, and on his face appeared that same light, warm smile that Ollie loved so much—and which he carefully recorded in his planner every evening.
Ollie, who had managed to return to the table and reopen his planner, didn't look up. He was staring at the last entry—’Forgot his umbrella again’—and thinking that in a couple of hours he'd have to add another line, document this evening again, preserve this moment on paper so it wouldn't disappear without a trace.
"Guessed," he replied shortly, and there was that same hoarseness in his voice that appeared whenever he was nervous.
Kimi sat down across from him, took the mug, and his fingers—still warm from the shower—touched the hot porcelain. He stirred the tea, pressed down on the lemon wedge, squeezed out the juice, and the yellow murk swirled upward, curling in the water like tongues of flame. Ollie watched from under lowered lids, silently counting his own heartbeats, like counting seconds before something important. One. Two. The spoon clinked against the mug's walls. Three. Four. The first sip.
"How did you know?" Kimi asked, squinting slightly, and in his gaze flickered something—curiosity or suspicion, Ollie couldn't tell. "I didn't ask."
Ollie shrugged, his fingers sliding across the planner page to where a clean space remained, where he could write another line, another detail, another memory.
"I just..." he paused, searching for words, and felt his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth. "I just know."
Kimi looked at him for another couple of seconds, then smiled—lightly, unconsciously, the way one smiles at someone's unsolicited but accepted care, the way you accept a gift you've dreamed of but were afraid to ask for. And turned his eyes to the window, where the rain was still drumming against the glass, smearing the city lights into blurry, watercolor stains that streamed down the pane like tears.
Ollie exhaled and, turning the page, began a new entry:
‘Rain. Tea. Lemon. Spoon. Round and round again.’
And he knew—tomorrow would be the same. And the day after. And for as many days as Kimi would live across from him, filling his planner with lines about himself—lines that had become his personal Bible, his scripture, his quiet, unknown religion.
"How was your day?" Ollie finally lifted his eyes from the planner, snapping it shut after placing a paper napkin between the pages. It was more convenient than a bookmark—the napkin didn't slip, didn't fall out, didn't leave marks, and most importantly, was always within reach. Another small habit he'd acquired after he started writing about Kimi—as if all his new rituals were somehow connected to this man.
Kimi looked up at him with a tired, almost glassy gaze. For a few seconds, he just blinked, as if switching his consciousness from work mode to home mode, as if surfacing from the depths of his thoughts to understand where he was and who was in front of him. And then he exhaled with such strain that it seemed he was carrying the whole world on his shoulders.
"Spent the whole day running around the office like an idiot with a phone and tripod," he said, spreading his hands as if trying to illustrate the scale of the disaster. "Shooting video for the company's Instagram. Reels, short verticals, intros, animation with the logo bouncing like a ball. It's torture, Ollie. Real, methodical torture."
Ollie nodded silently, but in his head he was already replaying the image: Kimi with phone in hand, dashing from desk to desk, catching angles, dodging colleagues who didn't want to be in frame. Tripod. Phone. Bouncing logo. He could almost see it, and strangely, that almost-vision was calming—like a scene from a familiar movie watched for the hundredth time, knowing every line, every gesture, every glance.
Kimi stretched out his arms—one, then the other—arched his whole body, and the crack of his vertebrae was so loud it sounded like dry branches snapping. And then he simply dropped his forehead onto the hard surface of the table, thudding against the wood, and went still, arms spread out like a starfish washed ashore.
"You're a good social media manager, Kimi," Ollie said, looking at the crown of his neighbor's head, at the still-damp ends of his hair that smelled of that same orange, feeling something warm spread through him—tenderness mixed with sadness, because he knew he couldn't say everything he wanted to.
"I know," came the muffled reply from the tabletop, laced with faint despair, as if the words had been spoken a thousand times and lost all meaning. "But that doesn't change the fact that I still have to sit up half the night editing, and then it's all over again."
Ollie was about to say something encouraging, but Kimi continued without lifting his head, his voice growing even softer, almost a whisper:
‘My whole gallery is full of those videos. Dozens of gigabytes of work material. I don't even remember the last time there was a single photo of me in there.’
Ollie froze. The pen in his fingers stopped mid-word. He looked at Kimi—at his defenseless neck, the outline of his back, his arms lying limply on either side of his face—and suddenly, sharply, almost painfully, realized a strange thing.
In my planner—hundreds of entries about him. In his phone—not a single picture of himself.
It was like some cruel symmetry, a wicked joke of fate. Ollie had written so much about Kimi that Kimi himself could compile a complete, detailed, lovingly crafted biography from those lines. And Kimi, who spent hours on other people's faces and other people's products, hadn't even bothered to leave himself proof of his own existence—not one selfie, not one candid shot, not one "I was here."
"Give me your phone," Ollie said quietly. His voice was soft, but there was that same steely note in it that appeared whenever he'd made a decision.
Kimi turned his head, cheek against the tabletop, and stared at him with one eye—tired, red, but a spark of curiosity flickered in it.
"Why?"
"Just give it."
Kimi hesitated, then reluctantly pulled the phone from his jeans pocket and handed it to Ollie, as if giving away something precious yet simultaneously useless. Ollie took it carefully, like a fragile thing—the way you pick up a small animal that might get scared and run away. The screen was warm—from use, from apps, from Kimi's fingers that had been tapping on it all day, creating other people's lives on other people's pages. Ollie opened the camera, switched it to rear-facing, and aimed it at Kimi.
"Hey!" Kimi flinched and tried to cover his face with his hand, but Ollie had already pressed the shutter. "What are you doing?"
"Sit still," Ollie said firmly, though a smile trembled in his voice, and he felt warmth spread through his chest. He pressed the shutter, and the artificial, plastic shutter sound clicked—but in the kitchen's silence, it rang out like a tiny click of time frozen in a frame, a moment he'd stolen from eternity and kept for himself.
Kimi froze, bewildered and embarrassed, with his mouth slightly open, a red line from the tabletop across his forehead, dark circles under his eyes, and damp hair. He was unprepared, rumpled, exhausted to his very core—and that was exactly how Ollie wanted to remember him. Real. Alive. His.
Ollie looked at the resulting photo. A pause. He studied Kimi's face, every feature, every tiny line, every freckle, and felt something turn over inside him, his heart clenched with tenderness.
"Now you have one," he said and handed the phone back, placing it in Kimi's palm like handing over keys to a home—like a promise, like the beginning of something new.
He turned back to the table, opened his planner again, and flipping past the napkin, wrote a new line:
'In his gallery—other people's faces. In my planner—only him. Today I fixed it. At least for once.'
Outside, the rain was letting up, leaving wet streaks on the glass—like those black rings on ceramic that Kimi loved to leave behind. Ollie looked at his reflection in the dark window and thought: ‘I wonder if he's noticed that I always look at him just a beat longer than necessary?’
—✦—
Another day. The same habits.
Gray morning outside—one that didn't even try to pretend it was sunny. Ollie sat at the kitchen table with his laptop spread out, a cup of cold coffee, and his planner—open to yesterday's entry about the rain. He worked from home, so he had time to watch the world wake up outside, and simultaneously, to watch Kimi wake up. Everything happened with chronometric precision, with that mechanical predictability that soothed Ollie more than any words.
First, the sound of water in the bathroom—the same one, with a pause for the orange gel, when Kimi closed his eyes and stood under the streams, letting the hot water wash away his fatigue. Then shuffling steps down the hallway, the creak of the wardrobe door, the clink of a spoon against a mug. Ollie knew these sounds by heart now, like a favorite song you can't get out of your head even when it's starting to annoy you—but it didn't annoy him, it soothed him, because it meant Kimi was nearby, that he existed, that he was breathing in the same apartment.
And then—the lunchbox packing. Ollie would get up from the table, and his heart would start beating a little faster, because this ritual was the most important, the most intimate, the most personal. He'd pull containers from the fridge and begin his well-rehearsed routine: slicing vegetables—thin, even, almost jewelry-like, as if preparing not for a tired social media manager but for a culinary exam. Cucumber pieces, julienned carrots, bread slices, chicken breast he'd baked the night before—all of it laid into the container in tight layers, like the pages of the planner between which Kimi also lived.
And of course, an apple. Kimi loved apples. Ollie had somehow remembered that—maybe because he'd once seen Kimi bite into a green apple with a crunch and squint with pleasure, and that image had seared itself into his memory forever. Now he put one in the lunchbox every time, like a small offering Kimi had never asked for. ‘Today it's red. Yesterday was green. He doesn't seem to notice the difference. But I do.’
"I'm off!" Kimi would yell from the hallway, already pulling on his sneakers. "Ollie, you're a genius as always! Thanks!"
Ollie would hear the click of the front door lock, footsteps receding down the stairs, the downstairs entrance door slamming shut. And then—silence would descend. Hollow, empty, almost offensive. Ollie would stand in the hallway, still in his kitchen apron, blinking at the closed door, at the hook where Kimi's jacket had just hung, at the sneakers he'd forgotten to align properly—and in his head, like a scratched record, the same question kept playing.
‘Why am I even doing this?’
He wasn't his boyfriend. He wasn't his relative. He wasn't supposed to feed him every morning. Kimi was an adult—he could buy lunch at the office, order delivery, or, finally, make himself a sandwich—if he remembered. But Ollie remembered him. Packed for him. Wrapped it up. Tucked a napkin on top so Kimi wouldn't get his hands dirty. He did it not out of obligation, not out of pity, not out of duty. He did it because in those morning minutes, he felt needed.
Ollie would return to the kitchen, sit at the table, open his planner, and stare at the lines written in his own handwriting. Everything was there: ‘Forgot his umbrella,’ ‘Washed socks with underwear again,’ ‘Rumpled photo on his phone.’ And today, after thinking, he carefully wrote:
‘Packed his lunchbox. Again. Red apple. He said 'thanks'—and for a second I felt needed. Now he's gone, and I'm just standing in the hallway with this stupid question in my head. Maybe I'm afraid that if I stop—he'll disappear? Or that I'll be left alone with an empty morning I have nothing to fill?’
Ollie closed the planner, pushed it aside, and stared into his cold coffee cup. Outside, a new day was beginning—one that would again smell of orange in the evenings and end with the sound of hot water, the clink of a teaspoon, and a question he still couldn't answer.
But he knew one thing: tomorrow he'd get up again, open the fridge again, slice vegetables again, and put in an apple. Because he'd already stopped understanding where habit ended and something more began—something he was still afraid to name. Because his life without this ritual felt empty and meaningless.
That evening, Kimi came back rumpled, still soaked from the rain. Water dripped from his jacket again, leaving dark puddles on the floor, but this time he didn't even curse, didn't utter a single word about "no end in sight." He just walked in, took off his shoes, hung his jacket on the hook—and paused for a second, as if he'd forgotten where to go next, as if his body were moving on autopilot while his consciousness remained somewhere outside the door.
And he was coughing. Dry, strained, as if a small but persistent creature had taken up residence in his chest, scratching at his throat from the inside, demanding release. His nose seemed to itch—Kimi rubbed it with the back of his hand, frowned, and blinked more than usual, and Ollie could see the dark circles under his eyes, his skin paler than normal.
Ollie noticed the change almost immediately. He always noticed. When you live with someone long enough, you get used to their rhythm: how they breathe, how they walk, how they smell when they enter. You start reading their state from a million tiny details: how they hold their shoulders, how they blink, how they clench their jaw. Kimi had always been tired—that had become his baseline, the backdrop against which everything else unfolded. But now he wasn't just tired. Now he was "wiped out."
"Tea?" Ollie asked, when Kimi, instead of veering toward the kitchen where the kettle was already boiling, where his favorite mug with a lemon wedge and a spoonful of honey waited on the table—instead of all that, he silently walked past, into the bedroom, and Ollie felt something inside him break.
"Not feeling great," Kimi replied without turning around. His voice sounded hollow, hoarse, as if he were speaking through thick fabric, as if the words were pushing through cotton. "Sorry, Ollie. Tonight you're on your own."
The bedroom door closed. Softly, almost silently—without the usual click, without that sound Ollie had come to count as part of his evening routine. And silence fell. Ollie stood in the middle of the kitchen, feeling that silence fill every space, penetrate his lungs, and push out the air. The kettle had already boiled, steam rising to the ceiling, condensing on the cold windowpanes. Kimi's mug sat on the table—clean, empty, with a spoon on the saucer, with a lemon wedge already beginning to dry on the rim of the plate, losing its brightness.
Ollie stared at this set table, this ready, pre-planned evening ritual, and something inside him lurched. There it was. Something breaking the usual pattern. Ollie was used to the evening being a ritual. Kimi came in, wet and grumbling. Heading for the shower. Then they'd sit together in the kitchen. The tea would cool in their mugs while Kimi talked about his stupid day with stupid videos, and everything would go in circles—a closed, cozy, predictable circle in which Ollie felt, if not happy, then at least needed. And now that circle was broken, and Ollie was left standing on the edge of a chasm, not knowing where to go next.
Ollie walked to the table, sat down, and opened his planner. The pen hovered over the paper. He wanted to write: ‘Kimi got sick. The kettle went cold. Lemon dried out. I don't know what to do,’ but the words wouldn't come. His fingers trembled. A single drop fell onto the paper—from somewhere above, where the steam was condensing on the ceiling, or maybe from his eyes, Ollie wasn't sure. He felt panic rising inside him, his heart pounding against his ribs, his chest growing tight and suffocating.
He closed the planner, pushed it aside, and did something he'd never done at this hour before: walked to the bedroom door, knocked—quietly, almost timidly—and asked:
"Kimi? How are you? Want me to bring you tea in bed? With honey. No lemon, if your throat hurts."
Silence behind the door. Then movement, the rustle of blankets, and a voice—hoarse, broken, with that same note of weakness that Ollie hated, because it reminded him of how fragile Kimi was:
"I'd be in your debt."
Ollie exhaled. Quietly, almost soundlessly, but as if a ton of concrete had been lifted from his shoulders. He hurried back to the kitchen, grabbed a different mug—the one Kimi used when he was sick (Ollie had noted even that, remembered how Kimi had once said it was more comfortable because it had a wider handle)—added a spoonful of honey, poured hot water, added lemon but just a drop, only to warm it through.
When he entered the bedroom, Kimi was sitting up in bed, propped with pillows, with a red nose and watery eyes. He looked small, lost, and so unlike Kimi that for a second Ollie was lost. He was used to seeing Kimi tired, but not like this—defenseless, almost childlike, bewildered by his own weakness.
"Here," he said, handing over the mug, and his fingers brushed Kimi's for a moment. "Drink. Hot stuff. With honey. Don't go to work tomorrow—I'll say you're sick."
Kimi took the mug, wrapped his hands around it, and for the first time all evening, he smiled—weakly, through sheer effort, but warmly, and that smile warmed Ollie more than any tea.
"You do too much for me," he said, taking a sip, and something flickered in his eyes—gratitude or embarrassment, Ollie couldn't tell.
Ollie sat on the edge of the bed, just on the very edge, ready to get up and leave at any moment so as not to overstep boundaries, not to scare off this fragile intimacy.
"I know," he answered quietly. "But I can't help it."
He didn't add: "Because if I stop, who am I then?" But the question rang in his head again, like that kettle cooling in the silent kitchen.
"Wait a second," Ollie said, abruptly rising from the edge of the bed. He already knew what to do. Every movement was practiced—not because he frequently cared for sick people, but because he thought about Kimi so often that his mind already contained a ready-made algorithm for any scenario. Even the one that had never happened before.
Ollie headed to the kitchen, to the bottom drawer of the cabinet where the medicine kit lived. Or rather, it wasn't a kit but a bottomless cardboard box they both used as a catch-all for medications. Everything was there: from band-aids to jars of herbs bought on a whim and never opened. Ollie knelt and began rummaging through this chaos with an archaeologist's precision, sorting through boxes, reading labels, checking expiration dates.
Thermometer—found. Antivirals—a box, still within the expiration date. Throat lozenges—the minty ones Kimi had praised last time. Nasal drops—though he seemed to have already been using them, but extra wouldn't hurt. And of course, a pack of tissues—because Kimi, like anyone with a runny nose, would leave damp crumpled balls all over the apartment, and Ollie was already mentally preparing to collect them, because he knew he would do it with the same care with which he packed lunchboxes.
He gathered everything in an armload, like a market vendor, and within a minute was standing in Kimi's doorway. Kimi was still sitting on the bed, wrapped in a blanket up to his chin, with red eyes and wet lashes. His nose betrayed him with a sniffle, and his fingers clutched the mug of tea that had already begun to cool. He looked like a child caught doing something forbidden.
"Here," Ollie shoved the thermometer at him, almost forcibly placing it in his palm over the blanket. "Take your temperature. Now."
Kimi obediently tucked the thermometer under his arm and stared at Ollie with the expression of a guilty cat who knows he's misbehaved but won't admit it.
"You know," Ollie began, and his voice trembled, shifting into that exact scolding tone he hated in himself but couldn't stop, "it's been raining for days! Your immune system is weak, you don't get enough sleep, the office AC is probably blasting at full power, and you, as always, don't take an umbrella and walk around soaking wet! What is this disregard for yourself, Kimi?"
He spoke fast, almost breathless, and at some point caught himself gesturing in the air as if he were on a podium rather than in a bedroom. The words poured out in a flood he couldn't stop—because behind them wasn't anger, but fear. Simple, human fear. The fear that Kimi was lying there, sniffling, coughing, and all Ollie could do was bring pills, take his temperature, and lecture him.
Kimi listened, and even through the exhaustion and feverish gleam in his eyes, a familiar mischievous spark flickered—the one Ollie loved so much and was so afraid of losing.
"You're scolding me like a mom or a boyfriend right now," he said with a weary smirk, lifting his gaze to Ollie, irony and something far warmer mingling in his eyes.
And then—the cough again. Deep, racking, as if from his very core, so violent that Kimi doubled over, clutching the mug to his chest, nearly hacking up a lung. Ollie froze for a split second, then was immediately at his side—sitting on the bed, placing a hand on Kimi's back, feeling it shudder beneath his palm, the muscles tensing, his whole body trembling.
"Easy, easy," he said softly, almost in a whisper, forgetting the scolding. "Breathe. It's okay."
Kimi recovered, wiped his eyes, and looked at Ollie with a completely defenseless, almost childlike expression, and Ollie felt his heart clench with tenderness.
"Mom or boyfriend?" Ollie repeated, when the coughing subsided. There was a caution in his voice he wasn't fully aware of. "Which one do you think does a better job?"
Kimi squinted, took a sip of tea, and answered quietly, hoarsely:
"You do. That's why I don't want you to leave."
Ollie froze. His hand was still on Kimi's back, warming through the fabric of the shirt. The room was silent, except for the rain rustling outside and a faucet dripping somewhere in the bathroom, marking time. Ollie wanted to say something witty, or start scolding again, or turn it all into a joke—but he couldn't. The words lodged somewhere deep, in that same place where all his planner entries were born, the ones he'd never shown anyone. He just pulled his hand away, nodded, and stood up.
"I'll bring more hot water," he said, already heading for the door. "You drink. And lie down. I'll make you ginger tea with lemon and pepper tomorrow. Best remedy for a cold."
He was almost out the door when he heard from behind, softly:
"Ollie."
He turned. Kimi was looking at him over the mug—tired, sick, but smiling that same smile Ollie only ever wrote down as a margin note in his planner.
"Thank you," Kimi said. "For everything."
Ollie nodded, stepped into the hallway, closed the door behind him, and leaned against the wall. He stared at the ceiling, listened to Kimi rustling his blanket and coughing on the other side, and thought: "Mom or boyfriend? What if I want to be one of them? What if I already am—he just doesn't know it?"
He returned to the kitchen, put the kettle on, and opened his planner. On a fresh page, over the lines about rain and lunchboxes, he wrote:
‘Today he called me a mom or a boyfriend. I said I'd handle it. But I didn't say I want to be the second. And I'm scared that if I say it—he'll leave. Or worse, he'll stay, but he won't be my Kimi anymore. The one I write about every day.’
The kettle boiled. Steam rose to the ceiling again. Ollie prepared another mug, with honey and lemon, and carried it to the bedroom—to where he was waiting for, where he was needed, where he was both afraid and wanting at the same time.
—✦—
Kimi coughed for another week. Seven whole days that stretched in Ollie's mind like endless rubber—sticky, viscous, infinite. That cough—hoarse, creaky, like a door with unoiled hinges opening in an old abandoned house—became the soundtrack to their shared life. It sounded in the mornings when Ollie was just waking up, echoed from the bedroom late at night, cutting through the silence like an uninvited guest, and even in his sleep Kimi would sometimes twitch and cough without waking.
And this sudden but so predictable after weeks of rain-soaked commutes—it threw everything out of their usual rhythm. Ollie didn't know it would feel so strange to wake up every day and not see his neighbor off to work. Before, his mornings began with the sounds of getting ready: shuffling, keys jingling, hurried steps to the door. Now those sounds are gone. In their place—silence, broken only by coughing and ragged breathing from the room across.
But Ollie adapted quickly. He'd always been good at adapting—a habit he'd developed over years of living with himself, when the only person he needed to care for was himself. Now his routine included making chicken soups—thick, hearty, with carrots and noodles, which Kimi would first reject ("I don't want to eat, Ollie, leave me alone"), and then, when it cooled, eat to the last spoonful, avoiding eye contact so Ollie wouldn't see how much he actually appreciated it.
Also—taking Kimi's temperature. Three times a day. Morning, afternoon, evening. Ollie recorded the readings in his planner—no longer just habits, but a fever chart, columns of numbers he compared against normal ranges, like an obsessed lab technician. And of course, hearing that cough. Scratchy, tearing, the kind that made Ollie's own throat hurt just from listening—so strongly did he feel every sound.
Today Kimi sat in the kitchen, wrapped in multiple layers—t-shirt, hoodie on top, blanket over that, which he'd wrapped around his shoulders like a cocoon. His face was pale, shadows under his eyes, his nose still treacherously sniffling. But the fever had finally broken—Ollie had checked that morning with a sense of accomplishment.
"Why do you keep fussing over me?" Kimi asked, looking up at him with inflamed eyes. His voice was hoarse, strained, as if he weren't speaking but scratching glass, and in that voice there was not anger but bewilderment. "I'm an adult. Almost thirty. I can make my own soup."
Ollie set a steaming bowl of broth on the table—golden, clear, with pieces of chicken and herbs he'd picked from the windowsill. The spoon clinked against the bowl's edge, and that sound was so familiar, so his own, that Ollie felt momentarily safe.
"Because you're almost thirty," he said, sitting down across from Kimi and looking at him over his own mug of tea, "and you can't take care of yourself. All you had to do was take an umbrella. Every day I tell you about the umbrella. Every day you go out without it. And every morning I stand in the hallway and blink."
Ollie stopped, catching his breath. He didn't want to sound like a mom, like he'd said. He didn't want to be overbearing. But the words spilled out—because behind them was everything he hadn't said for months.
Kimi looked at him, sniffled, and slowly, carefully, as if afraid of getting burned, picked up the spoon.
"You think an umbrella would have saved me?" he asked, stirring the soup, and there was a hint of irony in his voice. "I still get sick. Every year. Seasonal thing. You know that."
"I know," Ollie replied quietly. "That's why I'm here."
He said it almost soundlessly, but the words hung in the air like steam over the bowl. Kimi froze with the spoon halfway to his mouth and looked at him. Long. Carefully. As if trying to see something in Ollie's eyes—something he'd been carefully hiding behind daily chores, behind the scolding, behind that mask of indifference he wore like armor.
"You're too kind," Kimi finally said, and smiled—for the first time that week, not weakly, not forced, but almost genuinely, and there was so much warmth in that smile that Ollie felt his eyes sting. "No one ever made me soup when I was sick. No one took my temperature three times a day."
Ollie lowered his eyes to his mug. The tea was warm, almost hot, but inside him everything had gone cold.
"Well, now there is," he replied, and the answer came out heavier than he'd intended.
Kimi ate every drop of the soup. And when he got up from the table, heading back to the bedroom, he suddenly stopped in the doorway and, without turning around, asked:
"Ollie, do you always write stuff in that planner? Like, all the time? I noticed—you even take it to the bathroom."
Ollie froze. The pen in his fingers stopped over the page. There were no new entries yet, only yesterday's temperature readings.
"Just work," he answered, trying to keep his voice steady, though everything inside him was trembling. "Planning."
Kimi nodded without turning and disappeared into the room. And Ollie sat at the table, staring at the closed door, hearing that same cough from behind it—no longer as loud, calmer, as if the soup had actually helped. And he looked at the planner, open to a blank page, and suddenly realized he couldn't lie anymore. Not even to himself.
Slowly, he wrote:
‘Today he asked about the planner. I lied. But I don't want to lie anymore. I think he suspects. Or maybe I want him to suspect? I don't know what's right anymore. I only know that I want him to get better, and I want us to drink tea again. And I want him to leave tea bags in his mug again. Because I miss his habits. I miss him.’
Ollie closed the planner and went to the kitchen to wash the dishes. Outside, it was starting to rain again.
—✦—
Another week passed, and Kimi was getting better. The cough didn't go away completely—it still sounded in the mornings, hoarse and tearing, but no longer as frightening, not as deadly as in those first days. Kimi was confidently going back to work again: shuffling down the hallway, jingling keys, forgetting his umbrella. Ollie watched and felt something warm spread inside him—not quite relief, but close.
Everything was returning to normal. The kettle boiled in the evenings. Lemon floated in the mug again. The orange gel left its chemical trail in the bathroom. And although Ollie was used to it by now, being alone again felt strange. He'd grown accustomed to the silence that fell when Kimi left. He'd grown accustomed to it during those two weeks of illness, when it stretched for hours, filling the apartment with the hum of the refrigerator and the ticking of the clock. But now, when Kimi had walked out the door with a chipper (if hoarse) "See you tonight!", the silence felt different. Emptier. More lonely.
Ollie sat at the table, staring at his cooling tea, feeling a vague unease build inside him. His thoughts tangled, jumping from one thing to another, circling back to yesterday's conversation, to the way Kimi had looked at him, to his question about the planner. To bring order to his thoughts, he needed order in his surroundings. Right? Ollie repeated this to himself like a mantra as he got up from the table. He made a strategic decision—a thorough cleaning of the entire apartment. It would distract him, calm him, restore the illusion of control.
He started with the kitchen—washed the dishes, wiped the counter, arranged the food in the fridge the way he liked: jars by size, vegetables in containers. Then I moved to the hallway, organized the shoes, and hung the jackets. The living room got the same treatment—dust wiped, magazines stacked, couch cushions fluffed. Only one room remained.
He hesitated for a long time before entering Kimi's room. Normally, he never invaded someone else's territory. It was a rule he'd established in the first month of living together: don't touch Kimi's things, don't enter without asking, don't cross boundaries. But his neighbor had just started recovering, which meant it was urgent to eliminate the germs that had settled on every surface in that room. It sounded logical. Even necessary.
Ollie slowly opened the door, and the room greeted him with its usual mess: rumpled blanket on the bed, stack of books on the nightstand, scattered chargers, an empty mug on the windowsill. And that smell—the familiar orange one that had already seeped into the walls, now mixed with medicines and mint lozenges.
Ollie started with the basics: turned on the vacuum, ran it over the carpet, gathering the invisible particles of illness. Then mopped the floors—the wet rag left dark streaks on the laminate that quickly dried. Wiped the dust from the shelves, the windowsill, the places hands usually didn't reach. And finally, he started putting away things that were out of place. A speaker played somewhere in the background—a quiet, simple melody Ollie hadn't even noticed he'd turned on. He hummed along under his breath, moving through the room with mechanical ease. Everything was going according to plan: order was being restored, thoughts were calming, the world was taking shape again.
And then his gaze caught on the planner. It lay on the bed—a black cover, worn edges, a marked page. Ollie froze, rag in hand, staring at it as if spellbound. His heart skipped a beat, then began to pound faster, duller, echoing in his temples.
Kimi keeps a journal.
Ollie knew it was wrong. He knew it wasn't ethical. He knew that if Kimi found out, he'd never forgive him. But his hands were already trembling, his fingers itching, and one thought circled in his head: ‘What if he writes about me?’
Ollie stood frozen in the middle of the room, staring at someone else's notebook. Two voices warred in his head. One said: "Put it back. Leave the room. You have no right." The other, quieter but insistent, whispered: "What if the answers are in there? What if it says what he'll never say out loud? Don't you want to know?" He walked to the bed. Slowly, as if his legs were filled with lead. Sat down on the edge of the mattress, looking at the black cover lying before him like forbidden fruit.
"It's wrong," he whispered into the emptiness of the room. But his hand was already reaching for the planner.
Ollie opened the planner to the marked page. His fingers trembled, his breath caught, and he squeezed his eyes shut for a second, as if trying to stop himself. But his hand had already turned the page, and his eyes raced over the lines in that familiar but foreign handwriting. He read and couldn't believe it.
‘Ollie made me tea again when I came home from work. He doesn't know yet, but I actually prefer green tea. But it's unexpectedly nice to be cared for, and I can't refuse him.’
Ollie froze. His heart missed a beat, then started pounding somewhere in his throat, fast and frantic like a frightened bird. Green tea? He'd always brewed black, because he thought Kimi loved it. And Kimi had stayed silent. Drank it. Smiled. And never said a word. "I can't refuse him."
Ollie turned the page, feeling his fingers grow damp with sweat.
‘Funny, but he doesn't notice himself tapping out a rhythm with his pen (the same one) when he's too lost in thought.’
Ollie frowned. He really hadn't noticed. He'd never thought he had such a habit—tapping out a rhythm with his pen. But now, reading this, he felt it: his fingers automatically drummed on the table, on the planner, on any surface when he was lost in thought. Kimi had noticed. Write it down.
They were both writing about each other.
Another page, and Ollie couldn't stop.
‘He always smells of mint shower gel. That smell, though intrusive, gives me this pleasant tickle in my nose that stays with me even at work.’
Ollie closed his eyes. He felt something warm, almost painful, rise inside him. He'd thought he was the only one noticing the small things: the orange smell, the habit of winding string around the mug, the shuffling steps in the morning. But Kimi noticed too. Wrote them down too. Preserved details like little treasures no one knew about.
Ollie turned a few more pages. Lines flashed before his eyes, forming a portrait—his own portrait, seen through Kimi's eyes.
‘Today Ollie laughed when I told him about that client. I didn't know he laughed like that. I need to remember that sound.’
‘He put my mug on the windowsill to cool again. I leave it there on purpose, because he always puts it away, and I hear him sigh when he sets it back in place. Why am I writing this? I don't know. But it feels nice.’
‘I told him he scolds like a mom or a boyfriend. He didn't correct me. He didn't say 'no.' He just took his hand away and left. I've been thinking about it all evening. And I'm scared that I'm thinking about it this much.’
Ollie closed the planner. His hands were shaking so badly the cover slipped from his fingers and fell onto the bed with a dull thud. He sat on the edge of the bed, staring at one spot—the blank wall, the strip of light falling from the window, the dust motes dancing in the air. His head was buzzing, pulsing, exploding with a thousand thoughts.
He writes about me too. He notices my habits too. He thinks about me the way I think about him.
Ollie ran his hand over his face, trying to steady his breathing. His chest was tight, hot, as if he'd just run a marathon. He opened the planner again, at random, in the middle, and read one more entry, the newest—dated this very morning, when Kimi had already left for work:
‘Ollie said yesterday that I neglect myself. He was angry. But he brought me tea. He always brings me tea when I'm sick. I want to tell him something important, but I don't know how. Maybe he'll read this? But I can't show him. I'm afraid that if he finds out how much I think about him, he'll stop being my Ollie. The one who scolds and puts my mug on the windowsill.’
Ollie sat motionless, clutching someone else's planner, and felt a tear roll down his cheek. He didn't know how much time had passed. Minutes, hours—it all blended into one long, viscous moment in which there was nothing but him, this planner, and the realization that they had both been fools.
He carefully put the planner back where it had been—on the pillow, as if untouched. Then stood up, left the room, and leaned his back against the hallway wall. His heart was pounding.
Ollie stared at the front door, behind which Kimi would soon appear—tired, soaked from the rain, with that stupid cough and those stupid habits Ollie had been recording for so long. He thought about what he would say to him tonight. Or not say. But one thing he knew for certain: he wouldn't stay silent anymore.
He needed to pull himself together before Kimi came back. Ollie stood in the hallway, pressing his palms to the cold wall, trying to steady his breathing. Inhale. Exhale. One more. His heart was still pounding somewhere in his throat, pulsing in his temples, echoing dully in his chest. He stared at the closed door of Kimi's room—where the planner lay on the pillow, the one he'd just read—and felt something huge, almost uncontrollable, growing inside him.
"He writes about me too"—the thought spun in his head like a stuck record, and Ollie couldn't make it stop.
He went back into Kimi's room—quickly, almost on autopilot—and collected all the cleaning supplies: cloth, vacuum, cleaning products. He carried everything out to the hallway, closed the door, and leaned his back against it, as if trying to convince himself he hadn't been there. That he hadn't crossed boundaries. That he hadn't read someone else's private thoughts. But it was too late. He'd already read them. And now his thoughts only tangled more in his head, intertwined, colliding like cars in rush hour.
The cleaning didn't help. Ollie crossed the apartment, sat at the table, and opened his laptop. The screen lit up, greeting him with a desktop cluttered with folders and files. He stared at them, trying to remember what he was supposed to be doing. He still had work. The end of the month was coming. Deadlines were burning brighter than Christmas lights, clients were demanding website designs, and in his head—complete zero.
Ollie stared at the blank Figma screen, at the cursor blinking in time with his breathing, and saw not a single idea. Only lines from Kimi's planner: ‘He doesn't know yet, but I actually prefer green tea,’ ‘I like that tickling feeling in my nose,’ ‘I'm afraid he'll stop being my Ollie.’
Ollie closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again. Work. He need to work. He started moving elements on the screen—buttons, banners, fonts—but it was all mechanical, empty, lifeless. A couple of hours later, keys scraped in the lock. Ollie looked up, and only then realized it was evening.
Kimi was back. Ollie heard the front door open, the damp evening air rushing into the hallway, mixed with the smell of rain and the city. Then the familiar squelching sounds of water on the floor, grumbling, the rustle of a jacket being pulled off wet shoulders.
"I told you to take an umbrella," Ollie said, not even turning around. His voice was steady—as steady as he could manage, though inside everything was trembling. "I'll put the kettle on. Go take a shower."
He got up from the table and headed for the stove, trying not to look at Kimi, not to meet his eyes, not to let him notice anything strange in his behavior.
"I know, I know," came the voice from the hallway, and Ollie finally turned around.
Kimi appeared in the doorway—with wet hair plastered to his forehead, cheeks reddened from the cold air, in a damp t-shirt clinging to his shoulders. And with a huge cake in his hands. Ollie froze. The kettle in his hands stopped halfway to the faucet.
"Don't get distracted from work," Kimi said, walking past him into the kitchen. "I'll do it myself."
He set the cake on the table—a white cardboard box tied with string, with the logo of that very coffee shop Ollie secretly visited once a week when he wanted to treat himself. He'd never told Kimi about it. Never took him along. He thought no one knew.
Ollie looked at the cake, then at Kimi, who was already pouring water into the kettle like someone who did it every day.
"What's this?" Ollie asked, and his voice betrayed him with a tremor.
"It's that cherry cake you secretly eat at that one coffee shop," Kimi replied matter-of-factly, not turning around. "Bought you a whole one."
Ollie stared at his back, at the wet t-shirt, at the drops of water running down his spine, and felt something warm and devastating rise inside him. He knew. He knew about the coffee shop. He knew about the cake. He knew everything.
"Why?" Ollie blurted out. He sprang from his seat, rounded the table, and nearly caught up with Kimi, stopping at the bathroom door.
Kimi had already taken hold of the handle, but he paused for a moment. He turned his head and looked at Ollie—tired, wet, with eyes reddened by the rain, but with that same light smile that always appeared when he was about to say something important. Or when he was hiding something important behind an everyday phrase.
"Just because," Kimi said, and there was something in his voice that made Ollie's breath catch. "You do things for me just because too, right?"
Ollie couldn't find the words to answer. He stood in the middle of the hallway as the bathroom door closed, heard the water start running, smelled the orange, smelled it mixing with the scent of wet clothes and the cozy kitchen where a cherry cake waited on the table.
Ollie slowly returned to the table, sat down, opened his planner—his own—and wrote in a trembling hand:
‘He bought me a cake. The one from my secret coffee shop. He knows everything. I read his planner. And now I don't know what to do. I'm scared and I want it at the same time. I want to tell him the truth. But I'm afraid that if I do—he'll stop looking at me the way he did today, when he said 'just because.'’
Ollie closed the planner, put it in the desk drawer, and looked at the cake box. It sat on the table like a promise, like a small cherry bridge between the two of them, who had been writing about each other for so long and were afraid to say a single word. Ollie opened the box, broke off a small piece of cherry sponge, put it in his mouth—and smiled. He knew what he would say to Kimi when he came out of the shower. Or at least, he hoped he would.
—✦—
But that evening, Kimi said nothing. Nor did he the next day. It was only a couple of weeks later that Ollie woke up with a strange feeling. He glanced at his phone screen and realized with horror that he'd overslept Kimi's departure. He jumped up to check his suspicion. Kimi was indeed gone. But on the kitchen table sat a breakfast of fresh-pressed apple juice and several sandwiches. And next to it, a note.
‘Don't stay up too late, proper sleep is more important. I made you breakfast. See you tonight!’
Ollie read it three times. Then a fourth. A fifth. He stood in the middle of the kitchen, clutching the piece of paper, feeling something enormous rise inside him—a mix of surprise, tenderness, and that same aching feeling he hadn't been able to name for months.
Kimi had made him breakfast. Ollie slowly sank onto a chair, took a sip of the juice—cold, sweet, with a slight tang—and stared at the note. His eyes stung, but he didn't cry. He just sat there, looking at those words: "See you tonight." As if they were a couple. As if it were natural—to wake up, leave, leave breakfast and a note. As if it had always been this way.
Ollie carefully folded the note, tucked it into his jeans pocket, then opened his planner and wrote a new line:
‘Today he made me breakfast. I overslept his departure—and it felt strange, but when I saw the juice and sandwiches, I understood: he cares about me too. I don't want to wait for the right moment anymore. I want to tell him tonight. I want him to know I read his planner. I want him to know everything. And I want him to stay.’
Ollie closed the planner, finished his sandwich, drank the juice, and sat down at his laptop, already knowing that tonight he would do what he'd been putting off for so long.
And Kimi came home that evening. But not soaking wet, because the rain had finally stopped. For the first time in a month, it wasn't pouring from the sky. Outside was a clear, transparent evening, the sky washed to blue, and the air smelled of freshness and wet leaves. Ollie watched it from the kitchen window and felt that this day was right. That today something would change. That he would no longer hide behind lines and habits.
When the key turned in the lock, Ollie's heart skipped a beat. He heard footsteps in the hallway—light, without the usual splashing through puddles—and realized Kimi had returned without his usual dose of grumbling. Today everything was different. Ollie put the kettle on with trembling hands. His fingers wouldn't obey, the plastic handle slipped, and he nearly dropped it. He took a deep breath, trying to stop the shaking, and turned toward the entrance.
Kimi walked silently into the kitchen. He wore the same light jacket as that morning—dry, clean, without a single drop. His hair was slightly tousled by the wind, his face carried that familiar tiredness Ollie had grown used to, but today there was something else in it. Expectation. Attention. As if Kimi knew something.
He sat down in his usual chair, the one where he always drank tea, and pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. In that pose, he looked almost childlike—defenseless, open, ready to listen. His fingers had already found the tea bag string and begun winding it around the mug's handle—that very ritual Ollie had written down hundreds of times.
Kimi was silent. He studied Ollie carefully, calmly, as if sensing that something was about to happen. As if he'd been waiting for this evening just as long as Ollie had. Ollie walked to the table and sat down across from him—closer than usual, almost right next to him. He could feel the warmth radiating from Kimi, hear his breathing, watch the string slowly wrapping around the porcelain—and in his head, only one voice: "Now. Or never."
Ollie slid his planner across the table to Kimi. Black cover, worn edges, a page marked with a paper napkin. It lay between them like a verdict, like a confession, like the most personal document Ollie had ever shown anyone.
"Why?" Kimi asked, and his voice was quiet, barely a whisper. He looked at the planner, then at Ollie, and in his gaze mingled with surprise, curiosity, and something else—something warm that Ollie couldn't read.
"Just open it and start reading from where the bookmark is," Ollie said, trying to keep his voice steady, but it trembled, broke, giving everything away. "There's a lot, but you need to know."
Ollie looked at the planner between them and felt himself taking a step. The scariest one. A step across the chasm he'd been standing on all this time. Across that very chasm he'd dug between them with his writings, his silence, his fear. Now he was opening himself—not through conversation, not through scolding, but through every line, every word, every observation he'd recorded for months.
"Start from the bookmark," he added barely audibly.
Kimi lowered his eyes to the planner. His fingers paused on the string for a moment, then slowly reached for the cover. He opened it, found the marked page, swallowed—and began to read. Silence enveloped the kitchen. Only the kettle hummed softly on the stove, and somewhere outside a car passed, splashing water from the remaining puddles. Ollie watched Kimi's eyes move across the lines, watched his face change—from surprise to recognition, from recognition to something deep, almost painful.
Kimi read about tea, lemons, and wound string. About the rain, the orange gel, the cough and soups. About how Ollie stood in the hallway and blinked after he left. About every small thing Kimi left behind without even noticing. Kimi turned the page. And stopped. There it was written: ‘I want to be his boyfriend. I want him to stay. I'm afraid that if I say it, he'll leave. But I can't stay silent anymore.’
Kimi looked up. His eyes glistened, and Ollie couldn't tell if they were tears or just a reflection of the lamp. Ollie sat across from him, hands clenched into fists on his knees, waiting. Waiting for the chasm beneath him to either close or finally open wide. He knew—there was no turning back.
Kimi closed the planner, but didn't push it away. He just held it in his hands, pressing it to his chest like something precious. His fingers gripped the cover with such gentle strength, as if he were holding not a book but a living creature. Ollie watched this and felt everything inside him turn over—from fear to hope, from hope to something immense that wouldn't fit in his chest.
"Wait a second," Kimi said, releasing his hand. He stood up from the table, and Ollie followed him with his eyes—as he left the kitchen, walked down the hallway, disappeared into his room. The silence lasted only a couple of minutes, but to Ollie it felt like an eternity. He heard rustling from behind the door, then footsteps, and Kimi reappeared in the doorway. In his hands was that same black planner.
Ollie recognized it instantly—the worn cover, the folded corners, the very bookmark he'd seen weeks ago. His heart skipped a beat, then started pounding somewhere in his throat, fast and frantic like a hunted animal. Kimi walked to the table, sat down across from him, and held out the planner to Ollie. Ollie took it with trembling hands, unsure how to react. He felt the weight of the object in his palms—familiar, almost native, because he'd already held it before. Read it. Gotten to know Kimi through his writings, the same way Kimi had just gotten to know him.
Ollie looked up at his neighbor, and only one thought circled in his head: ‘He knows. He's always known.’
"I know you took it," Kimi said, and his voice was even, warm, without accusation. He looked at Ollie directly, calmly, as if stating something obvious. "Only you leave the smell of mint in my room, even though you try so carefully to hide it. I know you cleaned my room the first week I went back to work after being sick."
Ollie froze. The air left his lungs, and he couldn't breathe. He thought he'd been careful. Thought he'd covered his tracks. But Kimi knew. He knew everything.
"How did you..." Ollie started, but Kimi gently interrupted him with a smile.
"You think I don't notice?" Kimi asked, tilting his head. "I notice everything, Ollie. I notice your smell in the room when I come back. I notice things are in different places. I notice you trying to be invisible, but you're too good at being invisible. You leave behind order, care... and mint."
Ollie opened his mouth to say something, but the words wouldn't come. He looked at Kimi, at his gentle smile, at his tired but warm eyes, and felt something inside him release—that tight knot of fear he'd carried for months.
"But I'm not angry," Kimi continued. "Really. I'm even glad you took it. Because if you hadn't, I'd never have known how you feel. And we'd still be sitting across from each other, drinking tea, and staying silent."
Kimi nodded at the planner Ollie was still clutching.
"Open the last page," he said quietly. "The corner is folded."
Ollie looked down at the black cover. His fingers trembled as he found the folded corner, opened the planner to the last page, and began to read. The handwriting was the same—sweeping, somewhat hurried—but the lines were neater, as if Kimi had written them very slowly, carefully, weighing every word.
‘Today I bought him cake. I know he read my planner. I know he cleaned my room. I know he smells of mint when he comes in. I know everything. But I still don't tell him. Because I want him to take the first step himself. To come to me when he's ready. And then I'll tell him everything. I'll tell him that I write about him too. That I think about him every morning. That I want to be with him too. But I'm waiting. I know how to wait, Ollie. If you're reading this now—it means you're ready. And so am I.’
Ollie looked up. His eyes glistened, and he no longer tried to hide the tears. They streamed down his cheeks, leaving wet trails, and he didn't even wipe them away. Kimi looked at him with that same gentle smile, but there was something wet in his eyes too.
"I was waiting," Kimi whispered. "I knew you'd read it someday. I folded that corner on purpose. I wanted you to see it when you were ready. And here you are. Are you ready?"
Ollie nodded. He couldn't speak. The words were stuck somewhere in his throat, blocked by a lump, but he nodded—firmly, confidently, clutching Kimi's planner as carefully as Kimi had clutched his a moment ago. Kimi reached across the table and covered his hand again.
"Then let's stop hiding," he said.
Ollie exhaled—deeply, freely, as if for the first time in months he'd taken a full breath. He laced his fingers with Kimi's, feeling their warmth, and smiled—that very smile Kimi had written about in his planner.
"Let's," he answered. "Let's stop."
The kettle cooled on the stove. Outside, evening was falling, painting the sky in pink and gold. And in the kitchen, where two strangers' habits had once begun their story, now sat two people who had finally stopped hiding their own. The planners remained on the table—the black, worn one, next to the other, in which an entire world had been recorded. A world made of habits, tea, the scent of mint, and one quiet confession that had been waiting for its moment.
Now Ollie didn't need to write down Kimi's habits to preserve him. He could simply look at him, sitting across, with interlaced fingers and a quiet smile. And understand that some things don't need to be written down—they stay with you forever, simply because you feel them.