— S Y L U S —
The hallways were quiet. That particular kind of quiet that comes only at midnight, heavy and deliberate, as if the building had learned not to breathe too loudly around me. My office glowed only from the pale light of the monitor, with the city casting an amber hue through the floor-to-ceiling windows behind me.
I had a design module open, filled with numbers, layouts, and clean lines. I was deep in it when my phone lit up. I nearly ignored it.
Ella. My face reacted before I could stop it, at the instant of a small, involuntary shift as I answered before consciously deciding to. She appeared on the screen and blinked. Then she slowly shook her head, a small smile forming. The spoon continued to move in the pot without her looking.
"Oh my. Someone finally picked up, huh?"
"You called."
"I've called before." She raised an eyebrow. I stayed silent. She was right. I let her sit with the unspoken truth as she turned back to the stove, unfazed.
"Had dinner?" she asked, glancing at me. I leaned back in my chair. "No." She stopped stirring and turned to face the camera. Her expression shifted to a mix of scolding and genuine concern, the look that only Ella had for people she truly cared about.
"Why?" she asked. "You frail man. You're going to get thin."
I blinked. "...Frail?" "Yes! Look at those dark circles." She pointed the spoon at the screen as if accusing me. "The boss is working you too hard."
Something tugged at my chest. It felt tight and almost fond. Almost. "I have to. It's my job."
I couldn't tell her I'm the boss. I looked away for a moment, my jaw working. The irony of sitting in my own office, in my own building, being scolded through a screen for overworking myself and not being able to say a word about it struck me.
When I looked back, she was watching me with eyes that always seemed to see more than I intended to show. I shifted and stared at the dark window beside me, at the city, at anything but her.
"I'm missing you," I said quietly. The words slipped out unexpectedly. Soft. Honest in a way I wasn't used to. I pulled a pillow from beside me, hugged it instinctively, and propped the camera against my open laptop so I could give my hands a rest.
She paused for a beat. "Do you?" she asked.
"What do you think?" I smirked, leaning forward. She tilted her head, pretending to think about it. That little glint in her eye. "Maybe?"
"Definitely." The smile she tried to hide while looking back at the pot was the best thing I'd seen all week. I tucked it away in a corner of my mind I wouldn't examine too closely.
"Want some pasta?" she asked lightly. "Sure." A pause. "I wish I could."
"My love.... " Her tone was smooth like honey. She turned to the camera and made a face, a small, soft pout, her eyes slightly drooping at the corners, lips pressed together as if genuinely sad about it and something inside me lurched.
I groaned, dropping my head back against the chair. "Agh."
"What?" she laughed.
"Stop doing that." "Doing what?"
"You know what." She absolutely knew what she was doing. She was still smiling as she turned back to the stove and picked up the spatula. I was still recovering when she casually said, "Oh! I told Asher about us, by the way."
The air in the room shifted. I felt a rush of chills down my spine first.
"So?" I said. My voice came out even, practiced, and steady.
"He was so happy." She set the spatula down, an almost puzzled look crossing her face. "He hugged me really tightly. I was surprised .... I didn't expect that reaction."
"OH...." It wasn't a question. I said it the way I spoke when I was being very controlled and level, not looking at her but gazing into the middle distance, tongue pressed to my inner cheek, feeling something burning low in my gut that I wouldn't name.
"What else?" I asked.
"Nothing much, really. I cut my finger, so he scolded me and helped me—"
"You did what?" I leaned forward before she finished. "Where? Show me. Are you hurt?" I could hear the sharpness in my voice, the shift from controlled to urgent. "Show me right now. Where is it? Is it bad? Let me see."
"It's alright-" She said dismissively, "Ella."
"Sylus, it's fine, it was tiny-"
"Show me the finger." She held it up to the camera, laughing despite herself. A long cut, already bandaged. Nothing serious.
I stared at it for a long moment anyway. "I'm coming over," I said.
"What? No! It's one in the morning."
"You know how important it is for me to see you like that." The words came out low, rougher than I meant them to. I was already pushing the chair back. "Even on a screen."
"Sylus." Her voice softened, that specific tone that made me stop moving. "I'm okay. I promise."
I stayed still and looked at her. The bandaged finger. The warm kitchen. The flour that had dusted her jaw an hour ago. The pasta she made for herself at one in the morning while I sat in the dark office pretending to work.
I sat back down. "Eat your pasta," I said quietly. She smiled that small and genuine, just for me, I thought, maybe irrationally.
"Stay on the call?" she asked. I was already bringing the design module back up. Already settling in. Already not going anywhere.
"I'm not going anywhere," I said. And I meant it in more ways than one. The pasta was done. She sat cross-legged on the couch, her laptop next to her, explaining every bite in a way that should have been annoying but actually made the hour more bearable. She said the sauce had redeemed itself. She mentioned she added too much salt and then tried to fix it with something that definitely wasn't a real solution. She asked me twice if I was really working or just pretending. Both times, I said I was working.
Both times, she gave me a look that showed she didn't believe me at all. She wasn't wrong. I had the design module open. I was going through it slowly and carefully, like I did with everything. But one eye was always on the screen and the other on her.
She shifted from cross-legged to lying on her side around the second hour, propping her head on her hand and asking me casual questions about nothing in particular. What's your favorite season? Do you really like coffee or just drink it? Have you ever been on a train?
I answered all of them briefly and honestly, which was less common for me than I'd like to admit. She shared her answers too, without me asking. She filled silences as if she was afraid of what lived in them, or maybe she just didn't want others to sit in silence alone. I was starting to understand that about her. Around the third hour, the questions slowed down.
There were longer pauses between them. Her voice softened, losing its sharpness. It took on a slow drawl that emerged when she was tired, with the words stretching a little at the ends as if she was carrying them further than she had energy for.
"You're still working?" She said barely above a whisper sleepy and a bit dazed, her must be exhausting still accompanying me this late...I said nothing.
A few minutes passed. I finished a section of the module and moved to the next. The city outside was completely dark. It was dawn the hours meant for people like me and no one else.
I glanced at the screen. In the last few minutes, she stopped propping herself up and simply settled. She curled slightly into the couch cushions, one arm tucked beneath her head in place of a pillow while the other rested loosely at her side. Her breathing had changed I noticed it before I noticed anything else. It was slower and deeper. That faint rhythm meant she was gone, fully under.
I set my pen down and just looked at her for a moment as if I was enchanted, unable to tear my gaze away from her....
Her hair had come completely free, loose strands falling across her face and over the cushion, dark against the pale fabric. The oversized shirt had shifted, with her one shoulder hanging down and off entirely, bare in the low light of her living room. The hem had ridden up slightly as she curled, her stomach visible, a small pale strip of skin she was completely, peacefully unaware of.
-I buried my face in my palm, trying to control every fuckign urge inside me to go there and kiss her till she was breathless beneath me... till all she could think was about me. But this godamn fucking work.-
She was still asleep. Obviously. She wasn't going to wake up and catch me just looking.
But I looked anyway. There was something almost unbearable about it. Seeing her like this, so unguarded, unperforming, just existing in her own quiet way.
I had seen a lot of things and done a lot of things. I sat in rooms where the air felt thick with fear, making decisions that other men lost sleep over. Watching Ella sleep on her couch at two in the morning through a four-inch screen was somehow the most vulnerable I had felt in years.
"That was a problem. I was in a place from which my mind and heart can't come back. Ever."
"This love was deep, so deep that it makes me crave for her in the morning. I feel her burning in my soul like a flame she always has been. I am a prisoner to all of her in every shade she has been."
I reached for my pen, turned back to the module, and forced myself to look at the numbers, layouts, and clean things that made sense. Those things didn't look at me like I was worth staying on the phone for. I worked for another hour. Every few minutes, I glanced at the screen.
Her breathing stayed slow and even. Once, she shifted, pulling her arm closer, and I froze for a moment like an idiot until she settled again without waking. The laptop light caught the slope of her shoulder, the fall of her hair, and the soft rise and fall of her stomach.
The city turned a specific greyish and blue that meant the sun was getting ready, not yet, but soon, when I finally closed the working screen. I leaned back and rolled my neck until something cracked.
I looked at the screen one more time. She hadn't moved. Still curled into the cushions, still bare-shouldered, still breathing quietly in a way that meant she was somewhere I couldn't follow her.
I should have ended the call. I knew that. It was the logical thing to do. She was asleep, I was done working, and there was no practical reason to sit in a dark office watching a sleeping woman on a laptop screen like some kind of creep.
I left the call running. I closed the computer, pushed the keyboard aside, and sat in the quiet with her pale glow on my screen and the city waking behind me. I thought about what it meant, of all things were at my most at peace, I had felt in longer than I could remember.
Her phone was dead, and I was out chilling moring air brushing my skin as I settled into the car only thing on my mind was her as the engine roared beneath me. I drove past, leaving my mansion, my apartment, all just to see her. Just to have her in my arms. My headache as the car sped fast onto the empty streets.
Half an hour my car came to a halt outside a familiar alley as I jogged up to the stairs. The knock was soft. Three times. No hurry.
I could hear her on the other side, those tiny sounds people make when sleep hasn't let them go yet. The shuffle of her feet, a quiet little noise that said she hadn't really woken up. She paused at the door. I knew exactly what that looked like: her squinting at it, hair wild, mind still somewhere in the dark.
Then the door cracked open. She looked at me. I looked back.
I didn't say anything. Just reached out with both arms and pulled her in before she could get a word out. My face went straight to the warm spot at her neck, and I just stayed there. Everything about her was vanilla, rose, soft, sleep-warm skin, the feel of her t-shirt, and it all hit me at once. And whatever had been tight inside me since two in the morning finally let go.
"...Ella," I said, muffled against her skin. My voice sounded rough. Too many hours awake.
"Sylus-" Her voice was tiny, still thick with sleep.
"Mm." She tried again, got halfway through my name, but I shifted, adjusted my hold, and just plain picked her up. She made a sound like she meant to protest, but honestly, she didn't mean it at all. I closed the apartment door.
I carried her through the apartment the way you only do when you know every inch of a place. Down the narrow hall, around the bathroom, to her bedroom, and the door was always a little open. I set her on the bed, gentle, careful, more careful than I am with anything else. Then I hurriedly took off my coat and shoes as I lay down next to her, pulled her close, and found my way back to the spot at her neck, like my whole night had been one long journey to right here.
Her hand found my hair. She moved her fingers through it, slow and soft. The way she always did when she wasn't quite awake and wasn't thinking about it. Just her, pure instinct.
I closed my eyes. I had a mansion. Twelve rooms. Three floors. A bed so expensive that most people wouldn't believe it. I even had a city apartment, sleek, glass everywhere, all the comforts money and power could stack up.
Tonight, I drove past both places without even blinking. Didn't even think about it, honestly. No big decision. No weighing options. Her address was engraved in my mind before I realized I'd decided. Breathing was more complicated. There was never another answer.
She was home.
I hadn't had that in years. Didn't even know I'd missed it, not until I saw the shape of it standing in her kitchen with a little flour on her cheek, losing a fight with a saucepan, laughing too loud in a quiet office at midnight.
My goddess.
That word moved through me, slow and sure, while her fingers stroked my hair and pale morning slid in through the curtains she always forgot to close.
My salvation. Both of those things were too big to say out loud. They just sat in my chest, these impossible, overwhelming things I didn't know how to handle, and honestly, I was getting tired of trying to run from them.
Her breathing evened out. Slowed, deepened. She started to drift. The smell of her soft vanilla, rose, her skin, her sheets wrapped around me, all of it hers, all her, and I felt myself going under before I even had the chance to resist.
I hadn't slept. I am a light sleeper, Not the kind where your whole body lets go, and nothing in your mind stands guard. But here with her fingers in my hair, her heartbeat under my cheek, the quiet of her small room pulling us in like this was what I'd been waiting for all along.
----------- Hours Later---------
I woke up warm to her warmth, really. That unmistakable feeling when someone's close enough that you forget where you end and they begin. You just let yourself have it, because thinking too hard about it means remembering you never want to lose it.
The whole room glowed amber. Late sunlight slipped in through her half-closed curtains, brushing gold over everything the ceiling, the sheets & her. The sun was already dipping. I'd slept straight through the day and, honestly, I didn't mind at all.
She was beside me, propped on her elbow, watching. Her shirt had fallen off one shoulder again, like it did last night, as if even her clothes gave up fighting gravity. Her hair was loose, haloed in gold from the window.
-She just looked at me . Just... looking. Soft expression, I never knew Ella could make that patient, like she had nowhere else to be.-
"How was your sleep?" Her voice was low, still soft with the hush of afternoon. I blinked at her, still trying to find my way back to reality. Didn't say a word. She smiled, that secret little smile, and leaned in to kiss my cheek. So light, I almost wondered if I'd made it up.
"You looked cute," she said, grinning now. "Like that, while you slept. Made me want to kiss you so bad." She tilted her head, eyes bright with mischief. I just stared at her grin, her bare shoulder, the sunlight catching in her hair as it belonged there.
"How was your sleep?" I asked because my brain was still buffering, and that was all I had my voice was deeper having that edge from the sleep.
She laughed. "I asked first." "Good. Better than it's been in a while." Something shifted in her face as she held my gaze like she knew exactly what I meant, no pressure to explain.
"I'm hungry," I said. Her whole body perked up. "Oh! I'll make you something-"
She barely made it four inches before I wrapped an arm around her and pulled her back.
"Mm." "Sylus!-"
"I have my feast right here." She turned, caught between flustered and trying not to laugh. "That's the cheesiest thing you've ever said to me." The way a smile crept up on her lips, hair falling perfectly framing that face of hers, as a soft flush was there on her cheeks.
"I meant it."
"That just makes it more sinister." She smacked my arm, hard enough to mean it.
"Ow."
"Don't 'ow' me. You deserved that," she said, grinning
"I'm injured."
"No, you're not."
"I could be." I fixed her with my best solemn look. "You've got a violent streak." She pointed at the bathroom. "Go wash up." Already untangling herself from the covers, she knew the game if you hesitate, you lose. "I'll make you a smoothie. And real food. Because someone around here has to care about nutrition."
I watched her pull her hair over one shoulder and head for the door, moving with that easy confidence she never seemed to notice about herself.
"What kind?" I called after her. She glanced back, sunlight behind her, one shoulder still bare.
"The kind that'll fix those dark circles," she shot back. "Frail man."
Then she was gone. I lay there for a minute in the warm chaos of the sheets, staring up at the ceiling, listening to the kitchen her humming, the gentle clatter of dishes. She always hummed when she thought no one was listening.
-I grinned. Really grinned the kind I never bother to hide. long before I knew, I was already falling for this feeling, the feeling of waking up beside her, covered in her warmth, doing that little banter, and being the sole reason she could smile like that, look at me with that tenderness that is almost holding me as someone who had been captivated by her like I was someone worth holding carefully. Like I was something she'd already decided to uphold.-
"She had no idea what she'd done to me."
"I want to trace every inch of her until she forgets every name she knows except mine.
She thinks I'm patient. I'm not patient. I'm just waiting for her to close the distance first.
...Mio Amore, you're running out of time."
----------------
— K A N G Y U L —
I sat in that polished office, photos from the shoot scattered in front of me. Her face stared back at me. I never get tired of looking at it. I ran my finger along the edge of her picture, slow, just feeling it. How, I kept thinking again and again,
"How does someone so innocent end up with such dangerous hands?"
Ella.DeAva.
That gentle, almost fragile act you put on. You nearly had me fooled. I almost believed I was the crazy one, that I'd made up everything, that it was just some wild story I'd invented out of panic and youth and not knowing what the hell was happening inside me.
Almost.....But then I close my eyes, and you're right there. Still. Like you never left. Like you've taken up permanent residence in that dark hold in my mind, I never managed to fix.
Those bloodshot eyes. You, standing over me. Staring down, hair hanging forward, dark and loose, clutching hard on that broken bottle like it was the only thing holding you back. Blood running down your hand, dripping on my face and my collar, and you didn't even flinch. Didn't even glance at your hand.
"You only looked at me in that moment. Only Me."
Sitting on top of me. Pinning me down. And your face. God, your face, that cold blank expression so empty it should've terrified me. Should've made me beg, or scream, or run. But instead, what did I do?
I felt it.
"I have built empires, crushed down mens and the only thing that has ever truly brought me to my knees is the memory of you above me, blood on your hands, death gleaming in your eyes, looking at me like I was nothing."
God, I can't shake it. I've been running after that feeling ever since. No one ever held me down before. Never. Not once.
I've never, ever forgotten that. Not the night. Not the feeling. Not the jolt of excitement rushed up, making my heart beat faster. Making me feel that I should be on my knees. I have been with women before, too many that I lost count, but none could make me feel that feeling, the thrill.
And none of it, none of it feels like that moment.
‖You're the only one, Ella.
The Only One.Ever.‖
I picked up my wine glass. Took a slow sip, let the cold sweetness fill my mouth. Unhinged, they whisper about me sometimes. When they think I'm not listening. I took it as a compliment.
"Maybe I am a masochist, but the only time I have ever felt truly alive. I would let her hold that broken glass to my throat again solely to see those eyes."
I put the wine glass down and stared at her photo again. That warm, fake smile, the careful way she softens herself for the camera. The whole act she built over what's really there, the thing we both know about, like fresh paint over something horrifying and beautiful underneath.
It twisted something inside me. Not anger.
"Hunger."
Except this time.... I smiled. Set her photo at the center of the desk, face up. Touched the edge one more time.
"This time, I want to see your eyes when I'm the one looking down."
Yeah. A sly smile crept up my lips as I imagined her face.
"Let's see what you do when I play with you Just a little."