"He never touched me —
But I felt the warmth like a fever."
—Nil
That night, when Nil pushed open the door to his room, he was already half-expecting peace. The kind that came with night air and closed curtains, the kind too easily broken.
And sure enough—there she was.
Mary, perched at the edge of her bed like a fox waiting to pounce, eyes gleaming with the righteousness of someone who had uncovered a celestial secret.
She didn't waste time.
"I told you," she began, as though no time had passed at all, "he likes you."
Nil stopped mid-step. "...Excuse me?"
"In my entire life," Mary went on with the authority of someone about to pronounce judgment, "I've never heard him speak. Never. I've heard his voice, of course—in music, in interviews—but not like this. Not naturally. Not like a person."
She leaned in, eyes wide with conviction.
"And you know what's even stranger? He smiled."
Nil blinked. "...When did he smile?"
Mary recoiled like she had just been struck. "What do you mean 'when'?! When he was looking at you, idiot!"
Nil's expression remained blank.
Mary let out a long, agonized groan and flung herself dramatically back onto the bed. "What on earth is wrong with you?! You're so dumb it hurts. My head hurts. My soul hurts."
She sat up again and jabbed a finger at him. "He's dropping hints like flower petals in a fairy tale, and you're just trampling over them like a blind cow in a porcelain shop."
Nil sighed deeply, dragging a hand down his face. "Mary... Mary..."
He paused for effect.
"You've been watching too many BL dramas again, haven't you?"
Mary's jaw dropped.
"Fujoshi," Nil said gravely. "You need help."
Mary let out a high-pitched gasp and pressed her palms to her cheeks like a scandalized maiden. "You dare?!"
"I'm serious," Nil said with all the solemnity of a man announcing the end of the world. "Stop shipping me with Stranger. It's unhealthy."
Mary's fists clenched.
Nil turned away and collapsed into his bed. "It's just your imagination," he muttered. "He's just... polite. Cold. Probably pitied me. End of story. Now, please. Sleep. I have work in the morning."
Before Mary could offer a dramatic rebuttal, a voice drifted in from the next room—dry, unimpressed, and distinctly Techno.
"...Nice one."
Mary turned toward the wall. "Traitor!"
Techno yawned. "Truth hurts."
Mary groaned into her pillow.
Nil, eyes already closing, muttered into his blanket, "This house is full of lunatics."
The morning broke like a whisper across the sky, sunlight spilling over the edge of rooftops like golden thread unraveling from a divine loom.
Nil was already awake.
As usual, no one had called him — and yet, duty had summoned him all the same.
The scent of rising steam, of yeast and sugar and black pepper, floated from the kitchen of Moon's Smile into the sleepy air. With sleeves rolled, hair still damp, Nil moved like water — soft-footed and efficient, hands brushing across tablecloths and serving trays like he was trying not to disturb the world.
It was still early, just shy of 10:00 a.m.
And then — like a thread pulled tight — the door opened.
The bell overhead sang softly, but its ring echoed louder than it ought to. The hush that followed swallowed every other sound.
Kao Neptune stepped inside.
His presence was effortless, as though he had merely wandered in from the sky and decided to borrow the shape of a man. He wore a pale sky-blue shirt, half-buttoned with care, tucked beneath a flawless leather belt. His trousers hung loose over his thighs — fitted but not boastful — and in one of his bodyguard's hands hung the jacket of a pitch-black zoot suit, its silk lining catching stray sunbeams like a net of stars.
Even so — without the armor of celebrity — he looked, inexplicably, more striking than ever.
Several customers gasped in low voices, mouths full of half-spoken awe.
"Is that really him...?"
"Kao Neptune — here, in person?"
"I always heard rumors that he comes here for breakfast, but..."
"From today, I'm never missing a single morning."
"Even like this... he's too handsome..."
Amid the hush and flutter, Nil turned his head.
For a split second, he said nothing. Then — as if recognizing an old tune in a dream — his face bloomed into a smile. It was bright and unrestrained, like a window thrown open to let the light in.
"Stranger," he called warmly. "Come."
Kao's pace didn't quicken, but it did shift. His footfalls — deliberate, measured — drew him across the room. Behind him, the guards flanked his shadow, intercepting a few hopeful fans who approached, eyes gleaming with phones in hand.
"Please respect the CEO's personal space," one guard murmured firmly.
But Kao didn't glance at them. His eyes were elsewhere.
Nil had already begun preparing a table — dusting a chair that needed no cleaning, straightening a menu that was already aligned. His fingertips were quiet but attentive, like he was welcoming someone back to a place they didn't know they missed.
"Stranger," Nil said again, smiling faintly. "Sit here."
Kao complied, lowering himself into the seat with the natural elegance of someone who could command any throne — and chose instead a wooden chair in a café.
"What would you like?" Nil asked gently, notepad forgotten in hand.
Kao looked up. "Jok. Black pepper soup. Orange juice."
"Got it." Nil turned without a word and walked toward the kitchen, the smile still faint on his lips — something small and secret, like a coin hidden in one's sleeve.
When he returned, the tray bore the meal exactly as requested. The porridge shimmered in the bowl, thick and pale, dotted with flecks of green onion. The orange juice glowed.
Kao began to eat.
But before the meal was over — just as the last spoonful neared — he looked up, voice low, not quite casual.
"Eat with me."
Nil blinked. "I still have to work."
"I want you to breakfast with me."
This time, the sentence fell like an order — only, it wasn't.
There was a small catch in the tone. A softness where steel should have been.
Nil met his gaze.
"Why?"
Kao's expression didn't shift. "Just breakfast."
It was neither command nor plea, yet it carried something from both.
Nil gave a short laugh under his breath. "Stranger, you're quite the stubborn one."
Kao's lips curved — the briefest shadow of a smile. "Mn."
Somehow, the next thing Nil knew, he was seated.
They ate.
The café murmured softly around them — cups clinking, steam rising — but inside the little space they occupied, a peculiar stillness unfurled. Not awkward. Not tense. Only still — as if time had stepped aside to let them pass alone.
Halfway through, Kao's voice stirred the silence.
"Be careful, Nil."
Nil paused, spoon halfway to his mouth. "Hm? Why?"
Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, "Actually — I forgot to ask. Why did you help me before?"
Kao didn't look up. "Behave."
"What?"
"You shouldn't talk while your mouth is full."
And then — firmly, softly — "Nil."
Nil froze.
He looked up at once, startled as if struck.
"...What did you call me?"
Kao finally raised his eyes. "Nil."
A hush bloomed between them again. This time, heavier.
Then, slowly, Nil's smile crept across his lips — not coy, not pleased — but something gentler. Like a name whispered to a bird and recognized.
"In just a few hours, so many people have called me Nil," he said. "But... when you say it, it feels like I've finally found my name."
Kao said nothing.
But his silence bore the weight of understanding. Not of sympathy — never that — but of recognition, as though they had both seen the same ghost walking different roads.
Just as the silence settled, Nil's eyes shifted. A change in expression flickered across his face.
"Stranger, I'm sorry — I have to go somewhere. It's urgent."
Kao's gaze followed him.
Nil rose from the table and hesitated. "You're not going to ask where?"
Kao considered. "Where?"
"Today, I have three auditions."
Kao's brow didn't move, but his voice dropped a note lower. "I can help."
Nil's eyes met his.
"No. It's my path," he said. "And I choose to walk it alone."
They looked at each other.
Kao didn't argue.
The silence that followed wasn't cold — it was warm, like a blanket passed between them.
After a moment, Nil murmured, almost sheepishly, "Stranger... hopefully, you don't mind."
Kao, expression unreadable, replied, "Hmmm."
There was no yes or no — just that quiet, familiar sound.
But Nil smiled anyway.
In the quiet expanse of a modest but meticulously arranged office, the air stirred faintly — not with wind, but with presence.
Ms. Nin stood poised like a figure carved from alabaster, the silk of her shawl draping with measured elegance across her shoulders. Every fold of her attire seemed to obey a principle higher than fashion — discipline, pride, and a dignity forged over decades. Her heels made no sound on the polished floor, yet each step echoed with unspoken command.
She was not beautiful in the way young women strive to be. She was something rarer — formidable.
Without sitting, without smiling, she lifted her hand — not high, not with haste — and called out with the weight of habit:
"Shian."
Her voice was not loud, but it rang with an authority that brooked no refusal.
A slim figure stumbled into view. Shian, the ever-dutiful assistant, stood stiff as a reed in floodwater, his expression composed but his brow already glistening.
"Yes, Ma'am?" he answered, voice brittle.
Ms. Nin didn't look at him directly. She didn't need to.
"Inform Kao. I've come for a visit."
There was no warmth in her words — but neither was there coldness. It was something more impenetrable: certainty.
Shian's expression wavered.
"...Yes, Ma'am."
He turned quickly, almost stumbling in his haste, and made his way to Kao's private quarters, one hand already tightening nervously over his notepad. After knocking once, he slipped inside.
"Kao..." he began softly, "Ms. Nin has come to see you."
The room was quiet.
Kao sat in the far corner, back slightly hunched, gaze locked on something only he could see. The soft golden light from the overhead fixture drew a sharp contrast against the paleness of his face. He didn't blink.
"Tell her I'm busy."
The words were curt, clipped, devoid of any ornament.
Shian flinched. He lingered, mouth half-open, then dared a protest:
"But... she's your mother."
Kao's gaze didn't shift. The weight of his silence was heavier than his voice.
"It's an order, Shian."
The assistant bowed hastily. "Understood."
When he returned to the outer room, Shian did his best to keep his posture straight and his voice neutral. "Ma'am... Mr. Kao said he's currently—indisposed."
He didn't add anything further. He didn't need to.
Ms. Nin's lashes lowered a fraction.
She said nothing for several moments. Not in anger. Not in offense.
She simply understood.
The room grew still.
Then, without awaiting permission, she stepped forward. Her hand brushed past the carved wooden edge of the door. Her pace was unhurried, her shoulders unbending. She had not raised her voice. She did not need to.
Inside, the air was still and dim.
Kao did not look up at her entrance.
He remained seated, alone at his desk, elbows resting on the dark wood. His gaze remained fixed ahead — not on her, not on the window, but on the table before him.
And there, resting atop a sheet of parchment, lay the object of his contemplation.
A severed hand.
Not gory. Not freshly cut. Not the stuff of nightmares — but pale, sculpted, preserved. A replica, perhaps. Or something worse.
Its fingers were long, elegant. Frozen mid-motion, as though about to reach for something it had already lost.
Ms. Nin's gaze landed on it. She said nothing.
She studied her son.
There was no panic in her voice, no trembling emotion in her eyes. Only stillness.
A woman who had buried too much to fear silence. A mother who had lived long enough to know that the things her son refused to say... were often the ones that mattered most.
Kao's jaw tightened.
But he still did not speak.
And so, quietly, Ms. Nin stepped closer — as if entering a memory, or disturbing the still waters of a dream —
Ms. Nin stood there like the final brushstroke on a flawless painting — precise, immaculate, and never out of place. Her eyes, dark as ink, lingered on Kao with a quiet insistence. Her steps were light, but each carried the weight of someone who had walked many years with her back straight and her hands clean.
She took one careful breath, and in a voice cloaked in practiced softness, she asked:
"Kao... how did your hand get injured?"
The question struck like a bell in a stone temple.
Kao's shoulders tensed. His injured hand, resting loosely on the desk, jerked as if burned. Without thinking, he tucked it away into the folds of his sleeve and turned sharply toward her.
His voice, though quiet, carried barbs.
"If one refuses to heed anyone's commands... there's no need for permission from hell."
Ms. Nin flinched — almost imperceptibly. But she did not answer with anger.
Instead, she stepped closer, eyes searching his face with a grief that had nowhere to go.
"Why do you always speak to me this way?" she asked, her voice hushed, careful, the way one might speak to a storm about to break.
"I know you may never see me as your mother... but you'll always be my son."
She paused. Then, a breath:
"I care about you, Kao."
Kao looked at her — really looked — for the first time.
His gaze was not angry, but cold. Tired.
"Why are you here?" he asked at last. "If you want to talk, we could've done that at the house. You don't belong in this place, Ms. Nin."
There was no bitterness in his voice — only rejection, precise and measured. The kind that comes not from hatred, but from absence too long endured.
Still, Ms. Nin didn't retreat. She only folded her hands gently in front of her, voice trembling at the edges.
"Whether you stay at the house or lock yourself in this office, it makes no difference. You never let anyone near you."
She softened, reaching — not physically, but emotionally — as far as he would allow.
"If something is hurting you, let us know. Even if we can't fix it... don't carry everything alone."
Kao didn't respond.
His fingers flexed faintly at his side. The bandages hidden beneath his cuff pulled tight with the motion.
Then, quietly:
"Your asking about my hand is enough."
His voice was flat, the final stone laid over the grave of their conversation.
"I have a meeting. With a client. Please... leave it at that."
There was nothing cruel in his words — and somehow, that made them worse.
Ms. Nin stood a moment longer, as though waiting for some invisible rope to loosen between them.
It didn't.
At last, she turned and walked away.
No anger. No tears.
Just the quiet, dignified sorrow of someone who had already accepted they would never be let in.
Back in the silence, Kao sat alone once more.
The door clicked shut behind her.
But he didn't relax. Instead, his gaze dropped again — to his hand.
Beneath the folded sleeve, the pain throbbed — steady, dull, and familiar.
Yet what haunted him was not the pain.
It was the memory.
A single moment, engraved not in words, but in blood.
It had happened not long ago, in the familiar comfort of Moon's Smile.
He had walked in as he always did — silently, without warning, without expectation — and yet, the sight that met his eyes undid him.
Mary.
Her arms wrapped tightly around Nil at the payment counter.
It was nothing. A simple embrace. A passing moment.
But to Kao, it struck like a blade to the chest — not because it mattered, but because it mattered too much.
He had paused, then turned sharply, too sharply.
And in that one breath — crash.
His hand collided with the glass panel by the entrance.
The sharp crack split the air. The sound was deafening.
Gasps followed. Chairs scraped. A coffee cup shattered to the floor.
People stared, stunned. No one dared speak.
Kao stood still, blood blooming down his wrist like red thread unspooling from a cuff.
Before anyone could react, Techno surged forward. "Quick—someone get Nil!"
From the back room, Nil appeared — calm, steady, expression unreadable.
He walked straight to Kao and took his injured hand without pause.
Kao hissed, "Let go. I said I'm fine."
But Nil didn't stop.
In the kitchen, away from the crowd, Nil turned on the tap.
Warm water ran over the wound, mixing with red. Steam rose into the air, curling between them.
Nil didn't speak. He didn't ask questions. He simply held Kao's hand beneath the stream, his thumb steady as it brushed away the blood.
Kao stared — not at his injury, but at him.
At the soft curve of Nil's lashes. At the crease between his brows.
He couldn't feel the pain. But he felt this.
It froze him.
Instead, he reached for Savlon, dabbing the wound with practiced care, then took out a handkerchief — white, soft, neatly folded — and bound it gently around Kao's palm.
Kao winced. "Ouch..."
Nil paused. "It'll sting for a bit."
Silence fell.
Kao's chest tightened.
He watched Nil's fingers — long, gentle, meticulous — tying a knot as if sealing away something fragile.
And in that stillness, he thought — without meaning to, without wanting to:
"You are my medicine, Nil."
A sudden thought. So quiet, even his heart barely heard it.
But Nil looked up. "Hm?"
Kao blinked.
"I didn't say anything," he said quickly, the lie awkward and obvious. "I have to leave."
He stood too fast, his chair scraping slightly.
Nil followed him to the threshold. "Stranger—"
Kao didn't turn.
"At least... take Paracetamol. It might hurt later."
"...Stranger..."
But Kao was already gone.
He stepped into his car, closed the door with a soft thud, and sat back, his hand still cradled in silence.
"Take me to the office," he told the driver.
The water had stopped running long ago, yet Kao stood there still — motionless before the sink, hands planted on either side of the marble basin, elbows locked, head slightly bowed.
The overhead light cast a sterile glow, too white, too sharp. It exposed every flaw in the reflection before him.
A man — elegant in stature, composed in name — and yet visibly unraveling.
Kao Neptune.
CEO. Untouchable. Immaculate.
And yet, now, in the isolation of his private washroom, he looked like someone abandoned by his own breath.
His fingers trembled faintly on the basin edge.
The mirror before him showed no sympathy. It gave him back his own eyes — cold, confused, and deeply tired.
The silence was unbearable. So he spoke — not to anyone else, but to himself.
"Why can't I control myself... whenever I see him with someone else?"
His voice was low, almost hoarse, like a secret forced through gritted teeth.
"Why does he always... do this to me?"
A bitter laugh escaped him — the kind that didn't sound like laughter at all.
"He's nothing to me."
"Or is he?"
The question dropped like a pebble into deep water, disappearing too quickly to measure its depth.
Kao's grip on the basin tightened.
His eyes didn't waver from the mirror, but a storm raged just beneath the surface — a thousand conflicting thoughts clashing like waves.
"From today onward," he declared to the walls, to the marble, to the silence, "I won't go back."
His jaw clenched.
"He's just another man."
"This is impossible."
"I must put an end to this."
He pressed his palms harder against the basin, as if anchoring himself to the words.
Then, facing his own reflection — voice clipped, biting, merciless — he said:
"Are you listening, Kao Neptune?"
"You have to stop yourself."
A breath caught in his throat.
Then, barely audible, laced with something dangerously close to pain:
"No one rules my mind."
A pause. A crack.
"...No one rules my heart."