King stood frozen in the middle of the living room, the warmth of James's side-hug still ghosting over his shoulder. His heart slammed into his chest like it was trying to escape.
Win didn't say a word as he stepped closer.
His eyes locked onto King's with such intensity that King felt the air leave his lungs. The whole room suddenly felt too hot, like the walls were closing in.
"Who just left this house, King?" Win asked low, steady, and dangerous.
King's throat closed. He tried to breathe, tried to blink, and tried to lie. But his lips trembled before any word could form.
Win took another step. "Don't make me ask again."
King swallowed. "James."
Something flickered in Win's eyes. Disgust. Not anger, something deeper and colder.
It stabbed right through King's ribs.
"I wasn't feeling well," King rushed out. It's my stomach. He just brought me medicine, that's all.
Win didn't reply. He stepped forward, slowly, and reached out to press the back of his hand against King's forehead. The touch was clinical and detached. There is nothing like the warmth he used to offer.
"No fever," Win said blankly. So you couldn't handle your pain, but you could handle him?
King's stomach dropped. "Win… what do you mean?"
"I mean," Win said, stepping back like he couldn't stand to be near him, that you looked fragile this morning. And now you're standing here like a man who's been wrecked. You think I don't know what that looks like?
No, it's not what you think.
"Four days," Win said, his voice rising. I've been gone for four days. And in that time, you let him touch you? You let him crawl into the space I built for us with my money.
Tears gathered in King's eyes. I didn't sleep with him.
"You think it matters?" Win hissed, cutting him off. "Do you even hear yourself? You followed him to a bar. A hotel. My house. Do you think that looks like innocence?"
"I didn't mean for any of this to happen," King whispered, shaking now.
"You didn't mean?" Win laughed, hollow and sharp. "You're always so good at not meaning things. Not meaning to lie. Not meaning to hide. Not meaning to betray. So why does it keep happening?"
I just needed someone. He was there, and I was in pain.
"So you opened your legs to him?" Win snapped. "Because he was there?"
King took a shaky step back, one hand on his stomach. "Please don't say it like that."
"I'll say it exactly how it is," Win spat. You didn't answer my calls. You ignored my messages. And now I know why. You weren't too tired. You were too busy being touched by James. Don't pretend you didn't enjoy it.
I didn't do anything with him. King cried out, desperate.
"Then what were you doing in a hotel with him?" Win demanded. "Laughing? Drinking? Or maybe practising how to lie to me better?"
King turned to go, to escape the heat of Win's words, but he never made it far.
Win grabbed his arm and shoved him back against the wall.
Don't you dare walk away from me, "he growled.
King winced, both from the pain in his stomach and the look on Win's face. "I didn't sleep with him.
"No?" Win asked, his voice suddenly quiet. "Then what would you call it? You don't talk to me. You don't check on me when I'm gone. But you let a stranger in while I'm not around? You let him into our house?"
"He's not a stranger, he's..."
Win cut him off, voice breaking. "He's not me."
King's tears finally fell. Win... I love you, you are my brother, the most important person in my life.
"No, you don't," Win said, shaking his head slowly. "If you did, you wouldn't make me feel like this."
Silence stretched between them.
Then Win's voice dropped to a whisper, broken and brutal. You have tasted everything I have to give, my love, my time, my protection. Now it's time you understand what it means to lose it.
He looked at King one last time.
"You look dirty to me now."
King remained there, leaning against the wall, shaking, his hand pressed to his mouth to stop the sobs.
And for the first time in all the years they'd been together...
Win didn't look back.
From that moment, something in Win shifted, not with noise or fury, but in the absence of it.
No questions.
No arguments.
No accusations.
Just silence.
It was worse than yelling.
King felt it instantly, in the quiet way Win passed him in the hallway, their shoulders almost brushing but never touching. No eye contact. No words. Just the soft echo of footsteps trailing further and further away.
That silence became a living thing in the house. It sat between them at breakfast, where Win no longer waited. It stretched across the living room, where Win once sat close. Now, he took his meetings upstairs and stayed there until late into the night.
He didn't slam doors. He didn't cut King off with cruel words. He simply withdrew.
Like someone slowly pulling a curtain shut.
And King, standing in the middle of it all, couldn't stop it.
He tried.
He ordered the meals Win used to ask for carefully arranged, perfectly seasoned, but the plates were left untouched, the food cold before King ever heard the front door close behind him. He tried waiting at the bottom of the stairs when Win came down, hoping for a glance, a nod, anything. But Win would just walk past, dressed in crisp suits, smelling like work and expensive cologne, already halfway out the door before King could open his mouth.
They used to share everything.
Now King didn't even know where Win was going.
He only heard the echo of his voice across the hall. "I have a meeting."
Sometimes, not even that.
There were no more check-ins. No gentle reminders to eat, to rest, or to call Charlotte. Those soft, caring moments Win used to offer had vanished. In their place stood a man who barely looked at King anymore, and when he did, it was never the same
When Win did look at him, on those rare, fleeting moments their eyes happened to meet, it wasn't love, and it wasn't concern. It was colder than anger, quieter than rage. It was the kind of hollow disappointment that didn't need to be spoken because it was already slicing through King like a blade.
King would've taken a slap to the face before he could handle that look again.
At first, he thought maybe Win was just tired. Maybe business had drained him. But the days passed, and nothing changed.
It became clear. Win had built a wall. And King wasn't allowed in anymore.
He slept lighter and cried quieter. Moved through the house like a shadow. Even walking into the same room as Win felt like crossing enemy lines. If Win were on the couch, King would sit in the kitchen. If King stepped into the kitchen, Win stood and left.
It was like he was a stranger in his own home.
And the weight of it the coldness, the silence, the loss of warmth started to crush him.
He thought, Maybe he deserves it.
Maybe Win was right to hate him now. To think of him as dirty, reckless. Maybe King had lost the only person who ever tried to give him something close to safety.
What hurt most wasn't that Win no longer smiled at him.
It was that he didn't even look like he wanted to try.
And that nearly destroyed King.
That night, the house was quiet. The kind that rang in King's ears no matter how softly the TV murmured in front of him. He sat curled on the edge of the living room couch, his legs pulled beneath him, pretending to scroll through his phone while counting the minutes since Win left for work that morning.
When the front door finally opened and Win stepped inside, King looked up instinctively, a flicker of hope flashing in his eyes.
Win paused at the doorway, his tie already loosened, eyes slightly red from a long day, but he didn't look tired. He looked resolved.
"Good," he said flatly, his voice without warmth. I saw you here. I want to have a word with you.
King straightened immediately, heart leaping. It had been days since Win said anything beyond the bare minimum. He thought maybe this was it. A crack in the wall that Win had built. A chance to fix what had shattered between them.
But what came next struck like a blade.
Win didn't sit. He didn't come closer. He just stood there, not quite looking King in the eye. I'll be moving out this weekend. Back to my father's mansion.
King blinked.
He waited for the words to rearrange themselves into something less devastating. But they didn't. "What did you just say?"
Win's eyes flickered briefly to his, but there was no softness in them. No regret. "I'm moving out."
"We're moving?" King asked, his voice a small crack. "You mean… we're moving?"
"No," Win said simply. "I am. You'll stay here. I'll be gone by the weekend."
And just like that, he turned and started up the stairs, like it was nothing.
King's chest caved in. He stared at the space Win left behind, the words still hanging in the air like smoke.
His throat burned. The silence that followed felt louder than anything Win could've yelled. His vision blurred, and a single tear broke free, sliding down his cheek.
It wasn't just the distance anymore.
Win wasn't just pulling away.
He was leaving.
Erasing him, like his mother once did.