The world beneath Smithen's feet didn't crack or shudder—it simply dissolved, soundlessly, like mist burned away by an unfamiliar sun. He felt as though he had stepped through an invisible veil into a reality too luminous to belong to him, yet too solid, too achingly tangible to be denied. His thoughts were a carousel spinning without a brake, circling endlessly around the same overwhelming, impossible truth, while his chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven breaths that carried equal parts disbelief and a wild, fluttering excitement. Because this was not something he had ever truly expected to happen. Not to him. Not in a way that would feel this real. And yet—it had.
Two years ago, the universe had rearranged itself in the most unremarkable of places: a crowded mall, thick with the noise of footsteps, the jangle of shopping bags, the tinny echo of pop music from a distant store. People streamed past each other, oblivious, anonymous, each locked in their own small dramas. Smithen had been one of them—distracted, unremarkable, just another face dissolving into the sea of strangers. He had stopped to adjust his phone, or perhaps to glance at a window display; the specifics had long since blurred. But what remained, sharp as cut glass, was the moment his attention was pulled, yanked by an invisible hook lodged deep in his chest. It wasn't the crowd that changed. It was him.
He remembered the exact second he saw him. Before a name existed to attach to that face, before he understood why the human current instinctively parted, why conversations faltered and heads turned with a mixture of awe and primal caution, there was something—a gravity, a shift in the air pressure—that made Smithen freeze mid-step. His gaze locked without permission, a camera lens snapping into focus on a single, striking figure. The media swarmed like moths to a dark flame, their voices overlapping in a cacophony of shouted questions, cameras flashing relentlessly in a staccato of white light, each person desperate to capture a sliver of the man at the center of the storm. And yet, Viran stood there untouched, an island of stillness in the chaos. His expression was a calm, unreadable mask, his movements precise and economical, his voice steady as he answered only what he chose, each word a velvet door slamming shut. There was no hesitation, no flicker of annoyance, no visible effort. It wasn't composure—it was dominion. Complete and undeniable control over everything within his sphere, including the frenzy that lapped at his feet.
Smithen hadn't noticed when curiosity curdled into something deeper, when admiration quietly threaded its roots into the soil of his heart and grew into a far more personal, far more dangerous thing. But over days that became months, that single crystalline moment became a sanctuary he returned to again and again, a loop playing behind his eyelids. He started searching for Viran without admitting why, telling himself it was casual interest, a fleeting fascination that would wither once the novelty wore thin. It never did. Instead, it fed on his solitude, shaping his thoughts in ways he didn't recognize until it was far too late to step back from the edge. He followed everything—every clipped interview, every rare public appearance, every scrap of information he could unearth from the digital ether. And slowly, without a single conscious decision, he crossed a line. He became someone who watched from the shadows, unseen yet eternally present, a ghost haunting the periphery of another person's existence. An anonymous admirer. A silent supporter. An online stalker.
He sent gifts through official channels, each one chosen with a painful, private deliberation—a first edition that matched an offhand comment in an old interview, a tie pin he thought might catch the light just so. He wrote emails that were carefully structured, every sentence polished to a high sheen, yet brimming with a raw, unvoiced emotion he would never dare speak aloud. He knew, with the cold clarity of a realist, that those messages would likely never be opened, swallowed by the black hole of a corporate inbox. He wrote anonymous letter wrapped in red cover sealed, he wrote all the raw feelings he had for him, if someone opens it to read, they would even feel a shiver, as he expressed his longings very vividly. He didn't care about being unnoticed, all he ever cared was about expressing them. It was about feeling connected, even if that connection was a single, fragile thread spun entirely within the confines of his own heart.
At night, when the world outside his window grew quiet and his defenses softened with the onset of sleep, he would construct a life so vivid it almost hurt to hold onto. He imagined standing beside Viran, not as a faceless stranger hidden behind screens and silence, but as someone solid, someone real—a presence that could share the small, sacred moments that weave a life together. He imagined kissing his lips, sucking his neck, touching his abs, sleeping on his bare chest, kissing on his cheeks, teasing him when he is in meeting, eating together, cooking for each other, growing old with him, the lines that would etch themselves around those dark, ancient eyes, the softening of a voice he had heard only in controlled public statements. His pulse raced at the vision of pinning him against the wall, grinding their hips together until pleas escaped those commanding lips. He ached to feel that powerful body shudder beneath him, body throbbing as he surrendered completely, their shared breaths turning to desperate moans in the dead of night.
He imagined being someone Viran could rely on, a steady hand when the weight of his empire pressed too hard, someone who would remain when deals collapsed and alliances shifted, someone who would simply stay. And sometimes, on the loneliest nights, just painting that picture in his mind was enough to make his chest tighten with a happiness so fragile he was afraid to exhale, lest it shatter.
And now—that gossamer, impossible thought had calcified into something real. I'm… married to him… The words slipped out unbidden, barely a whisper, a secret he wasn't yet sure the universe permitted him to speak aloud. His lips parted slightly, the taste of the revelation still new, still overwhelming.
A sudden vibration against his palm shattered the reverie. His phone screen flared with an unknown number, the sharp buzz a tug back into the physical world. For a fleeting second, he considered letting it ring, his mind too crowded to accommodate anything beyond the incandescent glow inside him. But a deeper impulse pushed his thumb across the screen. "Hello… this is Smithen speaking," he said, and even he could hear the brightness in his voice, a sun he couldn't dim.
"This is Mr. Viran's personal assistant," the voice replied, clipped and efficient as a surgical tool. Smithen's grip on the phone tightened until his knuckles paled. "Sir has asked you to arrive at the bridal residence by 7 PM this evening." No pause, no space for questions, no breath. The line went dead, leaving him suspended in a humming silence.
For a long, stretched moment, he didn't move. Didn't think. Didn't breathe properly. Then a soft, involuntary laugh escaped him, a sound of pure, uncut joy. "This is real…" He needed to move, to share, to let the pressure out before it consumed him. I need to tell Kiren…
The restaurant was alive with its usual, comforting cacophony—forks clinking, the low roar of conversations, the hiss and sizzle from the kitchen, laughter that came in sudden, generous waves. Kiren stood near the counter, leaning forward with the practiced ease of a man who never met a boundary he respected. He was flirting with the girl behind the display case, his smile a weapon. "You're sweeter than the cake itself," he purred, his tone steeped in playful mischief. The girl stared back with an expression that suggested the cake in her hands was about to become a projectile.
Smithen barreled through the door, spotted him, and closed the distance without conscious thought. He hit Kiren's shoulder with a firm, urgent thump. Kiren turned, annoyance flickering before it was replaced by sharp curiosity. "…What happened to you?" His brow furrowed as he took in Smithen's flushed face, the almost feverish brightness in his eyes, the way excitement seemed to vibrate from his skin.
"Kiren, I have something amazing to tell you, and I can't control it anymore," Smithen said, the words tumbling over each other. He grabbed Kiren's hand and pulled him toward the back of the restaurant, weaving past tables until they reached the last one, where an old man sat placidly sipping tea, impervious to the world. Smithen's grip was almost painful. "I'm married," he said, too fast, the syllables tripping.
Kiren didn't react; the ambient noise had swallowed the confession. Smithen leaned closer, his voice a fierce, trembling whisper. "I'm married, Kiren."
This time, everything stopped. Kiren's casual posture vanished. "…What did you just say?" he asked slowly, the words weighted.
"I'm married," Smithen repeated, his smile now so wide it threatened to crack his face open.
"Don't joke with me," Kiren warned, his tone sharpening to a blade's edge.
"I'm married to Viran."
Silence crashed down like a guillotine. "…Viran?" Kiren's voice was a dry rasp. "Yes." "…You're serious." "Yes." The air between them became a held breath.
Everything after that blurred into a fever dream of movement where time both raced and crawled. By evening, black-suited guards with earpieces and impassive faces stood sentinel outside his house, their presence a silent, unyielding statement of power observing his every step. Smithen looked down at the ring now circling his finger—the platinum cool and heavy against his skin, the small ruby at its heart catching the fading light like a drop of frozen blood, a delicate engraving on the inner band pressing a secret promise against his flesh. Kiren didn't seem to take it seriously, and Smithen was overly joyed to even explain much, he wanna go to his home, to pack every little things.
After hours of packing,
He hugged his brother and mother tightly, their warmth a fleeting anchor, their smiles tinged with a happiness that made his chest ache with a grateful, bewildered love.
The car door swung open with a soft, expensive thud, and he stepped inside, arranging his limbs with a calm he didn't feel. The underground road unfurled ahead, smooth and unfamiliar, swallowing them into a tunnel of muted lights and whispered echoes, as if he were being ferried to a place removed from the ordinary geography of the world. And then—he saw it. A massive black gate rose from the earth, intricately carved with a tapestry of crows in mid-flight and panthers coiled to strike, their eyes rendered in such exquisite, savage detail they seemed to watch, to breathe. The gate swung open without a sound, and beyond it, a palace erupted from the manicured grounds. Golden. Magnificent. So utterly unreal it seemed to hum with its own silent music. Smithen's breath caught, his lips parting soundlessly. "No wonder…" he murmured, the words a wisp of awe, "no one can reach him."
Inside, the silence was an immediate, living thing, wrapping around him like cold silk. His footsteps echoed too loudly on the polished marble, a solitary rhythm in a space designed for multitudes. A man named Luxan spoke a few efficient words and then evaporated into the vastness, leaving Smithen utterly alone. He lowered himself slowly onto a sofa of dark velvet, his posture straight but his fingers twisting together in his lap, his eyes fixed on the grand door ahead—a monumental slab of dark wood and iron, as final and forbidding as a verdict.
Time warped. Minutes stretched into elastic eternities. The amber light outside the massive windows faded, replaced by the sterile, crystalline brilliance of hidden fixtures that made the cavernous space feel both majestic and impossibly distant. And still, he waited. Because behind that door was the man he had loved for two years like crazy without even knowing him in real life, the silhouette he had imagined standing beside in a thousand borrowed daydreams. His husband. His heartbeat deepened into a slow, primal drum, each thud a countdown, his breathing shallowing as anticipation coiled in his belly, heavy and undeniable.
And then—the door opened. The sound was a low, resonant click followed by a whisper of displaced air. Smithen's eyes lifted instantly, his entire being pulling taut as a bowstring.