(Leo)
***
"So before I left, the man and the woman took each other's hands like," Sinclair relayed the story to me as they grabbed one of my palms and locked our fingers together tightly, "this. And then, they ran into the fields and shouted, 'Our son's coming back!' All the other farmers surrounded and hugged them."
The corner of their lip twitched downwards so quickly that it was hardly noticeable before they added, "Apparently, the child was a teenager who got lost before this all started, and he managed to get all the way to Gali, which you know is quite far from Mirai. In their dreams, the parents always appeared in the capital and could never visit him before waking up. Even when they could reach Gali, he was usually asleep and in the Sun Kingdom when they got there…"
They continued telling their story, but it felt contrived and forced as if they didn't *really* want to be talking about that and had something else on their mind. Their fingers massaged the back of my hand, and I tried to look like I held onto every word of theirs even when my bitter thoughts attempted to overcome the saccharine touch alight on my skin.
At the end of the tale, they smiled with an airy chuckle. "It was so sweet seeing everyone come together in celebration that I almost teared up. I think there were a lot of stories like that today."
"Is that why you told me that?"
How were they going to respond?
They gulped. "Yeah. Lots of stories of family." The tone and volume of their voice dropped, trailing off at the end. "Lots of stories of love…"
Like a stench in the air, the awkwardness sat, hanging around without enough wind to carry it off. The sun was almost completely down, only a few streaks of orange left to indicate its ghastly presence. It was about to be nighttime for the first time in a year, and I couldn't have thought of a much better way to spend it had my mind been in the right place.
When those lines of light faded like strands of hair, I felt a gentle squeeze on my hand. Sinclair seemed to admire the cold, white hues and bluish tint of the night sky, millions of stars smiling above us. We sat along my bed, both resting our weights on one hand, and for once, the sky resembled the flowers on which we sat. There was a quiet peace in the environment as if everything rested with the ascent of the moon.
Sinclair grasped my palm again.
"I want to talk about something," they blurted out, but I anticipated those words for some odd reason.
The needless apprehension I recognized exacerbated my restraining thoughts until they became a new normal. The change was so subtle yet all-encompassing that I was hardly aware of it.
"I can tell." I bit my lip. "What's on your mind?"
Sinclair took their free hand and scratched their neck. "I don't know how to—"
"Try."
I looked them in the eyes, feeling as if I were about to do them a disservice.
Seeming misled by my short way of speaking, they took a breath. "I hardly knew you until recently."
"That's a given," I said back coldly.
"Please don't do that. I'm being serious. Listen."
Their nervousness came to the forefront of their mind as evidenced by the raging pulse of their heartbeat resonating through their palm and the thin, tremulous voice that accompanied it.
"Okay."
They sighed. "As a retired cupid, I think I'm qualified to say I know what feelings look like. I don't always know what they *feel* like, but I can see them in myself. In others."
Leaning their head down, they lost their focus there. "Damn. I don't exactly know where I'm going with this anymore. I had it all planned out for a while, but it went away as soon as I opened my mouth."
I knew better than to say anything yet as they collected themself. Maybe I knew where they were going and aimed to prepare myself for a response that I would soon be cornered into giving.
"After meeting you, I could see that in myself. I didn't know how to handle being around someone so wonderful and funny, who always seemed like he made the best of everything." Eyes narrowing, they glanced away. "I think you helped me and pulled me from the spell of darkness I was in before we met. You're beautiful in every way, and I've enjoyed every minute we've spent beside each other, sleepless nights and all."
I smiled, rubbing my thumb over their hand to soothe them as they rambled on, shaking their head. Those vibrant pink and scarlet eyes… Only a fool would have had the ability to overlook the signs.
"Hm, what I mean to say… What I've been trying to get to is that…"
They paused again, moving to lock their gaze with mine. The sudden boldness from them caused my face to heat up, and I could not help but react with shock even when I knew what they'd say.
"I think I've fallen in love with you, Leo," they admitted at last, releasing the floodgates of our tension before it seized the air once more.
Those words brought me into a heady euphoria. I fell into a dream I would soon wake up from as I grinned even more at them, eyes getting watery. I still hadn't formulated the proper response.
*Love.*
What even was it to us?
I wanted to fucking guffaw to hide this damaged, pitiful soul of mine—not out of spite and ridicule but out of pure frustration; however, I was certain Sinclair would not understand that without being affronted.
While I couldn't even answer to myself what it was that I found so mesmerizing about being with them, I began to run my mouth, the words getting far ahead of my heart (or perhaps too far behind).
I nodded, scooting closer so that our shoulders touched. Muscles tensing, we both seemed sensitive to the contact.
"How would you feel if I told you I felt the same—that I've slowly become enchanted every time I look into your eyes and sit alongside you?"
Eyes running a broad spectrum of colors but blazing a strawberry tone near the pupils, they stared me down. They then pulled up our intertwined hands, turning them so that the back of my hand faced them.
Sinclair leaned over and kissed it once in the center and once on the wrist with their eyes closed, the press of lips making my skin tingle. I could not think of another action that would have conveyed that level of tenderness and sweetness to me right then, saying more than anything that had been spoken.
They moved it an inch away from their mouth and exhaled with a grin.
"I think I'd be happier than anyone in the kingdom," they said to me, a blissful expression on their features under the white glow of the moon as they finally looked at me again, "if you told me that, and then, we could say we belonged to each other afterwards."
I gulped. There was no sense in reasoning with myself, despite my gut telling me I shouldn't do this. I shouldn't take advantage of the opportunity. I shouldn't give in to that tugging, which pulled me towards their gravity inescapably when I couldn't even admit some things to myself.
But…
*Let me fall for a moment before I hit the ground…*
Against my better judgment, I said, "Then, I'll say I've fallen for you, too."