"...Bruce?" Clark furrowed his brow, looking at his unusually agitated friend.
"..."
Bruce's rage, fierce and overwhelming, suddenly melted away as he locked eyes with Clark.
He stared into those light blue eyes, which seemed to calm him like ice that had chilled over.
Slowly, his clenched fists relaxed.
—Even Bruce himself couldn't understand where that surge of fury and heartbreak had come from.
It's feel like it rising so suddenly from within.
He was like an old, wounded lion, enraged yet powerless.
All he could do was silently retract his claws and watch, cool and detached, as others played out their stories.
...But he would find out the full, long story behind this.
Later, after the exhibition had ended, Clark received a call from Martha.
She asked him to come home to help them clear out some old items in the warehouse—recently, the west side of the Kent Farm's barn had sustained heavy damage.
The roof was leaking, and Jonathan wanted to clear out the barn and then repair the roof thoroughly.
Without hesitation, Clark headed back to Kansas after work.
Smallville was peaceful and calm.
The evening breeze swept gently over the farmland, and the corn stalks rustled softly in the fields.
As Clark gazed out over the cornfield, a sudden wave of unease washed over him.
He clutched his chest in pain, his ears ringing loudly.
He dropped to his knees in the middle of the cornfield, his arm muscles tensing, his fingers digging into the soil as if grasping onto the earth to resist the pain coursing through him.
This was Smallville.
This was his home.
It was here that he had arrived on Earth, here that the Kents had adopted him, raised him, and taught him to use his powers.
He should love this place.
He should love it forever.
This was the sanctuary that had always welcomed him with open arms, his paradise of happiness.
But why did his heart ache so much when he stepped into this cornfield?
He must have forgotten something…
He must have forgotten something more important to him than life itself…
"Clark—! Where are you—! Come over here!"
Martha's voice called out from behind him, just like when she used to call him from the cornfield as a child.
Clark hurriedly stood up, "I'm here! Coming right over!"
The three of them—Clark, Martha, and Jonathan—began clearing out the old items from the barn: various farming tools, worn-out sacks of crops, discarded household goods, their old clothes, and little trinkets...
Martha meticulously sorted through everything, occasionally picking up a shrunken old ball, laughing as she showed it to Jonathan and Clark. "Look at this! It's the toy ball Clark used to play with when he was just a baby! I can't believe it's still here!"
"Oh, and this," she said, lifting up a small, worn-out jacket. "Clark used to wear this. My goodness, Jonathan, can you believe how tiny Clark was back then? He barely came up to my knees."
Martha smiled brightly as she looked at her now fully grown son, who stood an impressive six-foot-four.
The warmth and joy on her face were infectious.
Clark lowered his gaze and picked up a faded maroon shirt. "I remember this. I wore this in high school."
His voice trailed off as his fingers touched something thin and hard in the shirt's pocket.
"What's this?"
He muttered as he pulled out a folded piece of stiff cardboard, carefully flattening it out.
—What appeared before his eyes was an old Polaroid photograph, faded with time.
The edges were so blurred that they were barely visible, but in the center, two teenagers were still clear.
One was him—18-year-old Clark Kent—wearing the very shirt he now held, smiling at the camera.
The other boy, however, wore a red hat and a red scarf, but his face was a blur, completely unrecognizable.
They stood beneath a brightly lit Christmas tree, Clark's arm draped over the boy's shoulder, smiling across the decades at the Clark Kent of today.
It was the most beautiful time in his life, a time he had somehow forgotten.
How could he have forgotten?
—It was a sunny Kansas afternoon when he first met that blond-haired boy under the staircase.
His Soren.
Their lives had intertwined from that moment on, with Soren smiling as he ran down the stairs, like an angel falling straight into Clark's arms.
—On a starry night, they walked along the narrow path between fields.
His Soren had tears welling in his eyes from worry.
His nose was red as he turned his head, irritated, and said, "I don't need you to carry me!"
Clark had stared at him, his Soren, his angel, and his teenage heart had pounded fiercely.
That night, Clark had fallen headlong into a passionate, all-consuming love.
They embraced warmly at Rockefeller Plaza to the sound of Christmas carols, their laughter filling the air.
They made promises to each other in the purple dusk as the ocean breeze wrapped around them.
They shared their first kiss on the sea off Reykjavik.
They reunited after heartbreak and separation, with Soren drawing a heart in the stars that twinkled around the Watchtower just for him.
They made love in Clark's old room at the Kent farm, and every time, Soren would cry, holding Clark so tightly, refusing to let him go, no matter the pain.
His boy, his Soren, his angel, possessed the bravest, most fearless heart in the entire world.
They had parted in the raging blizzards of the Arctic, and in the midst of Soren's desperate screams, Clark had dug out the bullet from his own chest with his bare hands, showing him, "My blood is red too, Soren."
They spent an entire year in the Justice League's Washington base, free from outside interference.
During that time, Soren, who had chosen to forget everything, clung to him as his only refuge.
He would sit in Clark's lap, sweetly and innocently calling him "Kal-El," like a child clumsily writing a diary.