Chapter 18: Chapter 18

Aries’s eyes snap open.

He whips out the pistol from under his pillow and aims it accurately at the small and short silhouette. Calum makes a strangled sound, gasps, then drops to the ground on his backside.

A curse jumps from Aries’s lips and he yanks out his drawer to place the gun inside, sliding it shut.

“Calum?”

His hand gropes the bedside table until he finds the light switch to the lamp.

The small glow banishes the darkness enough to see his brother gawking at him.

“What was ~that~?”

“What was what?” he asks coyly.

“The thing you pointed at me.”

“What are you doing in my room at—whatever time it is?”

Calum straightens but remains seated on the floor. “Couldn’t sleep.”

“Nightmare?”

“Mama,” he says so softly, “with a needle in her arm.”

Aries closes his eyes for a moment, then opens them. “Come here.” He flings his covers open, edging back to make space for his brother.

He can see the eagerness in his eyes, but he shakes his head. “I’m too old for that.”

“Okay, if you wanna be a tough guy.”

Aries releases the covers and folds his arms on his pillow, laying his head back down, and he pretends to go back to sleep.

And not long after, tiny movements rustle beside him and a small form creeps inside his bed, pulling the covers to his shoulder.

“You know mom loved you,” he says, enlisting sincerity, “loved you with everything she had.”

~It wasn’t enough. ~He evicts the thought.

“If she did, why did she do that to herself?”

Aries flops over to be on his side, thinking of the right words—any words.

He lifts a hand, his fingers threading through Calum’s fair hair soothingly, hoping to lull him to sleep quicker. For he is going to have to convince him to believe in something he has no faith in himself.

“Just because she was sick…doesn’t mean she didn’t love you, Cal.”

“~Hm~. And what excuse will you say for dad?”

Aries nearly shoves him out of the bed. Instead, he resorts to inhaling a long and deep breath.

“You have me. So you don’t need anyone else. Now go to sleep.”

Calum goes silent for a long while.

“Your phone rang when you were away.”

Aries perks up, his head raising inches off the pillow. “Yeah?”

“Hm, days ago, I forgot to tell you because that phone never rings. Why do you have two phones if you only use one?”

“Sleep.”

When dawn comes and first light breaks, yellow yolk spilling over the horizon, Aries is already awake.

Normally he only wakes up to drop Calum at school because that’s the only time he has with him.

Because after that and after dinner, that time belongs to cultivating his nefarious enterprise. Just as his grandfather would’ve wanted it.

Aries shuffles into the kitchen.

Grandma Adeline flips a pancake over, eyes brimming with surprise to see Aries up so early.

“Why you up? Nightmare?”

Aries scoffs, bleary-eyed. “Not me, Calum.”

She sighs sorrowfully. She uses the spatula to transfer the evenly baked and crispy-edged pancake onto the plate beside the pan, already stacked with a fresh batch, alongside the array of toppings.

“Not the first. He’s been having them a lot lately.”

“Ye?”

“Yes, Ari, and you would notice if you were home more. But, there’s no time for family as a crime lord. Your grandfather only made time for us at dinner and then he was gone. And now you’re doing the same.”

“Ma…”

“You saw what that life did to him. The strain was too much, and it killed him before any thug had the chance. All that money worth your life?”

“It’s about a good life,” he argues, anger waking him up. “I don’t care how I live, as long as you and Calum live good. That’s why grandpop hustled. He did it for the same reasons I am.”

She turns her back on him and pours more mix into the pan. Aries comes up to her flank and steals a pancake from the stack, rolling it up and munching on it plain.

“It’s my fault,” she mutters. “You had to grow up too damn fast.”

He pitches her a blunted glare. “It’s everyone’s fault but yours. You’ve been my rock since grandpop. You and Calum are the only good things I got in this world.”

Heart-warmed, she glances at him from over her shoulder. “You getting soft on me, Ari?”

“There’s nothing soft about me.”

She gives him a look. “Go wake up your brother.”

He swivels and walks out of the kitchen, savoring the last few bites as he heads down the corridor. Aries pushes open his bedroom door and wakes him with a thunderclap.

“Let’s go, little man.”

He strays to his second phone planted on the windowsill, picking it up to see one missed and a voice mail. He turns his back on a defiant Calum and listens to the voicemail.

***

Aries scrutinizes the blinding white interior of Braidwood High.

Everything is so pristine and immaculate, it sickens him. The attending students are free to wear whatever they want, most kids flaunting designer bags and branded clothes.

His presence is prominent amid the prim and proper aristocrats, a dark contrast to the light and glam aesthetic.

Snotty individuals cast him with snobbish looks that he returns with a malicious glare.

He approaches a random kid in a short-sleeved polo shirt.

“Hey kid, you know Opal Chiang?”

“The pianist?”

Aries frowns.

“Meaning she plays piano—I know of her, but I don’t know her. Why?”

Aries walks away abruptly, searching the varnished hallways to avail. He beelines for a group of gossiping girls, looking like something straight out of a teen fiction movie.

“Hey.”

Their attention locks on him instantly, giving him full-body looks in a way that if the genders were reversed, it would’ve been considered perverted.

“Have any of you seen Opal Chiang?”

“No,” the balayage-haired one says, “but I can help you look for her.”

“No need,” the blonde says, which is met with an annoyed look. She looks up at Aries with a nervous smile.

“I’m in the same class as her and we just finished math and we have chem next. The labs are on the west block, on the other side of the building, number 3GE. Just follow the ‘Find Keila’ posters and you’ll be fine.”

He thanks her with a curt nod and follows her directions.

And somewhere between high and low, he glimpses a navy-blue ribbon. He stalks after her, pushing past people, not used to them not springing out of his way at the mere sight of him. His shoulder knocks into another.

“Yo, watch it!” Brett yells, staring at his black-clad back.

“Let it go,” Ethan says tiredly, steering him away.

Aries rounds the corner and spots an oblivious Opal walking up to her locker. She opens the door, the dark green panel hiding her face from him.

He prowls forward, executing stealth and weaving past pupils, making a silent advance until he reaches her locker.

Opal makes the exchange from math to her chemistry textbook and shuts the locker. Her breach catches in her throat when she sees him, looking away with a rounded mouth.

Aries smiles in amusement.

She looks back at him, not believing what her eyes are showing her. “Aries? What the hell are you doing here?”

“You called. I came.”

Opal thinks back for a second. “Okay, I sent that a week ago.”

“I was busy.”

“And I was stupid,” she retorts. “It was a…momentary lapse of judgment, which believe me, will never happen again. Sorry that you wasted your time.”

“Did I?” He leans his shoulder against a random locker. “You asked for help. The Opal I knew would never ask for help.”

“Exactly—”

“Which is why I know you need it. You can argue with me or come with me. Either way, I’m not leaving alone.”

She draws closer to him, hugging the heavy textbook to her chest. “Aries. ~Leave~.”

“Not without you.”

She releases an explosive sigh. “Fine. What do you want?”

“To get out of here.” His eyes follow the lofty stare of another prudish pupil. “I swear if one of them looks at me like that again, I’ll repaint these walls with red.”

“Aries.”

His eyes fall back on her.

“As you can see, school is still ongoing. And after school, my dad picks me up every day at three. He’s never late.”

He slides out his personal phone to check the time. “It’s only eleven.”

“School hours, Aries. Some of us still attend school.”

“Then take a day off, Saint Opal. I’ll bring you back before three, and your pops will never know.”

“He will know because the school will notify him. The whole town is on high-alert because of Keila. You don’t think they’d get notified of another missing student? Disappeared mid-school day?”

“You were here at the register period, so they didn’t mark you as absent. Who’s gonna notice? Unless they do roll call in each class like it’s kindergarten?”

Opal looks around fretfully, then shakes her head, growing with obstinance. “I can’t.”

“I didn’t come all this way to be told no.”

Her brows cling to her hairline. “Get used to it. In your world, you might be the one giving out orders, but with me, you’ll be the one taking them.”

A dangerous smirk cuts through his face. “And what will you do if I disobey? Punish me?”

“You’re impossible.”

She spins around and storms off, only making it a few paces.

“Opal.”

The command in his voice brings her body to a halt. She rolls her eyes and rotates around.

He gives her an imploring look.

She sighs heavily. “Meet me at the front parking lot ~after~ school. I’ll make up an excuse for my dad or something.”

He smiles triumphantly and lifts himself up, his broad-shouldered stature thawing into the crowd.

***

The last bell rings, signaling freedom, at least for the evening.

Most of Braidwood High fills the hallways, making a mass exodus out of the building.

“It’s the last part of the composition I can’t get right.”

“You’ll get it,” Opal reassures with certainty. “Because you always do. At least you have some time before the concert. More than enough to perfect your technique.”

Dana breathes a sigh of relief. “Hopefully, it will be good enough. There will be representatives from Berklee in attendance as well as other recruiters. I can’t afford to mess up, you know.”

She glances at a dazed Opal. Rapt on something other than her rambling. Dana follows her line of sight to a guy with curtain-style hair. Sleek strands dipped in black ink shape a face that appears carved by a master craftsman.

“Who’s that?” Her eyes bounce between them. “Do you know him? He’s like staring right at you?”

“He’s someone I used to know.” She drags her gaze to her to deliver her goodbye. “Hey, I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“You can count on that. We clearly have a lot to talk about.”

Opal descends the steps, suddenly very aware of her appearance, fingers streaming through the wave of hair that laps over her chest, the rest plunging down her back.

She approaches Aries, who stands in front of his matte black BMW, coolly leaning against the hood, one combat boot crossed over the other, a toothpick peeking out of the corner of his lips.

He grins and walks over to her, extending his hand.

“What?”

“Your bag.”

She narrows her eyes at him but takes off her bag and hands it over. Aries guides her around and opens the passenger door for her. She gives him a mocking curtsey.

He snorts and closes the door behind her before opening the back seat and placing her bag on the floor.

Opal sniffs the air saturated with a terribly scrumptious scent, smelling carbs. She shoots a rearward glance at the takeout bags in the backseat and her stomach drops.

Aries rounds the car to the driver’s side and pops the door open, sliding inside. Opal puts on her seatbelt immediately.

Aries smirks and pulls out of the car spot, spinning the wheel with just one hand, and does a slow cruise out of the main parking lot.

“How many cars do you have?”

“I own a couple, but I only use the Durango and this one.”

She nods many times, looking out of the window, then points to the back. “Got hungry?”

“Got that right before I came here to pick you up. Wanted it warm for when you came out.”

She turns to face him with a quizzical look. “You got something against sitting down?”

“And sit around all those Braidwood people? I’d just lose my appetite.”

She gives him an amused look, tainted by an affront. “~I’m~ one of those Braidwood people.”

He peers over at her, then switches hands to rest his right elbow on the windowsill. “Nah. But if you want, we can go back—”

“No, I know a better spot anyway.” She points to the windshield. “Up ahead, past Hillcrest. Take the left.”

He nods.

The road stretches ahead, flanked by the woods on all sides, tension yawning to meet its length.

“So you want to talk about your lapse of judgment? Seems you’ve been making a lot of those lately,” he says with a look she remembers from the last time they rode together.

A flicker of irritation. “Aries, I’m clean—in fact, I was never…~an addict ~to begin with or anything. I never took those pills to take the edge off or to get high.”

“Do you think most people who started, had the intention of becoming a junkie? Pills, injections, they’re a slippery slope with no end.

“It always starts out like that, justifying it. No, it’s to relieve the pain, help with anxiety, ‘help me focus.’”

Opal frees a whooshing breath. “You made your point. You done lecturing me?”

He lifts a shoulder. “I just expected better.”

The words dent her calm. She stares at him for a long while, her eyes burning in his peripheral vision.

“What?”

She mimics his shrug. “Nothing, just thinking how wrong I was. You and my mom would get along just great.”

Suddenly, he breaks into a smile, a brightness from nowhere. “I guess I should be grateful. If you had not done something that stupid, we would never have met again.”

Opal deliberates, smiling scornfully. “I’m still deciding whether or not that was a good thing.”

His response is a questioning look.

“We’re just…two strangers who share a history.”

“Not anymore.”

Shortly, Opal directs him to the lakeside, parking on the unmarked gravel lot. He stops the car and they both climb out.

Aries retrieves the food from the backseat, and locks the car after, tossing the toothpick on the ground. Opal looks out onto the pier, the extension of wood from land to water.

“My dad and I like to come out here. It’s one of the few hidden treasures in town that doesn’t get over populated like other hot spots.”

They both walk on the rock-strewn ground, crunching under their feet with every step, and stroll onto the pier.

They look over the ever-still waters, a sparkling blue with flashes of white from the sunlight reflecting on the surface, twinkling like midday stars.

Opal sits on the edge. Aries settles down beside her and places the food between them.

They look at each other. He gives her a pointed look, gesturing to the food with his eyes.

“It was really sweet of you, but I can’t.”

His brows collide. “Can’t, or won’t?”

“Both,” she admits. “I ate a tuna salad at second break and my next meal is at dinner. I don’t eat or snack between meals.”

Aries’s frown intensifies into a baffled expression.

Opal tears her gaze away. “Don’t give me that look.”

“How else am I supposed to look when someone tells me they’re starving themselves?”

“I’m not. It’s called discipline. I’m on a diet.”

“Diet for what?” He gestures to her expansively. “You’re already tiny.”

She looks back at the water, muttering foreign words under her breath.

“In fact, what do guys think when they say they want a girl with a good body?” she says, making air quotes with her fingers. “That doesn’t come without work.”

“Starvation isn’t work, it’s a slow suicide.”

The retort renders her silent.

“And don’t assume all guys are that shallow. Some of us care more for the soul than the shell it comes in. I blame your mom for your distorted body image.”

She gapes and pivots her torso to face him. “What does my mom have to do with this?”

He laughs without humor, cursory and cutting.

“You don’t think I remember the mother that made her daughter eat almonds and celery sticks for snacks while the rest of us got to eat donuts and whatever?

“What mom makes their ten-year-old diet? No wonder you have an eating disorder.”

Opal lets out a shocked laugh. “~Wow.~”

Aries eyes lower to his lap.

“Some crazy part of me thought to give this a shot, but I just feel worse when I’m around you.”

“Because unlike whatever frauds you roll with now. I keep it real with you because I care,” he says, refusing to nurse her feelings.

“And being real doesn’t always mean telling the person what they want to hear, but what they need to hear.”

Opal’s anger lessens to a low simmer, present but weakened.

“You care, huh?” She snorts bitterly. “Last time I checked, you left Braidwood without even a backward glance, like we were nothing to you.”

Her ignorance pokes at his anger. “Because on top of dealing with what we went through with Erin, I had to deal with other problems, problems you silver spoons would never understand.”

She nods with pursed lips. “So…just because we’re privileged, you don’t think we have problems?”

He turns his head and fixes her with a deathly serious expression. “Have you ever had to worry about what you’re going to eat?”

“No?”

“Have you gone to bed hungry, involuntarily?”

“No…”

“Have you had to worry about providing for your younger sibling being a kid yourself?”

Sympathy emerges in her eyes. “No, but—”

“Has your dad ever walked out on you?” he asks, rattling off his questions too fast for her to even think of a rebuttal.

“Have you ever been forced to live with a mom who couldn’t even take of herself? Then offed herself in front of your younger sibling?

“Then do you only get a break by moving in with your grandparents…just for one of them to die a few years later?”

Aries shakes his head, then bends his one leg to rest his hand on his knee, keeping the other leg dangling over the edge, his other arm planted behind him to support his weight.

“Count your blessings, princess. Life could be a lot worse than trying to make first place in a mathalon. Believe me.”

The silent severity of his life reduces her problems to naught. Not because they are insignificant but because he had to deal with so much, so young and on his own.

Even at his weakest, he had to be another’s strength, and when others fell, he stood.

“You never told us about your grandparents.”

A defined muscle pokes through his jaw, ticking. “I didn’t tell ya’ll a lot of things.”

“And your mom?”

“Drugs, Opal,” he says darkly. “She was meant to help my grandpops run loads, but instead she was stealing from the stock.”

“And your dad—”

“Are done playing twenty questions?” he asks, his voice sharpened by annoyance. “I didn’t come here to talk about my sob story.”

But now Opal understands his former fervor toward his initial discovery.

“I’m sorry.”

He gives her a stiff head shake.

“I don’t need your sorry.” He nudges the brown packet toward her. “I need you to eat.”

She responds with a stubborn stare.

He sighs exasperatedly.

“C’mon.” He takes out one half of the wrapped sandwich. “I even got a healthy option with that fancy, vegan, multi-seed bread that looks like it’s meant for birds.”

Opal cracks into a smile. “I’m not vegan.”

“Good, ’cause it has chicken in it.”

He unwraps only the top part and extends to her. To his surprise, she leans in and takes a moderate bite from the sandwich, then refuses having any more. Baby steps. He samples a taste from the bitten half and finishes it off.

“So…did you hear about Keila?”

He crushes the wrapping paper, balling it up and chucking it in the bag. “Everyone with a TV knows.”

“Do you think the harassment is going to begin again? The police, the people, reporters?”

“It already begun,” Aries says, glancing back at her. “A Detective Russo showed up at my place the other day, asking not about Keila but about Erin.”

Opal’s lap catches her jaw. “No way. He came to my house, too. He kept grilling me on Erin, it’s the reason I called you. I got so freaked—I panicked.”

“Yeah, he got under my skin, too.”

A spark of humor brightens her eyes. “That’s not difficult to do.”

He gives her a side-eye. “What does that supposed to mean?”

“You have a temper, you’re such a hothead. The first time I see you, after seven years, and you deck a guy to the ground.”

“~Detective Russo~,” he stresses, to get back to the point.

Opal stifles a smile, folding her lips inwards.

“He’s not like the other thick-headed cops we’ve dealt with. He’s a lot more cunning. Something tells me he’s the dog with a bone type. He ain’t letting this one go.”

Opal toys her with her hair anxiously. “If they knew the truth, they’d stop searching.”

“They only started again because of Keila.” Emotions swell from his core to his throat. “You think we made the right call back then?”

“It was the only call,” Opal says to ease their shared guilt. “Though, I must say…It feels good to air it out without breaking any oaths. I thought I’d have to carry this weight alone for the rest of my life.”

Aries captures her gaze. “Not any way,” he says in a way that infers a promise.

***

Opal’s dad unlocks the front door and welcomes her inside, his smile filling with warmth.

“Did you have a good time?”

“Yep,” she says, beaming radiantly. “Very productive.”

“Opal.”

Her smile snuffs out.

Daiyu rushes up to her with a dish rag draped over shoulder. “Where have you been?”

“With Dana,” she says, lying effortlessly. “I was helping her with her performance.”

She arches a cynical brow. “Your own performance could use some help.”

“Daiyu,” Shuchang says reproachfully.

“What?” she says defensively.

Opal holds back frustrated tears. “I thought you said it was good?”

“Why settle for good, when you can be great?”

Opal swallows the lump in her throat and nods carefully.

“I’ve been practicing for weeks, almost every day, and on top of that I have school assignments. And not to mention preparing for the academic decathlon this coming quarter.”

Her mother gives her a condescending smile. “Good, then this year, maybe you can actually win.”

“~Daiyu~,” Shuchang snaps sternly.

“Sanako won that thing three times in a row. Opal is just as smart, but she’s lazy, too busy playing around with friends to focus.”

~“Nǐ zhīdào ōu pō měitiān dū zài nǔlì gōngzuò.”~

They erupt into a full-blown argument. Opal suffocates a childish sob, and she disappears around the corner, hastening down the corridor to her bedroom.

She opens the door and closes it, resting her forehead against the door for a moment.

Sanako swivels around in her chair.

“You okay?”

Opal flinches and whips around to see her sister at her desk. Her monitor is on but the screen is still locked.

“What are you doing in my room?”

“Was waiting for you.” She stands up, dressed in a cute white maxi dress. “Hey, do you still do those doodles? I wanted to check them out, but you locked your computer. Why?”

~Doodles, seriously?~ she thinks.

“You’re in my room, interrogating me?” A flash of anger. “Get out.”

Sanako flips up her one hand. “I’m sorry, okay. It’s just you barely talked to me since I got here. I haven’t visited for months. I mean, I rarely visit and already you seem sick of me?”

Opal gulps down an outburst. Then her brows gather in thought.

“Why are you here? You never stay longer than a week and when you visit, it’s always later in the year. After August but before December. It’s always been like that since you made residency. Why the change, big sis?”

Sanako smiles sadly, shouldering the insult with grace, and leaves the room without a word.

^INTERLUDE: Something Not Said, but Something Felt^

^10 YEARS AGO^

Erin waited for the rest of them by the Great Oak.

Muted light glimmered in her eyes, her heart strummed a woeful ballad, and her soul wept.

She could no longer survive Leonard’s torment, living in constant fear, forced to live with strangers.

Her ima had gone from being her doting mother to a dutiful wife, completely surrendered to him and living in voluntary servitude.

There were a thousand different times she wanted to escape to her grandparents and move in with them.

But they lived out of town and if she relocated there, that meant she would have to change schools. Which was the only reason why she stayed. She stayed for them.

Erin loved her mother with all her heart, but she was beginning to accept that she was lost to her, if she could allow Leonard to harm her and turn a blind eye toward the abuse.

She had to convince herself that it wasn’t a matter of selfishness but of safety. She didn’t want to leave her mother after losing her father, but life wasn’t sparing her much of a choice.

Erin knew if she left and something happened to her mother, she would never forgive herself. But should she be condemned to a life of maltreatment because of the same person who should be protecting her from it?

And the others? What of the others?

“Please God…don’t make me choose,” she murmured a prayer. “Because I will always choose them.”

“Erin.”

She quickly mopped her face dry, reaping a smile from her barren heart. She spun around and watched Aries march up to her.

And she could instantly feel something was wrong. Erin couldn’t explain the gut feeling, but it was something as pre-wired and primal as instinct.

“I have something for you.”

He reached for his back pocket and pulled out a pocketknife.

Erin scurried to him like a red-tailed hare and tried to push his arm down like a lever.

“Put that away, Aries,” she said in a frenzy. “Are you kidding me? You can’t be bringing knives to school. Do you know how dangerous that is?”

“Which is why I’d feel better if you had it.”

“For me? Why—”

She finally looked into his eyes—really looked—and saw that they were puffy and red, bludgeoned by held-in tears.

“Aries…are you okay?”

He shrugged her off. “Just take it. I know I won’t always be around to protect you, but you can protect yourself. If you ever think he’s going to hurt you again…”

He opens the folded blade and demonstrates, puncturing the air with a swift motion.

Erin gawked at him comically. “Wouldn’t that kill him?”

“That’s the point.”

“Aries!” she shrieked, her voice shrill.

“It won’t kill him, but it’ll keep you safe. Whose safety do you care about more, his or yours?”

Erin didn’t respond.

Aries closed the blade. He took her hand and placed the knife in her palm.

“I only care about your safety.”

She fidgeted, tentative fingers slipping it into the front pocket of her pants.

Erin looked into his eyes again. She could see his insides were in turmoil.

“Aries.” His name spoken like the whisper of the wind. “Did something happen?”

This nearly pushed him over the edge. Tomorrow was his birthday and the eve of what should have been a celebration was now a wake. This morning he had found out that his grandfather passed away—heart failure.

A cruel irony. His grandma was the sick one, in and out of the hospital because of chemotherapy, trying to kill the tumor in her lungs before it killed her.

A war of sorts, only for the casualty to be his grandfather, taken in the night.

Death came suddenly, speeding from nowhere, and with just one blink, he was gone.

Aries wanted to tell her this. It was why he refused his grandma’s offer to stay home. He secretly craved their comfort, a salve for his wounded soul. Something he knew his grandfather would have interpreted as weakness.

Having loved ones meant having vulnerabilities. His wife was an anomaly and his deceased daughter a mistake.

Erin reached for his hand and held onto his stiff fingers. Aries drew immediate solace.

“Ooh,” a voice hollered obnoxiously.

Akin pranced toward them with the others in tow, watching them inquisitively.

“Aries and Erin, sitting in a tree,” he sang insolently, “k-i-s-s-i-n-g.”

The red in Aries’s eyes turned into rage. His hand snapped out of Erin’s.

“Aries…” Erin whispered carefully.

Akin strode to them with exaggerated steps.

“Well. Look. At. That. We can leave if you guys need privacy to, you know.” He closed his eyes and made kissing faces at him.

Aries charged at him like a baby bull and tackled him to the ground.

“Aries!”

They all raced to the wrestling pair. Aries managed a few good strikes before it took all the girls mustering strength to wrench him off Akin.

Aries shoved them back irritably, not enough to hurt them, but enough to ward them off.

Akin clambered to his feet, dabbing his hand to his mouth, checking for blood. He glowered at a fuming Aries. Akin tasted a copper tang and turned his head to spit out a glob of saliva, stained with blood. Bruises were already beginning along his jaw.

Akin rushed up to Aries to repay him in kind until he saw his eyes. And it made him think.

Aries was always volatile. Anything could set him off like a trigger in a minefield. The only way he knew how to deal with his emotions was through his fists. Whether he was frustrated, angry, or sad.

And he was exuding untold grief that he could not verbalize.

Aries knew that his grandfather never wanted him to mourn his passing. He told him this much when his grandmother was diagnosed, prompted by life’s reminder that in the event he died.

He should not cry, for tears solve nothing.

Aries knew that to honor him was to honor his legacy.

Which is why he inherited his grandfather’s jacket, bequeathing him his shadow kingdom. The burden of a man wrangling itself into the body of a child.

Akin didn’t realize the scope of his suffering, only that it was great. He could never understand, even if Aries had told him. And he wanted to, but he couldn’t.

Akin’s face turned fierce, and he grabbed Aries.

“Akin—”

He locked him in an embrace, hugging him tightly.

The girls froze around them in shock. Not knowing how he would react.

Akin didn’t know his pain. He could only sense that his friend was in inarticulable anguish. And just like Aries rarely used words to express his feelings, Akin thought about communicating through the same language.

To everyone’s astonishment. Aries’s hands rose gradually from his sides and wrapped around his friend’s waist, responding to his hug, his hold on Akin tightening steadily.

Akin didn’t have to tell him that he was there for him; Aries now felt it.

Erin gave the girls pointed looks, and they flocked to the boys.

Together, their arms entwined around each to encircle Aries in an all-encompassing embrace, a lattice of limbs branched over him in a love that bellowed a thousand hymns and evolved beyond words.

To keep the tears from falling, Aries clamped his eyes shut.