Win woke before his alarm, the early morning light filtering through his bedroom curtains as the previous night's conversation with his friends echoed in his mind. He'd fallen asleep feeling lighter than he had in weeks, but now, in the quiet of dawn, the weight of what he needed to do pressed against his chest like a stone.
His phone buzzed insistently on the nightstand—dozens of notifications from the fiction site. Win reached for it, squinting at the screen as he scrolled through message after message from desperate readers.
Please update soon! I can't handle the suspense!
Chapter 4 when??? We're dying here!
InvisibleHeart, don't leave us hanging like this!
The way you write about love is so real it hurts. Please continue the story.
Win stared at the comments, guilt twisting in his stomach. His readers had been waiting, and he'd been so caught up in his own emotional chaos that he'd neglected the story that had become their escape, their connection to something real and honest about love and heartbreak.
He sat up in bed, laptop balanced on his knees, and opened a new document. The conversation with Pat, Parin, and Sea had crystallized something inside him—a clarity about what he wanted, what he was willing to fight for. Maybe it was time for Alex to find that same courage.
His fingers found the keyboard, and the words began to flow:
Summer's End - Chapter 4 by InvisibleHeart
I walked into the family dinner that night with something precious tucked inside my jacket pocket—my college offer letter, the kind of achievement that had kept me awake the night before with excitement. Finally, something that would make them see me, really see me.
We were both heading off to college now, my brother and I, and it felt like a milestone that deserved celebration. I'd rehearsed the words in my head a dozen times, imagining the pride that would bloom in my father's eyes when I told him. This news—I was sure of it—would eclipse even my brother's latest accomplishments.
But as the dinner progressed, the familiar pattern emerged. Questions about my brother's college preparations, praise for him being chosen for his first summer internship at our family company—an opportunity I wasn't even asked if I wanted, another disappointment to add to the growing list. My brother would be getting hands-on experience in the field our father had chosen for him, while it never once occurred to anyone to offer me the same chance to gain experience in the field he'd chosen for me. I waited, fork poised over my untouched food, for that moment when the spotlight might finally swing in my direction.
"And what about you?" I kept expecting him to ask. "Any news to share? Any achievements we should celebrate?"
The questions never came.
I waited through the appetizer, through the main course, through my mother's gentle attempts to include me in conversations that kept gravitating back to my brother's gravitational pull. Finally, when everyone fell into one of those natural dinner pauses, I gathered every ounce of courage I possessed.
"Father," I said, my voice cutting through the quiet like a plea. "I have some news I want to share with you."
He looked down at his phone just as it buzzed with an incoming call. Without even glancing at me, he lifted his hand—that universal gesture for silence, for wait, for not now—and answered.
"This is important," he said into the phone, already pushing back from the table. "I need to take this."
He walked away, leaving me sitting there with my unspoken news lodged in my throat like a stone. The rest of the table continued eating as if nothing had happened, as if I hadn't just been dismissed in the middle of trying to matter. No one asked what my news was. No one even seemed to notice that I'd tried to speak.
Because to them, I realized with devastating clarity, I was just a placeholder. A stand-in for my brother when he wasn't around to hold their attention. My achievements, my dreams, my desperate attempts to be seen—none of it registered because I'd already been assigned my role in this family, and it wasn't the starring part.
I sat there for another ten minutes, smile plastered on my face, making appropriate responses to conversations I wasn't really part of. Then I excused myself quietly, gathered my things, and left. No one tried to stop me.
I didn't call Kai that night. I couldn't bear to hear my own voice try to explain what had happened, couldn't stand the thought of putting words to that particular brand of invisibility. Instead, I just showed up at his door with tears streaming down my face, my news still unspoken, my heart cracked open like an egg.
He took one look at me and opened his arms.
I ran into them like a child running home, and he held me while I cried—great, heaving sobs that came from someplace deeper than disappointment, somewhere that housed every accumulated moment of being overlooked, dismissed, forgotten.
He didn't ask what happened. He didn't demand explanations or try to fix it with words. He just held me, one hand stroking my hair, the other pressed against my back like he was trying to hold all my broken pieces together.
Later, when the tears finally stopped, when I was curled against his chest on his couch with his fingers still gentle in my hair, he spoke into the quiet.
"Do you want to tell me?" he asked softly.
So I did. I told him about the dinner, about the news I'd never gotten to share—though not the most important part of it, not yet. I told him about the hand that had silenced me and the phone call that had mattered more than I did. I shared how my father had asked my brother if he wanted to intern at our company during the summer, how he could gain experience, but never once asked me if I wanted to do the same. Even though our career paths were in two different directions, it would have been nice to learn from the people that keep our company afloat. I told him about feeling like a ghost in my own family, about the exhaustion of always trying to earn something that should have been freely given.
And when I was done, when I'd poured all of it out like poison from a wound, he tilted my chin up so I had to look at him.
"You matter to me," he said, and his eyes were fierce with certainty. "Everything about you matters to me. Your dreams, your achievements, your fears, your hopes—all of it. You don't have to earn my attention or compete for my love. You have it, completely, just because you're you."
That night, wrapped in his arms with his heartbeat steady beneath my ear, I understood what it meant to be chosen. Not for what I could do or achieve or become, but for who I already was. Kai didn't just see me—he treasured what he saw.
For the first time in my life, I felt like I was someone's first choice. Someone's only choice.
And I knew, with the kind of certainty that changes everything, that I would fight to keep this feeling. I would fight to keep him.
[To be continued...]
Win read through the chapter twice before hitting publish, his heart racing as the story went live. Within minutes, the comments began flooding in:
This broke my heart. The way you write about being invisible in your own family is so real.
I'm crying. Alex deserves so much better than how his family treats him.
I'm crying. The part about not having to fight to be seen... I felt that in my soul.
Please tell me Alex gets his happy ending. Please.
InvisibleHeart, your writing is saving my life right now. Thank you for this.
Win closed the laptop, overwhelmed by the response. Somewhere in the city, hundreds of people were reading his words, finding pieces of themselves in Alex's struggle, feeling less alone in their own battles with fear and love and the terrifying prospect of being truly seen.
His phone buzzed with a text from Tawan: Good morning! Want to grab coffee before classes? I found a new place that supposedly has amazing iced lattes.
Win stared at the message, knowing he couldn't put off the conversation any longer. Tawan deserved honesty, deserved to know that Win's heart belonged to someone else, deserved better than being someone's safe choice.
Actually, can we talk? Somewhere private? It's important.
The response came quickly: Of course. Everything okay? There's a quiet garden behind the library. Meet you there in an hour?
Perfect. Thank you for understanding.
Win set his phone aside and headed for the shower, nerves and determination warring in his chest. Today, he would stop hiding. Today, he would start being brave.
An hour later, Win found Tawan sitting on a bench in the small garden tucked behind the library building, morning sunlight filtering through the trees to create patterns of light and shadow on the ground. Tawan looked up when Win approached, his smile warm but tinged with concern.
"You look serious," Tawan said gently, patting the bench beside him. "What's going on?"
Win remained standing for a moment, hands fidgeting with the red string bracelet on his wrist. The silver lantern charm caught the light, and Win felt the weight of what it represented—Tawan's kindness, his hope, his belief that Win might choose him.
"I need to give this back to you," Win said quietly, extending his wrist.
Tawan's smile faded, understanding dawning in his eyes. "Ah. I see."
"It's not because you're not amazing," Win said quickly, sitting down beside him. "You are. You're kind and patient and you make me feel safe in ways I didn't know I needed. Any rational person would choose you."
"But you're not choosing me," Tawan said, and there was sadness in his voice but no anger.
"I can't." Win's voice broke slightly. "I'm in love with someone else. I have been all along, and I tried to convince myself I could move on, but I can't give you half a heart when someone else owns all of it."
Tawan was quiet for a long moment, then reached over to help untie the bracelet from Win's wrist. The knot had tightened, and he had to work carefully to loosen it, both of them focused on the delicate task.
"The guy from the bookstore," Tawan said as he worked. "The one who looked like he wanted to claim you right there in front of everyone."
Win nodded, not trusting his voice.
"He's lucky," Tawan said simply. "And I hope he knows it."
The bracelet finally came free, and Tawan held it in his palm for a moment before closing his fingers around it. "For what it's worth, I think you're making the right choice. Not the safe choice, but the right one."
"I'm sorry," Win whispered.
"Don't be. You can't help who you love." Tawan's smile was sad but genuine. "I'd rather have your honesty than your guilt."
They sat in comfortable silence for a moment, the morning air filled with the sound of birds and distant campus activity. Win felt the absence of the bracelet like a physical weight lifted from his wrist, a symbol of the choice he'd finally made.
"We can still be friends?" Win asked hopefully.
"Give me a little time," Tawan said gently. "But yes. Eventually. You're a good person, Win. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."
As they said their goodbyes, Win felt a mixture of relief and sadness. Hurting Tawan, even necessarily, felt like losing something precious. But for the first time in weeks, Win felt like he was moving toward something instead of running away from it.
He didn't notice the figure standing in the shadows of the library building, watching as Tawan's hands worked to remove the bracelet from his wrist, witnessing what looked like an intimate moment between two people sharing something precious and private.
Ratch had come looking for Win after reading Chapter 4, hope blooming in his chest at Alex's declaration that he would fight for love, that he would choose courage over fear. But what he saw in the garden shattered that hope into jagged pieces.
Win with Tawan, their heads bent together, Tawan's hands gentle on Win's wrist as he fastened what looked like a bracelet—a symbol of commitment, of choice, of Win deciding to move forward with someone safe instead of risking everything for what they'd had.
Ratch turned and walked away before either of them could see him, his jaw clenched and his heart breaking all over again. He'd been a fool to think that Win's story meant anything, that the words pouring from InvisibleHeart's heart had anything to do with choosing him.
Win had made his choice, and it wasn't Ratch.
Fine. If Win wanted to play games, if he wanted to choose safety over passion, comfort over the kind of love that changed everything, then Ratch would show him exactly what he was missing.
It was time to remind Win that some things were worth fighting for, even if it meant fighting dirty.
Ratch pulled out his phone and scrolled through his contacts until he found the name he was looking for. Natee picked up on the second ring.
"Ratch? What's up?"
"I need a favor," Ratch said, his voice cold and determined. "And I need you to trust me on this one."
"What kind of favor?"
"The kind that makes someone realize what they're about to lose."
There was a pause on the other end of the line, then Natee's voice, curious and slightly amused: "This is about that freshman, isn't it? The one you've been watching?"
"Can you help me or not?"
"Oh, I can definitely help you. When do we start?"
As Ratch outlined his plan, a part of him hated what he was about to do. But the larger part, the part that was wounded and desperate and tired of being overlooked, pushed forward with grim determination.
Win wanted to see what choosing someone else looked like? Ratch would give him a front-row seat.
The game was about to begin.