Present
(Kael's POV)
The scream tore through the room like a jagged knife.
"Rungsak!"
I woke drenched in sweat, my heart hammering like it would burst. My chest ached, my lungs burned, and I could feel the phantom weight of centuries pressing down on me. Before I could gather my scattered senses, the door burst open.
Granny was there, running—her face etched with worry, arms outstretched. She didn't ask anything, she didn't hesitate. She wrapped me tightly against her chest, and the world fell into the soft rhythm of her heartbeat.
"Don't cry, my child... it's gonna be alright... it's gonna be alright..."
Her words were a lifeline, and I clung to her like I had been drowning for lifetimes. My sobs shook me from the inside out.
"Granny... I need to see him," I whispered, barely audible.
She didn't hesitate; her eyes glistened with tears, but her smile was tender—almost reverent.
"Then go," she said softly. "Go find him, Kael."
I didn't wait. I didn't think.
I ran barefoot through the damp morning, heart hammering so loudly I thought it would betray me to the world. The village lay in soft mist, silent, half-asleep, as if it too were holding its breath.
The temple loomed ahead—empty and still—a sanctuary waiting.
I ran past it, searching, panic sharpening every sense. Nothing. My legs trembled and I slowed, chest heaving.
And then—there, behind the temple, beneath the old bodhi tree, the same tree where once the chaos started—he stood.
Anurak.
My Anurak.
My heart seized. My breath caught. He was real. He was here.
And yet... he seemed suspended in that quiet morning, a figure carved from love and longing. His eyes were closed, shoulders tense—waiting, as if he had always known I would come.
I froze, trembling. Tears blurred my vision, but I could still see him clearly.
And then—the world narrowed to the space between us.
His eyes opened.
He looked at me... then—
Recognition. Shock. Centuries of longing spilling into that single gaze.
He didn't speak. He didn't need to. He just stood there—letting me exist, letting me approach, letting the air tremble with the weight of everything unspoken.
Then his arms opened. Wide. Vulnerable. Trembling.
"Come here," he whispered.
The words were a command, a plea, a surrender.
I didn't hesitate. I ran—crashing into him, letting the last of my fear, my pain, my longing pour into his embrace.
His arms tightened around me, holding me as if he would never let go—as if the world might shatter if he did.
We clung together. Sobbing, shaking, letting the centuries of separation bleed out into the morning light.
His lips brushed my hair. His voice, breaking through his own restraint, trembled—
"You found me... before I could even search for you... my falcon."
I lifted my head and our foreheads touched, tears streaming freely.
Every ache, every heartbeat, every fragment of a past life hung between us.
"Don't leave me alone, Phi," I whispered, my voice cracking.
His hands cupped my face, thumbs brushing over my cheeks as if memorizing the contours of my soul.
"Never, Kael... never in this lifetime... never in any lifetime," he said—
and I could feel the trembling weight of truth in his words.
We stood there, foreheads pressed together, breathing each other in—
letting the silence scream the things the words could not.
Then our eyes met—the longing, the pain, the fire of centuries igniting in a single, searing gaze.
And then—we kissed.
Not gentle. Not polite. Not hesitant.
Wild. Aching. Trembling.
A kiss that tasted like reunion, like grief, like every stolen second of every lost lifetime.
A kiss that spoke of promise, of devotion, of souls intertwined and finally unbroken.
The world around us blurred. The mist curled around the bodhi tree.
When we finally pulled back, even slightly, the space between us was charged with quiet, feral joy.
The centuries of waiting, the heartbreak, the separation—
it all existed only to make this moment sacred, more wild, more ours.
The world could have ended in that moment and I would not have cared.
My arms wrapped around him, and I felt the tremor of his breath, the slight shiver in his frame, the undeniable truth of his warmth pressed against mine.
His voice came first—low and uneven, carrying the weight of lifetimes.
"Chaiyan."
It was like he was feeling that name.
And the sound of that name from another life pierced deeper than any dream.
I froze, my tears wetting the fabric of his shirt, my heart crashing against my ribs.
He had known it always—all this time.
"Don't... don't call me that unless you mean it," I whispered, voice breaking.
My arms tightened around him, desperate, terrified that if I let go, he would vanish like smoke.
His hand lingered at the back of my neck—steady, careful.
"How could I not mean it?" he murmured, as if speaking to himself.
"I carried it in silence... all these years... even when silence was the only thing that kept me alive."
I pulled back just enough to see his face—to search his eyes.
They trembled, flickering between restraint and the rawness of something I could not name.
"Then... why... why do you look away from me?" I asked, voice heavy with tears.
"Why keep your eyes closed when I've been waiting, longing, aching—"
His lips parted, breath shivering. For a moment, he seemed lost, as if some battle raged inside him.
"Because if you look too deeply, you will see what you are not ready to carry.
And I swore, Kael... I swore I would not let you bleed with me again."
The words hit me like a wound reopening.
My hand rose, trembling—to touch his face, to anchor him in the present.
"Then let me choose," I whispered.
"Even if it hurts. Even if it kills me. Don't keep me outside of your pain. Not again."
The silence stretched, thick with the ache of things unsaid.
Anurak closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against mine.
"You don't know what you're asking..."
"Then tell me," I breathed.
"Or at least just stay. Don't turn away like before. Not tonight. Not ever."
A shaky exhale left his chest, warm against my cheek.
"You make it hard for me, Kael," he whispered.
"You always did. Even when i tried to be stone, you were the river that wore me down."
I laughed softly through my tears.
"Then let me wear you down again. I don't care if I break in the process."
For a heartbeat, his eyes opened and he looked straight into me—dark, steady, but glimmering with something ancient, something aching, something that had waited centuries.
And then, just as quickly, he turned away, pressing his face into my shoulder as if to hide it.
"How... how do you know all this? You knew all this the whole time, right?
And still tried to stay away from my embrace?"
I breathed hard against his shoulder, the thoughts suffocating me, words damp with tears.
"Do you know how much I missed you, Phi? It's more than I can say.
Every night, every single day, I was waiting... waiting for you to just stand here with your arms open—to let me fall into you.
Why did you suffer all this alone... even before?"
I pulled back again to see his face.
"And now... why this silence? I was the reason, wasn't I? I was the reason for all that happened.
Then why do you carry the pain all by yourself? Why didn't you make me suffer too?
Why didn't you let me bleed with you? Why are you still burning alone?
Why do you carry the fire when I was the reason it was lit?
Tell me, Phi.. tell me..."
The words tore out of me like thunder—jagged with pain and frustration—as if every shared memory rehearsing was a knife carving guilt into my chest.
Anurak flinched, but he didn't retreat. His hands cradled my face, thumbs trembling against my damp skin.
His lips parted—and instead of confirming my worst fears, a fierce whisper escaped him.
"No."
His gaze burned, desperate, as if he could shatter the chain I was fastening around myself by sheer force of will.
"No, Kael... don't bind yourself to that thought. If I suffered, then you suffered too.
Don't you see? My pain was never mine alone—it bled into you, it curled itself into your soul."
But I shook my head violently, tears spilling unchecked.
"Don't lie to me! I see it in your eyes—in the way your shoulders still bear scars I cannot touch.
You bore it more. You bled more... while I—" my voice broke, ragged—
"while I could do nothing.
And now you still push me away from your suffering, as though I'm too fragile to carry it with you."
My chest heaved. I felt helpless—rage and love tangled into one.
"Anurak, hear me out—do you know how it feels to watch you still carry a weight I can't reach?
To know I crushed you once by loving you? No, Phi... don't be... I can't see this anymore... it's tearing me apart."
He closed his eyes tightly, pressed his lips against my forehead harder.
His breath shivered.
And then, with a trembling voice that felt like a bell shattering in the night—
"Kael... Kael... listen to me. Listen carefully.
If I burned, then I burned with your name on my lips.
But if you bled, it was because of me too.
Don't you understand? There was no me without you, and no pain without your shadow in it.
We carried it together—even when it looked like I was alone.
We have always been bound like that."
I closed my eyes.
His words didn't soothe me—but they didn't tear me either.
I had so many questions to ask him...
but for now... I needed this—
a moment, a silence.
No more words.
No more unwanted noise.
Just me and him.