The afternoon wind moved in slow, warm breaths across the yard, carrying heat that shimmered faintly above the sun-baked pavement.
Lysa and Mira had already slipped inside, their day's work finished, seeking the brief reprieve of an afternoon nap. Only Kael and Bart remained at the open window, seated in the same patch of soft, stirring air that brushed against their shoulders and stirred the fine hair at their temples.
Time slipped past—seconds, perhaps minutes—unmarked except by the lengthening silence between them. Bart's gaze stayed fixed somewhere beyond the sill, the words he carried coiled tight behind his teeth.
For Kael the quiet felt merely patient; for Bart it stretched toward something close to unbearable.
At last Bart drew a shallow breath and turned his head.
"Kael." The name came out quieter than he intended. "In all my years I never imagined I would ask a thing like this of anyone—least of all a young man like you. But it has come to this, and so I must."
Kael turned as well, meeting his master's eyes without haste or interruption, simply waiting.
Bart's throat worked once before the rest followed.
"Would you… take care of your madam in the nights of her need?"
The older man winced as the words left him—small, involuntary, the flinch of someone who has just struck himself. Kael noticed it; the tiny betrayal of composure registered somewhere behind his steady gaze and left a faint crease of confusion between his brows.
"…Master," he said, voice pitched low, careful. "I don't think we should do that."
He turned his face away again, looking out across the sunlit yard where dust motes drifted in the golden light.
Bart exhaled, the sound heavy with something between weariness and resignation.
"Why?" A beat. "Do you not like her?"
Kael shook his head once, almost too quickly.
"No." The word came soft but certain. "I would be mad not to like her. She is…" He paused, searching for the shape of truth. "She is very beautiful. That body. The motherly warmth that settles over me whenever she speaks to me. The way she walks, the way her smile arrives before she even means it to—everything about her is beautiful."
Bart's brows lifted slightly. He had not expected such unguarded candor from the boy who was always so measured, so respectful. The directness startled him, yet it did not displease him.
"But?" he prompted, voice quieter now.
Kael's gaze remained on the yard, on the slow sway of a single leaf caught in the breeze.
He then slowly turned back from the sunlit yard, meeting Bart's eyes again. A small, almost reluctant smile curved his mouth.
"But…" he said quietly, the word gentle, "she is, in the end, your wife. And as much as I would like to be with her, I don't want to come between you two."
Inside, though, another voice answered—low, private, scarred: I don't want to face the same end again.
The memory was never far: the bullet that had found him because he had pleased another man's wife too well, because envy and possession had demanded blood.
He had been a slave then, property of an organization that owned his days and nights alike, and over time that ownership had begun to feel like the only shape life could take. He no longer knew what "normal" was supposed to feel like.
The scars—some visible, most not—still pulled tight whenever desire edged too close to danger.
Bart knew none of this.
He could not see the ghosts that walked behind Kael's steady gaze, could not sense the young man carried a history that did not entirely belong to this world.
All Bart heard was the respectful refusal, the careful loyalty. Relief loosened the tension in his shoulders; a faint, grateful warmth reached his eyes. He smiled—small, tired, but real.
"You're right," he said. "She is my wife, in the end. And I love her…" A breath moved through him, heavy. "Really dearly, I love her."
He let the words settle, then sighed again, deeper this time.
"And because I love her, I can't bear to watch her suffer like this." His voice dropped, confiding. "Kael, as a husband I have duties, obligations toward my wife. But if I can no longer fulfill them—if I can't give her what she needs—what kind of husband does that make me? A bad one? Or still a good one?"
Kael turned fully toward him now. His expression grew thoughtful, brow faintly creased, eyes searching Bart's face as though the answer might be written there. He had never been a husband. The question landed in a place inside him that held no reference, no memory to measure against.
After a moment he answered, voice low and honest.
"I don't know."
Kael let the words hang for a small, thoughtful pause, his gaze drifting briefly to the sun-warmed sill before returning to Bart's face.
"Maybe…" His voice stayed low, measured, feeling its way toward an answer he had never needed to form before. "To give her love. To give her security. To help her through life. To stay with her—forever."
He exhaled softly, the sound almost lost in the warm stir of air between them.
"…Isn't that what a good husband does?"
Bart nodded slowly, the motion carrying the weight of long-considered thoughts.
"Those are some of the main obligations, yes," he said. "But… she is, in the end, a human being. And so am I."
A sigh moved through him, soft and worn.
"A human who has lost the ability to satisfy another human's needs."
He turned his head toward Kael, offering a small, wry smile that did not quite reach his eyes—half self-mockery, half quiet surrender.
"I hope you will listen to my request, my dear apprentice." His voice dropped lower, almost confiding. "I am… really tired of carrying these thoughts. And I have seen how my wife has taken a liking to you." A brief pause, then softer still: "Even Mira likes you."
The last words drifted out so gently that Kael missed them, a murmur half-lost in the warm afternoon air. Yet the meaning settled clearly enough. He understood what his master was truly asking—what he was truly offering.
Kael exhaled, long and quiet.
"Haah…" The sound escaped like something released after being held too tightly. "I understand, Master. I will do it…"
Inside, though, another voice answered—resigned, faintly bitter: Thought I could run away from my old profession, but guess it really isn't possible. With the kind of system I've been given, one way or another I would have been backed into this corner anyway.
As much as he longed to leave that old life behind, to bury it beneath the unfamiliar peace he had begun to taste here, he could not turn away when someone he had come to care for asked this of him.
They had known each other only days—mere days—yet in that short span Kael had felt more stillness, more safety, than the whole of his two lives combined had ever granted him. The quiet of it ached now, sweet and impossible to refuse.
Bart let out a long, quiet sigh that seemed to carry the last of his resistance. He reached out and rested a hand on Kael's shoulder—firm, brief, the touch of a man steadying himself as much as offering thanks.
"Thank you," he said, voice low and rough with feeling. "I am really grateful."
Kael met the words with only a small nod, saying nothing more. He had seen this before: husbands caught in the same slow, inevitable spiral—men who would rather keep every door locked tight, yet whose circumstances forced them open anyway.
He recognized the particular weariness in Bart's eyes, the way gratitude and shame braided together behind them. He understood the kind of turmoil that could bend even the proudest man.
Inside, Kael exhaled without sound.
Haah… guess I will just do it.
Though I just hope that Master won't treat me differently than how we are now.
The thought settled like cool stone in his chest.
But deep down he already knew the answer: their relationship would change. It had to. The only uncertainty left was the direction of that change—whether the shift would be gentle or jagged, whether trust would stretch or fray. All he could do was hope the damage, when it came, would not cut too deep.
The afternoon light slanted lower across the yard, warming the sill between them, while the soft wind continued its unhurried passage, indifferent to the small, irrevocable turn their lives had just taken.
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