Sleep didn't come easily that night.
Not for Ayan.
Not for Kairo.
The city outside pulsed with light, but their rooms stayed heavy with shadow.
Ayan lay flat on his bed, eyes wide open, the words from the cafeteria still echoing. "Careful… one day I won't stop at rumors." The sentence looped in his mind until it twisted into something else—something darker.
When he finally drifted, it wasn't rest. It was a snare.
He was in the student council room again. The lights dimmed, the air thick. Kairo leaned against the table, arms crossed, gaze unreadable.
But this time, there was no audience. No whispers.
Just heat.
"You talk big," Kairo's voice said, low, intimate. "But what will you do when it's just us?"
Ayan's throat tightened. He hated it—how his body responded before his mind. "The same thing I always do."
"Oh?" Kairo stepped closer, the sound of his shoes against the floor impossibly loud. "Run?"
The distance collapsed. Fingers ghosted against his jaw.
Ayan froze—half fury, half something far more dangerous.
"I don't run," he whispered.
The touch burned. And then—
He woke up.
His chest heaved, sweat dampening his shirt. The room was empty. Safe. But the phantom weight of Kairo's hand lingered like smoke.
Across the city, Kairo jolted awake at the same moment, his own dream just as sharp, just as damning:
Ayan, standing defiant. Ayan, close enough to touch. Ayan, daring him to lose control.
Kairo dragged a hand over his face, cursing under his breath. "Not in this lifetime, Omega."
And yet—
Both of them lay there, restless, haunted by visions that weren't real.
But felt far too close to becoming so.
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