The school auditorium—normally plain and quiet—had been transformed into a makeshift theater. Rows of chairs filled the floor, borrowed lamps lit the stage in a soft glow, and curtains swayed faintly from the draft of the fans above. The air buzzed with anticipation. Students, teachers, and even parents crowded in, their chatter rising and falling like the restless tide.
Backstage, Eli gripped his script so tightly the paper crinkled. His palms were damp, and the words on the page blurred no matter how hard he tried to focus. Each laugh, each murmur from the audience made his chest tighten. His heart pounded so loudly it was all he could hear.
"You'll be fine," came a voice, steady and sure, from just beside him.
Eli turned. Kai stood there, calm as ever, adjusting his costume with unhurried hands. His presence had a grounding effect, like standing near a still pond in the middle of a storm.
"Easy for you to say," Eli muttered, his voice cracking. "You're not the one who's about to—"
"You'll be fine," Kai repeated, softer this time, almost like a promise whispered only for him.
Eli froze, the words sinking deeper than he expected. Something about Kai's tone, the quiet conviction in it, made the noise of the auditorium fade for a second. His chest ached with a feeling he didn't have time to name.
Before he could reply, their cue was called.
The curtains groaned as they pulled back, and the stage lights flared. Eli blinked against the brightness. For a dizzying moment, the packed auditorium was nothing but a blur of shadows beyond the glare. Then his body moved on instinct, carrying him forward.
The play had a simple plot—a story of two strangers meeting by chance, parting with regret, and somehow finding their way back to each other. Nothing complicated. Nothing groundbreaking. Just a school performance.
And yet, the moment Eli stepped onto the stage beside Kai, something shifted.
At first, his lines tumbled awkwardly from his mouth, shaky with nerves. He could hear his classmates giggling faintly from the wings, and his stomach lurched. But then his eyes met Kai's.
The world blurred.
It wasn't just Kai standing across from him. For a fleeting heartbeat, Eli saw him differently—draped in old robes, framed by a lantern-lit sky. It was the same man who had haunted his dreams for weeks, the one who felt achingly familiar despite being a stranger. The stage fell away. The lamps, the curtains, even the audience—gone. All that existed was the figure before him, steady and radiant, like a memory reaching out through time.
His chest tightened painfully. The lines he spoke were supposed to be scripted, rehearsed. But when his lips moved, the words came out softer, heavier, carrying more weight than he meant to give them.
And when Kai answered—his voice low, warm, unwavering—Eli's whole body trembled. It didn't feel like acting at all.
Backstage, their classmates squealed in hushed excitement at how convincing they were. In the audience, whispers rippled through the rows at the sudden intensity. People leaned forward, captivated.
But Eli barely noticed any of it.
His pulse raced, his breath caught, and in that fragile moment beneath the lights, it felt as if something inside him had cracked open. The script no longer mattered. The stage no longer mattered.
Because when he looked at Kai, all Eli could feel—terrifying and undeniable—was that this connection between them was real.
And for the first time, he couldn't tell where the performance ended and the truth began.
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