Narrator's P.O.V.
Weeks had passed. Weeks in which everything felt like more of the same. That specific Saturday morning began with a bitter taste in Kael's mouth. He didn't want to get out of bed; he felt so exhausted that he wouldn't mind missing work. Before the sun could even invade the room through the cracks in the curtain, his phone vibrated on the nightstand with an annoying persistence, waking him up for good.
Kael fumbled for the device in the dim light, not even bothering to sit up. He pulled the phone close, opening his eyes with difficulty. His friends' WhatsApp group chat was in a frenzy. He scrolled through a few messages until one specific text made him bolt upright in bed in an instant.
Íkaro: Definitely, goodbye.
And then:
Íkaro left the group.
"What the..." he was so confused he couldn't seem to process it.
With his heart racing from surprise, Kael noticed several private messages from Íkaro. He didn't know what to expect. He didn't understand what was happening. The man opened the chat, freezing at the sight of wall after wall of text.
A massive sequence of messages had been sent in the early morning hours. Kael read the lines, feeling the blood run cold in his veins: Íkaro was calling him fake, manipulative, spewing a series of insults and asserting that Kael was a horrible person for hiding things from him. The text ended by declaring the end of any contact, stating that Íkaro felt immense relief knowing he would never have to cross paths with Kael again.
"What...?" Kael murmured to the empty room, his voice failing in an incredulous whisper.
Confusion hit him like a punch to the gut. He didn't understand a single thing. In fact, days earlier they had held a long conversation about what they intended with each other, laid out their feelings and thoughts, and everything had been settled, in peace. Where had all that anger come from? Why the sudden outburst?
Desperate for an answer, Kael quickly typed out a text, demanding an explanation, wanting to understand what was going on. He typed and typed, defending himself against every one of the younger guy's accusations. He hit send, but the message was never delivered. He noticed that Íkaro no longer had a profile picture, let alone the status message on his contact info.
He had been blocked.
Kael stared at the frozen display, his chest rising and falling in short gasps. The messages vanished from his sight, replaced by the cold reality of a permanent block. He tried calling, tried reaching out through other means, but the wall was already built. Íkaro had severed every bridge, vanishing from his life without giving him the right to defend himself or a single word of explanation.
(...)
As much as his mind was in chaos and the situation with Íkaro kept throbbing throughout the day, it was Saturday and Kael had already made plans to meet up with his friends. On that day, however, the gathering lacked the scale of their past get-togethers. The group had assembled in smaller numbers, as some had other plans or were simply too tired to go out. Only a few were present at Kael's apartment: Pedro, Pabllyo, Bia, Samuel, and Henrique—Samuel's friend and an addition to the group—were the only ones there.
Despite being smaller, the group's energy quickly found an outlet for fun. Amidst bottles of alcohol circulating from hand to hand, inside jokes, and gossip tossed into the air, the atmosphere warmed up fast. The mood took on a comfortable intimacy, the kind where everyone lets loose without filters. Laughter began echoing louder and louder, filling the living room and shaking the apartment ceiling. That was when Pabllyo, laughing hard at a joke Pedro had just dropped, pointed to the wall with a sudden spark of recollection.
"Guys, for God's sake, keep it down! It's past ten," Pabllyo warned, adjusting his cup on the table.
"I swear. If we keep laughing like this, the building manager is gonna come up here nagging. You know this building is full of old people, they can't stand late noise," Pedro continued.
Kael sighed, looking at the clock on the wall. He knew the warning was real; living in an apartment brought that invisible leash of curfews and quiet hours, especially in a complex filled with elderly residents. But the night was just getting started.
"True... in here we're gonna end up getting evicted," Kael agreed, snapping his fingers as an idea hit him. "I think we should head down to that little plaza I told you guys about on the street right behind here. It's really cozy, and it even has some playground stuff and those outdoor workout machines for seniors."
"We can bring the speaker too," Bia said.
The proposal was accepted immediately, in an enthusiastic chorus of approval. Within minutes, the group gathered what was left, grabbed the remaining drinks, the speaker, a few games, and headed down, trying their best to keep quiet—which proved to be an almost impossible task.
(...)
The neighborhood plaza, bathed in the yellow glow of streetlights and surrounded by leafy trees, was practically deserted. The cool breeze of the Saturday night brought a welcome relief, but what truly overtook the group was a nearly childlike wave of nostalgia and euphoria.
Far from the demands and weight of adult routine, Pedro, Pabllyo, Bia, and Henrique seemed to regress a good few years the moment they spotted the small children's play area in the corner of the plaza. Everyone grew ecstatic at the sight of swings, seesaws, slides... none of them could resist.
"I dare you guys to handle three spins on this thing without throwing up!" Pabllyo challenged, already grabbing onto one of the exercise machines that spun continuously.
"I can do it!" Kael held onto another.
"I want in too!" Samuel went for the third and final machine, spinning on his feet without stopping.
Their friends laughed at how the three spun around like crazy, taking videos and cheering them on to keep going. Kael was the first to give up, feeling like he was going to throw up at any second, yet unable to stop laughing.
"Dammit," he complained, walking over to the bench where the rest of the crew was sitting, his head spinning nonstop.
Samuel and Pabllyo kept spinning. Kael laughed at how unstoppable they seemed, unconsciously letting his attention settle more heavily on Samuel. It had been a long time since they last saw each other, so it was almost inevitable. He had been genuinely happy when the younger boy accepted his invitation without hesitation.
In seconds, the mood enveloped everyone. Henrique, who was already showing clear signs of being heavily intoxicated, set his cup aside and stumbled toward the seesaw, dragging Pedro along for a wild ride. Bia claimed the second swing, pumping her legs forcefully while laughing out loud, making the metal chain creak in the air.
Kael remained seated on one of the stone benches in the plaza, taking in the scene. A genuine, albeit faint, smile broke across his lips as he watched his friends having fun in such a free and unpretentious way. It was an hour of respite amidst the mental chaos he had been carrying since earlier.
But Saturday night euphoria carried a physical cost.
After spinning until they lost their balance and swinging until they grew dizzy, fatigue claimed its toll all at once. Pabllyo collapsed off the swing straight onto the turf, breathing deeply with a hand on his chest, laughing at himself.
"Look... if it were up to me I'd sleep right on top of this slide, but my legs have officially given up on working," Pabllyo announced, throwing his head back, his eyes already heavy with sleep.
Henrique stumbled back to the group, leaning his body weight on Pedro's shoulder and laughing for no apparent reason.
"Guys, I swear! I think I'm gonna go upstairs just for a bit..." Henrique slurred, dragging his words.
"I'm a little hungry," Samuel complained.
"We can make something to eat. What do you think?" Kael promptly stepped closer to him.
"Sounds great."
"Oh, I don't wanna go up right now," Pedro said, filling his cup with some of the cheap wine they had bought.
"I'm good out here too, guys. Don't feel like going up yet," Bia emphasized.
And so, as Pedro and Bia decided to stretch the night out a little longer on the plaza bench, only Kael, Samuel, Pabllyo, and Henrique headed back toward the apartment. As soon as they crossed the door and the silence of the building enveloped them, Pabllyo and Henrique practically dragged themselves to Kael's room, passing out on the mattress within minutes.
In the kitchen, only Kael and Samuel remained. Late-night hunger had set in, so they decided to prepare a quick bite before calling it a night. As soon as they moved toward the stove, an invisible autopilot was triggered. It was shocking and, at the same time, painfully natural. Without needing to exchange a single word of instruction, the old synergy between them reestablished itself with the precision of ancient gears clicking back into place. Kael opened the fridge, grabbed the ingredients, and set them on the counter; Samuel, in the exact same second, reached out, grabbed the knife, and began chopping the vegetables with the familiarity of someone who had shared that space countless times.
While the rhythmic sound of the blade hitting the cutting board filled the room, Kael felt his chest tighten. He leaned his hip against the sink, crossing his arms lightly, his eyes fixed on Samuel's precise movements.
"So... how have things been?" Kael asked, his voice low, almost buried under the noise of the knife. "For real. How are you?"
Samuel paused his chopping for an instant. He raised his face, staring into the blankness of the wall ahead before turning his dark eyes to Kael. There was a unsettling serenity in his expression. He always seemed far too calm.
"I'm good, Kael. Seriously," Samuel replied, with a genuine half-smile that tightened the older man's stomach even further. "Managed to catch up on schoolwork, doing really well on exams... And with the relationship too. I'm really happy. Truly."
The words came without malice, stripped of any poison, but to Kael it felt like acid poured onto an open wound. He swallowed hard, feeling the air thin out.
"Do you... really like him?" Kael asked, his voice threatening to waver. He was trying to maintain control, but perhaps the alcohol and the proximity were making him lose the strength to hold up.
Samuel didn't avert his gaze. On the contrary, he stood firm, maintaining his frankness.
"I do. I can't say I love him deeply, but I like him a lot. He's really good to me, we get along great. It's really nice, you know?" he sighed softly, returning his focus to the onion. "It's very different from how it was with us... But I know you two are different people. And I really hope you're happy with Íkaro the same way. After all, you chose to be with him, right? Seems like you like him."
Kael felt his blood run cold. Íkaro's name sounded like a cruel echo in that room. He clenched his jaw until his muscles locked, keeping the ugly secret that this "Íkaro" had just brutally wiped him out of his life hours earlier, blocking him without Kael even knowing why.
But Samuel continued, oblivious to the hurricane destroying Kael from the inside:
"You know... I ran into Íkaro by chance on the street yesterday. Over in Madureira, he was with a friend and I was with Henrique. We talked briefly, and I mentioned tonight, asking if they were coming too... But he gave me this blank look and said he didn't know anything about it, that he hadn't been invited."
Kael's brain fired a violent spark.
That was why.
The outburst, the insults, the abrupt block...
Everything started making sense.
So Íkaro's entire extreme reaction had been because of Samuel. Once again. Kael let out a short, dry laugh, heavy with a bitterness he could barely hide. He was incredulous at how the circumstances of his life sometimes felt plucked straight out of a dramatic movie.
"He blocked me because of that..." Kael murmured, shaking his head in denial, feeling anger rise in his throat. "Íkaro sent me a ton of messages cussing me out early this morning and vanished for good. It's over."
Samuel stopped the knife on the board. He looked at Kael for a few seconds, absorbing the news with an expression that didn't give much away. There was no triumph in his eyes, just a sort of quiet stillness in the face of something that seemed to have just been confirmed. Without saying another word, he went back to chopping vegetables, letting a heavy silence swallow the kitchen.
The silence in the kitchen was only broken by the muffled sound of the blade against the cutting board. It was in that instant, with Samuel's back turned to him, that Kael noticed a small piece of lint stuck to the younger boy's shoulder. Driven by an automatic impulse, a visceral need to take care of him, Kael took a step forward and reached out. Feeling the light brush of the older man's fingers on his shoulder, Samuel froze immediately. The boy's body tensed subtly, locking in place.
Kael, with his heart beating in desperation against his ribs, let his fingers glide lightly down from the shoulder to the boy's bicep, brushing off the small piece of lint. Then he looked at the back of Samuel's neck, feeling a painful knot close off his throat.
"Can I... hug you?" he asked, his voice coming out weak, like a thread, almost pleading.
Samuel hesitated for a second that felt eternal. He seemed to weigh the abyss between them, calculating how far he could cross. He sighed, before nodding lightly, allowing it.
"You can..." he practically whispered.
Kael didn't wait a moment longer. He wrapped his arms around Samuel's waist from behind, pressing his chest against the younger boy's body with desperate urgency. He buried his face in the crook of Samuel's neck, breathing in deeply, filling his lungs with that familiar scent of soap and skin he had memorized over the months.
The second the hug closed, Kael's world felt like it collapsed inside.
An overwhelming wave of longing hit him so hard it nearly knocked the wind out of him. It was a physical, sharp pain, as if something inside him were being torn out. Being right there, feeling the firmness of that body, the texture of his shirt, and the heat emanating from him gave Kael the exact and brutal awareness of how much Samuel still meant to his life.
He realized, with a desperation bordering on delirium, how much he loved every single detail of that boy and how badly he wanted it back. The routine, the fatigue, the pride... everything felt insignificant next to that void in his chest. He wanted to freeze time right there. He wanted to remain in that embrace. He wanted to turn back time and do everything differently.
But reality, cruel and undeniable, collided with his thoughts when Samuel, breaking the silence, spoke again.
With the natural ease of someone who had never stepped away, Samuel picked up where they left off. He kept chopping the vegetables and started chattering nonstop, sharing a mundane story from school, gesturing lightly with his free hand, laughing at some personal memory, and dropping those relaxed comments that used to fill their afternoons. While Samuel talked, Kael squeezed his eyes shut, crushed by a wave of nostalgia.
It was exactly that.
The familiarity of that voice. The unbothered way of talking about small things. The way the world outside seemed to disappear whenever Samuel started talking up a storm in the kitchen. Kael felt a searing pain as he recognized that lost intimacy. It was the essence of what they had. The purest comfort he had ever experienced in life, now slipping through his fingers while he was still holding him.
His mind began to fog over, a whirlwind of thoughts colliding and imploding in his head, suffocating him amidst so many memories and the despair of knowing that none of it belonged to him anymore.
But the melancholic haze enveloping Kael was suddenly ripped apart by muffled shouts coming from the hallway.
"Kael! Hey, Kael!" Henrique's slurred, sharp voice echoed from the bedroom, calling out repeatedly. "Kael, where are you? I need help!"
Kael startled in the embrace, blinking to clear the fog of thoughts suffocating him. He tried to gently pull back to see what the boy wanted, but Samuel locked his body in place immediately. Rigidity took over the younger boy's shoulders as he abruptly stopped the knife on the board and gripped Kael's arm, which was still wrapped around his waist.
"You're not going. You're talking to me right now, so pay attention to me!" Samuel practically ordered.
Before Kael could take more than a step back, Henrique appeared stumbling into the kitchen entrance. His face was crumpled, his shirt crooked, and his eyes completely lost to alcohol. Leaning heavily against the doorframe, Henrique pointed a finger at Kael, grumbling:
"Kael, help me... I need you," he murmured.
Kael opened his mouth to reply, but Samuel was faster. The boy spun around with a sudden surge of irritation, his brow furrowed and his dark eyes locked onto Henrique.
"He's not going anywhere, Henrique," Samuel shot back, his voice sharp and firm, echoing through the kitchen. "He's talking to me right now. He'll give you attention later."
Henrique blinked, confused by the lash-out, raising his hands in defensive surrender.
"Calm down, damn..." Henrique grumbled, shaking his head, still dizzy. "Just open the door for me so I can head back down to the plaza. I can't stay in here anymore."
The transparent possessiveness in Samuel's voice hit Kael in a strange way, mixing the pain of longing with a sudden, familiar warmth in his chest. It was a remnant of the old Samuel, the jealous and territorial boy he knew so well, slipping through a crack Kael had assumed was locked forever.
Kael looked at Henrique, then turned his eyes back to Samuel. With a gentle gesture, he touched the younger boy's arm in a brief, soothing caress.
"Easy... I'll be right back for you, okay?" Kael murmured, a playful, affectionate smile dancing on the corner of his lips. "Just let me open the door for him to leave."
Samuel clenched his jaw reluctantly. He swallowed hard, hating having to share Kael's attention with anything else, but ended up nodding sharply, giving him space.
Kael chuckled softly, a genuine sound that hadn't escaped his chest in a long time. Seeing that remnant of jealousy, that childlike and possessive demand for his attention, lit a bizarre spark of hope amidst the wreckage. He walked to the front door, opened it to let Henrique out into the silence of the night, and immediately locked it back.
Then he returned to the kitchen, where Samuel was still waiting for him.