Lives Between Walls

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KITCHEN – NIGHT

The kitchen felt smaller that night, shadows pooling in the corners, the ceiling lamp flickering like a restless heartbeat. The cracked tiles underfoot caught the neon from the street outside, fractured reds and blues reflected in jagged patterns that seemed to writhe across the floor. The oak table between us carried more than dishes—it carried destinies the gods themselves had whispered into being, before they breathed us into these fragile mortal bodies.

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across the table

“You can’t stay here, Ichika,” I said after a long silence.

You sat across from me, head bowed, nibbling at your dofu. The porcelain plates, painted with fading blue dragons, mirrored the flickering light and your delicate movements. Chopsticks tapped against them like secret morse code, you had stopped eating—the conversation had become the food itself, each word and pause nourishing the tension between us. The cupboards behind you were chipped, misaligned—shadows pooling in their corners, like the room itself was leaning in to watch. The window beside you caught the neon haze from the city, splintering it across your face in sharp shards, as if even the architecture conspired to reveal your mystery.

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the gaze

When I mentioned your father, your eyes finally lifted. They caught the flicker of the lamp, and suddenly the tiny kitchen seemed infinite. You had that same look as when I first saw you—something familiar yet unknowable—and it made every rule I’d built around you crumble. Your gaze locked onto mine, eclipsing words, speaking directly to the heart—the true ruler of my body.

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the silence

“Why didn’t you tell me you ran away from home, Ichika?” I asked, the silence stretching taut between us.

You fiddled with your chopsticks. The reflections in the plates caught the motion of your fingers and flickered against the ceiling, a dance of light that drew me in.

“Wǒ bù zhīdào,” you whispered.

I pressed again. “Did your father do something to you?”

You swung your gaze toward me sharply. “Is that what he told you?”

Your lips pursed, the cupboards behind you casting long shadows that slashed across your face. I laid my hands flat on the table, vulnerable, open. I wasn’t hiding anything—I wanted you to do the same. You had always been a closed door, Ichika—but one bleeding flashes of color and light through its seams—arousing my curiosity .

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tension rising

“Well, are you going to tell me why you ran away from home?”

“I can’t.”

Frustration rose in me like smoke from the stovetop. “Ichika, you need to help me out here. I’m taking a huge risk keeping you. The least you can do is —”

“I didn’t run away from home, Mingze,” you said softly, yet with a power that stopped me mid-sentence.

Your eyes drifted to the window, staring past the city’s neon into some distance only you could see. The reflections in the glass mirrored us both, fragmented and doubled, the room around us darkening as if the kitchen itself were holding its breath.

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reckless abandon

“Then why are you here?”

“You know why.”

My chopsticks fell to the tiles with a muted clatter. I sat there, barely able to restrain a gasp. “Huh?”

“You know why, Mingze,” you whispered, your gaze threading through mine like a knife, cutting past caution, past reason.

In that moment the table no longer mattered. The porcelain plates shattered, reflecting the flickering lamp, the neon, and the intensity of our closeness in a thousand tiny fragments. The cupboards, the tiles, the windows—they became silent witnesses, mirrors of desire, amplifying every stolen glance, every tremor of tension. Desire crossed the space before thought could intervene, and I kissed you.

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eternity

In that moment, the kitchen, the city, even our mortal bodies dissolved. There was only eternity, the stars where our souls had once known each other—before the gods breathed us into these mortal bodies.