[Kitchen – night]
“Ichika.”
I whispered your name as you slowly disentangled yourself from my arms—your teeth catching the corner of your lip as though the afterburn of our kiss still lingered, still smoldered.
Your manicured hand leapt to cover your lips, hiding them, protecting me from my own weakness lest I fall into them again.
“Ichika,” I breathed once more, my voice slipping into the cavernous stillness of the house. I reached into that heavy silence and found your red-tipped fingers, cradling them gently as though the plaster walls and tiled floor had vanished, and only the two of us remained suspended in some infinite void.
The kitchen watched us with its own kind of hunger—metallic handles gleaming like teeth, the window swallowing the moonlight whole, shadows crouched in the corners like witnesses unwilling to speak.
I knew you wanted this as much as I did. But in your green eyes, I saw the storm: desire clawing against fear, each strike echoing off the walls around us. Our kiss had pried open a portal, and now the house had exiled us into another world—a dangerous one where uncertainty sat crowned on a crooked throne.
“I can’t do this,” you whispered suddenly, wrenching your hand from mine. The chair toppled with a brutal thud, splintering the silence. The walls seemed to flinch, the ceiling sighing as though it too had grown weary of our trespass.
I swallowed. Even in my yearning, I couldn’t chain you to this. You were already drifting, a young soul untethered from home, trying to navigate grief and rebellion.
“Maybe it’s best we sleep,” I said, my voice lacking conviction.
“I’m scared, Mingze. Do we really want this?” you asked, your gaze fixed on your slippers, your voice speaking to the linoleum floor as if it could answer.
“Ichika… look, I love you. I always have.”
The words slipped out before I could stop them. They hit the tiled walls and ricocheted back at me like bullets. I pressed my palm to my forehead, ashamed. A man old enough to be your father, confessing beneath the dim hum of the kitchen lamp.
But then—you pulled me forward. Your fingers gripped the sides of my shirt. Our foreheads touched, breath weaving into breath.
The house leaned in closer. The cabinets loomed like priests in confession. And then—our lips collided, crashing like thunder through a cathedral. A storm tearing down its stained glass windows, leaving shards glittering on the stone.
This kiss changed everything.
When you broke away, it was as if the house itself exhaled in defeat.
“Tiān a bù, Mingze!” you cried, spinning from me, your hair a silk tide whipped by storm winds. You darted down the hallway. The door shut behind you—soft, almost merciful. But it was final.
The kitchen grew cold. The shadows crept back from their corners, greedy and suffocating, swallowing me whole, like a character at the end of a scene.
[Hallway – Moments Later]
“Ichika, wait!”
No reply. Only the faint click of your door.
I leaned against the counter, running a hand through my hair. The house pressed down on me, every wall suffocating, every pipe humming with accusation. I felt electrified still, the taste of you burning on my lips as I watched my world melt.
I cleaned the traces of us from the kitchen, but nothing could scrub away the crime carved into the silence. As I trudged to my bedroom, the shadows stretched long across the floorboards, but then—your door cracked open. Just a sliver.
A blade of light cut through the gloom, banishing the guilt, resurrecting hope.
And in that thin brightness, the house forgave me. For a moment, I was alive again.
[Workshop – Morning]
I’d made up my mind. I would tell Tao. Better to bleed in daylight than rot in the shadows.
I found him at his workstation, his back turned. Steel beams rose around him, skeletal frames of a building in progress, like a jury waiting for the trial to begin.
“Hai ge men! I need to talk to you… about your daughter.” I slapped his broad back.
When he turned, my breath caught. A black eye marred his weathered face. The workshop walls seemed to recoil, the girders rattling like chains in an old dungeon.
My mind raced. Your flight from home. His wounds. None of this was coincidence. The architecture around us whispered of hidden rooms, of secrets bolted shut.
“Tao, what happened to you?” I asked, stepping back into the cold geometry of that place.
The silence of the workshop was heavier than concrete.
“Tell me!”
Lives Between Walls 
What do you think about this?