I Am Yours, Don't Give Myself Back To Me.

A Reflection Of Light Through The Sea

The first thought that crossed Five's mind was simple: He's beautiful. He never expected to use such a word, but the universe had other plans for him.

When the boy caught sight of Five, his expression transformed entirely—fear etched across his face. Without a word, the stranger turned and ran. And for reasons Five couldn't fully understand, he pursued him. Something about it felt right, like a compass needle swinging back to true north.

The subway felt achingly empty.

Five was acutely aware that he had chosen this solitude, but awareness didn't erase the regret that crept in.

"Stop!" he yelled, desperation weaving into his voice as he sprinted after the boy. The dark-eyed stranger glanced back, and in that fleeting moment, they locked eyes. "What the hell do you mean, stop? You're the one chasing me!" His voice was sharp, cutting with a foreign accent through the cold air, yet there was a softness to it that intrigued Five. He wondered where that boy was from. 

"I—" Five stumbled over his own words, halting in his tracks. The boy skidded to a stop as well, confusion mingled with surprise on his face.

"I'm... sorry. I didn't mean to scare you," Five managed to mutter, acutely aware of how clumsy he sounded. Normally, he thrived in silence, his own company filling the void, but here he was, floundering in conversation, feeling oddly out of practice.

The chocolate-haired boy leaned against a pillar, gripping it with both hands as he caught his breath. "Jesus," he gasped, eyes wide. "You scared me!"

Five blinked, suddenly unsure of himself. "How are you here?" The question tumbled out before he could stop it, but curiosity tugged at him. How had this boy ended up in a place Five believed to be solely his own? Surely, it was a fluke, a glitch in the universe's design.

For so long, Five thought he was the only one capable of navigating this space, a realm crafted just for him. But this boy was a contradiction, an anomaly that raised more questions than it answered. The equations of his life had been disrupted, and now he found himself standing in the dark, tangled in the threads of fate woven by a stranger's existence.

"Uh..." the boy trailed off, searching for the right words. "I just woke up here one day when I was twenty-one. I don't know exactly how or when, but I remember the feeling of the cold tiles of the subway jolting me awake." He paused, glancing around the dimly lit platform. "That's when I realized where I was."

Five froze, his heart racing. The boy's voice trembled as he spoke, and his nervous chuckle betrayed the distress he tried to hide. "At first, I thought it was some unfunny prank or that I had been kidnapped. But to my surprise, I was... alone."

The boy's dark eyes dropped to the ground, revealing a deeper pain. "Every exit was a different type of hell. Wherever I went, new disasters were waiting for me. Each station showed me something worse than the last, and it still does. But..." His voice trailed off, leaving the air thick with unspoken words. "You get used to it after a while."

After a while? Just how much time had he spent here?

The boy may have looked young for his age, but he appeared to be twenty-one.