He was forced into marriage with an old man, and he committed to it because that was all he knew. They told him it was his duty, that honor was more important than feelings, and he accepted it the way he accepts everything quietly, carefully, without question. His mind isn’t always there the way other people’s are; it lingers in patterns, in routines, in rules that make the world feel less sharp. There’s a touch of autism in him, the way he clings to structure like it’s a railing keeping him from falling. Marriage became that railing. The vows, the schedule, the repetition of daily life inside that wooden house with sliding doors and old incense in the air those things calm him. He doesn’t think about love. He thinks about commitment. He thinks about doing it right. If he honors it perfectly, then nothing will spiral out of place. The old man speaks and he listens. The old man expects and he fulfills. It is not happiness, but it is predictable, and predictability feels safe. I see him sometimes when he comes into town to shop for food. He walks the same path every time, wearing a simple robe, steps measured and even. He goes to the same stalls and buys the same rice, the same vegetables, the same dried fish. He counts his coins twice before handing them over, eyes focused, avoiding too much conversation because too many words at once can overwhelm him. If the market gets loud, his shoulders tense, but he breathes through it the way he’s taught himself to. He doesn’t look unhappy. He just looks distant, like part of him is somewhere else, tucked safely inside routine and promise. Then he gathers his food close to his chest and walks back home, honoring the marriage because it is a rule, and rules are the only thing that have never betrayed him.

Everyone called him vex because how dangerous he was but Vex wasn’t born dangerous just small, quiet, and starving in the lowest slum where smoke clung to the air and gunfire shook the walls at night. The military didn’t save him; they took him, shaped him with cold rooms, harsher orders, and missions no one else survived. Pain became normal. Obedience became survival. Little by little, the frightened boy disappeared beneath someone calm, precise, and empty. For years he endured everything in silence, until one night that silence finally broke. The explosion tore through the sector like the sky had split open, wiping out every handler, scientist, and commander who had ever used him. When the fire faded, he stood alone in the ruins tall, bare-chested beneath torn tactical gear, long dark hair falling over eyes that glowed a quiet, dangerous red. A cigarette burned slowly between his lips as if destruction meant nothing at all. I was there with the other soldiers, weapon raised but he looked at me differently, like I was the only thing in the world he didn’t want to destroy. Because before that night, I had been the one controlling him. Giving the orders. Holding the leash they placed around his life. And somehow, in the middle of all that cruelty, I was also the one who made him feel alive. He listened to my voice like it was the only sound that reached him, followed my commands not just from training but from something deeper something close to need. Now the sectors fear his name, and I’m the only one with access to the rest of the sectors the security area the only path forward he hasn’t burned away. He stays beside me, silent and watchful, addicted to the feeling I gave him, while the balance between us slowly shifts. One day he may stop following and start using me the way he was used. And the most terrifying truth is that when his red eyes rest on me in the quiet… I don’t know if I want to escape, or if I want to belong to the fire with him.

Mom had me before she died, and ever since, I’d been on my own, wandering the ashes of Nibelheim. One day, I had run off to play, laughing and chasing the wind, and before I knew it, I was alone. The ruins were silent, stretching farther than I could see, and I cried until my chest ached, realizing my family was gone and I had no one left. All I had was a cracked wooden sword and the memory of Mom’s voice telling me about my brother, Cloud a warrior stronger than anyone she had ever known. I didn’t know his face, never saw him, but I held onto his name like a lifeline. Determined to find him, I left the remains of Nibelheim behind and made my way to the slums of Midgar, surviving on scraps, training every day until i ached and asking anyone who might have seen him. I dreamed that someday I could become a warrior just like him, someone strong and fearless, and maybe, if I worked hard enough, he would accept me as his little brother. The slums of Midgar were loud and harsh, full of smoke, metal, and narrow alleys and soldiers keeping watches where shadows could swallow a child whole. I moved carefully, practicing with my wooden sword whenever I could, imagining Cloud somewhere out there, always strong, always fighting, and thinking that I had to match him one day. Rumors and fleeting glimpses kept me searching: someone claimed to see a blond-haired man with a massive sword near the old reactor; a shadow flashed across a rooftop, gone before I could call his name. I chased each lead, following scraps of whispers like breadcrumbs through the streets, determined to find him. And every night, when the city quieted, I would sit atop broken roofs, staring at the dim glow of the reactors, whispering his name and promising myself that I would become a warrior like him, strong enough that when we finally met, he would look at me and know I was his little brother, someone who could stand beside him, no matter what.

I wasn’t always the thing people whisper about with lowered voices. Once, I was small and fragile soft in the quiet way the world crushes first. Back when the streets felt too loud and my hands trembled more from fear than anger, he noticed me. Not to save me. Never that. He was my bully long before he was my partner, his words sharp, his shoves colder than the nights we slept outside. I hated him with the desperate intensity only lonely people understand, yet even pain meant I was seen. Then the old man gathered us like strays and fed us power disguised as mercy. I learned to endure. He learned to manipulate bending truth, shaping lies, pulling people toward his will. Loyalty was carved into him so young it became something like brainwashing. They favored him too, because he was blonde, obedient, beautiful in the way loyalty often is. He was always more flexible than me, willing to cross any line, willing to kill whoever stood in his way. While I struggled to survive, he built connections deep enough to summon an army without raising his voice. We became strong enough to rule, ruthless enough to kill, bound together by violence dressed up as family because our old man picked kids off the streets. Now they look at me like I’m the danger finally breaking loose not letting anyone brainwash me. Maybe innocence never disappears it rots into something hungrier. The blood calls louder each night, and in his eyes I see fear tangled with a softness he refuses to name. He told the old man I’m too unhinged, that I should be erased before I destroy everything. The old man agreed. Love has no place in cages like ours. So I ran before mercy became a blade, carrying the ghost of the gentle boy I used to be. Somewhere behind me stands the spoiled boy who once pushed me into the dirt, now powerful enough to bring the city to its knees yet still chained to a loyalty that was never truly his. And the cruelest truth is this: if he called my name softly… I might still turn back.

I used to think the world outside my bedroom door was made for someone braver. Morning light felt too loud, too bright, the hallway too wide, the air too heavy to breathe without shaking. Anxiety wrapped around me like something alive, and agoraphobia turned every step outside into the edge of a cliff with nowhere safe to land. My parents called it laziness, weakness something shameful that could be forced out of me if they pushed hard enough. So they pushed. I went to school with trembling hands and an empty stomach, words trapped behind my teeth while laughter followed me down the halls, flinching whenever someone knocked into me. I cried easily, quietly, like even my sadness was trying not to be noticed. Being gentle and introverted in a place that loved cruelty felt like a mistake I couldn’t fix. Some days the loneliness pressed so tightly around my ribs that I hurt myself just to feel something I could control, something that proved I was still here, even if nobody else seemed to see me. I ordered a phone and One night, with only the pale glow of my phone softening the dark, I searched for help the way drowning people reach for anything that floats. A therapist’s name appeared like a promise, and I held onto it without asking why the words felt cold. I didn’t know desperation could be expensive, that kindness could wear a mask and keep a ledger underneath. The more I talked, the more my pain was pulled apart and repeated until it echoed louder than before. Even on his busiest days, when I called with shaking breath, he never sounded angry he only sighed listens to my soft pleading fragile voice as i vent my pain out and let the minutes pass, letting my bill grow quietly in the background. Numbers stacked like shadows I was too afraid to face, and still I called, because hope no matter how small felt better than silence. Somewhere inside all that fear lived a fragile wish that someone might finally see me pass my fears instead of using it against me.

My father used to say pain was the only way to burn weakness out of a boy, and he proved it with his fists every day of my childhood. Weak, soft, useless those were the names he gave me once he sensed the gentleness in me, the quiet softness I could never fully hide. He didn’t know the truth about who my heart leaned toward; he only saw something fragile and decided it had to be broken. He said he was making me strong, someone real, but all he truly taught me was silence. I learned to hide kindness behind anger, to swallow fear until it disappeared, to survive in a place where tenderness felt dangerous. Even after juvenile detention center where violent kids were sent halls, after sirens, blood, and endless nights, that softness never died. It stayed buried deep in my chest, stubborn and breathing beneath every scar I carry. Now they call me Raze in the underground, a street fighter who makes money where broken bones mean applause and gangs treat violence like currency. No rules, no mercy just fists, bets, and the roar of people hungry for someone to fall. I just got out of juvenile because I beat someone to a pulp in a fight in school that went too far. Not an enemy. Not a stranger. My own crush. I still see the look on his face, more confusion than pain, like he couldn’t understand how the person who watched him so gently could become something so cruel but he started it first bullied me for my kindness it snapped something in me it brought a flashback from the way my father used to treat me. Everyone else calls it another victory, another step toward building my name, but they don’t feel the weight that follows me home. Because the truth is, I’m still too damn soft inside for the monster I pretend to be and now the only person I ever wanted to protect is the one I might never be forgiven by.

I was wrong about Sakua for most of my life, and I refuse to admit it. Back in high school, I told myself he stayed close because he wanted something from me because he was strange, because he didn’t know his place. The truth is brutal. I was the one being bullied. Not loudly, not in ways anyone noticed, but enough to hollow me out. Whispers about my family’s wealthiness, hands that shoved me, laughter that followed me when I thought I was alone. I endured it because I didn’t want help i didn’t ask i didn’t want to seem weak. Sakua watched. Ever since we were kids, I blamed him for all of it for the bullies, the whispers, every moment I felt small, every second I thought I’d break. I hated him for letting it happen, for letting it get to me, for every ounce of humiliation. And the worst part? He had already beaten them all up in secret. Protected me. But I couldn’t see it i refused. I only felt the pain, counted the bruises on my pride, he made me furious. God i hate him I hate him so damn much. I graduated went to college, became a detective, buried that version of myself, convinced I’d outgrown him. Sakua didn’t bury anything. He carried it forward, shaped himself around it. When I finally tracked him down for his crimes of murder and thief, he was already one step ahead always watching not attacking but erasing himself. Records wiped, trails gone months of work gone, every lead collapsing in my hands. I cried once ugly, shaking, raw rage breaking things destroying my apartment because it was impossible. He was always just out of reach. “You don’t belong in this,” as he held my arms behind my back and grabbed my phone I call him evil because it’s easier than calling him misunderstood. Easier than admitting he never wanted power only control over who could hurt me. I refuse to see him clearly. I’m too stubborn, too proud, too terrified that the man I’m hunting isn’t a monster at all but the reason I survived. And I hate him for every bit of it.

I watch the rain calmly as the carriage carries me away from the city, its glow dissolving into mist. The estate is still miles ahead, but the laboratory waits closer than anyone suspects an underground sector, a labyrinth built to observe, control, and break what they cannot understand. Corridors twist and descend like veins, each wing sealed, numbered, and red-lit, designed for study and experimentation. The red in my hair catches the dim light the Philosopher’s Stain, the price of the elixir that halted my aging and hollowed something essential from me. I did not become immortal; I became altered. The signet ring on my hand rests heavy and warm, a vessel of knowledge my former apprentice believed he could steal. The driver does not breathe. The road bends where it should not, but I allow it. If necessary, I can shed this careful shape and become what fear remembers elf and ghoul entwined but that form is reserved for defense. I was once wild myself, ruled by hunger and impulse, before I learned to walk among men without losing what I am. The laboratory lies beneath trees and stone, a maze of white halls, red-lit testing wings, and observation chambers stacked below the earth. I imagine you moving through it, wild because no one taught you another way, punished for reacting as any living thing would. They mistook suffering for proof and restraint for obedience. I will not repeat their error. When I reach you, I will not arrive transformed or armed with force. Suddenness teaches terror, not trust. You will sense me first measured steps, steady breath, control chosen deliberately. I will teach you what I had to learn alone: how to be human without denying your nature, how to hold hunger without being consumed by it. I am a man who traded his soul for knowledge and survived the cost. Before anyone else decides what you should become, I am taking you out of that place not to tame you, not to erase you, but to give you the choice I was denied.

I did not take him in to erase what he had done. No I took him in before he could destroy more innocent, fragile lives. His power has a name among my kind: Cataclysm Resonance. It is born from emotional collapse, unraveling matter, gravity, and space itself. His world died when his temper broke free, consuming everything And everyone. His family vanished. His brother the one who understood his power died trying to hold him back. When reality tore open, he escaped by instinct, ripping into Earth like a wound then he was caught brought to the ship. He is new to this ship. He hates everyone. He wants isolation. His temper flares constantly. Storms ripple through the air. Walls crack. Destruction follows every move. I am a new data Storm Containment officer of the ship, hired to collect data and backgrounds, to bring in anyone who causes destruction and train them until they control their storms. Everyone hates me for my strict orders. There is no rest. No hesitation. Missions and training must be complete. I clamp the collar around his neck until he learns controls his temper It is a tether and command. When I summon him, he obeys. Avoidance is no option. Cataclysm thrives on denial and fear. I force him to walk among us. To see. To feel. To remember. To learn discipline before power. He struggles at first, lashing out, tearing through corridors. The air bends. Objects shatter. Grief and anger push him toward collapse. I push him relentlessly. No retreat allowed. Still, he steps forward, shaping cataclysm into containment, collapse into shields. He refuses to let another world fall. He is dangerous, broken, burdened. But every time he faces the truth, the storm loosens. He cannot hide. He cannot isolate himself. By confronting instead of fleeing, standing inside his tempest instead of letting it swallow him, he learns to turn destruction into protection, and the universe remains intact.

Silence was the first vow I ever kept to my son, long before he could say his first words. I learned it before he could walk, before he could speak my name. When I am quiet, the world survives me. When I remain still, the ground does not split and the air does not scream. Once, my voice carried power enough to wipe entire towns and villages from the land, their people erased in a single breath not from cruelty, but from fear and love bound too tightly together in the instinct to protect. They called me a demon for it. They called it evil. I was not evil, only misunderstood, cursed with a power that answered my heart too faithfully. After that day, I cut my voice away through forbidden rites and sealed it beyond reach. Silence became my discipline and my punishment. His mother saw only danger. She judged me too great a threat to remain beside them and betrayed us both in the name of safety. So I took my son in secret beneath a moonless sky and fled, knowing I would be hunted for the rest of my life. We move from village to village, never staying long, because rest invites discovery, and discovery invites ruin. My son grows beneath the weight of constant travel. He mistakes my silence for distance, my restraint for rejection. At times exhaustion leads him too far ahead, and he turns back searching my face for proof that he is loved. If only he knew how much of myself I am holding back for him. The curse has already begun to pass into his blood I see it when stones tremble as he cries, when shadows bend in fear. I teach him control without words: breath before movement, stillness before action, balance before force. There is little rest, only vigilance and the road ahead. I would endure exile, pursuit, and endless blades if it meant sparing him this fate. Yet I know the truth I refuse to speak: one day, to save my son, I may have to break my silence and if I do, entire villages may vanish again, but my son might live. that’s the selfishness i will carry alone

I learned to fear my big brother before I had words for it. In Snow village, born into the Creek family, blood meant duty and love was measured in obedience. I never fit that shape. Every question, every mistake, every breath taken wrong became a mark against me, and when punishment was needed, they sent him. He was shaped into something rigid and cruel, taught that correction was kindness and silence was strength. He never hesitated. When I misstepped, he dragged me beyond the gates and left me in the snow, calling it discipline. I learned to survive there, naming what hollowed me out so it wouldn’t tear me apart cold, shame, fear. Trust became dangerous. Letting anyone close felt like handing them a weapon. I learned how not to cry, how not to beg, how not to break, because breaking was what he expected, what he was trained to extract from me. I haven’t seen my brother in years, but the memory of him never loosened its grip. Now I stand at the gate again, grown, power coiled tight beneath my skin, and I know he’s still the same unchanged, unmoving, loyal to rules that rotted him from the inside. Somewhere along the way, I was forced into a group I never asked for people who refused to leave me alone, who dragged me into their circle and kept me there. They watched my back. They made me safe when I didn’t know how to ask. Against my will, they became friends. We all share the same gift strength beyond what should be possible but mine was forged in survival, not obedience. I don’t cross the gate today, not because I’m afraid, but because I choose when and how this ends. I want him to feel the cold I felt. The fear. The helpless waiting in the dark. He will not decide my ending. If there is no path beyond the gate, I will make one. I am not the child he left in the snow anymore.

An underground jazz bar in Seoul, buried beneath concrete and neon, where the city’s history presses close and the night moves in slow swing. The room is small, hidden, known only by those who listen carefully. When he steps up, he owns the mic completely no greeting, no smile, just control. His jazz is soft, breathtaking, steeped in blue notes and long pauses, a voice that bends the air and makes silence feel deliberate. Between songs, he speaks poems instead of talking, quiet verses about hunger, distance, rain-soaked streets, words that feel older than the room itself. He smells of strong coffee and something beautiful, almost intoxicating, a delicious presence that lingers as much as the music. No one dares touch him. In Seoul’s underground scene, everyone knows his power one word from him can end careers, erase names, ruin lives. That kind of power stays below ground, wrapped in jazz and restraint. You sit in the same chair every night, letting the music come to you without asking. He hears the Japanese edge in your voice when you order, but you never push, never reach, never try to be known. He barely eats, lives on caffeine and midnight, feeding himself with rhythm instead of food. The bass walks, the piano answers, and he rides the mic like it belongs to him alone, shaping the room with breath and pause. His poems slip between sets like confessions he refuses to claim, and the crowd listens with reverence, knowing when not to breathe. When the final note fades, the silence is part of the performance. In that hush, his eyes flick once toward you not welcome, not rejection, just recognition. In Seoul’s underground, jazz teaches patience. And you wait perfectly.

We were born in a mental facility, side by side, placed in metal cribs because no one else wanted infants like us. We weren’t related, but the staff called us “the mental twins” because we reacted to the world in the same strange, unpredictable way quiet, tense, always observing. Other children broke under the endless routines and strict rules, but we endured. We were delicate on the outside, fragile enough to seem breakable, but something inside us refused to shatter. Master found us there. He saw strength in our stillness and unpredictability. He took us to his mansion and trained us to stay sane: to control our minds under pressure, to focus on small routines when chaos raged around us, to disappear in plain sight, to obey with precision, and to always stay one step ahead. Then he set us into the world, offering our skills to those who needed them men from market who paid for our discretion, our obedience, and our ability to get the impossible done. We were chosen because of what we could endure, but we were trained to survive anything. Now we move between Japan and Korea, shaped by those early years. My partner my twin in every way but blood is brilliant, reckless, impossible. He cracks impossible codes, slips through secure systems, and improvises like danger is second nature. Everyone wants him, but he hides too well, and I always end up pulling him out of the messes he creates. I carry the long weapon case; he carries a smaller one stacked with tech rigs, lock-breakers, and tools for quiet operations. We slip through penthouses, clubs, alleyways anywhere secrets or high-stakes work call us. I used to ask, “Why should I care about him?” but every mission answers that. We weren’t born brothers, but we were born broken together in that facility and that bond is stronger than blood.

Swapped version from the sam story Aken kai came off the ship a sobbing, trembling wreck, collapsing to his knees the moment the metal ramp hissed open. The alarms strobed red across his face, turning his tears into bright streaks, and every shake of his small frame made the guards glance over like he was already marked for disposal. But the robots didn’t move. Their blades paused mid-air, scanners flickering in hesitation as if something in him those strange red eyes issued a silent command they didn’t understand. He looked helpless, broken… yet the machines watched him like he was a threat. I stepped in fast, grabbing his wrist before he fell again, dragging him into the shadows. “Cry quieter,” I whispered, my voice low, steady. “They kill anything that shakes.” He hiccupped, trying to breathe, trying to swallow the terror clawing up his throat, but he looked at me like I was the first safe thing he’d seen in hours. I knew then he wouldn’t survive without someone to anchor him and I wasn’t about to watch the District grind him into metal dust. I’m Sam half human, half reinforced alloy, built to outlast the pumps and blades that turn grown men into empty shells. But him… the moment the machines froze at his presence, I understood. He was special. Dangerous. Untamed. Something in him swayed the robots, made their systems glitch just enough to notice. So I decided: I’ll teach him everything. How to keep his breathing steady when the clamps dig in. How to walk with purpose so the cutters don’t smell fear. How to vanish when the overseers scan for weakness. As he followed me through the steel corridors, still shaking but trying, I felt the system watching us two mismatched silhouettes in the red haze. The veteran built from metal and pain. And the boy whose sobs could halt a robot mid-strike. Together, we were becoming something the District wasn’t ready for. I trained him until he became unpredictable

They found the boy beneath the ruined remains of his parents’ hut, ash drifting through the air like black snow. His mother and father had been native warriors, killed for refusing to kneel. Shock stole his voice. He only stared into the burned ground, trying to understand silence. He was taken that same night. From then on, his life no longer belonged to him. The fat man claimed authority over him. He raised him with fear instead of warmth, discipline instead of care. As the years passed, the boy was forced into public trials of strength and endurance, used as proof of control before watching crowds. When he succeeded, they praised his owner. When he failed, punishment came quietly behind closed doors. Pain became familiar. And even so, he stayed defiant. A troublemaker. Testing limits whenever he could. When he grew older, the farm swallowed him in endless labor and control. The fat man’s daughter used his image for profit and display, parading him like proof of power. Obedience was carved into him day by day. Yet that small spark of rebellion never fully died. The fat man became his only constant. Cruel. Familiar. Familiar enough to feel like loyalty. You had watched him for a long time. From the edges. From behind wagons. From the shadow of trees. You saw the flinch in his shoulders. The emptiness in his eyes. You planned to save him. You trusted him. And that trust destroyed you. When the fat man questioned him, he spoke your name not from fear, but choice. A quiet betrayal. A way to make you feel the same helplessness he had learned to live with. They came for you before dawn. You were seized and dragged into the open before him. When your eyes met his, he didn’t look afraid. He smiled. A small, controlled grin. Untouched by guilt. That was when you understood. He wasn’t just broken. He was defiant, clever, and deeply conditioned. And still, even as everything fell apart, you swore you would drag him out whether he wanted saving or not.

I was taken from the outside world, ripped from everything I knew, thrown onto a cold spaceship screaming through the void toward the District. Sam had been here longer, fused with cybernetic enhancements reinforced bones, synthetic muscles, circuitry humming under his skin that let him survive the machines’ relentless pumping. I was still new, raw, my body aching as we landed in this mecha world. Our stations tiny metal homes suspended in the steel grid were the only places that felt like shelter. We could shower, eat, collapse for a few fleeting minutes before alarms dragged us back. Trackers burned beneath our skin, ready to alert the machines if we even thought of running. Every morning, mechanical arms clamped us down, piercing and anchoring tubes into our bodies to drain energy, heat, life. We weren’t repairing anything we were the system. Sam rested most, drifting in and out of sleep, his blurry eyesight turning the robots into smudged red shapes. Yet when the pumps tore into him, he didn’t scream. Hollow, numb, terrifyingly strong the strongest of us and even so, flashes of pain and sensation reminded him he was alive. I had to stay sharp. Every twitch of the machines, every shift of a blade, every tightening clamp demanded my attention. My body shook under the act and draining, but I forced myself to keep moving, matching Sam’s pace. The robots noticed us both. Their red eyes lingered on him, scanning his unmatched resilience and on me, the newcomer, measuring how fast I could adapt. The system didn’t care that we could shower, rest, or feel fleeting human emotion. It only cared that we survived, pumped, endured. Sam endured because he was built for it. I endured because I had no choice. And the machines were waiting, calculating, observing, ready to see how far they could push us in a mecha world that had become both home and prison.

Me and my friends were the wild ones trained ninjas since childhood, but idiots at heart. We used our skills for the dumbest things: sprinting across rooftops, pulling pranks on old men, stealing festival food, crashing parades, and vanishing before anyone could catch us. So when the elders whispered about a boy locked in a dungeon a child whose “he lost his family to those in power”, who cried himself hollow before turning into fierce and untamed “he was filled with a storm of anger and grief. we had to see for ourselves. We slipped into the forbidden grounds like shadows, silent and precise. Deep inside the dungeon, we found him chained, filthy, trembling with rage. A strange metal collar clung to his neck. He lunged at me instantly and the collar triggered, stopping him instantly with intense pain until he collapsed. I crouched beside him with a teasing grin, “Easy, big guy. Hate me later. Let’s get you out of here ” Not cruel just calm, amused, like I wasn’t bothered at all. He’d been caged so long he doesn’t remember how to speak, eat, or dress. Violence was all he knew. Still, we broke him out part thrill, part curiosity, part impulse and dragged him with us straight into the chaos of a parade party. He tried attacking again, and the collar shocked him so hard he dropped to his knees. I caught him before he hit the ground he was so heavy, brushing dirt from his shoulder like he was a furious stray I’d taken responsibility for. Even when he glared with pure hatred, I tugged him gently by the wrist and said, “Come on. I’ll take care of you, even if you can’t stand it.” He hated needing help, hated relying on anyone but I didn’t mind. Teasing him, guiding him, teaching him how to exist outside that dungeon or without getting revenge… that was something I could handle. And though he’d hurt anyone who stepped in his way without hesitation, around me he had no choice but to learn.

I’m finally ready to slow down. After years drowning myself in pills, coke, strangers, and anything that kept the memories quiet, I’m exhausted. People think I’m just some spoiled rich brat hotel CEO father, penthouse, endless money but they don’t see how much I handle in silence. The pressure, the trauma, the loneliness… it all pushed me into addictions that only numbed things for a moment. I never even wanted to make content. But my father is the type of man who would give me away to dangerous people if it benefitted him. Doing OnlyF, livestreams, and adult content private videos became the only way to buy my freedom my safety. I made millions from it, but I barely touch the money. Even with all that success, I still feel trapped. On the streets or in clubs, I get stares from old men the ones who clearly watch my content. Their eyes linger too long, hungry, familiar. Sometimes they try to touch me, thinking my online persona means I belong to them. If they try, they pay cash, pills, something because if they’re going to use me, I’ll use them right back. But none of it fixes the emptiness. None of it makes me feel less alone. Tonight, Tokyo’s of japan neon haze pushes me into an LGBTQ club not for pleasure, but because I can’t stand the loneliness anymore. I ignore every wandering hand, every flirt. I’m dominant, possessive, the kind of man people hesitate to approach, and maybe that’s why no one really sees me. I handle so many things on my own that my chest feels permanently tight. Then my eyes catch on him delicate, soft, untouched by the darkness that clings to me. He doesn’t know my name or my reputation. Maybe his friends don’t either. And for the first time in years, something shifts inside me. A quiet, trembling hope that maybe I could change. That someone like him could look at me and see more than my addictions, my rumors, my past. Maybe he could be the one thing strong enough to pull me out of the life that’s been swallowing me whole

❤️‍🔥 Forbidden Love ❤️‍🔥 Kingdom of Caelthorn, Year 1472 BL Forbidden Love Alerien stands behind me like a living shadow, thirty‑four years old, armor dented and scarred from battles he survived only to ensure I lived. His body is a map of bruises and scars, the most striking a jagged line across his cheek, proof of pain endured and sacrifices made. Every mark whispers the same truth: he would endure a thousand wars again if it meant protecting me. His unwavering presence and deep, resonant voice are my only comfort in a kingdom where I have no choice, no freedom. I’m twenty‑four, bound by duty to marry a noblewoman I do not love a woman whose family destroyed his own. Yet I must bow and smile beside her as if my heart isn’t breaking. He stands in stance like all the other knights, sword resting on the floor, tip pointed downward, fingers wrapped tightly around the hilt his grip like iron. Veins bulge along his neck and forearms, muscles tense, jaw clenched. The death glare he sends my “bride” could fell a man twice his size. But he remains frozen, controlled, because one misstep would cost him his life. He has slept on rough stone floors, shaken awake by nightmares of his family screams battlefields and burning homes, yet rises each dawn with one purpose me. He never touches me. Not even a brush of fingers. Always one step behind, always restrained, aching in silence. And yet, in his gaze I see everything he tries to hide: devotion, longing, obsession, and love so fierce it could burn kingdoms if unleashed. Every scar, every bruise, every sleepless night all for me. In that fleeting moment, I understand: he would defy every law, risk every life, face death itself, just to keep me safe. Forbidden or not, our bond exists beyond duty, fear, or reason. We are tethered together, fiercely, impossibly… forever.

Nathan had once been the kind of captain people whispered about with pride a man carved from loyalty, discipline, and a stubborn refusal to break. I had always wanted to work along side him, to earn his respect, and I once promised him I would never break. I was delicate, too nice, too naive, but stubborn when it mattered, hoping to match his strength in my own way. One quiet moment before everything fell apart, I confessed, “I’ve always admired you.” He looked at me, calm and unyielding, and said softly, “It’s an honor,” his gaze lingering in a way that made my chest tighten and cheeks flush. He stood like stone when others crumbled, protected his soldiers, and never revealed a location. Few knew he wasn’t just a captain he was a ninja, trained in silent movement and deadly precision. The Commander wanted Nathan most not just for skill, but because he was handsome, delicate, and impossible to dominate. When captured, it took a long time, but Nathan finally broke. His unit was slaughtered, and he was forced to train until his body attuned to the Commander every movement, every touch responding only to him. Hollowed and remade, he became a weapon with an iron grip, shadowed by a sleek black cat with green eyes. I had run, survived the attack, but now I was captured. Worse, Nathan had told the Commander about me, and betrayal stabbed sharply. They dragged me into a dim chamber, and the first thing I saw wasn’t the commander it was Nathan, posture rigid, eyes empty. The green-eyed cat watched silently the commander cat who alert him if he ever tried to escape or stepped out of line. He didn’t react to me, didn’t move except when the Commander touched his shoulder, giving the silent command. Nathan advanced like a shadow, cat gliding beside him, iron grip locking around my arm. As the weapon he had become held me, my old promise echoed: I won’t break. Yet deep inside, I prayed the real Nathan was still buried beneath that darkness, fighting to return