THE next morning, Zhan didn't talk to Atlas, not out of anger. He just didn't know how to start the conversation. After the hallway...after whatever that had been happened, there was no guidebook, no label for the kind of closeness that hovered between war and intimacy.
So he poured himself a tea. Ate toast in silence. Didn't look at the man who reading across the counter from him like nothing had changed. However, everything had change because Zhan has observed things now. The quiet way Atlas read, so fast. His eyes darting like he already knew the ending. The way he sipped his unsweetened black coffee. The way he didn't fill silences that just let them settle, like dust.
Atlas didn't push, didn't mention the hallway, and didn't ask questions. He let Zhan exist in his space without demanding an explanation. That more than anything which made it harder. Because Zhan had been waiting for him to snap, to mock, and take control again like before. But instead, Atlas was just...there. Quiet, patient, and always watching. He didn't do anything funny to Zhan anymore since the last time he beat him unconsciously. That has made Zhan feel something worse than fear. It made him feel safe.
AROUND noon, Zhan sat on the balcony, phone untouched beside him. He wasn't texting anyone. Just contemplating the skyline. Atlas stepped outside a minute later, setting down a glass of water beside him without a word. Zhan didn't thanked him and Atlas didn't expect it. The wind brushed their shoulders. None of them moved away. It was like some invisible agreement had passed between them overnight. Nothing but just presence.
LATER that evening, when Zhan passed by Atlas's room, he stopped by at the door that was slightly ajar. Inside, Atlas sat with a stack of papers, scribbling something in sharp pen strokes. His sleeves were rolled, collar open, and barefoot, as always. Zhan watched him for a moment.
"Are you...really a student?" He asked finally.
Atlas looked up, faintly surprised,
"Yes," he said,
"technically."
Zhan raised a brow,
"You don't seem so...I-I mean...I never have that piles of paperwork."
"Well, I'm far from a mere student." eye back on his page.
Zhan frowned,
"That's not how it works."
Atlas leaned back in his chair,
"In your world," he said,
"maybe..."
Zhan didn't know what that meant. He didn't ask either, but he lingered. Watched Atlas write something, flip a page, and keep going. There was a kind of precision in it. Like discipline and control. Zhan hated how compelling it was,
"What do you mean 'far from mere student'?" Zhan asked quietly.
Atlas gave a small smile and honest answered,
"Business."
Zhan stood frozen, words lost on his tongue. How could someone younger bear the weight of a business while still walking the halls of a university? In that moment, Atlas felt larger than life. Towering beyond his years, beyond him.
Zhan had always been the older one. Not just in age but in temperament, in control, and in responsibility even he doesn't seem so. He was the one people leaned on. The one who kept things together. Hex always joked that Zhan was 'born 30'. But now? Living under the same roof as Atlas made Zhan feel younger and it's not in a good way. Like he'd missed something. Like Atlas had seen and done things that had hardened him too fast and that's too early. Like he was behind.
It started with the books. Zhan noticed them in the living room, stacked in meticulous order. Political philosophy. Strategic game theory. Texts with no business being on the shelf of 21 years old boy who was supposedly just 'transferring campus'. He flipped through one, notes in the margins. Compact handwriting. Question written to himself like,
"How far does loyalty bend before it breaks?"
Zhan set it down. Felt unsettled.
"The fuck?" He murmured.
LATER that day, he found Atlas in the kitchen, slicing a blood orange with surgical precision.
"I noticed something about you." Zhan said. Atlas didn't respond.
"You don't read like someone who's bored."
Atlas didn't look up,
"I'm never bored."
"You read like someone planning something." Zhan spoke.
That got his attention. Atlas looked at him, calm as ever,
"I am."
Zhan stared,
"Planning what?"
Atlas didn't answer. He handed Zhan half the orange instead, walking off before Zhan could press further.
THAT night, Zhan couldn't sleep again. It wasn't anxiety that keeping him up, but a curiosity. He sat on the edge of the bed, the phone dim in his palm, staring at the door to the hallway. He occasionally seen Atlas go to bed. It was like the guy didn't need or worse, he didn't want it at all.
Eventually, Zhan gave in. He opened the door. The apartment was dark, and Zhan hoping nothing weird happen. However, the light still under Atlas's room. Zhan stood in the hallway, his heart annoyingly loud in his chest. He didn't know why he was drawn to this but the constant orbit around a younger man who read like a scholar, have an assassin's instinct, and treated pain like a conversation.
But he walked to the door anyway. He knocked once.
'Knock.'
No answer. Then he opened it slowly. As expected, Atlas was there, leaning over a table, shirt half-unbuttoned, and writing something by lamplight. He didn't look up.
"Couldn't sleep again?" Atlas asked, as if they'd done this a hundred times.
Zhan hesitated,
"Yeah, probably..."
Atlas didn't invite him, but, to this shameless bastard, he stepped inside anyway. He crossed the room, stopped beside the desk, and looked at the scattered notes.
"Is this for campus?" he asked.
Atlas shook his head once,
"No."
"Then what?"
Atlas met his eyes,
"You really want to know?"
Zhan didn't blink,
"I do."
A silence stretched. Then, finally, Atlas said,
"I'm testing how far people can be pushed...before they snap."
Zhan stared at him,
"C-crazy..." He whispered, realizing maybe he was one of those tests.
Zhan wasn't the suspicious type. He trusted what he saw. Trusted his instincts which had gotten sharper over the years. But Atlas? He made Zhan second-guess everything. Because nothing about Atlas added up.
Atlas's 21. Supposedly just transferred into a third-tier university. Had no documented family, no past Zhan could verify. And yet...he had the precision of a soldier, the mind of a tactician, and the look of someone who had already seen too much. He couldn't shake it.
So he did what any restless mind would do. He started digging. It wasn't hard to find fragments. Atlas had attended an elite institute, the one where students became diplomats, executives, even military analysts. He'd been a top scorer. A prodigy. But just weeks into his first year, he vanished. No formal withdrawal. No transfer. Just gone.
Then, three moths later, he showed up here, at a third-tier university...like nothing had happened.
LATER that night, Zhan approached him. Atlas was in the living room, flipping through a slim black notebook, the kind without a title.
"You went dark." Zhan said, not asking but stating.
Atlas didn't look up,
"So...you've been researching me. Might help you for your thesis report."
Zhan crossed his arms,
"Don't act surprised."
"I'm not." Atlas scoffed.
"What exactly happened to you...Atlas?"
Atlas slowly looked at him. His eyes weren't cold. Just...distant. Like he was seeing something years away. He sighed,
"I stopped letting the promises decide who I should be."
"That's not an answer." Zhan replied.
"No," Atlas said quietly,
"It's a warning."
Zhan took a step forward,
"I don't like being lied to."
Atlas set the notebook down,
"I've never lied to you."
"Then, tell me the truth."
A long humming pause. Then Atlas said, voice low,
"If I told you everything, Zhan...you'd never look at me the same again."
"I already am."
Atlas smiled faintly. But the tension didn't leave his shoulders. It didn't leave either of them. Because truth, the real truth wasn't coming out from his mouth tonight. But the promise of it was enough to keep Zhan from walking away. Then, both of them walked away to their room.
THAT time, Zhan didn't sleep because he was thinking. Thinking about the way Atlas had looked at him when he said,
"You'd never look at me the same."
About the warning in his voice is not a threat, but a challenge. Zhan knew that look. He'd seen it in the mirrors before he picked a fight. Before he walked into risk with both fists up. Atlas wasn't afraid of consequences. He was inviting them.
THE next morning, Zhan watched him. They didn't hold a conversation over breakfast. Not because they were mad but because it had become a routine. Zhan was starting to understand that Atlas didn't fill space unless it mattered. He conserved energy like a predator. Still. Zhan wasn't content to be the one always reacting.
So after coffee, he said it plainly,
"Let me see what you're hiding."
Atlas didn't even blink,
"You've seen more than most."
"I want to understand it." Zhan curious about him.
Atlas leaned back in his chair, tilting his head slightly. Measuring him,
"For?"
Zhan met his gaze without wavering,
"I don't want to keep guessing whether I'm safe...or just tolerated."
Atlas stood. Walked around the table. Stopped in front of him and his hands in pockets. He studied him for a long moment. His face was unreadable. Then he asked quietly,
"Do you feel in danger here?"
Zhan swallowed,
"No."
"Then...why does it matter?" Atlas asked.
Zhan let out a breath,
"Because...the only thing more dangerous than you beating me..."
He paused,
"...is me starting to trust you, and not knowing if I should."
That landed heavier than either expected. Atlas broke eye contact and turned away. He walked toward the window and stared out at the skyline. When he spoke, it was quiet,
"I won't lie to you." Atlas said.
"Then show me." Zhan replied.
Atlas looked over his shoulder. Not angry. Not defensive. Just...tired,
"Zhan...some truths don't set you free. They bind you to things you can't walk away from."
Zhan stepped forward,
"I'm not walking."
The silence between them shifted. From cold to warm. From guarded to tense into in the kind of way that meant something had started. Not in romance, not yet. But respect. And that was rarer and more dangerous, because it made the next steps mean something.
Atlas didn't talk for hours after that moment at the window. He returned to his desk, headphones on, and eyes on his laptop with a wall back up, invisible but solid. Zhan didn't push. He gave him space. Cleaned up the coffee. Opened the windows to air the place out. Sat on the balcony for a while with his feet up, trying to make sense of everything that hadn't been said. He wasn't scared of Atlas. But he was starting to fear what Atlas carried.
THAT night, when Zhan returned to the living room, Atlas was waiting. A black file was on the table. No label or markings.
"Sit." Atlas said.
Zhan sat. Atlas didn't hand him the file. Instead, he opened it himself, flipped a few pages, then pushed one forward. A photograph. Blurry like a surveillance quality. A photo of two kids posing at the playground. One of them was clearly a younger Atlas. The girl beside him looked older. Zhan pointed at her.
"Who is she? Your sister?"
Atlas shook his head and his fingers tapped the edge of the photo,
"Her name was Emily."
Zhan stayed quiet, waiting.
"She was my friend. From the orphanage," Atlas said, his voice lower now,
"We've made a promise. Once."
Zhan leaned forward,
"A promise?"
Atlas nodded,
"Yes. Our first and last promise."
"What do you mean?" Zhan asked.
Atlas looked away for a moment, then turned back to meet Zhan's eyes,
"We promised we'd step into McGill together," A pause. Then, quieter,
"She gave me something. A plushie. Said it was for motivation, since she was six years older than me."
Zhan listened, silent.
"I made it to McGill later, but...she didn't" A long sigh,
"She was in an accident. I was there. I witnessed it."
Zhan froze. His voice was careful,
"I...I'm sorry to hear that."
Atlas just let out a bitter, humorless laugh,
"But that's the past. I can't turn back time."
Zhan didn't know what to say.
"You asked me why I left McGill." Atlas said.
Zhan looked up. Their eyes met again.
"When I stepped into that campus, I felt hollow. Because the person that supposed to be by my side gone. I kept hearing her...not her soft voice, but something else. Like an echo that haunted me," his voice broke slightly,
"It was always there–!" He threw the file across the table.
Zhan didn't stop him.
Atlas continue,
"I tried to cope. I lasted about a week. Then I collapsed. Blacked out during a lecture. After that, I just...fled."
Slowly, Zhan stood. He picked up the file, brushed it off, and placed it on the table. Then he sat beside him. Atlas looked different now. Not broken. But slightly cracking. Zhan reached out and gently pulled him to lean on his shoulder,
"You've been through a lot," he said quietly,
"I'm sorry it took me this long to understand."
Atlas didn't resist. He let his weight rest against Zhan. His mask, that always perfectly in place, was beginning to fracture. Zhan stroked his hair, softly,
"Let me stayed with you, Atlas. Even after what happened that time. Even after you nearly beat me half to death," he paused, then added with quiet conviction,
"You didn't scare me off. You dragged me in."
Atlas had dozed off mid-conversation, slumped slightly against Zhan's shoulder. His breathing was even, but something about the way his brows twitched in sleep, the slight tension in his fingers. Zhan could tell, he wasn't resting.
THREE months ago, Atlas stepped into McGill with a deadpan expression and a letter of acceptance in his hand. His dream had been achieved, but the victory felt hollow. He moved to Montreal, registered, signed forms, found housing, and kept to himself. He speak only when necessary. He carried with a small plush bear with a red scarf, the last gift from Emily. The girl from the orphanage who had once promised to walk into McGill beside him,
"Emily...I made it here." He whispered the first day, gripping the bear in the sterile silence of his dorm.
For the first two days, he functioned like any other student. Attended classes. Sat in the back. Took notes. Ate little. Spoke less. But then it began.
On day three, he started saw a figure at the edge of the campus. Undeniably familiar. He blinked once and she gone. On the following day, it wasn't just shapes in the crowd. He began to hear a voice that only him could heard. A low murmur, sometimes just his name, sometimes a sentence,
"You broke the promise."
Day by day, it escalated. The hallucinations became more vivid. The voice more accusing and intense. On day 6, he started avoiding mirrors as he always saw her at the back. The next day, he began leaving lectures midway, ducking into the bathroom to splash water on his face and murmur reassurances to himself. But still, she followed him as in shadows, in reflections, and in the silence between his thoughts.
By day eight, Atlas was visibly strained. His face paler, his hands trembling. Even when the professors handed him assignments, he barely reacted. He couldn't read words without hearing her voice between the lines. On day nine, the hallucinations became inescapable, while the lecturer explained the structure of a research essay, Atlas was frozen as he saw the figure of Emily standing between the rows, mouthing the same words over and over,
"You let me die."
He breath ragged. His world was beginning to cave in.
By day ten, the lecture hall was packed. Students chatted softly before the professor arrived, rustling notes and flipping through textbooks. Atlas sat in the third row from the back, unmoving. He hadn't said a word to anyone all morning. He hadn't eaten in past two days. He hadn't slept. And he hadn't blinked in what felt like minutes.
He kept his plush bear hidden under the table, nestled inside his coat. One hand clutched it like a lifeline. The red scarf peeked out slightly, brushing against the edge of his shirt. His eyes were fixed forward. But he wasn't looking at the screen in front. He was watching her.
She stood again. Far across the room, just past the projector screen, her shape a distorted blur. This Emily no longer flickering like before. Her presence now clearer. Like glass half-wiped of fog. Her eyes weren't right. They looked like pits. Her mouth was moving again. Soundless, but he heard every word,
"You lied to me."
Atlas blinked rapidly, trying to make her vanish but she didn't. He turned his head sharply, looking down at his notes. The lines on the page twisted, curled into symbols he couldn't read. The professor entered. Voices hushed. But the buzzing in Atlas's ears didn't stop. Someone laughed on the other side of the room. It was too loud and it hurt him.
Emily was walking now. Closer. Right beside the lectern. Her bare feet left no sound, but Atlas could hear the scrape anyway. His breath caught.
"You were supposed to be beside me."
His pen dropped. It clattered to the floor. The girl next to him flinched.
"Are you alright?" She whispered.
Atlas didn't respond. He swallowed hard and stood suddenly. His chair scraped back. Several heads turned. He walked fast toward the aisle,
"Just go. Just breathe. Just get to the toilet. Splash your face. Breathe." He murmured to himself.
The professor paused mid-sentence but didn't stop. Atlas reached the steps and descended them fast. One. Two. Three. The lights overhead blurred. The air felt thick.
"You left me, Atlas."
The voice wasn't just in his head anymore. It rang across the lecture hall. Atlas froze. His foot caught on the final step. His vision swayed. And when he turned to look, Emily was there. Standing in the very center of the classroom. Drenched. Hair stuck to her face. Eyes wide. Skin pale-white. Everyone else looked past her, through her, but didn't see her and that made it worse. Because she was real only for him. Her mouth opened,
"YOU BROKE THE PROMISE!"
Something inside Atlas snapped. He gasped, stumbled back and then his body gave out. It happened all at once.
'Thud!'
He collapsed forward, knees hitting tile with a sickening thud, his elbow catching the corner of a chair before his whole weight crumpled like a paper. His head smacked the floor. A collective gasp erupted from the class.
"Oh my god–!"
"Did he faint?!"
"Someone call the infirmary!"
"Wait, is he–?"
Feet scrambled. Bags dropped. The professor was already moving down the stairs. A few students hovered but hesitated. One guy knelt beside Atlas, check his pulse. The plush bear had fallen from his coat. It rolled slightly, stopping near the professor's shoe, its red scarf twisted like a ribbon of blood.
"He's burning up,"
someone muttered,
"Is he...okay?"
"Must be stress. Pressure or something."
"Or he's a attention seeker. Looks dramatic to me."
"God, maybe he skipped breakfast."
However, nobody saw what Atlas saw. Nobody saw the way she knelt beside him too, leaning down beside his unconscious face. Whispering again,
"You ran...but you'll never leave me."
LATER, the first thing he heard was the hum of lights. Soft, clinical and sterile. The sheets were clean. His throat, dry. The pain in his skull was distant, as if it had passed through a filter. He didn't know how long he'd been out.
He sat up, slowly. The movement stung his joints, the ache buried deep in his limbs. His eyes adjusted to the dim light bleeding through the blinds. On the small metal side-table beside him, something sat. Its the plushie. Still wearing its red scarf. Still whole, despite everything.
His fingers brushed against it, tentative at first. Then tighter. More tighter. His breath hitched. No voices. No students whispering. No distant professor's tone. Just this room. Just the silence. Just the bear in his hand and the tremble in his throat. It began at the edges. The sting behind his eyes. Then the constriction in his chest. The ache in his jaw from holding it in. And then...everything shattered.
Tears fell without warning, without sound. Years of pressed lips and straight spines and deadpan eyes. He clutched the bear against his face like it might anchor him. But it didn't. The warmth wasn't there anymore. Not his mother's hand. Not Emily's voice. Not the world they promised would still exist if he just made it through.
"Why now?" He whispered, his breath hitched.
But the walls didn't respond. No one would. No one ever had. He curled forward, shoulders hunched, trying to shrink into himself. Trying to vanish. Because what was the point of making it if there was no one left to see him?
No one to say, 'You did it, Atlas.' No mother. No friend. Just ghosts and silence.
THE next morning, no one saw him leave. The infirmary staff didn't stop him. They had no idea who he really was, and neither did the campus. He was just another first-year. Another number on a roster.
He packed quietly. The plush bear went into the bag last, tucked between worn clothes and a textbook he didn't even open. The campus was still asleep when he stepped outside. Montreal's sky hung low, grey, wind brushing through trees that didn't care he was leaving. No goodbyes. No explanations. No final words left behind. Just the sound of his boots on the sidewalk. Just the echo of a promise that was never fulfilled.
PRESENT time, Zhan shifted a little, careful not to wake him. Then, after a moment of hesitation, he slid his arm around Atlas's shoulder and gently placed him to lie across his lap. The movement earned only a faint breath from Atlas, his body naturally curling into the warmth.
"Even in sleep...you look like you're fighting something." Zhan murmured.
"He reached up, brushing a loose strand of hair from Atlas's cheek. The edges of a faint scar caught the light. Zhan's thumb paused over it before pulling back.
"You really are pretty, though," he added, voice quieter, almost embarrassed,
"not that you'd ever believe me."
Atlas shifted slightly but didn't wake. Zhan glanced at the black file still lying closed on the table. He didn't need to open it again. He had already seen enough. A weight settled in his chest. Something more tender. Something that hurt in the best kind of way.
"I'm lucky," Zhan whispered,
"that you let me stay...that you didn't push me away."
His fingers moved in slow, rhythmic strokes through Atlas's hair now. As if that alone could calm whatever war he was fighting behind his eyelids.
"You'd missed her," he added quietly,
"That Emily...I wish I could've met her."
Silence and stillness. Then a whisper of a smile twitced on Zhan's lips,
"I'll be here when you wake up, Atlas. Whether you want me to or not."
And in that quiet, dimly lit room, with the sound of the city fading into the distance outside the windows, Atlas remained asleep. His breath steady and he seem relaxed a little. The mask he'd worn for so long, cracking just enough for someone to hold him without breaking him apart.
To be continue...
AUTHOR NOTICE:
Hello everyone, thank you for keep up with the Novel updates...I will take a break for a while as my day getting hectic over and over.