Chapter 36: Remember this?
Omniscient Narrative
Few Days later
The night felt heavier than usual, an oppressive weight settling over the city as Kai walked beneath the flickering streetlights, it's been a few days since the confrontation he had with Aries and the awkward family game night he had with the younger man.
Aries kept trying to touch up on him, sitting closer to him as much as he can, he would even touch him when people weren't looking. Kai had been uncomfortable the whole night having the younger man stare at him all night and touch up on him with every given moment he could.
And it didn't help his husband and son were there also, Kai couldn't even complain, because he didn't know how he would raise awareness to the situation without being on the bad light, so he took everything like the 'coward' that he was.
Each step he took resonated with a grim echo that accompanied the ache in his heart, he decided to go for a walk to clear his head. He was still getting calls and texts from the younger male and it was scaring him each day.
He fought the urge to look over his shoulder; the last thing he wanted was to give in to the growing paranoia that had taken residence in his mind.
Since that fateful day when desire had scrambled the lines between right and wrong, and Aries had practically threatened him, he hasn't been the same, and Kai didn't like that, he didn't like feeling unsafe.
The chill of the cold air tightened around him, but it was not the cold that sent shivers down his spine.
It was the instinctual sense that he was being watched.
The shadows loomed like predators, waiting just beyond the reach of streetlights' warmth.
Kai tried to focus on anything but the tangled emotions swirling inside him—fear, guilt, confusion—but it was a losing battle.
Not a day had gone by since that one reckless moment that had shattered the fragile boundaries they had established.
After that whole conversation with Aries, Kai couldn't help but wish he didn't listen to Robert and he just left Aries alone.
Though he couldn't shake the memory of Aries's laughter, he remembered when they were okay, when they had that intoxicating connection, but now all that was left was the sad realization that he had crossed a line he could never uncross and to his luck, it wasn't playing in his favor.
What was supposed to be a shared moment of weakness had turned into a nightmare that clawed relentlessly at the edges of his reality.
Aries was everywhere
and no matter how hard he tried, Kai could not escape the younger man.
....
It had started innocuously enough. Aries began showing up in places where he knew Kai often went, a chance encounter here, a coincidental sighting there.
At first, Kai brushed it off as mere coincidence.
After all, they were living around the same area, and the world could feel small at times.
However, the more persistent Aries became, the more uneasy Kai felt.
It was like he was following him.
The first indication came when he spotted Aries waiting by the café where he often met for coffee with Austin.
That predatory gaze met his as he stepped into the sunlight, and the slight smile on Aries's face felt like a dark bloom unfurling in the pit of Kai's stomach.
Kai had tried to pull his gaze away, but he couldn't—Aries was mesmerized and mesmerizing at once.
"Hey, Kai! Fancy seeing you here!" Aries had called out, his cheerfulness a blatant mockery of Kai's growing dread.
They exchanged awkward pleasantries, but Kai had felt a disquieting shiver beneath the surface prompting him to hurry away.
Days compounded into a dull rhythm, Aries morphing from an accidental ghost of the past into a constant presence in each corner of Kai's life.
.
At the gym, where he sought comfort from the chaos of his thoughts, there in the flesh was Aries—stretching by the mirrors, eyes tracking each movement.
"Ah, Kai! You go to this gym also?" He heard the younger male say as he flashed him a mocking smile.
.
At the grocery store, he'd bump into Aries right at the end of the cereal aisle, where they'd exchanged guarded smiles.
The encounters felt like a slow tightening of a noose around Kai's throat. He could feel the pressure mounting and crushing him under its weight.
.
The polite greetings absorbed the lingering tension he tried to suppress, yet each interaction supplemented Aries's appearance in Kai's thoughts—an insidious obsession that wormed its way into his mind.
It didn't take long for Aries's affection to shift into something darker, over time, the messages turned threatening.
One evening, when Kai returned home from shopping, he found a message that twisted his gut into knots.
It was a picture—him and Aries entwined in bed-from that day-, taken from a distance, a snapshot of vulnerability he had done his best to bury.
The angle was unflattering, and more than that, it was invasive. The caption read,
"Remember this night? Because I do, all the time."
Kai's heart raced, the memory flooding back—not just the passionate moment they had shared, but the flood of guilt and confusion that had clung to him in the days that followed.
Kai:
Why are you doing this Aries?
he had texted back, panic coursing through him. He knew better than to provoke a fire he couldn't extinguish.
A mere minute passed before the response came:
Aries:
Because you can't ignore what we have, Kai. And if you want me to stop, you just have to play nice and stop acting oblivious.