Archive of Our Own

September 2017

What's wonderful about an actor's life? Everything. You bathe in the glow of the footlights and the world's adoration, your bank balance swells faster than your Instagram following, and the doors to the most exclusive parties swing open with just a smile. And best of all—you burn with passion for your craft, knowing every role you play is a little life, a gift to your audience. Any celebrity in their right mind hires an army of publicists, lawyers, and image-makers to shield their perfect persona from the grime of the outside world. But the truth is, that persona is too flawless to be real. Something always surfaces—it's only a matter of time.

Today, that time has come for Kimi Antonelli—an actor with a reputation so pristine you could scrub an operating room floor with it. Global fame, an Oscar on the shelf, and not a single scandal in ten years. And it all crumbled in a single second.

All because he slipped up. And so stupidly, so unforgivably, that his manager George—currently stuck in traffic in his black Mercedes—was ready to tear his hair out as the car's speaker system delivered Kimi's voice right to him. George gripped the leather steering wheel so hard his knuckles went white, a cold knot of panic tightening in his chest. He knew it: something terrible was about to happen. He felt it in every weary cell of his body.

"So, tell me—a lot of people are curious. How do you feel about same-sex relationships? If you were offered a role, would you take it?" the host purred, leaning forward in his chair, his voice dripping with predatory glee, savoring the headline in the making.

The studio was stuffy. Kimi sat across from him, lounging back in the leather chair with practiced nonchalance, twirling a keychain between his long fingers. He looked relaxed, even bored—as if this were just another routine chat.

"Well, how should I put it?" The Italian smirked, his voice taking on velvety tones. "I'm an actor—it's just a role, so why not? We live in a progressive society, and same-sex marriage is legal in most countries. Besides, I actually wrote a book about it myself."

Silence fell over the studio. The host froze, unable to hide his shock, while behind the glass, the sound engineer choked on his coffee.

Somewhere in that very moment, George—stuck on Madison Avenue—grabbed fistfuls of his hair and yanked so hard tears pricked his eyes.

"You idiot! An absolute idiot!" he snarled, slamming his fist against the steering wheel. The car behind him honked, but George didn't care. He glared at the radio panel as if it were his mortal enemy.

"Oh? Do we know it?" the host repeated, his voice trembling with genuine astonishment. "Honestly, I had no idea you wrote books."

Kimi shrugged, unbothered. A glint of nostalgia flickered in his dark eyes as he sifted through distant memories.

"Yeah, just something I wrote back in college. Wildflowers—maybe someone's read it."

The host paused for a beat, then his eyes went wide. He leaned back and slapped the table, making the microphone jump.

"I know it!" he exclaimed. "My daughter's obsessed! She's fourteen—you know how it is. She's read that book until the pages are falling out; she carries it everywhere!"

His voice was a mixture of delight and mild embarrassment. He'd just discovered that his idol—a global superstar—was also the author of intimate verses about forbidden love. And it was only just dawning on him what an information bomb he was sitting on.

The next day, headlines screamed from every screen. They crawled across phones, popped up in notifications, blared from glossy covers and tabloid front pages. "KIMI ANTONELLI—AUTHOR OF AN LGBTQ+ NOVEL?", "SCREEN STAR REVEALS YOUTHFUL SECRET", "WHY DIDN'T WE KNOW?" —the headlines cycled so fast they'd give any PR agent a heart attack.

Kimi had no idea that, through sheer carelessness, he'd detonated a nuclear bomb. He sat in his New York apartment overlooking Central Park, clutching an espresso, scrolling through the feed with a faint smile, convinced this amusing little misunderstanding would soon blow over. Outside the panoramic windows, a gray Manhattan morning greeted the city with rain, droplets splattering against the glass and streaming down like heavenly tears for his tarnished reputation. But the internet never forgets. The internet is a hydra with a thousand heads, and every one of them was already gnawing at his past.

The great Twitter conspirators had begun their hunt. They meticulously rewatched old interviews, searching every gesture and glance for hints of secret affairs with male co-stars. "Look how he looks at Brad Pitt at the awards!", "Remember that photo with Chris Evans? There was definitely something going on!" Red-carpet photos became evidence, handshakes became proof of romance, and old interviews were dissected into soundbites, words ripped from context. Every move he made was now under a microscope—even the way he'd adjusted his tie last week became the subject of heated debates in the comments.

Kimi was now pinned under a lens, with thousands of curious eyes tracking his every step.

George sat in the conference room of his Manhattan office, a short walk from Times Square. Through the wide windows, he could see the gray skyscrapers disappearing into the cloudy sky and the endless river of yellow taxis weaving through wet streets. On normal days, this view soothed George—a reminder of the city's pulse, which he knew so well. Today, it felt hostile, as if even New York itself was waiting for Kimi to fail.

George clasped his hands together so tightly his knuckles went white. His gaze was heavy as lead, his jaw set so firmly that muscles bulged along his cheekbones. Across from him sat Kimi, still in his casually unbuttoned shirt, with those big brown eyes that had won millions of hearts. Right now, those eyes held genuine bewilderment—a mix of childlike innocence and confusion. He was thirty-eight, but at this moment, he looked like a mischievous teenager caught red-handed.

"Do you have any idea what you've done?" George's voice was low, with a metallic edge that Kimi had heard only a handful of times in their ten years together. It was the voice of a man trying to hold a crumbling world together.

"I just told the truth," Kimi shrugged, and for a moment, a trace of that Bolognese softness crept into his voice—an accent he'd never fully shed after years in America. It surfaced whenever he was agitated, becoming more pronounced with every word. "It's not a crime to have written a book twenty years ago when I was only eighteen, George. I was just a kid from Bologna, writing about what I felt. What does that have to do with my career now?"

George closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, counting to ten. He'd been in the industry for over two decades and had weathered his share of scandals: drugs, infidelity, financial fraud, racist rants, nightclub brawls. But never—never—had he encountered a situation where a global star, through sheer stupidity, confessed to something they'd spent years hiding, doing so live on air, with a smile and zero foresight.

George Russell had known Kimi since the very beginning. Ten years ago, he'd taken on a green kid from Bologna—twenty-eight years old, with blazing ambition and a Hollywood dream. Back then, Kimi had arrived in New York with one suitcase and an accent that made people do double takes. Over a decade of work, George had scrubbed Kimi's past clean, like a jeweler polishing a precious gem—removing every crack, every awkward interview, every careless photograph. But this… this was a dinosaur in the closet that George hadn't even known existed. Kimi had never mentioned the book. Not once in ten years. It seemed that even at twenty-eight, he'd preferred to bury his youthful scribblings deep in the past.

George had built him into a brand. The face families trusted. The ideal man every girl dreamed of marrying. The face that advertised two-hundred-thousand-dollar watches and men's fragrances that sold every three seconds. He'd constructed this career brick by brick, calculating every move, every public appearance.

And now? Now that perfect image was cracking at the seams. All because of one careless remark about a book written at eighteen, when Kimi had no idea he'd ever become famous.

"Kimi," George opened his eyes and looked at the actor with a mix of despair and professional frost that made Kimi look away for a moment. "You wrote a book about same-sex love twenty years ago when you were just a kid. Long before it was mainstream. This isn't just a book—it's a manifesto, written in your youth, back when such admissions could have killed a career. And now every shameless journalist will be hunting for proof that it's autobiographical. They'll dig through every co-star, every friend, every person who ever stood next to you on a red carpet. Ten years of your career—every role, every interview, every person you've ever crossed paths with—will be ripped apart. Do you understand that?"

The conference room fell silent, save for the ticking of an expensive wall clock and the distant hum of the office beyond the door. Somewhere below, the city roared with life, but here, behind these glass walls in Manhattan, the fate of one of the highest-paid actors of his generation was being decided.

Kimi dropped his head and ran a hand through his dark hair. In that gesture, a flicker of vulnerability emerged—the kind he'd so carefully hidden from the cameras. Those brown eyes, bright with confidence just yesterday, now held the shadow of doubt. He suddenly realized that the very book he'd written from the heart in distant Bologna, when he was just eighteen, had come back to haunt him two decades later. And it hadn't returned as a fond memory, but as a ghost ready to destroy everything he'd built.

"What do we do, George?" he asked quietly, and the breezy lightness was gone from his voice. Now, he was beginning to grasp the game he'd stepped into.

────୨ৎ────

Somewhere on the other side of New York, in one of the countless office buildings lost among the gray skyscrapers of Manhattan, sat Oliver Bearman. The glass partitions of his workspace reflected the soulless glow of fluorescent lights, and outside the grimy windows, the city hummed its usual tune—but Oliver had long stopped noticing that noise. He sat at his desk, buried under papers and empty coffee cups, rubbing his tired eyes. Thirty-two years old, a promising position at a major media company, and a crushing sense that he was going nowhere.

 

Just your average office plankton. A gray mouse who every morning pours himself terrible coffee from the corporate machine—too strong and bitter with the taste of burnt beans. He snacks on sandwiches he hastily throws together in the morning while scrolling through news with one hand. He wears the standard sky-blue shirt that really should have been ironed, but he didn't have time that morning. Nothing remarkable. Nothing that would set him apart from the hundreds of other employees.

But Oliver had one secret passion that he carefully hid from his colleagues. One hobby that no one knew about. No one except one close friend.

He was Kimi Antonelli's number one hater.

The headphones he always wore at work to drown out the office hum played the radio. Oliver had been half-listening for thirty minutes, mechanically tapping at his keyboard, when the host announced a special news bulletin. Oliver didn't even register at first that they were talking about Kimi—he just heard the familiar name and froze.

"...Kimi Antonelli's unexpected confession live on air has sent the internet into a frenzy. The Hollywood star, known for his spotless reputation, admitted that twenty years ago, at eighteen, he wrote a book..."

Oliver pulled off his headphones and looked around. His colleagues at neighboring desks paid him no attention—someone was sipping tea, someone else was whispering with their manager. No one knew that Oliver had just experienced an explosion inside. Slowly, as if afraid to scare the thought away, he put the headphones back on and rewound the interview recording. Kimi's voice filled his ears—that same velvety voice with its barely perceptible Italian softness, the voice Oliver hated so much.

"I'm an actor, it's just a role... Besides, I actually wrote a book about it myself... Wildflowers—maybe someone's read it..."

Oliver froze. Something tightened in his chest, then suddenly released, like a spring that had been compressed for too long. He sat motionless, unable to believe what he'd just heard. Wildflowers? That same book? The one he'd read ten times? The one with the tattered cover that he kept on his shelf like a sacred relic? The book that had pulled him out of a depression three years ago and made him believe that love existed, even if the world was against you?

Oliver leaned toward his monitor, opened Twitter, and scanned the headlines. The internet was buzzing. Some admired the actor's courage, others mocked him for hypocrisy, but the main thing Oliver saw was the author's name on everyone's lips. Kimi Antonelli. His sworn enemy. The man he'd hated with every fiber of his being for his fake smile, his perfect image, for being too proper, too flawless, too… unattainable.

And suddenly it turned out that this man had written the book Oliver considered his personal revelation.

Oliver leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, trying to process what had happened. Thoughts raced through his mind, colliding like frantic balls in a roulette wheel. Hatred demanded he seize this moment: expose Kimi, destroy him, show everyone he wasn't as perfect as he seemed. This was the perfect opportunity. A once-in-a-lifetime chance—to strike at the man who'd infuriated him for five straight years.

But the other part of his consciousness, the one that had found solace in the pages of Wildflowers three years ago, fell silent in horror. How could he hate the man who'd written those words? Words he knew by heart, words he'd quoted in the darkest nights when the world seemed to be crumbling?

Oliver put the headphones back on and replayed the recording. Kimi's voice. That same voice. Soft, slightly husky. And Oliver suddenly realized that voice was familiar—not from movies or interviews. That voice… it had been in his head every time he reread his favorite chapter, every time he imagined the author telling him: "Everything will be okay. You're not alone."

He took off his headphones and downed the cold coffee in one gulp, hoping the bitterness would bring him back to his senses. It didn't help.

Now Oliver faced a choice: use Kimi's secret to destroy his career once and for all, or…

Or admit that his sworn enemy was the very person he'd dreamed of meeting all these years.

Oliver closed his eyes and whispered into the void:

"Damn you, Antonelli."

A new file folder slapped down right in front of him, and Oliver flinched in surprise. He opened his eyes, still trapped in a storm of chaotic thoughts, and met the gaze of an unexpected "guest." A man around his age, Brazilian, with a wide smile and kind brown eyes that seemed to see a little more than they should. Gabriel—the only person in the office Oliver could relax around, and the only one who sometimes caught him off guard.

Gabriel leaned his hips against the edge of Oliver's desk, nudging a few papers aside, and crossed his arms. His face wore that knowing smirk that always appeared when he was about to pry into Oliver's soul.

"Heard what they're saying about your actor?" he asked, tilting his head slightly.

Oliver felt something tighten inside him. He tried to keep a composed expression, though his thoughts were still flailing like caged birds. He mechanically adjusted the headphones still hanging around his neck and pretended to study the folder Gabriel had just dropped in front of him.

"Heard," he replied shortly, trying to keep his voice even and indifferent. "What, is everyone talking about it?"

Gabriel chuckled, and something knowing flickered in his smile. He knew Oliver well enough to notice the slightest shifts in his behavior—the way he avoided eye contact, the way his fingers trembled slightly as he shuffled papers, the way he hadn't fully turned off the radio, the faint sound of the anchor repeating Kimi Antonelli's name still seeping from his headphones.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," Gabriel observed, narrowing his eyes. "I thought you'd be thrilled. Your nemesis is caught up in a scandal. The internet will chew on this for a week. Isn't this what you wanted?"

Oliver looked up at his friend, and for a moment his face wavered. He wanted to say something sharp, to snark back the way he always did whenever Kimi came up. But the words stuck in his throat. Because two people were fighting inside him: one who dreamed of Kimi's downfall, and another who had just realized that his favorite book was written by the very man he hated.

"I don't know," Oliver managed. "Maybe. It's just… unexpected."

Gabriel frowned, clearly unsatisfied with that answer. He looked at Oliver with that particular warmth that always disarmed him. Like he could see right through him and was just waiting for him to open up on his own.

"Ollie," Gabriel said softly, switching to Spanish—a habit Oliver had long grown used to. "You're acting weird. It's just Kimi Antonelli. So he wrote a book in his youth. What does it matter to you?"

Oliver swallowed. If only Gabriel knew. If only he knew which book Kimi had written. If only he knew how many times Oliver had reread Wildflowers, wrapped in a blanket in his tiny studio, and how many times those words had restored his faith in himself.

"You're right," Oliver lied, forcing a semblance of a smile. "What does it matter?"

He pushed the folder aside and reached for his cup of cold coffee. Gabriel watched him for a few seconds, as if deciding whether to push further, but finally just clapped him on the shoulder and straightened up.

"Alright, I've got a meeting in five minutes," he said, heading for the door. "But if you want to talk… I'm here."

And he left, leaving Oliver alone with his thoughts and trembling fingers still clutching the empty cup.

Oliver put his headphones back on and scrolled the interview recording to the moment Kimi said: "Wildflowers." He closed his eyes, breathing in the smell of cold coffee and listening to that voice.

"Damn," he whispered. "Damn, damn, damn."

He had to do something. Use this secret. Destroy Kimi. Write an article that would tear his reputation to shreds. He'd already mentally drafted headlines: "Hollywood Star Hid His Book for Twenty Years—What Else Is He Hiding?" , "Kimi Antonelli's Perfect Image Cracks at the Seams" , "Why Was the Actor Afraid to Admit Authorship?" It was the perfect opportunity. The chance he'd dreamed of all these years.

Which he somehow didn't want to use.

Oliver pulled off his headphones and rubbed his face hard with his palms, as if trying to erase the numbness from his skin. His fingers trembled, and a strange emptiness spread through his chest—as if someone had ripped out the very engine that had been driving him to get up every morning. All his hatred, carefully honed over five years, suddenly had nowhere to go. Like shooting at a shadow—loud, spectacular, and utterly useless.

He stayed in the office until evening, mechanically shuffling papers, signing documents without looking at them, answering emails whose content he'd forgotten within a minute. Colleagues gradually filtered out. Gabriel left first, throwing him one more worried glance, but Oliver just nodded back, pretending he was fine. By six, the office was empty, and he finally allowed himself to lean back and just exhale.

He played the recording again. Kimi's voice. The same soft, slightly husky tone with its faint Italian edge. Oliver listened again and again, trying to catch something familiar in the intonations. Something that could connect this man to that book. He found nothing. And that made him even angrier.

By evening, Oliver left the office. It was still drizzling outside, and he shoved his hands in his coat pockets without looking, letting raindrops run down his face. His feet carried him to his favorite café—a tiny Italian spot in one of Manhattan's side streets, which he loved for its cozy dimness, the smell of fresh espresso, and the fact that no one asked too many questions. He ordered his usual dinner—seafood pasta and a latte—and sat by the window, watching raindrops blur across the glass, turning the streetlights into smudged orange halos.

The food sat in front of him, but he had no appetite. Oliver twirled his fork, winding spaghetti around it and then unwinding it, as if the motion could drown out the noise in his head. The familiar cover of Wildflowers still hovered before his eyes. Tattered, read to pieces, with dog-eared corners. The one that sat on his nightstand. He knew it by heart. Every chapter, every sentence. And more than anything—he knew what the person who wrote those words had felt. Because he'd felt the same.

And that person was Kimi Antonelli.

Oliver pushed the plate away and ran a hand through his hair, messing it up. For the first time in years of hatred, he didn't know what to do. All his usual schemes, all his revenge plans, all the venomous comments he'd prepared for every Kimi appearance in the news—all of it had crumbled to dust. Because you can't hate the person who wrote the words that saved you. Or can you?

He finished his latte, left a tip larger than usual at the counter, and stepped out into the rain. His feet carried him toward home, but his mind wandered somewhere far away, to Bologna, to eighteen-year-old Kimi—who might have been sitting at a table in a café just like this one, scrawling lines onto paper that would, decades later, turn Oliver Bearman's life upside down.

At home, he shed his damp coat, turned on his laptop, and opened Netflix. The intro of some silly series flickered across the screen—the kind he usually watched to switch off his brain. Normally it worked. Tonight, it didn't.

Oliver closed the laptop, turned off the lights, and lay down on the couch, staring at the ceiling. In the darkness of his own apartment, to the sound of rain against the window, he felt utterly lost.

He was Kimi Antonelli's number one hater. But he was also the number one fan of the author of Wildflowers.

And those two people turned out to be one and the same.

"What the hell, Kimi?" Oliver whispered into the void. "Why did it have to be you?"

There was no answer. Only rain against the window and silence.

────୨ৎ────

Kimi was hiding. Or rather, he was shamefully holed up in his apartment while an army of publicists, lawyers, and managers wrestled with a single question: how to salvage his reputation. George had forbidden him from appearing in public, posting on social media, answering journalist calls, or even looking out the window—in case someone below was lurking with a telephoto lens. The penthouse overlooking Central Park had become a luxurious but suffocating cage.

Kimi still didn't understand why this had caused such an uproar. He sat on the expensive leather sofa in his bathrobe, clutching a cold espresso, staring at the endless notifications popping up on his phone screen. Twenty years ago, he'd just been a kid from Bologna writing about what he felt. Was that a crime? Was that shameful? Things like this hadn't been taboo or illegal for a long time. Same-sex marriage was legal in most countries, the LGBTQ+ movement was gaining momentum, and many celebrities spoke openly about their orientation. So why was his case causing such a storm?

Kimi had never hidden that he wasn't straight. He just didn't talk about it. He didn't make grand announcements, didn't march with signs at Pride parades—but he also didn't deny it when asked directly. As far as he remembered, over ten years of his career, he'd mentioned it only a couple of times, in closed interviews for small publications no one read. But that wasn't deception! It was just… personal space. Didn't a public figure have the right to a private life?

But the internet thought otherwise. The internet demanded answers. The internet demanded confession. The internet demanded blood.

Kimi put down his phone and ran a hand over his face. He was tired. Tired of George's endless calls, tired of the news feeds, tired of his own reflection in the mirror, which seemed to mock him. The walls were pressing in. The luxurious interior, expensive paintings, soft designer lighting—it all suddenly felt cramped, claustrophobic, like a prison cell. He needed to breathe. He needed to get out. He needed to feel alive, not like an exhibit in a glass display case.

He jumped up from the sofa and frantically rummaged through his closet until he found what he was looking for: an old dark-gray hoodie he'd worn back in his college days, and a black cap with a long brim. He pulled them on, tugged the hood as low as possible, yanked the cap down almost to his eyes, and glanced briefly at the hall mirror. Recognizable? Probably. But if you weren't paying attention, you might mistake him for just another New Yorker rushing about his business.

George would be furious. George would probably scream until blood vessels burst in his eyes. George would want to kill him. But Kimi couldn't stay here any longer. He just couldn't breathe this air, thick with panic and other people's decisions.

He slipped out of the apartment, treading as quietly as possible, and took the elevator down. No one recognized him in the lobby—the security guard, used to a diverse mix of residents, just nodded back. Kimi exhaled. First stage complete.

The street greeted him with evening coolness. The rain had stopped, but the asphalt still glistened under the streetlights, reflecting orange glints of city lights. Kimi took a deep breath of the damp air, feeling his lungs fill with freedom. He shoved his hands in his hoodie pockets and walked along the sidewalk, head down, careful not to accidentally meet anyone's gaze.

He remembered that not far from his apartment was a little café with Italian cuisine, run by an elderly family. He'd dropped in a few times when things got overwhelming—in those rare moments when he wanted to disappear, to be just a person, not a face on magazine covers. It smelled like home there. It smelled like his mother's kitchen. No one recognized him there.

He turned the corner, walked a couple more blocks, and stopped in front of a familiar sign. A small, cozy place with warm yellow light inside, where through the glass display windows he could see tables covered in checkered cloths. Kimi pushed the door open, and the aromas of garlic, tomatoes, and fresh baking washed over him. He almost smiled for the first time in two days.

But the smile froze on his lips when he noticed the only other customer, sitting at the table by the window. A man about his age with disheveled dark hair, staring blankly into space, twirling his fork with a spaghetti wound around it. There was such a palpable melancholy and lostness in his posture—the very same Kimi felt inside himself.

Their eyes met. For a moment.

Oliver recognized him.

Kimi could tell by the way the stranger's eyes widened.

And at that moment, Kimi regretted ever leaving the house.

Kimi had almost turned to slip back out when a head appeared from behind the kitchen curtain. A woman in her seventies with a kind, wrinkled face, gray hair pulled into a bun, and an apron dusted with flour. She spotted Kimi, and her face lit up with a warm, sunny smile.

"Sweetheart, it's you!" she exclaimed, wiping her hands on her apron and coming out from behind the counter. "You look so pale—come sit down, I'll bring you your usual."

Kimi froze like a naughty schoolboy caught skipping class. He instinctively yanked his hood lower, pulled the cap down almost to his nose, but it was too late. Signora Rosa—that was the owner's name—had recognized him. She always recognized him. Ever since he'd first wandered in a couple of years ago, she'd remembered his face, his voice, his order. She called him "sweetheart" and always gave him a little extra pasta and never charged him for dessert.

"Signora Rosa, I…" Kimi started, but the old woman waved her hand, refusing to hear any objections.

"No 'I's! You haven't eaten properly today, I can tell," she said, her eyes twinkling shrewdly. "Go on, go on, sit at your table. I'll bring everything right away."

Now he definitely couldn't escape. Escaping Signora Rosa was impossible—she had a supernatural ability to keep guests in her café, enveloping them in such warmth and care that refusal was unthinkable. Kimi sighed, feeling the tension he'd been carrying all day slowly melt inside him. He opened his mouth to say that maybe he should leave, but then his gaze fell again on the man at the window table.

The man hadn't taken his eyes off him.

Oliver sat motionless, like a statue. His fingers still gripped the fork with its hopelessly tangled spaghetti, but he seemed to have forgotten all about the food. His expression was a mixture of shock, recognition, and something else—something Kimi couldn't read. Something complex, dark, almost painful. Kimi noticed the stranger's face had gone slightly pale, jaw muscles working—he was clenching his teeth, trying to control his emotions.

Kimi tensed internally. He had recognized him. Without a doubt. And there was something more in that look than just surprise at meeting a celebrity. There was something personal. Something that made Kimi even more uneasy.

Signora Rosa was already carrying a tray with steaming pasta and an espresso to the corner table, and Kimi knew he had no choice. He slowly shuffled to his usual spot—the secluded table in the farthest corner of the café, from which he could see the whole room while remaining in the shadows. He sat down on the wooden chair and, without taking off his cap, looked up at the stranger.

He was still staring.

Kimi held his gaze for a moment, trying to understand what this man was feeling. Hostility? No. More like… bewilderment. The same bewilderment that had been gnawing at Kimi for the past two days.

And then Oliver looked away. Abruptly, almost roughly, as if he'd been electrocuted. He stared at his plate, grabbed his fork, and began frantically twirling spaghetti around it, pretending he was just busy with his dinner and hadn't noticed anything.

Kimi exhaled, but the tension didn't leave him. He picked up his fork, though he still had no appetite, and stared at his plate, feeling that gaze on him even through his lowered cap.

This evening was no longer just strange. It was becoming dangerous.

Kimi was about to lower his fork into the pasta when a shadow appeared in front of him. Signora Rosa, deftly wiping her hands on her apron, unceremoniously sat down across from him, as if this were the most ordinary evening, not a scene being watched by the entire café—well, by its single customer at the window table.

"Saw what they're saying about you on the news," she whispered, leaning across the table and dropping her voice to a conspiratorial hush. Her eyes, ringed with fine wrinkles, looked at Kimi with that special warm shrewdness that comes to women who've seen everything in life and a little more. "Don't you worry so much. So it happened. It was a long time ago. You know you'll always be my most welcome guest?"

Kimi opened his mouth to answer, but Signora Rosa didn't let him get a word in. She reached across the table with her plump hand and gently tugged the cap off his head, tossing it onto the neighboring chair. Kimi flinched in surprise, his dark, tangled, sweat-damp hair falling across his forehead. He instinctively reached to grab the cap back, but the old woman just chuckled.

"Put on a cap, did you? Think that'll help?" She shook her head, a note of indulgent sympathy in her voice. "You think I recognized you by your face? No, sweetheart. I recognized you by the way you walked in. All hunched like an old man, shoulders in, head down. You were just like that last time you first came. Remember? You were hiding from something then, too."

Kimi swallowed. She was right. He always came here when he wanted to hide. From cameras, from paparazzi, from George, from his own life. And Signora Rosa, her tiny café smelling of garlic and grandmotherly care, was the only place where he could just be himself.

"I just wanted to get some air," he said quietly, but his voice betrayed him with a tremor. "George locked me in my apartment. I couldn't stay there anymore."

Signora Rosa frowned, her face turning serious. She glanced over her shoulder at Oliver, who was still sitting by the window and, judging by his posture, listening intently to their conversation. Of course, in an empty café, every word carried—even when whispered.

"And you were right to run," she declared, turning back to Kimi and ignoring the witness entirely. "Walls have a way of pressing in on you. I know. My husband, God rest his soul, always wanted to run away when the neighbors started gossiping. And you… you're too good to hide, Kimi."

She covered his hand with hers, soft and warm, and Kimi felt something loosen inside him. A warmth he hadn't felt in days spread through his chest.

"You just wrote a book, didn't you?" Signora Rosa continued, lowering her voice to barely a whisper. "Eighteen years old. You were a boy with a big heart, writing about what you felt. What's wrong with that? I read it—not all of it, my eyes aren't what they used to be, but I read it. I liked it. It's about love. And love is always beautiful, no matter who loves whom."

Kimi felt tears prick at his eyes. He blinked quickly, chasing them away, and squeezed the old woman's fingers gratefully.

"Thank you, Signora Rosa," he breathed. "I knew I could come here."

"Always, sweetheart," she assured him, patting his hand lightly before rising. "Now eat. And don't think about the bad stuff. Everything will be all right."

She turned and headed back to the kitchen, but paused at the door to throw a glance at Oliver: "And you eat too, my boy. Your pasta's not steaming anymore."

Oliver flinched and stared at his plate, mechanically twisting his fork again. But Kimi noticed how his ears betrayed him with a flush—and knew he'd heard every word.

The silence in the café thickened like syrup. Two people sitting on opposite sides of the room, both perfectly aware that one of them had just laid himself bare to the other.

Kimi slowly raised his eyes and met Oliver's. The other man was looking back at him over his shoulder, no longer hiding. There was something in that gaze that made Kimi hold his breath.

And then Oliver rose slowly, almost hypnotically, from his chair.

Oliver had taken only a couple of steps when Kimi's voice stopped him. The actor hadn't even looked up—he just kept staring at his plate, twirling his fork—but his voice was firm, though carrying a faint tremor.

"If you want to broadcast what you heard to everyone, go ahead," Kimi said preemptively. "They're going to tear me apart anyway."

Oliver froze. He stood three steps from Kimi's table, not knowing what to do, what to say, how to look at the man he'd hated for five years but whose book he'd read ten times over. He looked at Kimi—disheveled, in an old hoodie, sitting in a cheap dive—and felt his usual patterns crumbling before his eyes.

"Like I'd bother," Oliver shrugged, trying to sound as casual as possible. He crossed his arms and tilted his head, striking the posture that usually helped him look confident. "Besides, it's a good book."

Silence.

Kimi finally looked up. His big brown eyes, which Oliver had seen thousands of times on screen, stared at him with genuine astonishment. Kimi's brows rose slightly, his lips parted as if he wanted to say something, but the words stuck in his throat. Oliver saw a whole gamut of emotions flicker across those eyes: surprise, disbelief, hope—and then doubt again.

"You… read it?" Kimi asked, and there was an unexpected softness in his voice, almost childlike vulnerability. He stopped twirling his fork and put his hands on the table, leaning forward.

Oliver felt his face starting to redden. He wanted to look away, wanted to say something cutting, to restore that familiar distance between "hater" and "object of hatred." But instead, he heard his own voice say:

"Read it. Several times. I… I know it almost by heart."

He hadn't meant to say that out loud. The words escaped without permission. Oliver felt everything inside him flip—he'd just confessed his deepest secret to the man who was his greatest enemy. It was a crazy, self-destructive move, and he couldn't stop it.

Kimi stared at him as if he'd seen a ghost. His eyes widened slightly, and a small, almost hesitant smile touched his lips. He leaned back in his chair, as if digesting what he'd just heard, and ran a hand through his hair—a familiar gesture Oliver recognized from a hundred interviews.

"That's…" Kimi started, but paused, searching for words. "That was an unexpected compliment. Thank you."

"I'm not complimenting you," Oliver snapped, but there was no real bite in it. He was more trying to shield himself from his own emotions. "I'm just stating facts. It's a good book. It's not my fault you wrote it."

Kimi chuckled. Quietly, almost soundlessly, but Oliver saw the corners of his mouth twitch.

"Have a seat?" Kimi suddenly said, nodding at the chair across from him. "Signora Rosa will bring you coffee. She likes it when I bring guests."

 

Oliver hesitated. He wanted to say no. He should have said no. Everything inside him screamed that this was dangerous, that he shouldn't sit at the same table with this man, because then all his plans, all his hatred, all his carefully built defenses would finally collapse.

But his feet were already moving toward the chair.

He sat down across from Kimi Antonelli, his nemesis, and felt the world turn upside down.

"I'm Oliver," he said, looking into those brown eyes that, up close, were even bigger and warmer than on screen. "And I'm not going to hound you. I just… I just want to understand."

"Understand what?" Kimi asked softly.

Oliver looked him straight in the eye. There was no more hatred in his gaze. Something else burned there—hot, fierce, almost unbearable.

"Why did you write that book?" he asked. "And why did you hide it for twenty years?"

Kimi fell silent. He stared at his hands gripping the fork, and seemed to see not them, but something distant, buried deep in memory. Oliver held his breath, afraid to break the silence. Signora Rosa silently set a steaming cup of coffee in front of him, but he didn't even notice.

And then Kimi spoke. His voice was quiet, steady, without his usual actorly cadences, without that velvety smoothness Oliver had heard in interviews. This was the voice of a man who'd stopped performing.

"Why? Because twenty years ago, it was a revelation," he began, and a shadow of pain flickered in his brown eyes. "It was a pain I lived with every day. Shame that wasn't yet the norm back then. You have no idea what it's like to be a teenager in Italy in the early two-thousands and realize you're different from everyone else."

Oliver swallowed. He knew. He knew that feeling too well.

"When you're bullied just for what you feel," Kimi continued, bitterness creeping into his voice. "At eighteen, you're physically an adult, but inside you're still a teenager just stepping into adult life. You think you'll handle it, that you'll be strong, that words can't hurt you. And then someone hurls an insult at your back, and you realize you're still that same scared kid who doesn't understand why they hate you for how you were born."

Oliver felt his breath catch. These were his own feelings. His own pain. He was hearing exactly what he'd felt when reading Wildflowers in his tiny studio, wrapped in a blanket, at three in the morning, when the world seemed too cruel.

"The realization that you're different—it always hits hard right between the eyes," Kimi said softly, his voice wavering. "You look in the mirror and don't know who you are. You look at other guys and feel like an outsider. Like you'll never be accepted for who you are."

He looked up at Oliver, and there was such open, unguarded sincerity in his gaze that Oliver forgot how to breathe.

"I wrote that book because I needed to pour it out. Because if I hadn't written it, I would've suffocated. Every night I'd sit in my tiny room in Bologna, where even the walls knew all my secrets, and I'd write. About what it's like to love someone you're not supposed to love. About what it's like to be yourself when the whole world tells you you're wrong."

Kimi paused, and in the ensuing silence, only his breathing and the soft hiss of the coffee machine behind the counter could be heard. Signora Rosa, standing at the kitchen entrance, wiped her hands on her apron and watched them with a sad smile.

"And then I became an actor," Kimi continued. "And I realized I could hide behind other people's faces. Behind other people's roles. Behind other people's lives. I could play anyone but myself. And that was both a salvation and a curse."

Oliver sat motionless. His coffee had gone cold, but he hadn't touched it. He looked at Kimi and felt his years of constructed hatred dissolve into something entirely different.

"You asked why I hid it for twenty years," Kimi said, a sad smile touching his lips. "Because the book was my refuge. My personal, secret world where I was real. I was afraid that if anyone found out about it, that whole world would shatter. That they'd stop seeing me as an actor and only see 'that guy who wrote that book.'"

He paused, caught his breath, and looked Oliver straight in the eyes.

"You said you know it almost by heart," Kimi said softly. "Then you understand what I'm talking about. You felt it too, didn't you?"

Oliver couldn't answer. He couldn't speak. Because inside him everything was screaming yes. Yes, he understood. Yes, he felt it. Yes, every page of that book had resonated with the echo of his own pain, his own fears, his own hopes.

And now, looking into the eyes of the man he'd hated for five years, he understood that he'd hated him only because he was braver. Because he'd written what Oliver had never dared to say out loud.

"Yes," Oliver finally breathed. "I understand."

And in that single word, everything was contained. Forgiveness. Acceptance. And the beginning of something that would change both their lives.

Signora Rosa, watching from behind the counter, nodded approvingly and disappeared into the kitchen, leaving the two men alone. Alone with the truth that had finally stopped being a secret.

The silence stretched on. Oliver looked at Kimi, trying to reconcile two images in his mind: the glamorous actor from magazine covers and this disheveled man in an old hoodie who'd just confessed his deepest fears to him. They sat facing each other in the empty café, the quiet broken only by the soft hiss of the coffee machine and the clatter of dishes from the kitchen.

Signora Rosa, as if sensing the significance of the moment, stayed out of sight—giving them space.

"So who's the real Kimi Antonelli?" Oliver finally asked. His voice came out softer than he'd intended, almost reverent.

Kimi looked up at him. His brown eyes, usually so bright and alive on screen, now seemed tired—but something new flickered in them: a hint of surprise mixed with hope. He slowly ran a hand through his hair, pushing it from his face, and pointed a finger at his own chest, where his heart beat.

"I don't know? Maybe this one," he said with a light, almost uncertain smile. "Still that same scared kid from Italy. Just better at pretending."

He said it with such genuine self-deprecation that Oliver felt his own heart clench. Kimi wasn't playing the hero. He wasn't trying to seem strong or invulnerable. He just was. Exactly as he was. And that was… strange. Oliver was used to seeing him as perfect, flawless, untouchable. But here sat an ordinary man who was also afraid, also made mistakes, also hid.

"Then we need to find out," Oliver said, surprising himself with how easily the words came. As if he'd spoken without thinking, as if somewhere deep inside he'd already known this was the right choice. "You helped me once. Even though I hated you as an actor."

Kimi frowned slightly, not following.

"But as an actor…" Oliver faltered, searching for the right words, staring into his cold cup. "As an actor, you were just a picture to me. A fake. Someone who played other people's lives so he wouldn't have to live his own. And that infuriated me. It infuriated me that you could pretend so easily when I… when I couldn't even admit to myself who I was."

He looked up, meeting Kimi's gaze.

"And then I read Wildflowers. And everything changed. I always wanted to meet the author in person, talk to him. Because the realization only hit me after reading it. That book… it stripped me bare, you know? Peeled away all that protective armor. And I realized I wasn't alone. That someone out there had felt the same. Somewhere in the world, someone had gone through the same thing and survived. And that gave me strength."

Oliver fell silent, feeling his voice start to shake. He hadn't planned to say so much. He hadn't planned to confess any of this. But Kimi sat across from him, looking at him with such warmth and understanding that Oliver simply couldn't stop.

Kimi was quiet for a long moment. He looked at Oliver with a kind of wonder, as if he couldn't believe his ears. And then his face lit up with a smile—not the Hollywood, rehearsed one, but a real one, slightly embarrassed, slightly vulnerable.

"Are you serious?" Kimi asked softly. "You want to get to know the real me? After everything I just said? Even knowing I'm just as scared a kid as you are?"

Oliver chuckled, and there was no bitterness in it anymore.

"We're all scared kids, Kimi. Some just hide it better. And some… some write books about it."

Kimi threw his head back and laughed. Quietly, from the heart. And there was so much relief, so much liberation in that laugh, that Oliver couldn't help but smile back.

"Then," Kimi said, extending his hand across the table, "let's start over. I'm Kimi. Just Kimi. A writer who's still learning how to be himself."

Oliver looked at his hand. A moment. Two. And then he clasped it in return, feeling the warmth of another palm.

"Oliver," he replied. "Your former hater and your… probably your most devoted fan of Wildflowers."

And in that handshake, in that tiny Italian café in the middle of vast, cold New York, their new story began. Behind the counter, discreetly wiping away a tear, stood Signora Rosa, smiling with quiet satisfaction. She knew when something important was beginning. And this was exactly that beginning.

────୨ৎ────

The next morning, Kimi sat on the sofa in his apartment. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, Manhattan was waking under a gray sky—heavy, leaden, as if the city itself had pulled a blanket of clouds over itself to hide from prying eyes. Yellow taxis darted along the streets, their horns muffled by the thick glass, reduced to a distant, almost unreal hum. Somewhere below, in the endless flow of the city, life went on as usual: people rushed to work, drank coffee on the go, discussed the news, laughed, argued, and lived. But Kimi noticed none of it. All his attention was fixed on the laptop on the coffee table.

The screen glowed with a blinding, almost frightening white light—a blank file without a single letter. The cursor blinked in the upper left corner, mocking him, waiting for Kimi to make up his mind and start moving his fingers across the keyboard. That blinking felt like a taunt. Every time he looked at it, a wave of nauseating fear rose inside him, tightening around his throat.

He sat in an old T-shirt, his hair disheveled and sticking up in all directions after a sleepless night, staring at that blank page with a feeling he hadn't experienced in years. Fear. Pure, primal, animal fear of the empty page. Of what he might say. Of who he might discover inside himself once he started writing. The fear was familiar—he remembered it from when he was eighteen, when he'd first sat down to write. Back then, he'd been afraid someone would find his notes, read them, and discover the truth. Now he was afraid the truth wouldn't survive his own scrutiny.

Kimi leaned back on the sofa and closed his eyes. His eyelids were heavy, dark circles etched beneath them—he'd barely slept that night. Every time he closed his eyes, Oliver's face appeared before him. His gaze. Those eyes in which he'd seen so much pain and understanding. Kimi replayed their conversation over and over in his head, every word, every pause. He remembered how Oliver had looked at him as he talked about Bologna, about his pain, about the book he'd buried twenty years ago. There was no judgment in that look. Only understanding. Pure, unconditional understanding from someone who had been through the same thing.

And that was what frightened Kimi most of all.

Oliver's voice still echoed in his head: "You helped me once." Not as an actor—as an author. As someone who'd found the courage to pour his pain onto paper. And Kimi suddenly realized he'd forgotten that feeling. Forgotten what it was like to write not to hide, but to find himself. He'd spent so many years hiding behind other people's faces, other people's stories, other people's emotions, that he'd forgotten how to feel his own. He'd become an empty vessel, filled by scripts and directorial notes. But inside, somewhere deep down, that same kid from Bologna was still waiting to be let out into the light.

Kimi opened his eyes and stared at the laptop again. His fingers found the keyboard on their own, but he didn't press any keys. The words were frozen inside him, clenched into a tight knot somewhere in his chest. He could feel his heart pounding in his throat, his palms growing clammy with anxiety, a shiver running down his spine. It felt like standing on the edge of a high cliff—he knew he had to take the step, but his body refused to obey.

"If the only way I can find myself is to start writing," he whispered into the silence of his apartment. His voice was hoarse, cracking, and in that silence it sounded almost plaintive. "Then so be it."

He took a deep breath, held it for a moment, feeling his lungs fill with air, his chest expand—and then he did something he hadn't done in twenty years. Not counting that old book. Not counting the random notes he'd later delete in shame, afraid someone might find them on his phone or laptop. He started writing.

Slowly at first, hesitantly, like testing the water with his toes. Letters formed into words, words into sentences. He wrote about Bologna. About how the morning air smelled by the canal when the sun was just beginning to break through the mist—damp, cool, with hints of river water and fresh bread from the bakery around the corner. About how he'd sit on the windowsill in his tiny room, knees pulled to his chest, watching the passersby, feeling invisible. About the first time he realized he was different from everyone else, and how the world had turned upside down in that moment.

He remembered that day. He was sixteen. He watched his classmates, their ease, their freedom, how they flirted carelessly, touched each other, and laughed. And he stood off to the side, leaning against the wall, feeling like an alien who'd accidentally landed on a foreign planet. The realization hadn't come like a lightning bolt—it had come like cold fear spreading through his veins. Slow, sticky, inevitable. He understood that he would be alone. That no one would understand. That he had to stay silent. Silent for his entire life if he wanted to survive.

The words flowed out of him, first a thin trickle, then a rushing stream. His fingers moved faster, as if the words were afraid of not making it out in time, afraid he'd fall silent again, close himself off, hide. He wrote about parents who never learned the truth about him. About his mother, who made him breakfast every morning and kissed his forehead, not knowing that her son was dying of fear every day of being exposed. About his father, who wanted to see a "real man" in him and couldn't understand why his son avoided football and girls. About first love, unrequited and painful, that left a scar on his heart. About the fear he'd carried inside him all those years, hiding it behind smiles on red carpets, behind glittering roles, behind the perfect image he'd so carefully constructed.

He wrote about how he'd smiled at cameras while everything inside screamed in terror that someone might notice the crack. About how he'd stood on stage, received awards, heard applause—and felt like a fraud. Because they weren't applauding him. They were applauding the mask. And he was terrified that if he took it off, there'd be no one underneath.

Kimi didn't notice an hour had passed. Then two. His fingers flew across the keyboard, tapping with such fury as if he were trying to beat the pain, the lies, the years of silence out of himself. Images and memories he'd buried so deep he'd forgotten where they lay flashed before his eyes. But now they were bursting out, like water breaching a dam, sweeping everything in their path. He wrote and wrote, without stopping, without editing, without rereading. Just letting the words pour out, freeing him from the weight he'd carried for twenty years.

Several pages filled the screen. Kimi caught his breath and leaned back on the sofa, feeling a strange lightness. As if someone had lifted a heavy backpack off his shoulders—one he'd worn so long he'd stopped noticing its weight. His shoulders dropped, his breathing steadied, and an unfamiliar quiet settled in his chest. Where anxious noise had once hummed, there was now calm.

He smiled. Quietly, barely noticeably, at the corners of his mouth. For the first time in a long time, the smile was real—not for the cameras, not for the audience, not for George. For himself. For that kid from Bologna, who deserved that smile.

The phone on the table vibrated. Kimi glanced at the screen—George. Seven missed calls. And a message full of capital letters and exclamation points. George demanded a response, demanded explanations, demanded that Kimi stop "this madness" and let the PR team fix everything. Kimi chuckled, shook his head, and switched the phone to silent mode. George wouldn't understand. George had always seen him only as a product, a brand, an asset. George never asked how Kimi felt. He only cared about how it would look on magazine covers.

Then Kimi looked at the laptop, at the filled pages, and understood that this was only the beginning. He'd come back. Back to himself, to that kid from Bologna who'd once dreamed of just being himself. And maybe this time, he wouldn't have to hide. Maybe this time, he could show the world his scars without being ashamed of them.

Kimi closed the laptop and let out a breath. The room fell silent—only the distant, muffled hum of the city outside the window reminded him that life continued beyond these walls. The life he'd been hiding from for so long. Kimi turned his head and looked out the window. The gray sky over Manhattan was beginning to lighten, breaking through the clouds in rare rays of morning sun. They fell on the floor, on the walls, on his hands, warming them. Kimi felt that warmth seep under his skin, spread through his veins, warming something frozen inside him.

Maybe he really could do it. Maybe this was the beginning.

Until noon, Kimi didn't tear himself away from the screen and keyboard. His fingers flew across the keys as if the words were afraid of not making it out in time. He typed as if in a trance, oblivious to time, deaf to the sounds of the city outside, unaware of his aching shoulders from sitting too long in an awkward position. It was like an obsession—that same flow he'd forgotten over twenty years of acting. He was no longer Kimi Antonelli, Hollywood star. He was that boy again, writing by the light of his desk lamp, afraid his parents might hear the keys clicking.

Page after page filled the screen. He wrote about a boy who was afraid of mirrors because he didn't recognize the person he was supposed to see in the reflection. About nights spent hugging a pillow, tears flowing silently so no one in the next room would hear. About how music had saved him, and how the first lines of his future book were born from despair, when it felt like the world was falling apart.

He wrote about the first time he kissed a boy. How his hands trembled. How his heart pounded, ready to leap from his chest. How they stood in a dark alley, and that kiss was both the scariest and the most right moment of his life. And then morning came, and the fear returned. He wrote about learning to smile while crying inside. About learning to look people in the eye and lie to them—and to himself—that everything was fine.

Only when his stomach growled loudly and insistently did Kimi finally tear himself away from the laptop. His vision was blurry, his fingers slightly trembling—he'd kept them tensed for so long they'd started to go numb. Kimi flexed his hands, massaging his stiff joints, and let out a breath. The room felt unfamiliar, as if he'd returned from another world. The sun was already high, flooding the apartment with light, but Kimi didn't notice it rise.

He glanced at the clock—half past twelve. Four hours had passed like a single moment.

Kimi leaned back on the sofa, feeling his body slowly return to reality. His head was slightly dizzy from the prolonged strain, his throat parched. He tried to stand, but his legs trembled—he'd been sitting in the same position for so long without moving. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down. With each exhale, it got easier inside. Where there had once been emptiness, hope was beginning to take root. Where there had been fear, a strange, almost forgotten courage was emerging.

Kimi reached for his phone, which lay at the edge of the table, pushed aside so it wouldn't distract him. He braced himself for a barrage of messages from George—he was surely already tearing his hair out, unable to reach his disobedient actor. But when the screen lit up, Kimi saw something else.

One message. From an unknown number.

His heart skipped a beat. Kimi frowned, feeling a wave of curiosity and mild unease rise inside him. He opened the message and read:

‘Hi. It's Oliver. I know we only met yesterday, and I know how strange this sounds, but I couldn't not write. And don't freak out that I found your number—I have a journalist friend who gave it to me. I just wanted to say thank you—for our conversation last night. I haven't talked to anyone like that in a long time. Probably because you're the first person who didn't try to convince me otherwise or comfort me. You just listened. And that meant a lot. I don't know if you're ready to meet again—I'd understand if not. Last night was a lot, and maybe we both need to process it. But if you ever want to just grab coffee or talk—I'd be glad to. No hate. No masks. Just two people. Take care, Kimi.

Ollie’

Kimi read the message several times. There was no insistence, no demands or expectations. Just gratitude and a cautious offer. And that was disarming. But at the same time, doubt grew inside him—heavy and sticky as molasses. He kept coming back to the same thought: this man had hated him for five years. Five years! Could one evening really erase that much hatred? Could he trust someone who, just yesterday, had dreamed of destroying his career?

Kimi put the phone down and looked out the window. The city beyond the glass felt foreign and distant. Last night's meeting was a chance. The emotions, the confessions, the tears—all of it could have been just a burst triggered by stress and exhaustion. He didn't know this man. Didn't know what was in his head, what drove him, what he truly felt. Kimi knew too well how easily people changed masks. He'd been doing it his whole life. How could he be sure Oliver wasn't playing a role? That this wasn't some journalist's trick to get to him?

He picked up the phone, typed a reply, deleted it, typed it again, deleted it again. The words wouldn't come together. On one hand, he wanted to respond, and wanted to believe that conversation had been real. On the other, he knew all too well the price of trust. Over ten years of his career, he'd endured so much betrayal, so much hypocrisy, so many smiles that hid knives, that he'd learned to trust no one. Sometimes not even himself.

He closed the laptop, leaving what he'd written for the day, and walked to the kitchen. His feet carried him on autopilot, but his thoughts kept returning to Oliver. To his eyes when he spoke about the book. To his voice, wavering when he admitted he'd been afraid to be himself too. That had been sincere. He could feel it. Kimi knew that voice—it sounded just like his own when he'd written those words in his room in Bologna.

But was one evening enough to believe?

Kimi put the kettle on and leaned against the counter, staring at the phone still lying in the living room. He could feel fear and hope wrestling inside him. Fear whispered, "Don't trust him. You know how this ends. You'll be alone again." Hope murmured, "But what if this time it's different? What if he's real?"

Kimi closed his eyes and exhaled. He needed time. Time to think, without rushing, without giving in to emotions. He decided not to reply today. Let Oliver wait. If his words were real—he'd wait. And Kimi, in the meantime, would return to his laptop and keep writing. Because the only thing he was sure of right now was the words on the page. They didn't betray him. They didn't lie. They were the only truth he could afford.

The next day, Kimi woke with a faint sense of guilt, heavy as a stone lodged somewhere in his chest. He checked his phone—no new messages. Oliver hadn't written again, hadn't pushed, hadn't demanded a reply. That was... unexpected. And respectful. Kimi felt both relieved and slightly disappointed at the same time—and that contradiction annoyed him. He didn't want Oliver to write. But he was afraid Oliver wouldn't write. In that duality, he felt lost, as if in a fog.

Kimi opened his laptop again, but he couldn't write. His thoughts were scattered, drifting back to the evening before last, to that stranger who'd managed to touch something deep inside him in just one evening. Kimi remembered how Oliver had looked at him as he talked about his pain. There was so much understanding in that gaze that Kimi couldn't forget it. Again and again, he returned to that moment, replaying every detail: how Oliver sat, how he gripped his fork, how his voice wavered when he said the book had helped him. It hadn't been an act. It had been too real.

He picked up his phone and finally wrote:

‘Hi, Ollie. Sorry I didn't reply right away. I needed to think. The other night was a lot, and I don't want to rush. But I didn't want you to think I didn't care. Your conversation meant more to me than I can express. Just give me a little time. Okay?’

The reply came an hour later. Kimi froze when he saw the notification, feeling his heart skip a beat. He opened the message:

‘Of course. No problem. I understand. I'm not used to opening up that fast either. I'm not going anywhere. If you ever want to talk or just write—I'm here. No pressure.’

Kimi smiled. Warmth spread through his chest, warming what had been frozen. And for the first time in a long while, he allowed himself to simply feel—without rushing, without performing, without fear. He allowed himself to hope that maybe this man was his chance. His chance to be real. His chance to be himself.

Maybe he really could afford this luxury—to get to know someone truly. But not in one evening. Over months. Over years, if necessary. Because real intimacy takes time. It takes patience. It takes the courage to look your fear in the eye and keep moving forward.

He put the phone down and opened his laptop. Breathed in. Breathed out. And began to write—about himself, about his pain, about his hope. About the possibility that maybe he wasn't too late.

────୨ৎ────

"...Anyway, we'll figure this out somehow," George had been trying to explain their strategy for the better part of an hour. He sat across from Kimi in the living room, papers, charts, and printouts spread across the coffee table. His voice was steady and businesslike, but there was an underlying tension—George clearly hadn't slept well, dark circles shadowed his eyes, and his tie was askew, which for him was a sign of extreme stress.

"We'll release an official statement, then give a few interviews where you say the book is just fiction, that you were inspired by friends' stories. No hints of anything personal, no revelations. You're just an author who wrote a good book in his youth. And that's it. In a couple of weeks, everyone will forget."

George paused and looked up from the papers. His eyes narrowed when he saw that Kimi wasn't looking at him.

Kimi sat in the armchair opposite, leaning back, phone in hand. His fingers moved quickly and lightly across the screen, and on his face was that relaxed smile George hadn't seen in years. Or maybe had never seen at all. It was soft, warm, almost shy—like a teenager texting someone special.

On Kimi's phone screen, his chat with Ollie was open. Ollie had just sent another photo of his cat—a fluffy ginger beast with huge green eyes staring at the camera with an expression of perpetual surprise. Kimi chuckled when he read the caption: ‘She found out I've been talking to you and now she demands an autograph. Careful—she has sharp claws and an unhealthy interest in your person.’

They'd been talking for a week. A week that had flown by like a single moment. Every morning began with a message from Oliver—short, warm, pressure-free. Sometimes it was a photo of his cat. Sometimes a funny meme. Sometimes just a simple ‘Good morning. Hope you're doing well. Thinking of you.’ And every time, Kimi felt something warm spread inside him—something he hadn't felt in a very, very long time.

They didn't talk about anything serious. Didn't discuss the scandal, didn't revisit their first meeting, didn't touch on painful topics. They just... talked. About the weather, about food, about the weird habits of cats, about stupid movies they'd both watched as kids. Kimi realized that over ten years of his career, he'd forgotten how to have these light, unburdened conversations. Every word he spoke was always weighed, every message filtered through "What will people think?" With Oliver, there was none of that. With Oliver, he could just be.

"Are you even listening to me?" George's voice sharpened, and Kimi finally looked up from his phone.

"What?" he repeated, still wearing that faint smile. "Yeah, of course. Strategy. Statement. Everyone forgets. Got it."

George stared at him with an expression that was unmistakable—a mix of irritation, bewilderment, and mild panic. He set the papers aside and crossed his arms, studying Kimi as if seeing him for the first time.

"Kimi," he said slowly, with emphasis. "Did you hear a single word I said? I was talking about what we're going to do about this scandal. About your reputation. About how if we don't get this under control, in a month no serious project will touch you. Do you understand that?"

Kimi nodded, but his gaze drifted back to the phone, where a new message from Oliver had appeared: ‘Also, she wanted me to tell you she likes you more than me. Traitor.’ Kimi snorted with laughter, covering his mouth with his hand.

George closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, counting to ten. When he opened them again, resignation was written all over his face.

"Who is she?" he asked bluntly. "I haven't seen you this happy since we signed that blockbuster deal. Who's the girl distracting you from our strategy?"

Kimi paused for a moment. He looked at George, then at the phone, then back at George. The smile didn't leave his face—it only grew wider.

"It's not a girl," he said calmly, without defiance or aggression. "It's a friend. Just a friend."

"A friend?" George raised an eyebrow, clearly not believing a word. "And what kind of friend?"

Kimi looked at the phone screen, where another message from Oliver had appeared—this time the cat was sitting in a box and looked even more surprised than usual. And Kimi realized he wasn't just smiling anymore; he was smiling from the heart.

"He's the one who read my book," he said quietly. "And understood it. Understood me."

George opened his mouth to object, but Kimi raised a hand, stopping him.

"I know it's strange. I know the timing is terrible. But for the first time in years, I feel... alive, George. And I don't want to lose that."

Silence filled the room. George looked at Kimi and saw something in his eyes he'd never seen in ten years of working together—sincerity. Vulnerability. A desire to be himself.

"Alright," George finally exhaled, running a hand over his face. "Just be careful. And for God's sake, stop smiling at your phone when I'm talking about your career. It looks... unprofessional."

Kimi laughed—loud, free, from the heart.

"Promise," he said, and looked back at the phone, where a new message was already glowing: ‘She wants to know when you're coming over. I told her we're not at that stage yet, but she doesn't believe me. Says she can see it in your eyes—you're already in love. With the cat, of course. Not with me.’

Kimi quietly snorted and started typing a reply, feeling that warm feeling spreading through him—the one he'd been searching for so long.

Maybe he really was in love. But not with the cat.

He just wasn't ready to admit it yet.

He quickly typed: ‘She's inviting me over?’ and sent it, holding his breath.

The reply came almost instantly. Oliver must have been sitting with his phone in hand, waiting for his messages. Kimi opened the notification and read:

‘Only if you want to.’

And somehow, after that message from Oliver, Kimi's ears burned at the tips. He felt the blood rush to his face, the heat creeping up the back of his neck, his heart skipping a beat and then racing faster. He raised his free hand to his ear, touched the hot lobe with his fingers, and suddenly realized he was blushing. Blushing like a teenager on a first date. Blushing from a single message.

"God," he whispered under his breath, so quietly George couldn't hear. "Kimi Antonelli, are you serious?"

He looked at George, who was still talking about strategy, but his manager's words reached him through a fog. Kimi couldn't focus. He could feel his own heart pounding out some frantic rhythm, his ears burning, his entire body screaming that he didn't want to pretend anymore.

"...and then we'll give an interview to Variety, and—"

"George," Kimi interrupted, his voice slightly hoarse. "Can we continue tomorrow?"

George fell silent, looked at Kimi's flushed face, his burning ears, the phone he was clutching in his hand, and let out a heavy sigh.

"Go," he said wearily. "Go before I change my mind. But tomorrow at ten, we sit down and finish this. No cats. No smiles. No mysterious friends. Deal?"

Kimi nodded, feeling both guilty and deliriously happy at the same time.

"Deal," he replied, rising from the chair. "And George... thank you."

George waved him off without looking up, burying himself in his papers. Kimi left the living room and headed to the kitchen, but on the way, he opened his phone again. Oliver's message was still there: ‘Only if you want to.’

He bit his lip and started typing, feeling something flip inside him with nervous excitement.

‘I want to. But not today. Let's... soon. I need a little more time. Just to get used to the idea that I can be myself with someone. You don't mind, do you?’

The reply came within a minute. Short, warm, with that same light self-deprecation that had already become Oliver's trademark:

‘I already told you—I'm not going anywhere. Take all the time you need. And you know... I'm learning to be myself too. So we can learn together, if you want. No rush. And the cat will wait.’

Kimi smiled. Smiled so wide his cheeks hurt. He leaned his back against the hallway wall, pressed the phone to his chest, and closed his eyes, feeling something huge, warm, and almost unbearably beautiful spreading inside him.

Maybe he was in love. Maybe it was foolish and too fast. But maybe it was the most right thing that had happened to him in years.

He opened his eyes, looked at his phone, and typed one last message for the night:

‘Thank you for waiting. It means more than you know.’

He sent it, tucked the phone into his pocket, and walked to the kitchen for a cup of tea. But the smile didn't leave his face for a long, long time.

────୨ৎ────

Kimi couldn't believe he was standing in front of the door of a guy he'd known for only a month. Just one month. And yet it felt like an eternity. Every day of texting, every photo of the ginger cat, every "Good morning" and "Good night"—all of it had created a connection between them that Kimi hadn't felt with anyone in the last ten years. Ten years he'd hidden behind masks, played other people's roles, lived other people's lives. And now, in just one month, a man he'd met by chance in a tiny Italian café had managed to break down all his walls. Not even break them down—just walk right through them, as if they'd never existed.

And here he was. Standing in front of Oliver's apartment door in some neighborhood of Manhattan Kimi had never visited before. An ordinary residential building, no security, no doormen, no paparazzi at the entrance. Peeling paint on the railings, the smell of other people's cooking drifting from neighboring apartments, an elevator that creaked and clearly needed repairs. Real, ordinary life. The kind Kimi had only ever seen in movies. He'd always thought it was just a pretty backdrop. Now he stood in the middle of it, feeling it become real.

He stared at the scuffed door with the crookedly attached number 87, feeling his heart pounding somewhere in his throat. Every beat echoed in his temples, in his fingertips, in every cell of his body. For the first time in years, he felt this fear—pure, primal, almost forgotten. Not fear of cameras, not fear of failing on set, not fear of scandal. No. This was fear of the unknown. Fear of being rejected. Not as an actor, not as a brand, not as a face on magazine covers—but as a person. As Kimi.

He remembered the last time he'd felt anything like this. He was eighteen, standing in front of that boy's door in Bologna, his heart pounding just as hard. Back then, he'd been rejected. Back then, he'd understood that the world wasn't ready to accept him as he was. And he'd buried that part of himself so deep he'd almost forgotten it existed. Now, twenty years later, he was standing in front of another door. Afraid again. Hoping again. And inside, somewhere in the very center of his chest, a realization was growing—that this time could be different. That Oliver wasn't like that boy. That Oliver had seen his book. Seen his soul. And hadn't turned away.

Kimi swallowed nervously. His throat was dry, and he tried to moisten his lips, but his tongue was dry too. He ran a hand through his hair, smoothing it down, though he knew it was already disheveled from the long journey. He'd imagined this moment hundreds of times—while walking to work, while brushing his teeth, while lying in bed. He'd rehearsed every word, every gesture, every smile. And still, standing here now, he felt like a teenager going on his first date. He tugged at his turtleneck—dark blue, form-fitting, which an hour ago had seemed like the perfect choice but now suddenly felt unbearably tight. It pressed uncomfortably, almost suffocatingly, against his throat, and Kimi kept adjusting the collar, trying to breathe deeply. He could feel the wool scratching his skin, his body temperature rising with anxiety, the turtleneck growing damp at the neck.

His palms were sweaty. He wiped them on his jeans, feeling the moisture soak into the thick fabric, and raised his hand to the door again. His fingers were trembling. He could see it, staring at his own hand and not recognizing it. This hand had held an Oscar. This hand had signed multi-million-dollar contracts. This hand had touched some of the most expensive things in the world. And now it was trembling like a frightened child's, in front of an ordinary door in an ordinary building. Kimi closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, trying to calm his heart. Something in his chest tightened, released, and tightened again—like a spring that had been compressed for too long. He felt a wave of panic rising inside him, his breathing becoming erratic, the edges of his vision starting to darken. And in that moment, he remembered Oliver's message. 'I'm not going anywhere. Take all the time you need.'

Kimi opened his eyes. His fingers stopped trembling. He looked at the door, at the crookedly attached number 87, and understood that this wasn't just a door. This was a beginning. His beginning. A new life. A new self. One second. One second, and he'd raise his finger to the doorbell. One second, and everything would change. He squeezed his eyes shut, exhaled, feeling the air leave his lungs along with the last of his fear—and pressed.

The doorbell's trill echoed through the apartment, and everything inside Kimi clenched. He could hear footsteps approaching from behind the door—quick, a little uncertain, as if Oliver was nervous too. Kimi felt a strange relief at that thought: he wasn't alone in his anxiety. Oliver was scared too. Oliver had been waiting for this moment as well. They both stood on opposite sides of the door, trembling and hoping. And that realization made Kimi braver. He didn't know what would happen next. But he knew he wasn't alone.

The door opened almost immediately. Oliver stood in the doorway, and for a moment, Kimi forgot how to breathe. Forgot that he was an actor, that he was supposed to control every movement, every emotion. He just looked at Oliver and couldn't look away. Oliver was different. Not like that evening in the café—tense, guarded, ready to defend himself. Not like the photos with the cat that Kimi studied at night, smiling in the dark. Now Oliver stood before him, slightly disheveled—dark hair tousled as if he'd run his hands through it more than once, his face wearing an expression of mild bewilderment. He wore an oversized white T-shirt that had slipped off one shoulder, revealing his collarbone, and loose black pants. He looked so... at home. So real that Kimi's breath caught. He saw Oliver without defenses. Without masks. Without the armor people put on when they step out into the world. It was the most beautiful thing Kimi had seen in years.

"Hey," Oliver managed, his voice wavering. He let out a heavy breath, as if shaking off a spell, and ran a hand through his hair—a familiar gesture Kimi already knew from their texts. "You said you'd come by evening."

Kimi heard the surprise mixed with warmth in his voice. And in that moment, all his fears, all his doubts, all the thoughts of what he was doing here—they all faded into the background. Only Oliver remained. Real, alive, a little flustered, and so beautiful in his genuine sincerity. Kimi noticed the faint blush spreading across Oliver's cheekbones, the slight tremor in his fingers as he lowered his hand from his hair. He was nervous. Just as nervous as Kimi. And that was both a relief and a torment.

"I finished early," Kimi replied, his voice coming out huskier, slightly lower than usual. He could feel his heart pounding in his temples, his palms still clammy, the turtleneck still constricting his throat. He looked into Oliver's eyes and saw reflected there his own anxiety, his own hope, his own fear. "So I hope you won't be too mad. Will you let me in?"

He said it with that light smile—the one Oliver had taught him to wear, the one he hadn't taken off for a month. And inside, he held his breath, waiting for the answer. Every second stretched into eternity. He could hear a clock ticking somewhere in the apartment, the city humming outside the window, his own heart pounding. And it all blended into one hum, drowned out only by Oliver's gaze.

Oliver looked at him for a few seconds. Something warm, almost tender, flickered in his eyes, and the corners of his mouth twitched into a smile. He was scared too. Kimi could see it in the barely perceptible trembling of his fingers, in the way he nervously licked his lips before answering.

"I told you—I'm always waiting," he replied, stepping aside and opening the door wider. "Come in. And don't worry, I'm not mad. Especially not over pleasant surprises like this."

Kimi crossed the threshold, feeling the air in the apartment envelop him with warmth and the scent of home. The smell was unfamiliar yet somehow familiar—coffee, books, something sweet baking in the kitchen, and the faint trace of Oliver's cologne that Kimi remembered from their first meeting. He slowly exhaled, feeling the muscles in his shoulders begin to relax, the tension leaving his jaw. He was home. He didn't know why that word came to mind. But it felt right.

Somewhere deeper in the apartment, a purr sounded, and Kimi heard Oliver quietly chuckle. The sound was warm, almost satisfied, and Kimi felt the corners of his mouth twitch into a smile again.

"She's already caught the scent of a new person," Oliver said, closing the door. "Get ready—she's going to demand attention. And she's very persistent. I warned you."

Kimi turned and saw a fluffy ginger face with huge green eyes peeking around the corner. The cat stared at him with that perpetually surprised expression Kimi had come to love from the photos. She was bigger than he'd imagined, fluffier, and those green eyes seemed to see right through him. Kimi could feel her studying him, evaluating, making a decision. He froze, giving her space, letting her come to him first.

"Hey," he said softly, crouching down to her level. "I heard you were demanding an autograph. I hope I live up to your expectations."

The cat took a step forward, cautiously, with the dignity of a queen deigning to interact with a subject. She sniffed his hand, long and carefully, and then, with that same regal grace, bumped her nose against his palm, demanding to be scratched behind the ear. Kimi gently ran his fingers through her soft fur, feeling her purr, feeling her body relax under his touch.

"I think she likes you," Oliver said, a hint of amusement in his voice. "That's a rare success. She usually hates everyone who walks through that door. The last delivery guy she ignored for three days."

Kimi looked up at Oliver, who stood a couple of feet away, hands shoved in his pants pockets, looking at him with such warmth that Kimi's breath caught again. He could feel something huge growing inside him, almost unbearable in its intensity. This was more than liking. More than interest. This was a feeling he'd never experienced in his life. Even in his youth, even with that boy from Bologna, he'd never felt anything like this. Because back then, he'd been hiding. Back then, he'd been afraid. But now he stood here, with this cat in his hands, with this man across from him, completely open. Without defenses. Without masks. And it was both beautiful and terrifying.

"I think she just knows how to choose people," Kimi said softly, not taking his eyes off Oliver. His voice was gentle, almost a whisper. "Like some others."

He said it, and in that moment, he felt everything inside him flip. He'd just confessed what he'd been afraid to say out loud for a month. He'd just told Oliver that he was his choice. That he mattered. That he was significant. And his heart pounded faster, waiting for a reaction.

Oliver blushed slightly, dropped his gaze, and coughed into his fist. His ears were starting to turn pink too, and Kimi felt a strange satisfaction knowing he wasn't the only one flustered. Oliver felt it too.

"Do you have any plans for today?" Oliver asked, trying to sound casual, but there was a slight tremor in his voice. "Or did you just come to check on the cat?"

Kimi chuckled and straightened up, still feeling the soft ginger fur under his fingers. He looked at Oliver—his tousled hair, his smile, his eyes glowing with warmth and hope—and understood that this was exactly what he'd been searching for his whole life. Not an ideal. Not a picture. Not a role. But a person. Real, alive, with his own fears and doubts. Just like him.

"To check on the cat," he replied with a light smile. "And you. If you don't mind."

He felt every word come with difficulty, his heart beating in sync with another's, the air between them growing denser. This was the moment of truth. The moment when everything could change.

Oliver looked up at him, and there was so much sincerity in his eyes that Kimi felt his own heart start to beat in rhythm with someone else's. They looked at each other in the silence of the small hallway, and in that silence, you could hear the cat breathing, the clock ticking in the kitchen, two hearts beating.

"I never mind," Oliver said. His voice was soft, almost intimate. "Come on. I'll show you the apartment. It's nothing special, but... I want you to see."

"I don't need anything special," Kimi interrupted, feeling the words born somewhere deep inside and escaping without permission. "I need something real."

They looked at each other for a few seconds, and in that silence, there was more meaning than in any words. Kimi could see Oliver trying to suppress a smile, his eyes growing moist, as he took a step forward, closing the distance between them. And then Oliver smiled—that same warm, open smile Kimi had remembered from that evening in the café. A smile that told him: "You're here. You're real. You're wanted."

"Then come on," Oliver said. "Let me show you what reality is."

And Kimi followed him, feeling something huge, warm, and almost unbearably beautiful growing in his chest. He knew this step was the most right one in his life. The most right and the most frightening. Because when you truly let someone into your life, you risk everything. But he didn't want to hide anymore.

He followed Oliver down the hallway of the small apartment, watching his back, his tousled hair, and felt the last of his fear recede.

He was ready. Ready to move forward. Ready to be himself. Ready to love.

And it was the most beautiful feeling in the world.

────୨ৎ────

While Oliver was busy trying to throw something together in the kitchen, Kimi was left alone in the living room. He could hear dishes clinking behind the wall, Oliver quietly cursing under his breath—clearly not expecting his guest to show up two hours early. Kimi smiled, imagining Oliver darting around the kitchen, trying to pretend everything was under control. But the smile quickly gave way to curiosity as Kimi's gaze swept across the room he'd found himself in.

The apartment was small but cozy. Cramped, cluttered with things, but there was life in that clutter. Kimi took a step forward, and his eyes traveled along the walls. The first thing he noticed made him stop.

The walls were covered in posters. Bright, colorful, slightly worn at the edges—as if they'd been moved and re-hung multiple times over the years. Kimi stepped closer and recognized familiar faces. Iron Man. Thor. Captain America. And especially a lot of Spider-Man—in different poses, different suits, different scenes. Kimi chuckled, running his fingers along the edge of one poster. This was not the interior he'd expected to find in a thirty-two-year-old man's apartment. But there was something about it... charming. Real.

Kimi turned his gaze to the shelves. They were lined with collectible figurines—also Marvel. Neatly arranged, dust-free, clearly loved and carefully preserved. Spider-Man dominated again—in his classic suit, in black, in the Iron Spider armor. Kimi picked up one of the figurines, turned it over in his hands, examining the details, and felt a strange warmth spread through him. He imagined Oliver—a grown man who worked in an office, wore shirts, went to meetings—coming home, looking at his figurines, and smiling. And that image was so... human. So warm.

"What are you doing standing there?" Oliver's voice came from the kitchen. "I'm almost done."

"Nothing," Kimi replied, still smiling. "Just checking out your collection."

Silence from the kitchen. Then Oliver peeked around the doorframe, a guilty expression on his face.

"Oh, that..." he started, then hesitated. "Yeah. Collection. I've been collecting them since I was sixteen. Probably silly. For a grown man."

"Not at all," Kimi said softly, setting the figurine back in place. "It... it says a lot about you."

"Like what?" Oliver raised an eyebrow warily, but there was already a glimmer of hope in his eyes.

"Like you know what joy is," Kimi said, turning to face him. "That you know how to truly love things. That there's still a boy inside you who dreamed of being a hero. And that's... that's really beautiful, Ollie."

Oliver blushed. He opened his mouth to say something, but no words came. Instead, he just nodded, hiding his embarrassment, and disappeared back into the kitchen. Kimi heard a pot clatter behind the wall and laughed quietly.

Kimi's gaze shifted to a small bookshelf crammed with books—old, worn, with dog-eared pages. Many of them had been read to pieces—spines cracked, covers faded with time. But one book stood apart, on the most prominent shelf, and Kimi recognized it immediately. His heart skipped a beat.

Wildflowers.

He picked up the book, feeling his fingers tremble. The cover was worn, corners bent, and the spine showed signs of being read countless times. Kimi opened it to the first page and saw that it was literally covered in annotations—small, neat handwriting filling every margin. He ran his fingers over the lines, feeling a wave of emotion rise inside him.

He began to read.

On the first page, next to the epigraph, was written: "I never thought anyone could describe this feeling. You did. Thank you."

Kimi turned the page. Chapter one. Lines about a boy from a small town who first realized he was different from everyone else. Next to the paragraph where the hero looks in the mirror and doesn't recognize himself, someone had written: "I didn't recognize myself either. Sometimes I still don't. But now I know that's okay. That it's not my fault."

Kimi swallowed. His throat was dry.

Chapter three. The scene where the hero falls in love with a classmate for the first time and doesn't know what to do with the feeling. In the margins: "I remember that day. I was fourteen. He sat two rows away and smiled at me. I couldn't breathe. I thought I was going crazy. Turns out I was just in love."

Kimi flipped a few more pages. Chapter five. The moment the hero realizes his feelings aren't reciprocated. Next to the most painful paragraph—where the hero cries into his pillow so no one will hear—was written: "I cried for three nights straight. My mom thought I had a fever. I couldn't tell her the truth. I was afraid she'd stop loving me. Thank you for showing me I wasn't alone in that fear."

Kimi felt tears prick at his eyes. He blinked quickly, chasing them away, and continued reading.

Chapter seven. The hero tries to run away from himself, move to another city, and start a new life. In the margins: "I wanted to run too. At sixteen, I packed a backpack and thought I'd move to New York. I didn't go. I was scared. But now I'm here. And I realized you can't run from yourself. You can only accept."

Kimi turned the page, and his eyes fell on a familiar paragraph. The one he knew by heart. Words he'd written twenty years ago, sitting in his tiny room in Bologna: "We're all looking for someone who will see us as we truly are. And when we find that person, we stop being afraid of mirrors."

Next to that paragraph was written: "I found you. Not as an author—as a person. I found you in these lines. And I stopped being afraid. Thank you for showing me what real life is."

Kimi closed the book and pressed it to his chest. His breathing became ragged, and a tear he couldn't hold back rolled down his cheek. He stood in the middle of the small apartment, clutching the book, feeling something huge, long-hidden, almost forgotten, tearing apart inside him.

And then he saw another photograph on the shelf next to the book. Oliver—already an adult, about twenty-five—standing in front of some park, holding a book. That same book. Wildflowers. On his face was a happy, almost childlike smile. Behind him, someone had written: "The book that saved me. 2014."

Kimi felt everything inside him flip. He hadn't just written a book—he'd changed someone's life. He'd saved someone. This person, who was now in the kitchen, cooking dinner and nervously fretting about his guest arriving early. This person, who had left annotations in the margins as if talking to him across the years.

"What are you doing standing there?" Oliver's voice came from the kitchen. "I'm almost done."

Kimi didn't answer. He couldn't speak. He just stood there, holding the book to his chest, feeling tears stream down his face.

"Kimi?" Oliver's voice grew alarmed. "Are you okay?"

Kimi heard footsteps, and a moment later Oliver appeared in the doorway. He saw Kimi with the book in his hands, his wet face, and his eyes widened.

"Ollie," Kimi said, his voice trembling. "You... you wrote this? All these notes?"

Oliver froze. His face went pale, then flushed slightly. He ran a hand through his hair—that familiar gesture Kimi had already come to love.

"I... yeah," he said quietly. "I know it's silly. I just... When I read the book, it felt like I was talking to the author. Like I could answer him. Like I could tell him the things I'd never told anyone. It was my refuge, Kimi. Your book was my refuge."

Kimi took a step forward, then another, and stopped right in front of Oliver.

"I didn't know," he whispered. "I didn't know my words could mean so much."

"They meant everything," Oliver said, and tears glistened in his eyes too. "You saved me, Kimi. Your book saved me. When I thought I couldn't make it, that I was too broken to go on, I'd open it and read. And I'd understand that someone else felt the same way. That I wasn't alone. And that gave me strength."

Kimi couldn't hold back any longer. He stepped forward and hugged Oliver as tightly as he'd ever hugged anyone. He felt Oliver flinch, then hug him back, pulling him close.

"Thank you," Kimi whispered into his shoulder. "Thank you for existing. Thank you for reading it. Thank you for letting me see this."

"Thank you for writing it," Oliver replied, his voice thick with tears. "Thank you for existing."

They stood like that for several minutes, embraced in the silence of the small apartment that had finally become a home for both of them. Ray watched from the sofa, head tilted, seeming to understand that something important was happening.

And on the shelf, in a frame, stood the photograph of Oliver holding the book. That same book that had saved him. And on the back was written: "The one who wrote this—he's my hero. And one day, I'll tell him thank you in person."

Kimi saw it when he pulled back from the embrace, and he cried again. But this time—from happiness.

He finally understood: his words mattered. His book wasn't a mistake. It was the beginning. The beginning of something bigger than he'd ever imagined. And now, standing in this small apartment, next to a man who loved his book as much as he'd once loved writing it, Kimi felt that everything in his life had been right. Every page. Every word. Every tear.

Kimi still held the book in his hands, feeling the worn cover under his fingers, the annotations in the margins, the warmth radiating from those pages. He looked at Oliver, and tears welled in his eyes again. Something huge, almost painful, grew in his chest—a mixture of gratitude, wonder, and tenderness.

"I thought this book was a mistake," he said, his voice wavering. "That I shouldn't have written it or published it. It was my refuge, but I was always afraid it would destroy me. That if anyone found out I'd written it, everything would fall apart. My career, my reputation, everything I'd built for ten years."

He paused, feeling a tear roll down his cheek. He didn't even try to hide it.

"When George found out about the book from my interview, he was furious," Kimi continued, a bitter edge creeping into his voice. "He said I'd destroy my brand, that I'd lose all my contracts, that I'd never get serious projects again. He was in a panic. And I started to think he was right. That I really had made a mistake. That I should never have come clean."

He looked up at Oliver, and there was so much vulnerability in his gaze that Oliver's heart clenched.

"I still don't understand why you treat me so... humanely," Kimi said, his voice dropping to almost a whisper. "You hated me for years. You watched my every move, waiting for me to slip up, dreaming of my downfall. And now... now you're standing here, you wrote those words in the margins, you say I saved you. How is that not insane? How can you be normal with someone you couldn't stand?"

He fell silent, feeling a lump form in his throat. He didn't know if he wanted to hear the answer. He was afraid of it. Afraid Oliver would say something that would shatter this moment. But he had to ask. He needed to know.

Oliver stepped forward. He stood so close that Kimi could see every detail of his face—the light stubble, the shadows under his eyes, his trembling lashes. There was so much pain and so much warmth in his gaze that Kimi felt his own heart start to beat in rhythm with someone else's.

"Because you saved me," Oliver replied, almost in a whisper, looking straight into those brown eyes. "I wanted to end it all, Kimi. It was unbearable, you know."

He paused, and in the silence, they could hear the clock ticking in the kitchen, Ray breathing from her spot on the sofa. Oliver swallowed, and Kimi noticed his fingers tremble.

"Three years ago, I was at rock bottom," Oliver continued, his voice growing hoarse. "I couldn't look at myself in the mirror. I couldn't leave the house. I couldn't talk to people. I felt so alien in this world that I didn't see the point in going on. I thought no one cared about me. That I was worthless. That I'd never be happy."

Kimi felt something inside him break. He listened to Oliver, and every word pierced him like a needle. He knew that feeling. He knew that emptiness.

"And then I found your book," Oliver said, tears shining in his eyes. "By chance. In an old bookstore. I picked it up because the cover was pretty. And I started reading. I read all night. And when I got to that scene where the hero sits on the windowsill and looks out at the city, thinking no one needs him... I cried. Because for the first time, I understood I wasn't alone. That someone, somewhere, had felt the same way. That my pain wasn't unique. That I wasn't broken. I was just... I was just a person trying to survive."

Oliver paused, wiping his eyes with his T-shirt sleeve. Kimi couldn't speak. He stood there, clutching the book, feeling something huge, long-hidden, almost forgotten, tearing apart inside him.

"When I found out you were the author," Oliver continued, his voice trembling, "I couldn't believe it. I'd hated you for so many years. I hated you for always succeeding, for always smiling, for being so perfect. And then I realized I didn't hate you for that. I hated you because you were braver than me. Because you'd written what I couldn't say out loud. Because you'd managed to be yourself, and I hadn't."

He took Kimi's hand. Oliver's fingers were warm, slightly trembling.

"I can't treat you badly, Kimi," he said. "Because without you, I wouldn't be standing here. Without your book, I wouldn't have given myself a chance. I wouldn't have met you. I wouldn't have known what real life is. I wouldn't have understood that I deserve to be happy too."

Kimi broke down. He couldn't hold back anymore. Tears streamed down his face, and he didn't try to hide them. He stepped forward and hugged Oliver again, holding him as tightly as if he were afraid Oliver might disappear.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm sorry I didn't know. I'm sorry I wasn't there. I'm sorry you suffered alone."

"You were there," Oliver replied, hugging him back. "You were there the whole time. In every line. On every page. You were with me, Kimi. You were always with me."

They stood like that, embraced, in the small apartment cluttered with posters and figurines, with the ginger cat on the sofa and the book that had changed everything. And in that embrace, there was no hatred, no fear, no doubt.

Only gratitude. Only acceptance. Only hope.

Ray jumped off the sofa, padded over to them, and started rubbing against their legs, demanding attention. Oliver laughed through his tears, letting go of Kimi and crouching down to pet her.

"She always knows when she's needed," he said, smiling. "She can feel it."

Kimi wiped his tears, watching the scene—Oliver kneeling before the cat, with wet eyes and a happy smile. And he knew this was the most beautiful moment of his life.

"I want to stay," he said quietly. "If you don't mind. I want to be here. With you."

Oliver looked up at him, and there was so much warmth in his eyes that Kimi felt that familiar feeling spread through him—the one he'd been searching for his whole life.

"I'll never mind," Oliver replied. "Stay. As long as you want. Forever, if you decide."

Kimi smiled—wide, free, from the bottom of his heart. And he stepped forward, toward a new life.

────୨ৎ────

Kimi sat in the armchair across from George, but this time he wasn't smiling at his phone. He wasn't texting Oliver. His hands, usually so animated and restless, lay motionless on his knees, as if he feared any movement would shatter the fragile resolve that had just begun to take root within him. He looked straight at his manager, and there was such firmness in his gaze that George involuntarily leaned back in his own chair, as if he'd hit an invisible wall.

"Kimi, I'm begging you," George was saying, shuffling papers on the desk. His fingers nervously fidgeted with the edges of documents, and his voice was strained, almost pleading, as if he were trying to hold together a ship that had already begun to sink. "Please, just stick to our plan for the interview. Don't be clever, I'm begging you. Just say what we discussed. The book is fiction, inspired by friends' stories, no personal subtext. That's it. We'll close this topic once and for all."

George looked up at him, expecting the usual nod, the usual agreement. But Kimi wasn't nodding. He sat motionless, hands clasped on his knees, and in his brown eyes burned a fire George had never seen before—a fire that hadn't been extinguished by years of smiles and compliments on red carpets. This fire had smoldered somewhere deep inside, hidden behind layers of masks, and now it had finally broken through.

"George," Kimi said, his voice steady as a taut string, but with steel in it. "I'm thirty-eight years old. I've been in this industry for ten years. And I'm tired."

He paused for a moment, catching his breath. His heart pounded somewhere in his chest, like a bird beating against glass in a desperate attempt to escape. He could feel blood pulsing in his temples, his clammy hands clenching into fists, a wave rising inside him—not of anger, no—of liberation. He'd waited too long for this moment. Twenty years he'd hidden this part of himself in shadow, in fear, in silence. Twenty years he'd built walls around his heart, and now he was ready to watch them fall.

"I'm gay, George," he said, and the word rang out loud and clear, like a bell striking in the silence of a cathedral. Without a trace of shame, without a drop of doubt. It hung in the air, filling the room with its power. "For the first time in years, I've started to like someone. I really like them. I feel alive when he's near. I feel my heart—the one I thought was dead—start beating again when I hear his voice. And I want to know if he feels the same. But how can I find that out if I'm still hiding? If I'm still afraid?"

Kimi's voice faltered, but he didn't stop. A lump rose in his throat, tears welled in his eyes, but he held them back like a wall about to crumble under the pressure of water. He had to say this. Finally, To exhale this truth he'd carried inside himself like a burning coal, scorching him from within.

George opened his mouth to object, but Kimi raised his hand, stopping him. His palm trembled, but the gesture was firm as a vow.

"I've been doing this my whole life. Hiding. Pretending. Being someone I'm not. I wore masks on set, I wore them on red carpets, I wore them even in my own apartment when I was alone. My life became a theater where I played the lead in someone else's play, and I forgot that behind the curtain, there was a real me. And you know what? I'm tired. I can't do it anymore. I don't want to."

Kimi's voice broke, and in it was the pain he'd hidden for so long—deep as an ocean, old as his earliest fears.

"I want to be myself," he said, his voice dropping to almost a whisper, like a prayer. "I want people to know who I really am. I want them to see not a picture, not a brand, not a perfect actor from a magazine cover, but a person. Broken, but not shattered. Scared, but ready to move forward. And if they turn away—then they aren't worth my time. If I lose contracts—then those weren't the projects I want to be part of. If my career crumbles—then it was built on lies, and I'm ready to let it go."

He fell silent, feeling a lump rise in his throat, heavy and salty as the tears he'd held back for years. He looked at George, whose face wore an expression Kimi had never seen before. Confusion. Fear. And something else, something that looked almost like... respect? Or perhaps, for the first time in ten years, George saw before him not an actor, not a client, not a project, but a living person with fire in his eyes.

"George," Kimi said more quietly, and in his voice was weariness mixed with hope. "I know you've spent ten years building my career. I know how much you've invested in me—time, nerves, money. I know you were there when I fell and helped me get back up. I'm grateful to you. I'll always be grateful. But if you want me to keep lying... I can't. I won't."

Silence filled the room, thick as fog. Only the ticking of the wall clock could be heard—its hands counting seconds, as if racing against the beating of his heart. And the muffled noise of the city outside the window, which seemed distant as another world. George looked at Kimi for a long time, studying him as if seeing him for the first time. And then his shoulders dropped, as if he'd finally accepted defeat, and he exhaled slowly—heavily, like a man who'd carried a burden too long and finally decided to put it down.

"God, Kimi," he said, running a hand over his face. "You picked the worst possible moment for this, you know that?"

"When else?" Kimi asked with a faint smile—sad, but warm, like the first ray of sun after a long night. "In twenty years, when I'm too old to be myself?"

George chuckled. Quietly, almost soundlessly, like a dry leaf falling to the ground. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, looking at Kimi with that expression he used when making a difficult decision—when he was putting everything on the line, but doing it with his eyes closed.

"Fine," he said. "Fine. We'll do it your way. But you have to understand: this won't be easy. Your life will get harder. Journalists will pry into your personal life. You'll lose part of your audience. Maybe many projects will turn you down. It'll be like walking on broken glass, Kimi. Every step will hurt."

"I know," Kimi nodded, and a steely glint flashed in his eyes. "But I'll gain something else. I'll gain myself."

George shook his head, but a warm spark flickered in his eyes—the kind of respect that's born when you see someone do something you never would have dared to do yourself.

"You've always been the most stubborn Italian I've ever known," he said. "Alright. I'll call the network and tell them we're changing the interview format. You'll tell the truth. But, Kimi..."

He paused, looking at the actor with a serious expression. His eyes softened, and in them appeared that rare sincerity Kimi had seen only a few times in ten years.

"Be ready for the consequences. This won't be a game anymore. This will be your real life. And it can be both beautiful and cruel. But it will be yours."

Kimi smiled—wide, free, for the first time in a long time. A smile that came from his heart, from the very depths of his soul, warming everything inside. A smile he wasn't putting on like a mask, but releasing into the light, like a bird from a cage.

"I'm ready," he said. "For the first time in my life, I'm truly ready."

He rose from the chair, walked to the window, and looked out at the city. The gray Manhattan sky was beginning to lighten, breaking through the clouds in rare rays of sun—golden, warm, promising. They fell on the glass, on his face, on his hands, warming his skin. And Kimi understood that this was his new day. The day he stopped being a shadow of himself. The day he finally decided to live.

────୨ৎ────

Evening descended on Manhattan in a soft September haze as Kimi left the house. He'd changed into ordinary clothes—the same ones he'd worn when he first met Oliver a month ago. The old dark-gray hoodie, the black cap with the long brim, worn jeans. He wanted to blend into the city, to become invisible, like before. But now there was no fear in that desire—there was anticipation. He wanted to go back to where it all began. To that tiny Italian café where he'd first felt alive.

His feet carried him to the familiar sign. Behind the glass display windows, warm yellow light glowed, dispelling the evening twilight. Kimi pushed the door open, and the smells of garlic, tomatoes, and homemade bread washed over him—so familiar, so cozy, that his nose tingled. The café was almost empty: only a lone customer sat at a table in the back, and dishes clinked behind the counter.

Kimi smiled, feeling a lightness in his heart. He walked over to the owner, who was busy at one of the tables, adjusting the checkered tablecloth.

"Signora Rosa?" Kimi called out softly, almost childlike.

The old woman turned so quickly her gray bun swayed. Her face lit up with that sunny smile Kimi loved so much—warm, genuine, like a grandmother's.

"Kimi! My sweet boy!" she exclaimed, clasping her hands together, her wrinkled eyes shining. "And you arranged to meet Oliver and didn't tell me? I would have made something special! You could have at least warned me!"

Kimi froze. Blinked. His heart skipped a beat, then started pounding somewhere in his throat like a frightened bird. What did she mean, with Oliver?

Only now did he notice that at the very table where Signora Rosa had been adjusting the tablecloth sat Berman. The same Oliver, who was supposed to be at home today. Who, in theory, had no idea Kimi had decided to come here. Oliver froze with his fork in midair. His pasta hung comically halfway to his mouth—spaghetti dangling from the fork like thin threads—and the man himself blinked rapidly, staring at Kimi with an expression of utter astonishment.

Kimi felt his own ears begin to burn. He looked at Oliver, and a wave of tenderness and embarrassment rose inside him. Oliver looked exactly as he had on the day of their first meeting—slightly disheveled, in a simple T-shirt and jeans, with that same bewildered expression Kimi had come to love over a month of texting.

"I..." Kimi started, but the words stuck in his throat. "I didn't know you'd be here."

"I didn't know either," Oliver replied, finally lowering his fork. The pasta plopped onto the plate, and he didn't even notice. "I just... wanted to come. It's quiet here. And Signora Rosa always gives me dessert. I thought you were busy today."

"I finished early," Kimi said, and felt that silly smile spread across his face—the one he hadn't been able to shake for a month. "And I wanted to come too. Here."

They looked at each other in the silence of the tiny café. Signora Rosa's gaze traveled from one to the other, and a knowing smile bloomed on her face.

"Oh, you two fools," she said, shaking her head, but her voice rang with joy. "Couldn't arrange to meet, but you both ended up here. Fine, fine. Sit together, I'll bring you something special. For two."

Kimi looked at Oliver, who was already pulling out the chair across from him, making room. His eyes glowed with such warmth that Kimi's breath caught.

"Sit," Oliver said, his voice soft, almost a whisper. "Eat with me."

And Kimi sat. In the exact same spot where they'd first met a month ago. At the same table. Only now there was no hatred between them, no fear, no masks. Only them. Only two people. Signora Rosa disappeared into the kitchen, and the café sank into silence, broken only by the clatter of dishes somewhere in the back.

"I'm giving an interview tomorrow," Kimi exhaled once Signora Rosa had disappeared behind the kitchen door, leaving them alone with the silence and the warm light of the table lamp. The light fell on the checkered tablecloth, picking out their hands, their plates, their faces from the semi-darkness—as if the lamp itself knew that this moment mattered. He traced his finger along the edge of his glass, feeling the tension still vibrating inside him—thin as a cobweb, but still palpable. "I had to push George to let me speak publicly, instead of just leaving people to speculate based on my book. He wanted me to say it was fiction. To hide again."

Oliver set down his fork. The metal clinked softly against the edge of the plate, and the sound seemed deafening in the silence of the café. He looked at Kimi with that gentle seriousness that appeared in his eyes when he spoke of something important—a seriousness behind which lay a deep, almost painful sensitivity. He didn't interrupt, just waited, giving Kimi space, and that made it easier, because Kimi knew: he was being listened to. Not to be contradicted or persuaded. Just to be heard.

"But I can't hide anymore," Kimi continued, his voice growing quieter but firmer, like steel that had been tempered. He could feel the words ripening in his chest, growing heavy and at the same time freeing him from the burden he'd carried for decades. "I want people to know. That I didn't write this book because I was inspired by other people's stories. I wrote it because it was my story. My pain. My truth."

"I'm proud of you," Ollie said, and smiled softly. His eyes sparkled in the warm light—tiny golden sparks from the lamp reflected in them—and that smile was so sincere, so open, that Kimi's breath caught for a moment. As if the air in the café had grown thicker, as if time had slowed down, capturing this moment in memory forever. "Ray is too, by the way."

Kimi chuckled, shaking his head. His shoulders relaxed, and he felt the tension that had held him in its grip all day begin to release. That familiar warmth spread through him—the one he'd learned to recognize, which always appeared when Oliver said something simple and warm, as if there were no walls between them. As if he knew exactly what to say to make Kimi feel safe.

"She's not here," Kimi noted, raising an eyebrow, a hint of teasing in his voice.

"That doesn't mean she's not proud," Oliver replied, laughter sparkling in his voice—clear as raindrops on glass. "She can feel it. She always knows when I'm happy. And right now, I'm happy."

Kimi felt the blood rush to his cheeks, coloring them pink. He quickly dropped his gaze to his plate, pretending to be absorbed in his food, but the corners of his lips were already trembling in a smile he couldn't hide. He could feel his heart beating somewhere in his throat—loudly, joyfully, in time with the clock ticking behind the counter.

"Now eat, or your gnocchi will get cold," Oliver said, and in his voice was that same lightness that made their conversations so simple and real.

They ate almost in silence. Only the sound of utensils against plates cut through the air—the soft clink of metal on ceramic, which felt cozy, homely, like music you didn't need to listen to because you felt it with every cell. Kimi caught himself lifting his eyes to Oliver again and again, watching him eat, watching him smile with the corners of his mouth, watching his fingers hold the fork so easily—confidently and yet weightlessly, as if he'd done it a thousand times. Everything about him seemed right. Every movement, every glance, every pause in conversation. His dark hair fell softly across his forehead, and Kimi wanted to reach out and brush that strand aside, just to feel his warmth. He held himself back, but the desire grew with each passing minute.

And then the first drops began to strike the window—large raindrops drumming against the glass, as if someone had scattered thousands of glass beads across the sky, and the city answered with that sound, creating a symphony that could only be heard on rainy evenings. Kimi turned his head to the window, watching thin streams run down the dark glass, distorting the streetlights into blurred orange and gold spots. The rain was gaining strength, turning into a real downpour that hammered on the roof, on the sidewalk, on the entire city. There was something cleansing about it, as if nature were washing away everything unnecessary—the fears, the doubts, everything that had kept them from being real.

"Rain," the Italian stated too obviously, feeling foolish but finding no other words. He looked out at the street, where pedestrians had already taken shelter under awnings, where water ran across the asphalt in fast streams, and thought about how strangely and beautifully life was arranged—a month ago he'd stood right here, in this rain, feeling like the loneliest person in the world. His shoulders had been slumped, his gaze fixed on the ground, and inside him had gaped an emptiness he'd tried to fill with work and smiles for the cameras. And now he sat across from the man who'd changed everything. And the rain outside no longer seemed so cold.

"And I live far from home," Oliver sighed heavily, also looking at the rain. His breath left a faint trace on the glass, and he stared at the blurred lights outside, in which his weariness was reflected. But there was a hint of slyness in his voice, a spark in his eyes that Kimi had learned to recognize. "I'll have to wait until it stops. Or run through this downpour and then spend three days curing a cold. And Ray will be mad that I came home wet and didn't bring her any fish. She knows how to make me feel guilty for no reason."

Kimi shifted his gaze from the window to Oliver. To his wet hair, which had begun to curl from the moisture in the air, growing dark and heavy. To his slightly narrowed eyes, which looked at the rain with that mixture of resignation and mild protest that Kimi loved so much. And something clicked inside him. Like a lock finally opening. Like a door flung wide open to the unknown, which no longer scared him.

"Idiot," Kimi muttered under his breath, feeling the corners of his mouth curve upward—slowly, inevitably, like the first rays of sun at dawn.

"What?" Oliver turned to him, raising an eyebrow, surprise and interest flickering in his eyes.

"I said you're an idiot," Kimi repeated, and in his voice rang that same lightness that appeared when he felt free. He looked at Oliver, and there was such warmth in his gaze that it could melt any ice. "I live nearby."

He said it simply, as a matter of fact. Without ulterior motives, without calculation, without fear. Just stating an obvious truth. And when he saw Oliver's eyes widen—growing big, warm, disbelieving—and a faint blush appear on his cheeks, Kimi knew he didn't want to back down. That he was ready to move forward. That this step was the most right one in his life.

He left the right amount on the table—with extra, so Signora Rosa could buy herself something nice, because that woman deserved the very best—and stood up. The chair scraped softly against the floor, and that sound was the only warning. When Oliver, still slightly bewildered, finished his last bite, Kimi reached out and clasped his hand in his own—tightly, confidently, so that Oliver would know he wouldn't be let go.

"Come on," he said, and there was a certainty in his voice he hadn't felt in years. A certainty that was born from within, like a fire kindling in his chest.

They ran out into the pouring rain—and in that same moment, the world turned into a curtain of water. Large drops immediately soaked his hoodie through, clung to his skin, chilled his body, seeping under his clothes. Water streamed down his face, his arms, his neck, mixing with the warmth of his skin and creating a strange sensation of coolness and life at once. His hair clumped into wet strands, and he could barely see through the streams flooding his eyes, but he felt Oliver's hand in his—warm, despite the cold—and that was more important than anything in the world.

They ran along the wet sidewalk, jumping over puddles in which the city lights reflected, blurring into golden and orange patches. Laughter shattered the night's silence—their own laughter, bright, liberated, as if they were children again. Kimi gripped Oliver's palm, feeling him grip back, their fingers interlacing, creating something strong, unbreakable, real. The rain pounded on them—loud, rhythmic—and Kimi felt he could hear not just the noise of water, but music. Their music. The one that played only for the two of them.

Water streamed down their faces, flooding their eyes, making the world blurred and abstract. Drops shattered against their shoulders, rolled down their backs, mixed with the warmth of their breath rising into the night air. City lights floated in the puddles, creating the illusion of another world—a world where there was no fear, no masks, only the two of them, running through the night. But Kimi didn't care about the cold, the wet clothes, the fact that they probably looked insane. He saw Oliver. Saw his smile shining through the rain. Saw him looking back at him, and in that gaze was so much trust, so much light, that Kimi felt like the richest man on earth.

They stopped in front of his door, breathing hard, soaked through. Water dripped from their clothes, pooled at their feet on the tile, but Kimi paid no attention. He looked at Oliver—at his wet hair plastered to his forehead and cheeks, at the drops streaming down his face, his neck, disappearing under his T-shirt collar. His eyes gleamed in the streetlight, reflecting the glints of night and rain. In that gaze was so much tenderness and at the same time so much strength that Kimi felt his breath catch.

He let go of Oliver's hand to get his keys. The moment his fingers released Oliver's palm, Kimi felt an emptiness—the kind that needed to be filled as soon as he crossed the threshold. He could feel his hands trembling—not from cold, but from excitement, from the awareness of what was about to happen.

"Come in," he said, opening the door and ushering Oliver ahead. His voice was soft, inviting. "It's warm here. And I have dry clothes. And coffee. And a huge towel."

Oliver stopped in the hallway, looking around. Water dripped from his hair onto the floor, leaving dark spots on the parquet, and Kimi noticed him shivering—a deep, barely visible tremor running through his entire body. But it wasn't a shiver from the cold. It was a shiver from the realization that he was here. That he'd crossed the threshold of Kimi's home, and that this step changed everything.

"Are you serious?" Oliver asked, his voice wavering. He stood, wet and vulnerable, in the hallway, looking at Kimi as if afraid this might all be a dream. "You're ready to let me into your home?"

Kimi stepped closer, closing the distance to a single step. He could feel the warmth radiating from Oliver—despite the cold, despite the rain, it was here, close, real. He raised his hand and brushed a wet strand of hair from Oliver's face, feeling his fingers tremble—from cold, from tenderness, from the force tearing at him from within. His skin was wet and cool, but beneath it, Kimi could feel a heat that warmed him even from a distance.

"I'm ready to let you into my life," he said. His voice was quiet, but certain. "And you're already in it. So come in and don't freeze."

He took his hand—wet, cold, but so desired—and pulled him inside. Into the warmth. Into the light. Into his life.

The rain continued to pour outside the windows, but Kimi no longer heard it. The sound of millions of drops shattering against glass, against roofs, against wet asphalt, had faded into a distant hum—as if the city had suddenly receded somewhere far away, leaving them alone with each other. He could only hear Oliver's breathing—ragged, deep, as if he still couldn't believe he was here. Could feel his fingers intertwined with his own—wet from the rain, slightly trembling, but so warm inside, as if the cold itself couldn't penetrate that tiny point of contact. And in that silence, broken only by their breathing and the distant roar of the downpour, Kimi knew: this evening would change everything. He was as certain of this as he was that the sun would rise in the morning, that spring always followed winter, that every new day held something important. This feeling had settled in his chest, warm and heavy as a promise.

Kimi led Oliver forward, not letting go of his hand. Across the dark parquet, they left wet footprints—trails of water that glistened in the dim light of the nightlight, reflecting tiny sparkles. The footprints looked like silver threads leading through the entire apartment—from the hallway, past the living room, to the bedroom. Kimi knew the parquet might be damaged by the water, but right now he didn't care. The only thing that mattered was the person walking behind him, trusting and vulnerable, leaving his wet prints beside his own.

They stopped in the bedroom. The spacious room was bathed in soft semi-darkness—only one floor lamp burned in the corner, creating a cozy yellow circle of light that fell on the carpet and the edge of the bed. Beyond the large window, the rain continued its symphony, but here, inside, it was quiet and warm. Kimi reluctantly released Oliver's hand—it felt like the hardest thing he'd done all month. His fingers still remembered Oliver's warmth as he unclasped them, and a strange emptiness formed in his chest, one that needed to be filled.

He turned to the closet, opened the doors, and began rummaging through his clothes. His fingers trembled, and he could feel it—a light, almost imperceptible tremor that couldn't be hidden. He tried not to think about Oliver standing two meters away, wet, with drops of water on his lashes, watching him with an expression Kimi couldn't read in the dim light. Finally, his fingers found what he was looking for—an old, soft oversized sweater, gray, almost beige from age, which he'd bought years ago when he wanted to hide from the world in it. Now he wanted to give it to Oliver.

"You're taller than me, of course," Kimi said, his voice sounding guilty, almost childlike. He turned, holding the sweater and soft lounge pants he'd found on the bottom shelf. "And it might all be a bit short on you, but it's the only oversized thing I have."

He handed the clothes to Oliver and felt his cheeks flush. Suddenly it was hot, even though a minute ago he'd been shivering from the cold of his wet clothes. He looked at Oliver—at his wet hair plastered to his forehead, at the drops of water streaming down his neck, at his eyes that seemed dark and deep in this semi-darkness. In them was something that made Kimi's heart beat faster—a mixture of trust, hope, and a slight fear of what might happen next.

"You can go to the bathroom and take a shower if you need to," he added, trying to keep his voice steady. "I'll put your clothes in the dryer after you change."

He stood before Oliver, feeling awkward and right at the same time. As if this was the moment he'd been living for all these years. As if all his fears, all his masks, all his escapes from himself had led him to this—to the man standing before him, holding his clothes, looking at him with such warmth that Kimi's breath caught.

Oliver didn't move for several seconds. He stood, clutching the soft fabric of the sweater in his fingers, looking at Kimi as if he wanted to memorize every line of his face, every shadow, every spark in his eyes. A drop of water rolled from his hair onto the bridge of his nose, then onto his cheek, and he didn't even notice.

"Thank you," he said quietly, almost in a whisper, but that word had more meaning than could fit in an entire book. Thank you for letting me in. Thank you for caring. Thank you for existing.

Kimi felt that familiar warmth spread through him—the one he'd been searching for so long. He smiled—that same smile that was only for Oliver. Soft, vulnerable, a little awkward, but sincere.

"Go," he said quietly. "I'll make some coffee. You deserve a hot drink after that downpour."

Oliver nodded, and for a moment, gratitude flickered in his eyes, mixed with something else—deeper, warmer. He turned, and Kimi heard his footsteps heading toward the bathroom. A moment later, the door closed, and the sound of water drowned out everything.

Kimi stood in the bedroom, feeling his heart pounding somewhere in his chest. He looked at the bathroom door behind which Oliver had disappeared and thought about how strangely and beautifully life was arranged—a month ago he'd stood on the threshold of this same apartment, but completely alone, and now there was someone here who shared his space. His things. His life.

He ran a hand over his face, wiping away the remaining moisture, and headed to the kitchen to put the kettle on. Outside the windows, the rain still poured, but Kimi no longer felt cold. Inside, it was warm. As warm as it hadn't been in a very long time.

He smiled and started taking out cups. Tonight was only the beginning. The beginning of something real. Something worth waiting for.

────୨ৎ────

Oliver left the next morning, once his clothes were dry and the rain had finally stopped. The gray sky over Manhattan was beginning to lighten, breaking through the rare clouds with the first rays of sun—timid, golden, promising a new day. After yesterday's downpour, the city looked washed and fresh, as if nature had washed away all the dust and dirt, leaving only cleanliness and clarity. Drops of water still sparkled on tree leaves, on building awnings, on car windows, turning an ordinary morning into something almost magical.

Kimi walked him to the door. Inside, everything was mixed together—a faint regret that he was leaving, anticipation of the upcoming interview, and a strange, almost childlike shyness he hadn't felt in years. Today he needed to gather his thoughts mentally, to prepare for the conversation that would change his life. But instead, he stood in the doorway, feeling like a teenager seeing off someone he didn't want to let go.

He stood there, holding Oliver's hand in his. Oliver's fingers were warm, soft, and Kimi couldn't bring himself to let go. He could feel his own palms slightly clammy, his cheeks beginning to flush with that telltale blush that gave him away completely. He bit his lip, trying to deal with this stupid embarrassment, but nothing helped. He felt like an idiot. A grown man, a Hollywood star, thirty-eight years old, acting like a lovesick teenager afraid his first kiss might go wrong.

Words stuck in his throat. He wanted to say something smart, important, something that would stay in Oliver's memory for a long time. But instead, all that came out was:

"Thanks for coming over," Kimi mumbled, his voice sounding as if he really were that fourteen-year-old boy saying goodbye to someone after a night spent together. He dropped his gaze, feeling his face grow hotter. "Take care of yourself and... text me when you get home."

He stared at their intertwined fingers and couldn't force himself to let go. Stupid. So stupid it made him want to laugh at himself. But inside it felt so warm, so right, that he couldn't give up that feeling even to look grown-up and composed.

Oliver looked at him with that soft smile that appeared in his eyes whenever he saw Kimi like this—vulnerable, real, without masks. He wasn't in a hurry to leave. He stood on the threshold, feeling the morning wind touch his face, watching Kimi as if he wanted to remember this moment forever.

"Okay, thank you," Oliver replied, and in his voice was the same warm tenderness that was always there when he spoke to Kimi.

And then he couldn't help himself. Oliver raised his free hand and tucked a strand of hair away from Kimi's eyes. His fingers brushed against his skin, lightly touching his temple, and Kimi felt everything inside him flip from this simple, almost mundane gesture. He froze, feeling his heart skip a beat and then start pounding faster, like a startled bird.

His skin burned at the spot where Oliver's fingers had touched. Kimi stared at him, unable to look away, feeling that familiar warmth spread through him—the one he'd been searching for so long. Now he knew its name. He knew its taste, its color, its sound. And it was both beautiful and terrifying.

"Today's an important day," Oliver said softly, his hand sliding down to lightly touch Kimi's shoulder. "I'll be watching. And I'll be proud of you, no matter what you say. You know that, right?"

Kimi nodded, feeling tears prick at his eyes. He blinked quickly, chasing them away, and squeezed Oliver's hand a little tighter.

"Thank you," he said, and that one word held everything. Gratitude for the support, for the patience, for this person being there when he needed it most.

Oliver smiled, and there was so much warmth in his smile that Kimi felt his heart begin to melt. He unclasped his fingers, slowly, reluctantly, and took a step back, giving Oliver his freedom.

"I'll text you when I get home," Oliver said, already stepping over the threshold. "And don't worry. Everything will be fine."

"I know," Kimi replied, feeling confidence bloom in his chest. "Now I know."

Oliver took a step, then stopped and turned back.

"Kimi," he said, his voice serious, almost solemn. "Don't be afraid to be yourself. You're beautiful just the way you are."

Kimi couldn't answer. He just stood there, feeling the tears well up again, watching Oliver walk away. Step by step. Farther and farther. Brighter and brighter.

And when his figure disappeared around the corner, Kimi closed the door, leaned his back against it, and slowly exhaled. He felt as if he'd just taken the most important step of his life. No, not the interview. Into a new life. A life where he could be himself. A life where there was someone who accepted him as he was.

He smiled, looked at the door, and quietly said into the silence of the apartment:

"I love you, Ollie."

And for the first time in years, those words didn't frighten him. They warmed him. They gave him hope. They were the beginning. The beginning of something new, something real, something he'd been searching for so long and had been so afraid to find. Kimi spoke to them in the silence of his apartment, and they hung in the air like a promise, like a vow to himself. He smiled, feeling that familiar warmth spread through him—the one he now recognized without fail. It was a feeling that required no masks, no performance, nothing but the simple act of being.

Kimi thought about those words the entire way to the studio. They echoed in his head in time with the car's wheels, intertwined with the morning light streaming through the car windows, growing louder and more certain with every mile. He watched the city glide past the glass, the pedestrians hurrying about their business, and felt something new growing inside him—a strength he'd never known before. He couldn't hear George, who'd been giving instructions for the past hour, repeating the same things over and over, trying to drill the right words into his head.

"...and when the host asks about the book, you'll say it was just a creative experiment," George was saying, shuffling papers and nervously tapping his finger on the tablet. "No hints of anything personal, no revelations. Got it? You'll say it was a youthful endeavor, that you were just trying your hand at literature. That's it. No truth. Only what we discussed. And for God's sake, don't look at the camera when you're lying. You always give yourself away with your eyes. No, better yet, don't look at the camera at all. Look at the host."

Kimi sighed, feeling irritation bubble up inside him. He knew George was just trying to protect his career, to save what they'd built together over ten years. But right now, that didn't matter. Right now, he wanted only one thing—to tell the truth. The truth he'd been hiding for twenty years.

"George," Kimi finally interrupted, his voice calm but firm. He turned to his manager, and in his gaze was that same steel that appeared when he made a final decision. "I know what I'm doing. We've already discussed what I'm going to say. Stop stressing yourself out."

George stopped mid-sentence, opened his mouth to object, but saw Kimi's eyes and fell silent. For a moment, silence filled the car, broken only by the noise of the city outside. George caught his breath, shook his head, and turned to the window.

"Fine," he said quietly. "I just want you to be ready."

"I am ready," Kimi replied, and in his voice was that certainty that's born only when you know you're on the right path.

The studio greeted him with its usual chaos. People ran through the corridors like ants in a disturbed anthill, shouting to each other, checking the time, adjusting lights and cameras. Somewhere in the corner was the makeup room, where the techs were already preparing him for the broadcast, and beyond the studio glass, he could see the large screens that would soon show his face to millions of viewers. Kimi sat in the chair, feeling the makeup artist's brush touch his face, watching the bustle around him with surprising calm.

Everything happened as if in slow motion. He saw someone running with headphones, the host flipping through questions, the director gesturing behind the glass, trying to get attention. But none of it concerned him. He was somewhere else. Inside himself. Inside that new world that had opened up to him last night.

He looked at his hands, folded on his knees, and thought about what he was about to say. About how his life would change in a few minutes. And about how somewhere out there, on the other side of New York, there was a person waiting for those words.

And while somewhere at one end of the city life buzzed—cars honked in traffic jams, people rushed to work, shops opened, and the world spun in its usual rhythm—at the other end, Oliver waited for the live broadcast to begin. He sat on his sofa, clutching a cup of cold coffee, staring at his phone screen where the words "COMING SOON" already glowed. Ginger Ray had settled on his lap, purring, and Oliver absently stroked her back, though all his thoughts were there—in the studio, next to Kimi.

"Soon," he whispered, glancing at the clock. "You'll do great."

And at that moment, the intro lit up on the screen, and Kimi Antonelli's familiar face appeared live.

Oliver held his breath.

The studio hummed with barely audible tension—that special kind of silence when dozens of people hold their breath, waiting for something important to happen. The cameras were aimed at the center, where two people sat in the soft glow of the spotlights—the host in a perfectly tailored navy suit and Kimi, dressed in a simple black turtleneck that didn't constrict his throat today. On the contrary, it fit him loosely, like a second skin, and Kimi felt comfortable in it. Free. Real.

He sat in the chair, leaning back slightly, looking at the host with a light, relaxed smile. His hands rested calmly on his knees, his fingers didn't tremble, his heart beat steadily—he couldn't believe he could feel so calm before a live broadcast. The lighting fell softly on his face, highlighting the warm tone of his skin and the gleam in his brown eyes, which seemed especially bright today.

"Good evening, everyone!" the host smiled into the camera, his voice filled with that professional friendliness that instantly puts people at ease. "Today in our studio, we have the famous actor Kimi Antonelli. Kimi, hello. How are you?"

He turned to Kimi, his face wearing an expression of genuine interest. Behind the glass, the director gave the signal—everything was going according to plan.

Kimi looked into the camera—to where he knew millions of eyes were watching. But he saw only one pair. Brown, warm, with a hint of laughter. He saw Oliver, sitting on his sofa, clutching a cup of cold coffee, watching him. He could feel his gaze across the distance, across time, across all the barriers they'd overcome. And that gave him strength.

"Good evening," Kimi replied, his voice soft but confident. He smiled—that same smile he didn't need to rehearse in front of a mirror. "Couldn't be better."

The host paused for a moment, surprised by such openness. Usually, stars started with polite, detached phrases, but Kimi spoke as if he truly meant every word. The host quickly recovered from his slight bewilderment and smiled back, leaning forward slightly—a gesture that meant he was ready for a serious conversation.

"That's wonderful to hear," the host said, his voice dropping slightly, as if they weren't in a studio but having coffee in a cozy café. "We know that lately, your life has been in the spotlight. And frankly, we're all a little confused."

He paused, letting the audience absorb the significance of the moment, and Kimi felt the tension in the studio become almost tangible. He looked at the host without looking away, and inside him there was no fear. Only peace. Only certainty.

"Your book Wildflowers caused such a stir that probably no one expected," the host continued, curiosity creeping into his voice. "Many are wondering how autobiographical it is. And that's why we're here—to ask you directly."

Kimi slowly exhaled. He could hear someone behind the glass holding their breath, the clock ticking on the wall, his own heart beating loudly. But there was no fear. He felt lightness—the kind that comes when you stop being afraid to be yourself.

"I know," he said, his voice steady, almost a whisper that made you lean in to listen. "I know everyone wants to hear the truth. And today, I'm here to tell you about it."

He paused, feeling the words he'd carried inside him for twenty years ripening within him. Twenty years of silence, twenty years of fear, twenty years of masks.

"This book is not fiction," he said, and every word fell into the studio like a stone into water, rippling outward. "I wrote it at eighteen. I wrote about myself. About what I felt. About what I hid. About what I was afraid to say out loud."

The silence in the studio became absolute. The host stared at him with his mouth open, forgetting his professional duties. Behind the glass, someone dropped their headphones. Kimi saw the director freeze with his hand raised, forgetting to give the signal.

"I'm gay," Kimi said, and his voice rang out loud and clear, like a bell. "And I'm tired of hiding it. I'm tired of pretending. I'm tired of playing a role that wasn't me."

He paused, feeling a tear roll down his cheek. He didn't wipe it away. He let it be. Let himself be real.

"I wrote this book because otherwise I would have suffocated from the pain I carried inside. And I didn't know it would change someone's life. But it did. And I want to say thank you to those who read it and understood. To those who felt they weren't alone."

He caught his breath and looked straight into the camera. Into Oliver's eyes. Into the eyes that were watching him from the other end of the city.

"I won't hide anymore. I want to live. A real life. With the one I love. And as long as that person is waiting for me, I have nothing to lose."

He fell silent, feeling his heart beat steady and strong. And in that silence, he heard someone behind the glass begin to applaud. Hesitantly at first, then louder.

Kimi smiled. Through tears. Through fear. Through years of pain. His face was wet with tears, but the smile didn't leave his lips—it was real, alive, sincere. He could feel something huge, warm, almost unbearably beautiful spreading inside him. He'd done it. Said out loud what he'd carried inside for twenty years as a secret, a curse, a shame. And now it was no longer a secret. No longer a curse. No longer a shame. He was free. Finally free.

He didn't remember how or in what state he made it home. Everything was like a fog—the blurred lights of the streets, the sounds of the city reaching him through cotton wool, the faces of people flashing before his eyes but leaving no trace in his memory. He moved on autopilot, as if his body knew the way while his consciousness drifted somewhere far away, in that place where there were no masks, no fear, no pain. He didn't know how much time had passed, how he'd ended up in his apartment, how he'd closed the door behind him. He only remembered collapsing onto the bed, feeling his body grow heavy as lead, his thoughts still swirling in his head, repeating the words he'd spoken. He lay on his bed, with only the nightlight burning in the corner—a small yellow circle of light casting shadows on the walls and making the room cozy, almost magical. Kimi hadn't even changed. The turtleneck was still on him, but now it didn't constrict his throat—it felt soft and familiar. He breathed heavily, feeling his chest rise and fall, unable to believe he'd actually said it. He'd spoken those words out loud. In front of millions of people. In front of the whole world. And the world hadn't collapsed. The sky hadn't fallen. He was still here, alive, breathing, feeling. And inside him grew a feeling he couldn't put into words—a mixture of relief, fear, tenderness, and hope.

Suddenly, the silence of the apartment was shattered by the doorbell—sharp, insistent, demanding. Kimi flinched, surfacing from his daze, and slowly got up from the bed. His legs felt like an old man's, and he shuffled to the front door, feeling every step come with difficulty. A thought flashed through his mind that George had come to berate him, to tell him he'd ruined everything, that his career was now going down the drain. Kimi braced himself for the shouting, the reproaches, George talking about money and contracts and how complicated everything would be now. He took a deep breath, gathering his courage, and turned the handle.

But the moment he opened the door, someone practically threw themselves at him. Someone burst into his space, unleashing a wave of warmth and tenderness on him. Lips—insistent and hot—pressed against his lips, leaving no room for questions. Kimi started to push the stranger away, his hand already rising to plant against their shoulder and pull back, but in the next moment, he realized who it was. Whose lips were touching his. Whose breath was mingling with his. Whose palms were now cradling his face, gently and tenderly, thumbs stroking his cheekbones, wiping away tears he hadn't noticed he'd started shedding again. Kimi froze, feeling his heart—the one he'd thought was dead—begin to beat in a frantic rhythm.

Oliver. It was Oliver. He stood in the doorway, his hair still wet from the rain—it must have started raining again, and he'd run through it to get here as fast as possible. His eyes sparkled, his face a mixture of concern, relief, and that infinite tenderness Kimi had only ever seen in his gaze. His palms were warm, soft, and they held Kimi's face as if it were something priceless that couldn't be broken. His thumbs stroked his cheekbones, wiping away the wet tracks, and in every touch was so much care that Kimi's breath caught.

"I saw," Oliver whispered, his voice breaking. He looked into Kimi's eyes, and tears glistened on his own. "I saw you, Kimi. I watched you. You were so brave. You were so beautiful. I'm so proud of you. So proud it breaks my heart."

Kimi couldn't speak. He just stood there, feeling tears stream down his cheeks, watching Oliver—his wet hair, his red-rimmed eyes, his trembling lips. Before him stood a man who'd dropped everything to be with him. Who'd run through the rain to see him. Who'd come to tell him he wasn't alone.

"I came," Oliver continued, his voice dropping to a whisper. "I came because I couldn't stay there, couldn't wait, couldn't watch you on TV and not be near you. You said you want to live a real life. And I want to live that life with you. If you'll let me."

Kimi couldn't hold back. He stepped forward, closing the distance between them, and hugged Oliver as tightly as he'd ever hugged anyone. He could feel him trembling—from cold, from emotion, from the overwhelming feelings. He could feel his heart beating in his chest, keeping a rhythm that was only for the two of them.

"I love you," Kimi said, his face buried in Oliver's wet shoulder, his voice muffled but so real. "I love you, Ollie. I was so afraid to say it for so long that I almost forgot what it sounded like. But I love you."

Oliver froze for a moment, then hugged him back, pulling him close as if afraid Kimi might disappear.

"I love you too," he whispered. "I love you, Kimi. I've loved you since that evening in the café. I was just afraid you weren't ready."

Kimi laughed through his tears—softly, breathlessly, but so happily that it seemed the laughter filled the entire apartment, the entire house, the entire world.

"I'm ready," he said. "I'm ready. Now I'm ready."

────୨ৎ────

March 2018.

Outside the windows of the New York apartment, the snow was slowly melting, revealing gray asphalt and the first timid puddles reflecting the pale spring sky. The city was waking after a long winter, and in the air was that special anticipation of warmth that comes only in early March—when the sun begins to truly warm, and the days grow longer. In Oliver's apartment, it was warm and cozy. Ginger Ray dozed on the windowsill, basking in a thin ray of light breaking through the clouds, her purring the only sound breaking the morning silence.

Kimi lay on Oliver's chest, his chin resting on his collarbone, looking up at him. His brown eyes sparkled in the morning light, and on his lips was that light, happy smile that hadn't left his face for six months—since that evening when Oliver had burst into his apartment in the rain and kissed him. Six months. Half a year that had flown by like a single moment and yet contained an eternity.

He ran his finger along Oliver's jawline, feeling the light stubble, and smiled wider. Oliver opened his eyes—sleepy, warm—looking at Kimi with that tenderness that appeared only in these morning moments, when the world hadn't yet intruded on their space.

"How long are you going to keep hiding that you're my boyfriend?" Kimi asked, a light, teasing tone in his voice that he only allowed himself with Oliver.

Oliver chuckled, and Kimi felt the vibration through his entire body—it was so pleasant that he closed his eyes for a moment, savoring it.

"I'm not a public figure, why would I want to be in the spotlight?" Oliver replied, a hint of self-deprecating humor in his voice. "I love you, but I don't love cameras. Or red carpets. Or paparazzi. Or anything that comes with it. It's not my environment."

Kimi clicked his tongue, pretending to be offended, but his eyes were laughing. He lifted himself up slightly to see Oliver's face, his hair falling across his forehead, brushing his skin.

"But I want to take you to events with me," he said, a hint of almost childish grievance in his voice. "I can't be there with just George anymore. He's always nagging. Constantly telling me I need an image, that I should appear with someone who'll support my brand. He even offered to hire me a fake girlfriend for red carpets."

"What?" Oliver raised an eyebrow, a flicker of jealousy in his eyes. "A fake girlfriend?"

"Exactly," Kimi sighed, running his fingers through Oliver's hair. "I almost laughed in his face. I told him if he ever suggested that again, I'd find another manager. He backed off immediately."

Oliver smiled, and there was so much warmth in it that Kimi felt that familiar feeling spread through him—the one he now called "home."

"You know," Oliver said, pulling Kimi closer and kissing the top of his head. "I'll think about it. Maybe I can appear with you at some event. But only without paparazzi. And without interviews. And without people asking me how I sleep with you."

Kimi laughed—loud, bright, free. He threw his head back, feeling the laughter fill him completely.

"Deal," he said, lifting his head to meet Oliver's gaze. "I just want the world to know that I love you. That you're mine. That we're together. It's so important to me, Ollie."

Oliver looked at him with a long, serious gaze. In his eyes was that same deep tenderness that appeared whenever he looked at Kimi.

"You already told the whole world," he said quietly. "Remember? You said it in the interview. You said you love someone. And I heard you. I'll always remember that."

Kimi felt tears prick at his eyes—not from sadness, but from that overwhelming joy that sometimes washed over him in waves.

"But I want them to know who it is," he said, almost in a whisper.

"They'll find out," Oliver replied, kissing his forehead. "In time. When I'm ready. When you're ready. We're together. And that's what matters."

Kimi nodded, pressing his cheek to Oliver's chest, listening to his heartbeat. Ray jumped off the windowsill, padded over to them, and leapt onto the bed, settling at their feet. Kimi smiled, feeling her fluffy warmth warm his legs.

"You're right," he said quietly. "We're together. And that's what matters."

They lay in the morning silence, feeling spring enter their lives, warming them with its warmth. And in that moment, there were no masks, no fears, no secrets. There were only the two of them—and their love. The most real. The warmest. And there was no longer any need to hide it from the world.

But perhaps, very soon, they would be ready to show it. Together. As one.