I sat on the edge of his bed — our bed now — and buried my face in my hands.

What had I gotten myself into?

The room was dark except for the thin strip of light bleeding under the door. Advik hadn't come in yet. I could hear him moving in the kitchen, the distant clatter of pans, the low murmur of music through his phone speaker. He was giving me space. Or he was letting me marinate in the knowledge that there was nowhere left to hide.

I laid back, his blanket wrapped around me like a cocoon. It smelled like him — sandalwood and sleep and something darker that I didn't want to name. My eyes grew heavy, the day's exhaustion finally catching up, dragging me under. I didn't mean to fall asleep. I just had no more fight left.

When I woke, it was to something delicious.

Something familiar.

Something that made my stomach growl and my chest ache all at once, like hunger and grief had merged into one sensation.

I followed the scent to the kitchen and stopped in the doorway. Advik stood at the stove, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, stirring a pan with the kind of focus he usually reserved for breaking rules or breaking people. The muscles in his forearm shifted beneath his skin with each turn of the wrist. I crept closer, my bare feet silent against the tile, and peered over his shoulder.

Noodles.

My favorite noodles — the spicy kind with sesame oil and scallions, the recipe my mother used to make when I was small, before London, before distance, before everything.

I stared at him, torn between hunger and suspicion. My mouth watered. My hands trembled. Would this jerk actually share? Or was this another trap, another way to taunt me — cook the one thing I couldn't resist and then watch me beg?

I looked up at him. I didn't mean to make my eyes wide. I didn't mean to look pleading. But I was starving, and he was standing there like a man who had already won.

"Want some?" He didn't turn around. He didn't need to. He could feel me behind him, the way predators feel prey shift in the dark.

"Yes." My voice came out smaller than I wanted. "Yes, I want them. They look so tasty."

"Fine." He killed the heat and reached for a bowl. "But if you want to eat them, ask nicely. And give me a compliment."

That man.

He had made these on purpose. He knew I couldn't resist them, knew I'd cave to anything for a taste of something that smelled like home. It was unfair. It was manipulative. It was exactly the kind of psychological warfare he had been waging since we were children — being cruel until I cried, then offering the one thing that would make me forgive him.

I swallowed my pride. It tasted like copper.

"Advik," I said, my voice steady despite the humiliation. "Please give me some noodles. You are a really handsome and kind-hearted person. You won't starve me, right?"

And he laughed.

A real, genuine laugh that crinkled the corners of his eyes and softened the hard lines of his face. It wasn't the cruel laugh from the car. It wasn't the predatory grin from the cafeteria. It was something older. Something that reminded me of before.

Of when we were children.

"Fine, kitten."

He took out a large bowl and gave me an even larger portion, piling the noodles high, adding extra vegetables and the perfect amount of spice — exactly how I liked them, exactly how he remembered. We sat at the dinner table, the silence between us comfortable for the first time in years. He picked up a fork, twirled the noodles, and brought the spoon near my mouth.

I opened automatically.

Like a child. Like I used to.

And he fed me.

The memory hit me like a wave — running behind him in my father's garden, my bare feet slapping against wet grass, tugging at the hem of his shirt, begging him to feed me because I was too lazy to hold my own spoon. He never complained back then. Never sighed or rolled his eyes. He would sit me on his lap in the garden chair and feed me bite by bite, telling me stories between each mouthful, his voice low and patient, his arm a safe cage around my waist.

Then the years passed.

He grew taller, sharper, colder. The distance crept in slowly — a missed birthday, a closed door, a look that slid past me like I was furniture — then all at once. The boy who fed me became the man who pushed me away. And I never understood why. I still didn't.

This time, I dared to pick up the spoon and feed him too.

He took it without protest, opening his mouth like a good boy, his eyes never leaving mine. The moment felt fragile, like glass balanced on the edge of a table, like one wrong breath would shatter something we hadn't named yet. I didn't understand what was happening to him. To us.

What had happened to him? Why was he behaving like this? Soft one moment, cruel the next. Pushing me away, then pulling me back before I could fall too far. Cooking my favorite meal, then threatening to destroy the only boy who had ever been kind to me.

Soon we finished all the noodles.

I went to take a shower, the warm water washing away the exhaustion and confusion of the day, turning my skin pink and tender. I changed into shorts and a crop top — comfortable, familiar clothes, the kind I wore when I was alone and safe and didn't have to think about who was watching.

I had forgotten.

I was living in Advik's room now. There was no boundary. No door to close between us. My sanctuary had been reduced to a bed's width of space, and even that wasn't truly mine.

As soon as he looked at me, his eyes stayed.

Just for a few seconds, but long enough to make my skin burn. His gaze dragged from my face down to my bare stomach, to my legs, then back up again — slow, deliberate, hungry in a way that had nothing to do with noodles. Then he looked elsewhere, his jaw tightening, his hands curling into fists at his sides.

Not embarrassment.

Restraint.

I lay down beside him, keeping to the very edge of the mattress. My heart raced despite the distance — there was at least a foot of space between us, yet I could still feel his warmth radiating across the gap like a furnace. I stared at the ceiling, rigid and aware of every breath he took, every shift of the sheets, every second that passed without touching.

I was so close to the edge that if I moved an inch, I would fall.

He put his phone down. The screen went dark. In one fluid motion, he reached out and pulled me toward him — not much closer, just enough so I wouldn't tumble off the mattress into nothing. His hand stayed on my waist for a moment, heavy and warm, his thumb brushing the strip of bare skin where my crop top had ridden up.

Then he retreated.

But he didn't move back to his side of the bed.

He stayed right there, inches away, close enough that I could feel his breath stirring the hair at my temple, close enough that the space between us felt like a wound that hadn't decided whether to heal or bleed.

"When we were little," he said into the dark, his voice rough and far away, "we used to sleep on a single bed. What's the problem now?"

I stared at the rigid line of his back, at the way his shoulder blades shifted beneath his shirt with each breath. "We're adults now. And you're forcing me to live here." My voice came out sharper than I intended, edged with the panic I couldn't swallow. "Why are you doing all this? I told you I won't leave. You told me you would stay away if I don't leave."

He didn't answer.

Just turned his back to me, facing the other direction, his shoulders rigid and silent. The distance of a few inches felt like miles. Like he had built a wall in the space between our bodies, brick by brick, and mortared it with everything he refused to say.

And I lay there, staring at the broad expanse of his back, wondering why his silence felt louder than any threat he had ever spoken.

It pressed against my eardrums. It filled my lungs. It made the dark room feel small and airless, like a coffin with the lid still open. I counted his breaths — in, out, steady, controlled — and hated him for every single one. Hated him for being able to sleep when I was coming apart. Hated him for turning away when I was right there, right there , close enough to touch.

That snapped something inside me.

The silence. The dismissal. The way he turned his back like I didn't matter, like I was a problem he had solved by simply not looking at it. I couldn't let him control me anymore — not my body, not my heart, not the air I breathed in this room that smelled like him.

I got up.

The sheets whispered against my skin as I pushed them back. My feet found the floor, cold against my soles, and I stood there for one second, two, waiting for him to stop me. Waiting for his hand to shoot out and pull me back, the way it always did.

Nothing.

I crossed the room. My hand reached for the doorknob, fingers closing around the metal, cool and solid and real. I pulled it open. The hallway light bled into the room, thin and gray, and I took one step toward it — toward the corridor, toward the stairs, toward anywhere that wasn't this bed, this silence, this man.

The bed creaked.

Footsteps. Fast. Urgent. Bare feet slapping against the floorboards.

He got up and rushed toward me. His hand shot out, fingers wrapping around my wrist, and he spun me around so hard my shoulder blades crashed against the door. The wood pressed cold against my back. His warmth pressed everywhere else — his chest against mine, his thighs against mine, his breath hot and ragged against my forehead.

He had me pinned. Caged. Trapped.

But his hands were shaking.

"If you want to know," he said, his voice low and broken, "I'll tell you. But then you can't back down. You won't leave. Promise me."