Just Like That - Cole McCade Page 0,39

vibrant, yet more languid, this slinking sense of presence that Summer tried to ignore and yet...couldn’t. Any more than he could ignore the way the moonlight gilded Iseya’s features, and slipped over his hair; the way his long lashes glittered just so as he stopped in front of the cabinet and reached into a small folded paper satchel on the bottom shelf to retrieve a little conical stick of incense.

“It’s more that you interrupted unhealthy habits,” he murmured, gaze focused on his fingers as he set the incense in the bronze holder. “I don’t even know why I do this anymore. She’s not here. She hasn’t been here for some time. And I feel as though by holding on to her memory, I’ve stayed frozen in some quiet place in the past, while the rest of the world has moved on without me...so I’m not really here, either.”

He said it so quietly, so dispassionately, gaze locked not on the photo of his ex-wife but on the golden statue of the Buddha. As if he was trying to divorce himself of all emotion; to make such simple, heartfelt things into something clinical that he could pluck out of himself and toss aside as easily discarded words.

And it made Summer’s heart ache, every word a tiny knife cutting in to leave him bleeding.

He stepped closer, risking drawing into Iseya’s space, risking moving to stand next to him, close enough for body heat to bring them into contact even if skin didn’t quite touch skin. Voice thick in his throat, he looked up at the shrine, watching not Iseya, but the faint hint of Iseya’s reflection in the mirror-bright polish of the rosewood.

“You’re here, though,” he said softly. “Maybe you don’t feel like it, but you’re here. You’re here to me.”

“What does that even mean, though?” Iseya asked—yet the words were so quiet he seemed to be speaking more to himself than to Summer. “What does it mean for me to be here without her?”

“I don’t know.” Summer glanced at Iseya from the corner of his eye. “But it sounds like you might be ready to find out.”

Iseya said nothing, but for a moment those carefully shielded silver eyes seemed to crack, turning liquid, brows knitting, lips parting as he stared at the Buddha as if it might give him some sort of answer in the silence.

Before he bowed his head, his breaths shuddering audibly as he plucked a small lighter from inside the paper sack, and lit the tip of the incense cone with a brief flick of his thumb, a spark, a flicker of flame. The peak of the cone turned into a deep-glowing ember, and a soft, powdery scent rose like dragon’s blood.

Iseya set the lighter down, silver eyes flicking upward to track the curl of incense smoke; Summer followed it as well, a strange heaviness settling on his shoulders, before looking back to Iseya as the man spoke.

“It’s ritual, at this point. And I suppose I have to finish it, even if it feels meaningless.” He turned his head just enough to catch Summer’s eye, the faint red spark of the incense’s cone reflecting in his eyes. “You...do not have to leave, if you do not wish to.”

A little flutter ran through the pit of Summer’s stomach. “What’s the ritual?” he asked, barely able to find his voice above a whisper. “What are you doing?”

Iseya turned away from him, then, tilting his head back, looking up at the rising coil of thick, ribbon-like white smoke as it wisped toward the ceiling.

“Trying,” he said, “to finally say goodbye.”

Summer said nothing.

It didn’t feel like words were needed, in this moment.

Just...that he be here, to answer that quiet unspoken need in Iseya’s words.

You do not have to leave.

When Summer thought, just maybe...

Iseya might mean stay.

So he stayed.

He stayed, and he watched the incense burn down with Iseya, and let its scent drift into him as he wondered what this meant.

If it meant anything at all.

Maybe Iseya was ready to let go, to stop living his life locked away in grief...

But maybe all he needed for that was a friend, and Summer thought...

That was okay.

He just...

He just wanted Iseya to be okay, no matter what that meant.

Yet standing so close to Iseya, Summer couldn’t help how their shoulders brushed, as they stood silent vigil. How their arms pressed together. How the backs of their hands touched.

And when his hand fell against Iseya’s, he didn’t pull away.

Neither did Iseya.

And for a few sweet moments,