Overnight••√•• a foreign omega”

chapitre : 4

• ஜ • ❈ • ஜ •

The Croft house was silent, cradled by the steady breath of the night. But for Smith, it was a deafening silence, haunted by the echo of the message still burning his retina. "Be reasonable." Those words, from his mother in the other world, were never a suggestion. They were an order. The same order that had pushed him to the brink of the abyss.

He was lying on the bed that wasn't his, in the room that should have been, his eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling where the reflections of car headlights danced. The phone, that cursed artifact from his old life, sat on his nightstand, inert and threatening like a time bomb. Every second that passed without it vibrating again was both a relief and an anguish.

Stay.

The word echoed in his skull, sweet and frightening. If he stayed, it meant accepting the incredible. Accepting that his mother's smile, that carefree laugh, was meant for him. Accepting Julien's hand, this friendship offered without condition. Accepting Day's gentle eyes, this fiancé who seemed to see a treasure in him.

He closed his eyes, letting the image of Day form. The way his eyes crinkled when he smiled, the tranquility that emanated from him. A strange, forbidden warmth spread through his chest. It was a sensation so new, so dizzying, it nearly took his breath away. Here, loving Day was not a sin. It was a celebration. The very idea was a sun seeking to melt the permafrost of his heart.

But with this warmth came an icy fear. What if it was all just borrowed? A loan? The shaman had spoken of an "empty place," but could he truly believe all this happiness was destined for him? He was nothing but disappointment and compromise. How could he be the hero of this radiant story?

Leave.

The alternative was a familiar chasm. Returning to his car, in the rain. Facing the dinner with the Chois. Shaking that unknown woman's hand and seeing, once again, the spark of hope in his parents' eyes—a hope he knew he must extinguish, slowly, methodically, for their "good" and for the peace of appearances.

He saw the face of his mother—his real mother. Not the radiant woman of this world, but the one with shoulders always slightly stooped, with smiles always a little sad, as if she carried the silent weight of all their disappointments. She loved him, he knew. With a demanding, conditional love that said "I love you if you become the one I expect." Disappointing her, breaking her heart by confessing his truth, had always been his greatest nightmare. Leaving would spare her that pain. It would honor the son she believed she had.

But at what cost? That of his soul. The shaman had said: "You will live the life you chose by denying who you are." That wasn't a life; it was a slow asphyxiation. An inner death in several acts.

A slight scratching at his door made him jump. The door opened a crack, revealing the sleepy head of his brother, Nam.

"Smith? Can't sleep?" he whispered. "I heard a noise."

"No, bro. Sorry I woke you."

Nam entered, dropping heavily onto the foot of the bed. In the gloom, he looked even more like the brother he knew, but softer, less wrinkled with worry.

"Is it the preparations?" Nam asked, yawning. "Cold feet? It's normal. I remember when I introduced Julien to our parents, I felt like I was swallowing stones."

The simplicity with which he mentioned this left Smith speechless. Introducing Julien to his parents. A simple formality. A mundane happiness.

"It's... more complicated than that," Smith managed to say, his voice hoarse.

Nam looked at him, and in the darkness, his gaze seemed to perceive things.

"You know, when I found out about you and Day, I was scared at first. Not for me, never for me. But for you. The world can be cruel. But seeing you so happy, so... alive since you've been with him... it erased all my fear. Mom and Dad too, you saw them. They're so proud of the man you've become."

Nam's words acted like gilded daggers. Each phrase was further proof of this world's beauty, and a heartbreaking reminder of what he might have to abandon. His parents' pride. It was a concept so foreign, so distant, it hurt.

"And if... if it all disappeared?" Smith murmured, unable to hold back the question.

Nam gave a soft, gentle laugh.

"Nothing will disappear, you i***t. Except your bachelor freedom, and even then, Day will probably let you breathe. You're going to build something solid. I can feel it."

He stood up, placing a comforting hand on his brother's shoulder.

"Stop thinking so much. Sleep. Tomorrow, things will seem clearer."

But when Nam was gone, things were more obscure than ever. The two realities jostled in his mind, each pulling the blanket its way. On one side, conditional love, duty, the cold familiarity of suffering. On the other, unconditional love, terrifying freedom, the dizzying warmth of happiness.

He got up and walked to the window. Outside, the world slept peacefully. Somewhere, in this same city, Day was also sleeping. The idea that he, Smith, could be the object of someone's dreams, that he could be loved that much, was an aphrodisiac for the soul and a poison for the conscience.

He grabbed the cursed phone. The screen was black. He clenched it in his palm, feeling its cold contour against his skin. It was his passport back to his life. All he had to do was focus on the sadness. To plunge back into the despair that had brought him here.

He tried. He saw the rain again, the car, the taste of his tears. But the image was blurry, distant, as if covered over by Julien's voice, his mother's smile, Day's gaze. The pain was still there, real and sharp, but it was now competing with something else. With a stubborn, insane hope taking root in the cracks of his broken heart.

"Beware of the echoes."

The phone suddenly vibrated, so loudly in the silence that he almost dropped it. A pure terror froze him. He looked at the screen.

1 Missed Call - Mom (23:58).

No message. Just a missed call. A silent summons. A hand reaching out from the other side of the veil to grab him, to pull him back to order.

His own body was trembling, torn apart. A part of him, the oldest, the most submissive, wanted to answer. Wanted to say "yes, I'm coming, sorry for the delay." It was the path of least resistance, a return to the starting block, however painful it was.

But another part, a new and fragile little flame, rebelled. This flame had fed on Julien's warmth, Nam's pride, Day's gentleness. It whispered to him that perhaps, perhaps, he deserved more. That he deserved not just to be "reasonable," but to be happy.

He let the phone fall onto the bed as if it were burning. He stepped back, short of breath. He couldn't choose. Not now. Not like this.

The choice wasn't between two worlds. It was between two versions of himself. The devoted, wounded son, or the loved, free man.

And in the midst of this internal chaos, a third, insidious path began to take shape: what if he didn't leave right away? What if he took just one more day of this dream? A single day to know what it felt like to wake up without fear. One day to see if the shaman was right. One day to hold Day's hand, just once, in the full light.

It was a risk. A dangerous delay. The echo could grow louder, the fissure could close.

But as he stared at the phone, silent and threatening on the sheets, a new determination, born not of strength but of desperate hope, rose within him.

He would not leave. Not tonight.

He would go to bed, and when he woke, he would not focus on the sadness. He would try, for the first time in his life, to focus on the possibility of happiness. It was the most frightening decision he had ever made. But for the first time, the fear of losing what he had barely found was stronger than the fear of disappointing.

He lay back down, turning his back to the phone, and closed his eyes, clinging not to the despair of the past, but to the fragile and terrifying promise of tomorrow. The battle was not over. It was only just beginning.