Good Night, My president

Hey I AM GAY

Before Cael met Elric, he was also a member of parliament—also a member of Windbridge Front, the centrist party Elric now belonged to. The funny thing was, back then Elric had belonged to the right-wing party, Nine Towers.

Early in their relationship, Cael had brought this up directly. He’d said: if nothing else, the fact that Elric was gay should have already made it a mismatch.

“I wasn’t out back then,” Elric said, lounging on the sofa and licking an ice cream cone. He looked up at Cael, who was walking over with a large bag of potato chips.

“You sound kind of proud of that?” Cael asked as he tore open the packaging.

“Not proud. Not ashamed, either. Just... thrilling.” Elric took a chip Cael handed him and popped it directly into his mouth.

“I didn’t disagree with everything they said,” Elric added while chewing. “Well, most of it I did. But watching them twist themselves into knots debating how LGBT people are ‘unnatural’—that part I found highly entertaining.”

He nudged Cael’s calf with his toes, a small, teasing gesture.

“That really turned me on.”

“You’ve got a weird kink,” Cael said, shooting him a glance while holding up another chip.

“It’s not that weird, I guess.” Elric gave him a goofy smile.

They fell into a familiar rhythm then—banter layered over something real, something unspoken. There was comfort in that.

“So... were things messy in your conservative party? Gender-wise, I mean,” Cael asked. He was genuinely curious. To him, Nine Towers had always seemed less like a political party and more like a cult with tailored suits.

“Messy. Super messy,” Elric replied. “There were only a few women in the party, and it felt like they’d had something going on with almost every guy—except me.”

“Lucky you,” Cael muttered.

“And the way the guys looked at them—it was like watching someone fawn over a pet hamster. Cutesy and controlling all at once.”

“That’s horrifying. I thought they just talked like that. You mean they actually—”

“They’re all about alignment between word and deed.” Elric chuckled darkly, dropped the now-empty chip bag on the table, and wrapped an arm around Cael’s shoulder. Cael leaned into it, almost without thinking.

“I joined Nine Towers after finishing my master’s. The left was super popular back then, hard to break in. I didn’t feel that left-leaning myself. So I thought, well, maybe I’ll join Nine Towers. Maybe I can even change them a little.”

Elric felt the weight of Cael’s head settle onto his shoulder. He didn’t move. He just let him stay there.

“And...?” Cael started to ask, but Elric cut him off, already knowing the question.

“No, of course not. I couldn’t change a thing. You know how it is. Left and right both think they’re the only righteous side. They can’t even accept that the center exists.”

He pressed a kiss to the top of Cael’s head and said, slower this time:

“So, eventually, I came to find you.”

Cael considered pointing out that they hadn’t even met yet at that time. But he knew Elric would just counter with something like: “Then it must’ve been divine guidance.”

To which Cael could’ve said: “You don’t even believe in God.”

But in the end, he said nothing at all. His partner had only wanted to say something sweet. What was the harm in that?

And besides, when a man shows he loves you at eleven at night, surely he doesn’t stop at just one cheesy line. Right?

Elric’s leg slowly slipped between Cael’s. He always touched Cael like this—teasing, casual, unapologetic. Not demanding, never pushing.

And Cael, every time, caught him perfectly.

He slid one hand up the back of Elric’s neck and kissed him.

Elric returned the kiss, but let Cael take the lead, letting himself be kissed however Cael wanted.

They sank back into the sofa together, limbs entangled, breath mingling—heat building not in haste, but in the quiet tension of knowing exactly where to touch, and exactly when not to speak.

That same year, Elric came out publicly—on i********:, the same day he left Nine Towers.

He was still a relative nobody at the time, just one of dozens of parliament backbenchers the media barely kept track of. But the move got him a fair bit of attention. Enough for three articles, a dozen blog posts, and more speculation than he’d bargained for.

Had Elric been forced out? Had he long been sidelined in the party? Had his sexuality clashed with their conservative ideals?

The truth was neither. The truth was simpler, and perhaps more bitter.

They had never even given him a chance to speak loud.

They didn’t like young male politicians—only young female ones. As if a man speaking too soon would destroy the “traditional values” they’d carefully constructed over centuries, brick by hypocritical brick.

Elric hadn’t meant to make headlines. He posted all kinds of stuff on i********:. Travel photos. Books. Cafés. That time, it just happened to be a rainbow flag.

No caption. Just the image.

The press picked it up within hours. Someone tagged it: ‘Coming out or coming for blood?’

Elric laughed when he saw the headline. War? he thought. I haven’t even started fighting yet.

And he didn’t delete the post. Didn’t clarify, didn’t apologize. If they wanted to see blood in a rainbow flag, that was their problem. He hadn’t gone into politics to comfort those who feared people like him—young, unrepentant, unwilling to stay silent just because the room had always been filled with the same kind of voices.

And somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew—whoever was watching, he’d made his stance clear. That flag was for everyone who’d ever lived in the shadows. He didn’t know Cael yet, not then. But in some way, he was already reaching for him.

He turned off his phone, leaned back in his chair, and thought quietly:“No war yet. But maybe I’ll pick a fight some day.”