Chapter 6: Cold Fire
927 Words
The next morning was... awkward.
Rehearsal started late. Lance barely made eye contact. David whistled a lot more than usual. Adrian was quiet, still warm but watching me like he didn’t want to push too far again.
And Daniel? Daniel avoided me completely.
He came in last, didn’t greet anyone, and tuned his guitar without saying a word. Which, honestly, wasn’t that different from usual—except this time, he wouldn’t even look at me.
It was like I’d done something wrong.
“Take five,” I said after we finished the third song. No one protested.
As the guys drifted out of the room, I hung back. Daniel was packing up already, like he couldn’t wait to leave.
“Daniel,” I said quietly.
He didn’t turn.
I stepped closer. “Can we talk?”
He finally looked up, eyes unreadable. “Talk about what?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “About yesterday? About how you won’t even look at me?”
“You’re overthinking,” he said, slinging his bag over his shoulder.
“No,” I said firmly. “I’m not. You’ve barely said ten words to me.”
He paused, then turned fully to face me. “What do you want me to say, Elyse? That I’m sorry for being honest? That I regret telling you how I feel?”
My heart thudded. “No. But I didn’t ask for any of this. I just… I need time.”
“I gave you years,” he said, voice low and rough. “Years of standing beside you, watching you run around clueless while I buried everything I felt. And now that it’s out, I’m supposed to just smile and pretend I’m okay?”
“I didn’t ask you to pretend,” I whispered.
“No, but you expected me to stay the same,” he said. “To be the quiet best friend, the guy who fixes your amp when it breaks, who walks you home at night and never asks for anything.”
“That’s not true,” I said, heart racing. “You mean so much to me.”
He let out a bitter laugh. “Mean something. Great. But you don’t feel the same.”
“I don’t know what I feel yet!”
He stared at me for a long time. Then, softer, he asked, “Do you feel anything for me, Elyse? Or am I just another safe boy you grew up with?”
That question hit deeper than I expected. I didn’t answer right away—because I didn’t know. My head was spinning with everyone else’s feelings, and I hadn’t had a second to ask myself what I wanted.
Daniel saw my silence, and that was answer enough for him.
“Thought so,” he murmured, turning away.
“No, wait—Daniel—”
He stopped in the doorway, still facing away.
“I’m not mad at you,” he said quietly. “I’m mad at myself for hoping.”
And then he was gone.
---
Later that day, I found myself sitting under the campus sakura tree alone. The petals were starting to fall early this year, soft pink drifts like whispers from the sky.
I wasn’t used to feeling this confused. In martial arts, everything had structure—form, discipline, rhythm. But my heart didn’t follow any of those rules.
“Mind if I join you?”
I turned. Cyrus stood behind me, his usual composed expression softened by the light filtering through the branches.
I shrugged. “It’s a free world.”
He sat down beside me, leaving just enough space to feel proper—but not distant.
“Hanna told me Daniel snapped,” he said simply.
“Of course she did,” I muttered.
“She also told me you ran from all of us.”
I hugged my knees to my chest. “It’s not like I meant to. Everything just... hit all at once.”
He nodded, watching the falling petals. “We came on too strong.”
“You didn’t come on at all,” I said with a small laugh. “You’ve always been the quiet one. The distant one.”
Cyrus’s lips twitched, like he might smile but thought better of it.
“Cold, some say,” he murmured.
I tilted my head. “But not to me.”
He finally looked at me. His eyes weren’t just sharp—they were intense, like he saw everything I tried to hide.
“No. Never to you,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because I saw your strength before anyone else did,” he said. “I saw the fire under all that softness. The way you tried to be everything for everyone. You think none of us noticed, but I always did.”
I blinked, stunned into silence.
“I kept my distance,” he continued, “because I knew I’d fall too hard.”
“Too late for that?” I asked, voice trembling.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he reached out and gently touched a petal that had landed on my sleeve.
“I don’t expect you to choose me,” he said. “But if you ever do… I won’t hesitate.”
He stood, straightened his jacket, and left with the wind at his back, just as quietly as he’d arrived.
And me?
I sat under that tree a little longer, wondering how love could feel like both a weight and a windstorm.
---
End of Chapter 6
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