Coming back
499 Words
Leo wasn’t the type to hold grudges. But heartbreak—especially the kind that came from someone you let into the most fragile parts of you—wasn’t so easily forgotten.
After Mikael left his apartment that night, soaked but sincere, Leo sat alone for a long time.
He replayed the apology again and again. The tremble in Mikael’s voice. The way his eyes wouldn’t stop searching Leo’s face for a sign of hope. The rawness of his words. He knew Mikael wasn’t good with emotions—he was a man raised on structure, logic, self-control.
But he came anyway.
That mattered.
Still, Leo needed space. He needed to decide if the love he felt was strong enough to weather the storm that had passed—and the ones that might come.
Three days later, Mikael sent a message.
"I told HR. Officially. Professionally. You and I were never inappropriate. But yes, we’re together. I wanted them to hear it from me."
Leo stared at the screen, heart stuttering.
Another message followed.
"I’m meeting my parents this weekend. I’m telling them too."
Leo’s fingers hovered over the keyboard. Then he simply typed:
"Let me know how it goes."
---
That weekend, Mikael flew to Singapore.
The conversation with his parents didn’t go well. His father’s face fell. His mother cried. Words were said that cut like blades—some sharp with anger, others dulled by pain.
But Mikael didn’t back down.
“I’m still your son,” he told them. “Still a doctor. Still the same man who sends money home and remembers your birthdays and calls every week. But I’m in love. With a man. And I won’t apologize for that anymore.”
When he returned, there were no warm embraces waiting. But there was something else.
A message from Leo.
"Come over. I made soup."
---
Mikael showed up holding a bag of bread rolls and two cans of lemon soda—Leo’s favorite. He expected another long conversation. A hard one. But Leo simply stepped aside to let him in.
They sat on the couch in quiet, legs barely touching, the steam from the soup curling into the air between them.
Finally, Leo said, “You did it.”
“I did.”
“Was it hard?”
“Harder than any surgery I’ve ever done.”
Leo smiled, just a little.
“I don’t expect things to be perfect,” Mikael said. “But I’m here. I want this. You.”
Leo reached out and took his hand.
“You already have me.”
---
From that night on, they began again—not as a secret, but as something real.
They didn’t shout their relationship from the rooftops. They didn’t have to. But they stopped hiding. They had dinner together at the hospital cafeteria. They walked home side by side. Sometimes they even touched fingers in the elevator when no one was looking.
And sometimes, when they were lucky, even when people were.
- Writer
