The first time Arthur saw Nick again, he didn't flinch.
He'd prepared for this. He'd rehearsed it in his head a thousand times—what he'd say, how he'd appear, and what he wouldn't let Nick see. And now, standing beneath the gentle gold lights of the university gallery, surrounded by whispers and clinking glasses, Arthur didn't falter.
Nick looked like he'd seen a ghost. Eyes wide, chest still.
The crowd dwindled around them, but Arthur went past him like he was nobody.
Like he was an air
"Arthur…" Nick's voice was a hoarse rasp, the first crack of a man breaking.
Arthur turned slowly, flashing a small smile that hardly touched his lips. "Oh. Hey."
Just like that. Hey—like old classmates running into each other at a grocery store.
Nick blinked. "I… I didn't know you'd be here."
Arthur lifted a brow, sipping his wine. "I curated the entire show. So either you didn't read the invite or you came here knowing that."
Nick opened his mouth, but Arthur had already turned away, the silk of his black shirt shimmering under the gallery lights as he strolled toward the middle.
The night moved on. Arthur was magnetic—everyone wanted to talk to him. Pim beamed happily from the sidelines, and next to her stood Ake, the handsome, charismatic student who played his role brilliantly.
When Ake leaned down and murmured something that made Arthur giggle, Nick's stomach constricted like someone had reached into his gut and twisted.
It was like watching his own heart belong to someone else.
Later that night,
Nick found him again—this time alone in the rear corner of the gallery where the final sculpture sat, somber and unsettling.
A big canvas painted in violent strokes of crimson, black, and painful white. A silhouette of a boy mid-fall, another set of hands reaching out—but just barely missing. The boy's form was fractured, then whole again, going out into the light. Above it, the title in beautiful gold script:
"The One Who Left Me Bleeding."
Nick stared at it in silence.
Arthur didn't glance at him. "Do you see yourself in this portrait? He asked, his voice calm, like wind brushing through glass.
Nick's throat was dry. "I see… I see everything I did."
Arthur turned slowly. His expression was unreadable.
"I was broken. You didn't care. I implored the cosmos for answers, for a sign that I wasn't what you believed. You never looked back. Not even once."
"I was hurt, I was angry, jealous, and devastated, but I never meant to hurt you this deep, Arthur," Nick started.
"You were, but you never asked me for my explanation," Arthur remarked, his tone stern yet firm. "You took a lie and wrapped it in your own pain and gave it back to me as punishment. You wanted me to suffer. So I did."
Nick stepped closer. "I was wrong, Arthur. I regretted it, and I am sorry."
Arthur finally looked him in the eye.
"You were a coward, Nick. You ran from love. You let Tyler win. And then you staged a fake relationship with Mia like it was some kind of performance piece just to hurt me. Do you know what it did to me? Watching you stand beside someone else, while I couldn't even breathe without breaking? "
Nick's eyes burned. "I was angry and hurt, and I feel guilty. I didn't know how to confront you."
"So you hid like a child for a whole year."
"I thought you'd be better off without me."
"You thought wrong because you don't get to decide that."
Silence.
Then Arthur's voice softened, but just in tone—not in mercy.
"Now you get to feel what I felt, Nick, every time you see me smile at someone else, every time you question if it's genuine, every time you think, what if I am ever coming back to you?" His eyes were glass, shining, but not crying. Not anymore.
"That's your revenge? Nick whispered.
"No," Arthur answered. "That's just your punishment."
A few days later,
Nick began calling Mia, calling Pim, and asking for second chances.
He is always trying to apologize, but Arthur is always two steps ahead.
The tale of "Arthur's new love" was spreading like wildfire across the academic environment. Ake and Arthur were featured in the school magazine, at rooftop banquets, holding hands as flashes went off.
But behind closed doors, it wasn't real. Not entirely. Ake knew the truth—that Arthur wasn't over Nick but needed to be seen moving on. Ake played the part. And maybe… maybe part of him wanted it to become real.
"You're dangerous," Ake remarked once, pushing the hair off Arthur's face.
"I was innocent once," Arthur said. "Love changed that—at least, that is what I want Arthur to believe."
Nick finally cornered Arthur at Pim's café one rainy afternoon.
"I miss you," Nick murmured, drenched, breathless. "I made a mistake. I don't care about the interaction or what people would say. I will never stop loving you. I just… I didn't know how to come back from what I did."
Arthur stirred his coffee calmly.
"You don't get to come back and apologize and expect me to open my arms and welcome you and then accept you back, not like nothing happened ." not like that
"I love you." I love you, Arthur
Arthur looked up, eyes full of calm fire.
"I loved you too. Until I understood I deserved someone who believed in me the first time, the first time he saw me."
Nick went to his knees in the rain outside the café, in front of everyone, and begged Arthur to forgive him.
Arthur watched through the glass and then walked outside in the rain with water seeping through his clothes.
He gazed down at the man he devoted his whole life to, the love of his life. He wanted to hug me tight and scream, "I love you, Nick," so much that it hurt, but he had to compose himself and pretend he didn't care, just for the meantime. But his heart clenched.
"You made me feel like I was nothing. Now you know what it feels like when the one you love pretends you don't exist."
He walked away.
This time, Nick didn't follow.