Chapter 486 - 487: Flood Of Emotions.

Chapter 486: Chapter 487: Flood Of Emotions.

But it’s not his, is it? So it probably wouldn’t be right to take it.

Loac never so much as gave it to him as let him keep it. He’s never really known why.

"This is...This belongs to you," Khobi says quietly, holding out the knife to Loac handle first. It used to have such an odd balance; an unusual weight. These days it feels perfectly natural to hold, and the idea of parting with it leaves him feeling oddly naked. "...I figure I should probably give it back."

"Keep it," Loac tells him, making no move to take it from him, and there’s a dismissiveness there in his words and his face that Khobi doesn’t quite buy, "...To remember me by, or something." It’s such a ridiculous thing to say that Khobi nearly laughs out loud. He doesn’t need a knife to remember him. In fact, he’s not sure he could forget him if he tried.

First loves don’t die so easily. He can’t imagine this feeling ever dying at all.

"...But I don’t have anything for you," he tries to joke. It falls depressingly flat, because he has nothing to offer him up; nothing to leave here for him but the scars he’s left on his body to remember him by.

"...It’s fine," Loac mutters, taking the knife from his hand only so he can put it back where it belongs at Khobi’s belt. And for a moment there before he withdraws again, his gaze flits back up to lock with Khobi’s; blue eyes so wistful and earnest and holding but a simple, honest truth that makes Khobi’s chest ache. "...I’ll remember."

It’s funny how much you can say while at the same time leaving some things left unsaid. How so little can sound so much like a confession.

Because whether or not that’s what Loac intended it to be, that’s what it feels like; two little words, somehow accomplishing what even the sharpest of blades and cruelest of whips have failed to do.

Break his heart.

"Loac, you...you know it was always gonna be this way," Khobi reminds him bitterly, as if saying the words aloud will convince himself as well as Loac.

" Was it ?" Loac grinds out harshly, but it comes across less like anger than the snarl of a wounded animal; backed into a corner and lashing out, "You’re tellin’ me that even if Khojin hadn’t come lookin’, you still would’ve left? Coz if that’s what you’re saying, Khobi , then why the fuck are you still here?"

It’s a question that even after all this time, Khobi doesn’t have an answer for. Because that’s just it, isn’t it?

They both know he could have left a long time ago. He could’ve slipped away that night they went out drinking with the soldiers, or any night after. He could have disappeared off into the forest and the waiting wilderness that day in winter when they rode out to the lake. Or any night after. For a while now, Khobi’s known that he had but to ask, and he could have left this place and all it held, far behind him.

Yet knowing that, he hadn’t asked.

And if he hadn’t have been longing for home quite so desperately; if Khojin had stayed lost or had died out in the wilderness or if he had never come for him, what would he have done? His life here hasn’t been the one he wanted for himself, but it has been a good life so far, and he thinks it would have probably gone on being a good life.

"...I didn’t want to leave."

It feels shameful, saying it aloud. Like in admitting it he’s somehow betraying his home, his family, everything he’s ever wanted; the things that kept him whole through the dark nights.

" So don’t ," Loac whispers with urgency, taking a step closer towards him with a storm rising in his eyes, "Stay."

With me .

"You know I can’t do that," Khobi whispers back; and he knows Loac knows because he doesn’t ask why not . "This isn’t my home, and they’re my family ."

"I know that," Loac growls, gazing at him like it hurts to look at him but will hurt so much more to look away, and he sucks in a heavy breath to soften his voice, to soften the words that come next. "...I still want you to pick me."

Khobi’s chest tightens.

" Loac ..." he breathes again, expression beginning to crack around the edges, and there must be something torn in his voice or wretched his face that Loac can’t bear because he averts his gaze like the whisper of his name has told him all he needs to hear. "That’s not fair."

And just like that the air in the room changes, charged hot and swirling with a weight Khobi has felt bearing down on him time and time again. The wells of Loac’s eyes open up to him in that moment, fathomless and with their gravity, except that this time Khobi can’t tell if it’s trying to draw him in and trap him there or blast him away. Loac doesn’t seem to know either; doesn’t seem to have any control over it.

" You think I don’t know that ?" Loac snaps, gaze shooting back to latch onto his, expression filled with thunder. Khobi can hear it rolling not off the horizon but here in the room with him; storm clouds gathering around Loac’s shoulders as his hands clench into fists, and suddenly it feels like they’re facing off for the first time all over again; an unstoppable force and immovable object teetering on the precipice. But then before the world shatters; before they can plummet over the brink into oblivion, he bites off whatever else he was going to say, and the hands curling at his sides loosen, scowling like a spoilt child who has finally been denied for the first time and it feels like the end of the world.

"...You think I don’t know I shouldn’t be asking?" he growls bitterly; voice as raw and directionless as a winter storm, " As if that changes anything . As if it changes how I feel about you ."

In the eye of a hurricane, the world falls silent.

Loac instantly looks like he didn’t mean to say that; didn’t mean for the words to come out sounding like they sound and saying what they said, but that doesn’t change the fact that he did. And while his shoulders slump, jaw tight like he’s already braced for the slap to come, he doesn’t take it back.