Chapter Text
The cursor blinked inside an empty text field. Was the obnoxious rhythm supposed to summon an idea out of Anaxa’s imagination or smother it before it had a chance to arrive?
The longer Anaxa stared at the cursor, the less certain he became of the answer. A quick glance at the clock on his phone alerted him that it was already past two in the morning. He inwardly sighed.
He hadn’t meant to stay up working so late. Again.
Blue light emanated from his dual monitors, casting a glow over the apartment that had darkened since the sun set hours ago. It spilled over his cluttered desk, where loose USB drives and post-it notes were covered with the game developer’s unintelligible scribbles. Any reminders of deadlines had been hidden at the very bottom of the cluster.
Out of sight, out of mind. The project would be done when the senior developer judged it to be done.
A mug with a third of its coffee left inside, now cold, had also been forgotten some time ago. Anaxa picked it up and leaned back in his computer chair. Weariness settled heavily in his bones. The monitors’ light reached the windowsill, where a row of cheerful-looking succulents were nestled in hand-painted terracotta pots.
There were too many of them there for Anaxa’s taste, but it was exactly the right number for Khaslana. His boyfriend had been responsible for painting the colorful dromas on the pots. A detail, he’d mentioned in passing, added to bolster Anaxa’s spirits whenever the work day grew too long.
Anaxa wasn’t sure when he had done it. He didn’t even know when Khaslana habitually watered them, or how often. If his boyfriend had come into the office at any point while Anaxa had been working, said anything, or touched his shoulder for attention like he used to, Anaxa hadn’t noticed it for some time.
Khaslana…
Across the way, the door leading to their bedroom was cracked open. It allowed just enough light to escape to spill onto the hardwood floor. Khaslana must’ve already gone to bed hours ago.
The lamp had been left on. He always left it on, just in case Anaxa came to bed like he said he promised he would.
Anaxa couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually kept that promise. He couldn’t even recall the last time they had fallen asleep together with their legs entwined, a shared warmth seeping into his back as they cuddled. There had been kisses before, too. Indulgent and sweet, they often had a bad habit of making his heart race and rendering him unable to sleep from the excitement.
When had such things dwindled away?
As he thought about it, Anaxa realized there had been other absences, too. Little rituals between them that steadily decreased while he hadn’t been paying attention.
Like the warmth of Khaslana’s lips against his temple as he kissed Anaxa goodnight before bed. Or the way he’d shuffle into Anaxa’s office barefoot, a ghost of a smile in his eyes, as he wordlessly placed a mug of fresh coffee beside the keyboard.
Lately, there hadn’t been any kisses at all. There hadn’t been any interruptions, either. Timely or otherwise. If coffee appeared as if by magic on Anaxa’s desk, it was left there in silence. Refilled or reheated, it was delivered without a single word by his partner.
Slender fingers curled tightly, anxiously, around his mug. A tiny bit of sugar had stuck to the inside rim and Anaxa rubbed at it with his thumb, smearing it in slow circles, as if he could rub the guilt out of his chest the same way.
Anaxa was a workaholic. His friends said it with fond exasperation. His boss said it like a blessing, Aglaea’s eyes closed as if the infuriating woman was already calculating the profit margin of the project’s successful launch. Even Khaslana— who didn’t say it outright, but didn’t have to— thought that.
Anaxa was always focused on the next goal, the next build, the next deliverable, no matter what he sacrificed to get there. That was the most important thing to him. It always has been.
The logic was as clear as day. Efficiency in front of his screen translated to a higher pay whenever the developer turned in yet another finished project. With every successful game, he was granted more control over the future he chose. He gained authority. Influence.
Above all, he acquired the free will to go in the creative direction he chose for himself. The future, the finish line. Anaxa ran toward it without looking back.
Khaslana never complained about the long hours. He understood it better than most, having worked the same tiring schedule alongside Anaxa back when he’d been his junior on the team. However, Anaxa could not rid himself of the stirrings of doubt he’d been feeling lately.
Anaxa set down the mug on the desk. He stretched his arms out and cracked both his knuckles, enjoying the relief the ease in tension brought him.
His favorite purple dromas pajamas were well worn by now. Frayed at the cuffs and stretched at the seams, they were a cozy work-from-home uniform he hadn’t bothered to change out of all week. The fabric brushed the tops of his bare feet as he tucked his knees to his chest, his heels balancing on the edge of his seat.
He reached for the mouse. One click minimized his current task queue. Anaxa contemplated the screen for a long minute. His mouse cursor hovered over a long-abandoned folder that was labeled archive_titansfallbuilds.
It had been years since Anaxa had worked on this game. A passion project he’d initially built to gain experience, it was not ever meant for the public to see. For another, highly embarrassing reason, no other living soul besides him would ever get to see it in this lifetime.
Maybe it was nostalgia that guided his hand just then. Or maybe it was because he just couldn’t stand staring at a blank text field for another hour. Anaxa clicked on it.
The folder opened with sluggish lag. Inside was a graveyard of incomplete builds and uncompressed backups dumped into the directory before he’d learned a thing about clean workflows.
One application snagged his attention. phainon_dev_FINAL-build_v3 (khaos).exe
He let out a small snort. Inside the parentheses was a joke his younger self found hilarious. Khaos, which not only referred to the inspiration for the game, but also for the chaotic mess of untested assets, glitchy scripts, and unfinished cinematics contained within the file.
Anaxa double-clicked on it and the screen stuttered. He heard the fans grow louder as the GPU kicked into top gear. Terminal code crawled across the corner of the screen.
Loading environment package: ‘Amphoreus_Okhema_SkyAssets.unity3d’ … success
Loading character prefab: ‘PC_Main_Savior_Phainon.asset’ … success
Retrieving legacy dialogue bank: ‘mentor_anaxa.dialogtree_v2’ … deprecated syntax
Syncing quest state flags…
> FLAG: TimeTitanDefeated = false
> FLAG: Trust_Level_Anaxa = High
> FLAG: [REDACTED_ENDING] = null
The startup music of the game loaded in. He’d asked his then-roommate, Mydei, to handle composing the overture. The musician took it in stride, adding in a backbone of resonant drums and the haunting melody of a cello to create the hype of a heroic journey to come. The main interface appeared. An infinity symbol shimmered on screen, radiant with the shifting colors of a rainbow.
It introduced the world that Anaxa had created.
TITANS FALL
If Anaxa had ever finished this design, the protagonist would have appeared here with the title menu. The hero would be standing in the middle of a wheat field, perhaps, with his hometown village visible just behind him as he swung his sword up triumphantly. He, the only one who would dare to conspire against the fate he’d been given.
Anaxa leaned forward and clicked Start. More text filled the screen.
Loading scene: /World_Amphoreus/Quests/Trial_CoreflameOronos_vfxFix.prefab
Instantiating player rig…
Positioning Player: mentor_anaxa (legacy mesh) at spawnPoint_C2
Warning: out-of-bounds memory reference
Warning: player_id = null
Fatal Thread Exception: Emotion_Handler_CacheOverflow
Fatal thread exception…?
“What the—”
The words died in Anaxa’s throat, choked down by surprise as the screen flashed a blinding white. He winced, momentarily shielding his eyes as he shot up to his feet.
If his computer was going to short out… it’d all be over. He couldn’t imagine the headache of a full replacement setup just because an old game build decided to act up. Anaxa reached for the power button.
At the same time his fingertip brushed against it, a sudden, deafening thunderclap resounded in the air. Stunned by the sound, he turned to the bedroom door, panic leaping into his throat.
“Khas—”
Instead of his voice, there was only static heard. A buzzing hum that made no sense to his ears.
Then, the world plunged into darkness.
Anaxa could not move a muscle, frozen in time as fear chilled him to the core. He felt no pain, only a peculiar sense of weightlessness, as the scene of the apartment disappeared around him.
Gone were the succulents, the desk, and the flickering lamp inside the bedroom. When wind kissed his face, Anaxa rapidly blinked in confusion. He lifted his arm, astonished to see that the purple sleeves of his dromas pajamas were gone and replaced by an elegant coat and sleek black gloves he hadn’t seen in years.
One glove engulfed his left hand while his right hand remained bare. It served as a canvas for an intricate alchemical symbol to adorn the pale skin. Anaxa recognized it as the concept art he’d drawn himself.
He looked up. A blue sky stretched as infinitely far as the eyes could see. It was too vast and scarily realistic. Pillars of white stone towered in the distance, riddled with ivy and looking too hauntingly familiar. He’d digitally painted this exact design once.
The air crackled at the same time a horrifying realization sank in.
“Long time no see, Professor Anaxa.”
Anaxa stiffened, his back still half-turned toward the towering archways behind him. A breeze whistled through the air, ruffling mint tresses that were confined by a ringlet of brass. A faint smell of incense teased his nose.
The coat felt too real on his shoulders, too specific in detail to the rigged mesh he remembered coding years ago. These flowers surrounding him— vibrant red and purple morning glories— had petals that swayed a little too realistically to be just his imagination.
This was Okhema. And that voice…
Anaxa swiftly turned around, fascinated to see its source for himself.
Phainon stood just a few paces away. His ivory hair was tousled from the wind, his epaulets scorched from a recent battle— presumably, from the monsters spawned from the black tide, if Anaxa recalled the story correctly. He looked every inch the handsome swordsman hero Anaxa had designed in mind.
Bright blue eyes and sure-footed, yet carrying the quiet fatigue of someone who bore too great a destiny even for his broad shoulders. There was a smear of dried blood at the corner of his mouth that Anaxa didn’t remember programming in.
And yet, it wasn’t the blood or the gear that caused his heart to lurch. It was the expression that Phainon wore as he gazed at Anaxa. An unguarded joy peeked through beneath tiredness. His sunshine smile not only lit up the veranda where they stood, but also warmed a secret place inside Anaxa’s heart.
“Who are you?”
Anaxa’s mouth moved without his consent. Lips shaped the scripted words of dialogue he’d written for this portion of the game’s story. He tried to say something else, experimenting with trying to say Phainon’s name instead, but his throat stayed stubbornly locked.
It must be the limitation of the game’s coding. He was forced to follow the script, but for how long? Did it only last as long as the scene did?
As he wrestled with questions, Phainon’s gaze softened.
“...It’s been a while.” The corners of his eyes crinkled, as if trying not to laugh at Anaxa’s bemused expression. “I’m the one who once overthrew the entire classroom in that spiritual physics lecture.”
Anaxa knew those lines. He had written them himself during a forgotten haze of too much coffee and missing someone he shouldn’t have missed. His heart was racing— too fast and too real— and it prevented him from responding.
He knew the next line but his mouth felt too dry. A traitorous part of him, one that hadn’t felt so alive in months, wanted to throw this scene by the wayside and close the distance between them. He wanted to pull Phainon into his arms and embrace him tightly.
He had built Phainon like this. It was a fragment of his Khaslana, who had once been filled with the exact same, contagious warmth when they’d first met all those years ago.
A fresh-faced and wide-eyed recent graduate, Khaslana quickly adapted to the stressful culture of the dev studio. More than once, Anaxa had emerged from his computer station to observe him tapping away in front of a monitor at the far side of the studio floor. Khaslana had been a smiling colleague who brought coffee when he didn’t need to. One who spoke too quickly when excited, but also thoughtfully whenever Cipher probed him for a second opinion about her latest designs.
He was the one who called Anaxa “sir” for weeks before finally, awkwardly, switching to his first name.
Phainon tilted his head. “Professor?”
He couldn’t evade the scene’s progression forever. The system must have grown tired of waiting for him, for Anaxa’s voice was forced out, yet again, without his approval. “Oh. It’s you.”
The swordsman’s grin fully bloomed, reaching his eyes until they shined a mesmerizing, heavenly blue. “No way… do you really still remember that, Professor?”
Phainon stepped closer, his boots sounding soft against the stones beneath their feet. “I’m here to seek enlightenment, as always. Could you please teach me everything you know about the black-robed swordmaster?”
That was the cue. The one that advanced this specific questline.
Anaxa knew what he was supposed to say next. The lore demanded a warning, a handoff of tattered cloak remains, and an exposition about crescent-shaped blades and a man they all should fear.
Instead, all Anaxa could focus on was how close Phainon was, standing just before him. How the golden light of the morning warmed the curve of his jaw and how those eyes sparkled so prettily with joy.
Don’t, Anaxa scolded himself. Attraction to this man, who wore the same face as his beloved— his crush, once upon a time— was too easy a trap to fall into. This wasn’t his Khaslana. He wasn’t real.
“I…” Anaxa forced the next line out slowly, each word scraping harshly against his tongue like sandpaper. “I can only tell you that it is clad in a black robe and wields a greatsword.”
“By the way, take this with you,” he added, and reached into his coat. His hand closed around the in-game item, a relic from a boss event meant to load into the player’s inventory. It felt so strangely solid in his palm. Coarse black fabric torn from a madman’s cloak.
When he handed the item over to Phainon, the hero received it with a coded solemnity. Anaxa knew what would come next. He braced himself as Phainon took a deep breath and released it slowly.
“I was right,” Phainon murmured, his gaze locked on the tattered cloak. “It is this thing. The one who torched Aedes Elysiae… and killed everyone.”
There was a raw pain in his voice that hurt to hear. Anaxa’s heart thudded in his chest. Not from excitement this time, nor from natural attraction to this man who wore a stricken expression. Rather, this overwhelming sensation was born directly from guilt.
Phainon’s tragic backstory had been inspired by Khaslana’s, as well. His parents, his childhood friend, the house where he’d grown up— all were distant memories Khaslana rarely spoke about.
Anaxa couldn’t shake a sense of unease. He’d used a default grief flag for Phainon’s behavior here, choosing an expression of mild sorrow at most. But this… what he heard with his own ears was someone who sounded as if they’d lost something personal. Like someone who’d watched their village burn and felt helpless in the aftermath.
There was gravity in those eyes and a weight in his voice. The careful way he held the cloak seemed like its existence felt heavier than a gameplay objective.
“…Don’t try to be a hero,” Anaxa said to him in a strained voice. “No one in Okhema stands a chance against that thing right now.”
The poignant notes of a flute underscored his words. Anaxa frowned at the intrusion as Phainon lifted his eyes again, his gaze gentle.
“Is that what the Titan said as well?”
He was still speaking the lines of the script but they sounded softer, as if he already knew the answer and only wished to hear his professor say it aloud. Anaxa’s hands closed at his side, his fingers curling into the hem of his coat.
It was all too easy to slip into this character. He’d been Khaslana’s mentor, too, once upon a time. The junior developer had sought his senior’s guidance during the toughest stretch of their joint projects. Then, like now, Anaxa couldn’t help the cadence of his voice that encouraged the younger man.
“Hmph. Not at first. But the god relented after a taste of its power. Even with a god possessing me, I couldn’t fight against that blade…”
He trailed off. Phainon watched him, nodding as if he'd already filled in the rest of the information that Anaxa hadn’t finished.
Then, Phainon whispered, “It’s not like you to be afraid.”
Anaxa’s gaze narrowed. That line wasn’t in the script.
It was too pointed. Too familiar, like what Khaslana had once told him during a project meeting when Anaxa debated taking a risk on a new build. He’d worn the same expression then, too. Kind, but exasperated. He acted as if he knew Anaxa far better than Anaxa allowed anyone to understand him.
Maybe he’d fallen asleep by his computer and this really was a dream. What other kind of supernatural, unexplainable force would trap him inside his own game?
Phainon was just like Khaslana that Anaxa had fallen in love with all those years ago. The eager young pup who would cling to him, demanding attention whenever Anaxa could spare it. The same affectionate one who would hold Anaxa close to his chest as they fell asleep just before sunrise.
The Khaslana he’d been before the distance, the missed dinners, and the silence caused them to drift further than ever. At some point, Anaxa had changed, too. He’d become the person who forgot what time his partner went to bed. Or when he watered their plants, day after day.
These days, shame had replaced Khaslana as his ever-present companion.
The silence stretched on between them until Phainon’s voice broke it. The hero spoke gently, choosing his words with care. “I’m not here on anyone’s orders. I just want to eliminate a threat to the city I pledged to protect. That’s all. The tragedy at the Grove must never happen again.”
Anaxa unclenched his fingers and smoothed down the fabric of his coat. There it was again. The spoken earnestness that made all of this seem a little too real. Phainon was just a puppet he’d made, nothing more.
Phainon smiled, just a flicker of it passing over his lips, but the sight of it made Anaxa’s breath hitch. “Professor,” he said, this time teasing him. “You’re staring.”
Anaxa glanced away. His voice returned in reflex as he muttered, “You always were a perceptive student of mine.”
Phainon chuckled, rubbing at the back of his neck with the grace of someone who didn’t know how truly charming he was. “Some things never change.”
“Neither does your fondness for flattery. Did you drag me out here just to bat your eyelashes at me, or are we meant to be accomplishing something?”
Yes, that worked. Slipping into Professor Anaxa’s sardonic way of speaking gave him a foothold to navigate the uncanny valley of his own creation. Phainon’s expressions were too nuanced, his husky voice too pleasant on the ears, as if it had been touched by a real soul.
That wasn’t possible, of course. He hadn’t programmed adaptive dialogue past the tutorial arc. Phainon’s unusually personal line delivery was simply Anaxa’s nostalgia talking.
“Okhema is a safe haven for the people, but its borders are plagued by beasts born of the black tide.” Phainon jerked his chin in the direction of the city’s outer limits that were visible from where they stood. A cavern was half-sunken into the cliffs, one that Anaxa recalled was planted into the game as a Cavern of Corrosion.
A place to power up the player’s gear. Phainon wouldn’t understand its exact purpose as a character in the game. To him, it was as much a part of the world as himself.
“There’s a corrupted fragment buried there. Aglaea sent me to retrieve it before the black tide spreads further. Unfortunately, I can’t do it alone.”
A side quest. Anaxa swallowed past his disbelief. The characters, not understanding the meta importance of a leveling dungeon, had their own lore reasons for approaching it. The Caverns were designed for cooperative turn-based assistance. In other words, the player could use an entire team for it.
Which meant… he’d have to join with Phainon to fight inside it.
“Fine,” Anaxa muttered as he adjusted the coat on his shoulders. His mind tripped over itself trying to reconcile these impossible circumstances. “Just don’t expect me to carry the mission. I’m not exactly at peak combat capability.”
“You’re still brilliant, though,” Phainon flashed him a lopsided grin. “That’s what counts.”
Anaxa didn’t answer. Instead, he watched the swordsman’s back as Phainon walked ahead of him. The cape he wore flared up as the breeze sped past them, evoking the image of a handsome hero one could only ever dream about. And yet, the rhythmic swing of his arms and the familiarity of how he moved… it bothered Anaxa.
It was just like Khaslana’s gait.
When Phainon paused to glance back at him, his blue eyes full of light and a trust reserved for the professor alone, Anaxa felt a stirring of butterflies at the sight.
He really was handsome. Phainon. His Khaslana.
How embarrassed Anaxa would feel if anyone ever learned about this secret. At a time when Anaxa felt conflicted, still figuring out his blossoming feelings for a junior colleague, he’d coded a character who looked and behaved exactly like his crush.
Only a fool lost to his feelings like this. Anaxa took a deep, bracing breath and then released it, air whistling through his teeth.
They walked in silence for a while, their boots crunching over a cracked stone path that led outside of Okhema’s safe walls. Phainon’s steps were sure and confident beside him. The sword sheathed by his waist swayed as he looked up, his palm shielding his eyes from the sun as he scanned the horizon for any sign of a threat.
Anaxa didn’t blame him. Aggro was a big problem once they left the safe area of Okhema’s main map.
Only after they’d passed a display of fallen ruins, the stone pillars broken and covered in corrosive black tide, did Phainon speak up again.
“So,” he said lightly, “was it strange? Coming back here?”
“This world?”
An unreadable shadow passed over Phainon’s eyes. Before Anaxa could examine it closer, it disappeared. In the next second, Phainon smiled again. Brighter this time and warm enough to bring the sun above to its knees.
“Okhema,” he said. “It’s changed since you last visited here, hasn’t it?”
Anaxa’s footsteps slowed. Odd. That wasn’t the same question he’d asked. A programmed script would only ever repeat the same lines if requested. It wouldn’t alter them even slightly.
“Changed?” Anaxa echoed, cautious.
Phainon nodded. “After the Grove fell, a lot of the upper city was sealed off. Aglaea would prefer that we stay within the sanctioned zones unless otherwise called out.” His tone shifted, and a crumb of frustration leaked out. “It’s not as if we have the luxury of waiting. Not with the Coreflames still waiting to be mastered.”
That response sounded polished. Consistent with Phainon’s coded personality. And yet, something still itched at the edge of Anaxa’s mind.
“You seem well-informed,” Anaxa said, instead of pressing his suspicions. “I half expected you to be wandering around worrying about the monsters who spawned from the Tide, not concerning yourself with Aglaea’s political maneuvering.”
Inwardly, Anaxa berated himself for not changing Aglaea’s name in the game to something else. His boss would not let him hear the end of it if she knew he’d coded her as a secondary antagonist. No matter how true it was to real life.
“I go where I’m needed.” Phainon shrugged. “The city is under constant threat. All of this world is in danger.”
“And are you planning to throw yourself at another impossible quest to prove a point?” Anaxa said dryly.
Phainon smiled again. “Only if you’re coming with me.”
That answer was so him. Or at least, the version of him Anaxa remembered building out of half-coded affection. Khaslana’s flirty banter back then had been what pried open the lock kept around Anaxa’s true feelings.
A man unused to giving affection had not known what to do when confronted with someone who had an abundance of love to give. But, as Anaxa came to learn about his dearest one, Khaslana’s persistence was second to none. Over a year of consistent love had melted Anaxa’s reservations.
They reached a quiet overlook, where a slanted ledge gave way to the view of the Cavern’s entrance located just below. Black tide monsters crawled around everywhere on this particular map, but strategically, the duo remained just outside of the aggro range so as to not attract their attention.
Anaxa turned to Phainon. The sun hadn’t shifted from its mid-morning hue (it rarely did in the dev build to reflect the game’s lore of All Day), and Anaxa was rewarded with the sight of the light bathing Phainon’s attractive features in gold. His profile, so strong and composed, looked as perfectly sculpted as the ruins they’d passed— or how they would have looked, in their glory days.
Phainon’s tousled hair. The brightness in his eyes. The confidence he wore that was edged with a careful restraint. It had been code written by hands that wanted to capture the essence of the man he loved so deeply.
Anaxa’s heart ached. He never should have programmed the hero to smile like this.
He remembered the exact evening he’d done it. There had been a project in queue three years ago. It was a mobile build with tight deadlines, sleepless nights, and a collaborative team that forced themselves to their physical and emotional limits.
Anaxa was the senior narrative lead who had been assigned to rewrite the early campaign after a shake-up in the dev department. Khaslana had joined their team mid-cycle— he’d been a new hire, just barely out of university— who’d been assigned to help on combat scripting and cutscene quality assurance.
A younger Khaslana had been rough around the edges then, and earnest, to the point of being clumsy. He had a habit of drinking too much sugary iced coffee, asking too many questions during meetings, and ran late to every single one of them.
However, despite the relentless scoldings Anaxa unleashed on him, he worked hard and learned fast.
Anaxa recalled that night clearly. It had been well past midnight, the office half-lit and half-empty, when Anaxa had caught the junior developer asleep in the break room. Khaslana had been hunched over his laptop, with his headphones slipping off. He’d fallen asleep halfway through coding and the proof of his half-finished efforts were scrolling endlessly on the screen.
He’d had a favorite water bottle he took with him everywhere. The printed writing on the outside said, “Devs don’t sleep, they reboot!”
Anaxa couldn’t help but smile at that. No one was watching him. No one witnessed when Anaxa gently removed the headphones so Khaslana could sleep more comfortably. Nor when he ran his fingers through those white strands, amazed at how soft his hair felt as he brushed it away from the sleeping man’s closed eyes.
He’d never told Khaslana that was the night he started building Phainon. A swordsman character who truly wanted to become a scholar, who asked too many questions of his Professor Anaxagoras in lectures, and who never missed a chance to brighten someone else’s day.
Anaxa had coded the laugh lines by his lips. The roguish tilt of the head. The nickname Professor that followed Anaxa wherever he went.
And Anaxa stopped pretending that what he felt for Khaslana was merely a crush. He’d always returned his junior’s feelings, even if it had taken him a long time to figure it out.
“You’re quiet,” Phainon said beside him, his voice low. “Do you want to rest before we take on the Cavern?”
It wasn’t a bad idea. Anaxa had yet to assess the capabilities of the character whose skin he wore. Professor Anaxa’s weapon of choice was an impressive, alchemic-powered pistol. He specialized in mid-range combat, using distance and alchemy to implant elemental weakness on a multitude of enemies.
“No. Just thinking about the foes we will face.”
Phainon offered up a knowing smile. “That’s just like you, Professor.”
The game’s idle banter system allowed for a range of character-consistent lines. Nevertheless, that one hit a bit too close for personal comfort.
So much of this was fake, he reminded himself, but far too much of it was seemingly real. The difference between the two of those was shrinking by the minute. He was sinking deeper into this illusion.
Phainon stood beside him, his shoulders relaxed, gazing up at the vast heavens above. Kephale’s sun shone brightly. Endlessly. He looked at the sky like he belonged here with it.
Anaxa watched him. Stared at him, to be more accurate. He assessed the slope of Phainon’s straight nose. The way the corner of his mouth lifted whenever Anaxa said something to amuse him. There was golden ink etched into the side of his neck, just visible beneath the narrow strip of leather that encircled his throat.
He had rendered that mouth. He’d designed these clothes. The calluses on Phainon’s hands. Anaxa had done all this but hadn’t expected it all to feel this real.
Or maybe what he hadn’t expected was his own reaction to it. This wasn’t just about the game anymore.
It was him again. The younger Khaslana. The one Anaxa used to catch staring at him across the row of monitors, blinking, then smiling shyly whenever their eyes met. The one who had once brought Anaxa a thermos of soup during a crunch week, awkward yet hopeful as he’d mumbled, “You forgot lunch again.”
Phainon had his same voice. Not in sound exactly but in feeling. The kind of voice one wanted to believe in and trusted with the worst of themselves.
Anaxa’s gaze dropped. It was human nature for people to change. Even Khaslana, as good and warm-hearted as he’d been, had inevitably changed.
It wasn’t sudden. Just… inevitable. There was a point, Anaxa remembered, when Khaslana had stopped humming while he coded. When his messages stopped including those cute little dog emojis. When his shoulders seemed too heavy to carry the burdens of his personal life.
Whatever happened had happened before they’d started dating, officially, and Anaxa had been hesitant to pry after asking twice with no answer. Work was too demanding and they both fell into a rhythm of silence that was easier than unraveling what lay beneath it.
But now, sitting beside this younger echo of his Khaslana, this pixel-perfect golden hero full of laughter and sunshine, Anaxa felt that ache of not knowing come rushing back. He should have asked. He should have pressed harder.
It wasn’t just guilt he felt over not prioritizing Khaslana’s mental health, but also longing. He missed Khaslana. Not just the version of him he was now— quiet, distant, a half-ghost in their home— but also this version of him that still reached out, still teased, and still burned with possibility.
Was this who Khaslana used to be… or just who Anaxa imagined him to be?
He didn’t know. He only knew that he wanted to linger in this illusion just a little longer. And maybe, just maybe, it would help Anaxa get closer to answering the questions inside his heart. If he got out of here— no, when he got the hell out of here— he would reach out to Khaslana and demand that they finally talk.
Anaxa had been ignoring the situation between them for far too long.
Phainon folded his arms over his chest and tilted his head toward Anaxa, his lips quirked up into a crooked smile. “So, Professor,” he drawled, playfully light, “how do you feel about a bit of monster slaying? For old time’s sake.”
Anaxa arched a brow. He brushed his fingers through the air and felt as his pistol materialized against the palm of his hand. The sleek gun felt lightweight, yet powerful. “Is that your way of asking for my unnecessary help?”
“Depends. Are you spoiling me by saying yes?” Phainon offered out his hand, his palm roughened from sword training and warm to the touch from the overbearing sun.
Anaxa hesitated, just long enough to scold himself for it, before reluctantly reaching out to take it.