Meanwhile, in Isatis City, Ilyas found himself caught within an increasingly complicated emotional predicament, one that he neither possessed the experience nor the confidence to properly navigate. What had initially been a simple act, tending to Darcy's injured hands and carefully wrapping them with clean bandages, had somehow shifted the atmosphere between them into something far more fragile, far more difficult to define.
Then, without warning, Darcy had pulled him down into an embrace.
The suddenness of the gesture had caught Ilyas entirely off guard. His body had stiffened for a brief moment, his thoughts scattering in confusion. Ordinarily, he would have recoiled, instinctively placing distance between himself and another person. Physical closeness had never been something he welcomed easily, particularly from someone he had only recently begun to understand. And yet, in that moment, he had not pushed Darcy away.
