The silence after the embrace was fragile, stretched thin like glass warmed too quickly.
Alexis was the first to pull back.
Not far—never far—but enough to look at Hiral properly. To take in the pallor of his skin, the shadows beneath his eyes, the faint tremor he tried to hide as he steadied himself against the bed.
Alexis's hands lingered at Hiral's shoulders, tense, as if unsure whether they meant to steady him… or shake him.
"…Why," Alexis asked quietly.
The word carried no accusation yet. Just exhaustion. Just need.
Hiral swallowed. "Alexis—"
"Why," Alexis repeated, sharper now, his voice trembling despite his effort to keep it steady.
"Why would you do that to yourself? And…To me…"
Hiral looked away.
That alone was enough to make something inside Alexis snap.
"You calculated it," Alexis said, anger beginning to bleed through the cracks. "The angle. The depth. My movement. You knew exactly where my blade would land."
Hiral's jaw tightened. He said nothing.
Alexis laughed once—short, brittle.
"Don't insult me by pretending otherwise. You knew me well enough to know I'd take that opening. You knew what I was thinking before I even moved."
Finally, Hiral spoke, his tone deliberately light, almost careless.
Hiral met Alexis' gaze. Calm. Composed. Too composed.
"There's nothing that needs explaining," Hiral replied evenly. "The plan worked. I lived. The war ended. Ro is reborn. The East will follow. That's all that matters."
The words landed like cold water.
Alexis stared at him, disbelief flickering into something sharper. "That's it?" he asked. "That's what you have for me?"
Hiral's mouth curved faintly, not quite a smile. "You're alive. I'm alive. History will sort out the rest."
There was silence.
Then Alexis laughed—a short, broken sound with no humor in it at all. "Don't," he said, voice tightening. "Don't talk to me like I'm a disposable subordinate or a footnote in your schemes."
Hiral's lips pressed into a line, yet he remained quiet despite the urge to comfort Alexis.
He saw it—the tremor in Alexis's hands, the red-rimmed eyes, the way his shoulders were drawn tight as a bowstring pulled too far.
That was exactly why Hiral hardened his voice.
"I did what I've always done," he said lightly. "I calculated. I moved the pieces. Ro won. I lived. Everyone got what they needed."
Alexis's fingers dug into Hiral's shoulders.
"What you needed," Alexis corrected.
Hiral's eyes flickered.
"Ro gained advantages from this war and from me falling in battle, right?," he said. "So your strike was truly necessary."
The words were cruel. Intentionally so.
Alexis flinched as if struck—not physically, but somewhere deeper.
"…You really are determined to make me hate you," he said hoarsely.
Hiral said nothing.
Alexis exhaled sharply, anger finally breaking through the restraint he had been clinging to for months.
"You think if I'm angry enough, it'll be easier, don't you?" His voice rose, raw and shaking.
"If I hate you, then the waiting won't matter. The nights won't matter. The fact that I watched you bleed out under my hands won't matter."
Hiral looked away again.
Alexis let go of his shoulders only to rake a hand through his own hair, pacing once before stopping again in front of the bed.
"Hiral," Alexis said bitterly.
"This—this performance. You oversimplify, you reduce yourself to some cold strategist so I won't look too closely. So I won't see the part of you that regrets letting me believe I killed you."
Silence pressed heavily between them.
"You think turning my grief into anger will save me," Alexis continued, voice cracking now, rage giving way to something far more dangerous. "But it's useless, Hiral. I am angry but… my grief is stronger."
His chest hitched.
"I waited for you," he said, finally. No armor left in his words.
"Every night before the past week, I kept watching over you. Hoping, praying, begging you to wake up. I only stopped coming because I was afraid if I kept hoping, I would break beyond repair. If that happens then who will look after you?"
Taking a deep breathe to stop his voice from trembling, Alexis added, "Do you have any idea what it's like to pray for someone you're supposed to despise?"
Hiral's composure faltered.
Just slightly.
Alexis stepped closer again, eyes burning. "So don't insult me by downplaying things to make me angry and thinking it would ease my pain. Don't take me as a fool, you know better than that. Especially now. Don't lie to me by saying it doesn't matter whether you lived or died as long as your plan goes through!"
His voice dropped to a whisper.
"Because it mattered to me. You matter to me."
Alexis looked directly into Hiral's deep gray eyes.
Hiral's breath stuttered.
The careful stillness he had worn like armor cracked, just enough for something raw to bleed through.
His jaw tightened, his hands curling against the sheets as if grounding himself took effort.
"…Alexis," he said softly.
Hiral's lips trembled as he spoke those words. He looked away to hide his teary eyes.
"I know," Hiral admitted, the words dragged out of him like a confession he had sworn never to give.
His voice wavered despite himself. "And that's exactly why I couldn't tell you the whole truth."
He finally looked up again—and the mask was gone.
What Alexis saw in his eyes wasn't indifference or arrogance.
It was guilt.
And fear.
And something dangerously close to regret.
Hiral drew in a shaky breath, his composure fraying at the edges no matter how hard he tried to hold it together.
"There's… too much riding on my plans," he said, voice low and tight, each word chosen with painful care.
His gaze stayed fixed somewhere between Alexis's collarbone and the floor, as if looking directly at him might undo what little resolve he had left.
"The plans can't be compromised. Not now. Not ever. I've already… accepted the cost."
His fingers clenched into the sheets.
"I knew what it would cost," Hiral continued, swallowing hard. "I knew it might cost me, you. And I still—"
His voice wavered despite himself. He stopped, drew a breath through his nose, willing the sting in his eyes to fade. "The plan has to come first. No matter what I feel. No matter what we—"
He lifted his head then, finally meeting Alexis's eyes, forcing the words out before his courage failed.
"So it would be better," Hiral said, brittle and honest, "for us to abandon this. Whatever this is. Before it ruins you too."
Alexis didn't answer.
Alexis moved.
He didn't argue. He didn't ask permission.
One moment he was standing there, furious and aching and impossibly fierce, and the next he was leaning in, his hand firm at the back of Hiral's neck as he covered Hiral's lips with his own.
The kiss was sudden—claiming, unyielding—and it stole the rest of Hiral's words mid-breath.
Hiral stiffened in shock, instinctively pressing a hand against Alexis's chest as if to push him away.
His body protested even as his mind screamed that this was wrong, dangerous, ill-timed.
Alexis didn't pull back.
Instead, he deepened the kiss, slow and deliberate, as though daring Hiral to keep pretending this meant nothing.
As though saying without words: Stop sacrificing yourself, sacrificing us…
Hiral resisted for a heartbeat longer—two—his breath uneven, his lips trembling beneath Alexis's.
Then something in him finally gave.
The fight drained from his hand.
He exhaled, a broken sound, and kissed Alexis back.
It wasn't gentle. It was desperate. It was deep—months of restraint and grief and unspoken longing crashing together in the narrow space between them.
When they finally parted, both of them were breathing hard, foreheads nearly touching.
"You're making this harder," Hiral murmured, voice rough, eyes dark with emotion he could no longer hide.
Alexis scoffed softly, the corner of his mouth lifting despite the intensity still burning in his gaze.
"Good," he said. "That was my intention."
Hiral blinked at him.
Alexis straightened just enough to look him fully in the eye, all pretense stripped away.
"You're not the only one with plans," he continued, tone steady, resolute. "I have plans too."
He leaned in again—not to kiss this time, but close enough that Hiral could feel the warmth of his breath.
"The difference," Alexis said, a faint, wicked smirk breaking through the exhaustion, "is that my plan includes..."
His thumb brushed lightly against Hiral's lips.
"Us. Together."