Erven slept soundly, but his soul did not.
Something inside him restlessly moved like a gentle current that kept pushing against his chest, teasing his thoughts. In that darkness, his world suddenly changed. Shadows wrapped around his body, not with threat, but with a foreign presence that enveloped him like a warm mist that wanted to touch him.
He was not suffocating.
He was not afraid.
He was just… being watched.
From that darkness, someone emerged.
A tall, broad-shouldered man carried an aura so strong that the space felt alive just because he was standing in it. Erven should have felt anxious, but his heart beat to a different rhythm… a rhythm that made his whole body feel aware, alert as if he had been unconsciously waiting for this figure for a long time.
The man's eyes caught Erven's deep, intense green-brown eyes. And the entire world around him vanished. Not because of fear, but because the distance between them felt like an unfolding destiny, something that had followed him his whole life and was now finally stepping forward.
Erven couldn't look away.
Not because he was forced to
but because he didn't want to.
The man's aura seemed to be calling him.
Pulling him closer.
Without a word, without commanding, just a warm, living pull, penetrating directly into Erven's chest.
The man stepped closer, but his touch was not rough, not grasping. His fingertips touched Erven's shoulder gently as if he were making sure that Erven really existed. And somehow, the touch made a long, trembling breath escape Erven's lips.
Not out of fear
but out of a sense of being found.
"Who are you?" Erven whispered, his voice unsteady not out of horror, but out of the confusion of the emotions that were blooming within him.
The man didn't answer.
He just looked at Erven in a way that made Erven feel like a secret waiting to be read, to be explored. The man came closer, his face so close that Erven could feel the warmth of his breath touching his cheek.
Not the heat that threatened.
Just the warmth that woke him up.
Erven didn't move.
Didn't run.
Because every muscle in his body refused to leave the warmth of his closeness.
The dream around them slowly changed, the darkness that had been oppressive was now a calm, almost sacred space, as if the world was created just for the two of them. The man raised his hand, holding Erven's face with a tenderness that made Erven's heart ache.. ache from a longing he himself didn't know he had.
And even though the man's lips were getting closer, the dream didn't turn into something scary.
No coercion.
No hunger.
No attack.
Just connection.
Deep, magnetic so strong that Erven felt as if his own soul was moving towards the man without him realizing it.
And right before their lips touched—Erven woke up.
He jolted awake not out of fear, but out of loss. His breath came in quick gasps, his chest heaving, and his emotions knotted into something too strong to explain.
He sat up, holding his chest. His eyes searched the dark room, as if hoping the man was still there. And as if the dream was too real to disappear immediately, Erven touched his neck slowly, imagining that he could still feel the warmth of the man's hand.
"Why?" Erven whispered, his voice hoarse. "Why do I feel like I need him?"
Not fear.
Not surprise.
But longing.
Longing for someone he had never met.
He covered his face with both hands, but a small smile appeared on the tip of his lips, a smile full of longing that he himself did not know how to explain. His body was still shaking, not because of panic, but because the warmth had not yet disappeared.
"I.. I like him," Erven admitted slowly.
Not because of fear.
Not because of confusion.
But with an honesty that made his chest feel light.
He touched his chest again, his heart still beating fast.
"I'm not afraid of him for some reason, but when he appears, I feel safe."
The words made him silent for a long time.
Safe.
In that dream in the darkness, in the strangeness he never felt threatened. The man came not to take, but to hold, to get closer.. as if Erven was something precious.
Precious.
Valuable.
And in his entire life, no one had ever made him feel that way.
Erven took a slow breath, closed his eyes again, searching for the man's image in his memory.
"I want to see him again," he whispered. "Even if it's just in a dream."
His heart surrendered completely to that feeling, a feeling that came without warning, without logic. But it was real. It lived within him. And it grew, filling the empty space that he had ignored all this time.
As sleep pulled him back, Erven knew one thing
He was in love.
Not just with the man's face, but with his aura, his presence, and the way he made his world feel stable, feel true.. for the first time.
And when his eyes closed again, Erven was not afraid of the darkness.
He didn't run.
He didn't fight.
He welcomed the dream back.
Because in that darkness.
in the presence of that man.
Erven finally felt something he had longed for all his life
To be loved.
To be seen.
To be chosen.