Pollen's P.O.V
We walked in silence along the gravel path until we reached the open-air parking lot at the edge of the Timeless Garden. The late afternoon sun was beginning to dip, casting long, slanted shadows across rows of parked vehicles.
Leo led the way, pulling his keychain out of his coat pocket.
As we neared his silver sedan, he pressed the unlock button. The car responded instantly—its headlights and side mirrors flashed twice in the dimming light, accompanied by a quick, sharp double-beep that echoed quietly against the stone perimeter walls
My mind was a complete mess of anxiety, churning over the graduation memories and the weight of the date. I forced my feet forward, walking slowly toward the passenger side.
Zachy stepped ahead of me, his hand reaching out to pull the heavy door open so I could climb inside.
But right as I bent my head to step into the car, a sudden, crushing weight slammed into the back of my skull.
"Argh... ugh..."
A sharp groan escaped my lips before I could stop it. I stumbled backward, my legs giving out completely as both of my hands flew up to press hard against my temples. The pain was blinding—a deep, agonizing pressure that felt like it was tearing straight through my brain.
What is happening?
Why now? Please, not right here in front of them.
Panic flared in my chest as the ground beneath my flats seemed to tilt violently.
"Huff... Huff..."
I tried to gasp for air, but my lungs refused to expand. I felt completely helpless, terrified that my body was entirely giving out on me right when I needed to stay strong. The artificial fog of the neuro-stabilizer wasn't just wearing off—it was shattering, cracking open like cheap glass under immense pressure.
And then, the world went completely loud.
Above Zachy's head, a massive, turbulent bubble of deep, frantic blue erupted into my vision. The text inside it was vibrating so violently I could barely track it.
'Pol? Oh God, what's happening to her? Why is she clutching her head like that? Is it a seizure? Breathe, Pol, please just breathe—'
"Pol, stay with me! Breath!"
Right next to him, Leo's thought bubble materialized. Unlike Zachy's chaotic mess, Leo's thoughts came forward in a heavy, solid shade of dark gray—the text perfectly readable, calm, and deliberate, even though his eyes had gone wide with sudden worry.
'She's hyperventilating. If she doesn't slow her breathing down right now, she's going to pass out on the gravel.'
"Pollen!"
"Huff... Huff..."
The severe ache in my head was overwhelming, sending a sharp pulse across my temples that completely short-circuited my breathing. I couldn't expand my chest. Every short breath I took felt stuck in my throat, forcing my body into a tight, panicked state as I starved for oxygen. Tears started blurring my eyesight, leaking down my face from the sheer physical pressure of the headache.
"Hey—look at me! Breathe!"
Zachy's voice was a warped, distant echo, sounding as if it were filtering through layers of deep water. The gravel bit brutally into my knees as my legs gave out completely, but he held on with a firm grip, sinking straight down to the ground with me to keep me steady.
My eyesight began to blur, the edges of the parking lot smearing into a hazy ring of gray and green.
I couldn't breathe.
It felt like someone had locked an iron band around my chest, trapping the air inside my throat. Tears started leaking from my eyes, completely unprompted, spilling hot and fast down my cheeks as my body went into a full panic. My lungs were working double-time, dragging in short, frantic gasps of air that never seemed to hit my chest. I was hyperventilating, the rapid, shallow breaths only making the pressure behind my eyes amplify until the world started spinning in dizzying circles.
'I don't know what to do—' I told myself, a terrifying sense of helplessness freezing whatever logic I had left.
"urghh... arrgh..."
The painful groans dragged themselves out of my chest, raspy and weak as my upper body slumped back against Zachy's chest. Through the ringing in my ears, I could hear Leo's footsteps shifting quickly on the pavement, his shadow blocking out the harsh glare of the late afternoon sun as he dropped to one knee right in front of us.
"Zach, cup your hand over her mouth. Now," Leo ordered, his voice cutting through the panic with an absolute, steady authority.
"What?" Zachy's eyes widened, his hands trembling as he held me up.
"Leo, she can't breathe!"
"She's breathing too fast, she's losing too much carbon dioxide," Leo explained rapidly, his sharp eyes locked onto my face.
"Do it. Cover her mouth."
Zachy didn't hesitate a second longer. He raised his right hand, his palm gently but firmly cupping over my mouth, creating a small, enclosed pocket against my skin to slow down the frantic rush of oxygen.
With his hand in place, Leo leaned down closer, his face coming into my blurry line of sight.
"Pollen, listen to my voice," Leo said, his tone low, grounding, and completely level.
"Calm down. Stop trying to gulp the air. Close your mouth and breathe slowly through your nose. Just match my rhythm."
Kyles's P.O.V.
I leaned against the brick retaining wall at the far edge of the Timeless Garden parking lot, my hands shoved deep into the pockets of a dark grey hoodie. I was wearing an old baseball cap pulled low, dark sunglasses, and regular jeans.
To anyone glancing my way, I looked exactly like a stalker—someone trying entirely too hard to blend into a background where he didn't belong. If a security guard approached me right now, I wouldn't even have a logical excuse to give them.
The sunglasses and the hat weren't even for the weather; the late afternoon sun was already dipping behind the tall tree line, casting the entire gravel lot into deep, sprawling shadows. I only wore them because I was desperate to hide my face. In a quiet, public area like this, the last thing I needed was someone recognizing the CEOof the Morris Group standing around like a loiterer.
But I couldn't bring myself to leave.
Not yet.
An hour ago, Team Alpha had pinged her coordinates straight to my private terminal. I had been sitting in a high-level briefing over on Starry Nightsky Island at 22nd Street Aurora Town, but the moment the location came through, my concentration shattered.
The Timeless Garden. 19th Street Ginkgo Town.
Why on earth would a high-security corporate programmer run out of her office four hours early just to visit a cemetery?
It didn't make a lick of sense. My paranoia, still raw from the assassination attempt two years ago, immediately flared.
I assumed she was meeting a handler, transferring decrypted data logs, or cleaning her trail.
Driven by pure frustration, I had skipped my executive car, grabbed the keys to my black motorcycle, and kicked the engine into a roar. Navigating the twelve-kilometer stretch from the island down to Ginkgo Town during the mid-day rush was brutal, but the bike allowed me to slice through the heavy transit traffic without losing her tail.
I arrived just as the heavy doors of the cemetery exit creaked open. Pollen was already walking out into the gravel lot, and she wasn't alone. Accompanying her back toward a parked silver sedan were two men.
I didn't recognize either of them. Xyrus's background report had only given me a single name on a screen—Zachary Taylor—with zero photos or details about what he looked like. My eyes narrowed, focusing directly on the taller man walking right next to her. This was only the second time I had ever seen his face in person, my mind instantly flashing back to the brief, defensive brush at the art museum where he had stepped between us.
'That man is with her again,' I thought, a strange, uninvited irritation flaring behind my ribs.
'Is he really not her boyfriend?'
"I guess he really is her boyfriend," I whispered to myself.
The second man walking with them, he's taller than Pollen's boyfriend. I kept my distance, watching them move toward the car, waiting for some kind of corporate handover or an exchange of data logs.
But then, the entire scene shattered right in front of me.
Before she could even reach the passenger side, she froze. I watched her hands fly straight to her temples, her body shaking violently as she began to visibly hyperventilate, her breath catching in short, frantic gasps that I could see even from across the pavement. Her knees buckled completely, hitting the rough gravel as tears streamed down her face in absolute, raw distress.
Pollen's boyfriend didn't hesitate—he instantly dropped to the stones with her, frantically catching her weight and trying to steady her body.
Then the other man dropped down on one knee in front of them.
'So, she's not an enemy.'
There was no drop-off. No secret files. No encrypted codes.
Shit! She's suffocating.
The way she's trying to catch her breath, alarmed something in me.
The desperate, ragged way she fought for air alarmed something deep inside me. She wasn't a spy plotting a coup; she was a completely broken, grieving girl drowning under a weight I couldn't comprehend. I didn't even know what today meant to her, or why this specific date was tearing her apart so brutally.
Looking at her right now, cradled on the gravel, a profound wave of disgust washed over me—not at her, but at myself. Every single shred of suspicion I had carried since Tuesday night completely evaporated. A girl with that kind of raw, fragile vulnerability, weeping over a grave, didn't have an ounce of malice in her blood. She wasn't an assassin.
She wasn't a corporate honey-trap. She didn't have an inch of capability to kill someone. That kind of cold calculation was definitely not her thing.
I wanted to physically punch myself in the face. I had used my untraceable wealth to set a professional surveillance net around a completely innocent, grieving person.
Maybe I am completely out of my mind, I thought, my chest tightening with a strange, heavy guilt I hadn't felt in years.
Out of pure frustration and suffocating guilt, "Fuck," a heavy curse ripped through my teeth. Without thinking, I threw my right arm back and slammed my fist straight into the concrete pillar of the retaining wall.
The impact was loud and intense, a heavy vibration rattling up my forearm. I didn't even care. I looked down at my hand as a dull, throbbing ache instantly took over my knuckles. The skin across the joints was completely red, scraped raw against the rough concrete, and beginning to swell. A faint line of blood started to seep from the broken skin, but the physical pain was a relief compared to the disgust twisting in my stomach.
I lifted my gaze one last time, looking back across the lot through my sunglasses. My eyes lingered on her. Even with her face streaked with tears and twisted in agonizing pain, she looked entirely pitiful, yet completely angelic.
She was too gentle for the dark, messy world I lived in.
I couldn't stand to look at the scene for another second. I turned on my heel, walking away from the wall and heading straight back to where my motorcycle was parked. I pulled off the sunglasses, yanked the baseball cap from my head, and shoved them both into the storage compartment.
Grabbing my matte-black helmet, I pulled it over my head, snapping the visor down to lock out the dimming light. I swung my leg over the bike, kicked the starter, and let the low hum of the engine drown out the quiet rustle of the surrounding trees. Without looking back at the parking lot, I opened the throttle and accelerated out of Ginkgo Town, driving straight back up the line toward the isolated, silent elegance of my estate in Maple Town.
Zachary P.O.V.
My palm was pressed firmly over her mouth, and I could feel the rapid, trembling heat of her shallow gasps kicking against my skin. Her chest was heaving in short, desperate jolts. It terrified me. I had seen her stressed before, but this was different—it was like her body had completely forgotten how to pull oxygen down into her lungs.
"Inhale through your nose, Pol. Slowly," Leo instructed, his voice low, steady, and completely grounding as he leaned right into her line of sight.
"Listen to me. Just copy my breath."
I kept my hand locked in place, matching Leo's rhythm by taking deep, deliberate breaths myself, hoping she could feel the steady rise and fall of my own chest against her shoulder.
For a few agonizing seconds, her fingers clawed weakly at my jacket, her eyes wide and completely glazed over with panic.
Then, slowly, the frantic rhythm began to shift.
The desperate huff-huff of her breathing slowed down. Her chest expanded a bit deeper, pulling in a steadier breath through her nose, and the tight, rigid tension in her shoulders finally began to give way. She slumped heavily against me, her forehead resting against my collarbone as she let out a long, shaky exhale.
Relief hit me so hard my own knees felt weak. I slowly pulled my hand away from her face, my fingers still trembling slightly.
"Good," Leo muttered, though the intense worry on his face didn't fade an inch. He reached down, grabbing her by the forearm with his firm, reliable grip.
"Let's get her off the ground before she loses her balance again."
"I've got her," I said, sliding my arms securely under her shoulders.
Together, Leo and I carefully hoisted her up to her feet. Her legs were still visibly shaking, swaying slightly on the loose stones of the parking lot, so I kept a solid arm wrapped tightly around her waist to keep her anchored against my side.
"Don't scrub at your eyes like that, Pol. You'll scratch them," I whispered softly. I reached into my back pocket with my free hand, pulled out a clean, neatly folded cotton handkerchief, and gently pressed it into her small, shaking hand.
"Here. Use this."
She took it from me without a word, her fingers gripping the fabric tightly. She lifted it to her face, quietly wiping away the damp streaks running down her cheeks and pressing it against her trembling lips.
"Are you okay?" I asked, unable to hide the thick, protective crack in my voice. I looked down at her, my heart twisting.
"Does your head still hurt bad?"
Pollen lowered the handkerchief, taking a slow, cautious breath before looking up at me.
"It's... it's getting better. The sharpness is gone. It just feels heavy now."
"You completely terrified me," I blurted out, the raw honesty escaping before I could stop it. I squeezed her shoulder, my thumb brushing against the fabric of her blazer.
"Don't ever do that to me again, Pol. When you dropped like that... I thought something inside your head completely broke."
he managed a tiny, fragile look of regret, her fingers tightening around the cotton cloth.
"I'm sorry, Zachy. I didn't mean to scare you guys. The headache just... it came out of nowhere right before we walked out of the cemetery."
"It's not your fault," Leo interrupted quietly. He had already stepped around to open the passenger door of the sedan fully, his eyes scanning the quiet, shadowed perimeter of the cemetery lot before fixing back on us.
"But we aren't staying here. Sit inside, Pollen. Let's get you home."
Leo held the passenger door open, but Pollen subtly shook her head and moved toward the rear instead. She slid quietly onto the fabric of the backseat, her movements still heavy and slow from the lingering exhaustion. I climbed in right after her, closing the door behind me with a solid, muted click. The front passenger seat remained completely empty, leaving a stark gap of space in the front of the cabin.
Leo didn't waste a second. He slipped into the driver's seat, slotted the key into the ignition, and twisted it. The engine came to life with a low, smooth purr that vibrated faintly through the floorboards.
As Leo shifted into drive and eased the sedan out of the gravel lot, the interior of the car fell into a dense, protective silence. The tinted windows dulled the late afternoon glare, plunging the backseat into cool shadows.
I sat right beside her, close enough to feel the slight tremor still running through her shoulders. Seeing how completely drained she was, I reached over and gently guided her head to rest against my shoulder. She didn't resist. She just let her weight fall against me, her eyes closed as her fingers idly traced the smooth cotton of my handkerchief. I wanted to ask her a hundred questions about why a random headache could completely paralyze her like that, but the quiet rhythm of the tires rolling over the smooth asphalt told me to hold back. Right now, she didn't need an interrogation. She just needed the quiet.
Up front, Leo adjusted his gaze, glancing up at the rearview mirror to watch the two of us in the backseat. Seeing her breathing finally steady and safe against my shoulder, a small, barely noticeable smile touched his lips.
I caught his eyes in the reflection of the glass. Looking right back at him through the mirror, I smiled secretly, a deep, silent warmth blooming in my chest.
'Ah, I really love this man for protecting what's important to me,' I thought.
The car hummed smoothly as Leo picked up speed, navigating us south down the transit line away from the heavy atmosphere of Ginkgo Town. We were bypasssing our own place for now, heading further down the line to drop her off safely at her apartment on 16th Street, Cloudnine Town, leaving the shattered peace of the afternoon behind us in the dust.