Sweet Hatred
Chapter 119: Beginning of the past

Chapter 119: Beginning of the past

KAEL

"That night..." She said. "I found you half passed out in your office and took you home, you kept muttering that name in the car."

I saw the look on her face.

Pity—just for a second. Quick as a blink. But I caught it. That softening around her eyes, the slight parting of her lips, the way her shoulders relaxed like she wanted to hold something fragile. Me.

I hated it.

I hated the way she looked at me like that. Like I was something broken she wanted to put back together.

I hated how vulnerable I was getting with her, how I kept letting parts of myself slip through the cracks when I’d spent years sealing them shut. She wasn’t supposed to see this part of me. The hollow, aching piece of me that never healed after Ivan. The version of me that still dreamed in blood and silence.

And yet... the warmth in her gaze.

It killed me. And it revived me all at once. I wanted to tell her to stop looking at me like that. To not care. To not see.

Because what if I lost her too?

What if she vanished the same way he did—leaving me choking on all the things I never said?

I slipped the mask back on like muscle memory.

I leaned back slightly, gave her the kind of crooked grin I knew she hated and said, "Well... that’s embarrassing."

She didn’t laugh. "Are you mad?" she asked.

I wished I was. Because being mad would mean I could stop feeling this guilt, the kind that clings to the very bane of my existence. I shook my head, offering a small, reassuring smile.

But she just kept looking at me. Steady. Quiet. Like she was peeling me apart layer by layer and didn’t even know it.

I clicked my tongue and leaned closer, brushing my knuckles gently down her arm. "Careful," I murmured. "If you keep looking at me like that, I might be tempted to get on your nerves again."

She exhaled slowly, like she was trying to tiptoe around the words. Then she said it... soft, not judgmental, just curious.

"Frankly I never expected you to like... men. Or boys."

"I don’t," I said, immediately.

She tilted her head. "Why are you denying that? There’s nothing wrong with it."

"I’m not denying anything."

But maybe I was.

Not in the way she thought. I just... never had the luxury to worry about who or what I liked. Not when I’d spent my whole life alone, buried beneath the weight of a legacy carved in ice. The Roman name didn’t allow softness, didn’t allow questions, didn’t allow me to wonder what it meant to want. To love or be loved. All it ever allowed was control, power, fear.

And no one ever looked past the name. No one ever cared enough to peel through the layers of Roman steel and see the boy underneath.

No one... except him.

Ivan.

My first friend. The only one who saw me for more than the sharp uniform, the cold stare, the manufactured perfection. The only one who looked me in the eye and didn’t flinch.

He was more than my first love. He was the first person to make me feel like I was human.

It started with a stupid sandwich. That day I sat alone during lunch break at the barracks, picking at whatever crap they were serving that day, trying to keep my head buried in silence, like always. That’s when he showed up—tray in hand, shameless grin on his face—and sat directly across from me like we’d known each other for years.

"You don’t talk much, huh?"

I didn’t respond. Not even a glance. Just kept chewing like he wasn’t there.

But that was the beginning of it. Of him.

Every damn day after that, whenever we were deployed together, whenever we crossed paths in the field, Ivan would make it his mission to talk to me. About nothing and everything. About home, about the food, about the sky, even about the weird dreams he had. He was like a dog gnawing on a bone he refused to drop.

I ignored him. I gave him silence and cold glares and even once walked away mid-sentence. But he didn’t stop.

And then one day—I snapped.

I cornered him behind one of the barracks, my voice low but sharp, venomous. "Drop the act," I hissed. "Whatever you think you’re doing, trying to play friendly with me, it’s not going to work. You don’t need to butter me up, I’m not interested."

His eyes didn’t flinch. Didn’t move.

Instead, he smiled and asked, "Has no one ever approached you without a motive?"

The question hit me like a fucking dagger. I didn’t answer it. I couldn’t. I just shoved him back and told him to piss off.

He didn’t. Of course, he didn’t. He just stood there, arms crossed, a knowing look in his eyes like he saw right through me. Like he understood something about me that I hadn’t figured out myself yet.

That was the first time I realized Ivan wasn’t going to go away. And maybe... maybe I didn’t want him to.

Then months later.

We were being deployed to Vareen—a narrow, mountainous border town along the southeastern edge of Karsia, recently overtaken by a radical insurgent group calling themselves The Shroud. Operation Iron Pulse.

Our objective was to infiltrate the enemy compound buried within the ruined government complex and retrieve two captured informants. High-value assets, supposedly holding critical intelligence about planned chemical strikes.

Intel said the place was booby-trapped, crawling with heat signatures, and the last squad sent in never made it out. Command labeled it a ghost run. Most of us knew what that meant—expendable.

The truck rattled as it cut through the rugged terrain, the dull hum of the engine the only thing holding the silence at bay. We were headed straight into hell—an ambush zone thick with hostiles, intel shaky at best. Everyone in the unit was stiff with tension, fingers grazing their triggers like lifelines. It wasn’t our first nor would it be out last if we made it in one piece but even then one could never get used to it. I could feel it too. That crawling anticipation of death.

Except him.

Ivan sat beside me, legs bouncing lightly, arms resting loosely over his gear like we were headed to some weekend drill instead of a goddamn death march. He was humming under his breath—some stupid song I didn’t recognize—and casually playing a word game by tracing letters with his gloved finger on his thigh. The idiot even smiled to himself.

I glanced at him before I could stop myself.

"Hmm?" he turned to me immediately, catching me in the act. "You interested in playing?" He tilted his head, grinning like a fox. "You were totally staring."

I looked away, clenching my jaw.

"Ehh, don’t ignore me like that. Weren’t you just—"

"How the hell can you be so laid-back?" I snapped, sharper than I meant to. "We might not even make it back."

He paused, gaze softening as he watched me. Then he shrugged. "Does it matter?"

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