Unwritten Fate [BL]
Chapter 125: Even When We’re Apart

Chapter 125: Even When We’re Apart

The car pulled up to the curb, just beneath a tall brick building wrapped in ivy and old iron balconies. It stood a little apart from the glass towers — quieter, warmer somehow.

Billy didn’t move right away.

He stared at the entrance. Dark wood doors with a narrow vertical window, mailboxes lined up beside it.

His chest tightened.

Camila turned off the engine, glancing over.

"Want to take a second?" she asked gently.

Billy nodded, not yet reaching for the door.

Outside, people passed by with coffee cups and music in their ears.

Life moved on, unaware that a boy in the passenger seat had no idea what he was supposed to feel about his own address.

"It’s weird," he said quietly.

"What is?"

"Being here. Knowing I lived here... but feeling like I’m visiting someone else’s story."

Camila didn’t push. She just waited with him, quietly present.

After a beat, Billy finally opened the door and stepped out.

The sidewalk was warm beneath his shoes. A breeze tugged softly at his sleeves.

Together, they moved toward the building, slower now.

When she pulled out the spare key and unlocked the front door, the scent of the stairwell washed over him — old wood, faint cologne, something like rosemary.

He paused again.

"Shall we go in?" she asked behind him.

"Yeah," he breathed. "It just hit me."

She waited until he was ready. Then he reached for the knob and opened the door.

The apartment was still.

The kind of stillness that came from a space untouched — where time had folded itself neatly into corners and dust.

The curtains were half-drawn, soft light pouring onto dark hardwood floors. A coffee mug sat abandoned on the counter. A jacket slung carelessly over the back of a chair. Shoes beside the door like someone left in a hurry.

It looked lived-in.

But not by him.

Camila stepped in behind him, eyes scanning the space.

"Wow... it’s cleaner than I remember," she teased softly, offering a small smile.

Billy didn’t respond.

His eyes were moving slowly over everything — the bookshelf lined with sketchpads and old camera rolls, the music sheets pinned to a corkboard, the pair of headphones curled on the couch.

He moved to the shelf near the window.

A faded photograph sat in a wooden frame — not of his family, but of a quiet lake, fog curling over the water. Something about it tugged at him.

Next to it, a small wooden charm hung from a string — hand-carved. Uneven.

Fingers brushing the charm, he paused.

"Did you give me this?" he asked.

Camila stepped closer.

"No... I’ve never seen that before."

Billy stared at it a moment longer.

Something stirred in his chest — not memory, but feeling.

Camila moved toward the desk and opened a drawer.

Inside were journals. Dozens. Some half-filled, others bulging with folded papers. A few sketches — rough, expressive, emotional. Notes scribbled in margins.

"You never let me read these," she said softly, picking one up.

"I guess I liked keeping parts of myself quiet."

Billy stepped deeper inside, touching the corner of the desk, the back of the chair, the curtain edge — each object like a stranger that somehow knew him.

Turning to her, he asked quietly.

"Can I stay here tonight?"

Camila looked surprised, but nodded slowly.

"Of course. Do you want me to stay too?"

Billy shook his head.

"No... I think I need to be alone with this part of myself."

She set the journal back down carefully and moved toward the door.

"I’ll bring your things later. Just let me know if you need anything."

"Camila?"

She stopped in the doorway, turning back.

"Thank you."

Her smile was warm and a little sad.

"Find yourself, okay?"

Then she left, closing the door quietly behind her.

Billy stood alone in the soft afternoon light.

And for the first time since returning to the city...

He didn’t feel entirely lost.

The afternoon light crept slowly across the wooden floor, casting long streaks of gold that touched everything gently — the desk, the shelves, the shadows curled in the corners.

Billy wandered the apartment quietly, no longer walking like a stranger.

Now he moved like someone searching.

The scent in the air was warm — sun-drenched dust, old paper, the faintest trace of his cologne still clinging to the collar of a hoodie left draped over a chair.

He stepped into the bedroom.

The sheets were still the same — navy blue, slightly rumpled.

On the side table sat an old film camera. He picked it up, brought it to his eye. Nothing flashed. No memory. Just a stillness.

A stack of boxes sat beside the bookshelf — not taped shut, just loosely folded, as if waiting for him to return to them.

He knelt down and opened the top one.

Scripts.

Dozens of them — some bound, some dog-eared, others filled with scribbled notes and coffee stains.

He flipped through titles.

"The Inheritance"

"Last Winter in Milan"

"Where the Heart Fades"

Each one meant nothing. But the handwriting in the margins was his.

Then — near the bottom of the pile — he paused.

One cover was bent, the paper water-stained in the corner.

The title was simple:

Sea Breeze – Final Shooting Draft

Date: [Handwritten] March 12

Billy’s breath caught for no clear reason.

His hand brushed over the first page.

A sticky note was attached.

"Scene 28 — Beachline. Final take."

"Don’t forget the emotion. Just breathe it."

The words weren’t signed, but the handwriting looked... gentle. Familiar.

Billy sat cross-legged on the floor, script resting in his lap as his eyes scanned the lines.

[EXT. COASTLINE – EARLY MORNING]

The wind rushes through the dunes. The waves break just behind him. He stands there barefoot, jacket clutched around him, speaking to someone who isn’t there.

CHARACTER (softly):

"I thought if I kept moving, I wouldn’t have to feel it. But the silence followed me here too."

Billy’s eyes stopped there.

Something in the words stuck to his ribs. He didn’t remember speaking them. He didn’t remember this scene. But something about that coastline, those words, that loneliness... it rang through his bones like a faraway bell.

His thumb brushed the bottom of the page where he had once scrawled:

"Keep your eyes on the horizon. Not the camera."

Billy closed the script gently.

Then pressed it to his chest.

He didn’t know what happened after that scene — not yet.

But for the first time since the accident, something from his past life didn’t feel like a story written by someone else.

It felt like his.

Meanwhile, in the village, grief wore a different face, where Billy searched for himself, Artur tried to outrun what he already knew.

The sun hung lower now, casting long shadows over the field.

Artur stood by the fence, shirt clinging to his back with sweat, hands wrapped in work gloves.

He’d been out since morning — chopping wood, fixing loose beams in the shed, hauling water even though no one asked him to.

Mr. Dand watched from the porch, wiping his hands on a cloth, his eyes narrowing.

"You planning to rebuild the whole village by nightfall?" he asked, voice even but concerned.

Artur didn’t look up.

"Just fixing what’s broken," he muttered, tossing another log into the pile.

Mr. Dand didn’t reply right away.

He just watched his son hammer a little too hard, a little too fast. Like every nail was a thought he didn’t want to think.

Inside the kitchen, Mark was drying dishes, glancing out the window.

"He hasn’t talked since yesterday," he said quietly to Mr. Dand, who had stepped in behind him.

"He hasn’t stopped moving either."

Dand nodded slowly.

"He thinks if he stays busy enough, his heart won’t notice the silence."

Outside, Artur crouched near the shed, checking the hinges on the back door for the second time. His hands moved on their own. His jaw clenched.

The hammer trembled slightly in his grip.

His mind wandered.

Billy’s laugh from across the field.

Billy beside him, sleeves rolled up, smiling.

Billy, drenched from the rain, whispering "Did you think I’d leave without saying goodbye?"

He shook his head hard.

"Stop it."

He drove the nail in deeper.

"He said he’d come back."

He reached for the next board.

"It was just a week. That’s all."

The wood split slightly under the force.

He dropped the hammer.

For a moment, he just sat back on his heels, breathing hard. Dirt clung to his palms, sweat to his temples.

His vision blurred — not from exhaustion.

He wiped at his eyes with the back of his arm quickly, angrily.

Then stood up again, forcing his face into something neutral. Blank. Unreadable.

"Artur," Mr. Dand said gently from the edge of the field. "You’ve done enough for today."

"I’m fine."

"You’re not."

"I said I’m fine."

Dand didn’t argue.

But he didn’t walk away either.

Artur bent to pick up the hammer again. His hands shook. Just slightly.

"He’s not coming back yet," he whispered under his breath, not even sure who he was saying it to.

"And I don’t know what to do with the part of me that stayed with him."

The wind stirred the trees.

Somewhere inside the house, a kettle began to whistle.

And Artur stood there in the orange light, hammer in hand, heart quietly falling apart behind tired eyes.

The sky burned gold as the sun dropped behind the hills, casting long streaks of light across the field.

Artur sat on the back porch steps, a towel around his neck, his shirt damp from work, dirt still smudged on his fingers. His hair stuck slightly to his forehead, but he didn’t bother fixing it.

He just stared out into the distance.

The logs were stacked. The tools put away. The day was done.

But he hadn’t gone inside.

Behind him, the old wooden floor creaked.

Mark stepped out quietly, two mugs in hand — tea, still steaming.

He offered one without a word.

Artur took it.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, the kind that stretched but didn’t suffocate.

The sky slowly turned violet.

Mark sipped his tea, then said softly:

"You know you don’t have to pretend around me."

Artur didn’t respond.

"Everyone deals with it differently," Mark added. "When I lost someone, I stayed in my room for three days. You built a whole fence in one afternoon."

Artur’s lips twitched — not a smile, just a crack in the wall.

"I’m not mourning," he said after a long pause.

"No?"

"He’s not gone."

Mark nodded slowly. "I know."

Another silence passed. The wind rustled through the leaves, the village lanterns flickering on, one by one.

"But it still feels like something’s missing, right?" Mark said.

Artur’s grip on the mug tightened.

"He promised he’d come back," he said. "But the room’s quiet. His voice isn’t in the hallway. His boots aren’t by the door."

"And you don’t know where to put that kind of quiet."

Artur looked at him finally.

Not sharply. Just tired.

"I don’t need fixing, Mark."

"Good," Mark said. "Because I wasn’t trying to."

A pause.

Mark looked down at his tea.

"I just... didn’t want you to be alone tonight."

Artur looked at him for a moment longer, then nodded — just once.

"Thanks."

They didn’t say anything else.

They just sat there, side by side, as the night settled over the village — the kind of silence that didn’t feel so heavy when someone else was sitting in it too.

The soft clatter of plates echoed from the kitchen.

Lantern light glowed warmly against the walls, casting a golden hue over the wooden table where fresh bread, stew, and warm herbs waited — humble, comforting.

Mark rose slowly, stretching as he glanced toward the darkening sky.

"Dinner’s ready," he said, voice low, easy. "Pop cooked."

Artur didn’t respond at first — still staring out at the fading light.

But after a moment, he stood, brushing his hands against his jeans without looking at them.

They stepped inside.

The house smelled of thyme and garlic. Familiar. Safe.

Mr. Dand stood near the stove, wiping his hands with a cloth.

"You boys took long enough," he said with a gentle nudge in his voice. "I was starting to think I’d have to eat it all myself."

Artur gave the faintest twitch of a smile — not forced this time. Just tired.

"You’d have burned your tongue again," Mark muttered, sliding into his seat.

"Only if someone left out the salt like last time," Dand shot back, raising an eyebrow at him.

Mark grinned. "I don’t remember that."

"Selective memory," Dand muttered.

Artur sat without a word, folding his hands loosely as the steam from the stew curled up into the lamp-lit air.

The three of them ate quietly at first.

No one pushed conversation. They just let the warmth of the food and the closeness of the room speak for them.

Halfway through the meal, Dand looked across the table — not hard, not heavy.

"You don’t have to talk about it."

Artur looked up, spoon pausing near his mouth.

Dand’s tone didn’t shift.

"But when you want to... I’ll listen."

Artur blinked slowly. Then gave a tiny nod.

That was all.

No promises. No breakdowns. Just space — open and waiting.

The rest of dinner passed in that steady kind of quiet.

Like music with no words — only rhythm, presence, and warmth.

Afterward, Mark stood to clear the dishes, and Mr. Dand began humming softly by the sink.

Artur lingered behind, still seated, eyes tracing the lines in the wood grain of the table.

And in that stillness, just for a moment —

he imagined Billy sitting across from him again, grinning mid-bite, asking for more bread.

The ache returned... but it was wrapped in something softer now — the memory of love that never left.