Even with the five-meters rule temporarily revoked, Lucien still kept space between them. They walked side by side, but every time their hands brushed, he jerked his away like the touch burned.
Edmund noticed every flinch, of course. The bastard always did. He didn't say anything, though just kept matching his pace with an annoying quiet persistence, like he was waiting for Lucien to stop running from ghosts that didn't even exist anymore.
Worst, moments like this—the quiet, the stillness, just the two of them—always dragged him back to their young love days.
That stupidly sweet era when everything felt innocent but their hormones were a disastrous mess.
Edmund used to pull him behind pillars or into empty hallways, kiss him softly at first, then hotter and hungrier… yet still neither of them ever went further than that.
Too risky and complicated. One slip and everything would have blown apart, and they both knew it.
