The banquet hall is golden in the late light—pressed velvet chairs, chandeliers catching fire in their crystals, rows of glassware humming with the weight of what’s unspoken. Laughter drifts from polished lips, softened by linen napkins and champagne, but it doesn't quite reach the back of the room where Jasper stands with a drink he hasn’t touched.

He’s too aware of the scent on the air.

Too aware—seated just two tables down, close enough to hear, far enough to ache.

Thallion's fingers are looped lazily through his, and Jasper's thumb runs along the curve of his knuckle like it's habit now. Like it’s the anchor keeping him still. I love him. I love him. I chose him. But the moment feels suspended, the kind that creeps up on you when the noise dips and the light changes just so.

Across the room, Elian sits beside them, posture precise, hands folded in his lap. His head is tilted toward the dais, but his eyes haven’t moved from the stem of his wine glass for nearly a minute.

The toast begins.

It’s a professor from their old literature department—silver-bearded, beloved, slightly drunk. His voice rings over the hall like he’s still giving lectures on symbolism and romantic tragedy.

“To old friends,” he says first. A few cheers. Clinks of glass. “To late nights and early mornings, to lectures missed and bonds made.”

Jasper shifts his weight. The champagne in his glass sloshes gently.

“To love, in all its forms. To the ones who left,” the professor says, pausing as the room hushes, “the ones who stayed... and the ones we still carry.”

A silence blooms like a bruise.

Elian’s breath stutters.

He hopes no one notices how tightly he grips the edge of the tablecloth. Not everything we carry was given to us freely. Some of it, we took. Some of it, we never put down. He doesn't look at them. Not yet. Not while the words still echo.

Jasper’s mouth twitches—either a smile or a flinch. It’s hard to tell now. They never said names. They didn’t have to. He wonders what version of him they remember. Wonders if it’s the one who left, or the one who stayed too long before he did.

The glasses clink again, more subdued this time. Laughter returns, but it’s thinner. Elian forces a sip of wine. The taste is dry. Everything in his mouth feels like cotton.

Jasper finally looks over. Just for a second. Just long enough for their eyes to catch across the crowd.

And it’s there again. That thing between them.

Not longing. Not guilt. Maybe not even love anymore. Just memory. Thick, and close, and unresolved.

Elian sees it too.

He doesn’t say anything. He just shifts in his chair, nudging his knee lightly against theirs under the table. Not to claim. Just to feel something steady.

The conversation swells again, and still, that silence hums beneath it—private and razor-thin.

Jasper raises his glass finally, slow and unconvincing.

“To what we carry,” he mutters to no one in particular.

It doesn’t matter if anyone hears. It matters that he does.

And across the linen tablecloth, Elian finally dares to look up—eyes not soft, but steady. Waiting to see if they're still listening.