Alias stood very still, his head tilted as he looked from the boy to Theo. His expression was one of profound, heartbreaking bewilderment. He was trying to reconcile the ’data’ of the world he had built with the reality standing before him.

​"I do not understand," Alias said, his voice small and trembling. "You told me you loved me for ten years. You told me you were mine. But... if you were mine, how is there this? Did you love someone else while I was gone? Did you lie to me?"

​The hurt in his tone wasn’t sharp; it was heavy and dull, like a weight pressing down on his chest.

He looked at the boy—the blue eyes, the familiar nose—and felt a hollow ache. He had thought their nights of kissing and touching were a sacred discovery they shared alone. To find out that Theo had shared himself with someone else felt like a star being extinguished.

​"No! No, Alias, never," Theo cried out, taking a frantic step forward but stopping when Alias instinctively moved back. "I never loved her. I don’t even remember her face clearly. I was a mess, Alias. I was drunk, drowning in the fact that you were gone for too long, and I was rotting in a gutter. She... she took advantage of that. I didn’t even know she was pregnant. I haven’t seen her since that night."

​Alias blinked, his silver eyes searching Theo’s face. "You did not love her? Then... how is he here? To my understanding, only people who love each other get close and make babies. You told me the ’heat’ is for us, but you shared it... with another."

​Theo let out a jagged, pained breath. The innocence in Alias’s eyes was more agonizing than any blade. He realized now that Alias truly didn’t understand the mechanics of the world. He was someone who didn’t even understand how his body worked until now, so how could he?

​"Alias... Love isn’t always part of it," Theo whispered, his face burning with shame and ripping guilt. "There is something called sex. It’s... It’s when a man shoves his penis into a woman. It’s a physical act. It can happen without love, through mistakes, through... through things that aren’t pure."

​Alias went silent, his mind racing. He thought about their nights in the house. He thought about the heat, the way Theo had looked at him, and the way Theo had taken him into his mouth.

​"Sex," Alias repeated, the word feeling strange and clinical. He looked down at his own body, then back at Theo. "We have been very close, Theo. You have taken my penis inside your mouth. You have held me until we were both breathless."

​A look of genuine concern crossed Alias’s face, his brows knitting together. "Does that mean we have had sex? Does that mean you are....you are going to have a baby now? Are you pregnant with my child?"

​Theo froze, his mouth hanging open as he stared at Alias. For a second, the heavy atmosphere was pierced by the sheer, staggering innocence of the question.

Despite the guilt and the boy between them, Theo felt a hysterical sort of sob rise in his throat.

​"No, no," Theo rasped, his eyes filling with tears again. "It... it doesn’t work like that between two men. And what we did... it wasn’t the same. I was showing you how to feel pleasure. I wasn’t... I wasn’t trying to make a life. I was trying to love you."

​Alias looked at the boy, who had sat down on the grass, picking at a small white flower with those tiny fingers.

"So, if it’s between two men, there is no child?" He asked, and Theo nodded.

It felt simpler to understand now, but the problem still stood.

​"But you lied about it," Alias said softly, the confusion returning. "You told me it was your first time, too. You let me think we were exploring a new world together, but you had already been there. You already knew the way."

​He looked at Theo, his silver eyes welling up with his own version of human tears—shimmering, pearl-like drops.

"Why was I not enough for the truth, Theo? Am I so fragile that you had to build a wall of lies around my heart?"

​Theo watched those tears and sank to his knees, burying his face in his hands.

Theo had tried to bury it. He had tried to make his relationship with Alias feel special, like a fairytale. He had wanted his first to be with Alias back then, but he had messed up.

And he has lied to Alias.

Now... he has to see Alias tears.

"I’m sorry," he said and lifted his head from his hands. "I have no excuse. I hurt you with my lies."

"It wasn’t the lie that hurt me, Theo," Alias whispered. "It was the fact that you could not trust me enough to tell me the truth. What did you think I would do if you had told me the truth? I..." his heart trembled, and he pursed his lips. "I wouldn’t have loved you any less,"

The words hung in the air like a shimmering constellation.

"If you had told me you were broken, I would have helped you gather the pieces. If you had told me you were dirty, I would have washed you in this very lake. But because you lied, I feel... I feel like I am standing next to a stranger who wears your face."

Theo let out a broken, jagged sob. He reached out, his fingers brushing the grass near Alias’s feet, but he didn’t dare touch him.

To hear that he had been loved so unconditionally—that his ’purity’ wasn’t the price of Alias’s affection—was a realization that cut deeper than any judgment.

"I was a coward," Theo choked out, his voice muffled by the earth. "I thought if I gave you a perfect story, I could be a perfect man for you. I didn’t want you to look at me and see the gutter. I just wanted to be the Theo you remembered."

"The Theo I remember never hid from me," Alias said softly.

He knelt down, but not to Theo. He knelt to the boy. The child flinched, his blue eyes wide and darting, but Alias didn’t reach for him with force. He simply sat on the grass, his silver hair spilling over his shoulders, and held out his hand—palm up, an invitation.

"He is still thirsty, Theo," Alias said, his voice regaining a bit of its clinical, observant tone, though it was softened by a new, maternal warmth. "And he is hungry. Whatever lies you told, his blood is real. His life is flickering."

In that moment, Maya appeared at the doorway of the house, her wooden spoon clattering to the floor as she took in the scene: Theo on his knees in the dirt, Alias sitting with a strange, silent child, and the heavy, electric tension of a shattered secret.

"Theo?" she whispered, her eyes darting between him and the boy. "Who... what happened?"