12. Games And Monsters
Games And Monsters
Kiri
Running was either a terrible idea or the only good one I’ve had all night. I honestly don’t know anymore. All I know is I needed to get out of that hotel room before I wore a groove into the carpet and drove myself completely insane.
The Shilla’s gardens wrap around the property like a private world, stone paths, soft lantern light, manicured trees that look sculpted out of air itself.
I jog until my chest burns, until the cold air slicks my skin with sweat, until the rhythm of my feet hitting stone dulls the memory of her mouth, her anger, the sound of that terrace door slamming shut.
By the time I loop back toward the hotel, I’m wrung out but not better.
I’m so caught up in being angry at myself for the hurt I saw in her eyes, I almost run past her. I slow until my jog bleeds into a walk.
She’s sitting on one of the stone benches near a lantern-lit path, knees pulled up to her chest, swallowed by a hoodie three times too big for her.
Her head is down, hood up, hair falling over her face, and at first I think she’s just cold, or tired, or taking a quiet moment to herself. Then I hear it.
The soft, frustrated sound someone makes when they’re trying very hard not to cry.
The kind of noise you make when you’re angry that tears even exist. I stop mid-stride, breath catching.
I should keep moving. I know that. I’ve already made everything worse.
Walking over there will only twist the knife. She doesn’t want to see me.
The sound comes again, barely audible, and something in my chest gives way like a hairline crack finally splitting. Somehow, I end up standing in front of her before I’ve fully decided to.
“Nat?”
She looks up, eyes red but defiant, and if looks could kill, I’d drop dead on the immaculate pathway. She sighs, rolls her eyes, then wipes her face quickly with the sleeve of her hoodie.
“Oh, just fucking great,” she mutters, pushing to stand. “Perfect. Exactly who I wanted to run into.”
She tries to walk past me, but impulse wins. I reach out and catch her wrist, not hard, just enough to slow her.
“Please,” I say quietly. “Just… stay. Sit? For a minute.”
She stares at my hand like it’s offensive. “What? With me? A lowly groupie? Only if you’re sure you won’t have to burp me or bottle-feed me. Wouldn’t want to burden you with all that responsibility. Since I'm you know, an infant on top of some desperate fan begging for your time.”
I try to keep a straight face and fail completely. A laugh erupts from me, louder than I expect, the kind that loosens something tight in me. She watches me with her arms folded, fighting the edges of a smile. Her annoyance cracks and a small, unwilling huff of laughter escapes her.
“Hell,” I manage, still catching my breath, “I’ve met a lot of people with a lot of kinks, but bottle feeding? That’s not one I’ve ever been interested in.”
She freezes, and the joke hangs between us, heavy with everything neither of us says out loud. Her gaze flicks to my mouth. Mine flicks to hers.
“Yeah,” she says softly. “Didn’t think that was your kind of thing.”
I let go of her wrist slowly, like she’s made of something fragile even though she’s anything but.
She drops back onto the bench, restless and stormy, but she doesn’t walk away.
I sit beside her, close enough to feel the warmth radiating from her, far enough that I won’t make a mistake I can’t take back.
Finally, in the cold, in the silence, neither of us runs.
We sit there like two idiots pretending the air isn’t full of everything we just fought about.
Natalia keeps her knees drawn up, hoodie sleeves pulled halfway over her hands, eyes fixed on some patch of lantern-lit garden.
I stare at the path in front of us, pretending I’m catching my breath from the run and not from the emotional combustion we instigated earlier. I should say something.
So naturally, what comes out of my mouth is, “You know, the stage floor tonight was way slipperier than usual.”
She turns her head slowly, like she genuinely can't believe that’s where I decided to start.
“Really?” she deadpans.
“Yeah,” I say, nodding solemnly. “Nearly wiped out during the first chorus. Would’ve been a great way to go viral.”
She stares at me for three full seconds before the corner of her mouth twitches. Then she shakes her head.
“You’re terrible at starting conversations.”
“Never claimed to be good at it.”
“The garden is nice,” she offers, glancing around.
“It is,” I agree. “Very… garden-y.”
“Wow. Stunning description, I’m actually moved.”
“That’s why I’m on the bass and not writing lyrics. I leave the poetry to Rafe and Rith.”
A real smile breaks through, like she’s remembering that we don’t always fight, that sometimes we actually fit. Maybe too well, that’s the real problem. The moment softens everything by a fraction, so I feel brave enough to push a little further.
“Look,” I say quietly, “maybe it’s stupid to ask. Maybe I should already know. But… am I the reason you’re out here? Like this?”
Her eyes flick toward me and she sniffs. “As if you’re enough to make me cry. Please. I come from a long line of strong Polish women. Men don’t make us cry. We make men cry.”
I huff a laugh, shaking my head. “Yeah. I can see that. Rafe was a total disaster when Kasia dumped him last year. I thought we were gonna have to sedate him. Hook him up to strings and drag him out like some creepy puppet for shows. He lost the will to live, I swear.”
She goes still, her smile fading. “It was stupid,” she says after a moment.
“Mama and Tata making demands over that psycho. As if Rafe had anything to do with that nutso stalker showing up at our house. It was scary… but breaking up never kept anyone safe. They shouldn’t have gotten a vote.
Kasia and Rafe are adults. I'm glad they're back together. It’s their life, not anyone else’s. ”
There’s something raw in her voice now.
I swallow. “Are we still talking about Rafe and Kasia?”
She blows out a breath and leans back against the bench. “You’d think they’d be the last ones to do it to someone else. That they’d understand how it felt. But no, of course not. I had to get out of there before I had to endure another fucking lecture.”
“About me?”
She rolls her eyes. “No. About me. The fuck up compared to her… I didn’t name you, I wouldn’t do that. Even though you deserve it after what came out of your mouth.”
That hits deeper than I expect. I look down at my hands. “I'm sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“Look, don't bullshit me, I've had enough of it for tonight,” she cuts in, softer.
“Kasia's just… worried about me.” She hesitates, picking at a loose thread on her sleeve. “It shouldn’t be so much to ask, to chase what makes me—” She stops herself.
“If I told her what happened tonight, she'd be worried.
She gets this face, she squints at me with disappointment, I hate it.
Her doktorka face, like I'm something else to diagnose.
So I kept it to myself." She sighs before she continues, glancing up at me.
"They both say you've got a terrible track record with women, you know? I see the panic in their eyes anytime I get near you.” That makes her laugh to herself, picking at the bench before meeting my eyes.
I grimace. “I deserve that panic.”
“I can tell. That speech on the roof? You're an asshole, you know that right?”
“Yeah.” I rub the back of my neck, the words piling up before I can decide whether I want to let them out.
“Yeah I do. Fuck." I sigh and let my head hang just long enough to decide if I'm going to quit talking or actually give something of myself for once. "My love life’s pretty shit, if you can even call it that. Everyone knows it. It’s just—”
I trail off, staring at the lantern glow scattered across the gravel.
She waits.
“It’s the packaging,” I say finally. “The surface. The attitude.” I raise my eyebrows at her and she nods back like she knows she has enough attitude to power this whole city.
“I'm into it, so I chase it. But once they're caught? I end up in a hotel room with someone who wants handbags and clout and a picture taken at the right angle so everyone knows they’re with the bassist. But the minute we’re actually alone, they’re on their phones the whole time.
Well, between rounds of—" I cut myself off, and cough abruptly to avoid the truth of it, even if we both know it already. "Anyway, there’s nothing underneath it. Then I get bored and start backing off, so they start holding on tighter.”
The silence that follows is too big, the honesty almost painful.
“And if they don’t get exactly what they want out of me, sometimes they go tell their version of the story.
Sell it, post it, threaten to post it. I’ve had people try to blackmail me with shit that never even happened because they know one made up headline travels faster than the truth.
” I shrug, but there’s no humor in it. “Makes it hard to trust anyone who gets too close.”
I drag a hand down my face. “There. I’ve just said something out loud I’ve never admitted before. Probably some childhood bullshit thrown in I should 'unpack' with a therapist.”
She sits back, looking at me, curiosity flickering across her expression.
She opens her mouth like she’s about to ask something, then stops.
We sit there in a quiet that isn’t hostile anymore.
Just tired and vulnerable. Human. Eventually, she exhales and lets her head tip gently to the side, resting against my shoulder.
I freeze, unsure. But she doesn’t pull away.
I’m so damn tired of pulling back from her that I let myself lean into it just a little, enough to feel her warmth through the fabric of my hoodie.
After a moment, my arm lifts and settles around her shoulders, slow and careful, a silent question she doesn’t reject.
She scoots closer, knees tucked up, her breath soft and steady against my sleeve.
We both stare straight ahead at the path, because we know exactly what would happen if we looked at each other.
The spark from the terrace hasn’t gone anywhere.
It’s waiting. Ready to drag us under again.
But for now, just for this minute, this is enough. Enough to breathe, to stop hurting. Enough to admit, without saying a word, that neither of us is done with the other. The garden path is empty, until footsteps crunch softly on gravel somewhere behind us.
I stiffen. Natalia hears it too. Her head snaps up, eyes wide for a split second, and without even thinking she yanks my hood lower over my forehead and pulls me towards her, trying to keep my identity hidden.
I mirror the motion for her, pulling the fabric forward until her face is covered, enough to obscure a view if anyone clocked us.
Someone walking by would think we’re two exhausted tourists huddled together for warmth, not two people with a whole damn storm brewing between them.
The footsteps draw closer. Voices follow. Natalia curls into my side, tucking herself under my arm. I angle my shoulder, shielding her without thinking, both of us trying not to breathe too loudly.
It feels exactly like hiding under a blanket together.
The memory hits me hard. Me and Rithy, small hands clutching the edge of a thin blanket, pulling it over our heads while our father stomped through the hallway.
His voice booming, slurred by rage and beer.
Glass shattering. Our mother pleading, her voice breaking.
Then the thuds. Hard, sickening. Rithy was shaking so badly I thought he might come apart, so I cupped his ears and pressed him into my side, whispering stupid stories about dragons and magic just to drown out the screaming.
Shh, I’d told him, even though I’d been the one trembling. It’s just a game. We’re hiding from the monster.
The footsteps pass behind us and fade into the distance. Natalia moves slightly, her breath warm against my collarbone, and the memory dissolves. I blink hard and force myself back into the present.
She has no idea what just tore through me.
She’s just smiling like the two of us sharing this ridiculous hiding place is funny and sweet instead of something that dragged a terror straight out of me.
I can’t look away from her. It’s the first time in hours she hasn’t looked furious or hurt.
We could pull apart now. We should, the coast is clear, but neither of us moves.
Instead, my hand finds her face, gently cupping her cheek with a palm that feels too rough and undeserving to touch someone like her.
She freezes, not scared, just alert, like this moment is balancing on the head of a pin.
Her skin is warm beneath my thumb. I brush it along the curve of her cheekbone, feeling the softness there, the faint tracks where she wiped away tears.
We stay there longer than we should. Time loosens its grip, minutes blurring into something softer, measured not by clocks but by the way her face fits against my hand, by the quiet murmur of words traded between the desire to close the distance, by the way our hands keep finding familiar ground and then retreating again like we’re both afraid of how easy it would be to forget ourselves.
Then we finally pull away, settling into an embrace.
We talk in hushed voices about nothing and everything, about the garden, about the city.
At some point the night changes. I don’t notice it at first, just a subtle thinning of the dark, the sky above the trees paling at the edges like it’s taking a careful breath.
Dawn, creeping in whether we’re ready for it or not.
I feel the change in her, the way she stills against me, the way her fingers grip my hoodie like she’s bracing herself.
Neither of us wants to say it out loud. Eventually, she does anyway.
“I should probably head back,” she says.
I close my eyes because I want to ask her to come back with me, every part of me wants to guide her back to my room without another thought. Right now, with her warm against me, the idea of leaving her feels like tearing something open.
“Yeah,” I say carefully. “I guess so.”
She’s quiet for a long moment, absorbing it. The sky lightens another shade.
“So,” she says finally, softer now. “We’re… what?”
“Friends,” I tell her. “It's better this way. No fallout, no drama. Everybody's happy.”
When we finally pull apart, it’s gentle and reluctant. She looks up at me one last time, and I know this isn’t over, I'm just lying to us both with the word friend. We head back toward the hotel separately, the pale light of dawn following us through the garden.
Even when I let the distance grow between us again, I know I’ve already crossed every line I tried to set for myself and I’ll keep crossing them, if she’s what’s on the other side.