56. Alchemy
Alchemy
Rafe
The van ride back to the hotel is silent.
No one says a word. When we get there, I head straight to my room.
Rage sits on my shoulders, awake and electric, threaded with something heavier.
Determination, maybe. I turn on the shower, hoping the heat will bleed it out of me before I do something I’ll regret.
It doesn’t help much. The second I step out, hair dripping, sweatpants half on, there’s a knock at the door. Hard. I freeze, listen like the door might tell me who it is. Another knock, louder this time. Then a voice, hurt, frayed.
“Don’t be a god damn diva, that’s my job. Just let me in, Rafe.”
“Do you promise to keep your hands to yourself?” My voice comes out harsher than I mean.
“Oh, for fuck’s sa—you’re acting like I'm—”
“Yes or no.”
A pause. Then, “Yes, I promise, your majesty.”
I crack the door and see his face. The eyes hit first, wounded, open, nothing like the smirk he wore after the show. I open the door wider, then step back fast, giving him space. Another flash of pain crosses his face. His eyes shine with something that might be tears. He looks down.
“I wasn’t trying to assault you,” he says. “I can’t believe you used that word.”
“I told you I’m in love with someone,” I say. “Yesterday. And then you pull that shit on stage in front of who knows how many people, including her and you expect me to call it anything less?”
“You didn’t give a shit when you punched me,” he fires back.
“You’ve known me for more than twenty years.
I’ve shared everything with you.” He steps forward and I back away.
The movement cuts through both of us. He exhales, takes a step back again.
“We fought for this,” he says, motioning around the room, but I know he means more.
The band, the music, the dream. “Staying up late, writing, seeing the colors of sound together. No money, no contract, just us and music. Then she comes along and none of it matters?”
He leans against the wall, arms crossed. “One snap of her precious fingers, one weekend, and—” His voice cracks. The tears come, sudden and real. He slides down the wall, head in his hands. His hair falls forward, a tangle of black.
“Fuck, I hate this.” He wipes his face with his sleeve, angry at himself for crying.
He still hasn’t changed out of his stage clothes, leather jacket creased and worn. It breaks something in me I can’t explain. I crouch down beside him. He looks up, eyes red, searching. For once, there’s no performance between us.
“It still matters, Rith,” I whisper.
Rithy lets out a breath that almost sounds like a laugh. “God, we’re pathetic, huh?”
It breaks the tension. I laugh too, shoulders finally unlocking. For a second, it feels like before.
“You’ll always matter to me,” I say. “There’s no band without you…” I swallow. “There’s no me without you.”
That cracks something open in him. The tears come soundless, streaming down his face while his eyes stay fixed on mine.
I was ready for anger, for dividing lines and punishment, but looking at him now, open, wrecked, carrying years of unspoken pain, I can’t do it.
It’s time to stop pretending. Time to admit we were both in this.
“There was something here,” I say. “I just didn’t know how to name it. I took the coward’s way, hid behind the fan service, the jokes. I was hoping you’d make the first move I guess, but you never—”
“I was afraid,” he interrupts. “What if you didn’t mean it? Or worse, what if you did, and it ruined everything? What if it didn’t work out and we lost… us? The band?”
We both sigh. I sit down across from him on the floor, cross-legged, gripping my ankles like the basics of anatomy might keep me grounded.
“Lose this? Impossible. We’re an amazing team,” I say, smiling.
He huffs a small laugh. “I keep you in line.”
“That you do.”
“I just wanted to hear it,” he says. “That it was real. That I didn’t imagine this.”
“You didn’t imagine it. We just missed our chance, thought we had all the time in the world to figure it out. The stupidity of youth.”
He nods, eyes soft. “Some part of me thought if I could just kiss you, you’d finally see it. Stop hiding.”
“You’re about…” I pause, thinking, tracing the years.
That look across a table, his perfect smile when we hit the right sound, the wink he gave me once that started everything simmering beneath the surface.
The feel of his lips against mine, even beneath the veil.
How sad his eyes were when he’d pick me up off the floor after Emily left and I’d gotten wasted yet again.
All the moments between us I’d let slip through my fingers. “Ten years too late.”
“I’m always late. It’s in my contract.”
We both laugh, real this time, a release more than a joke. I reach out my hand. He takes it.
“I’m sorry,” I say. There’s too much behind it to name. A few tears spill over anyway.
He holds my gaze, patient, breathing through whatever he’s carrying. Then he nods. “Me too.”
He squeezes my hand, then stands. From the floor he looks ridiculously tall, hands shoved in his pockets, trying to gather his composure.
My Pandora’s box, standing in front of me, this beautiful, infuriating mess of a man who made me what I am.
Without him, there wouldn’t be Obelus. There wouldn’t be me.
He was the knife I sharpened myself against.
He nudges my knee with his boot. “Get up. If you stay down there looking up at me like that, it’s gonna reset everything I’m trying to stop here.”
I laugh and stand, brushing off my knees. “Can I ask a favor while I’ve got benevolent Rithy on the line?”
He eyes me warily. “Go on.”
“No more being an ass about Kasia. Please.”
He sighs, looking up at the ceiling. “I’ll try. It’s hard to be civil when she stares at you like you hung the fucking moon. I’ll tolerate her. That’s the best I can offer.”
“Sold.”
I pull him into a hug before I can overthink it. For a second he’s still, then his arms come around me, warm against my back.
“I love you, Rith.”
He lets out a shaky breath. “I love you too, you fucking idiot.”
When we step apart, something feels lighter, like a weight I’ve carried for years just fell away.
Words fail me, which seems impossible, but they do.
He makes some excuse about needing to meet someone, then slips out.
I watch him go down the hallway, and I know.
He was my first taste of love, even if we kept it sealed.
I just never let myself feel it until now.
My mind echoes with leftover noise from the night, laughter, distant music, the faint reverb of everything we used to be.
Grief and gratitude settle together in my chest. I breathe out and let him go with it, into whatever we are now.
Men, older, scarred, still bound by the music and love that made us both.
That night, Kasia’s laugh on the other end of the phone was all the relief I needed.
Her called it, hanging in the air. Today, the ride to Prague feels louder than usual.
Not the city, us. Every phone on the bus is buzzing, notifications stacking faster than the coffee can kick in.
I’m half awake when Ronan appears at the kitchen booth, waving his phone like he’s flagging down rescue.
“You’re going viral.”
I groan, pressing my forehead to the cold window. “Please tell me it’s not that.”
“Oh, it’s exactly that.” His grin’s wide enough to break something. “As expected from the mastermind over there.” He jerks his chin toward Rithy, who looks barely alive in the seat opposite me. “It’s a fucking hit.”
I sit up, hair sticking to my cheek. “Not surprised. They always love the sexual-tension angle.”
“It’s more than that this time.” He tosses me the phone. “Look.”
Clips of the kiss are everywhere, slow-mo edits, fan theories, reaction videos. The Riven Altar Unveiled Kiss is trending in eight countries. Someone’s added orchestral music to it; another thread calls it the start of a concept series, a grand reveal. It’s chaos. Beautiful, terrifying chaos.
Rithy’s sprawled across his side like a king without a crown, all he’s missing is the robe and scepter. No sunglasses today. It’s cloudy, but it feels bigger than that, like he’s not hiding anymore. He’s savoring his last sip of German coffee like it’s victory itself.
“Well,” he says, stretching, “what can I say? I’m an excellent kisser.”
Kiri flicks a sugar packet at him from the sink. “You’re a liability.”
“Correction,” Rithy smirks, “a profitable liability. Look at those numbers.”
He’s not wrong. Overnight, everything’s doubled, streams, follows, mentions. Someone online compares us to Hozier-level ascension.
Kiri whistles. “Doesn’t Hozier have, like, forty million followers?”
“Forty-two,” Ronan says, still scrolling.
Kiri shakes his head. “So only thirty-seven million more than us. Practically peers.”
Rithy grins. “It’s not just the kiss. It’s the punch, the cover—” He glances at me, and there’s something almost gentle behind it. “—the tour, the whole fucking alchemy of it. Magic.” He props his feet on the table edge, crossing his legs like he’s already won.
No one argues. The bus buzzes with that weird, charged stillness that comes before a storm.
Our manager’s texts keep lighting up the group chat, press, sponsors, interviews.
I lean back, phone on my knee, watching the highway blur by through gray light.
My coffee’s cold, but my pulse hasn’t slowed since the show.
Alchemy. The word sticks. I think of Kasia, the spark that set all of this in motion. Her voice last night, calm and sure. The way she cuts through the noise without trying. Somehow every road still loops back to her.
Everything that's happening, it all feels wild and uncontainable, like something small and private that grew teeth. Ronan’s laughing again. Kiri’s already writing jokes about Prague. Rithy’s pretending not to check his reflection in the window.
And me? I’m just trying to breathe. Because it hits me, right there between Berlin and the next stage: how easily the ground shifts. How one heartbeat, one look, one woman can ripple through everything.
Whatever’s happening, whatever we’re becoming, her hand’s somewhere in it. The muse. The spark. The fault line. Persephone’s mouth on the pomegranate, upending our underworld. I don’t know if what’s building is a miracle or a storm. I just know I’d better hold on.