The private jet hummed steadily, slicing through the evening sky. Dino leaned back against his seat, his gaze heavy, watching Hibari from across the aisle.
Hibari had dozed off somewhere over the Mediterranean, head tilted against the window, arms folded stubbornly across his chest like even in sleep, he refused to look vulnerable. The fading sunlight traced the soft line of his jaw, catching the slight frown he wore even in rest.
Dino smiled faintly, feeling that familiar ache stir low in his chest.
He loved him.
God, he loved him.
Not in the careless way boys their age fell in and out of affection. Not in the way people spoke about crushes or fleeting flings.
It was deeper than that. More dangerous than that.
And sometimes—like now—it scared him.
He could reach out. Cross the space between them. Slip his fingers through that soft black hair, kiss the furrow from Hibari's brow, let all the restraint he carried spill free for once.
No one would see.
No one would judge.
But he didn't.
He wouldn't.
He never would.
Because Dino Cavallone was many things—a mafioso, a fighter, a leader—but he was not a coward.
He would not take what was not ready to be given.
And so he stayed where he was, hands fisted quietly in his lap, jaw clenched, feeling every inch of that impossible distance between them.
Not because Hibari was far away—he was right there, within reach—but because time still stretched between them like a wall he refused to climb over.
It hurt sometimes. The waiting. The loneliness of loving someone who didn't fully understand the depth of it yet. The aching restraint when every part of him wanted more.
But when Hibari shifted slightly in his sleep, a soft, barely audible sigh escaping him—when his hand, in that rare moment of unconscious trust, brushed toward Dino's seat without realizing it—the ache softened.
Because Dino knew:
One day, Hibari would reach for him fully awake.
One day, the waiting would end.
And Dino would be there, steady as ever, offering everything he had—no guilt, no doubt, no regrets.
Until then, he would endure.
Because for Hibari, he would wait forever.