The room in the Cavallone estate was dark except for the muted glow of a bedside lamp. Italy's night air slipped through the half-open window, cool against Dino's skin, but the man felt nothing except the weight of the boy sleeping in the other bed.
Hibari had insisted on a separate room when they arrived, scowling when Dino teased him about it, but somewhere around midnight, he'd silently slipped into Dino's quarters, collapsed onto the spare bed without a word. As if he trusted Dino enough to seek the closeness without asking for it.
Dino closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the couch, exhaling slowly.
This isn't easy.
He loved him.
He loved him more fiercely than he'd ever loved anything.
But loving Hibari meant carrying a kind of hunger that he could never feed.
It wasn't even about physical touch—no, it was the ache for time.
For the months and years Hibari hadn't lived yet.
For the pieces of himself Hibari hadn't even realized he could give.
And Dino—
Dino was a man already shaped by years of pain, loyalty, duty.
Sometimes he felt ancient compared to Hibari's raw, untempered youth.
He opened his eyes, stealing another glance.
Hibari's face was turned toward him in sleep, delicate and almost vulnerable in the lamplight. His hand curled loosely near his mouth, a faint furrow between his brows like he was still ready to wake up fighting.
Dino clenched his fists.
He doesn't even know what he does to me.
The teasing, the wrestling, the playful shoves—they were all Hibari's way of connecting, in his clumsy, teenage way.
But for Dino, every laugh, every glance, every casual brush of fingers against his sleeve was a battle.
A reminder of everything he wanted and everything he couldn't have.
He had to be the adult.
He had to be better.
And he would. He would.
But the yearning didn't stop. It ate at him quietly, gnawed at him in the dark when no one was watching. When Hibari trusted him enough to fall asleep close by. When Dino could almost taste the life they hadn't built yet.
Dino dragged a hand over his face, exhaling a shuddering breath.
"Not yet," he whispered to himself. A promise. A curse.
"Not yet."
He could wait.
He would wait.
Even if it killed him slowly.
Because he loved Hibari.
And loving him meant patience, even when it hurt like hell.