KIAN'S ACT

Eighteen

We both stood on the balcony, watching France go up in flames. In the background, our bags were being packed for us because we were making our way back home. It’s strange to call his house my home, but that’s simply what the situation has become. 

I toyed nervously with my sunflower painted nails as Kian stood next to me. He had a lit cigar between his gloved fingers and he rested his elbows on the railings of the balcony. 

The sun had set a long time ago and now the half-moon shined down on us. You couldn’t really see it though, with all of the lights and the brightness that Paris was. “Why do things look so beautiful when they’re falling apart?” I found myself asking lowly, and then I fell silent, hearing my own words. 

Why do things look so beautiful when they’re falling apart…? 

I wondered how beautiful I must look at the moment, did my skin shine with a dullness that only grief could bring, did my eyes reflect the sort of poetic sadness that only death could bring, and did my touch bring about the death to beautiful things like the dying words of a lonely poet? How beautiful I must have looked right now, being broken by Kian…

I wore his large jacket over me, even if I was still wearing a bright yellow, thick sweater underneath, I was still cold. He placed his jacket over my shoulders and wrapped his arms around me to keep me warm. I was trapped in his arms, and even as he placed his elbows on the railing, his chin was softly placed on the top of my head, and the warmth that came from his body was enough to keep the cold away from me. 

I loved the way that he smelled, he smelled like…nature, like the forest. I know that I say this all the time, but the smell is so pure, so…attached to him, like the smell of smoke that catches on your clothes and never leaves you. If I closed my eyes, I could picture myself in the forest, surrounded by grass and trees and that cool wind around me. Man…it’s beautiful. 

“I’ve noticed that you’re a collector,” I finally spoke up, my hands on the black gloves that covered his hands. I slowly brought my hand over his, wanting so badly to feel the leather that he’d made his skin. I slowly slid my fingers over the leather, embracing the feel of it underneath my touch. “I feel you plan to add me to it,” I finally added, sliding my fingers between his. His fingers twitched under my touch and I felt them tighten around mine, holding my fingers between his. 

His hands swallowed mine whole, and my tiny hand almost disappeared in his palm as he caged my hand in his. This was the first time that I’d touched him, the first time that I did it on my accord. This time, I didn’t feel like pulling away. 

I looked out at the Eiffel tower and the sparkling lights of the other buildings, and if you ignored the thick dark smoke that came from the protestors below, ignored the screams and shouts, and ignored the distant cry of police sirens…everything was perfect. I looked back down at his hands and slowly, I spun myself in his arms. My left hand was still in his hand as I turned and faced him. We stood face to face, he and I. He’d leaned down to be at eye level with me, and as I stood so close to him, in silence, goosebumps broke out on my arms and I sucked in a breath. 

His mask, even across the seas and oceans, looked as perfect as it did that first time that we met in the kitchen. I hadn’t known then what this mask could do to me, but today, I did, and I wasn’t as naïve. “Why do you wear a mask?” I finally repeated the question that I’d said the first time that he and I had met. I was almost transported back to that moment as I sat on the counter and he stood between my legs. 

My right hand slowly reached for his face– reached for his mask. I touched it, letting the ivory mask lay still beneath my touch. I worried that when I pulled my fingers back, they’d have the stain of the blood that had been splattered on it, but that worry didn’t surpass my need to feel the mask yet again. 

My eyes stayed on his, the intensity between our gazes was unlike anything I’d ever felt before. It was purely electric, and it tugged on every cell of mine, forcing me to bend to his will. I could hear my distant cries, hear the words ‘You’re the fucking devil!’ hear the words, ‘Kill me! Please!’ hear my pleas, hear every terrible thing that I’d said, every horrible thing that he’d said to me…but it didn’t stop me. 

“Show yourself to me, Kian…unmask yourself…” I whispered to the air, despite all of my cries, all of my pleas, all of my doubt, all of my fears; I still wanted him to find safety in me. I still wanted to save him, wanted to help him, wanted to relieve him of the burden that I worried he carried. It was just who I was. “I’ll keep your secrets safe…” I whispered even lower, praying that the promise that I made him at this night, under the stars, surrounded by black smoke and the chaos that came with rebellion– would make him believe me. 

He was silent, those forest green eyes peering into mine, nothing in them except the forest that I saw in them. His long hair moved lightly with the wind, but otherwise it stayed perfectly perched on his shoulders, making him appear like the Viking that he was. 

I took his silence as his consent and reached for the bottom of the mask, by his chin, and I could feel where the mask ended and where his skin was. My eyes stayed on his, my heart slowed to a beat so gentle and hush, as if in respect of what was to come. My stomach tightened in what I would find as I slowly pulled the mask off his face, wondering what would greet me once I did. 

I let out a lone breath, only a second long as the mask was finally off his face. My eyes remained on his as I slowly pulled it away from his face so that I could see what he was hiding. I let out a gasp as I finally revealed his face to my eyes. I felt the ivory mask slip from my fingers and fall at my feet, as I was met with damaged flesh. It seemed half of his face had been burned, with acid? I’m not sure, but it was a ghastly sight. 

I brought my trembling fingers to his face, slowly, and let my fingers graze the parts of him that I assumed he was insecure about. I slowly touched them, letting myself feel the stretched skin, feel the damaged skin, the way that the damage on his face had marred the perfection that was on the other side of his face. 

“God…” I let out lowly, continuing to trace as if I could read the history behind it. What had happened to him? Who’d done this to him? I blinked and my eyes looked back into his, and I slid my other hand out of his and brought it to his face so that I could hold both sides of his face. Hold the perfect and imperfect sides of him. 

“You’ve carried this burden long enough,” I spoke as both of my hands cupped his face and brought my face closer to his. “You don’t have to wear a mask when you’re with me, Kian. I embrace scars…they bring about humanity.” My eyes flittered between his two eyes and even though I knew that I shouldn’t, even though I knew that I should hate this man with every fibre of my being; I found myself closing the distance between us and pressing my lips to his. 

I closed my eyes as my lips finally met his and I felt my body curl into his. He wrapped both of his arms around me and pulled me so close to him, I feared he wanted to become one with me. He kissed me with the sort of purpose and passion that a dying man would, or was it a man who’d been so shrouded by the weight of concealment, and he was now free? Whatever it was, it made him hold me so tight, made him kiss me so passionately that it felt like I was no longer standing on a balcony, but rather that I was floating in the clouds. 

It was unlike anything I’d ever felt before, and the butterflies in my stomach soared as proud as eagles. My heart was pounding against my chest, and as it pounded, I could feel Kian’s heart pounding as well; and I realised; our hearts beat the same. And in that moment, I knew it then and there…I’d fallen for a man that had done nothing but bring me pain and trauma with his love.