The Only Exception

✦ Chapter Six: The Space Between Almost and More

Zei wasn't sure when it became a habit.

The texting.
The late-night phone calls that weren't really phone calls, just stretches of silence punctuated by "You still there?" and her soft, tired laugh on the other end.

The way Kael showed up in her days now - uninvited, unexpected, but never unwelcome.

They didn't talk about it. Not really.

About why he kept texting first.
About why she kept replying.
About why he seemed to know when she was walking home alone, needing someone to fill the gap between loneliness and arrival.

It wasn't friendship in the ordinary sense.
And it wasn't love.
Not yet.
Not even close.

Just... something she didn't have words for yet.

⸻

Kael: Made it back?
Zei: Home an hour ago. Why?
Kael: Checking.
Zei: You're not subtle.
Kael: Didn't try to be.

⸻

Reid noticed first.
He wasn't dense. Loud, yes. Playful, absolutely. But not oblivious.

"Since when are you... smiling at your phone like that?"
"Like what?"
"Like you're hiding something scandalous."
"I'm not hiding anything scandalous."
"Zei."
"It's really nothing."

Reid narrowed his eyes like he didn't believe her, but dropped it with a shrug.
Demi, watching from her side of the room with quiet amusement, said nothing at all.
She didn't need to.

Zei caught the glance Demi gave her - the kind best friends shared without words, that translated roughly to: Oh, I see where this is going. I'll say 'I told you so' later.

⸻

It wasn't complicated.

Kael wasn't in her orbit the way Reid and Demi were. He didn't belong to the same routines, the same places.
He wasn't part of her world, not really.

But he showed up anyway.

In texts. In train stations.
In the soft spaces between one day and the next.

Zei: Don't you have better things to do than text me?
Kael: Probably.
Zei: Then why?
Kael: I want to.

Simple.
Like breathing.
Like gravity.

⸻

When they met again, it wasn't because of a program. Not another event or shared responsibility.

Just... her, stepping off the train on a Sunday when she could've stayed home.
And him, already there. Waiting like it was obvious he would be.

"You didn't say you'd come," Zei said, startled, adjusting the strap of her bag.
"You didn't say I couldn't."

No plans. No destination.
Just walking side by side like they'd done it a hundred times before.

The city was louder here. Not hers - his.
Different rhythms. Different strangers.

But Kael moved like he belonged, and somehow, by walking next to him, she did too.

⸻

"You always this quiet?" she teased eventually, breaking the silence that stretched comfortably between them.
"You always this nosy?"
"You like it."
"Debatable."
"Still answering though."
"Still asking though."

It wasn't flirting, not really.
It was... something softer. Somewhere between curiosity and comfort.

⸻

They ended up nowhere in particular. A park not remarkable except for how peaceful it felt, tucked between streets too busy to notice it existed. The kind of place people passed through but rarely stopped to really look at.

Zei sat on the steps of an empty fountain, fingers tracing absent circles on the worn stone. Kael sat beside her, elbows on his knees, head tilted back like he was listening for something only he could hear.

"What are we doing here?" she asked eventually, eyes on the sky, not on him.
"Existing," he said.
"Profound."
"Cheap therapy."

She smiled despite herself.

"Is this how you usually spend your Sundays? Brooding in public spaces?"
"Only when you're around to ruin the mood."

Her laugh startled a smile out of him - fleeting, but real.

⸻

They didn't touch. Not really. Not yet.
But their shoulders almost did.

The space between them wasn't distance. It was... patience.

"You think too much," Kael said, voice quieter now, less teasing.
"And you don't think enough."
"Balance," he said simply.

⸻

She wondered, sometimes, if he meant things the way she heard them.
If beneath his calm exterior there was more - something bruised, something hopeful, something reaching for her in the quiet.

"Why are you still here, Kael?" she asked. Not accusing. Just... curious.
"Still figuring that out," he answered.

⸻

Maybe that's what this was.
Not love. Not yet.
But the space between almost and more.

And neither of them seemed in any hurry to leave it.