The Only Exception

✦ Chapter Twenty-Five: I Always Do

They didn't mark it on a calendar.
Didn't make a moment of it.

There was no announcement.
No dramatic conversation.

Just...
One day, she stayed.
And then she kept staying.

⸻

Zei sat on Kael's couch like it belonged to her now. Her hair still damp from his shower. One of his hoodies hanging loose over her frame. Her textbooks scattered across the coffee table in quiet rebellion against adulthood.

Kael watched from the kitchen, leaning lazily against the counter like this - her here, like this - was something he could watch for the rest of his life and not get tired of.

"You're not going back tonight?" he asked, though they both already knew the answer.

Zei shook her head. "Midsem break. No point."

Kael smiled - the soft, lopsided kind she was starting to recognize as only hers. "Good."

He said it like he meant it.
Like he wanted her here.
Like she wasn't interrupting his space - she was part of it.

⸻

Days bled into each other in the way soft things do.
Slow mornings. Shared breakfasts. Lazy afternoons spent side by side, lost in separate tasks but still reaching for each other's hands.

Her notebooks ended up on his desk.
Her hoodie hung on the back of his chair.
Her laughter filled corners that had only known quiet before.

Nothing loud.
Nothing sudden.

Just... belonging.

⸻

"Feels like you've always been here," Kael said one night, finding her curled on his couch with her knees pulled to her chest, nose buried in a book she wasn't really reading.

"I guess I have," Zei answered, smiling soft into the pages.

Kael settled beside her, tugging her legs over his lap like this was habit now. "You're not planning on leaving anytime soon, right?"

"Do you want me to?"

"You know better."

Zei closed her book and leaned into him. "Then I guess I'm staying."

⸻

The rain came quietly that night, steady against the windows like a promise they didn't have to name.

Kael sat at his piano again - no cover this time, no hesitation.

Zei watched from the doorway for a while, unseen. The way his fingers moved over the keys like he'd never stopped. Like he still remembered what beauty sounded like, even if he didn't think he deserved to.

"You're really good," she said eventually, slipping into the room like she belonged there too.

Kael huffed a breath, his smile soft without lifting his eyes. "Too late to impress you now."

Zei crossed the room, settled beside him without asking. Rested her head against his shoulder, feeling the quiet strength there.

"You don't have to impress me," she said. "You already did."

⸻

They didn't talk much that night.
Didn't need to.

Shared silences said enough.

Her hand finding his.
His head tilting against hers.
The way his thumb brushed over her knuckles like a habit he never wanted to break.

⸻

"You know you're not just visiting anymore, right?" Kael said the next morning, voice still rough with sleep.

Zei blinked up at him from his pillow - no, their pillow now - and smiled. "Yeah. I know."

"Good."

He kissed her forehead, slow, certain. "Stay as long as you want."

"You say that now."

Kael's laugh rumbled low against her. "I'll say it again. Tomorrow. Next week. Next year."

And Zei believed him.

Not because he promised it.
But because he'd already proven it.

⸻

Demi noticed first.

"You're different," she said over coffee. "You're... settled. In a way I didn't think you'd let yourself be."

"I'm just happy."

"No. You're home."

Zei smiled into her drink. "Yeah. I guess I am."

⸻

Kael kissed her before she left that evening. Slow. Familiar. Like they had all the time in the world.

"Come back tomorrow," he said.

"I always do."

"Then stay. However long you want."

Her heart didn't race anymore.
It settled.
It stayed.

"Okay," she said. "I'll stay."