Page 79 of Discordant Cultivation

“I cracked open my ribcage like the spine of a book,

Take a look, take a look at the pages inside…”

The words came out like confessions, like accusations, like someone finally finding language for violations too complex for simple protest. Kieran moved closer to the piano as he performed, drawn by the way Vale’s playing anticipated every emotional shift in his delivery.

By the time he reached the chorus, Kieran was leaning against the piano, close enough to see Vale’s hands dance across ivory with touches that looked almost like caresses.

When the last notes faded, the silence felt charged with something Kieran couldn’t name.

“That’s perfect,” Vale said, voice soft with what sounded like genuine awe. “Anyone who’s ever been told their truth was too uncomfortable will hear themselves in those words.”

Kieran stared at Vale’s face, seeing something there he’d never noticed before. Not the calculating predator or the clinical mentor, but someone genuinely moved by music they’dcreated together. Someone whose smile felt warm and real and completely devoid of agenda.

He gets it. He actually understands what I was trying to say.

The realization hit with stunning force—for the first time since this whole nightmare began, Kieran felt seen. Not as a project or an instrument or a broken boy to be fixed, but as an artist whose work moved someone else to create something beautiful in response.

Before conscious thought could interfere, Kieran was moving. His hands found Vale’s face and he pressed their mouths together with the desperate intensity of a chord finally resolving after months of dissonance—inevitable, necessary, the only note that could possibly come next.

Vale’s hands came up to frame his face, and for a moment the world narrowed to just them—the taste of someone who understood his music, the warmth of arms that held him, the impossible complexity of needing the very person who’d made him need anyone at all.

This is insane.

But the thought was less important than the way Vale kissed him back like something precious and fragile, like a melody he’d been searching for his entire life but never expected to find.

When they broke apart, Kieran remained close, his forehead resting against Vale’s, both of them breathing hard in the music room’s perfect acoustics.

“Kieran,” Vale panted.

I know. I know this is wrong and impossible and exactly what you planned. I know and I don’t care because for thirty seconds I felt like someone understood my music well enough to make it better.

“Play it again,” Kieran said instead of addressing the kiss or its implications. “W-we need to p-play it together again.”

Vale’s smile was soft, genuine, completely free of the triumph Kieran had expected to see.

“Together,” he nodded, hands returning to the keys. “I like the sound of that.”

Hours later, after they’d transformed Kieran’s angry fragments into something raw and beautiful, after Vale had maintained careful distance through dinner despite the kiss that hung between them like a question, after Kieran filled pages in his notebook with refined lyrics while Vale brought him hot chocolate laced with Bailey’s, he felt the mood in the house change.

“I want to monitor you tonight,” Vale said, voice casual as he closed his laptop. “I want to make sure the new medication dosage isn’t causing any breakthrough episodes. You’ll sleep with me.”

Kieran’s pen stilled, every muscle in his body going rigid. The kiss from this afternoon—the one he pretended never happened and Vale had been kind enough to ignore—felt like the trap it probably was. A moment of genuine connection used to justify the next level of violation.

Sleep with him. In his bed. Where he can do whatever he wants…

“I—” Kieran swallowed hard. “Is that n-necessary? I’ve been on the n-new amount and I-I haven’t h-had any episodes since—”

“Yes, monitoring is necessary. The doctor said it takes two weeks to fully adjust to a new dose. I want to make sure it’s working.”

Medical justification. Always medical justification for everything that feels wrong.

Kieran could fake a seizure. He could let his body go rigid and vacant until Vale was forced to administer medication that would render him unconscious until morning. But the idea tasted wrong after weeks of internet strangers claiming he fabricated emergencies for attention.

Plus, Vale had looked genuinely devastated when he’d woken up from the last episode. Sad in ways that seemed too authentic to be performance.

I hate that I care about his feelings. I hate that I don’t want to worry him.

“Okay,” Kieran heard himself agree, closing his notebook with hands that trembled. “If it’s for m-medical reasons.”