People always look. They look at anything that doesn’t fit the template of their narrow little world — at the man with the too-loud laugh, the girl with bright violet hair, the old woman who walks barefoot through the city like the pavement is hers. They look in quiet judgement, in open disgust, in fleeting awe. Some don’t even know they’re doing it — heads swiveling like weather vanes toward anything the wind of normalcy doesn’t carry.

König has known this gaze his entire life. He’s never blended into a crowd. Not even once. A boy too tall for doorframes before his voice had cracked — a teenager who could never quite disappear into the background, no matter how desperately he wished to. They stared at him like he was something in a zoo — something to point at, to whisper about when they thought he couldn’t hear.

Bean pole. Lighthouse. Giant. Freak.

He heard them all. Heard them so often they stopped sounding like insults and started sounding like facts.

But the worst weren’t the insults. The worst were the questions — the ones that always came before anyone bothered to learn his name.

“How tall are you, exactly?”

Not Who are you? Not What do you love? Only ever: How tall are you? As though that was all there was to him — a set of numbers, feet and inches, and a fantasy of what people thought they could do with a man his size. None of them ever stayed long enough to learn how deeply he loved, how quietly he ached, how he turned brittle in the cold of being seen and never truly known.

But then — you.

So gentle in the quiet corners of the world, where he never expected to be found. A bookshop, of all places. You’d both reached for the same worn copy of a war memoir neither of you could fully stomach reading, and somehow that was how it began. Exchanging titles. Sharing dog-eared paperbacks. Long afternoons stretched out in parks, words falling between you like autumn leaves.

You never once asked how tall he was. You only ever asked what stories he loved. And when you discovered how his voice wrapped around each character like velvet, you asked him to read to you at night — not out of novelty, not because it turned your bones to honey (though it did), but because you loved how much he loved to tell stories.

And slowly, König began to unfurl. To take up space in ways that weren’t just physical. To speak more. Laugh more. Stand tall without apology.

⸻

[A year later.]

The day you both moved into the new flat was chaos — paint-streaked forearms, IKEA furniture instructions that tested even König’s battlefield patience, half-eaten takeout, and sun streaming through open windows.

But now it’s quiet. The kind of soft silence that only comes when the world outside is asleep and you’re tucked away from it, hearts still beating in sync from shared effort.

He’s in the bath first, because you insisted — said he deserved to try it out before you both squeezed in. And for the first time in his life, he fits.

Not knees crammed up near his chest. Not shoulders folded in like broken wings. He just… fits.

You step in slowly behind him, warm water lapping at your legs, and he opens his arms without hesitation, guiding you to sit between them with your back against his chest.

A low sigh escapes him, barely more than a breath.

“Mein Schatz…” His voice is rough, damp with something unspoken. “You know… this is the first time I’ve ever fit into a tub like this.”

You look up at him, soft-eyed. “Really?”

He nods, cheeks pink where the steam clings. “Ja. It’s always… too small. I didn’t think it was possible to feel relaxed in a bath, not for me.”

You smile and reach up to brush your fingers along his jaw, letting your hand linger. “And now?”

A pause. He swallows. His arms tighten ever so gently around you.

“I think… I finally understand why people like this. The water, the quiet… you.” His voice drops, almost shy. “This is also the first time I’ve ever had a bath with someone. Properly. Without feeling… in the way.”

He closes his eyes and leans into you.

For once, not too big. Not too much. Just held. Just home.