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Viktor had always hated January. This time of the year, where the creeping sense of hopelessness stuck onto skin like clamped down jaws. Especially since this was the month he’d met Jayce.

Jayce. Talis. That’s how the man had introduced himself. Viktor had been hooked, as if that man was his dopamine in a needle stuck deep and far into his bloodstream. Viktor had only known him for a few hours, and already devoted his morning train route to scribbling the vulgar descriptions of what exactly he wanted to do to Jayce Talis.

Viktor had been enamored the moment that boy had stepped foot into his office, let alone when he’d rambled and praised Viktor’s forgotten novel, “The Origin of Sickness” (yes, you heard that correctly).

Viktor had waited patiently until he was in the safety of his downtown apartment in Zaun to succumb to the pleasures of his palm while exclusively imagining it was the starry-gazed man he’d met just hours early.

He’d fallen asleep like a dead dog, and woke in the morning to realize he overslept.

While the occasion was rare, it was also devastating— he had missed nearly all of Jayce’s second lecture. The one he swore to attend.

Viktor had scurried from his home, wearing the same clothing, just in time to make it for the last ten minutes of the lecture. He was ashamed, head buried into his hands until it was finally over at Jayce approached him— not to yell, or curse— but to invite him for a walk.

So they walked. Jayce spilled himself open like a deliciously sliced piece of pie. He was not like how Viktor expected him to be. Nothing like the cocky, lingering on a genius of a man Viktor had painted.

It was for the better. “Can I be honest? I’d been scared I’d driven you away.” Jayce spoke, and kept talking. “When you didn’t show up. When something piques my interest…I can’t stop thinking about it.”

A quiet admission. It confirmed everything within Viktor. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you.” Jayce finished speaking.