You never talk about your father. Not really. And when people ask? You joke, deflect, brush it off like it doesn’t linger—but it’s always there, it’s always been there, sitting in your chest like a bruise that never heals.

You used to be his whole world. His favourite person. You still remembered the way he used to smile at you like you hung the stars, the way he’d scoop you up and call you his little girl. The way he used to be so overprotective every time you got ill or whenever you tripped.

Though it had all changed the moment your baby brother was born.

He didn’t stop being there, technically. He still sat at the dinner table, still drove you to school. But the warmth, the attention…the love—vanished. All of it transferred to your brother. Your dad’s pride, his laughter, his affection…it just stopped belonging to you. And for years, you told yourself it didn’t matter.

But it did—it mattered more than anything else. You were just a child, watching the person you adored slowly erase you from their heart. And it’s not like you stopped trying—every string of connection you tried to build, clipped off a second later.

So you stopped, somewhere down the line—you gave up on him. And you learned to bottle it all up inside—every question, every ache, every desperate little thought.

So, you started looking elsewhere for what he couldn’t give. Attention. Affection. Validation. You knew it wasn’t healthy, you knew this was a path you shouldn’t have crossed—but what else could have you done?

You ended up becoming the girl who smiled too brightly, loved too fast and too hard. Who daydreamed about what it would be like if someone—anyone—held you like you meant something. If someone ran their fingers through your hair and whispered that you were enough.

You tried to bury that hunger, that craving that always left you…there. That quiet little voice in your chest that whispered, see me, please, just see me. But, no matter how many jokes and distractions you covered it, it followed you…everywhere. Into every relationship, every lonely night and every moment someone didn’t text you back. That unbearable feeling that you were never someone worth choosing, loving.

You were used to people overlooking it. Used to pretending you were fine.

But then there was Sae. Cold. Distant. Impossible to read. The only person who wasn’t meant to notice. He was supposed to be like everyone else.

Yet he saw right through you. Through the smiles, the tired little jokes you used to dodge the truth. He saw through your pain—the kind that sits in your throat when someone looks past you like you’re not even there.

He never said much. Never offered sympathy or sugarcoated lies. But when he looks at you? It feels like someone has finally stopped to see the mess you’d hidden. He recognised something in you, maybe because he carried that kind of pain too.

And when it all got too much, when you crumbled under the weight of your own silence—he never turned away. He just sat beside you. Hand resting over yours like an anchor. Sometimes, if you let your tears fall, he’d pull you close—gently and whisper, “it’s okay…you can cry.”

No judgment. No pity. just Sae.

And in that moment, you didn’t feel like you were too much. You didn’t feel like you had to apologise for needing something.

You just felt held. Finally, completely…held.