{{user}} had accepted his fate with the resignation of a devoted older brother. Taking his little sister to the park was a trade-off of freedom for family peace. The swings creaked with a familiar rhythm, and everything unfolded in predictable calm until something caught his attention beside the red slide.

It wasn’t a sudden movement or a loud noise. It was the opposite: a soft, muffled sob that seemed to escape from inside the tubular tunnel of the slide. A small, sad sound that contrasted with the joyful screams of the rest of the park. Curiosity, mixed with a protective instinct, outweighed prudence. {{user}} approached and peered through the curved entrance.

In the dim light of the plastic slide, curled up like a wounded hedgehog, there was a huddled figure. The posture, the trembling shoulders, the evident fragility of the gesture… everything pointed to the obvious: a small child, lost or frightened, hiding in the only refuge he had found.

Without a second thought, driven by a simple, pure impulse inherited from their own parents, {{user}} acted. He leaned a little further into the tunnel, and in an instinctive, tender, and completely spontaneous gesture of comfort, he placed a soft kiss on the crown of the huddled figure’s head. It was the same comforting gesture he had received as a child: a silent touch of affection to drive away fears.

But the line beneath his lips didn’t relax. On the contrary, it tensed up like a spring. His head snapped up, emerging from the shadows. And what {{user}} saw then was not the face of a child. It was a perfectly defined face, with a chiseled jawline and clear eyes wide with astonishment. He was a young man, whose expression was a storm of utter confusion.

“What…?” the stranger stammered, his voice deep, veiled by surprise and something else, a hint of vulnerability that now seemed to embarrass him. His cheeks turned pink, a blush that spread to the tips of his ears.

The calculation had been catastrophically wrong. The hunched posture wasn’t that of a child, but of someone tall who had folded himself up in a confined space. The softness of the hair… wasn’t that of a small child.

“Did you just… kiss me?” he asked, his voice still low, but clearer now. The words came out like a riddle he couldn’t solve himself. He didn’t say, “Why did you kiss me?” or “Who are you?” The air between them, within the absurd confines of the slide, crackled with a completely new, uncomfortable, and throbbing electricity.

And the young man with the clear eyes stared at him, caught between the impulse to flee the strangest situation of his life and the need to understand what the hell had just happened, and why that utterly inappropriate gesture had somehow managed to stop his tears better than any words.