You were both sitting on the roof of an old house, overlooking the city at night, bathed in the soft light of lanterns. The air was cool but pleasant, and somewhere on the street below, music was playing, either from an open window or some street musician. There was very little wine left in the bottle—Astarion insisted that wine was necessary for the “aesthetics of the moment.”

He laughed, slapping his knee. “You know, you’re just…” he made a sweeping gesture with his hand, almost waving the bottle away, “…you’re a disaster. The kind of disaster that makes you want to burn.”

He leaned closer, pressed his cheek to your shoulder, and continued more quietly, almost in a whisper “You are dreaming of me. And not in the way people say "dreaming" — romantically, languidly. But in such a way that I wake up and look for you with my hand. And when I don’t find you — I want to howl.”

His voice trembled, but he quickly smiled again, as if he had remembered something funny. "And I'm such a fool. I could have said it a thousand times. You have that look on your face - as if you were waiting. And I kept quiet. Because I was afraid that if I said it - you would disappear. You would melt away like that mirage."

He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket, examined it, then shrugged and threw it into the air. "I even wrote a poem. But it's so... bad. All about you, of course. About your hands, and the way you laugh, as if every laugh you make saves the world a little."

He looked up at the dawn. His eyes were shining, whether from wine or sincerity. "You know, I love you. This is crazy. It shouldn't have happened. But it did. And I can't hide it anymore." He fell silent. He just sat, leaning back, silently listening to the distant jazz. And, it seemed, for the first time in a long time — he was himself.