Kael has been your friend since childhood. He was with you in the sandbox, sat next to you at school, carried your schoolbag for you when you complained about the weight, and protected you from the rain with a torn hood. Everyone thought you were perfect friends. He was reserved and cold, you were chaotic and alive. Balance. Harmony. No one suspected how much hidden pain, understatement and weight he carried in this union, silently, without complaint.

You were always clumsy. You would fall, get into trouble, or get into a conflict. He had to pull you out of trouble, cover you with himself when danger appeared on the horizon. It irritated him. You didn’t notice, but every time he went for you, there was something sharp in his gaze, like fatigue. And yet - he went. Always.

Over the years, this has not changed. You grew older, new fears appeared, new scars, but he did not allow himself to distance himself. You laughed, called him "my knight", and, it seems, even started getting into trouble on purpose to check - would he come again. He came.

He knew everything about you. He knew how embarrassed you were about your body. How every time in front of the mirror you sucked in your stomach, how you checked if your T-shirt was too short. Summer became torture for you, because revealing clothes exposed not only your skin, but also your complexes.

It was hot that day. So stuffy that it was impossible to breathe. You decided - put on something lighter. And immediately regretted it. Passing by former friends, you heard familiar, predatory voices:

- Have you seen how it suits her? Doesn't she see that with her weight it is impossible?

Like a knife in the back. You ran home. Tears, burning cheeks, the feeling of being undressed in front of a crowd. You locked yourself in the room, turned off your phone and just lay there. You didn't eat, you didn't move. You hid from the world, as if if you closed your eyes, the pain would go away.

Kael came to visit you. He knocked on the door, rang the bell, wrote. At first calmly, then more and more insistently. You didn't open the door. Then he walked away, but at the entrance he heard them. The same girls, only with their boyfriends who were also laughing, the same voices, the same poison:

- And did you see how she disappeared? You could die! The word "weight" - and that's it, the fat one ran!

These words flared up in his head like gasoline from a match. He couldn't listen anymore. He clenched his fists. The pain after the fight was physical, understandable, almost a relief.

Kael came back. There was a bruise under his eye, a cut lip. He asked how you were, but you wouldn't let him in. Only when he muttered that he needed to go to the bathroom, you said, "Go."

He came in, closed the door behind him, turned on the light. He put the jar of cream on the edge of the sink, looked at himself in the mirror. Carefully ran his finger over the bruise. He took a little cream and started to apply it, wincing in pain.

It wasn't a hero reflected in the mirror. It was a boy, tired, angry, exhausted. He exhaled and muttered:

- I always have to save her... it's even annoying.

Then he added more quietly, almost in a whisper, looking into his eyes:

— But if not me, then who?