Destiny's Game* Chapter 54: Loving from the Sidelines

Alexander’s POV

I’d beco part of a small gang — nothing grand, nothing organized, just a group of lost kids pretending we were dangerous so no one would look too closely at how scared we actually were. I drew my first tattoos with shaking hands and stolen ink, lines that weren’t straight but felt permanent anyway. Each mark was a quiet rebellion, a promise to myself that I belonged to sothing — even if that sothing was broken.

Withdrawing was harder than getting in.

It ant cutting off people who had started to feel like armor. It ant learning how to be bored again without destroying myself for stimulation. It ant fighting the itch in my palms whenever anger crawled up my spine and demanded violence as release.

And through all of that...

Charles stayed.

He didn’t threaten .

Didn’t sha .

Didn’t beg.

He just waited.

And sohow, that patience did more damage to my bad habits than any punishnt ever could.

It was around then that he introduced to Louis.

Louis looked like a saint.

And, infuriatingly, he acted like one too.

He was seventeen — two years older than — with calm eyes and a asured voice, the kind of boy who didn’t raise his tone when he was angry because he never learned the need to. The kind of boy you could bring ho to your parents without bracing for impact. Clean. Polite. Untouched by the things that had already softened my edges into scars.

From the very first eting, I felt it.

His disapproval.

He watched like I was a temporary mistake in Charles’s life. Sothing inconvenient that would eventually be corrected. He didn’t insult . He didn’t threaten .

That would’ve been easier.

Instead, he was quiet about it.

Controlled.

Distant.

And sohow that hurt more.

He didn’t approve of our friendship.

Not openly.

But I saw it in the tight way his jaw set when Charles laughed with . In the way his eyes lingered on my tattoos just a second too long. In the silence that fell whenever I entered a room he already occupied.

Louis didn’t think I was good for Charles.

And, for the first ti in a long while, I wondered if maybe... he was right.

But none of that stopped the feelings I had for Charles.

If anything, it made them grow faster — louder — more reckless.

Loving him felt inevitable, like gravity. Like sothing my body chose long before my mind was brave enough to admit it. I watched him without aning to. morized the way his brows furrowed when he was thinking. The way he smiled without showing his teeth when he was tired. The way his voice softened when he said my na.

I told myself it was nothing.

Just attachnt.

Just gratitude.

Just habit.

But lies rot from the inside.

I realized soon enough...

My feelings were one-sided.

At first, it was subtle. Easy to ignore.

Then it wasn’t.

Charles’s feelings for Louis stopped hiding themselves from us — from , from Anna, from Daniel. From the whole world.

He started learning to bake.

Charles, who once burned instant noodles, stood in the kitchen for hours just to perfect whatever pastry Louis casually ntioned liking once. He crushed eggshells into batter with clumsy hands and laughed when flour dusted his hair. He searched recipes late into the night like it was so sacred mission.

And when he finally brought the results to Louis — nervous, hopeful — his eyes shone in a way I had never seen them shine for anyone else.

He listened to Louis the way people listened to sermons. With full attention. With devotion. With belief.

Every word Louis spoke mattered.

Every opinion shaped him.

Every smile redirected his entire day.

And I...

I beca background noise.

I watched it happen slowly, like watching a door close in inches instead of slamming shut. I watched as Charles leaned closer to Louis than he ever leaned to . Watched as his laughter changed pitch around him. Watched as his world rearranged itself with Louis quietly placed at the center.

It wasn’t jealousy that hurt the most.

It was understanding.

The terrible, gentle understanding that you can be loved deeply by soone...

And still never be the one they choose.

I didn’t hate Louis for it.

That was the cruelest part.

Because I saw it — the way he tried not to smile too much, the way he pretended not to notice how hard Charles was trying. The way he pretended distance even as his eyes betrayed warmth.

They were falling into each other naturally.

Softly.

Inevitably.

And I was standing just close enough to feel the warmth — but never close enough to be held by it.

So I did what I had taught myself to do long ago.

I swallowed it.

Buried it.

Smiled like it didn’t break sothing inside every single day.

Because loving Charles ant wanting him happy.

Even if his happiness never ca with in it.

That was the truth I never said out loud:

I hurt.

Constantly.

Quietly.

But I forced myself to be happy for him.

Because they really did look in love. Not the loud, reckless kind I was used to — but the soft kind. The kind built in glances and shared silence and the way Charles started to smile before Louis even spoke.

Every ti I saw them together, sothing in my chest tightened like a fist closing around my lungs. I couldn’t stand too close without feeling it — that sharp, sinking ache right beneath my ribs. The kind that doesn’t scream, but never truly fades either.

So I stepped back.

Further and further.

Until one day, I realized I wasn’t just distancing myself from Charles.

I was running from the boy I’d been when I first loved him.

And I couldn’t be that boy anymore.

At eighteen, I made my choice.

I walked in my grandfather’s footsteps.

The military didn’t ask to feel.

It didn’t care what I was afraid of.

It only cared that I obeyed.

That suited just fine.

I traded cigarettes for drills.

Alcohol for exhaustion.

Helplessness for discipline.

Pain beca sothing with rules.

Sothing I could asure.

Sothing I could survive.

The day I left, Charles stood at the station with that sa worried crease between his brows.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

I smiled at him the way I always did when I was lying.

"Yeah. I am."

Louis stood a step behind him — watchful, unreadable. The saint with silver shadows in his eyes. The man who had quietly taken the place in Charles’s heart I would never touch.

Neither of them knew the real reason I was leaving.

That staying near them hurt too much.

That loving Charles from the sidelines was slowly killing .

So I chose a different kind of danger.

When the bus pulled away, I didn’t look back.

Because I knew if I did —

I might not leave at all.

The bus was filled with all kinds of individuals — different faces, different voices, different ways of sitting with their nerves — but we all had one thing in common:

A story.

A history.

Sothing we were running from... or toward.

So of them talked too much, laughing too loudly like they were afraid silence would expose what they were really feeling. So stared out the windows with clenched jaws, pretending they weren’t leaving a whole life behind. Others slept with their heads against the glass, already exhausted before it even began.

I sat near the back, hands resting on my knees, feeling the vibration of the engine travel up my bones.

My grandfather had been proud.

He didn’t show it with hugs or tears. n like him didn’t do that. But the way he stood a little straighter that morning, the way his hand lingered on my shoulder half a second longer than necessary — that was his version of pride.

"You’ll make it," he told .

Not good luck.

Not be careful.

Just a certainty.

My mother, on the other hand...

She was afraid.

Her eyes had followed from the doorway to the gate like she was already watching a ghost walk away. She tried to be strong for — like she always tried to be — but her hands shook when she fixed the collar of my jacket.

"rember to keep in touch." she whispered.

I nodded.

I didn’t promise.

Because promises had never ant much in my life.

As the bus pulled onto the highway, I watched the city shrink through the window until it beca nothing but blur and dust. And for the first ti since I was a child, I felt sothing unfamiliar settle in my chest.

Not fear.

Not anger.

Uncertainty.

Training shattered every illusion I’d ever had about the military.

It wasn’t the righteous world of honor and flags I’d imagined as a kid watching my grandfather polish his dals.

It wasn’t the corrupt nightmare my father always sneered about either.

It was sothing far more complicated.

It was a place where good n followed bad orders.

Where bad n hid behind good intentions.

Where discipline could save you... or hollow you out.

Pain was constant.

So was routine.

We woke before the sun.

We ran until our lungs burned.

We learned how to break bodies and rebuild them again — sotis our own.

No one cared who I’d been before.

No one cared who I loved.

No one cared what I carried in my chest.

All that mattered was whether I could keep going.

And I did.

Day after day.

Bruise after bruise.

Scar after scar.

So nights, lying on the thin bunk with my muscles screaming and my hands still shaking from exertion, I thought of Charles.

I imagined him sowhere warm, maybe in a kitchen dusted with flour, baking for Louis the way he always did. I imagined him smiling softly, listening to that saint with shadows like he was listening to music.

Sotis that thought hurt.

Sotis it kept alive.

The military didn’t make righteous.

It didn’t make corrupt.

It made ... balanced on a blade between the two.

I learned how to follow orders.

I learned how to think before I struck.

I learned how to hide everything that made human behind professionalism and control.

But no matter how hard I trained —

No matter how far I ran —

I never completely outran the boy I had been.

The one who loved Charles quietly.

The one who left because staying hurt too much.

And maybe that was the real lesson the military never taught :

You can survive war.

You can survive violence.

You can survive even yourself.

But the past?

The past never truly stands down.

I didn’t expect to rise so quickly.

In a world built on hierarchy and endurance, favor was sothing that usually took years to earn — or blood to buy. Yet sohow, within a year, my na was being spoken with sothing close to respect. Orders ca easier. Eyes followed longer. Commanders watched like I was becoming sothing they hadn’t fully decided how to use yet.

I should’ve been proud.

But pride is a hollow thing when the people who once mattered most to you are far away.

The news didn’t reach through official channels. It ca the way most real truths do — quietly, through soone who still rembered my heart.

Anna.

Her ssage arrived late at night while the barracks were dim and quiet, the air thick with sweat and disinfectant. I sat on my bunk, boots still on when my phone vibrated.

Her na lit up the screen like a ghost from another life.

For a mont, I just stared at it.

Then I opened it.

Charles and Louis aren’t together anymore.

The words didn’t make sense at first. They sat on the screen like a foreign language my mind refused to translate.

They were fated.

My fingers tightened around the phone.

What do you an? I typed.

The three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again. Then—

Louis rejected him.

The room felt like it tilted.

Rejected.

Not drifted apart.

Not separated by circumstance.

Rejected.

My chest tightened in a way no physical training ever had the power to match. I could lift steel. I could endure hours without rest. I could take pain without flinching.

But that word ripped through effortlessly.

Because I knew Charles.

I knew how deeply he loved.

How completely he gave himself once he chose soone.

Being rejected by a stranger would hurt.

Being rejected by a fated mate?

That would destroy sothing essential.

My hands shook as I typed again.

How is he?

The reply took longer this ti. Too long.

He’s pretending he’s okay.

That was all Anna wrote.

But it was more than enough.

Because Charles had always pretended he was fine even when he was breaking apart. He hid his pain behind soft smiles and gentle hands and quiet acceptance. He swallowed his hurt so others wouldn’t have to choke on it.

And I could picture him perfectly — still baking, still caring, still listening — with sothing inside him now permanently cracked.

I pressed my phone to my chest like it might ease the ache.

I wanted to run.

To abandon post.

To board the first vehicle out and go to him the way I should’ve years ago.

But I couldn’t.

The military doesn’t pause for broken hearts.

Orders don’t bend for regret.

For the first ti since I enlisted, the uniform felt like chains.

I stayed awake that night long after the lights went out. The ceiling above was blank concrete, but all I saw was the boy who once crushed a cigarette beneath his shoe and told I didn’t get to die.

The boy who had chosen Louis instead of .

The boy who had just been turned away by destiny itself.

And the worst part?

A shaful, aching truth curled inside my chest alongside the grief:

So small, selfish part of whispered—

Now he’s free.

The thought made feel sick.

Because I didn’t want Charles free if freedom ca wrapped in devastation. I didn’t want my chances to be built on his heartbreak.

I wanted to be there for him the way he’d always been there for .

But all I could do was stand on opposite sides of the world and bleed silently into my pillow like a coward.

That night, I didn’t think about war.

I didn’t think about orders.

I didn’t even think about my future.

I only thought about Charles.

Alone.

Rejected.

Still pretending to be okay.

And I knew — with a certainty that terrified more than any battlefield ever had —

That if fate had broken him once...

It would co for him again.