Kai didn’t remember how he got to the room he was staying in, but found himself standing in the middle of it, breathing hard. 

He grips his chest, wrinkling his shirt with his sweaty hands, his neck cold with perspiration. 

Countless emotions swirl inside him, threatening to burst out. Sadness, anxiety, anger, relief, fear all tighten in his torso like a vise. As his breathing becomes panicked, he frantically tries to grip onto anything that would help calm him down. 

He began counting the bricks that lay outside his window, framing his view, but there weren’t enough, so he soon ran out of them to count. He desperately looks around for something else, anything else, his vision becoming speckled with stars at the lack of oxygen his body isn’t holding onto. 

Hurrying to the bathroom, he climbs in the tub, shoes and all, and turns on the water, kneeling to dunk his head. When the cold isn’t enough to shock him, he brings a bucket and fills it, dumping it over his entire body. 

Gasping, the jolt of the cold causing his mind to go blank, he sets down the bucket. Closing his eyes, he can feel his heart beating out of control, but now he has enough mindfulness to concentrate on his breathing. 

‘Breathe in’ He inhales through his nose, counting to five slowly, holding it for a moment, forcing himself to be aware of his fingers, following his bones up his arm. 

‘Breathe out’ Pushing the breath out of his mouth, he makes himself feel the clothes brushing his back, the hair tickling his face. In doing so, he can focus on the present and reset his state of mind. 

After several minutes of just breathing, he opens his eyes to see the bucket in his hands, the water dripping slowly from his hair, his chest pounding a little less than before. 

‘Wonderful’ he thinks bitterly. Another panic attack. He’s been having one everyday since he arrived here, the stress keeping him from proper sleep and suppressing his appetite. 

Looking up, he glances around the room, the clean corners, no peeling paint, and sits down in the tub. 

‘This place is too clean for me’ 

Kai was not used to luxury, he was used to anything but. Born in the streets of his hometown, he was one of many mouths his parents had to feed and was forced into labor at an early age. He knew the taste of moldy bread, the bite of a winter night in rags, and the fear of being abandoned in favor of one less mouth to feed. Every day was a hard existence for him, and he knew nothing else. 

None of this shiny, clean surrounding he’s found himself in. None of the kind smiles the servants gave him. The smell of fresh laundered clothes. The freedom.

Kai could not piece together if he was happy or devastated to be surrounded as such. For these amenities usually come at a price too large for him to bear. 

‘What is this woman trying to do?’ This too, has been running in his mind ever since he got here. 

Exhaling and brushing his hair out of his face, he keeps still, willing himself to be calm. 

In all his years, he has only been surrounded by what others chose for him, only done what others told him to do, only felt when he was allowed to feel. Yet, this woman was offering him a life of his own choices? She had to have known how suspicious this sounded. 

‘Yes- all the more because she knows all about my life.’ He closes his eyes.

A familiar face focuses into view within his mind. 

‘Kai, you’re always so stubborn in the wrong ways. You defend others, and yet you never open up to people!’ 

A hearty laugh as he shifts on his heels, the grass crunching beneath dark brown leather boots. The exhale of breath from laughter brings the scent of spearmint leaves that Chryllis likes to chew so much. 

He always says it’s for the ladies. He never wants a lady he’s interested in to tell him his breath stinks. Kai had wondered what lady caught his eye this time.

‘It took me three years for you to even exchange more than a couple words with me!’ Clear blue eyes crinkle with mirth as they look at him, Kai’s memory clear in his mind’s eye. 

‘But you know, you should be kinder to yourself- allow yourself to make new connections.’ Fiery copper hair shifts in the breeze of the summer day, drying some of the sweat forming on the men’s faces.

‘You never know what kind of people you need in your life. To help heal the wounds in your heart.’ His voice takes on a gentle tone, his face going a bit somber. 

‘To set you free.’ Lights dance in Chryllis’s eyes as he spread his fingers wide. Kai recognized the light as hope. They used to joke that when he thought he had a chance with a beautiful woman, the hope would fill him from the inside until his eyes were bursting with it. 

It seemed they were, in that moment.

Back to the present, Kai began to shiver as his damp clothes cooled his skin, pulling him out of his memory. 

‘I should watch her for now to figure out what kind of person she is.’ He opens his eyes again, feeling stiff as he straightens himself a bit, the fabric stretching taut across his skin.

‘You’d be proud of me, my friend.’ His heart stinging with the thought he’ll never see his best friend again.