It had stopped raining by some miracle, but Kai found an awning over an abandoned storefront, and they stood under it. He let go of Bard’s hand but stayed standing near him, so that the mist of their breath mingled in the cold air.

“What did you think?” Kai asked earnestly. “Did you like it?”

“'Five Years’ was... eye-opening. You made me feel the song the way I think Bowie meant for people to feel it.”

Kai ducked his head down, smiling, in that way Bard already thought of as one of his identifying motions.

“But the other song—my song. How did that make you feel?”

He was standing so agonizingly close that in the cold Bard could feel the heat from his skin. And he could imagine the feeling of Kai’s hips against his own, his breath on his neck again. No, not imagine—he actually was feeling it, even though Kai wasn’t touching him. More madness. Everything about being near this boy was mad.

“Like —” Bard began. But could he say it? That the song didn’t make him feel. It made him want. It was too much to say to someone he just met. “I felt like—like you were showing us a tiny sliver of a truth only you understand.”

Kai’s lips turned up slightly in the corners and his eyes, fixed on Bard’s widened slightly, the streetlights catching the amber. Bard forced himself not to look away.

“I wouldn’t have known how to put it like that,” Kai said, “but it’s exactly what I wanted it to feel like.”

“What is it, then?” Bard asked. “The bigger truth?”

Kai dropped his head, and then looked up at Bard through his spare, dark lashes.

“If I knew how to explain it to you, I would,” he said. “Maybe only to you.” He looked up again. “Is that weird? I’m sorry, I know sometimes I just say what I’m thinking and it’s too much.”

“People talk around what they mean so much, being coy, and then nothing happens,” Bard said. “One wonders what could be if everyone just said what was on their minds.”

You know what would be, he thought. You tried to keep him from saying it—that day. You said ‘Please, not here, you don’t need to say it.’

“I knew you’d understand,” Kai said, but he was looking at Bard curiously, as if trying to trace the thought that had just passed through his mind. He let his fingertips brush Bard’s again, bringing him back. “I’d say I don’t know how I knew, but that’d be a lie—I have a sense for these things.”

A tremble brought Bard’s hand closer to Kai’s, and Kai caught hold of his pinky before he could move away again. 

“A sense?”

Kai threw his head back, as if searching the sky for how to answer. “Of what people are feeling. The clearer it is, the more I know that I’ve found someone who will understand me.” He lowered his head, and his pupils widened as he refocused his gaze on Bard’s face. “And your feelings are so clear to me. It’s like I don’t even have to talk for you to understand.” He laughed softly. “Probably better if I didn’t talk, yeah? I know I sound crazy.”

“No,” Bard said. “I’ve been thinking this is all mad, too, but—it explains what I... It explains things.”

Kai grinned fully again. “Ah, there you are—holding back. Not saying what’s really on your mind, I can tell. You don’t have to, though, don’t worry. But you have such a way with words, it would be nice to hear. Not like me and my babbling.”

“A way with....” Bard struggled to maintain hold on his thoughts as Kai gave his hand a little shake, his fingers still wrapped around Bard’s pinky. “How would you know what sort of way I have with words? I’ve been pressed to put two sentences together since I met you.”

“Have you? I suppose it’s just that I know what you want to say. And because of your writing.”

Bard’s lips went suddenly cold. “My writing?”

“Yeah, in MMW. Your music reviews. Cass showed them to me.”

Bard licked his lips. “You’ve read my articles?” he asked, unnecessarily.

Kai bobbed his head enthusiastically. “You’re so honest. No bullshitting around, you know?” And he started swinging his hand that was holding Bard’s, like a kid on a playground. “Are you gonna write something about tonight’s show?”

Bard frowned, suspicion rising as he looked at Kai’s too-ingenuous face. “No. It wasn’t assigned. I just came here to see—because Cass—because she—”

“That’s too bad,” Kai said. “Maybe they’ll let you anyway. That would be amazing—seeing what you said to me just now in print—”

A sudden rush of indignation washed over Bard. He pulled his hand away from Kai’s. “I told you that only for you—just like you were saying you’d tell me what your song meant. But that was an act, wasn’t it?”

Kai drew his dark eyebrows together in concern. “An act? No, I really—”

Bard took a step back. “All of this—those ingenue eyes of yours, the mind-reading nonsense, trying to make me feel special—all an act. And for what? To get you a few lines in Milton Music World?” His voice was low and even, the way he always wished it could be when he spoke to his father, telling him exactly what he thought. “You sell yourself cheap,” he said, and then spun and strode back to the club. 

“Bard, wait!” Kai called after him. “I didn’t—”

But then Bard was inside the club and couldn’t hear him over the music and chatter. Victory was at the bar again, head tipped conspiratorially with the barman’s as she shared her flask with him.

“I have to go,” Bard said, his voice startlingly loud in the din. He was shaking, he realized—with too many emotions to sort out as he stood there.

Victory looked at him questioningly. “What happened?”

“Not now. I just need to leave.”

Kai ran up behind him just then. “Bard, I’m sorry—you have it all wrong. That’s not what I—”

“Excuse me, I have to find my sister,” Bard said, stepping around him. He turned back. “And you better not talk to her again, either.”

Bard found Cass in a group of girls near the stage and put his hand on her shoulder. She turned.

“What do you want, you lump?” she said, annoyed.

“It’s time to go.”

“Go?! It’s not even eleven—”

But she must have recognized the desperation on Bard’s face, because she left off and quietly said goodbye to the other girls. 

The three of them didn’t speak as they passed by Kai, who stood helplessly trying to speak to Bard. They went out into the chill of the Milton night, where it had begun to rain—only lightly, so that the world, cruelly to Bard, seemed to sparkle under the streetlights.