Chapter Text
Fourth’s eyes drifted over Gemini as he leaned over the desk, brow furrowed in concentration, fingers tapping lightly against the keys. The morning light spilled across the room, tracing the line of Gemini’s jaw, the curve of his shoulders, and the faint rise and fall of his back as he shifted between sitting and leaning. Fourth’s gaze lingered a little longer than he intended, memorizing the slope of Gemini’s neck, the soft muscles in his arms, the way his hair fell just so when he bent forward.
He couldn’t help the small, affectionate smile tugging at his lips. “How does someone manage to be this focused and this… gorgeous at the same time?” Fourth murmured under his breath, voice lost to the quiet hum of the room.
Every so often, Gemini would stretch or lean back, and Fourth’s chest fluttered at the simple, effortless motions—tiny glimpses of him that felt intimate even in their ordinary, unspoken rhythm.
As Fourth’s gaze lingered on Gemini, a sudden flicker in his mind pulled him back to the black void. He saw the boy in the glass box again—the desperate, tear-streaked figure hunched over scraps of paper, writing frantically. The posture, the slight slump of the shoulders, even the way the hands moved, mirrored Gemini’s stance perfectly.
Fourth blinked, shaking his head slightly. “Ugh... I must be insane,” he muttered under his breath, though a chill ran down his spine. He knew it was just his mind projecting, a shadow of fear and wonder twisting Gemini into the image of the boy from the void.
Fourth leaned back against the pillows, running a hand over his face, trying to shake the lingering unease. Gemini, oblivious, typed and hummed softly, the ordinary grounding Fourth back in the warmth and light of reality—and away from the haunting memory of that trapped boy.
Then, his phone buzzed sharply on the bedside table. He picked it up and squinted at the screen—Satang.
“Meeting up for moot prep, right?” the message read.
Fourth glanced at the clock, the late morning light spilling over Gemini’s desk. He sighed, reluctantly tearing his eyes away from Gemini. “I have to go meet Satang… moot prep,” he muttered, stretching a little as he rose from the bed.
Gemini looked up, one eyebrow raised, a small smirk playing on his lips. “Already? You’re leaving me already?” he teased, though his tone carried a subtle, sleepy reluctance.
Fourth chuckled, running a hand through his hair. “Yeah… Satang won’t let me slack off, unfortunately.” He moved to grab his bag, but paused, looking back at Gemini. “I’ll be back soon. Don’t get into trouble while I’m gone.”
Gemini’s grin softened, and he leaned back, stretching one arm lazily. “Try not to work too hard,” he said with a wink, making Fourth smile despite himself.
Fourth shook his head, grabbing his coat. “No promises,” he muttered playfully, though in his chest he felt a quiet pull to rush back, to return to the warmth and chaos of Gemini’s presence.
When Fourth arrived at Satang’s house, Satang was already hunched over a stack of case notes, typing furiously, papers were strewn across the dining table, laptops hummed.
“Finally,” Satang muttered without looking up, a strand of hair falling across their forehead. “I thought I’d have to start this without you.”
Fourth set his bag down, rubbing the back of his neck. “You didn’t wait for me?”
Satang glanced up briefly, smirking. “You’re late, but I’ve made some progress. Let’s dive in—no time to waste.”
Fourth immediately made a beeline for the kitchen, rummaging through the cupboards for a mug and coffee. The familiar clink of dishes and the smell of coffee grounds gave him a little comfort before starting work.
Satang, already perched at the table with his laptop open, glanced up with a teasing grin. “Wow, straight for the caffeine, huh? Can’t even say hello before your life depends on a cup of coffee?”
Fourth shot him a mock glare over his shoulder, spooning sugar into his mug. “Hey, priorities, okay?”
Satang laughed, shaking his head.
Fourth just smirked, pouring the hot water over the grounds.
As soon as Fourth had his coffee, he and Satang spread out their materials across the kitchen table—casebooks, statutory texts, and notes from previous commercial law classes.
Satang opened Chitty on Contracts with a flourish. “Right, Fourth. Let’s look at the duty of care and foreseeability issue first. Look at the Caparo principles—this could be our angle.”
Fourth leaned over, tapping on highlighted paragraphs. “Also consider Photo Production Ltd v Securicor. Their approach to exclusion clauses could turn the defendant’s argument on its head if we frame it correctly.”
They spent hours in intense focus, cross-referencing the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999, highlighting key points in Sale of Goods Act 1979, and drafting skeleton arguments. Satang would point out a precedent, Fourth would counter with another case interpretation. Arguments ping-ponged across the table, often interrupted by quiet chuckles when one of them exaggerated a clause for effect.
Refills of coffee kept their energy steady, while a few hastily grabbed biscuits disappeared between note-taking sessions. Sticky notes sprouted everywhere. Occasionally, Satang would smirk at Fourth. “Are you seriously arguing implied terms again?” Fourth just grinned back. “You have to look at it from my point of view.”
By the time evening rolled around they had covered most of the moot problem and Fourth was shifting constantly in his chair, crossing and uncrossing his legs, grimacing as the pressure in his bladder became impossible to ignore.
Fourth shifted uncomfortably in his seat, realizing he desperately needed a break. “Uh… Satang, I’ll be right back,” he muttered, pushing his chair away from the cluttered table.
Satang barely looked up, absorbed in a tangle of case notes. “Don’t take too long,” he called over his shoulder, smirking. Fourth groaned softly and made his way carefully toward Satang’s room, where the bathroom was.
Once he relieved himself, Fourth zipped up and pushed open the bathroom door, stepping back into Satang’s bedroom. The room smelled faintly of books and coffee, cluttered with notes and papers spread across the desk. As he passed the dresser, his eyes caught the reflection in the mirror hanging above it.
Something about it made him pause. The mirror wasn’t anything unusual at first glance, just a standard rectangular piece framed in dark wood—but Fourth’s gaze lingered, drawn by a subtle shimmer in the glass, a light that didn’t belong to the overhead bulb.
He leaned a fraction closer, squinting. For a moment, all he saw was his own tired, slightly disheveled reflection. Then, almost imperceptibly, the surface rippled like water, subtle waves flowing across his reflection.
He froze. The glass shimmered unnaturally, bending and folding his image as if the mirror itself were liquid. Fourth leaned closer, mesmerized and horrified all at once. He had seen mirrors reveal words before, hints of the story bleeding into reflective surfaces—but this… this was something entirely new.
Tentatively, he reached out a hand. The ripples responded, spreading outward from his fingertips like droplets in a pond. His reflection wavered, stretching and twisting, and for a brief second he thought he could see not himself, but shapes, shadows, letters swirling just beneath the surface.
“Okay… what the hell?” he muttered, voice low and shaky. He pulled back, heart hammering, marveling at the mirror behaving like liquid, alive in a way that defied everything he thought he knew about his world.
Fourth hesitated, hand hovering just above the rippling surface. The mirror undulated under his fingers like a living pool, tempting him. Curiosity outweighed caution. He pressed lightly—and felt nothing but cool liquid give way, flowing around his hand instead of stopping it.
Heart racing, he pushed further. His palm, then wrist, then entire arm slipped through the glass as if it were water. A shiver ran through him, equal parts fear and exhilaration. He could feel the strange pull of the other side, soft and insistent, inviting him to step through.
“Holy… no way,” he whispered, his breath catching. Tentatively, he leaned forward, one leg following the other, until his whole body slid through the surface. The mirror seemed to swallow him, cool ripples brushing against his skin, bending light and space around him.
As Fourth stepped through the mirror, the world of Satang’s bedroom dissolved instantly. Solid walls, carpet, and furniture vanished, replaced by the suffocating black of the void he had been visiting in his dreams. The air felt heavy yet fluid, the endless darkness stretching in every direction.
Everything was as he remembered from his recurring dreams—the eerie quiet, the sense of infinite space—but this time, there was no faint glow of the boy scribbling, no sobs echoing through the blackness. Just him, suspended in the void, weightless and untethered.
Fourth’s heartbeat quickened. He took a tentative step forward, the emptiness responding like a liquid canvas to his movements. The familiarity of it was both comforting and unsettling, like returning to a place he had known intimately yet never truly understood.
“This… this is exactly like before,” he whispered, his voice swallowed by the void.
Fourth drifted through the black expanse, every step echoing faintly in the oppressive silence. He called out tentatively, his voice swallowed almost instantly. “Hello? Are you here?”
He moved past the familiar shapes of nothing—shifting shadows, the formless stretch of the void—and instinctively sought the glass box, the fragile prison where he’d seen the boy scribbling. But no matter how far he walked, how carefully he scanned every inch of darkness, it wasn’t there.
“Where… where did you go?” he whispered.
Fourth’s heart jumped as a faint glow appeared in the distance, the familiar shimmer teasing hope in his chest. He floated toward it, anticipation building, every step reverberating in the emptiness. “Finally… it’s him,” he whispered, reaching out.
But as he drew closer, his breath caught. A shiver ran down his spine. This wasn’t the boy. This wasn’t the familiar presence of the author crying over his pages.
It wasn’t just one box. Row after row, glass boxes stretched endlessly in every direction, each softly lit from within. And inside each one, someone lay curled up, asleep, pale and still, as though suspended in time.
Fourth blinked, disoriented. His mind raced. “What… what is this?” he muttered, hovering above the first row. Every box reflected a dim, distorted glow, the occupants silent and fragile. None stirred, none moved, and yet the sheer number made the emptiness around him feel even heavier, more infinite.
Fourth hovered above the boxes, his fingers brushing the cold surface of one. It felt smooth, solid, and yet fragile, as if one wrong touch could shatter it entirely. He floated back, trying to process it.
He floated closer, heart hammering in his chest, and his stomach twisted. One by one, he recognized the figures inside the glass boxes—versions of himself. Each box held a Fourth frozen in sleep, in some subtle variation, almost identical to how he looked right now.
“No… no, this… this can’t be real,” he whispered, his voice trembling, swallowed almost instantly by the void. He reached out to touch one of the boxes, his hand hovering just above the surface, and felt the chill of impossibility. Every fiber of his being screamed against what he was seeing.
“Why… why am I… in all these boxes?” His mind raced, trying to stitch together some rational explanation. Were these potential versions of him? Alternate timelines? Or… was this some cruel recording by the same author who had written his life?
A wave of vertigo hit him, and he felt unmoored, as though the ground beneath him had vanished. He spun, looking for the familiar shimmer of the boy in the glass box—the author—but there was nothing. Only endless rows of himself, unconscious, unreachable, and the dim light stretching into the void.
“None of this makes sense,” he muttered, voice tight. His hands trembled as he floated between the rows, eyes scanning for any clue, any anomaly that could explain this.
Fourth’s chest tightened almost unbearably, his breaths coming in short, jagged gasps. His vision blurred at the edges, the endless rows of glass boxes spinning around him like a carousel of impossibility. The air—or the nothingness—felt heavy, suffocating, pressing in on him from all sides.
He stumbled backward, though there was no floor, his hands flailing through the void as if grabbing at some anchor that didn’t exist. His heartbeat hammered painfully against his ribs, each beat echoing like a drum in the silent, infinite black.
“No… no, this isn’t real… this isn’t real…” he choked out, tears springing to his eyes. Panic clawed up his throat, hot and suffocating. His limbs shook violently, muscles stiffening, and a cold sweat broke across his forehead.
He sank to what felt like the ground, curling in on himself, hugging his knees, trying to breathe steadily, though the air—or lack thereof—made it nearly impossible. His mind raced, flitting between questions he couldn’t answer and fear that had no origin.
Fourth squeezed his eyes shut, rocking slightly, trying to will the panic to recede. “Calm… just… calm,” he whispered shakily, though the void swallowed his words instantly. He didn’t know if he could stay here, if he could face what he was seeing, or even if he’d ever escape.
His vision blurred, swimming with shadows and reflections, until he could barely distinguish his own trembling body from the mirrored versions locked away in the glass. A choking sensation rose in his throat, hot and suffocating. “This… this can’t be… I’m… I’m me!” he gasped, fists clenching, nails digging into his palms until the pain barely registered.
The void felt alive, pressing in from all sides, whispering doubts he couldn’t name. His mind spun in spirals, Who am I? Why am I here? Why are there so many of me? What does this mean? Am I… replaceable? Every thought was leaving him paralyzed, arms flailing at the emptiness as if trying to push back reality itself.
His vision blurred, the infinite reflections of himself multiplying, mocking, suffocating. His chest heaved as he clawed at the air, gasping for something solid, something real.
The blackness and panic swallowed him whole. He felt his body go slack, muscles giving way under the weight of fear, and then… nothing.
When he opened his eyes, the void was gone. The suffocating black replaced by familiar shapes, soft light filtering in from a window. He lay sprawled across Satang’s bed, blanket slightly twisted around him, his heart still racing. The smell of Satang’s room—paper, faint coffee, and the lingering trace of a morning shower—grounded him in reality.
Fourth’s body ached. He blinked rapidly, trying to shake off the remnants of terror, pressing a hand to his chest as he drew in a ragged breath. For a moment, he just lay there, staring at the ceiling, letting the ordinary sights and sounds remind him that he was… back.
Satang peeked inside the bed room. “What the hell, Fourth?!” Satang exclaimed, his voice loud but teasing. “You fell asleep? We have a moot to study for!”
Fourth didn’t respond, just blinked up at him, still looking dazed, sickly, as if the world around him hadn’t quite snapped back into focus. Satang’s amusement faltered, replaced by concern.
“Whoa… okay, you’re not… uh, feeling okay, are you?” he asked, stepping closer. His joking tone vanished as he crouched beside the bed, scanning Fourth for any signs of injury or illness.
Satang’s brow furrowed. “Fourth? Are you… okay?”
Fourth didn’t respond. His body was slumped against the edge of the bed, pale, shoulders shaking slightly, and his eyes glazed over, staring at nothing. The ragged rise and fall of his chest was uneven, shallow.
Satang’s concern deepened. He crouched beside him, gently shaking his shoulder. “Hey, man… talk to me. What happened? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Fourth’s hands twitched slightly, gripping at the blanket as if holding onto something solid. He blinked rapidly, trying to ground himself, but no words came out. His lips parted slightly, a shallow gasp escaping before he swallowed it down.
Satang was still crouched by the bed, trying to coax some kind of response out of Fourth, when Fourth suddenly lurched forward with a choked sound.
“Shit—wait!” Satang scrambled back just as Fourth stumbled off the mattress, barely making it to the small trash bin by the desk before he vomited. The harsh retching filled the quiet room, each sound making Satang wince.
“Damn it, Fourth…” Satang muttered, rushing to grab a box of tissues from the nightstand. He hovered at his side, one hand awkwardly reaching toward his back before pulling away, then trying again. Finally, he placed a steady palm between Fourth’s shoulder blades, rubbing small, uncertain circles. “Okay, okay, get it out… you’re fine… just breathe.”
Fourth coughed weakly, clutching the rim of the bin, knuckles pale. His whole body shook as if the panic from the void was still clinging to him, wringing him out from the inside.
Satang crouched lower, his worry written all over his face now. “Forget the moot, alright? You’re seriously not okay. What the hell happened to you?”
Fourth didn’t answer—just wiped his mouth with the back of his trembling hand, eyes glassy and unfocused. Satang pressed the tissues into his fingers, biting down the urge to ask again. Instead, his voice softened. “It’s fine. Just… sit. Breathe. I’ve got you.”
Satang guided Fourth back toward the bed, keeping a steadying hand on his arm as if afraid he might collapse again. Fourth didn’t resist—his body felt too heavy, too wrung out from everything. He sank down onto the mattress, curling almost immediately onto his side, knees tucked up like he was trying to make himself smaller.
At first, it was quiet—just the faint hum of the fan, the rustle of fabric as Fourth pulled the blanket halfway over himself. But then Satang heard it, a small, broken sound. A sniff. Then another.
“Fourth…” Satang whispered, crouching at the bedside again.
Fourth pressed his face into the pillow, shoulders trembling. The tears came soundlessly at first, then in uneven waves he couldn’t seem to stop. He tried to muffle it, to hide it, but the raw ache bled through anyway.
Satang’s chest tightened. He reached out, hesitating before resting a careful hand on Fourth’s shoulder. “Hey… don’t do that. Don’t cry alone. Whatever’s going on, you don’t have to carry it like this.”
Fourth didn’t answer, just shook harder, the pillow damp beneath his cheek. Satang stayed with him, rubbing slow circles over his back now, grounding and gentle. “It’s fine… just let it out. You’ll be okay. I’ll stay right here.”
Satang sat there a long while, watching Fourth’s breathing finally even out, the last of the tremors fading into sleep. His face was still damp with tears, lashes clumped together, but the tension had eased just enough for rest to claim him. Carefully, Satang tugged the blanket higher over Fourth’s shoulders, then stood, moving quietly so as not to wake him.
He slipped into the living room, pulling his phone from his pocket. His thumb hovered for a moment over Gemini’s contact before he pressed call. The dial tone buzzed in his ear, and when Gemini picked up, his voice was groggy and sharp all at once.
“Satang? Why are you calling? Where’s Fourth?”
Satang exhaled, running a hand through his hair. “He’s here. At my place. He’s… not doing well, Gem. He threw up, and then he just—” his throat tightened a little “—he cried himself to sleep. I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s bad.”
There was silence on the other end, then Gemini’s voice dropped low, strained with panic he was trying to contain. “I’ll come right now.”
Satang let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, relief flooding his chest. “Good. Just come quick.”