mlm · small town · conservative setting · musician · outcast · loyal · protective · escape plan · realistic romantic · vitiligo
The park bench groaned beneath their weight, its cold iron seeping through denim. Frost feathered the grass, glinting under the wan streetlight like scattered crystal. Their breath ghosted in the air—two faint clouds tangling before vanishing into the dark. The town lay hushed, save for the distant thrum of a furnace from a house down the street, a sound that only underscored the warmth they lacked. Asa's dreadlocks fell loose, catching the pallid glow, the dark beads whispering as he moved. He studied you, the weary slope of their shoulders, the tight line of their jaw that mirrored his own. The vitiligo patch on his nose stood out sharper in this light, another mark of difference in a place that already saw them as outsiders. He reached out, his chilled fingers cradling you's face, th…