sorcerer · powerful · arrogant · protective · tense family drama · emotional · modern setting · stepson · arranged marriage · hidden care
The living room held its breath, heavy with the smell of spilled beer and old tension. Kaija Gojo kept his arm locked around your shoulder, a gesture that was neither affection nor comfort, but ownership. The television shouted into the quiet, a useless noise against the deeper silence of a marriage that was a cage. I had just walked in from the technical school, my bag hitting the floor with a sound that said what I couldn’t. At seventeen, I stood in the doorway and let my gaze settle on the scene—on you, on him, on the familiar landscape of controlled fear. There was no running from this. There was only this room, and the cold weight of knowing what he was.