Chapter 25

“Felix, how much time do we have left?” He looked up at the clock on the church tower.

“I’ve brought everything with me. I think we don’t need to take a detour back to the climbing gym, so we still have half an hour to get to the train station,” Felix said.

Erik didn’t respond immediately. He lowered his head thoughtfully, gazing at the flowerbed in front of him: in front of the dark gray marble tombstone, purple, white, and yellow daisies had recently been planted. He had just watered them with the cemetery’s watering can, and the overlapping petals were covered in glistening droplets. In the middle of the golden-edged ivy at the forefront was a large, smooth granite slab. Between the intricate red and black patterns, two lines were engraved: *Nie erfahren wir unser Leben stärker , als in großer Liebe und in tiefer Trauer.*

“Listen, you don’t have to see me off all the way,” Felix said. “The train station is very close from here, I can definitely walk there myself. Maybe it would be better for us to say goodbye here: at least you can kiss me here without causing a scene.” He added the last sentence with deliberate lightness.

“I really want to kiss you, Felix,” Erik said. “But I can’t, not yet. You know I lose my mind when I kiss you. But I still need it now—I need it to support me as I talk to you.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“I was thinking about the letter Fritz wrote to you,” Erik said. “There’s a line in it: ‘But he has always taken care of me, maybe in the future… you can take care of him too.’ The latter part was crossed out. Don’t you think he originally intended to write something else?”

“…What?”

“‘But he has always taken care of me, maybe in the future he can take care of you too.’ That would be the correct subject, and the tone would make more sense, wouldn’t it?”

Felix tilted his head and thought for a moment. “I don’t know. But if he had written that, I definitely would have told him to go to hell. I wouldn’t want a stranger to take care of me—especially someone I’ve always hated.”

“…Felix, do you still hate me now?”

“How could I? No one could hate you after meeting you,” Felix said. “Although it was never my intention to make my father happy, in this matter, I’ll let him have his way. Erik, I want you to know that the climbing gym is yours now.

“I’ll send an email to your lawyer as soon as I get home tonight, asking him to send me the declaration documents that need to be signed. As for my mother’s share of the money, I can’t ask her to give it up. But I spoke to her on the phone the day before yesterday, and she agreed to let you pay in installments, so you don’t have to worry about short-term cash flow.” He smiled at him. “I think this can be my parting gift.”

Erik didn’t respond. He stared at Felix—so eagerly and intently that it almost made Felix wonder if Erik hadn’t heard him at all, or if he hadn’t understood a word he’d said.

After a while, Erik seemed to suddenly wake up.

“Sorry, Felix… I don’t know what to say.”

“Maybe ‘thank you’?” he said with his usual lightness. But he felt a bit nervous—perhaps Erik’s mood had affected him.

“…I’m sorry,” Erik said. “I know this sounds ungrateful. But that’s not what I want. I mean… I love that climbing gym. Always have…. But the problem is, it’s a building, and it can only stay here.”

Felix looked at him. Erik’s brown eyes were slightly moist, his chest rising and falling. He didn’t need to place his hand on his chest to feel his heart pounding inside.

“Erik, are you saying—what I think you’re saying? Are you telling me you don’t want the climbing gym?”

“Yes. Because you won’t stay here. The climbing gym can’t move somewhere else.—But I can.”

Felix stood still, unmoving. For a moment, he even felt as if he were having a panic attack: his lungs compressed, breathing laborious, and his heart about to leap out of his body. He straightened his back forcefully, standing there, and swallowed the panic threatening to burst out of his throat.

Erik took two steps closer to him and placed his hand on his arm. He felt Felix’s arm tremble slightly. He gripped his upper arm, holding him in place in front of him.

“I want to go back to Strasbourg with you. I don’t want you to take such a long train ride alone. I think you’ll need my company. I want to take care of you.” He spoke hurriedly. “It’s all up to you. If you agree, I want to stay with you, or live near you.” He tightened his grip on Felix’s arm, then suddenly seemed to realize something and let go, instead grabbing the edges of his open jacket. He clenched the ends of the hiking jacket fiercely, as if trying to embed them into his palms.

“Felix, I don’t speak French, but I can learn. There are also many German-speaking areas in Alsace. I could live in Kehl, it’s just across the Rhine from Strasbourg.—I know all of this sounds crazy. It makes me sound like a stalker… but I want to leave this decision entirely up to you.”

Felix looked down at Erik’s hands. He saw them trembling on his jacket, and his own body was trembling beneath the jacket. In that moment, he understood where that tension came from: it was as if he had suddenly been stripped naked in front of someone—and baring one’s feelings was far more nerve-wracking and terrifying than baring one’s body, leaving one utterly defenseless in front of the other. He realized he was afraid—the kind of fear that made you want to turn and run until you were exhausted and had nowhere left to run. But Erik was holding onto his jacket so tightly, as if afraid that if he let go, Felix would disappear without a trace.

“…You can refuse my proposal,” Erik said. His voice was hoarse. “I won’t protest. But no matter what, I have to try, rather than spend the rest of my life regretting not proposing this to you.”

“Erik…”

“Don’t speak. Give me two minutes now. Let me finish. I don’t want to scare you. But I have to say something… otherwise you’ll leave soon, and I won’t have time. You know I’m terrible with words, I often can’t find the right ones to express myself—but I know what I’m feeling. It’s something I’ve never felt before, something I couldn’t even imagine existing, and I don’t think it’s likely to happen again in the future.

“I love you. Don’t stop me now. I know we’ve only known each other for a few days. I know common sense teaches that you shouldn’t fall in love with someone in such a short time, and if you feel like you have, it must be a mistake, a delusion or desire clouding your judgment. But I do love you.—If this isn’t love, then I don’t know what is!”

He paused, as if too many emotions and sentences were clogging his throat, leaving him momentarily unsure where to start. But the words finally surfaced. He just needed to say them, without further thought.

“The night before last, I could hardly sleep. I tried to hold you—I didn’t know it was possible to miss someone you were holding. But that’s what I felt. I could see what I would do after you left: I would miss you constantly. I would miss you at the breakfast table with a flower, miss you at night with a candle, miss you while hiking, miss you while climbing, miss you while listening to those songs, miss you while cooking, miss you in crowds, miss you when I was alone. In less than four days, you’ve invaded my entire life, taken over all my thoughts, and left your mark on every single thing in my daily routine. I don’t know what else I can do, what else would make me stop missing you.

“I want you. So much that ‘wanting’ isn’t enough to express it. I even feel like I wanted you before I knew you. It’s as if there was always a hole in my heart, waiting for you to come. You filled it. Then you became a part of it. I can’t just let you leave, lose you—it would be like digging out flesh from my heart, reopening that hole.

“I love you, and now I think you love me too. I really think we’re very much in love. If I’m wrong, please tell me, forgive me. I feel like you keep pushing me away again and again, but maybe I love you too much, I want you to love me too much, and I still think you love me, even if I’m not your ideal lover.”

“Erik, you idiot,” Felix murmured.

“Of course I love you,” he said, tilting his head up with a faint smile. “Didn’t I tell you that at the breakfast table?”

Erik stared at him. He felt his heartstrings tremble, the intense impulse blurring his vision. “…You said it like a joke,” he said softly.

“I could only express it that way. I told you I’m shy, always have been—it’s just that now I’ve learned to hide it better,” Felix said. “I know you love me. I’ve known it from the start. You made it so obvious, I’d have to be blind not to see it. I kept pushing you away because I was scared.”

“Are you scared I’ll hurt you?” Erik said urgently. “You know I never would.”

“I’m scared because everything is too perfect, too good, so good that I can’t believe it could be real,” Felix said. “I doubted because I needed it so desperately, I’ve been so sad for so long, longing for someone to save me, and I thought I was hallucinating. Erik, everything has happened too quickly. I wanted to stop… because it won’t stop.”

His green eyes widened slightly. A mist formed in them. The faint smile disappeared completely.

“I thought we wouldn’t have a future, that many things would stand in our way… that the thrill of impulsiveness couldn’t last, maybe tomorrow we’d wake up and realize it was a mistake. I thought about leaving, in fact, until recently I still thought that, because I couldn’t bring myself to tell you… even if you were willing to give up your life here and the climbing gym for me, once the passion faded, you’d regret it. You’d pay a price—more than you could bear—and get nothing in return, except heartbreak.

“But I want you so much, Erik. You’re like someone made to fit my dreams and needs—more wonderful than I could have imagined. You’ve made my heart beat again. Made me feel desire flowing in my blood again. Made me feel like I’ve become a living person again.—I can’t resist this feeling. I tried to push you away, tried several times… I think anyone else would have told me to get lost, but you didn’t. I feel like everything you do deepens my delusion. I… I’m almost falling apart. I don’t know how to escape this feeling: I love you, like falling off a cliff. Do you understand? I’m terrified. I’m scared I’ll die—I don’t think I can survive this a second time. I’m scared I’ll go crazy, or become addicted to drugs. I’ve only just recovered a little, I’m completely unprepared… I’m terrified.”

He looked at him with those clear, heart-wrenching emerald eyes.

“But now, Erik, you’ve made all of this easier.”

Erik felt his body tremble violently, his eyes burning with pain, his throat choked. He cupped Felix’s face and kissed him. He felt their lips trembling against each other.

“I love you. I’ll do everything to make you love me,” he said, his forehead pressed against Felix’s, his voice almost breaking. “You’ll let me go back to Strasbourg with you, let me stay by your side… okay?”

“I want more than that,” Felix replied. His breath was rapid, his voice somewhat fragmented, but firm. “If we decide to start something… doing things halfway won’t work. So I think we need a plan, a plan for us to stay together…. I know it’s difficult, for both of us. But since we’ve both confirmed that we’re so desperately longing for each other, of course we have to try—otherwise we’d be the two biggest fools in the world.”

Erik leaned closer to him. He wanted to say something, but found he couldn’t—something was blocking his throat. He raised a hand to touch Felix’s face, as if to confirm once again that he was really there. Then a string of tears fell from his eyes, landing on the ground. His knees weakened, trembling as he knelt down; but his other hand still tightly gripped Felix’s jacket, so he pulled him down too. Felix fell onto the inscribed stone slab, and Erik collapsed beside him, falling onto his legs, weeping like a child.

For a moment, Felix was at a loss, then a wave of emotion surged up, engulfing him. He realized there were so many unspoken thoughts in Erik’s heart, feelings that couldn’t be put into words, a longing and desire so intense it was intertwined with hope and despair, pouring out in endless sobs and tears. He was confessing to him, but also making a promise, as if the ecstasy and pain of this moment were one and the same, like the deep, bone-chilling sting a frozen person feels when suddenly brought close to a flame, yet the pain also brings comfort: knowing it’s alright, knowing the danger has passed, the pain only means sensation and life have returned to the body—and the pain will eventually fade. He could only be comforted by him, and he was also his comfort.

…He had come a long way, fled from here, and returned here. He had been looking for him, longing for him before he even knew him. He hadn’t met him before, perhaps wouldn’t have recognized him even if he had. Only after countless lonely or indulgent nights, after his dreams and heart were broken, did he finally find him.—He was so lonely and sad, yet he was the warmest presence in the world.

Felix wrapped his arms around Erik’s back. He placed his hand on the soft, reddish-brown curls, gently, continuously stroking them. He leaned down to kiss those lovely curls, and some small, round droplets fell onto them.