Chapter 112: You’re The One Who Changed..

The hospital room is too warm, the air stale with antiseptic and silence. The only light is a sickly green glow from a machine near Moon’s bed, painting everything in weak, underwater shadows.

I am a knot of misery on the visitor’s couch. It’s not a couch. It’s a slab of vinyl-covered grievance, each spring a dedicated protest against my spine. The blanket they gave me is tissue-thin, useless.

I stare at the acoustic-tile ceiling, aching with a bone-deep longing.

I just want to be with Deniz. To be in his bed, holding him, my face buried in the solid warmth of his chest, breathing in the faint, clean scent of rose.

His heartbeat — steady, solid — under my ear. The warmth. The longing twists so sharply it feels like a cramp behind my ribs.

God, I miss him.

I take a deep, shaky breath.

It’s just one night, Neon.

Just one.

“Zyren…”

The sound is a velvet intrusion. I don’t open my eyes. I know he’s watching. I can feel it—the weight of his gaze like a touch on my skin.

“What.” The word is flat, a stone dropped between us.

He pats the empty space beside him on the mattress.

“I know the couch is a medieval relic. Come sleep here. It’s comfortable. And warm.”

I turn my head just enough to see him. Moon is propped on one elbow in the wide hospital bed, the sheets pooling at his waist.

The dim light sculpts the arrogant line of his jaw, catches the faint, mocking curve of his smile. He looks disgustingly comfortable.

My reply is arctic. “Nope.”

He doesn’t argue. Instead, his hand—pale and elegant—drifts across the empty space beside him. His fingertips trace the surface of the sheet in a slow, deliberate circle. The cotton looks impossibly soft.

My traitorous body registers the stark contrast: my prison of vinyl, his kingdom of brushed cotton.

“So soft,” he murmurs, as if reading my thoughts.

Anger, hot and immediate, scalds the back of my throat. I sit up, the blanket falling away.

“I’m stuck on this… this thing because of you. And you’re doing a bedding commercial?”

His smile widens. It’s not a nice smile. It’s a challenge. “Who said you had to be stuck?” He pats the mattress. A silent, taunting invitation.

“Plenty of room. And I don’t bite.” A pause. “Unless you want me to.”

My pulse gives a hard, stupid kick. I look away, to the safety of the blank wall.

“I’m not.”

“Are you sure?” His voice is closer. I can picture him leaning toward me over the edge of the bed. “Positive?”

“Yes.” I force the word through clenched teeth.

“I’m super sure.”

A rustle of fabric. A soft sigh. “Fine.” His voice goes light, dismissive.

“Freeze, then. See if I care.”

The room plunges back into silence, but it’s a different silence now. It’s charged with my own stubbornness and his ridiculous, infuriating offer.

I lie back down, a statue of resentment. I stare at the ceiling until my eyes burn.

No. Matter. What.

The vow is a cold, hard stone in my gut.

Even if I shatter into pieces from the cold, I am not getting into that bed.

I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to conjure Deniz’s warmth, his scent.

Trying to pretend the soft, luxurious expanse just ten feet away doesn’t exist.

Just one night.

My eyes are squeezed shut, a futile attempt to command sleep. The vinyl groans under every tiny shift. The cold is a living thing, seeping through the thin blanket.

Then, touch.

Two hands. One slides beneath the small of my back, the other slips under my knees.

Solid. Warm.

Inescapable.

My eyes fly open. My heart lurches against my ribs, a frantic bird in a cage of shock.

Moon lifts me as if I weigh nothing. A smooth, effortless motion. The pathetic blanket slithers to the floor.

The cold air hits my skin, but it’s nothing compared to the heat of his arms.

“What the hell are you doing?!”

I snap, anger a brittle shield for the sheer, startling vulnerability.

He smiles down at me, a predator with his prize.

“Did you really think I was going to let my precious cousin freeze on that insult of a couch?”

I shove against the solid wall of his chest.

“Put me down!”

“No.”

The word is simple, final. He turns and walks the three steps to the bed.

I thrash, a fish caught in a net of pure, uncanny strength. He doesn’t flinch. He just lays me down in the center of the absurdly soft mattress, the sheets cool against my back.

Then, he lies down beside me, his body a long, warm line next to mine.

I scramble to get up.

“Moon, I don’t wa—”

His arm is a band of iron, snapping around my waist. He pulls me back, tucking me firmly against his side. My back is to his chest. His chin brushes the crown of my head.

“Let’s sleep,” he murmurs into my hair, his voice a low vibration against my skull.

Panic and something else—something treacherous and warm—flare in my chest.

“Moon, I can’t sleep here. Let me go.”

His eyes drift open, lazy and half-lidded. He tilts his head to look at my profile.

“Why can’t you?”

I can’t answer. I look away, towards the dark window, hoping he can’t see the furious blush heating my cheeks, feel the runaway gallop of my heart.

“I just… can’t.”

He doesn’t argue. He just pulls me closer, eliminating the last millimeter of space. My body is molded to his, from shoulders to hips.

The warmth of him is overwhelming, a seductive contrast to the chilly room.

“We used to sleep together all the time when we were little,” he says, his breath stirring my hair. The words are soft, but they land like stones.

“Now you’re saying you can’t?”

His arm tightens further, a possessive claim. I am trapped, not just by his strength, but by the ghost of that memory—two boys in a tangle of limbs, in a world before everything broke.

I twist in his grip just enough to look at him.

“Moon,” I say, my voice strained. “We’re grown up now. Everything… everything is different.”

The playful light vanishes from his eyes. His expression goes utterly still.

He just looks at me, his blue gaze unwavering, seeing straight through all my defenses, all my borrowed history.

The silence stretches, thin and dangerous.

I swallow. “Moon…”

“I’m still the same, Zyren,” he interrupts, his voice quiet, devoid of all its usual mocking edge.

It’s just a statement.

A bleak, simple truth.

He holds my gaze, and in the dim green light, I see no lie there.

“You’re the one who changed.”

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