Chapter Text
The house was nothing glamorous.
A modest two-bedroom which still carried the faint smell of fresh paint on its walls. Plain curtains hung over narrow windows, and the front garden was barely big enough for a few potted plants and two folding chairs .It sat tucked in a neighborhood that was neither rich nor poor just comfortably in-between.
It was definitely a far cry from the marble corridors of Aglaea’s estate.
But it was comfortable.
It was home.
Or at least, it was Phainon’s home
And he preferred it this way: simple, grounded. Most importantly, it was his.
Technically, the house had been a graduation gift from Aglaea, who had insisted he shouldn’t step into adult life without a stable roof over his head. But the deed bore his name, and that mattered.
Phainon for his part , initially didn't want to accept it.
Not out of ingratitude...but simply because of the invisible line he seemed to draw between them ever since he’d learned the truth of his birth .He was neither cold, nor distant, just… far enough to remind himself that her love, as warm and genuine as it was, didn’t erase where he came from ; didn't erase he was indeed not born to her (unlike his step-sister). And for that very reason he even reached out to his biological family. Not to replace her, just…to know.
Yes, he still saw her as his stepmother, still listened to her fuss over him, still chatted with her about everything from fashion tips to the most of mundane life advices, and still let her sneak his favorite dishes onto the table. But when she looked at him with that unshakable tenderness, Phainon often felt like he was borrowing something he hadn’t quite earned.
So, here he was. In a small house of an okay neighborhood, half-shared with Caelus. It was an independence, in its own way.
As for Caelus, he had moved in the way he did everything: with boundless energy and not a shred of hesitation.
Their arrangement was simple. Phainon supplied the roof, Caelus paid the rent, and together they stumbled through a life of auditions, half-finished scripts, and an ever growing army of empty coffee mugs.
📽️ 5 months after graduation~
Late afternoon light slanted across the living room, painting the beige walls in streaks of gold. Phainon had just returned from another audition. He dropped his messenger bag by the door, toed off his shoes, and flopped into the couch cushions with a sigh “....Guess how many lines.”
Caelus who was sprawled on the living room floor, notebooks scattered around him like fallen leaves, didn’t look up as he stated, “Three.”
“Five...” Phainon answered with a groan which Caelus missed.
Caelus, perched cross-legged on the rug with a notebook balanced on his knee, glanced up with hopefulness “And... ?”
“They didn’t want me.” Phainon leaned his head back against the cushion, voice flat. “Apparently, they wanted someone ‘more intense.’ ” He made air quotes in the air, his voice laced with dry amusement. “Because apparently my entire face isn’t intense enough."
Caelus huffed, “Hey, come on...you’ve got the cheekbones of a tragic lead. That’s gotta count for something.”
“Tell that to the casting directors.” Phainon pressed the crook of his forearm over his eyes, blocking out the weak yellow glow of the ceiling light.
Caelus tilted his head, pen still hovering above the page. For a moment he expected more, but when Phainon didn’t continue, neither did he.
He needs a moment, Caelus decided.
So he let the silence settle. He looked back down at his notebook, chewing the end of his pen while he scrawled another jagged line across the margin. His twin, Stelle, always accused him of having no respect for boundaries, or patience. And maybe she was right ( and she was most of the time ).
Persistence is his sharpest weapon afterall.
But every so often, you had to know when to sheath it.
This wasn’t the right moment… not yet.
For a while, the house was filled only with the scratch of Caelus’s pen and the slow tick of the wall clock.
Then Phainon exhaled, arm slipping away from his face though his eyes remained shut, head tipped back against the couch.
“Sometimes I think… maybe I should just…” His voice dissolved into the air, unfinished.
Caelus stilled, pen halfway to paper. He knew what wasn’t said.
Maybe I should just ask Aglaea for a recommendation. Maybe I should lean on her name, just once.
But Phainon didn't say the thought aloud. He never did. That was one line he refused to cross.
Instead, Caelus concluded that it's finally the right moment and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, ready to speak of his agenda .
“Or maybe,” he said, tone deliberately casual, “we’ve been going about this all wrong?”
Phainon cracked one eye open and in a matter-of-factly tone said “…You’re about to say something reckless.”
“Reckless? --Innovative,” Caelus cut in, his grin sharp. His eyes were too bright, burning with the same stubborn flame that had carried him through his award-winning student film last year. That little short cobbled together from cardboard sets and favors begged off every classmate he knew and had somehow snagged Best Director at the finals showcase.
“Think about it,” he pressed on. “Waiting for gigs? Waiting for someone else to hand us the roles, the sets, the story? What if… we just made our own?”
Phainon blinked. “Our own what, exactly?”
“Film. Series. Something. I mean—look.” Caelus flipped the notebook around, the pages fluttering as he turned it toward Phainon. The paper was crowded with quick, jagged sketches: an ancient city skyline crumbling into ruins, a warrior raising a sword that seemed to glow, a queen with her crown sliding down her head.
He tapped the top margin with the end of his pen, right where the title was scrawled in bold, uneven letters.
“I’ve been playing around with this concept for a while now. The Flame Chase Journey."
Phainon stared. “That... sounds like an energy drink.”
“It’s a working title!” Caelus brushed his bangs from his forehead, undeterred. “Point is: We’ve got the talent. We’ve got friends still in college with access to cameras, editing software, sound kits. And... Stelle’s in her final year meaning she's been itching for a project to call her big finale. If we pitch this to her and she signs on, boom. Instant legitimacy. You star. I direct, act, produce—”
“Produce?” Phainon echoed.
Caelus lifted a hand, all mock grandeur. “Yes. Produce. Don’t ask me how, but I will.”
That pulled a reluctant chuckle out of Phainon. He slumped deeper into the cushions. “…So you want me to gamble my career on your caffeine-fueled fantasy draft.”
“Not a gamble.” Caelus’s grin widened, bright and unshakable. “A revolution. You’ve been wasting away on scraps of auditions, and I’ve been wasting my brain cells storyboarding for classes I already graduated from. Why wait for permission? We could make something raw, something fresh, something ours.”
Phainon was silent for a long moment.
Outside, a car horn honked three times in the street below. The radiator in the corner kicked into a low rattle, filling the room with its tired hum.
The words weighed heavier than he expected. He thought of Aglaea and how she kept trying, gently, to open doors for him, how he kept holding back, unwilling to blur love into favoritism. Maybe Caelus was right. Maybe there was a middle ground ; not nepotism, not waiting for strangers to hand him five disposable lines, but building something new.
“…You’re serious, aren’t you?” he finally said.
“As a heart attack.”
Phainon scrubbed a hand through his hair, sitting up straighter. “Alright, but...look. I’ve done stage work. A few student shorts. I’ve ...never carried a whole story. If this flops, it flops on me too.”
Caelus grinned, bright and unshakable. “If it flops, it flops on both of us. But hey— at least we’ll go down in flames together.”
That pulled the ghost of a laugh from Phainon. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Ridiculously visionary,” Caelus corrected, scribbling another messy sketch in the margins. “Besides, you’ve got the chops. You just don’t see it yet. And screw the nepotism ladder . You won’t be ‘Aglaea’s stepson.’ You’ll be Phainon. Known for this.”
The conviction in Caelus’s voice hit harder than Phainon expected. He shifted, folding his arms. “…And if the whole project fails?” he asked softly.
“Then it fails with style.” Caelus leaned back, notebook balanced on his knee. His grin softened into something steadier, almost gentle. “But it won’t fail, Phai. You’ve got something most people don’t... and I’m not saying that because of Aglaea. I’m saying it because I’ve seen you work. You’ve got presence. The kind you can’t fake.”
Phainon’s lips curved in a reluctant smile. “…You really think so?”
“I know so.”
The words landed with more weight than he wanted to admit. For a long moment, Phainon watched the last light fading over the balcony rail, a quiet voice whispering this was madness. Another smaller, stubborn whispered it might be exactly what he needed.
“…So what’s the first step, then, O Visionary director?”
“Step one: pitch it to Stelle.” Caelus’s answer was immediate. “She’ll act like she hates it, but secretly she’ll already be budgeting. Step two: bribe March with bubble tea, guilt Dan Heng into helping, drag the Trailblazers in as a collective. Someone will bite. And Step three: snacks. Because art without snacks is just suffering. Artists may starve in theory, but not in my story.”
That earned a real laugh out of Phainon, easing the tightness in his chest. “God help me, you’re actually going to pull this off.”
“Correction—we’re going to pull this off.” Caelus snapped his notebook shut and leapt to his feet with theatrical flourish.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
As Caelus clattered through the kitchen cabinets in search of chips, Phainon let himself sink deeper into the couch. He told himself this was just Caelus being Caelus: harebrained, reckless , always inventing some new scheme that would burn bright before collapsing in on itself.
Maybe this was madness. Maybe it would burn out in just a week.
And yet, watching the weak yellow light stretch across the living room floor, Phainon felt the faint flicker of something he hadn’t let himself feel in a long time.
Something dangerous.
Not resignation. Not dread. But something else, something fragile, precarious, but alive all the same.
Hope.
Maybe, just maybe, this Flame Chase Journey nonsense wasn’t just nonsense after all.