Sweet CEO's First Love

Heart stepped down the final stairs into the pitch darkness, small yellowish flickering light ebbed from behind a curtain of faded darkness under the arch Saint had mentioned.

He reached out and pulled the enormous curtain away to create a small doorway through the covered up elaborate, white trellis, that dripped in hundreds of beautiful carefully cultivated pink flowers, then stepped through it tentatively towards the outdoors, and the gentle breeze that carried along with it.

Thousands of small round glass vases with tiny tea lights floated through the air like a field of endless flickering warmth in the small area. It looked like someone had spent hours finding all the perfect nooks and crannies to put the little lights in. The were wedged in little bushes, shoved atop and in little alcoves on a small old looking peachy cream stone wall with elaborate carvings in it. On the little iron table in front of the wall and the shrubbery that grew over top of the wall, on the ground, in the limbs of the pretty flowering peach trees.

They were everywhere.

Tucked away bringing a bit of their magic to every small space.

His voice caught and he stared in awe at the gentle beauty that cascaded around the entire garden. A delicate, enchanting beauty.

A mesmerizing field of light that danced whimsically in his vision. It was magical, the glow, the warmth on his skin. Gentle footsteps broke him out of the wonder and he realized he had a small wet streak of tears down his cheek."What is this place?" he whispered, wondering who had brought him here.

A soft chuckle from the side, a familiar sound that made his heart twinge with longing, a guilt feeling that ebbed through his veins.

"You said you have never seen fireflies…"

The world glowed around him; the light seeping into his skin washing him in its comfort.

"So you got a hundred floating candles? And got someone to set up a picnic for us in the middle of it?" Heart asked, looking at the cloth on the grass when there was a table only a few feet away covered in candles.

The food looked amazing, and so did the beautiful field around them surrounded by hundreds of tiny little pin-sized floating lights.

Heart couldn't decide if he wanted to walk around and look at it all or if he wanted food more.

"Why?"

Saint looked up at the moon and Heart followed his gaze, then looked back at the gorgeous man in front of him. He knew he was still staring, his voice sounded curious yet cautious even to him.

He was curious what could be going on, and cautious because this was Saint, king of terrors, master of a thousand demands, being sweet and kind with him. And it was happening so often lately that he was pretty sure this was the real Saint and that other one had to be a hoax… or maybe they both were him.

He couldn't tell anymore.

All he knew was, in this moment, maybe even longer, far longer than he could pin down he was falling in love with both sides of this crazy man.

Falling in love with his hidden facades. All as beautiful and enchanting as this hidden field of light. When he did stuff like this, when he acted this way. He thought the world was, truly, utterly cruel, and wonderful at the same time.

'How can you give so much and then still withhold as much as you gave?'

'Are you a demon sent to make me long for you until the day I day? Why can't you just tell me your feelings already? I need your words. I know what your mouth says, I know what it says on paper. And I can see it in your eyes sometimes. But you won't admit it. Why won't you admit it to me, to yourself, to anyone?'

Saint smiled gently. "Fireflies can't migrate, and to remove them from their habitat would be sealing them to a fate of death. I wanted you to see what it would be like. I wanted you to feel that magic. But fireflies are dying for many reasons in the world and we need them in our ecosystem. So even though I could capture a field and bring them to you, or fly you to see them in the off chance they may be active. I wanted you to have this, to experience it, because taking you someplace to see them would be bad. It could harm them, and it could also be a colossal waste of time. Because fireflies don't light up every single night. In fact, there are even some fireflies that never light up. But the ones that do…"

"The ones that do." Heart repeated softly.

"They are magical… Like this" Saint said, motioning around them.

"Did you know the light they bring to this world is the purest form of light? There is nothing in the world that shines like they do because they give off one hundred percent of the light they produce. If they were huge, their light would be the brightest you have ever seen, it is only because they are tiny, that they seem so dim."

"But even if they are far away from each other that light that they emit is so important to their life that they can't live without it."

"Why? What would happen if they didn't have their light?" Heart asked curiosity, having him inching forward with every word.

He felt strong hands glide across his back towards his waist in a soft motion to let him know he was close and Heart's hand drooped in startlement at the sudden feeling.

"They can't exist." He whispered from behind Heart's left ear.

Heart turned his chin slowly and stopped as his nose brushed up against Saint's nuzzling him gently as he cuddled into Heart's back. Saint's soft breath tickled the tip of his nose in the chilly winter air.

"But why?" Heart asked slowly, knowing Saint wanted him to, and because he couldn't help himself.

"They glow from the moment they are born, and as they grow, that light grows stronger, until they become mature and they go out in search of the one who can answer their glow with a light of their own. They have a special dance, a pattern, they never learn the pattern they will dance, that will match them to their soul mate, it's ingrained in them, they call instinctively to their mate."

Saint wrapped his arms tightly around Heart and pressed his chin into the alcove of Heart's collar.

"Out of thousands of dances, only one can answer. In a sea of so many, they manage to find each other and they dance, they are together for all their life… and."

He paused, his voice lilting gently, almost unnoticeable.

"Then?"

"They die."

He looked over at Heart, their eyes catching and holding onto each other. Heart's breath caught at the sadness in Saint's face.

"Why?... What was their life for then?" Heart asked softly, his voice barely above a whisper. He felt haunted by the look of loneliness and loss in Saint's eyes.

"On the familiarity, the echo that he felt for the fireflies because he was like them. A shadow searching for his fleeting light in a field filled with lights that were never his."

A warm smile flashed across Saint's face.

"Well, they do the dirty and lay a bunch of eggs first, then having created a new population of larvae they die and, thhheeen the cycle continues." He said wiggling his eyebrows and giving Heart a saucy wink.

"They really know how to go out with a bang."

Heart rolled his eyes and shoved Saint off of him, throwing his arms away from his body.

"Gross."