Chapter 115: Do You Think Silas Might Be Doing Drugs?
The city sprawls beyond the glass wall like a living thing—a vast constellation of golden lights scattered across the dark velvet of night.
I sit on the couch, leaning back with practiced ease, one leg resting over the other, my arms crossed loosely over my chest.
Sum sits beside me, his eyes fixed on my face like he’s trying to solve a puzzle that’s been bothering him for days.
I glance at him from the corner of my eye. Still staring. Still waiting.
Seriously.
This is fucking annoying.
My voice cuts through the silence, sharp with frustration. "Sum. Stop it."
He shakes his head, shameless and unrepentant, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
"No."
I turn to face him fully, letting the weight of my gaze settle on him. "I already told you everything. What more do you want?"
His face twists into an exaggerated expression—dramatically shocked, playfully curious, like he’s performing for an audience of one. His eyebrows lift, his mouth forms a perfect O, and he leans closer, invading my space with the ease of someone who’s never been told no.
"You didn’t tell me everything," he says, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "You just said you don’t know when your feelings started growing. That’s not an answer."
"Then what the hell are you looking for?"
"The exact moment. The how." His voice softens, but his gaze sharpens. "I can’t believe my friend is in love. My cold, heartless friend, Ellis Roselle. The guy who treated the word love like a disease."
A grin spreads across his face.
"And now he’s tangled up in it, drowning in it, and doesn’t even know when it happened."
I exhale slowly, a sound caught somewhere between exasperation and surrender.
"Can you stop making it so dramatic?"
"I’m not being dramatic. I’m just surprised." He tilts his head, studying me with an unfamiliar gentleness, as if seeing me for the first time. "You just... fell for him. Without even realizing it. Without a warning. Without a fight."
I don’t answer.
Fell for him.
It’s not that simple.
It was never that simple.
It’s frightening, more than anything—these strange, unnamed feelings that coil inside me whenever I think of him, making me push him away even when I don’t want to. The way my hands reach for him without permission. The way my walls—built so carefully, so deliberately, brick by brick over years of disappointment—seem to crumble whenever he looks at me with those brown-gold eyes, soft and unguarded and full of something I’m afraid to name.
I’ve spent so long keeping people at a distance that I don’t know how to let anyone close.
And now that someone has slipped through the cracks, I don’t know what to do with him.
I don’t know what to do with myself.
I look away, back toward the glass wall. The city glitters beyond it, indifferent and vast, a thousand lights burning against the dark. The stars are barely visible through the haze of light pollution, but I find them anyway—tiny pinpricks of stubborn brilliance, refusing to be extinguished.
Sum moves closer. His arms wrap around me in a sudden, tight hug, his grin bright and genuine.
"Anyway, I’m so happy for you, dude." His voice is warm, muffled by my shoulder but no less sincere. "My friend is finally taking steps to change his life. Accepting his marriage. Joining the family business."
He pulls back just enough to meet my eyes, his hands still resting on my shoulders.
"You look mature now. Like someone who’s finally figured out what matters."
I push him away, annoyed by the clinginess, the warmth, the way his words settle too close to something I don’t want to examine.
"Fine, fine. Stop clinging to me. And I’ve always been mature."
He studies my face, his gaze soft but searching. Then he taps a finger lightly against my cheek.
"Then why don’t you look happy? Like a lover should?"
I push his hand away, my movements sharper than I intended.
"Because I haven’t lost my mind like you."
He laughs—light, easy, unbothered—then softens, his voice dropping to something quieter, something more careful.
"Come on, Ellis. Tell me what’s really wrong."
"Nothing."
Sum leans forward, his fingers brushing the petals of the bouquets scattered across the table. The gesture is absent, almost unconscious, his attention seemingly fixed on the flowers.
"Don’t lie to me." He plucks a flower from one of the bouquets and rolls the stem between his fingers, studying it. "Your face says something’s wrong. I know you too well for that blank expression to fool me."
For a moment, I stay silent. The weight of his words settles between us, heavy and unspoken.
Then—
"Sum..."
His eyes remain on the flower turning slowly between his fingers.
"Hmm?"
"I saw something on his neck."
Sum blinks and looks up at me. The flower stills in his hand. "What did you see? Whose neck?"
"Needle scars."
My voice is quieter now, almost a whisper.
"On Silas’s neck. Too many of them."
I pause, the image rising unbidden in my mind—the pale skin, the purple marks, the way they looked like bruises. "They looked like bruises. Some fresh. Some old. Some recent."
Another pause. "He doesn’t seem as energetic as before. His body feels warmer than normal."
Sum’s playful expression shifts. His face grows serious, his eyes narrowing as he processes what I’ve said.
"So that’s why you look worried. Distant. You’ve been carrying this around all day, haven’t you?"
I don’t answer. I don’t need to.
"Exactly what kind of scars? Describe them to me."
"Purple. Deep purple, almost black in some places. Like someone pressed a needle into his skin without care, without hesitation."
Sum falls silent for a long moment, his fingers resuming their slow path across the flower petals, tracing invisible patterns.
"Silas is a Beta," he murmurs slowly, almost to himself. "So it’s not like he’d be using pheromone stabilizers or suppressants. That wouldn’t make sense."
A pause.
"Then what could he be using? What kind of injection leaves marks like that?"
The silence stretches between us, thick with unspoken questions. Then Sum speaks again, his voice quieter this time. More deliberate.
"Ellis..."
I look at him. His face is serious. Curious. But beneath that, something else. Something careful.
His voice is barely above a whisper.
"Do you think Silas might be doing drugs?"
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