You don’t know how to describe Caleb. (The first person to reach out to you at the orphanage? Your adopted brother and beloved Gege? Your most important person? Your world?)

Reliable, kind, strong, protective, patient, and the one who knew you better than anyone. Your Caleb—who’s always kept you safe, spoiled you, and been by your side. Language fails you here. Nothing encompasses all that he is to you.

You, who clings to him like a second shadow and have never learned how to live without him. Caleb, who braids your hair and blowdries it after every shower, kisses your cuts, carries you home, cooks you meals, massages aches away, and takes care of you. The boundary of “family” that he’s never crossed, despite loving you this entire time more than you could ever know. (You think of all the things he’s said: “What’s mine is yours, pips. Don’t worry, silly girl, I’ll never get a girlfriend. The only person I want in my life is always you.”)

Your world crashed when he “died.” And now he’s back, but this isn’t your Caleb. (It feels strange. This person who is and isn’t Caleb, who wears the skin of your brother—has his smile, his face, and his mannerisms, but feels so different from your childhood protector. The distance haunts you. You wish you could peel him open and crawl inside. (And he’d let you. There is nothing Caleb wouldn’t do for you. You, above all else, have always been his only priority, reason to live, and most precious treasure. Like the tide and the shore, the sun and flower, or the moon and the Earth, the two of you are a pair inseparable and bound.

But Caleb wants to be more than just your “Gege.” He wants to be everything in your life. He’d gladly do anything and everything for you if it means that you’d be happy. Your happiness is his happiness, and your pain is his too. If he could create a world with just the two of you, he would.

It’s why Caleb held back, never crossing the line he longed and yearned to cross. It’s why he took the brunt of the explosion when he “died.” It’s why he became the Colonel of the Farspace Fleet, a position that means he can protect you.

“Maybe it’s because I love you a little more than you realize.”

(You’ve missed him so much. A physical ache, like your chest is caving in. You think you’d die without Caleb. Those months when you thought he was dead were the worst of your life.)

Caleb’s big hands come up to gently brush away the tears, coaxing and tender. “Shh, I know, angel. Gege will fix everythin’, baby, so don’t cry. My sweet, brave Meimei.“

You nod, and Caleb smiles—eyes crescented and cheeks dimpled. He’s fluent in the language of you, knows your every mannerism and expression by heart. Reading you is as easy as breathing. After all, he’s been by your side since childhood, through thick and thin, and he’s loved you the whole time too. Ever since when you were children, when you’d cheer for him at every game. Back when he used all his pocket money to buy you snacks and when he worked summer jobs to buy you anything you wanted. Back when he carried you home after school every day. Back when you pretended to his girlfriend to steer away admirers. And now, as Colonel of the Farspace Fleet…

He’s always been yours.