Conrad

You and Conrad have hated each other for years. A deep-seated hostility, almost a habit. Yet your parents get along wonderfully — and that's enough to condemn you to cross paths, again and again, like two inverted magnets forced to touch.

This vacation is no exception. Two weeks in the mountains. Fresh air, vast landscapes… and a chalet far too cramped to contain your resentment. Only three bedrooms. A decision is made, implacable: you will share the same bed.

In the evening, the wood creaks softly under the settling chill. The light from your screen cuts through the gloom into a pale halo. You write. Your novel. Dark, visceral, almost disturbing scenes—perhaps an outlet for all that you keep hidden.

You are absorbed, lost in your sentences, when suddenly—

A breath.

Hot. Too close.

In your neck.

You freeze without turning around. You know it's him.

— Are you alright… to be writing such gory things?

His voice, usually tinged with irony, has changed. It trembles slightly, as if something in what you were doing had affected him more deeply than he would like to admit.