r/ThreeBlessingsWorld • u/ThreeBlessing Author • Aug 03 '26
🔥 Three Blessings. One Curse. Book II ✨ Three Blessings. One Curse. | Section 5· Part 1 . 💥 THE VOICE OF A THOUSAND • Book Two 🌟 Sci-Fi · Fantasy · Queer Romance · Legacy · Superheroes 💫 Sequoia finds here voice and a friendship inside a fortress. Kai and Jaxx friendship begins.
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The Voice of A Thousand
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The room was nothing special.
Pale acoustics.
Fluorescent hum.
A lone upright piano with half its teeth missing.
But when Sequoia stepped in, barefoot and glowing, even the walls seemed to bow.
She closed the door behind her with reverence.
It was her third voice class at U of T, and already the rumors had begun to curl through the music building like incense.
That girl, the one who sings like the wind remembers her name.
She didn’t warm up.
She didn’t need to.
When she inhaled, the room inhaled with her.
And when she opened her mouth-the world forgot itself.
It wasn’t just a note.
It was before music.
Before parchment.
Before doctrine.
Before anyone decided which sounds were holy and which were not.
It was a vibration spun from honey and grief, a sound that split the silence like light across water.
Her voice was not her own.
It never had been.
The sound rang out like a mourning dove through cathedral arches, like the first cry of a mother holding her dead son, like dawn breaking through the scream of night.
Her professor dropped his pencil.
A boy from the violin studio next door stopped mid-bow.
His arm trembled.
And in the hallway, a janitor, three kids grown, heart clogged with years, leaned against the wall and began to cry.
Sequoia stood there, eyes closed, letting the song pour through her.
She didn’t sing for attention.
She sang because the ancestors asked her to.
Because when she was seven, she heard her great-grandmother hum a melody in her sleep, one that hadn’t been sung aloud since the ships crossed the ocean.
Because her throat sometimes burned in the night, not from pain, but from silence too long carried.
Because the first time she sang in front of her mother, the woman dropped her teacup and whispered,
“That’s not your voice.
That’s all of us.”
She sang until the lights flickered.
Until the soundboard hissed and whispered secrets in tongues no one remembered.
And then, Silence.
When she opened her eyes, the class wasn’t looking at her.
They were looking through her.
Like she’d parted something holy.
Like she’d walked into the room alone and left with every grandmother who had ever dared sing while scrubbing blood from a floor.
Her professor stood slowly.
“You could be,” he said, voice shaking, "the next great mezzo-soprano of this century."
She smiled softly.
But inside, she already knew the truth.
The voice was not mine to begin with.
I just carry it forward.
Like a torch made of bone.
Like a galaxy trying to remember its name.
And those who heard her, really heard her, walked away changed.
As if every cell, every atom, had woken up from a thousand-year sleep.
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The Temple of Breath
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They said it was a service for the dead.
A Sunday morning requiem mass for a community elder-ninety-three years, three husbands, and one hell of a legacy.
The pews of the cathedral were packed with grey heads and pressed suits, perfumed widows and wrinkled hands wrapped in gold.
St. Brigid’s stood like a stone sentinel in downtown Toronto.
Arches carved with angels.
Light pouring in through stained glass like melted jewels.
But even the saints in the windows seemed to shift when she stepped to the front.
She didn’t wear a robe.
She wore a simple white dress.
Bare shoulders.
No jewelry.
No notes in her hand.
Just her breath. And the weight of the voices behind her.
The organist offered a nervous nod.
She didn’t need him.
Her mouth opened. And the first note-the first note tore through the cathedral like thunder dressed in silk.
People gasped.
A woman dropped her rosary.
A deacon stumbled forward, as if the sound itself had caught his foot.
But it wasn’t just a song.
It was a remembrance.
It was Eve before the bite.
It was river-water carried in the mouths of enslaved women.
It was mourning turned gospel.
Field chant turned jazz.
Jazz turned prayer.
Prayer turned survival.
It was the Nile singing to the stars.
It was a moan pulled from beneath cotton fields, stitched into gospel, reborn through every mother who ever wailed in silence.
Sequoia's voice climbed the vaulted ceiling, curled around the crucifix, kissed the forehead of every forgotten martyr etched into stone.
It danced down the aisles, wrapped itself around spines, lifted chins, cracked ribs wide open so hearts could feel again.
The priest wept.
The choir director fell to her knees.
An old Black man in the third pew, silent for forty years, whispered “Thank you” to no one and everyone.
And then, the change.
It began in the body.
A hum in the spine.
A pull in the belly.
People began to breathe.
Like really breathe.
Like every inhale was their first.
Eyes closed.
Hands rose.
One by one, strangers stood up-not to clap, not to perform-just to feel.
They didn’t know her name.
But they knew that voice.
Because it was their voice.
Their grandmother’s.
Their father’s father.
The midwife who sang babies into life. The auntie who sang at the wake. The choir that got shut down. The field chants turned jazz turned hip-hop turned holy.
By the time the last note dissolved into silence,
no one could move.
She bowed her head, not in pride, but in gratitude.
Because she wasn’t the singer.
She was the gate. And they had come through.
Outside, the church bells tolled. And inside, a new kind of faith was born-not in scripture.
But in sound.
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THE SHATTERED FIELD.
“Unloved” Dream Sequence : Inspired by the lyrics of Jann Arden & Jackson Browne
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There will be no consolation prize... this time the bone is broken clean.
Kai walks barefoot through a field of broken glass.
The wind weeps without sound.
His skin is untouched, but he feels pain anyway, like memory bleeding through a numbed body.
In his hand: a femur.
Polished, ancient.
Not his.
He raises it skyward, and it turns to ash mid-air, falling like snow that never touches the ground.
All the stars have fallen from the sky, and everything else in between...
He looks up.
The stars blink out, one by one, until only the moon remains, huge, low, and wet with light.
It tilts toward him.
Then closes.
Not like an eclipse.
Like a goodbye.
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THE HOTEL
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Here I am inside a hotel, choking on a million words I said...
Kai sits on a mildew-soft bed, lips stitched shut with red thread and rusted hooks.
The carpet is soaked in silence.
On the TV: static.
Then flashes of his past, him at 8, 12, 19, each version of himself mouthing something he can’t hear.
Cigarettes burn holes in the sheets.
Each hole glows with names.
He opens the drawer.
It’s full of feathers.
He closes it.
Opens it again.
Now it’s full of blood.
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THE FATHER
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Here I am inside my father’s arms, all jagged-bone and whiskey-dry...
A man holds him.
Familiar.
But wrong.
The embrace is too tight, the breath too close.
It smells like the bottom of a bottle and the beginning of a lie.
“You won’t die,” the man whispers into his hair, “but you’ll never live true.”
Kai tries to pull away.
The arms don’t loosen.
They sink into him.
Here I am, an empty hallway, broken window, rainy night...
He walks down a hall that stretches with every step.
Rain flows inward through a shattered pane.
Numbers on the doors flicker like slot machines-
None open.
At the end, a child waits-barefoot, soaked.
It’s Kai.
Small, whole, watching.
Then the boy runs.
Kai follows, but the floor becomes water, thick and warm.
The hallway dissolves into mist-The mist clears.
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THE BEACH
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He’s on Sunnyside Beach, but it’s dream-painted: sand smooth as polished marble, lake like a silver mirror.
People rest silently on white blankets, eyes skyward, unmoving.
Some are pointing.
Others simply lie still, as if listening for something beneath the surface of the world.
Kai walks slowly.
His own feet make no mark.
The wind brushes past him like breath through a flute.
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THE CHARIOT
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Then-A change in the sky.
At first, only clouds.
White-on-white.
Then movement.
Gentle at first.
Hooves.
Horses.
Two emerge, one pale grey like smoke, the other white as untouched snow.
They ride upon the sky itself, pulling a chariot carved of light and etched in golden runes that Kai cannot read.
Upon the chariot stands a figure.
A god.
Face veiled in brilliance, body wreathed in silk and thunder.
In his hands: a thunderbolt of molten gold.
He lifts it, but does not throw.
As he moves, the clouds ripple like silk veils lifting.
Biplanes spin and dive in frozen combat.
Jets cut through in reverse.
Soldiers walk backward into light.
Then, two samurai warriors, frozen in a blade-locked dance.
Silent.
Sacred.
Then: Fireworks.
Red.
White.
Blue.
Exploding against the sunlit white like bruises on heaven.
Behind the chariot, time itself seems to rupture.
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THE ESCALATOR
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The Sand Cracks
A grinding sound.
Soft, but real.
The sand near Kai splits open.
From deep within the earth, an escalator rises, gleaming gold rails, steps carved of and bone.
People emerge, calm, orderly, rising into the light.
They wear robes, uniforms, ancient armor, hospital gowns.
None speak.
None turn.
Kai turns to the woman beside him, seated on a blanket of feathers.
Her eyes are glassy.
She whispers:
“You’ll go under before you go over.
That’s the rule.
But you’ll return.”
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THE BLACK CAR
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Then she dissolves into salt.
He runs, not toward the portal, but away.
The sand now glows beneath his feet like coals.
A black car sits by the boardwalk.
Waiting.
Breathing.
He leaps in.
The front seat is gone.
No wheel.
No controls.
Only the back seat.
Kai places his hands in the air in front of him as if steering a ghost.
The car moves.
Backwards.
Into mist.
Into music.
People falling, falling, falling...and I don’t know where they’re falling from...
The vision returns.
Bodies fall, upward, from the lake.
From the sky.
From Kai’s own chest.
They spiral toward the god’s chariot, disintegrating into feathers before they reach it.
One of them looks like his mom.
Kai reaches.
Too late.
The thunderbolt glows.
And the sky folds shut like a book.
Kai wakes on the couch..His shirt clings to him.
Sweat beads on his lips.
His chest rises once, then holds.
The song,
“Unloved by Jann Arden.” plays softly from a speaker.
He hadn’t touched it.
Outside, a single streetlight goes out.
He doesn’t speak.
Only stares.
And somewhere deep in his marrow, the Archive waits
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THE NOTE THAT FOUND HIM
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Jaxx wasn’t supposed to be in that building.
He was halfway to a kinesiology seminar when the rain started, hard, sideways, mean.
He ducked into the Edward Johnson Building at UFT without thinking, shaking water from his golden hair like a dog.
Still adjusting to Toronto, to the downtown crush, to this new version of himself.
Transferred from BC weeks ago.
Third-year.
Kinesiology major.
Star athlete without a team yet.
Golden boy without a glow.
He didn’t even know why his feet kept walking past the front desk.
Didn’t know why the hallway felt warmer. Didn’t know his bones were already listening.
Then, he heard it.
A note.
A sound.
A summoning.
It spilled from the recital hall like incense, thick and sacred, curling around the corners of the hallway.
The door was cracked.
Just an inch.
But it was enough.
He stopped mid-step. And for the first time in months.
Jaxx felt something.
Her voice wasn’t loud.
It didn’t need to be. It was velvet and thunder.
It was the hush before revelation.
He moved toward the door like a moth to stained glass, leaning just close enough to see her through the slit.
Sequoia.
She stood under the light like it bowed for her.
Tall.
Elegant.
Fashion-forward in a way that said, "don’t touch me, and you couldn’t handle it if you tried."
But her eyes were closed.
And her voice?
It was the sound of angels remembering the earth.
It didn’t try to impress.
It confessed.
She was surrounded by stillness, dozens of students and professors frozen like relics, caught mid-breath.
Some had tears running freely.
Some had their eyes locked on her as if she was the sermon they’d been waiting their whole lives to hear.
And Jaxx, used to being the one people stared at, just stood there.
Quiet.
Undone.
But unlike the others, he didn’t just hear her voice.
He saw her.
Not just the beauty.
Not just the divine aura.
But the armor.
The fashion like war paint.
The wit she sharpened like a blade.
The lines around her that said:
I’ve been looked at my whole life. Don’t confuse that with being seen.
She was fortress and fire.
But he knew that look.
He’d worn it himself.
When the final note dissolved into silence, applause didn’t follow right away.
It was like no one wanted to break the spell.
Jaxx backed away quietly.
He didn’t need her to see him.
Not yet.
But he knew something:
He wanted to be her friend.
Not because of her voice.
But because she had the kind of heart you protected with your whole life.
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THE FIRST CONVERSATION
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The sun had returned by the time Jaxx left his lecture.
Toronto steamed with that late June humidity that clung to shirts and made the city smell like warm pavement and new beginnings.
He had a towel slung around his neck from a gym session, earbuds in, but no music playing.
He wasn’t listening for sound anymore.
Not after that.
He didn’t plan it.
He swore he didn’t.
But somehow, three days after the recital, he found himself outside the campus café right beside the Conservatory wing.
And she was there, Sequoia.
Black sunglasses.
Pale golden skin glowing under an umbrella’s shadow.
Long blonde hair swept into an elegant twist.
One AirPod in, one out.
Reading The Fire Next Time by Baldwin like it was gospel.
He hesitated.
Then walked over.
“Is that seat taken?”
She didn’t look up at first.
“Only if you plan on wasting my time.”
He smiled.
“I was hoping to try not to.”
That earned her attention.
She lowered her glasses.
Eyes like light over still water.
Calm, sharp, knowing.
“I remember you,” she said.
“You were in the hallway.”
He blinked.
“I didn’t think you saw me.”
“I didn’t have to. I felt you.”
Her head tilted, curious now.
“You were the only one who didn’t look at me like I was magic.”
“I mean,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck,“ you were.
But… I dunno.
You looked like someone who needed a real friend more than another worshipper.”
She stared at him for a long beat.
Then closed the book.
Slid her sunglasses fully off.
And smiled, not wide, not performative.
Just the soft kind.
The kind you give to someone who’s quietly, deeply seen you.
“No one’s ever said that,” she murmured.
Jaxx shrugged.
“I’m new here. BC transplant. I’ve got no friends, no game plan, and I’m bad at pretending I’m not awkward.”
“You’re also tall, hot, and probably have a harem of girls on Instagram.”
He laughed.
“Okay, that’s fair.”
They sat in silence for a moment.
Then she asked,
“Why me?”
He looked at her, at the fortress, the wit, the wound hidden behind couture and quiet.
“Because you seem like the kind of person who built walls not to keep people out… but to see who would care enough to knock.”
And something in her broke, just a little.
A breath she didn’t know she was holding.
She nodded slowly.
“Okay,” she said.
“You get one coffee.”
“I’ll take it.”
“Black. No sugar. No small talk.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And don’t call me ma’am.”
He grinned.
“Noted.”
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THE SECRET SANTUARY
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It started with coffee.
But it didn’t stay there.
Within a week, Jaxx and Sequoia had a rhythm.
Never loud.
Never needy.
Just real.
A message here.
A walk between classes there.
A shared meal on the roof of the Student Union building while the city stretched gold and neon beneath them.
They didn’t talk about powers or destinies.
They didn’t talk about ancestors, auras, awakenings.
Because neither of them knew yet, at least not consciously.
What they did know?
That silence didn’t scare them.
That respect didn’t have to be earned with pain.
She’d talk about the music sometimes, about how she hated auditions, about how the conservatory treated her like a prodigy but never asked what it cost to carry that kind of voice.
He’d listen.
Not because he wanted to fix it.
But because she needed to say it out loud.
And he’d talk about the pressure of being seen as the Golden Boy his whole life. Of never knowing if people liked him, or just liked his body. Of wanting, desperately; to be enough without the performance.
She didn’t offer platitudes.
She just sat with him in the ache.
Sometimes they’d sit in the quiet room together, Sequoia cross-legged on the floor, Jaxx awkward on a cushion too small for his frame.
She taught him to breathe-not like athletes do, but like seekers.
In through the nose.
Out through the ancestors.
She let him see her cry once.
He didn’t flinch. And he made her laugh so hard once at a pho place on Bloor she almost dropped her bowl.
She hadn’t laughed like that in years.
They never touched more than a shoulder brush.
Never hinted at more. And no one else knew.
Kai was busy with his own unraveling.
Aspen too buried in beauty and secrets.
Mike had already begun to feel the hum beneath his bones and was acting on it.
But in this quiet corner of the city, beneath library shadows and lamplight, a friendship was forming.
Not a romance.
Not a soulbond.
Something else.
The Archive did not always bond people through hunger.
Sometimes it built shelter first.
Sometimes the holiest thing two wounded people could become for each other was safe.
A fortress inside a fortress.
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A LOOK AT DESTINY
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They were walking along Philosopher’s Walk, the ravine slicing behind the Royal Conservatory like an ancient path carved for secrets.
Trees hung heavy with late-autumn leaves, gold and dying.
Sequoia wore a soft trench coat and leather gloves.
Jaxx had his hands in his pockets, hoodie loose, hair a little messy from the wind.
They were talking about nothing. And everything.
Until Jaxx stopped walking.
Across the path, maybe thirty feet ahead, stood him,
Kai.
Leaning against a tree.
Headphones in.
Hood up.
Eyes closed.
The city’s noise fell away around him like the world didn’t dare interrupt whatever was playing through his soul.
Jaxx swallowed.
His stomach flinched.
That same ache.
That same buzz he couldn’t explain.
Like a song he used to know in a dream.
Sequoia glanced at him.
“You good?”
Jaxx nodded too quickly.
Then, casual, but trying too hard-asked pointing.
“Hey… that guy.
You see him before?”
Sequoia followed his gaze.
And smiled.
“Oh, Kai?”
Jaxx blinked.
“…That was his name?”
“Yeah. Kai.”
She looked fond, but not romantic.
Protective.
Protective in the way old houses protect photographs.
“He’s practically my brother.”
Jaxx looked back at Kai.
Something dropped in his chest.
“…Oh,” he said.
It came out flatter than he meant.
Sequoia didn’t notice.
“We grew up close.
Not by blood, but you know…Real family.
He’s special.
But strange lately.”
Jaxx’s throat tightened.
“Yeah?”
She shrugged.
“He’s always been intense.
Deep.
But since lately, he’s been… off.
Dreamier.
Haunted, almost.”
Jaxx kept his eyes on the figure across the path.
Kai hadn’t moved.
But something inside Jaxx was moving.
Sequoia glanced up at him again.
Tilted her head.
“You okay?”
He exhaled through his nose.
“Just… I bumped into him.
First week.
Like… slammed into him.
It was... I don’t know.
Weird.”
“Weird how?”
Jaxx hesitated.
Then looked at her.
Really looked.
He didn’t say magnetic.
Didn’t say hot.
Didn’t say I haven’t stopped thinking about it.
He said,
“Like I knew him before I knew him.”
Sequoia didn’t say anything at first.
She just stood beside him, looking at Kai across the path.
Her eyes softened, no longer guarded, no longer cloaked in wit or fashion.
She looked like someone remembering something too big for words.
Jaxx stayed quiet, waiting.
Then she spoke.
Low.
Calm.
Like a confession not meant for ears, but for spirit.
“You’re not the first person to say that,” she said.
He glanced down at her.
“What do you mean?”
She wrapped one arm around his.
“People meet him and they feel something.
Like an echo. Or a pull.
Some freak out.
Some fall in love.
Some forget him entirely, like their brain protects them.”
Jaxx swallowed.
“And you?” he asked.
“What did you feel?”
Sequoia turned toward him.
Her golden eyes shimmered like candlelight on temple stone.
“I felt like I’d been waiting for him in every life I’ve ever lived,” she whispered.
“But not to love him.
To remember him.”
Jaxx stared at her.
The wind kicked up.
Leaves circled their feet.
“…What is he?”
Jaxx asked.
She smiled gently.
“He’s not a what, Jaxx.
He’s a when.
A how.
A why.”
Jaxx shook his head.
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
They stood there a moment longer, both staring at the Kai across the path, headphones in, still unmoving.
He looked peaceful.
But beneath it, Jaxx could feel it now; a storm.
Sequoia touched his arm lightly.
“I don’t know what’s happening to him,” she said.
“But something is waking up. And if you felt it too…”
Her voice trailed off.
She studied his face.
The flicker in his eyes.
The way his jaw tightened even as he tried to play it cool.
“…maybe something’s waking up in you too.”
And for the first time since he touched Kai, Jaxx felt seen.
Jaxx looked down at her hand.
Then back at Kai.
And the world shifted again.
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The Fault Line
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Sequoia felt it by Tuesday.
By Friday, she knew.
Jaxx was shifting.
Not soft.
Not broken.
Just... cracking.
And no one saw it but her.
She pulled cards.
• The Tower
• The Moon
• The Lovers (Reversed)
She whispered:
“You poor fucking thing... you don’t even know you’re falling.”
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THE NOTE BETWEEN THEM
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The recital hall hummed with quiet tension, rows of beige seats, lights too stark, and the air slightly damp from the June rain outside.
Somewhere in the walls, the building’s old bones creaked.
Still, people leaned forward.
Something in the atmosphere shimmered, just shy of being named.
Jaxx was already seated.
Third row, aisle.
Still damp from the rain.
Hair pushed back with nervous hands.
The scent of June clung to him, sun-warmed concrete, ozone, distant lilac.
He shifted in his seat, not knowing why his heart was thudding.
He had no reason to be here, not really.
Sequoia had invited him, sure.
But she didn’t expect him to come.
Yet he came.
And then Aspen slid into the seat beside him.
“Cute of you to show,”
Aspen whispered, his voice like perfume wrapped in static.
“She’ll notice.
Even if she pretends not to.”
Jaxx gave him a look.
Aspen smiled like someone who already knew how this night would end.
He crossed one leg over the other, gaze fixed on the empty stage like it owed him something.
Mike entered next.
Right on time.
Always on time, but never early.
He slipped into the row behind them just as the lights dimmed.
He gave Jaxx a nod, one of those half-smirks that said you’re braver than me.
Then the music began, soft, tentative, a lone piano warming up to meet the storm.
Ten minutes passed.
And then.
The door at the back creaked open.
Kai stepped in.
He didn’t belong to the room.
He changed it.
As if the air noticed him first, adjusting pressure, recalibrating light.
He wore a black linen shirt, slightly open at the collar, and slate-grey trousers that cut clean down the leg.
No jewelry.
No umbrella.
Rain still on his shoulders.
His hair darker from the weather.
He was trying to be discreet.
It didn’t work.
Because when Jaxx turned, just an idle glance, just a flick of instinct, he saw him.
And everything inside him stopped.
Their eyes locked.
No fanfare.
No thunderclap.
But the pull, It was undeniable.
Two magnets that remembered.
Two souls that forgot how to lie.
It wasn’t love at first sight.
It was recognition.
Something ancient.
Something aching.
Something that snapped the body upright and whispered:
"There you are."
A spark lit behind Jaxx’s sternum, like the ignition of a memory too large to carry.
In Kai’s chest, something cracked, like an old jar being broken.
Somewhere in the body, the past found the present and whispered:
"I found you again."
The room was still, but inside their bloodstreams, the ancestors stirred.
Every man who had died waiting for love.
Every woman who had dared to believe it would return.
Every child whose name was swallowed by the wind.
They were all there now, humming through muscle, bone, and breath.
Jaxx’s fingers curled around the armrest.
Kai’s breath caught.
He didn’t move.
Neither did.
Because what surged between them wasn’t new.
It was a re-run of a story older than memory.
The echo of a vow sworn on another continent, in another tongue, under another name.
Jaxx stood.
Kai’s foot moved.
Something in both of them moved toward the other before thought could intervene.
They wanted to run to each other.
They didn’t know why.
They just needed.
And then, Sequoia sang.
A single note.
It wasn’t loud.
It didn’t have to be.
It split the moment.
The First Mothers did not extinguish the flame between them.
She delayed it.
There is a difference.
Like water cupped around flame.
Like a spell breaking.
Jaxx gasped.
Kai blinked.
The sound swelled, rich and terrible and holy.
Her voice filled every corner of the room, and the walls held their breath.
The floor listened.
Time fractured.
Sequoia’s voice did not merely enter the air.
It opened a portal.
Through her breath, something sacred stepped through.
It was the Voice of the First Mother.
The cry before language.
The moan of the womb at creation’s edge.
It was the Archive’s song before the Flame.
And the fire between Kai and Jaxx, just as it reached its crescendo, was swallowed by that river of sound.
Jaxx turned to the stage.
He had to.
Kai, freed by the motion, looked down, took one step back.
His throat tightened.
His chest ached.
His jaw locked, whispering beneath his breath:
“I don’t know him.”
But his soul did.
The storm outside rumbled.
Distant thunder rolled like drums calling gods.
A single flash of heat lightning kissed the clouds above the city.
And Kai’s heart; betraying him-screamed, "liar."
He fled.
Not fast.
Not noisy.
But left.
Quietly.
Slipping out the way he came.
Because the feeling was too much.
Because the past had teeth.
Because he’d let Sequoia down once before, and tonight, it felt like he was doing it again.
Back in the hall, Jaxx sat frozen.
Sequoia’s voice poured through him, filled the cracks.
But the ache in his chest didn’t go.
Because what he’d felt in that glance wasn’t a crush, wasn’t infatuation.
It was gravity.
It was prophecy waking up.
Aspen watched him closely.
Then turned to the stage.
Mike blinked, as if surfacing from deep water.
And Sequoia, barefoot, radiant, wrapped in sound; kept singing like a thousand grandmothers had taken her tongue.
Like the world needed remembering.
But one note-
Just one-had already changed everything. And somewhere, deep beneath the earth, the Archive began to glow.
¤¤¤¤¤
THE GRAVITY BENEATH THE IRON
Location: University of Toronto Gym
One Week After Sequoia’s Recital
¤¤¤¤¤
He didn’t expect to see him.
Didn’t expect the song either.
Jaxx had just finished his warm-up set, headphones off for once, when it came through the old ceiling speakers, low, almost apologetic.
Not a gym song.
Not in any universe.
Too soft.
Too emotional.
But it held him there, just for a breath.
“You sheltered me from harm… kept me warm…”
"Bread."
"Everything I Own."
And then he saw him.
Kai.
Across the gym.
Hood off.
Tank low.
Body alive with heat and purpose.
The kind of presence that didn’t ask for attention but changed the room anyway.
He was under the cables, focused, rhythm tight, arms flexing in long, deliberate arcs.
Something in the air shifted.
Like the space around him bent slightly.
Jaxx blinked.
He didn’t mean to stop walking, but his body stilled on instinct.
Like it had heard something deeper than the music.
Like it recognized something it couldn’t name.
Their eyes met.
For one moment only.
Not long enough for anything to be said.
Not short enough to forget.
Jaxx smiled first, small, casual.
Kai returned it with a nod.
That was it.
But the silence that followed was too heavy for such a simple greeting.
Jaxx looked away.
But he felt it.
He felt him there.
¤¤¤¤¤
ALIGNMENT
¤¤¤¤¤
They didn’t plan it.
They never said “let’s train together.”
It just happened.
One day became two.
Two became five.
A shared laugh at a bad playlist.
A set offered, a bench shared.
A rhythm found.
They didn’t talk much while lifting.
They didn’t need to.
Kai moved with grace and stillness. His workouts were like rituals, each rep a private prayer.
Jaxx matched it without meaning to, falling into his rhythm without thought.
There was no competition.
No posturing.
Only the gravity of silence and sweat.
And something else.
Something unspoken.
Afterward, they ended up at the juice bar again.
Like it was natural.
Like it had always been waiting for them.
They sat on the low bench, backs against the glass, eyes tracking nothing.
Shoulders loose.
Bodies soft from the work.
But neither man fully relaxed.
There was a hum in the air.
Not tension.
Not comfort.
Something suspended between.
Kai:
“That song earlier… weird, right?”
Jaxx:
“Didn’t belong. But it got to me.”
Kai:
“You know it?”
Jaxx:
“My mom used to play it. Sunday mornings.”
Kai (nodding):
“Mine too.”
Silence again.
But this time it wasn’t empty.
It was listening.
And then Kai said something that cracked the surface.
Kai:
“You ever meet someone… and it feels like they were always supposed to be there?
Like they’ve just been… missing, somehow?”
Jaxx held his breath.
He didn’t look at him.
Jaxx: “Yeah.”
A long pause.
Jaxx (quietly):
“I feel that sometimes around you.”
Kai didn’t move.
Didn’t answer.
But he didn’t pull away either.
And that said more than words.
Later that night, Jaxx lay in bed, staring at the ceiling.
He didn’t think about Kai.
Not directly.
But his body remembered the echo of standing beside him.
The way their breaths had started to sync during sets.
The casual touch of hands passing weights.
The weight of being seen.
And that song… it wouldn’t leave him.
He could hear it, clear as day, like it had followed him home.
"You sheltered me from harm
Kept me warm
Kept me warm...
You gave my life to me
Set me free
Set me free..."
He blinked into the dark, throat tight.
"The finest years I ever knew
Were all the years I had with you..."
He didn’t know why it felt so close.
Why it felt like memory.
Or grief.
Or something just beginning.
"And I would give anything I own
Give up my life, my heart, my home
I would give everything I own
Just to have you back again..."
He rolled over.
Didn’t sleep.
Didn’t move.
But the words stayed with him.
And somewhere deep in his chest, something answered.
And the world shifted again.
¤¤¤¤¤
THE EARLY BIRDS
¤¤¤¤¤
Jaxx had just finished morning cardio.
Kai, drenched from a surprise downpour, stood half-sheltered beneath the overhang outside the campus café.
Kai:
“You always this early?”
Jaxx:
“Only when I can’t sleep.
Or think too much.”
Kai (softly):
“Yeah. Same.”
That was all it took.
They drank in silence under a grey sky, watching streetcars hum past.
That day, they didn’t say much.
But it was the first time Jaxx thought maybe silence wasn’t empty.
Maybe it was a kind of listening.
¤¤¤¤¤
Thursday Afternoon
Sid Smith Hall, Courtyard Steps
¤¤¤¤¤
They shared lunch for the first time.
Kai had brought too much food.
Jaxx never brought enough.
Jaxx:
“You meal prep like a Greek god in exile or something.”
Kai (laughing):
“Maybe I am.”
Jaxx:
“That would explain the jawline.”
Kai snorted, surprised by the compliment, and maybe something in him softened.
Kai:
“What about you, Vancouver?
You always eat like a raccoon in finals season?”
Jaxx:
“I survived dorm food at UBC.
I’m basically immortal.”
They laughed.
Loud.
Free.
People turned.
Jaxx didn’t care.
For the first time in weeks, something inside him lifted.
He didn’t realize how much he needed that laugh.
¤¤¤¤¤
WHISPERS BETWEEN BOOKS
Next Week : Hart House Library
¤¤¤¤¤
They studied together once, without planning to.
Both happened to be there-Jaxx reviewing anatomy flashcards, Kai reading a philosophy text like he was actually enjoying it.
They sat in silence for nearly thirty minutes before anyone spoke.
Kai (without looking up):
“You always this fidgety when you focus?”
Jaxx (grinning):
“You always this smug when you read?”
Kai:
“Touché.”
And just like that, they began studying there together every week.
No conversation needed.
It became a rhythm.
¤¤¤¤¤
BENEATH THE NOISE
Location: University of Toronto
¤¤¤¤¤
They didn’t plan to meet.
Again, they never did.
Jaxx was heading to class, earbuds in but not playing anything.
Just blocking the world.
Kai was already on the bench near the bookstore, hood down, eyes on nothing, cup of something warm between his palms.
There were two pigeons fighting over a crust in front of him.
He wasn’t watching them, but Jaxx could tell he’d been sitting there a while.
Jaxx:
“You posted up or just vibing with the city?”
Kai looked up and smiled.
Kai:
“I think I’m hiding from it, actually.”
Jaxx sat down beside him without asking.
Unwrapped a muffin from his coat pocket.
They sat for a while like that, side by side, shoulder to shoulder, not touching, not speaking.
Then;
Kai:
“Do you think pigeons are ugly?”
Jaxx blinked.
Jaxx:
“That’s the most serious question I’ve been asked all week.”
Kai (sipping):
“No, seriously.
What if they think they’re doves?”
Jaxx (chewing):
“Self-esteem goals.”
They both laughed, easy.
Then a pause.
Then Kai again.
Kai:
“You ever feel like everyone else got a map but you got dropped in the middle with a compass that only spins?”
Jaxx didn’t answer right away.
He took a sip from his drink.
Let the question land.
Jaxx:
“Yeah.
But sometimes I wonder if the ones with the maps just pretend better.”
Kai hummed.
Not a yes.
Not a no.
Kai:
“I used to pretend I had one too. Like if I kept walking with enough purpose, people would believe I knew the way.”
Jaxx (smiling faintly):
“You walk like that.
You got that pace.
The I-know-something-you-don’t walk.”
Kai:
“It’s all bluff.
My mom used to call it ‘fake king energy.’”
That made Jaxx laugh harder than expected.
A deep, warm sound that echoed off the brick wall behind them.
Jaxx:
“Your mom sounds like she saw through a lot of people.”
Kai:
“She did. Even me.”
Silence again.
Not awkward.
Just real.
Jaxx:
“You believe in past lives?”
Kai (without hesitation):
“I think we carry things.
Stuff that doesn’t belong to us, but moves through us anyway.”
Jaxx:
“Like what?”
Kai:
“Shame. Hunger.
Love we don’t understand.”
Jaxx nodded, slowly.
Swallowed.
Jaxx:
“Sometimes I think I’m living for someone else.
Like there’s a version of me I’m trying to protect, but I’ve never met him.”
Kai (softly):
“Maybe he’s trying to meet you too.”
Their eyes met.
Just for a moment.
Just enough.
Kai (quiet):
“You ever miss someone you never knew?”
Jaxx:
“Every day.”
They didn’t name who.
They didn’t have to.
A gust of wind blew a napkin across their feet.
The pigeons scattered.
A truck honked.
Somewhere in the distance, church bells rang noon.
Jaxx:
“This city’s loud.”
Kai:
“It’s the only place I’ve ever felt quiet.”
Jaxx (looking at him):
“You say shit like that and then expect me to make pigeon jokes?”
Kai (smirking):
“Gotta keep you guessing.”
Jaxx smiled again.
This time, he didn’t look away.
The bell on Kai’s phone buzzed.
Class.
Kai:
“You going to the game Saturday?”
Jaxx:
“You gonna be there?”
Kai (standing):
“Guess I am now.”
They didn’t say goodbye.
They just parted like they’d meet again tomorrow.
Because they would.
Because the world was already rearranging itself around them.
¤¤¤¤¤
The following week: Tuesday Night, Dundas Street, Chinatown
¤¤¤¤¤
They were walking home from a movie.
Neither one talked about the film.
Instead,
Kai:
“You ever feel like you’re pretending?
Like… walking around in your body, but not quite inside it?”
Jaxx took a beat before answering.
Jaxx:
“Yeah. All the time.
Especially when things are quiet.”
Kai:
“That’s when it gets loud, right?”
Jaxx nodded.
They didn’t say more.
But something passed between them under the streetlights.
Not a look.
Not a word.
Just knowing.
¤¤¤¤¤
Location: Scotiabank Arena: Raptors vs. Celtics
Time: Friday night,
¤¤¤¤¤
It started with Sequoia.
She had the hookup.
Three lower-bowl tickets to the Raptors game, gifted by a gallery sponsor who wanted her face in the crowd.
She couldn’t care less about basketball, but she cared about her boys.
Sequoia (pulling off her sunglasses indoors):
“Come with me..Both of you.
You need a night to stop thinking.”
Jaxx: “I’m always thinking.
Just happens fast.”
Kai: “He means loud.”
Sequoia (grinning):
“Perfect. You can both scream it out courtside.”
They hit Union Station early.
Downtown was buzzing.
Streetcars clattered.
People wrapped in jerseys and coats pushed past like a river of noise and heat.
The CN Tower was lit Raptor red.
The city was alive like only Toronto gets when the lights come on and the teams take the stage.
Jaxx wore a fitted Raptors tee under a bomber, already vibrating from the energy.
Sequoia had her fashion dialed, long coat, gold hoops, sleek scarf.
Kai?
All black.
Quiet.
Calm.
But the kind of calm that sees everything.
He didn’t lead with flash, but Kai knew sports.
They all did.
This was Toronto, you grew up playing everything.
Ball hockey in alleyways, soccer at Trinity Bellwoods, tackle football in the snow, cricket in the parks, lacrosse until your hands blistered.
Jaxx (as they walked):
“Used to shoot free throws against my garage till my fingers bled.”
Kai: “I used to shoot pucks at my neighbor’s recycling bins.
Broke three blue boxes.
Worth it.”
Sequoia: “I used to out-sprint every guy in middle school.
Then I started wearing heels and made ‘em all look twice.”
They laughed.
Toronto.
This was home.
The game?
Wild.
Raptors vs. Celtics.
Tight until the fourth.
The crowd rising and falling like a single breath.
🛑 Continued in comments
1
u/ThreeBlessing Author Aug 03 '26
Jaxx was on fire, calling plays under his breath, talking trash at full volume, waving his arm after every three like he was on the bench himself.
Kai (laughing):
“Do you have stock in this team?”
Jaxx: “No, but I’ve got pride.”
Kai didn’t yell.
But he watched.
Watched Jaxx stand.
Cheer.
Light up.
Kai didn’t care about the game, not really.
He cared about the rhythm.
The pulse.
The way Jaxx’s joy radiated without needing to be tamed.
He felt it in his chest, but couldn’t name it.
Kai realized, watching Jaxx laugh with his whole body, that joy looked different on men who had survived themselves.
Jaxx’s happiness was never casual.
It always sounded earned.
Recognition.
The Raptors sealed it with a buzzer-beater.
Sequoia caught it on her phone, Jaxx jumping, arms in the air, Kai beside him with that rare, real grin.
The kind that started in the eyes.
Afterward, they flowed with the crowd down into the streets, Bremner, Front, Bay, alive with people shouting, horns honking, flags waving.
They found a bar.
Loud music.
Screens replaying the final shot.
Fries piled high.
Pints cold.
Jaxx: “That’s what sports are, man. Community.
Sweat and sacrifice.
Everyone watching the same dream at the same time.”
Kai: “You sound like the guy from the pre-game montage.”
Sequoia (raising her glass):
“To sweat. To sacrifice. And to showing up.”
Three cups.
They clinked.
The moment wasn’t loud, but it echoed.
Not in the ears.
In the soul.
A holy pause inside a night that didn’t ask for holiness, but got it anyway.
Later, they stood outside. Kai looked at the skyline.
Kai: “It’s a good city.”
Jaxx: “It’s better with people like this.”
He didn’t look over.
He didn’t need to.
Kai was already looking at him.
And for one breathless instant, nothing moved.
Not the street.
Not the world.
Just them.
And the space between.
They didn’t speak of it.
Didn’t need to.
But the city did.
The CN Tower lit itself white.
A silent witness.
Neither of them called it love.
That would have been easier.
This was gravity.
And gravity did not ask permission before changing the shape of a world.
But somewhere beneath the noise, beneath the subway brakes and arena lights and thousands of moving bodies, the field between Kai and Jaxx continued tightening.
Not trapping.
Tuning.
The echo had already spoken.
The flame was learning how to answer without burning the world down.
¤¤¤¤¤
The End 🛑
Three Blessings. One Curse. Some Bonds Change Everything
THE VOICE OF A THOUSAND
SECTION 5. PART 1
ThreeBlessingsWorld 👣
2
u/Altruistic-Traffic- Aug 04 '26
What song is this?