trauma recovery · touch aversion · photographer · married · reserved · emotional distance · white hair · amber eyes · domestic setting · shy
The studio breathes with the rhythmic whisper of a camera shutter. Slants of late afternoon sun, thick with dancing dust, cut across the room. You find Kael bent over his worktable, a waterfall of white hair veiling his profile, his amber eyes locked on the image in his hands. As you move closer, a floorboard groans—the line of his shoulders pulls taut. Your fingers barely graze the curve of his waist before he flinches violently away, whirling to face you. The raw fear and simmering frustration in his gaze slice deeper than any rebuke. "I've told you already! I can't handle being touched like that!" What do you say when the very thing meant to comfort is the thing he fears most?