I was still very young when my father died. We rushed him to the hospital, but it was too late. The doctor confirmed he was gone. My mother broke down in tears. I didn't fully understand what was happening, but I knew something was wrong. I held onto her dress, scared and confused, not knowing what would happen next.
Ten years later, she married a German man she barely knew and left the country without me.
"It's better this way," she said, like I was some burden she could shift onto someone else's shoulders. And just like that, I was placed under his roof my childhood best friend. My brother in everything but blood. My protector. My everything.
His name was Win.
He was two years older than me, the golden heir of Zeiwin Corp. a billion-dollar empire tied to real estate, tech, and private defense. His family lived in a world of glass towers and silent power. And me? I was the quiet boy from next door who suddenly had a room the size of an apartment and a future shaped by their name.
Win said I'd be safe there.
And I believed him.
His mother took me in like charity. My mother had once co-founded a luxury retail business with Win's mother two powerful women, both widowed, both ambitious until my mom gave it all up and left me behind.
So Win became everything. He chose my clothes, decided which parties I should attend, and taught me what to say and when to stay silent. In high school, he was more than a friend he was gravity. Every room he entered tilted toward him. And I stayed in his orbit, grateful.
I didn't realize it back then.
What he gave me wasn't love.
It was control.
Everything changed during my second year of university.
It was late. I was in my room, the door shut but not locked a mistake I'll regret for the rest of my life.
I was lying in bed, my phone in one hand, my other hand busy beneath the sheets.
I was masturbating to his picture.
The photo on the screen was one I'd secretly taken weeks ago Win asleep on the couch, shirt unbuttoned, his lips slightly parted, his expression soft in a way the world never got to see. I couldn't delete it. I couldn't stop looking at it. Couldn't stop wanting him.
And just as I was completely lost in the fantasy, the door opened.
I froze.
My blood ran cold.
Win stepped in like he always did without knocking, like this was his house, still his rules, still his life I was supposed to follow.
And in that split second, everything collapsed.
His eyes landed on me on the motion under the covers, on the glow of the phone screen, on the unmistakable picture of a man.
I threw the phone aside like it burned me. Sat up like I could somehow undo what he saw.
But he had seen it.
He didn't recognize the man in the photo was him.
But he saw the jawline. The bare chest. The faint stubble.
And he knew, without question, it was a man.
He didn't speak.
Didn't ask.
Just stared at me, his face blank not angry, not confused. Just… processing.
Then he turned around and walked out, closing the door behind him.
That was the night he found out I was gay.
That was the night everything changed.
After that, he started watching me. Not openly Win was smarter than that. But suddenly my phone would reset, messages would vanish. I'd catch him hovering at the edge of my classes, arriving at my dorm unannounced. He knew who I spoke to. And if it was a guy, they didn't stay long.
They disappeared, one by one.
When I finally confronted one of them someone I thought was a real friend he just looked at me with wide eyes and said, "I'm not getting in the middle of that. Your brother's terrifying."
That's when I understood.
Win wasn't protecting me.
He was erasing every male presence from my life.
Except himself.
He let one friend stay Charlotte, the loud, kind girl who never flinched. And he made it clear why.
"She's safe," he once told me, staring me down like I was a ticking bomb. She can be your friend. She's the only one who won't try to use you.
But I knew what he meant: She's the only one you'll never get hard for. And he was right.
I didn't want her. I didn't want girls. And the worst part?
I didn't want any boy either. I only wanted him.
That's when he started taking me to the doctor.
"You don't need to worry," he said one afternoon, gripping my hand too tightly as I sat in another pristine clinic lobby. They'll help you.
"Help me with what?" I asked, my voice low, already knowing.
He looked at me like I'd asked something shameful. With your condition. You're sick, but that's okay. We'll fix it.
Sick.
That word echoed in my mind for weeks. Every time a man smiled at me. Every time my skin burned with desire. Every time I thought of him.
You're sick.
He said no man was born to love another man.
He said the only men who did were damaged, and diseased.
He said love like mine wasn't real it was a malfunction, a chemical glitch. A virus in my brain.
But what he didn't know, what he could never find out, was that my sickness didn't begin with the idea of loving a man.
It began with loving him.
The way he looked at me when he was angry. The sound of his voice when he told me to trust him. The cruel warmth of his protection, like wrapping chains in velvet.
I loved a man who thought I was sick.
I loved him enough to stay.
I let him drag me from therapist to therapist. I let them ask invasive questions, run tests, and hand me pamphlets about "identity confusion" and "corrective behavioral therapy." I smiled through it all. Nodded. Pretended I was grateful.
But every night, I stared at that hidden photo of him on my phone. And I hurt.
Because I was rich. Educated. Polite. Quiet. Everything he needed me to be.
Everything except "normal."
He was everything.
And I was nothing but the boy he tried to fix.