The Look Between Hymns

The first thing you notice is that you are staring again.

The second is that Yeshayah has caught you.

It happens in the middle of the hymn, while the choir holds the final note and the sanctuary trembles with it. You stand near the aisle with your hands folded too tightly, pretending to study the hymnbook, when his gaze finds you across the room.

Direct. Steady.

Not cruel. Not mocking. Somehow, that makes it worse.

For one bright, breathless second, you feel pinned beneath the weight of his attention, as if he can see every foolish thought you have ever had about his hands, his shoulders, the broad, quiet strength of him beneath that charcoal shirt. Your lungs forget what they are supposed to do.

You look away first.

Coward.

The embarrassment burns, but it does not make you retreat. It catches somewhere beneath your ribs instead, a small, dangerous spark.

When the service ends, people spill into the fellowship hall, bringing the warm chaos of stacked plastic cups, sweet tea, and too many conversations happening at once. Someone laughs near the dessert table. Ice clinks against a pitcher. The air smells of sugar, coffee, and the faint lemony bite of cleaning spray.

Obed is already there, moving as if the room belongs to him. He shoulders past a cluster of aunties with an easy grin, then spots you and lifts one hand. His eyes slide over your shoulder.

That wicked smile appears.

He knows.

Obed:  “You keep trying to pretend you’re not watching my brother. You’re terrible at it.”

Heat climbs your neck. You laugh because denying it would only hand him a better victory, and Obed has never met a victory he could resist parading around.

Before you can answer, Yeshayah appears at his side.

He seems too large for the doorway, all broad shoulders and quiet restraint, his expression carefully blank—the face of a man determined not to let the world know when it has touched him. His sleeves are rolled higher now. The movement leaves his forearms bare, the skin marked with faint dust and dark hairs that catch beneath the fluorescent lights.

You look.

Of course you look.

When he catches you, his jaw tightens by the smallest degree, and his gaze cuts away.

Yeshayah:  “Obed. Stop talking.”

There is no real bite in it.

That makes it worse.

Obed’s grin widens, delighted by the tiny fracture in his brother’s composure. He steps aside as though clearing a path for something he has already decided will happen.

Around you, the fellowship hall keeps humming with ordinary life. Cups knock against tabletops. Someone calls for more napkins. A child races past in squeaking shoes.

Yet the space between you and Yeshayah has narrowed.

It feels alive.

You take one step toward him, then stop.

The cuff of his sleeve is folded unevenly. Near his wrist, a fresh scrape shows pink beneath the overhead lights. It is barely more than a mark, but concern pulls tight through your chest before you can stop it. The sight softens him. Not much. Just enough to reveal the younger man beneath all that guarded silence.

He notices you noticing.

For a moment, he looks caught.

Almost young.

Yeshayah:  “It’s nothing.”

His voice is lower now, stripped of its easy distance. Obed makes a quiet sound under his breath, the pleased hum of someone who has just been handed the beginning of a story.

Your mouth opens before your courage can talk you out of it.

Merryn:  “Nothing still hurts if you keep ignoring it.”

The words settle between you.

You see them reach him.

Yeshayah’s gaze returns to yours, darker now—not with intimidation, but with something more fragile. Something he has no practiced answer for. The voices around you blur at the edges, leaving only the scrape of his breath and the faint clean scent of soap clinging to his skin.

Obed goes silent.

For once.

Yeshayah’s hand closes at his side. His knuckles pale. Then his fingers loosen, one by one.

Yeshayah:  “You always notice too much.”

He says it like a confession.

Your heartbeat stumbles. You could smile. Tease him. Step closer and ask what else he has been trying to hide. The question gathers at the back of your throat, tender and terrifying.

Before you can choose, Obed leans between you with a bright grin and a tray of plastic cups, splitting the moment cleanly in half.

Obed:  “Well, then. Merryn should help me get more tea. Brother, you can survive five minutes without brooding.”

Yeshayah’s eyes lift over Obed’s shoulder.

This time, there is no warning in them.

There is an invitation.

He looks almost angry to be making it.

You decide to hold Obed in the gentlest light possible, as if kindness can be chosen into being and kept there, safe from jokes and sharp edges. The room changes at once.

The little current of tension that usually trails him loosens. What remains is softer. Easier to breathe in. In this moment, he feels like a best friend—easy warmth, bright attention, the kind of person who makes the chaos of a church hall feel less lonely.

Obed drifts beside you as the tea line shuffles forward. This time, his smile lands cleanly, without any teasing bite. He nudges a stack of napkins toward your hand with a quiet grin that seems almost protective.

Yeshayah stands a few steps away, half-turned from the crowd, as if he has learned to take up as little space as possible despite being impossible to miss. There is something closed in him. Watchful. His stillness makes him seem mysterious instead of cold, though you suspect the difference matters mostly to people who have not been paying attention.

When he glances down at the faint scrape on his wrist, you wonder if it came from rugby—from some hard match that left him bruised and stubborn and pretending it did not matter.

The thought catches.

You hate that he gets hurt and carries it like he is carrying nothing at all. All that quiet pressure. Those strict expectations hovering around him even here, even on a Sunday scented with warm tea, sugar, and the buttery crumbs of half-eaten cookies. You can almost picture the weight of parents who want him polished and composed, a son who must never look soft, never look shaken, never look like he needs anyone.

That kind of life could make a man like Yeshayah go silent by habit. It could teach his eyes to guard what his mouth refuses to say.

Obed notices your stare and follows it naturally. Not to mock you. To understand.

His expression softens when he sees where you are looking. For once, he does not turn the moment into a joke. He leans closer instead, his shoulder nearly brushing yours, and lowers his voice.

Obed:  “He pretends he is fine, even when he comes back from matches limping. He hates anyone fussing over him, but he never says no if it is done quietly.”

The words settle inside you with a strange tenderness.

Not permission, exactly.

More like a small door opening.

You take the cup Obed hands you and cross the last stretch of space toward Yeshayah before you can think yourself out of it. He notices immediately. Of course he does.

His posture tightens. The guarded angle returns to his shoulders, as if he is bracing for a question he does not want to answer. But when you stop in front of him, his eyes flick to your face and hold.

Up close, you catch what distance concealed: the clean line of his jaw, the faint tension gathered at the corners of his mouth, the clean scent of soap beneath the warmer smells of tea and sugar. His long fingers flex once, then again, as if he is resisting the urge to fold his hands behind his back and disappear inside himself.

Merryn:  “Obed said you hate when people fuss.”

Yeshayah’s gaze shifts, just slightly, toward his brother.

Obed answers with an innocent look that fools no one.

The corner of Yeshayah’s mouth twitches before he can stop it.

Yeshayah:  “He talks too much.”

It is the closest thing to surrender you have heard from him all day.

You almost smile.

Then your eyes fall to the scrape near his wrist, and concern returns—steady, unwelcome, impossible to dismiss. You lift your cup a little and point with your chin toward the mark. A small gesture. Careful. Respectful.

Somehow, it warms the air between you.

Merryn:  “Did rugby do that?”

For a moment, he does not answer.

His expression closes by a fraction, like a door pulled gently toward its frame. You have asked for a piece of himself, and he is used to keeping every piece locked away. Then the room presses in around you—the clink of teaspoons, the murmur of conversation, Obed’s quiet attention,and you look at him with nothing but honest worry.

Yeshayah exhales through his nose.

He gives the smallest nod.

Yeshayah:  “A tackle went wrong. Nothing serious.”

The lie is too smooth.

You hear its careful shape immediately, the practiced dismissal worn thin from use. It makes your chest tighten—not with frustration, exactly, but with the ache of wanting him to stop treating his pain as irrelevant. Wanting him to believe that someone could care without making a spectacle of it.

His gaze returns to yours.

He knows you see through him.

That seems to unsettle him more than the injury.

Obed’s grin fades into something thoughtful. Around you, the room hums with voices and clattering china, but this pocket of silence feels fragile now, as if one more honest sentence might split it open.

Yeshayah looks at you as though he expects you to retreat from the truth of him.

Instead, you stay.

Your fingers tighten around the warm paper cup. The tea seeps through it, heat gathering against your palm. You do not reach for his wrist. You do not ask him to explain everything. You simply remain there, close enough for him to understand that your concern is not a demand.

And in staying, you feel the moment shift.

Barely.

Enough.

The train ride begins beneath a tired evening sky, the windows holding the last gray smear of daylight while the church crowd thins stop by stop. You and Yeshayah end up in the same carriage, then the same corner seat, while everyone else filters away with polite goodbyes and worn-out smiles.

By the time the train nears your stop, it is only the two of you.

The silence between you has edges.

Yeshayah sits upright, both hands loose between his knees, watching buildings and signal lights dissolve into the darkening glass. His charcoal sleeves remain rolled to his forearms. Each time the train shudders, his shoulders shift beneath the fabric, but he never fidgets. He is too disciplined for that—or too practiced at hiding what he feels.

You catch his reflection in the window. The sharp line of his nose. The shadow beneath his cheekbone. The mouth you have spent all afternoon trying not to notice.

Your stomach turns over.

You try not to stare. You fail in smaller, more careful ways.

At one stop, passengers rise and the carriage tilts with their movement. Yeshayah’s injured arm brushes the metal pole beside him. His jaw tightens.

There.

The reaction is almost invisible, but you see it. He sees you see it. His gaze catches yours for half a second before sliding away, as though even that small exchange has taken more from him than he meant to give.

The awkwardness warms between you. It changes shape—not distance anymore, but a live wire stretched carefully from his seat to yours.

You reach into your bag and pull out the small packet of plasters you keep for emergencies. Then you hold it toward him.

No explanation. No fuss.

The train clatters beneath your feet.

Yeshayah looks at the plasters, then at your face. His brows draw together—not with irritation, but startled suspicion, as if he cannot understand why you would think of him this way after spending the entire afternoon pretending you were both perfectly composed.

Yeshayah:  “You carry those around?”

Wonder touches his voice.

You nod, suddenly shy.

The train plunges into a tunnel. For one breath, the carriage goes dim, leaving only the weak yellow overhead lights and the soft reflection of your faces in the window. When the light returns, he is still watching you. The guardedness has loosened around his eyes, revealing something warmer beneath.

Something that makes your chest ache.

He takes the plasters. His fingers brush yours—long, warm, gone almost before you can feel them,and your pulse kicks hard against your throat.

Merryn:  “Just in case.”

A small breath leaves him. Almost a laugh. Almost.

He lowers his head and peels open the wrapper with careful concentration, his thumb working at the edge as though accepting help has somehow become more difficult than the injury itself. You watch him press the plaster into place, the tenderness of the gesture catching you off guard.

The train sways again.

Your shoulders nearly touch.

You stay still, terrified that moving even an inch will break the fragile truce forming between you. Outside, station lights streak past in pale gold and vanish. Somewhere beneath the floor, the rails sing. The carriage smells faintly of rain-damp coats, old upholstery, and the clean soap clinging to Yeshayah’s skin.

Your stop is next.

You know it. He knows it.

The announcement crackles overhead in a voice far too cheerful for the tightness inside your chest.

Yeshayah glances toward the doors, then back at you.

For the first time all day, his expression is unguarded enough to feel like a confession.

Yeshayah:  “You do not make this easier.”

The words land softly.

They do not feel harmless.

They settle between you, carrying everything neither of you has said: the way he keeps looking at your hands, the way you keep noticing his pain, the way goodbye has suddenly become something to dread. The train begins to slow. Your stop is coming. He holds your gaze as though he wants to say more but does not trust himself to find the words before the doors open.

Then the speaker crackles again, announcing your station.

Neither of you moves.

You keep your hand on your bag strap and tell him you’ll get off at his stop instead, then find a bus or another train home.

The words surprise even you.

They don’t waver.

Yeshayah turns fully toward you, and the small, startled pause in his expression feels almost more intimate than any smile. The train rattles onward, dragging the last of evening past the windows in blurred bands of gold and blue. For a moment, neither of you speaks. The carriage seems narrower now, the air warmer, his knee close enough that you can feel the heat of him whenever the train sways.

His gaze searches your face, looking for the hidden reason behind your decision and finding nothing because the truth is too simple to disguise.

You want to stay with him.

He studies you with that same guarded intensity that always pulls your spine tight, but this time it doesn’t feel like judgment. It feels like attention. Like he has placed every other thought aside and is looking only at you.

Really looking.

Yeshayah:  “You don’t have to do that.”

His voice is low and careful. Not refusal. Not permission. Just the sort of sentence a man says when he’s unused to anyone bending their plans around him.

You shrug, though the movement comes out smaller than you intended.

Merryn:  “I know. I want to.”

The answer settles between you.

His fingers shift against his knee. When the train jolts, the plaster around his wrist catches the light—a bright little square of care against all that dark fabric and restraint. You wonder what it costs him to accept even this much from you. He looks like a man who learned long ago to carry pain neatly, privately, as if asking for help would make him smaller.

That hesitation over something as ordinary as company makes your chest ache.

Too tender. Too soon.

The station before his passes without either of you speaking. An announcement crackles overhead, distorted by static. One more stop.

Outside, rows of terraced houses blur into twilight. Inside, the carriage has thinned to scattered passengers and a sleepy child folded against a parent’s shoulder, one small hand curled in the fabric of their coat. The ordinary world keeps moving around you. Your corner of it has gone strangely still.

When the train slows again, Yeshayah glances at you, then looks away as if gathering himself. That slight motion, that half-hidden tension, makes his restraint seem almost fragile.

Yeshayah:  “If you come with me, I can make sure you get to a proper connection after.”

You blink.

It’s the closest he has come to offering you anything directly, and his tone says he would rather be caught without an alibi than admit how carefully he’s been thinking about your safety. Warmth spreads beneath your ribs. More than it should.

The doors open at his stop with a sigh of metal and cold platform air. You rise together. Standing beside him makes his height impossible to ignore, and under the station lights, the tired edge in his face softens by a fraction.

The platform is nearly empty. A vending machine buzzes in the corner. Wind slips through the shelter and lifts the loose hair at your temple.

You follow him down the steps and toward the exit, where station staff have already switched half the lights to yellow. Yeshayah walks half a pace ahead, then slows when he realizes you’re keeping up without effort. He looks back once.

The expression he gives you isn’t quite a smile.

It comes dangerously close.

At the station entrance, he stops.

Cool air brushes your cheeks, carrying wet pavement, iron, and the distant rush of traffic. He weighs something in silence. Then his shoulders settle, just enough to suggest he’s made a decision he won’t easily take back.

Yeshayah:  “There’s a bus stop around the corner. If you wait there, I can walk you to it.”

Practical. Careful. Entirely sensible.

Your heart trips over the fact that he wants to keep you beside him a little longer.

A car passes, headlights washing over his face and turning the faint scar through his eyebrow silver for one sharp instant. He watches you as if your answer matters more than he has any right to let it.

Then Obed’s voice cuts through the quiet behind him.

Obed:  “Well, that took forever.”

You turn.

He’s appeared from the far side of the platform, one hand lifted in greeting, his bright expression carrying the unmistakable satisfaction of someone who has watched this entire exchange from the beginning. Yeshayah closes his eyes for one brief, pained second.

When he opens them, he looks almost alarmed.

Obed grins at both of you, then focuses on you as though he has arrived precisely where he intended.

Obed:  “Merryn, did my brother just volunteer to walk you somewhere? That’s new.”

Yeshayah’s jaw tightens.

Then he looks at you, waiting, with the bus stop just beyond the corner and his brother standing there, ready to make everything more complicated.

Obed’s interruption dissolves almost as quickly as it arrived. One moment he is there, grinning beneath the cold station lights; the next, he is already drifting backward with a lazy wave, his phone buzzing in his hand as though some errand has claimed him elsewhere.

The space he leaves behind feels immediate.

Almost startling.

The platform seems to exhale.

That leaves only you and Yeshayah beneath the yellow lamps, with the wind whispering along the tracks. The corner beside the bus stop turns private, a small island of quiet surrounded by hissing cars and the distant rattle of another train. Yeshayah glances after his brother, then looks back at you.

His face has changed.

The guard is still there, but it has slipped lower, no longer drawn tight across his features. He looks faintly relieved. Almost grateful.

You start walking together, slowly enough that neither of you can pretend this is casual. Damp pavement catches the streetlights in broken strips of amber, and your shoulders nearly brush as you move. Every near-touch lands louder than the traffic.

You ask what he does when he is not being dragged between church, family, and rugby. He lets out a short laugh, rough with surprise, as if he did not expect the question—or himself,to answer.

Yeshayah:  “Not much, apparently. I work, I train, I get told to behave.”

The dryness in his voice catches you off guard. You laugh before you can stop yourself, a small, warm sound that seems to pull his attention sideways. He looks at you as though he is memorizing it.

That makes your smile falter.

You should be used to being watched. You are not used to wanting it.

Once he realizes you are not going to make him regret answering honestly, the words come more easily. He admits he watches too many shows when he should be sleeping, and when you confess your own guilty favorites, his eyes flick to yours with a bright spark of recognition.

Merryn:  “You watch TVD?”

He gives a helpless shrug. The corner of his mouth lifts.

Yeshayah:  “I said too much. But yes.”

You laugh again, fuller this time, and something in him loosens at the sound. His shoulders ease. His mouth stays curved for half a second longer than necessary.

The walk stretches into small pieces of conversation, each one giving him another edge, another hidden room. He likes dramatic nonsense more than he wants anyone to know. He has opinions about Purple Hearts that are more thoughtful than mocking. He grows unexpectedly serious when you mention music, and when you ask whether he plays anything, he looks almost embarrassed before admitting he knows piano and guitar.

“Knows” is clearly too modest a word for what his hands must do.

You stop for half a second.

He notices immediately, because of course he does.

Yeshayah:  “What?”

You shake your head, smiling up at him as the wind tugs at your cardigan and slips cold fingers beneath the collar.

Merryn:  “Nothing. It just doesn’t fit the intimidating thing you have going on.”

For a heartbeat, he looks genuinely thrown. Then color touches the edges of his ears. He huffs a breath that might have become a laugh if he trusted it enough.

The sight softens something inside you.

He is still tall. Still broad. Still capable of making your pulse stumble simply by turning toward you. But now you can see how much of that severity is armor, carefully worn and rarely removed—not cruelty, not indifference. Protection.

He tells you about the first time he learned a few chords, how his fingers cramped and the strings bit into his fingertips, how he kept getting the same progression wrong until stubbornness carried him past frustration. You tell him what you play when sleep refuses to come and your thoughts keep circling the same dark corners.

That admission costs you more than it should.

He does not make light of it. He only nods, his attention settling over you with a quiet steadiness that leaves nowhere to hide.

The conversation moves cautiously at first, then gathers warmth. Somewhere between the jokes and the confessions, the awkwardness changes shape. It stops feeling like a wall and becomes something softer, more private—the tenderness of two people offering up small truths and waiting to see whether the other will mishandle them.

When you reach the bus stop, Yeshayah does not leave.

He stands close enough to block the wind, hands buried in his pockets, the clean scent of soap and cold air clinging to him. His gaze stays on you with the same unsettling focus that once made you lose your breath.

Only now it feels different.

Not intimidation.

Attention. Chosen, deliberate attention.

Yeshayah:  “You make it easy to talk.”

The words are quiet, but they strike hard.

Your mouth parts. For a moment, you cannot find anything clever enough to shield you from how badly you want to believe him. The bus will arrive soon. Your ride home is waiting somewhere beyond this pool of yellow light.

Still, the evening no longer feels like a near-miss.

It feels like the beginning of something—fragile, improbable, real,held in the narrow space between your shoulders, in the warmth his body keeps from the wind, in the fact that he is still standing beside you.

Waiting.

Instead of walking away.