_*]:min-w-0 !gap-3.5">The mist within the mirror swirled, colors blending and separating like oil on water. As it began to clear, Marcus held his breath, his heart hammering against his ribs. Part of him wanted to look away, to preserve the pusible deniability that had kept his feelings safely hidden for so long. But he couldn't tear his eyes from the box's surface.

  Beside him, Elias was equally transfixed, his usual fidgeting completely stilled.

  The mist coalesced into a single image—not two separate visions as Marcus had expected, but one shared picture that somehow seemed to expand beyond the confines of the small box. The image showed two figures standing close together under a night sky filled with impossible consteltions. The figures were unmistakably them—Elias with his wild hair and collection of pins on his jacket, Marcus with his careful posture and thoughtful expression.

  But in this vision, they were standing with their foreheads pressed together, hands intertwined between them, smiling with a happiness so palpable it made Marcus's chest ache.

  "Oh," Elias whispered, the single sylble filled with something Marcus couldn't identify.

  Heat rushed to Marcus's face. There was no mistaking what the image was showing. No way to expin it away as friendship or misinterpretation. The box had revealed his deepest desire in vivid detail—to be with Elias, to be loved by him.

  But why was Elias seeing the same image? Unless...

  Marcus couldn't bring himself to look at his friend. Couldn't bear to see rejection or, worse, pity in those familiar eyes. He started to push his chair back, desperate to escape, when Elias's hand shot out and caught his wrist.

  "Wait," Elias said, his voice hoarse. "Don't... don't go."

  Reluctantly, Marcus raised his eyes to meet Elias's gaze. What he saw there wasn't disgust or pity. It was wonder, uncertainty, and something that looked remarkably like hope.

  "You saw it too?" Marcus asked, barely audible.

  Elias nodded, his grip on Marcus's wrist gentle but unwavering. "Us. Together." He swallowed visibly. "That's what you want?"

  The question hung in the air between them, weighted with years of unspoken feelings. Marcus could feel the moment bancing on a knife's edge—everything could change or shatter depending on what he said next.

  Courage, he reminded himself. All those puzzle books hadn't just taught him about ciphers and chess problems. They'd taught him that sometimes the only way forward was to take a risk.

  "Yes," he admitted, the word both terrifying and liberating. "For a long time now."

  Elias's face broke into a smile so bright it rivaled the glow from the puzzle box. "I thought it was just me," he said, his voice filled with wonder. "I thought I was the only one who felt this way."

  "You...?" Marcus couldn't quite process what he was hearing. "Since when?"

  "I don't know exactly," Elias said, finally releasing Marcus's wrist only to nervously run his hand through his hair. "It happened so gradually. But I think I started to realize it st year, when you got that terrible flu and were out of school for a week. Nothing felt right without you there."

  Marcus remembered that week—how miserable he'd been, not just from the illness but from missing Elias. "But you never said anything."

  "Neither did you," Elias pointed out. "I was scared. You're my best friend. The most important person in my life. If I said something and you didn't feel the same way..."

  "I know," Marcus nodded. "That's why I never said anything either."

  They both gnced back at the box, where the image of them together was still visible, though the edges had begun to soften again into mist.

  "So the box shows the same thing to both people?" Marcus wondered aloud. "That doesn't make sense. What if our desires were different?"

  Elias shook his head. "I don't think so. I think it shows the truth—what we both truly want, even if we couldn't admit it to ourselves."

  "Our heart's true desire," Marcus echoed the shopkeeper's words.

  They sat in silence for a moment, the enormity of the revetion settling over them. Years of friendship, of shared experiences and inside jokes and quiet moments, were being recontextualized in light of this new understanding.

  "So," Elias finally said, a hint of his usual confidence returning to his voice. "What do we do now?"

  Marcus felt a smile tugging at his lips. "Isn't this the part where you're supposed to sweep me off my feet with some grand romantic gesture?"

  Elias ughed, the sound breaking the tension that had built between them. "I thought that was your department. You're the one who's been reading all those puzzle books. Don't they ever cover what to do after you solve the final puzzle?"

  "Funnily enough, no," Marcus replied, feeling lighter than he had in years. "They usually just end with 'puzzle solved, hero triumphant.'"

  "Well, that's disappointing," Elias said. Then, with a decisiveness that was so quintessentially him, he stood up, took Marcus's hands, and pulled him to his feet as well. "I guess we'll have to figure it out ourselves."

  They stood facing each other, close enough that Marcus could count the freckles scattered across Elias's nose if he wanted to. Their hands remained connected between them, an echo of the image the box had shown.

  "Is this okay?" Elias asked, his voice softer than Marcus had ever heard it.

  Marcus nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

  Slowly, giving Marcus every opportunity to pull away, Elias leaned forward and pressed his forehead against Marcus's—another echo of the box's vision. The simple contact sent a wave of warmth through Marcus's entire body.

  "I've wanted to do this for so long," Elias whispered.

  "What took you so long?" Marcus whispered back.

  Elias's ugh was a gentle puff of air against Marcus's face. "I needed a magical puzzle box to give me the courage, apparently."

  "And here I thought you were fearless."

  "Not about this," Elias admitted. "Not about you. You matter too much."

  Those words, so sincere and unguarded, dissolved the st of Marcus's hesitation. He tilted his head slightly, bringing their lips a breath apart. "You matter too," he said, and closed the distance between them.

  The kiss was gentle, tentative—a question and answer all at once. Elias's lips were warm against his, slightly chapped but impossibly perfect. Marcus felt Elias's hands tighten around his, anchoring him as the world seemed to tilt on its axis.

  When they pulled apart, Elias was looking at him with such naked affection that Marcus felt his breath catch.

  "Was that okay?" Elias asked, uncertainty creeping back into his voice.

  Marcus nodded emphatically. "More than okay."

  Elias's smile returned, bright and genuine. "Good. Because I'd really like to do it again sometime."

  "Sometime like... now?" Marcus suggested, feeling bold.

  Elias ughed and leaned in again, but before their lips could meet, a knock at the bedroom door made them both jump apart.

  "Boys?" Marcus's mother called through the door. "Everything okay in there? You've been awfully quiet."

  Marcus cleared his throat, trying to sound normal. "We're fine, Mom. Just, uh, working on the puzzle."

  "Well, don't forget you have school tomorrow," she reminded them. "It's getting te."

  "We know," Marcus called back. "We'll go to bed soon."

  They listened to her footsteps retreating down the hall, then looked at each other and burst into barely-suppressed ughter.

  "That was close," Elias whispered.

  "Yeah," Marcus agreed. "Though I don't think she would mind. She adores you."

  "Good to know," Elias said with a wink that made Marcus's heart flip. Then his expression grew more serious. "So... what happens tomorrow? At school, I mean."

  It was a good question. They had crossed a line tonight, transformed their friendship into something new and still fragile. The outside world, with its social hierarchies and expectations, suddenly seemed very complicated.

  "Whatever we want to happen," Marcus said after a moment's thought. "We don't have to figure everything out tonight."

  Elias nodded, looking relieved. "One step at a time?"

  "One step at a time," Marcus agreed.

  They both turned back to the box, where the image had now completely dissolved back into mist. As they watched, the mist too began to fade, leaving only the smooth, wooden surface of the box, once again inid with the mother-of-pearl geometric patterns they had first seen.

  "The puzzle reset itself," Elias observed.

  "I guess that means we solved it correctly," Marcus said.

  Elias picked up the box carefully. "Do you think it would show the same thing if we solved it again? Or does it change?"

  "I don't know," Marcus admitted. "But I don't think we need it anymore, do we?"

  Elias's eyes met his, warm and certain. "No, I guess we don't." He set the box back down on the desk. "Though I'm keeping it as a souvenir. How many people can say they found their heart's true desire in a magical puzzle box?"

  "Not many," Marcus agreed with a smile. "It makes a pretty good story."

  "The best," Elias said, reaching out to take Marcus's hand again, their fingers intertwining naturally. "And I think we're just getting to the good part."

  Later, as they y in their respective beds—Elias on the trundle, Marcus above him—they talked quietly in the darkness. Not about puzzles or magic or even what had happened between them, but about ordinary things: a TV show they both liked, pns for the weekend, whether Tyler's party would be worth attending after all.

  But there was a new undercurrent to their conversation, a warmth that hadn't been there before. And when they finally fell silent, the comfortable quiet between them felt like another kind of nguage—one they were just beginning to learn together.

  "Marcus?" Elias's voice drifted up from the trundle bed, already heavy with approaching sleep.

  "Yeah?"

  "I'm gd we found that box."

  Marcus smiled into the darkness. "Me too."

  As he drifted toward sleep, Marcus thought about puzzles—how the most complex ones often had the simplest solutions, hidden in pin sight all along. How sometimes the answer was right in front of you, if only you had the courage to see it.

  His st conscious thought before sleep cimed him was that perhaps some puzzles weren't meant to be solved, but lived—one piece, one step, one day at a time.

  Together.

  The end