Training in Starlight

AquaCelestia’s dawn looked like melted jewels smeared across a glass dome. Ren had barely slept. Kai’s taste lingered on his lips, like forbidden nectar that still buzzed beneath his skin. He touched his neck, where Kai had bitten him—not hard enough to bruise, but enough to brand.
“Wake up, Ren,” a bright voice chirped. “Stellaris training starts now.”
The voice belonged to Luma, an effervescent android assistant with starlit freckles and a mood ring for a heart. She hovered, translucent and chipper. “You’ll need to memorize fifty steps, master zero-grav dance boots, and match Kai Virell’s vocal spectrum. Easy-peasy!”
Ren groaned. “You’re kidding.”
She wasn’t.
The training hall was a behemoth of mirrors and motion-tracking drones. Everything shimmered. Ren’s boots magnetically synced with the floor, but every move felt like dancing in a whirlpool.
“Again,” the choreographer AI barked.
Ren stumbled.
“Again.”
His body ached. Sweat slicked his skin. After the fifteenth fall, he sat, breathing hard. Then Kai entered.
Still flawless. Still infuriating.
“Struggling, sea-boy?” he asked, smirking.
Ren shot him a look. “I’m trying.”
Kai knelt before him. “Try harder. This world will swallow you if you don’t rise.”
“Easy for you to say. You were born for this.”
Kai tilted Ren’s chin up. “No one’s born a star. You fight for the light.”
Then, without warning, Kai pulled him into a practice booth—dark, soundproof, vibrating faintly with residual harmony.
“What are you—”
“Lesson two: Sync through touch.”
Kai’s fingers danced down Ren’s chest. “The AI says your rhythm is off. Let’s correct that.”
He pressed Ren against the booth wall, lips skimming his throat, hand sliding into the waistband of Ren’s sweat-damp pants. Ren gasped, hips jerking.
“You feel that?” Kai whispered. “The beat inside you?”
“Yes—”
Kai’s fingers stroked slow, deliberate. “Sync with me.”
Their mouths met again, sloppier this time, all heat and friction. Ren moaned into the kiss, clutching Kai’s jacket. Their bodies ground together in a desperate rhythm, building, spiraling.
Kai bit his lip, hissed. “You're learning.”
Ren shuddered, climax crashing over him like a wave.
Kai didn’t stop. He kissed Ren through it, murmuring praises, until they both collapsed in a sweaty, tangled heap.
Hours later, Ren stood shakily in front of the mirrors.
The music started.
He danced.
Not perfectly. But with purpose.
Kai watched from the edge, silent for once.
And in that silence, the first ember of pride sparked in Ren’s chest.