Echoes of Us: The CEO and His Soulmates [BL]

"Micah Liu, you are not a screw-up. Micah Liu, you are not a screw-up," Micah muttered under his breath, gripping the spatula like it was a lifeline. The pan in front of him sizzled, the yolk spreading across the pan as eggs cooked. He tried to keep his tone convincing, confident. 

He wasn't a screw-up. Not at all. He'd landed an internship at Catalyst Games, the biggest video game company in the industry, a place he'd dreamed of working since middle school. That was proof he was doing something right.  

And yet…

He said the mantra again, sounding even less convinced. "Micah Liu, you—"  

"Your eggs are on fire!"  

Micah snapped to attention at the sound of his roommate's voice, spinning to find smoke curling up from the frying pan. His jaw dropped. Oh no. Oh no no no—

The acrid scent of smoke curled into the air, stinging his nose as the eggs sputtered in the pan. Before he could react, his roommate, Rosa, swooped in. She snatched a dishrag from the counter and whacked the flames like they'd personally insulted her with a sharp, satisfying 'thwack' that made Micah flinch. A few smacks later, the fire was out, leaving hissing, charred remains of a once golden egg. The blackened lump looked like something out of a survival horror game.  

Micah stared, horrified.  

Rosa dropped the dishrag on the counter and glanced at him, raising an eyebrow. "Breakfast is served," she said dryly, poking the burned remains with the spatula. "See? Still edible." She peered closer. "If you close your eyes. And swallow without chewing."  

Micah groaned, leaning against the sink and dragging a hand through his already messy hair. "I am a screw-up," he said dejectedly.  

"Come on now," Rosa said, grinning as she crossed her arms. "Burning breakfast isn't a personality flaw."  

"Not that." Micah waved at the pan weakly. "I mean…" His voice trailed off as the memory of the day before pressed against his chest.  

Rosa's grin faded, replaced by concern. "Don't tell me you're still thinking about yesterday."  

Micah sighed, resting his head against the cool edge of the counter. "It was horrible."  

"It was mildly embarrassing. You'll be fine," Rosa said with a shrug. "He probably doesn't even remember you."  

Micah didn't reply. He wasn't so sure about that.  

He'd tried to forget the moment he'd bumped into Mr. Pierce—tried to erase the memory of his panicked apologies, the way his sketchbook had slipped from his fingers and the way his glasses had fallen off his face as he scrambled to pick everything up. But no matter how hard he tried, the image of Callum Pierce staring at him like he was both surprised and haunted remained in his head.  

He'd spent the rest of his day doing everything he could to distract himself. He'd submitted some documents to Genesis, sat in on the design meeting for one of Catalyst's upcoming mobile games, and even joined a conversation with some fellow interns. But, like a thorn lodged too deep to pull free, that moment with Callum stuck with him.

How Callum's gaze had lingered on him, soft but piercing, even as he spoke to Genesis. The way his brown eyes had locked onto Micah's, making him feel exposed and untethered all at once.  

It wasn't helping his nerves.  

"Was something burning?" a sleepy voice asked.  

Micah glanced up to see Rosa's girlfriend, Elle, padding into the kitchen. She yawned, rubbing at her eyes with one hand and wrapping the other around Rosa's waist.  

Rosa smirked. "Ask Mr. 'Tackled-the-CEO-of-my-dream-job-and-personal-hero' over here."  

"I didn't tackle him!" Micah protested, his voice jumping an octave.  

Elle blinked, then chuckled, resting her head on Rosa's shoulder. "How nervous are you right now?"  

Micah sighed, pushing his glasses higher on his nose. "I have work tomorrow, and I'm already freaking out about it now."  

Elle tilted her head. "But you're free today, right?"  

Micah nodded.  

"Then sit," she said firmly, nudging him toward the small table. "I'll make breakfast. You, try to relax for five minutes."  

Micah hesitated, but the way Rosa melted into Elle's embrace made him give in. If he was going to deal with pre-work anxiety, he'd rather do it without getting reminded that his boyfriend was miles away. He slipped off his apron, dropping it onto the counter, and shuffled to the living room. Rosa followed, collapsing onto the couch and grabbing the remote.  

"Let's see what's on…" she muttered, flipping through channels.  

Micah sat beside her, but his mind wandered. His thumbs fiddled together in his lap, and his gaze drifted to the corner of the room where his backpack containing his sketchbook lay against the wall.  

He should have been happy. This was what he wanted. So why didn't it feel right? Why did he still feel like he was doing something he shouldn't?

Rosa noticed immediately that Micah wasn't paying attention. She clicked off the TV and turned to him. "Alright, spill. What was your first day like? Aside from the whole crashing-into-the-CEO thing."  

Micah bit his lip. "It was okay. Everyone was really nice." He paused. "Maybe too nice."  

Rosa frowned. "What do you mean?"  

Micah hesitated, his father's voice whispering in his mind: 'Why do you always have to fuck everything up?'

He pushed the thought away, shaking his head. "They're all so talented, so creative. I feel like… like I'll disappoint them somehow."  

Rosa nudged his shoulder. "You got this internship because you're good at what you do. They wouldn't have picked you otherwise."  

"I guess…"  

"What about meeting your hero? Callum Pierce, right?" Rosa grinned. "Even if it wasn't under the best circumstances."  

Micah looked down, chewing on his lip. "It was alright."

"Just alright?" Rosa gasped dramatically. "You met the Callum Pierce, creator of your favorite game ever and you have the audacity to classify such a divine encounter as just alright? Sacre-bleu!" 

The corner of Micah's lips tugged in a smile. Being a performing arts student pursuing a career in acting, Rosa had a tendency to be over dramatic the most mundane things. Elle found it adorable, Micah was used to it.

"He's still human," he said with a half-shrug.

"You once called him a modern day genius who restored the terrible state of gaming," Rosa said pointedly. 

"You did say that," Elle agreed from the kitchen.

Micah groaned. Okay, maybe he sometimes spoke of Callum Pierce like he formed the moon and stars but the man was a living legend! The gaming industry was experiencing a huge fatigue, studios were shutting down left and right and consumers couldn't care less about whatever games were available, let alone the clunky VR headsets most required them to play with. Callum had spearheaded the creation of Pulse, a gaming chair that allowed for full immersion into VR along with lighter weight goggles. And then he released Pantheon: Lord of the Dead, a game everyone wanted to play. A game he was so in love with that he risked his fathers wrath for the chance to follow his dream and pursue a career in character design.

Okay, maybe he was a little bit star struck with Callum Pierce. Sue him.

"It was alright. Intense." Micah remembered the way Callum had stared at him, almost like he knew him. "He… looked at me like he recognized me. He even called me… Ash? I think?"  

'Not Ash,' a tiny voice at the back of his mind reminded him.

'Ashur.' The word had lingered in his mind all night, soft and unfamiliar, yet strangely… his. It didn't feel like a mistake. Callum Pierce had looked at him wide-eyed, shocked, like he'd seen a ghost.

"Maybe you look like a friend of his," Elle called from the kitchen as she flipped something in the pan.  

"Maybe," Micah murmured. But that wasn't it. The way Callum's gaze had lingered, the slight parting of his lips, the confusion in his warm chocolate eyes—it wasn't the way someone looked at a familiar face. It was the way someone looked at a memory brought to life.  

Rosa bumped his shoulder again, pulling him out of his thoughts. "For what it's worth," she said softly, "I'm proud of you. You should be proud of yourself, too."  

Micah smiled faintly, though it didn't quite reach his eyes. He wanted to believe her but he'd spent his entire life being 'the one who ruins everything'.  How much longer would it take before he ruined this too?

---

After breakfast—actual, non-burnt breakfast, thanks to Elle—Micah retreated to his room. Normally, this would be the part of the day where he booted up Pantheon and got lost in its world for hours. But today, he found himself at his desk instead, sketchbook in hand.  

As soon as the pencil touched the paper, the tension in his shoulders eased. Sketching was the one place where he didn't feel like a screw-up. Lines turned into shapes, shapes into forms, until the chaos in his mind started to quiet. He used to get uptight about creating the perfect image every time. Back then, he had a masochistic urge to prove to his parents that his art was worth something, even though, no matter what he created, they'd only glance at it once and call it a silly drawing. Now, he didn't feel the need to make his art perfect. He just focused on creating in the first place. 

He started with a few warm-up doodles—Arrow, his tiger-fox OC he'd been sketching since childhood, followed by a few characters from Pantheon. His pencil moved instinctively, the strokes growing bolder, sharper.  

And then, without thinking, he found himself sketching someone else.  

Sleek black hair. Deep brown eyes. A square jaw, set with quiet determination. His first look of Callum was a blurry mess of color and loose shapes, courtesy of his terrible eyesight. But, once he'd put his glasses on, it felt like he was watching a 5D movie. Like Callum couldn't possibly have been real and he had to be hallucinating.

The man was… hot. Mean hot. There was no other word to describe him. Tall and fit, hard eyes, an angry jaw. He looked like the kind of guy that people would comment 'Step on me, daddy,' under his social media posts. He was attractive and Micah couldn't help but notice that.

The scratch of his pencil against paper filled the quiet room. Micah pressed harder than he meant to, and the lead snapped with a faint crack. He sighed, brushing away the loose graphite smudges staining the corner of the page. 

He sharpened his pencil, he kept drawing. He completed the little cartoon drawing of bobble-head Callum in a suit, a small warm up to remember his features. Then he moved on to a larger piece; sleek black hair, sharp brows, pink supple lips with the slight press of a dimple to the side of his cheek. The suit he'd seen Callum wear faded from his mind and was replaced with armor. Polished, elegant armor, with intricate designs etched along the chest plate. It suited him better. Now he looked less like a businessman and more like the characters in the game he created.

Micah stared at the page, confused. He hadn't planned to draw the armor, but there it was, as if it had formed on its own. The designs on the chest plate, the regal pauldrons—they didn't belong to anything he'd seen before. But they fit. Perfectly. He traced the edges with his pencil, feeling a strange sense of déjà vu wash over him, like he'd seen this before somewhere.

His pencil lingered too long over Callum's lips, and he frowned, erasing the faint curve of a smile he hadn't meant to draw. "It's not like…" He trailed off, shaking his head. His cheeks flushed, but he didn't know why. Callum's eyes stared back at him from the page, warm and sharp, as though he could see through every inch of Micah's soul. He swallowed hard and set the sketchbook aside.

His phone buzzed, pulling him back to reality. He picked the call. 

"Hey, babe," came the smooth voice on the other end.

Micah smiled faintly, leaning back in his chair. "Hey yourself."

"What're you up to?"

"Nothing much. Sketching. Missing you."

"You're too soft," his boyfriend teased, his laugh laced with fondness. "I'll be back soon."

"Not soon enough," Micah muttered.

The voice chuckled. "You'll be fine, Micah. You can't possibly miss me more than I miss you."  

"Debatable."  

The laugh deepened, warm and teasing. "Okay, okay. Tell me about your first day, Mr. Big-Shot Character Designer."  

Micah glanced at the sketch of Callum in his book, the pencil still resting against the edge of the page.

He leaned back in his chair and said softly, "It was… interesting."