Chapter 3: Rabbit Holes
The first thing Matthew saw was the ceiling. The stark, white plane of his unfamiliar bedroom. A knot of anticipation was already tight in his stomach, a live wire left over from the night before. He had slept fitfully, dreams fragmented by neon lights and the phantom pressure of fingers slipping cards into his pocket.
He fumbled for his phone on the nightstand, the screen blinding in the dim room.
Two notifications.
The first, from an unknown number, sent at 1:17 AM: The screening is Thursday, 10pm. The Projector at Golden Mile Tower. Side door, stairs to basement. Tell no one. I’ll find you. – B.
The words were deliberate, a covert operation. Matthew’s pulse quickened. He could already picture the scene: a dusty art-house cinema, shadows, Brian’s profile illuminated by flickering silver light.
The second was a WhatsApp message from another new number, timestamped 3:45 AM. It was a photo of a breathtakingly beautiful, vintage wooden junk boat, its sails lit by strings of fairy lights against the predawn indigo of the sea. Beneath it: Saturday. Noon. Sentosa Cove, Berth B-12. Bring swimwear. And a sense of humour. – H.
The contrast was absurd. One a secret whispered in a basement, the other a carnival announced from a yacht. He had simultaneously enlisted in a spy novel and been invited to a pirate’s party.
He lay there for a long moment, the phone glowing against his chest. Then, with a sudden, mechanical energy, he swung his legs out of bed. The cool marble floor shocked his feet into motion.
Coffee first. The Italian moka pot was one of the few things he’d shipped over, a familiar ritual. As it gurgled on the stove, he opened his laptop at the small dining table, the cityscape a silent panorama beyond the glass balcony doors.
He started with Brian Pang. It was a deep dive. He read interviews in The Straits Times, Tatler, gossip columns on Mothership. He watched clips from his long-running television drama, “Heartlands,” where Brian played a stoic, filial doctor beloved by the nation’s aunties. He studied red-carpet photos—always with a beautiful female co-star on his arm, his smile perfect, his eyes giving nothing away. There was a hauntingly good short film he’d produced and starred in years ago, a moody piece about a painter losing his sight. The artistry was raw, undeniable. Then, the public narrative closed up again, smooth as polished lacquer. Nothing. No hints, no slips. It was a masterpiece of compartmentalization.
Next, Henry Lee. This research felt different, like reading a financial thriller crossed with society-page satire. Articles detailed the Lee family’s vast holdings. There were pictures of Henry at charity galas looking sublimely bored, at underground dance parties in Tokyo, at the helm of various speedboats. A three-year-old Forbes profile called him “the reluctant heir” and quoted him saying, “My father builds monuments. I prefer experiences. They evaporate more cleanly.” There were whispers of a broken engagement to a Taiwanese shipping heiress, a reckless investment in a failed virtual reality startup, a legendary, week-long party on a private island in the Philippines. Scandal, but the kind that seemed to slide off the Teflon of his wealth. No meaningful personal details, only the curated echo of an extravagant life.
It felt insufficient. Clinical. He needed texture.
Almost without thinking, he navigated to Instagram. He didn’t search for Brian or Henry. He typed “moran_kilic.”
The profile was public. The bio read: “Light chaser. Occasionally caught.”
The photos took his breath away, but not in the way he expected. They were stunning, melancholic, deeply human. A close-up of an old tailor’s hands, thread stretched like a lifeline. A rain-slicked street in Geylang at midnight, the colors bleeding like a watercolor. A solitary egret in the mist of the MacRitchie Reservoir. A self-portrait, just the shadow of a man with a camera cast long on a sun-bleached wall. There were a few of Liana, laughing, a streak of chili paste on her chin. None of parties, none of posing. One, from perhaps a year ago, of a slender man with kind eyes and floppy hair sitting at an outdoor cafe, caught mid-sentence. The caption: “P.” No other posts featured this person. The archive felt palpable.
This was Mo’s interior. Quiet, observant, anchored in real beauty. It felt like a truth.
The impulse was a mistake, he knew it even as his fingers moved, but the momentum was too strong. He typed “patrick_omalley_esq.”
Patrick’s profile was a curated museum of a life that no longer existed. There, front and center, was a photo from their trip to Montauk two summers ago. Both of them, windblown and smiling, arms around each other. It was the header image. Scrolling down was a descent into a curated past: them at a Broadway opening night, at a friend’s wedding, cooking in their old Brooklyn kitchen. The captions were affectionate, possessive. “My north star.” “Home isn’t a place.” The most recent post was from four months ago—a professional headshot. The comments underneath the older photos were a chorus of friends: “You two!” “#CoupleGoals.” “When’s the wedding?”
Silence for four months. No announcement. No closure. Just a frozen, perfect gallery of what was.
A cold wave of nausea washed over him. Patrick had built a digital shrine and locked himself inside it, forcing anyone who looked, including Matthew, to worship a ghost. The melancholy was a physical weight, a suction pulling him back into old grief, old anger. He slammed the laptop shut.
The apartment was too quiet. The humming of the fridge was accusatory.
He showered, the water scalding, trying to wash the psychic residue away. He dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, needing the simplicity. He needed noise, people, reality. He needed to not be alone with these echoes.
The week passed in a blur of deadlines and deliberately ordinary moments. Matthew buried himself in work, profiling a third-generation spice merchant in Little India. The scent of turmeric and cardamom that clung to his clothes was better than the ghost of Patrick’s cologne.
Liana became his daily refuge. They shared lunches at the hawker centre below their office, a chaotic symphony of sizzling woks and shouting aunties.
“So, the haunted look is new,” she said on Tuesday, spearing a fishball. “Is it the actor, the billionaire, or the ghost of boyfriends past?”
“All of the above,” Matthew admitted, swirling his kopi. “It feels like I’m juggling lit dynamite. Glamorous, but stupid.”
“Welcome to Singapore. Everything here is shiny on the outside, complex wiring underneath.” She pointed her chopsticks at him. “Just don’t drop the one that explodes the loudest. Judy would hate the paperwork.”
Mo was a more subdued presence. Their collaboration was professional, easy. They edited photos for the spice merchant piece side-by-side, shoulders nearly touching in the dim editing suite.
“The composition here is incredible,” Matthew said, gesturing to a shot of the merchant’s weathered hands sifting peppercorns.
Mo merely grunted, zooming in to adjust the contrast. The silence stretched, comfortable yet charged. On Wednesday, as they packed up, Mo finally spoke.
“Thursday night. You’re seeing him.” It wasn’t a question. He didn’t look up from zipping his camera bag.
“The film, yes.” Matthew’s voice sounded defensive in his own ears.
Mo straightened, his broad frame filling the doorway. He met Matthew’s eyes. His gaze was unreadable. “Just remember the exit signs. Those old cinemas are firetraps.”
Then he was gone. The advice lingered, less about architecture and more about burn rates.
Finally, Thursday night arrived. A low, anxious energy hummed in Matthew’s veins all day. He changed shirts three times before settling on a simple black linen button-down. It felt like a costume for a role he hadn’t auditioned for.
Golden Mile Tower was a hulking, dated complex, more 1970s concrete than golden. His heartbeat was a quick, tight drum against his ribs as he found the nondescript side door. It was unlocked. He slipped inside.
The stairwell was all crumbling concrete and the smell of old dust. A single bulb flickered on a land. His footsteps echoed too loudly in the hollow space. At the bottom, another door, this one padded and dark blue. He pushed it open.
The space was not a modern multiplex. It was a relic. A single, small auditorium with maybe fifty velvet seats, most worn bare. The screen was modest. The air tasted of stale popcorn and decades.
“You made it.” The voice came from the shadows beside a heavy velvet curtain.
Brian stepped forward. He wore a baseball cap pulled low and a simple grey hoodie, the very picture of anonymous. In this context, the famous beauty of his face was startling, like a Rembrandt hung in a subway tunnel.
“This is quite the venue,” Matthew whispered, the hushed atmosphere contagious.
“It’s private. The owner owes me a favor.” Brian’s smile was a quick, private thing. “Come on. Not down here.”
He led Matthew up a narrow, creaking staircase at the side of the auditorium. It opened into a small, enclosed projection booth. But instead of a projector, it held two plush armchairs, facing a wall of clear soundproof glass that looked directly down onto the screen. A perfect, isolated bubble.
“This is insane,” Matthew breathed, taking in the panoramic yet secret view.
“It’s quiet,” Brian said, gesturing for Matthew to sit. The lights went down. The film began.
It was French, black and white, a slow, aching story about a concert pianist who loses his hearing and begins fabricating memories of a lover who never existed. The silence of the protagonist’s world became a palpable character. Matthew lost himself in the nuance, the tragedy of it.
He was acutely aware of Brian beside him, a still, warm presence in the dark. Once, during a particularly quiet scene, Brian shifted. His forearm brushed against Matthew’s on the shared armrest. The contact was fleeting, electric. Neither moved away.
When the credits rolled, the house lights in the main auditorium came up, revealing it was empty save for an old usher sweeping. They remained in their hidden perch, the world outside their glass wall beginning to stir.
“He wasn’t lying, you know,” Brian said, his voice soft, introspective. “The pianist. He believed his own fiction so completely it became a kind of truth. That’s what loneliness does. It writes its own script.”
“Is that why you liked it?” Matthew asked, turning in his chair to face him. The dim light from the exit sign caught the elegant line of Brian’s profile.
“I liked it because it was honest about dishonesty.” Brian finally looked at him. The performer’s charm was absent. This was someone tired. “My life is the opposite. A truth everyone sees, packaged inside a thousand lies. It’s exhausting.”
The confession hung in the dusty air. It was the first real, unvarnished thing Brian had said.
“Why do it, then?”
Brian gave a dry, hollow laugh. “The family clinic my parents mortgaged their souls for. The aunties who watched me grow up on their television sets. The production company that employs fifty people. It’s not just a career. It’s an ecosystem. I step out, the whole thing feels the tremor.” He looked at Matthew, his eyes searching. “That probably sounds pathetic. Or arrogant.”
“It sounds heavy,” Matthew said simply.
The relief on Brian’s face was profound. He didn’t need to explain further. They talked then, as the usher finished and left, plunging the main hall into darkness below them. They talked about the film’s score, about New York, about the peculiar loneliness of being new in a place that never sleeps. The conversation was easy, flowing without agenda or pretense.
For the first time all week, the knot in Matthew’s stomach loosened. Here, in this forgotten box, he wasn’t a journalist or a fresh start or a potential secret. He was just a man having a conversation with another interesting, complicated man. The simplicity of it was a gift.
They descended the hidden staircase in a companionable silence, the only sound their footsteps on the creaking wood. The main auditorium was a tomb of empty red seats and swirling dust motes in the exit sign’s glow.
“This way,” Brian murmured, his hand a faint pressure on Matthew’s back guiding him not toward the front lobby but deeper backstage. They navigated a maze of corridors stacked with old film canisters and broken scenery, emerging through a heavy fire door into a humid back alley. The roar of Beach Road was a distant hum. A black Mercedes limousine waited, idling silently.
“Can I take you home?” Brian asked. The question hung in the thick air. It felt significant, a crossing of a threshold from a shared secret to a private one.
“Sure,” Matthew said, surprised by the forwardness of the offer but agreeing before hesitation could set in. The rear door swung open. The interior was cool, dim, smelling of lemon polish and rich leather.
They slid in. The door shut with a definitive thunk. The driver, a silhouette behind a partition, did not move. The car remained stationary, a sealed capsule in the dark alley. The silence inside was absolute, pressurized.
Brian turned to him. In the faint ambient light from a dashboard, his face was all stark angles and profound uncertainty. “Matthew.” He said the name like testing its weight. “Would it be… would a kiss be okay?”
The directness was a shock, stripping away the last pretense of casualness. This wasn’t a drunken club encounter. It was a deliberate request in a silent car. Matthew’s heart hammered against his ribs. He thought of Mo’s warning, of beautiful disasters. He leaned forward. “Yes.”
A soft hydraulic whir filled the space as the opaque privacy screen rolled up, sealing them off completely. The world vanished.
Brian closed the distance. The first kiss was tentative, a question. Lips soft, searching. Then Matthew answered, his hand coming up to cradle Brian’s jaw, feeling the incredible tension there. The hesitation shattered.
What followed was not gentle. It was a hungry, yielding release. Months of Brian’s performed neutrality, years of Matthew’s careful emotional quarantine, combusted in that backseat. The kiss deepened, becoming a frantic, seamless exchange of breath and heat. Brian’s fingers twisted into Matthew’s hair, pulling him closer. Matthew mapped the strong lines of Brian’s back through the hoodie, feeling the coiled strength.
It was a drowning, a devouring. Time lost meaning in the slick heat of it, in the quiet, desperate sounds Brian made in the back of his throat. The actor’s polished veneer was gone, replaced by a raw, startling need. Matthew met it with his own.
Brian finally pulled away, breathing ragged. He rested his forehead against Matthew’s, their noses touching. “I would like to see you again,” he whispered, the words gusting against Matthew’s lips. “Not in a dark room. Not in a car.”
“I would like that too,” Matthew managed, his own voice unfamiliar.
The car began to move, smooth and silent, gliding into the nighttime traffic. They didn’t speak, hands still clasped, the memory of the kiss a living current between them. The city lights streamed past the tinted windows in silent ribbons.
All too soon, the car eased to the curb outside Matthew’s building. The privacy screen remained up.
“Thank you for the film,” Matthew said, the formality absurd now.
Brian just smiled, a real, weary, beautiful smile. He leaned in and captured Matthew’s lips once more, a slow, searing punctuation. “Goodnight, Matthew.”
Matthew slipped out into the humid night. The limo waited until he was inside the lobby’s glass doors before pulling away.
His apartment was cool and silent, a stark contrast to the pressurized warmth of the car. He didn’t turn on the lights. He stood at the balcony door, watching the traffic below, his lips still tingling.
In bed, the sheets felt alien. He stared at the familiar ceiling, but it was a different ceiling now. The ghost of Patrick’s curated smiles was obliterated by the visceral memory of Brian’s weight, his taste, his fractured honesty in the dark.
What have you gotten yourself into? The question echoed, Mo’s voice providing the cynicism, his own thrumming nerves the panic. This wasn’t a date. It was a complication with a famous face and a devastating kiss. A man who lived in shadows, who had asked for permission before crossing a line. The thrill was already tangled with a cold dread of inevitable fallout.
He had invited this. He had texted back. The dynamite was in his hands now, and the fuse, lit by that endless kiss, was quietly, invisibly, burning.