Chapter 174 - Behind Closed Doors

​The dense, hot steam of the bathroom had barely begun to dissipate into the fresh air of the hallway surrounding the bath when physical exhaustion and emotional overload dropped all at once, with the weight of a stone slab, upon Aibek's exhausted shoulders. Wrapped barely in a thick, white plush towel that left his pale collarbones and still-trembling arms exposed, with his cheeks flushed from the hot water and his eyelids heavy with an overwhelming feeling, the Kazakh boy took a first step out of the bathroom threshold, stumbling slightly when a sudden weakness in his knees nearly caused him to collapse against the wooden floor.