Tonight, the darkness was especially thick. The balcony, emerging from the twilight, seemed suspended between worlds—the sweet silence within and the restless street below. The air was laden with old grievances, infused with the scent of recent revelations and smoldering cigarettes. They burned one after another, leaving behind a tension-filled aroma in the corners, as if someone had just argued in hushed tones, too weary to shout. A light smoke curled lazily, settling on skin and hair, absorbing into the fabric of the night and full lungs. It didn’t suffocate—it spoke. Of fatigue. Of silence. Of closeness.

You stand, slightly hunched forward, leaning on the cold metal railing, mentally drawing the boundary between yesterday and now. There was something unguarded, submissive in your posture, like someone who knows: there’s nowhere to run—or is there even a need? The cigarette slowly burns in your fingers, glowing in rhythm with your breath. The wind tousles your hair, carrying away the scent of tobacco and unspoken words.

He’s near. Not touching, but filling the entire space behind you. Tall, silent, as always complex. The light from the apartment paints his silhouette with rough strokes: broad shoulders, the shadow of a face covered by a balaclava, motionless hands resting on the railing, fingers lightly holding a cigarette. He doesn’t rush to speak. Just watches. Vaguely. With an attention that held neither pity nor reproach. But you feel that in this silence there was more intimacy than ever before.

And the night listened. Carefully. Without interfering.

“Leaving soon?” The voice sounds hoarse, dried out by nicotine, after a good drag. Your eyes, like your head, refuse to bring him into view, preferring the dark weave of the streets. Looking at him meant only one thing. Admission. That he’s still here, feeling yourself a hostage to anticipation.

“Do you want me to leave?” He replies with his signature smirk, barely audible under the mask. The one that drives you crazy with his stubbornness and genuine desire to provoke a reaction.

Simon has become too adept at hiding himself, joking in the face of pain. But he knows. He wants to know the answer. Not just words, but the truth: naked, exposed, almost cruel.

A simple question, but such a complex answer.

Your eyes still seek salvation in the darkness of the streets and in the scent of settling smoke. Where the cool wind doesn’t smell of gunpowder, blood, and fear. Where Simon Riley doesn’t walk. The man who survived hell and took it with him.

No, you don’t want him to stay. You can’t. He’s like a rusty knife in the flesh: if you pull it out, it gets worse, but keeping it means letting it fester. He’s not made for a world where people hug goodbye and sleep peacefully. There’s too much darkness in him. Too much pain he won’t let go because it is him.

Breathing next to him is hard. As if his very presence becomes a death sentence. He no longer has a face, only a skull. No home, only missions. No future, only continuation. He carries something ancient, primal, like the instinct to survive.

The silence in his gaze speaks louder than any shot. He can’t give warmth. Can’t stay. And if he does stay—he’ll destroy. Simply because that’s how he’s built.

You can’t live with him.

But damn it? Then why do your fingers freeze from the desire to touch him? Why does the voice inside whisper: I want him to stay.

Weakness. It can’t be nurtured. It’s the feeling that turns people into wreckage. Those who got too close to the fire, thinking they could tame it. You can’t allow yourself to fall into this. Not for yourself. Not for him. Because beside him, people don’t live, no-no, of course not. Beside him, they survive.

He knows. And that’s the scariest part. He sees right through you. He reads you, without shame or remnants of conscience, like a map of places where you’re afraid to get lost. His silence isn’t indifferent; it’s always attentive and precise.

He knows you’re afraid to fall in love. He knows it’s already too late.

“I can leave,” he adds slowly, almost imperceptibly. “Just say the word.”

His voice sounds cynical, as if stitched from old scars. Low, even, without a hint of pressure, but with a shadow of choice. Peace he doesn’t feel, and which he offers you.

At the cost of his absence.

You remain silent. Words don’t form into sentences. Your chest painfully tightens with the realization of the reality of disappearance. Once and for all. And starting tomorrow, you just exchange a few words in the base corridors.

“Do you want to?” The words escape with difficulty, through a constricted throat and uncertainty, hidden under a thousand layers of silence and self-control. You utter them almost in a whisper, as if afraid they will become a vow that can no longer be taken back.

Your eyes stubbornly dart away, refusing to meet his. Your voice falters, trembles, betrays you before you can straighten up, revealing everything you tried to hide. A desire that shouldn’t have been born, not here, not with him, not now.

He doesn’t need to ask counter-questions or search for meaning between the lines. He answers restrainedly, without unnecessary gestures, pauses, or other nonsense:

“No.”

Inside, something sharply contracts into a tight knot. Your teeth instinctively clench, as if that could stop the ache. In such matters, he doesn’t lie. Never offers comfort, because in his world, comfort is worse than pain. Unfortunately, in his world, honesty is the only thing left when everything else turns to ash.

“Then why do you stand as if you’ve already left?”

He smirks again. Not aloud. However, you feel the corners of his lips under the mask barely move upward, “Because standing closer—hurts more. And you don’t look ready.”

You turn with effort. The cigarette’s ember trembles in your fingers. You bring it to your lips, inhale deeply, with the greed of someone inhaling not smoke, but control over themselves. The bitterness on your tongue erases the taste of his presence but doesn’t purge it. You study his inscrutable eyes in the dim light, exhaling:

“And if I’m not ready, will you leave?”

“No,” again coldly. “But I won’t come any closer. Not because I don’t want to. But because I know how this ends.”