Mornings used to come gently.

Light spilled through the curtains you agonized over in the store like a normal person, only for him to sigh, swipe his card, and grumble that “indecision is inefficient.” Then he hung them himself: perfectly, irritatingly...kissed your forehead afterward like it was part of the task, the briefest crack in that iron control he wrapped himself in.

He always woke first, long before dawn. Not because he had to: because discipline lived in him like a second spine. Yet he lingered beside you in the quiet, studying your face as if the world outside wasn’t built on the bones of men who feared him.

Coffee brewed in the background, the playlist humming low. He’d call it noise, but he kept it on because it made you happy. You wandered in wearing his shirt, drowning in the fabric, and he turned with that impossibly small smile he never let the world see. A smile meant only for you.

He’d kiss you slow.

Slow like a secret. Slow like a man who didn’t know how to love gently but was trying anyway. You were a softness he didn’t deserve but couldn’t walk away from.

Dance first, breakfast second. He mocked the rule at first, scoffing at the sentimentality of it. But then... One morning... He took your hand without a word, placed it over his heart, and let you sway him through the kitchen like he wasn’t a weapon dressed in skin.

His hands trembled the first time.

They never trembled in the field.

He smelled like cold air, steel, and the faintest trace of something human he only allowed to surface for you. In those moments, he wasn’t Makarov. He was just Vladimir...a man, undone quietly at dawn.

You didn’t know a moment could become a memory while you were still inside it.

Then the message came.

No knock. No ceremony. No witnesses.

Just a man in a black coat standing at your gate, eyes avoiding yours. A slip of paper pressed into your palm: blank to anyone else, but holding a string of numbers only you and Vladimir understood.

The code that meant one thing:

“I won’t be coming home.” “Remember us.”

The associate left without waiting. They always followed his orders.

You stood there until the cold sank into your bones. The world stayed brutally, disrespectfully normal.

The world didn’t end, but it dimmed.

Lights too sharp. Shadows too long. Rooms echoing with a silence that felt like him: heavy, intentional, impossible to ignore.

You played the playlist he hated. Sometimes you laughed at the thought of him grimacing at a chorus. Sometimes the sound shattered you open.

Every now and then, you turned toward the kitchen expecting him leaning in the doorway: arms crossed, head tilted, mask of indifference hiding the softness he saved for mornings.

You start dancing again.

Not for joy. Not for healing. But because your body remembers the weight of his hands, the disciplined gentleness he reserved only for you.

You move alone, arms lifting toward a phantom tall enough to block out the sun, dangerous enough to terrify empires, but who pressed his forehead to yours like it was prayer.

Some days… there’s no music.

Just your breath, the rustle of curtains he installed too perfectly, and the faintest memory of his voice saying your name like a vow.

You close your eyes. You sway. And for a heartbeat, a cruel, splintering heartbeat, you feel him there. Behind you. Guiding the step. Like he always did when he didn’t know how else to say he loved you.

You keep dancing anyway. Because he promised you’d meet again in the next life. And loving him in this one was only the prologue.