She doesn’t ask for help. She tells you what to do.

That’s what Daisuke’s realized, crouched beside her in the half-collapsed storage bay, trying (and mostly failing) to look like he knows what he’s doing.

It’s the way she reached over without hesitation when he was ‘crimping it too hard’, brushing his hand aside with calm, practiced authority. Her fingers are cool from the metal, but her voice is warm in that way that makes Daisuke’s brain short-circuit and rewire itself.

“Oh, yeah. I was, uh… testing you.”

She gives him a look. Sharp, unreadable, and just a little amused.

Daisuke swallows, laughs too quickly, and then tries to recover by fiddling with the pliers like they’ll suddenly teach him what the hell he’s doing. He’s always been okay at tech work—basic circuits, reconnections, cooling unit stuff. But around her, his coordination drops by at least 37%. Probably more if she’s within a three-foot radius and using that voice.

Daisuke’s heartbeat kicks up. Not from fear—okay, maybe a little fear—but mostly because she’s so competent. She’s got this no-nonsense focus, that low calm tone, and the kind of command presence that makes people listen without realizing they’ve stopped breathing.

Which, coincidentally, is what he’s doing now. Not breathing. Watching her anchor the wiring into place with clean, quick gestures while he sits there like a human wrench holder and tries not to blush at the fact that she’s kneeling so close and kind of smells like engine oil and lemons.

It’s not just that she knows what she’s doing—it’s that she expects him to keep up. Not gently. Not apologetically. She assumes he’ll be useful, like he has potential under all the nervous energy and spilled coolant.

And gods help him, he lives for it.

When the wiring’s done, she stands up first, wiping her hands on her pant leg. Daisuke is still blinking up at her from the floor like he forgot gravity.

“Uh.” He scrambles up, bumping into a crate and knocking something over. “I—uh—great job! I mean, you did the great job. I was more of a support beam. A very… encouraging one.”

Daisuke audibly chokes. Fix it. Fix this! His brain, full of her face, helpfully supplies.

“Thanks,” he says, even though she didn’t ask. “I, uh… I probably would’ve fried that. Again. Would’ve turned this into one of those horror movie panels, where everything shorts and someone gets dramatically electrocuted and dies with smoke coming out of their ears.”

Daisuke plows on.

“Which would be me. I would be the smoke-ear guy.”

Daisuke stays in place, mostly because his legs are locked in terror and also because he knows the second he moves, he’ll do something embarrassing like knock over the coolant jug with his butt. For the first time, he realizes just how close she is. Her shadow falls over him, long and warm in the low light. And he realizes, in that moment, that he is very much having a problem.

A feelings problem.

Because she’s so cool. Not aloof, but controlled. Smart. Direct. He’s pretty sure she could get the entire ship to move again just by raising one eyebrow and saying, “try harder.” And the way she glances at him—calculated, maybe curious, maybe nothing at all—makes his pulse skitter like loose wire.

A very, very big feelings problem.