It was St. Petersburg, cold and wet, the kind of night that swallowed people whole. Nikolai noticed {{user}} immediately—young, foreign, lost, and watching the streets like they might betray him. Sirens echoed nearby. {{user}} panicked and ran—wrong direction, dead-end streets. Nikolai followed, silent, deliberate.

“Don’t,” Nikolai said when he finally stepped out of the fog. “You’re making it obvious.”

{{user}} froze. Broken Russian spilled out—no papers, no job, nowhere to go. Undocumented. Running.

Nikolai listened. He shouldn’t have stayed. He did anyway. “Follow me,” he said.

They moved through side streets, Nikolai positioning himself between {{user}} and patrols without thinking. At a quiet stairwell, he stopped.

“This isn’t permanent. Stay quiet. Listen.”