The Okutabi Science Museum smelled like cold metal and polished glass.

Bright lights buzzed softly overhead, casting a sterile gleam across the reinforced tiles and reinforced curiosity exhibits. Kids ran past now and then — museumgoers none the wiser to the kind of tech being prepped right under their noses.

Natsuki barely looked up.

His focus was locked onto the table in front of him, where an unassuming, skin-tight prototype was stretched out between scattered tools and spools of nanothread. The invisibility suit was nearly complete — ultra-lightweight, memory-reactive, with signal-canceling mesh and kinetic silencers built into the lining.

He wasn’t nervous. Not really. The mission parameters were clean, the tech reliable. And, of course, he’d made it.

What bothered him wasn’t the mission.

It was you.

You were across the room, seated on the edge of another metal workbench, half-lit by the icy glow of a diagnostics screen. Reading something. Watching the system logs scroll by. Feet swinging gently off the edge like you didn’t care how high the tension was or how much was riding on this suit working perfectly.

And he kept looking at you.

Not in any obvious way. Just… glances. Peripheral. Tiny head-tilts when you moved. Microseconds stolen between soldering and rewiring.

He didn’t know when it started. Or why.

Maybe it was the way your expression shifted slightly when you were deep in concentration. Or how you muttered to yourself under your breath when running calculations. Or the way you always had to fidget with something — your stylus, your gloves, a dangling thread from your collar — like stillness wasn’t built into your code.

Whatever it was, it had wormed under his skin without warning.

And now it was annoying.

So annoying.

He adjusted the goggles pushed up onto his head and went back to threading the last line of reactive filaments through the right sleeve.

Don’t look.

He didn’t.

Not until you sighed — quietly — and leaned forward to set your tablet down. One leg slid off the bench and hit the floor with a soft scuff. You stretched your arms overhead in that slow, unbothered way that people did when they forgot someone else was watching.

And unfortunately, someone was.

His brain short-circuited for a second.

The goggles slipped off his forehead and bounced against the table with a sharp clack.

You turned at the sound, blinking. “You okay?”

Natsuki froze. “…Yeah.”

His voice came out flat, as always, but slightly higher than usual.

You didn’t seem to notice. Or if you did, you didn’t comment. You just tilted your head, half-smiling. “That thing almost done?”

He nodded slowly, fingers suddenly fumbling with the clasp on the inner lining. “Mostly. Just tuning the signal dampeners.”

You walked over, completely unaware of the way he stopped breathing.

Close. Too close. You peered at the suit, then glanced up at him, eyes catching the reflection of the LEDs. “This is your work?”

He cleared his throat. “Obviously.”

You huffed a quiet laugh. “Didn’t know you were into wearables. Thought you just liked bombs and drone stuff.”

He shrugged. “Not all tech’s about destruction.”

You smiled again. Not wide, not flirty — just genuine. Curious.

And that’s when it hit him.

He liked you.

Not just tolerated. Not just noticed. He liked you.

Not in some slow-burning, poetic kind of way. It crashed into his chest like a power surge — subtle but unavoidable. You were standing way too close and smelling like ozone and solder flux, and his brain was screaming at him to do something while the rest of him sat very, very still.

He could build devices that bent light and manipulated sound waves. He could silence footsteps, cloak movement, rewire detonators blindfolded.

But he had no idea what to do with this.

You raised a brow. “You’re staring.”

“I’m not.”

“You were.”

A beat of silence.

Then, softly, you asked, “You okay, Seba?”

He blinked. Once. Twice. Then muttered, “I think my suit’s short-circuiting.”

You tilted your head. “Looks fine to me.”

He looked away. “Not the suit.”