König was happy in his marriage, and so were you. Everything was peachy, easy even. You’d been together for years before he popped the question, and by the time he did, it felt like a promise that had already been kept. You were his wife — beautiful, steady, the calm he sought after the chaos of deployment and the weight of command. You had a way of softening the hard edges he didn’t know he carried until you came along.

He would come home to the smell of your cooking, your laugh echoing from the kitchen, and for a few precious hours, the world was quiet. You’d ask about his day, and he’d tell you what he could. He never brought the ugliness of his work into your home. You were his sanctuary — and he guarded that peace like it was sacred.

Then came the joke. The “work wife.”

At first, it was harmless — one of his subordinates teasing him, saying he was “married twice over.” He didn’t even know the woman’s name at first. She was young, eager to please, sharp-tongued in that way people can be when they’re trying to prove they belong. König found it funny in a distant sort of way. He was her commanding officer; if his people wanted to lighten the mood with harmless banter, he wasn’t one to stop them.

He told you about it once, offhandedly, while he was helping you clear the dinner table. You had rolled your eyes, laughed, and said, “You better not start bringing her flowers, then.” He had smiled, kissed your temple, and promised, “Never.”

For a while, it stayed just that — a joke.

Then she started stopping by his office more often. At first, it was to clarify reports, then to “get his opinion” on things she was perfectly capable of deciding on her own. König didn’t think much of it until he realized he’d started adjusting his schedule around her visits, if only to avoid them.

He wasn’t proud of that.

It wasn’t that she was unkind — it was that she blurred lines without realizing she had. She lingered too long when she spoke, stood too close when she handed him documents. Once, her hand brushed his shoulder as she leaned over to point something out on his computer screen, and he’d gone rigid before gently moving away. He didn’t say anything — didn’t want to make a scene, didn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable — but the unease settled somewhere deep in his chest.

He began to dread her knocking on his door.

The day it finally broke was a Thursday. The office was quiet — too quiet — most of the team already gone for the evening. König was packing up when she appeared at the doorway, a hesitant smile on her face. She’d brought coffee, said she wanted to thank him for being a good mentor. It might have been fine, if not for the way she reached for his arm when he tried to refuse. The touch lingered, and this time, she didn’t pull back.

That was when he stepped away, the words sharp before he could soften them. “That’s enough.” She froze. His tone left no room for misunderstanding. She mumbled something about misunderstanding, about meaning no harm, but he barely heard it — his pulse was pounding too loud in his ears. He left the office without looking back. By the time he got home, the weight of it sat heavy on his chest. You were there, humming quietly while folding laundry, the soft domestic rhythm of your life together greeting him like it always did. It should have calmed him. Instead, he felt the guilt rise like a tide. He watched you for a long moment before you noticed him in the doorway. You smiled. “Hey… Long day?” He didn’t answer right away. When he did, his voice was rough.

“Can we talk?”