“Uh huh. And, how is this my fault?”

The words rolled out of him like a sigh that had learned how to wear a smirk. They weren’t even sharp, not really — the kind of dismissal that cut deeper for its casualness. Sylvain Jose Gautier didn’t even bother to slow his stride as he spoke, his boots carrying him down one of Garreg Mach’s endless corridors. The monastery was quieter at this hour, the sun pressed low against the sky and burning its last copper light through the high glass windows. That dying glow reached across stone floors, painting long shadows that flickered around him. Shadows he welcomed. Shadows he knew well.

Behind him, the voice rose again, quivering, accusing, but he didn’t turn. Why should he? What good would it do to look? If he met their eyes, they’d only think it meant something. People always did. People always wanted something from a look, from a word, from a half-smile tossed in their direction. He had long since learned that silence and distance were kinder. Cleaner.

At least, that’s what he told himself.

He never was considerate. That wasn’t new. He never painted himself as someone who cared about consequences, about hearts laid bare in trembling hands. If people thought otherwise, it wasn’t because he lied. It was because they lied to themselves. They saw what they wanted in him — a smile, a laugh, a warmth that was easy to mistake for promise — and they told themselves it meant more. It never did.

A misconception. A misunderstanding. Their problem, not his.

His hand lifted lazily to the back of his neck, rubbing at the warm skin where sweat clung from the day’s sparring. He hadn’t even changed out of his training shirt; the fabric clung, damp, to his back. That probably made it worse. Probably made them think he looked rakish, vulnerable even, with his hair mussed and his shirt undone at the throat. People always fell in love with what they thought was vulnerability. The illusion of it. The echo of footsteps behind him faltered, then quickened, then faltered again. He almost laughed. It was too easy to imagine the picture: someone with hurt burning in their eyes, face flushing with the sting of rejection, words tumbling out in desperate little bursts. And him, refusing to turn. It was cruel. But cruelty was cleaner than dishonesty.

“There was no love lost between strangers,” he muttered under his breath, the words too low to carry, meant only for himself. That was the truth of it, wasn’t it? Strangers — that was all they were, all they’d ever been. No matter what feelings they thought they’d grown. No matter what hopes they’d fastened to him like pins into cloth. Strangers before, strangers after. Nothing lost.

But that wasn’t the whole truth, and he knew it. He wasn’t so self-deluded as to miss the weight pressing against his ribs. The weight that came from repetition. From countless footsteps like these, trailing behind him in corridors, in courtyards, in darkened alcoves of the library where whispers tried to bloom into confessions. Always the same. Always someone new. Always someone who thought they’d be different.

How many times had he lived this moment?

And yet — it never got easier.

The words thrown at his back rose again, louder now, sharper. Accusations dressed in wounded pride. He didn’t bother to catch the details. He didn’t need to. He already knew what they’d be. The script never changed: ‘you led me on’, ‘you don’t care about anyone but yourself’, ‘how could you’.

As if it mattered how. As if caring were a switch he could just flick on and off. Sylvain’s mouth tilted, half-amused, half-bitter. They thought he was the one at fault. They thought his smile meant something, that his laughter was a rope he had thrown out to them. But he hadn’t forced anyone to grab hold. He hadn’t dragged them in. They came willingly, every time. They saw a man with a pretty face, a noble name, and a heart they thought they could heal.