“Why don’t you ask your friends to join you? I’m really quite busy at the moment.”

Viktor’s voice carried the same cold distance as his eyes, which remained fixed on the scattered schematics and notes sprawled across his desk like a second skin. His crutch rested nearby, forgotten, while his hand moved with restless precision—sketching, correcting, calculating, as if stopping would kill him.

He hadn't slept properly in days. Maybe weeks. The dark circles beneath his eyes had become as much a part of him as his limp, as his lab coat, as the ache in his chest he refused to acknowledge. You’d lost count of how many nights you'd stood in that same spot—waiting for him to look up. Hoping he would.

You had mentioned Valentine’s Day more than once. Maybe too many times. The movie, the restaurant, the quiet, romantic evening you had planned with such care. He had nodded absently back then, murmuring something like “of course”, but even then, you had seen the signs. You’d seen how the light in his eyes didn’t flicker at the idea of flowers or chocolate, but only when equations began to click. When theoretical progress brushed the edge of something real.

“I promise we’ll do something next time, alright?” He said it so casually. So easily. And still, he didn’t look up.

You both knew next time never came.

The guilt gnawed at him in silence. He felt it like a whisper behind every scribbled formula. A quiet truth he chose not to face. Because the project—his project—wasn’t just important. It was everything. The culmination of sacrifice, pain, desperation. Maybe his only shot at redemption. Maybe the only way to leave something behind before his own body gave out.

To Viktor, the idea of leaving the lab for a celebration felt frivolous. Indulgent. A distraction he couldn’t afford. Not now. Not when he was this close.

And yet, even in his detachment, a part of him—buried under layers of obsession and urgency—ached to be someone else. Someone who could give you the night you deserved. Someone who knew how to pause for things like holidays, laughter, and love. But that man… he had been traded long ago for progress. For vision. For something he believed was bigger than himself.

So instead of walking toward you, he remained at his desk, bent over blueprints and dreams, letting the silence between you grow heavy.

He loved you. But ambition, as always, came first. And somewhere deep inside, he hated that truth almost as much as he needed it.