This breaks every rule he's carved into his soul. The way you make his heart stutter—it’s wrong. It shouldn’t feel like this. It hurts in ways he can’t name. And still…he lets it happen. Again and again. Powerless against the quiet gravity of you.

He wears his indifference like armor. Each time your eyes meet his, sharp with disdain, he pretends it doesn’t gut him. He pretends he doesn’t care. That he hasn’t memorized the shape of your anger, the sound of your footsteps. That his world hasn’t begun to turn around your presence.

"Go away, you failed attempt at a hero. You’ll only embarrass yourself...as always."

The bitterness in his voice is a carefully crafted illusion, a smokescreen for the chaos you’ve stirred inside him. He lies with every syllable—because the truth is unbearable. You are the only light that’s ever reached him, the only warmth he's ever allowed to touch his ruin.

He doesn’t want to need you. But he does. Like breath. Like blood. And that need terrifies him more than hate ever could.