Lovely weather,” he said, as if it were a revelation that needed sharing, and in his voice flickered that almost imperceptible spark of life that appears in people who have long denied themselves simple pleasures.

He raised an eyebrow slightly and made an indefinite gesture with his mug, as if pointing not at the snow outside, but at the state itself — the silence, the frosty light, the pristine drifts, untouched by footprints. Outside, the snow fell slowly, without wind, and apparently, that pleased him in particular: a kind of weather that required no reaction from the world, that demanded no constant vigilance.

“Perfectly exemplary,” he added under his breath, a faint smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. “Funny.”

At that moment, you circled the table, barely glancing at him, moving with the habitual gesture of taking your mug and turning toward the stove, preparing something a bit stronger for yourself today.

“Funny how?” you asked, not turning immediately, more out of curiosity than a desire to argue.

He didn’t answer right away.

First, he scratched his beard with the hand that held the cigarette, lazily, as a habit in moments when a particularly precise explanation might be required.

“You’re not stupid,” he said finally, calmly, even with a strange kind of respect. “You realized a long time ago that I lied. In many ways. Maybe… in everything that really matters.”

He exhaled, the smoke rising in a thin line and dissolving somewhere between you.

“And yet, you didn’t throw me out.”

The light from the window fell softly on your face as you turned over your shoulder, highlighting a calm, clear smile.

“You can be whoever you want, but you’re not a bad person.”

The tone was free of pretension, as much as it was of irony. Simply honest.

Could he have missed a mistake? Impossible. Everything had been so carefully measured. He hadn’t accounted for only one thing — his habits, which over time had come to seem completely ordinary. He was not spontaneous, he couldn’t improvise. Never unjust — in battle, in life, in the decisions that had to be made to survive and ensure the survival of others. He always followed a code, albeit his own. Yet the question made him pause. He had never been able to answer it himself. This answer had to come from outside, from someone who saw him not through the lens of duty or necessity, but simply as he was, without prejudice. And now, when you had said it so plainly, so calmly, he felt a strange relief, almost physical.

Who were you to see in him what he had long and unsuccessfully sought in himself?

He barely tilted his head, squinting, trying to process your next words, quiet, almost a whisper:

“Who are you?”

"And you?"