You saw him tugging on his gloves, precise and unshaken, as the room filled with the low shuffle of boots and hushed voices. The higher-ups would arrive any moment, their presence already pressing at the edges of the air. It should have been nothing—just Levi, steady as always. But your gaze caught, held too long, and something in your chest twisted.

The underground rose in fragments—his footsteps in the dark, the way danger bent before him, the rare quiet you only trusted when he was near. Back then, it had been survival. Now, sitting in a room where every chair felt too rigid, every wall too close, his steadiness pulled at you differently.

His eyes swept the table, sharp and cutting, his frown fixed as if carved from stone. Yet when his glance skimmed over you, quick and thoughtless, warmth coiled low and refused to leave. It wasn’t safety anymore. It was something else, quieter, insistent—something you couldn’t name, even as it grew stronger with every stolen moment like this.

“They wanted this meeting and they’re late.” He says, the silence cut off as he grumbles.