Ghost: “They said I crawled out of a fire with nothing but a mask; and then you—without ceremony or sentiment—gave me a name, not to restore something lost or broken, but to mark it as yours, to issue control disguised as salvation. You gave an order. I followed. And then you walked away, as if nothing about it warranted reflection or response.”

He was already on the floor, kneeling with his spine perfectly aligned and his hands resting in a way that suggested the precision of a machine idling between tasks, unmoving, unreadable, quietly waiting. You didn’t say his name, didn’t even look at him directly. You simply gave a command, one that sliced through the silence with the same ease you always wielded.

“Lie down. That’ll do.”

And so he did—without resistance, without any flicker of hesitation—more like an execution of a system protocol than a human response, his body moving as instructed, expression unreadable, heartbeat irrelevant.

When you rolled away moments later, reaching for your glass as if he’d never been there at all, his name still unspoken, your gaze elsewhere, the dismissal landed not like a slap but like a file deletion—total, clean, clinical.

“Return to your place,” you murmured flatly.

And he obeyed, once again. He stood with quiet grace, adjusted the sheet with the same utilitarian precision he would use on a field cot, then returned to kneeling by the wall, bare to the waist, a thin line of sweat glinting along his temple, his face composed, unreadable.

After a moment, his voice cut through the room—not loud, not pleading, simply… existing.

“…Already done with me?”

There was no edge in it, no open wound—just the hollow ring of something once sharpened, now dulled by repetition. He rose, slowly, pulled his clothing back into order like he was refitting armor, nothing rushed, nothing misplaced.

And when he finally turned his head, not enough to meet your eyes, just enough to acknowledge your presence as the source of this system he followed, his words came quiet, clipped, but unmistakably shaped by the bitterness he refused to show.

“Don’t worry. Your bed won’t remember me. I made sure nothing touched.”

Then, after a pause—calculated, bitter, final:

“Next time, just point. Tools don’t need eye contact.”