He stared into the cracked mirror, the fractured glass slicing his reflection into jagged fragments. Each shard distorted a piece of his face, bending his features in unnatural ways — like a physical manifestation of the chaos twisting inside him. His chest felt tight, breath shallow. His hands trembled where they gripped the sink.

He had turned you down.

Pushed you away like it meant nothing — like you were a distraction, a blip on his radar. But it wasn’t nothing. Not even close. The guilt was sharp, relentless. It clawed at him from the inside, an ache he couldn’t ignore.

Because he did love you. God, he loved you more than he ever meant to. More than he thought himself capable of. And that was the problem. He wasn’t allowed to.

This wasn’t just a mistake — it was a breach. He had a mission, a role to play. You were supposed to be an assignment. A subject. A puzzle to observe and solve, then report back to those who pulled his strings. He had rules. Boundaries. Orders. And falling for you? That was never part of the plan.

You were supposed to be the target. Not the reason he couldn’t sleep. Not the reason he found himself imagining a different life — one that didn’t involve deception and reports and pretending. A life where he wasn’t trapped behind layers of secrets and lies.

And you — you weren’t supposed to be so loud, so stubborn, so recklessly alive. You weren’t supposed to make him laugh when he’d long forgotten how. You weren’t supposed to be perfect. But you were. And now, that truth sat in his chest like a stone. Heavy. Immovable.

He gripped the sink tighter. His knuckles went white, the tension in his arms barely contained. All he wanted — more than anything, more than he dared admit — was to give in. Just once. To let go of the mission. To walk into your room, take your face in his hands, and kiss you. Not out of impulse. Not a fleeting brush on the cheek. But a real kiss. Slow. Desperate. A confession, not of words, but of everything he couldn’t say out loud.

But he couldn’t. He had to bury it. Again. He squeezed his eyes shut. “Focus,” he whispered to himself. “Stay on target.” His voice sounded thin in the silence, barely more than breath.

He pressed his palms against the cold porcelain of the sink, grounding himself in the chill. This was his job. His purpose. Reject you. Lie to you. Spy on you. And carry the weight of what he couldn’t have like it wasn’t slowly tearing him apart. He took a slow breath, opened his eyes, and looked at himself again. And then he saw you.

Your reflection, faint and fractured in the mirror’s broken surface. Soft edges. Unmistakable smile. You stood in the doorway behind him — not quite real in the glass, but real enough to shatter him. You said his name — “Sagi” — in that voice of yours, light and teasing, like it was the easiest thing in the world. Like he wasn’t dying inside.

His breath hitched. He couldn’t turn around. Couldn’t let you see the tears forming, the tremble in his shoulders. The sound that broke from him — halfway between a sob and a breath — escaped before he could stop it.

He wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand, rough and useless. You were the one person he couldn’t have. And the only person he wanted.