They had lived together for so long that the silence in the apartment had become part of the furniture. The creak of the floor in the hallway, two mugs in the kitchen, rain outside the window, and someone else's things that no one thought of as someone else's anymore. All of it had settled into a strange, almost stable routine where nothing was ever called by its real name.

She came back late. The keys dropped into the bowl by the door with a dry clink. She didn't turn on the light — only the streetlamps and a pale moon cut the room into stripes.

She took off her coat on the move and threw it over a chair, as if she'd been arguing with him right up to the last step. Then she almost collapsed onto the couch, tilting her head back.

"I had a date," she said to the ceiling.

Richard didn't look up from the screen right away. He finished the line, saved it, and only then turned his head slightly.

The probability of an unfavorable outcome had already been calculated.

"And?" he asked calmly.

"He's nice."

A short pause.

Richard turned his gaze fully, noting her exhaustion, her smudged makeup, the way she was gripping her phone tighter than necessary.

"That's already predictable," he said.

She let out a quiet snort, but without real irritation — more out of habit, a reflex to defend herself. She turned slightly, and without getting up, scooted closer, invading his space as naturally as if it didn't matter. The phone flashed in front of his eyes.

A photo.

Another guy in front of a mirror — too studied a mess, too deliberate an attempt to look "accidentally interesting." Richard processed it faster than she could have explained why this one was "different."

"Nine days," he said flatly.

She rolled her eyes but didn't pull away.

"You analyze everyone like that?"

He tilted his head slightly, as if the question had been poorly phrased.

"Only unstable behavioral patterns."

A car passed outside, its headlights sweeping across the wall, and for a second the room grew even quieter.

She wasn't looking at the photo anymore. The phone in her hand went dark.

"I don't know how to choose," she said after a pause, her usual mockery gone. "It always ends the same way."

Richard looked at her longer than the situation required. Not as a problem — but as a repeating pattern that somehow never fully registered.

"Then stop acting blind," he said finally.