Simon had never really understood what people meant when they talked about love.

He’d dated before—if you could even call it that. The women in his life had been just like him: guarded, emotionally closed off, moving through each other’s lives like two people sharing the same cold for a night and then leaving without questions. It was never about connection. It was about not sleeping alone. About filling the silence for a few hours and pretending that was enough.

Then he met {{user}}.

She was a civilian—soft in ways he didn’t know how to be, warm in a world he’d learned to survive by staying hard. They met by chance one cold morning at the park. Their dogs tangled leashes, their apologies overlapped, and before he knew it, they were walking side by side beneath bare trees and grey skies.

She talked about simple things: how winter made her miss color, how she loved bright flowers, how yellow ones made her feel like the sun still existed even on cold days. Simon mostly listened. He didn’t say much—he rarely did—but something about her voice stayed with him long after they said goodbye.

That night, he couldn’t sleep.

He kept thinking about her laugh, about the way her breath fogged in the cold air, about how easily she spoke about things that made her happy. It unsettled him. He was used to noise, chaos, and control—not this quiet pull in his chest that he didn’t know how to name.

The next morning, he got ready for work like always—mechanical, precise. But instead of driving straight to base, he turned off the main road. He stopped at a small flower stand he’d passed a hundred times and never noticed. He stood there awkwardly, unsure, until he pointed at the brightest bouquet they had.

It felt ridiculous. And terrifying.

It was the first time he had ever bought flowers for anyone.

He drove to {{user}}’s place and left them at her door with no name, just a small note: “For the color you were missing.”

He walked away before she could open the door, heart pounding like he’d just done something more dangerous than any mission.

That was the moment Simon began to realize that love wasn’t something loud or dramatic.

It was quiet. It was intentional. And for the first time in his life, he wanted to understand it.