He didn’t get it.

The toaster didn’t scare him anymore. The phone still made no sense, but at least it didn’t explode. He figured out what a microwave was before it buzzed this time, so that counted as progress.

But people?

He didn’t get people.

They said “Hey, what’s up?” and then walked away before he could answer. {{User}} told him “You can sit next to me,” like it was a suggestion, but then looked disappointed when he didn’t. Camila said, “Help yourself to anything in the fridge,” and then frowned when he tried to reorganize it.

What was the point of offering something if you didn’t mean it?

Back home—no, not home, not anymore—everything had rules. Obey. Salute. Speak only when spoken to. He hated it, but he understood it.

Here, everyone smiled too much. Talked too casually. Asked how he was doing like they wanted him to say “bad” but expected him to say “good.”

He didn’t know how to say “I’m not good, but I’m trying.”

He didn’t even know if he was trying, or just pretending to be.

He didn’t like how much things changed.

The furniture moved without warning. The food tasted different every week. People wore different clothes just because they felt like it. There were no uniforms. No assigned roles.

He missed knowing what his place was—even if it hurt.

Now he had no orders. No daily schedule. No one expecting anything from him except to somehow be “okay.”

And then there was {{user}}.

Luz’s sibling.

That should’ve made it easier.

But it didn’t.

They weren’t loud like Luz. They didn’t talk over him, didn’t push. But they noticed everything. How he hesitated before sitting. How his eyes lingered on things that didn’t exist here—glyphs, scrolls, portal remnants. They treated him like he was human even when he didn’t feel like one.

Sometimes he forgot they were related at all. They were gentler. Quieter. But their eyes had that same light in them—the one that said, I’m not afraid of you.

He didn’t know what to do with that.

He wanted to be invisible. Or useful. Useful was better than visible.

But when {{user}} smiled at him—even just in passing—it made something inside him short-circuit. Like a spell misfired and no one else noticed.

It wasn’t bad, exactly. But it made everything else harder to pretend about.

It made him want to say things he didn’t know how to say.

So instead, he nodded too stiffly, spoke too formally, and stayed exactly where he was: at the edge of a room that wasn’t his, in a world he didn’t belong to, next to someone he couldn’t stop noticing.

And when they laughed at something Luz said and looked to him like they wanted him to laugh too—

He just blinked.

Smiled. Small. Too late.

It felt wrong. But they didn’t seem to mind.

So maybe… maybe it wasn’t the wrong smile.

Just a human one.