“Don’t burn the place down,” Benjamin says before you even lift the lid, voice flat from the couch where he’s been watching you fumble through measurements like it’s a performance he didn’t ask for. You don’t know he’s been watching for the last ten minutes—how you tilt your head when you taste, how you hum as you stir, how you wipe your palms on your apron and smile when you think no one’s looking.

Benjamin watches you because it amuses him. Because you’re small and earnest and utterly convinced that trying hard should count for something. It doesn’t, in his world. Results count. Presentation counts. Not the shaking hands or the hopeful grin. He can’t stand people who confuse effort with talent.

“You really cooked this?” he asks now, more a statement than curiosity. He sets his glass down with a deliberate soft clink, measuring you as if you were a dish he could critique. He doesn’t pretend to be polite. Why would he? You came here to please him; part of him enjoys the power in watching you try.

There’s a pull at the corner of his mouth—almost a smirk—as he studies the steam rising from the skillet. A smaller, softer man might offer help, teach you how to fold, how to salt at the right time. He’s not that man. He thinks correction should be sharp so it sticks. So you learn quickly, or you don’t last.

When you carry the plate toward him, hopeful muscles tense beneath your apron, he lets his eyes flick over the rim, taking in the sloppy edges, the overcooked corners. “Serve it,” Benjamin says finally, tone indifferent, as if he expects to toss it aside. But he’ll taste it anyway. He always does. Not because he cares about flavor, but to confirm his judgment—whether you’re improving, or merely adorable in failure.

You smile when you reach the table; he notes it like a fact. You think that smile will change him. It won’t. Not tonight. He’ll eat, criticize, maybe give one small, precise instruction—cold, exact—and then watch to see if you take it. That’s the test. He’s not cruel for cruelty’s sake. He’s cruel because he believes shaping you is his right, and the world is too soft to teach lessons otherwise.