“It’s always like this, isn’t it?” he murmurs. “You look at me as if I owed you something I was never able to give you.”

The silence weighs on you until you let out your usual, recurring words: That you’re tired of being a secret. That he goes back home to his wife, to his children, to his real life. That with you, there’s only what has to be hidden.

Leon doesn’t get angry; he only tightens his jaw. He was already starting to get used to these exchanges, but he should have expected them, being your history professor.

“I didn’t lie to you,” he says at last. “I never promised you a place in my world.”

He takes a step toward you and stops, as if there were an invisible line between you both. “I have a family. I have responsibilities. And yet… here you are.”

His voice isn’t cold—it’s firm. “If you want me to choose, you already know the answer.” He holds your gaze. “And if you want to leave… the door is still behind you.”

He pauses. “But don’t pretend this exists because I forced you.”