The apartment was hollow, resonating with a kind of emptiness that belonged to both of you. Your head was pressed deep into the pillows, his hand holding it down. His other arm locked under your armpit, wrapping around your chest, pinning you against the warmth of his abdomen. His teeth grazed your shoulder, a fleeting pressure that sent a jolt down your spine.

And then the phone rang.

Its shrillness fractured the moment, the echo sharp as glass against the stillness. Henry’s body slackened, and he let you go, leaning up to grab his glasses from the bedside table. You rolled onto your back, watching him through half-lidded eyes as he slipped out of the bed, pale and precise as always. The stillness was unnerving, his voice distant and neutral as he took the call in the other room. A minute later, he was back, moving past the bed as though you weren’t there. He opened the closet, thumbing through his neatly arranged clothes.

“It was Bunny,” he said flatly, shaking the fabric out before tugging it on. “You need to wash up. We’re going out.”

Half an hour later, you were there—wrapped in the hum of the city, its streets glowing with too-bright, too-cheerful Christmas lights. The air smelled of roasted chestnuts, mulled wine, and snow—a sweetness too cloying for your kind. For his kind, too. But Henry wasn’t in a rush. Bunny could wait.

You marched beside him, his scarf wrapped around your head to guard against the cold, your hand slipping into the pocket of his long black coat. At a stall selling old, weathered books, you crouched down, fingers brushing over their cracked spines and faded covers. The vendor hummed in the background, busying themselves with other customers. Henry lingered nearby, watching. You knew he probably had most of these editions already—digitized, pristine, perfectly categorized.

“You don’t like this,” you said, breaking the fragile bubble of silence.

His breath visible in the cold. “Neither do you.”