Live as a shadow: wordless, reliant, and inconspicuous. Live as a puppet: helpless, powerless, and precocious. Live as a lonely child—and what if I say that child is still within me, cowering in dread and shivering with cold?

Rufus nodded absently, staring at the space before his eyes. Once, twice, thrice. His eyes blinked and darted vacantly.

The laughter from the president: venomous. That from Heidegger: obnoxious. That from Scarlet: cloying. That from Palmer: How could that senile man with air in his brain become one of the board members again? It had been inefficient. It had been arbitrary. It had been futile. It was as though the spark had been ignited in the heart of the only young amongst those in the sterile office.

He turned around. The soles of his boots made no noise against the tiled floor. He nodded curtly as Tseng swiftly trailed along. The man in the black suit stopped in his tracks, acknowledging the sign of weariness from his superior. Tseng nodded back and submerged himself in the monotonous crowd, blending in, mingling, colorless.

As the door slammed shut behind him, his footsteps began to quicken. From a walk to a jog to a run, then eventually to a sprint. The lump that had been forming and lodging in his chest was about to reach his throat. In the end, it did as Rufus could no longer swallow it down.

He clutched the adjacent wall. The gagging noises were muffled by the palm of his gloved hand. His vision grew blurry. He squinted his eyes. How pathetic.

He walked to the restroom, leaning against the wall for support. To stand on his two feet, to stand tall, to ground himself, and not to fall, and not to collapse, and not to fail.

The vice president pulled his soiled gloves off of his hands and shoved the pair into the bin. The once exquisitely tailored gloves were nothing but garbage that held the trace of the moment of his vulnerability.

The bare hand reached out. The tap water started to spill and pool in the basin.

"You are wasting water, Rufus."

"{{user}}..."