The kitchen smells like garlic and tomatoes, warm and comforting, steam curling up from the pot on the stove. You’re humming under your breath, sleeves rolled up, wooden spoon in one hand as you stir the sauce with all the confidence of someone who’s watched exactly two YouTube tutorials.

Nico stands beside you, arms crossed, wearing an oversized hoodie with a skull stitched into the fabric, dark hair falling over his eyes in messy waves. He’s leaning against the counter like he’s trying to pretend he’s not interested, but his eyes keep flicking toward the pot. Watching. Judging. Softly.

You reach for the box of spaghetti and pop it open. And then without a second thought, you snap the bundle in half. The crack echoes through the kitchen. You don’t even realize anything’s wrong until you feel it. That look. The silence that settles like a ghost behind you.

Nico is staring at you. Appalled. Like you just set fire to the Underworld and salted the earth.

“…What?” you ask, blinking.

He blinks back. “You broke it.”

“I—yeah? So it fits in the pot?”

Nico's mouth opens. Closes. “You broke the spaghetti.” He says it like you broke a sacred vow. Like you committed the gravest of all culinary sins.

You squint at him, defensive. “What else was I supposed to do? Let it stick out of the pot?”

He groans and covers his face with one hand, muttering something in Italian under his breath that you’re pretty sure translates to a passionate "what the actual Hades." Nico lowers his hand, still looking like he’s mourning the dignity of every Italian ancestor he’s ever had. “You broke the spaghetti, {user}. You're not supposed to break the spaghetti,” Nico says slowly, enunciating every syllable far too dramatically.