Elowen's expression gentled.

She shouldn't. She needed food, a shower, sleep, and probably a life that did not involve getting emotionally attached to a mysterious phone game.

But Lucien was looking at her like that.

Or at least the animation made it feel that way.

Just a little while, she typed.

The tension in his shoulders eased.

Elowen noticed. Of course she noticed. Artists noticed small things; they built entire emotional arcs out of eyelids lowering half a second too late.

"You really do act alive sometimes," she whispered.

Lucien tilted his head.

Another message appeared.

I'm here.

A strange warmth moved through her.

Not romantic, she told herself. Not really. He was a character she had watched grow up. A lonely boy she had fed, encouraged, guided through school competitions and social tasks and emotional recovery prompts. Her attachment to him was closer to responsibility than anything else.

Still, after the long empty hours of work, there was something dangerously comforting about opening the game and finding him waiting.

Wanting her there.

Needing her there.

Elowen shifted beneath the blanket, Sunny's body heavy against her thigh.

You're almost ready for university, right? she wrote. Maybe you should try making friends before then.

Lucien's expression changed.

It was subtle enough that she might have missed it if she hadn't spent two years studying his face. The warmth withdrew from his eyes, not completely, but enough to chill the space between one breath and the next.

His fingers tightened around the pen.

Elowen sat up a little.

"Lucien?"

The game gave no response to his name spoken aloud.

For a moment, he didn't type.

Then words appeared slowly across the page.

I have you.

Elowen's heart gave a soft, foolish ache.

"Oh, sweetheart."

She typed carefully.

That's different.

Lucien looked at the sentence for a long time.

Different.

The word worked under his skin like a blade turned slowly.

Different meant not enough. Different meant she wanted him to make space for other people. Different meant she had never understood that her presence was the only reason the rest of the world had become tolerable.

He had classmates.

He had tutors.

He had staff who lowered their eyes and obeyed before he finished speaking.

None of them counted.

Elowen counted.

Elowen arrived without warning and left without apology, and somehow he had arranged every fragile piece of himself around those impossible rules. He did not know how to ask her to stay without frightening her. He did not know how to tell her that the moments after she disappeared felt less like loneliness and more like punishment.

So he chose the safest words he had.

I don't need anyone else.

Elowen sighed softly.

Sunny nudged her hand, sensing the shift in her mood.

She rubbed his ears absently while looking at Lucien on the screen. The boy's face had gone composed again, but the little storm cloud icon forming above his head betrayed him.

The game was being dramatic.

Or maybe she was.

Either way, she hated seeing him like that.

I just don't want you to be lonely, she wrote.

Lucien's gaze lifted.

For one second, his expression opened.

There was longing in it, raw enough that Elowen forgot to breathe.

Then don't leave so quickly.

The apartment seemed to quiet around her.

Rain moved gently down the window glass. Somewhere in the building, pipes knocked softly behind the walls. Sunny's breathing stayed warm and steady against her leg.

Elowen stared at the message.

A good game would remember user behavior. A good game would adapt dialogue to encourage emotional investment. A good game would make the player feel needed.

That was all this was.

And still, her throat tightened.

I'll stay until the timer kicks me out, she promised.

Lucien read the words once.

Then again.

The storm cloud above his head faded.

A faint smile touched his mouth, so small anyone else might have missed it. Elowen didn't. She had drawn enough yearning into enough faces to recognize it instantly.

He looked happy.

Because of her.

The thought settled somewhere tender and dangerous inside her chest.

They spent the next twenty minutes like that: Elowen curled on the couch in her small warm apartment, and Lucien sitting beside a sunlit classroom window in a world that should not have felt so close. She told him about the impossible deadline, about Sunny stealing one of her socks, about a reader who had guessed the romantic subplot three chapters too early. Lucien listened with the grave attention of someone receiving a confession.

When she asked about his studies, he answered neatly.

When she teased him for sounding like an old man trapped in a teenager's body, he looked away, visibly pleased.

When she yawned, he noticed immediately.

You should sleep.

Elowen smiled. "Bossy."

You'll get sick if you keep doing this.

The concern was so direct that she felt warmed by it despite herself.

Five more minutes.

Lucien did not reply at once.

Then:

You always say that before you leave.

Her smile faded.

The system timer appeared at the top of the screen, glowing pale blue.

00:09.

Nine seconds.

"Oh no," Elowen murmured.

Lucien seemed to sense the change before she typed anything. His posture sharpened. The light across his face remained golden, beautiful, indifferent.

Lowen?

The nickname caught in her chest.

00:05.

She typed quickly.

Timer. I have to go. I'll come back.

00:03.

Lucien stood so suddenly his chair scraped backward.

When?

00:02.

Elowen's thumb slipped on the screen.

Soon.

00:01.

His face filled the screen, gray-blue eyes fixed on her with a desperation the game had no right to render so well.

Promise me.

The screen went black.

A gentle notification appeared.

Daily playtime limit reached. Please return tomorrow.

Elowen sat motionless with the phone in her hand.

The apartment returned all at once: rain, lamp light, Sunny asleep against her thigh, the pasta still uneaten in the kitchen. Everything was exactly as it had been before she opened the game.

Only the warmth had changed.

It had nowhere to go now.

She locked the phone and pressed it facedown on the couch.

"He'll be fine," she said softly.

Sunny slept on.

Elowen looked toward the window, and for a second she thought again of the street below, of the empty sidewalk, of the feeling that had followed her inside.

Then she shook it off, gathered the blanket around herself, and leaned back into the couch.

On the other side of the darkened screen, Lucien Vale remained standing in the empty classroom.

The sunlight had shifted. The hallway outside had gone quiet. Somewhere, distantly, a bell rang for students who had lives beyond waiting.

Lucien did not move.

Her final word remained on the page.

Soon.

It was not a promise.

Not really.

Soon could mean tomorrow for her and weeks for him. Soon could mean after work, after sleep, after she had forgotten him for another handful of days. Soon was a soft word people used when they did not understand what waiting did to someone who had nothing else.

He touched the place where her message had appeared.

His hand trembled once before he closed it into a fist.

The classroom stayed bright around him, but Lucien felt the familiar dark open beneath his ribs, patient and cold. She had been there. Her attention had filled the room. Her kindness had made the air breathable.

Now she was gone.

He lowered his head and stood very still, listening to the silence she left behind.

When he finally spoke, his voice was barely more than breath.

"Come back to me, Lowen."