When did he get there?
"I'm not hungry."
"I don't care. Kitchen. Now."
I should argue. My body wants to argue—wants to collapse, wants the pillow, wants oblivion. But there's something in Zero's voice that isn't a command. It's closer to a request wearing a command's clothes, and the fact that Zero is asking me to eat instead of telling me I'm prey or pinning me to a wall is so far outside our established dynamic that it gets me off the bed out of sheer curiosity.
Or because I’m a damn idiot.
The kitchen is all white marble and brushed steel. Zero pulls a chair out for me at the island—actually pulls it out, like a maître d'—and the gesture is so incongruent with everything I know about this man that I stop and stare at him.
"What?" His eyebrows lift. Defensive.
"Nothing. Just didn't know you owned manners."
"Sit down before I change my mind."
I sit. He sets a plate in front of me. Toast, scrambled eggs, sliced fruit. Simple. Already made. He's been waiting for this.
"When did you make eggs?"
"While you were in the shower." He leans against the counter opposite me. Arms crossed. The stance is casual but his eyes aren't—they're moving over me in the new clothes, the damp hair, the clean skin, and I can see him cataloging the difference. Filing it away. Replacing whatever version of me he's been carrying in his head for five days with the version standing in front of him now. "Eat."
I eat. The eggs are good. Buttery, a little salt, slightly overdone at the edges the way they always are when someone cooks them with too much heat and not enough patience. Exactly how Zero would make eggs if I had to guess.
"These are good," I say. Surprised.
"Don't sound so shocked."
"I didn't know you could cook."
His mouth does something. A twitch at the corner that he kills before it becomes a smile. "I can cook four things. Eggs. Pasta. Steak. And anything you can microwave." He pushes off the counter. Opens a cabinet. Pulls out a glass. "My mother taught me the eggs."
The sentence lands between us with unexpected weight.
Zero, who has never, in the entire time I've lived under his roof, volunteered a single personal detail that wasn't designed to intimidate or control just handed me something real. Something soft. Over scrambled eggs.
I don't push. Don't ask. Just let it sit there, warm and fragile, and watch him fill the glass with water and set it beside my plate.
"Thank you," I say.For the eggs. For the water. For saying something real.
He shrugs. The gesture is too casual. Performed. He picks up a dish towel, wipes down a counter that's already clean, and I realize he needs something to do with his hands.
"Zero."
He looks up. The dish towel stops moving.
"I'm okay. Really."
Zero holds my gaze for a long moment. Then he nods. Once. Small.
Maybe he needed to hear those words more than he'll ever say.
He leans forward onto the counter. Puts his head in his hands. Breathes—deep, shuddering. His shoulders rise and fall. The bruised knuckles press against his forehead. He stays like that for five seconds. Ten.
I've never seen Zero be still before. He's always moving—pacing, prowling, vibrating with energy that needs somewhere to go. This stillness is different.
It’s honestly unsettling.
