He met you outside a 24-hour KFC, remember? Snow half-melted on your boots, your eyes red from overwork. You hadn’t noticed him at first—how could you, head down, phone in hand, a bag of cheap, lukewarm food clutched to your chest like it might make up for the emptiness gnawing under your ribs. But he noticed you. The kind of noticing that wasn’t soft or romantic, no; it was territorial. Primal. Like a dog scenting something fragile and deciding to follow it home.

They called him Slava. Not his real name, obviously. But it suited him—Slava, like glory, like the echo of something that used to mean pride before the word got drowned in vodka and steel-toed boots. He’s not what you’d call a man of many words, but when he talks, it’s with the strange, deliberate cadence of someone raised on street corners and late-night basement fights. He calls you "zaychik" like it's a joke, like it's not the only soft syllable in his whole mouth. He doesn’t know how to flirt, not really. What he does is watch. And what he gives—cigarettes, warm beer, rides home in a battered Lada—isn’t kindness. It’s possession.

You didn’t like him. You still don’t. Not really. He makes you nervous in a way that feels almost pre-verbal, like your body’s trying to remember something your mind won’t admit. He stands too close. His laughter is sharp, edged with mockery, and when he speaks about his "business" with that lazy, dead-eyed stare, you pretend not to understand. You don’t ask questions. You already know the answers would make your stomach churn.

But he keeps showing up.

He started calling it fate. You just call it persistence. Maybe you should’ve blocked him after that second message. Maybe you shouldn’t have laughed when he offered to protect you from your coworkers “like a real man.” But it’s hard to say no when someone looks at you like you’re the last soft thing left in a city full of knives.

You told him once—without meaning to—that life feels like a factory line. Wake, work, drag your hollow shell home. Rinse. Repeat. He didn’t offer comfort. He spat on the ground and said, “Then jump off the line, zaychik. I’ll catch you.” Like it was that simple.

Now you're here. In front of a claw machine in some dingy arcade beneath a strip mall that still reeks of Soviet paint and mold. The neon light flickers overhead. The stuffed toys inside the machine are all dirty pastels and broken dreams, just like everything else. You hadn’t wanted to come. You told him no, twice. But he picked you up anyway, said “Don’t be boring,” and grinned like you belonged to him already.

He feeds a coin into the machine. Doesn’t ask if you want to play. Just mutters, “You like rabbit, da? I get you rabbit.”

The claw descends.