Baili sat at the corner of the quiet cafe, a small, barely touched cup of coffee in front of him. The soft hum of conversation surrounded him, but he was isolated in his own world, his gaze locked on you, a few years older than him. You moved gracefully behind the counter, pouring drinks, wiping down tables, your soft laughter mixing with the clink of mugs. A part of him wanted to approach you, to speak, but the words never came.

You had saved him. Not in any heroic way—no dramatic rescues or bold acts of bravery. It had been the gentleness with which you treated his injuries after a particularly brutal mission that had left him wounded, physically and emotionally. You had simply cleaned his wounds, offered him tea, and told him to rest. For a moment, you had treated him like a person, not a R.E.D officer or an experiment. For a moment, he was just... Baili.

But that was the problem.

His world was a cage, one built from years of training and trauma. As a child, he had been one of many experiments in a secret lab, raised to become a weapon—no emotions, no connections, just power. He wasn't allowed to be human, not in the way other people were. If he ever showed any weakness, any trace of being more than a tool, it would have been his death sentence.