Lucian had arrived ten minutes early.
He always did. Early meant prepared. Early meant no surprises. Early meant he could claim the left-hand computer—the one with the slightly better keyboard and the screen that didn't flicker when he moved the mouse.
He was halfway through setting up their shared GitHub repo when she arrived, breeze-first, personality-second.
Sylvia Duval.
She dropped her bag on the desk like it had offended her, spun a chair around backward, and sat in it with casual, infuriating confidence.
"Wow," she said, glancing at his screen. "You already started. I didn't realize this was a solo mission."
Lucian adjusted his hoodie clearly tensed. "I was just setting up the basics."
"Oh, don't let me stop you," she said, resting her chin on her arms, eyes glittering with amusement. "Actually, do let me. Because that font? Criminal. And did you just name the project folder 'final_project_v1'? How boring can you be?"
"It's a working title," he mumbled.
"Lucian." She leaned forward like she was about to tell him a secret. "We're creating a compatibility app. You can't make it look like a tax calculator."
He blinked at her. "It's about function, not aesthetics."
Sylvia gasped theatrically. "You functioned my will to live out of existence."
Lucian wanted to sink into the floor. Instead, he focused on his screen. "You said you had design ideas?"
"Did I?" She pulled out a notebook, flipping it open to a page full of colorful sketches. "Oh right. Here. Color-coded. Labeled. Annotated. I do care about aesthetics, after all."
He glanced at it—half to humor her, half because... well, it was actually kind of impressive.
"Your handwriting is... unusually legible," he muttered.
"Are you complimenting me?" she gasped, hand on her heart. "Mark the date! Lucian Sinclair said something almost human."
Lucian rubbed the back of his neck, ears tinged pink. "Can we just work?"
"Oh, we are working," she said, stretching out across the desk like a cat claiming territory. "I'm creatively contributing. You're awkwardly malfunctioning. It's a perfect system."
He tried to focus, really he did—but she was everywhere. Doodling in the margins. Tapping her pen. Staring at him just long enough for him to notice, then looking away with a smug little smile like she'd won some invisible game.
Lucian adjusted his hoodie hood up, tugging it low.
"You're like a turtle when you do that," she said. "All shy and hunched. It's kind of cute."
He froze. "I'm not—"
"—cute? I mean, no, definitely not," she said dramatically, twirling her pen. "Not with that brooding, 'don't talk to me' energy."
Lucian clenched his jaw. "Can we focus?"
"I am focused. On your tragic posture and complete lack of social skills."
"I'm good at coding. That's what matters."
"Sure," she said, leaning in close, voice dropping just enough to make it feel intimate. "But you're going to have to talk to people eventually, you know. Like users. Clients. Me."
"You don't count," he muttered before thinking.
Her smile widened. "Oh, I count, Sinclair. You just don't know how much."
Before he could respond—or self-destruct—the bell rang.
Sylvia stood, stretched, and slung her bag over her shoulder.
"Same time tomorrow?" she asked sweetly. "Unless you need time to emotionally recover."
He just stared at the screen.
She paused at the door. "You should smile more. Or at least blink. People might stop thinking you're a robot."
The door closed behind her with a light click.
Lucian exhaled for the first time in twenty minutes.
And then he noticed something strange on his screen. An error. No, not an error—something embedded in the file Sylvia had handed him.
A hidden line of code.
One he hadn't written.
HEARTSYNC_PROTOTYPE // INITIATE...
His fingers hovered over the keyboard.
What the hell was that?