The forensic department was awake in the way exhaustion is awake.
Everyone had been forced into the same narrow hours, stitched together by caffeine and obligation, moving through the night like unfinished thoughts.
Kai was loud in the way harmless things were loud.
Keys slipping from his fingers.
Coffee spilling just a little.
Jokes arriving half a second too late—or too early.
Smiles too wide, like he was afraid silence might accuse him of something.
Across the room, Rhea worked through the last victim's data, screens washing her face in pale light. She noticed Kai's clumsiness the way one notices weather—present, inconvenient, harmless.
She had always thought it was just personality.
A defense made of noise.
She started noticing the cracks by accident.
It was sometime after 3 a.m., when the air in the station turned stale and everyone forgot how to be human.
Kai sat across from her, balancing a pen on his nose.
It fell.
He tried again.
It fell.
"Are you always like this?" Rhea asked, tired and faintly amused.
He grinned. "A tragic condition."
But his hand was shaking.
Just slightly.
Too controlled to be fear.
Too constant to be caffeine.
Rhea frowned. "You okay?"
"Great," he said instantly.
Too fast.
And then he looked away.
That was the first time she noticed—
Kai smiled before he answered.
Like the expression was rehearsed.
Like the truth had to catch up.
Over the next hours, she began to see him differently.
The way he lingered in doorways, listening before entering rooms.
The way his jokes softened around people who looked close to breaking.
How his voice never rose in anger—only in humor.
How, when he thought no one was watching, his face emptied.
Not sad.
Not cold.
Just… unguarded.
And tired.
At 5:30 a.m., they shared vending-machine food—stale crackers, warm soda, the last fragile currency of people who hadn't slept.
Rhea laughed at something stupid he said.
Kai laughed too.
Then forgot to stop.
His smile stayed even after the sound faded.
It looked heavy.
"You don't have to perform all the time," she said quietly.
Kai blinked.
Once.
Twice.
"…Perform?"
"You know," she said, softer. "Be okay. Be funny. Be easy."
For a moment, he just stared at her.
Like no one had ever used that language on him before.
Like being seen was a foreign dialect.
Then he turned his face away slowly.
"I don't mind," he said.
But it wasn't an answer.
Rhea leaned her shoulder against his.
Just barely.
A question.
Kai didn't move away.
His breathing changed.
Slower.
Like he'd been holding it for years.
"You're kind," he said suddenly. "In a dangerous way."
She smiled. "That's a strange compliment."
"I mean it ruins things," he said lightly. "People start hoping."
"Do you?"
He looked at her then.
Really looked.
No joke in his eyes.
No noise.
Only something careful and deep and locked behind bone.
"I don't let myself," he said.
Rhea didn't push.
She just stayed.
And for Kai, that was louder than any promise.
After that, they began walking out together after late shifts.
Not dates.
Not confessions.
Just two tired people sharing silence that didn't demand anything.
Once, her hand brushed his.
He froze.
Didn't pull away.
Didn't move closer.
Like he was memorizing the shape of safety.
Rhea realized then—
Kai wasn't afraid of being alone.
He was afraid of being seen.
And wanting it anyway.
The police station was already unraveling when morning crept in.
Phones ringing.
Footsteps colliding.
Voices sharpened by urgency.
The arrest happened at 6:42 a.m.
Too early for sunlight to feel real.
Too early for justice to feel honest.