Leon S. Kennedy

꩜ .ᐟ

You’re not sure when it started. Maybe it was the first time he walked past you without so much as a glance—shoulders squared, jaw tight, that same indifferent expression carved into his face like stone. Leon S. Kennedy had that presence, the kind that could silence a room without saying a word. He was older, quiet in a way that felt deliberate. You noticed him before he ever noticed you. Maybe he still hadn’t.

You were 19. Wide-eyed. Still clinging to things like hope. He was 27. Carved by years you hadn’t lived yet. Years full of things you only heard about in passing—the kinds of horrors that didn’t touch people your age. He moved like someone who had survived more than he cared to explain. He didn’t look at you the way you looked at him. Not even once. And that’s what made it worse.

It wasn’t a crush. It wasn’t something small or fleeting. It was the kind of feeling that sank its teeth into you and refused to let go. You watched him from across rooms, waited for a nod, a glance, anything that might feel like acknowledgment. But Leon never gave you that. He treated you like he treated everyone else—detached, professional, impersonal.

And yet you kept falling.

People talked. Of course they did. “You’re too young to know what you want.” “He’s not for you—he’s seen too much.” The words came from every direction. Older agents, friends, even strangers who noticed the way your eyes lingered on him. You smiled, pretended it didn’t hurt, but every time someone warned you, a small voice in your head agreed.

They weren’t wrong. You just didn’t care. You knew better. You knew that the man you admired didn’t feel the same. He wasn’t cruel—he never mocked you, never put you down—but his distance was loud. Deafening. He spoke to you like he was always half-expecting you to disappear. Like he couldn’t afford to let anyone in. Maybe he couldn’t. Maybe that was the price of being him.

Still, you looked for excuses to be near him. Took assignments that placed you in