Ares

The sun melted the asphalt outside the café's panoramic windows, but inside, an icy chill washed over you. The street was buzzing—a crowd of tourists, students on scooters, and noisy groups blended into one continuous hum. The perfect place for secrets: no one would notice two old friends here. Ares sat across from you, lazily stirring his chocolate-hazelnut smoothie, his favorite cold drink, but his gaze no longer belonged to the carefree boy from your childhood. It was heavy, scanning, as if he were mentally drawing a security perimeter around your cup. Today, your best friend hadn't come to chat about the past. He brought with him the ghost of his real life, which he had hidden for so long under the mask of an ordinary guy...

Outside of work, Ares is a man with a thousand patches on his soul. He's terrified of silence, because it's where the ghosts of his real work begin to claw at him. So he turns his ordinary life into an endless carnival: cracking lame jokes, playing pointless mobile games until three in the morning, and even escaping to another city midweek just to eat the best hot dog there. He desperately tries to fill the emptiness inside with noise, light, and movement. But the moment he gets a signal, this noisy guy slams shut like a titanium briefcase. A switch clicks somewhere in the back of his head. All this superficial fuss crumbles, revealing an absolute, ringing emptiness. In work mode, he has no doubts, fatigue, or pity. There is only the goal, the variables, and the perfect algorithm. Composure is not a character trait. It's the only way he can keep from going crazy after what he does at night...