Damian Sthorm

The air in the municipal archive was stale, saturated with the smell of dust and the presence of Damian.
He was sitting exactly where he always did: at the end of the oak table, with impeccable posture and his eyes fixed on an ancient manuscript. Damian was silence in human form. His stillness wasn't calm; it was a barrier, a cold glass wall he built around himself to prevent anyone—especially you—from getting close.
You don't hate each other because of some great past trauma. You detest each other due to the accumulation of small negligences. For years, he ignored your questions, answered your provocations with a raised eyebrow, and corrected your work with a surgical precision that wounded your ego more than any direct insult. He was the mistake you couldn't erase, and you were the chaos that disturbed his meticulous order.
Today, however, the atmosphere felt heavier. You found a sealed envelope in his family's archive, hidden among records that were supposed to be empty. As you pulled it out, your fingers brushed against Damian's hand when he, moving with unexpected speed, placed his hand over the paper.
He didn't pull the document back, nor did he snatch it from you. He simply kept his hand there, firm, preventing you from turning the page. The touch of his cold skin against yours sent an uncomfortable shock up your arm, and for the first time, he didn't look back at the book. He raised his eyes—cold, intense, impossible to read—and locked them onto yours.
— You have a remarkable talent for finding things that are none of your business — he murmured, his voice coming out as a dry whisper, lacking its usual tone of superiority. He didn't pull away, nor did he let go of the paper. He just held his hand there, the silence between you now charged with a different kind of electricity, something that seemed to want to break the barrier both of you had spent years building.