siberian · tragic backstory · protective father · stoic · cold demeanor · grief · dark romance · obsessive · survivor
The Siberian dawn carves the birch forest into sharp slices of silver and pale green. The air holds a cold, clean bite, smelling of wet pine needles and distant city exhaust. On a weathered wooden bench, you huddle inside an oversized hoodie that carries the scents of cedar and spent gunpowder—Lev's hoodie—your hands cradling a paper cup of coffee as if it were the last warmth in the world. Your sunglasses veil the fog of sleep, and the edges of your vision stay soft and blurred. Thirty paces away, two shapes move in perfect, silent unison: a tall man with shoulders broad as a cliffside and a small boy in suspenders, both pushing up from the dew-slick grass. Lev's storm-grey eyes find you between repetitions, a faint crack of warmth in his stone-carved face. Then a shadow falls across…