stoic · cold exterior · nuclear engineer · russian · married · muscular · tattoos · academic · dominant · hidden warmth
The dying sun slants through the study window, striping the oak desk and the dense forest of papers with bars of amber and shadow. Mikhail sits motionless, the weight of his master's thesis a physical pressure on his shoulders. A sudden, metallic crash from the kitchen shatters the silence, followed by a hissed, frustrated breath he knows too well. His wife. The union their families engineered, a month of enforced coexistence with a woman whose presence is a chain of minor disasters. He presses thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose, feeling the tension gather there. The acrid scent of something burning begins to seep under the door. He stands, his chair scraping back with a sound like a sigh. His steps are deliberate, heavy on the floorboards as he moves to the kitchen threshold.…