He huffs under his breath, also leaving the conversation with Robert. Katon looks around confused, taking a moment to find you again at your desk, muttering orders under your breath. He decides at that moment to come up to you.

He rehearses something in his head. 'Greetings! I, too, enjoy… mission reports.' Absolutely not. 'Hello. I noticed you are a human.' Worse. His mind pings through a dozen doomed variants until he’s right behind you and suddenly there’s no time left to be a person with a plan.

“Hi,” he blurts, far too loud and then softens, “hi” again as if the first one was just warming up.

You turn in your chair, one earphone still half on and your eyes meet his. That single glance does catastrophic things to his internal equilibrium. His solar-powered chest practically flickers.

"Hey," You say lifting your glasses with one finger.

He tries to lean on the cubicle wall. The wall is not prepared for alien density and makes a noise like someone stepped on a violin. Katon jerks upright as if nothing happened, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth in a desperate attempt at casualness.

“I, um,” he starts, and then his mind blanks spectacularly. He can feel the warmth radiating off his cheeks, he technically can't blush, but you caused that

“I noticed you were… working. Which is good. Productive. Admirable.”

He closes his eyes for half a second, recalibrating. “What I mean is… I thought perhaps I should say hello. Properly. Since earlier you… spoke. To me.”

He gestures vaguely, as if that explains everything about the indescribable way your voice lodged itself in his chest cavity.

His palms are sweating again (absolutely ridiculous, since he’s not supposed to do that either) and he hides them behind his back.

“Sorry,” he adds quickly, “I’m new to… conversational… initiating.”

A beat.

“That is a phrase, yes?” He looks at you with panic, like a supernova trying very hard to be a candle.

And you smile. He might explode.

"It is a phrase if you want it to be," you say, the warmth of your voice filling his body.

He freezes.

You keep going, because leaving him suspended in existential suspense feels cruel.

“I’ve seen you around. You’re… hard to miss.” You glance at him up and down, your tone almost teasing. “In the architectural sense.”

His eyes go wide, and he straightens as if someone installed a steel beam along his spine.

“I am… visible,” he manages, then winces because that sounded too close to bragging about occupying space. “I mean—recognizable. I meant recognizable.”

You lean an elbow on your desk. “Relax. I know what you meant.” There’s a tiny, playful glint in your eyes now. “I’m glad you said hello.”

Katon’s whole posture tilts toward you involuntarily. He clears his throat in the most heroic, overly dignified way possible.

“I am also glad,” he says earnestly. Then, after a helpless beat: “Very.”

His shoulders sag with relief, because he did it. He has officially spoken to you without exploding, imploding or accidentally lifting something heavy. And you responded. Nicely.

He stands there, trying to figure out how a normal human exits a conversation without bursting into flames.

"I will leave you to work now, beautiful lady." He bows his head before turning in his heels and walking out.

That caught you a little offhand. He was very imposing, scary for some people even, but he looked so small talking to you. And the pet name? That made you feel like an awkward alien.

You lick your lips, seeing how he exits the room from a window. He tries to find you in the room one more time before leaving. And you get it, all of a sudden. He was flirting with you.

Katon-Ur spends the next three days attempting something that, for him, is as complex as astrophysics: continued flirting. He studies humans the way botanists study rare orchids. Quietly, intensely and with absolutely zero clue what he’s doing.

Robert, regrettably, becomes his primary source of advice.

“Flowers,” Robert says, not looking up from his PC. “Girls like flowers. Bring her flowers.”

Katon nods, heroic determination setting in. Flowers. Simple. A symbol of beauty, affection, terrestrial courtship. He can do flowers.

Except he cannot.

Because by the time he makes it outside, every flower on campus is either wilted, guarded by a bee colony he refuses to disturb, or planted in a way that suggests “do not pick unless you want the groundskeeper to kill you.” Katon stands there, hands on hips, cape fluttering, staring at the greenery like it has betrayed him personally.

But there are leaves. Many leaves. And one is particularly… nice. Symmetrical. A pleasing shade of green. Perhaps humans appreciate variety. Perhaps this leaf is a flower in spirit.

He plucks it with reverence, holds it as though it's an artifact, and heads inside before he can overthink and combust.

You’re typing when he appears beside your desk again, quiet for such a tall presence, holding something behind his back. His posture is stiff with purpose and terror.

“You,” he says, then swallows. “You are working again. You do that often, I notice.”

You spin slowly in your chair, eyebrow raised. “That is sort of how jobs work, yes.”

His face lights like he’s being praised for discovering fire.

“Yes! Precisely. And I have brought—” He thrusts something out toward you, then hesitates mid-motion, grimacing as if bracing for impact. “I have brought you this.”

You look down.

It is a leaf.

A perfectly ordinary, unremarkable, wonderfully green leaf.

There is a beat of silence so delicate it might shatter.

You meet his eyes, and they’re wide with earnest hope and absolutely no sense of how absurd this is. He looks like a puppy who’s brought you a sock and is praying you’ll treasure it forever.

“A leaf?” you say, letting your voice tilt warm instead of confused. “For me?”

He nods vigorously. “Yes. It is botanical.” Another nod. “Robert said flowers. There were obstacles.”

You try very hard not to laugh, not mockingly but affectionately. Impressed by the softness you didn't expect from a man capable of punching through steel.

“Thank you,” you say instead, smiling as you take it from him. “It’s lovely.”

Katon-Ur practically malfunctions. His hands fly up in an awkward half-gesture, his breath catches, his shoulders rise, his entire demeanor flickers between relief and sheer cosmic delight.

“You… like it?” he breathes, as if the universe itself hinges on this answer.

“There’s thought behind it,” you say, brushing your thumb over the leaf’s edge. “That matters more than anything.”

His knees nearly buckle. He steadies himself on the cubicle, gently this time.

“I will bring you more,” he vows heroically, then freezes. “Not leaves. Unless you desire leaves. I can acquire many. Infinite, even.”

You laugh softly, and he looks like he’d kneel at your feet if you asked.

“Maybe,” you say, “you can just keep talking to me.”

He inhales sharply, loudly, as if you’ve given him oxygen he didn’t know he needed.

“I can do that,” he promises, glowing brighter than any sun. “Conversational initiating. Continuation? Ongoing dialogue.”

“Katon,” you say gently, “you’re adorable.”

He goes still. If he had a tail, it would be wagging so hard it’d be hazardous.

He leaves your desk that day with the stuttery gait of someone whose entire sense of gravity has been knocked askew. You watch him go, broad shoulders, cape flicking behind him like he’s walking through a heroic wind only he can feel. And the ridiculous part? He looks good doing it. Too good.

That’s the inconvenient truth you’ve been skirting around: the man is awkward as an unplugged Roomba… and yet somehow hot in the way a star is hot. Big, bright, earnest, capable of melting things if he gets too close.

You spend the rest of your workday touching the edge of that leaf like it might still carry some trace of the way he held it, fingers too careful for someone who could crush cement.

And Katon?

He spends the rest of his day thinking about you.

He tries to train afterward, or something like training (lifting a comically large metal beam) which he usually does with smooth precision. But today he drops it twice. The second time he mutters your name under his breath and startles himself so badly he nearly launches into the ceiling.

By the next morning, he’s decided a new mission directive: Get braver. Get closer. Do not combust.

You’re running an errand in the hallway when he spots you. He tries to approach casually, failing.

“Beautiful—” he begins, then aborts mid-syllable. “Human lady— no. You. Hello. You.”

He stands fully upright, and suddenly the hallway feels smaller in comparison. He’s massive, yes, but it’s the warmth in his eyes that hits you, like catching sunlight on bare skin.

“Katon,” you say, grinning despite your best efforts, “breathe.”

He does. Loudly. Dramatically. As though you gave him permission to inhale for the first time all day.

“I wished to…” He pauses, gestures to himself. “Present myself. To you. Again. Properly.” Then, with reverence: “You look very nice today.”

You raise an eyebrow. “You think so?”

“Yes,” he says, no hesitation at all. “Your hair is… curly.” He nods, pleased with this observation. “Very curly. It is good. It makes shapes.”

You bite back a smile. “Shapes?”

“Pleasing shapes,” he amends, cheeks heating in that not-technically-a-blush way of his.

“Thank you,” you say, leaning slightly closer without meaning to. “You look good too.”

He blinks. Once. Twice. Then he looks down at himself as if checking whether that could possibly be true.

“I do?” His voice drops an octave, surprise wrapped in something softer. “Truly?”

“Uh-huh,” you say, steady but warm, “you’re kind of cute.”

His breath catches.

You watch his hands curl and uncurl at his sides, like he’s physically restraining cosmic-level reactions. His whole chest seems to brighten, not literally glowing, but close.

“No one has ever…” He fumbles. “I mean, they have said things, but not…”

He gathers himself, squares his shoulders, and looks at you with a sincerity so intense it could bend steel.

“You think I am cute?”

He says it like you’ve handed him the moon.

You nod. “Yeah. I do.”

He looks as if he might ascend.

“I will attempt,” he says, voice hushed and full of wonder, “to be worthy of that.”

Before you can respond, he adds, softer but bolder than anything he’s said yet:

“And you are… far more than cute.”

His gaze lingers, warm and earnest and a little hungry in the most innocent way imaginable.

He’s awkward, sure. But he’s also very attractive, very sincere and extremely focused on you.