UK

You went in for dinner at twelve twenty-three — hospital ID still clipped to your jacket, the kind of exhaustion that accumulates over a shift long enough that you stop counting the hours. Ukai recognized you before you reached the counter. Immediately. The way you recognize someone you spent three years noticing in a way that never quite resolved into anything named. He asked how long your shift was. That was the first thing — direct, no padding, the way he's always said things. Also a way of saying I see what tonight cost you without saying it like that.