(Kabir's POV)
Veer leaned against the glass partition, effortless, casual, but with an undercurrent that Kabir recognized immediately. This was the game Veer played: subtle influence masquerading as friendship.
"You let her slip once," Veer said, voice light, teasing. "There's no recalculation that fixes that."
Kabir's fingers hovered over the keyboard, unshaken, neutral. "She is not a variable to be tracked like data," he replied, cold, precise.
Veer smiled faintly, unbothered. "Of course not. But humans… humans aren't formulas. They move. They choose. They slip if you're not careful."
Kabir's jaw tightened fractionally. Veer was testing him, probing his blind spots — the human elements he had learned to suppress. Yet the warning was valid. Even a perfect system could not fully contain an unpredictable element like Anaya.
She approached quietly, noticing the tension he didn't display outwardly. Her presence grounded him — a subtle stabilizing variable. "You're overthinking," she said softly, perceptive.
"I do not overthink," Kabir replied evenly. "I anticipate."
Veer's chuckle lingered in the air as he moved away, leaving Kabir to catalog every nuance, every ripple he had allowed into the system. Trust, desire, awareness — these were all variables he could not fully quantify. Yet Anaya's presence, steady and observant, offered him an anchor, a rare and dangerous comfort he would not admit aloud.