The Sphinx's Breakfast

Elena sat across from Marcus at their usual corner table, the morning light catching the gray threading through his hair. He'd aged this past year—had they both—since the merger collapsed and their department was systematically dismantled.

"You're staring again," Marcus said, peeling the foil from his **vitamin** D supplement with methodical precision. "It's creepy."

"I'm observing. There's a difference." Elena gestured to the half-eaten **papaya** on her plate. "You haven't touched your fruit. That's new."

Marcus shrugged, his eyes fixed on something beyond the café window. "Forty feels different than thirty-nine. Suddenly you're thinking about mortality and calcium absorption."

Elena nodded slowly. They'd been colleagues turned friends turned something unnameable during those long months of late nights at the office. The **sphinx** of the twentieth floor—that's what their team had called Marcus behind his back. Impossible to read, harder to please, a creature of riddles and impossible standards. Then the layoffs came, and the sphphinx had simply... shed his mythological skin.

"I got an offer," he said finally.

Her chest tightened, though she kept her face neutral. "Congratulations."

"Singapore."

Elena's fork clattered against her plate. The papaya suddenly seemed obscene in its bright, careless sweetness.

"When?"

"Six weeks. They want someone to rebuild the analytics division from scratch." Marcus looked at her then, really looked at her, with that infuriatingly direct gaze she'd spent months learning to interpret. "I could use someone who knows how I take my coffee."

She should say something professional, something about what a great opportunity it was. Instead she heard herself ask, "Do you remember that night in the data center?"

"When the AC failed and we sweated through the migration at 3 AM?"

"You quoted Riddles of the Sphinx while eating terrible takeout." Elena shook her head. "I thought you were the most pretentious man I'd ever met."

"And now?"

She reached across the table and covered his hand with hers. "Now I think you might be the bravest. Starting over. Again."

Marcus turned his hand over, interlacing their fingers. "Singapore has papaya year-round," he said quietly. "And vitamin D deficiencies are surprisingly common among expats."

"Are you asking me to come with you or just warning me about supplements?"

"I'm terrible at this." His thumb traced her palm. "I'm asking if you want to find out."

Outside, the city churned forward, indifferent as ever. Elena squeezed his hand, feeling for the first time in years that perhaps the sphinx's riddle had an answer after all.