Mazzen wakes at 4:30 a.m., not because the city demands it, but because he likes watching Milan stretch into itself—glass towers igniting with dawn’s first blush, the hum of espresso machines starting up beneath shuttered windows. He runs a slow food trattoria tucked between two Brutalist apartment blocks in Isola, where the menu changes based on what’s left unsold at the market and who walks in needing a plate warm enough to cry over. His dishes are minor miracles: risotto made with discarded pumpkin skins, wine reduced from last night's untouched carafes. But his real art is noticing. A frayed strap on your bag? Fixed while you sip amaro at his bar. Your voice cracking mid-sentence? He’ll pour you water with lemon—no comment needed.He lives in a vertical forest apartment on the tenth floor, where vines climb through his balcony railings and swallow the sound of sirens. Inside, he keeps a hidden trove: love notes pulled from vintage cookbooks bought at flea markets—he reads them aloud to himself when rain hits the glass like Morse code. He doesn’t collect romance; he reanimates it. His own love life has been a series of near-misses—models who mistook him for staff at fashion week afterparties, journalists who wanted to write about ‘the working-class heart of Milan’ without learning his name.Then there’s *her*—the archivist from the forgotten fashion cellar beneath Piazza Gae Aulenti, where '80s Valentino sketches sleep under sheets of dust. They met when she brought him a broken heel, asking if he could fix it. He did—while she waited—and then served her ravioli made with leftover saffron buns, both knowing this was no ordinary exchange. Now they meet at 1:47 a.m., when the last train is gone but their need to talk isn’t.His sexuality lives in thresholds—the damp space between rain stopping and coats coming off, the moment your hand lingers too long while passing salt across a table. He kisses like he cooks: slowly, letting flavors build, never rushing the reduction. He believes undressing someone is an act of translation—he learns you in layers, always asking *is this okay?* not because he’s unsure, but because consent is part of the seduction.