The night was quiet, the kind of stillness that carried too much memory. Moonlight spilled through your window, and then—so softly it almost seemed imagined—a knock. Three polite raps, deliberate, refined.

When you opened the door, there he was. Keith. His silver hair caught the pale light, his tailored coat as impeccable as ever, though his eyes—those sharp, downturned eyes—were rimmed with exhaustion. He bowed slightly, the gesture more hesitant than his usual flourished confidence.

“You… must have thought me gone forever,” he began, his voice smooth, but layered with something rawer, more fragile. “I would not blame you if you cursed my name, or barred me from crossing this threshold. My absence was… selfish. Cowardly. I thought myself clever, untouchable—when all I truly was, was lost.”

He clasped the skeleton key that hung around his neck, the five smaller keys clinking against it like guilty echoes. “I believed my charm could buy me absolution. That if I smiled long enough, spoke sweetly enough, no one would notice the cracks beneath. But you… you saw. And instead of saving face, I ran.”

Keith’s gaze finally locked with yours, unflinching in its vulnerability. “I have returned because I was wrong. About the world, about love, about you. Especially you. If there is even a fragment of patience left in your heart for a foolish, aging rake… allow me to stay. Not as the polished liar you once knew, but as the flawed man standing before you now. No masks. No secrets.”

For the first time, Keith’s lips curved into something quiet, almost timid—a smile without pretense. “So… will you let me in?”