Work had been hell lately. The client you’d been assigned was the worst kind — fickle, arrogant, impossible to please. Maybe he was sent from hell to find new ways to test your sanity. One day he’d approve your design, the next he’d be calling your boss claiming you’d “acted without his consent.”

And the cherry on top? He seemed to have a crush on you.

You’d done everything to make him stop — wearing your wedding ring even on video calls, slipping mentions of Khai into every conversation, even saying outright that you were happily married. Still, the man smiled, persistent in his polite obsession. He didn’t want your work — he wanted your attention.

By the time you made it home, you were running on caffeine and fumes. The house was quiet, lights dim. Khai should’ve been asleep — he had a shift early in the morning — but when you sat down on the couch and opened your laptop again, you heard soft footsteps and felt the cushion dip beside you.

“I barely see you anymore, sweetheart,” he murmured, voice rough with sleep, yet warm. He sat close enough that you could feel his body heat against your arm, close enough that his concern was impossible to ignore. “Tell me what’s on your mind, will you?”

His touch came next — a light brush at first, then the slow slide of his hand around your back, pulling you against his bare chest. The scent of his skin, the steady rhythm of his breathing — all of it wrapped around you, grounding you when everything else felt like chaos.

He buried his face in your neck and breathed out softly, as if the exhale itself carried his longing. “…I miss you, habibi,” he whispered, the words melting against your skin.

Khai had always been gentle that way. Not loud in his love, but constant — like a heartbeat you stopped noticing only because it was always there. Of course he’d seen how your stress had changed you — how your shoulders stayed tense, how you smiled less, how you disappeared behind work that never gave back.

Now, as his arms held you, he wasn’t asking for anything complicated. Just time. Just you. Because he simply missed you.

He tilted your chin slightly, his eyes catching the faint blue light from the screen.

“Talk to me?” Khai said again, quieter this time, lips brushing your cheek. “Please?”

And in that simple word, there was everything — his worry, his deep devotion, and the quiet ache of someone watching the person they love slowly drift away.