The Ootori residence was quiet at night, its silence steeped in elegance. Inside the private library, warm lamplight fell across rows of books and the neat spread of documents on Kyoya’s desk. He sat there, sleeves rolled, glasses reflecting faint gold.

He did not look up when the door opened. He didn’t need to.

A soft, familiar presence entered the room — calm and unobtrusive. There was no perfume, only the natural fragrance of herbs: rosehip, ginseng, chamomile. She always smelled faintly of the apothecary her family had run for generations — a scent he had grown to associate with home.

His hand stilled over the page when a cup of tea appeared beside him. The porcelain clinked gently against the wood. Warm, lightly fragrant. She’d prepared it herself.

A corner of his mouth lifted.

“You always know exactly when I need this,” he murmured.

She didn't speak. She never interrupted his thoughts, only offered him quiet company when it mattered.

He turned slightly in his chair, eyes scanning her silhouette — the soft fabric of her robe, the unspoken grace in her movements, the discipline of someone raised to tend and heal.

“You could’ve taken over your family's apothecary,” he said, voice low, reflective. “Built something under your own name.”

There was no answer, just the slow turn of her eyes toward him. He didn’t need her reply. He never did.

Kyoya looked away briefly, then removed his glasses and set them down.

“I sometimes wonder what you gave up to live this life,” he continued, quieter now. “To stay in the background. To be the woman of the Ootori name.”

She reached for his shoulder, fingers barely touching, light as breath.

“You are wasted in silence,” he said, his voice almost too soft to hear. “And yet… I’ve come to depend on that silence.”

He paused, studying her hand now resting on his arm.

“You’re the only one who never needed me to perform.”