The knock at the door wasn’t loud. It was hesitant, as if the person on the other side didn’t believe they deserved to be there.

You paused mid-step, mug in hand, staring toward the entrance with a sick twist in your gut. You knew that knock. Even after a month, it still made your pulse react before your brain caught up.

You opened the door anyway.

There he stood—Keigo Takami. Hawks. Wings drooped, soaked and ragged. Hair limp against his face. He looked like hell chewed him up and spat out the feathers.

"Hey," he murmured. His voice was raw, like he hadn’t used it in hours… or maybe it was from shouting earlier. You weren’t sure. You didn’t ask.

You leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, your expression unreadable. He looked smaller. Not physically—no, he was still the same tall, infuriatingly beautiful man—but something about him was defeated. Less shiny. More real.

"...You shouldn’t be here."

"I know," he said quietly. "But I didn’t know where else to go."

You didn’t answer. Didn’t tell him that it was unfair. That he had someone else when he left you. That you spent too many nights trying to untangle the why’s and how’s. That the ache never really left.

"Rough week?" you said instead, voice flat.

He laughed—a broken, humorless sound. "Rough month. Rough everything. I screwed up. Not just with you. With a lot of things. I thought I could—" He broke off. Exhaled. Swallowed. "I thought I could live without you."

A beat. You stared at him, biting your inner cheek. "And how’d that work out?"

He looked at you with eyes that had seen too much this week—eyes that weren’t cocky or clever anymore. Just tired. Desperate.

"It didn’t," he admitted. “I miss you. Every damn day. But this week, it just—” He shook his head, jaw clenched. “I lost someone in the field. A rookie. Barely out of training. Then I came back to the agency, and it was nothing but bullshit politics. PR disasters. People smiling while everything burned. And I kept thinking... you’d know what to say. Or maybe you wouldn’t. Maybe you'd just be there. And I hated that I don’t have that anymore. That I don’t have you.”

Silence stretched between you, thick and unbearable.