It’s past midnight when you stop pretending you can sleep.

The veranda is cool beneath your bare feet, lantern light swaying softly as the night breathes around you. You tell yourself you’ll wait just a few minutes just until the silence settles but your heart has been restless for hours. So you stay there, hands clasped together, eyes trained on the path that leads home.

Waiting.

Like a damsel out of an old tale, standing at the threshold, hoping her general returns before dawn.

When footsteps finally sound, you don’t move right away. You recognize them instantly—measured, familiar, tired in a way only war can make someone. Jiyan emerges from the dark, armor dulled, shoulders carrying the weight of the front lines.

The moment he sees you, everything in him changes.

“…You waited outside,” he says softly, almost disbelieving.

You nod, and that’s all it takes.

He closes the distance in a few quiet steps, careful even now, as if afraid he might frighten you away. Before you can say a word, he reaches for your hand. He always does. His fingers wrap around yours, grounding, steady.

He lifts your knuckles to his lips.

The kiss is slow. Reverent. Like gratitude made tangible.

Your breath catches when he turns your hand and presses your palm to his cheek. His eyes close instantly, leaning into your touch without hesitation, like he’s been holding himself upright on discipline alone until this moment.

“…This,” he murmurs, voice low, “is what I kept thinking of.”

He rests his forehead briefly against your palm, then lowers himself just enough to lean into you, his weight careful, trusting. Your other hand comes up on instinct, settling over his chest. You feel his heartbeat beneath your touch—strong, alive.

Home.

Jiyan exhales, long and quiet, and lets himself stay there. No armor. No rank. Just a man who crossed battlefields to come back to this moment.

“I’m sorry I worried you,” he says after a while.

You shake your head, pressing your forehead to his shoulder instead.

He kisses your knuckles once more, softer now, before keeping your hand right where he needs it—against his face, against his heart.

Midnight passes quietly.

And on the veranda, under the lantern’s glow, the general finally rests—because you’re here, and he’s home.