The Dynamite estate was silent when Keigh pulled into the driveway. His mother's car was gone. His father's study light glowed faintly behind heavy curtains. The kind of night where everyone retreated into their own corners.
He wasn't ready to face either of them.
Not tonight.
He went straight to his room, tossed his blazer onto the chair, and loosened the buttons at his collar. The day clung to him like dust. Expectations. Obligations. Legacy. The usual suffocating weight.
But beneath all of that, something else gnawed at him. Nara's email, her refusal. Her careful, distant tone.
He sat on the edge of his bed and opened the message again on his phone, reading the lines he had memorized within minutes.
"Thank you for considering me…"
"…I won't be able to take it on…"
"…recommend a colleague…"
It was polite. Reasonable.
And completely unlike the way she had looked at him the last time they stood in the same room.
With her, everything had always been… unspoken.
Quiet.
Balanced on a thin thread neither of them acknowledged, but both felt tightening every time they crossed paths.
He closed his phone slowly, staring at the shadows stretching across his bedroom ceiling.
He'd tried distance.
Tried letting things settle naturally.
Tried burying himself in work, in expectations, in his father's blueprint for a perfect life.
But tonight, reading her refusal, something settled sharply inside him.
He didn't want distance.
He didn't want 'professional only.'
He didn't want to pretend she didn't matter.
He wanted her in his orbit, not drifting in and out of it depending on circumstances.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and let the truth form silently in the dim room:
He wasn't letting her slip away again.
Not because he was entitled to her.
Not because he wanted to claim her.
But because something about her steadied him in ways he didn't have words for.
And losing that, losing her, even in the smallest sense, felt wrong in a way he couldn't ignore anymore.
He stood and walked to the window overlooking the garden, the garden his father insisted must always be "perfect." He'd grown up surrounded by rules, order, structure. Everything had a place. A purpose.
But what he felt for her?
There was no place for it.
No blueprint.
No approval.
And for the first time, that didn't matter. He vpressed a hand against the cold glass, exhaling slowly.
"Nara," he whispered to the night.
Not with frustration. Not with longing. But with decision.
He straightened, mind sharpening with a clarity he hadn't felt in months.
He didn't know how he would do it yet, whether it meant reaching out more, being present, showing her he cared in ways he'd been holding back.
He only knew one thing:
He was going to get closer to her. Intentionally. Deliberately. Quietly.
No more pretending.
No more distance disguised as professionalism.
No more letting fear or timing or his father's expectations draw lines between them.
If she walked away, he wouldn't chase.
But he would make damn sure she knew he was walking toward her first.
He slipped his phone back into his pocket and turned away from the window, a steady resolve settling into his bones.
He wasn't letting her go.
Not this time.
Not quietly.
And not without showing her exactly what she meant to him, in actions, not words.
Tomorrow would be different because he would be different.
And this time, he wasn't backing down.