Chapter 24: The Question That Wouldn’t Leave

POV: Kaito Minami

The moment I stepped into the elevator, I regretted leaving the room so quickly.

Cowardly.

That was the word I kept circling back to.

I’d faced hostile shareholders, foreign investors twice my age, journalists with teeth for smiles—yet asking one woman a simple question had nearly unraveled me.

The elevator doors slid open into the private office level. I walked across the hall, shutting the door behind me with more force than necessary. The lights brightened automatically, illuminating the immaculate desk I rarely used.

It had never felt suffocating before today.

I set down the folder I’d been pretending to read earlier and leaned forward, palms braced against the polished surface. My reflection stared back—composed, controlled, unreadable. Exactly what my father trained me to be.

But all I could see were Hana’s eyes at that moment.

Wide. Caught off guard.

Surprised in a way that wasn’t defensive or hesitant—just honest.

She hadn’t answered.

Not at all.

And somehow, that was worse than any refusal.

My phone buzzed. A message from Sato.

> The chairman requests a briefing in ten minutes. Boardroom B.

Perfect.

I pushed away from the desk and headed for the boardroom. The walk was short, but my thoughts made it feel longer, their edges scraping with every step.

Why had I asked her like that?

No planning, no strategy. No carefully structured lead-in the way I’d been trained to use in negotiations.

Just impulse.

Reckless, stupid impulse.

My father would call it a weakness.

He had always called anything human a weakness.

The door to the boardroom slid open with a soft hiss. He was already there—immaculate suit, immaculate posture, immaculate expectations.

“You’re late,” he said without looking up.

“By less than a minute.”

His frown said that was still unforgivable.

I took my seat. Sato entered, tablet in hand.

“The Shinoda investors want confirmation on the expansion timeline,” Sato said. “They’re requesting your direct approval, Minami-san.”

My father nodded to him, then turned to me. “Handle it. You want responsibility—earn it.”

My grip tightened around the pen I hadn’t realized I was holding. “I’ve been handling it.”

“Not well enough,” he replied. “Your attention is compromised.”

The words weren’t about the deal.

They were about me.

He must have noticed something—some small fracture in my composure. He always did.

“My attention,” I said stiffly, “is exactly where it needs to be.”

“Then prove it.”

He slid a document toward me. “Investor dinner tonight. No deviations, no mistakes.”

The same script. The same role. The same life.

I signed without reading. Meaningless—everything was predetermined anyway.

My father studied me with that unblinking sharpness, the kind that stripped everything unnecessary until only obedience was left.

“Your mind is elsewhere,” he said quietly. “Don’t let it cost you.”

I didn’t respond.

Admitting he was right would mean revealing what—who—occupied that stray piece of thought I had never allowed anyone to touch.

When the meeting ended, I returned to the penthouse.

The living room was untouched now, silent. Too silent.

The faint citrus scent of cleaner still lingered.

She had been here earlier.

I walked into the kitchen. My fingertips brushed along the counter where our hands had briefly touched days ago. A ridiculous detail to remember. A pathetic one to care about.

Her presence wasn’t loud.

It wasn’t dramatic.

But it changed the room.

It changed me.

A neatly folded kitchen towel sat beside the sink—straight, precise, deliberately placed. She always left things better than she found them.

I sat heavily at the table, elbows on my knees, and let the truth settle like a stone in my chest:

I wanted her here.

Not for convenience.

Not for routine.

Not as another consistent element in my carefully structured life.

I wanted her.

And I wanted her to say yes.

The thought was absurd.

Dangerous.

Naive.

But the moment I asked her and she said nothing—nothing at all—it had lodged itself in me like a hook.

She could have refused.

She didn’t.

And now the silence was louder than any answer could have been.

I leaned back; hand pressed to the bridge of my brow.

This wasn’t supposed to mean anything.

I wasn’t supposed to want anything I wasn’t permitted to have.

And yet—

If she walked through that door tomorrow, the world might look different.

If she didn’t…

I wasn’t ready to think about that yet.