Chapter 121: The Same Seat

Monday arrives and I’m grateful for it in a way that probably says something unflattering about my weekend.

I’m out of the house before eight, dressed, bag packed, Liang Feng already waiting by the car without needing to be called. The morning is gray and cool, the kind that hasn’t decided yet whether it wants to rain, and I stand outside for maybe ten seconds breathing air that doesn’t smell like the estate before getting in.

I spend most of it staring out the window and purposely not thinking about Saturday.

Or Sunday, which I spent almost entirely in my room, eating meals Mrs. Wen brought up because going downstairs felt like a bad idea.

Not because of any specific reason I could defend out loud. Just because the run happened, and the kiss happened, and Bael said *I think I’ve been giving you too much space* in a voice that sounded like something decided, and I’ve been trying to put distance between myself and that sentence ever since.

Work helps.

Work has been reliably the only thing that helps lately, which is either encouraging or alarming depending on how I look at it.

I choose not to look at it too closely.

Elliot is already in the conference room when I arrive, laptop open, coffee from the place two blocks down sitting at his elbow. He looks up when I knock on the open door.

"You’re early."

"Traffic was light."

"Okay." He pulls his laptop slightly to one side, making room on the table. "I sent you revised density figures on Saturday. Did you get them?"

"Yesterday morning. I worked through the tolerance adjustments." I set my bag down and pull out the folder. "Eastern cluster holds. The western numbers need one more pass but I have a working model."

"Good." He’s already reaching for the sketches. "The canopy sequencing—"

"Still has the drainage problem."

He looks up briefly. "You found a fix?"

"Maybe. I want to walk through it first."

We fall into it without preamble.

That’s what I like about working with Elliot.

There’s no warm-up period anymore, no time spent figuring out the other person’s register or waiting to see if they’ll be difficult about something. We just pick up wherever we left off, disagree when we disagree, move on. The collaboration has developed its own rhythm over these past weeks, efficient in a way that took effort to build but now mostly runs itself.

Peng Hao comes in around noon, reviews the updated site plan, makes positive noises about the canopy resolution.

"The timeline for the presentation to the board is firming up," he says. "Probably three weeks from now. We’ll do a full run-through here with the consultants first."

Three weeks.

That’s tighter than I expected but manageable if the western tolerances get finalized this week.

After Peng Hao leaves, we work for another hour before Elliot leans back in his chair.

"Coffee?"

"Yes."

We pack up and head out.

The café is the same one we’ve been going to since the third session, the one Elliot chose that first time and we’ve returned to without ever discussing it. Small, mostly empty by this hour, window seats that get good light in the afternoon.

He orders the same Americano.

I order green tea.

We’ve stopped narrating these choices to each other.

Elliot sets his cup down after the first sip and opens the notebook he always brings even though he rarely uses it here. More habit than necessity, I think, the same way I still spread more papers than I actually need.

"The board presentation," he says. "Are you thinking full render or working drawings?"

"Working drawings with one or two renders for the green corridor sections. The board will want to see the concept clearly, and the renders will help with the spatial quality argument."

"The morning light thing."

"Yes."

He nods, writing something down.

Outside, a woman is trying to fold an umbrella that’s arguing with her. We both watch for a second without commenting.

"Has Zhu Yi signed off on the revised canopy angle?" I ask.

"Not formally. I’ll send him the updated drawings tonight. He’ll probably have notes."

"He always has notes."

"He’s not wrong though."

"No," I admit. "He’s not."

Elliot looks at me briefly over the rim of his cup.

Then he says, "You seemed distracted today."

I glance up.

"Did I?"

"In the morning session." He says it without making it into something, just an observation. "You were fine by noon."

I think about whether to explain and decide against it.

"Long weekend," I say.

He nods like that’s sufficient, and goes back to his notebook, and that’s the end of it.

That’s another thing about Elliot. He doesn’t push. He’ll ask once, directly, and if the answer closes the topic he lets it close.

I pick up my tea.

"The site visit," I say. "Peng Hao mentioned it’s coming up."

"Next week probably. Wednesday if he confirms the scheduling." Elliot turns a page in the notebook. "It’ll be useful. The construction sequencing on that development is close enough to what we’re proposing that seeing it in person will answer some questions faster than calculating them."

"I’ve been meaning to go back through the section drawings before then."

"I have the original files. I’ll send them over."

"Thanks."

We settle into the comfortable near-silence that happens after the work conversation has exhausted itself. Not awkward. Just two people finishing their drinks without needing to fill every second.

Outside, the woman with the umbrella has given up and is walking away carrying it half-open.

I watch a taxi pull up to the curb, then pull away again.

Then Elliot says, "I got you something."

I look over.

He’s pulling something from the front pocket of his bag. Small, rectangular. He sets it on the table between us with the same matter-of-fact ease he brings to most things.

It’s a packet of ginger chews.

I stare at it for a second.

"You mentioned once," he says, already looking back at his notebook, "that coffee still bothered you sometimes. I walked past a pharmacy yesterday."

I look at the packet.

Then at him.

He’s not looking at me, his attention is on whatever he just wrote down, pen moving with the same focused efficiency he applies to sketching.

"You didn’t have to do that," I say.

"I was already in there." He turns another page.

I pick up the packet.

It’s a specific brand... not the generic kind from the shelf near the register. The kind that’s behind the counter, that you have to ask for, that you’d only know about if you’d looked.

Something sits quietly in my chest for a second.

Then I fold the packet once and put it in my bag.

"Thank you," I say.

"Yeah."

A few minutes pass.

Elliot finishes his coffee and sets the cup down, both hands wrapping around it in that way he does when it’s empty and he’s still thinking.

"The western tolerances," he says. "If you get me the working model tonight, I can build the structural check around it before Thursday."

"I’ll have it done by nine."

"Good."

He’s quiet for another moment.

Then, without quite looking at me: "You’re better when you’re in it."

I look over.

"What?"

"The work." He glances at me briefly, then away. "When you’re in it properly. You think differently than most people. The light argument with Zhu Yi, the corridor framing, the way you connected the circulation projections to the experience of the space." A slight pause. "When you’re distracted it’s noticeable, when you’re not, the work is better."

I’m not entirely sure what to say to that.

Not because it’s strange, it isn’t. Elliot says plainly what he means and expects the same in return. This is just him stating an observation.

But the way he said *you think differently than most people* with that pause afterward lands somewhere.

"Thank you," I say again.

He nods once.

Then starts packing his notebook away.

"Let’s go," he says.

"Alright," I reply.

We leave the café the same way we always do, him turning left toward wherever he’s parked, me toward where Liang Feng is waiting two streets over. The sky has made up its mind while we were inside and it’s raining lightly now, the kind that barely qualifies.

I turn up my collar and walk.

In the car, I lean back against the seat and let the city slide past the windows.

The ginger chews are in my bag.

I’d mentioned the coffee thing once, weeks ago, offhand in the middle of a conversation about site visit logistics. I barely remembered saying it. I certainly hadn’t expected him to.

People don’t usually catch things like that.

The western tolerance model still needs another pass before nine. The board presentation is in three weeks, and the section drawings Elliot is sending will probably take at least two hours to review properly before the site visit.

I pull out my notebook and start writing a list.

Outside, the rain picks up slightly.

I don’t think about Bael until I’m almost home.

And then I do, briefly and involuntarily, because the estate gates appear ahead and my chest does that specific tightening it’s been doing every time I approach the house lately.

I think about the kiss outside yesterday. His hand on my back. *I think I’ve been giving you too much space*

Then I think about walking upstairs to my room and not going back down until dinner, and whether that’s sustainable, and the answer is probably not but also probably necessary for now.

My hand finds the packet in my bag without me meaning it to.

The ginger chews, sitting there in their small crinkled packet, bought by someone who heard a passing comment and held onto it.

I pull my hand back out.

The car passes through the gates.

I focus on the list in my notebook instead.

Western tolerances. Section drawings. Board presentation timeline.

Enough to keep my brain occupied for the rest of the evening.

Enough, at least, for now.