That night, Bael comes home late.
I am still in the study, half-buried under sketches and notes, the desk lamp casting sharp yellow light over papers spread across every available surface.
Residential zoning, traffic flow, green corridors connecting the community center to the outer housing clusters.
I have been staring at the same intersection layout for twenty minutes, adjusting one pathway by half a centimeter, then changing it back.
My eyes burn, my shoulders ache, but stopping feels worse than continuing, because when I stop, my mind wanders, and when my mind wanders, it goes places I don't want it to go.
The study door opens.
I don't look up immediately. "Mrs. Wen, I said I'm not hungry—"
"It's past eleven."
Bael.
I glance up.
He stands in the doorway with his suit jacket folded over one arm, tie loosened, expression unreadable in that calm, frustrating way of his.
"You should be asleep," he says.
"I'm working."
"I can see that."
