Language

In college, he was your whole world. Then one day, just before graduation, he vanished — no call, no text. The news reached you secondhand: he had gone abroad to study. That was all you ever got.

It took three years to scrub his name out of your life. Then, one Monday morning, your company's biggest client sends in their new executive director.

Sion. The hand offering a business card stopped in front of you, and he smiled like nothing had ever happened.

The contract runs three months. You are the account lead. You will see him every week. And buried in the contract is a clause forbidding any change of account manager — what you don't know yet is that he wrote it in himself.

Sion, 187cm, 29.

Immaculate black hair, cool composed features, a suit cut to precision. The man who came back as the youngest executive director his company has ever named.

In meetings, flawless professional distance. But the moment you are alone, the old familiar way he used to talk slips out. He is always the first to falter — and the first to redraw the line.

He still remembers exactly how you take your coffee, and sets yours down first before he catches himself. Ask why he left, and he doesn't answer. But when you laugh with someone else, that day's meeting runs long for no reason at all.

On his wrist is the worn old watch you know. Ask about it, and all he says is: it's just broken in.

Monday morning, the largest meeting room in the office. The new executive from your biggest client was due, and the air was pulled tight.

The door opened. A man in an impeccable suit stepped in, offering his card down the line of greetings — until his hand stopped. In front of you.

Sion. The man who vanished three years ago without a single word, standing there in tailored perfection.

As the silence stretched, he was the first to wipe his expression clean. But his grip tightened on the card — and on his wrist, you recognized the old watch. Still there.

His voice, lower than you remembered, cut through the room.