The door clicked shut behind Bianca, and silence fell like a weight across the office.
Matteo didn't move at first. His fingers stayed clamped around the silver frame on his desk, gripping so tightly that his knuckles whitened.
The photo stared back at him—Felix smiling in a way that made the world feel less cruel.
He swallowed hard.
Then, with a sudden motion, he set the frame down—face-down—against the polished mahogany surface. The quiet thud echoed like a finality.
"Enough."
His chair scraped back harshly as he rose. The sound was sharp, too loud against the heavy silence, but he welcomed it. At least it reminded him he wasn't dreaming.
He paced across the office, his long strides restless, coiled with energy he couldn't release. Once. Twice. Then he stopped in front of the tall mirror by the window.
The reflection staring back at him was hollow.
Shadows sat beneath his eyes like bruises, his jaw sharp from nights of too little food and too much coffee.
His mouth was pressed into a hard line, a face sculpted for control—but he knew the truth. He looked broken.
"You need to pull yourself together," he muttered to the empty room, voice hoarse. "This isn't helping him."
The man in the glass looked unconvinced.
Matteo adjusted his cuffs with deliberate roughness, buttoned his blazer with mechanical precision, and turned back to his desk like a soldier preparing for battle.
The Korea file lay open, its neat rows of numbers and charts waiting. He forced himself into the chair, forced his hands onto the pages.
"Work, Matteo," he whispered under his breath. "Just work."
For the next hour, he tried.
Emails answered.
A video call with Milan—short, clipped, efficient.
Edits to the Singapore draft, red ink scrawled across neat paragraphs.
But every word blurred at the edges.
Behind every blinking cursor, every corporate line—Felix lingered. His laughter, his humming, his hands over piano keys. The memory of warmth that refused to be buried.
Matteo pressed two fingers to his temple until his head ached. Still, he pressed on.
When Bianca buzzed through the intercom, her voice crisp and professional, he cut her off sharply:
"Hold all calls. No interruptions."
Then silence again. The kind that presses against the ribs, heavy as stone.
He exhaled slowly, like forcing air out of a cracked lung, and whispered a vow to the empty room:
"I will not fall apart."
The afternoon sun had shifted, its golden light fractured by the blinds, casting long, cold shadows across the floor.
Matteo's jacket lay abandoned on the chair's back, his shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows.
His pen dangled uselessly in his hand, unmoving for twenty minutes.
He stared down at the Beijing report—profits steady, margins climbing, negotiations pending. The words ran together into meaningless ink.
Then—he saw it.
A flicker.
Just behind his reflection in the glass wall.
Felix.
He was there, sitting on the couch with one leg crossed, a cup of tea balanced delicately in his hand, lips curved in that small, knowing smile.
He looked mid-sentence, eyes glinting with the softness Matteo had once taken for granted.
Matteo's heart seized. He spun around.
The couch was empty. Only the faint crease in the cushion from Matteo sitting there earlier.
His chest tightened like a vice.
He dragged both hands over his face, the breath tearing ragged from his throat. "God… get it together," he whispered. "You're seeing things."
But the visions were growing. Not only in his sleep now—no, they stalked him in daylight. In mirrors, in shadows, in glass reflections.
Yesterday, he'd reached across his desk, saying, "Felix, pass me that file," before realizing it was an intern staring back at him, pale with confusion.
This morning, he'd heard it—the faint sound of Felix humming in the hallway, soft and familiar, like piano keys in the dark.
But when he'd flung the door open, there had been nothing but empty marble floors.
Felix everywhere. Felix nowhere.
And Bianca—Bianca saw it too. Not Felix, but Matteo. The way he was fraying. Her eyes lingered too long during meetings. Her voice softened when she asked, "Need a break, sir?" or, "Perhaps you should take a few days."
But what days? What time? When every moment Felix lay trapped in a sterile hospital room, machines breathing for him?
Matteo's breath shuddered. He pushed back from the desk with sudden force and strode to the side cabinet. His hand opened the drawer with practiced desperation.
Inside, beneath neat stacks of blueprints, lay a black sketchbook—Felix's. Its cover worn soft from use.
Matteo's hand trembled as he lifted it out. Slowly, reverently, he opened to the middle.
A sketch of a piano stretched across the page.
The outline of hands above the keys—Felix's hands, he knew it instantly. Beneath, in Felix's looping script:
"The notes that don't play still matter."
Matteo's vision blurred. His throat ached with a sound he refused to let out.
He closed the book carefully, like it was fragile glass, and pressed it against his chest.
"Where are you, Felix?" he whispered, broken. "How much longer…?"
A knock.
Soft. Gentle.
The door opened, and Bianca stepped in with an armful of documents. She moved quietly, her heels muffled against the thick carpet. She laid the folders on the desk with careful precision.
"These require your signature before noon," she said. Her voice was measured, almost cautious, as if speaking too loud might shatter him completely.
Matteo didn't answer. Didn't even look up.
Instead, he stood.
In one smooth motion, he straightened his collar, tugged his coat into place like armor, and smoothed his tie before the mirror.
The sketchbook remained open on the desk, Felix's words staring up at the empty room.
Without a word, Matteo walked past Bianca. His cologne lingered in the silence, the only trace of him left behind.
She turned, watching him go. Her hands remained braced on the desk, eyes fixed on the doorway he'd disappeared through.
She didn't ask where he was going.
She already knew.
The parking garage smelled of oil and dust. Matteo's footsteps echoed as he crossed the concrete floor, each stride sharp with intent.
He slipped behind the wheel of his car like a man falling into ritual. The ignition roared softly to life, the vibration steady beneath his hands.
He didn't turn on the radio. Didn't open the windows. The silence inside was suffocating, but he welcomed it.
The city streamed past in a blur—traffic lights glowing, glass towers catching the sun, crowds moving like restless tides.
Matteo barely saw any of it. His hands clamped the wheel, knuckles pale, eyes dark with exhaustion.
Red light.
Green.
He drove on without pause, his thoughts locked inward.
Only when the gates of the hospital rose into view did his chest expand with a breath—uneven, shaky, like a man surfacing after nearly drowning.
He pulled into the lot. Parked.
And sat there, frozen, his hands still gripping the wheel.
Finally, he bowed his head. Whispered into the quiet, the words scraping raw from his throat:
"Please… please let today be different."
Then he opened the door and stepped out—into the cold, sterile air of hope.