*Bael's POV*
The bedroom is too quiet.
Bael notices this at 11:47 PM on the second night, sitting at the desk with his laptop open to a contract he's reviewed three times without retaining any of it.
The silence isn't new, he's worked late in this room countless times before, but the quality of it is different now.
Empty.
Runze's absence is tangible in a way his presence never was, which doesn't make sense but is nevertheless true.
Bael closes the laptop with more force than necessary.
This is unproductive.
He's wasting time thinking about something he can't change, something that shouldn't matter this much in the first place.
Runze locked himself in his old room two days ago and hasn't emerged except during hours when Bael is guaranteed to be elsewhere. The avoidance is deliberate, strategic, and completely irrational given that nothing actually happened.
Bael stands, moves to the window, looks out at the dark garden.
