Whether she welcomed him with silence or sharp glances, whether her cane rapped the polished floor like a verdict or not, Lou Yan still came. It wasn't out of duty—it hadn't been for years. Somewhere between his third winter and the first year he grew taller than her, it had simply become a rhythm. A pulse. The way his body knew when to breathe, when to bow. He arrived each Sunday at exactly 8:30 a.m., even if he had been up until 3:00 a.m. managing board meetings in Tokyo. Even when she had refused to look at him since the kneeling.
He came.
The compound smelled the same: camellia oil, fresh sandalwood incense, a trace of jasmine from the tea garden. His childhood lived here in sensory memory, in muscle memory—where to step without creaking the old stairs, where to place the teacup so it didn't clink too loudly and annoy her.
This morning, she was already seated in the garden pavilion, pretending not to be waiting.
Lou took the path without a sound. The koi rippled in the pond as he passed, bright and unbothered. Madam Yan did not lift her gaze when he stopped two paces from her.
"Nai Nai," he said quietly, as he always did.
She didn't reply. Just poured herself a cup of tea.
Lou exhaled softly and sat down across from her.
The air was crisp, touched with early spring. She wore dove-gray today, the silk so precise it looked sculpted. Her fingers were wrapped around the porcelain teacup like they were holding onto the last word.
"You look thin," she said suddenly, still not looking at him.
"I'm eating," Lou replied.
She glanced at him now—briefly, critically. "Your eyes are tired."
"I'm sleeping."
A scoff. "With her?"
His mouth twitched. "Not lately."
Madam Yan's lips pressed into a line. She sipped her tea and said nothing for a while.
They sat in the kind of silence only two stubborn people could inhabit without suffocating. A breeze stirred the bamboo wind chime above their heads. In the distance, the servants trimmed hedges into symmetrical perfection, blades whispering through the foliage.
Lou poured himself tea. No words, no flourish. Just precision. Just ritual.
When he set the pot down, her voice came—calm, clipped, and entirely unexpected.
"Bring her next Sunday."
Lou stilled.
Not even a heartbeat passed before she continued, as if it was a line from an old play they'd rehearsed in secret.
"For tea. Ten o'clock. There's something I want to discuss."
His hands remained folded around the teacup, steady.
Inside, his heart surged so suddenly it almost made his vision blur.
She looked at him now, directly, and her gaze was unreadable.
"Don't be late."
Lou nodded once. "We won't."
She clicked her tongue. "She's not punctual, that girl. Not like your mother."
"She's not my mother," he said, a fraction too quickly.
"Obviously," Madam Yan muttered. "Your mother would never have looked at me like she wanted to throw paint in my face."
Lou's lips twitched again. "She only looks at people that way when she likes them."
"Hmph." A long pause. "What a terrifying child."
They sipped their tea.
Lou didn't ask what she planned to say. He knew better than to pry when she'd already opened a gate unprompted.
But his chest felt too tight. His heartbeat—too loud. Even now, after all this time, he wanted her blessing more than he could admit. For Syra. For himself. For the boy who used to sit on the edge of this very koi pond, begging his grandmother to teach him how to fold the ceremonial papers without tearing them.
"Bring her," Madam Yan said again, voice softer this time. "She'll want to hear it from me."
That was the moment Lou realized—it wasn't about the tea. Not really. Not anymore. It was a reckoning.
And possibly, just possibly, a beginning.
---
When Lou Yan returned from his morning meditation at the monastery, the last remnants of incense still clinging to the cuffs of his sleeves, he carried a quiet weight in his chest that no amount of silence could soothe. The calm he'd sought in prayer had been fractured by one woman—one maddening, beautiful, paint-smudged woman who refused to leave his thoughts. And now, he was going to see her parents again. Alone. Without telling her.
Again.
He wasn't trying to hide it, not really. He just hadn't found the right way to say, "Your parents like me better when you're not around." That wouldn't go over well. So he packed the handmade rice cakes he'd brought back from the monks' kitchen and made the quiet drive into the countryside.
Syra's father greeted him at the door, eyebrows raised but not surprised. "You again?"
Lou bowed slightly, offering the rice cakes. "From the monastery. Thought you'd enjoy them."
Nasreen lit up like the morning sun. "Come in, come in—Li Wei, make tea. Lou brought food!"
Lou slipped off his shoes and followed the familiar scent of rosewater and cardamom into the kitchen. Before long, he was seated at their table, a steaming cup of tea in hand, laughing quietly at one of Li Wei's jokes and discussing the restoration of a century-old temple roof in Suzhou.
That was when the door creaked open.
"Am I hallucinating," Syra deadpanned, "or is my boyfriend having brunch with my parents… again?"
Lou looked up mid-sip. "You're early."
"You're early," she mimicked under her breath, stomping into the kitchen. "Do I even need to be here? You've clearly assimilated."
Nasreen patted her shoulder. "He brought rice cakes. You should've seen the saffron last time."
Syra turned to Lou, hands on her hips. "Did you seriously just come over without telling me?"
"I do it for your parents," Lou said, straight-faced. "They miss me."
Li Wei gave him a thumbs-up behind her back.
Syra narrowed her eyes, but she couldn't quite hide the smile curling at the corner of her mouth. "You're unbelievable."
Later, as the afternoon sun dipped lower, Syra stood near the garden with her mother, watching Lou and her father argue about whether the bamboo fencing needed reinforcing.
"He fits in," Nasreen said softly.
Syra glanced sideways. "Too well. I'm the outsider now."
"Maybe that's why it works. He brings something different. But he listens."
Something in her chest eased.
That night, Syra decided to stay with her parents. Just for a night. To recharge. To be the daughter again instead of the woman trying to carry too much.
Lou didn't protest when she told him. He only nodded, pressing a kiss to her forehead that lingered like a benediction.
But as he drove away alone, something inside him pulled taut—an ache he didn't know what to name.
He'd been surrounded by warmth, laughter, food that tasted like home. But Syra wasn't in the passenger seat. She wasn't curled up beside him. And for all the love he'd felt that day, nothing compared to the quiet fullness of her hand in his.
He gripped the steering wheel tighter and exhaled through his nose, steadying himself. She'd be back tomorrow.
But tonight, the studio would feel too quiet. Too cold.
And Lou Yan—who had mastered solitude all his life—realized how much he had come to dread it now that she was no longer just a guest in his heart.
She was the home.