"Yes… Yes, that will be fine. Send me the details later." He ended the call and placed the phone down slowly, his attention fully on Kai now.
"All okay?" Ryan asked, studying him carefully.
Kai straightened slightly, clearing his throat. "Yeah."
He tried to maintain his usual straight face, but the effort was almost painful to watch. His lips twitched as if they were fighting to smile again, and the faint colour on his face hadn't faded at all. Ryan tilted his head slightly, observing him like he was studying something fascinating.
"I don't think so," Ryan said calmly.
Kai frowned. "Why? Is there something on my face?"
Ryan's lips curved into a slow smile. "Yes," he said.
Kai's brows drew together. "What?"
"Blush."
Kai blinked once, then scoffed immediately. "Shut up."
Ryan chuckled softly, leaning back in his chair, clearly amused. "I'm not lying," he said.
Then he picked up his phone, switched to the front camera, and turned it toward Kai. "See for yourself."
Kai hesitated, then glanced at the screen. His ears really were red.
Ryan leaned forward slightly, resting his elbow on the desk, his voice teasing but gentle. "Look at your ears. They've gone completely red."
Kai quickly looked away, irritation flickering across his face—but it wasn't real irritation. It was the kind that came from being caught.
"I'm feeling hot," Kai said, trying to sound indifferent. "That's all."
Ryan's smile deepened. He knew exactly what Kai was trying to do—divert the topic, brush it aside, pretend nothing was unusual. Kai always did that when something touched him more deeply than he wanted to admit.
Ryan didn't say anything for a moment; he just watched him. Kai shifted slightly in his chair under that gaze. There was something about the way Ryan looked at him—not intrusive, not intense in an obvious way—but steady, attentive, as if he noticed everything. And that made it harder to hide anything.
Ryan placed the phone on the desk slowly, his eyes still on Kai. "You took a long time to finish the talk," Ryan said.
Kai didn't answer. For a moment, it seemed as if he hadn't even heard the words. His gaze was lowered slightly, unfocused, as if his thoughts were still somewhere else entirely. One of his fingers tapped absently against the armrest of the chair—not in impatience, but in distraction, the unconscious movement of someone replaying something in his mind.
Ryan watched him carefully. "Kai." No response.
"Kai," Ryan repeated, a little firmer this time.
Kai blinked, as if returning from a distance. "Hmm?"
"I asked what happened inside… and why it took you so long," Ryan said, studying him closely.
Kai's jaw shifted faintly. "Nothing," he said.
Ryan stared at him. He had asked a full question, and Kai had answered with one word. Ryan leaned back slowly in his chair, folding his arms, watching him in silence. What on earth happened to him? Ryan thought.
Kai wasn't restless. He wasn't angry. He wasn't irritated. He was… somewhere else. Ryan picked up a small stack of papers from the desk and lifted them slightly. "So what should I do with this?"
Kai didn't even look properly. Without blinking, without asking what it was, he reached forward, opened the drawer beside him, took out a lighter, and with his foot pulled the dustbin closer.
Ryan's brows lifted slightly. Kai took the papers from Ryan's hand, flicked the lighter open, and held the flame to the corner. The paper caught fire slowly, curling black at the edges. Kai dropped it into the dustbin, watching it burn with quiet indifference.
Ryan didn't speak. He just watched him. The orange glow flickered briefly against Kai's face, and in that light, Ryan noticed something strange— Kai wasn't angry while burning the papers. He wasn't frustrated. He was calm. Almost… absent-minded. As if the action itself didn't matter to him at all.
Ryan picked up another set of papers—the legal documents Kai had signed earlier, the same ones Alina had asked him to sign. Ryan held them out toward him.
"The way you burned those papers… you might as well burn these, too," Ryan said quietly.
Kai didn't hesitate. Not even for a second. He took the documents and set them on fire the same way, watching them burn until he dropped them into the dustbin. Ryan exhaled slowly, shaking his head faintly.
"Kai… have you gone mad?"
Kai leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling now, one arm resting loosely across the armrest, his fingers hanging slightly over the edge as if even holding them still required effort. His expression was distant—not tense, not angry, not even thoughtful in the usual way. It was the look of someone present in body but far away in mind.
Ryan watched him in silence for a few seconds. Then a quiet realization settled over him. There was no point in asking anything more. Kai wasn't really here.
Ryan leaned back slowly in his own chair, exhaling under his breath. He didn't know what had happened in that room. He didn't know what Alina had said, or what Kai had heard, or what had shifted inside him in those unseen minutes.
But one thing Ryan understood with complete certainty— Whatever it was, it had taken Kai somewhere far beyond this study, beyond these files, beyond this conversation. Ryan had known Kai for years. He knew the difference between Kai being silent and Kai being absent. This… this was absence. If he spoke now, Kai wouldn't hear him.
Ryan's gaze drifted to the lighter still resting on the table, then to the faint smell of burnt paper lingering in the air. Even that hadn't brought Kai fully back to the present. He had burned documents without hesitation, without a second thought—something the old Kai would never have done so casually.
Ryan shook his head faintly to himself. There's no use, he thought. Not right now.
Kai's eyes were still fixed on the ceiling, but Ryan doubted he was even seeing it. His jaw was relaxed, the sharpness that usually defined his expression softened by something almost unfamiliar—something quieter, deeper, more inward.
Ryan folded his hands loosely on the desk, studying him. He wondered what could unsettle Kai Arden to this extent. Not anger. Not pressure. Not danger. None of those had ever managed to reach this place inside him. And yet something had. Ryan didn't know what it was.
But he could see the aftermath of it, written clearly in the way Kai sat there, in the faint absent curve at the corner of his mouth, in the stillness that was not calm but distance.
Ryan realized then that if he kept talking, asking questions, pressing for answers, it would only be pointless noise. Kai wouldn't listen. Not because he refused to— But because he couldn't. His mind was somewhere else entirely, replaying something only he could see, only he could feel.
Ryan leaned back further in his chair, letting the silence remain. For once, he allowed the room to stay quiet, undisturbed, giving Kai the space to drift wherever his thoughts had taken him.
And as Ryan sat there, watching the man who was usually so controlled, so guarded, so sharply aware of everything around him… He understood something quietly, almost reluctantly. Whatever had happened in that room— It mattered.