Julian stepped off the plane at 12 a.m. The air in Marrakesh was dry and cool, with a faint taste of dust. He wore sunglasses. The grey T-shirt did little to hide the sharp cut of his shoulders. In his hand was a single dark red leather suitcase.
The car was already waiting just beyond the tarmac.
The driver didn't ask any questions. Just a soft but unmistakable phrase in French:
"Par ici, monsieur."
The tone was gentle. The syllables barely touched. As if it were only natural, he'd understand.
Julian nodded once. Said nothing.
He didn't need to speak. Silence was the most fluent mother tongue.
Fifteen minutes later, the car slid off the asphalt road near the old city walls and pulled into the enclosure of the Royal Mansour.
There was no front desk.
No check-in.
No passport shown, no signature required.
As he stepped past the gates of the Royal Mansour, a man in a pale grey djellaba was waiting for him among the flowerbeds. He spoke softly:
"Votre riad est prêt, monsieur."
Julian didn't answer. He just nodded, slowly.
He showed no surprise and gave no sign of not understanding.
His mind had already conjured the image of that French girl, Cécile.
And the days he spent secretly learning French on his phone.
The staff member simply turned, leading him forward in a natural, unhurried rhythm. His French was slow and elegant:
"Par ici, s'il vous plaît. La fontaine centrale est restaurée, et la terrasse est préparée pour votre petit-déjeuner."
Julian didn't catch everything. But he heard the rhythm.
So he followed.
They walked through a quiet palace garden, pink sandstone walls crossed with white-carved arches. Rose petals floated on the surface of the pool.
He glanced down at his sneakers. He looked like a man who'd just escaped prison and wandered into Versailles.
They entered a three-floor riad.
The door opened.
Cool air rushed out.
The scent in the air was rose and mint, like a signal from another civilization.
He stopped walking.
It was too quiet.
A kind of silence that defied description.
He took off his shoes, walked into the marble bathroom, and twisted the faucet with two fingers.
Hot water poured out.
Rose petals spun slowly along the surface.
He said nothing, just lowered himself into the tub like a corpse sinking underwater.
"At Canary Wharf, I was under review."
"Here, I don't even need a name."
He closed his eyes.
The water brushed past the tip of his nose.
And in his mind, Jess's face rose to the surface.
He didn't open his eyes.
Just let out a faint, cold laugh.
The smile wasn't just for her.
It was for the people back in that little island office.
And for himself.
He hadn't brought anything with him. No laptop. No Bloomberg. No BlackBerry.
But he knew he'd won.
Not because of some victory.
But because the system finally didn't need him anymore.
He leaned back in the tub, letting the water cover everything below his shoulders.
The temperature was high.
It felt like a delayed congratulatory ceremony.
Silver teaware was already set beside him, filled with hot mint tea. No one knocked. The staff had come through the underground tunnel, leaving no sound behind.
He finally opened his eyes and stared at the carved shadows on the ceiling.
In that moment, he suddenly understood:
The only purpose of this place was to show him.
He had never belonged to London.
And now, London had finally let him go.
Julian sat by the rooftop pool, barefoot on the warm tiles, with the rose-colored old city stretched out behind him.
He wore sunglasses.
Beside him,
His phone lay on the side table.
Muted.
The screen kept flashing.
The company group chat had gone off the rails.
Ravi was asking about last week's compliance memo.
Emma sent a block of half-debugged code.
Jess's emails came one after another, each one came in the same way:
Please revert your nationality field. HR is drowning.
He didn't reply.
He just watched the notifications roll in, then cleared them.
He took a sip of tea. The temperature was perfect, with a hint of herbs.
He looked out toward the city's edge.
The sun had turned the rooftops gold, like nothing had ever happened.
He turned to the staff nearby and said,
"Un stylo… papier… s'il vous plaît?"
A voice in his head added,
Hope that was French.
The staff didn't ask. Just nodded.
A few minutes later, they brought him a black ink pen and a stack of silver-edged stationery.
Julian sat down, pulled a table toward him, and spread out the paper.
He began to write.
Slowly.
Each line is deliberate.
His handwriting was uneven, but clear.
He didn't draft the language.
He didn't check the format.
There was no formal opening.
He just began.
It was a letter he had never written.
A resignation draft no one had ever dared to write, and no one would ever finish reading.
He wrote slowly.
The wind stirred the paper's edges.
He held it down, kept going.
He wrote who he was, what he had seen, and who he'd decided not to be.
There was no accusation.
No appeal.
Only clarity.
And the quiet act of closing a door.
The sun climbed higher and settled on his shoulder.
He wore no jacket.
Just a light grey Loro Piana shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows.
The sunlight fell on his wrist.
There was a rose gold Rolex Cellini Moonphase.
The blue moonphase dial looked exactly like the mood he'd been in for days: elegant, distant, unreal.
He didn't plan to send the letter.
He just felt it needed to be written.
He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes.
The breeze filtered through the carved windows.
On the third day, the sun again lit the pool's surface.
Julian lay back in a rattan chair, watching his phone flash.
Jess's email had arrived.
The subject line read:
RE: !Urgent! Employment Documentation Clarification
The message was long.
But he didn't read much of it.
Hi Julian, apologies for the confusion earlier. We've noticed a discrepancy in your citizenship record. If you do have dual nationality and a valid British passport, could we kindly ask you to update that as your primary status in the system? This would help us streamline internal processes and avoid unnecessary compliance checks. Thank you very much for your cooperation.
He opened the company system.
Found the "Nationality" field.
Deleted "Japanese."
Typed in "British."
Confirmed.
Saved.
Took a screenshot.
He sent the screenshot back.
The body of the email contained only one line:
Reinstated as British. Do let me know if you need me to be something else next quarter.
No CC.
No greeting.
No attachment.
He turned off the phone and set it aside.
That evening, he changed into a loose white Moroccan robe. The fabric shifted gently in the night breeze.
He walked into the hotel garden.
The air was thick with ripe fruit and the fading trace of rose perfume.
A child was chasing a cat across the grass.
The cat leapt past the fountain, its tail curving like a drawn line.
Julian stopped.
Watched for a long time.
He didn't take a photo.
He didn't speak.
Just stood there, watching them vanish into the moonlight.
That night, he didn't open his trading software.
Didn't check the company system.
Didn't reply to anyone.
He just sat along the path back to his little palace,
briefly,
quietly,
in a place that belonged to no system.
The next day at noon, sunlight fell through carved windows onto the poolside lounge chair.
A waiter approached.
On the silver tray was lunch: lamb shoulder tagine, sprinkled with fresh cilantro, a small bowl of preserved lemon olives, and a handful of caramelized carrots.
He placed the tray down and said softly,
"Le déjeuner, monsieur."
Julian nodded, picked up the knife and fork, and answered quietly,
"Merci, et… bon appétit."
He didn't seem to notice that the sentence didn't make sense.
Or maybe he did.
The waiter stepped away, a small smile just barely caught at the corner of his mouth.
Julian's expression stayed calm.
He cut a piece of lamb.
Took a bite.
Chewed slowly.
Nodded.
He didn't smile.
But he was clearly pleased.
Julian leaned back in the chair.
Set the fork down.
He didn't smile,
but under the sun,
His watch glinted,
as if it understood the joke.
The camera pulled back.
The rooftops of the old city lay low and crowded.
In the distance, satellite dishes stood like sculptures forgotten by time.
No one disturbed him.
No one remembered him.
He simply existed.
Not of London.
Not of any system.
Just briefly,
present.
With a trace of an accent.
Three days later. London headquarters, meeting room.
8:45 in the morning.
Outside the conference room, the group chat was going off.
"Julian's back??"
"Did Rick actually get banned?"
"HR's still fixing reports… I'm dying."
Ravi leaned against the wall, scrolling on his phone and chewing a coffee stir stick.
"He's back?"
Tomatz flipped through the printouts without looking up.
"He never really left."
Just then, Julian walked in.
He was wearing a black dress shirt with the sleeves casually rolled up, no jacket. He looked like a ghost returning from the night before.
There was a cup of coffee in his hand. He stood at the doorway, his voice quiet but enough to freeze the room.
"Morning. Just here to update a few model assumptions."
He paused for a beat. A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"And maybe rewrite the system."
He pulled out a chair and sat down. No one moved. No one dared speak.
Emma looked up at him, like she was silently confirming something long overdue.
The meeting officially began.
But everyone knew the script had already changed.