The shift doesn't arrive with an announcement.
It comes through absence.
Elian notices it first in the way emails start redirecting—cc'd instead of forwarded. In meetings where Lorian's chair remains empty a beat longer than necessary. In the careful phrasing of conversations that avoid the word temporary while relying on it completely.
Lorian doesn't frame it as retreat.
"I'll be stepping back from day-to-day oversight," he says one evening over dinner, voice calm, posture unchanged. "Not leaving. Just… narrowing."
Evelyn watches him closely but says nothing.
Elian nods, absorbing the sentence the way he's learned to absorb responsibility—without resistance, without relief. "Okay."
That night, Elian sits longer at his desk than usual. He doesn't open his laptop. He stares at the dark window instead, the city reflecting back a version of himself that looks older than he feels.
Juni notices immediately.
He doesn't ask what's wrong. He brings tea. He sits on the floor beside Elian's chair, leaning lightly against his knee.
"Something moved," Juni says quietly.
Elian exhales. "My father's stepping back more."
Juni doesn't react outwardly. He nods once. "How does that feel?"
"Heavier," Elian says after a pause. "Like the future just leaned closer."
They sit with that.
Juni reaches for Elian's hand, threading their fingers together—grounding, not possessive. "You don't have to carry it alone," he says.
Elian squeezes his hand gently. "I know. I just don't know yet how to carry it without letting it define me."
Juni looks up at him. "Then we keep paying attention," he says. "Same way we've been doing everything else."
Elian smiles faintly.
Later, when Juni leaves for the night, Elian stands alone in the quiet apartment. He thinks about how quickly paths can narrow without warning—how responsibility doesn't ask whether you're ready.
Lorian stepping back doesn't feel like loss.
It feels like inheritance becoming real.
And Elian understands, with sudden clarity, that this weight will not be a single moment—it will be a series of choices.
Some of which will ask more than he expects.