The rain hadn't let up by nightfall.
Takara walked back to the apartment soaked to the bone, fingers stiff around the umbrella he barely remembered holding. Every sound felt distant—muffled by water and disbelief. The gallery's words kept echoing: He left. This morning. Definitively.
He replayed the timeline over and over.
They'd fallen asleep tangled in each other's arms. Kayo had kissed him on the shoulder and whispered something like "Don't forget this." And then he was gone.
Vanished.
No messages.
No goodbye.
No explanation.
The apartment felt colder when he returned. The bed was still messy on one side—Kayo's side. The mug Takara had left by the window was still half-full of tea.
Everything looked exactly the same.
But everything had changed.
He waited until midnight to text again.
"Where are you?"
"Please just say something."
"If you needed space, I'd understand. But this?"
No response.
He almost called, but fear clamped around his throat.
Was he being ghosted?
No. Kayo wouldn't do that.
Not his Kayo.
Not the Kayo who sent poems and voice notes and opened his guarded heart one kiss at a time.
But doubt, once planted, grew like vines.
He curled into Kayo's hoodie that night and didn't sleep. Not because he was angry. But because he didn't know how to be angry yet.
He was still trying to figure out if he'd been left… or abandoned.
The next morning, the apartment door creaked open.
Takara sat bolt upright.
Kayo stood in the doorway.
Dripping wet.
Hair soaked. Shoes muddy. Face pale and exhausted.
"Kayo," Takara whispered.
Kayo didn't move.
He just stood there. A silhouette framed in rain.
Takara walked toward him, slowly.
"What the hell happened?"
Kayo's mouth opened, then closed again.
"You disappeared," Takara said, voice rising. "No message. No call. Nothing. I went to the gallery and they said you left. Do you know what that felt like?"
Kayo finally spoke. "I know. I'm sorry."
"Sorry?" Takara's voice cracked. "That's it?"
Kayo stepped inside, dripping puddles on the floor.
"I was offered something," he said quietly. "Not just a gallery position. A whole residency. In Berlin."
Takara froze. "Berlin?"
Kayo nodded. "Six months. With mentorship. A stipend. It's everything I thought I wanted."
"And you just left without saying anything?"
"I panicked."
"Panicked?" Takara snapped. "You kissed me like I was your home. You made love to me like I was your future. Then you just vanished?"
Kayo looked like he wanted to vanish again.
"I thought… maybe it would be easier if I left without goodbye."
Takara laughed bitterly. "For you maybe."
"I didn't want to see your face when I told you I might leave again. I couldn't… watch it break."
"It broke anyway," Takara whispered.
They stood in silence.
Rain tapped the windows.
Then Takara stepped back, arms folded tightly across his chest.
"So what now?" he asked.
Kayo looked down. "I didn't accept. Yet."
"What's stopping you?"
"You," Kayo said softly. "This. Us."
Takara's throat tightened.
"And?"
"I don't know what to do," Kayo confessed. "If I go, I chase the career I've always dreamed of. If I stay… I choose love. But what if I wake up resenting it?"
Takara flinched.
"What if I give up this chance," Kayo continued, "and in a year, we drift apart anyway?"
Takara didn't respond. He walked past him, grabbed his coat, and opened the apartment door.
Kayo turned, startled. "Where are you going?"
Takara looked back with shining eyes.
"To remember who the hell I was before I begged people to love me right."
Then he walked out.
He wandered the streets of Paris until morning.
No destination.
No phone.
Just himself and the ache.
He found himself standing on a bridge over the Seine, watching the sun rise behind the clouds. Couples passed him holding hands. A street musician played something soft and full of longing.
Takara leaned over the railing, hands clenched white.
And finally let the tears fall.
Not just for Kayo.
But for every moment he had silenced his own needs in the name of someone else's uncertainty.
Rei called later that day.
"You sound like death," she said after one word.
"I feel like it," Takara croaked.
"Want to talk?"
"No."
"Want me to talk at you?"
"Yes."
So she did.
For twenty minutes, she told him about her finals, her roommate's new cat, and a weird dream where she was married to a fire hydrant.
And when he finally laughed—just a little—she softened.
"You love him," she said.
"Too much," Takara whispered.
"Then maybe love him enough to walk away."
Takara blinked. "What?"
"If he doesn't know what he wants… that doesn't mean you have to wait in limbo. You can want more than halfway love. You're allowed."
When he returned to the apartment, Kayo was still there.
He stood by the window, sketchbook in hand, eyes distant.
Takara closed the door softly.
Kayo looked up.
"I'm sorry," he said again.
"I know."
"I'm scared."
"So am I," Takara said.
Kayo swallowed hard. "But I love you."
"I love you too," Takara said.
Then, quietly: "But that doesn't mean we're ready."
Kayo flinched.
"You said it yourself," Takara continued. "You don't know what you want. And maybe that's okay. But I do know what I want."
He stepped closer, gently touched Kayo's face.
"I want someone who chooses me. Loudly. Fully. Without disappearing when it gets hard."
Kayo's eyes filled. "I thought I could be that."
"Maybe one day you can."
Takara leaned in. Pressed a kiss to his cheek.
Then stepped back.
"Go to Berlin."
Kayo's voice broke. "And us?"
Takara smiled through tears.
"If we're meant to be, we'll find our way back."
They held each other that night like it was the last page of a book.
Not because they stopped loving each other.
But because they finally realized love alone isn't always enough.
Sometimes, timing matters.
So does courage.
So does choice.
And sometimes, letting go isn't the end.
It's the beginning.