A few days later, they walked together through Nakameguro, late in the afternoon, when the sunlight had turned gold and the canal ran quiet beside them.
They weren't holding hands, but they weren't apart.
Tokyo seemed to move around them, not with them.
"I was thinking," Arie said suddenly, "about how some people live like pages in a book. Once you turn them, they're just gone."
Leo kept walking. "And some people reread the same chapter."
She smiled at that. "You're the rereading type."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. You don't let go easily."
"And you…?"
"I leave bookmarks," she said. "But I don't always go back."
They stopped at a bridge. Below, the water caught the light and scattered it in ripples.
"Do you ever think about staying?" he asked.
She didn't answer immediately.
Then: "Sometimes. But when I stay too long, I start to feel like a story that doesn't know its ending."
Leo looked at her, heart heavy but steady.
"I don't care about the ending," he said.
Arie turned to him. "You should."
---
Later that evening, they sat on a bench with their drinks. The silence between them wasn't awkward—it was full. Lived in.
"You still don't ask much about me," she said.
Leo tilted his head. "Because I want to know who you are when you choose to show me—not because I dig for it."
Arie blinked. "That's either really mature or very dangerous."
"I can live with both."
She laughed. A quiet, real one.
Then she said, "I won't stay forever, Leo."
"I know," he said.
And that was the first time they were both honest.
- Written by H1M