The café was quieter than I expected.
Not empty, just restrained — the kind of place where voices stayed low without being told to. Morning light slipped in through the windows at an angle that softened everything it touched, dust visible in the air, cups left half-finished on tables without apology.
She was already there when I arrived.
Not waiting impatiently. Just sitting, hands wrapped loosely around her cup, looking out the window like she wasn't keeping track of time anymore. When she noticed me, she didn't stand. She smiled instead — small, familiar, careful.
"Kazuya," she said.
Hearing my name from her again, in a place this ordinary, felt stranger than the reunion hall had. There, everything had been noise and faces and movement. Here, there was nowhere to hide from the sound of it.
"Aoi," I replied.
I sat across from her. Not beside. Not too far either. The table between us felt intentional, like something we both needed.
For a moment, neither of us reached for our cups.
"I didn't sleep much," she said finally, as if explaining nothing and everything at once.
"Me neither."
She smiled faintly. "Figures."
Silence settled — not awkward, not comfortable. Just present. The kind that waited to see who would move first.
"I'm glad you came," she said.
"I almost didn't."
"I know."
There was no accusation in her voice. Just understanding, and somehow that made it worse.
She took a slow sip of her coffee before speaking again. "I don't want this to turn into something it doesn't need to be."
"Neither do I."
"I don't want apologies," she continued. "And I don't want explanations that try to fix the past."
I nodded. "Then what do you want?"
She looked at me then — really looked — like she was measuring whether the question itself was honest.
"I want to say the things we never said," she replied. "And hear the things you never did. That's all."
That felt fair.
I took a breath. "I didn't know how to stop you," I said. "Back then. I thought if I stayed quiet, you'd know I was supporting you."
Her fingers tightened slightly around the cup.
"I thought," she said carefully, "that if you stayed quiet, you didn't need me to stay."
The words didn't land sharply.
They settled.
"I was afraid," I admitted. "Of being the reason, you hesitated. Of being something you had to choose against opportunity."
"And I was afraid," she said, "that choosing myself meant choosing away from you."
We sat with that for a while.
Outside, someone laughed as they passed the window. Inside, the espresso machine hissed softly, filling the spaces we weren't ready to.
"I waited," she said quietly.
I didn't ask how long.
"I told myself you just needed time. That you'd reach out when things slowed down. That silence meant you were thinking."
I swallowed.
"I was," I said. "But I thought thinking was enough."
She shook her head gently. "Thinking doesn't reach the other person."
I remembered the nights I'd typed messages and deleted them. The way I'd convinced myself restraint was kindness.
"I didn't want to burden you," I said.
She looked at me with something like sadness, but softer.
"I wanted to be your burden," she replied. "Just a little. I wanted to matter enough to interrupt your calm."
That was the moment I understood.
Not emotionally — structurally.
Where we had broken.
"I'm sorry," I said, before I could stop myself.
She raised a hand slightly. "That's not what this is for."
I nodded. "I know. But I needed to say it anyway."
She let that sit, then nodded once.
"I don't regret us," she said. "I regret how alone I felt while we were still together."
The sentence didn't ask for defense.
So, I didn't give one.
We talked longer after that — about college, about how misunderstandings grow legs when no one names them. About the station that night. About how neither of us had been trying to hurt the other, and how that somehow hadn't mattered.
"I did think you'd call," she admitted. "Not immediately. Just… before time made it strange."
"I thought waiting would make it easier," I said. "I didn't know it was making you let go."
Her gaze softened.
"When I stopped hoping," she said, "that was when it finally stopped hurting."
By the time our cups were empty, there was nothing left unsaid that needed to be said.
Only things that couldn't change anything anymore.
"I'm glad we did this," she said as we stood.
"Me too."
And for the first time, I meant it without wishing it had happened sooner.