The paths outside the village were not meant for lingering. They existed to be crossed, worn down by carts, by hooves, by the impatience of people who had somewhere else to be. Yet the boy found himself walking them slowly now, as if time itself had loosened its grip the moment she began to walk beside him.
It was late spring, the kind that still remembered winter. The air carried a chill that clung gently to the skin, like a hand that did not wish to leave. The ground was damp, dark soil pressed flat by weeks of passage, smelling of earth and something faintly sweet—new grass, crushed underfoot.
She walked a half-step ahead of him at first, careful with her footing, lifting her skirts just enough to avoid the mud. He noticed everything without meaning to: the way her shoes had been mended twice at the sole, the loose thread near her hem, the way sunlight caught in her hair and stayed there, as though unsure whether to move on.
They did not speak immediately.
Silence had always been safer for him. Silence did not ask questions, did not turn cruel without warning. Silence did not shout. But this silence felt different. It was not heavy. It was not sharp. It felt… shared.
"So," she said at last, her voice light, tentative, as if she were testing the air itself. "Do you always walk this way home?"
He startled—not outwardly, but inside, like a bird fluttering suddenly awake.
"Sometimes," he answered. His voice was quiet, but steady. It always was. "When I don't want to take the main road."
She smiled at that, though she did not look at him. "The main road is boring."
He nodded, even though she couldn't see it. "It is."
That seemed to please her. She glanced sideways at him now, eyes bright, curious, unguarded. He looked away too quickly, afraid that if he met her gaze for too long, something inside him might move that he did not yet have words for.
They continued walking.
The village faded behind them—the low roofs, the smoke from hearths, the distant clang of metal where the smith worked without pause. Ahead lay open land: fields just beginning to green, hedges tangled and wild, the sky stretched wide and pale above it all.
"What do you like?" she asked suddenly.
He frowned, not because he disliked the question, but because no one had ever asked him that before. Not truly. People asked what he could do, what he had failed to do, what he had broken or forgotten. Never what he liked.
"I don't know," he said honestly.
She laughed softly—not mocking, not sharp. Just warm. "Everyone knows something."
He thought for a moment. The wind brushed past them, stirring the grass, carrying the distant call of a bird.
"I like the sky," he said at last. "At night."
Her steps slowed. "Why?"
"It doesn't argue," he replied. "It just stays."
She considered that, her brow furrowing slightly. "I like mornings," she said. "When everything smells like it hasn't been touched yet."
He turned to look at her then, properly this time. The way she spoke—like the world was something gentle, something that could still be trusted—made his chest feel strangely tight.
They walked again, closer now, their arms occasionally brushing. Each time it happened, he felt it all the way down to his fingertips, as though his body were learning something new without his permission.
They spoke of small things after that.
She talked about the birds near her house, how one had built a nest in a broken beam and refused to leave even when the storms came. He told her about the old tree beyond the fields, the one struck by lightning years ago that still bloomed every spring despite the black scar running down its trunk.
"Do you think it hurts?" she asked, thoughtful.
"The tree?"
"Yes. To keep growing after that."
He considered it. "Maybe," he said. "Or maybe it doesn't remember the pain. Only that it's still alive."
She smiled again, softer this time. "I like that."
They passed a shallow stream, its water clear and cold, catching the light in scattered fragments. She stopped to watch it for a moment, crouching slightly, fingers hovering just above the surface but never touching.
"Why don't you touch it?" he asked.
She shrugged. "I don't want to disturb it."
Something about that settled deep inside him.
They began to meet like this more often after that day—always by accident, always on paths that were not meant for lingering. Sometimes they walked only a short while. Sometimes longer, until the sun dipped low and the sky turned the color of old gold.
Their conversations remained simple. They spoke of weather, of chores, of things they had overheard in the village. But beneath it all ran something unspoken, something growing quietly, like roots spreading underground.
At night, when he lay awake beneath the stars, he found himself replaying her words, her laughter, the sound of her footsteps beside his. He did not understand what this feeling was. He only knew that it did not hurt. Not yet.
And so he allowed it.
He never touched her. Not once. Not even when their hands hovered close enough that the space between them seemed to hum. He feared that if he crossed that invisible line, whatever this fragile thing was might shatter, like frost under careless boots.
She did not seem to mind.
Sometimes she walked closer. Sometimes she leaned slightly toward him when she laughed. Sometimes she waited for him without saying so.
And each time, he followed.
On one evening, as the sky burned amber and the fields glowed softly, she asked him, "Do you ever want to leave this place?"
The question struck deeper than she could have known.
"Yes," he said after a long pause. "But I don't know where I would go."
She nodded, as if that answer made perfect sense. "I think," she said, "that wanting to leave is already a kind of going."
He watched her then, truly watched her, and wondered how someone so young could speak with such quiet certainty.
As they parted that night, standing awkwardly at the fork where their paths split, she hesitated.
"I'm glad I met you," she said.
He swallowed. His throat felt tight, unfamiliar. "Me too."
She smiled, turned, and walked away.
He stood there long after she was gone, the path empty, the air cooling around him. Somewhere behind him, the village waited with its noise and its anger and its small, suffocating rooms.
But for the first time, the thought of returning did not feel unbearable.
He did not know it yet, but these walks—these small conversations, these gentle silences—were already carving themselves into him.
They would become the memory he would one day survive on.
And they would hurt him more than anything else ever would.