Archive of Our Own

The bookstore had moved the classic section again.

Lumine stood between two shelves with a basket hanging from her arm, staring at a printed sign that instead of classic literature, says science fiction. She lets her eyes wander through the selection of books in front of her, seeing if something catches her interest—Dune by Frank Herbert, Neuromancer by William Gibson, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir—the last one’s interesting.

But alas, her brother’s more fond of them. Maybe he even already has these books. 

She picks one up, just in case.

An exasperated sigh still rushes out her lips. “Every other month…” she muttered.

A nearby employee fixing a stack of books offered her an apologetic, anxious smile. He must’ve heard complaints about it from other customers ever since his shift started. Lumine, not wanting to add to his stress, waved it off.

“We moved the classics all the way there, Ma’am. Very sorry for the inconvenience we’ve caused you.” The employee gestured at the far end of the store.

Lumine shakes her head, giving him a considerate smile. “No matter. Thank you for telling me.”

The employee gives her a short nod and returns to his task at hand as Lumine walks away.

The store was… warm. The faint volume of music coming from the speakers fills the store with quiet chatter of customers and staff. A smell of old pages of the book mixed with the new ones wafts through her nose, as well as the faint smell of perfume from people near her. The fluorescents beams with warm light that feels almost comfortable enough for her to take off her glasses—if not for her poor eyesight. 

Lumine runs her fingertips on the edges of the shelves she passes by.

The bookstore was a sort of place she visits whenever she found herself with an hour to spare and nowhere in particular to be. Even now.

But five years ago, she would’ve texted someone.

I’m at the bookstore. Want anything?

The thought came and went so quickly she barely noticed it.

Lumine slows her pace down as she passes a display table, almost on instinct she didn’t even realize she has. A pale blue cover caught her eye—and without even thinking, she picks it up and reads the title.

And As The World Forgets Me.

Lumine stared at it far too long, as if memorizing even the edges of each letter of the title printed on the cover with the color of gold. Her chest contracts with something that she had worked herself to bury deep within her endless thought of what if’s. 

She laughed softly to herself, playing with the enclosed book’s pages. Of course she’d pick this up unknowingly.

Ayaka had recommended it years ago.

She remembered because Ayaka spent nearly twenty minutes explaining why the ending was beautiful and necessary for both leading characters while Lumine argued that tragic endings were just excuses for authors to make their readers’ life miserable after reading their book.

“You only dislike them because they make you cry,” Ayaka says, giggling as she brushes a strand of Lumine’s golden hair away from her frowning face.

“They don’t make me cry,” Lumine denies, leaning instinctively towards Ayaka’s hand.

“You cried during that dog movie, dear.”

Lumine’s frown turned even more upset-looking. “The dog died…”

Ayaka held Lumine’s face with both hands, caressing it gently. “The point is that you cried.”

“The dog died, Ayaka.”

Ayaka laughed so hard that she couldn’t help but to lean her face forward—forehead touching the other’s.

The memory enters Lumine’s mind with so much clarity that she feared that she almost expected to hear it. But instead, there was only the sound of music humming throughout the bookstore.

Five years.

Five years and somehow, she still remembers the sound of Ayaka’s laughter. 

She placed the book back onto the display with hesitation deeply hidden within her heart. She doesn’t concern herself with it. She didn’t need to buy it. She didn’t even particularly need to read it.

And still, when she continues to walk toward her rightful destination, she finds herself glancing back. Only then, when another customer picks it up and places it in their basket, does she look away.

Yet, after picking up a book from the classics section like she intended—she asks the person behind the cashier if they still have another copy of the book she found in the display.

“Ah, that? Sorry, Miss. We’ve run out of stock. That’s the only copy we have left,” the cashier answers apologetically as she scans the books in Lumine’s basket.

How fitting. You were also the only one I have left.

“I’m home,” Lumine quietly announces as she opens the door to her apartment. A tired sigh rushed off her lips as she removed her shoes and placed them on the rack beside the door.

When she glanced up, she noticed that the lights in the kitchen were on. Her heart immediately did a twist in both anticipation and anxiety—only two people knew her password.

“Are you sure you want to..? I mean, it’s still your privacy that’s at stake here…”

“Oh, don’t be silly. What’s the point of keeping my password from you? Besides, you stay here almost everyday. It’s basically yours as well.”

“If you’re so sure…”

Lumine shakes her head, as if the motion would magically dissolve the memory away from her mind. 

Still, she wanted to call out a name she hadn’t spoken for years. “Aether?” she says instead. That name’s more familiar, something that she’s used to voice out.

In an instant, her brother’s head pops out from the kitchen. And smiling, he greets, “Lumine! You’re back.”

The woman smiled gently, taking off her coat and placing it on the couch as she walked toward where her brother was. She sees him cooking something, and as if on cue, she smells the delicious aroma coming from the boiling pot.

“What are you doing here? Where’s Albedo?” 

Aether raised a brow at her question, placing both his hands on his hips. 

“Can’t a brother go here to cook something for his sister?” He trails off his sentence in offense and then gradually raises his tone a little, “Who, by the way, can’t even be bothered to shop for groceries to save her life?! You’re basically almost a walking U.T.I. patient from your ramen noodles meals!”

Lumine shrugs. “I don’t know about you, Aeth. My immune system’s still striving.”

“Not my point!” her brother says, putting emphasis on each word. “Anyway… Albedo’s out to buy ice cream. I decided to go here to give life to your soulless space.”

“I wanted to be alone...”

“Well too bad you’re stuck with us,” Aether rolled his eyes playfully. He turns around to face the pot, picking a ladle nearby and scooping a portion of meat and soup before putting the ladle towards his sister’s mouth. 

Lumine reluctantly eats the food, humming at the way the flavor melts on her tongue. Her brother smiled proudly when he heard this.

“As much as I hate you nagging me all the time while you’re here, I can’t deny that I want to take advantage of it because you cook delicious meals.” 

Aether gasps in fake offense. “How dare you use me for your own selfish benefit? You’re not even grateful for the blessing I give you by my presence!”

Lumine rolls her eyes at her brother’s usual antics. “Always the drama queen.” 

Silence settles between them.

There was a shift that happened in the comfortable atmosphere all of a sudden when Aether turned back to the stove. Lumine couldn’t quite see his face but she knows that there’s been bugging his head ever since she stepped inside the place.

She sits at the nearby chair and waits for him to speak.

“Lumine?”

“Hm?”

“Would you like me to help you move your things out when the house is done?” 

He asked with a forced tone of casualness. She would know that because his voice seemed trembling a little and cracked at the end of his sentence. She would know because out of all people, he’s the one who had been there when things began going south.

She would know because all he wanted to do was to help her erase someone from her life.

Lumine hesitated for a moment before calling out his brother’s name. 

“Aether.”

Her brother turns to face her and her heart immediately swells in guilt and sadness when she sees his face painted with pain. 

So, in hopes of lifting his spirits up, she mustered up the brightest smile she could offer. 

“I’ll be fine.”

Both of them knew she meant something else. I wanted to keep anything she left that I could still keep.

Contrary to popular belief, Lumine involved herself in dating during those five years. If anyone thought it’s just because she wanted to test if she’d find her past in the person she’d dated, they didn’t mention anything about it. And if anyone looked at her and saw a distant look on her face whenever her partner went home for the day, they didn’t say anything. Maybe because they know that Lumine knows herself best.

She’d met amazing, loving people in those five years. Yet all relationships ended with the same reason Lumine had been guilty about being.

“You feel close yet so far from me. I think… I think I could never give you what you’re looking for. And I’m sorry for that.”

Lumine had cried every time those words came out from the mouths of different people in her life in those five years. Always had been the one shaking her head, biting her lip, trying to keep her sobs at bay, holding the other's hands in plea as if she’s afraid of losing them.

Perhaps she did feel scared. 

But more so, it was the guilt of having to drag someone into her suffering. It had always felt like Lumine should be the one to apologize for everything—not the other way around.

Because deep down she knew that in every person she’d met along those five years, she’s looking for someone else in them. In their eyes. Their voice. Their touch. Their smile. Their warmth.

“Hey, Furina… Is something the matter?” Lumine sits on the chair in front of the dazed-off woman, raising her hand to call for the café staff. 

When the staff came to their table, Lumine ordered for the both of them. She glanced ever so subtly to where Furina had sat, observing her as she said the woman’s favorite drink and cake to the staff.

Once they went away to prepare the order, Lumine then looked back at the person in front of her. “You suddenly called. I was worried something happened.”

Furina was looking down all the time, fidgeting her fingers in what seemed like to ease her nervousness. Lumine’s face contorts in worry. “...Furina?”

The woman let out a heavy sigh, closing her eyes along the process before meeting Lumine’s worried ones with her sad expression. And as if it’s nothing, Furina muttered. “Lumine. Let’s…” she looked straight into her eyes, “break up.” The woman finished, her eyes quickly diverted away.

The blonde felt her breath hitch at the sudden proposal. Her hands tremble under the table, gripping on the fabric of her dress. She looked down almost immediately when she heard what Furina had said. 

There it is again.

Lumine stared long enough at her curled hands and eventually noticed teardrops falling onto them.

“...Why?” the blonde asked quietly after some time, her voice shaking with disbelief and guilt. Disbelief because she thought she had it all right now. And guilt because it seemed like she made Furina feel the other way around.

“Lumine.” the other woman called, carefully as she does—like calling for someone who might curl down. “Look at me.”

Despite the humiliation, Lumine’s gold eyes reluctantly met blue ones. There was sadness behind the crashed blue waves in them that made Lumine look between her eyebrows instead in fear. And yet, after everything, the woman still smiled earnestly at the someone who believes she’s undeserving of the gentleness. 

“You’re not happy with me,” she had stated with such certainty that made Lumine question herself if it was true or not.

“No— I— I am.” 

Furina just merely shakes her head, dismissing Lumine’s words. 

“You’re not. And that’s okay, Lumine. Just…” Furina sighs, shifting her head to the side a little in an attempt to meet Lumine’s eyes. “Please. You need to be true to yourself…” she said softly.

The blonde’s face crumpled with guilt as she sobs quietly, unable to help herself. She feels the other stand up, and then warmth wrapped around her body like a blanket keeping her from shivering from her own emotions—Furina is hugging her.

“I knew, from the start, that I could never stand against the one in your heart. I could never give you the love you truly need. I could never be the person who brings you joy,” the woman hugging her whispered against Lumine’s ear, brushing her golden locks gently with her fingers.

“I’ve long accepted that.” Furina hugged her a little tighter. Lumine wants to reciprocate it back but her arms felt so heavy that all she could do was grip on her clothes tighter. “It hurts, sure. But more than anything, I want you to be happy.” 

“And if being with me won’t make you happy…” Furina gently pushes herself away from the hug, wiping Lumine’s tears away. “Then, I would rather let you go.”

Furina takes the blonde’s both hands with her and puts them in the middle together. “I’m sorry.”

The woman stands up while Lumine remains still in her seat, and just watches how Furina wipes her eyes—trying to prevent her own tears from falling. 

“Please. Be happy.”

Lumine watched her go, the woman stumbling upon her steps as she hurried outside. Leaving her to deal with the smell of strawberry and mocha on the table after a few minutes—they were Furina’s favorite.

Lumine just watched her walk away.

Just like how she watched Ayaka walk away from her life without being able to do anything about it.

That’s when Lumine had fully accepted that she was looking for Ayaka in every single person that tried entering her life.

Lumine hated moving.

Not because she has to bear the heavy lifting, going up and down, in and out of the building. Not because of the endless boxes she always had to double check. Not because of the dust that somehow found its way into every corner of her apartment no matter how often she cleaned, triggering her allergy. Not because of the random spiders that jump on her arm that makes her shriek loudly, she worries that someone might misunderstand that she’s found a murderer in the building. 

Perhaps some things there are true about her hating moving. But it’s not just that.

She hated moving because moving meant sorting.

And sorting things meant remembering.

The afternoon sun filtered through her living room window as she sat cross-legged on the floor surrounded by what felt like hundreds of cardboard boxes. Sweat drips to her neck, breathing heavily due to exhaustion as she tries to fan herself that barely helps her to refresh.

Aether had convinced her to start packing early.

“You know yourself,” he had said. “You’ll procrastinate until the last minute and then cry because of stress and overstimulation.”

Lumine had only rolled her eyes at her brother.

Looking at her situation right now, she came to terms with the fact that Aether had been right all along. Unfortunately, she would have to deal with his teasing once he sees her looking the way she did now in a few days.

A half-empty box sat beside her. Lumine peeked inside of it and saw random things she had thrown altogether when she had been arranging the more important things in her apartment. Inside, there were books, trinkets she had forgotten she owned, things accumulated throughout the years of living in the same place. Most of them hold no significance. Some of them did.

Lumine reached into the drawer she rarely opened and there, inside was a collection of things she never bothered to throw away. Movie tickets, receipts, old birthday cards, sticky notes, expired arcade cards—and a dried flower pressed between notebook pages. Lumine stared at it for a moment, thinking hard about whether she would open it or not.

Eventually, she carefully picks up the notebook and flips through the pages, eventually reaching where the petal had been lying between.

There was smudged-out, faded writing on the pages.

Lum..ne,

Yo.. forg..t y..ur n..tebook at my apar...ent ag..in.

At this poi..t I’m begi…..ng to th..nk you lea..e your belongi..gs her.. on purp..se.

Plea..e retrie..e it bef..re Ae...r de..ides to ac...se me of ste..li..g his si..ter. 

Also I h..ve att..che.. a fl..wer ins..d.. beca..se you s..id “it w..s pr..tty en..ugh to keep.”

I dist..nctiv..ly rem..m..er you call..ng flow..rs “j..st plan..s wait..ng to die,” so I ..m ch..osing to int..rpret th..s as pe..sonal gr….th.

Y..u are welc..me. 

P.S. 
Ple..se st..p ski..ping br....kfast. 

P.P.S. 
No, cof..ee d..es n..t co..nt as break....st. 

P.P.P.S. 
I kn..w you r..lled y....r eyes w..ile r....ding t..at.

— Ay....a

Despite the letter being barely legible, Lumine read it like the back of her hand. She ran her fingers along the words like it would somehow make the faded letters appear back on the letter. Or maybe even the writer herself back into her very place right now.

The dried flower had come from a flower festival that she and Ayaka attended years ago. Back when Ayaka insisted on keeping every little thing she could find.

Lumine watches Ayaka walk toward a trinket seller, looking at the multiple options she could choose from.

“You keep too much stuff,” Lumine called from behind.

Ayaka faces her with a frown on her face, gasping. “They’re memories.”

The blonde giggled playfully at her lover. 

“Sure, sure,” she says and picks up a dahlia keychain. She hands out money to the seller then gives the trinket to Ayaka.

The other muttered a small thank you and hugged Lumine’s side. They continue walking forward, occasionally debating about flowers as plants that easily die and that death having a symbolism that even as the plant dies, it will still remain beautiful and grow eventually again.

Ten minutes later, Lumine finds a flower tucked behind her ear.

She’d kept it. 

Apparently, for five years. Lumine is surprised it’s still intact despite it being withered down with time.

She placed flowers back between the pages and snapped the notebook close, putting it inside a box named “Important.” She continued sorting her things out. And throughout the rest of the day, she kept thinking about her brother being wrong. He was wrong. She wasn’t having trouble packing up because she’s running out of time or that she hated moving.

She was having trouble because every little thing in her apartment seemed determined to remind her of someone who hadn’t lived here. Someone who hadn’t officially lived here despite this person being always around to the point that even the old receipts, notes, files, and many other things hold their name. Someone whose presence still lingers the same way their perfume did whenever they’re around.

Five years.

Five years, and somehow Ayaka kept appearing on every corner Lumine could find. Five years, and somehow the woman she loved still haunts her when all she wanted to do was to avoid even the thought of her like the plague.

Five years, and Lumine was still finding pieces of her everywhere.

A week later, Lumine finds herself standing in the middle of a furniture store near her building.

She wasn’t there because she wanted to be. It was her landlord, who’d been close to her for many years since first arriving, that suggested replacing some of her older furniture once she moved into the new house. Aether had agreed immediately, claiming that half of the things inside his sister’s apartment looked as though they belonged in a museum for historical preservation. Lumine argued that they were perfectly functional and are necessary for the aesthetics. Aether responded by showing her a picture of her very own chair with one leg visibly shorter than the others. She stopped arguing against him after that.

The store, wish she is now inside of, is crowded for a Saturday afternoon.

Families wandered between displays, trying to find something that would benefit them. A couple sitting on a couch, pretending to relax while secretly checking the price tag attached to them. Children climbed onto beds they weren’t supposed to touch until exhausted employees came to gently ushered them down. And somewhere nearby, a salesperson passionately explains the difference between two nearly identical vacuum cleaners. Lumine couldn’t tell them apart.

She absentmindedly walked through the showroom.

Her attention drifted from bookshelves to cabinets, from lamps to couches. Nothing particularly piqued her interest. She already had most of the things here in her place and they were all still usable—well, maybe the chair could be an exception—so she didn’t particularly need to follow her landlord and brother at all. And most furniture starts to look the same after a while. They’re just a bunch of copies of one another, just different in color, size, shape, and brand. Lumine just feels like her time is being wasted.

She had considered leaving when she caught a glimpse of a couple talking as they checked a particular dining table that Lumine had found very familiar.

“Dear, do you think this would suffice?”

“I think so. But isn’t it a bit… I don’t know, underwhelming? It only has four chairs.”

“I appreciate you thinking about our future house guests… or even children. But dear, do we really need any more? It’s just the two of us spending time inside our home, after all.”

Really, she didn’t mean to project herself into that couple but—

Something about the dining table made her chest feel heavy all of a sudden. The familiar light-colored table, four chairs, and a flower vase sitting in the middle of the set. It was simple yet elegant and it made her remember about things that shouldn’t even be remembered at all because of how little the importance of it in her life.

Lumine tells herself it’s nothing special.

And yet her feet remained rooted to her place.

Years ago, while browsing through furniture stores together for no particular reason, Ayaka had stopped in front of a nearly identical table and smiled.

“It would fit four people,” the woman said quietly as she ran her hands through a light-colored table.

Lumine blinked at the person across from her, watching the way her hand slides along the smooth surface of a chair. “Why are you thinking about seating arrangements?”

Ayaka looked up at her and flashed a soft smile, tilting her head to the side. “What if we have guests?”

Lumine snorted at her question. “We don’t even live together.”

When she hadn’t heard a single word from Ayaka, averted her eyes to Ayaka’s and saw hope swirling through her eyes—gleaming with sincerity.

And softly, the woman across from her muttered, “Not yet.”

The response came naturally that Lumine nearly missed it. And silently she hoped. And hoped. And hoped that “yet” would soon come to present itself in front of them.

Because when Ayaka spoke of it, it’s as though it was already decided with finality. As though it was only a matter of time.

A time that never came.

The memory hit her harder than it should have. It damps on her like a thick, soaked blanket that seems to be trying to fill her lungs with water for how much weight she feels in her chest. It sits heavily on her shoulders—from carrying all these memories to herself with no one in particular to help her in getting them off her. 

Is it wrong to feel betrayed when someone just casually hinted that they want to spend the rest of their life with you, and then disappear all the sudden?

Is it wrong to still hope that Ayaka, wherever she is now, still imagines a future with Lumine in it?

Maybe it is. 

But before that five years of drowning into her own thoughts of wondering what went wrong, everything had felt impossible that things would end.

Not because they were perfect—they’ve had their ups-and-downs. Moments when they don’t meet each other in the middle. Moments where they’d stopped talking properly for a week and settled with “How are you?” “Fine” or “Go eat” “You too.” 

Ending things felt impossible because Lumine genuinely couldn’t imagine a life where Ayaka wasn’t there.

But look at her now.

The woman swallowed. Her throat felt strangely tight, as though a lump was blocking off her airway. Perhaps that is why she feels breathless with tears forming on the side of her eyes.

Five years later, she stood alone in a furniture store staring at a table meant for four.

Meant to be inside their house.

She didn’t notice that a salesperson was approaching her with a practiced smile. “Would you like to hear more about this model, Ma’am?”

Lumine looked away almost immediately, the illusion she’d been having in her head shattered quickly. The lights went back on. The families appeared back into her line of sight. She heard the children’s laughter once again. The smell of brand new things that makes her head dizzy. And the couple, she was just observing earlier, was now gone.

Everything was normal again.

“Ah— No. Thank you,” she replied politely. The salesperson nods their head at her response and walks away.

Lumine, too, has started walking away before walking away before the table reminds her of anything else. Yet, as she continued through the showroom, she found herself wondering something that she hadn’t thought about in years.

What happened to all those futures they had talked about?

Maybe the answer had been right in front of her eyes all these years but Lumine couldn’t help but still question. What happened to the house plants? What about that dog Ayaka had insisted on taking care of despite liking cats more? The bookshelf they would argue over because Ayaka arranges books by genre, while Lumine prefers organizing them by height, what of it? The dining table for four, where would it be placed now?

The future had been so vivid back then. So detailed and so certain that Lumine felt like she’d been living a nightmare for all the years Ayaka isn’t with her. 

But now, all of it, including Ayaka, now exists nowhere except inside Lumine’s memories.

By the time she left the furniture store, she had bought nothing. Aether would be livid and nag her ears off, undoubtedly complaining about holding too much sentiment toward the things she has. 

Maybe somewhere between the lines, her brother meant to say, “You can’t hold on to someone who has long stopped holding you.”

And Lumine, even after five years, can’t bring herself to care.

There had been countless nights where sleep refused to come no matter how exhausted Lumine felt. Usually, she filled the silence with something else. A television show playing in the background. A book resting on her chest, one that she had tried reading out loud. Work she had deliberately started despite the deadline being weeks away from the night. Anything that could keep her mind occupied long enough to drift off.

Tonight, none of it worked.

Lumine stared up the ceiling that seemed to be mocking her for not being able to sleep again in over three days. Groaning, she rolled onto her side and squeezed her eyes shut. But instead of sleep, memories have come running inside her head like filmstrips displaying a tragic movie where only she had been the one to watch. 

Opening her eyes, Lumine reluctantly sat up—her body feeling particularly heavy. It seems like sleep is not going to visit her soon.

The apartment was dark except for the faint glow of the lights outside the city slipping through the curtains. She rubbed her face with both hands and released a long, tired breath. There was one of the hundreds of questions she had—this time, she spent five years avoiding it. Every time it surfaced, she buried it beneath the pile of sheets for her work, beneath obligations, beneath the excuses that some things were simply better left alone. 

What had gone wrong?

The answer should’ve been easy. People break up everyday. Relationships end eventually despite the bond people built for years. Life moves on even after losing someone so important to your life. 

Yet, whenever she tried to recall the end of theirs, it felt strangely incomplete. Much like reading the final chapter of a book, only to discover half the pages had been torn out.

Slowly, Lumine stood from her bed.

Her feet carried her towards the kitchen almost on instinct. She poured herself a glass of water and leaned against the counter. The cold seeped into her, keeping her grounded and anchored to the present. 

Yet, it wasn’t cold enough to stop the memories to come spilling once again.

The rain had been relentless that day.

Lumine remembered that much.

Sheets of water crashed against the café windows while people hurried along the sidewalks outside. The sky had been gray since morning. The sort of weather that makes you feel heavy about something you can’t quite point on.

Ayaka sat across from her, silent. A lot more quiet than she had been these past few days.

Lumine hadn’t thought about it much. Everyone has bad days. Everyone gets tired. Everyone feels the need to keep their burdens to themselves sometimes.

Lumine just hopes that Ayaka knows that she’d be there for her all throughout, no matter how heavy the things she carries on her back.

Lumine reaches across the table and squeezes Ayaka’s curled hand.

“You’ve been staring at that coffee for ten minutes already,” Lumine mentioned softly, caressing Ayaka’s hand—careful enough not to accidentally touch her coffee. Her eyes wandered from her face down to their touching hands and saw how the girl across her seemed to be shaking from her hold.

The blonde looks back to Ayaka’s face and sees her smiling—the corner of her lips twitching like she’d been forcing herself to. It was the kind of smile that never quite reached her eyes. And all Lumine wanted was for her to stop pretending and that Ayaka will understand that it’s alright to appear sad in front of her. 

“I’m sorry.”

The sudden apology immediately made a frown appear on Lumine’s face. “For what?”

Ayaka looks down almost in an instant. Her fingers tighten around the mug between her hands. The motion was subtle, barely noticeable. Yet Lumine failed to recognize the nervousness hidden behind it—or perhaps, she’d delude herself hard enough that nothing bad has happened.

The silence stretched between them. The pitter-patter of the rain seemed to fade away from their ears, along with the faint chatters of the people around them. The fluorescent lights had dulled. The scene from outside had become blurred to them that only Lumine could see was the conflicted look on Ayaka’s face. 

Slowly, the discomfort starts to settle between them. Lumine’s gentle smile, too, had slowly disappeared from her face.

“Ayaka.” She called, her heart pounding inside her chest. 

The woman finally lifted her face. Lumine inhales sharply at what she sees. Ayaka’s eyes were red like she had been losing sleep and crying all night for days—maybe even weeks.

And suddenly, without understanding why, Lumine felt afraid. Not of Ayaka. But of the words that may come out of her mouth sooner or later.

And as if the world sudden want to rush her, she sees Ayaka takes a deep breath and says,

“I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

Her words didn’t register in Lumine’s mind straight away. She was so sure that she had just misheard her words, misunderstood them for something else. Eight distant words hung around the air between them like smoke after pulling a gun’s trigger. Lumine’s ears ring so loudly she felt the need to cover her ears to block the aggravating sound off.

“...What?” was all she managed to say.

She watches Ayaka swallowed hard—it looked painful, like forcing shattered glass down her throat. The woman removed her hands away from her mug, placing them on her lap under the table and leaving Lumine’s hands on the table alone.

“I can’t keep doing this.”

The rain continued outside, it nearly made Lumine think that the weather was specifically aligning itself to how she feels at that very moment. And yet, despite this very moment, life continues outside the barrier that secludes as well—as if they’re the only ones who get to be miserable under this weather. The cars passed outside the window. People laughed somewhere near the counter. The mellow songs played on the speakers. Someone called out a person’s name for their order. The world carried on exactly as it always had.

Meanwhile, Lumine felt like everything inside her slowly stopped. Slowly stopped breathing, slowly stopped feeling her body. She stared at the woman across her—still having a hard time maintaining their eye contact, but did it anyway.

A sudden laugh then escapes her lips. She doesn’t know if it was forced or not. But there was a sudden feeling that she needs to laugh to release the tension from within her body or emotions will come rushing out of her. 

Surely, this isn’t happening?

Surely, she had misunderstood?

“Ayaka.” The name came out softer than Lumine intended—wishing, hoping, pleading.

Lumine isn’t someone who puts their trust onto some kind of higher being. It has failed her for countless times in the past. It wasn’t there when she wished for hope to finally settle beneath her heart. Only then, when Ayaka came to her demise was she saved. 

Lumine never prayed to any all-knowing Gods—she had pleaded for life from Ayaka all this time. 

So, ever so silently, Lumine prays to her not to leave. “Ayaka, what are you talking about?” she whispered.

The woman’s eyes shimmered, tears gathered there like waves crashing to stones—yet they refused to fall.

“I tried,” Ayaka’s voice was soft and quiet—it cracked like she’d been stopping herself from speaking those words. Like she doesn’t want to say it herself.

Something shattered inside Lumine. When she saw Ayaka having a hard time breathing, all she wanted to do was rub her careful hands on her back and whisper comforting words to her ears. She wanted to hold her hands and squeeze them in an attempt to ground her to the world with her.

But she can’t do that when it’s blatantly slammed against the surface in front of her that Ayaka didn’t want Lumine’s touch.

“I tried so hard.”

Lumine stared, unable to speak, unable to breathe, unable to understand why this felt like standing on the edge of a cliff without realizing the ground had disappeared beneath her feet. 

“I tried so hard, I’ve just emptied myself.”

Lumine stared at her.

The words settled heavily between them, sinking into every corner of the small café until they became impossible to ignore. Lumine hated how exhausted Ayaka looked when she said it. Hated how there was no anger in her voice, no resentment, no bitterness she could cling to and argue against. There was only exhaustion—the kind that came from carrying something far too heavy for far too long.

"No," Lumine said immediately.

The denial escaped her mouth before she could stop it. Her fingers tightened around the edge of the table as though holding onto it would somehow keep the conversation from slipping further. She shook her head once, then again, harder this time.

“No,” she repeated, laughing weakly. “You’re just tired. That’s all, right? You haven’t been sleeping properly these past few weeks. You’re stressed. We can fix this.”

Ayaka lowered her gaze.

The motion hurt more than if she had argued. Lumine would’ve preferred anger. She would’ve preferred shouting. She would’ve preferred accusations thrown directly at her face because at least then she would know what to fight against. Instead, Ayaka sat there quietly, looking as though every word Lumine spoke only made things harder.

“We’ve been saying that for two years.”

She knew Ayaka was right. Every difficult conversation had ended the same way. “Things would get better soon.” “We just need more time.” “It’ll be easier eventually.” They had repeated those promises so many times that they had started sounding less like hope and more like prayer. A prayer neither of them knew how to answer.

And yet, being the horrible, selfish person Lumine could be—she leaned forward in desperation.

“We can leave,” Lumine says in a hurry. “We can move somewhere else. Somewhere far away from all of this. Somewhere your family can’t reach us. Somewhere nobody knows us.” Her voice shook. “We can start over. We can figure it out together.”

And for one horrible second, Lumine thought she saw something flicker in Ayaka's eyes. 

Hope.

“A year ago…” Ayaka began softly, staring down at her untouched coffee. “Maybe two years ago, I would’ve said yes immediately.”

The words hit Lumine like a knife between her ribs.

“I used to imagine it all the time.”

Ayaka laughed quietly to herself and shook her head. “I used to imagine an apartment with terrible wallpaper because you’d insist it wasn’t that bad. I used to imagine arguing with you over groceries because you never remembered what we needed. I used to imagine coming home and seeing your shoes by the door.”

The woman faces Lumine properly, staring deep in her eyes with grief coming down from it in the form of tears. “I wanted that life so badly.”

“I wanted you.” The words felt like a silent prayer.

Ayaka shuts her eyes close ever so gently, making more tears fall onto her face. “But I can’t keep doing this.”

Lumine felt her own slide down her cheeks, warm and cold at the same time. Her lips tremble, trying to keep her sobs locked inside her throat. Her hands shake from how much effort she’s putting on trying to stop herself from reaching out.

“That’s not fair.”

“It’s not,” Ayaka muttered in painful understanding.

“No.” Lumine shakes her head furiously. “No, it’s not fair. We did everything right.”

Her voice cracked when she said it. 

“I know.”

Lumine came to a point where she slowly understood that Ayaka came here not to discuss options, but to set everything between them to an end. And it felt like fighting a losing war. Because really, what was she supposed to say anymore?

Choose me?

Abandon your family?

Destroy your entire life for me?

She had already said that earlier, just using far more vague words to hide the meaning that she wants to convey all this time. All these years of being together.

“I want you, too,” Lumine settled with the only truth that she could utter.

“I know.”

Lumine hadn’t realized that she had been crying all this time when she snapped out of her mind. 

The rhythmic tapping against her windows soon manages to fill her ears as the rain outside echoed throughout the apartment. She hadn’t noticed the rain as well, it seems.

Lumine sighs and decides to go back to bed, wanting to see if sleep finally has chosen to be merciful and let her drift off to dreamland. She laid down the soft cushions, rolling to her side once again and closing her heavy eyes.

Before she could finally rest for the night, a faded memory flashes through her mind in a hurried manner.

“Don't forget your umbrella.”

“Ayaka, I am perfectly capable of remembering an umbrella.”

…

“Hello? Why did you call, did something happen, dear?”

“I forgot my umbrella... Please save me.”

Lumine came home to an apartment that barely looked lived in anymore.

Most of the shelves had already been emptied. The walls that once held framed photographs and decorations now stood bare and unfamiliar. Cardboard boxes occupied nearly every corner of the living room, each one carefully labeled with black marker according to its contents. Three months remained before she could officially move into her new house, yet it already felt as though she had one foot out the door and the other stubbornly rooted in the past. The space looked less like a home and more like a waiting room.

She tossed her keys onto the kitchen counter and loosened the collar of her shirt.

Work had been exhausting. A client had spent nearly forty minutes changing their mind about a project only to settle on the original proposal in the end. Lumine had smiled through the entire ordeal and somehow managed to remain polite despite wanting to bang her head against the nearest wall. All she wanted now was a hot shower, a proper meal, and perhaps a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. The universe, unfortunately, seemed to have other plans.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket before she could even take off her shoes.

Aether’s name appeared on the screen accompanied by a ridiculous profile picture Albedo had secretly taken of him months ago. The image showed her brother asleep on a couch with a half-eaten sandwich resting on his chest. Aether still hadn’t figured out how to convince her to change it.

A small smile tugged at her lips despite herself. Her brother had been calling almost obsessively ever since she started preparing for the move. “You’re calling earlier than usual,” Lumine greeted as she answered. Turning around to come walking down the stairs again to the apartment lobby as she remembered that there were mails waiting for her to be read.

“Lumine, tell Albedo that he’s a menace,” her brother demanded, instead of actually greeting.

She blinked. “Hello to you too, big bro.”

“I’m serious,” Aether complained dramatically. “He replaced all my contact photos with pictures of different species of fish. Do you know how humiliating it is to receive a call from my boss and be greeted by a tuna?”

A snort escaped Lumine before she could stop herself.

The sound seemed to encourage him because Aether immediately launched into a detailed explanation of every crime Albedo had apparently committed throughout the day. Something about mislabeled folders, disappearing coffee mugs, and a sketchbook filled with surprisingly accurate caricatures of everyone in their office. Lumine listened patiently while unlocking her mailbox in the apartment lobby. The familiar rhythm of her brother’s voice made the building feel less empty somehow despite her being the only person that seemed to be on the floor.

“You’re exaggerating.”

“I’m not.”

“You are, Aeth. You always exaggerate.”

“Lumine.”

“You once described Albedo forgetting the lunch you made for him as an act of betrayal.”

“Because it was.”

Lumine rolled her eyes affectionately as she sorted through the pile of envelopes inside the mailbox. There was an electricity bill. A supermarket flyer advertising discounts she would never bother checking. A promotional brochure from a furniture company she vaguely recognized. Her fingers moved absentmindedly through the stack until they stopped on an envelope unlike the others. 

Curious, she picked it up along with the other mail she had gotten and shut the box close, locked it carefully. She quickly rose to her feet and started walking to the stairs to go back to her place.

Lumine tucked the envelopes beneath her arm and began making her way toward the staircase. The elevator was functioning perfectly fine for once, but she had always preferred the stairs whenever she wasn't carrying anything particularly heavy. The walk gave her a few extra minutes to clear her head after work. Besides, after spending most of the day staring at a computer screen, the movement felt nice. Even if her legs would probably disagree later.

“You know, Albedo said something weird today,” Aether suddenly spoke from the other end of the call.

Lumine adjusted her grip on the mail as she climbed the first flight of stairs. “That doesn't exactly narrow things down.”

“Fair point.”

She could practically hear him grinning through the phone.

“We were talking about your house, and he asked me if I thought moving would actually make you happier.”

Lumine slowed her pace slightly.

The question wasn’t entirely unexpected. Ever since she’d decided to move, people seemed convinced that changing locations would somehow solve every problem she'd ever had. Her coworkers congratulated her. Her neighbors told her it would be a fresh start. Even Aether occasionally looked at her as though the new house would magically transform her into a different person.

“And what did you tell him?” she asked quietly.

Aether was silent for a moment.

“I told him that it’s up to you.”

Lumine snorted at the answer, smiling softly as she continued her climbing. She hadn’t expected him to actually answer so seriously.

The hallway on her floor was quiet when she finally stepped through the stairwell door. The warm overhead lights cast long shadows across the carpet while the distant hum of air conditioning echoed softly through the corridor. Most of her neighbors were probably still at work or having dinner somewhere outside. The floor felt unusually empty tonight. It reminded her once again how little time she had left here.

Lumine walked toward her apartment.

The envelopes shifted slightly beneath her arm as she searched her pocket for her keys. 

“You still there?” Aether asked.

“Hm?”

“You went quiet.”

Lumine unlocked her apartment door and stepped inside. The familiar silence greeted her once again—only the sound of Aether’ and her voice filling the empty spaces between.

“I’m here,” she replied, taking off her shoes. She puts them on the rack beside like she’d always done. Went to throw herself on the plastic-covered couch and placed the stack of paper at the small table in front. 

Aether hummed. “Good. For a second I thought you’d fallen down the stairs.”

“You always assume the worst.”

“No, I assume the funniest.”

Lumine shook her head fondly.

After some time, they bid goodbye to each other as Albedo and her brother needed to go out for something. Aether even apologized to her for it, but Lumine just told him she’s going to survive without him. Her brother has taken a great offense for that. There were small reminders thrown out to each other before finally ending the call—of course without Albedo missing the chance to say goodbye to her, too.

She smiles fondly at the thought of her brother being with Albedo. She remembers having to put up with him whining to her about men being “pieces of shit.”

“Remember, Lumi. Men are wolves.”

“Aether, you like men.”

She laughed quietly at the memory. Perhaps, not every memory needs to be attached to a particular person all the time. It made her seem like she appreciates the time she spent all her life with her twin brother if all she’d done was to let herself be engulfed with the memory of the woman she loves.

But no matter how hard she tries, Ayaka will most likely haunt her in every waking hour of her life. In her dreams. Maybe even in her death.

And Lumine would let her.

Let her be consumed with the deadly longingness that comes in the form of their memories together. Let her be wrapped with the sadness that comes with the thought of her touch. Let her be drowned in the remembrance of her eyes piecing through her very soul. Let her be mocked with the lips that smiles at her when she sleeps. Let her become hazy with the smell of her strong feelings for her past.

Lumine sighs as she begins sorting out the mails she had gotten, arranging and stacking them according to their importance and content. 

Then came the last mail she had left out. The one that was unlike any other. To touch it was like touching something sacred, Lumine traces the barely visible patterns of the paper—liking the way it felt on her fingertips. It was made from a high quality paper, as it seems. Lumine starts to wonder if this one’s had been misplaced in her mailbox. 

As she holds the edge of the envelope, a sudden feeling of her chest contracting with some kind of anxiety starts fueling in her bloodstream.

Lumine then carefully rips the envelope open, and a folded card along with a folded paper comes to her vision. Her breath hitches when she smelled a familiar scent that her nose hadn’t been filled with for five years. It made her want to cry.

Slowly and painfully—maybe even with the slightest tinge of hope—she opened the card.

Lumine did not realize she had stopped breathing until the second time she tried to read the words and found that her vision had already begun to blur.

The apartment around her stayed exactly the same—quiet hum of the refrigerator, faint ticking of the wall clock, distant footsteps somewhere in the building—but everything inside her felt like it had shifted slightly out of place; as if it read along with her and started to mourn. The invitation rested between her fingers as though it belonged to someone else, as though she had simply picked up a fragment of a life she was never meant to touch—and never wanted to touch. Her mind tried to process the names again, slowly, carefully, like forcing a broken mechanism to work through sheer will, dissecting each gear to find where the cause of this endlessness lies.

Kamisato Ayaka. Hasegawa Ren. Celebration. Ball. September. Dinner. Reception. 

Wedding.

Love.

Together.

Lumine pressed the edge of the card against the table, as if grounding herself would make the words rearrange into something less absolute. Her fingers curled slightly against the paper, careful not to crease it, as though damaging it would make it more real. The smell of the envelope still clung faintly to her fingertips, and it was that detail—so small, so cruelly ordinary—that made her chest tighten painfully. Because it meant this was not a dream, not a mistake, not something that could be undone by simply blinking.

It had been sent.

It had been intended for her.

Somewhere in the apartment, Aether’s voice still lingered faintly in her memory, as if she had only just ended the call. The idea of speaking to him now felt impossible, like trying to explain a collapse that had no visible structure. Her hand hovered over her phone once, twice, before lowering again without pressing anything. There was nothing she could say that would not fracture in the middle of her throat.

She tried to breathe in. But it felt more like gasping for air, as she looked side-to-side—trying to find a way to calm herself down but only Ayaka’s face in every corner was all she saw. It makes her feel even more pathetic because of course, she would see Ayaka when things go the wrong way for her.

She hadn’t realized that the other content of the envelope fell down to the ground. Lumine desperately pushes herself off the couch to sit on the floor, and picks up the piece of paper. 

She didn’t know what to expect. She had been anchored down to the depths of her hopelessness and thought that this piece of paper would somehow save her from drowning.

She doesn't know whether it had her saved or if it had completely killed her.

Lumine,

I hope you’ve been well.

I understand if you choose not to attend, but I wanted you to receive an invitation personally. And I would be honored if you could attend.

— Kamisato Ayaka

It was the moment a part of her had been waiting for without admitting it was waiting at all.

Five years of pretending the door might still open again.

Five years of telling herself that absence was temporary.

Five years of building a life around a space that still quietly belonged to someone else.

All of it dissipates completely the moment she sees her handwriting. Even after all these years, Lumine still loves seeing the way the ink looks when brushed against paper by Ayaka. Even after everything,she still likes the way she writes her name so beautifully. Even now that it comes along with words that send hundreds of knives buried deep in her chest. 

Lumine’s hand fell down her lap as she gripped on the letter Ayaka wrote for her, staining both their names with her tears as she looked down in surrender.

“Say. If I, hypothetically speaking, were to build a house—would you live with me?” Lumine asked, glancing up at Ayaka’s face as she’s lying down on her lap.

She watches Ayaka look ahead—serious and thinking. The woman then smiles and looks down upon the person on her lap, brushing the golden locks away from her face. “I, hypothetically, think I would be happy to live with you.”

Lumine giggled at her answer as she leaned into Ayaka’s touch.

“Though…” the woman trails off, “I would be away most of the time. You know how it goes when you’re dating a businesswoman.” 

Sensing the hint of seriousness behind the playful tone of her lover, Lumine simply grins at her.

“It’s alright. I’ll always wait for your return.”