Sunlight filtered through the curtains—warm, amber—casting a soft haze across the room as the fabric swayed in the air-conditioned breeze.
Soft beeps pulsed through the room in slow, steady intervals. A nasal cannula curved across her cheeks; clear IV lines fed into her veins. The kind of details you try not to look at, but can't avoid.
Mom was asleep. Peaceful. Too peaceful.
I stepped beside her bed, placing a hand on the cold railings, watching her chest rise and fall. Her breaths were wet, rasped from the fluids built up in her lungs.
She had lost… plenty. Over the past few months, her health deteriorated. And ever since she was admitted a month ago, she'd been burning through her pension.
Each passing day spent in this room... was a day closer to losing her.
But in this room…
Knocking came from the door.
"Excuse me," A soft voice came muffled behind them.
I turned my head as the door slid open with a hiss. Ayase-san stepped in, carrying herself with grace that seemed almost divine. Clutching a digi-pad in her soft, pale hands. Strands of hair fell from her bun, glinting as the light catches them, sweet like caramel.
"Ah, Rion." She lit up as our eyes met.
And something tugged, deep inside my chest.
Sliding strands of hair behind her ear, she offered me a smile. "Good afternoon."
Ayase Risa.
Back in high school, she was just a quiet presence—one I only ever caught from the corner of my eye. We barely spoke. Maybe a polite exchange here and there, a shared classroom, a passing glance.
She was the type you noticed without fully realizing it, like soft sunlight through a window… always there, always gentle, and always just out of reach.
It never once crossed my mind that our worlds would seriously intersect.
And yet now—
Almost every day, I see her in this room.
Not as a classmate.
But as the woman who sits at my mother's side, who brews her tea, who adjusts her pillows, who smiles with that soft, careful kindness that feels like medicine in itself.
The woman who carries a warmth I didn't know I needed.
Ayase Risa.
The girl I barely noticed back then.
The woman I can't seem to ignore now.
Her smile—warm and soft—lifted me through the collapsing rubble that is life.
Her voice—smooth like silk—gave me strength as I carried this unbearable weight.
And her very presence in this room has been my anchor for the past month.
I replied with a smile—or at least, tried. "Good afternoon."
She stepped to the other side of the bed. Her soft eyes scanned the monitor with practiced care as her hands glided across her digi-pad.
"Usual monitoring, Ayase-san?" I asked, attempting to make small talk. But in truth, I wanted to hear her voice again.
"Mm." She nodded. "We need to adjust her portions for dinner."
My eyes lingered on her for a moment too long. "I see." I let go of the railings and drifted toward the armchair by the window. The cushions breathed softly beneath me as I sat.
A hologram flickered alive beside my laptop on the coffee table—a polite but insistent reminder pulsing in blue.
Deadline tonight.
Client project pending.
Reality tapping me on the shoulder.
With a sigh and reluctance, I scooched closer to my laptop, waking it with a scan of my finger. A cluster of holograms bloomed around the screen, pulling up my recent files. In a heartbeat, I let myself sink into the familiar rhythm work and deadlines.
"You look swamped." Ayase-san's voice pulled me straight out of my focus. I blinked up at her as she stepped closer, studying my face like she could read the fatigue written all over it.
"Long day?"
"Uh… yeah." I let out a breath that practically collapsed out of me.
She eased into the armchair beside mine, gently tucking the stray strands of hair behind her ear. The motion was simple, almost absentminded, but the light caught her brown hair just right—warm, glossy, sweet like caramel.
I'd seen beauties here and there. Ayase-san certainly made the list—though, objectively, she wasn't a supermodel or anything close to that polished ideal people chase.
Still… there was...
Something.
Something I couldn't name, couldn't analyze, couldn't neatly file away.
A familiarity that wasn't memory—more like a tug from somewhere deeper, past logic, past reason.
Something about her pulled at me.
Quietly. Constantly.
Like gravity.
"Make sure you rest, okay?" Her voice was soft, warm. "You can't take care of your mother if you're also sick."
I paused for a moment. "Well, the hospital's taking care of her," I muttered, forcing a small smile, "plus you're here too, Ayase-san."
With a soft exhale, she gently shook her head. "That's not what I meant,"
Something in her expression softened—like she could see straight through the smile I tried to hide behind. "You're here almost every day, Rion. You look after her, but you don't seem to look after yourself..."
My chest tightened a little. "I'm fine. Really."
Ayase-san tilted her head, not buying it for a second. "Being 'fine' isn't the same as being okay."
She leaned in, her hands reaching toward my face.
I felt my breath hitch when her fingers brushed my temple. Gently, she pushed my hair aside. And a quiet sigh escaped her. "Have you even slept? Look at your eyes."
In that gentle embrace, the first initial contact she'd ever made between us, I found my heart bashing against my ribs. Hard enough for me to hear my pulse inside my ears.
Here...
In this room filled with loss...
I found...
Her.
...
Then a rough, ragged breath cut through the moment.
"Sure is nice to be young," Mom's voice rasped from the bed.
Ayase-san jerked back like she'd touched a live wire. "Ah—I… Sorry, I didn't mean—"
"Wha—Mom… you're awake?"