Mizuki Aoki had learned how to love quietly.
It was the kind of love that folded itself into routines, that hid in the spaces between words. It showed up every morning at 7:12 a.m., when her phone buzzed with a single message—You awake?—even though Riku Harada knew she always was. It lived in the way she bought two coffees without asking, one black and one with too much milk, because he pretended not to notice how bitter he liked things only when he was tired. It existed in the silence they shared so easily that it never felt like something was missing.
"Riku's my best friend," she said automatically whenever someone asked.
She said it at work when her coworkers raised their eyebrows at the way he waited for her outside the building every Friday. She said it to her mother, who smiled too knowingly whenever Riku stayed for dinner. She said it to strangers who glanced at them on the train—him leaning half-asleep against her shoulder, her fingers curled loosely in his jacket sleeve.
Best friend. Ten years.
Mizuki had practiced the words until they felt safe.
She met Riku when she was sixteen and convinced she was invisible. He was the transfer student with messy hair and a laugh that didn't belong in classrooms. He sat next to her because the teacher told him to, then never really left. Friendship came easily after that—too easily, maybe. They grew up in parallel lines: cram schools, part-time jobs, late-night convenience store runs, shared umbrellas in the rain.
Somewhere along the way, her heart had misread the map.
Now, at twenty-six, she knew exactly when she had fallen in love with him. The problem was that it didn't matter. Loving Riku wasn't a dramatic moment; it was erosion. Day by day, inch by inch, until there was no ground left to stand on that wasn't him.
"Mizuki," Riku said, nudging her with his foot. "You're zoning out again."
They were seated at their usual booth in the small ramen shop two streets from her apartment. The owner already knew their order. Steam curled between them like something alive.
"Am I?" she asked, smiling automatically.
"Yeah. That look." He tilted his head, studying her with the familiarity of someone who knew all her faces. "You look like you're about to apologize to the universe."
She laughed softly. "I do not."
"You do. It's the eyebrows."
She reached up and smoothed them down, which made him grin. Riku always grinned like he'd won something, even when nothing was at stake.
Ten years had taught her the exact shape of his happiness. The dimple on his left cheek. The way his eyes softened when he was comfortable. The way he leaned forward when he cared, elbows on the table, hands loosely folded like he was afraid to break the moment.
This—this—was what she was afraid of losing.
"Mizuki," he said again, more gently now. "You okay?"
She nodded. Of course she did. She was always okay. Being okay was the price of staying.
"I was just thinking," she said, carefully. "About how long we've been coming here."
He laughed. "What, you feeling old?"
"No," she said. "Just… comfortable."
The word landed between them, warm and heavy.
"Comfortable's good," Riku said easily. "Safe."
Safe.
Mizuki swallowed. She wondered, not for the first time, if he knew how dangerous that word was to her.
To love him openly would be a risk. To confess would be to step off solid ground and hope there was something waiting beneath her feet. And what if there wasn't? What if she lost not just the possibility of more, but the certainty of this?
She could survive unrequited love. She wasn't sure she could survive losing Riku entirely.
Outside, the evening lights flickered on. Reflections of passing cars slid across the window like fleeting thoughts. From the outside, they probably looked exactly as they always did: close, easy, intimate in ways that didn't require explanation.
Like a couple.
Riku finished his ramen first, as usual, and pushed his bowl aside. "Hey," he said, casually. "You free this weekend?"
Her heart betrayed her, leaping before she could stop it. "Yeah. Why?"
"There's this thing—" He paused, scratching the back of his neck. "Never mind. I'll tell you later."
She nodded, ignoring the tightness in her chest. "Okay."
She didn't ask what thing meant. She didn't ask why he looked just a little uncertain. Asking questions was how things changed.
And Mizuki Aoki had built her entire heart around the idea that some things should never change at all.
She finished her ramen slowly, savoring the heat, the familiarity, the quiet joy of being across from the person she loved most in the world—loving her back in a way that was almost enough.
Almost.
As they stood to leave, Riku held the door open for her, their shoulders brushing in a way that felt accidental only because they had learned to pretend it was.
"See you tomorrow," he said.
"See you," she replied.
And as she walked home alone, Mizuki told herself the same thing she always did:
This is enough. This has to be enough.
Even as her heart whispered that comfort, when mistaken for safety, could still break you.