He said it on a night that felt deceptively calm.
No crisis. No unraveling. Just rain tapping softly against the café windows, the kind that blurred the city into watercolor streaks of light. Mizuki and Riku sat across from each other, mugs cooling between their hands. They hadn't planned to meet. He'd texted—You free?—and she'd said yes before thinking too hard about it.
They talked about ordinary things at first. A movie he'd watched. A recipe she'd failed. The conversation drifted, as it always did, toward quieter waters.
Riku was the one who went silent first.
He stared into his coffee, stirring it long after the sugar had dissolved. Mizuki noticed the signs—the slight tension in his jaw, the way his shoulders lifted and fell too quickly. Old habits died hard.
"You okay?" she asked.
"Yeah," he said automatically. Then he sighed. "No. Not really."
She waited.
"I've been trying to talk to other people more," he continued slowly. "About stuff. You know. Work. Life. Whatever."
Her fingers tightened around her mug.
"And?"
He gave a small, frustrated laugh. "It's just… not the same."
Her heart skipped, then sank.
"What do you mean?"
He looked up at her then, really looked at her. His expression was open, earnest, stripped of the usual joking deflection.
"You're the only person I can talk to like this," he said. "The only one who actually gets me."
The words landed softly.
Mizuki felt them everywhere.
"You're my safe place."
There was no hesitation in his voice. No weight of implication. Just certainty.
She felt something inside her fracture.
"That's… a lot," she managed, smiling faintly.
"I don't mean it in a weird way," he said quickly, frowning as if afraid he'd crossed a line. "I just—when I'm with you, I don't have to explain myself. I don't have to pretend."
"I know," she said.
And she did.
"You've always been that for me," he continued, warming to the thought. "No matter what's going on, I know I can come to you. You ground me."
Ground.
Anchor.
Safe.
Every word was a gift he didn't realize was sharp.
She nodded, because she couldn't trust her voice yet. This was what she had been to him for years—the place where he could rest, not the place he wanted to build something new.
"I don't know what I'd do if I lost that," he added quietly.
Her chest tightened painfully.
"You won't," she said. It came out steady, practiced. "I'm not going anywhere."
Relief crossed his face instantly, unguarded and sincere. "Good. I don't think I could handle that."
They sat in silence after that. Comfortable, to him. Heavy, to her.
Mizuki watched the rain slide down the glass, each drop following its own path, never touching another. She wondered when she had started wishing she could be something more dangerous to him—something that disrupted rather than soothed.
On the walk home, he stayed close but didn't touch her. He talked about small plans, future things that assumed her continued presence without question. She responded automatically, her heart slowly folding in on itself.
At her door, he paused.
"Thanks for listening," he said. "I always feel better after talking to you."
She smiled. "I'm glad."
He hesitated, then pulled her into a brief hug—familiar, safe, devoid of anything that might be misread. His chin rested lightly on her head.
For him, it was comfort.
For her, it was everything she would never have.
When he stepped back, she waved and went inside. She locked the door, leaned against it, and closed her eyes.
She loved him more in that moment than she ever had before.
Not because he chose her—but because he trusted her completely.
That was the cruelty of it. Loving someone who leaned on you with their full weight, unaware that you were slowly learning how to hold them without holding yourself.
Riku had given her the highest place in his life that didn't include love.
And Mizuki, devastated and devoted all at once, understood the truth she had been circling for years:
She was his safe place.
But safe places were not where people fell in love.
They were where they rested—before going somewhere else.