The decision does not come all at once.
It settles slowly, like dust after something breaks. Not dramatic. Not noble. Just inevitable.
Mizuki makes it on a night when nothing happens.
She is alone in her apartment, the lights low, rain tapping softly against the window. Her phone rests on the table beside her, screen dark. No missed calls. No messages. The quiet feels intentional, like the world is giving her space to think.
She replays the almost in the kitchen, the way his voice had caught on her name, the way his hand had lifted and stopped. She does not romanticize it anymore. She does not pretend it meant more than it did.
Almosts are not promises.
She knows, now, how easily the moment could have gone another way. How easily he could have laughed it off even without the interruption. How fragile the tension had been—balanced on timing, on silence, on nothing being said too clearly.
She presses her palm against her chest, feeling the steady beat beneath it.
Confessing would not be brave.
It would be selfish.
That is the conclusion she reaches, quietly and without resentment. To confess would be to demand an answer from someone who has never asked the question. It would force Riku to carry the weight of her feelings, to choose between comforting honesty and preserving something he relies on.
She knows what he would say.
Not because he is cruel—but because he is kind.
He would hesitate. He would apologize. He would worry about hurting her. He would tell her she means too much to lose. And nothing would ever be the same again.
Silence, on the other hand, keeps things intact.
Silence lets him sleep on her shoulder without guilt. Lets him call her when the world feels too heavy. Lets him smile at her without calculation or fear.
Silence protects him.
And maybe—if she is careful—it can protect her too.
She sits on the floor, back against the couch, the same place he had fallen asleep days ago. The memory tightens her throat, but she breathes through it.
This is the shape of her love, she realizes.
Not something that demands. Not something that reaches.
Something that stays.
She will not confess in a moment of weakness. She will not let longing turn into a request. Loving him quietly is a choice now—not a failure of courage, but an act of restraint.
She tells herself this again and again until it almost sounds like truth.
I choose silence.
Because silence means continuity. It means mornings that look the same. It means laughter without hesitation. It means keeping the one person she cannot imagine losing.
She picks up her phone, opens their chat, and scrolls through years of messages—mundane, affectionate, unremarkable to anyone else. Proof of a life lived side by side.
She types nothing.
Instead, she sets the phone down, stands, and turns off the light.
Tomorrow, she will see him again. She will smile. She will listen. She will be the safe place he trusts without ever knowing the cost.
This is the story she will live inside.
She believes—truly believes—that this choice will protect them both.
And if it hurts, she will carry that pain quietly too.
After all, she has been practicing for years.