The small Italian restaurant off campus was exactly the kind of place Haruki and Noa had gravitated toward over the past month—cozy enough for intimate conversation, busy enough that they wouldn't be overheard, with food that was good without being so expensive it made them feel guilty about their student budgets.
They'd claimed a corner table near the window, where the warm light from inside mixed with the early November darkness outside to create the perfect atmosphere for the kind of conversation that required both comfort and honesty.
Haruki had been watching Noa's face since they'd ordered, trying to read the particular expression she wore when she was processing something complex. Not troubled, exactly, but thoughtful in a way that suggested their dinner conversation was going to be more substantial than usual.
"So," he said as their appetizer arrived, "you mentioned an interesting conversation with Mirei."
"I did." Noa twirled pasta around her fork with unnecessary precision, clearly organizing her thoughts. "She approached me at the coffee shop this afternoon. Asked if we could talk."
Haruki felt something tighten in his chest—not jealousy, but concern for all the ways that conversation could have gone wrong. "How did that go?"
"Better than I expected. Much better, actually." Noa looked up at him directly. "She wanted to know if we were happy together. If you were happy."
"What did you tell her?"
"The truth. That yes, we're very happy." Noa reached across the table to touch his hand briefly. "But Haruki, I think she genuinely meant it when she asked. I think she's actually trying to learn how to be glad for your happiness, even though it doesn't include her."
Haruki processed this, trying to reconcile the Mirei he'd known—conflict-avoidant, prone to emotional paralysis—with someone brave enough to seek out a difficult conversation with his girlfriend.
"That must have been hard for her."
"I think it was. But she did it anyway, which says something about how much work she's been doing on herself." Noa paused as their server refilled their water glasses. "She's in therapy now. Really working on understanding her patterns around fear and avoidance."
"Good. That's... that's really good."
"You sound surprised."
"Not surprised, exactly. Just... relieved, I guess. I've been worried about her, but I also knew that trying to help her myself would be inappropriate and probably counterproductive."
Noa nodded. "She seems to understand that too. She wasn't asking for anything from you, wasn't trying to use me to send you messages or anything manipulative like that. She just wanted to have an honest conversation about the situation."
Their main courses arrived, and they ate in comfortable silence for a few minutes, both processing the implications of this development. The restaurant hummed with quiet conversation around them—other couples, families, friends catching up over shared meals.
"Can I ask what you talked about?" Haruki said eventually. "I mean, if you're comfortable sharing."
"We talked about a lot of things. Why she transferred here, what she thought would happen, how she's learning to handle the reality of seeing us together." Noa cut her chicken carefully, choosing her words with the same precision. "But mostly we talked about the difference between attachment and love. About learning to want someone's happiness more than you want their presence in your life."
"That sounds like something Professor Akizuki would say."
"She mentioned that Professor Akizuki has been helpful. And Haruki?" Noa looked at him seriously. "I think Mirei is starting to understand that what she was mourning wasn't actually what you two had—it was what she thought you could have had if she'd been different."
Haruki felt something shift in his chest, a loosening of tension he hadn't realized he'd been carrying. "That's a pretty significant insight."
"It is. And I think it's helping her move from feeling like a victim of circumstances to taking responsibility for her own choices." Noa took a sip of wine, then added more quietly, "She said some very generous things about us. About why she could see that you love me."
"What kind of things?"
"That she could see I handle complicated situations with grace instead of defensiveness. That I was willing to have an honest conversation with her when I could have just told her to leave me alone." Noa's cheeks flushed slightly. "It was... it was actually really insightful. Made me understand something about myself I hadn't fully articulated."
Haruki reached across the table to take her hand properly this time. "She's not wrong. About any of that."
"The point is, she's trying to grow from this situation instead of just wallowing in it. And that makes all the difference in terms of how we can all coexist on the same campus."
"How do you feel about that? About the possibility of coexisting?"
Noa considered this carefully. "Honestly? Relieved. I was prepared for months of awkwardness and tension, for having to constantly worry about running into her or having her presence complicate our relationship. But if she's genuinely working on moving forward instead of staying stuck in regret..."
"Then maybe we can all figure out how to be adults about this."
"Exactly." Noa squeezed his hand gently. "She even said she thought it would be good for you to know that we talked, that we're okay. She didn't want you to feel caught in the middle."
Haruki felt a familiar warmth toward Mirei—not romantic, but the affection that came from recognizing someone's fundamental kindness even in the midst of complicated circumstances.
"That sounds like her. Like the person she was before everything got so messy between us."
"What was she like? Before, I mean. When you were friends."
It was the first time Noa had asked directly about his relationship with Mirei, and Haruki appreciated both the question and the timing—now that they'd established that Mirei wasn't a threat to what they had, now that curiosity could exist without defensiveness.
"Thoughtful. Funny in unexpected ways. Really good at seeing multiple sides of complicated situations." He paused, remembering. "She was the kind of friend who remembered things you told her months later, who noticed when you were having a hard time even when you were trying to hide it."
"She sounds like a good friend."
"She was. That's what made losing her friendship so hard—not just the romantic rejection, but losing someone who'd been important to me for so long."
"And now?"
"Now I think maybe we can find our way back to some version of friendship. Not the same as before—too much has happened for that. But something new, something that acknowledges our history without being trapped by it."
Noa smiled. "I'd like that. For both of you."
"Really?"
"Really. Haruki, you're someone who forms deep, lasting connections with people. That's one of the things I love about you. I don't want you to have to cut yourself off from everyone in your past just because we're together."
"Even when that past includes someone who was in love with me?"
"Especially then. Because how you handle those relationships tells me something important about your character. About how you'll treat me if we ever go through difficult times."
They finished dinner talking about smaller things—upcoming assignments, plans for Thanksgiving break, whether they should try to get tickets for the campus theater production next month. Normal couple conversations, the kind of easy back-and-forth that had become the foundation of their relationship.
But underneath the ordinary topics, Haruki felt something significant had shifted. Not just in terms of the Mirei situation, but in terms of his understanding of what he and Noa were building together.
"Can I tell you something?" he said as they walked back toward campus, hands linked against the November cold.
"Always."
"This afternoon, when you texted that you'd talked to Mirei, my first reaction wasn't worry or jealousy. It was curiosity about what you'd learned from the conversation."
"What does that tell you?"
"That I trust you completely. That I trust us completely." He stopped walking and turned to face her under a streetlight. "That somewhere along the way, we built something strong enough that external complications don't threaten it—they just give us more opportunities to choose each other."
Noa's smile was brilliant in the lamplight. "That's exactly what secure attachment looks like, you know. In psychological terms."
"Is that your professional opinion, Dr. Hoshizaki?"
"That's my personal experience, Mr. Sakamoto." She stood on her toes to kiss him softly. "And my professional opinion is that we're doing something right."
They walked the rest of the way back to their dorm in comfortable silence, both thinking about the strange turns life could take, about how the most threatening situations could sometimes become opportunities for growth if you approached them with enough honesty and courage.
Back in their hallway, standing between their doors like they had that first night when they'd discovered they were neighbors, Haruki felt the same sense of possibility he'd felt then—but deeper now, more grounded in actual knowledge of who they were together.
"Thank you," he said quietly.
"For what?"
"For handling today with such grace. For being curious instead of defensive. For making space in our relationship for complexity instead of demanding simplicity."
"Thank you for trusting me to handle it. For not trying to protect me from difficult conversations or complicated emotions."
"Sweet dreams, Noa."
"Sweet dreams, Haruki."
They disappeared into their respective rooms, but the wall between them felt less like a barrier and more like a choice—the choice to maintain individual space within a shared life, to be together without losing themselves in the process.
It was, Haruki thought as he got ready for bed, exactly the kind of love worth fighting for.
The kind worth staying for, even when staying was complicated.
Especially then.
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*End of Chapter 14*