The rain had eased by afternoon, leaving the cobblestones slick and shining like old glass.
They walked quietly side by side, the fig tree courtyard calling them as it always did.
Elara's boots left shallow prints in the wet earth; Ciel's sketchbook was tucked under his arm, worn leather soft at the corners.
They sat on the mossy bench beneath the ancient branches. Around them, water dripped from leaf to leaf, each drop falling like the slow beat of a clock they could not see.
For a while, neither spoke.
They just listened: rainwater trickling into stone cracks, distant bells from the river's other side, the shared thrum of two hearts.
"Why this place?" Elara asked, her voice small. "Why do we always end up here?"
Ciel turned the question over in his mind.
"Maybe because we always did," he said softly. "Maybe this is the place where we remember the most — or lose the least."
Elara traced a groove in the bench, moss damp under her fingertips.
"And that day you sat beside me," she whispered, "you already knew."
He looked at her, rain-smudged charcoal eyes gentle but heavy.
"I didn't know your name yet," he admitted. "But I'd drawn your face so many times that when you walked in, it felt like exhaling after years of holding my breath."
She swallowed, a knot tightening in her chest.
"So why didn't you speak to me sooner?"
"Because," he breathed, voice cracking, "I was afraid I'd scare you away. And if you didn't remember me… I didn't want to force the story back. I wanted you to choose it too."
The wind shifted, rustling the fig leaves above them. A single ripe fig fell, landing softly at Elara's feet.
She picked it up, its skin warm despite the chill.
"So," she asked, fingers turning the fruit over and over, "do you believe it's fate? That we'd always find each other?"
"I don't know if it's fate," Ciel said."But I know this: even if it isn't, I still choose you. Every time. Even in forgetting, even in fear."
Her eyes burned, a sting behind her lashes.
"What if loving me hurts you?" she whispered. "What if forgetting breaks you all over again?"
"Then it breaks me," he said. "And I'll choose it anyway."
Silence wrapped around them, soft but sharp.
The fig tree's roots twisted through stone — stubborn, steady, as if refusing to let go.
Elara held the fig against her chest, pulse fluttering beneath her ribs.
"Then I choose you too," she whispered. "Not because the story says I must. But because even when I'm terrified, some part of me still reaches for your hand."
Rain tapped lightly at the leaves. Two hands found each other, fingers fitting together as though remembering the shape of that promise from lifetimes before.
It wasn't fate alone.It was choice — fragile, human, impossibly brave.
That Tuesday, under the old fig tree, they chose each other.Not because they had to.
But because even in a world that might make them forget, they wanted to remember.