Yumiko avoided the places she had grown used to.
The café.
The street with the flickering lamp.
The quiet corner where she used to breathe without thinking.
She told herself distance would make him fade. That silence would erase the sound of her name on his lips.
It didn't.
By evening, the sky darkened again, clouds gathering like secrets too heavy to hold. Rain began to fall—soft at first, then steady. Yumiko stopped beneath a narrow awning, frustration tightening her chest.
"Running in circles won't help."
Her body went rigid.
Jash stood a few steps away, rain soaking his dark hair, eyes fixed on her as if he'd never stopped watching.
"I didn't want to see you," Yumiko said, the words sharper than she intended.
"I know."
That was the problem. He always knew.
She turned to face him fully, rain brushing her cheeks. "Then why are you here?"
"Because you're starting to remember," he replied quietly.
Her breath stuttered. "Remember what?"
Jash hesitated—just for a second. "That you were never meant to be invisible."
Anger flared, hot and sudden. "You don't get to decide that for me."
"I didn't," he said softly. "You did. Long before this life."
The rain grew louder, drowning the city, wrapping them in a world of their own. Yumiko shook her head, heart pounding. "Stop talking like you knew me before I was born."
Jash stepped closer, close enough that she could feel the warmth he radiated despite the cold rain. "I knew the parts of you that never change," he said. "The way you run when you're afraid. The way you stay anyway."
Her throat tightened. Those words were too precise. Too intimate.
"You're scared," he continued. "Not of me. Of what it means if I'm telling the truth."
Silence stretched between them. Yumiko wanted to deny it, to laugh it off—but her voice wouldn't come.
Finally, she whispered, "What am I to you?"
Jash's gaze softened, something deep and unguarded breaking through. "Everything I waited for."
The confession settled heavy and unreal in the air.
A distant rumble of thunder rolled across the sky. Yumiko took a step back, chest aching. "I can't do this," she said. "Not yet."
"I know," Jash replied. "I'll wait."
She turned and walked away before he could say anything else, rain blurring her vision. But with every step, one thought echoed louder than the storm.
He wasn't chasing her.
He was keeping a promise.
And whatever she was running from—
It had already found her.