Mizuki did not announce the change.
There was no dramatic resolve, no late-night promise whispered into the dark. She simply woke up one morning with a quiet understanding lodged in her chest: if she kept loving Riku the way she had been, she would disappear completely.
So she began to step back.
It started with small things. Harmless things. Things no one could point to and say, that's when it changed.
She didn't answer his messages the moment they came in anymore. She let them sit—five minutes, ten—until her heart stopped leaping at the sound of his name. She stopped rereading his words before replying, stopped crafting responses meant to sound warm but effortless.
When he called late at night, she still answered. But not every time.
Sometimes she let it ring once longer. Sometimes she texted instead:Already in bed. Everything okay?
It felt unnatural at first, like using her non-dominant hand. Her body resisted the distance even as her mind insisted on it.
When they met in person, she chose the seat across from him instead of beside him. She didn't lean in when he spoke. When he brushed against her accidentally, she shifted away instead of staying still.
Riku noticed.
Of course he did. He always noticed changes in her mood, her habits. Just never the reasons behind them.
"You okay?" he asked one afternoon as they walked toward the station. He slowed his pace to match hers, brows drawn together. "You've been kind of… quiet lately."
"I've just been busy," she said. It wasn't a lie. Holding herself together took effort.
"Work stuff?"
"Yeah. And life stuff."
He accepted that easily, but his gaze lingered. "You sure?"
She smiled, the polite version she'd perfected. "I'm sure."
He nodded, though uncertainty flickered across his face before he masked it. "Okay."
But he kept testing the space between them, like someone trying to find a wall in the dark.
He leaned closer during conversations, unconsciously seeking the proximity she used to give freely. She stayed where she was. When he reached for her sleeve to get her attention, she turned fully to face him instead, creating just enough distance to break the contact.
He laughed less easily now. Paused before speaking. Sometimes he started to say her name, then stopped.
"Mizuki," he said once, then hesitated. "Did I do something?"
Her heart clenched.
"No," she said quickly. "Of course not."
"You'd tell me if I did, right?"
She looked at him, really looked at him. The genuine confusion in his eyes. The absence of fear.
"Yes," she said.
He relaxed at that, satisfied. "Okay. I thought maybe I was imagining things."
You are, she wanted to say. And you aren't.
The late-night calls grew less frequent—not because he stopped wanting to call, but because she stopped making it easy. When he did reach her, she listened but no longer let the conversations stretch endlessly. She gave advice, then gently closed them.
"You should sleep," she said sooner than before.
"You kicking me off the phone now?" he teased.
She smiled. "Just looking out for you."
He laughed, but it sounded uncertain.
"Since when are you the responsible one?" he asked.
She didn't answer.
At night, alone, the guilt pressed heavy against her ribs. Every boundary felt like betrayal. Every unanswered call felt like proof that she was failing him.
But slowly—so slowly she almost missed it—something else appeared.
Space.
In that space, her thoughts stopped orbiting him so tightly. Her chest hurt less in the mornings. She slept deeper on the nights he didn't call. The ache was still there, but it was no longer consuming everything.
Riku, meanwhile, grew restless.
He texted more often during the day, checking in. He suggested meeting up more, then looked disappointed when she said she was busy. He searched her face for something she no longer offered freely.
"You seem different," he said one evening, frowning lightly. "Did something happen?"
She shook her head. "I'm just trying to take better care of myself."
He blinked at that, caught off guard. "Oh."
He smiled after a second. "That's good. You should."
But his eyes said he didn't like it.
He told himself stories instead. That she was tired. That work was stressful. That this was temporary. He never once considered that she was protecting herself—from him.
Because from his side, nothing was wrong.
He still had her. Just… slightly farther away.
And Mizuki learned the quiet cruelty of boundaries: how necessary they were, and how invisible. How you could redraw the shape of your heart and the person standing closest to it might never notice the cost.
She did not stop loving him.
She simply stopped offering herself up in ways that broke her.
Riku felt the distance but mistook it for circumstance. Mizuki felt it as survival.
And somewhere between them, something delicate shifted—unspoken, unnamed—waiting to be either acknowledged…
Or lost entirely.