Mark had always hated silence.
He filled it with music, background chatter from a podcast, the low hum of a fan even late-night talk shows he barely watched. Silence meant space for thoughts, and lately, his thoughts had been too sharp. Too full of what ifs and how did we get here.
Now, the silence in the apartment was louder than ever. And it wasn't just quiet it was hollow.
He stood in the kitchen, still barefoot, staring at the two mugs in the sink. One was hers, the floral one with a chipped rim she stubbornly refused to replace. He remembered teasing her once about how she treated broken things like they were sacred.
"Things with cracks," she'd said, "have a story. They've survived something."
Now he wondered if that was how she saw their relationship. Cracked but not discarded. Surviving.
His own mug sat beside it. Plain, dark blue. No chips. No story.
He leaned against the counter, exhaling. She was here again, sleeping under his roof, moving around the apartment like a ghost of what once was. The bathroom smelled like her shampoo again. Her cardigan was draped over the arm of the couch. A half-open drawer in the hallway already had her hand lotion in it.
And yet, it felt like she could disappear at any moment.
Mark glanced down the hall. Her door technically the guest room was closed. There was something about her being here and not here at the same time that made him feel more alone than when she was gone.
He wanted to knock. Ask her what this really was. Was it a lifeline or just a soft landing before the end?
But the rules were clear.
No talking about the end.
So he didn't.
The Next Morning
Yuna was already awake when he came into the kitchen something he hadn't expected. She stood at the stove, hair tied in a loose knot, wearing one of his old university hoodies, flipping pancakes like it was a Saturday morning from a different life.
He paused in the doorway, just watching her.
"Good morning," she said softly, without turning.
He cleared his throat. "You're cooking?"
She glanced over her shoulder with a half-smile. "You cooked yesterday. Sort of. I thought I'd return the favor."
Mark sat down, watching as she moved with easy familiarity opening cabinets without thinking, humming quietly under her breath. It was surreal how natural it felt. Like muscle memory.
When she finally set the plates down, he noticed she had even cut the strawberries the way he liked thin, fan-shaped slices.
"You remembered," he said.
"I didn't forget," she replied gently.
They ate in near silence, but it wasn't heavy this time. It was... warm. Familiar.
"Do you work today?" he asked, trying to keep his voice light.
Yuna nodded. "Ten to four. Not too bad."
Mark hesitated. "Do you want to do something after? I mean, if you're not tired."
She looked up from her plate. "Are you asking me out?"
"Sort of," he said. "Rule two. One meaningful thing a week, right?"
Yuna smiled, and this time it reached her eyes barely, but enough. "I'd like that."
Mark nodded, but inside, something shifted. A quiet pull.
He still didn't know what had driven her to propose this challenge. She never gave him a real answer. But her eyes there was something in them lately. Something restless. Sad. Like she was trying to memorize everything she saw.
Like she was preparing to leave.
He didn't press. Not yet.
But he would. Eventually.
Because love wasn't supposed to be timed.
And if this challenge really was a countdown, he had to know what they were counting down to.
Day 8
Yuna laughs really laughs for the first time in what feels like months.
They're in the kitchen. Flour dust hangs in the air like soft snow, and the smell of something burnt wafts from the oven. Mark stands there with a sheepish grin and an oven mitt, holding a tray of uneven, slightly charred cookies.
"These were supposed to be almond cranberry," he says, placing the tray on the counter with unnecessary care. "They are... definitely not that."
"They look like someone's sad childhood," Yuna says, biting back a grin. There's flour on the tip of her nose, and Mark instinctively reaches out to wipe it off. His thumb lingers on her cheek for a moment too long. They both notice, but neither says anything.
She takes a bite anyway and winces. "You used salt instead of sugar."
"I was multitasking," he defends, pretending to be offended. "I watched one cooking tutorial and everything went downhill from there."
Yuna's laughter spills out again, echoing off the walls. For a second, the apartment feels full again like it used to be.
Day 15
They visit the park near the river a place they haven't returned to since their second year together. The trees are greener than he remembers. The breeze carries the scent of spring grass and something nostalgic.
Yuna brings her sketchbook, nestling into the shade of a tree while Mark lies nearby, watching the clouds drift by like lazy thoughts.
"What are you drawing?" he asks.
"A dog," she replies without looking up. "That weird one with the bow tie over there."
Mark follows her gaze and laughs. "He looks like a retired magician."
"You're impossible," she says, smiling.
He watches her hands how they move confidently, how her pencil strokes bring even strangers to life on paper. It occurs to him how long it's been since he saw her do this. Saw her lose herself in something just for the joy of it.
"You stopped for a while," he says. "Drawing."
Yuna doesn't answer immediately. Then she says, "Yeah. I think I was too busy trying to keep things from falling apart."
Day 22
They fight.
It starts over laundry. A towel left damp on the bed. Something trivial.
"You never listen when I ask you to just hang it properly," Yuna snaps.
"And you always turn small things into statements about everything else," Mark fires back.
It escalates too fast, too sharp. Words neither of them really means come out edged like broken glass.
But then they both remember the rule: no fighting. Walk away. Cool down. Try again.
Yuna leaves the room. Doesn't slam the door. Just... walks out.
Mark stands in the kitchen afterward, staring at the fridge. He doesn't know what he's more afraid of that they're slipping back into old habits, or that there's not enough time to fix them.
He spends the rest of the afternoon cleaning the apartment in silence. It's the only apology he knows how to give that day.
Day 26
Mark finds an old voicemail from Yuna on his phone.
Her voice is light, casual, tired in that way people are after work:
"Hey... I saw your favorite cereal on sale and thought of you. Dumb, right? I don't even know why I'm calling. Just... call me back."
It's dated six weeks before she left.
He replays it twice. Doesn't delete it.
Day 30
They lie on the living room floor, shoulder to shoulder, the ceiling fan spinning lazily above them. The lights are off. A single candle flickers nearby, making the shadows dance like old memories.
They're not touching, but their arms are close. The distance between them feels smaller tonight.
"Remember when we used to make up stories about strangers?" Yuna whispers.
Mark smiles, eyes on the ceiling. "You always made them fall in love in coffee shops. I always made them hit each other with baguettes in grocery stores."
"You're a menace," she says.
"You're a romantic."
"You think that's a bad thing?"
"I think it's why I fell for you."
Yuna is quiet for a moment. Then: "Maybe that's why we worked."
Mark doesn't answer. He wants to believe it. But something about the way she says "worked" past tense settles in his chest like a warning.
Day 33
She falls asleep on the couch.
Mark comes out of the bedroom to turn off the lights, only to find her curled into herself, one arm over her stomach, her breathing shallow but steady. The television plays a soft documentary about underwater cities. She must've fallen asleep halfway through it.
He watches her for a moment, and something catches in his chest her face looks different in sleep. Fragile. Unburdened. But there's a shadow under her eyes that wasn't there months ago.
She stirs and shifts slightly, mumbling something in her sleep. He leans in, but it's incoherent. Still, it sounds like a name. Maybe a place. Maybe nothing.
He grabs a blanket and drapes it over her, careful not to wake her.
For the first time, he wonders is she okay?
Not just in the "are we okay" sense. But really, deeply.
Is she sick?
Is she hiding something?
The question stays with him even after he returns to bed.
And as sleep drags him under, one thought loops in his mind:
What if this challenge isn't about fixing us at all?
What if it's her way of preparing me to live without her?