Heian
She left her perfume behind on purpose. He could tell.
It clung to the air like a ghost with unfinished business—sandalwood and sorrow. He sat by the easel, staring at the last unfinished piece: her eyes, wide open, pupils blown with longing or fear. He hadn't painted the mouth yet. Maybe he was afraid of what it might say.
She's leaving.
Not today. Not yet. But soon.
He felt it the way artists feel storms coming before clouds appear—in the bone.
She was slipping through the cracks she asked him to make.
"I gave her everything," he muttered.
The bruises. The portraits. The hunger. The knife without a name.
But somehow, the one thing she couldn't bear… was softness.
---
Liora
She watched him sleep from the chair in the corner, knees pulled to her chest, a cold cigarette burning down between her fingers. She hadn't lit it. She just liked holding it—like a habit she never started but always mourned.
He had said I love you.
He'd broken the spell.
You weren't supposed to love me. That wasn't part of the ritual.
She loved the pain because it didn't lie.
But tenderness? That was treacherous. It opened doors to hope—and she wasn't made for hope. She was made for erosion.
She thought of disappearing before sunrise. No note. No trace. Just silence.
But then he stirred in his sleep. Whispered her name.
"Liora…"
And just like that—she was shattered.
Not because he said it.
But because she wanted to stay.
---
Heian
He woke to cold sheets.
For a moment, panic strangled him. Had she gone?
But then he saw her—on the floor, curled in his coat, eyes open.
She looked at him like someone begging to be forgotten before they were loved too deeply.
"Stay," he whispered.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because if you leave now, I'll keep painting you until I forget what your real face looked like."
She didn't answer.
But she crawled into bed beside him.
And they held each other—like soldiers who knew tomorrow was war.
—